Do you wish to create your own calendar for next year? I have a solution for: free and simple to use.
Also, at the end of this article, you’ll find a free PhotoAxe calendar which is my Christmas Gift from me to you, my readers. All photos in the calender are copyrighted by me, lau, and they are all made in Romania. And you know what? It’s a really cool calendar of which I’m very proud of.

Create Your Own Calendar

SmartDraw is the World’s Most Popular Business Graphics Software that helps you quickly and easily create great-looking calendars, planners and more! Get ready-made templates and customize them using clip art, your business logo, or even digital photos! There is a 7 days trial, enough time for you to set-up a calendar and print it.
Here’s a link to direct download the software.
Have you installed it? Good. Let’s mo on.
Step 1:
From the calendar menu on the right, choose a SmartTemplate. Scroll down to see the templates that allow you to include your own pictures. I like Photo Calendar 1 (Landscape) and Photo Calendar 4 (Portrait).

Step 2:
A new window will appear and from the Smart Panel on the right you will now set up the date for each page.
Step 3:
Next you can place appointments (supposing you already know them) and the moon phases. I toked some time to look over at the yearly moon phases over the Internet so here’s where to put the full moon symbol:
Year Month Day
2008 Jan 22
2008 Feb 21
2008 Mar 21
2008 Apr 20
2008 May 20
2008 Jun 18
2008 Jul 18
2008 Aug 16
2008 Sep 15
2008 Oct 14
2008 Nov 13
2008 Dec 12
Step 4:
Now you can add the text of your appointments. For example: mother’s birthday, dad’s birthday, sister’s/brother’s birthday, wedding day, and so on…
Step 5:
Add your desired picture: since you won’t sale the calendar, you can add whatever picture you like no matter who’s if that person allows you to do so. Just make sure you have it at big resolution for high quality printing (a min of 5 mp).
On the top menu you will see plenty of available settings for picture adjustments. Also, I preferred to unlock all movements so that I will stretch my picture to fit how I want.
Step 6:
Advanced features can be controlled from the main menu. For example, you can adjust paper size and margins from the Page menu. From Home menu you can change the style and color design of each shape (the color surrounding the day of the week for example) or even insert new shapes. Font and alignment of the text is also available for adjustments.
Even more advanced, you can add maps, charts, web pages and tables, charts. For me this is kind of useless.
If you don’t want a plane white background (for the entire paper or just some cells), you can change that in many ways by cliquing on the right mouse button (look at the picture at the right). The texture collection is amazing. In the Library Panel (next to the Smart Panel) you have an even more impressive collection of clip-arts which you can use to illustrate the appointments.
Step 7:
Print, save, convert to pdf and all other commands are located next to the product logo in the upper left corner of your screen. The very useful undo control is the first button here.
Now here’s the cover of my calendar and the download links. Enjoy! (The cover is made in Photoshop since this calendar software did not appear to have a cover making feature.) Disclaimer: this calendar is a gift from me and may/should not be sold by any means.

Photoaxe Calendar

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.

During autumn there are many fog days. You don’t even need to weak up very early to catch some fog in a nearby forest. However, some of us got work to do and just can’t follow the weather all the time.
Look at the difference between the 2 images below and you’ll see that foggy pictures can also be made in a digital studio.

I toked a picture of “autumn fairy” that I really like but there was one problem: while it was taken, in the clear midday, some purple fringing appeared in the highlight areas.
Before actually adding the fog, I made a few other adjustments:
1) Straighten the guiding lines (the bridge edge, the lamps)
2) Saturated the colors
3) Added contrast
4) Removed purple fringing by removing all blue color from the picture
5) Sharpen
6) Final crop

Now let’s get to work at that fog. I made it in Adobe Photoshop CS3 and didn’t used any preset brushes. Here are some quick tips illustrated in the above picture:
1) Always remember to visualize your picture in 3D perspective: mark your far objects and your near objects. In the illustration you see that I numbered lamp 1 and lamp 2 because later on I increased the darkness of the lamp 1 and slightly “fogged” lamp 2.
2) Nearby fog is the last one to be done.
3) Far fog is made with a transparent airbrush (choose your transparency percentage depending on the desired result).
4) Increase the transparency level gradually as you get closer to the near objects (the tree on the left is farther than the lamps but nearer than the main forest background).
5) The very front object stand up suddenly from the far fog, so a gradual transparency won’t help here (see the 2 lamps).
6) Adjust differences by painting around until you are pleased.
7) The fog isn’t really white, so at the end, create an adjustment layer to brighten the entire scene and transform the white into light-gray.

Even if I managed to reduce the purple fringing by removing the blues (under selective colors menu), some still remained. However, the fog brush covered it completely.

Note: You might under the temptation of adding blur to the fog area, but this will only give an unrealistic effect (the picture will become more like a digital painting).

To make a conclusion about the most important things, I’m mentioning again to permanently visualize the image in 3D and remember that transparency is the key to obtain that visualization.

Tags: photo tips, photography tips, photography tutorials, photoshop, photo manipulation, photo processing, photo editing

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

AKVIS LLC releases version 5.0 of its photo collage plug-in AKVIS Chameleon. The new version is a true breakthrough in photo collage creation. The program offers a new mode that allows transferring a roughly selected object to a new background with a clean result. No precise mask tools are needed! Now the program has an interface and all in all three modes with different collage possibilities.
AKVIS Chameleon is compatible with Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, Corel (Jasc) Paint Shop Pro, Ulead PhotoImpact, Corel Photo-Paint and other popular software. AKVIS Chameleon sells for $75 on http://www.akvis.com , with a free 10 day trial version available. Home users can enjoy the full line of AKVIS plugins in the AKVIS Alchemy bundle (Enhancer, Chameleon, Stamp, Retoucher, Coloriage, Noise Buster, Decorator, Sketch, LightShop and Frame Suite) for USD $325 USD, a savings of $393 over purchasing each separately, while registered users can upgrade to version 5.0 by paying a charge of $15 US dollars for Home license.


Feature 1:
The new “Montage” mode allows copying an object, for example, a group of people, a monument, a flower, etc into a new background. The trick is that the selection does not need to be precise. You can take a rectangular part of the source image and then use two pencils – red and blue – to roughly indicate the parts that should appear on the resulting photo collage – for instance, a figure of a person, and the parts that should blend away – the rest of the background and irrelevant objects.
Feature 2:
In “Chameleon” mode the plug-in pastes a copied object into a picture in such a way that the object adapts to the new color range and blends with the background, the way chameleons do (this is why the software was named so). In this way you can add clouds to a clear sunset landscape and the clouds will adopt a red tint. Or you can paste a new nose into a face and the nose will acquire the complexion of the “receiving” face. The tool does not require precise selection of the copied object and can be helpful to home users who are not experienced in image editing.
Designers will appreciate this tool as it allows them to combine images with entirely different color ranges or to create the effect of drawing on a texture surface (crumpled paper, wood, etc), and all that with only a mouse-click.

Tags: photo collage, collage, collage creation, akvis chameleon, collage plug-in, photo collage plug-in, AKVIS Chameleon Plug-in

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

I decided to accept the challenge proposed by Brian Auer in “Edit my Photo” Project.
Here are the original image and the final image:

Step 1: Croping
By looking at the image you see that it is basically right composed, but, the subject needs to be closer to the viewer of the frame. Therefore, I need to crop the picture…. respecting the standard format…. or… and here comes my idea: a square crop keeping the rule of thirds in place. Not all pictures are fit for a square but this one is: the subject is little and placed over a clean background.
Step 2: Desaturating
The colors of the original photo are a bit washed-out but instead of increasing the saturation and contrast, I prefer in the case a picture like this (who doesn’t have many colors in it) to desaturate it. However, since the background is the see, I give it a teal tint. (Image -> Adjustments -> Black % White).
Step 3: Contrast
Now I want to bring some contrast to the frame, so i go to Image -> Adjustments -> Curves -> Medium Contrast. As you can see I only used preset functions since I feel like I don’t need anything more complicated for this picture: simplicity is a golden key to beauty.
Step 4: Highlighting the Shadows
I am almost pleased with the look of the result except one thing: the subject is more like a black silhouette, with not so visible details over it even if it’s in perfect focus. I went to Image -> Adjustments -> Shadow/Highlight and made the bird lighter… but wait a minute: this step distorted the entire background by making it too white. Lucky, the bird is easy to crop from the background and putting it into a different layer saves the background.
Step 5: Tri-Tone
After the Shadow/Highlight effect, I played a bit longer with the colors of the bird (only) because I seemed to me too green. Hahaha let me make it yellow! That was a joke, of course. I added more blue instead of green so that the result was converting the picture from duo-tone into tri-tone. Once I’m happy with the bird’s look, I merge the layers so I can go on with the final steps.

Step 6: Noise Reduction
I move myself farther from the monitor to see if everything is good enough: neah… I need to brighten the image. Done. Now it’s OK. I resize it to 900×900 and get into my NeatImage plug-in in the Filter Menu. Carefully not to oversharp the edges of the bird, I remove the noise that formed during the above processes.
Step 7: Border
I resized the Image Layer a few pixels less than the Background Layer and added an inner stroke of 3px from the Layer Style Menu. Once again, simplicity at the maximum.

Tags: photo editing, edit my photo project, photo manipulation, photoshop

I always hear the question: how should I retouch portraits? and most of the time it is refeard to the exact process of using the clone tool, the healing brush, the smudge tool and warming plus enlighten of the skin tones. But, behind the technique its self, I almost never hear someone asking: when should I apply changes?
The question is a bit tricky because must of the digital fellows forget that NATURAL is an important quality of a speak-less portrait.
Take a look at the pictures in the link below. Go with the mouse over them and notice how the mouth and eyes are considerably “photoshoped” – it’s like there are two different persons.
digitalphotoshopretouching
I believe it’s OK to get rid of spots, dirty teeth, eye wrinkles, enlighten the skin (and this is the most difficult task), but I’m not OK with the modification of a persons genetically forms. We are not perfect, are we?

Tags: photo retouching, photo manipulation, photoshoped portraits, retouched portraits

If you just want to make your pictures better, prepare them to sell as stock or print them without reading tutorials or books, just look at this short video and you’ll get to know the most basic secrets of photo editing with Adobe Photoshop.

Tags: sharpening, color correction, saturating, adobe photoshop, photoshop, picture editing