Tag Archives: photoshop

*Adding an ‘aged’ feel to your photographs.

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

One thing I find funny about modern digital photography, is how much we tend to revert back to wanting it to look like film.  The irony of using a $600+ software program, thousands of dollars in camera gear and a bit of time in front of a computer to get an image to look like it was taken with an older film camera and some expired film is not lost on me.  But, if we’ve already got the tools, why not have the ability to use them for a variety of effects right?  I love vintage, or aged processing, so here are a couple techniques I have played around with to get my high resolution images to look like they were taken a while back…

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*The Eyes Have It.

by in Lighting tutorials, Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Eyes are not only a window, but a roadmap.  I’ve always felt that I can tell a lot about a person based on the shoes they wear, and the kind of person they are by their eyes.  Eyes tell you a story, they paint emotion and can determine the power of a portrait.  Of course there are many, many other elements to pay attention to, but a good portrait quite often starts and ends with the eyes.  Even in snapshots, making sure everyone’s eyes are at least open is one of the first things you check when glancing on the LCD screen right?  Assuming we’ve captured a shot with eyes open wide, getting them to pop can make the difference between a good portrait and a wow shot.  Here are a few techniques that I use, and have found from others, that can help make those eyes stand out.

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*Alien Skin Bokeh 2

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Bokeh (/bō’kɛ/): In photographic terms, has grown to mean the subjective quality of the out of focus areas in a photograph, and how a particular lens renders out of focus points of light (adopted from the Japanese term boke 暈け, meaning fuzzy, disoriented, et al).  Pronounced BO (as the bo in bone) and KE (as the ke in ken) if we are taking it directly from the Japanese word, while the “h” was added to help non Japanese speaking photographers pronounce this adopted term (see the wikipedia article for the history on the term and idea in photographic application).  While the definition, pronunciation and it’s subjective nuances are often debated as to it’s application in the photographic realm, it hasn’t stopped Alien Skin from creating a plugin that beautifully applies an out of focus blur to selected areas of an otherwise focused image.  With their second release, Bokeh 2 has added new bells and whistles as well as a more refined control of both radial and planar regions within an image and it’s area of focus.  Read on for examples and why I think this is a wonderful deal of a plugin.

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*Presets! Less talk, more rock! Or, one easy way to streamline your workflow.

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Presets, a key to streamlining your workflow. (*using a New York Times Mag Aperture3 preset by Zurli) - image ©tyson robichaud photography2010

Alright alright now.  No matter what your stance is on post processing, love it, hate it, meh, one thing that is hard to deny is that for the average photographer, digital photography requires a bit more time than shooting film on an image by image basis.  Yes, our feedback with digital is instantaneous, yes we are able to immediately adjust on the fly but one thing that has crept into the equation is the amount of time needed after shooting to upload, catalog, tag, process and archive all of your images (not to mention, many of us tend to take quite a few more images per outing now that we get more than 24 exposures a round).  One helpful tool is the use of presets, or actions.  These are a series of repeatable adjustments and instructions applied to your digital file so that you don’t have to manually adjust each and every one individually.  Read on for links, examples and tons of freebies for APERTURE, LIGHTROOM and PHOTOSHOP presets and actions…

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*Exposure 3, third time’s a charm!

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

Alien Skin's Exposure 3 makes your digital files instantly feel film like. - ©tyson robichaud photography 2010

I have been curious about the Alien Skin Exposure software plugin for Photoshop for a long time.  With the third iteration, Exposure3  has taken their film simulation software even further.  Read on for examples and reviews…

*Authors note: Link to Alien Skin’s Newsletter showing this article here!

To those who’ve come from the newsletter, welcome!!!

 

(March 2012) Now that Exposure 4 has been released, you can read my updated review HERE!

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*Selective Color use in Black and White Photography

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments

One fun, and very easy technique in Photoshop is to use a small point (or points) of color in a black and white image to draw focus to a particular area or provide a particular mood.  It is easy and can provide a bit of intrigue to an image. This is my basic way of achieving this using an image in Photoshop.

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*Free Photoshop Contrast Pop Action!

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

My lovely friend Kira plays the good sport.

Here is a brief tutorial on how to add a contrasty “look” to just about any picture.  There are sites out there to purchase many of these types of actions, and some of them are well worth the price, but I’ve found that through my years, many other photographers have offered up free advice as I was learning to scrape the surface of Photoshop, which enabled me to gain a deeper understanding of my post processing.  So, in this tradition, I shall try to pay back a bit of that help by offering up this little trick.  I know that many photographers would rather spend their free time taking pictures, not in front of a computer processing them.  I myself find enjoyment on both sides of this coin, but I sure don’t mind being able to quickly automate some of my more “used” techniques.  This is one of them…

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*Photography vs Art

by in General ramblings and tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Where does a photograph stop and digital art begin?

Where does a photograph stop being a photograph and start becoming something different?  We’ll call it an ‘artistic interpretation’ for lack of a better description.  Or, are they one in the same no matter what level of manipulation has been applied?  I’ve been taking pictures for a while, more of my life than not if you don’t count the hiatus I took after college when I was bogged down with three jobs.  I still have some shots from that time period, but they are few and far between.  So, I feel like photography has been a part of my life for a while.  I’ve not spent too much time thinking about it in these terms until recently.  Prior, I’ve just enjoyed taking pictures but thanks to the internet and my epiphany that there are other people out there with opinions getting me to challenge my personal understanding, I feel like it is an entertaining idea to explore.  Is anything done to a photograph, after an image has been captured, by way of any kind of manipulation actually doing something that betrays the purity of photography, or is it just part of the progression?  Well… let us explore. Continue reading →

*Floating in Photoshop! How to levitate in a photo.

by in Photography tutorials, Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 37 Comments

*Wanted to thank everyone who has stopped by to read this post over the last few years. I’ve received quite a few emails and seen links back to this article from many different forums based in many different countries. Thank you! As originally mentioned in the tutorial below, this isn’t a particularly original tactic, but if you put your own spin on it, it can produce some really cool imagery. Okay, on to my original posting, and thank you again for everyone who has stopped by. I’ve been really excited to converse, learn and meet with many of you since I started this blog over three years ago!

Enjoy,

Tyson

This is not an original idea, but so few ideas are anymore. While it may be a well used tactic, it can be very effective. I’ve played around with this technique a few times and it is one that when done decently will almost always get a “wow!” or at least a “huh, wait, what?” It is easy to do as well. It requires Photoshop, or if you are fundamentally against paying $600 for software you can download GIMP. I’ve used Photoshop for this one, so if using GIMP, you will need to translate these steps into GIMP-speak which shouldn’t be too hard.

Okay, our goal is to appear to be floating, or hovering so unless you’re an accomplished zen levitation master, you will need to take two pictures to create the illusion.

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