This is just a quick tip. I had to quickly change the color of a red seat into a white one … after first trying to desaturate and lighten up the whole scene I remembered that I could try the channel mixer. And guess what, you can simply select the preset (or adjust your own settings) and the red seats are magically white.

At least for webkit browsers. I welcome Adobe as the design tool giant it is to their efforts on developing HTML and CSS. They could really bring technical innovations that Designers actually need or want.

One of them are blending modes. Be hones, PNG overlays don’t look the same as a multiplied image. Also we cannot rely on “prerendering” such overlays in Photoshop if we have responsive Design that has different layouts for different devices. Can you immagine preparing you image banners multiple times?

This is just a draft spec and I expect that it will take another year or two to get there, but at least we have something to look forward to.

#html5 #css #spec #draft #filter #photoshop

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http://blogs.adobe.com/webplatform/2012/04/04/bringing-blending-to-the-web/

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Try it out now, stop everything and download the preview edition of Photoshop CS6 … and while you wait that the download completes look at the videos by Russel Brown and Juleanne Kost.

Web Designers holler – Photoshop CS6 gets Paragraph & Character Styles … Now let’s see if we can import them from other applications.
Also the content aware move is great and useful, the other features presented by are meh … but let’s play with them to see how useful they are in real life.
#photoshop #cs6 #download #beta

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John Nack on Adobe : Come download Photoshop CS6!
Blazingly fast performance and a modern UI — Experience unprecedented performance with the Mercury Graphics Engine, which gives you near-instant results when you edit with key tools such as Liquify, P…

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The Nikon D3000 is a entry level DSLR and the kit-lenses you get with it are not the best lenses in the world – but with the new lens correction introduced in Photoshop CS5, Camera Raw 6.1 and in the forthcomming Lightroom 3 will help you get better pictures even if you are just entering in the semi-pro digital photography.

Since Adobe and no other user has yet supplied Lens Profiles for this “cheap” lenses I’ve made them on a rainy sunday. So just download them and put them in the according folders to enjoy them.

The zip files includes the profiles for the NIKON D3000 with Nikkor 18.0-55.0 mm f3.5-5.6, and the NIKON D3000 with the Nikkor 55.0-200.0 mm f4.0-5.6 lenses.

Download

Click here to Download for just one Tweet

Install

To install them place them in one of the following folders.

a. For Windows XP:
C:Documents and Settings(User Name)Application DataAdobeCameraRawLensProfiles1.0
C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataAdobeCameraRawLensProfiles1.0

b. For Windows Vista or Windows 7:
C:Users(User Name)AppDataRoamingAdobeCameraRawLensProfiles1.0
C:ProgramDataAdobeCameraRawLensProfiles1.0

c. For Mac:
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/LensProfiles/1.0

[frame_left]http://frankie.bz/files/2009/07/calc_01.gif[/frame_left]
Sometimes the biggest time savers are in front of your eyes the whole time but you can’t see them. Mostly because this great features are so part of the system that nobody actually talks about them anymore.

[frame_right]http://frankie.bz/files/2009/07/calc_02.gif[/frame_right]One of this hidden features is the incorporated calculator in Adobe Creative Suite. It’s not documented that every value field can actually do some basic calculations and transformations. So if you want to expand a rectangle by 5 pt you just select the rectangle, add a “+ 5 pt” in the width field in your toolbar and hit Enter. You can even use different units to do the calculations – cool isn’t it.

[frame_left]http://frankie.bz/files/2009/07/calc_03.gif[/frame_left]The operations you can do is addition, subtraction, multiply and divide. But remember you can make only one operation at a time.

Another cool way to use this feature is for font sizes. If you know are doing a poster for example and you know that you need the font to be 5 cm in height you can enter it right away, no need to transform centimeters in points.

The available abbreviations for the units are:

• Points – pt
• Picas – p
• Pixel – px
• Centimeter – cm
• Millimeter – mm
• Inch – Inch (in English) Zoll (in German)
• Cicerco – c
• Agate – ag

How many times have you heard your client say: “You can fix this later in Photoshop.” or “We don’t need a photo shooting, we just combine the photos we have.” As an art director one of your jobs is to ensure that the quality of the final product lives up to the standard you set. To ensure this quality you have to look at all aspects. We already discussed the copywriting part, now let’s look at the photography.

You can’t fix it later in Photoshop

Ok, some minor issues can always be fixed but I’ve discovered that you have to do you time calculations precisely. How much time does it cost you to clean the product you are going to shoot with a cloth before the actual shoot and how much with photoshop afterwards for example? It might seem trivial, but you may wonder how many times I had to go into a photo shooting with scratched and dirty products. I now always want to see the material I’m using for the photo shoot ahead of time to be sure to have the best material.

I’ve started to charge extra for this kind of retouching when I was sure that it was the client who didn’t care to provide a proper product. Sometimes the client really didn’t have any better material, but it was quite easy to sell the extra cost.

There is also another factor to consider. The graphic design business is often fast paced. If you have to do extra retouching it will probably blow your time schedule. It put’s pressure on the project unnecessarily. So talking to your client at the beginning of the project about this issues is key to get better input (the products) and therefore the best output possible.

If you have to anyway – get prepared

There are some situations where you have to do major retouching. Maybe the product you have to feature is still a prototype and therefor not perfect, or the product is too big to be set on a clean background, or you plan to do a compositing. The key here is to plan ahead to get photos that ease the retouching. A good starting point is to know exactly what the final picture should look like. You can spot then critical spots and imagine where the difficulties or the major time consuming aspect will be. It might be also good to have a look at the product and make some notes. This will help you brief the photographer. Tell him that what you are going to do with the picture. He will help you getting rid of reflections, will know where to put white cardboards for helping you to cut out the parts for example and many more technical aspects.

The photographer can really ease your work here a great deal and it’s your job to point out where he has to point his attention. You might think that he will know by himself that scratches and dirt are not meant to be shown, but he doesn’t know for what use the picture is intended. You could use the picture to show the scratches and dirt on purpose – how should he know if you don’t tell him.

If you have to do retouching because of a compositing the planning is even more important. I will cover this in a case study later this week featuring a composition of a photo shooting, a stock image and a computer generated background – so stay tuned.

Conclusion

Does photoshop retouching cut the photo shooting cost was the question I asked in the beginning – and the answer I give is “NO”. Retouching is always some extra you have to add. It is an extra step you have to calculate in terms of time, planning and in the end costs. So avoid it as much as you can and if you can’t avoid it let your client know about it and charge him if appropriate.