Category: Announcements

A special “Thanks”…

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Today we honor all veterans of the Armed Forces of the U.S.A. I would like to take a moment to thank each and every one of those that have and those who continue to serve to protect our country. Our freedom and way of life was paved by your predecessors and continues to find new outlets in the world thanks to the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform. To all those who serve – we salute you!

One of the side effects of honoring our veterans is that I got an extra day off work today. So…lucky viewers and listeners, I was able to get another podcast out, which means there will likely be two this week (I may even get an extra “in the can” for next week”!) So…first up is a technique for creating reflections of objects or selections inside of Photoshop. Great for making web graphics, outputting to holiday greeting cards, and for presentations in many venues. Check it out at the link or the embedded version to the blog:

Visit here: Reflections in Photoshop

or watch below:

After a flea market and a fair…it’s time to flop

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Today, bright and early, my wife dragged me out of bed to attend the mother of all garage sales, the Jr. league’s annual sale event in downtown Charleston.  For those of you that may not know, the Jr. League is a non-profit group of women who’s mission is to…

“The Association of Junior Leagues International Inc. (AJLI) is an organization of women committed to promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women, and improving communities through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers. Its purpose is exclusively educational and charitable.” – from their website here

As one of their charity efforts here in Charleston, they have a garage sale, or flea market of things they have donated over the last year.  Proceeds go toward charities and funding of the organization itself.  In the interests of promoting these efforts, (and to see if we could find some good deals), Tracy and I braved the crowds…and walked away having donated $27, and collecting for our own uses probably over $150 worth of goods in the way of end tables, coffee tables, and a Vivitar flash (two guesses at my contributing efforts…:) )

So, after a return home to recoup, eat, and re-gain our energies, my wife went to tre-charge by taking a nap while I tackled the end tables that needed some minor sanding.  By 4pm, it was time to do the new arrangements.  After moving each piece of furniture about fifteen times, we (meaning she) found a new setup she likes enough.   Next were the requisite weekend jobs of grocery shopping, walking the dog, and other odds and ends.

Once all was said and done, the last day of the Coastal Carolina Fair was in full swing, and we decided to head over for at least an hour or so to eat some yummy fair food.  Funnel cakes, tacos, pizza, pretzels, and about 10 Tums later, we are now home again, and fully tuckered out.

So…the tutorial will have to wait until tomorrow.  Sorry all, but the traffic was horrendous – it took us an hour to go 10 miles!   Be on the lookout for a new one tomorrow though,  on a cool technique for creative digital presentations of your photos…it’s done I’ve just not had time to produce it yet (oh, and one other thing – going back to the flash presentations for the time being – the wmv files aren’t logging on my analytics account…)

Canon News and Reviews (with a few rebates)

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As an admitted Canonite, I’ve not done much in the way of noting new products Canon has released since the 40D and 1D Mark II have been released. Despite the absence, there has been quite a bit of activity from Canon, including some new point-and-shoot reviews, paper releases, and, (wait for it) the announcement of their fall discounts. In the interests of full disclosure, here is a rundown of some of the latest news from Canon’a Press releases and other sources (in no particular order):

Polished Rag and a Coated Bond Paper are released at the NYC PhotoExpo

Two new “L” lenses expected at PhotoExpo Show: 200mm f2.0 IS and 800mm f5.6 IS

Free Paper Profiles for Canon imagePROGRAF Printers release

New Selphy ES2 Compact Photo Printer

Canon SD870 IS Review

and, of course, Canon’s Fall 2007 Rebates:

85 1.2 II – $125
16-35 2.8 II – $100
70-200 F/4 IS – $75
17-40 f/4 – $50
70-200 2.8 IS – $125
50 1.2 – $100
EF-S 17-55 IS – $70
70-200 f/4 – $40
100-400 f/4.5-5.6 – $100
24-70 2.8 – $80
EF-S 10-22 – $50
85 1.8 – $25
50 1.4 $20
60f/2.8 macro – $30
580 EX II Speedlite – $50

The good news?  They’re all instant from authorized resellers….

The bad news?  No bodies are included this year…

A link to the PDF files is here

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!

Sharpening in LAB Mode

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That’s right, the podcast is done…this is part deaux of what will likely be a three part series that speaks to my work flow in LAB mode. The first tutorial dealt with curves and luminance adjustments in the LAB color space, and here, I illustrate how to sharpen in the LAB color space. Great stuff here, and I also briefly touch on producing an action that will create various layered sharpness levels so you can pick and choose which suits your needs best.

Also helpful are some formulas I’ve learned on what works best for various scenarios. I intended to include these in the podcast, but I am trying to cut down on podcast length and keep extraneous info to a minimum. Nevertheless, the various sharpness levels are relevant, so I am including them here:

For people, portraits, etc.: An amount of anywhere from 120-150%, a Radius of 1.o, and a Threshold of 10 works well.

For cities, architecture, etc: An amount ranging from 50-65%, a Radius of 3 and a thresh hold of 2 does great.

For general everyday use: For all others, I try an Amount in the range of 80-85%, a Radius of 1, and a Threshold of 4.

As always, these numbers are not set in stone, and will vary depending on the types of photos you are working with and your particular tastes. Nothing is ever set in stone in a subjective field like photography, so take this information with a grain of salt, and pepper to your own tastes.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the Sharpening in LAB tutorial! Enjoy! (And feel free to leave a comment or idea – if you do, you’ll be the first!)

Outpatients and outages, but we have a new tutorial!

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It’s been a few days since making a post, as there have been a few issues that have come up, not the least of which was an outage or two from my provider. As a result, I was not able to get online for more than a few minutes at a clip for Monday and Tuesday as a result.

Additionally, I had an outpatient procedure done yesterday at the Doctor’s Office so I needed a little time to recuperate after that. Things are slowly working their way back to normal though, and I have the first in a two part series of tutorials designed to give some insight to my work flow and the use of the LAB workspace for both lightness and curves adjustments. Check them out via the link at the end of this post. In the meantime, happy shooting, and I’ll be back in a day or two with the remainder of the LAB work space tutorial…

Curves Adjustments in LAB

Camera Raw Tutorial is up!

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I gave up again trying to figure out how to embed the flash file into the blog page, and keep the layout somewhat decent looking, so I am going to continue linking to a dedicated video podcast page, where I will likely end up building an html front end to reference down the road. It’s an admittedly rudimentary look at ACR (Adobe Camera Raw), and while there are some really great extensive resources out there (I highly recommend Jon Canfield’s book on the subject), this should be a nice intro for those that have shot jpg and are thinking about making the move to raw.

In any case, here it is…enjoy! Thanks for stopping in and don’t forget to vote in the Content poll! 🙂

Fair warning though – it’s a long video, and the audio is kinda on the loud side…

Camera Raw Video Tutorial

No news for Monday

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Well, that may not be entirely true, as Tips from The Top Floor has a few updates both in audio and video format, so stop over there for some weekyl news and info about Chris’ trip to the great ole U.S. of A. He’s going from CO on to California, and then some other place before finishing up in St. Lucie FL, so if you get a chance between now and Oct. 18th to listen/view – you may wanna do so as now I am even thinking of making my way down there for a few days.

Please also say a prayer for Scott Sherman and Michael Stein from The Digital Photography Show. Before this week I did not know that their affiliation began because both their children are affected by Cerebral Palsy.   Scott’s had to have a surgical procedure this last week, and yet he still managed to find some time to produce the show. Suffice to saw, I would have been long gone and Canon Blogger would not have even been on my radar – so thanks to Scott and Michael and my prayers go out to both of you as you walk this noble path – esp. to Scott given the recency of its impact on his life personally.

Finally, Strobist had a couple cool posts recently, first one about Flickr where you can see your “ranking” on there – serious submitters only though as if it’s less than that, you probably won’t show up many times. Another cool post is about using small off-camera lights to help illuminate landscapes. A neat example is there too, so go check that out.

Finally, another podcast is ready for viewing! I did run out of time for production tonight though, so will have to wait until tomorrow to finish it, but promise a rather lengthy one (about 30 minutes) is forthcoming and discusses quite a few details about working in Camera Raw for your post processing. Stay tuned and it should be online in less than 24 hours! Until tomorrow then…Happy Shooting!

Closing out the week with a new tutorial!

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That’s right, I’ve finally got enough of an act together to record a new tutorial. It’s another Photoshop tip, and this week is kind of a tangential feature of Photoshop, in that it’s not one you would typically use Photoshop to produce as Adobe has other products that perform this function better. There are also other applications on the market that do this equally well, and probably with equal if not better results, but if you don’t have them, PS is a neat alternative, especially for preserving things like drop-shadows and text style treatments like gradients and other stuff commonly associated with Photoshop. In any case, the tutorial is linked at the end of this post. You can download for iTunes from the link as well.

In other news, I also was able to successfully arise early enough to catch a sunrise shoot at Isle of Palms today. I had my trusty Canon XT with me, and I found myself enjoying swapping between the 18-55 kit lens, a Sigma macro lens, and my Canon 70-200 4.0 L The colors were okay, but nothing really spectacular to write home about thus far in my review of the shots. I’ll hopefully have a few to share tomorrow, but in the meantime, enjoy the video podcast. Until next time, Happy Shooting and enjoy the weekend!

Creating PDF files in Photoshop

Blog addition

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I’ve added an XML feed to the site, so for those that may be interested in adding a widget to your Google Homepage or your Google Reader, that link is available now.  Thanks go out to Google for making it so easy! 🙂

Hard to say whether I’ll finish my next tutorial in time to post tonight, or if it will have to wait until tomorrow after work.  Check back or keep an eye on your readers for a new one soon though.  Don’t forget to vote in the poll either – it’ll be going through the end of the month.