A Friend Has That Currier & Ives Look Down Pat

I never begrudge anything anyone can do in Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.  I'm always either trying to learn new things or figure out how someone did something.  I recently saw a couple images by a friend and frequent reader of these posts (Hi Ed).  He's come up with an old timey, Currier & Ives type look to some of his landscapes.  Very, very interesting look.  He asked me for some pointers on how to extract objects from images.  I think we need to trade tips.  Today's image is an attempt to take a shot at going for the old time feeling.  It works, just not as good as Ed's.  Couple of things.  It is an HDR image with quite a bit of post processing in both PS and LR/ACR (Adobe Camera Raw).  With the Creative Cloud version of PS (PSCC) you can use ACR as a filter.  As long as you make the Layer a Smart Object you can pop back and forth into and out of ACR as often as you'd like.  Great for tweaking things as you go.  You doing something "straight" to an image, jump over to ACR.  Doing anything that needs a Mask, bounce back to PS.  Compositing images, use PS.  Just remember where your base image came from, 'cause that's where it'll go back to when you eventually do a Save and Close.  (Notice I said Save and not Save As.)  If you use LR as a DAM tool (Digital Asset Management) and you go to PS to do something that requires PS you should probably use "Copy With Lightroom Adjustments" (CTRL E to get to the dialog box and then use the top option).  That eliminates the need to do the old fashioned "make a copy of your Background Layer just in case" thing.  People used to do that to protect their original image.  If you "use a copy" you're not touching the original, so you don't need that copy of the Background Layer.  When it's time to Save your creation it'll be put back right beside the original images (or set of images in the case of HDR or panoramas.  But, what's up with today's image.  To find out, hit the "Read More".

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Wednesday Q & A: Where The Hell Have I Been

It really hasn't been too much of question in the real world, but for people who are readers of The Kayview Gallery it got some attention.  The gallery is featured on Alltop.com under the Photoshop section.  One of the things that happens there is that you sort of slide down the pecking order unless you post frequently.  After a couple weeks you tend to drop off the bottom of the page.  When I recently posted the shot of a Santa Claus looking guy (my brother-in-law), the gallery was back to being included on Alltop.  That's where a couple of notes came from asking what had happened.  What happened was that we moved.  Now, that shouldn't explain a four month sabbatical, but that was it.  Our explanation of why we were selling was that we had an eight room house and we used three.  The kitchen, the bedroom and the playroom/den/tv room, whatever.  The boys are gone, the excess rooms were either dust or junk collectors, we aren't (never have been) into liking yardwork or snow shoveling, so what was the point of staying.  Today's image is a cell phone shot of the front of our nice new (to us) condo.  Now instead of eight rooms and using three, we have four rooms and use three.  The condo actually has more room than the house had before the addition.  The master bedroom suite is smaller than we had at the house (but then again most master bedroom suites [in "normal" houses] are less than 650 sq. ft.).  The living room/dining room is larger, the kitchen is about a wash and the second bedroom now (for the moment) collects dust and junk (er, useful items used for photography).  To find out why it's taken almost four months to get back to some resemblance of order, hit the "Read More".

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Guess Who My Brother-In-Law Is?

Yeah, that's my brother-in-law.  My wife's "little" brother.  We were over and he'd asked me to find something online for him.  I'd found something I thought might fit the bill, so I handed him my iPad.  That's the "main" lighting for today's image.  He was sitting "Archie Bunker like" in his favorite chair.  I knew the light was dim and cranked up the ISO on a Nikon D300 to 3000.  (Far above what "should be" a reasonable sensitivity setting to avoid noise.)  The shutter speed was 1/15 sec, hand held.  It should have been a mess of a shot, but, with a little work, came out okay.  There's a couple other things I should "confess" to.  The background was his dining room, his shirt was blue and he's actually eighteen years old (no, that last piece is not true).  To find out what became of the dining room and the blue shirt, hit the "Read More".

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Wednesday Q&A: Photoshop Smart Objects - Try This Test

Adobe Photoshop Smart Objects are still the number one query that brings readers to The Kayview Gallery.  We've had a dozen difference posts (check out the archive list in the right hand column) discussing Smart Objects covering a period from 2011 through today’s post.  Today’s “image” is a little test I’ve created that you can replicate to prove to yourself that CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-E doesn’t work and Smart Objects do.  Once you’ve done the four finger salute to the left side of your keyboard, you’re stuck.  Sure, you can go back under the red line you see in the middle Layers Panel in today’s image.  You can make all sorts of changes to the Layers below.  Only problem is that they won’t be reflected back to the Layer above the red line.  The red line is “a line in the sand”.  You can’t cross it.  Take the test.  Set up a couple Layers that look like the Panel captioned “This is the basic layout for our discussion”.  You don’t have to follow it exactly.  Do whatever you’d like to set up a test.  Follow along with what you’ll find by hitting the “Read More”.

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Wednesday Q&A: A Tip For Shooting Sports

 

What!  The title says “A Tip For Shooting Sports” and today’s image is a couple of flowers.  Trust me, it’s only there to illustrate a point.  Doris has her pet orchid.  She tends that little plant zealously.  She has a special place it has to sit.  It’s sort of like Sheldon (The Big Bang Theory – US television) explaining why he has a designated place to sit on the couch.  Just the right amount of sunlight (we’re back to discussing the orchid), not so much as to overheat the plant but enough so it can thrive.  At the right height and distance from the window to maximize the rays.  A slight breeze from walking into and out of the bedroom.  A reasonably constant temperature in all seasons.  Just the ideal (or as close as you can get in our house) spot for its needs.  I stole the sucker.  I wanted to play with an 85mm macro.  Only problem was the tripod was in the trunk of Doris’ car.  Oops!  Oh well.  Shoot hand held and see what happens.  One thing that comes to mind is that the depth of field is going to be severely limited due to the large aperture needed to let in enough light.  To see how these flowers relate to sports photography, hit the “Read More”.

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Using Photoshop Alpha Channels To Control Composition

Today’s image demonstrates what happens when you screw around with an image too much.  I was trying to get rid of the people in the background but give a hint of people “in the stands”.  The fact that it didn’t work out well doesn’t subtract from the point of today’s discussion.  Typically when I do something like today’s image the mask is one big thing with all the elements selected.  The ball, the batter and the catcher picked out as one Alpha Channel.  Today’s image has four separate Alpha Channels.  In this case, an Alpha Channel is a Saved Selection.  The Selection process is not important.  Make your Selections any way you’re comfortable with.  If you’re reading this and using Adobe Photoshop Elements, keep reading.  PSE has the ability to save Alpha Channels.  The big difference between Adobe Photoshop whatever and PSE is the fact that PS gives you access to the Alpha Channels and PSE doesn’t.  The question would be: “do you really need to have that access?”  Hit the “Read More” to find my thoughts on the subject.
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Just A Quick Phone Camera Shot

Yesterday we were down in NYC.  On the way home we heard on the radio that there were thunder storms on the southern shore of Long Island.  As the crow flies it couldn’t have been more than eight or ten miles from where we were on the West Side Highway.  Above us there was nothing but blue sky.  The radio was talking about torrential rains, lightening and high winds.  We were headed north, so we looked over our shoulders and in the mirrors.  Nothing.  We live about sixty miles north of the city, in Connecticut.  For the entire drive the sky was clear, until the last mile north.  We made the turn onto Route 84 going into our home state.  To the north of us were serious clouds.  South of the highway, clear skies.  It wasn’t like going from clear, to overcast, to cloudy, to serious clouds.  Today’s image is off my phone’s camera.  The white’s are blown out, but it gives a fair interpretation of what we saw.  What appears to be a right angle is actually a right angle.  You can see the clear blue sky with a distinct edge. 

I just thought you might get a kick out of an interesting weather phenomenon.  Have a good day.

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