Creating a panoramic image using Photomerge

Large printed panoramic images are amazing. The days of spending hours manually blending and combing your photos are over. Photomerge is a powerful tool available in Photoshop CS4 that will do just as advertised, merge your photos together in a matter of seconds. This tutorial posted by Jay Kinhorn on Layers Magazine gives a great overview on how to use the action and get the best result. I really like his tip about zooming in and making sure your seams do not have any soft spots or aberrations, those are very apparent when printed large.

Photoshop CS4 Photomerge

In the new CS4, there are some minor improvements to the Photomerge function, including the new collage option. Jay Kinghorn goes over the different ways of bringing your images into photomerge, the layout options, and some quick tips for creating better quality panoramas.

Photoshop classes for photographers

Scott Condray of Visualville teaches Photoshop classes specifically designed for photographers. Since Photoshop is such a complex software, many new users become overwhelmed and do not know where to begin. Scott focuses on the tools that are specific to image editing. He keeps his class sizes small to ensure that every student fully grasps each session. Past students have told me they learned a great deal from Scott's instruction.

Scott has a 5 week course starting next Tuesday night, with spots still available. You can go to the Visualville's website for more information on how you can attend.

Our classes are designed for photographers, but are not limited to photographers. They are open to all who need to learn how to incorporate the power of this amazing software into their creative process.

• All of our classes are designed to meet the needs of photographers, both professional and amateur.
• Each class is designed to introduce students to key features of the program that can benefit both their creativity and productivity.

• Students learn at their own Visualville computer . In person instruction is supported by a class workbook of step by step exercises, and real world example images.

Photoshop tutorials for beauty retouching

Smashing Magazine posted a great list of 70 beauty retouching tutorials for Photoshop. Anything from how to smooth out wrinkles and skin tone to how to change someone's hair color. Many of them are video tutorials, so they are easy to follow along. They are also nicely organized by category to easily locate the problem area where you would like to improve your skills.

Beauty retouching is probably one of the most popular application areas in which Adobe Photoshop is used extensively. There are two simple reasons for that. First, Photoshop offers a variety of advanced tools to smooth out skin and hair, optimize body proportions and emphasize some beautiful details. And second, if you have some experience with Photoshop it is easy to learn the basics and quickly produce very impressive and beautiful results.

Of course, beauty-retouching is a quite deceptive art. The masters of Photoshop create illusions which are hard to tell apart — unless you have both a genuine photo and the final result in Photoshop and can directly compare them. In fact, every day we consume perfectly retouched stars and models online and offline which just look different in the real life.

Still, it is not the reason to avoid learning advanced Photoshop techniques for beauty-retouching and study examples of how it is done in practice. The list below presents both image-tutorials as well as video-tutorials. Most examples have a before-vs.-after-comparison and you can follow the modifications with Photoshop step-by-step.

42 foot HDR image from a 8 megapixel camera

This is a tale of Pete Carr and his quest to create a 42 foot HDR panoramic image for his client off of his 8 mp camera. Here, we are frequently the bearer of bad news, when we have to educate people on the limitations of their file size. You can learn a lot from Pete's process and what it took to get this file to image at full size. Since Pete was also trying to pull of that HDR look, he had to take triple the shots to overlap them. A total of 33 shots were combined to create the final image. Luckily he was able to use Photoshop CS3's panoramic seaming tool. He then used Genuine Fractals to beef up the resolution. It probably also helped that his client used wallpaper application (which has a lower DPI threshold).

Pete is right, "never say never", he was able to create a beautiful image that sets the perfect ambiance for his client's dining room. Found [Via]

The 42 foot wide Liverpool skyline HDR

You always see people discussing megapixels on forums and what you can print to. People saying they have a 8mp camera and it does A3 nicely. Which is fine for family portraits and things but when a client asks you to produce something 13 meters, 42 feet wide from an 8mp camera you of course say yes. I’ve printed to 1 meter before now without issue. The prints look great. So 13m? Easy. Ok so maybe not easy. You read articles about 50mp Hassleblads with sensors the size of TV’s that people use for advertising, for billboards. You never in your right mind think that you can use a simple mid-range DSLR with only 8mp to produce something 42 feet long and 9 feet high. Never say never though.

Underexposure correction

You can spend lots of time and money planning out your trip, but sometimes you just can't plan for the sun being behind the shot of the site you have been dying to visit. Making for an impossible lighting situation. A poorly exposed image can ruin what would be a picture perfect postcard shot. What can make it worse, is if the adjustments made in Photoshop to correct it are noticeable. Especially when making it in to a large print.

This tutorial posted by Sean Dugan on Layers magazine shows you how to correct your underexposed images with a combination of processing the raw file and Photoshop CS3. One very useful tip is where he shows you how to eliminate the halo or "blooming" you can get around the edge of an object where it meets the sky.

Photoshop CS3: Underexposure S.O.S.

Let’s face it, even though you should always try to get the best exposure in the camera so you don’t have to spend a lot of time fixing it in Photoshop, every once in a while you end up with a badly underexposed image. In this tutorial, we’ll focus on ways to improve a severely underexposed RAW file using both the controls in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop....

3 CHECK FOR ARTIFACTS AT 100% VIEW
Double-click the Zoom tool to zoom in to 100% and check for artifacts caused by the Fill Light adjustment. Use the Hand tool to scroll over to the far left side of the image. Dramatically lightening the image with Fill Light has produced an unnatural outline fringe around the temple roof. There’s also a noticeable purple coloration along the roof edges. This is called “blooming,” a digital capture phenomenon created by the overly bright sky behind the darker temple. The brightness of the sky pixels has “spilled over” onto the pixels of the roof edge. We’ll address the noise later.

Creating custom repeating patterns

PS Hero is a site dedicated to Photoshop tutorials. In this tutorial they give a simple step by step on how to create your own custom repeating pattern by using the Custom Shape Tool. If you would like more choices than what is standard in Photoshop, they even have links posted for free custom shapes available for download.

Although the tutorial was not written with this in mind, we thought another great use of this technique would be to create your own wallpaper design for your home, office, or studio. The possibilities are endless, and what a great way to add a subtle touch and personalize your space.

Creating Custom Patterns

In this Photoshop tutorial we will explore the wonderful world of repeating patterns while creating one from scratch using a Photoshop Custom Shape.

The tell tale signs of Photoshop work

Call me jaded, but I assume any image seen in advertising these days has had some 'work' done to it. If the Photoshop work is done well, it is almost like reading fiction, you can suspend disbelief long enough to imagine a world where no one has wrinkles and even super models can stand to have thinner thighs. Even at first glance you may not notice some tell tale signs of Photoshop work. Boing Boing in their post shared an article written by Scientific American that points out some ways to spot a Photoshop job. Also check out this page: Photo Tampering Throughout History.

HOWTO spot a photoshop job

Scientific American has a nice article listing the top five mistakes that photo-fakers make when they use photoshop to doctor piccies.

Surrounding lights reflect in eyes to form small white dots called specular highlights. The shape, color and location of these highlights tell us quite a bit about the lighting.

In 2006 a photo editor contacted me about a picture of American Idol stars that was scheduled for publication in his magazine (above). The specular highlights were quite different (insets).

The highlight position indicates where the light source is located (above left). As the direction to the light source (yellow arrow) moves from left to right, so do the specular highlights.

The highlights in the American Idol picture are so inconsistent that visual inspection is enough to infer the photograph has been doctored. Many cases, however, require a mathematical analysis. To determine light position precisely requires taking into account the shape of the eye and the relative orientation between the eye, camera and light. The orientation matters because eyes are not perfect spheres: the clear covering of the iris, or cornea, protrudes, which we model in software as a sphere whose center is offset from the center of the whites of the eye, or sclera (above right).

Keyboard shortcut cheat sheet

Using keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop can help you save valuable time. Who can remember all of them? Sometimes I am doing good to remember my cell phone number.

Photojojo found a great tool to help. These skins are available for Mac laptop and desktop keyboards. They are color coded for quick and easy identification. There are versions for Photoshop as well as other software packages.

Now you can free up some brain space for more important information...like that cell phone number.

The Fastest Way to Learn Keyboard Shortcuts for Photoshop, Aperture, FCP, and more

You know that Photoshop whiz kid friend of yours? The one that plays his keyboard like a Steinway as he dodges and burns his way to photographic perfection?

That could be you.

When we saw these custom-fitted keyboard skins for Macs*, we knew we had to have ‘em.

The color-coded covers show you all the hard-to-remember shortcuts for your favorite apps and are available for Photoshop, Aperture, Final Cut Pro, Pro Tools, After Effects, and Logic Pro.

You wouldn’t learn how to type with a keyboard with no letters on it.

So why learn key commands without seeing them right on your keys?

All resampling is not the same

With the powerful technology built in our LightJet 5000, we are able to take smaller files and make big prints out of them. The capabilities of the machine have amazed me more than once. I should learn to not be so surprised when I see a beautiful 24x36 print made from a 8x12 sized file, but I can't help but be impressed every time.

What if you are trying to take your file even larger, and need to (gasp) resample your file. Not all ways of resizing in Photoshop will produce the same results. The method you choose to use when resampling your image can have a big impact on the final quality of the output. Especially when you are making a big print.

It is a question I get from customers all the time, so I am pleased to be able to share this information. Stephen Romaniello teaches digital art for Pima Community College in Tucson, AZ. He wrote this article for the June issue of Digital Graphics magazine. A lot of great information on the best way to prep a file for large format output. Too much to post it all here, I urge you to read the whole article. Here are some excerpts.

The Bigger the Better

When an image is enlarged by resampling in Photoshop, the colors of the new pixels are determined by one of the five interpolation algorithms chosen from the Image Size dialog box....

Bicubic is a more precise method that assesses the values of the eight pixels that surround each pixel in the image. With these calculations, Bicubic produces even tonal variations. It's recommended for images that have smooth gradients. Bicubic Smoother is recommended for enlarging raster images. The core algorithm is bicubic interpolation, but it smoothes edge pixels and reduces softening by adding pixels of higher contrast in the inner areas. Bicubic Sharper is used for reducing the size of an image, and works by eliminating pixels. It too is based on bicubic interpolation, but it enhances the image by increasing the contrast of the edge pixels.

Light streaks in Photoshop

Spoon Graphics is a blog dedicated to all things graphic. They have some great tutorials and resources posted for photographers, graphic artists, or anyone who enjoys creating in a digital environment. This tutorial shows you how to create light streaks in Photoshop. They also have large resolution light streak files available for download if you want to take a short cut. Effects like this look amazing when printed on the FujiFlex or Metallic papers.

How to Create Intense Light Streaks in Photoshop:

A couple of Subscribers left their comment on a previous post that collated a range of inspiring graphic artwork from digital artists across the world. The commentors asked how the light stream effect on some of the pieces was created. I did a little research and picked up a couple of tips from similar tutorials to present a walkthrough on how to create intense light streaks flowing around an object or person.

Tutorial: Easy color match in Photoshop

This video shows a simple step by step way to match color when cutting and pasting an object in to a new background and make it look like it originated in that environment. Found [Via]



Photoshop Match Color (simple And Amazing Results) - video powered by Metacafe

A wealth of digital photography tutorials

I quite literally Stumbled Upon this website today. Sean T. McHugh on his site, Cambridge in Colour, posts a quite and extensive and comprehensive list of digital photography tutorials. He covers topics from understanding your camera, to Photoshop techniques, to how we perceive color, and many more. Lots of technical data, but written in a way that is easy for users at any level to understand and apply. A great resource!

Here is a little background on Sean:

To provide some background, much of this work was conducted while pursing my PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Cambridge. I have previously conducted undergraduate studies at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, also in chemical engineering. My doctoral research focused on understanding reactive flow in multiphase plumes (applications to carbon dioxide sequestration, cloud growth and volcanic eruptions).

As a scientist by training, I am fascinated by the interaction between technological developments and the range of creative options available to photographers. Improvements in sensitivity, ex post facto white balance control and real-time feedback from digital imaging are providing photographers with unprecedented low-light capabilities. Much of this fascination has been channelled into finding unique times, perspectives and techniques for capturing many of these low-light scenes in Cambridge.

As part of the Cambridge University Photographic Society, I conducted student workshops relating to general camera and SLR technique, photographic post-processing and low-light photography. These included participants ranging from those with their first camera, to more seasoned users wishing to refine their techniques. I encourage you to contact me if you would like further information about joining the society.

Just how big is a pixel anyway?

Scott Condray from Visualville was kind enough to share this lesson plan with us from his Photoshop course. This knowledge combined with the fact that our LightJet images files at the equivalent of 4,000 dpi can be a powerful tool when preparing your files.

It’s Not The Size Of Your Pixel… It’s How You Use It!

In this Lesson we’ll explore the concepts of resolution, dpi and ppi.

A pixel is the smallest unit in a digital file. Digital files consist of a series of pixels running the length and width of the file, thus creating a two dimensional image. Open an image file in Photoshop and zoom in as close as you can, (1600% is the maximum) and you’ll be able to see the individual pixels that make up the image. The higher the number of usable pixels per inch, the higher the resolution. Resolution is more about the ability to show sharp image detail and less about the physical size of an image.

Digital capture devices, (Scanner and Digital Cameras) measure resolution in pixels per inch (ppi). Output devices, (photographic printers and printing presses) measure resolution in dots per inch (dpi) they are not equivalents. Scanners and digital cameras create pixels, not dots, however the pixels will eventually be output as dots.

For example:
A 300 pixel per inch scan, output on a printer with a 300-dpi resolution will yield a print that is one inch in size (one dot was created for each pixel).

It might be better to ask, “How big is a dot?” For a printer capable of printing 300dpi, each dot is 1/300 th of an inch. If you print a file that is 2400 pixels by 3000 pixels on a printer that prints 300 dpi, and the printer produces dots that are 1/300 th of an inch then one inch of paper will be printed for every 300 pixels in the file. The size of the print output will be 8 inches by 10 inches. How big is the pixel? 1/300 th of an inch.

If you output the same file on a printing press that produces a 600 dpi output each dot will be 1/600 th of an inch. With 3000 pixels in the file, the press will produce one inch of image on paper for every group of 600 pixels. The total output will be 4 by 5 inches. In both cases there are 2400 X 3000 pixels in the file, but one output device yielded an 8 X 10 and the other a 4 X 5. Which device produces the higher resolution… the printing press.

Think of resolution in another way. Digital files do not have any size other than the space they occupy. How big is an RGB file that is 2,400 by 3,000 pixels? About 20 MB. How big is that? The answer is we don’t know until those 2,400 by 3,000 pixels are output.

So how big is a Pixel? As big as you want it to be. Wouldn’t it be great if everything worked like that!

Realistic paint technique in Photoshop

This technique will make any image look like it was hand painted. Instead of deciding between oil or acrylic all you need to do this "painting" is Photoshop and a graphic tablet (mouse painting not recommended). A file prepared this way would look great on canvas or photo paper. It would be perfect for a shot of a child or a family portrait. You can a add your own personal touch, and it would make a great photo gift.

Photoshop Realistic Paint Technique: Posted by D Sheppard on Instructables

While doing a few digital paintings in Photoshop I developed a simple technique to somewhat emulate the look of real paintings using brushes in photoshop.

Probably the kind of thing "painter" would be used for, but heres what I do in photoshop.

This is very simple, but I've been asked a few times what precisely I did to get the look, so I thought I would share it.

Of course, while the technique is still simple, using it in practice takes time. Its not a filter or anything.

Color deconstructed

If you are interested in learning more in depth about RGB and color workflow, I have two good resources for you. The first is posted on photoshopessentials.com titled RGB Color and Color Channels Explained. The article breaks down how Photoshop 'sees' color and translates each color in to a number equivalent that represents what our eye perceives as red, blue, or green.

The second is a new self help guide released from Adobe that details the best color workflow in all the new Creative Suite 3 softwares. Kind of a long read, you might want to jump to page 21 if you only use Photoshop. [Via]

These articles should give you a better understanding of how color is created in Photoshop and how to get the best output from your files.

Make your images glow with the Orton Effect

This look, called the Orton Effect, was named after Michael Orton a photographer who was the first to use this technique by merging two images together; one in focus the other out of focus. Michael pioneered this method before the days of Photoshop. He originally used slide film to get his results. Now it can be done with a few simple steps in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or GIMP. This tutorial posted by PCIN.net is written for Photoshop Elements 5.0.

The Orton Effect - Digital Photography Tip of the Week

1. Open your image (Image 1)
2. Duplicate the background layer (Right click on the background layer and choose duplicate) and name that layer Sharp
3. Create another duplicate of the background layer.
4. Change the Blending mode of the Sharp Copy to screen
5. With the Sharp Copy layer selected, right click and choose Merge Down (Image 2)
6. Right click on the Sharp layer, choose Duplicate and name this layer Out of Focus
7. On the Filter Menu, choose Blur - Gaussian Blur (Image 3)
   Depending on the resolution of the image you are using, the amount of blue needed will change. Use enough that the shapes are still visible, but detail is not. For this 6.1 Megapixel image, a value of 15.9 was sufficient.
8. Change the blending mode of the Out Of Focus layer to Multiply. (Image 4)

This effect does a great job on portrait photography as well.

How to make half spheres in Photoshop

Here is a quick step by step tutorial on how to make half spheres in Photoshop courtesy of one of our For Sale Gallery artists, Kerry Randolph. The steps are typed out below. You can also check out this Flickr discussion group page for a larger image of the tutorial. Thanks Kerry!

Half Sphere Tutorial:

1. Make a Sphere
2. Duplicate Layer
3. Make an oval and Fill
4. Select it and Inverse
5. Delete upper half
6. Select inverse again and make a copy of the original sphere and put a motion blur on it to give it a cut in half look.
7. Select soft airbrush at 40% and fill in the bottom area of the oval.
8. Tilt as you wish.

Walla

Personalized music poster

This would be a great gift idea for any music lover. Or just a cool way to make a personal statement using your favorite bands as the backdrop. We would be happy to print it, of course.

Make a huge printable poster from your iTunes album art!

This is a instructable describing how to cumbersomely export your existing iTunes album art and arrange all the covers into a huge grid, leaving you with a gigantic, colourful and vibrant mishmash of popular culture ready for printing and, maybe later, your wall!

I decided I wanted to do this a couple of nights ago and now I've come up with a method, it's not really complicated but can be rather time-consuming depending on how large your library is.
I have around 800 albums with attached album art and it took at least an hour, granted most of that time is spent watching your computer doing all the work for you.

The process requires you to download some free applications (links supplied) and you also need a new-ish version of Photoshop (I use CS3) although I'll show you an alternate way of getting basically the same results with Google's free digital photo organizer, Picasa2.

Digital dentistry

Go ahead show those pearly whites. Or maybe they're not so white, well you can fix that. If only it were this easy in real life without spending hours in the dentist chair. Image Trends recently released two new Photoshop plug-ins that will automatically whiten teeth and remove skin glare. Two very common problems in portrait photography. Full write up by CNET.

Cheaper than a dentist: Photoshop teeth-whitening filter

The company's PearlyWhites and ShineOff plug-ins cost $49.95 each. The plug-ins work on Windows, but Mac OS X versions will be available later.

The filters can operate in a batch mode, allowing Photoshop users to edit large groups of images in bulk. The PearlyWhites plug-in doesn't need to be told where teeth are located--the often-laborious selection process. Instead, it applies its changes to white areas that it finds surrounded by flesh tones, said Michael Conley, vice president of marketing and sales.

Images that pop out at you

If you are a fan of DIY then Instructables is the place for you. They have thousands of tutorials. Everything from how to build a home made lava lamp to hand made alternatives to photo equipment. They also have some pretty cool Photoshop tutorials. This one shows you how to add a 3D effect to your images.

Creating a 3D effect with image editing software:

Here's how to make a neat effect to make it look like the subject of a photo is popping out of the background. This can be done with GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) or Photoshop.

step 1 Get a good base photo
A good base photo will have a prominent subject with strong lines, strong perspective, and an uncluttered background. You should also use as high a resolution image as possible.

This image doesn't have super strong perspective, but if you look at my other images, you'll see that an image with strong perspective works best.