Category: Adobe

Thursday’s Thoughts

Jason4 Comments

Wit the sidebar poll continuing to generate some increasing preferences toward PS CS3, I can’t help but wonder why more are not adopting LR as an alternative. My guess is that it has something to do with familiarity of the interface, as well as the support for dual monitors, and the added benefits of layers and filters. I’ve also heard from a few that profiling papers using LR is more challenging as well.

From this I am thinking that it may have been a little counterintuitive for Adobe to launch not one, not two, but three new software lines that in essence are competing with one another for market share. While I can see the merits of appealing to a [b]wider[/b] market share with a multi-faceted approach, I can also see some downsides. For those on a budget it seems clear that LR is the way to go, but with CS3 and CS3 extended, and the myriad of ways to obtain the software at serious discounts, I can’t help but wonder why LR would still be an option. I saw an academic price for CS3 extended recently at [b][i]under[/i][/b] $300! That’s within $100 of Lightroom!!! For me it’s a no-brainer, and I will definitely make the move to the Extended version after the holidays.

It does seem though that in using this multi-faceted approach, Adobe is appealing to a wider range of shooters. The “other” category seems rather low, which tells me people are not only choosing an Adobe solution for their work flow, but that they are also moving toward a dedicated solution that is geared towards their goals. I kind of feel bad for the competition as it seems with this approac, Adobe is goig to become the sole provider of photo editing software (that can be taken seriously anyway). That brings anti-monopoly issues into play and I can’t help but wonder if Adobe had considered this in their long-term strategizing….

In other news, the Photoshop Guys over at NAPP and Kelby Training have announced a whole new online training system. Now, instead of paying per class, you pay fur usage of the training resources, much like Lynda.com Some pretty big names in the photo education field are hopping on the coattails of Scott Kelby and his ever-rising presence in the training environment. Kudos to them and best of luck. Feel free to stop over at the NAPP site for more info as they will likely pimp that heavily for the next few months. Nothing wrong with self-promotion, and these guys definitely have it down to an art form. Anyone wanting to monetize their photo presence should take a hint from the methods they’re using over at NAPP and follow the leader (anyone else remembering the Honda commercials?)…congrats to the NAPP crew, and watch out Lynda.com!

Another totally random thought I’d had recently was on the layout and purpose of Canon Blogger.  As I’ve spent the vast majority of my posts either addressing industry news, events, information, and presenting tutorials, tips and tricks, that Canon Blogger could also use a face of just photos.  So….I started a blog over at the blogspot domain.  Canon Blogger was taken so, I had to take the next-best thing:  CanonBlogger1.  So…for a view of my photoblog (or as close to a photo blog as I dare to go), stop over to that page:  Canon Blogger’s photo posts to enjoy some of my digital photos, all taken from my Rebel XT.  (Some day, the elusive 40D will be within my grasp…with fellow photogs and blogers as my witnesses, I promise that will happen….when I can’t say, but my suspicion is shortly after the X-Mas tree comes down! 😀

Last but not least, it seems the latest Tutorial from thursday is going to garner a new record number of site visits based on my analytics metrics as of right now, so thanks to all who have stopped in to view the tutorial. It’s down a couple posts by now, but feel free to visit the flash page from here: Faded Antique Effects

My wife and I are sitting in an airport in Charleston SC waiting for our flight to Ohio for the holidays, so I might not post again until after Christmas. I have a feeling I will get an opportunity, but just in case, let me take a moment to be specifically and intentionally non-PC and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

That’s all for today. Anyone that would like to share their comments/replies/thoughts from todays post is encouraged and welcome to share in the comments section below, or to email me directly. My addres, as always, is jason <AT> canonblogger <DOT> com. Happy shooting, and have a good afternoon – get that shopping done!

The weekly tutorial is up and available for viewing!

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This weeks tutorial has been recorded, produced and published. Watch how to create a neat antique effect on your images. Because the tutorial shows a camera raw view, it does not fit a blog-sized flash screen, so my normal procedure for embedding the flash player in the blog will not work.  For an online streaming version, click the Flash link at the bottom of this post.  The Quicktime version is available as always for iPod or other media player via download. Enjoy the vid, and feel free to share your comments here on the blog or with me directly via email. My address, as always, is jason <AT> canonblogger <DOT> com. Thanks and enjoy the tutorial!

Flash Tutorial – Applying an Antique Effect to your Imagery

New Poll (both literally and programatically)

Jason3 Comments

In light of my recent foray into a solid system that has both portability and transparency for use across multiple software and OS platforms, I started a new poll. In doing so, I also realized the polling system was broken, and voting links were dysfunctional (I put the fun in dysfunctional, eh?). So…the polling plugin has been updated as well, and is now re-enabled. So, participate in the most recent poll: Let’s see which software package is the most popular – any guesses on which it will be?

Scott Kelby’s 7 Point System

Jason1 Comment

Reknowned photographer, and Photoshop/Lightroom posterboy Scott Kelby has released his latest book, the 7 Point System for Photoshop CS3, and it’s marching it’s way into people’s homes left and right.

While I am looking forward to getting a copy, I am also a little concerned about the fact that CS3 is in the title. Usually when a specific type of software is in a books title, it means that specific generation is required to take full advantage of the concept behind the book. This concerns me because while I do plan on getting to CS3 eventually, I am still fairly happy with CS2, and was not planning to upgrade any time soon. It also strikes me as a little odd as Scott has also indicated that Lightroom has also become a standard part of his work flow. So…what should the rest of us be doing? Should we be upgrading to CS3? Should we be going out and getting Lightroom? What about both? What about those that use alternative setups like Corel’s software, or even (gasp) The GIMP?

It seems that if this is a 7 point system that teaches you how to identify the “7 things” to take your photos from bland to beautiful, that these 7 things could theoretically be applied under a multitude of software setups. Is this another way of trying to convince us to upgrade to software when we really don’t need to? I am all for innovation and upgrading, and for improvements in technology, but if this is a system or a way of working with photographs, I would rather have a system that can be applied across multiple environments regardless of the underlying software.

I guess it’s the computer geek in me, because when troubleshooting networks and hardware problems, we follow a standard procedure for pinpointing problems. Very much like the scientific method, this works well regardless of whether you are in a Windows environment, Macintosh, Unix,Linux, Solaris, or any other setup. It works universally.

For the 7 point system to be effective (and the fact that Scott is trying to get copyright protection on the process) it seems this would thus be a process that could be applied across many environments. Ideally, that would be the case. et the title, and some of the comments on his blog, seem t suggest this system is somewhat proprietary to the CS3 setup. I’ve posted the question on his blog, so hopefully we’l find out about portability soon. More when/if that happens.

So, what about you, readers of CB? Has anyone out there read the book? What are your thoughts on it? Can you take the concepts and methods and port them to CS2, Lightroom, the GIMP, or some other software setup? I’d love to hear your feedback here (or via email). Thanks in advance for sharing any of your thoughts!

Creative Presentations

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The aforementioned tutorial is now recorded and up for your viewing pleasure. Lots of content here including multiple layers, layer masks, gradients, keyboard shortcuts, and marquee selections in place, so hopefully a helpful tutorial all around. In the interests of providing a web-based version and a downloadable version, I am going to embed the flash one with this post, and provide a link to download either a WMV version or a Quicktime version. Fair warning, but the Quicktime version has a short feedback issue from when I re-recorded the intro vocals…will attend to that today (hopefully), but if you skip over the first ten seconds, a new musical intro is also in place (yup, I’ve been busy…new vocals, new musicals, and new tutorials!) So, without further ado, here’s today’s tutorial:

Mac Version

PlayPlay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Life Lessons (and a tutorial)

Jason1 Comment

The last week has been an interesting one… I got a call at work saying that my wife was at the doctor’s office and they were transferring her to the hospital as a precautionary measure for some elevated blood pressure levels. Needless to say, the next few days I was not thinking much about getting a new podcast tutorial out. After getting every test known to mankind done, the good news is that she is fine and will be sticking around for a while. The bad news is that she needs to go on some blood pressure medication and she has now joined the ranks of Vytorin membership (although her dosage is lower than mine).

That was Wednesday and Thursday.

Friday was pretty much a “recovery day” and I attended to the typical daily minutia that was not taken care of on Wednesday and Thursday.

Saturday, I had a photo assignment for a real estate agency, so I headed out to Daniel Island and shot the property from every angle you could think of. On the way back, I stopped off to get some pumpkins for carving today at one of the local farmer’s market vendors. The pumpkins and flowers made for such vibrant colors I couldn’t help but take some pictures there too.

So, now it’s Sunday and I’ve settled down in to do the post processing from my shoot yesterday, look at my fantasy football setup for the day, and record a tutorial for the blog!

It’s a quickie today, but something that has a lot of uses, and is so easy once you know how to do it, you’ll find yourself playing with Photoshop more and more as a result. The subject is creating backgrounds, and it’s pretty cool. Check it out: Creating Backgrounds in Photoshop

In the meantime, here’s one of the better shots that came from the pumpkin outing:

[display_podcast]

Tuesday’s Tutorial – Creating Actions in PS

Jason1 Comment

While I don’t have a regular schedule for releasing content, tutorials or otherwise, the alliterative bonus of having a tutorial on Tuesdays tastes terrific to tongues. And…since i posted it before midnight, it technically was released on Tuesday, even though it’s 11:20pm! Well, what was neat about this was that on my weekly visit to Photoshop User TV, Matt Kloskowski showed how he created an action for curves adjustments in LAB, and this same technique is what I used for the sharpening aspect of my work flow. While I also have the LAB action assembled, I had split that up into three different ones (one at 3 hashes, one at 2 hashes, and another at 1 hash). Check out the video on their weekly blog post here: Photoshop User TV. I gotta admit though, it was kind of cool though to see a technique I use also be showcased in the tip from the likes of Matt Kloskowski. So, in keeping with the use of layers adjustments as a means of applying different effects repeatedly for evaluating images, my tutorial follows the same theory, but applies it to sharpening rather than curves.

It’s kind of long (12 minutes) because I went through every step, AND I left a mistake in intentionally to show how you can edit an action while you are recording it! Take a peak at it here: Creating a Sharpening Action in Photoshop

As for consolidating the curves adjustments from 3 to 1 using this technique, I actually will pass on that because for me, I am usually pretty close in my “guesstimation” of what will work, and I just want the action to do that for me, not multiiple layers of different curves adjustments. Sharpening is tougher though, so I think it’s more valuable as a method in that regard. We’re all different though, and that’s what makes the world go around, so if you like it, go for it! Enjoy and have a great Wednesday. Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t give Matt the courtesy of a link to his site on Lightroom Killer Tips. Check them out too…I am always learning from this guy…

Applying Gradients to Text in Photoshop

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Another tutorial has been uploaded and is ready for viewing. This tutorial shows how to use layers to apply a gradient effect to text inside of Photoshop. With the layers, you can preserve the text and the gradient independently of one another for future editing and customization, depending on the need and use. Check it out by visiting the tutorial page for it today:

Applying Gradients to Text in Photoshop

As always, feedback, comments and ideas are always welcome either here or via email: Jason AT Canonblogger DOT com! Thanks for tuning in and happy shooting!

Type Tool presets

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On the heels of the last tutorial, this week, the focus shifts to pre-sets. While Photoshop is not the best program for creating style sheets for text, the presets can make things easier if you want to re-use the same format. So, check out the latest video tutorial. It’s online now and again under 5 minutes for those on the go. In the meantime, happy shooting! I’ll have some pics up from the weekend later this week. ETA: Link is fixed, was pointing to an earlier tutorial on a different tip for the type tool. Sorry for the mix-up.

Type tool Presets

Type Tool Tricks

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Today’s treat talks truthfully to type tool tricks! Terrific! I love alliteration, in case you couldn’t tell! All joking aside, since shorter videos seem to generate more interest (5 minutes or less), I’m trying to keep it under 5 minutes per video, so check out the latest one today, on manipulating text in Photoshop. Today’s is kind of neat because it shows a not often used (at least to my knowledge) palette – the character palette! Here the video shows how you can stretch a font across the width of the entire image without changing the font size or type (horizontally scale the text in other words). Check it out:

Type Tool Trick