Make Light Real

Neil March 20th, 2009

70 new textures, backgrounds and creative goodness sponsored by the Beautiful Blurs Set

Here’s the soundtrack:

Here’s your free download:

5000 pixel longest side high resolution texture file download, moody image enhancement

• Comments(0)
• Free stuff , Real-light Overlays , Textures

Neil March 18th, 2009

What lies still is easy to grasp;
What lies far off is easy to anticipate;
What is brittle is easy to shatter;
What is small is easy to disperse.

Yet a tree broader than a man can
embrace is born of a tiny shoot;
A dam greater than a river can
overflow starts with a clod of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles begins at the spot under one’s feet.

Therefore deal with things before they happen;
Create order before there is confusion.

Tao Te Ching 64a

• Comments(0)
• Mind Like Water , Real-light Overlays , Tao

Neil January 26th, 2009

Everybody’s whining about the economy, but you have the ability to create your future

Don’t drop you cash on software upgrades, upgrade your brain power to produce better work!!

I’ll help motivate you with a few discounts!

One on One personalized photoshop instruction by computer to computer web conferencing software is discounted from $50/hr to $20/hr until April 30th!

Bleautiful Blur Overlays – Volume 2 – save $30 until March 31st

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

• Comments(0)
• Creativity , Inspiration , Real-light Overlays

Neil January 23rd, 2009

Blue Bokeh blobs from Deanna’s Lensbaby adventures

Download high resolution image for texture or overlay

• Comments(3)
• Free stuff , Real-light Overlays

Neil January 15th, 2009

A quick comparative set using LAB color mode and the ONE ACTION set: starting with the original file just out of raw conversion….

First we retouch the skin to taste, consider the light when you do (opensextensive skin retouch tutorial)!

After skin retouch we have a richer and more directional feel to the light.

A Black and white conversion using L*A*B* color mode for luminosity.  A very classy B+W conversion.  Once we’ve shown the client the expected results we can easily proof them something more artistic, and unexpected using Beautiful Blurs, or Lighting Overlays.

Here a basic texture file from the Bleautiful Blur Overlays – Volume 2 gives the picture a little blue juice which contrasts the warmth of the skin with a Photoshop layer mode of soft light.

the Lighting Overlays Disk 1 streaky image, gives the image a funky modern splash on the left side when I used a Photoshop Layer mode of screen.

There are two answers to why to be creative – one is from your own motivation, the other is to sell more to your clients.  With the ONE ACTION workflow you could complete this whole series in less than 3min simply saving out a JPEG at each stage.

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• Comments(0)
• Inspiration , learning , ONE Action , Photoshop Retouching , Real-light Overlays , Textures , Workflow

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 January 9th, 2009

Beautiful Blurs Volume 2 is out today…70 new textures, backgrounds and creative goodness

Bleautiful Blur Overlays – Volume 2

And now to the free download!

Beautiful Blurs Disk 2 – free sample

• Comments(1)
• Creativity , Free stuff , Real-light Overlays , Textures

Neil December 4th, 2008

Following in the footsteps of my retouching tutorials:

• Understanding the suggestive power of darkness
• Eye of the muse : photoshop retouching deconstructed

I know these are written to a more abstract level and so today I’d like to provide a more hands-on experience and so I have posted this L*A*B* colorspace photoshop file for you to download.  There are eleven layers in this file, from the starting image, on up through the finished look.

Let’s dig in

• Comments(8)
• Creativity , Hear the Shadows , How To: , Inspiration , ONE Action , Photoshop Retouching , Real-light Overlays , Self Assignment , Technical , Textures , Tutorials

Neil November 21st, 2008

If you shot this image – would you find something in it?

Photo Courtesy of Shane Snyder photojournalist

• Comments(1)
• contrast , Creativity , Curves Power , Hear the Shadows , How To: , Mind Like Water , Photoshop Retouching , Real-light Overlays , Textures , Tutorials

Neil November 10th, 2008

Free Texture package or anything else $40 will buy you from my online cart….

…for 40 unique users referred from the URL that you own.

To qualify

1. post your URL in the comments 
2. referrals are measured by google analytics and must be unique visitors
3. You’ll be e-mailed a gift certificate for the Create Cart when your URL shows 40
4. Only one gift cert per person – if you run a site with a lot of traffic, I’ll offer you a editorial review copy of my full workflow software.

• Comments(9)
• Free stuff , Real-light Overlays , Textures