October 2013

Tonal Recovery in ACR

30/10/2013

Can photo restoration be done in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR)? Of course, you know it is. After all, you’ve seen it before, right? Up to a point, that is. You’re not going to be able to remove specks, spots, cracks and tears in ACR, so to be more precise, what you can do is add clarity. That’s it in a nutshell; restoration in ACR is all about clarity. So I suppose you could say that, no, photo restoration cannot be done in ACR, but tonal recovery most certainly can! [More]

Customize your Lightroom 5 Splash Screen

29/10/2013

A new and little-known feature in Lightroom 5 is that we now have the ability to customize the splash screen – the initial graphics that show up when the program starts. The default splash screen for Lightroom 5 is one that you’ve grown accustomed to, and it follows the Creative Cloud design style: [More]

Soft Border with Photoshop Selection Techniques

28/10/2013

This technique is one of those ones that acts as a starting point. Creating the soft border really is very simple when you know how, but how you use it has endless possibilities. From Blending Modes to colour, everything will have an impact on how your image is presented. [More]

Improve Quick Selections with Photoshop Refine Edge

25/10/2013

Today we'll examine how the Refine Edge command (also available as the "Mask Edge" command when working with layer masks in the Properties panel) can further improve our selections. While Quick Selection is fast and useful for selecting items that contrast strongly with surrounding elements in the frame, sometimes your subject may blend in with other elements. [More]

Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet

23/10/2013

Shortcut key combinations can speed up a workflow and keep creativity flowing uninterrupted. So regular users will make a point of learning a few, then discovering more as they progress.There’s lots of cheat sheets out there but what if you’ve changed the shortcut to something you find easier to remember? Well, Photoshop has a built in cheat sheet maker, it’s nothing fancy, but it can be quite handy. [More]

Creative Cloud – One Year On

21/10/2013

The Creative Cloud comprises of 37 apps, some powerhouses of creativity like Photoshop, others might sit on your desktop until you need to test, tweak, update or add to your mobile device. There’s also some online storage, 20 gigabytes toCC_Aps be precise. This is a nice amount, I’m not going to rave about it, I know a few people that would fill it in a thrice, but for getting your files from device to device, or to share with others it works well. For a little while CC users couldn’t sync and this was a frustration. Now though, its pretty seamless and works as expected. [More]

Review – OnOne Perfect Suite 8 Public Beta

17/10/2013

onOne software recently released a public-beta of their latest version of Perfect Photo Suite which could be a very significant point in the companies development as a maker of plugins for Photoshop, Lightroom & Aperture and a creator of a stand-alone processing application. I’ve downloaded a copy to have a play and see how it works. Now, obviously this is a public beta so there are some issues, bugs and blanks to be filled etc., so its impossible to make a proper judgement of what the final release will be like but we can get a reasonable idea of what the software will do. [More]

Photoshop Workspace Automation

15/10/2013

By default, Photoshop remembers the last workspace configuration you had active, and returns to that configuration when you restart the application. However, you might prefer to have Photoshop always start in one specific custom workspace configuration. Here's how to do it, with a simple action and the Script Events Manager. [More]

Auto Correct Verticals and Horizontals in ACR 8 and Lightroom 5

14/10/2013

In this video I take a look at a brand new feature to ACR 8 and Lightroom 5. With just one click ACR will correct the vertical and horizontal perspectives of your image. This works great for all kinds of images but especially architecture, with this feature your buildings will no longer “lean backwards”. [More]

Remove noise from video in Adobe Camera RAW

11/10/2013

With almost every DSLR now able to shoot amazing HD video, the worlds of stills photography and video are getting ever closer. Coming from a photographic background can be extremely useful when moving in to video. Both mediums require skills like composition, exposure control and understanding depth of field however there some things stills photographers take for granted that videographers do not. [More]