Tutorial Blog » Photography

Photoshop Tutorial: Faking Darkroom Film Edges

Charles McNally — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:00:14 +0000

So far in my photoshop tutorials, we’ve covered quite a bit on how to fake the look of an old toy camera, with the Holga, LOMO/X-Pro, and Light Leaks tutorials. These are fun to do, but if you really want to go all the way and to make people think you’re shooting film, this is the last (and really most important) step.

Digital cameras trim the edges of your shot (as do a good amount of enlargers) so that you don’t actually see any edges – the image goes all the way to the edge of itself, if that makes any sense.

However, if you’re printing any size film yourself in the darkroom, you have the choice of printing without cropping it in the holder. It gives you those cool-looking rough black edges and uneven borders. Well in my usual fashion, today I’ll show you how to fake those edges.

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Photoshop Tutorial: Light Leaks, pt. 2

Charles McNally — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:00:39 +0000

One of the coolest things about older cameras and toy cameras (such as holgas, dianas, lubitels and other gems) is that they have an element of unpredictability to them.

If you haven’t shot on a camera before, you have no idea if there are going to be holes (usually around the edge of the film) where your film is accidentally exposed to light when it shouldn’t be, causing little colored blurs or white streaks.

I showed you how to get white-blur light leaks in the last photoshop tutorial, so let’s focus on the colored bar leak today. (This poor flower! Getting all leaked on…)(...)
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25 Places to Find Awesome Stock Photos — Free and Cheap!

Joel Reyes — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:00:33 +0000

Whether you’re designing an artistic website or searching for images to post on your blog, sites that carry not only free but awesome stock photos may very well come in handy. Utilizing the correct set of photos for any project is key, especially if you’re designing an ad for a client, you should always put in your best effort as well as the best images you can find fit for the job.

Many of the designers I’ve come across like to download most of their images from 2-3 of the largest sites containing stock photos, however as creative artists I believe we should play the mix and match game that allows us to choose from wide variety of stock images instead of the same “old” set of photos we may be fond of.

Giving a project that requires stock images your best should include photos that are not only sharp, but clear as well. Here we’ll have the pleasure to visit a few awesome (25 to be exact) sites that’ll provide all the needed images to fuel any project, job, or site requiring stock photos. (...)
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Web Monitors Uncover Top 100 Blogs and Platforms

Michael Alexander — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:31:40 +0000

Pingdom, a service that monitors Web sites and servers on the Internet, looked at the top 100 blogs on Technorati to find out which blogging platform is used most often. Pingdom distinguishes between blogs that are self-hosted and blogging-service hosted.

The top two self-hosted platforms are Wordpress (27 percent) and Moveable Type (12 percent). The top two platforms that sit on a service are Typepad (16 percent) and Blogsmith (14 percent). When hosted and self-hosted are combined, the top two blogging platforms are Wordpress (32 percent and Typepad (28 percent).

Pingdom compiled the following list of the top 100 blogs, starting with the largest first:

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Roundup: Even More Sites Where You can Find Images Free and Clear

Michael Alexander — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:53:28 +0000

I wrote about using Flickr a while ago as a good source of images that you can use free and with few or no copyright limitations.

Lately, I’ve been organizing my database of places to find free and unrestricted images. Keep in mind that “free” often requires your giving the source credit and a link back to the image provider’s site.

No, this list does not include every site in the universe. If you have some favorites, please add them as a comment and I’ll add them to the next list. Thanks.

Here’s what I’ve come up with recently:

Springfield Township High School Virtual Library–It seems odd, I know, but you can find a long list of sites where you can find free images and videos. Many of them have a historical aspect. I’ll probably wind up mentioning some of the same ones on this list, so apologies in advance for any overlap.

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Use Flickr to Find Images Free and Easy

Michael Alexander — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:47:36 +0000

Photo by Sidelong

Dozens of Web sites offer royalty- and copyright-free photographs and other images. I can’t imagine having to buy stock photos and art these days, although I have many times before. I use stock.xchng and Big Stock Photo often. The photos are generic, one-size-fits-all but they get the job done with no money up or down.

Lately, I’ve been using photos posted on Flickr Creative Commons. There’s an astounding variety of photos to choose from–many of them are quite good and hardly generic. The photos are free to use although there are a conditions. I’ll let Flickr explain them:(...)
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Keeping Perspective

Carma Leichty — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:00:58 +0000

Remember the game where you had to spot the difference in two images? Take a look at the two images below. Can you spot the difference?

Compare Images

If you noticed a change in the number of windows on the 3rd floor to the left of the porch area, you are right! The critical factor in making such an edit to the image is…Keeping Perspective. That can sometimes become very difficult…unless we are familiar with the Vanishing Point Filter.

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Resize It! Part 2 – Using an Action in a Batch Process

Carma Leichty — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:00:23 +0000

In the Part 1 of Using Photoshop Actions, we set up an Action to resize our images and add a stroke just inside the perimeter of an image. Below is an example of applying that action to an image:

Image with Action Applied

In this second part, we will apply this action in a batch process. The end result will be an entire folder of images are resized with a stroke just inside the perimeter of each image.

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What You Need to Know about Writing Press Releases

Michael Alexander — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:08:41 +0000

So far, I’ve written about the value of press releases, how to decide what is newsworthy and how to format your press releases. Now, I’m going to tell you a bit about how to write copy for your press release.

I’ve also written a few times about where to put your keywords on the front (the copy your readers see) and the back (the HTML that searchbots see) of your Web pages. Keep your keywords in mind when you’re writing press releases. They’re particularly important and I’ll write a quick recap at the bottom of this post.

Headlines for Press Releases

Your objective is to write compelling, descriptive titles that pull in readers.

Just to clarify: A descriptive headline is one that actually makes sense. This is not the time to be cute or obscure. If your company has won a new client or has accomplished something newsworthy, put it into your headline.

For example:

Web Acme Design Company Wins Contract to Develop a Web Site for the XYZ Corporation.

The head should express one complete idea or thought, which is what Sister Mary Agnus taught me in parochial school. If I didn’t think so, she’d whack me with a ruler, so it must be true.

Note, I put an initial cap on nearly every word. That’s the way it’s usually done. I don’t agree with doing it that way, because I think it’s harder to (...)
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