Archive for the ‘Photoshop’ Category

Nik Software Specials – Only until the end of the Year!

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

I just received an email from Nik Software announcing that Viveza 2 has now been released. Pricing for Viveza 2 is $199.95 , lowered from the original cost of $249.95 and is just $99.95 for upgrades. There are specials on the Complete Collection Editions of Nik Software $170 off Nik Complete for Photoshop/LR/Aperture  (only $429.95) and  save $100 off Nik Complete for LR/Aperture (only $199.95). Use coupon code “GBLACK” to receive the discounts on the “Collections” or off any individual product from Nik Software.

 These offers end promptly at 11:59pm on 12/31/09.

 If you have any questions about the software or problems with the discounts, just send me an email.

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Ottawa Photoshop Classes

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Ottawa Photoshop Courses

Starting this fall I will be teaching several customized courses in Photoshop. These workshops will consist of either private or small group classes and will be taught at the various skill levels of Photoshop. Ottawa Photoshop Classes 

Posted in Photoshop, Workshops | 2 Comments »

CS4 and Capture One Pro Upgrades

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

Last week there were upgrades to two of the photo editing software programs that I use.  And I was just starting to master all of the features in the old programs, now I’ll have to go through the learning curve with the new ones.

The first program is Adobe Photoshop CS4. This is by far and away the program that I spend most of my time using.  Adobe upgrades this program around every 18 months, this is now the 11th version of it. When I started using Photoshop in 1997  it was at version 4. I’ve upgraded with every new version that came along, so I’ve spent somewhere close to $2500. in total for this program. That might seem like a lot of money for a computer program, but that’s cheap if I was to calculate the total overall hourly usage that I’ve gotten from it, not to mention the income from the images that I’ve created by using it. This version has a couple of  new updates that I find very interesting, although there are many other features as well. The Adjustment Brushes, this let you adjust exposure, brightness, contrast, clarity, saturation, sharpness and colour all in Camera Raw. Content sensitive scaling, this allows you scale an image without distorting the key image areas. Depth of field tool, lets you combine multiple shots of the same image but in varying focus depths, the software takes all of these shots  and attempts to make everything in focus.

The second program is Capture One 4 Pro, which hasn’t had a major upgrade in 4-5 years. This upgrade is really a major upgrade, and once again it has become one of the leading Raw Workflow software programs. I had been using Capture One Pro v3.7.7 for my Raw file conversions until about a year ago, when I switched to Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop CS3. With this upgrade I’ll be switching back to using Capture One for most of file processing, and will use Camera Raw in Photoshop CS4 for certain images that would benefit from using the Adjustment Brushes. A bonus that you get with Capture One Pro is that you get 2 free major upgrades from the current version that you purchase.

The other Photo Editing Programs that I use are:

  1. Photo Mechanic
  2. IView Media Pro – Microsoft Expression Media
  3. Noise Ninja
  4. PixelGenius PhotoKit Sharpener
  5. Pixel Genius PhotoKit Color 2.0
  6. Nik Color Efex Pro
  7. Photomatix Pro 3.0

A question that I am quite often asked is whether you should upgrade with the newest versions of software. Personally, I normally do, but keep in mind that this is what I do for a living also it’s a tax write off. If photography is only a hobby for you or produces a small amount of income, I might suggest that you hold off on every upgrade and get every second or third upgrade. That is unless money isn’t a determining factor for you.

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Two Months Later

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

I haven’t posted anything here for the last two months. If you’re a frequent visitor to the site you may have thought, what have I been up to? I’ve been spending most of my time processing RAW images and also digital post-processing with Photoshop. I finally installed Photoshop CS3, I had been procrastinating installing it as I really didn’t want to take the time to learn how to use all of the new features. For me  it’s about creating images, not on how I did it or with which equipment and software was used.  While the equipment and software is important, lately I find that there is an infatuation with the technology of photography rather than the art of photography. Technology and art go hand in hand in creating a photograph, but face it all the technology can’t change a boring and bad photo, in the end that’s all it will be.

This winter we’ve almost broke the yearly record for the most amount of snow, so I’ve spent many hours shovelling, well actually I have a snow blower but it still takes a long time. Val has been planning our next trip, France in May and June, which will be here before I know it.

I’ve received many e-mail requests about stock photography and which agencies to submit to and where to find them.  Well, Rob Haggart the former Director of Photography for Men’s Journal and Outside magazine, has created a very interesting list of stock agencies. This is from a photo buyers point of view, so far there are 90 comments, many adding additional agencies to the list. Here’s the link http://aphotoeditor.com/2008/02/27/stock-photo-agencies/

Posted in Photoshop, Stock Photography, Travel | No Comments »

Back Home and Back to Work

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

On the flight back home to Ottawa from NYC (it’s a short flight, less than an hour). I was thinking about all of the photos that I had just taken on this trip and also about all of the work that I had waiting for me back at home. I have never considered taking pictures as work, although it is and I do work at it very hard. And it is how I make my living. But still it’s not like work, taking pictures is what I love doing. I suppose that if you are interested in photography, I’m probably preaching to the choir right now.

What I do consider as work is sitting in front of the computer processing all of these images, I also used to consider processing the film in E-6 chemistry as work as well. The difference is that E-6 was much faster and I could get through huge shoots in very little time. All of the photographers that I know, who are shooting on a regular basis now have a backlog of digital images to process. I’ve heard some people say that because it’s digital you’ll shoot more, there isn’t the film and processing costs to consider so with digital as long as you have free hard drive space shoot away. That may be the case for some photographers, but I think they would be in the minority. I’m not shooting any more now than I did when I was shooting with film, in fact I probably shoot less. Now I can now tell right away when I’ve got the shot, so I don’t waste time shooting repetitive images.

My problem is that I’m on the road shooting for 4 months straight in the summer and then another 2 months of travelling spread throughout the remainder of the year. Then when we do get back home, Val and I spend our time planning for new trips and trying to catch up on the editing and digital processing. Time management is the answer, I just have to figure out how to adjust my time for digital work compared to what I’ve been doing for the past 25 years shooting film.

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