Totally Rad Actions

I purchased the original set of Totally Rad Actions last night, and I'm loving them! So many photographers are using them, I just had to try them. There's lots of great B&W filters and a ton of other great effects. I quickly tried some this morning on a few images. The first picture is the original image:

Christmas Card

Sorry about no blogging last week! I had to send my computer to Apple to get a few things fixed, but we are up and running now.

The last couple of years, our family has had a Christmas card made like so many people do these days, but this year, I thought I would attempt to make my own. I made a 4x8 canvas in PS, used one of the great frames from Graphic Authority's Photo Toolbox, and voila! I printed it out and put it on the fridge beside last years, and I think it's just as good. The only difference was my new one was free! Merry Christmas!

Product Assignment

Welcome back to Assignment Wednesday! I hope you had fun doing your product shoot. You never know when that big company is going to come calling!

I have to admit that I cheated this week. I did not take a new picture but the moment I saw the back of my camera after taking this picture, I saw this ad. So I've been wanting to sit down and make it for a while now. Here's the ad and after the picture, I'll show you how I did it. As always, you can click on the picture for a bigger view.



How to do it:

1. Take a great picture
2. Take your product picture
3. Take away the background of your product picture
4. Move it over to your photo
5. Copy the layer of your product and turn the copy upside down. Then move it directly below the first copy. Adjust the opacity of the upside down layer to create your reflection.
6. All that is left is to add text.

If you attempted this, I'd love to see it and share it with everyone. Just comment to this post with a link to your shot.

Next week's assignment:

-- 10 Minutes From Home --

This week's assignment is Ten Minutes From Home". Walk, bike, drive or fly exactly 10 minutes from where you live and shoot what's there. No 9 minute or 11 minute trips!

Kevin Kubota Actions

Just purchased a set of actions from Kevin Kubota. They will definitely change the way I use Photoshop and save me a ton of time. I chose the Artistic Tools Volume 4 and I can already tell that all those actions will be worth the money. I had taken a few shots of Brooke and Ainsley the other night at "bed time" and this was my favorite frame:

That is the original in-camera shot. Pretty good, but after sampling a few of my new actions, I chose the "Punch Drunk" action and here is the final version:

Awesome! I can't wait to continue to use more of these actions and find my favorites. Check them out at Kevin's website here.

Frames, Edges, Templates...

I received a DVD in the mail today from GraphicAuthority.com. It has frames, edges, and templates for Photoshop CS and Photoshop Elements. I have had so much fun playing with these today, and I even used one of the templates to make my Senior Portrait flyer that I'll be using to advertise this fall.

The DVD came complete with video tutorials for each of the different types of files and after watching half of one video, I had it figured out. Very easy, very fun, and very cool! Make your images stand out from all the rest. Check out their website for all the different products.

Here's the flyer I made:

Black & White Assignment

For some reason I was drawn to this clock in The Villages yesterday afternoon. It was actually a great picture in color because of all the beautiful flowers around it, the palms, and the blue sky, but the assignment was for a black & white picture so that is what I did.

I processed this in CS3 using the Black & White adjustment layer. I started with the red filter to make the blue sky darker and then made some adjustments from there. I like the final outcome.

Please post a link or even your actual picture in the comment section of this blog.

Next week's assignment...

---Macro---

Use your macro lens (or fake it if you don't have one) and get a great close up shot. No rules on what the subject has to be. See you next week!

Water Bottle Shot

I hadn't taken a picture in almost a week and was wanting to do something creative last night. I had remembered an assignment from the Strobist website that I had seen many months ago but had not ever tried. The assignment was to pretend you had gotten the job to shoot an ad for a bottled water company, and of course, you had to use off-camera flash. We had a bottle of Dasani in the house so I thought I'd give it a go.

I'll tell you what I did and then show you the result:

I taped four pieces of white card stock together to make my seamless background. I took the glass from a picture frame in the house and set it on the "seamless". I placed the water bottle on the glass which gave me the reflection I was looking for. I set up an SB800 just to the left of the bottle and fired it at the background behind the water bottle. I then took another SB800, placed it to the right of the bottle, and bounced it off the ceiling. I used my 60mm Macro lens on a tripod to get the shot. Oh yeah, I also used a water spray bottle to fake a condensation kind of look on the bottle. It was fun and really didn't take too long. I added some text in Photoshop to complete the ad. Here's a setup shot:



and here's the final result:



If you feel like doing the assignment, please come back and post a link to your shot so we can all see it.

Kelby Training

Kelby Training is probably the best online resource for photographers period. This site is full of high quality videos recorded by some of the greatest photographers in the world teaching you how to become a better photographer. Topics range from doing just about anything in Photoshop to how to use multiple groups of strobes in an on-location shoot. I've paid hundreds and even thousands of dollars to attend workshops with great photographers and with Kelby Training, I have access to some of the best in the world 24 hours a day!

The cost for joining Kelby Training is only $19.99 a month, but it is worth so much more than that! You can watch many of the videos for a trial so go on over there right now and check them out. I'm sure you'll be joining soon! Make sure you come back and let me know what you've learned!