Written by T. Michael Testi

 

When seen in the light of the photography and art work of Susi Lawson, most everything else comes across as mundane and ordinary. Her work is fresh, invigorating, as well as instantly recognizable. Much in the way that you can tell a Norman Rockwell work of art as soon as you see it, you can recognize a Susi Lawson work of art as well.

There is something about it that jumps off the page and says, "Look at me!" My first experience was at a local bookstore where I was browsing the photography and art magazines and I saw this remarkable cover of .PSD magazine in which this little girl holding an old fashion brownie camera. She is surrounded by a bright blue sky and large puffy clouds and she has an incredible expression of utter delight on her face.

Since then, Susi Lawson has continued to win numerous awards for her work including the NAPP Grand Prize (Best of Show) 2007 Photoshop User Awards, and first place in the Portrait/Wedding category of the 2008 Photoshop User Awards. Now, releasing her third training video, The Fine Art Of Photoshop, she is once again sharing her techniques for creating these wonderful works of art.

The first part sets up the image, background, and begins some of

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Written by T. Michael Testi

Strata Foto 3D 1.5 is the part of the Strata 3D product line that lets users load a series of masked pictures into the Foto 3D interface and generate a real-time 3D object. This object can then be exported VRML, to 3DS, to a layer in Photoshop CS3 Extended, or used in one of Strata's other 3D products. The goal of Foto 3D is to allow a 3D model to be created quickly and inexpensively while requiring few technical skills and no expensive hardware.

To use Foto 3D correctly the primary things that you need are a camera that takes JPG or TIFF images, a printer that is capable of printing out the special calibration mats that you need - a decent laserjet or inkjet printer should do fine - a tripod, a solid background that is different from what you are going to model, and an evenly lit space.

The first thing that you will want to do is calibrate your camera lens. Most cameras have some distortion that is not really noticeable when looking at a single image, but when you are trying to isolate, mask, and match up a series of images at different angles, it becomes more important. To calibrate the lens, you print a grid of dots onto a plain white sheet of paper. Secure the paper on a piece of card stock

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Scott Kelby, the man who changed the "digital darkroom" forever with his groundbreaking, #1 bestselling, award-winning book The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers, now tackles the most important side of digital photography--how to take pro-quality shots using the same tricks today's top digital pros use (and it's easier than you'd think).This entire book is written with a brilliant premise, and here’s how Scott describes it: "If you and I were out on a shoot, and you asked me, 'Hey, how...

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Written by T. Michael Testi

The amount of power and capabilities in today's digital cameras give you a lot of technical sophistication, but all of these features alone will not guarantee the capturing of a compelling image. To do that, you have to have more than just technology, you must have skills. To do it well you must be one part photographer and one part digital artist.

In Practical Artistry: Light and Exposure For Digital Photographers, Harold Davis' aim is to present the best practices of the craft of photography in the context of the digital era. A great photograph begins with the photographer's understanding of light and proceeds with a good and creative exposure. Practical Artistry is 176 full color pages that are divided into six chapters.

"Understanding Exposure" begins with the exploration of what is an exposure, especially with regard to the capturing of light. Here the discussion is about the relationship of aperture, shutter speed, and light sensitivity - also known as ISO. Here you will learn about the exposure equation, measuring light, and intentional over- and under-exposing of images.

"Working with Aperture" provides you with a solid foundation of understanding what f-numbers are and how f-stops work. You will see how aperture and depth of field relate, how to work with selective focus, when aperture does not matter, and how it relates to macro photography.

"Selecting Shutter Speed" is all about time and how shutter speed is really

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You can see my latest posts from Developer Tutorials here.

20 Time Saving Keyboard Shortcuts


and

Understanding Scripting in Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop Express is a new FREE service that allows you to polish, sort, store and show off your photos. It’s also completely web based! Some of the most frequently used features of Adobe Photoshop available for use on the web anytime for FREE. It works in your web browser as long as you have the Flash 9 Player, so you can work on any platform. This is not going to replace the Photoshop you’ve come to know and love. There are no Layers here, No CMYK, No pro level filters...

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Light Crafts today announced the availability of LightZone 3.5, the newest addition to their award winning LightZone photo-enhancing software. This latest version gives users access to extensive video tutorials providing visual explanations of the innovative tools light crafts offers. There is also a revised pricing structure, and has additional camera compatibility. Below is the press release with more details. LightZoneTM 3.5 Offers New Support Tools and Pricing Structure Latest Version...

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In this tutorial I'll teach you how to make a web 2.0 logo so damn sugary sweet it'll give your website a cavity. Then I'll give you the PSD, the font, and all the patterns used in the image so that you can play with it yourself. If you want to skip the tutorial altogether, you can download the PSD here. The beauty of the correct way to design logos in Photoshop or Illustrator comes when we keep everything as editable text layers from start to finish. That way if we need to make changes or reuse the idea, we can just pop open a Photoshop file and quickly output a new version of an old idea. This will also make it easy for you to duplicate my steps.

1. Open up Photoshop and Create a new layer.

2. Use the Text Tool to write something in black using the "Creampuff" font.



3. Choose "Color Overlay" from the Layer Style options.



4. Select a pinkish color. Because it makes most people think of candy or something edible(....like babies). For your reference, I'm using these settings..... Color Overlay >> #9e5859. Let's name this layer 'Base'.

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