Private One-on-One Adobe Photoshop Instructional Workshops

Outstanding nature photography requires photographers to practice good field technique and to be proficient in the digital darkroom too. Whether you are new to Adobe Photoshop or are somewhat experienced with the program “Private One-on-One Adobe Photoshop Instruction” workshops will provide you with the confidence and knowhow to maximize your digital image files to their absolute best. From the basics to advance techniques, developing a reliable workflow will exercise the creative process required to maximize the potential within each digital image.

Learn the basics of:

• Selecting the right image(s) to optimize from a specific series of photographs

• An efficient workflow

• Use Adobe Bridge to edit, caption, and keyword photographs

• Optimize images in Adobe Camera Raw to maximize their potential

• Advance Photoshop techniques to maximize image quality

• Introduction to the benefits of Luminosity Masks

• Artistic Renderings

• And much, much more

The Private One-on-One Adobe Photoshop Instruction workshops are 3 hours in length. When booking a private workshop please indicate, in advance, what it is that you are looking to gain from your session. For example, are you looking to learn the basics, image editing / selection, or advance techniques to take your knowledge of Adobe Photoshop to the next level. Although the workshops are listed as “private,” groups of 3 will be permissible. The location for the Private One-on-One Adobe Photoshop Instruction is the responsibility of the registering participant. Depending on the location chosen for the workshop, travel expenses may be applicable. Travel to areas within the Greater Toronto Area will not incur travel expenses.

Workshop Fee:

• $350 payable by email transfer or by cheque. To book your private Adobe Photoshop Instruction please click here.

Cancellation Policy:

• 3 days or greater – full refund less $75 administration fee

• 2 days or less – no refund

Read Full Post »

La Palma Glass Frog Vertical Crop Content-Aware

La Palma Glass Frog – unedited RAW Image File

The above photo is an unedited RAW image file of a La Palma Glass Frog that was photographed at our popular “Dart Frogs of the Amazon Rainforest Photographic Workshops” with a Nikon D500, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens, and a Nikon SB400 Speedlight mounted on a Wimberely F-2 Macro Bracket. While the flash-generated spectral highlights are well controlled and their is minimal debris to clean-up on the Monsterra leaf, used as a prop, there is one thing that bothers me about this photo as presented. What is that? I do wish that I had switched to the vertical orientation to best represent the frog’s pose on the leaf, however, all is not lost and my wish can be easily achieved with a few simply steps in Photoshop.

After making some initial edits to the image in Adobe Camera Raw the image is brought into the Photoshop interface as seen below.

La Palma Glass Frog Photoshop Interface with the Crop Tool selected and the Content-Aware box checked

Once the image is opened in Photoshop I select the Crop Tool and the Ratio option from the drop down box in the upper left corner of the interface. When using the Ratio option you can select the exact pixel dimensions that you want to use. In this case I entered the pixel dimensions fro a vertically oriented image photographed with a Nikon D500. With crop dimensions now in place over the image I simply drag out the corners of the crop for the desired look and position the frog where I want it to be within the frame. Before I click the check mark to perform the desired crop I check the Content-Aware box. By doing so Content-Aware will fill in the black areas outside of the actual image area to match the surrounding elements. In this case it will fill in the sliver along the bottom and the larger portion at the top. The natural indent of the Monsterra leaf will be fixed later with a simple quick mask removal technique.

After performing the above mentioned steps, the optimized image file for the vertically oriented La Palm Glass Frog image can be seen below. In this situation the Content-Aware did an amazing job of replicating the leaf to fill in the areas that were outside of the image. The Clone Stamp tool was used at varying hardnesses to evict the flash generated spectral highlights and debris on the leaf surface. The lower left corner of the image where the indent of the Monsterra leaf was creating a distraction was fixed quickly and effortlessly by utilizing a Quick Mask. To learn more about using Quick Masks and other techniques to easily optimize image files take a look at APTATS 1 & 2.

La Palma Glass Frog – Optimized Image File

 

Read Full Post »

A Lesson on Blinkies

Johnstone’s Whistling Frog with HighLight Warnings

Above you see a photo of a Johnstone’s Whistling Frog that I created in Port Antonio, Jamaica. This was the first image that I created of these lovely little frogs during my stay in Jamaica. Being excited at photographing a new species I forgot to check my camera settings before clicking the shutter. When I scrolled back through a couple of the frames to confirm my exposures were correct I realized my error and immediately dialed in the correct settings but the frog jumped away. I was left with this image, which on the camera’s LCD screen was showing what appeared to be blown-out highlights (note that in the above image I made adjustments in ACR to mimic what I was seeing on the camera’s LCD screen – the highlight warnings on the camera would have been black instead of red as shown above).

Directly below is the same image as it opened in ACR. You can see that the highlights are not too bad after all. The red highlight warnings seen here red here are the flash generated spectral highlights, which are indeed blown-out with no detail whatsoever.

Johnstone’s Whistling Frog in ACR inter-face

Now look at the optimized image file below. After making the required slider adjustments in ACR I was able to recover a great deal of detail in what the camera originally indicated was blown-out and lacking detail. I then opened the image in Photoshop and using a series of Quick Masks and Clone Stamp Tool applications addressing the flash generated highlights.

Johnstone’s Whistling Frog, Port Antonio, Jamaica

This is why I do not delete photos, in the field, as seen on the camera’s LCD screen. I always wait until I am editing a trip’s images when back home at the computer.

Please click on the images to see the larger, sharper versions.

Read Full Post »

Creating Photoshop Blurs

I love blurry photos. A pleasing blur of wildlife can help bring images to life by adding the sense of motion, while blurry photographs of subjects such as flowers or autumn leaves can create beautiful abstract compositions. Recently, I discovered how to create blurs in photoshop thanks to a wonderful new eBook – “A Guide to Pleasing Blurs” by Denise Ippolito and Arthur Morris. You may check out the eBook here. I highly recommend this eBook. It has help me find new creative ideas for older images. The above image was created using techniques found within this eBook. The image below is the original, unaltered image direct from the camera. It sat in my archives, unoptimized, for a few years until I learned the various techniques to create the image above. Several times I almost deleted this image from my files, now I am glad I didn’t. You never know when you will learn new techniques that will give images life.

Hope you like the blur.

Read Full Post »

Fractalius – Photoshop Plugin

I recently became aware of a very interesting plugin for Windows users of Adobe Photoshop. The creative possibilities with the use of this filter are almost endless, however, it is certainly not for every image, but when you find an image that works well with fractalius the results are most addictive. I can most certainly guarantee that you will begin searching your image collection for more images that will work with this unique plugin. I first became aware of this photoshop plugin through the blog of famous bird photographer Arthur Morris which in turn led me to the very creative work of Denise Ippolito. Please take a look at Denise’s fractalius gallery here and if you are interested in purchasing this inexpensive plugin click here.  Denise also has a free tutorial on her blog on how to use this filter effectively. Below are three additional images that I have applied fractalius too – a Brown Pelican (Atlantic Phase), Cuban Crocodile and a Blue Jay.

Read Full Post »