Color Enhancement and Sharpening

I've done a 3 part video tutorial on how to get brighter colors and sharper details in a photo. These methods are variations of what is outlined in the Flickr group Photoshop Support Group. This is the place to go for helpful advice without the flaming of newbies that goes on in other places. A very friendly place.

Part 1:
Enhance the colors by adding a curves adjustment layer and use the layer mask and opacity to control the effect.

Part 2:
Duplicate the background and sharpen the photo. Use a mask to keep parts from getting over sharpened. It is rare that one level of sharpness works across the entire photo.

Part 3:
An alternate approach to the curves shown in part 1.

Photo Tip of the Day...

Or tip of today. Whichever.

After taking pictures on a tripod, (not OF a tripod), turn off mirror lockup right away. This way you won't embarrass yourself the next day when you are trying to take a headshot of your boss for a web site.

3-Layer Orton Lanterns Photo Featured on Photojojo

Photojojo has featured my Lunar New Year Lantern photo when they linked to my 3-Layer Orton tutorial video.


The Photojojo post is seen here.

Camelia Generated using the 3 Layer Orton Effect

Really better if you view it large on a black gackground.

3 Layer Orton Video Tutorial

OK........

The video is uploaded. Enjoy!



The Flickr Orton group is here.

A discussion thread is here.

3 Layer Orton

I've just recorded a video that shows how I am now doing most of my post processing.

-It was captured in one take, a little less than 10 minutes long.

-I installed Adobe Premiere Elements, 15 minutes.

-I learned how to zoom in on the video using camera controls, 30 minutes.

-I edited the titles and the zooms, 60 minutes.

-Rendering the video? Priceless, or about 23 hours and still going.

That will teach me to do this on my main PC (1.7G Pentium-M). Unfortunately, Premiere isn't compiled for the native Itanium instruction set, so I can't run it on my 64 Socket Itanium system. That's 128 cores. I figure it would render in a few minutes on that box.

Oh well.

Gratuitous Post

Must not let Blog die......

Nothing since January?

So web 1.0

Ortonize Photos

OK, so I don't update my blog often. You get what you pay for. Or not.

I got more than I paid for when I was looking at trout photos on Flickr. I stumbled across a woman in Michigan who had a note on using the "Orton Technique". Thinking this was some new fishing trick, I googled and found this:
http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0106/dw0106-1.html

"Ortonizing" is a way to mess with your photos in a fun way.

Here are a few results (zebra, maple, thistle):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobgcampbell/93486912/