Custom Brushes

Custom Brush

For this weeks tutorial, I thought to take a look at custom brushes and brush sets. It can be a pretty handy thing to have some custom brushes of things you do often, or looks and styles that you apply often to your photos (such as a signature, copyright, or some other such logo). The idea came from someone in one of the photo forums (NAPP forums if I recall correctly), asking if there was a brush set out there that had a set of hash marks (like for the days of the week). We talked back and forth on a few alternatives when it dawned on me – we could make a brush to do that! You really can make brushes to do whatever you want, it’s just a matter of doing it once and then saving it, much like an action.

So, here’s a tutorial that examines how to create, save, and load custom brushes inside of Photoshop. We’ll see you back here tomorrow! Until then, Happy Shooting and watch those apertures!

Creating Custom Brushes

Back to Basics – Rule of Thirds Grid

After I recorded and started production on this tutorial my mind began to remember that perhaps I had covered this subject before. I reviewed the subjects I have posted over at the Tutorial Resource Center and did not see it covered there, so figure I am not repeating some tutorial I have already done. Having said that, this is kind of a return to the basics. Continue reading “Back to Basics – Rule of Thirds Grid”

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Digital Frames

Too often we take our work and share it out on the web in galleries, on blogs, and at various community forums to see the background colors don’t really do our shots much justice. I’ve seen forums with blue background colors, others with yellow, and much much more. This has the net effect of casting a hue across every image in that space. Your images take on that hue to a certain degree, and it can often negate an image more than many realize.

Forum administrators and bloggers are starting to realize that neutrals are the best way to go, but there are still some web outlets that hang on to some rather outlandish color schemes. To accommodate the creative (and sometimes sensitive) differences that exist, it can often help to present your images with some digital framing. That is the focus of this weeks’ tutorial, and I share a rather simple but effective technique to create a digital frame to enhance or accentuate and draw attention to your imagery.

As I mention at the end of the post, there are some automated ways to create digital frames via plugins and actions. The one I reference can be found at www.atncentral.com People labor often in anonymity and share their work with the world and give it freely for others to use. Enjoy the benefits of generous folks and for those occasional ones that ask for donations, kick in a buck or two – it always helps to keep the creative spirit alive. In the meantime, keep on shooting (happily), and watch those apertures (carefully)!

Flash Version: Digital Framing

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Calendar Templates, Part II

This week I wrap up the tutorial started last week on creating a Calendar Template using Photoshop. One of the things I found most useful was performing the screen captures of each month prior to beginning the place functions inside Photoshop. As you can see in the tutorial, the results came out really nicely.

This whole project started from wanting to make a single-page calendar and in looking at the design offerings on Mpix, thought “Hey! I could make that!” The second half of the genesis came courtesy of Matt Kloskowski over fro the Photoshop Guys where he did a tutorial a while back on making a desktop calendar for a single month. So…I put the two ideas together and this is the end result of that effort. I figured it may also have some interest for other photographers in making calendars incorporating either their own prints or those of their clients. Clearly, this is a “down and dirty” version, but if anyone is interested, I do have a pretty high resolution sized template that I would be willing to share on request.

In other news, I’d like to give some shout outs to Brian over at Professional Snapshots, who just last Friday celebrated the birth of his new daughter Isabelle! Congrats to Brian, even though this means he has pretty much lost the ability to sleep through a night for at least the next 18-24 months! Yeah, this may be your fourth, but I’ve heard the stories from siblings and neighbors! Enjoy!

Also, don’t forget to stop over at Jason D. Moore’s weekly summary of all things photography! I always head there to make sure I’m not missing anything interesting.

Last, but not least, the tutorial links: Flash first and QT second…

Calendar Templates, Part II

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Creating templates

Hey all, today is tutorial Tuesday, and I share a technique I used recently in creating a calendar template to import client photos in. I could only get about half way through the tutorial before I had to stop (I am trying to keep video tutorials at or under 5 minutes), so this will be part 1 of a two part series. Today I show you how I created the graphics with some guides, and keeping things all manageable on just a couple levels. As usual, the tutorial is linked in both Flash (web based) and QuickTime (iPod/iTunes friendly) formats at the end of the post.

Additionally, I’ve got a few rather unique shots (I think anyway) from my outing to Magnolia Gardens this weekend. There was a heavy thunderstorm the previous day, so lots of opportunities for some macro and water works. Here’s two I thought that the viewing audience might enjoy:

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That’s about it for today…a few photos and a tutorial for your viewing pleasure. A multimedia blowout this week thus far, with an article yesterday, photos and videos today, and who knows what tomorrow has in store…more articles, and maybe….an audio podcast *gasp!* (Likely not with the latter though – so no promises!) Until then, happy shooting and watch those apertures! 🙂

CB Episode 038: Calendar Template

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