One onOne with Mike Wong

I've been asked several times lately how to use the Layer Mask Mode in PhotoFrame that I figured it was time for me to do a post about it here.

Layer Masks are a great way to selectively edit, show or hide part of a layer in Photoshop in a non-destructive manner. I love layer masks and PhotoFrame (both the Professional Edition and the Standard Edition) have a feature called Layer Mask Mode that allow you to apply a PhotoFrame frame/edge to the layer mask as opposed to a new layer of its own. If you're wondering why you would want to do this, one reason is if you want an edge to a photo that you're going to post to the web. Maybe you'll put the photo on your site which has a black background and you also want to post the finished photo to your flickr account which has a white background. Adding a layer mask with a frame in it allows you to save the file as a transparent PNG file so that one image can be placed on multiple site and no matter what the background color of the site's page, the edge will look the same as if it blends seamlessly into the page background.

Now that you know what a layer mask is and why you might want do to it, here's how you actually do it.

Continue reading "PhotoFrame Pro 3 - Layer Mask Mode" »

Posted by Mike Wong at 11:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes, when you're trying to solve a problem you learn something new. That is the case for this tip - Solo Mode. When I was trying to solve The Case of the Missing Presets, I discovered this very cool, and as far as I know, undocumented feature (though to be honest, I've never read the Lightroom documentation so maybe it is in there) called Solo Mode.

What is Solo Mode you ask? One of the coolest features in Lightroom you've probably never heard of. Allow me to set this up...

When you have a bunch, and a bunch could be more than one, panel open, finding the contents in one of the panels can be difficult because you have to scroll up or down to get to the panel you want. For example, I like to keep the History panel open so I can glance down and see what I've done to an image. I also have a huge list of presets, including the onOne PhotoPresets and a bunch that I download from Matt Kloskowski's Lightroom Killer Tips blog. So when the Preset panel is open AND the History palette is open, I have to scroll up and down constantly which gets annoying - especially if I'm only working on my MacBook Pro and I don't have my mouse (like now).

So here's the tip, Control-click on any of the names of the panels such as Presets, Snapshots, History or any panel name except the Histogram panel (that one is exempt from Solo Mode) and you'll get a contextual menu that has several items in it. The one we want is about three-quarters of the way down and it says, you guessed it, Solo Mode. Just click on that and you'll notice that the disclosure triangles next to the panel names (except Histogram) change from a solid gray to what looks like a top down view of a set of gray bowling pins.

Now when you click on one of these bowling pin formations, only that panel is opened and the rest are closed. I love it! It really comes in handy on the Develop module for all of the develop settings. And it makes perfect sense because in theory when you finish doing your Basic adjustments you can move on to Tone Curve and you don't need Basic anymore. Brilliant as they say here in England (nobody says Awesome, and I've gotten funny looks when I have so I'm going to stop until next week).

Give it a try, it's my new favorite feature in Lightroom 1.1.

Posted by Mike Wong at 4:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In preparation for my Lightroom presentation tomorrow at Focus on Imaging, I was going through my demo files and making sure that everything was working properly when it dawned on me that I didn't have any of my PhotoPresets for Lightroom anymore.

For this demo, I wanted to show how you create a Lightroom catalog from scratch, so rather than deleting all of my photos in my current (and previously only) Lightroom catalog, I created a new one. Lightroom 1.1 allows you to have more than one catalog and you can pick which one you want to use when you launch Lightroom. I remember checking a box when I created the new catalog to store the Develop presets with the catalog, not reallly knowing what it would do (dumb I know) but I did it anyway.

Okay, so I figured I'd just find the presets folder and copy my old ones in because I knew where they were. Previous versions of Lightroom let you control click on a preset and you'd have an option to say "Show Preset Folder" and it would pop open. No such luck in Lightroom 1.1.

After a few minutes of frantic searching, I realized where Lightroom looks for CATALOG SPECIFIC presets. Are you ready...they are with the catalog! Duh. Okay, I felt pretty dumb, but now you don't have to worry or panic if you do the same thing.

Find where your new catalog is and in there you'll find all of the presets for each of the Lightroom modules. Just copy your old preset files in and relaunch Lightroom and you'll be good to go. Seems simple, and maybe it is, but if you have a brain cramp like me and are looking for them, hopefully this helps.

Posted by Mike Wong at 4:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I was reading Scott Kelby's blog this morning and saw the news that Photoshop User TV will be going on "Real TV" starting next Tuesday night on the Fox Business News Channel.

(Photo from Scott's Blog)

Congratulations Scott, Matt and Dave!

My favorite part of Scott's blog entry is this:

"I don't want you to think for one moment that just because we're on real TV now, that the show will get any better..."

Here's a link to the whole entry which includes a link to the Fox Business Channel site.

Posted by Mike Wong at 10:07 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I was just looking at the landscape shot of the Three Sisters mountains that I talked about in the last entry on PhotoTools (see PhotoTools - Landscape Enhance with Glow) and realized that I stopped a little short with that picture. So, in my effort to procrastinate yet again on my big project, I'd like to offer up a quick tip on how you can use PhotoTools to clean up an image like this that has an area that is under exposed that you want to, well, expose.

To correct this, I'm going to use the Digital Fill Flash effect in PhotoTools. This is something that you would normally do with a flash or reflector to increase the brightness in dark areas of your subject matter. This is a great technique to use if you exposed your image for the sky for example and under exposed the foreground. You can click on most of the screenshots for a larger version.

Open your image in Photoshop and then launch PhotoTools or PhotoTools Professional Edition (this effect is in both versions).

Next, go to the Image Optimize section and choose onOne Digital Fill Flash.

Double click on the Digital Fill Flash effect and it will be added to your stack. You can see that we will get some improvement in the middle of the photo where it is too dark.

It is still a little dark for my preference so the next thing I did was to adjust the Fade slider to increase the strength of the Digital Fill Flash effect. By default it is set to 50% but I'll move it all the way up to 100%.

It's still just a little too dark for me. Not much, but enough that it will bug me if I don't fix it. I can't move the slider up past 100 but one of the cool things about PhotoTools is that it lets me stack multiple effects together. In this case, I'm just going to stack the Digital Fill Flash effect again to deal with those pesky dark areas of my photo. So just double click the Digital Fill Flash again and you'll see that by default it sets the strength to 50% which I will leave alone this time.

Posted by Mike Wong at 2:52 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I've got a new Preset for PhotoTools Professional Edition that I'd like to share today. I was going through some pictures for a year end project and found this picture that I took in Central Oregon at a place called Black Butte Ranch. It's a shot of the Three Sisters mountains, part of the Cascade Mountain Range. I love it here. It's absolutely wonderful and we go every summer. Anyway...the original photo was a bit flat with some room for improvement. PhotoTools to the rescue.

I started off with an effect to improve the overall tone and then dropped the Kubota Radiant Landscape effect. I could have stopped there but decided to drop the Kubota Soft Glow effect which added a little more to the clouds. At that point, I stopped. Sometimes it's hard to stop, but that's the secret, knowing when to stop.

Here's the preset if you'd like to download it and use it. You'll need PhotoTools Professional Edition because of the use of Kevin Kubota's effects.

All images copyright Mike Wong 2007.

Posted by Mike Wong at 4:52 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I was recently going through some pictures that I took throughout 2007 as part of a year-end slide show, semi-movie project that I like to do for my family. While cruising through my Lightroom library, I stumbled upon this picture of my son that I took in October at one of his soccer games.

I really liked it for two reasons. First, I really liked the lighting - that late afternoon light in the fall can be really nice. Second, I liked it be because Nathan wasn't pulling a goofy face which is he prone to do at his age in just about every picture I take of him. The goofy faces are nice, but even a parent wants a straight face sometimes. Anyway, I thought it would make a good black and white photo so I quickly opened it up in Photoshop CS3 and the took it into PhotoTools Professional Edition.

I added two effects that Jack Davis created for PhotoTools. The first was a Black and White effect specifically designed for portraits (effect name: Davis-WOW Portrait-B&W). I then added the Davis-Diffuse Glow effect set to the Substantial Large setting because I really wanted to get a nice glow and blow out some of the highlights on the left side of Nathan's face so they would blend into the background. I know Jack would disagree with me about blowing out the highlights but I had almost blown them out in the original photo so I figured I might as well go to town and completely blow the highlights and get a cool effect. Finally, I added a small amount of sharpening with Jack's Davis-Portrait Sharpen effect set to Small. The result...

I really like this final result and when I printed it on my Epson R2400, I liked it even better. I can't wait to get the print home and put it up in my office.

Now if you would like to get this same type of look, you can either repeat those steps in PhotoTools Professional Edition - which will save you about 15 steps in Photoshop, or you can download this preset and import it into PhotoTools Professional Edition and get it with a simple double-click. Hope you enjoy it.

All images copyright Mike Wong 2007.

Posted by Mike Wong at 3:25 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

One of the best new features that came out in Adobe Photoshop CS3 was the addition of Smart Filters. The new Smart Filters feature allows you to have an editable filter. You can apply a Smart Filter and then you can go back later and edit the effect as opposed to having the effect be completely destructive on a layer. What's more, you can change the opacity of the filter, the blend mode and you can edit it with a layer mask that is added automatically.

Not all filters can be Smart Filters though. PhotoTune 2.2 for color correction, one of our latest plug-ins for Photoshop, can be used as a Smart Filter though. Here's how.

Step 1: Open your file and if necessary double click on the background layer to convert it to a non-backgroud layer. Next go to the Filter menu and choose Convert for Smart Filters.

Step 2: Launch PhotoTune and make your adjustments using the six step color correction wizard. Click Apply.

I'm only showing the final step of PhotoTune here in this tutorial.

When you apply the filter, you'll go back to Photoshop and you'll see that your layers palette now has two indented items under the primary layer that we started working on.

The Smart Filters layer has a white layer mask so that all of the filter effect is visible. Remember with layer masks that White reveals and Black conceals. You will also see the ColorTune 2 filter under the layer mask. The white layer mask is revealing all of the ColorTune/PhotoTune filter. You could select a brush, set the color to black and paint on the layer mask to hide portions of the PhotoTune effect.

Step 3: Edit Your Smart Filter (Optional)

This step is optional and may not be needed, but let's do it for the sake of the tutorial. Let's say you're not quite happy with some of the fine-tune settings you added after the PhotoTune six-step color correction wizard. You can easily make an adjustment without having to go through the color correction process again. To do this simplly double-click on the ColorTune 2 layer and you'll be sent back into the PhotoTune ColorTune filter. Under the image on the right, click on the word Current and then selection Last Filter.

This will load up the previous settings so it is identical to what you saw before you double-clicked on the ColorTune 2 layer. Now, make any adjustments you want and click Apply.

That's all there is to it. Give it a try and also be sure to try this with any other Smart Filter compatible filter. I think you'll find it's a great new way to work!

Posted by Mike Wong at 5:23 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I've always liked the idea of creating panorama photographs. About 10 years ago, I bought a small travel (film) camera that had a "panorama" feature that essentially was a switch that you would slide to one side or the other and when you looked through the viewfinder, voila! You had a pano shot. Well, not really, two pieces of black plastic just came in and cropped your viewfinder and then the developer at the foto-mat would just cut the film differently as it rolled down through the processor.

Well, things have changed significantly in the past 10 years and we no longer need to resort to trying to fake a pano shot. While there are a wide variety of hardware-based accessories you can buy including specialized ball heads and slide rails for a tripod setup there are also some great software solutions as well including two new and improved ways to stitch together photos to create a panorama from within Photoshop CS3.

The Photomerge (found under File > Automate > Photomerge) feature was a great addition in Photoshop CS2 (I think it first came in CS2) but the problem I had (at least with my photos) was that I could never get it to blend the sky very well even with the Advanced Blending options. It was a dead give away that it had been stitched (poorly) together. The new Photomerge in CS3 now does a tremendous job of blending images together even if they had different exposure, shutter or aperture settings (which is what usually throws it off in the first place).

There's also another way to do this (isn't there always ANOTHER way to do something in Photoshop?) without using Photomerge. You can use the Auto-Align Layers and Auto-Blend Layers features in Photoshop CS3 and get great results (probably identical but I'll get to that in a moment).

You can download my demo file if you want to follow along (Manhattan-COMBO.psd.zip - 2.7 MB). This file has 5 layers that we'll align together using the Edit > Auto Align Layers feature. You can separate them out later if you want to use the Photomerge method. Here we go...

Step 1: Open the demo file and select all of the layers in the Layers palette by selecting the layer on the top and then hold the Shift key and then click on the layer on the bottom of the stack.

Step 2: In Photoshop CS3, go to the Edit Menu and choose Auto-Align Layers...

In the next dialog box, the default is set to Auto. You can try it but I've already played with this image and to me, I think the Cylindrical option works the best on this sample photo. Your mileage may vary depending on your photos including the lens you used, the subject matter, the distance and angle you were compared to the subject matter etc).

Click OK and Photoshop CS3 will do it's Auto-Align magic. The result will be something that looks like this.

Notice that you'll need to blend the image so the sky doesn't have those bad overlaps and the individual layers look like this in the layers palette:

Step 4: Make sure you have all of the layers selected and then choose Edit > Auto-Blend Layers.

There are no options here so just choose it and be prepared to be amazed at what Photoshop CS3 does. The engineers on this performed some pretty cool math. When it's all done, first, look at your image. Chances are, it looks great and the cool thing is that you didn't have to create any layer masks or do anything tricky to make it happen. However, Photoshop CS3 (and their engineers) did! Take a look at the layers palette and the layer masks it created. I'm stunned every time I see this on a different pano I create.

I created the pano using Photomerge and got an almost identical image. The layer masks were different because of the order in which Photomerge stacked the layers, but the end result was nearly, if not identical to the method above. So depending on which way you prefer, you have choices on how you want to make your pano.

Finally, I cropped my image and then added an effect or two to give the buildings a glow and then a Curves adjustment layer with a layer mask to darken the clouds a bit to make them a little more dramatic.

Click on the photo above to see a larger version.

Again, try this method as well as the Photomerge method. Photomerge is more automated and doesn't require you to have all of the desired images as their own layer in a single document to start (though it ends up doing that). The method outlined above is fun to do because you get to see it all come together easier. So maybe after you learn and see what's happening you can go for the faster more automated method. Either way, I hope you enjoy the new/improved feature in Photoshop CS3 and create some cool panoramas!

Posted by Mike Wong at 9:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Recently at the Adobe CS3 Creative License tour stop in New York, I demonstrated the Magic Brush feature of Mask Pro 4 and how you can use it effectively without manually picking any keep or drop colors. Lots of people asked me to do a tutorial on this so here it is! The tutorial requires the latest version of Apple's QuickTime so be sure you have the latest and greatest version installed.

(Watch the video | 32.9 MB | 14:11)

Posted by Mike Wong at 1:55 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

More on Lightroom today...I was over at the CreativePro.com site today and saw this story by Julieanne Kost on getting the most out of importing your photos into Lightroom. Threre's a 17-minute video you can watch that is hosted by Software Cinema. Here's the direct link to the movie - http://www.workshopsondemand.com/lightroom/s04/

Posted by Mike Wong at 11:26 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Before Lightroom came out (even as a beta) I started using Aperture on my MacBook Pro (work machine) and my Dual 2Ghz PowerMac G5 (primary home machine) to manage my photos and do any RAW adjustments on the files I shot with my Canon 20D. Before that, I had used iPhoto to manage and organize my photos including ordering 4x6 or 5x7 prints. In fact, my wife loves using iPhoto (and later Aperture) to order prints because as much as I love printing on my Epson R2400 or my Epson 3800, I don't like printing 80 4x6 prints of 50 different pictures. It's just too time consuming not to mention it somehow feels silly to print a 4x6 on a printer that can handle much larger prints.

Anyway, where I'm going with this is that I really liked (and still do) Aperture's organization features, the Light Table feature the way they handle "virtual" copies of files (one for B&W, one for color, etc) but the thing I liked the most was printing books and ordering prints. Again, it came down (like many things in my house) to what my wife (Chris) liked. However, what I didn't like about Aperture was the performance on my Dual 2Ghz G5. It was slow to do any kind of serious adjustments. Making similar adjustments in ACR or Lightroom are much faster (or at least feel that way - I haven't done any formal time tests).

So when Lightroom came out in beta, I started using both. When Lightroom 1.0 shipped, I started to just put my new photos into Lightroom (I don't want to use 2 apps to manage my photos if I can help it) which was great, but I suddenly lost the easy way to order prints and books. But there's a cool thing you can do with Lightroom and Aperture or iPhoto if you're on a Mac OS X computer.

I created a couple of Automator applications for Aperture and iPhoto that will import any files that show up in one of two folders on my Mac and then import them into either application into a project folder (Aperture) or photo album (iPhoto) and then delete the files that were placed into those temp folders. Next, I set up a couple of Export presets in Lightroom that will export selected photos and copy (that's important) those files to one of those two folders and then run one of the two Automator actions. This makes my life easier now because I can do my organizing and photo developing in Lightroom yet still get my selected photos into either Aperture or iPhoto so I can order books or prints or use them in any one of the iLife apps that I use at home (iWeb for example) or Keynote at work.

If you'd like to do this, first download one (or both) of the Automator actions. Download the one for Aperture here and the one for iPhoto here. Put the file(s) you downloaded into the following folder on your Mac.

~username/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Export Actions

If you use the Automator files I've provided, be sure to have a project or a photo album called "Lightroom" in your app of choice or edit the Automator action to use the album name you want.

Next, launch Lightroom and create a couple (or just one) new Export Presets. To do this, select a photo or photos and then go to the File menu and choose Export... (or press Cmd-Shift-E). In the dialog box that appears, you'll create a new preset. Choose a folder (any folder) where you want the files to be copied to, adjust your settings to your liking and then at the bottom of the dialog, in the Post-Processing section from the drop down menu choose one of the Automator actions. This tells Lightroom to do that action (whatever it is) once all of the files have been copied and processed to the new location. You can save this export preset as well for easier use in the future.

So there you have it. A great way to get any photos out of Lightroom and into Aperture or iPhoto!

Posted by Mike Wong at 9:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

One of the most exciting new features in Genuine Fractals 5.0 is the exposure of two controls that let you fine tune your scaling results: Gain & Threshold. But what are they and what do they do? Read on to find out...

Continue reading "Genuine Fractals 5.0 - Gain & Threshold" »

Posted by Mike Wong at 3:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

We just finished up the Imaging USA Expo and after a one day delay due to the crazy ice storm, I'm on my way home, only to get stuck (again) in Dallas. Oh well, I'll use this extra time on the ground - with Internet access - to share my method of creating the ever-popular Sloppy Border look using PhotoFrame Pro 3. I did a lot of this at the Imaging USA Expo this week and lots of people asked me how I did it, so here it is...we'll work with this original image.

Step 1 - In Photoshop, open your image and then go into PhotoFrame Pro 3. To get the sloppy border look, I think that some of the Brush edges from Volume 1 work best, but you should feel free to experiment with other frames.

Step 2 - To start, apply your frame by double clicking on the frame you like in the Frame Browser and set the color to black using the Background palette. Adjust the frame so the inside edge is where you want it.

You can use the Size slider in the Background palette or you can adjust each side individually using the "handles" on the frame. When you do, it will look something like this:

Step 3 - After you've added your first frame, next add one of the Vignette frames (look in Volume 1 > Vignette or do a search for Vignette).

Leave the background color setting to white, but - and this is the most important part - change the Blend mode to Multiply. When you do this, the white Vignette frame will hide any part of the underlying frame that has a background color set to black. So for a moment, it may appear that you do not have any frame applied at all.

To start to reveal the underlying Brush frame, increase the size of the Vignette frame using either the Size slider in the Background palette or grab the handles and move them independently.

You can get even more creative by adding multiple frames below the Vignette layer and setting the background color to black and adjusting the size to reveal or hide more or less of the frame.

In this case, I've added another frame layer with the same brush frame (brush_08) and then in the Background palette, I clicked the Flip Horizontal button. This gave me the look I was going for.

Here's a screenshot of the Flip Horizontal button and what my PhotoFrame layer stack looks like.

Step 4 - I then sent this frame to my Photoshop layers palette by clicking the Apply to New Layer button. This is how I always apply new frames and recommend how you apply them to as it gives you the most flexibility as you'll see in a moment.

You might notice that in our almost-final image, the frame looks identical (or nearly so) on the left and right sides. This isn't what we want. So let's add a layer mask to our PhotoFrame layer and we'll paint away part of the frame.

Click the Add Layer Mask button in the Layers palette.

Set your foreground color to Black and select the brush tool. Adjust the brush settings to have a softer edge. I always adjust the brush opacity to about 50% and the brush flow to about 60% because this allows me to "build" up or down the desired effect. If these values were at 100% it would result in a very harsh look.

With the settings in place, brush over the part of the edge you would like to hide.

The key to this is to have fun, experiment and think about how you can use multiple frames together with the blend modes to truly create, one of a kind edge effects.

All images copyright Mike Wong 2007

Posted by Mike Wong at 7:49 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Metromac.org has posted a review of Corel's Painter IX and they have included how they have incorporated using Genuine Fractals into their Painter IX workflow. Of course, it includes a trip to Photoshop, but for those of you using Painter IX and choosing to do your printing through Photoshop, I thought you might be interested in this article.

Enjoy.

Posted by Mike Wong at 9:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If you haven't already seen this, the good people over at NAPP have put together a great site that covers all you need to know to get up to speed with Photoshop CS3. Be sure to check it out.

Posted by Mike Wong at 11:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

One of best things to do before you use PhotoFrame Pro is give yourself a little extra room to play with. To do that, increase your canvas size first. This will allow you to adust the size of the frame or frames that you're going to add to your photo.

You can do this yourself by going to Image > Canvas Size and then enter the amount you want to increase your canvas size by. Or you can download this Photoshop Action to increase your canvas size that we've got on our site. Just load the action and then run it before you use PhotoFrame.

Posted by Mike Wong at 10:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today, I was asked to settle a dispute between two of my co-workers. They were talking about a recent conversation had with a customer and one said that they were scaling an image with Genuine Fractals that was 20 feet by 30 feet at 300 ppi. One of my co-workers didn't think that Photoshop would let you save a file that big. So I was asked who was right? There was a lunch on the line here afterall.

The answer is that if you're using Photoshop CS2, you can indeed create a file that is 20 feet by 30 feet at 300 ppi - In fact you could go bigger if you wanted as long as you turn on the preference to enable large document support (.PSB files) in Photoshop's preferences. Doing so, you can go up to 300,000 pixels by 300,000 pixels. At 300 ppi, that's 1,000 inches or 83 and some odd feet. That's pretty big indeed.

In earlier versions of Photoshop, you were limited to 30,000 pixels in height and width and at 300 ppi, that's only 100 inches (8.3 feet) so, in a sense, both of my esteemed colleagues were correct depending on the version of Photoshop they were referring to.

So who should get the lunch? If you ask me...well, me. :-)

If you want to turn on PSB support, just go to your Photoshop Preferences and check the box to enable the large document format (see screenshot below).

Posted by Mike Wong at 4:15 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Show Summary:
Join the Photoshop Guys as they show you great photo retouching techniques.

Download Episode 45
Watch Episode 45

On an interesting (at least for me) side note, Adrian Quan was the winner from last week's episode. It just so happens that Adrian lives right here in Portland! I met Adrian while working for another company and he did some freelance design for us. Very nice guy and talented as well. Congrats AQ!

Posted by Mike Wong at 12:37 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I came across this site the other day called ApertureTricks.com. If you are an Aperture user, you should check it out.

Posted by Mike Wong at 9:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a great tip from PhotoshopSupport.com on removing red eye from your pictures.

Pretty clever use of a Channel Mixer layer and a layer mask. I love it.

Posted by Mike Wong at 11:33 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)