HDR in Photomatix Pro 3.2 (Plugin Version)
I was looking for information on Photomatix recently and I found very little helpful information. There were 5 pages of YouTube videos but 90% of them weren’t very helpful. So many of the videos said thing like, “I don’t use this slider/option so just leave it as it is.” Or, “This is how I use the software. I’m not sure what this does.” Unacceptable!
I took it upon myself to give a better overview of the software. I did not get into the batch processing, or any of the other tools that are in the stand alone program. I looked only at the Lightroom Plugin in the overview/tutorial. As it is, I had to do this in three parts. What I do is I take an older set of bracketed images and show you how Photomatix can manipulate the merged HDR image. I then re-import the image back into Lightroom and Photoshop and take the process through to saving the final image.
Below is part one.
Click the link below it to see parts 2 and 3. Continue reading
Picking the Trash – 1 Handed Photoshop
First let me apologize for the lateness of my post. I spent last week reformatting and reloading my computer. And before anyone says I should use a Mac, A) I don’t like them and B) I chose to do the reformat, it wasn’t a crash. Every once in a while it helps to clean house and take out the garbage. That leads me to this weeks One Handed Photoshop tutorial.
Trash, garbage, crap. What makes an image any of these things? Do you delete or throw out “bad” images? If you do, STOP! If you don’t, its time to take a look at them again. I have always believed that all the images I take have some value, some how. I keep them all. I have over 40,000 on just one hard drive. That doesn’t include the hundreds of CDs and DVDs I have backups on or any of the negatives in that huge filing cabinet behind me.
Click the link to see what you can do with all that trash. Continue reading
Hear That Noise? – More 1 Handed Photoshop
In this week’s video tutorial I take a look at noise and the different ways to reduce it. In the past, I thought that Photoshop, Camera Raw or Lightroom could clean up noise fairly well, and they can. Severe noise was another story and I thought I was just stuck with it. But then I learned what 3rd party plugins could do.
Talk about a difference! I was able to save images that I thought were lost to the noise. I mean we were talking the image versions of a heavy metal concert. Then I had a shoot where I got nothing but noise all day long. Shot after shot of noise infested images.
Check out the video and what I do about noise by clicking the link. Continue reading
Itailian Press – Thank You.
It seems that the “Free Business Portraits for the Unemployed” is a great topic of discussion in the Italian media. I found out this morning that yesterday I was featured in a blog about jobs and employment. The article is here: blog.cercalavoro.it.
I have been in some of Italy’s top newspapers and I will be featured in a Italian magazine within the next week or two and now this as well.
I went ahead and used Google Translator to translate yesterday’s blog post into English. It’s not a perfect translation but you can get the point. If any of my readers know Italian and want to have a crack at translating more accurately let me know. In the mean time, click the link to read the English(ish) version (Thank you Google!).
1 Handed Photoshop Part 3 – Edge Effects
Well, I am still in a cast and I am still doing everything one handed. The advantage I have over last week is moving my fingers is easier so i may be able to get this post typed in in less than a day! Check back at the end and see how I did.
This week I thought we would do some finishing touches on our image of James, popular guy that he is, I am getting tired of looking at him. So this week its Edge Effects! It seems that everyone wants to know how to do the best edge effect. Well that depends on a few things, the image, the look you want and how you wan the image to be seen. All depend on you!
Click the link to see the video Continue reading
