Make Light Real

Neil November 9th, 2010

The trick to doing artistic photo retouching effects is to keep them simple.

In this image, I used an An image from my Organic Vignette package to bring a slight dreamy quality to the image.

I knew what I was looking for when I started, but let me outline the art theory principles behind what I ‘saw’ in my minds eye before I completed the image.

Hue

First, hue I knew that I wanted to blend and tie in the warm yellow skin tones, and the blues/purples of the grooms suit and boutonnière. The dreamlike quality of the image comes from the blended and smudged look of the tonalities so their close relationship in Hue is very important. The clever part of my texture sets is their interrelationships within the close Hue relationships-here that close relationship is yellow to orange, with a vignette in the complementary color of blue. Here is the sample image form the texture set for you to see what it looked like:

Luminance

If you notice carefully there is a rim of natural light on the bride’s right cheek – the sunshine was coming through trees near sunset, and the bride and groom had their backs to it. So the overall contrast in the luminance of this photo is not very high – that’s good for applying a lighting effect or texture…because you can trick the viewer more easily. So it’s important to note that I’m starting with an image basically lit by open shade…nice and soft. The Hue of the overlay image is important because I want a unified color theme – but also because it creates a brighter spot of sunlight (of sorts) on her dress. That dapple of bright highlight where her hair ends and the semicircle of her necklace dips rounds out the counterpoint of her smile in the composition.  The rest of the image’s contrast is burned down by the vignette pushing the viewer’s attention to the warm emotional embrace, and the warm sunshine dappled across their embrace.

The simple steps to getting this done in Photoshop is to use a “Hard Light” layer of somewhere between 15-25%.  You want to look to smudge the tones, but not make the texture file in any way prominent to the main  image’s subject matter.

• Comments(3)
• Color Theory , contrast , How To: , Inspiration , Photoshop Retouching , Real-light Overlays , Textures

Neil March 27th, 2009

Double header today!

In reference to creating vintage and antique photo effects, we want to achieve the elusive ‘light leak’ effect…

Click to download

Click to download

The ‘light leak’ effect is a partial bleaching or lightening of the image plane caused by a leak of light at exposure, development, printing, or uneven fading of the image in the aging or weathering process.  A light leak layer is included in the Vintage Multiple choice workflow action.

Click to purchase

To read a concise tutorial on creating the faded - light leaking look try this tutorial by Wharf 8

Now comes the toning of the image. Again, I used the curves layer to adjust the reds, blues and yellows as well as to slightly fade the image.

If you’d like the Golden Touch in your light leaking adventures – buy the texture set:

Click to purchase

Creative light leaky blessings this friday!

• Comments(1)
• Color Theory , Creativity , Free stuff , How To: , Real-light Overlays , Textures , Tutorials

Neil February 22nd, 2009

Totally funny video by Zeke

I mean Deke

Really – don’t fear the LAB Colorspace – it’s Zen beauty!!

• Comments(2)
• Color Theory , Inspiration , learning , Photoshop Retouching , Technical , Tutorials

Neil January 13th, 2009

Bleautiful Blur Overlays – Volume 2

The beautiful blurs can do a lot for your images! Read any of the online tutorials to get ideas:

The Beautiful blurs add to the creativity of any designer or photographer:

• Page Backgrounds
• Contrast modifying overlays for single photographs
• Color adding overlays for designs or photographs
• Website background images

70 High Resolution 16mp images for your creative project!

Soundtrack is “In McDonalds” by Burial

Available for immediate download – Liscensed for unlimited reproduction in any media with purchase from copyright holder Neil Cowleey ©2008 – Do not redistribute – liscense is non-transferable from original purchaser. Free Sample available here for download <–

• Comments(0)
• Color Theory , Photoshop Retouching , Real-light Overlays , Textures

Neil December 19th, 2008

Here’s a personal introduction for the Golden Touch Series

The Golden Touch package of products is my contribution to a holistic method of thinking and experimenting with a particular style of images/imagery.  The core training piece is a 720p HD training video that is my creative brainstorm + technical tips + workflow tricks + guided meditation.  I think it’s a unique experience and tremendous value at a running time of 1h.  The video training is my most hardcore advice on powerful color correcting tips that push color theory to the max; daily workflow advice from a guy who processes a few thousand images a week; to heartfelt searching and receiving inspiration. I believe this set of tools will pay you back 10 times your investment as you incorporate the golden look into your artistry.

The Golden Touch Series:

• Golden Touch Video Tutorial = training + inspiration $19 for 1hr HD video 
• Golden Touch Texture Package = working materials for altering your photos $39
• Complete Package – SAVE $10 – buy them all for $49
• Golden Touch Monochrome Photoshop Action <–free
• Golden Touch Texture sample <–free

Coming soon as a followup – the Vintage package

• Comments(2)
• Color Theory , Free stuff , Motivation , Tutorials

Neil November 5th, 2008

Blue Skies – Lightroom Preset – $9.00 – Buy and download instantly

Have some images from the summer that you’d like to prepare for an upcoming competion?

Get the most out of your blue colors in Adobe Lightroom presets available for immediate download.

Speed up your workflow keeping everything in Lightroom

If you’ve got a really hard image – or just want to stand out from other photographers by actually winning that contest you’re entering – get the deepest knowledge I can give you on manipulating your blue tones:

• Comments(0)
• Action download , Color Theory , Lightroom , Workflow

Neil October 29th, 2008

Here’s our starter image for this discussion:

here’s our finished image for this discussion:

Now you’re right that’s not the EXACT same image, but there’s just a moment’s difference – I couldn’t find the un-retouched version.

I did find a smaller resolution version – again the point of contention is the vanishing point in the composition.  You may compose this while you’re shooting – and it may be proper as you’re composing the environmental elements in your image – but what is the compelling ‘moment’ of the image?

His EYES!

• Comments(1)
• Color Theory , contrast , Hear the Shadows , How To: , Inspiration , ONE Action , Photoshop Retouching , Real-light Overlays , Textures , Tutorials

Neil May 23rd, 2008

I’m posting a friendly notice that I’ll be starting a reading discussion on Josef Alber’s “Interaction of Color” a masterwork of twentieth -century art education. If you’ve been missing the smell of rubber cement since art-school, or would like to struggle through some experiential learning about color buy the book through amazon or your local store. You’ll also need a set of colored papers you’ll need for the excercises, here’s a set of colors we can all work from as a group and you can pick up while you’re at amazon.

We’ll start the posts in the second week of June.

I look forward to gaining some understanding with you.

• Comments(0)
• Color Theory , learning

Neil May 16th, 2008

I realized again how much I love the color blue when VFXY had a blue theme week.

Ever wonder why blue is such a wonderful color?

Blue is the hardest color for camera sensors to capture, and the hardest color for CMYK printers to print.

So how we deal with it in Photoshop is of utmost importance.

We’re sitting here on this beautiful blue jewel hanging in the galaxy, wouldn’t it be great if you captured some of that uniqueness in your images?

If you’d like to continue learning about the possibilities to accentuate and control the blue channel, purchase the Beautiful Blues Screen cast Training video.

• Comments(6)
• Color Theory , How To: , ONE Action , Photoshop Retouching , Tutorials , Video

Neil April 23rd, 2008

Please join me in a meditation on ancient Hebrew scripture:

Genesis 1

The Beginning

1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2. Now the earth was ^[a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
4. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
5. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Well, where to start with all that.

First do you have any potential biases? Have you ever considered the truth contained in Hebrew scriptures? If you can find truth in the oldest spiritual text on the planet – then you might have a chance with a lens too. Clear your mind of any haze of skepticism and find the essence of these scriptures and how they may effect you.

Vs. 1 is an intro – kinda set’s the stage with the most important summary of all. Connect with God and you’ll connect with creativity itself, more on that later.

Vs. 2 – can you actually conceptualize nothingness? Try it – oops – no you can’t do that, because you exist – I kinda see this verse along those lines. A little gotcha joke, that teaches a lesson. Quantum physics is now just learning and informing us that the mind creates the universe……another very tricky catch22, that we all find the answer to when we die.

Vs. 3 – Ok so we’ve tackled some pretty major philosophical hurdles, what’s next? Well we know a few things about light now in the Twenty First century. We admit to knowing less about God so let’s put it together. E=mc² is the best explanation that we have so far. It’s no such thing as why – but a very nice how. Energy, can become matter if it’s moving fast/slow enough. Pretty cool so Genesis has it right, God created ‘light’ and there was matter all nice and tidy in His one substance. Those ancient people knew a bit of something about reality didn’t they! they just communicate it differently than we do.

Now let’s draw some parallels that are important for our craft. God’s first creation he used for our primary interface with the world. I don’t mean to Kinda tricky how he did that eh? We are created to interact with the light. Ponder the multidimensional wonder of that thought for a while since you’ve now realized that light gives us information, as well as creates the substance we inhabit.

But wait, I have to burst that wonderful thought bubble to break in that we don’t actually interact with the light anymore – we interact with the darkness. Yep, you’re responding to the darkness around you. The darkness tells you where your keyboard is; the darkness tells you where the subject in your viewfinder is; the darkness defines color and shape in your photographic prints. The study of visual perception has been around since the Greeks were able to guess that light came into our eyes, and the first photography book that really opened up my mind to understand the intricacy of how we see was Perception and Imaging by Richard Zakias. It is always my first recommendation for those seeking to study photography and understand building a photograph with visual elements.

So here you begin to understand the levels upon which I developed the concept and the motivation for this site – to Make Light Real

As another perspective on light as a key to metaphsyics, you can watch this clip by Bob Proctor

• Comments(2)
• Color Theory , Creativity , Inspiration , Philosophy , Photography Lighting , Technical