Awesome Photoshop Fridge Magnets via ThinkGeek

Admittedly, I’ve seen some shocking examples of HDR and it’s really easy to overdo the effect. In fact if you were to ask a group of people what an HDR image looks like, you’re likely to get wildly different opinions on the subject. There seems to be a trend emerging to use the HDR processing technique to turn normal photographs into something else entirely. Photography may have been the starting point for these images, but it seems to be veering into the crazy world of fine art.

The majority of HDR shots that I’ve seen look way overdone. The colours either look overly saturated to the point of garish or curiously have very weak pastel shades. There will quite often be strange halos and a weird, sort of ‘blooming’ effect. Personally, I think this stuff look awful. It’s really quick and easy to get results like that. It seems to me that all the detail that was revealed in those dark and light areas is being overused. Consequently making the entire image look quite flat, as it now lacks the depth that those light and dark areas provided.

A lot of people seem compelled to defend really bad HDR images. They claim that all art is subjective and that declaring it good or bad is purely down to personal taste and opinion. At the same time you’ll find a lot of people quite willing to say that, actually, yes there are some pretty poor examples of HDR out there.

I’ve seen some awful images that have been created using HDR processing. But I don’t actually hate HDR as a technique because I’ve seen what can be achieved with it and I really believe that we shouldn’t be judging a technique by the worst examples of it, but by the best.

So what is HDR?

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.
It’s basically become a term used to describe a way to ‘digitally develop’ your photos using the tonal information contained in multiple exposures of the same shot.

An underexposed shot will reveal details in the light areas of the photo which would otherwise be lost. Equally, an overexposed shot will reveal details in the dark areas of the photo. The shot with a normal exposure won’t have all that information in those light and dark areas, so a composite image of all three exposures can retain the interesting details from all three shots.

A lot of cameras support auto exposure bracketing (AEB) which can be utilised for creating HDR shots. It’s a good idea to also use a tripod and cable release, otherwise the shots won’t be identical and you’ll have all sorts of problems lining them up when you come to combine them. AEB will take the shots with different exposures automatically, all you have to do is set the EV (exposure value) of those shots. Once you have the shots, you can use various methods to merge them into a single image. There is a popular piece of software called Photomatix which is designed to do just that.

Download a trial version and see if you like it.

I’ve seen some amazing examples of what can be achieved by using HDR post processing techniques and I would advise people to not dismiss all HDR photography based on a few bad examples of it.

Don’t make your mind up as to what it is, without knowing what it can be.

When you have paying clients they will often ask for amends and if you plan ahead, you can make life a lot easier for yourself. All of the editing you perform in photoshop should always be non destructive.

What does this actually mean?

It basically means that any adjustments or changes you make in photoshop never permanently alter the original image file. You should be able to easily re-adjust the changes without any problems.
Think about this for a second, if you were to continuously edit the original image you really back yourself into a corner. If you make changes that you’re later unhappy with, you’ll wanna be able to go back and start over. But if you overwrite the original file it’s lost forever and you won’t be able to. Now this is a fairly simple concept to grasp for most people, but non destructive editing means a lot more than just keeping a copy of the original image on it’s own layer.

Any adjustments you make to brightness/contrast/hue/colour/saturation or anything else, should never be applied directly to the original image if you can help it. This includes any filters you may want to use or any erasing that needs to be done. It can all be done in a way that remains editable at all times. By taking the time to learn about Adjustment Layers, Smart Objects, Smart Filters and Layer Masks you’ll have a lot more control over your images.

Don’t worry, it’s easier than it sounds.

When I started writing this blog, I figured it would be quite a nice idea to pass on some of the stuff I’ve picked up along the way.

However, I haven’t updated the blog in quite a while. This is mainly due to the fact that I’ve become somewhat disillusioned with the world of educational blogging.

It’s really easy to get hold of a copy of photoshop these days and it seems that everybody wants to show you how to use it. I first started this blog because I felt like I had quite a lot of really good advice to offer. Trouble is, so does everybody else. So how will you, the casual reader know if my advice is worth taking or not?

See, I’ve discovered that the internet can be a hotbed of misinformation. There are so many people out there that think they are qualified to teach others. On the one hand they should be applauded for their effort and some people really seem to appreciate their tutorials. But on the the other hand I’ve seen a lot of people share their bad habits and poor techniques. They post poorly constructed and poorly executed videos bumbling their way through techniques that they really haven’t got to grips with yet. Can beginners learn anything from beginners?

I’ve seen my fair share of tutorials and I’ve spent a long time learning various techniques and discovering professional working practices and I’m at a stage now where I can see when someone is teaching something that demonstrates a basic lack of knowledge and understanding. But how can a beginner determine a good tutorial from a not so good one? How can they tell which techniques are best? How can they tell if the advice being offered is valuable or amateurish? How will they choose what information to absorb and what to disregard?

Well, chances are they won’t. They’ll read through and follow tutorials with blind faith and enthusiasm and for the most part won’t realise the bad habits they could be picking up along the way.

So what can I do to stand out in the crowd and be noticed? How will anybody know that my blog is worth reading? If the techniques and advice I offer are any better than anyone else’s?

Well, I had an idea…

I never really liked the idea of step by step tutorials, they seem so rigid and structured. Different images require a different approach. I’ve always preferred the idea of general tips, tricks and techniques and I figured the best way to show really good techniques…

Is to show really bad ones.

If I start out by showing you the way I’ve seen some people demonstrating certain techniques and then explain a much better way, hopefully you’ll understand exactly why it’s better to do things a certain way.

Having heard about the potential problems with running CS3 on Mac OS X Leopard. I decided to wait before installing it. So I’m still running Tiger on my G5 just so that I can continue with any photoshop work without running into any problems.

It’s a little annoying actually as I really wanna put Leopard on there now, thankfully Adobe and Apple are working hard to fix the problem. The following message from Kirsten Harris (Abode Support Manager for Photoshop) has been posted on the Adobe Forums:

Changing values for type, brush, crop, lasso etc tools broken on Leopard

Kirsten Harris – 08:58pm Nov 15, 2007 Pacific

Adobe and Apple are working closely to provide a fix to a known issue running Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended on Mac OS X Leopard (v10.5.1). Currently, when you enter values in numerical fields to set sizes for the brush, crop, marquee, lasso, type, and other Photoshop CS3 tools, those values revert to previously entered values when you try to apply them.

While we have identified workarounds for some of the affected tools, this issue prevents people from working as precisely and intuitively as they expect. Providing a fix to customers is a top priority. Please note the following:

The fix will be provided through an update to Mac OS X Leopard. Consequently, it is not part of the Photoshop CS3 (10.0.1) update.

Apple is collaborating closely with us to get this fix incorporated into a Mac OS X Leopard update. No public schedule is available at this time, but both companies understand the urgency of this fix.
As soon as the appropriate update to Mac OS X Leopard is available, we will immediately alert our Photoshop users.

Affected Photoshop CS3 tools: Art History tool, Blur tool, Brush tool, Burn tool, Color Replacement tool, Clone tools (all), Crop tool, Dodge tool, Eraser tools (all), Gradient tool, Healing tools (all), History tool, Lasso tools (all), Line tool, Magic Wand tool, Marquee tools (all), Paint Bucket tool, Pencil tool, Polygon tool, Quick Selection tool, Red Eye tool, Rounded Rectangle tool, Sharpen tool, Smudge tool, Sponge tool, Slice tool, Type tool

Workaround for tools with sliders: Instead of typing in a number, use the sliders to change the value.

Workaround for tools with pop-up menus: Enter a value for the size but don’t press Return/Enter to apply the value. Instead, choose it from the top of the Size pop-up menu to commit it.

Workaround for tools which do not have sliders or pop-up menus: For certain tools, such as the Line tool, you may want to set up presets that you can load to set common sizes. Alternatively, you can restart Photoshop CS3 to clear the problem. You will then be able to enter values again. However, the issue typically re-surfaces quickly.

I’m talking about things like using the B key to select the Brush tool, M for the Marquee tool, S for the Stamp tool. These make sense, right? Well don’t expect them to all be this easy.

The rate at which you learn this stuff should develop naturally over time, you can’t be expected to remember all of them at once. As you use them more and more, eventually shortcuts will become second nature and you won’t even think about it.

More advanced stuff like using the command, option and shift keys to act as modifier keys for whichever tool you have selected, is probably the most useful aspect of keyboard shortcuts and will speed up your workflow considerably.

But if you only ever learn one shortcut make it this one.

SAVING you work frequently is something you should get in the habit of doing as early as possible. But we’re all human and we forget. It’s only when you’re busy doing something that you tend to forget to save as often as you should, and without warning Photoshop will throw a fit and close.

It can be demoralising to have this screen pop up when you haven’t saved for a while. It’s popped up and ruined my life one too many times and I just had to do something about it. I now have a little application running called PS SAVE whevever I’m working in photoshop.

Every 10 minutes a dialogue box will pop up saying:

Just click yes and everything is taken care of. That way, when photoshop throws a hissy fit (again) at least you’ll only lose 10 minutes of hard graft. Worth having eh? Oh hell yeah, it is trust me.
Why this hasn’t been integrated into photoshop yet I have no idea. It’s only when you’ve lost a good 2 or 3 hours of work that you’ll start to looking for a solutions like this.

Download PS SAVE

Saying you can spot something that’s been ‘photoshopped’ seems to imply some sort of failure with the program, when in fact the outcome of an image is actually wholly dependent upon the person using the program.

Adobe Photoshop is after all, just a program. An amazingly versatile, professional, industry standard program, no doubt. But a program just the same. It doesn’t actually do anything by itself. There’s no magic involved. Just a lot of hard work, passion and talent. Photoshop is just a tool. Much the same way that a paintbrush is just a tool. It can make a huge difference who’s wielding it. 
A bad painting doesn’t imply a bad paintbrush does it?

Of course the most successful work produced using photoshop will usually go unnoticed, but I guess that’s the true indication of success. That’s when you know you must be doing something right. My goal is to use photoshop to the extent of it’s abilities, or at least the extent of mine and create a little magic along the way.

So, how can you control how everyone else sees your images?
Well the short answer is….

You can’t.

Everybody has their brightness, colour and contrast set differently. Not only that but there’s a whole range of different monitors, LCD, CRT, PLASMA all made by different companies with different colour profiles. Even different browsers will display images with subtle variations to the colour and brightness. It’s completely out of your hands.

It’s frustrating that you can’t guarantee that everyone sees the same thing as you on their own computer screens but it’s comparable to music in a way. The Artists/Musicians can produce something… But they can’t control how people hear it. Whether they listen to it on a top notch expensive Audio Note system or a cheap old knackered tape deck. How the listener experiences it is completely out of their control.

So you have to let it go a little bit.
I used to worry about this issue a lot. I was really concerned that the (FF0000) red that I see on my screen is probably a whole lot different to the exact same value red that you see. Now this may not seem like a such a big deal, but when you think in terms of web design and corporate identity how do you guarantee that people see the correct colour?

Think of the RED and WHITE of VODAFONE, the PINK and BLACK of HMV, the GREEN and YELLOW of BP and the ORANGE of ORANGE! These are not colours that can be compromised.

But go to Google Image Search and type in vodafone logo and look at all the various shades of red!!!??!!

Shocking…

How about the Orange logo?

These variations are a result of people uploading images that they think are the correct colour, they possibly even look the correct colour on their monitor. I really think there should be some kind of image police to stop people from uploading such awful images.

I’m lucky enough these days to not have to be stuck using a cheap and nasty LCD like I have in the past. Now I have a mac with a 23” Cinema Display. It’s professional industry standard stuff and at least now I know that on my screen it looks how it should.

Only now, there’s another issue entirely…

Printing something so that it looks exactly the same as it does on the screen is a complicated process and there’s a pretty steep learning curve if you’re gonna attempt to understand it. I know the things that I need to know but to be honest, CYMK, RGB, colour profiles, resolution, Gamut, I have a very basic understanding of this side of things.

Luckily, for the most part a very basic understanding is all you really need because there’s a whole profession dedicated to this called pre-press.

HISTORY

Image editing has been around for a very long time. Many years ago traditional photo editing was known as photo retouching and was performed by extremely skilled individuals. They used various darkroom techniques to allow them to alter images such as double-exposure, piecing photos or negatives together, dodging and burning and scratching polaroids. But there’s only so much that these techniques could accomplish. Significantly modifying an image involved actually painting onto the photographs or negatives with ink or paint using an airbrush. Even though tools such as the airbrush are no longer used for photo retouching you’ll still hear a lot of people use the term ‘airbrushing’ to describe digital retouching.

The 1980s saw the advent of digital retouching and consequently a lot of the old techniques became obsolete. The late 1980s saw the first appearance of Adobe Photoshop running on the Apple Macintosh and traditional photo retouching largely became a thing of the past. Photoshop is seen by many as a digital dark room and many of the traditional techniques such as dodging and burning remain.

The way that images are edited now has changed somewhat from a few years back, but the reasons for editing an image remain pretty much the same.

WHY EDIT?

The main reason for editing or altering existing imagery is to improve the image beyond what was capable when the shot was taken with a camera. This can include a number of adjustments such as simple colour or perspective correction, changing brightness and contrast, hue and saturation as well as the removal of scratches, dust or blemishes to more drastic changes such as the removal of distracting elements to draw focus to the subject, improving overall composition or merging one or more individual images into a single file.

The are many reasons why an image is edited. The changes made will usually result in an improvement. Practically every image you see in todays popular media culture has had some work done to it. Movie stars, musicians, fashion models and the world of advertising are all heavily focused on image and the better that image can be made to look means the more power it has in delivering a message.

But now also consider how it would be possible for a Holiday company to alter imagery of your possible holiday destination. Imagery is used to sell either a product, a service or an idea, but when those images are altered to a point where they are no longer representative and are no longer a truthful depiction there can be repercussions.

There’s been a lot of controversy over the years about what is acceptable and how far you should go with image editing. The moral repercussions of deceiving the general public into believing what they see is a troublesome topic and I’ll tell you about some of the more well known cases over the next few weeks.