“The new Color Lookup Adjustment Layer in Photoshop CS 6 has several options (3DLUT File, Abstract, and Device Link) that are used to load different “looks”. These looks are achieved by remapping every color in the image to a different one using a lookup table (LUT). I think that many photographers and designers will find their resulting color shifts quite interesting. You can think of these tables as a sort of meta-adjustment, a way to apply pre-packaged adjustments (sometimes lots of adjustments together) in one step.”

Julianne Kost has created a file that you can download free and test all the new CS6 Lookup adjustments on your image. Simply open the file and replace the contents of the Smart Object in it with one of your own images. It’s a great way to visually compare the various results in a ring around.

Find out more and download the file here.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Category: CS6, Photoshop
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John Sexton provides candid answers to a variety of questions

How do you know when an image doesn’t work?
I know an image is not successful for me when, after a period of time, it does seem to produce any sort of what I call a “magic quotient.”

How do you know when an image is good?
I know an image is good for me when I find myself wanting to look at it again and again.

How do you know when an image is great?
I know an image is great for me when I can’t get it out of my mind.

What’s the most useful photographic mantra?
Photographs are illusions.

Read the rest here.

Read other photographer’s answers to the same questions here.

Find out more about John Sexton here.

Category: Photographers - Q&A
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NAPP Instructor RC Concepcion goes over how easy it is to correct your images with Lens Aware Adjustments in Photoshop CS6. RC will even go into making further corrections in Photoshop’s new Adaptive Wide angle filter.

View more Photoshop CS6 videos here.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Category: Uncategorized, Video - Photoshop
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What is it about Monhegan Island that gets your creative juices flowing? Maybe it’s the how beautiful it is; ocean, cliffs, forests, gardens, island life. Maybe it’s the sense of getting away from it all; the island is 12 miles out to sea. Maybe it’s the creative community on the island; it’s had a long history as an artist’s colony. Whenever I’m on the island I give myself license to play – writing, drawing, photographing and dreaming.

Here’s a selection of my iPhone images made on recent excursions to Monhegan Island.

Find out more about my Monhegan Island photographic workshop here.

Read more

Category: Images
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Lobster boats, rocky shores, cathedral woods, cape houses, blooming wildflowers, hiking trails and fairy huts.  Ocean sunrises and sunsets. It’s quintessential small town Maine life all on one tiny island 12 miles out to sea.

Monhegan.

Join me for a 4 night 3 day all inclusive, semi private (limited to 6), boutique photographic workshop on this extraordinary island.

Maine photography doesn’t get better than this.

Register here for this inspiring workshop

 

Category: Destination, Workshops
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Discover Huntington’s favorite quotes here.

Read Huntington’s short Q&A here.

Read our extended conversation here.

Find out more about Huntington Witherill here.

Category: Uncategorized
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When you want to make a mobile phone image smaller quickly, launch iResize. Why would you want to change the size of an image? There are so many reasons; to email it, to post it online, and/or to share it in social networks are just a few. And with smart phone images growing in size every year, the need to do this is only increasing.

iResize can also change the proportion of an image from horizontal to panoramic, square, or even vertical.

iResize is one of those apps that you can learn instantly and is so easy to use that you’ll quickly overlook how often you use it, which is exactly what makes a go to app.

Read more with step-by-step illustrations on The Huffington Post.

Find iResize on iTunes.

Category: App, iPhone
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Patch images with greater control using Content-Aware Patch, which allows you to choose the area that Content-Aware will use to create your patch.

View more Photoshop CS6 videos here.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Category: Uncategorized
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Quickly create photographic blur effects using a simple new interface with on-image controls. Create tilt-shift effects, blur everything and then sharpen one focal point, or vary the blurriness between multiple focal points. The Mercury Graphics Engine delivers immediate results.

View more Photoshop CS6 videos here.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Category: CS6, Video - Photoshop
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Michael Norton’s research shows you can buy happiness, by spending money on other people. “The specific way that you spend on other people isn’t nearly as important as the fact that you spend on other people.” Whether in big or small ways, this video will change your life and someone else’s too.

Category: TED, Video
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On Saturday, May 5, at 11:35 p.m. EDT the moon will be 8,000 miles closer than it’s average distance to the earth and will appear 30% brighter and 14% bigger. This supermoon coincides with the Eta Aquarid meteor shower from Halley’s comet.

The best time to view the moon will be the early evening, just after the moon rises.

The best time to view the meteor shower is late Saturday and early Sunday.

Later in the month, on May 20 there will be an annular eclipse.

Learn more here.

Category: Event
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Charles Adams (my assistant both in the studio and in the field) is having his first exhibition this coming Friday, May 4th at Asymmetrick Arts in Rockland, Maine. It will run until May 25th.

24  of his images will be on display, along with sculpture from artist Vic Goldsmith. For those that cannot make the opening, there will also be an Artist talk on May 19th.

May 4 – 25
Asymmetrick Arts
405 Main Street, Rockland ME
207.954.2020

Learn more about Charles Adams and view his images here.

Visit Asymmetrick Arts here.

Category: Artists, Event, Exhibit, Images
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Huntington Witherill and I discuss the importance and uses of composition.

Discover Huntington’s favorite quotes here.

Read Huntington’s short Q&A here.

Read our extended conversation here.

Find out more about Huntington Witherill here.

Category: Photographers On Photography, Photographers Video Conversation
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Jerry Uelsmann’s 1983 nude is a very influential photograph for me. It makes direct what is typically only implied in some ‘straight’ photographs – that mankind is not separate from nature. The transparent merger of figure and ground is poetically rich in so many ways and on so many levels.

No matter how subtle, traces of color change both visual and psychological dynamics in an image. Choice of paper (the color of the white) and toning (the color of highlights, midtones and shadows) can offer both technical and expressive opportunities. The warm toning of the print in my collection seems particularly appropriate. It’s not a heavy toning, but the print is definitely not neutral. The red of the warm tone seems appropriate for flesh. It gives the image a more approachable feeling, perhaps even a touch of romanticism. It makes the subject seem nearer to the viewer; a cooler color would seem more distant. It changes the impression of ambient temperature and time of day; a cooler color would seem closer to winter and twilight or dawn.

The image is also clarifies the differences between analog and digital processes. The substantial burning/darkening at the top of the print hold the eye in the image longer and minimizes what could be distracting area of contrast if it were brighter, but the way the burning reduces midtone and shadow detail in the region calls attention to technique, where it could be minimized or eliminated in a digital process. I wonder if this image were remastered digitally if the artist would decide to reveal traces of grass in the face, perhaps not as much as is revealed in the body or if an attempt would be made to maintain the volumetric aspects of the body where it is? Neither of these technical considerations diminish the work. We know the artist is working within the limits of a particular medium – masterfully. Still, asking these questions and making comparisons and contrasts with other possibilities offer us more insight into the artist’s vision at large and what he his trying to communicate more specifically in this visual statement. This is only one of so many other reasons why media matters.

(There’s a lot to be learned from looking at originals, which is why we look at masterworks from my collection in all of my  digital printing workshops.)

Find my comments on other Masterworks In My Collection here.

Learn more in my digital printing workshops.

Category: Masterworks In My Collection
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Julieanne Kost shares the top 10 enhancements in the Layers Panel in Photoshop CS6.

View more Photoshop videos here.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Category: Video - Photoshop
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“Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.” – John Cleese

Among the many gems John Cleese shares, he outlines “The 5 factors that you can arrange to make your lives more creative.”

1 – Space

“You can’t become playful, and therefore creative, if you’re under your usual pressures.”

2 – Time

“It’s not enough to create space; you have to create your space for a specific period of time.”

3 – Time

“Give your mind as long as possible to come up with something original.”

4 – Confidence

“Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.”

5 – Humor

“The main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.”

View more creativity videos by John Cleese here.

View more creativity videos here.

Learn more with my creativity resources.

Learn more in my creativity workshops.

Category: Creativity, Video - Creativity
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 In a recent quick Q&A session, photographer Huntington Witherill offered succinct answers to a number of questions.

Here are some highlights.

How do you know when an image doesn’t work?
It will fail to communicate anything beyond the fact that it is a photographic record.

How do you know when an image doesn’t work?

It will fail to communicate anything beyond the fact that it is a photographic record.

How do you know when an image is good?
I know an image is good when it exhibits the following three (3) attributes:

#1- An interesting and effective use of light has been captured.

#2-  A visually stimulating and well-balanced composition has been employed.

#3- The technique and craftsmanship used to render the photograph itself demonstrates sufficient proficiency  so as not to disrupt or distract from either #1 or #2.

How do you know when an image is great?
I know an image is great if I am brought to tears.

How did photography change your world?
It caused me to view myself, and the world around me, in a much more personally effective and fulfilling way.

What are your answers to these questions?

Read the rest of his short Q&A here.

Read our extended conversation here.

Read more of Huntington’s favorite quotes here.

Find out more about Huntington Witherill here.

Category: Photographers - Q&A
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Huntington Witherill shares his favorite quotes.

This is my favorite.

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique… just like everyone else.” – Margaret Meade

Which is your favorite of his selected quotes?

Read more of Huntington’s favorite quotes here.

Read his short Q&A here.

Read our extended conversation here.

Find out more about Huntington Witherill here.

Category: Photographer's Favorite Quotes
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Combining images of music with other images has added a rich new dimension to my creative life and thinking. I don’t mean sequencing a soundtrack to a slideshow; I mean adding the graphic notation found in sheet music.

So that I can make these types of images on the spot, I’ve gathered a collection of photographs of music that I can draw on at a moment’s notice.

Doing this has not only yielded a growing number of compelling images, it has also raised a generative set of questions. In particular, the question of what’s missing or has been eliminated in still images and how that can be either more strongly felt or implied leads to many new ideas and insights.

I find that because I’m engaged in this experiment I notice the ambient sound of the places I’m photographing in more frequently and even photograph different things. My perception of the world becomes richer because I’m paying closer attention to it and to my responses to it.

What experiments will help you add a new or missing dimension to your images?

Read the full article on The Huffington Post.

Visit my iPhone learning center here.

 

Category: iPhone
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Different sharpening techniques make the world look different. A world of difference can be seen between the thin hard line of Unsharp Mask and the broad feathered line of High Pass Sharpening.Can you choose a combination of both? Yes, you can! You can choose the texture of one, the halo of another, and the line of yet another, applying them either globally or selectively. You can customize the look and feel of detail in any image or image area with astonishing precision and flexibility.

Double Pass Sharpening

Results will differ if you filter the same image layer twice. Why? First, either the technique or the settings can be varied. Second, having been filtered once, the state of the pixels will have changed before a second pass is applied, generating a different final effect. Consequently, not only the type and amount of filtration matters, but also the order in which the filtration is applied.

Are there benefits to filtering more than twice on the same layer? Maybe. Maybe not. You get diminishing returns with each additional pass of filtration. You may also run the risk of producing more unintended artifacts. Furthermore, as complexity rises, your ability to both predict and interact with the final effect diminishes. In general, I recommend you to be cautious of highly complex routines and urge you to ask yourself if you derive significant benefit from them.

Hybrid Sharpening

Sharpening results also will differ if you apply varied filtration techniques to separate layers. Here, the order of the layers in the layer stack matters.

To combine the effects of the different layers, use Blend modes. Darken will display the only values on a sharpening layer that are darker than values on layers below it, such as the dark line. Lighten will display the only values on a sharpening layer that are lighter than values on layers below it, such as the halo.

High Pass sharpening layers (or any technique that reduces an image layer largely to gray values) combine easily with other layers using Blend modes (typically, Overlay); they do this so well that many times it doesn’t matter whether they’re placed above or below other sharpening layers.

Read the full article on Digital Photo Pro.

Find more sharpening resources here.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Category: Sharpening
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