The Photoshop function that I tend to use more and more often is Highlight / Shadow Adjustment.
You can find the “Highlight / Shadow” effect in the Image -> Adjustments menu.
This function is divided in two sections.
One section is dedicated to Highlight – here you reveal details on the sky (for example), darken the overexposed areas.
Another section is dedicated to Shadows – here you reveal the details from the shadow, darker areas.
Depending on the type of photograph, you can have different levels for each adjustment.
Be careful that by pushing these effects over the 50% limit, the picture will loose quality: noise and artifacts will appear.
Here you have some examples:
Ex1:

Ex2:

Ex3:

I usually bring the Radius near to the 50% because otherwise I will get unpleasantly hallows at the edges of the objects in my picture. It sort of looks like a HDR image.
Color Correction and Middtone Contrast are helpful for “last minute” adjustments. It’s not necessary – these can be done later from Brightness / Contrast and Hue / Saturation options from the same Image -> Adjustments menu.

How to Organize
There are many articles on the web that talk about how to organize your photos. Now I want to tell step by step about my way of doing this, a way that never failed me when I was looking for something inside a huge archive of 100GB.
1. The first root directories I have are the name of the cameras used to take the pictures:
Canon
Nikon
Whatever else comes to me in hand
Not ones I’ve been asked what camera did I used – how could I know that if all my files were in the same folder?
2. Second then, there are directories that look like this: year_month_day_place. Most of the time, the place is more important, but I like to keep tracking my progress and compare older photos to new ones. Sometimes I come back to the same place and have different folders of the same place.
3. These directories are split into 3 other directories: original, photoshoped, web
4. The files in the photoshoped directory are photoshoped at full size and can be printed, while the files in web directory, have approximative 900 pixels wide and 190kb – the strongest requirements for one of the forums where I put them. Also, these files are watermarked.
5. A totally different category is a directory called stock. Here I put my pictures that I shoot specially for stock websites.
6. As for the program I use… well, I like picasa because it’s fast, but, other softwares have other advantages. I often need to see the exif data of image: it’s not just a requirement in many contests, but also helps to see the effects of certain camera settings.

NOTE: If a directory contains too many files, It will load the thumbs very slow. I keep about a maximum 2BG pictures in one folder

How to Back-up
As for the back-up, I make two back-ups:
ONE: on dvd-s
TWO: on an external hard drive (currently 500GB)

Have you not yet found out how to process your image? Do you want to know what can you do to improve your pictures in Photoshop Lightroom? Have you just purchesed Photoshop Lightroom and you want a quick tutorial to go thru the functions of this software? Then this video is the start point for digital image processing.

Step by Step:
Increase the dynamic range of a RAW image by creating two exposures in Camera Raw and then merging them together in Photoshop.

This Photoshop CS3 tutorial shows 3 methods for creating a vignette.

This tutorial shows how to create virtual copies in Photoshop Lightroom, a technique that lets you experiment with multiple versions of the same images without sacrificing hard drive space.

Sometimes colors should be saturated in the post processing (in autumn most of all), but here’s an advice: try not to oversaturate in the excitement of the post process.

Aperture 1.5 is a all-in-one post-production software tool for serious photographers who use Mac systems. Aperture — enthusiastically adopted by some of the world’s finest professional photographers — set the standard for professional photo management applications. It is indeed a complete software that is a pleasure working with. More than that, it’s flexibility relies upon the fact that Aperture lets you install and take advantage of third-party extensions for sharing, storing, printing, publishing, and selling your photographs in exciting new ways.

Using its comprehensive collection of tools, you can easily import, manage, edit, catalog, organize, adjust, publish, export, and archive your images easily and with quality. Non-destructive adjustment tools let you fine-tune exposure; check and adjust Levels; modify White Balance; adjust hue, saturation, and luminance on a color-by-color basis; sharpen edges; modify highlights and shadow values; crop, straighten, reduce noise, correct red-eye, and eliminate dust.

When it comes to powering through a large shoot and making critical decisions, no single application offers the collection of compare-and-select tools you’ll find in Aperture since it lets you work Full Screen or even on multiple screens.
Not only that you can improve hundreds of thousands of images, but Aperture lets you choose the best way to store them by consolidating into a single library that Aperture manages for you. Aperture also offers simple yet powerful tools for assigning metadata. In fact, you can begin the process on import, and presets let you fill metadata fields enmasse.

The latest version provides RAW support for more than 70 camera models — from Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, and other leading manufacturers. Also, Aperture automatically creates “versions” of your “master” images to preview, crop, color correct, sharpen, and apply other modifications to, such that your RAW originals remain perfectly safe with no change of a single pixel in them. It’s also noticeable that when you export RAW images, Aperture also exports their associated metadata in XMP sidecar files, making it easy for applications — like Photoshop — to pick up and use that metadata.

Further, after processing and organizing images, a full complement of output options, lets you quickly and easily create contact sheets, printed portfolios, books, or customized prints. Print them yourself, or order professional prints and books without leaving Aperture. By taking advantage of a new drag-and-drop JPEG export feature, you can quickly take an image from your Aperture library and incorporate it in an iWeb photo blog, Keynote presentation, Motion animation, iDVD slideshow, or cut away in iMovie HD or Final Cut Pro.

Export API feature helps you to connect Aperture with a variety of output, storage, and publishing services via third-party plug-ins, creating custom workflows that use Aperture as your front end. Aperture can also work hand-in-hand with Automator to help you create automated workflows.

The latest update (as in October 2007) is Apple Aperture 1.5.6 which addresses issues related to performance, improves overall stability, and supports compatibility with Mac OS X Leopard v10.5. In detail:
- Resolves some minor compatibility issues with iPhoto 7.1, which organizes images by Event rather than Roll.
- Addresses issues related to metadata and sort order when sharing previews with iLife Media Browser.
- Improves reliability of queries based on Import Session.
- Addresses reliability when recovering an Aperture Library from a Vault.

Tags: apple aperture, aperture, aperture photo software, photo software, photography software, mac photo software

About 2 weeks ago I entered a project called “Edit My Photo”. Bian Auer told everyone who wanted to participate, to “photoshop” his “bird on the beach” photo. There were 28 entries, each of them very different and unique.

This project is a fine example how digital processing an image can improve a shot, creating something that would never be possible with the camera alone. Some believe that manipulating an image makes people degrade the original concept of “photography” and I can’t say NO to this either. I’m starting to believe that as better as you get with the camera, the less you’ll need to post-proccess the images.

My photo and the entire proccessing can be seen and read here.
Participating was fun and I’m looking foreward for further projects like this.

Now the stage 2 of the project is about voting your favourite interpretation of the image (actualy 3 of them but you can choose 1 or 2 if not 3). I personaly don’t know yet which 3 are my favourites – all the images are so unique that I like the idea behind allot more than just 3 of them.
Voting is done by commenting on Brian’s blog until 23 of October.
Go there and vote mine (no. 11) if you like it.
Here’s the link where you can vote (anyone can).

Tags: edit my photo project, edit my photo, brian auer, image manipulation, digital manipulation, photoshop

The autumn looks more and more impressive these days, so I’m going on shooting outdoors around the trees. Here’s a video to teach you the basics (it’s really a very basic video) about photo enhachment needed for vibrant autumn photo prints. I’m going to make a selection of my photos and print some too.

Tags: photoshop, autumn colors, autumn pictures, photo manipulation, photo tutorial, photography tutorial