Friday, March 29, 2013
Playing With The Nik Software Suite
As most of you know,
Google has had a sweet Suite deal for the complete Nik Software Suite this
week. I used to have a copy of Nik Color Efex Pro 2, but I never really used
it. I’d sort of lusted after Silver Efex Pro but, seeing as I don’t do a lot of
B&W, I couldn’t justify the expense. When Google offered the entire
suite for $149.00 US I could resist. I looked for an email saying I had
registered the Color Efex recently enough to qualify for upgrading to the suite
for free, but didn’t find anything along those lines in my email history. Oh
well. Today’s image has been pushed and pulled in almost every piece of the
software. Just checking what each one does and where it might be useful. I
finally stopped fiddling with today’s image because it reminded me of a lot of
images found in church bulletins. It might be a truer B&W and printed
on a parchment colored paper to get the sepia effect, but today’s image is
pretty close to what you’d see. To see the gyrations done to today’s image, hit
the “Read More”.
Read more!
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Wednesday Q&A: Is Photoshop's Pen Tool Dead?
I was out with some friends last night and one of my “buddies”
said he had recently "discovered" the Adobe Photoshop Pen Tool (P). His sidekick asked if I used the Pen
Tool. My response was that no one has
used the Pen Tool in the past decade. He
insisted that it was a new “wonder tool” they’ve both added to their arsenal of
“ease of use” tools lately. I asked if
he had also just upgraded his auto sound system to an eight track player. He said, having been practicing a little, he
could now create a Path around an object in less than five or six minutes. I shook my head and rolled my eyes. I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t
going to convince either one that they were “going down a rabbit hole”. Once home I got to thinking about what they
were trying to do and where using the Pen Tool might be a good thing. Today’s image is just a shot I was playing
with a couple years ago to look at some lighting. Once I finished playing with it I “put a ring
on it”. I put a Stroke (Edit/Stroke) on
it just to show the Selection I’d made.
To find out about my thoughts on the Pen Tool (P) (pro or con) hit the “Read
More”.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Wednesday Q & A: How Not To Use Photoshop Smart Objects
I just saw something the other day that made me nuts. I subscribe to Kelby Training and watch most
of the video classes they put up. Joel
Grimes is a particular favorite of mine and I've watched every single video
they've had by Joel. I like his style. I like his photography techniques. I like his compositing. His desaturated colors. Everything.
But, his latest class made me cringe.
He said he always opens his images as Smart Objects in Adobe Photoshop
CS6. That's great. Everyone should as far as I'm concerned. It just my opinion and I've seen enough
questions bringing people to the Gallery to know Smart Objects make people
crazy. They shouldn't. They're the greatest thing since sliced
bread. I was with Joel up to a
point. To find out how Joel Grimes
starts out using Smart Objects and where I think he goes wrong, hit the
"Read More".
Read more!
Labels:
Adobe,
CS6,
Lightroom,
LR4,
Opinion,
Photoshop,
smart object,
Smart Objects,
technique
Friday, March 15, 2013
The Skinny About My Photoshop Portraits
Enough with the philosophy of Smart Objects. Today we'll get back to just a plain old
"How To". Today's image is a
"file photo" from a trip to Key West we took a couple years ago (ten
years ago actually) that has been portraitized (hey, a new word. Somebody has to make 'em up). Obviously there is no abandoning the Adobe
Photoshop CS6 Smart Objects. It's just
that they won't be the focus of what's going on. You'll see, after the "Read More",
an image of the Layers Panel for today's image.
We can do that because there aren't a lot of Layers to do one of
these. Rather than go through a lot of
blah, blah blah, let's get right to it.
Go ahead and hot the "Read More".
Read more!
The way I work is to select the "hero shot" in
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4, do whatever touchup needed there and bring the
complete (head and shoulder and background) shot over to CS6. Next I'll resize the canvas to the
anticipated output size. (Usually 16 x 20 or 20 x 24.) I'll make a "canvas Layer" under
the hero shot, turn off the visibility of the head shot and start working on
the clouds.
Labels:
Adobe,
CS6,
Lightroom,
LR4,
Photoshop,
place,
recommendation,
smart object,
Smart Objects,
technique
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Wednesday Q & A: Photoshop Smart Objects In The Real World
For the past month or so in the Wednesday Q & As I've
been talking about Adobe Photoshop CS6 Smart Objects. If you go back through the posts you'll see the
What, the Why, and the How of using Smart Objects. In my opinion it's the number one most
powerful feature of CS6 (and CS5). But
what would be a "real world" use of a Smart Object that wouldn't be
totally abstract in the explanation?
Well, over the weekend our Granddaughter called and said her high school
science project had been selected to complete in the state science fair. All the work on the project was done and she
needed to produce a "project board" .
An ~4' x 3.5' three fold board that described what she had done, her
methodology and the results. Her idea
was to lay the whole thing out in Photoshop CS4 (her current version), print it
out and mount it to the store bought presentation board. I have a wide carriage printer, but not that
wide. The three sections were 11",
22" and 11" wide. She brought
the finished layout over on a USB drive.
To learn how Photoshop Smart Objects helped immensely, hit the
"Read More".
Read more!
Read more!
Monday, March 11, 2013
The Secret To Photoshop Digital Image Paintings
Today's image is another "digital image painting". The reason I'm using that term is that they
start is a capture from a digital camera.
I wouldn't want to call it a "digital painting" because that
would diminish the work by the crazy good digital artists out there. I've never been able to pick up a pencil or a
stylus and make something interesting on a piece of paper or screen. It's just not something I was given the
natural talent to do. So, I take image
that I've taken with a digital camera and change them. Sometimes for the better and some people
think sometimes not so much for the better.
The key to the DIPs (digital image paintings) I've been featuring lately
is have a "hero" image as the central (both figuratively and
literally) focal point of the composition.
If you had only a set of small images scattered around "the
canvas" it wouldn't be something that was saleable. A "commission work" similar to
today's image would have to have a premium to the pricing. The TAM (Total Available Market) for
something like today's image is one, maybe two.
It's not something you'd be able to sell in the dozens or hundreds of copies. Maybe the subject, his kids, his mom, his
favorite uncle. It has a limited market
potential. Therefore it demands a premium
price. If the image were of a famous
athlete or actor (and you have a model release) you'd be able to, possibly,
make thousands of dollars selling $25.00 posters. That isn't the case with a personal
commission. Taking into consideration your
time to do the shoot, your post production time, your marketing time, your
production costs and whatever else you can think of to throw in there, you're
probably talking of a selling price for a 20 x 24 framed print would probably
run in the many hundreds of dollars range.
To find the key to making this type of digital image painting, hit the
"Read More".
Read more!
Read more!
Labels:
Adobe,
CS6,
general interest,
Lightroom,
LR4,
painting,
Photoshop,
recommendation,
smart object,
technique
Friday, March 8, 2013
Sports Montages With Photoshop
I'm kind of getting into these sports montages using Adobe
Photoshop CS6 (CS6). Today's image is a
continuation of the discussion from Wednesday's post. One of the biggest comments I can make to
start with is that the past few montages/digital painting cannot be sold. For this one in particular I was a guess of
the team photographer and shooting for pleasure. Something fun to do after a day's work. It's always better to be shooting rather than
shooting products shots or photoshopping something. At least being out in the field you get to
stand, stretch, move and not become a lump in a chair staring into a box. The reason this image can't be sold is that I
didn't get a model release. I can do whatever
I want for my own pleasure. I can post
it on the blog because I'm using it to demonstrate a concept. I can toss it onto my iPAD to be able to show
it to friends. I can show it to clients
to give them an idea what it is that I do.
What I can't do with it is make money off it. Without that model release the only way I
might be able to make a buck off the image is to sell it to the guy in the
image. He**, I'd probably give him a
copy just to get the model release. I
wouldn't do it as a routine matter, but if I thought I could make some change
selling additional copies, it might be worth the "investment". I don't know how many "fans" this
guy has, and the fee they'd be willing to pay probably isn't very high. With a model release the image is worth about
$300.00 - $400.00. Without it, a cup of
coffee. Just goes to demonstrate the old
axiom that, if you're a serious photographer, trying to make a living, you
should always have model releases in your gear bag. And don't be afraid to ask to get them
signed. In fact, with the motocross
images I did a couple weeks ago the plan would be to have samples of the work
at the track and charge a "sitting" fee at the track, before agreeing
to shoot the rider. With the advent of
smart phone based transactions (Square for example) it would be easy to charge
a fee, get a model release signed, and leave the track with cash (charged fees)
in hand. Well, this is a photography
blog, not one dedicated to how to make money.
So, to find out about today's image, hit the "Read More".
Read more!
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Photoshop Brushes All Day Long
Everything about today's image involves Brushes (B). The only thing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4
was used for was to select the shots
that would make up today's image. Spring
training has started and, for the colleges, it looks like the season has begun
in the southern states. I suspect I'll
be spending several evenings down at the local (next town over) baseball park
where the NECBL (New England Collegiate Baseball League) plays. The only problem is that the home team (where
the money would be) wears the white (pinstripe) shirts. Boring!
The closest away games are about a two hour drive. Unless I can hookup with someone else going
to the games I'll probably be shooting a lot of white shirts. Well, you may have noticed today's image
isn't exactly "out of the camera".
To find out what's going on with the image and where to get Brushes, hit
the "read More".
Read more!
Read more!
Monday, March 4, 2013
With Photoshop, Nothing Is As It Seems
Today's image isn't what it seems. The "path" is actually a paved road
in the town where I live in Connecticut.
The guy walking down the "path" is really in Vermont. It's not really raining. I called it "Summer Rain" because
you can see the sun shining on the barn in the background. So, we have the base image of the road, the
image of the path laid over the road, the image of the guy walking and the non-image
of the rain. Why? Just to play.
It's a Monday. There's nothing on
the schedule. Might as well practice
(play) with Adobe Photoshop CS6. As
usual, I found the components for the image using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4. As far as I'm concerned, the only DAM
(Digital Asset Management) application I need.
I do admit, I stumbled upon the shot of the fellow walking. I was looking through some shots of our
Granddaughter and in the same folder were shots from a weekend in Vermont. I checked, they are keyworded, so if I ever
wanted to find those specific images I wouldn't have to rummage around
blindly. Just go to the Keyword List in
LR4 and they'll pop up very quickly. As
you might suspect, there is a lot of choreography involved in the making of
today's image, so let's get going. Just
hit the "Read More" to continue.
Read more!
Read more!
Friday, March 1, 2013
Wednesday Q&A: Nesting Photoshop Smart Objects
I know, it's a little weird to do a Wednesday Q&A on a
Friday, but that's the type of week it's been.
The diagram that makes up today's image shows in very little detail how
I work with Smart Object on a very simple image. It goes from bringing in the original RAW file
from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 (LR4) to Adobe Photoshop CS6 (CS6) and the way
I use Smart Objects to get to the Ready For Print version in CS6. Using this diagram I can go all the way back
to the image in LR4, make any LR4 adjustments I'd like and have them reflected all
the way back up to the Ready For Print image.
I can make any changes in any step.
The work flow becomes completely non-destructive. With this method you do not have any dead ends
that would force you to start over at any point. To see the list of what goes on in each step,
hit the "Read More".
Read more!
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