Dark Side of the Lens

Yet another video from the EasyPSE iPhone/iPad video tutorial app, available on the Apple iTunes Store.  I've produced a video in the past on understanding RGB but revisited it for the EasyPse app.

Understanding how colour works, in the digital world, is essential when it comes to tweaking the colour in your images.  This concept seems initially confusing to many but it need not be, and hopefully this video will clarify the subject for you.

Once mastered, rather than stuff around at random trying to get the colour on your photos looking natural you will be in a far better position to make educated "guesses" at what corrections are required.

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Another video from the EasyPSE iPhone/iPad video tutorial app, available on the Apple iTunes Store

Giving your photo a frame can often make it come to life, really popping off the screen.  Rather than using the more traditional frames, in this tutorial I crete a simple, modern, frame but also tweak the photo, and make a few simple changes, that alter the entire feel of the photo.

You'll be amazed how huge a difference you can make, and hopefully this tutorial will help open your eyes to how easy it can be to make really exciting improvements to a basic photo, to really impress your friends with your creativity.

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I am a huge fan of both Apple and Adobe, but have just come across something concerning an overlap between the companies that I felt I should make other Mac users aware of.

Apple recently introduced their online app store for Mac OSX (think of the iTunes app store but for laptop software).  This is a fantastic system they have created here, in my opinion, as rather than have boxes all over the place with licences you need to keep track of, you cab buy through this store, get your software automatically, and then later updates the same way.  I love it and am disappointed that I can’t transition some of the apps I have previously purchased physical copies of over to this system.

However, I have just spotted a problem with the version of Photoshop Elements 9 that is on the app store, which may well still be the case when they get around to putting Elements 10 up to replace it.

The actual product is called “Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 Editor” … note the addition of the word “editor” there.

Despite the price being not much less than the actual Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 this version is only the editor parts of the product and does not include the Organizer.  I really think that this should be made clear in the product description but it is not, people are expected to realise from the subtle name change.  It seems to be catching a lot of, rather unhappy, people out.

If you are looking at purchasing Photoshop Elements I would now obviously suggest getting version 10 anyway.  If for any reason you specifically want version 9 then I would suggest that it is better to spend a few more $ and get the full version, as the Organizer is a great product.  See this post for a video on the Organizer.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 10, along with Premiere Elements 10 are now available for trial or purchase as of today. There is an upgrade option if you own a previous version of the product(s). Here’s a link to the Adobe site where they list some of the cool new features.

Be aware that, regardless of if you are buying a new version or upgrading, if you want a physical copy of the software (i.e. the DVD/box rather than electronically download) Adobe are offering free shipping if you order before November 20th.  I’m not sure if this applies to all countries but it certainly does within the US, Australia, and I suspect Europe at least.

One thing Adobe have done, that I admit really annoys me with software companies ….. With an electronic download why can you buy this product for US$79 (upgrade) in the USA but here in Australia it costs me AU$123 (upgrade). Ok, some of that is GST (a local sales tax) but even without that it is still AU$112. Given that currently the Aussie $ is stronger than the US this is very wrong. Cost to produce a digital download is exactly the same, especially when my digital download comes from the US Adobe server anyway. Ok, that’s my rant over.

Adobe has just announced the upcoming release of the next version of Photoshop Elements 10. The trial will be available at the end of this month, which will probably be when the full product is available as well.

What’s new?  Well, it appears that most of the improvements are within Organizer, with some nice little tweaks to that.  For instance, with the “faces” functionality you can now include things other than (human) faces and include pets, or other objects like your car for instance.  There also appears to me new functionality to help you find, and clean up, duplicate photos on your hard drive.

For image editing the main features appear to be improvements to the, already great, Smart Brush tool, improvements in how you can handle text (e.g. as in Photoshop CS5 you can attach it to paths), and some nice features to help you digitally control your “depth of field: in your photos. Read more…

I am excited to announce the launch of EasyPSE on the Apple Apps Store.

With over 6 hours of, newly created, video tutorials you’ll master Photoshop Elements in no time!  I’ll also be adding more videos as time goes by.  Best of all, these 40+ videos for your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch is available as a launch special at only US$3.99.

Check it out and help support me so I can keep creating my tutorial video for you all.

I’ll be doing an Android version as soon as I can.

Another sneak preview into the upcoming Easy PSE series of video tutorials, which I hope to launch later this week!

This tutorial covers the Clone Stamp Tool.  This is a very useful tool indeed, as well as being heaps of fun, and if regularly used by photographers, and other Photoshop Elements users, to tidy up imperfections in photos (though it is certainly not limited to small tasks such as those).

There are some tools that, in my opinion, are essential to know how to use properly, and this is most certainly one of them.

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With the upcoming iPhone/iPad App, later to be released on Android and as a video eBook, about to launch, I thought I’d give you all a sneak preview of one of my new videos.

I have chosen this particular video to share first as it was requested (thanks Vickie) on the new Dark Side of the Lens Facebook page.  If you have questions, or requests, then check it out and remember to “Like” it please!

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This photo of mine just won first place in the Fantasy category for the Australian 2011 Beauty Professionals awards, so I thought I’d share it here. The amazing artist who painted this is Kelli MacAlpine and the beautiful and very graceful model is Jes Cameron.

This other photo of mine, also came fourth in another competition.

Have just finished the final touches to the videos for the app. I knew how many I’d done, obviously, but had not realised quite how much video I’d produced.

It has ended up being over 6 hours of video tutorials for people!

My original aim was for about 3, so I am really delighted.