Buy. Download. Create. Get Photoshop CS3 now at the Adobe Store.
Try before you buy. Download any Adobe product for a free 30 day trial.

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.



Free Live Webcast: 10 Key Ingredients for Cookin' Digital Pictures
June 22, 2008

In this live webcast, world-renowned photographer Rick Sammon will share his top digital photography tips, including his "10 Key Ingredients for Cookin' Digital Photographs." He'll also discuss his favorite photo philosophies, including: The Camera Looks Both Ways; In Picturing the Subject We Are Also Picturing a Part of Ourselves." You'll get to see Rick's favorite people, landscape and wildlife images from around the world. Some Photoshop talk, too! Attendance is limited, so register now. (See Rick's new book and free sample chapter below.)

Date: Thursday, June 26 at 10am PDT (17:00 GMT)
Cost: Free
Duration: 45 minutes
Meeting link: oreilly.com/go/pictures
Teleconference dial-in:
(select the number that is closest to your location)
East Coast US: +1 617 231-0350 and pin 8136507
West Coast US: +1 213-455-0500 and pin 8136507
Questions? Please send email to webcast@oreilly.com

Face to Face
In the beautifully illustrated book Face to Face: Rick Sammon's Complete Guide to Photographing People, travel and adventure photographer Rick Sammon introduces the proven techniques he uses to make extraordinary photographs of people around the world. You'll find important tips and strategies for engaging your subject and setting up the shoot, along with techniques for shooting in a variety of conditions both indoors and outdoors.

In Face to Face, Rick Sammon makes learning people photography a quick and enjoyable experience. Rick demonstrates his methods through a collection of his original photographs. Each photo includes notes explaining the principles he followed and the techniques he used.

Face to Face offers hundreds of tips you can you for studio shoots and "environmental" people pictures, including:

• Outdoor techniques for shooting in low light, shooting in bright light, for capturing action, taking profiles, taking group shots, and more
• Indoor techniques for using a flash and strobes, and for shooting silhouettes, working withmirrors, and other techniques
• Photo philosophies and creative advice, such as developing a sense of place, carefully choosing the background, seeing pictures within a picture, and more
• How to photograph people in different cultures, along with fascinating behind-the-scenes stories of photos in the book

The largest section of the book, "Photo Philosophies", lays out several principles for making people pictures. Rick stresses that the camera looks both ways – in other words, the attitude and energy you bring to a shoot will be reflected in a subject's face. If you're enthusiastic, you'll capture a picture that portrays enthusiasm. If you're impatient or distracted, that will be reflected as well.

Free Sample PDF Chapter
You can download a free sample chapter - Part III: Outdoor Photography (1.32 MB). From the intro:

One of the cool things about digital SLR cameras and cameras that offer full creative control is that you can choose the shutter speed to stop or blur action. The choice is yours, and that choice makes a big difference in the feeling of a picture. First let’s talk about blurring the action, as I did for a horse-and-rider picture that I took in Marrow Bone Springs, Texas. Blurring the action creates a sense of motion and speed in a picture. For this picture, I used a technique called panning. Here’s how to do it.

Select the shutter priority mode on your camera and set a slow shutter speed, perhaps 1/15 to 1/30 of a second. The best shutter speed to use will be determined by how fast the subject is moving. So, you need to experiment with different shutter speeds to get just the right effect. That may take several “runs.”

Continue reading by downloading Part III: Outdoor Photography (1.32 MB).

Face to Face: Rick Sammon's Complete Guide to Photographing People
By Rick Sammon
ISBN: 9780596515744
Copyright © 2008 Rick Sammon. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

posted by Jennifer Apple | permalink | RSS feed | bookmark | comment

SiteGrinder Photoshop Plugin - Create Websites Instantly

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.

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.

Pricing and Availability
Mac OS X and Windows versions of the SiteGrinder unlockable demo are available now via download. SiteGrinder can be ordered from Media Lab's online store.

Photoshop CS3 Upgrade Options And Bundles From The Adobe Store

Photoshop CS3 Extended is ideal for film, video, and multimedia pros and for graphic and web designers using 3D and motion. Get the full version for US $999, or upgrade for US $349. The standard version of Photoshop CS3 is available for US $649, or as an upgrade for US $199. See all upgrade options at the Adobe Store. See our CS3 Resource Center for free Photoshop CS3 tutorials.

Photoshop Extended is also available as part of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium, which combines all-new CS3 versions of Photoshop, Flash Pro, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat 8 Pro. Upgrade options for customers in Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Asia can be found at the Adobe International Store.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Available At The Adobe Store

There are tons of new features in Adobe Lightroom 1.0 that you won't find in the beta version. From Clone and Healing functionality to metadata browsing, you'll be able to free-up post-processing time like never before. Get it now at the Adobe Store. Customers in Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Asia can find special pricing and offers at the Adobe International Store. For free Lightroom tutorials see our Lightroom tutorials page.

Photoshop Masking Plugin Fluid Mask 3 - $15 Discount Special

The 4 1/2 out of 5 star review of Fluid Mask 3 at MacWorld begins by saying that this "Photoshop plug-in takes the pain out of extracting backgrounds," and goes on to recommend the latest version, stating that "Fluid Mask 3.0.2 is a very effective tool for separating objects from their backgrounds. It offers a variety of useful features for tackling almost any difficult image, from wispy hair to complex foliage. Online video tutorials and live training sessions help ease the learning curve."

Our friends at Vertus, the makers of Fluid Mask 3 Photoshop Plugin, have set up a special exclusive discount for PhotoshopSupport.com. Just follow this discount link and instantly get $15 off your purchase of Fluid Mask 3.

Fluid Mask 3 is designed for photographers, image editors, graphic designers and all those who take digital image editing seriously. In a streamlined interface and workflow, Fluid Mask 3 instantly shows key edges in the image and provides comprehensive easy to use tools that work with difficult-to-see edges and tricky areas like trees & lattices. Features include: