Categories
Enjoy a new custom made brush of say your favourite rock star.
- Open a photo of your favourite rock star in Photoshop.
- Using any selection tools, select what you like to use as a brush tip in Photoshop.
- Choose Edit - Define Brush Preset.
- Save the brush by naming it and clicking OK.
- Go to your brush set to see your new brush.
Photoshop CS3 comes with many new features and one of the useful features is non destructive smart filters. This means you can apply filters and have total control to change the filters without changing the original picture.
Go to Photoshop CS3 and open any picture you like
- Go to Layer and Convert to Smart Object
- Go to Filter and Select any filter you like, say Blur, Gaussian Blur
- Click on the smart filter and you can mask out parts of the filter as you wish, or change the filter properties
- In the right hand side picture above, I have used an artistic filter over the blur, and masked out the rose
The first time I opened a raw file in Photoshop CS3, after taking some photos in raw with my Canon EOS 450D DSLR, I totally understood the value of having an image taken in raw format.
To compare what I got in raw and jpeg formats, I took a picture in RAW + JPEG. This is provide by Canon for passionate photographers who perhaps do not want to spend time to convert all their raw images themselves, but wanted to keep that vital raw information, that serve similar as a film negative in storage.
So what is the big deal about the raw format and why we get default jpeg images on our memory cards? A raw format file is not a photo or even an image. It is a file that contains and keeps all the data necessary to create an image plus all the meta data that goes with it such as camera model, date and time taken, ISO and more.
When we take a picture, the camera's sensor is exposed to light as at the time of the shot with the selection made by the photographer at the time, such as white balance. The camera has a built in raw convertor that automatically process this information and save them as a jpeg file in the memory card. This process is irreversible and any information lose to make the compact jpeg file is lost forever, taking away from the photographer the opportunity to correct any mistakes later.
A raw file is that opportunity to access that pure data exposed to the sensor at the time of the shoot. A raw file is the data as it was, pure and untouched. By opening a raw file in Photoshop CS3, Camera Raw plug in starts and within seconds the image data such as white balance, temperature, saturation and highlights can be altered to produce an amazing results that would take hours, if at all posible to achieve via any image manipulation programme using the jpeg file.
Shooting in raw also has an extra hidden advantage of having the opportunity to use future improvements in colorimetric conversion which are not still available or known. Something like processing a film negative with newer technology that would create better results.
In the above picture, in left hand side I have my shoot in jpeg format and in the right hand side, the converted shoot using a raw format and Photoshop CS3 Camera Raw.
If you are deciding to buy a new digital SLR camera, and would like to know about three new features recently available in the Digital SLR cameras, read on.
These three new features are:
- Dust Control
- Live View Mode
- Built in Image Stabilizer
Dust Control
In digital SLRs, or in fact in any SLR camera, the photographer has the ability to change the lenses in order to make the most out of type of photography involved. This feature means that when changing the lens, the interior of the camera, including the sensor is exposed to dust particles.
When dust enters the interior of a camera, it will land on the sensor and so blocks the light to reach the sensor in those dots.
The Anti Dust technology , or Integrated Cleaning System is a new technology that automatically shakes off the dust by using variety of techniques, such as shake, or static charges to repel the dust particles, or even software to identify the dots and remove them before processing.
Live View Mode
Until recently this feature which is widely used in compact digital cameras, was not available for digital SLRs. The reason is the difference between the build of a SLR and a compact camera and the way pictures are taken.
In order to be able to see a live view of a picture before the shoot, light has to be reflected to the sensor. As digital SLRs use a mirror to reflect the image from the viewfinder and meanwhile the mirror blocks the sensor, the live view is not possible, unless the camera is equipped with the new Live View LCD technology.
In Live View Mode technology a second sensor is build in the way of the light in order to transmit the light to the LCD.
Built in Image Stabilizer
This is not something new for a lens, but a new feature for the camera body. So why image stabilizer. This is equivalently called Anti Shake and is required if photographer requires to take pictures in low natural light, without using a flash particularly if they are moving objects, like children playing in living room.
Basically when the shutter speed is low in order to absorb more light, any slight movement will result in producing blurry pictures. High ISO setting will produce more noise or grain and if the lens is not equipped with a required wide aperture settings, then the only way to stop the blur is to have a camera with Anti Shake technology built in.
This technology is based on a simple concept of making sure that the camera sensor doesn't move and so cameras with this feature have sensors built in a certain way to stop them moving when handled by a shaky hand or when shutter speed is low.