Post Production – Learn More Photography

Free Cinema Photoshop Action – Teal to Orange

Learn More Photo — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:55:29 +0000

After reading a post about how orange and teal color grading is ruining the movie industry in this post: Teal and Orange – Hollywood, Please Stop the Madness. I thought – why not create a quick and dirty Photoshop action to mimic this effect in a flexible way for anyone to use on a photo. So here it is, my Cinema Orange/Teal Color Grading Action.

Download the Cinema Orange/Teal Color Grading Action Photoshop Action

It’s very versatile and works beautifully with portraits as well as architecture and landscapes, enjoy! Post links to any photos you use this preset in, I’d love to see them!

Cloud Glow – a Free Lightroom Preset

Learn More Photo — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:04:06 +0000

I was going through some of my old Lightroom catalogs when I came across a shoot I did last year. I was looking through my five star flags and found a few interesting shots that I realized I had edited entirely in Lightroom. I really liked these shots and thought they would make great presets so here’s one of the few I found.

Cloudy Glow Portrait Preset

I call this preset cloudy glow because of the way it brightens the skin to a soft glow with a bright white “cumulus” look about it. Okay or I was just being a little dramatic with my naming but I thought it flowed well.

Download the Cloudy Glow Lightroom Preset for Portraits
Need help installing? DPS has a good article for you on how to install Lightroom presets

It’s very versatile and works beautifully with head shots and portraits. Hope you enjoy! Post links to any photos you use this preset in, I’d love to see them!

Advanced Auto Levels in Photoshop

Learn More Photo — Sat, 23 May 2009 12:17:52 +0000

It’s hard being a photographer – you always strive for perfection in ever shot, even your snap shots. Sometimes you just want to tidy up a photo quickly – especially those imperfect snap shots. Usually my snap shots right out of camera tend to be really dull, lifeless and lacking in contrast. I’ve always wanted a way to quickly and easily fix them up – now I’ve created just the action to do so!

Reading up over at DPS.com I came across this article that was the answer to my contrast-less prayers: A Quick and Effective Way to Enhance Contrast in Photoshop. From this killer lesson I created a quick and easy, non destructive Photoshop action; I call it my Advanced Auto Levels action. It seems to work best for landscapes or still life. Portraits tend to need a softer touch but you can always play – that’s what my non destructive actions are for!

See this Action in Action

Removing Gaffers Tape Using Photoshop’s Patch Tool

Learn More Photo — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:44:49 +0000

It’s easy to remove distractions like gaffers tape and paper tears from a background of your photograph using Adobe Photoshop. In this video I use Photoshop’s patch tool to remove distracting gaffers tape from a seamless background to enhance the photograph in less than 5 minutes. I’ll walk you through all the steps and help you see how quick an easy it is to enhance your shots!

See below the video for the before & after shots!

Removing Gaffer Tape from a Seamless Background Photo Video

Removed Background Distractions using Photoshop’s Patch Tool

The Before & After Shots

Equipment Used

Like this seamless roll? You can order this Thunder grey seamless roll (107″ x 12 yards) for under $50 from B&H.

Looking for a wide variety of gaffer tape? Check out B&H’s huge variety of gaffer tape is all sizes, colors, finished and all at great prices!

The Day I Really Lost My HDR Virginity

Learn More Photo — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:30:56 +0000

Sunday morning I downloaded the trial of Photomatix went into the basement and took a few photos of the creepy, poorly lit door, the corner with some light shining in through a window unseen, as well as an old rusty chair. I ran my little bottom back upstairs, loaded up my RAW’s and got to processing.

Now I made an attempt at HDR way back when using Photoshop CS2 but just didn’t get why people thought it was so awesome, and found it frustrating that I couldn’t get the results I desired. It was all about the tone mapping that Photomatix has that gives HDR’s I had seen their magic touch.

The Exposures I Used:

(click to enlarge)

To Create:

Fantastic!

And then there was the Coffee Hop, I spotted it on a drive down RT12 in Oxford, MA.

The Exposures:

(click to enlarge)

The Result:

Mmmmmm… HDR is delicious! Needless to say after running the demo only three times I bought the program. Only $85 with discount promo codes. Just do a search for Photomatix discount or Photomatix promo to see what you can find. And don’t settle on the first discount, I saw discounts of 5%, 10% and 15%. Guess which one I went with?