Mike Wong is the VP of Marketing at onOne Software, located in Portland, Oregon.
I was looking through a couple of our video tutorials for our Photoshop plugins the other day and it dawned on my just how many there are up there. We have 79 videos (in Flash and QuickTime format) that cover all of our plugins for Photoshop. Seventy-nine! Wow. I knew we had a lot, but I must admit, I didn't realize there were that many.
So be sure to head over to our Tutorials page and check them out! They're all free of course!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Chris Orwig has some new training available for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.1 and 1.2 over at the Lynda.com online training website.
According to Lynda.com, in Photoshop Lightroom 1.1 New Features, instructor and professional photographer Chris Orwig covers the latest additions to both version 1.1 and version 1.2. He explains how to work with each of the application's new features, including the updated interface, database catalogs, and modules. Chris also shares some useful tips and tricks along the way. Exercise files accompany the tutorials.
Topics include:
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!
Earlier this month at Photoshop World in Las Vegas, a new training company made their debut. The company is Xtrain (www.xtrain.com). They have some great trainers that they are working with including Rick Sammon, Ben Willmore, Jack Davis, Rob Sheppard, Taz Tally and the one and only Dr. Russell Brown. There are many more of course - click here to see the entire list of quality trainers.
If you haven't heard of Xtrain before or if you have and haven't seen any of their lessons, you owe it to yourself to head over to their site and do so. The quality of the video is higher than anything I've ever seen online in a training video. Also, the lessons are streaming QuickTime so if you have QuickTime Pro, you can actually save the movies to your computer and watch them when you are offline. I love this feature alone.
The training is good too. I recently watched Ben Willmore's class on HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography and learned a ton about it and can't wait to start playing with HDR.
Now, here's the discount. Xtrain is offering all onOne Software users (I'm assuming you are if you're reading this) a 15% discount on the subscription fee. Classes are $29.00 a month and with your onOne discount, it's only $24.65. A bargain for what you get in my opinion. To get your 15% discount, just type in the promo code onone in the shopping cart and you'll be all set.
If you want to see some free videos first before you sign up, I highly recommend the classes from Dr. Brown. They are hilarious and you'll learn a lot too. Those classes in particular show Xtrain's commitment to their pledge of providing Edutainment.
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!
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)
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/
Ever since we released our PhotoPresets with One-Click WOW! with Jack Davis, we have started getting more and more requests for taking some of our other plug-ins for Photoshop® over to Photoshop Lightroom™ - specifically Genuine Fractals and PhotoFrame Pro. That makes sense as you might think (or have already been telling us), but right now, there's no official support within Lightroom for plug-ins. But there is a way to get frames around your images when using the Print module within Lightroom.
To get a border or edge effect on your image when printing from Lightroom, you need to add a graphical identity plate. Once you add one (or two or three) you can access them from the Identity Plate section in the Print Module. Here's how to do it.
Step 1
Within Lightroom, go to the Lightroom menu and choose Identity Plate Setup...
Step 2
Make sure the checkbox to Enable the Identity Plate is checked and then choose the radio button to "Use a graphical identity plate".
Click the Locate File button and navigate through the dialog box to find the file you want to use. It's important that you use a PNG file that you have saved with transparency. This is the important part. I've found that a 600 pixel by 400 pixel file works pretty good. If you make the file too big, Lightroom slows down considerably when you try to access the frame in the Print module and can take a while to remove it using the Identity Plate Setup dialog. I've printed several different frames that started out as 600 x 400 pixels on images up to 13 x 19 inches on my Epson R2400 and they look good.
After you've chosen your file, go up to the pop-up menu next to the Enable check box, and choose Save As... at the bottom. Give it a name that will help you remember what it is and then click OK.
Step 3
After you've added the frames you want, select the image you want to print and then go to the Print module. Make any necessary adjustments for print size, sharpening, etc and then click on the checkbox (if it's not already checked) for the Identity Plate.
Look closely in the rectangle below the checkbox and in the lower right hand corner, you'll see an arrow pointing down. Click on it and a menu will appear with all of your custom Identity Plates.
Now, just choose the Identity Plate you want to use and it will show up on your image in the center of the Lightroom window. Use the Scale slider to adjust the size or you can grab a corner or side of the frame and adjust the size directly over the image to be printed. You can position the frame however you want.
I've created a bunch (20 to be precise) of frames using PhotoFrame Pro 3.1 in Photoshop CS3 and saved them out in the Identity Plate-friendly PNG format. You can download them here for free. Feel free to use them however you want within Lightroom.
If you download them and use them, please send me an email and let me know how you like them. I used a combination of frames from the Brush, Camera, Marker, Emulsion, Instant Film (aka Pola frames) and some traditional Vignette frames as well as a couple of simple 2 pixel stroke frames. I hope you enjoy them.
One more thing, if you install them and then want to remove them, that's simple. Go to the Identity Plate Setup dialog, click on the pop-up menu next to the Enable checkbox and click the Remove option. Lightroom will walk you through it from there.
[ Update 05-08-2007 ] See an earlier post from Sean McCormack on this technique with credit given to Andreas Noren as the first person (even before the Adobe engineers!) who discovered this technique.
Acme Educational (a.k.a. Vincent Versace & crew) have announced a new upcoming title from his DVD tutorial series. The new title is on Capture NX which is available from the Nikon site.
From the site:
"Using the critically acclaimed "Why to of How" approach pioneered in the Welcome To Oz: Following the RGB Road series, Vincent takes a look under the hood of Capure NX. This multi-DVD tutorial goes for the basics of how Capture NX is set up and works through advanced workflows of several of his most iconic images. In each lesson, Vincent will take you through how he created, or recreated in Capture NX, each image. In every lesson the viewer will be using the actual raw file that came off the camera, not a low resolution JPEG or TIFF. This multi-DVD set is designed to get you up to speed with an understanding of both why and how to use the most powerful RAW processor on the market today.
This series was shot at 720p High Definition Resolution along with a computer screen capture set to record at computer resolution, so not only will you be able to see how Vincent actually works on his Cintq® interactive pen display, but also watch the tutorials on your television and play the lessons back on your computer at computer resolution as well."
Pre-orders are currently being accepted for $44.95.
If this series is anything like the original Welcome To Oz lessons and book, you'll want to get a copy.
We're excited to announce that onOne Software has teamed up with Lynda.com to provide 1.5 hours of Mask Pro 4 video training available to all onOne Software users for free. That's right, free. Normally, Lynda.com charges for this type of content, but they're giving away this content to all onOne Software users. Just go to http://www.lynda.com/go/MaskPro and follow the instructions to get this content.
We feel that the best way to learn a new product is to watch a video of it in action. And the folks over at Lynda.com really know their stuff when it comes to teaching online. Be sure to check it out. If you don't have a copy of Mask Pro already, visit our downloads page and request a free 30-day demo. To add to that 30 days, onOne Software also offers a 30-day, no questions asked money back guarantee.
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
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.
In the spirit of the season, here's a quick way to turn that (boring) Haloween snapshot into something a little more interesting using PhotoFrame Pro 3. Here's a picture of the pumpkin I carved with my (then 3 year old) son a couple of years ago.
Nothing too exciting or unique about this picture. But let's take a second and add some frames from the Paranormal collection in PhotoFrame Pro 3 and it becomes a little spookier and more in the spirit of the holiday. The first thing I did was to increase my canvas size by 1 inch on all sides.
All I did was experiment with several different versions of the Paranormal frames. I layered several on top of each other and adjusted the size and blur of each just a little bit. There's no right or wrong here just have some fun.
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.
I ran across this cool tutorial today over on the Lunacore site on how to add a depth mask. Check it out. It's a great trick.
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!
I stumbled across this tutorial that shows you how to recreate the look you get from the Lomo LC-A cameras. Try this on some of your images. Here's one I did.
Coming soon to a tutorial website near you is a 4 minute movie tutorial for PhotoFrame 2.5 by Rick Sammon. We're very lucky to be working with Rick on a number of different things and we're very excited about this upcoming tutorial presented in the fun, high-energy style that Rick is famous for.
For more on Rick, you can check him out on our Pro Corner page or at http://www.rickspixelmagic.com
