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.
Neil April 5th, 2008
I found these pictures in a Model Mayhem thread where a bunch of photographers were trading retouching tips
I saw these pictures, which look to be shot with a consumer digicam and on-board flash.
View the big one on flickr
Here is a before and after view of what I did with the image, finishing with a little texture overlay and warm B+W tone. I chose to abandon the color since the background was so bad and dark. I could have adjusted the skintones in color, but with that eye makeup - I would still have found it a difficult picture to like. By adjusting to B+W and using the fine tuned tonal controls over density in the Luminance channel, I was able to draw the attention straight to the eyes. The texture is a good way to add blur and interest over a nondescript and non-essential background. The texture appears visually as a surface element creating a sense of space between the print and the background. Thanks to the power of LAB color mode and the one action workflow I didn’t waste all day.
View the big one on flickr
Again here, I just want to emphasize that the ONE Action will always promote you getting to the essence of any particular shot. With the power of lab color, you can get at that essence more quickly and with less effort. As a point of discussion, I used the transform controls to level and improve the symmetry of Lilia’s face. After that I helped shape the upper cheek bones by lightening them, and providing a nice shadow under them to accentuate the and slim the face. Same process on the neck…. I applied a texture overlay here to help the head float in a luminous background that overlaps the shoulders. I only spent 5 minutes to achieve this affect with the ONE Action and my library of textures, but I’d charge my client at least $40.
Neil February 19th, 2008
Final image result:
Download the fiberglass insulation texture used in this tutorial. Visit Texture King.com
This photoshop tutorial attempts to mimic the traditional printing processes such as Daguerreotype, wet plate collodion, hand painted emulsion and filing the negative carrier for full frame prints. These traditional photographic processes created printing effect that were generated as light passed through the negative, or print material leaving artifacts of hand made imperfection. Modern printing papers such as Innova, Hahnemuhle Paper, and Moab offer the digital artist a fast and tactile solution for creating wonderfully warm pieces in Photoshop.
So the object in Photoshop is to use layers and blending modes to create the effect of light passing through an imperfect emulsion. To do this you will need at least two layers, one in a darkening type mode such as Darken, Multiply, Hard light, or normal mode with light pixels erased. To finish the effect realistically, a second border must be applied over the darkening border so that the two borders interact three dimensionally.
Other shot’s I’ve created borders for:
You can download some border and edge effects from several Flickr Groups….
Neil February 15th, 2008
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
If you have any trouble viewing this video you may try the alternate video on YouTube at this link.
OK, OK - so no complaining - it’s my first screen cast. I’m getting the hang of it.
So here’s the finished image from the intro video run through the ONE Action.
