I’ve Been Invited!
In case you missed it, last week over on Friend-of-the-Blog Scott Kelby’s site he announced that Adobe has graciously allowed NAPP to invite a select number of their members to be private Beta testers of the next version of Photoshop.
“Ask Jason” – What’s the Difference Between Opacity and Fill?
Welcome to the first of what will hopefully become a more regular series here on the blog. I invite you, my readers to send in questions about Photoshop and digital photography that I may address them here. No question is too small and the learning process of such a deep and complex program such as Photoshop and Lightroom is an ongoing endeavor. As I’ve mentioned before, I work from the philosophy that when I learn something about Photoshop I want to share it so that you can learn more too. So please, ask away!
To start us off, here is a question I received from a reader the other day:
Jason,
I’ve been trying to distinguish between Opacity and Fill. As an experiment, I created two layers, black over white. I then adjusted opacity to 50%, flattened and measured the color of grey (r=g=b=128). Repeating the process but adjusting fill to 50% gave the same results. What’s the difference and when would I prefer to use one over the other?
Thanks,
Steve
What Steve is asking is actually a fairly common question and even some more advanced users aren’t quite sure how it works or when to use it. In fact, I asked a couple of my fellow designers in the graphics department at work and they didn’t really know what it was for. So, Steve, you’re in good company!
So we all know what we’re talking about, in the upper right corner of the Layers Panel you will see two boxes, one for Opacity and one for Fill and it is very easy to assume that they both do the same thing.
Before getting into a discussion about Opacity vs. Fill, I want to make a distinction that has always helped me to understand what’s going on here. The distinction is between a layer and the contents of the layer. A layer is the row within the layers panel on which you can add objects such as shapes, text, images, drawings, etc. The contents of the layer are those things (text, shapes, etc.) that are on the layer. Simple enough, right? But this is a very important distinction. You do not apply layer effects to a specific object on a layer, you apply the effects to the layer as a whole. Which brings us to the question at hand.
Opacity, as I understand it, acts on the layer – the contents and the effects – while Fill acts only on the contents and leaves the effects alone.
To illustrate this, on a new layer, make a square of any color you like. Next, apply a decent sized stroke to it (inside, outside, color, whatever you want to do) and click Ok. Duplicate the layer and move the square so they are next to each other. Now lower the opacity of one of the layers to 50% and you will see that the square and its stroke are now more transparent. Select the other square, but this time, lower the fill to 50% and you will notice that only the square, not the stroke, is semi-transparent while the stroke is still fully opaque.
Most of the time adjusting the opacity slider along will do the job for you and you don’t have to worry about fill. However, when using layer effects you may want to play around with the fill to give yourself more options. For example, if you want to have text that is only an outline, add a stroke and lower the fill. If you want to create a semi-transparent box to hold some text in your design, create a black box, add a drop shadow that has a distance of zero and a decent size, lower the fill to about 20% – or whatever works for you – and there you go.
So, in a nutshell, Opacity affects the layer, Fill affects the objects on the layer and this really comes into play when using Layer Effects. Play around with it and I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it in no time! Do you know of another way of explaining the difference? What helps you remember? Are there other uses for Fill that you’ve come across? Please share them in the comments!
If you have any Photoshop questions, please send them along and you may soon find the answer here! Don’t be shy, I’m sure you’re not the only one wondering the same thing. By asking your questions, you’ll be helping others to understand and use Photoshop better too.
Points of View Photo Project Reminder
Just a quick reminder that there is still time to send in your image for the Points of View Photo Project. Simply follow that link to download this week’s source image and do whatever you want to it. Send it back to me by tonight – really if you make it by early afternoon tomorrow you’ll make it in – and I’ll include it in the gallery on Friday.
For those of you who may be new to this project, there are no restrictions on how you process the image as long as you use the source photo in some way as you produce your final image. This isn’t a contest, there are no prizes or anything like that. It’s simply meant to be an exercise for your creative brain. So have fun with it! Experiment. Try something you’ve never done before. And send it in!
I’ve been meaning to put together some sort of banner for this project but haven’t gotten around to it. So, if any of you would like to play around with some ideas, send in a banner that is about 600px wide by no more than 200px tall to my dedicated email address and I’ll pick the best entry as the official banner for the project. Good Luck! And I’m looking forward to seeing how everyone processes the image!
The Results Are In! April Photo Contest!
Thanks to everyone who entered the April edition of our Monthly Photo Contest! We had a lot of great submissions last month, once again, making it really hard for me to choose a winner. However, there was one photo that really jumped out at me and really drew me in. Ans so, the winner of the Westcott and Adobe Photoshop shirts is:
katieharbath
As I said, there were a number of other great shots this month. Here are a few, in no particular order, that caught my eye:
As I announced last week, the May contest is now open! The prize for this month is HUGE! Valued at $200 and generously donated by one of my blogging buddies, the winner of the contest will receive a year’s subscription to Kelby Online Training, courtesy of Scott Kelby! So be sure to pull out your best shots and add them to the May Photo Contest Flickr Group. Thanks Scott!
This Monthly Photo Contest is sponsored in part by Competico.com. Looking for more photo contest goodness? Competico offers the world’s leading online photography competitions. Head on over and sign up for your free account, enter your own photos and vote for your favorites today!
If you would like to sponsor this or one of our other regular series, or if you would like to support this site through a general site sponsorship or banner ad, please visit our sponsor page to learn how!
Workflow Friday: Jason Anderson
For this edition of our Photoshop Workflow series, we welcome the Canon Blogger himself, Jason Anderson. Jason will be taking us away from the processing side of things and delving deeper into the terribly important, yet oft overlooked best practices of digital asset management.
Without further ado… Heeeeere’s Jason!
First off, I would like to thank Jason for sharing his blog with such a wide range of both skilled and professional photographers as well as those of us who are, let’s just say, a little lower on the learning curve of this great field of photography. It is quite an honor to be here today.
For my contribution, I would like to share something that is not often talked about, and that is digital asset management. As I begin, I would like to say, for the record, that I am certainly not a professional photographer, so my images aren’t nearly important to me as those digital negatives are to pros like wedding photographers, graphic artists, and the like. Having said that, as a self-professed geek, and an IT nerd, it is equally important for me to state that my file integrity is pretty darned important to me.
Notice how I started off by stating that my file integrity is important to me. That is because a photograph stored on a computer is just that – a file; nothing more, and nothing less. It literally is just a bunch of ones and zeros to the computer, and a computer (or more accurately the hard drive within your computer) doesn’t care whether the file contains information about a possible photograph (something that creates a picture when printed) or a possible text file (something that creates a document when printed). As a result, all the files on your computer are treated with equal care by the computer itself.
On a larger scale, it is important to understand that the concepts demonstrated here relate to more than just your photograph-type files. These principles and concepts apply to everything. I am talking about everything – your photos, your music, your videos, even those silly email forwards you’ve downloaded to save about something pithy that you just don’t want to delete, but will likely never read again! These are all your digital assets. However, since we are admittedly talking within the parameters of a photography blog, I’ll limit the specifics to that file format most relevant – the digital negative. Keep in mind though, there are more assets out there than our negatives, and we must make plans to care for those assets as well. However, I’ll cut to the chase for the purposes of this post.
Your answer on how to create a BEST PRACTICES FOR DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT SYSTEM lies in reading, understanding, and adopting the practices of The DAM Book – Digital Asset Management for Photographers, by Peter Krogh. Although this was written in the ancient days of CS2, the principles still apply.
Now it’s time for another revelation – I don’t follow the DAM book to the letter. It’s my weakness. I always strive for the best of intentions, but am never able to completely conquer a task to the degree that I would wish. Whether restricted by time, finances or other ends, it’s something that I admit I will never get a complete handle on. So, what’s a guy (or gal) like me to do? The best that you can! And here is my method for doing just that – the best that I can given my limited resources both in the way of time and assets.
First off, after I am finished shooting (most of the time), I will take the CF card out of the camera, insert into a card reader, and connect to my computer. My computer houses only one onboard hard drive – for my operating system and program files. I don’t care whether you are running Windows or Mac, a desktop or laptop, this should apply for everyone! The OS drive should never contain your important documents, because that is the one most likely to fail and unable to “boot”. My other “drive”, is a USB connected SAN drive – a Western Digital 1TB drive, consisting of 2 500GB drives. Instead of leaving it as a single unit, I broke the drive up and made it the 2 500GB drives. Here’s why – backups!
Yes, I am going to lecture on backing up for just a moment – primarily because of the way I have this set up. Guess how often I back up my data? Never! I don’t do a darned thing! Once, just once, I set up a script file that does a backup of the 1st 500 GB drive to the second. The script is scheduled to run nightly. So, for me it’s been a set-and-forget process. That way I know anything that goes on that SAN is backed up.
Here you might wonder why I am calling this USB connected drive a SAN. The reason is because this drive is shared out across my internal network. I have a network of anywhere from 3 to 6 computers running, and since all computers (except one) get their internet address from the router, each computer can see one another. My Macbook Pro has the iTunes and iPhoto libraries housed on the network drive. My Windows computer has its My Documents folder pointing to a shared location on the network drive. All my important file are on this network drive. I have it labeled “Y”.
Sure, I could build a RAID array, but that takes time and money. I could even buy a Drobo, but that takes money. The idea of this SAN came about as a cost effective and time efficient way to maximize safety and minimize risk. I am somewhat safe here, but nevertheless, I am at risk. The reason is because there is no system (in my mind) that is 100% risk free. Drives will fail, and when that day comes, it will be a matter of minimizing your losses and maximizing your recovery.
Enough about backups though – the bottom line is to come up with a backup system and do it – regularly. Script it, schedule it, or whatever, but you just have to DO IT! Okay, now on to my method for digital asset management…
Rather than just explain it, let me help with a visual. Look at image #1 – here you can see my desktop folders on the Windows computer. It has a Y drive – this is the SAN drive.
Now, look at image #2 – here you see the wide array of file types I have on the SAN – probably more stuff than I need on there, and it is always due for maintenance and cleaning, but I digress. A root level folder I have there is called images. Guess what’s housed in here?
Now, look at image #3 – I have all my images categorized by subject matter. This tells me what the folder contains, and is a good starting point for finding something I am looking for. Are there times where I haven’t found what I was looking for (calling U2…)? Sure – but only because I had deviated from my own system! When I adhere to my system, it works.
So, what about edits of files? Workups? Printed versions? Web Versions? Well, thanks for asking! Let’s take a look at a sample folder. Look at image #4. Here I have the original raw files. Now also notice the sub folders within that category. At this point it’s just a matter of remembering to save your output to the right location. If you do that, all your images will be easily found. Notice that I don’t change my filenames to match a description or anything, like the DAM book suggests. For me that’s just personal preference. If I need a file named that way for web submission (like to Popular Photography or some other venue, I’ll make my first save to the Y drive, then copy to the desktop for emailing and rename as they request. That file then gets deleted off my desktop.
So, why do I only have 250GB of image files and it’s less than that, remember the other assets?)? Chimping! I chimp in-camera. If my flash didn’t fire, a shot is under exposed or over exposed, I just delete it. I will even delete if a quick glance on the composition looks bad…if it looks bad on a 3” screen how will a 22” screen make it look better? I delete! I have other methods too – and here I side with Dave Cross, because I love Adobe Bridge!
When I get the files into the unsorted folder I am brutal on myself. I delete anything that doesn’t make me go “oooh, that has possibilities!”. If I see any two shots that look pretty darn close, I’ll increase the thumbnails to see if I had a blinker – if not, I delete one. If I see 4-5 shots that are all close to one another I actually keep those because 4-5 in succession tells me I am bracketing exposures. Here I can winnow out another third of my shooting efforts in the field. Once I have deleted all the files I don’t want, I then move the remaining images at that moment to a new folder via the “Move” command (who’d have thunk that?) right there in Bridge. If I have a pre-existing folder, that’s where the images go (Maggie is a good one – I take lots of shots of my dog). If I don’t have a pre-existing folder – I make one, right there. It takes 5 seconds, and it also forces me to get a few tags ready for the images mentally. Because once the images are moved, I start tagging.
Here is where I agree and adhere to the DAM book. I add the tag info for all shots on import into Bridge! Here I also go through even more methodically and star the images, 1-4. This helps the winnowing process. My rule of thumb: Ones are deleted if I don’t see any modifications after 6 months – it means the shot has not stayed with me, so why should it stay for anyone else? Twos are maintained because there could be just minor flaws or things that I just would like to retain for documentary reasons. Threes and fours are my gallery quality work. Threes are the ones that have potential with a few tweaks in either PS or even just ACR. Fours, I don’t even edit – they are great in camera and I just leave intact for cropping, outputting to print or whatever!
You’d think that’s it but there’s one more caveat to all of this. Remember those raw files you see at the root of each subject folder? I also burn a copy of these to DVD after import. Sometimes it takes more than one DVD. Sometimes, it even takes 3 or 4. But I do this to maintain a second copy of all negatives. I know, they don’t have permanence like a hard drive or other possible storage – but I figure with the mirrored hard drive creating a backup, and then a DVD copy stored elsewhere (this little bugger sits in the trunk of my car in the middle of the spare tire…check out image #5 below). That pretty much mitigates my risk. Is it gone? Nope, my computer could fail, the SAN could crash, the backup skipped for that day, and the DVD could be scratched beyond readability – but what are the odds of that? It’s a matter of tilting the odds in your favor, and here I think I’ve accomplished that. It may not be as fancy as all the Drobos people are talking about – but I just can’t justify the $500 for each unit and then the cost of all the drives. This is a triple backup solution, and I do it for $200.
The last caveat in all of this is understanding that your asset management needs will change as your library expands. I know this system won’t last me forever, and eventually, a Drobo or RAID solution might be called for. But with my photography, I can certainly keep things in check by just being honest with myself about the “keepers” versus “throw-aways”. Think about it – how many images are you keeping that you really could throw away? Sure, storage is cheap, but does that mean we shouldn’t be critical of our work? Hopefuly, that’s some food for thought. I know, the subject is not always a fun one to think about – but if we do take the time to think about how we manage our assets, we can hopefully become better photographers in the process, by virtue of training our eyes to see through the chaffe and help reduce the need for deleting photos. Imagine if all your shots were keepers! My God, think of the storage needs!
Workflow Fridays are sponsored in part by Competico.com. Competico offers the world’s leading online photography competitions. Head on over and sign up for your free account, enter your own photos and vote for your favorites today!
If you would like to sponsor this or one of our other regular series, or if you would like to support this site through a general site sponsorship or banner ad, please visit our sponsor page to learn how!
Workflow Friday: Shawn Duffy
For this week’s edition of our Photoshop Workflow series, we welcome DC area photographer, Shawn Duffy of SDuffy Photography. Shawn leads photowalks around DC, does some amazing journalistic shots in Palestine, and has created quite an iconic image from the 2008 election. He’s a hell of a photographer and a really nice guy and I’m sure you will learn a lot about the whole process from capture to HDR.
Take it away, Shawn!
Every time I am in Pittsburgh, I love going up to Mount Washington and taking photos of my hometown. This time, though, I wanted to do a multi-shot panorama in HDR. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do but had never done it before. Here, I’ll walk you through the steps for turning your multi-shot panoramas into awesome high dynamic range panoramas!
This tutorial assumes you have the following:
- A camera with Automatic Exposure Bracketing capability
- A tripod
- Adobe Photoshop
- Photomatix Pro
- Basic knowledge on creating HDR photos… For a great, basic HDR tutorial see Stuck in Customs.
First, I’ll show you the finished product. The full-size original image is comprised of twelve photographs and is about 750MB and 23 megapixels in size:
Click the photo below for a larger version…
Taking the Shots
First and foremost, you’ll need to actually shoot the images you want. This is, of course, the most important step.
Set your tripod and point your camera at the most important part of your panorama. For this example, I used the large group of buildings on the right hand side. I chose these because they are a natural subject for a city panorama and also because they are the most detailed and complex parts of the finished product.
After the camera is pointing at your subject, begin setting up your camera:
ISO
Use the lowest ISO setting possible. For most cameras, this is ISO100. My 5D does go down to ISO50, but 100 is what I used for this shot. HDR photos, depending on your final settings can have a fair amount of grain or noise in them. Increasing the ISO also will introduce noise into the final images. Multiply that by three and add on the potential grain from an HDR and you’ll see what I mean.
Manual Mode
This is extremely important. If the camera’s aperture, light metering, or shutter speed differ from shot to shot, you’re going to end up with a panorama where each section is different in tone, exposure, and focus. I’m only a Photoshop newbie, but I can imagine how difficult this would be to fix. For a landscape shot, particularly a panoramic landscape shot, I use a smaller aperture to increase my depth of field. In this particular case, it may not matter much since the city is so far away from me, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind. Once you set your aperture (I used f/7.1 in these photos), adjust your shutter speed so that the main part of your panorama is properly exposed. I used the default average metering for this shot, which will likely work fine unless your dealing with drastic differences in lighting. Based on an aperture of f/7.1, the camera’s light meter told me that 10 seconds would give me proper exposure.
Manual Focus
Turn off your lens’ AutoFocus feature. If you use AutoFocus, the lens is going to refocus every time you move the camera to take a new set of shots. For a small aperture and distant subject, you may not notice the difference in the final shot, but, then again, you might. Using Manual Focus is the only way to go. So, again, adjust your focus so that the main part of your panorama is sharp.
Automatic Exposure Bracketing
After setting up the camera’s ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, you’ll want to enable Automatic Exposure Bracketing, or AEB. Most, if not all, SLR cameras have this feature. This will allow you to take three shots at configurable exposure compensation settings. For most of my HDRs, I set AEB to +/-2. This means that the next three shots will be at 0ev (proper exposure), -2ev (2 steps underexposed), and +2ev (2 steps overexposed).
Swinging Through
Now that your camera is all set up to take the photo, look through your viewfinder and slowly swing through the entire range of the panorama and make sure your zoom is set so that you can get the entire landscape in without having to adjust. Without doing this, you may find that your subject is lined up right but when you go to move to the next segment of your shot, something is running outside the frame.
Zoom
If you have a “wide-angle” lens, don’t use it. It may seem like a good idea but it isn’t. Wide-angle zoom lenses sometimes introduce distortion at the edges of the photo. This happened a lot when I had the Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens. I loved that lens but, at 10mm, the objects at the edges of the photos would lean inward. This will totally screw up your efforts to merge your panoramas later. For this example, I zoomed in to 43mm.
Taking the First Shot
For HDR images, it is vital that your camera move as little as possible for the multiple shots you’re taking. This is especially true at night and even more so for night panoramic images. If you have one, use a remote shutter release. Or, if you don’t have a remote shutter release, use your camera’s timer. This will allow you to take the long exposure shots without risking your hand moving the camera when you press the button. As an extra bonus for those of you that use the timer, your camera may take all three shots in a row when AEB is set. My 5D does this and, even though I have a remote shutter release, I still tend to use the timer. All I need to do is enable AEB, use the timer, and hit the button once. After the timer expires (10 seconds), the camera fires off all three shots.
You can shoot in any direction (left-to-right or right-to-left), but I prefer to shoot from left-to-right. It simply seems more natural to me. So, after I set up my camera while looking at the city, I swung it around and began taking photos on the left side of the image.
Taking the Next Shot
When you’re doing panoramas, you’ll want to make sure that each segment overlaps the previous one significantly. I believe I’ve heard they should overlap as much as 30%. That’s fine. The more the better, in my opinion. That will give your photomerging software more to work with when it has to merge them later. So, after you take your first set of photos, make a mental note of some landmark on the edge toward where you’ll be swinging the camera next. When you slowly swing the camera to the next position, make sure that landmark is easily visible and not too close to the edge. Now you’re ready to take the next few shots.
Another word on framing… Photoshop, in my limited experience, does a pretty good job of stitching images together. That being said, try not to have major overlaps right in the middle of your subject or right in the middle of a particular complex area. You want as much of your subject in one frame as possible. That way, if Photoshop doesn’t stitch them together perfectly, it won’t be in a critical part of the photo and may be easier to fix.
The Shots
Here you can see the shots I ended up with after taking after setting up my camera as described above. At each spot, I had the camera take three photos via AEB:
Each segment’s photos are as follows: 0ev, -2ev, +2ev
Segment 1:
Segment 2:
Segment 3:
Segment 4:
Export The Shots
Now, we will export the photos to a folder on our hard drive. Make sure to export all the photos at the same exposure level into the same folder. We’ll be merging the photos into three big panoramas before we do any HDR work. I export the photos into folders with descriptive names such as “Pan-OverExposure”, “Pan-UnderExposure”, and “Pan-ProperExposure”.
For example, the following four photos will be in the folder “Pan-ProperExposure”:
Repeat for the under-exposed and over-exposed versions.
Merging The Shots in Photoshop
Open up Photoshop and select File -> Automate -> Photomerge:
Next, you will see the following dialog, where I’ve already added the first set of four photos from “Pan-ProperExposure”. You’ll also notice I selected ‘Cylindrical’ for the Layout, though you’re free to experiment with the others for different effects:
Click for larger version…
Click OK.
Now, Photoshop will churn away a bit, depending on the speed and memory in your computer and what you’ll end up with (hopefully) will look like a complete panorama that’s a little rough around the edges.
Repeat this for the other two exposure sets and you should end up with a desktop that looks something like this:
Click for larger version…
On the right-hand side, you should notice that all three layers of each panorama are selected. If the panoramas look acceptable to you, merge those layers into a single image. If the panoramas look “off” you may need to retouch them with Photoshop or reshoot while following the directions at the beginning of this article. Merge them by right-clicking (Ctrl-Click) on the selected layers and select “Merge Layers…” as shown to the right. (Click on image for larger version…)
Repeat this for all three panoramas. After you’ve merged them all, consider naming the single layer something descriptive. Double-Click on the Layer Name and replace it with something like “Pan-Over”. This tells me that this is the overexposed panorama. This will come in handy later. See below:
And, when you’re done, consider saving them as Photoshop documents in case you need to go back.
Uniformly Resizing and Cropping
Now that we have three panoramas at different exposures, we need to crop them to make sure that they’re all the same size. Photomatix won’t be able to merge them if they’re not. To do this, make sure all three panoramas are open and select the Move Tool as shown to the left.
Next, we’re going to pick one of the images where we’ll drag the other two. The other two images will be added as layers on top of the image you pick. In my case, I dragged the low and proper exposure images to the over-exposed image. Once you have done this, you’ll see one image with a few edges sticking out around the side and three layers corresponding to each of the images. See why we named them?
Click image for larger version…
Now, with your mouse, make sure all three layers are highlighted, then go to “Edit -> Auto-Align Layers…” and select “Auto” Projection as shown in the images below…
Click OK.
Once your computer stops churning, all three layers should be perfectly aligned with each other. Now, we need to apply a crop that will resize all three layers (soon to be separate images again). Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool as shown on the right. With this, select the biggest region of the photo that you can without getting too close to the edges. See my example below:
Click image for larger version…
Next, select “Image -> Crop”:
Your result should now be a three-layer image that’s nice and trim.
Separating the Layers
Photomatix requires multiple photos at different exposure levels. So now that we have three layers that are all identical sizes, we need to use that to create three individual files. Select all three layers in the layers box on the lower right-hand side of the screen and then select “File -> Scripts -> Export Layers to Files…”:
Click on the image for a larger version…
Now you have three identical images at different exposures that you can easily turn into an awesome HDR photo! For help on creating an HDR with these three photos, see this awesome tutorial from Stuck in Customs.
Again, here we have our finished product:
Click on each image for a larger version…
And, one more, with a little more color and different post-processing:
Have any panorama or HDR tips? Leave them in the comments below!
Workflow Fridays are sponsored in part by Competico.com. Competico offers the world’s leading online photography competitions. Head on over and sign up for your free account, enter your own photos and vote for your favorites today!
If you would like to sponsor this or one of our other regular series, or if you would like to support this site through a general site sponsorship or banner ad, please visit our sponsor page to learn how!
The Results Are In! March Photo Contest!
Well, it’s that time again! Once again, the field of submissions was packed with some great images making my job pretty tough. One of the things that I really liked about the winning shot was not only the obvious quality, that you can see for yourself, but if you take a peek at the original – link provided in the description on Flickr – you will see just how far its come. Nice job!
So, without further ado, the winner of a free 8×10 print of one of my shots (a $50 value) is:
“Fierce – After” by goldenwreckedangle
Now, in no particular order, are some other images that really caught my attention and I felt that they deserve to be shared with you:
Thanks again to everyone who has submitted photos for the March contest! I hope you will all enter in April!
On that note, the April contest is now open! You may enter up to 3 shots anytime between now and April 30th for your chance to win:
-
Gray Westcott T-Shirt
-
Long Sleeve Adobe “Ps” Logo Tee
I’ll update the sizes later…
Check out our Photo Contest Page for complete rules. Make note: I have created a new Flickr Group just for April’s contest – it’s just easier to manage that way – so make sure you enter in the right group!
Good Luck!
This Monthly Photo Contest is sponsored in part by Competico.com. Looking for more photo contest goodness? Competico offers the world’s leading online photography competitions. Head on over and sign up for your free account, enter your own photos and vote for your favorites today!
If you would like to sponsor this or one of our other regular series, or if you would like to support this site through a general site sponsorship or banner ad, please visit our sponsor page to learn how!
Workflow Friday: Andy Biggs
This week’s Workflow Friday comes from an exceptional photographer who leads African photo safaris, has his own line of camera gear bags, and whose images can be seen in your local Banana Republic retail store. Andy Biggs of the blog The Global Photographer inspires equal parts creativity and jealousy as he shares his photographic adventures in Africa and elsewhere around the world. Like many of those featured here, reviewing his work makes me want to be a better photographer.
So, without further ado, take it away Andy!
Thank you for the opportunity to share some of my processing steps! I will walk through how I processed an image for my Timeless Africa Collection portfolio, which is an image of a leopard in a tree that was photographed right after the sun went down. We had a wonderful day out on the Serengeti plains, in the east African country of Tanzania. I was out on safari with some friends of mine, and I had not put my camera away yet. I am very thankful, because we saw this beautiful female leopard as we were passing by a tree right next to our path. I had only a few seconds to grab as many frames as I could, but I was only able to nail 1 or 2 frames before she scuttled off into the bush. I had my camera set to ISO 1600, and I was using a Canon 1DsMkII camera with a 500mm f/4 lens on a beanbag.
Here are my steps on how I processed the image.
Step 1) I processed the raw file in Adobe Camera Raw, and outputted the image as a color image in 16-bit mode, full resolution. Saved as a .psd file.
Step 2) After opening the resulting file in Photoshop, I created a new layer and converted the image to black and white. I use the Channel Mixer for all of my black and white conversions in Photoshop, and on this day I chose a +80, +20, 0 (R, G, B) mixture.
Step 3) I created a new adjustment layer to increase the overall contrast of the image. I don’t mind losing shadow detail when I increase the contrast of a scene, as I believe that people respond favorably to contrast. I am definitely not obsessed with the trend of opening up as much shadow detail as possible. Give me a deep black in a scene and I am a happy man. When I look at images that have too much detail in the lower values, the images typically look washed out. When using a tool such as the Shadows and Highlights adjustment in Photoshop, one must pay attention to mid tone contrast when opening up shadows and bringing down the highlights. The reason is that more values are now being moved to the middle of the tonal range, and there is a lack of mid tone contrast as a result.
Step 4) Selective sharpening adjustment layer. I sharpened the leopard’s face with Photokit Sharpener. This sharpening tool does a fantastic job with all things related sharpening. Capture sharpening, creative (selective) sharpening and output sharpening.
Step 5) I then needed to burn down the background a bit, as the bright background was distracting. I created a new blank adjustment layer and used a black brush at 5% opacity for burning.
Step 6) I created a vignette around the edges, using the same technique in Step #5. The key is to use a large enough brush off of the side of the canvas so that the effect is slowly built up. It is helpful to click the ‘F’ key before painting with the brush, which allows you to work outside of the canvas on the image. Minimize the size of the image in relation to the screen, so you have some of the gray area to the side.
Step 7) On a new curves adjustment layer, I created a slight upward curve to brighten up the leopard’s face and body. I had to create a mask so that the adjustment only affected the leopard, and not the entire image.
Step 8 ) I then toned the image using Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro. I have created a custom tone for my wildlife images, and this tone is both brown and red in the shadows and midtones, yet neutral with the highlights.
That’s it! I know enough in Photoshop to get the jobs done for my own images, but I am by no means a huge Photoshop guru or expert. I consider myself a field photographer first and a digital darkroom guy after that. If you have any questions at all, please post them on this blog post and I will try to remember to check back to answer them.
Workflow Fridays are sponsored in part by Competico.com. Competico offers the world’s leading online photography competitions. Head on over and sign up for your free account, enter your own photos and vote for your favorites today!
If you would like to sponsor this or one of our other regular series, or if you would like to support this site through a general site sponsorship or banner ad, please visit our sponsor page to learn how!
Artist Highlight: Julieanne Kost
For this week’s artist/blog highlight I’d like to share with you a truly gifted creative professional, Adobe’s Digital Imaging Evangelist Julieanne Kost.
I’ve had the pleasure to watch Julieanne work, in person, while at Photoshop World in Boston as she walked us through her creative process and workflow when creating visual representations of what her mind sees. The only way to describe her worn and weathered imaginings is dream-like. Her work is quite remarkable, really. The muted tones, the rough textures, the stories that her images tell draw you in and wisk you away to another world which, to me, is the mark of a true artist.
Not only does Julieanne do a tremendous job with her compositional pieces, she is an inspiring photographer as well. My sister-in-law gave me her book Window Seat this past Christmas and each page is filled with colorful, lively yet serene portraits of our world taken from a plane. It’s really hard to describe how awesome this digital photography is but I can honestly say that her work makes me want to become a better photographer. I can’t give much higher praise than to say that when I see her work, I want to grab my camera and create.
For more information, and to see her work, visit Julieanne Kost’s website. And you can also follow her work via her Adobe blog. Go ahead, give yourself 10 minutes to look at her amazing art!
Good News. Bad News.
I’m going to start with the bad news so I can get it off my chest and move on to much happier things.
Recently, I saw on the NAPP member site that a new 20% off discount was available for any single purchase through the Adobe.com store until March 2nd. With that, on top of Adobe’s introductory pricing on CS4 ending at the end of February (which has since been extended), I decided that I couldn’t wait to upgrade anymore.
I was talking with my friend and co-worker, Eric, about it and offered to use my discount to help him upgrade to CS4 Design Premium when I placed my order to upgrade to InDesign CS4 and Photoshop CS4. So I placed the order, saving around $200 between us, and waited eagerly for it to arrive.
Two things then happened. First, I got a sinking feeling one day that I had been in the mindset of ordering the PC versions for myself that I inadvertantly ordered Eric, a Mac user, the PC version of CS4 Design Premium. Big OOPS! And then I was expecting to receive the software on Monday but FedEx decided that the correct address I put on the order was not the right one.
All got worked out, though. I called Adobe customer service and spoke with a really nice rep who helped me get the Mac version on its way to replace the one I had mistakenly ordered. To be entirely honest, it was one of the best customer service calls I’ve ever had. He even honored the pricing from the previous order. After driving over to FedEx to pick up the undelievered package and talking to a manager to work out the address issue – since the driver wasn’t back yet – the software finally arrived the next morning.
Then the fun started… I found out, the hard way, that as it turns out it is against Adobe’s upgrade policy to allow customers who own a full version of a program that is part of a bundle to upgrade to a stand-alone version of the same software. Meaning, even though I own CS3 Design Premium, which includes InDesign CS3, I can not upgrade to InDesign CS4. I would either have to upgrade to CS4 Design Premium – which I don’t need – or purchase the full version of InDesign CS4 – which isn’t going to happen either. So I have to send it back.
The up-side is that I can keep the upgrade to Photoshop CS4 since I have copies of Photoshop going back as far as version 6. It’s the more important program for me to have anyway.
I’m not all worked up about it but it really frustrates me that even though I own a full version of InDesign CS3 – albeit as part of a bundle – I am ineligible to upgrade a single product. It was not very clear on the Adobe site and, in the end, they are crediting my card so they’re losing out on the sale. It won’t affect whether or not I will buy from them again, obviously, but I appeal to Adobe to revisit their upgrade policy so it would make more sense and do a better job of serving the customers.
Thus endeth the rant.
On to the good news! Kim and I have been wanting to escape apartment living for a while now and after some searching we are elated to share that we have found a house! Not just “a” house, but an amazing house!
We’re doing the mortgage paperwork today and we hope to close in the next month and a half or so – give or take. We’re going to be doing another walkthrough on Sunday afternoon so we’ll be able to take some shots of the inside too. It’s in Johnson City, NY, which is only about 15 minutes from where we live now in Endicott, NY. It’s about 25 minutes to Kim’s school and roughly 10 minutes to work for me.
It’s cute on the outside and down-right beautiful inside. We’re so excited about it and we’re still pinching ourselves because it’s all finally happening!
Photoshop Interview: Mike McHugh
This month I sit down with Adobe Creative Systems Engineer, author, trainer, host of the popular Creative Sweet TV video podcast, and all-around good guy, Mike McHugh.
Jason D. Moore Photography: Hi Mike! First off, thank you for sitting down with me today! I’d like to help give everyone an idea about who you are and what your background is. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? What is your educational/professional background? That sort of thing….
Mike McHugh: I was a finished artist once upon a time. I started working in Graphic Design in about 1994 and even got to do the artwork on an official Sydney Olympic poster in 2000. Heaps of Photoshop and Illustrator work in those days. I’m based in Melbourne Australia, Ive always been here and Now I work for Adobe.
JDMP: Along similar lines, what is your current job and what does it entail?
MM: I’m a Creative Systems Engineer for Adobe that means I do A LOT of CS4 Presentations, Last week we finished a 5 State roadshow and spoke to over 6000 people, That was fun.
JDMP: In your excellent video podcast, Creative Sweet TV, you touch on individual parts of the Adobe Creative Suite as well as how they can work together. How did Creative Sweet TV get its start?
MM: I used to write for a local Magazine here called Desktop. On one occasion I decided to record the article with Audio instructions and posted it for download, that was really the first episode. It was utter rubbish but got me thinking.
JDMP: You spend a good deal of time with Adobe users and get to learn about their experiences with the software, positive and not so positive. What are some of the favorite new features of Photoshop that you’ve heard from users? What are the biggest gripes?
MM: The content aware Scale blows people away, but my personal favorite is the 3d stuff. I love making anoglphs and viewing them with the 3D glasses. Of course when Adobe changes anything people complain, even if they don’t realise its much better. Things like the application frame and the new Zoom and Pan Features.
JDMP: I know the majority of my readers are from the US and Europe, with a growing audience from other parts of the world. Here in the US Photoshop and the concept of all types of media perceived as being “Photoshopped” has become a regular part of the culture. From your perspective, what effect has Photoshop – or image manipulation in general – had on culture or how people consume media in Australia?
MM: People are now more savvy to that concept. I think its a generational thing. Young people tend to realize that a certain amount of Photoshop work goes on, still not sure if they know the extent. I find that on social network sites like facebook, people tend to want a glamorous looking Profile image, if only they knew about Surface Blur and good layer mask!
JDMP: Conversely, and I imagine you might have a unique perspective on this as an Adobe engineer, what effect as the creative community had on the development of the various Adobe products?
MM: Certainly other technology has a great effect, like the introduction of Digital Video and Cameras. Something like an economic downturn also has an effect. People want to do more with less. For example we have a customer with a large workforce of print designers can now extend the workforce but introducing InDesign CS4. Now those designers can design for the web and flash with the SWF export.
JDMP: Regardless of the day job, it’s important to have a means to stretch our creative muscles. Aside from your professional work with Adobe, what are some of your personal creative ventures/outlets?
MM: I love Photography and have recently become interested in Photography for Astrology. (Photographing the stars and Planets) Look out for more on that real soon.
JDMP: Where can our members and readers go to find out more?
MM: www.creativesweettv.com or follow me on twitter mmchugh
JDMP: My last question is always the same, is there anything else that I haven’t given you a chance to say? Any areas that you feel need to be touched on?
MM: Lets all get excited about editing video, there is too much rubbish on youtube and we need to lift our game and do some cool creative stuff.
JDMP: Thanks for sitting down with me, Mike! And keep up the great work with the podcast!
MM: Thanks again!
*****
Photoshop Interviews is brought to you in part by Towner Jones Photography, LLC. Check out all of the great things Rob is doing over there!
If you would like to sponsor Photoshop Interviews or any of our other regular series, or if you would like to advertise with us, visit our Become a Sponsor page today!
P&P Weekly: #111
My apologies for the long lapse in publishing The P&P Weekly. It’s been a full few weeks here and I wanted to be sure to do it right or not at all.
Since the last issue of “The Weekly” I decided to try a few things that I am implementing this time around. The first is the most visible change, a new interactive version created with InDesign’s option to export directly to SWF Flash files. I really like the look of this new feature and I thought it would be a cool way of presenting this series. I’m still working to get everything dialed in with the settings but I think it works pretty well for now. It is viewed best with a screen resolution of at least 1024×768 and does require Flash Player.
The next change is also visible. With the new change in presentation comes other layout opportunities. So I decided to begin shifting to more of a newsletter format to dress things up a bit and make it easier to read through.
Lastly, one of the things regular readers will notice is that there are only 20 members featured in this edition. The list has been growing, thankfully, which means that I needed to divide up the list a little more and 20 seemed like a good number to go with. It may fluctuate a little here and there as needed but we’re going try keeping it down to around 20 or so each week. And now that I have the template set, it should be easier to get back on track.
Let me know what you think about the new format and if you notice anything that I need to address.
Geographic Composition #48: Contrasts
I just got a new toy to play with tool for my craft and thought I would give it a spin to see what I could do with it.
I just downloaded the trial version of Adobe InDesign CS4 - which I then purchased along with Photoshop CS4, set to arrive next week – and one of my main reasons for upgrading was the cool page curl effects that I can do with the new export to SWF option.
So, instead of the usual presentation for Geographic Composition, I thought I would offer up a first pass at a new version using this new technology.
Take a look at the new and improved – but still a work in progress – Geographic Composition #48: Contrasts!
Workflow Friday: Rob Jones
This week we welcome another exceptional photographer to our Workflow Fridays series, Rob Jones. Rob and his wife Rose run Towner Jones Photography based in Gainesville, VA.
Thanks for sharing with us today, Rob!
First let me say, I feel quite humbled to be in the company of the talented folks that have contributed to this great blog. I also want to say “thanks” to Jason for allowing me to participate and thanks to all of you for sharing your time with me today.
When I first started preparing for my edition of “Workflow Fridays,” I was quite excited. I had, on my schedule, a perfect photo shoot lined up which I thought would provide some excellent shots to put through my workflow. The plan was to hike into Shenandoah National Park, here in Virginia, and capture images of the waterfalls in Whiteoak Canyon. However, when I got up the morning of the shoot, there was no hot water in the house. I did get to see a waterfall that day – unfortunately it was coming from the hot water heater in the basement. Oh the life of a great adventurer…
Why am I sharing this story with you, you might ask? I’m sharing it because, I did manage to find a “waterfall” picture in my collection to work over for you, but it’s a tad smaller than the eighty-six footer I had planned on shooting.
Just imagine the splendor of what could have been in your mind’s eye, and we’ll get started.
So here’s our “waterfall” shot. It was taken early in the morning, also in Shenandoah National Park, back in October. For those of you that are interested in the image specs, it was taken with my Nikon D90 using Nikon’s 18-200mm lens. The exposure is 6 seconds, at f/20 (ISO 100). (On a side note, the D90 has become a beloved addition to my gear for situations when carrying the D3 with its big, heavy glass just won’t do)
Now for all intents and purposes, I think this is a pretty decent shot – though a little underexposed. My goal, however, is to bring back the color, vibrance, and “pop” that the early morning sun cast on this little corner of the park.
For a little background, I’m a Lightroom convert. I used to post-process all of my images in Photoshop. Since Lightroom hit the scene, I’d estimate less than 10% actually make the trip out of Lightroom over to Adobe’s flagship application. For me, the decision is all about efficiency, and that’s the name of the game in Lightroom. The steps I’m about to outline, took me a little less than a minute from start to finish. The order of these steps sometimes varies, but these are the “basics” I do to almost all of my “keepers”.
Step 1: Correct White Balance
I’ve read a great deal of discussion regarding “correct” vs. “incorrect” white balance. For those of you that read my blog, you’ve heard me say that I believe “correct” is always in the eyes of the photographer. For me, finding the right color temperature involves using the WB tool in Lightroom to sample a number of target grays and finding the one that, I feel, reflects the mood that I’m trying to convey in the photograph. In this particular picture, I wanted a little more warmth than what the camera captured, which I found in the gray at the center of the rock in the upper left corner.
Step 2: Exposure Adjustment
As I mentioned earlier, I felt that this image was a little underexposed from what I remembered, so I bumped up the overall exposure about three-quarters of a stop.
Step 3: Tone Curve – Contrast Adjustment
In Lightroom, the Tone Curve sliders give quick and easy access to adjusting ranges of tones. At this point, I wanted to bring the water from the waterfall and the rock on the bottom of the stream up a little relative to the shadows and mossy undersides of the rocks, so I bumped up the “Highlights” and “Lights” a bit. I didn’t, however, want to dramatically change the overall relative contrast too much, so I brought the low-to-mid range “Darks” up a hair as well.
Step 4: More Exposure “Tweaking”
I often do a little dance back and forth between steps 3 and 4 to get the proper balance of exposure and contrast. Here in step four, using Lightroom’s “Fill Light” and “Blacks” sliders bring out a little more of the detail (particularly in the moss) that I didn’t achieve using the Tone Curve adjustments.
Step 5: Adding Pop
Consider this step optional, and let me take a slight mental detour. Lightroom offers three “Presence” sliders, which we all know and love… Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation. These guys have the power to dramatically affect a photos representation of “reality” – and I, for one, am NOT ashamed to use them. In this step, I’ve added some “pop” to the image by bumping up Clarity and Vibrance. Generally speaking, I use these two to add a little flavor, and Saturation to mellow things down if I go overboard.
Step 6: Fine Tuning Color
Some of my favorite tools in Lightroom are the Detailed Color Adjustment sliders. Here I’ve continued to “tweak” the image to achieve the vibrancy of colors I remembered from that morning. My other favorite use for these sliders is eliminating color cast that I’ve introduced by pushing other adjustments in Lightroom.
Step 7: Finishing Touches
The finishing touches most common for all of my work are Sharpening and Vignetting. Zooming in on the moss, I applied an appropriate boost of sharpening to bring out edge detail while minimizing edge artifacts. When it comes to vignetting, I want to personally thank the folks at Adobe that added “Post-Crop” vignetting in Lightroom 2. I’ve used a slight post-crop vignette to bring the viewers focus in on the waterfall at the center of the scene.
And last but not least… the final shot.
I’ll note that I’ve left off a number of the other cool things (Adjustment Brush, Graduated Filters, etc.) that Lightroom makes available. Though I love them, I’ve personally found that the amount of time I spend “messing with” my photos goes up exponentially if I’m not careful to use them sparingly. As a result, I follow the basic process I’ve outlined here for most of my pictures, and save the more advanced tools for the shots I want to give some extra attention.
One closing thought about developing your own workflow. Make sure that the end of your workflow involves sharing your photos with others. It doesn’t matter if you’re a novice or a pro, sharing your photos with others will provide healthy criticism and (if you choose your audience well) positive affirmation – both of which will help you continue to grow as a photographer. And with that, thank you, sincerely, for the opportunity to share my work with you.
All the best, Rob
Thanks Rob! Check out more from Rob by visiting his blog today!
If you enjoyed this edition of Workflow Fridays, please help keep this and our other great Photoshop & Photography series going by becoming a sponsor today! You can sponsor an individual series or support the blog as a whole with a banner in the sidebar or leaderboard. Find out how!
P&P Weekly: #110
Welcome to week #110 of The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll’s P&P Weekly!
There are many opportunities available for sponsoring of one of our weekly or monthly series, or if you would like to be a sponsor of the blog as a whole, please take a minute to review our “Become a Sponsor” page.
Monthly Photo Contests
The February Photo Contest is in full-swing with some great shots already in the running for a chance to win a $25 Gift Card to B&H Photo!
Full details can be found on our Monthly Photo Contest post and you can submit your shot(s) to our Monthly Photo Contest Flickr Group.
Every other Friday, we will welcome a new guest blogger that will share their personal workflow with all of us. They will take one of their own photos and walk us through the how’s and why’s of their post-processing techniques so that we might learn and expand our own workflows.
Next week we will be welcoming photographer Roger Madsen.
If you would like to participate in this new series, please email me or leave a comment!
In case you missed it, scroll down to read my interview with NAPP Executive Director Larry Becker!
Coming in March, I sit down with Adobe Engineer, host of Creative Sweet TV, and Aussie Mike McHugh.
On the 4th of each month throughout the year I invite you to take a photo and send it in. Join me and other photographers from around the world in documenting a day in the life, of sorts. For full details, take a look at our introductory post. If you shot something on February 4th, be sure to send me your images today for inclusion in this project!
Geographic Composition
Our upcoming themes – and their posting dates – are:
-
Week #47 – Frbruary 13: “Round”
-
Week #48 – February 27: “Contasts”
-
Week #49 – March 13: “Wood”
-
Week #50 - March 27: Contributor’s Favorites
More details about Geographic Composition.
I am offering special desktop wallpaper calendars. These desktop calendars will feature my personal photography as well as a listing of holidays and important dates. I offer these wallpaper calendars in a variety of sizes to accommodate a number of screen resolutions.
Get Your Monthly Desktop Calendar Today!
Finally, here are some of my favorites from what’s been happening in the top half (A-J) of The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll:
- Paul of A Clean Well-Lighted Place – “Tree Reflections“
- Stacey of A “focus” in the wild - “Inhospitable Lands“
- Igno of A Photographer’s Life has had a few really thoughtful posts lately. Definitely worth your time to slow down.
- Kathleen of A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania – “Man on a Cell Phone in Front of a Mural in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, Washington D.C.“
- Amy of Archerfoto – “Marching to Sea“
- Margo of The Barefoot Contessa – “The Value of Photography“
- Richard of Black and White Photography – “Desillusion“
- Bruce of Bruce L. Snell Photography – “A Merging of Two Worlds“
- Kerry of Camera Dojo – “VideoCast #1: Paying Attention to Details“
- Jason of Canon Blogger – “CB Equals PLM“
- Patrick of Chuprina Studios – “Red Mercury Grill“
- Crash of Crash Taylor Photography – “Images of the Day“
- Mike of Creative Sweet TV – “Interactive InDesign PDF & SWF“
- Dave of Dave Cross Online – “After and Before“
- David of Digital ProTalk – “Forgotten Moments“
- Doug of doug stremel photography – “Back to School“
- Marshall of f/11 – “Are you lookin’ at my bum?“
- Syv of Foto-Biz.com – “Success Rates“
- Eric of Graphic Tips – “Some Great Photographic Work and Photoshop“
- Scotty of IndoGrahams – “Sunset in Indonesia“
- Marcus of Invisible Green – “Murphy“
- Jen of Jen Rinaldi Photography – “Hammock’s Beach State Park“
- Jenny of Jenny Arnez Photography – “This Afternoon“
- Joey of Joey L – “Joey L in Ethiopia – The Omo Valley 1/2“
- John of John Nack on Adobe – “Layer-related shortcuts you may want to know“
Please be sure to visit the great blogs of our other members found in the sidebar. And if you would like to be considered for The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll, email Jason.
Photoshop Interview: Larry Becker
This month I sit down with NAPP Executive Director Larry Becker to talk about Photoshop, NAPP, and the community of users from around the world that has built up because of this software.
Jason D. Moore Photography: First off, welcome! Thank you for taking the time to sit down with me. Let’s start off with some background. Tell me about yourself – where you come from, a little history about life before NAPP, education, personally, etc. If you would, include what brought you to NAPP and to your current position.
Larry Becker: I’ve been in advertising and marketing as the owner of my own small shop in central Florida, and I’ve been a public speaker since my first post-college job with United Way. It was at United Way that I started down the path to what I’m doing today, though I never would have guessed it back then. I was there for 5 years and my job required speaking in front of groups of 5 to 500 people. The other part of my job was layout and design of all of the printed materials for the local United Way. Ironically, because of my background and early adoption of desktop publishing, I wound up teaching PageMaker and Quark Express after hours to all of the local print shops in the county.
After my stint with United Way, I started my own small ad agency and when the web started to explode commercially, and became a part of business marketing, I was an early adopter and provider. About 2 years into the web marketing thing, I followed another one of my early adopter passions, and made the first ever, Palm Pilot training video. The Palm training thing was just a fun side business and I only intended to post the videos for sale on the web, which I did. But the response was so overwhelming that I sold my web marketing firm and went on the road as a Palm PDA trainer. Luckily for me, Palm thought their devices were so simple nobody needed video training or live seminar training on their devices, so I was cleaning up. I had clients like Pepsi, GE, the National Association of Realtors, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Sony, and eventually even Palm, Inc. hired me to come to their headquarters and teach their own employees how to best use their device!
The entire time I had the Palm training business, I was doing my own marketing and stayed up on the latest developments with Photoshop. I attended a 1-day seminar put on by Scott Kelby and his partner, and sponsored by their magazine, Mac Today. I became fast friends with Scott and his partner Jim and, as it turned out, Scott and I grew up a block apart from one another and had lots of friends in common. I helped my buddies with their fledgling magazine by distributing copies to Mac User Groups, by taking time off from my Palm training business to work at their 1-day seminars, and eventually by becoming their web editor for the magazine as it went national and became Mac Design magazine.
During those years their business was growing and they asked me several times to consider leaving my Palm gig and working for them full time. I kept taking time off from my Palm job to help them with their growing Photoshop training business and eventually began to help them with hosting duties at Photoshop World conventions. Even though I wasn’t really working for what is now the Kelby Media Group, I was always at their events and writing for their magazines. Around the time the Palm popularity began to fade and smartphones were taking their place, I was starting the difficult task of exploring totally new markets, because Palm PDA users weren’t automatically smartphone users, so my customer base was changing dramatically. It was then (3 and a half years ago) that Scott and the partners offered me the job of Executive Director of NAPP. As a charter member and unofficial part-time employee, I made the jump to join the group full time and haven’t looked back. I love working with these crazy folks!
JDMP: Though you are known to a wider audience through your weekly NAPP News segments, you are more of a behind the scenes kind of guy making things run smoothly. Tell us about your current position and what your job entails, both the day-to-day and on a larger scale.
LB: Well, essentially I do whatever I can to make the member experience of NAPP better. I do a mix of customer service, arranging discounts, marketing messaging, program development, and in order to stay in touch with members on a user level, I even do occasional training tutorials.
JDMP: As a person who has worked with Photoshop regularly over the years you’ve had a chance to witness tremendous growth and advancement, what have been some of your favorite features/tools/etc. over the lifespan of the software? Obviously it’s an evolving program, but is there anything you thought was unnecessary or wasn’t done quite right, even if it was updated or will probably change in a future version?
LB: I have been using Photoshop long enough to remember how thrilled I was when they added layers. I remember being excited about the ability to add noise to images or parts of images to help them blend with other images. And it seems like there’s a lot I’m thrilled about in Photoshop every time the software revs. As far as being critical of Photoshop features that weren’t or aren’t exactly what I’d wish, I’ve got to defer to the high-end power users like Scott Kelby and Dave Cross. I love thinking of myself as a power user but because of how I use the software, I don’t really have time to contemplate how Photoshop might be better if only they would… Scott and Dave do that because it’s so directly tied to their job. I try to use my creative thinking for things like, ‘NAPP could be better if we would only…’
JDMP: What effect has Photoshop had on the creative community? How has it helped? And have you seen any ways in which it may even get in the way of our creative process?
LB: There’s no question that Photoshop is the tool of choice for graphics and for photo retouching, so as capabilities are added to the software and as tutorials are developed to show the masses how various ‘hot techniques’ are done, that there has been a solid progression and continuing improvement in the world of visual imagery. Overall it’s a good thing and with clever artists, photographers, and designers constantly creating new effects, as well as Adobe and 3rd parties always enhancing Photoshop’s capabilities, there are bound to be continued improvements. And certainly, when powerful tools of any type become available to a wider audience, there are bound to be big, ugly visual mistakes that assault the viewer. It’s a tradeoff, but the balance sheet is heavily weighted toward more quality from more people and better images for everyone.
JDMP: Speaking of the creative community, I know a large part of your job is to connect with and support the NAPP community. Are there any stories that stick out for you that illustrate the kind of community that has grown up around this piece of software?
LB: Wow! There are hundreds of them and I read about individual success stories every day in our NAPP member forums. It’s a place where people meet in our virtual community and sharing ideas and success. And since they’re NAPP’s forums, I read and contribute ideas and answers there almost daily.
There have been lots of different types of successes at all levels, but one that really stands out is the story of a member named Lisa Sage. She is a gifted, classically trained painter who had to give up her love of painting because of a reaction the chemicals. A friend told her about Photoshop and while she was investigating Photoshop, she discovered the Wacom tablet and was sure she wanted to get back into art in this new medium. I love Lisa’s story (we’ve even run it as a story in our magazine) because she’s a perfect example of a hard-working, gifted artist who has taken full advantage of everything NAPP offers our members.
Lisa learned from our tutorials and constantly contacted our Help Desk to get good at Photoshop. She lurked in the member forums for over a year before posting questions and answers but now she’s a regular there who contributes help, answers and even tutorials. She regularly uploaded her works to our member portfolios so I had seen and been impressed by her work, so when I met her at a Photoshop World convention in Boston a couple years back, I commented how great her imagers were. Up to that point, she hadn’t done anything commercially using Photoshop, but just seven months later she called me and let me know what was going on.
She had a 4’x5’ gallery print hanging in a Boca Raton, Florida gallery (she lives in Maine), she was painting matte paintings for a theater-released motion picture, and she was selected as the still artist for the release of a Spider Man video game’s ad campaign. And while she worked hard and applied for lots of freelance work, she let me know that most of the folks who hired her had originally found out about her because THEY were NAPP forum users too. Heck, Lisa is kind of our NAPP poster-child artist.
JDMP: NAPP has been at the forefront of Photoshop education and has resourced so many of us in unique and entertaining ways. It has also been an advocate for members providing benefits and challenges to help us do what we love to do. What’s next for NAPP? Are there areas that you are exploring for growth? Any new and exciting projects coming down the pike?
LB: Well, we certainly do have some new ideas and we’re working on reaching new markets, but I’ve got to take the Apple corporate approach to this answer and say that we can’t discuss any new programs until they’re officially announced. Still, there are programs that are already out there, which lots of folks don’t know about. For example, we’re always talking about the fact that members get free shipping with B&H photo, and that we have the whole Apple store, but with lower prices for our members… and every single time I go to a 1-day seminar, I meet NAPP members who have never heard about those discounts! It’s amazing to me. And if they don’t know about the discounts, I’m sure they miss things like the fact that we have a whole library of around 1,000 videos, each 30-60 seconds long, that simply explain a single menu item or terminology of Photoshop. It’s an amazing library we call the How to Education Library for Photoshop (H.E.L.P.) and that doesn’t even include our 450+ tutorial videos that are 5 minutes or so each, which teach beginning through advanced Photoshop techniques.
JDMP: Working with Scott, Dave, Matt, Corey, and RC everyday – as well as the tremendous team that we often don’t see – it must be just an awesome work environment. And you must have some great stories to tell! What’s it like working in a place that is filled with such creative individuals?
LB: It’s awesome. I worked for myself for more than a decade before joining this team, and I thought I’d never work for anybody but myself again. But this company/family is so amazing that I like it better than working for myself. Still, there’s a lot more to my answer than just that.
As you know, Scott Kelby has a guest blogger every Wednesday on his amazingly popular Photoshop Insider blog. When I had a chance to write up a story for him, I did a complete behind-the-scenes thing. If you’d like to see it, there’s a link here: http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2008/archives/1912
JDMP: I know you led a photowalk back in August as part of Scott’s Worldwide Photowalk, but I’m not sure many people have seen your photography. Do you get a chance to do any personal shooing in the midst of your schedule? Is there a place we can go to see your work?
LB: Well, the quick answer is that I have a few items in my NAPP portfolio here:
http://www.photoshopuser.com/members/portfolios/view/gallery/67554
JDMP: My last question is always the same. What would you like to say that I haven’t given you a chance to say?
LB: First of all, thanks. Obviously I love having a chance to talk about NAPP any time I can, and not because I’ve been here for nearly 4 years. I love NAPP because I’ve been a member for 11 years (since the beginning) and I used the resources NAPP made available to me as an artist, designer, and photographer. It’s one of the easiest $99 I ever spent because it paid me back so many times over with savings, education, and keeping me ahead of my competitors. — It’s like cheating off the smart kid’s paper in Photoshop class, without the guilt. — With the recent economic news, people are watching every penny they spend and I’m thrilled that so many members understand that they need to renew because NAPP helps them make more money or save production time, or both. That’s a strong testament to NAPP’s value.
But the one thing I haven’t mentioned yet that really keeps NAPP on track is our members. They help one another. And they help us by telling us what they want and what they need. It’s a great symbiotic relationship… we need members for NAPP to be successful, and our members tell us what they need from us in order to succeed. The formula has helped us become the largest image-related association in the world and even though we’re 11 years old, it feels like we’re just getting started.
JDMP: Thanks for taking the time to sit down with us!
For more information or to become a member yourself, please visit the NAPP site at photoshopuser.com today!
*****
Photoshop Interviews is brought to you in part by Towner Jones Photography, LLC. Check out all of the great things Rob is doing over there!
If you would like to sponsor Photoshop Interviews or any of our other regular series, or if you would like to advertise with us, visit our Become a Sponsor page today!
The Results Are In! January Photo Contest
A huge thank you to everyone who submitted their photos in the January Photo Contest. In all, we had 38 entries from 16 different photographers, making it really tough to select just one. There were some great shots all around but the prize package including the Adobe “Ps” Logo Long Sleeve Tee, the Adobe Logo Pen, and the Illustrator Logo Stickers is:
“Studebaker Trunk Details” by patrick_chuprina
Congratulations Patrick! However there were a number of photos worth highlighting as Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):
“Beneath Metropolis” by Busta Bubb
“The Cold Pony” by tico24
“out of bounds” by all hell follows
“Pst… Hey Buddy” by goldenwreckedangle
“reflect” by Busta Bubb
“Mornings on the River” by thrphoto
“Men @ Work” by Ananda Niyogi
Check out all of the other entries in the Monthly Photo Contest Flickr Group.
The February Photo Contest is now open. The same rules apply as last month: submit up to 3 photos to the Contest Flickr Group between now and the end of the month, tag your photos with the phrase “2/09 JasonDMoore.com Photo Contest” for your chance to win!
The February Photo Contest Prize is:
A $25 Gift Card to B&H Photo
Send in your shots today!
If you would like to become a sponsor for our monthly photo contest – or if you’re interested in donating a prize for a future contest, visit our “Become a Sponsor” page to learn how!
P&P Weekly: #108
Welcome to week #108 of The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll’s P&P Weekly!
Once again, I would like to welcome Marc Benton of User 40.0, our newest sponsor! There are many opportunities available for sponsoring of one of our weekly or monthly series, or if you would like to be a sponsor of the blog as a whole, please take a minute to review our “Become a Sponsor” post.
Monthly Photo Contests
Time is almost up to enter the January Photo Contest for your change to win the prize package.
Full details can be found on our Monthly Photo Contest post and you can submit your shot(s) to our Monthly Photo Contest Flickr Group.
Every other Friday, we will welcome a new guest blogger that will share their personal workflow with all of us. They will take one of their own photos and walk us through the how’s and why’s of their post-processing techniques so that we might learn and expand our own workflows.
Next week we will be having a very cool guest who will surely inspire all of us.
If you would like to participate in this new series, please email me or leave a comment!
Coming on Monday, February 9 is my interview with NAPP Executive Director Larry Becker!
On the 4th of each month throughout the year I invite you to take a photo and send it in. Join me and other photographers from around the world in documenting a day in the life, of sorts. For full details, take a look at our introductory post. If you shot something on January 4th, be sure to send me your images today for inclusion in this project!
Geographic Composition
Our upcoming themes – and their posting dates – are:
-
Week #46 – January 30: “Shadows”
-
Week #47 – Frbruary 13: “Round”
-
Week #48 – February 27: “Contasts”
-
Week #49 – March 13: “Wood”
-
Week #50 - March 27: Contributor’s Favorites
More details about Geographic Composition.
I am offering special desktop wallpaper calendars. These desktop calendars will feature my personal photography as well as a listing of holidays and important dates. I offer these wallpaper calendars in a variety of sizes to accommodate a number of screen resolutions.
Get Your Monthly Desktop Calendar Today!
In the meantime…
Click here to become a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. A great resource for training, tips, and connecting with other creatives.
And as always, take a moment to grab one of the chicklet links to show your support for this blog and, for blogroll members, be sure to pick up your P&P Blogroll Member badge link.
Finally, here are some of my favorites from what’s been happening in the top half (A-J) of The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll:
- Stacey of A “focus” in the wild - “Black and White“
- Igno of A Photographer’s Life reminds us to watch out for when life has more great moments in store.
- Kathleen of A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania – “Break Time“
- Amy of Archerfoto – “Pink Houses“ – a favorite from this week
- Margo of The Barefoot Contessa – “Lightroom Slideshow Module“
- Richard of Black and White Photography – “Tall Grass“
- Bruce of Bruce L. Snell Photography – “Great Locations – Part Two“
- Kerry of Camera Dojo – “List of Free Adobe Lightroom Presets“
- Jason of Canon Blogger – “Defining Your Image Composition“
- Patrick of Chuprina Studios – “Auburn Spare“
- Crash of Crash Taylor Photography – “Rachel and Alan“ – a great set
- Mike of Creative Sweet TV – “The good the bad and the retouched“
- Dave of Dave Cross Online – “Technique of the…every so often” – I’ve actually used this a couple of times at work and I think it’s great!
- David of Digital ProTalk – “Lost in the Moment“
- Doug of doug stremel photography – “Meet Pete“
- Marshall of f/11 – “Golden Glow“ & “Looking East” & “Luminosity“
- Syv of Foto-Biz.com – “Proofsheets“
- Eric of Graphic Tips – “Logo of the Day“
- Scotty of IndoGrahams – “Elephant Crossing“ – another favorite, because I’m a sucker for elephants
- Marcus of Invisible Green – “Dukes Creek“ – there’s a whole series of them that are really nice
- John of John Nack on Adobe – “Photos from 100 Meters to 1mm”
Please be sure to visit the great blogs of our other members found in the sidebar. And if you would like to be considered for The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll, email Jason.
P&P Weekly: #107
Welcome to week #107 of The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll’s P&P Weekly!
It’s been an exciting couple of weeks here at Jason D. Moore Photography! I’ve seen a dramatic increase in readers and I’d like to start off by welcoming all of the newcomers! I would also like to thank those of you who have linked here, particularly about Part I of the John Nack interview. It is very much appreciated!
There has been some growth on the sponsorship front! As I announced last week, the Photoshop Interviews series is now sponsored in part by Towner Jones Photography and there has been interest in sponsorships for other ongoing projects which will be announced once the details are finalized.
If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of one of our weekly or monthly series, or if you would like to be a sponsor of the blog as a whole, please take a minute to review our “Become a Sponsor” page to find out how!
Also this week, and I realize it might’ve gotten lost in the midst of all of the inaugural excitement, I am now offering my photographic prints for sale! Not only will you now be able to own a piece of my work you can get it for a discounted rate for a limited time! Scroll down to yesterday’s post for more details!
On the 4th - Send your photos in today!
On the 4th of each month throughout the year I invite you to take a photo and send it in. Join me and other photographers from around the world in documenting a day in the life, of sorts. For full details, take a look at our introductory post. If you shot something on January 4th, send me your images today so they will be included in the project!
Monthly Photo Contests
Full details can be found on our Monthly Photo Contest post and you can submit your shot(s) to our Monthly Photo Contest Flickr Group.
Every other Friday, we will welcome a new guest blogger that will share their personal workflow with all of us. They will take one of their own photos and walk us through the how’s and why’s of their post-processing techniques so that we might learn and expand our own workflows.
This Friday we will be welcoming photographer Jeff Revell of PhotoWalkPro as he shares his Lightroom workflow.
If you would like to participate in this new series, please email me or leave a comment!
Part II of my interview with Photoshop Hall of Fame inductee and Principal Project Manager for Adobe Photoshop and Bridge (and Friend-of-the-Blog) John Nack is coming soon!
Geographic Composition
Our upcoming themes – and their posting dates – are:
-
Week #46 – January 30: “Shadows”
-
Week #47 – Frbruary 13: “Round”
-
Week #48 – February 27: “Contasts”
-
Week #49 – March 13: “Wood”
-
Week #50 - March 27: Contributor’s Favorites
More details about Geographic Composition.
Starting in January I am offering special desktop wallpaper calendars. These desktop calendars will feature my personal photography as well as a listing of holidays and important dates. I offer these wallpaper calendars in a variety of sizes to accommodate a number of screen resolutions. The January Desktop Calendars are up now and February’s will be posted next week.
Get Your Monthly Desktop Calendar Today!
In the meantime…
Click here to become a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. A great resource for training, tips, and connecting with other creatives.
And as always, take a moment to grab one of the chicklet links to show your support for this blog and, for blogroll members, be sure to pick up your P&P Blogroll Member badge link.
Finally, here are some of my favorites from what’s been happening in the bottom half (L-W) of The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll:
- Jennifer of Laughing Lion Design – “Free Art Friday Ireland” – an interesting idea!
- Matt of Lightroom Killer Tips - “Video Interview with Adobe’s Tom Hogerty“
- Mike of Mike Palmer Photography – “Green Apple“
- Heather of One Shot Beyond Photography - “Kim’s Outdoor Maternity Session“
- Matthias of Pabst Photo – “Looking Back, Looking Forward“
- Jim of PHOTOBLOG by Jim Larimer – “Fine Art Gum Prints“
- Crash of Photographer Interviews – “Simon Mark Witten“
- Clayton of Photographic Design – “Cass – Old Sawmill“
- Mike of Photography Reloaded – “Back to the Future II“
- Scott of Photoshop Insider – “The Dave Hill Look Revisited, Part One” & Part Two
- Jeff of PhotoWalkPro – “Fake a Pano, Save a Shot“
- Troy of Ramblings Around Texas – “Arizona Desert“
- Roger of Roger Madsen Photography is in India but links us to a really cool time lapse shot.
- Shawn of SDuffy Photography – “2009 Photography Goals” & “DCist Exposed 2009“
- David of Strobist – “Packing Light for Central America“
- Terry of Terry White’s Tech Blog – “Adobe CS4 Stuff“
- Richard of The Airstream Chronicles Continued – “Ghost Towns of Arizona“
- Derrick of The Digital Story – “Update to Geotagging Workflow“
- Dewdrop of The Flight of a South Georgia Storm Chaser – “I’m going to Weather Fest” – the shot at the bottom
- Andy of The Global Photographer – “Photo of the Day“
- Rob of Towner Jones Photography – “Clouds“
- Michael of travel+photography – “Happy New Year“
- Lori of VirtualPhotographyStudio.com – “9 Things to Photograph Before You Die“
- Andy of Visual Realia – “Harrisburg Photowalk – April 18“
- Stephen of watchThisspace – “Post Consumerism” & “Block Head“
- Scott of Weekly Photo Tips - “The Best B&W Conversions You Will Ever See“
- Aaron of What the Duck - ”WTD #444 & 445″
- Martin of What the Heck Journal – “On the Right Track to Nowhere“
- Christopher of Written By the Light recently had an article he wrote published at T.O.P.
Please be sure to visit the great blogs of our other members found in the sidebar. And if you would like to be considered for The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll, email Jason.
P&P Weekly: #106
POST 850!
Welcome to week #106 of The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll’s P&P Weekly!
I’d like to extend a special welcome to our newest sponsor, Towner Jones Photography! Friend-of-the-Blog Rob Jones of Towner Jones Photography will be a sponsor of the Photoshop Interviews series throughout 2009! I’m really excited to announce this new partnership and I invite you to head over to his blog and check out all the great things Rob is doing over there!
If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of one of our weekly or monthly series, or if you would like to be a sponsor of the blog as a whole, please take a minute to review our “Become a Sponsor” post.
Monthly Photo Contests
Full details can be found on our Monthly Photo Contest post and you can submit your shot(s) to our Monthly Photo Contest Flickr Group.
Every other Friday, we will welcome a new guest blogger that will share their personal workflow with all of us. They will take one of their own photos and walk us through the how’s and why’s of their post-processing techniques so that we might learn and expand our own workflows.
If you would like to participate in this new series, please email me or leave a comment!
Part II of my interview with Photoshop Hall of Fame inductee and Principal Project Manager for Adobe Photoshop and Bridge (and Friend-of-the-Blog) John Nack is coming soon! After a few hiccups with his computer, John is getting back up to speed and we’ll have the rest posted soon.
On the 4th of each month throughout the year I invite you to take a photo and send it in. Join me and other photographers from around the world in documenting a day in the life, of sorts. For full details, take a look at our introductory post. If you shot something on January 4th, be sure to send me your images by next week for inclusion in this project!
Geographic Composition
Our upcoming themes – and their posting dates – are:
-
Week #45 – January 16: “Green”
-
Week #46 – January 30: “Shadows”
-
Week #47 – Frbruary 13: “Round”
-
Week #48 – February 27: “Contasts”
-
Week #49 – March 13: “Wood”
-
Week #50 - March 27: Contributor’s Favorites
More details about Geographic Composition.
Starting in January I am offering special desktop wallpaper calendars. These desktop calendars will feature my personal photography as well as a listing of holidays and important dates. I offer these wallpaper calendars in a variety of sizes to accommodate a number of screen resolutions. The January Desktop Calendars are up now and February’s will be posted towards the end of the month.
Get Your Monthly Desktop Calendar Today!
In the meantime…
Click here to become a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. A great resource for training, tips, and connecting with other creatives.
And as always, take a moment to grab one of the chicklet links to show your support for this blog and, for blogroll members, be sure to pick up your P&P Blogroll Member badge link.
Finally, here are some of my favorites from what’s been happening in the top half (A-J) of The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll:
- Paul of A Clean-Well Lighted Place – “Untitled #11578“
- Stacey of A “focus” in the wild - “A New Beginning” – particularly the image on the bottom
- Kathleen of A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania – “Snow on a Wrought Iron Gate in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania“
- Amy of Archerfoto – “January 1, 2009“
- Margo of The Barefoot Contessa – “A Celebration of Some 2008 Photographs – Part II“
- Richard of Black and White Photography – “Friends“
- Bruce of Bruce L. Snell Photography – “Ceynote“
- Kerry of Camera Dojo – “Marc Fuller on SEO for Your Website“
- Jason of Canon Blogger – “The Boneyard and the Backstory“
- Crash of Crash Taylor Photography – “Janie and Paul Engagement Shoot“
- Mike of Creative Sweet TV – “Blob Brush Bonanza“
- Dave of Dave Cross Online – “Vegas Photo Shoot/Lesson Learned“
- David of Digital ProTalk – “Recession Lighting: A Poor Man’s Guide to Lighting Gear“
- Doug of doug stremel photography – “Squint Into the Light“
- Marshall of f/11 – “Festive Kitty“
- Syv of Foto-Biz.com – “Running Out of Money“
- Eric of Graphic Tips – “Free Texture Tuesday: Paint Splatters“
- Scotty of IndoGrahams – “Sunda Kelapa“
- Marcus of Invisible Green – “Hooked Tag“ (Awesome Shot!)
- Jenny of Jenny Arnez Photography – “Guitar Player“
- Joey of Joey L. – “Dropping off the face of the earth“
- John of John Nack on Adobe – “Photoshop Subvertising”
Please be sure to visit the great blogs of our other members found in the sidebar. And if you would like to be considered for The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll, email Jason.
January Photo Contest Reminder
We’re about halfway through January and the Monthly Photo Contest Flickr Group is buzzing with entries!
So far we have 10 members and 13 unique shots vying for our prize package which includes:
- Adobe “Photoshop Icon” Long Sleeve Tee – L or XL
(Embroidered “Ps” logo on a dark blue shirt with navy collar and sleeves) - Adobe Logo Pen
(Blue, with black ink) - Adobe “Illustrator Icon” Stickers
(1″x1″)
For full details, visit our Monthly Photo Contest intro post. The January contest closes in just over 2 weeks so be sure to get your entries in soon to be eligible!
Become a Sponsor Today!
First of all, I’d like to thank John Nack for being willing to share his thoughts and insights with us yesterday. We’re still batting emails back and forth with questions and I hope to have Part II ready soon. Also, a special WELCOME! to any new readers who have come back as a result of the interview. I hope you’ll take some time to look around and even make this a regular stop!
I added a new page to the blog without any big ado about a little over a week ago as a “soft opening” (if you will). You see, I’ve been writing online for 6 years, 4 months, and 15 days – a little over half of that time as an actual blog – and The Photoshop & Photography Blogroll community is going strong in its 3rd year now.
Like many in the creative fields I dream to turn my passions into my profession. For me photography and, by extention, Photoshop are more than just hobbies or components of my day job; they are means of self-expression, how I communicate with the world. There’s just something about the sound of a shutter or the way I feel as I tweak a shot in Lightroom or what it’s like to share a tip or tutorial that helps someone understand and grow.
I’ve been humbled by the response I’ve gotten from members of this community who have left comments, participated in various projects, or even guest blog for me from time to time. You can ask any one of them and they will attest to how great it feels to be a part of the greater world Photoshop and photography in this way. When big names like John Nack, Scott Kelby, David Ziser, 1001 Noisy Cameras, Colin Smith and others have come to be regular readers and “Friends-of-the-Blog” I think that says something about the nature of this community and the quality of the content that we, as a whole, produce.
I’d like to take this opportunity to invite you to be a part of this blog as well by way of sponsorship. Either through general site sponsorship or as a sponsor for one of our many weekly or monthly series you can associate your brand and/or website with one of the largest and fastest growing communities of photographers and Photoshop users from around the world.
Opportunities exist in areas including:
- General Blog Sponsorship
- 600×90 leaderboard banner – $100/month
- 200×200 sidebar banner – $75/month
- 200×100 sidebar banner – $50/month
- Weekly Series Sponsorships – $75/month or $25 for 1 week
- P&P Weekly Sponsorship
- Workflow Fridays
- Monthly Desktop Calendars – $75/month
- Monthly Series Sponsorships – $50/month
- Geographic Composition
- “On the 4th” Photo Project
- Photoshop Interviews
- Monthly Photo Contests – or donate the prize(s) for the winner
- Video Tutorials – $100/video
If you are interested in partnering with Jason D. Moore Photography, please send an email to sponsors@jasondmoore.com to discuss how we might work together to serve the Photoshop & Photography community! Space is limited so please contact me today!
If you are not in a position to sponsor but would still like to support this site, donations of any amount are always appreciated!
Photoshop Interview: John Nack
To kick off our new series of Photoshop Interviews, where better to start than Adobe? Today we welcome Principal Project Manager for Adobe Photoshop & Bridge, and Photoshop Hall of Famer, John Nack.
Jason D. Moore Photography: First off, welcome John! It’s an honor to have you with us. Why don’t you start off by telling us a little bit about your background both Educationally and Professionally?
John Nack: I graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in history–which has nothing whatsoever to do with Web design or product management, the two things I’ve done professionally.
I’ve loved drawing since I was little, and when I saw the first Macintosh at my friend’s birthday party in 1984, it completely blew my mind. I finally talked my parents into getting an Apple IIgs in the late 80’s, and in college I taught myself Web technologies while helping professors put their coursework online. My job at AGENCY.COM New York (‘98-2000) gave me intensive hands-on design and production experience, and it introduced me to folks from Adobe, Macromedia, and other tech companies. My desire to improve Flash production led me to Adobe in 2000 to work on LiveMotion.
JDMP: What is your current job? And could you describe for us a little bit of what that entails?
JN: You know, I’m never really clear on what it is I do, except that it seems to involve an awful lot of email. 
In a nutshell I try to figure out what people need (and hence will pay for), and then I work with the team to get that built. That means talking to customers via a variety of means (blogs, forums, face-to-face meetings, etc.) and working with the team to keep making feature decisions and refining priorities. There’s also an enormous amount of semi-random work (answering press inquiries, supporting tradeshows and user groups, and so forth).
JDMP: Photoshop has come a long way since version 1, with many milestones along the way (layers, adjustment layers, smart objects, HDR, etc). For you, what have been some of the most significant advances over the life of the software? Any missteps?
JN: I think the greatest hits are pretty obvious: Layers, the History palette, re-editable type, the Healing Brush, and Camera Raw jump to mind. Save for Web and ImageReady were pretty huge for me in my past life.
As for missteps, I’ve certainly championed things that it *seems* people should love, but which go largely unused (e.g. Layer Comps, the How To content under the Help menu). I sometimes say that there are problems people have & problems people will let you solve. The latter set is much smaller than the former.
A certain set of things like Smart Objects and customizability are underused, but I think that’s because we haven’t yet finished what we started. Sometimes you have to build a house brick by brick, and the whole thing looks a little silly until it’s complete.
JDMP: There have been a lot of new arenas in which Photoshop has delved, especially starting with CS3 Extended. What was the motivation for developing areas of Photoshop with the medical and scientific fields in mind?
JN: Well, from very early on Photoshop has been used by people outside the traditional core markets (photography, graphic design, etc.). I remember reading about an early version where Mark Hamburg bumped up the maximum document dimensions to 30,000×30,000 pixels at the request of government users (the CIA, if I remember right) who were processing satellite imagery.
He figured “That ought to hold them for a while”–and it did. Of course, years later we raised the limits again by 100x, and I’m sure that’ll happen again someday.
In any case, even though we were aware of these specialized uses of Photoshop, each market was too small to justify a lot of direct investment. That is, we couldn’t justify making their needs a priority at the expense of more broadly applicable features. Photoshop Extended gives us a chance to say, “Here’s a version that adds just the kind of things you’ve requested.”
We don’t market it as “Photoshop Pro” or “Photoshop Premium,” i.e. as the version that everyone would buy if money were no object. Instead we try to present it as a version that extends beyond Photoshop in some targeted ways.
JDMP: In a related question, what is the process for including new features? How do you determine what’s in and what has to wait for the next version?
JN: I’d love to tell you that the process is simple or straightforward, but it’s more complex than that. At the front of our minds, of course, is the feedback we’re getting from customers. The thing is, we get so many more good requests than we’d ever have time to address that we have to consider other factors.
Various engineers have specific skill sets, so it’s not always possible to mix and match. Some people are great at user interface code, others at math (HDR, warping, etc.), others at deep software architecture, and so on. We also need to make time to keep improving the Photoshop architecture and requests/requirements established by the Suite. And, of course, sometimes feature work goes faster than expected, sometimes slower, so we’re constantly adjusting plans.
At the end of the day we have to deliver a release that’s a good mix of power for a wide range of customers. Otherwise it just won’t entice customers to upgrade.
*****
Thanks again to John for being our first guest as part of the Photoshop Interviews Series here at Jason D. Moore Photography! We’ll have “Part II” of the conversation in the coming days.
For more information about John Nack and his work at Adobe you can visit his blog, John Nack on Adobe, at http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack.
And be sure to come back on Monday, February 9th when I sit down with NAPP Executive Director Larry Becker!
*****
Also, we welcome a new sponsor for the Photoshop Interviews series, Towner Jones Photography! If you would like to become a sponsor of this, or any other series here at Jason D. Moore Photography, please visit our “Become a Sponsor” page to find out how!
