Thursday, March 22, 2012

Adobe Releases Public Beta of Photoshop CS6

Free Public Beta Photoshop CS 6

CS6logoAdobe has released a public beta version of Photoshop CS6. Available immediately for free download from Adobe Labs, it introduces a complete redesign of Photoshop's user interface along with:

  • Auto and background save options.
  • Content-Aware Patch and Move tools,
  • Additional photographic blur filters,
  • Increased video editing capability
  • Adobe Camera Raw 7.

Download from Adobelabs

Enjoy!!!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Where to from here

I'm often asked… now that the classes are over, what do we do now?

Here are some suggestions...

Take another class, CS 6 will be out soon!

Visit Websites, go to the library…

… This is a Collection of Photoshop Websites, it's a bunch of Links to most visited/popular blogs
http://photoshop.alltop.com/

A Collection of LightRoom Websites
http://lightroom.alltop.com/

Photoshop Tutorials from Layers Magazine
http://layersmagazine.com/category/photoshop/page/8

National Association of Photoshop Users
http://www.photoshopuser.com/

The best Photoshop Magazine in my opinion is PhotoShop Creative
http://www.photoshopcreative.co.uk/

Garry's Favorite web sites

  1. The Luminous Landscape
    1. http://luminous-landscape.com/whatsnew/
  2. http://www.dpreview.com/
  3. http://www.imaging-resource.com/news
  4. http://www.photographyblog.com/
  5. http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer
  1. Join a forum and lurk!

    http://www.photoshopforums.com/

    http://forums.adobe.com/community/photoshop

    At some point someone will post a question… Give them the answer!

There are lots of videos on the Adobe TV web site

http://tv.adobe.com/

LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE  has a bunch of video tutorials that they sell. Get them and their video Journal...

http://luminous-landscape.com/videos/download-videos.shtml

George Jardine has a terrrifics web site a a series of video

http://mulita.com/blog/

One more thing
Don't be shy, Stay in touch!

and

Practice! Practice! Practice!

Photograph, Photograph, Photograph!

Best  Wishes

Garry Stasiuk

 

 

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

PS4P 2 ---Week 8 Outline --

March 17, Last Class Saturday

Howdy

Just a reminder… Saturday’s agenda

  • Objectives:
    • Perfecting Landscapes & Portraits
    • Output/Export in Bridge: Displaying your photos
  • Fixing Common Problems: A quick review of old and new techniques  
    • In Camera Raw
      • Crop/Straighten, Targeted Tones, The Adjustment Brush ---Super Dodging & Burning, The Gradient Tool
    • In Photoshop
      • Using the Clone Tool, Healing Brush, Spot healing brush and patches, and
      • Layers and Masks
      • HDR
      • ?
    • Focus on
      • Skin Tones
      • Softening the skin
      • Texturing the skin
    • AND your LAST CHANCE questions!

Bring some portrait photos and landscapes to class! As, usual I will have a few demo pics for you to work with if you don’t have any of your own…

Up Coming Classes

How Do I Take Better Digital Photographs: 2 classes one March 24 and the other  April 7 (9-4 PM)

Photo Walk April 14 (9 - 4 pm)

Create Your Own Web Site May 9th - (6 weeks)

PS4P I April 28 (4 weeks)

PS4P II June 2 (4 weeks)

In the summer I'll do a Photoshop Projects class for Beginners (It's Valeri's Basic Photoshop Class, except we work on actual projects)  First week in July (date tentative)

Also

Adobe Lightroom Thursday 7/5 6-9:30pm

See you in class
Got something you want to work on? Send that e-mail!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Week 7 Fix-it week

1. Scanning Software.

If you have an older scanner (or a new one) consider Ed Hamrick's Vuescan (over 10 million users can't be wrong). Even if the scanner is no longer supported when you upgraded to Win 7 or OSX Lion
Ed's software will also add new features to your scanner. For my Epson scanner, I can now do multiple pass scans. The scanner software  uses the multiple passes to average out the "final" pixels that will appear in the saved image, and I can save the file in a "Raw" Tiff file format.
2. Non destructive editing.

In Photoshop: CS5 and PSE 9 The Spot Healing Brush and the Patch Tool

With the addition of Content Aware Fill for the spot healing brush… Touchup got a lot easier!
Checkout this quick tutorial The Healing Spot and Brush with Content Aware Fill
RULE: When editing Always Create a Blank Layer and do the edits in the blank layer.
When using any of the tools like the Clone or Healing Brush or Spot Healing Brush to edit pixels, First create a Blank Layer and then in the use the Tools "Option Bar"  to toggle on "Edit layers below"
PS Layers

Here's a short tutorial that uses "Edit Layers Below"














How to make a "layer" when using The "patch" Tool

Patch tool
You probably noticed that the "Patch Tool" Located in the Tool bar (Keyboard shortcut "j")
has no option for "editing layers below"  The solution here is to draw your selection and use the keyboard combination: "Command + j" (Mac) or "Control + j" (PC). This puts your patch selection on a new transparent layer.  Typically you'd use the patch to to cover a large patch of skin, or to make eyebrows symmetrical, or to smooth out edges on the hairline or banks.
Patchtoolselect

Patchtoolcommad=featherWhen you make a selection with the patch tool, draw a contour that follows the upper shape of the eyebrow.

Next
Use the Menu item:
Select > Modify > Feather...
Or Keyboard short cut Shift + F6 (PC  and Mac)


Then Choose 3 - 5 pixels
This will make a soft edge around your selection.


Patchtoolcommad j




Now you can press the "Command + j" (Mac) or "Control + j" (PC).
Notice that you now have a blank layer with your selection… Now select the Move tool
Tool Bar keyboard shortcut The letter v
Move the selection with the mouse down to cover the "rough" edges at the top of the eye brow…
You might have to use the eraser or other tool to clean up the selection… and you might need to lower the transparency of the layer.  You milage will vary. Experiment

I turned on the transform controls for the move tool so you sorta can see the "selection"...
Patchtoolcommad done
















Patchtoolcommans proof

Remember: Symmetry Rules! Even in "Particle Physics and the Big Bang Theory"


If you need to make more edits! Like work on the "other" eyebrow You'll need to make a flattened copy of the visible layers...



RULE:  Make a Flattened copy of the visible layers , If you can only directly edit pixels.

Mac (Command + Option + Shift + E)
PC (Control + Alt + Shift + E)
This is also useful if you want to use the Menu
Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight…or any other "Adjustment" that do not have an "Adjustment layer".
Except...
(Note Well) The adjustment HDR Toning…
Menu: Image > Adjustments > HDR Toning…
Automatically flattens all layers. So, if you want to preserve layers before you use this adjustment, save the file first as a .PSD and then do the HDR Toning…as it flattens all layers to make a "single" image!

To Flatten Selected layers Keyboard Short cut
Mac (Command + Option + Shift + E)
PC (Control + Alt + Shift + E)
and apply the Adjustment to the flattened copy of the all the layers...

To re-edit the Shadow/Highlights… you'll need to delete the layer and repeat the process...
Enjoy! As Always 'holler if you have a question or comment.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Next Class is Fix-it Day!

Just a reminder for you to

Bring your own broken or just plain difficult to "enhance" photos to class...

 

Fix it

 

We'll put our collective resources together and figure out how to make 'em better!

 

 

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Week 6 Review --Cropping and Converting Color Images to Black & White and Split Toning

Links to Class Web Pages

Objectives

Create a "Black & White" or "Split Toned" Photoshopped Master piece!

Making Black & White Photos

  • Black and White in Camera Raw
  • Black and White in Photoshop
  • Split Toning in Camera Raw and Photoshop

Homework

Post your "Photoshopped Photo" to the Class blog

Lightroom 4 released --Price dropped!

Photoshop lightroom 4

 

Price dropped from $299 to $149 for the FULL version

Upgrade price is now just $79.00

If you purchase Photoshop CS 5.5 or the Creative Suite CS 5.5 you can get Lightroom for $99

details

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom.html

 

ENJOY!!!!