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Photoshop


framheim

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I honestly love this program. I know lots of folk use it already but seriously, it's amazing. Everyday I seem to find a new way to make my life easier using Photoshop. Maybe it's because I've not read the manual or had much tuition in it so no ones shown me the easy ways to do things but the day I worked out how batch processing worked was a majestic day. And I'm learning more about Bridge all the time. I've literally just saved myself days of work by finally figuring out something in Bridge.

So, anyone got any tips they'd like to share?

I'll start with a fairly easy one. If you're working in RAW and have a ton of images to play with from the same day which were all shot in the same lighting conditions then save the settings of the first one you do by clicking the little arrow in the top right of Adobe Raw. Saves a whole lot of time. You can also just copy the Raw settings in Bridge from your first one and paste them across a whole bunch of photo's by going to edit>apply camera raw settings>copy camera raw settings then hold down shift and go to the end of your photo's and select edit>apply camera raw settings>paste camera raw settings.

I know that might seem fairly obvious to some folk but no one had ever shown me so I'm sure it'll be helpful to someone. I should add that I'm using CS2 so earlier version of Photoshop may vary a bit.

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I did use photoshop but I then found THE GIMP!

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program

MUCH better IMHO!

but again it takes alittle to get into the way of it and im the same in finding new things every day!

Yea I've heard of Gimp. I'd like to give it a try sometime but I spend so much time trying to learn Photoshop and other packages that it's hard to fit other things in. I'd also rather get on top of packages which are likely to help my future employment prospects before getting into other ones.

What do you find better about Gimp?

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What do you find better about Gimp?

:laughing:

Photoshop is awesome. If you want to really see how deep you can go into it' realms then get a dvd from Guy Gowan. I went to his seminar in Glasgow, holy shit!

etntworld

There is also Yervant, he is basically the top wedding photographer in the world. Im going to his seminar in a couple of months time. Not only is he an amazing photographer, his use of Photoshop is awesome.

Yervant Photography

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:laughing:

Photoshop is awesome. If you want to really see how deep you can go into it' realms then get a dvd from Guy Gowan. I went to his seminar in Glasgow, holy shit!

etntworld

There is also Yervant, he is basically the top wedding photographer in the world. Im going to his seminar in a couple of months time. Not only is he an amazing photographer, his use of Photoshop is awesome.

Yervant Photography

that dvd looks quite interesting. i know a few retouching techniques but i've not practiced them much. i may check it out.

any photoshop tips hog?

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I love photoshop.

Like you, I'm finding out new things about it all the time. I shoot in nothing but RAW and the amount of things you can do is insane. Mind you, I don't like to do too much via the computer.

The things I normally use are levels, curves and channel mixer for converting to black and white. Oh and the good ol' clone tool for getting rid of unsightly marks.

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:laughing:

Photoshop is awesome. If you want to really see how deep you can go into it' realms then get a dvd from Guy Gowan. I went to his seminar in Glasgow, holy shit!

etntworld

There is also Yervant, he is basically the top wedding photographer in the world. Im going to his seminar in a couple of months time. Not only is he an amazing photographer, his use of Photoshop is awesome.

Yervant Photography

Both of those are top of the class. That's the sort of gubbins I aspire to.

It's a way of life for me - I've been using Photoshop for 8 years now - since version 3.0 - It never used layers and had hardly any interface - how it's changed over the years!

I don't think half the stuff I produce would be as good on a film camera. RAW + CS2 is an essential!

My motto is "you can polish a turd with Photoshop."

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Yea I've heard of Gimp. I'd like to give it a try sometime but I spend so much time trying to learn Photoshop and other packages that it's hard to fit other things in. I'd also rather get on top of packages which are likely to help my future employment prospects before getting into other ones.

What do you find better about Gimp?

emm not sure, just more comfartable in certain ways for my purposes. I still prob only use/know about 10% of GIMPs power. Leaning all the time, and ture about job prospects etc for you.

what "other packages" do you use?

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that dvd looks quite interesting. i know a few retouching techniques but i've not practiced them much. i may check it out.

any photoshop tips hog?

Depends what you want to know really man.

Here is one for smoothing face..

select areas around the face, section by section i.e. a cheek first, then the forehead etc. Use the lasso tool for this.

Then select the gaussian tool, I usually use it at around 1.7- 2.5. This blurs the skin and makes it smoother. Don't go near the eyes or the mouth, these should always be in focus, especially the eyes IMHO.

After you have done this, a little bit of diffuse glow helps smooth the face further.

I then use the unsharp tool. The unsharp tool should always be the final filter. It also adds a little bit of grain to the face, so it doesnt make the face look like a porcelian doll.

If you go to this guys site ..:: Atherton Photographic ::.. and visit the fashion section, he uses this process effectively (especially the model up a tree lol)

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Does GIMP fuck up anyone else's computer? It stopped my internet working.

how'd you post that message then? :p

Andy, I don't use much other packages. I'm trying to learn a bit of flash and some other bits and bobs but at the moment I'm concentrating on unleashing the full power of photoshop and finding out what all those options i never use do.

incidentally i got hold of some amazing plug ins which simulate film the other day. so much fun!

i also got a great book out of the library which details a whole bunch of pro tips for using adobe camera raw. i took it on holiday with me this past weekend and read it cover to cover much to the amusement of my fiance. some great tips though!

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Andy, I don't use much other packages. I'm trying to learn a bit of flash and some other bits and bobs but at the moment I'm concentrating on unleashing the full power of photoshop and finding out what all those options i never use do.

Adjusment layers and layer styles are really useful when you're putting together composites, along with the basic layer modes like multiply/dissolve/overlay etc where you're effectively using another image as a filter. I use CS3 and I've got no complaints about it.

I got Illustrator CS2 recently and it's fantastic, the livetrace feature is really useful because I used to have to do vector conversions in flash and import them into illustrator to acheive the same thing, which while it worked was a bit longwinded and less precise.

Illustrator, Photoshop and Blender are 3 apps I couldn't live without, I've used various versions of GIMP over the years in linux and it's just not up to scratch. Blender is probably the only opensource graphics app I've come across which is actually worth using, on linux or otherwise.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I now have CS3, looking forward to checking it out. Heard that the clone tool is better with some kind of preview thingy.

I dont keep bang up to date with every photoshop detail, I prefer to keep up with posing techniques, colour management etc. Photoshop IMHO is for finalising an image (if its for photography). Anything else is illustration.

Yes you can create images from nothing but if you are using photoshop for photos then its like an editing/tweaking tool.

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Some people think that you should simply go to "desaturate" for a b+w image...bullshit. There is even a technique to get an amazing sepia tone i.e. properly toned not just a desaturate then add red and yellow.

Guy Gowan seminar pawned everything I thought I knew about Photoshop.

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Some people think that you should simply go to "desaturate" for a b+w image...bullshit. There is even a technique to get an amazing sepia tone i.e. properly toned not just a desaturate then add red and yellow.

Guy Gowan seminar pawned everything I thought I knew about Photoshop.

yea i used to just desaturate then play with the contrast and brightness. i've since realised the benefit of using channel mixer instead.

i've also been having fun using a alien skin exposure which is a plug in which simulates different film types inlcuding my favourite black and white film, fuji acros.

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CS3 rocks. been using it all morning.

Got the "extended" version which is a photographers dream!

The 3 - D stuff looks worthy.

You can can export video to Flash - one of the benefits of Adobe taking over Macromedia I suppose.

The clone tool is far more intuative.

Only scratched the surface but it looks all good.

I cringe when I think back at all the time I wasted before using layer and quick masks!

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