Category: Videos

Colours can be a very subjective thing, I might process a picture and push the colours towards the warm side, where as you might process the same picture but process the colours a bit cooler. On their own both pictures will look perfect, but viewing them side by side will highlight the colour difference.

Now you might ask the question, does that really matter? To which my answer would often be, no. If you’re happy with the colour then that’s fine. However there are certain times when getting the correct colour is absolutely vital.

Perfect colour rendition is vital if you’re a record photographer shooting, for example, a painting for a catalogue. But how many of us do that? No, the place I need perfect colour is shooting portraits and that’s why I use a grey card.

In my last blog post I reviewed the WhiBal card from Michael Tapes Design. In this post I’ll show you how I use the card in my Lightroom workflow.

Earlier in the year I had the chance to spend a day at the Hasselblad studios in London. I got some hands on time with their top of the range H4D-50 camera and shoot some photos. I also squeezed in some time to record a couple of videos. The first was on getting the perfect white background and this video is all about getting three looks from just one light.

When I first started studio lighting I made the classic mistake of buying four lights, opening all the boxes and setting all of them up at once. It was roughly at that point I realised that lighting was clearly much harder then I had first thought. There were lights pointing everywhere and despite several attempts, getting any sort of balance to the light was just to much for me to figure out.

So that’s why now, when I’m training photographers in studio lighting, I always start with just one light. From experience I’ve found that one light works wonders for learning the essentials of studio lighting and as you’ll see in the video below, there’s still plenty of creative options to be had.

If you’d like to learn more about studio lighting I run one to one (or small group) training sessions at my studio in West Sussex.

Back in September 2011 I held a camera training session at the Goodwood Revival. If you missed it, check out my blog post here.

I was guests of Geoff & Dan who were kind enough not only to arrange entry for us all, but also access to the reserved display area. That meant we could get up close and personal with some amazing cars.

Recently both Dan and Geoff sent me a load of their images, so I’ve thrown them together to make a short slideshow created with Proshow Producer.

If you watch closely you’ll see a slightly strange photo of me, Geoff & Dan (and no, we’re not the ones wearing the blue skirts)

There are many ways to turn a colour photo into a mono masterpiece in Photoshop, but in this tutorial I aim to keep some of the original colour and bring back through the black and white effect.

To achieve the final image I’ll be using the Color Range, which is an often overlooked selection tool that’s been around in Photoshop for a very long time. So if you’ve never tried it before, now’s a great time to give it a whirl.

 

In my last post I showed you how to install Pixel Bender from Adobe Labs. In this post I’ll show you how to add a brand new filter effect to Pixel Bender and then how to use it to create this amazing image. Believe it or not this photo started life as a snap of the clock on my office wall.

The filter we’re going to install is called the Droste effect and can be downloaded from Adobe’s Pixel Bender Exchange. Did I mention both the Pixel Bender plugin and the Droste filter are FREE!

Remember Pixel Bender doesn’t come with Photoshop as standard, so you’ll need to install it. Also you’ll need to be running either Photoshop CS5 or Photoshop CS4.

 

When Photoshop CS5 was launched it came with a whole raft of improvements and new features, but one area that was identical to Photoshop CS4 was its filters.

But Adobe hasn’t dropped the ball when it comes to filters, in fact they’ve been working hard in the background to develop a whole new generation of filters. Best of all you can download them right now for free.

Pixel Bender is a Photoshop plugin which uses the speed and power of your graphics card or GPU as it’s known.

You can download Pixel Bender from Adobe Labs, just make sure you get the right one for your copy of Photoshop (CS4, CS5, CS5.5)

To make life easier I’ve made a three minute video that shows you how it’s done.

Once installed go and checkout the amazing Oil Paint filter as used in my video below.

Last month Sam organised another mystery photo challenge for me. All I was told was it’s in London, it would be outside and take a couple of hours to complete. So I packed my trusty Canon 5D mark 2 with my usual Canon 24-105L lens but I also added a Canon 70-300 IS lens, which turned out to be a good call.

So the mystery location turned out to be the “London Olympic Walk” which was a guided walk with a large group of tourists being shown around the building site that will become the 2012 Olympic Park. But before we could admire the park itself we had a tour of the old industrial area outside the Olympic park and that’s what you’ll see in this video.

If like me you couldn’t paint a picture to save your life then you’ll love this easy to follow, three filter Photoshop effect.
Best of all everything is used is a standard feature of both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements (PSE).

So have a bit of fun with your photos and if you come up with some great photos upload them to your Facebook, Flickr or Google+ account and leave a link in the comments below.

It’s Halloween and that means children around the world will be dressing as ghosts, witches and wizards for an evening of spooky fun. I’m sure we’ll have the usual steady stream of kids knocking on our front door asking for a trick or treat. I’m tempted to offer them a free Photoshop tip, but I suspect their idea of a treat isn’t the same as mine… kids today!!!

Love or hate Halloween you have to admire one of its highlights. Pumpkin carving or Jack-O-Lanterns as they’re sometimes called, range from the classic jagged “scary” face through to ornate and artistic carvings.

In this video tutorial I’ll show you how to make a basic face on a photo of a pumpkin. I’ll add depth and texture to create a pretty realistic final effect.

Want to try this yourself? Download my pumpkin image from here: http://a.yfrog.com/img619/6639/7w2z9.jpg

Tomorrow evening (7.30pm 25th October 2011) I’ll be doing one of my favourite things… presenting one of my live photography/Photoshop seminars. The talk is entitled “Quick shots to great shots” and over the course of a few hours, I’ll be showing several of my favourite 15 minute photo challenge videos, followed by live Photoshop editing of the actual images taken during the making of the video.

It’s always a fun evening to do, but this time it gets an added twist as I’m presenting it at Winchester Photographic Society. Ironically, I visited Winchester last year to record one of the videos and I’ll be showing it during the talk. It was recorded inside Winchester Cathedral and I’m pretty sure many of the audience will have also taken some photos at the same place.

In case you missed it, here’s the video of Winchester Cathedral I’ll be showing…