Photographic Printing Workflow
I gave a presentation at the Photographic Society of Rhode Island, PSRI, on producing quality prints using repeatable workflow. It also included a couple of tips on how to create multiple proof prints at once. This is based on a technique I learned from John Paul Caponigro, he calls it “Bracket Proofing” and it works like a charm. The following slide show will give you a refresher if you were at the presentation, or will give you a general idea about the workflow that you can try to replicate. Watch the slide presentation as some effects and layered images are shown as single image in the PDF files. For instance, the soft proofing sample image shows only one state in the PDF file, you will see both states in the presentation. In any case, I hope you find them useful.
Photographic Printing Workflow Presentation
Photoshop is 20 today
The ubiquitous Photoshop started as someone’s doctoral work. With a little luck, confluence of events, and support from the industry leaders of the day, it has become a household name, even a verb. In the video below the two brothers, Thomas and John Knoll, reminisce about the starting days of “DeLuxe PhotoLab” with Russell Brown and Steve Guttman, two others in the original team that brought us the tool that is loved, hated, used, and abused today. Watch …
Sharpening Workshop
I ran a workshop on January 3, 2010 for the members of PSRI. The main purpose was to explore the sharpening strategies and methods in Photoshop and Lightroom. In the 4-hour long workshop, the first part was some general background information on what sharpening is and why we need it, followed by an overview of the process. Then, using Photoshop and Lightroom, I presented the application of the ideas presented earlier. Following that, the participants practiced on their own images. Below is the slide show of the Powerpoint presentation I used. It does not cover the actual hands-on part, but should give a general idea about the sharpening.
Eggsperiment
Eggs are the specialty of my friend Nermin Kura. A ceramicist, Nermin makes vessels inspired by eggs, and photographs eggs in various settings. When I was in Ayvalik and saw the two ostrich and one emu eggs, I wanted to experiment with their shapes, forms, texture and photographed them in the generally soft light of the conservatory. I wanted to see the effect of light coming from different directions on their form and texture. It also affected the relationships and the space around them. As a compositional element I also used an old copper plate with tin plating. I was also thinking “what would Nermin do?” Read more
Don’t Bruise the Pixels
I made a presentation for the Photographic Society of Rhode Island (PSRI) on January 20, 2009. The title “Don’t Bruise the Pixels” was the core idea behind nondestructive editing in Photoshop. After the initial talk segment, I demonstrated the idea and what could be done by using layers, blend modes, and blend if sliders. The following slide show contains the initial talk material. It may make more sense to people who watched to presentation but the general ideas can provide the foundation for ideas that you may use to adjust your workflow. The following link will pop up a window and display the slide presentation. To navigate, use the “Next” and “Previous” arrows at the bottom of the slides to see the full content of all.
Adobe CS4 Design Premium Stopped Working
Whatever the reason, I could not run any Adobe application this afternoon. This was after all my trials and tribulations as outlined in some earlier posts, frustrating. As I launched Photoshop or Acrobat, I received a message window to tell me that “The license for this product stopped working” on its title bar and instructed me to contact my IT department. At the end of the message there was a cryptic error code “148:3″.
My product was fully installed, running, and performing well. So it was a licensing issue I thought. I looked in the directory:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Aplication Data\FLEXnet
and saw a .log file. Looking into this text file revealed a message “Our service is disabled.” If you run into this problem, you may want to know what I did. I am telling you what I did and you follow it at your own risk.
- I went to “Start/Run” and typed “services.msc” into the “Open” field, then pressed [Enter]
- Looked for “FLEXnet Licensing Service” under the column labeled “Name”
- Its status showed “Stopped” which was the cause of my problem
- I right-clicked on “FLEXnet Licensing Service”, selected “Properties”
- Under the “General” tab, I set the startup type to “Manual” and clicked on “Start” to start the service
- I was not sure about this, but I tried it anyway: Under “Recovery” tab for the first failure, I chose “Restart the Service”
- Clicked OK
Photoshop and Acrobat started fine. I do not know what made the licensing service to stop. But now, I know how to kick start that again.
Single File HDR, really?
Well, not exactly but perhaps a mini HDR; but a very useful one at that. There are numerous articles, Web tutorials, books written about the high dynamic range image processing and for a good reason. The process yields remarkable results with detailed highlights and detailed shadows. Images obtained from HDR processing encompass a range of tonalities that would not be possible to capture on film or in digital sensors. After all, who does not want to have a film or a digital sensor that doubles or triples the EV range, maybe even more. Read more
Atmospheric FX by JP Caponigro
A while back I ordered one of the DVDs from John Paul Caponigro’s R/Evolution series, Atmospheric FX. Frankly, I was not quite sure what the product included and I told John at a workshop last July to explain the contents a little better. It arrived almost two months ago but I have not had a chance to open the package and see the contents until last week. I am glad I opened it. After opening it I understood that this was not a set of plugins or quick fix actions but a well narrated and demonstrated series of tutorials on variety of subjects related to the atmospherics.
I am reasonably comfortable in Photoshop and can apply a variety of complex adjustments to my images depending on my needs. When I started watching the first instructional DVD I realized two things. First, I knew all the adjustments that John was using, very little in the form of new adjustment techniques. Second, I did not know most of the ways in which he assembled them for remarkable effects. So, the value of the DVD is not in learning new adjustment tools, but in how to apply them to achieve superb control on the image. Additionally, John Paul explains and demonstrates how to bring in elements from different images to create a finished product that is compelling.
I highly recommend the product which contains three DVDs covering the topics on atmospheric perspective, fog, smoke, rays of light, snow and rain, stars, rainbows, and lightning. You will enjoy learning by watching, better yet, you will enjoy your results.
You can get more information on this and other DVDs on John Paul’s Web site.
A Wink and a Nod to JPC
During my flight to and from Salt Lake City I took many photographs from the window. Some are color photographs and others are infrared images that I took with my modified Canon G7. My main intent was, and still is, to explore the shapes and textures in the clouds and the ground. I was fascinated by seeing the shadows of the clouds and took many with the intention of exploring the clouds and the shadow they cast on the ground. I will have another posting that focuses on the shadows.
While I was processing the infrared photographs, one caught my eye with a potential to experiment with in the style of John Paul Caponigro. JPC has created a strong niche for himself with his evocative constructed images that appear to emerge from thin air. My intention here is to tip my hat to John Paul by intentionally imitating his style and images, knowing full well that my images will not show the maturity and mastery of his. If imitation is a form of flattery, I hope all the viewers will take it as such.
The following images are all derivatives from one image, except the last one which comes from a different image. I am surprised, I must admit, that one image can yield such a variety of emotions and feelings through reconstruction. I remember John talking about exploring the variations, this has been an eye opener for me. Here are my variations. I tip my hat to you John. Photography is about experimentation.
Cloud variations
On Giclée and Understanding Digital Photography, III
Oh, where was I? Yes, I was trying to dispel some myths about digital photography. Let me continue with a few more I heard at the panel discussion. These attacks on digital photography, by the way, are not based on first hand experience of the medium but rather on uninformed conversations about a medium. The belief must be, “if it is repeated enough times, people will believe them.” Of course, it worked for them! Let’s get on with it. Read more
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