Photoshop Tutorials: Perfect Photo Suite 6 Plugins

Jan 172012

Plugin Perfect

Recently, onOne Software announced a major upgrade to their collection of Photoshop plugins, called Perfect Photo Suite 6. Now at version 6.0.2, the suite includes major upgrades including Perfect Mask, Perfect Portrait, Perfect Layers (for Lightroom users), Focal Point 2, and more.

As I noted in an earlier post, onOne added major improvements including a brand new user interface for several of the plugins and brand new portrait retouching technology (we’ll talk about that in an upcoming post!). To share a few of the best features from my five favorite plugins, I teamed up with Peachpit.com to bring you some feature articles! Below you will find a summary for each article and link to each so that you can see if Perfect Photo Suite 6 is right for you.

Simulated Aperture Controls in Bokeh 2 (legacy UI)

Bokeh Power – Focal Point 2

Focal Point 2 works a bit like Photoshop’s Lens Blur effect except that it’s easier to control the depth of field and/or produce a nice looking bokeh effect for your backgrounds. It provides you with on-preview controls for managing the scope and angle of the blur effects, as well as a detailed group of simulated lens aperture controls to control the look of the bokeh (plus an aperture preview which is something that’s not been a part of Photoshop’s blur regimen). Creating Lens Blur Effects with Bokeh 2 will show you how easy and fun it is to get started with this plugin and the powerful Focus Bug technology.

Photoshop Tutorial: Selenium Toning with the Topaz BW Effects Plugin

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Dec 272011

Attention to details: Topaz BW Effects

Here’s another great way to use Topaz Labs Photoshop plugins to enhance your digital pictures. You may not realize it, but even for purists, there are traditional darkroom processes that can be simulated in the digital realm, and with powerful impact. BW Effects (a plugin for Lightroom and Photoshop) provides many options for creating and customizing black and white photos. For this example we look at how shots with a lot of detail and soft backgrounds can be enhanced using Selenium toning and other effects.

Lightroom Tutorial: Creative Focus with the Topaz Lens Effects 1.2 Plugin

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Dec 202011

Topaz Labs Lens Effects

Here’s another Lightroom technique that you can apply, using the newly updated Photoshop and Lightroom plugin from Topaz Labs, Lens Effects 2.1. This update contains new filters like Fog Effects, Reflection Effects, and more. Like Topaz Adjust 5, you can purchase this plugin separately or as part of the Topaz Plugin Bundle. To remind myself of more appealing climates and destinations than the midwestern U.S. in December, I recently wrote a tutorial for Lightroom Secrets that shows you how to draw the viewer’s eye to your subject using creative focus effects. You’ll see just how easy it is to create a round-trip workflow from Lightroom to Lens Effects and back, and quickly produce creative variations on your favorite shots!

Photoshop Tutorial: Scene Interpretation with the Topaz Adjust 5 Plugin

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Nov 292011

Working with Exposure Regions in Topaz Adjust 5

Recently Topaz Labs released a major update for their popular Photoshop plugin. Topaz Adjust 5 offers several useful improvements over the prior version, including: many new presets; the ability to apply adjustments locally with new brush technology; a new transparency control; improved performance, and a new Finishing Touches tab to add vignettes and similar effects at the end of the creative process.

I will be providing a detailed look at Adjust 5 as well as other plugins from Topaz Labs (and other developers) in the near future. To give you a taste, here is a quick tutorial I contributed to Dan Bailey’s photo blog recently, showing how simple it is to create new interpretations of a photograph using Adjust 5. Photoshop techniques like this are especially helpful with shots taken under low contrast lighting.

Artist Interview: Astrophotographer Brad Goldpaint

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Nov 102011

One of the most powerful forms of photography that can encourage us to consider our perspective on the world and humanity, is astrophotography. If you’re not familiar with the term, it refers (generally) to photographers who head out at night (away from urban light pollution) to photograph the night sky, including stars, meteors, planets and even parts of our own Milky Way Galaxy. It can also refer to capturing images of the cosmos from scientific observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope and others.

In light of this inspiring form of photography, I thought it would be great to do another interview. California native Brad Goldpaint (currently residing in Mt. Shasta) seemed like the perfect choice. I recently discovered his web site and images via Google+ and was instantly floored by many of them. I think you’ll agree as you examine some of his photos of the night sky, Brad’s insights are worth paying attention to for any aspiring astrophotographer.

The Mask & The Mirror © Brad Goldpaint

Q: Brad thanks for taking the time to discuss your photography. What made you decide to go into astrophotography? Do you have any background in astronomy? Any photographers in particular have an influence on your decision?

Absolutely, Dan. Thank you for having me! My passion for the night sky began during my early adolescence, when my father took me out into the California desert, far away from the city lights of our suburban home in Southern California. I fondly remember looking up to the dark skies as my dad pointed out the Hale-Bopp comet. The anomaly at the time looked like a “fuzzy star” to my young eyes and set in motion a desire to clearly capture special moments within the night sky, in relation to our natural surroundings. The specialness of father/son time and experiencing a new and different viewpoint of my world motivated me to begin self-studying the art of astro-photography… .

Lightroom Tutorial: Getting Started with the HDR Efex Pro Plugin

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Sep 062011

[Updated for 2012!]

Introduction

High Dynamic Range (or HDR) photography has been a hot topic in photography circles the last year or two. There is a very real debate about whether it’s “good” or “bad” (as with most heated debates, I believe the answer is: “it depends”). For my part, I think HDR photography can and will play a significant role in the evolution of digital photography.

The usefulness of any software technique is usually predicated on staying true to the scene and the artistic intent of your picture. If you can manage that with HDR, you’ll be in good shape! No software tool –HDR options included– can fix a poorly executed photo, but they can make a good photograph better.

The most important part of HDR photography is capturing the series of bracketed exposures, the data from which can be merged together to make a single photograph. The reason for the bracketing is so you can capture all the tonal details in the scene, from brightest to darkest and everything between.

A good rule of thumb is to vary the exposures by one stop and take additional shots on either side of a 0EV exposure. For example you might want to capture the following exposure values for your scene if it has a wide range of tones: -2EV -1EV 0EV +1EV and +2EV. A more extreme example are scenes like a downtown street at sunset or dusk, where most of the light from the sky is gone but the street lights are on, creating a mix of dark shadow details and brightly lit specular details that come from the cars and storefronts in the scene.

Capturing that entire scene would be impossible with a single exposure, even using the best cameras available. The difference between the lightest and darkest tones is simply too great. That’s where HDR Efex Pro comes in!

Photoshop Tutorial: 32-bit HDR Toning in Photoshop CS5

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Aug 172011

Introduction

The Merge to HDR Pro UI

A quick reminder: here is an example of the kind of tips you can get from Adobe Digital Imaging How-Tos…

HDR Toning is the process in Photoshop CS5 where you can create a 32-bit image from a series of exposures, and then use the new HDR Toning image adjustment to follow an HDR-like workflow. Normally if you tone map inside Merge to HDR Pro, the output must be 8 or 16-bit. This process offers a 32-bit alternative.

If you’re working in Photoshop right out of the gate, choose File > Automate > Merge to HDR Pro. If you’re working from Lightroom, select the bracketed exposures you want to use from the Grid view or Filmstrip, right-click, and choose Edit in > Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop. If you go with the first option, this will open a dialog box for browsing and selecting your files, and for automatically aligning them. Typically I find that if I’ve photographed my scene using a tripod and trigger release, I can get a good alignment result.

Once the merge has begun, Photoshop may take a couple minutes—depending on the size of your original files, how many you are attempting to merge, and the speed of your system—to bring all the shots together into the Merge to HDR Pro interface (right). Most of the controls you see above are also included in the HDR Toning adjustment, which we will be covering shortly. They include:

Remove Ghosts: Uses the image (thumbnail) you choose as the basis for eliminating any blur caused by moving objects (for example, a tree branch moving in the wind).
Mode pop-ups: Allows you to decide if your output will be 8, 16, or 32-bit, and which tone mapping method to use. In all cases, I prefer either 16- or 32-bit Local Adaptation, as it provides the most flexibility.
Edge Glow: These sliders control the HDR “glow” and halo effects you may be familiar with from HDR web sites and galleries, by manipulating local contrast. These are most often the “culprit” when an HDR image looks “fake” or “illustrated”, rather than captured with a camera.
Tone and Detail: these sliders allow you to set the look of the overall exposure, tone down blown out highlights, open up shadows, and add detail or perceived sharpness.
Color: These two controls allow you to modify the global color saturation and presence.
Curve: Allows you to fine-tune the contrast beyond what the Tone and Detail controls can do.

The thumbnails at the bottom left of the window represent your HDR exposures. When using Remove Ghosts they can be selected individually to eliminate blur or unwanted movement. Continue reading »

Artist Interview: Landscape Photographer Guy Tal

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Jul 082011

Petrified Velvet © Guy Tal

Welcome and thank you for doing this interview, Guy. As someone who is always inspired by great landscape photography, I think your images stand apart in many ways. Since I focus more on the technical side here (software), I thought it would be useful to share your creative insights.

Thank you, Dan! I appreciate the kind words and the opportunity to be featured on your site.

An obvious question first: what motivated you to go into photography as a medium? Living on the Colorado Plateau, you can explore a world that is not only beautiful but also unique in terms of North American landscapes.

It wasn’t so much a deliberate choice as an evolutionary process. I loved hiking and spending time outdoors since I was a child. At one point I decided to photograph interesting things [so I could] share them with friends, and I became passionate about photography. It took some years to recognize that there was more to it than pointing the camera at interesting things and managing a successful exposure, though.

Over the years, I studied the works of other photographers and became more aware of the importance of composition and visualization. When I was finally able to scan my images and edit them myself in Photoshop (version 2.5 running on a Silicon Graphics Indy system I had access to at work) I was able to complete the workflow from concept to print with little reliance on commercial labs. It was then that I began to realize the true creative potential of the medium… .

Living on the Colorado Plateau is no accident. From the first day I visited, I knew this was where I belonged and it took me a few years to be able to make my home here. It was not an easy feat to accomplish, which makes me appreciate it even more. I recently released a collection of Colorado Plateau portfolios in electronic format hoping that the new medium might help reach those who may not be as familiar with the place. It is a wild, beautiful and unique desert with a fascinating natural and human history and deserves to be appreciated and preserved. Continue reading »

Photoshop Tutorial: Working with the Silver Efex Pro 2 Plugin

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Jul 012011

UPDATED:

(This version of my Silver Efex Pro 2 tutorial provides clarification on a couple Contrast settings, whose behavior don’t closely match the official documentation, and corrects an “audio typo” where I referred to the plugin as Color Efex. Oops! It’s also shorter by a minute or two than the original.)

Another guest tutorial posted at DanBaileyPhoto.com recently focused on Silver Efex Pro 2, Nik Software’s popular plugin for creating professional quality black and white photographs from your color originals. Launched from Lightroom and Photoshop, Silver Efex Pro 2 offers a large selection of toning and detail options that give you complete control over the look of your picture. This is just a quick overview, but more detailed information will be published soon, showing you all the great features of this plugin app and explaining some of the minor quirks as well.

Photoshop Tutorial: Working with the Color Efex Pro 3 Plugin

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Jun 162011

Last month I posted a Photoshop tutorial at DanBaileyPhoto.com, and wanted to share that with you here. Color Efex Pro 3 is a powerful plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture that helps you to stylize your digital photos in more traditional and subtle ways, as compared to the typical set of “creative filters” you’ll find in other photo editing apps. It provides a wide range of color and tonal styling presets to choose from, and a deep set of controls to modify those presets and create the precise look you’re going for.

Photoshop Tutorial: Using Parametric Curves in ACR 6

Posted by Dan Moughamian

May 242011

Last month I posted a Photoshop tutorial over at TipSquirrel.com, focused on the Parametric Curve function in ACR, that seemed to resonate with people. So as I do occasionally, I thought it would be good to revisit that here as well. If you need to improve the contrast of a raw file, Parametric Curves are a great way to simplify the process of making a traditional Curves adjustment. Instead of “guestimating” and placing your points along an abstract line, you can use special Histogram widgets to define which range of tones constitute the “highlights”, the “middle tones”, and the “shadows”. From there making your correction is just a matter of moving a few sliders!

Mini-Review: Four Excellent Photoshop Plugins

Posted by Dan Moughamian

May 182011

One of My Favorite Plugins

Photoshop plugins (both the kind that operate within Lightroom and the kind that operate within Photoshop CS5) are an excellent and affordable way to extend and streamline specialized photographic workflows. Today we’ll take a look at a few of my favorites. Here’s the skinny:

1. HDR Efex Pro – from Nik Software, HDR Efex Pro is a relatively new plugin that provides a detailed but intuitive workflow for creating HDR images directly out of Lightroom or Photoshop, or from a standalone app. There are several things to like about this plugin but what I like the most are: the powerful controls over global and local contrast, an excellent array of presets, and an interface that will be familiar to anyone who uses other Nik products. I mention presets because with many photo applications, I find the presets for contrast and color and other effects to be WAY over the top. While there are a few “illustrative” presets that come with this product, many of them look great and basically cut the time required to process an image in half. You start with a preset and much of your work is already done for you; all that’s left is to modify the settings based on your vision and photo specifics, and you’re done! HDR Efex Pro is pretty snappy performance-wise too. Continue reading »

Photoshop Tutorial: Creating Bezier Selections (Pen Tool)

Posted by Dan Moughamian

May 132011

One of the Photoshop tools that scares people the most is using the Pen Tool to create Bezier paths, that you then convert into precise, contoured selections. But, it’s really pretty easy once you try it! Confusion often stems from the somewhat non-intuitive process of placing points along your subject’s edge, and then dragging the handle around to shape the connecting segments. But hopefully after watching this brief video tutorial, you’ll see how easy it can be!

Review: Photomatix Pro 4.0.2 (HDR)

Posted by Dan Moughamian

May 052011

Photomatix Pro 4

HDR or High Dynamic Range imaging is a relatively new workflow in digital photography, designed to compensate for our modern cameras’ inability to capture the full range of tones in a scene (in a single exposure). Another way to put that is, the camera rarely captures everything that we perceive, in terms of tonal details that span from the very brightest to the very darkest areas. Essentially HDR is a “workaround” for this limitation; we can shoot a series of bracketed exposures with our camera (using a tripod and unchanging aperture and focus point), and then “merge” those exposures together with special software tools.

There are several good HDR software programs on the market, including a built-in HDR function inside of Photoshop CS5 (learn more in my book). But the one I’d like to focus on today is Photomatix from HDRSoft. There are two versions available, Photomatix Light 2.0 (which is a simpler version, demonstrated in one of my recent articles), and Photomatix Pro 4, which is the comprehensive version reviewed in this article. Continue reading »

Book Sale: Peachpit Earth Day Special – 40% Off Digital Imaging How-Tos!

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Apr 222011

[Links Updated] Peachpit, being the environmentally responsible and reader-friendly publishers that they are, are having a great Earth Day Sale, including my very own Lightroom and Photoshop reference for photographers: Adobe Digital Imaging How-Tos! This lasts through ~~April 30~~, May 3, so hurry!

So if you are looking for 100+ great ways to streamline your Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5 workflow, to create more compelling digital photographs, there’s no better time to check out the free tips, articles (and 5 Star Reviews!), and see if this book is for you. By purchasing this book you are helping Colortrails to continue its mission of providing quality (free) content for digital photographers around the globe. -Dan

REVIEW EXCERPT: “This how-to book for optimizing CS5 and LR3 is the right mix of written and visual instruction. Handy tips in the margins also provide a quick reference to best-practices for leveraging the power of these tools. The author organizes the information in a clear fashion with little room for newbies like me to get lost. I find the explanation of why a user may be interested in a particular very helpful as well. Over the course of the last few days I’ve established my preferences in both LR3 and CS5, streamlining my workflow. I’ve been able to improve upon my images using several of the post-processing techniques outlined in this book. A handy book to keep nearby when managing your post-production process.”

Replacing Colors in Photoshop CS5

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Apr 212011

Last week on the Colortrails Facebook Page, a few of my followers voted unanimously that the next free Photoshop tutorial should focus on image adjustments, so that’s what’s in store for your Earth (Week) tutorial! Image Adjustments are probably the single most important collection of Photoshop editing capabilities from a photography perspective, both because they allow for precise edits, and because they are non-destructive in nature.

We’re going to take a look at the Replace Color adjustment layer, which is handy when a portion of the subject doesn’t quite fit within the range of colors you intended, and you need to make a quick and accurate fix. It performs a similar function to the Hue sliders from the HSL controls in Lightroom and ACR, except that it gives you more control over which pixels are modified, and like all adjustment layers it provides the option of a layer mask for further precision.

Photoshop Tutorial: Understanding Alpha Channels

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Apr 122011

Alpha Channel. The phrase is enough to make some Photoshop users head to the nearest corner and curl up in the fetal position. It sounds more like nuclear physics than photography or creative process, doesn’t it? But alpha channels are a great help once you understand that they are just another type of selection!

They essentially serve the same purpose as a layer mask and look and work in pretty much the same way, as well, representing the selection as grayscale data. Both alpha channels and layer masks can be used to define the areas of your picture which should be protected or partially protected from specific edits, so they retain more of their original appearance. And like layer masks, alpha channels can also be saved with your document so that selections can be re-generated from them later.

But the best way to explain alpha channels is to show you a quick example of how I use them. Typically I use alpha channels when working with the Lens Blur filter, or the Content-Aware Scale command. We’ll take a look at the former option here. Continue reading »

Photoshop Tutorial: The Easy Way to Create Layer Masks

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Apr 042011

Layer Mask Tweaks via Refine Edge

As photographers one of the most important things we can do with Photoshop is learn how to quickly utilize the power of layer masks, especially with our adjustment layers. Layer masks allow us to localize the changes we make, so that a specific adjustment or even a specific filter or painting operation only affects one precise region of the image while maintaining appearances elsewhere.

For example: you may want to brighten up or saturate a person’s shirt, but no other part of the frame. Or you may want to change the shade of blue in the sky without changing the color character of other portions of the image. To see how easily you can accomplish this, head over to my tutorial at Dan Bailey’s photography blog.

As part of this process we’ll also take a look at the Refine Edge command, which can make our selections even more precise without a lot of manual tweaking. (You can learn more about adjustment layers and layer mask techniques in my Photoshop book from Adobe Press.)

Photoshop Tutorial: Creating Soft Focus Vignettes

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Mar 252011

Smart Filter + Box Blur + Layer Mask = Fun Photo Effect!

This tutorial covers a blurring technique that focuses the viewer’s attention on the central region of your picture, but unlike a crop or standard vignette, it does not do so by removing, or darkening the edges of the frame.

This technique tends to work best on shots where there is homogenous texture around the bottom and sides of the image so that seeing through the blur does not create streaks or distracting elements. The best part is you can accomplish this technique in 5 easy steps, and it will work in both Photoshop CS4 and CS5.

Photoshop Tutorial: Retouching with the Spot Healing Brush (Content-Aware)

Posted by Dan Moughamian

Mar 112011

One of my favorite Photoshop retouching techniques is to fix up unwanted glitches in my photographs with the Patch tool. However Patching on its own can have limits as you try to work around areas of high contrast texture. Sometimes additional steps such as cloning and then patching are required to create a natural looking texture and avoid odd looking blurs or bright spots.

Enter the Spot Healing Brush and the new Content-Aware mode in CS5. This feature allows the Spot Healing Brush to examine the areas of texture around your targeted glitch, and intelligently fill in with texture that has both accurate tone and color. The trick is to make your brush stroke wide enough to cover the edge of the object you’re removing, and to include some of the surrounding or connecting texture. Below you can see the difference between the standard Proximity Match mode and Content-Aware. No contest in many cases! (Or at least I’ve found that to be the case more often than not.)

Older Entries

Colortrails

Photoshop Tutorials: Perfect Photo Suite 6 Plugins

Plugin Perfect

Bokeh Power – Focal Point 2

Photoshop Tutorial: Selenium Toning with the Topaz BW Effects Plugin

Lightroom Tutorial: Creative Focus with the Topaz Lens Effects 1.2 Plugin

Photoshop Tutorial: Scene Interpretation with the Topaz Adjust 5 Plugin

Artist Interview: Astrophotographer Brad Goldpaint

Lightroom Tutorial: Getting Started with the HDR Efex Pro Plugin

Introduction

Photoshop Tutorial: 32-bit HDR Toning in Photoshop CS5

Introduction

Artist Interview: Landscape Photographer Guy Tal

Photoshop Tutorial: Working with the Silver Efex Pro 2 Plugin

Photoshop Tutorial: Working with the Color Efex Pro 3 Plugin

Photoshop Tutorial: Using Parametric Curves in ACR 6

Mini-Review: Four Excellent Photoshop Plugins

Photoshop Tutorial: Creating Bezier Selections (Pen Tool)

Review: Photomatix Pro 4.0.2 (HDR)

Book Sale: Peachpit Earth Day Special – 40% Off Digital Imaging How-Tos!

Replacing Colors in Photoshop CS5

Photoshop Tutorial: Understanding Alpha Channels

Photoshop Tutorial: The Easy Way to Create Layer Masks

Photoshop Tutorial: Creating Soft Focus Vignettes

Photoshop Tutorial: Retouching with the Spot Healing Brush (Content-Aware)

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