Tag Archive for Photoshop CS5

naturephoto | January 2, 2011
One comment

Winter scenes at Mer Bleue

Here are photos taken at a recent outing at Mer Bleue Bog in Ottawa.

Winter tree silhouette against blue orange sky-HDR

This photo is made up of 3 images that were merged with Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro. To put the finishing touches on the HDR tone mapped image, the file was saved as a tiff file in Photoshop and then opened with Adobe Camera Raw 6.3.  If you’re like me and like making the bulk of your photo adjustments using Adobe Camera Raw, did you know that you can make use of all those familiar adjustments on your TIFF or JPG files as well.  This is a great way to make final color/contrast adjustments to your HDR images.

Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) Tip:  You can set ACR to open JPG and TIFF images and be able to make use of the same adjustments that you use against your raw files.

From Adobe Bridge, to specify Camera Raw preferences, choose Edit > Camera Raw Preferences (PC) or Adobe Bridge CS5 > Camera Raw Preferences (Mac).  At the bottom of the dialog there are two menus under the JPEG and  TIFF Handling headings.  These two menus have the same impact on their respective files formats.

This is how the TIFF selections impact the TIFF files when doing a double-click on these files in Bridge.

Disable TIFF support: You will not be able to open TIFF files using Adobe Camera Raw. This is the default setting.

Automatiacally Open TIFF with settings: TIFF files which have previously been modified using ACR will be automatically open with ACR, and TIFF files which have not been modified with ACR will be open by Photoshop

Automatically Open all supported  TIFFs: All TIFF files will be  automatically open using ACR unless they contain layers in which case they will open in Photoshop.

Read more

Category: Photo Techniques, Photos, Photoshop | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
naturephoto | October 11, 2010
2 comments

Fall Colors at Mer Bleue with HDR

I was out catching some landscape photos of fall colors at Mer Bleue Conservation area in Ottawa. I decided that I would shoot some photos to process them as HDR.

HDR horizontal fall landscape Mer Bleue Conservation Area Ottawa

What is HDR? HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. As the name indicates, an HDR photo is a photo that has increased dynamic range compared to a regular photo. In a conventional digital photo, the sensor’s capture abilities cannot match what your eyes sees in terms of contrast ratio. Your eyes/brain can easily adjust and see the full range of information within a scene. For example, in a scene where you have part of the scene in full sunlight and part in full shade, your eyes/brain will adjust and allow you to see the part of the scene lit by the sun and also the part of the scene that is in the shade. Unfortunately you camera cannot capture that full range of information. You will have to compromise and decide between one of:

1) Exposing your image for the sunlit portion of the scene and loose information detail in the shaded portion of your scene.

2) Exposing your image for the shaded portion of the scene and loose detail in the sunlit portion of the scene.

That is where HDR processing comes to the rescue. It allows merging multiple images that were captured at different exposure settings into a single photo covering a larger dynamic range that can look more like the scene you wanted to capture.

Note that many camera models are now being released with the ability to capture in-camera HDR images. Meaning that multiple exposures are taken when you take the picture and they are processed in-camera. However the technique that is explained here can be used with any camera that allows exposure adjustments because the image processing is done on a computer.

There are two main steps in making HDR photos: Capture and Post-processing.

Read more

Category: Photo Techniques, Photos, Photoshop | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
naturephoto | September 6, 2010
No comments

Smalltown rodeo photography

Smalltown rodeos are great for photography. Because they are smaller, you can get closer to the action more easily than at a larger rodeo. I went to a rodeo on a late August Sunday afternoon in St-Albert, a short drive outside Ottawa Ontario. This event was scheduled through the Rawhide Rodeo Company and was part of the St-Albert Curd Festival.

Cowgirl on the run

Cowgirl on the run

Although the shooting conditions looked less than ideal because it was a bit rainy.  The overcast sky actually provided good even lighting as opposed to the harsh/contrasty lighting conditions of a sunny day. Less light however means shooting at higher ISOs than on a sunny day. All photos were shot with a Canon 40D with a 100-300 5.6L lens. Most photos were shot at ISOs ranging between 400-800 in order to be able to shoot at acceptable shutter speeds for this slow lens. In order to help with stability, I used a monopod.  The monopod helps to get better panned shots as some of the included shots

In order to protect the camera and lens I made myself a protective cover using a large Ziploc bag and an elastic band. This worked well because the rain was quite light. As with any rain cover however, it works better when your lens is an internally focusing lens. In this case, the lens was not an internally focusing lens, so focusing caused the plastic bag to twist with focus which can prevent achieving the right focus…

One of the problems with shooting this type of event is getting a good backgroud. Using a fast shutter speed and freezing the action would mostly yield photos with a subject having very little definition with respect with the background.  The subject would blend in with the background.   In order to prevent having clear views of spectators as a background, I like to use a panning technique to get a relatively clear image with a blurred background.
Read more

Category: Photo Techniques, Photos, Photoshop | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
naturephoto | April 14, 2010
No comments

NAPP – Get the best in Photoshop resources and training

Join the National Association of Photoshop Professionals

Join the National Association of Photoshop Professionals

NAPP is the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Become a member and you get access to Video Tutorials, Tips & Tricks to expand your Photoshop knowledge. You also get a yearly subscription to Photoshop User Magazine, published 8 times a year, which is packed with essential information related to Photoshop. Your membership also allows you to get discounts on a wide selection of Books, DVDs, Hardware, Software, Training and more.
These are just a few of the advantages of joining NAPP, to join or learn more visit www.photoshopuser.com Register now and get a 15% discount on Adobe products!  Just in time to save on a Photoshop CS5 upgrade.

Category: Photoshop, Reviews | Tags: , , ,
naturephoto | April 12, 2010
One comment

Photoshop CS5 for photographers

Photoshop CS5

Photoshop CS5

Photoshop CS5 has officially been released today – April 12, 2010. It wasn’t a big secret, bits and pieces of the new features were available all over the web since the pre-announcement during the Orlando PhotoshopWorld in March.

According to many, this is one of the most significant Photoshop releases in terms of new and enhanced features in years.

Here is a list of new/enhanced features of interest to photographers compared Photoshop CS4.   All listed features are based on Photoshop CS5 (does not include Photoshop CS5 Extended features)

New in Photoshop CS5

  • Additive grain in Adobe Camera Raw (Who knew we needed to add grain to our photos!  Give your photos the film look)
  • Automatic lens correction (Will automatically make corrections based on some pre-defined Camera/Lens combinations that is extracted from your photo’s MetaData.)
  • Straighten Image tool
  • Truer Edge selection technology (You won’t have to pull your hair anymore when making selection that includes hair, fur or other fine details)
  • Color decontamination for selections (Part of new selection tool, will de-fringe colors that can show up at the edges of objects once removed from their background)
  • Selection and mask refinement tools
  • Content-Aware Fill/Healing (Deleted foreground elements in a photo automatically filled based on background.  With the right type of photo can be a huge time saver.  Healing brush also has content-aware options which looks like a great improvement for healing around well defined edges)
  • Puppet Warp (Allows movement of parts of a photo without having to worry about the background. Kind of allows a precise warp without distortions.)
  • New Adobe Camera Raw processing engine.  (Get better results when converting your old Raw files.  Icon indicates when image can be re-processed with new 2010 engine)

Enhanced in Photoshop CS5

  • Noise removal in Adobe Camera Raw (Looks like a major improvement in noise reduction.  Scott Kelby calls this enhancement, one of the biggest stars in CS5! )
  • HDR imaging (No need for Photomatix Pro anymore!  Can I get my money back?  Also included is a single image HDR Toning feature.  No need for Topaz Adjust either!)
  • B&W conversion
  • Post-crop vignetting (Added options to protect Highlights or Color, and better overall control)

References:
As always, to get great information on Photoshop, head over to the NAPP website. They have 17 videos at their free CS5 Learning Center
www.photoshopuser.com/cs5

Get a list of What’s new in Photoshop CS5 for photographers at Adobe.com

Feature comparison chart between Photoshop CS3, CS4 and CS5 at Adobe.com

Videos from AdobeTV on Photoshop CS5

Read more

Category: News, Photoshop | Tags: , , , ,