Photographer Heather Swanner shares her technique on Confessions of a Prop Junkie on how to make eyes pop when shooting. Capturing the “Window to a soul” is something we are always trying to capture in our photos and Heather has a few simple techniques to help you get there.
Image © Heather Swanner
Learn how she creates these great shots in the article “It’s All About the Eyes”
Alvar Astúlez has an incredible photo collection of landscape images that are sure to inspire. A Graphic Designer from Bolbao Spain, he has the command of light and colors in all his work.
Who would have thought that Google’s Street View images could be used as art? Well it seem that many photographers have decided to use this medium for various projects. Aaron Hobsen takes his images to the artistic level, searching the virtual globe for the perfect images. Using multiple techniques like stitching, contrast and highlight adjustments, he takes the boring images to an artistic level.
See Aaron’s work at Aaronhobson.com
Here are a few more links for a collection of street view images, though not quite as artistic as Aaron’s.
Doug Rickards work on the MOMA
Sometimes we come across some of the coolest gadgets and software to fuel our addiction of photography, but I think the Instant JPEG From RAW software is the killer app for those of you who shoot RAW. For those of you who don’t shoot RAW, we’ll have to do another post of why you should, but at least this makes the task easier for the time being.
One thing you may not know about RAW, the full-size .jpg file is also embedded as a preview. Instant JPEG from RAW extracts this file with a speed that will most likely not match your current workflow, it’ is 15 times faster than a bulky RAW conversion process via Bridge and Photoshop. Just take a look at the dialog box below, I was able to convert 156 RAW files in 95 seconds. It not only converted these files (or better yet extracted), but it output the full-size image and a 2000 pixel version as well.
My current workflow in dealing with a RAW conversion has been pretty cumbersome. I use Adobe Bridge to view all my files after I shoot them and start tagging away from 1-5 stars. This helps me determine which files I will eventually edit in Photoshop. But I also like to take all those images and save them as .jpg in addition to the standard .NEF raw file. The way to do this with Bridge is to use the Photoshop Image Processor option which essentially opens up each file in Photoshop and outputs to .JPG. If I want to resize the file in addition to converting to full-size, with this process I have to run the conversion again, taking at least 15 more minutes with 156 files.
So there you have it, the answer to a quick RAW conversion with minimal hassle. Now the big question, how much would you pay for this app? $50-$150? Well you’ll be happy to know this is a free program that works on both Windows and Mac. According to Michael Tapes who designed the app, it’s a give back to the photo community. Thanks Michael, this is on e program we will be using on a daily basis.
Snow textures for Photoshop
Florabella is offering free Snow textures/overlay for Photoshop. I have used the Florabella actions and textures for the past few months and am impressed with how well all of their products work.
Download the free textures now
For those of you who love to play with Photoshop, check out this list of my favorite .PSD files. A .PSD file is basically a template that has multiple layers you can customize to create buttons, sample iphones, etc. Most of these should be compatible with Photoshop CS4, but I just ordered my upgrade so am unable to verify.
This one will be very popular with everyone talking about going green. Download Link
This is probably one of the coolest templates I have run across. For those of you who want to design your own skateboard layouts, this will be a perfect template for you. Download Link
Some of the best ways to learn a program is to dissect what others have done. This .PSD demonstration gives you all the layers of the image, so you can see how it was constructed. Files like this are a great way to learn Photoshop. Download Link
These crack me up, not much more to say. Download Here and Here
This is probably the best ID Template file I have run across. Download also includes the font files. Download Link
This little shouts template is easy to use. Just open and edit the text and your done. No fuss no muss. Download Link
Everything is on a separate layer and the text can be edited as well. Download Link
You only need Photoshop CS/CS2/CS3 to open it and tweak the layers. You can fully customize the artwork. If you want to change the box color, look on the “dvd case” group and tweak them with Hue/Saturation. Download Link
And another from the same author Download Link
Use your creativity with this one for creating a template for a photo gallery to a possible movie poster. Download Link
Some more fun working with the iPhone, iPhone apps icons in PSD Format. Download Link
Not sure what else to call this, so fantasy seems appropriate. I can picture things like flying cats and dogs with a tornado thrown into this template. I think this one has a lot of latitude to work with. Download Link
Simple files that are easy to edit. You may get a missing font error when you open these, but just use your own system fonts to edit the badges. Download Link
I have travelled to Europe and marveled at the colors and textures of the old masters paintings. I always loved the hues of the Mona Lisa and at one time tried to edit a photo with the same colors. Had I know this trick below, it would have been much easier than my painstaking effort.
I took the portrait above and combined the colors with the Mona Lisa. It could probably use some more tweaking, but as you can see from the before and after pics, it’s a pretty good representation of the colors. The key when doing this step is to have both images open in Photoshop, which the instructions linked below failed to point out.
Onto the instructions.
Photoradar is offering 50 free borders to spice up your images. We thought we would give a few of these a test run and see how they turned out. Total time to add these borders to the 3 examples was less than ten minutes.
Download your free borders here
Just read the simple instructions and you’ll be on your way to spicing up your images in no time.
Juliana Nan has created some beautiful imagery with her wonderful post processing skills in Photoshop. I searched for more information on her and her techniques, but was unable to come up with much. So for now we can just enjoy her beautiful imagery and not worry about the technical side.
A few links of her work.
 Infinite longing… by Juliana Nan |
 Waves of Symphony… by Juliana Nan |
 Beyond the Visible… by Juliana Nan |
 Another World… by Juliana Nan |
 Pure Heart… by Juliana Nan |
