Create a tilt-shift effect in Photoshop. More video tutorials are available on my blip.tv channel.

I came across this fine piece of machinery while walking around Balboa on a drizzly afternoon. This take-no-prisoners stallion features ape hangers, the requisite flames, oh…and a cup holder. Badass!

The first day of class is not unlike a first date. Nobody really knows where it’s going or what to expect from the whole thing. Last night was the first date for Photoshop for Photographers. I’m very pleased with the level of discussion for an opening night. If this is any indication of the rest of the semester, I think it’s going to be a blast. I started out simple, since we had a capacity crowd and there simply weren’t enough computers for everyone. So, rather than frustrate those relegated to seats in the aisles, I sort of eased into what’s hopefully going to be a fun and engaging course. After I gave a brief overview of what we’ll be doing, we took a look at Color Space and how important it is when processing your photos in Photoshop. For those of you who would like to learn a bit more about the Pro Photo Color Space and why it may be the best choice for you as a digital photographer, Luminous Landscape has an excellent article. Moving from Color Space, we looked at how the Bridge can quickly help you to organize, rate, and tag your entire photo library. Don’t forget that pressing Cmd+B (Ctrl+B on PC) after Shift-selecting a group of images gets you into that fantastic Review mode, and pressing the Spacebar from the Essentials view launches a full-screen view of your currently selected image.
Camera Raw is where the magic starts to happen. Not only does it allow you to correct and tweak the image to how you remember it (vs. how your camera “saw” it), but it also lets you make these changes non-destructively, which is incredibly valuable in a digital workflow. The changes (called “develop settings”) you make in Camera Raw may be tweaked and re-tweaked ad infinitum while preserving the original raw data captured by your camera’s sensor! What’s more, once you have arrived at settings that “work” for a particular photo (Presets for you LR users), you can copy and paste those settings to any number of additional photos in your library. Moving through the initial settings in Camera Raw finished off the slightly shortened opening night. I appreciate all of you coming out and hope that you’ll continue on through the entire course. Next week, we’ll dive a little deeper into making adjustments in Camera Raw before moving into Photoshop and really getting our hands dirty. If you have comments, questions, or ideas for video tutorials (you can see some of my video tutorials here on the blog or on my blip.tv channel), feel free to comment here or drop me an email. Thanks again for coming out. Now, just do the work!

Q AND A:
One of the excellent questions last night was whether or not the in-camera presets carried over into Camera Raw. The short answer is yes and no. It really depends on the camera, and whether or not it is supported in either Camera Raw or Adobe’s “DNG Profile” system, which is currently still in beta. The DNG Specification (currently 1.2) being championed by Adobe is an attempt to create a unified color profile for Raw image data, regardless of the camera manufacturer. To read more about the DNG Spec and Camera Raw, head over to Adobe Labs. There is also an excellent article on the subject of DNG and color HERE.

LINKS:
Real World Camera Raw – By Bruce Fraser
The latest version of Camera Raw (5.4) may be downloaded from Adobe HERE

I’ve got some updates to the blog in the works and wanted to give everyone a little preview of the new look and some of the new features I’m planning. Many of the changes are behind the scenes code type stuff, but some of them also include little look and feel tweaks. I’ll be adding a section for my design work to the new layout as well, so if you are looking for new media design, you will love what you see there. Also considering launching a new section (or site) for more detailed tutorials. These would be start to finish, step-by-step video tutorial projects that would also include all project files as well as a PDF of the steps for you to follow. I’m not sure if they will be priced individually, or on a monthly subscription basis. I’ll continue to do the free video tutorials, as well as the free quick tips in addition to these more detailed, project-based tutorials. If you have any thoughts or feedback, I’d love to hear it.