~ Photoshop Sketch ~

~ Madison ~

Love this texture and Madison's pose here is awesome, just love the energy in this shot:

Playing with texture in this edit....added some layers of other colours on top of the original photo. Madison is easy to take pics of, just a natural beauty.

~ Emily ~

I was looking at some photoshop tutorials last night on a really cool website on photoshop. It really reminded me how much fun it is to be creative with photoshop. There are so many talented photoshop artists out there that it makes me feel a bit overwhelmed when I try and do similar work. I have to keep reminding myself how individual art is. I know that is a simple concept but I am always looking at other artists and creative people and feeling like somehow I just don't stack up. I do love it and last night I played around with a pic from my shoot with Emily. I have come up with these two versions. I really like them both for different reasons.

A great resource for stock photography to use with edits is here. I found a lot of cool images to use and sometimes a good stock image is a place to start for creating ideas. Just use your imagination, practice photoshop and really start learning to use layers, layer properties and how to blend layers together to create different looks. I found dodge and burn are also very helpful tools. The trick when you blend lots of images together is to try and make the lighting and colour work. It's like a magic trick, trying your best to create the illusion that all of those elements you are blending together in photoshop deserve to be there together. A good way of doing this is doing an image adjustment for colour balance on the layers to try and make them all work together.

I hope I am able to inspire someone else to try using photoshop and to be creative. I am by no means an expert or on the level of some of the photoshop artists out there. It's an art form and takes time and a lot of talent to master. You have to start somewhere and don't let others intimidate you. Just do what you can do and it will come. Baby steps, I started with some really basic concepts and techniques. Google is your friend and there are some excellent guides and tutorials out there. I look forward to exploring my creative side more this summer. :)

On a personal note, thanks SO much to the people (you know who you are) that read my blog about my Dad and his recent diagnosis with cancer. He is seeing his doctor today to discuss treatment, so hopefully tonight I will have some reassuring news. Your thoughts, prayers and well wishes really helped and I thank you so much. I know many of you have had loved ones and close family ill and also experiencing cancer, which makes it mean even more to me on a personal level that you cared enough to let me know you were thinking of my family. Thanks so much. I hope all of your families and friends stay safe and healthy this summer and in the future too! :)

On a really happy note, my beautiful wife returned safe and sound from her Huntsville adventures. I love having her back as do the 3 baby cats. Life is good! :)

Last Monday of Work for 2008!!!

I have been playing with textures a lot...and using CS4. Love the textures and starting to find better ways of editing with them. Also loving that the year 2008 is almost done and holidays are on the doorstep. Hoping to stay warm and safe this week and looking forward to some rest and relaxation. :)

Adobe CS4 News Today

Adobe is releasing info about it's next CS4 today. I am VERY interested to see what new they are offering. What caught my eye when reading about it was the 64bit support. I now have a Vista 64 bit machine with 6gb of ram. This makes my workflow so quick and I love how seamless I can edit from lightroom to photoshop on it.

From Adobe's site these were the features that got me most excited:
Industry-leading color correction enhanced
Enjoy dramatically enhanced color correction with reengineered Dodge, Burn, and Sponge tools that now intelligently preserve color and tone details.

Adjustments panel new
Simplify image adjustment by easily accessing every tool you need to nondestructively adjust and enhance the color and tone of your images; on-image controls and a wide variety of presets are also included in the new live and dynamic Adjustments panel

Masks panel new
Quickly create and edit masks from the new Masks panel. This panel offers all the tools you need to create editable pixel- and vector-based masks, adjust mask density and feathering, easily select noncontiguous objects, and more.

Auto-blending of images enhanced
Easily create a single image from a series of shots that have different focal points with the enhanced Auto-Blend Layers command, which smoothly blends color and shading and now extends your depth of field, automatically correcting vignettes and lens distortion.

Auto-alignment of layers enhanced
Create accurate composites with the enhanced Auto-Align Layers command. Move, rotate, or warp layers to align them more accurately than ever before. Or use spherical alignment to create breathtaking panoramas.

Extended depth of field enhanced
Combine a range of images, each with a different exposure, color, and focal point — with options to preserve tones and colors — into a single color-corrected image.

There is probably more for me to love about it but I'll wait until I can try it out. I think the great thing about the 64 bit support is it's ONLY available to windows users, yeah that's right MAC peeps.....I said windows ONLY....hehehhehe. Love it. Anyway, it's a cool and cloudy day and I wanna go crawl back in to my warm bed instead of going off to work.

I must add NHL 09 for my xbox is awesome. Love playing it and have not had this much fun playing video game hockey in ages. Go OILERS....love that there is a new 3rd jersey design for them this year. I can't wait to see what it looks like.
-Randy

5D and Photoshop CS4

I heard through the grape vine (other blogs) that adobe will be announcing their creative suite 4 on Sept.23rd. That is VERY cool. I am a photoshop LOVER and it'll be interesting to see what new features they are going to be adding to photoshop. I am a BIG lightroom fan now. I kind of hope there is some lightroom like features built in to photoshop. I think it would be cool to use presets or something like that in the new photoshop. Also Canon shooters are eagerly awaiting the new 5D successor. I just wish I had a million dollars to buy every new toy that comes out.
As for my "personal blog", I've decided to start doing some photoshop tips and add some pictures to give some visual instruction. I will try and have one up this week. It'll prob be some very basic stuff, so don't expect anything earth shattering. It's picture day today and I forgot as usual...hehehe. Good thing I never buy school photos.