Tag Archives: Photoshop
Photoshop is not a bad word
A lot of photography conversations revolve around the question of how much editing has been done to a picture. Terms like “sooc” (for straight out of camera) or raw, or “minimal editing” are involved. I also have been known to encourage capturing the best pictures you can in camera. But does that mean editing in post process is a bad thing? No, definitely not. For some, it has become a bad thing though, and phrases where “photoshop” has become a verb have been bandied about a lot. I’ve heard everyone from amateurs to pros say things like “We’ll just photoshop … Continue reading
Five Best Kept Secrets of Photoshop CS5
By now you should know all about the latest and greatest features of Photoshop CS5. People have been talking until the cows come home about Content Aware Fill, Puppet Warp, and the other “sexy” features of CS5 (and they are pretty awesome, sure). Heck, you may even know about some of the JDI (just do it) features, but there is still so much under the hood of CS5 that the gurus and pros haven’t even discussed yet. After taking some time and tinkering around inside CS5, here are five features that I am surprised are not getting more “air time”…I … Continue reading
It’s Official – CS5 has been released!
Yup, the day it became available for purchase/download, the trials also became available – a first for Adobe! I’ve already downloaded it and am starting to play with it for the first time (was not a beta tester). Suffice to say, it’s pretty slick and yes, as I said yesterday, I am getting the upgrade! Rather than show you screen shots and pore over the list of new features which has been done ad infinitum, I did a short video of some of the settings I like to adjust on an initial install. So, here is that video straight from … Continue reading
1:45:57
You may think the subject is a typo or some sort of gibberish, but it’s not – that’s the length of the latest podcast that just went live over at PLM! Kerry Garrison (of Camera Dojo notoriety) is fresh back from Hawaii and I am back from a long set of downtime from a pretty yucky head cold, so we decided to join forces and cross-publish! For our purposes here, consider it LDP #43! You can grab the feed from LPD or iTunes! We had a bunch to talk about ranging from: iPad release from Apple Lightroom 2.7 RC from … Continue reading
Borders and Logos, it’s Photoshop, Oh My!
That’s right, we’re back to a photoshop tip again on the blog, and this one comes courtesy of question I read in the NAPP community forums. The person there had asked about pricing on some photography for a large company’s set of employee photos and his concern was about the post production time in creating the border and logo that the company wanted on each. The community quickly sprung to action, pointing him in several directions, and it occurred to me that I had never done this sort of tutorial before! It’s not too difficult but there are some pitfalls … Continue reading
More pano testing…
As I continue with various software programs to test pano quality, I tried another application today, and the results were actually pretty good considering. I used the native PhotoMerge function from my Photoshop Cs3 Extended, and I must say that as far as panos go, the results are nice. The native functionality adds a shorter workflow for when you need to clean up minor details (since you are already in PS), and no worrying about control points. The downside is that you are going to lose a little more in post production cropping simply because Photoshop can’t match all the … Continue reading
Photoshop Teaser…
The Denver Area Lightroom Users Group (DALPUG) had their bi-monthly meeting tonight, and it was a lot of fun. Brian Reyman (the leader) gave some great insights on digital asset management and some really cool Lightroom and Photoshop tips and tricks. He reminded me that it’s been a while since I’ve played in Photoshop, or done tutorials here on the blog for that matter. So, in the interests of putting some sort of creative graphic design effect together, I started playing around in Photoshop when I got home with a few different tools, effects, and all that fun stuff. When … Continue reading
DALPUG
No, this isn’t spam, the blog has not been hacked, and I am not speaking in tongues here. DALPUG refers to the Denver Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop Users Group. Started relatively recently by a guy I know named Brian Reyman, it’s a great local resource for photographers to not only learn from one another, but also to network and get an opportunity to see some of the latest developments in the industry. I had a chance to attend the meeting last night, and the mini-workshop that Brian ran on plugins included quick looks at things like OnOne Software, Topaz Labs, … Continue reading
How I shot Lightning!
Today the post is going to revolve more around a set of photos I took the other day – you see while en route back to the house, I noticed that the clouds were passing over the mountains and the sun was starting to set. It had the makings for a really nice sunset. Never one to turn away the opportunity to capture a sunset, I hurried home and gathered my gear, and took off to my favorite spot near the house for landscape work. Well, the clouds and the sun didn’t really cooperate so I gave up on that … Continue reading
Mask Pro 4.1
Okay, I know the folks from onOne have been very generous with their contribution of a copy of the OnOne Plugin Suite for the latest giveaway here at Canon Blogger/Learning Digital Photography, but I have to say that I am literally blown away by this offer even more. As I delve into each tool more and more, I am totally amazed at the functionality and how easily it really makes things. For those of you that watch Photoshop User TV, you’ve seen what I’ve seen – ads from OnOne claiming that masking is made so super easy that you can … Continue reading
Wacom Bamboo Fun: Hardware Review
The good folks at Wacom were kind enough to donate a Bamboo Fun to me for review on the blog a while back. In order to really get a full handle on it though, I wanted to use it within the context of my at-home work flow. You see, I’m not a newcomer to tablets, as at work and through previous experience, I’ve grown quite accustomed to their usage. I’ve had to instruct people on how to use, configure the basics, and such on their computers. as well as used them in many of their varying sizes (most recently being … Continue reading
Friday Fab Five
For something new here on the blog, I thought it might be fun to share some of my favorite keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop. The idea here is that people will share their top five in the comments area and we can get an idea of many more keyboard shortcuts than we ever could have found out on our own (unless of course you are some Photoshop guru like The Photoshop Guys and the trainers/instructors of the world that do this for a living and already know all the shortcuts.) So, anyway, here’s my Friday Fab Five Photoshop shortcuts and what … Continue reading
Photoshop CS3 vs Elements 7.0 – Part One
Ever since Tom Hogarty came on the podcast and I’ve had some time to dive into Lightroom, I am thinking more and more that this is a much better solution for managing all of my photo assets. Since I’ve found myself spending more time in LR and less time in PS CS3 (Extended), I started debating if I really needed so much horsepower under the hood. After all, CS3 Extended is quite the workhorse, from performance, to functionality, to footprint, and of course, price. It left me wondering about my upgrade path. In all honesty though, I think the term … Continue reading
The Rule of Thirds Really Does Work!
When it comes to composing our images – we are always looking for new ways and angles to capture things. Often though, sometimes the traditional methods work too though. In fact, I would venture to guess that if shown 100 pictures where the standard rules of composition were followed, and then 100 pictures where standard rules were deviated from, the former would have more shots that found a widespread appeal. The rationale? Standard rules usually will work – that’s why they are the standards. Things like the Golden Mean, the Rule of Thirds, and Sunny 16 are all basic rules … Continue reading
Adobe’s DNG Converter
For many of us, an upgrade of one element in our tool kit comes with many unforeseen consequences and additional expenditures. Just as a new camera body can necesitate the need for larger memory cards, hardware upgrades can also come with software upgrades. The reason? Camera file formats! As camera vendors develop new proprietary formats for their raw file formats (CR2 for Canon and NEF for Nikon as the two predominant players in the game), the need has always existed to update your software to accommodate the new formats for body upgrades. The best example of this was when I … Continue reading
Experimenting with Photomatix and HDR
For a while now I’ve been meaning to devote some time to experimenting with HDR – specifically comparing Photomatix and Photoshop in their production of HDR photographs. The industry preference toward the former is there for a very good reason. Photomatix produces much better results. Just look at this final shot (be sure to click the image for a larger view – the blog restrictions on size really don’t do it justice): Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I did do some additional post processing work even after the HDR processing to get the above results. But Photomatix was … Continue reading
HDR, Web links, and a podcast!
So, this last weekend I went on the photo meetup group outing for the month of February into Eldorado State Park, south of Boulder, and had many an opportunity to capture some landscape and macro work. Some great views were had and I only hope that they all come out as well as this one did. While hiking up a trail of slippery snow and ice (it was cold out Saturday morning), I saw this fissure that was pretty intense looking because it was only partially lit. I thought about it for a second and decided to bracket some exposures … Continue reading
License Lockout
First off, a bit of quick news about the blog in general: the layout has changed. Can anyone tell the difference? It’s a rather significant one, so hopefully it won’t go unnoticed! Chime in and that’s your chance at winning the Think Tank Photo Streetwalker bag I reviewed a few weeks ago right here on the blog! So, back on today’s post topic, as part of my maintenance routine that I recently posted, last evening I was doing some of my extended “IT” maintenance on my Windows computer. As a part of that maintenance, I was trying to optimize … Continue reading
The Weekender – Web stuff and some thoughts on CS4
The last few days have been insanely busy with work and home obligations, so out of necessity I have not had time to devote to content for the blog. My apologies for abandoning the readership temporarily, and without warning. I’ll endeavor to give advance notice before that happens again. So, with that out of the way, I thought today it might be useful to get a wrap-up of what I have been seeing and reading around the forums, blogs, and internet that’s photography-related. Jeff Revell, who has become quite well-known for his photowalking blog made a few interesting posts recently. … Continue reading
A few of the Creative Suite 4 Features!
Before the release of CS4 in Adobe’s announcement this morning, I happened to see a post in the NAPP member forums of someone thanking the Photoshop Guys for their top ten of the new features for the latest edition of Photoshop Creative Suite 4! So, for those who want the early bird news, here’s a hint of what Adobe will be talking about later this morning: Better scrolling with less jaggies as you zoom in and out of images. The Adjusment Panel – Adobe has added a dedicated panel for your layers adjustments On-screen image adjustments – you can now … Continue reading
Friday Follies
Another week in the record books, and the poll has changed out. Since the week pretty much consisted of discussions about noise in your photos, let’s see what people are using in the way of 3rd party plugins. So, take a moment to participate in the poll on the right. Thanks for all the participation last week – 29 people voted! Let’s see if we can crack the barrier of 30 this week! Today I thought it might be fun to share a few links to fun Photoshop resources – reasons to laugh and just take a break from it … Continue reading
supporters
