I've been watching quite a few photography related videos lately. Some of them interesting to watch, some are useful for work, so here is a quick summary of what I've discovered recently.

Interesting interviews with photographers can be found on WorldPressPhoto web site. First, click on 2008, and then click on one of the icons. If you click the picture of president Putin you will see the interview with Platon about how he has made his award winning portrait of the Person of the Year 2007.

Google has a series on YouTube called "Authors@Google". They have recently posted a video of famous American photographer Joe McNally speaking to Google employees in their headquarters (thanks for Strobist for posting about that in his blog)


Just in case it doesn't play you can go via the link

Useful photoshop tutorials (videos) can be found on Layers magazine website.

Digital Photography School has recently posted a selection of 24 photography podcasts that will inspire you.

Belgian fine-art nude photographer Pascal Baetens is actively involved with fine-art tv project since last year. Fine-art tv features weekly programs devoted to photo artists from around the world. Past issues are viewable too.

Another Belgian photographer Bert Stephani runs interesting blog. Not so many...

Check out my latest tutorial over at Developertutorials.com.

Well, I get questions about Polaroid cameras from time to time, and I figured it's about time to have a post I can send people to when they need an answer, so here it is.

If you like the idea of getting into instant photography, there's currently only one type of film being produced, and that is made by Fuji. FP-100B or C and FP-3000B are the Fuji instant pack films, and they will fit older Polaroid Pack Film cameras. Okay, I know there are other films currently available, and Fuji has an integral film, but I'm trying to keep this guide simple. The camera pictured here is a 360, or what are referred to as "100-series" packfilm cameras. They were made by the millions, and aren't worth any more than maybe $20 now, by and large. They produce wonderful images very easily, with their high-quality glass lenses and automatic light metering. Basically point, focus, and shoot. The mechanics of the camera are easy enough to figure out, so I won't go into that here.

Polaroid also made some other packfilm cameras, most notably plastic things like the Colorpack II, and also some cheaper folding cameras like the more recent Reporter and ProPack models. They also made some expensive professional model packfilm cameras like the 195, but they require...

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'.

...

Photoshop User TV is an educational yet casual and lighthearted video podcast by the “Photoshop Guys” from the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. A typical episode of PhotoshopUser TV is 30 minutes long and debuts each week on Monday. “Why do they call themselves the Photoshop Guys?”. Well… they’re guys and they love Photoshop.

Every week, They post a new episode of PhotoshopUser TV that you can watch, download and keep forever and ever. They’ve archived previous episodes and you can download them for $1.99 per show. Members of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) have access to the entire archive of PhotoshopUser TV episodes as part of their membership.

I really recommend this podcast to those who are new and those who want a little refresher on some of those tools that are either new or do not use anymore.

Go ahead and check out this post cast tomorrow, Monday and every Monday at www.photoshopusertv.com

Let me know how it goes.

In this tutorial you'll learn how to simply and quickly add the reflection of a scene to your subjects eyeball. I've also included the actual Photoshop session in with notes so you can see for yourself how this is done.



First, create a Photoshop document and import your main eye image and the image you want reflected.



In this tutorial, the background layer is a high quality close-up of an eye. Our reflection layer in this image is a race car and driver.

Slightly distort the layer for perspective. Edit >> Transform >> Perspective.



Scale the reflection layer so that it's slightly larger than the eye, placing the image so that it covers the Iris and Pupil. You may have some overlap onto the Sclera but don't worry, we'll mask that out soon enough.

Now, we need to create a sphere about the size of the Iris. Don't worry if your circle protrudes over the eyelid.

Create a new layer. On this new layer, fill the sphere selection with a solid color and hide it. (We're just going to use this layer to quickly select our sphere later.)



Option + Click the circle layer and then select the layer with your scaled reflection layer. You should have a sphere shape selected over the eyeball. Spherize (Filter >> Distort...

For my most recent work I wanted to create bubbles that would reflect my subject in a believable yet magical way. To do this I started by duplicating the main photo Layer >> Duplicate Layer.



Next I scaled the duplicate to 25% of it's original size. Edit >> Transform >> Scale. We also need to distort the duplicate. First I flipped it Edit >> Transform >> Flip Horizontal or Vertical, then I distorted it further by adjusting the perspective. Edit >> Transform >> Perspective



Still doesn't look like a bubble does it? Here comes the fun part. Select the elliptical tool (M) and draw out an area that's a perfect sphere (by holding shift). We want to get rid of everything outside of the bubble, now. So go to the to menu and choose "Select" then "Inverse" (Select >> Inverse) then press delete. You've now deleted everything on the layer that will not be in the bubble.

Press Command + D to deselect everything then Command click on the layer of the bubble. You should now have only the sphere selected.



Now, the most important part of the process, distorting your image to be a sphere by using the "Spherize" option. select Filter >> Distort >> Spherize. Use a setting of 100%.





Now, click on your color window....

Now we have mastered some photoshop basics, lets move on to something more advanced, editting portraits. As a woman I like pictures of me online to look as good as possible, as Im sure any other woman does. Lets start with a stock photo, here I have used one from Deviantart.

http://dust-stock.deviantart.com/art/window2-62902157

begin by duplicating the background layer. We will start by using clone stamp tool or healing brush tool (for newer versions of photoshop) to edit out the spots on her face. Select clone stamp, select an area of the girls face close to where the spot is, hold down alt to select the patch of skin to clone from, release alt and clone away. Make sure your paintbrush is a small size. Ctrl + or - zooms in and out of your image. Here is mine:




I also added a sharpening layer (see previous tip) using the high pass filter set to 5. Press ctrl+alt+shift+e to duplicate the sharpened layer.

Blur this layer and set it to soft light as per tip 2. If you find the shadows too harsh select the eraser tool and erase away. Since I like the keep the eyes sharp I often erase the blurred/soft light eyes layer. Following that make a new layer to dodge and burn as you like, I...