From the Random Inspiration Department: Nuit Blanche explores a fleeting moment between two strangers, revealing their brief connection in a hyper real fantasy. After viewing, watch the making of Nuit Blanche.
Here is a very comprehensive tutorial that will guide you through how to use levels and curves to control contrast and detail in your digital photos.
Increasing contrast is one of the best ways to improve images, often dramatically. Images with good contrast can seem to “pop” off the page and appear to have more detail. There are a few things to beware of.
The main thing is to be careful not to over-lighten or overdarken any area to the point that your image loses detail in areas that are important to you or that need to be preserved for reproduction on its destination device.
For example, the lightest areas in images destined for print need to be a little darker than pure white and the darkest areas a little lighter than pure black to maintain print quality in a typical image. This is because of the limitations of the output device, such as a printing press or printer.
Limiting lights and darks is not as much of an issue when you are preparing images for Web, since monitors don’t usually have as many tonal limitations as printing devices. However, displays can vary significantly in how they display images. Read the full tutorial.
Here's a tutorial by Frank Lazaro of istockphoto on how to achieve the popular Lomo effect using Photoshop. We'll start with a little background on the Lomo camera. From the Lomographic Society: "The whole Lomographic phenomenon began on a sunny St. Petersburg morning back in 1982. General Igor Petrowitsch Kornitzky, right-hand man to the USSR Minister of Defense and Industry, slammed a little Japanese mini-camera onto the ornate desk of his comrade Michail Panfilowitsch Panfiloff. Mr Panfiloff, Director of the powerful LOMO Russian Arms and Optical factory, examined the camera closely, noting its sharp glass lens, extremely high light sensitivity and robust casing.
"The two gentlemen, realizing the superior nature and extreme potential of this strange little item, gave immediate orders to copy and improve the design - with the ultimate goal of producing the largest quantity possible for the pleasure and glory of the Soviet population. It was decided - every respectable Communist should have a LOMO KOMPAKT AUTOMAT of their own; a unique and compact dynamo with the ability to adapt to all situations and provide full documentation of their lives and loves in the USSR. The LOMO LC-A was born, and millions of cameras were promptly produced and sold. The Soviets and their Socialist playmates in Vietnam, Cuba and East Germany snapped happily away throughout the nineteen eighties, fully documenting the last gasps of Communism, and the occasional beach vacation on the Black Sea."
Creating The Lomo Effect When Marxism became scarce in Eastern Europe, so did the Lomo, as markets opened up and people suddenly had more than one camera option. But there were still people who prized the sturdy little machine from the LOMO Russian Arms company. The Minitar lens is dramatically wide, and the camera's auto-exposure capabilities let it work under just about any lighting conditions. The Lomographic Society was founded in 1992 and ever since the word has spread everywhere about the Russian camera with the crazy vignetting.
Once I learned all of this, I set out to find an LC-A and ended up buying two of these babies off eBay. After shooting with the Lomo, I wanted to find a way to duplicate the Lomo look and feel wtih photos from my Canon 20D. I searched and searched and after trying several different Photoshop methods, I finally came up with my own using a mix of different techniques I found on the internet. By all means, there are probably other ways to do this, included pre-built filters and actions, but this method has served me well and provides me with more control over the output.
The Shadow/Highlight adjustment is an excellent way to reveal subtle detail in the shadow and/or highlight areas of your images. Although you could theoretically produce similar results with sophisticated use of Curves, the Shadow/Highlight adjustment is far easier to use when you need to recover detail that has been lost in shadow or highlight areas because of excessive contrast. It’s similar to the Fill Light and Recovery sliders in ACR, but it has additional controls so you can fine-tune the results.
Note: Some photographers are tempted to try to use Shadow/Highlight to fix all their exposure problems. We don’t recommend that because the Shadow/Highlight adjustment works by reducing contrast. That’s fine for small tonal ranges, but it’s not usually a good idea to do throughout the entire image. We find it’s far more effective to limit the Shadow/Highlight tool to recovering detail in the deep shadows and recovering highlights in very light areas.
Although you can’t apply the Shadow/Highlight adjustment as an adjustment layer, in CS4 you can use it as a Smart Filter. A filter that’s applied as a Smart Filter behaves similarly to an adjustment layer. The advantage of using it as a Smart Filter is that you can tweak the settings as needed, and you can add a layer mask to it to target the effects to certain areas of your image. For example, perhaps you have a portrait of a dark animal against a dark background. You may want to reveal details in the shadows of the animal but not in the background. READ FULL TUTORIAL... posted by Jennifer Apple | permalink | RSS feed | bookmark | comment | twitter Topaz Releases Detail 2 Photoshop Plugin - Free Upgrade - 15% Discount Code For Full Version February 03, 2010
Topaz Labs announces the release of Topaz Detail Photoshop plug-in, which features a user-requested speed boost, a totally redesigned user interface, and more detail enhancement tools and presets. Detail 2 brings a quicker and more effective detail enhancement workflow to photographers.
Topaz Detail’s underlying algorithm employs the most recent advances in detail enhancement technology. This new technology provides the unique ability to enhance detail and micro-contrast, with no over-sharpening, edge artifacts or halos, which often occur with other sharpening tools. Topaz Detail features three levels of detail control, high- quality image sharpening, natural feature enhancement and black and white conversion. (Watch a video tutorial that shows you how to use the Topaz Detail Photoshop plugin.)
Unified Color Technologies, the experts in high dynamic range imaging (HDR), today announced that its hallmark software application, HDR PhotoStudio, is now also available for Mac operating systems. Powered by Unified Color’s next-generation color model, Beyond RGBTM, HDR PhotoStudio is the only solution capable of creating realistic-looking HDR images that unlock the full range of color as perceived by human vision. Download the free trial.
Artbeats, a 20-year veteran in the stock footage industry, announced today that they are offering a free, downloadable HD clip every day at artbeats.com. In this "no strings attached" program, visitors to the Artbeats home page can access a different free clip every day simply by registering or logging-in to their online account. The clips, valued at up to $299 USD each, are pre-selected directly from the Artbeats and Artbeats FootageHub libraries and are available as a free download for 24 hours. Those who take full advantage of the Daily Free Clip program can quickly enhance and build their stock footage cache with over $8,000 USD in royalty-free HD content each month.
Adobe researchers Eli Shechtman & Dan Goldman, working together with Prof. Adam Finkelstein from Princeton & PhD student Connelly Barnes, have introduced PatchMatch, "A Randomized Correspondence Algorithm for Structural Image Editing."
Free shipping - Education purchases Free shipping on all Education Store purchases. Ends 22 February 2010.* - *Valid for Education customers only. Get 30% off Lightroom 2 Save on the purchase of a full or upgrade version of Adobe Photoshop® Lightroom® 2 software along with a full or upgrade version of Photoshop CS4, Photoshop CS4 Extended, or any Creative Suite 4 edition.* - *Valid for commercial customers Save £13 on Photoshop Elements Save £13 instantly with the purchase of Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows (full versions only) with the purchase of a full or upgrade copy of Acrobat 9 Pro Extended, Acrobat 9 Pro or Acrobat 9 Standard.*
- *Valid for commercial customers Save up to 80% + free shipping Save up to 80% on Adobe Student Editions with valid student ID** and get free shipping until 22 February 2010. **Valid for Education customers only Get Flex Builder with Creative Suite Buy a full or upgrade version of Web Premium or Master Collection and receive a copy of Flex Builder 3 Standard at no additional cost. Offer ends April 30, 2010
Here's how you can get $75 off a Premium Subscription to lynda.com and $50 off an Annual Subscription. Follow this link, then choose one of the signup buttons, and fill out the first signup page.
On the second signup page, choose which subscription you want and under Credit Card Information, click on the area that says Promo Code - click to enter. For the $250 Annual Subscription, enter promo code MW10A and your total will change from $250 to $200. For the $375 Premium Subscription enter Promo Code MW10P and your total will change from $375 to $300. Happy learning! posted by Jennifer Apple | permalink | RSS feed | bookmark | comment | twitter Free Valentine's Day Card Brushes - Lots Of Free Valentine's Brushes February 01, 2010
The inspired and inspiring Kirsty of 500ml Brushes has created another exclusive brush set for us. This time our brush Diva has come up with a magnificent collection of love symbols and romantic gestures for you to use in your upcoming Valentine's Day cards.
And what exactly will you find to express your tender feelings? Sweet little ducklings, sublime rose pedals, "kiss me" and "be mine" hearts, magical swans, and drawings of Valentine cupids on a very secret mission. And for those of you who think Valentine's Day is just another narcissistic, consumer spending trick, there's a vintage hot air balloon dressed up with flowers and flags.
With 11 individual brushes to work with, you can create a beautiful love letter with subtle images floating in the background, or be bold and stamp a huge heart across the entire sheet, or print on only half of the page and then fold and deliver as a card. If you're leaning more toward Goth or grunge, splatter the page with a million little images and scrawl the details of your demented crush in giant letters. The possibilities are endless, just like love. Thanks Kirsty! Download the My Vintage Valentine Brush Set (zip/1.8 MB).
Here's a free tutorial, courtesy of iStockphoto.com: There is more to the artistic flair of black and white photography than merely grayscaling your photos. It is a world of grain, contrast & lighting. If you love the gritty look and are looking to show more emotion and dramatics with a hint of sexiness, but have found there's more that meets the eye in achieving this style, no fret. READ FULL TUTORIAL...
Here's how you can get $50 off an Annual Subscription. Follow this link, click on a signup button, and fill out the first signup page. On the second signup page, choose the $250 Annual Subscription and under Credit Card Information, click on the area that says Promo Code - click to enter. Enter promo code MW10A and your total will change from $250 to $200. posted by Jennifer Apple | permalink | RSS feed | bookmark | comment | twitter
The Photoshop Blog - Earlier Posts
The Photoshop Blog offers the latest Photoshop news and software updates, Photoshop tips and tutorials, and random thoughts from graphic artist and Photoshop expert Jennifer Apple.
Essentially, Photoshop is a no-holds-barred design studio, offering the artist a seemingly endless array of creative options. On the other hand, HTML, CSS, Java and the like follow strict rules of engagement, requiring the developer to take any number of esoteric concerns into consideration in order to ensure that designs are properly displayed on the web.
Turn Photoshop Into A Complete Web Design Tool SiteGrinder seeks to bridge this gap between design and development. Basically, this program turns Photoshop into an easy-to-use and fully functional web design tool. With SiteGrinder, designers will now have the freedom to totally let their creativity loose and then, without skipping a beat, transfer their designs to the web. Bringing esthetic concerns together with more practical considerations, this program is an amazingly powerful tool that would make a fantastic addition to any web designer's bag of tricks.
Generate Your Web Pages Directly From Photoshop By generating web pages directly from Photoshop, you'll be able to spend much more time on the creative end of the spectrum, since you'll know right off the bat how well particular designs will translate to the web. No more going back to the Photoshop drawing board after getting a phone call from your development team, telling you that what you had envisioned doesn't have a chance of being displayed on the web. You can immediately visually and interactively test your designs, which permits you to then make changes to either esthetics or functions while it's still relatively early on in the design process.
Buy. Download. Create. Get Photoshop now at the Adobe Store.
The Photoshop Blog offers the latest Photoshop news and software updates, Photoshop tips and tutorials, and random thoughts from graphic artist and Photoshop expert Jennifer Apple.
Buy Directly From Adobe's Online Store
Here is a very comprehensive tutorial that will guide you through how to use levels and curves to control contrast and detail in your digital photos.
Here's a tutorial by Frank Lazaro of istockphoto on how to achieve the popular Lomo effect using Photoshop. We'll start with a little background on the Lomo camera. From the Lomographic Society: "The whole Lomographic phenomenon began on a sunny St. Petersburg morning back in 1982. General Igor Petrowitsch Kornitzky, right-hand man to the USSR Minister of Defense and Industry, slammed a little Japanese mini-camera onto the ornate desk of his comrade Michail Panfilowitsch Panfiloff. Mr Panfiloff, Director of the powerful LOMO Russian Arms and Optical factory, examined the camera closely, noting its sharp glass lens, extremely high light sensitivity and robust casing.
Here's an 18 minute video with John Knoll reminiscing about the origins and history of Photoshop. Click here to watch the John Knoll video interview.
There often seems to be a strict division of labor within the world of web design and development. Creative professionals tend to stick to the Photoshop domain, while those well-versed in scripting are left to the task of implementing their work. Indeed, the two realms are quite different from each other, to which any of us even vaguely familiar with either can easily attest.
Generate Your Web Pages Directly From Photoshop
