Posted July 18th, 2008
by David Peters
by David Peters
There are only two things you have too know about the ExtendScript Toolkit program right now: Select target application, ExtendScript must know which application you are writing the script for. In the top left dropdown menu select Adobe Photoshop CS2 and if asked if you want top start it choose yes. Running script, to run a script you have written you press the button that looks like a play button. Reference documents All objects have different properties that can be set and methods that can be executed and right now you probably don’t know any of these, this is where the reference documents come in. The reference document for JavaScript contains information about all objects available in your scripts. Start with a blank photoshop document of size 1024*768 and white background. Choose the brush “rough round bristle” from the toolbar. Create a new layer and draw some lines. Right click on the new layer and choose “blending options”. Choose the values. DROP SHADOW INNER GLOW BEVEL AND EMBOSS; For “texture”, choose “satin” as the pattern. TEXTURE Now add some motion blur to this layer from filters > blur > motion blur. Similarly, add gaussian blur also to this layer with the radius around 72. Not so catchy yet. Well try this. Change the background color of the default layer as black by choosing Edit > Fill from menu. Now look at the output. Ahh, that looks much better, isn’t it ? You can add some text to this texturized background if you wish.
For those who do not know, Adobe Photoshop is a program designed to let people edit various images on their computers. Its primary purpose is to let people perform touch ups on pictures before printing them. Of course, each succeeding version of Adobe Photoshop included more and more tools which let people add effects and do various other things to their photographs. The Adobe Photoshop of today actually allows people to add sound and animation to their photographs for sharing on the internet. In the past, people who took bad pictures were stuck with them. A lot of things can go wrong in a picture. There’s the usual red-eye, skewed angles, shaky focus and others. Adobe Photoshop was the tool that made all of these things disappear. With Adobe Photoshop, people can take pictures like amateurs and still produce images like pros! However, like almost any other person who has been held back by the fear that the Photoshop CS might be too sophisticated and complicated to be learned, there is a need to first familiarize with the basic and the advanced functions of the software. Even Adobe Systems recognize the fact that its Photoshop CS offering is challenging to use. Do not fret. There are now numerous ways on how you could easily and conveniently get a tutorial for the software. You would logically not be able to learn how to use the computer program for yourself. However, there are many centers and firms that aim to provide crash courses and lessons for the initiative.
News photographers routinely process images using Adobe Photoshop software. But there has been a basic premise in the world of photojournalism that what was allowed in making prints in the pre-digital days of darkrooms is all that is acceptable today. Back in the days of the darkroom, we used very basic tools to develop prints. In black and white printing, the contrast of a picture was controlled by a paper’s grade. The higher the number of the paper, the higher the contrast. In the wire agency darkooms I’ve worked in, we typically used grades 3,4 and 5. We allowed “dodge and burn” to lighten or darken areas. A dodge tool was made by taping a small piece of cardboard the size of a quarter onto a paper clip. A burn tool was a piece of cardboard the size of an 810 sheet of paper with a hole in the center.
The burn, and sponge tools are hidden under the dodge tool in the toolbox. If one of these was used last, it will be on top, and the dodge tool will be hidden. To find it, click on the tool which is showing, and choose the one you want from the pop-up menu. The dodge tool will lighten the pixels dragged over according to the percentage chosen in the tool’s options bar [see below]. You can choose to lighten highlights, midtones, or shadows. Each must be worked on separately; the tool does not work on all three at once.
Occasionally you have a photo with something that you don’t really want in it. Well now you can remove it with the spot healing tool. This tool will allow you to easily remove unwanted objects inside your photo. With the spot healing tool, you simply click on or drag across the flaw you want to remove and it disappears. The retouched area is blended into the surroundings seamlessly – most of the time anyway. It takes a little practice getting a feel for how brush size and healing work together, but most of the time it does an impressive job.
Photoshop is the dream machine for all photo enhancers and designers. Not only can you make any portrait look perfect, you can do it easily and convincingly once you know how. It’s always a good idea to make a new layer, an exact duplicate, of your photo before you ever start the enhancement process. That way, if you decide you need to undo several steps, you’ll always be able to quickly undo. Click “Layer” in the horizontal menu bar, click “Duplicate Layer,” then click “Ok.” Onward to the teeth-whitening.
Inside every program are things that people don’t often do, tools that aren’t used as much as they should be. The same applies to photoshop. In this case these aren’t being used enough. Turning a Photo Into a Work of Art. Everyone likes to have nice things to look at. Most of us like to have pictures on the wall, and something that looks different from what other people have on their walls is a definite plus. Unless you’re blessed with artistic talent, though, this can be very expensive – until now. Use one of Photoshop’s many Artistic or Brush Stroke filters to turn your photos into “new masters,” then print them out on quality art paper. Designing Web Banners and Buttons. Photoshop comes with a predefined web banner sized canvas. Photoshop’s sister application, Image Ready, comes with several – and lots of tools for animating text and pictures. You can also create interactive buttons that enhance a web browsing experience.
Tags: Photography Posted in Photography
Posted July 17th, 2008
by Vincent Manga
by Vincent Manga
Digital photography has revolutionised the way we take photographs. In particular the fact that we can now easily digitally edit photographs from the comfort of our own homes on our PCs. Digital photography software is now at the reach of all amateur photographers, not just the professionals like it once was.
Since digital photography has become mainstream, the number of digital photography editing software programmes from different software manufacturers on the market has become very numerous, catering for all the different needs and wants of society. For this reason deciding which digital photography software to purchase can be a hard decision.
With so many different photography software programs available, you will need to determine what features are important to you and what features are not so important. Quite a lot of the amateurs out there are quite happy to have simple basic and functional software where as the more professional or advanced photographers want more advanced controls for their editing.
One kind of photography editing software available focuses on providing tools specifically created with the artistically minded photographers in mind. These software programmes are generally not sophisticated enough for most professionals, but there tools can prove very useful to a lot of the more artistically minded amateur photographers out there.
A look at the more basic photography software
The way things stand right now, basic photography software is the most used in our world today. Generally in these programmes you will have the ability to perform basic edits to your digital photographs like resizing, cropping, redeye removal plus a few printing options and other basic editing tools.
Additionally these basic programmes will also quite often include options to add filters to your photographs and the ability to make your photographs black-and-white etc.
The key difference about these options in basic digital photography software as opposed to these options in professional digital photography software, is that in the basic photography software these options will give you limited control and will be more automated, making it easier for you, but at the same time limiting what you can do with the software.
If you just want to get started with some really basic editing software, by doing a Google search for something like “free digital photography software” you will find there are a number of free applications available. If you are just starting out, these programmes may well be perfect for you, but if you have any editing experience you are more than likely to find these applications too basic.
Once you have been using some basic photography software for some time, you will probably begin to get fed up with it’s basic functionality. What you want to do now is take note of what editing tools you wish to have more control over and what editing tools you wish to have that you don’t presently.
You can then go on the World Wide Web and research different photograph editing software and compare each package to see which is best suited to your everyday needs.
Remember that with the more complex and complete software packages you may have to put some time aside to learn how to use them and you will also have to pay a lot more for them.
Tags: Digital Photography Posted in Digital Photography
Posted July 16th, 2008
by Susannah Singer
by Susannah Singer
The bride and groom are usually so busy on their wedding day that without photos to remind them, many of the days events would be forgotten. Now with digital wedding photography, it is easy for wedding photographers to almost instantly save and show the couple the images from the wedding. Digital photography may have replaced film but people still like to see photographs they can handle!
If you are taking photographs without help, it isn’t easy to create that perfect shot as there is only so much you can do on your own. Ensuring photos taken with your digital camera are something special for your friends or relations on their big day might be a little easier once you have read the tips in this article.
If you only remember one piece of information from this article, remember to make sure that the photographs have a nice background as it is one of the first things you’ll notice when you look at them. Don’t worry too much if you can’t get a full body shot of the couple. One way to get around this problem is by taking a portrait shot of them.
Try to get guests that have spectacles on to either remove them or hold their head at an angle so that there isn’t a reflection obscuring their eyes. If you are shooting into the light, remember to compensate and increase the aperture otherwise the couple (or guests) will appear dark in the image.
Natural wedding photos always look better than staged ones but are more difficult to capture when you are too close. In this case a powerful zoom lens is a great advantage. Always be ready for the next wedding photograph because you can’t ask people to repeat those unforgettable moments that everybody wants to see again and again.
To ensure that no great moment is missed, your digital camera should be equipped with enough memory. In other words, make sure to have an extra memory card – especially if you want to preserve as many moments as possible. Something to go by is, if your camera has a 6 mega pixel resolution, you will need a large storage capacity card – a 1 gigabyte card should be sufficient – that will hold a few hundred shots at high resolution.
If you intend to have the pictures blown up to a large size you will need to ensure your cameras resolution is set to maximum. Storing the wedding images on a computer or CD will mean that you can print them off whenever you want but a presentation CD can be played back on a TV.
Capturing beautiful digital wedding photography shots will depend on how much you enjoy taking pictures and whether or not the couple mean anything to you.
Tags: Wedding Photography Posted in Wedding Photography
Posted July 16th, 2008
by Vincent Manga
by Vincent Manga
Digital photography has completely changed the way we go about photography. It has opened up so many options and advantages to professionals and amateurs alike. The ease with which we can now edit digital photographs with the aid of photography software on our personal computers for many is the most significant of all, since it has opened up a whole new graphical world.
Nowadays there are lots of different photography editing software packages available. Each software package attempts to fit the needs and wants of a particular demographic of people. For this reason deciding on which digital photography software to use is harder than ever.
You need to ask yourself what exactly you need in your software. For instance a considerable number of amateurs out there just want something quick and simple to use, they don’t want to spend weeks or months figuring out how to use their software and they don’t want to pay a fortune for it either.
If you are an amateur photographer who has a keen eye for artistic photography and editing, you may want to purchase a digital photography editing software package with your artistic eye in mind. Digital photography software with tools specifically for the more artistically minded photographers out there do exist, although this software may not be sophisticated enough for some of the pros.
A look at the more basic photography software
The way things stand right now, basic photography software is the most used in our world today. Generally in these programmes you will have the ability to perform basic edits to your digital photographs like resizing, cropping, redeye removal plus a few printing options and other basic editing tools.
Often some of these basic digital photography editing tools will also give you access to some filtering options as well. Each basic digital photography editing tool program is likely to have some options that are not present in its rival editing programs, but generally speaking they all have the same sort of options.
For the major editing options you can find in both professional and nonprofessional editing software, the real difference between the pro and non pro software packages is the amount of control the user has over the editing process. the basic photography software will try to automate as much as possible these functions, whereas the professional software will give more control to the user, subsequently complicating the use of the software significantly.
Some of the very basic digital photography software available can actually be downloaded free of charge from the Internet. These software programmes are generally very basic, but if you’re just starting out with photograph editing software there may well be a good place to start.
If on the other hand you have already been using some basic photography software for some time now, and are starting to get a bit fed up with the very basic functionality of your software, you need to make a point of taking note of what features you need more control over and what features you would like to have that you currently don’t.
Once you’ve done this, you will be able to search on the net for the photography editing software that fits your needs and wants. Also don’t forget you can check offline photography magazines and other sources for reviews etc.
Also take into consideration the fact that the more complex software you purchase, the bigger the learning curve will be for you, this will especially be true if you haven’t had all that much experience with other digital photography editing applications already.
Tags: Digital Photography Posted in Digital Photography
Posted July 15th, 2008
by Shane Butler
I just saw that Shutterfly has changed their bonus for new customers plus other specials this month.
They have changed their New Member’s Offer to 50 FREE 4×6 prints and an 11×14 Collage Poster, so be sure to let your photo hungry friends and family know!
Also, during July, shoppers will receive a free 8×10 print with a $25 purchase.
This is truly one of the best offers I’ve seen at any of the photo sharing/printing sites.
Here’s the link for the new customer bonus.
and… here is the link for the July bonus.
Shutterfly: Spend $25 Get a free 8×10 print. Use coupon code: AF62-JL08. (Expires 8-12-08)
BTW, I would love to hear about your experiences with Shutterfly. Please leave a comment below. Thanks
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite 
Tags: collage, photo prints, photo sharing Posted in Photo sites, Photography
Posted July 14th, 2008
by Bob Dale
by Bob Dale
The market for the digital SLR camera is growing rapidly. The IDC report titled 2007 Worldwide Digital Camera Market Share Review pointed out that digital SLR cameras accounted for 7.5 million of the 131 million digital cameras sold. It is no surprise that such big brands as Canon, Nikon, Olympus, and Sony led the way in total digital SLR camera sales. Canon and Nikon alone account for about 80% of the digital SLR market. Sony and Olympus account for another 12% of the market.
Further in the IDC report, Nikon emerged as a strong competition to Canon, thanks to Nikon introducing digital SLR cameras like the Nikon D40x and the Nikon D300. In fact, the IDC report states that Nikon replaced Canon as the number one digital SLR camera brand in Japan in 2007. “Nikon has always been a strong preference among professional photographers” says Minneapolis photographer Bob Dale.
Digital SLR, or dSLR, is short for digital single lens reflex. Digital SLR cameras are named as such because they are cameras that have a mirror behind the camera lens that directs light through the viewfinder eyepiece during photo composition.
Basically, the light coming through the lens is reflected by a mirror, which is at a 90-degree angle, and it is then reflected by the pentaprism. When a picture is being taken, the mirror swings in an upward motion and the shutter opens. This action causes the light to be projected from the lens onto the image sensor.
These intriguing cameras come from a variety of companies. In addition to Canon, Nikon, Olympus, and Sony, you can also choose from some other popular brands such as Panasonic and Pentax. These brands were once the same brands that were known as powerhouses of the 35mm film SLR camera marketplace.
Canon has long been known for the quality of its cameras. Currently, the Canon EOS line of cameras is among the best lines of digital SLR cameras on the market. It consistently earns high praise from consumers for being simple, having plenty of options, and providing great pictures.
With the Canon EOS line of digital SLR cameras, you will typically get about 10.1 megapixels of resolution. This is true of the Canon Digital Rebel series as well.
If you take a look at digital SLR camera reviews, you’ll see that the Canon cameras are typically at or near the top of the ratings charts. Product tester reviews and user reviews alike give Canon digital SLR cameras high marks.
Nikon is another respected manufacturer of digital SLR cameras. The recent Nikon D series of digital SLR cameras has carried on the strong reputation for Nikon cameras as being among the best in the world.
The Nikon D300 heads the impressive lineup of quality digital SLRs by Nikon. This digital SLR supports live viewing, which means you can preview your shots on the LCD screen instead of having to look through the viewfinder. If you’re planning to get into professional or high end digital photography, this digital SLR is a good investment. Price starts at around $1,700.
If you just want good photographs and you aren’t really worried about having all of the options for making the photographs look professional, the Nikon D40 is a great camera that can be had for less than $650. It has an adequate resolution of 6.1 megapixels. The compact design of the Nikon D40 makes it a great travel camera. “It’s a great selection for doing travel photography” says professional digital photographer Bob Dale.
For the casual digital photography enthusiast, the Nikon Coolpix P5100 consistently gets high reviews among simple digital SLR cameras. While it has manual control, its automatic zoom, focus, and exposure options make it easy for anyone to use. It also features a large LCD screen to help you see what you’ll get before you shoot the picture. The Nikon Coolpix P5100 is surprisingly affordable for a digital SLR, with prices ranging from $200 to $300.
Panasonic Lumix DMC digital SLR cameras tend to combine high quality pictures with affordable prices. Through 2007, Panasonic had released more than 60 digital SLR cameras under the Lumix DMC line, with the most recent ones all having a resolution of at least 10.1 megapixels and a 12.5x optical zoom.
Another feature that makes the Panasonic digital SLR cameras popular is that they are typically very portable. But what really sets them apart, is that the newest models are typically not much over $400.
Pentax digital SLR cameras are well-regarded in the photography community. Pentax has been a respected name in SLR photography since the 35mm camera. Pentax continues its tradition of earning respect in the digital SLR community.
Pentax digital cameras are of high quality and come in a variety of models that range from the entry level SLR to professional models. Some of the better models are the K series and the Optio series. Both of these Pentax digital SLR series of cameras offer users great photographs and a variety of options commonly found on the most popular digital SLR cameras.
There isn’t any shortage of digital SLR cameras to date. In fact, you can find a quality digital SLR camera in any price range. It all depends on the features you need and how much you’re willing to pay for a camera.
A few of the other things you’ll want to keep in mind when comparing digital SLR options are battery life, battery cost, camera warranty, and storage media options. But mainly, you will want to get a memory card that can hold 1,000 or more high resolution photos. After you invest a great deal of money in a camera, you will want to be sure you won’t run out of storage space when you’re out shooting photos and you visualize that perfect picture.
About the Author:
Expert digital photographer Bob Dale reveals digital photography ideas and camera ideas on discovering the best
digial slr camera. You can see many of his photography ideas at
http://photo.dalestudios.com/
Tags: Photography Posted in Photography
Posted July 14th, 2008
by Vincent Manga
by Vincent Manga
Digital photography has revolutionised the way we take photographs. In particular the fact that we can now easily digitally edit photographs from the comfort of our own homes on our PCs. Digital photography software is now at the reach of all amateur photographers, not just the professionals like it once was.
Since digital photography has become mainstream, the number of digital photography editing software programmes from different software manufacturers on the market has become very numerous, catering for all the different needs and wants of society. For this reason deciding which digital photography software to purchase can be a hard decision.
With so many different photography software programs available, you will need to determine what features are important to you and what features are not so important. Quite a lot of the amateurs out there are quite happy to have simple basic and functional software where as the more professional or advanced photographers want more advanced controls for their editing.
If you are an amateur photographer who has a keen eye for artistic photography and editing, you may want to purchase a digital photography editing software package with your artistic eye in mind. Digital photography software with tools specifically for the more artistically minded photographers out there do exist, although this software may not be sophisticated enough for some of the pros.
A look at the more basic photography software
Most people buy digital photography editing software of a more basic nature. It is common for these basic programmes to include options such as redeye removal, resizing and cropping options, your general printing options and some other photo editing effects.
Additionally these basic programmes will also quite often include options to add filters to your photographs and the ability to make your photographs black-and-white etc.
The main difference between a user using basic photography software and a user using professional editing software, is that the user using the basic software will have a lot less control over the editing process, where as the user using the professional software will have full control over the editing process.
It might surprise you to know that there does exist some very basic totally free editing software out there you can download from the Internet. Like I said this software is generally very basic, but nevertheless it can get you started.
If on the other hand you have already been using some basic photography software for some time now, and are starting to get a bit fed up with the very basic functionality of your software, you need to make a point of taking note of what features you need more control over and what features you would like to have that you currently don’t.
Once you’ve done this, you will be able to search on the net for the photography editing software that fits your needs and wants. Also don’t forget you can check offline photography magazines and other sources for reviews etc.
Remember that with the more complex and complete software packages you may have to put some time aside to learn how to use them and you will also have to pay a lot more for them.
Tags: Digital Photography Posted in Digital Photography
