TUTORIALS (Help and Advice forums)

The aim of this Guide is to provide easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions to achieving the Orton Effect without the necessity of being a Photoshop guru. For this purpose I try to describe the process in plain and simple language. If you are a digital artist guru, you may wish to turn away at this point to avoid the Groan Factor. I still call myself “new to Photoshop” and I have found a lot of tutorials on this topic assume a much higher level of knowledge than I have and are not very intuitive. One of the problems is that if you don’t “get” a particular step in the process, you’re gone. So, I try to explain the steps in easy to understand terms (hopefully!) and, importantly, describe what each step should look like after it’s done. So if you are not seeing the result of each step replicated on your screen, you know you have to stop and try again. If this happens, go to the top toolbar, select Edit then Undo [whatever it is you’ve just done] from the drop-down menu and try again. I have revised and expanded the Tutorial again, in December 2009, to: Use an actual image through the Steps. Include thumbnails of what to do. Describe the steps as per Photoshop Elements 7 (PE). Show a shorter way of using Blending (Step Five). To achieve the Orton Effect you will be creating Layers, but don’t worry if you haven’t done this before. I hadn’t. The method I am about to describe is the simplest I have found. It’s not my method, but the description is all mine. I said at the time of the original Tutorial I would revise it to include screenshots of the various steps. It’s only taken me a year or so to do so. The steps described below assume almost zero knowledge of Layering, and ignore other adjustments you might be making to the image, for example Sharpening the image before you start work on it, which is highly recommended. Step 1 Choose your image. I have found that an image with a lot of white in it, for example waterfalls, is not ideal for the Orton Effect. Try to select an image which is not underexposed, has strong colour, in focus and sharp, and which has a dominant subject. Flowers are ideal. For the purposes of this Tutorial, I will demonstrate the Steps using this image, shot in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney on 30 November 2008: / Handheld Canon EOS 10D, Canon EF 180mm f3.5L USM Macro Lens, ISO 100, f3.5 at 1/180th second Step 2 You’ve got PE (or Photoshop CS2 or later) open. Now select File from the top toolbar and select Open from the drop-down menu. Choose your Flower shot and open it. (You may be using a non-flower image, but for ease of reference I will refer to it as Flower.) Ok, now look across to the right of the screen. See the Layers palette? It should be showing a thumbnail of the Flower image, together with the label Background, like so: Feel the excitement. This is your Background Layer. Step 3 Move the mouse over to the thumbnail. Right-click the word Background. A small window should now open, like so: Select Duplicate Layer. A small box should now immediately appear in the middle of your screen, like so: It is asking you to Name the Duplicate Layer. Name this Layer Focus, like so: Click on OK. (Note: It doesn’t really matter what you name it, but Focus will do for our current purpose.) Step 4 Look across to the Layers Palette. There should now be a new rectangular box immediately above the original, called Focus, like so: Pause now and look at the tiny eye icon. You will see that it is now the Focus layer on your screen, so this is the “copy” you are working on. OK, moving on ….. Right-click the Focus rectangular box and select Duplicate Layer again. This time when the naming box appears just click OK because we will use the default name for this Layer, being Focus copy. Your Layers Palette should now look like this: Step 5 OK, now we are going to blend the Focus copy. Look at the Layers Palette again. See the drop down menu at the top left, showing Normal as the default? Click on it, then scroll down the menu and select Screen: The Focus copy layer should now have a bit of a washed-out look to it as a result of selecting Screen as the Blending Mode. (I have found that if the Screen effect still leaves a fairly good image, the Orton Effect will be enhanced. Too washed out and the Effect is diminished.) My Flower now looks like this: Step 6 Right-click the Focus copy rectangular box in the Layers Palette again, only this time select Merge Down (it’s the 3rd from the bottom): This will collapse the Focus copy layer onto the Focus layer, like so: Step 7 Right-click the Focus rectangular box in the Layers Palette again and select Duplicate Layer again. Name this copy Blur, like so: Click OK to close the box. Now, look across to the Layers Palette to check it looks like this: Step 8 Now, find and open the Filter menu on the Tool bar running across the top of your screen. Select Blur. Another menu should open. Select Gaussian Blur (don’t ask): A new window should open. You will see a Preview of the image with a default blur Radius setting of 15.9: (You can play around with the radius later.) For now, just click OK to close the window as we will accept the 15.9 (I have found 15.9 to be right for most images anyway). The blur you are to achieve with this step should be enough to discern the shapes without the detail. Here’s how my Flower looks now: Step 9 – The Magic Happens! This is the fun part. We now make one more blending option. Click on the same drop down menu in the Layers Palette you used to create the Screen effect, only this time select Multiply – it’s closer to the top of the menu: You should now be able to see the Orton Effect! This is how my Flower now looks: Step 10 OK, you now have a few options before saving the image. I’ll show you one. If, however, you are happy with the result, right-click the Blur rectangular box in the Layers Palette one more time and select Flatten Image (it’s the last option on the menu). This basically collapses all the layers into one final image and is the last thing you do in Layering. Your Layers Palette should now look like this: You can now Save the image as normal. But, if it looks too dark, you can adjust the Opacity level with the sliding bar before flattening the image. Look for the tiny Opacity tool in the top right of the Layering Palette. (TIP: If you find you need to go below 50% the Effect is significantly lost and maybe it wasn’t the right image to start with. If you are using Photoshop CS2 or later, another option is to adjust the Fill and leave the Opacity at 100%.) I’m not happy with my Flower – too dark – so I’m going to reduce the Opacity to 75%, like so: Now my Flower looks like this: How does yours look? Before I go, here’s some Samples of pre- and post- Orton Effect I prepared earlier: Before Orton Effect / Canon EOS 10D, Canon EF 28-90mm f4-5.6 Plastic Fantastic Zoom Lens at 28mm, ISO 100, f5.6 at 1/60 second After Orton Effect / Opacity at 100% Before Orton Effect / Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EF 28-90mm f4-5.6 Plastic Fantastic Zoom Lens at 90mm, ISO 1250, f13 at 1/100 second After Orton Effect / Opacity at 100% Have fun / Peter

“RAW is the negative and JPG is the snapshot your camera makes from it” – Garth Smith December 2009 Introduction If you have heard about this RAW deal and want to understand how it will improve your photography, then this Tutorial is for you. Why? I often get asked why I shoot in RAW and why not JPEG and I always take the time to reply in detail. I have read a lot of comments on RB about what RAW is and what the deal is with RAW vs JPEG, but the information is disparate, often overly technical in expression, and sometimes unmitigated rubbish. The name RAW itself is daunting for anyone with a keen interest in improving their photography skills but neither confident in direction or priority nor comfortable with the technical concepts. And let’s face it, learning about digital photography can be a path strewn with technical jargon and not much else, even common sense at times. So, there you have it – 3 good reasons for writing this Tutorial. Approach I am approaching this topic from the point of view of being someone who started their digital photography life blithely shooting in JPEG (or simply letting the camera figure it out), hearing about RAW, being told to shoot in RAW, and finally overcoming the fear of RAW and doing it. I now spit on the grave of JPEG, and curse its memory each time I re-visit a folder of images shot in those bad old days of RAW ignorance. (If you already shoot in RAW and want to nitpick my explanations, now is the time to go and shoot something else instead. This Tutorial also seeks to explain things in simple language and I don’t care if it’s not 100% technically accurate. The idea is just to get a few messages across about embracing RAW. I accept you’re smarter than me. Deal with it.) As a bonus, for no extra cost, you also get with this Tutorial some processing tips. If you are going to take the plunge and start shooting in RAW you may as well dive into basic processing too. Do both and I can guarantee you that you will never ever knowingly shoot only in JPEG ever again. Ever. Period. OK, that’s a little too strong, I admit it. But the only time I will accept you shooting in JPEG again is if you are out in the bush somewhere miles and days from any camera shop and you are on your very last card and it’s only the old 1Gb one you carry for emergencies. Then you can shoot in JPEG, ok? Do you have the right camera? Gone are the days when Point & Shoot (P&S) digital camera makers simply ignored the concept of allowing the customer to choose the format for their photographs. It was JPEG all the way. So prevalent and consistent was this attitude that the vast majority of buyers of P&S cameras are not even aware of what JPEG means, let alone RAW. The entire concept of P&S is simply that – you point the camera, you shoot, the camera does the rest. You do not need to know anything else. Nowadays, things are a little different, and for 2 main reasons. First, communities such as Redbubble are a hotbed of digital learning and yearning (and sometimes lust), and this creates a market need. Second, the more sophisticated P&Ss and other compact digitals become (especially in the amount of megapixels able to be squeezed into the sensor) the more ridiculous it is to confine the results to a JPEG format. (I’ll explain this a bit more later, but an analogy would be bringing the Mona Lisa to your home town for an exhibition but not letting anyone inside to see it.) However, your base model P&Ss, like the Canon PowerShot S90 (released 19 August 2009), still do not offer RAW formats as an option. This compares with the Canon PowerShot G11, (released the same day) which does, and, for example, the PowerShot G10 and even its predecessor the G9 (released back in 2007), which also offer RAW. So, if your interest in RAW is coinciding with a camera upgrade decision, the “option” of shooting in RAW should be explored. Does your intended purchase offer it? Or, you might be at the stage of moving up from compact digital cameras to a digital SLR. This will be a good time to move also to shooting in RAW, as any digital SLR not offering RAW is a camera no-one wants to buy. Or, you may already have a better-than-base-model digital camera that does offer RAW shooting and you are curious. What is JPEG? What is RAW? When you press the shutter, light is allowed to enter the inside of the camera through the lens. The light firstly hits a very thin colour filter (usually only 3 colours – red, green, and blue – RGB), then it hits the sensor. Every sensor has millions of light sensing receptors. The more megapixels your camera has, the more of these receptors there are, and thus the more details can be captured. Each of these receptors is called a pixel. So, a 10 megapixel camera has a sensor with 10 million pixels (I think that’s right). Every pixel captures the light as data – “bits” of data. We obtain about 12-15 bits of data per pixel. So, the shutter closes, the light gets captured, the pixels get hit, the data is created. What next? Simply put, the camera now has to store all that unique information on the card, and to do that the data has to be formatted so it doesn’t have to be recreated, and a file created for retrieval that fits that format. If this is beginning to sound like computer lingo, it is. Yes, your digital camera is also a computerised processing unit. JPEG is simply a file format which, importantly, is a universally-accepted and “free-source” format. No-one has proprietary rights over the JPEG format, and every camera manufacturer thus uses it as the default format for their cameras. Before sending the data for an image to the card in your camera, the camera’s teeny weeny little computer will format it. That is why when you download your images from the card (whether you do this by removing the card and putting it into a card reader which is then connected to your computer via a USB cable, or by connecting the camera directly to your computer via a USB cable), they are all numbered and ending in .jpg. The problem is, when the camera formats the data into a JPEG, millions of bits of data are permanently discarded. Let me say that again: when the camera formats the data into a JPEG, millions of bits of data are permanently discarded. (And that, for me, is the numero uno reason for not shooting an image “in” JPEG.) Let me put this into perspective. My main camera is a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. It has 21 million effective pixels. That many pixels can produce a RAW image of up to 25.8 megabytes in size. But if I chose to shoot the exact same image in Large JPEG instead, the image will not be more than 6.1 megabytes in size, and if I chose to shoot it in Small JPEG, the image will not exceed …. 1 megabyte! And here’s the rub, the camera decides what to discard, not you. Which is fine I guess if you leave your camera settings on Full Auto. I mean, seriously, by doing so you’ve already divested yourself of any creative responsibility for the image, so why be bothered about how the camera formats the file? You just have to accept that your JPEG file is going to present you with very limited fine-tuning options. If you are already using Photoshop Elements, for example, but you are still shooting in JPEG, are you not getting strong hints there is a lot you cannot change about your image? For example, an under-exposed image, with too much darkness, still has all that data if shot in RAW. But if shot in JPEG, the “dark” data is discarded. I have “rescued” many under-exposed images shot in RAW by adjusting the settings to retrieve that data. A RAW file is just that – the raw data. It contains all the data captured by your camera’s sensor. It’s not formatted by discarding any data. The camera does not leap in and make assumptions left, right, and centre about what the image should look like. You retain total creative control. Importantly, this is why a JPEG image can look sharper than a RAW file – the camera has already given the bits of data simple instructions to “form up” front and centre, whereas a RAW file is waiting for you to apply your own level of desired sharpness. I think this is a good thing. Similarly, a JPEG will be higher in contrast and lower in dynamic range for the exact same reasons. There are only two more important differences between a RAW file and a JPEG image I want to mention: The more times you work on a JPEG, the more data gets lost. This will happen with any processing, no matter how slight, eg rotating your JPEG 0.1 degrees to the left will lose data. But if you wanna get pedantic about it, the solution is to copy each JPEG before making any changes. Unlike the free-source JPEG format, there is no industry protocol for RAW files. Each camera manufacturer has their own. Believe it, it’s true. And that leads us to the next topic …. Viewing RAW files When I first started shooting with my 5D Mark II, I got frustrated. I had seen the light, so to speak, and had long been shooting in RAW with my good old 10D but, shock horror, Adobe Photoshop CS2 did not recognise my 5D Mark II RAW files. Aaaargh, WTF? Well Canon’s RAW files are Canon’s, not Adobe’s. And Adobe had, with Canon’s assistance of course in sharing the code, published an upgrade for CS2 to include the RAW files shot with the 10D. But, now we were up to CS4 and Adobe did not upgrade CS2 or CS3 for the 5D Mark II. Bugger. But I wasn’t about to fork out $900 for CS4 just for this reason. So I forked out a lot less for Aperture, which was also upgraded for the 5D Mark II. Big mistake. Aperture is more a work flow program than an image processor like Photoshop and, worse, if I shot a RAW file in Monochrome, Aperture would open it in Colour, and shitty colour at that. The solution? There never was a problem, I just didn’t know it. Because there is no universal “format” of RAW, it is behoven upon each manufacturer to supply you with the software to access, view, and process, your RAW files. And they do. I finally twigged that one of the free CDs that came with my 5D Mark II contained Digital Photo Professional – the easiest and best way for me to view my RAW files. So, if your digital camera can take images in RAW and you want to take the plunge, try to find the CDs that came with the camera. If you can’t find them, go to the manufacturer’s website and download the necessary program. It will be free. For example, say you are the proud owner of a Canon EOS 50D and you now want Digital Photo Professional to install on your computer because you want to start shooting in RAW. Here is the software download page for the 50D on the Canon USA site, which has the links to download DPP in either Windows or Mac. And here is the main download page for ANY Canon digital camera. (I assume other digital camera manufacturers have the same access facility. I am told, for example, that Nikon users can shoot in RAW and then use Capture NX2 in the same way as Canon users use DPP. The things you can do with a RAW file are exactly the same. Working with RAW files My aim from here on in is to provide the Wow Factor – to hit you with the imagery that will not only dispel any fog of fear remaining about working in the RAW, but will make you salivate with desire for going RAW all the way. The beauty and joy of working with RAW files is the fact you have ALL the data to play with and tweak. If you have never shot in RAW before, what I am about to show you will amaze you. I could even be strung up by some on RB for revealing trade secrets for free! For the purposes of this part of the Tutorial I will be demonstrating the Mac version of Digital Photo Professional, but it doesn’t really matter what you are using – the things you can do to a RAW file before “converting” it to a JPEG or other format (such as a TIFF) are universal, and this includes Photoshop Elements and CS2, CS3, and CS4. OK, here we go …. Below is an image I shot in RAW and in JPEG. I’ve cropped it a bit so we can focus our attention on the face. (Normally I don’t crop as a first step and indeed I usually wait until after I convert a RAW file to a JPEG and go into Photoshop Elements to do stuff like straightening horizons first, which requires a subsequent crop in any event so why lose parts of the image beforehand? For example, the sample image needs straightening, severely, which means there will be a lot of excess to crop, so normally I would do both cropping exercises at the same time.) Apart from that, what you see here is the JPEG version with NO other stuff done to it before converting it to a JPEG: Now, with DPP open, I open the image by selecting File from the top toolbar then Open from the drop-down menu. When the image is open in DPP it will be the RAW file. A Tool Palette should also be open by default. Mine looks like this: If your Tool Palette has not opened by default, go to the top toolbar and click on View. From the drop-down menu select the first option, Tool palette, like so: Do not freak out. Sure there’s lots of tabs and sliders there, but I am going to show just a few things you can do which a lot of time will be all you need to. Notice the thumbnail shows the cropping I’ve done, which I can always go back and change (Top toolbar, click on Tools and select Start Trimming tool from the drop-down menu.) First, look at the Picture Style block. Just below it the current style is showing as Standard. That means when I took the image, that is the style in which it was shot. Let’s play with it. Click on the blue arrows next to the word Standard. A selection of picture styles opens, like so: The thing to note at this point is that if you select Monochrome, for example, then adjust things like Sharpness and decide you don’t like it, selecting another Picture Style will retain your last settings for the Monochrome version in case you come back to that version later on. OK, let’s select Monochrome. See how the thumbnail preview is now in Monochrome and the settings options have changed: Play around with Sharpness. You can instantly see the improvement. Another good idea is to slide the Filter Effect tool across. Notice how each variation is assigned a colour. This equates to using such a filter when shooting the image. Notice especially the 2 far right options, Red and Green. Depending on what you’ve shot, these two can be very useful, for example Green will normally lighten shadows on rocks and bring out the details and textures. Slide the Contrast tool and notice the dramatic changes, alternately, click on the box marked Linear. Whoa, pretty dramatic yes? Linear Contrast will only work best with well-exposed RAW files. See the Brightness slider? Play around with it. I normally don’t change this setting, preferring instead to adjust Curves in the RGB window – it’s the one next to the RAW window – look at the top of the Tools Palette. OK, just for demo purposes, here’s a version of my sample image after playing around with the settings for the RAW file: Here’s the RAW settings I used Notice I upped the Brightness by 0.50. My preference would be to leave it untouched and adjust Curves in RGB instead, like so: Here’s the result of leaving Brightness untouched and adjusting Curves instead as reflected in the above: OK, let’s try a Landscape version, but before I do I will reset the RGB curves adjustment I did to the default settings. This is because whatever the Picture Style you select in the RAW window, what you adjust in the RGB window applies to them all. So, before selecting Landscape in the Picture Style menu in the RAW window, my RGB window needs to look like this: Notice the different options now available for Landscape in the RAW window. The Colour Tone slider, for example, will increase Green when slid to the right, and increase Red when slide to the left. Here is the result of my experimentation in Landscape style: Notice the difference between this version and the earlier JPEG? (I hope so!) And here are the settings I applied to the Landscape version: One more tip – White Balance. Because I shoot in RAW, I can always change the White Balance setting used by the camera at this stage, and this is a damn good reason on its own to not shoot in JPEG if you don’t have to. So, I just leave my camera setting to Auto WB. It does a pretty good job anyway. To change the WB of the RAW file, select Shot settings from the RAW window in the Tools Palette, like so: Recognise the WB settings? As you click on each one, notice how the Preview image changes accordingly. For example, here’s my Landscape RAW with Cloudy WB selected: Now let’s fine-tune the Cloudy WB setting. In the RAW window on the Tools Palette, see the Tune icon to the right? Click on it and a new window should open called White balance fine adjustment, like so: The easiest way to use this tool is to click and hold the mouse over that dot in the centre of the circle, and move it around. See the Preview change as you do. A lot of sunrise/sunset images on RB reflect playing this one tool. Sunrise not golden enough? Use the WB fine adjustment! Note that whatever you do here applies to the whole image. OK, here is my WB fine adjustment after getting freaky: And here’s the result: Now I am going to save this version. BUT, and this is important – you don’t want to lose the original RAW file as you shot it, so: If you want to keep this version of the RAW file as a separate file to the original – ie you don’t want to overwrite it but you want to come back to work on your version – select File from the top toolbar then Save as NOT Save. Rename the file in the new window opens, and when the you close DPP make sure you select No or No to all when this window appears: If instead you are happy with your adjusted RAW file, select File from the top toolbar then Convert and save from the drop-down menu. This will allow you to save the image as a JPEG or a TIFF or whatever and your original RAW file will not be touched. But you still need to answer No or No to all when you close DPP. OK, I’ve converted and saved my super freaky image as a JPEG, then opened it in Photoshop Elements and worked on it – straightening mainly, plus some Orton Effect for that extra-special super freaky. Here is the finished product: A bit different from boring old JPEG, don’t you think? So, there you go. Hopefully I’ve answered some of those questions about RAW niggling away at you and cleared the way for you to confidently experiment with shooting and converting RAW files! But wait … Still not sure about the power of RAW? Have a look at this image I shot in both RAW and JPEG. First, the JPEG: Now, here’s the JPEG version of an almost identical image I shot in RAW seconds later, after conversion: You cannot retrieve colour data from a JPEG shot in Monochrome. An image shot in RAW in Monochrome retains all the colour data for your retrieval, as was applied for this image. It’s one of my most popular photographs on RB. If you got this far with this Tutorial, you may find these of interest as well: The NEW and IMPROVED Easy Guide to Creating the Orton Effect using Photoshop / The Easy Guide to Creating Samples of Artwork on Redbubble – UPDATED / The Easy Guide to Creating Clickable Images on Redbubble / The Easy Guide to Creating Links on Redbubble / Mirror Lock-up – what it is & when to use it / The Easy Guide To Applying Motion Blur / The Easy Guide to Adding Clouds to an Image using Photoshop Cheers / Peter History Journal created 11 – 13 December 2009, published 13 December 2009 Edited to correct typos etc 13 December 2009 Revised to add para about under-exposed JPEGS versus under-exposed RAW files and to add the Rose comparison 13 December 2009 Revised to add info about Nikon and Capture NX2 and add links to other Tutorials 14 December 2009 Revised to add quote, with approval, from Garth Smith 14 December 2009 Future revisions Brief discussion of DNG – why and how Adding thumbnails of Photoshop version of Tool Palette

The easy way to navigate the bubble / I’ve found that the easiest way to navigate on redbubble was to create my own tool bar with links and shortcuts to the things that I do on the bubble. I’ve added many new options and shortcuts. / It works with Internet Explorer and Firefox / I hope you find this toolbar as useful as I have. / The down arrow next to redbubble logo will open a menu of options notice the “Suggestions by bubblemail” link contact me with any suggestions / Get the Toolbar Here / / / If changes are made the toolbar will automatically update or you can click the “refresh tool bar” in the menu above / The options are pretty much self explanatory the “Toolbar options” will open a new box with many features to make the bar work for you. / / To add and remove buttons from the toolbar uncheck the buttons you do not want to display / / Shortcuts to some software can be found in the / “Usefull components” menu below (I use Note Pad alot) / / To add new work click the ‘Create New’ button / You can upload using the full page / Or the pop up links can be used. / / In the pop ups The product options are pre selected card, canvas, etc for new art / / and all colors available for T-Shirts is pre selected / Once you start an upload you can minimize the box and browse other images or whatever you do on the bubble. The “My Bubble” button includes / a link to “Edit Profile” “Bubblemail” / “Redbubble Forums”and your “Bulk Editor” / use the “Edit this work” link from the / “public preview page to go to the edit page Manage your Bubblesite Gallery The Feeds menu Contains Links to Challenges Your group Challenges, Open for entries, Voting Now and Recently Completed a link to your Favorites and many more The “My Work by Page” gives you access to your work by page assuming you have 10 or less pages New “Send to” button send / any web page to your Blogger, / Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, / Gmail, Google Notebook, / delicious (full save), reddit, / or Tineye The search box includes Searching Rebbubble, Redbubble Groups, Flickr, and Google images and more If you would like the search option but not the toolbar get the / “Quick Search” bookmarklet / which is just a bookmark to use the search feature. / See More about bookmarklet / I hope you like using it, and don’t forget to let me know if you would like to have something included that I may have missed. Get the Firefox and Internet Explorer Tool bar for Redbubble Here / See more info See all my How-to’s Here Includes “Framed image on Bubblesite home page”, “Adding Calendars to your bubblesite”, “feedjit Live Traffic Feed”, “Using tags on Redbubble”, “Add a visitor counter to your bubblesite or profile page” and More Need More Help? / Chat with me on Skype User Name / envelope150 © D R Moore This written work cannot be reproduced or posted on the web without my written permission / Happy Bubbling / Dan

The aim of this Guide is to provide easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions on how to add clouds to an image which has an otherwise blank sky, without the necessity of being a Photoshop guru to achieve it. Many stunning images on RB are in fact composites, with clouds being brought in from another image to add impact. (Sometimes you can’t easily tell!) It works very well and can transform an image. I have only uploaded to RB one artwork which is a composite of two shots, one being clouds: The original image of the building was clear sky – not a cloud in sight – and was thus a bit bland and boring and a perfect candidate for some cosmetic surgery. This tutorial was prompted by a request to explain how I did it. I still call myself “new to Photoshop” and I have found a lot of on-line Photoshop tutorials, including some others on RB, assume a much higher level of knowledge than I have and are not very intuitive. So, I try to explain the steps in easy to understand terms (hopefully!) and, importantly, describe what each step should look like after it’s done. So if you are not seeing the result of each step replicated on your screen, you know you have to stop and try again. If this happens, go to the top toolbar, select Edit then Undo [whatever it is you’ve just done] from the drop-down menu and try again. (Many many tutorials lose me when they fail to include this vital “check back”.) This tutorial is my longest one yet, given the patience I apply, but once you get the hang of the actions, you will find the process rather quick to do. If you have already read and followed my Orton Effect tutorial (now updated and expanded to include thumbnails), you’ll know what I mean, hopefully, so don’t be put off by this one. I explain the steps based on using Photoshop Elements 7, but users of more advanced Photoshop programs will be able to follow the same steps. I also have Photoshop CS2 (v9.0), for example, and there’s only one slight difference from the PE 7 interface from what I can tell, which I will point out where it’s relevant. If you want to refer back to this tutorial at leisure, feel free to favourite it as I never delete my tutorials. (After all, they’re more popular than my images!) In writing this tutorial I just want to point out a few things. First, I have not read a single tutorial by someone else on this particular process, and the words are all mine. I wish to also acknowledge that Tatiana originally showed me this process. She’s so patient dealing with my impatience! And, finally, there is more than one way to skin a cat, and there is more than one way to achieve what I describe. I’m just relating the method shown to me. Another popular method involves masking. There are LOTS of tutorials on masking. If I have the time and the inclination I will update this tutorial later to include the steps for masking as an alternate process – it’s a completely different path to take to achieve the same result. Lastly, please excuse the standard of screenshots. They’re my first ever attempt at including graphics in a tutorial, or anything for that matter! OK, here we go. Ready? Step One Clouds. You need some cloud photos. Beg, borrow or steal some, or better still, shoot some. I have a folder of nothing but cloud photos. Any day the sky puts on a show I will try and shoot the clouds, just to save them for later use. If you shoot some clouds in JPEG, make sure you shoot them in colour – you can always desaturate to B&W if the image you want to use them in is also in B&W, but if you shoot them in B&W in JPEG you won’t be able to convert to colour to match a colour image. Just another reason to shoot in RAW, really. For this tutorial, however, I am going to use a colour image needing a sky and a B&W sky shot. In theory, this will look weird, and it does, but I will also show you how you can then gradually desaturate the colour image after inserting the B&W sky and achieve quite a startling effect when you leave just a touch of colour. For best results, try to have nothing else in the frame of your cloud shot but sky. No trees or power lines! (If that’s not possible then crop the crap out. But note that creates a potential problem because now your cloud shot will be a different size than the image you want to drop the sky into. That can be fixed, but let’s just worry about equally-sized images for now.) Another advantage of having a “clean” cloud shot is that you can rotate it to horizontal or vertical, depending on the aspect of the image you want to use the sky in. Here’s a little cloud photo I prepared earlier: Step Two Your main image. The one without any clouds. The one you want to insert some action into, some drama. Try to select an image with a completely blank sky. It makes it so much easier for the Magic Wand (I’ll explain later) to figure out the portion of the sky you want to replace, ie all of it. Try to also select an image with straight lines, like a building or, even better, a straight uninterrupted horizon of a landscape or seascape. If you’ve got stuff popping up into the sky, like trees, the method I describe is just made soooo much harder and you may as well stop reading now and go watch TV or a movie. (At this point, the Photoshop gurus are shaking their heads and groaning, because THEY know another method to get around this when doing composites, but we’ll leave THEM on their lofty perches, ok?) Here’s a little image I prepared earlier. You may recognise the building: Cool, but be aware of one important thing: perspective. Unless you are trying to be rather obvious in creating your composite, the perspective of your main image needs to be the same as that used to capture your chosen cloud image. The images I am using for this tutorial were shot from the same perspective, or in other words, with the lens at roughly the same angle for both shots – looking up, at around 70 degrees relative to the ground. If I was to choose instead as my main image a landscape with a horizon, the cloud image I have chosen will not be suitable unless you actually want that abstract feel. Have I explained that well? Tell me if I haven’t. Now, let’s commence cooking our composite. I will refer to my two images in this tutorial as Clouds and Building, just for ease of reference. Step Three You’ve got Photoshop Elements (“PE”) open. Now select File from the top toolbar and select Open from the drop-down menu. Choose your Building shot and open it. Ok, now look across to the right of the screen. See the Layers palette? It should be showing a thumbnail of the Building image, together with the label Background, like so: Now, once again, select File from the top toolbar and select Open from the drop-down menu. Choose your Cloud shot and open it. Look back across to the Layers palette. You should now see a thumbnail of the Cloud image, together with the label Background, like so: Now, left click and hold down the mouse on the Cloud image, and drag it to the side, just enough to show some of the sky of your Building shot. Release the mouse button. Move the mouse over to the Layers palette. Left click and hold over the thumbnail of the Cloud, and drag it over to the sky – anywhere in the sky. Release the mouse button. A copy of the Cloud image should now be “superimposed” over the Building image. Don’t worry if it doesn’t fit. Look back over to the Layers palette. You should now be seeing two thumbnails – the top one called Layer 1 which is the “front” image, and the bottom thumbnail called Background, which is your Building image, like so: Now, ignoring the Layers palette, left click on the Cloud image sitting behind the “superimposed” image. Close it. Step Four Look over to the Layers palette again. See that group of little icons just above the top thumbnail? Hover your mouse slowly over them and their functions should come up, eg the 3rd icon from the left looks like a trash can and when you hover the mouse over it a little word bar comes up saying Delete layer. Well we don’t want to do that. Instead, hover the mouse over the icon on the far left, the one that is a square with an upturned corner. It should say Create new layer. Just remember where that icon is for now. (If you are using Photoshop CS2 or CS3 or CS4, the group of icons is at the bottom of the Layers palette. Hover the mouse over the icons until you find the one that says Create new layer. Remember it.) Now, left click and hold down the mouse over the bottom thumbnail in the Layers palette – it’s the thumbnail of the Building that’s labelled Background – and drag it over to the Create new layer icon. Release the mouse. You should now see three thumbnails in the Layers palette, labelled, from top to bottom: Layer 1, Background copy, and Background, like so: Step Five This is a slightly tricky step. Another click and drag, but best done smoothly and slowly. Left click and hold down the mouse over the Background copy thumbnail in the Layers palette and drag it to just over the top of the Layer 1 thumbnail. Release the mouse. All we are doing here is reversing the order of the top and middle thumbnails, so now your Layers palette should still show three thumbnails, but now in order from top to bottom: Background copy, Layer 1, and Background, like so: Step Six Ok, now the meaty stuff starts. Look over to the left toolbar now (or palette, whatever you want to call it). Hover your mouse until you find the icon labelled Magic Wand. It looks like, um, a magic wand, but don’t confuse it with the Quick selection tool immediately below it. This is the Magic Wand icon: Click on the Magic Wand icon. Your mouse pointer should now have the distinct look of a, um, magic wand. Look up at the little toolbar immediately above the image (which, incidentally, should be of the Building). Make sure the box marked Contiguous is ticked, like so: Now left click once on the sky in the Building image. You should now see marching ants completely around the sky and along the exterior part of the building which protrudes into the sky, like so: (Believe it or not, the technical term for marching ants is …. marching ants.) Step Seven Look closely at the marching ants where they meet the edge of the building. Are there any gaps where you can see the sky? This is important, because if you don’t shift the path of the ants so that they align to the edge of the building, your new sky won’t cover that gap. Enlarge the image if you are not sure. If you see a gap, it is easily fixed. First, press and hold Shift on your keyboard. Second, left click once on the mouse on a gap. Let go the Shift key. You should immediately see those obedient ants form up against the building across the image, like so: Cool, eh? Now, go to the top horizontal toolbar and select Edit. From the drop-down menu select Delete. This will delete your bland boring sky and replace it with your new dramatic sky !!! How cool is that?! Epic. Step Eight Now we have to send the ants home. Go again to the top toolbar and select Select. From the drop-down menu now select Deselect (ha! ha! I love a good alliteration!). Your marching ants should be no more, gone in fact. Does your image look something like this? How cool is that? Step Nine Nearly done! At this juncture, you have two options. You can finish now with the image you’ve got or you can adjust the look of the Building alone and/or the Clouds alone and then finalise the image. To finish now, right click and hold the mouse over the top thumbnail in the Layers palette. Select Flatten image from the drop-down menu – it’s the last menu option: The thumbnails should have collapsed into one thumbnail, called Background, like so: You can now save your image, you’re all done! To work further on the Building alone and/or the Clouds alone, simply left click once on either the Background copy thumbnail and/or the Layer 1 thumbnail and make your adjustments as you would normally do with an image, and then flatten your image and save it. Which is what I did with this image. I simply increased the contrast on the building and desaturated it to the level where there is just a hint of colour. To alter contrast, select Enhance from the top horizontal toolbar, then select Adjust Lighting from the drop-down menu, then select Brightness/Contrast from the second drop-down menu. A separate window will open and there is your contrast slider: To desaturate, select Enhance again from the top horizontal toolbar, then select Adjust Colour from the drop-down menu, then select Adjust Hue/Saturation from the second drop-down menu. A separate window will open and there is your saturation slider: So, how does it look? Epic or what?! Cheers and happy clouding – time to get freaky !!!

I am a Nikon shooter, always have been probably always will be. however being in uni has afforded me a few priviledges, one being in the enviable position to book out the Canon 5d MKII kit. This I have done, a few weeks back now and have until Xmas (and beyond if poss) and have to admit that this is one nice bit of kit. I have the following lens with it 28mm f2.8 / 50mm f1.8 / 100mm f2.0 Anyone considering buying one of these lens or 5d MKII kits would not go far wrong. I am still a believer in using Nikon and would dearly love someone to donate to me (or loan) a Nikon D3 kit so I can make comparisons personally. All my recent work has been university projects and will not be posted online until assessment has happened but I promise to take some ‘me time’ and go out and get some personal images which I can post on here. Anyway, although the entry has no real content except my personal opinion about the Canon 5D MKII I appreciate you taking the time to read.

Better Digital Photography? Free interactive Magazine You can sign up to receive it online for Free it’s pretty cool looking from first glance Love ‘N’ Laughter Kriss ♥ Featured / TUTORIALS, (Help and Advice forums) many thanks to the Hosts / Kimberley Davitt / Sheila Pasket / and / Karen Brodie

Want to post a video / in a Journal entry or / writing or even in the / forums but not sure how… To do this is fairly simple if you know how to copy and paste text, if you want more info on how to copy and paste see HERE Now to the nitty gritty the easiest way to do this, would be to open a new tab in your browser press and hold the control key or ‘CTRL’ on most keyboards and press ‘T’ or you can click ‘File’ on the menu that is on the top of the browser and select ‘New Tab’. / Once the new tab is open find the video you want to post. / On the page that the video is on there is a box on the right of the video (see image below). / Click the text box that is shown below (the URL box). / click the image to see it larger / / This will highlight the text that is needed in the next step. / If the page you are on does not have the URL box on the right side of the video click the share link under the video shown below in Yellow / Then the URL box will show below that, indicated in red / click the image to see it larger / / Now click the tab where you are going to post the video….. / enter the text shown below / youtube: / now paste the URL after the : / Like this / youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xed0buBLe / Save your entry and the video will be posted. Happy Bubbling / Dan Get the Firefox and Internet Explorer Tool bar for Redbubble Here / See more info See more How-to’s by D R Moore Includes “Framed image on Bubblesite home page”, “Adding Calendars to your bubblesite”, “feedjit Live Traffic Feed”, “Using tags on Redbubble”, “Add a visitor counter to your bubblesite or profile page” and More Please don’t Copy and paste this written work as that would really hurt my feelings :) / you can copy the link below and paste it if you would like to share with others on Redbubble / "Tutorial: Embed YouTube Video":http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/journal/4203394-tutorial-embed-youtube-video / or on the web / <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/journal/4203394-tutorial-embed-youtube-video">Tutorial: Embed YouTube Video</a> / / Click Images below to visit my Gallery /

Hiya Guys & Girls Here is a little tip to help you get the same results as my image below…... Over the years i have been facinated with macro shots of water drops hitting the water surface in during all my attempts i have come to realise that this is not an easy thing to get right… We obviously have the usually problems such as lighting, DOF etc etc but the worst is getting the actual focus on the target point rght.. Well, here is a little idea you may find useful.. I use a sinple cork (As in wine bottle) and a litle bit of chain from a sink plug.. I basically position the cork where the drop hits using the weight of the chian to keep it from moving all over the place. I then focus on the Cork, so that when the actual water drop falls, it is in focus.. When i am ready and the camera is set up, i simply remove the cork and chain and shoot.. The only thing at this point is getting the timing right.. Apart from this, you should have a clear, sharp image of the water drop or the crater that is left after it hits the surface.. Anyway, this is how i get the images of water drops just before they actually hit the surface… I hope this little tip is helpful.. Full write up can be found in The Photographers Vault All the best and enjoy…..... Rob xx

Hiya All, I have recently been asked to share this little tip regarding how i got the effect of such clear steam in my photograph “OIL BURNER” as shown….............. This is not a difficult thing to do and requires absolutely no specialized equipment other than a small LED torch or light.. I use a small bicycle light which gives off a brilliant white light with a very narrow field at reasonably close distances from the subject. Obviously the further away you move the light the wider spread of light you will recieve… Simply aim the torch or light towards the subject you wish to light (in my case it was the steam) trying not to light up anything else and you will recieve a very nice image… I shot the above image with nothing more than using a tripod, auto shot and 1/16 on the flash. The subject was i a reasonably dark room and the only lighting on the subject was from the torch which was around 10 inches away from the steam.. REMEMBER to place the light behind the steam, not infront of it.. I use the little light mainly because i find that most lights for this create to much spread therfore lightingup to much of the object which takes the impact away from the steam or smoke.. LED lights, expecially little torches etc are ideal for placing in close areas to the subject without lighting it up too much… I hope this little tip helps and if anyone has a better way then please let me know as i am always open to knew ideas and methods…. Full write up can be found in The Photographers Vault Rob ;)

This applies to all artists looking to sell their work. I’ve been surfing thru Twitter tonight and came across a photographer/blogger that had some very sage advice. His twitter account is PhotoJack, and although I like to steer away from people named Jack (long story), I do find his tweets & retweets rather advantagous and sage. / So for those of you RB’ers who are looking for a plan to market your artwork and want to do more than sit here hoping somebody will notice that you’re extraordinarily talented and can’t live without filling their home, business and/or Mom’s house with your arwork, then heed what PhotoJack has to say: / FYI…I have no idea what a TOG is, but I’m assuming it’s an acronym for something or someone. / Tweet #1: for Togs waiting for economy to hand them work-it’s going to be a long wait. Take charge. Create your own destiny. Now. / Tweet #2: Togs. get pen/paper out and write down today 20 measurable action items you can begin to intitiate to get LOCAL business / Tweet #3: Bad business plan: “People will buy my stuff”. Good business plan: “I’ll sell stuff to people” ;) / Tweet #4: Togs create their own destiny by creating/executing written, measurable, defineable action lists. then doing it better, cheaper, smarter / Tweet #5: Rule no 1. if it’s not on paper then it ain’t real. Commit to writing actions. with measurable goals and deadline / Tweet #6: Rule no 2. Togs fear writing down their business plan and strategies because it make’s them accountable to the plan. / Tweet #7: (Gotta love this visual – very empowering!!!) Rule no. 3 take what’s in your head (creative ideas), to your fingers (writing it down), to your feet (walk the talk). Re-read this one a few times…it doesn’t get any better than this!!! / Tweet #8: (For those who have never written a business plan) I’m not talking full blown business plan. but a 1 pager full of actionable items you want to do for your biz. / So there you have it…a list of suggestions to get your business of selling your artwork off the ground. / Who says I don’t know how to share the love???? LOL… / Ok people, make sure you have your business plans on my desk first thing tomorrow morning!! / / Hugs, S.

Depth of field (DOF) refers to that part of a photograph that appears to be in focus. It exists within a plane perpendicular to the axis of the cameras viewpoint. The photographer chooses which affect of depth of field to choose. Narrow DOF tends to separate the subject from an out of focus background, in this image notice how a line of sharpness moves through this photograph of a tray of sewing bobbins. / / While greater DOF incorporates the background as an essential element in the photo. Increasing the light allowes for a stopped down aperture and a greater depth of field. / / A photographer has three tools to manage the DOF, choice of lens, aperture and focal point. The focal length of a lens affects one element of the DOF available from that lens. Generally speaking the shorter the focal length of the lens, the greater the DOF. When set at the same aperture and focal point a longer lens will always have a shallower DOF then a wide angle lens will. A focus point 2 feet from the camera will have less DOF than a focus point of 10 or 100 feet. Aperture selection is the third tool. When a lens is stopped down to, let’s say f22 it will always have greater DOF then if shot wide open at f2.8. / An example of a depth of field chart illustrates the concepts of managing DOF. The cells give two distances the first is the closest distance to the camera that the subject will be in acceptable focus. The later number is the furthest distance from the camera that the subject will be in acceptable focus. / / Hyperfocal distance is a focus point that will give the greatest range of DOF keeping acceptable focus only to infinity but not beyond. / Example / 24mm lens aperture of f11, focused to 9’ gives a DOF of 4’4”/infinity / 200mm lens aperture of f11, focused to 550’ gives a depth of field of 282’6”/infinity / So as the chart points out if you were shooting with a 200mm lens at f11 and the main subject is 290’ from the camera focusing on infinity would put the prime subject out of focus. But focusing to 550’ moves your DOF forward so the subject and background will be sharply focused. / So have fun and happy shooting-Larry “Revisiting On Depth of Field” was featured in TUTORIALS 11/05/09

If you are tired of rummaging through countless pages trying to feature a group member or an image that won a challenge and have so many more pages to go and your mouse hand is cramped. Try this method. NOTE: This only works for groups that you Host / Co-Host / Also be careful in doing this as it will have the reverse effect on a featured image. / It will remove it from the featured section if it is already featured. / Be sure to visit the groups “overview” page to make sure your handy work has included all the images you wanted to feature. / You can click thew images below to see them larger To feature Challenge Images / 1.On your groups “overview” page there is a link to your “featured work” section / / right click the link / and select (with Firefox)”copy link location” / / (with internet explorer) “copy shortcut” / / Now you are ready to feature some images the easy way / 2.Go to the challenge page that shows the awesome challenge winners that are about to be featured and while holding the control (CTRL) key left click the lucky images / / doing this will open them in new tabs in your web browser / / 3.Now the fun part Clicking one of the new tabs that were opened will take you to the image page drop a comment if you like while you are there. To feature it in the address bar highlight the web address all the way to the word “art” / / then press and hold the control (CTRL) key press “V” to paste the address you copied in step 1 / or you can right click the Highlighted text and select ‘paste’ from the pop up menu. / / Here is an example / Original address (the part in bold will be replaced) / http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/art/2934496-2-egret-dock / Now the new address to feature this image would be / http://www.redbubble.com/groups/groupnamehere/featured_works/2934496-2-egret-dock / 4. Now just press enter (or click GO). / 5. Click the “feature” button on the confirmation page and your done. / / You can close the tab and move on to the next one. / This also works for T-shirts / Example address (the part in bold will be replaced) / http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/t-shirts/2478267-4-original-mobil-phone Feature a Group Member / To feature a group member go to their public profile page and click the “send bubblemail” link and in the address bar there is a number that you will need to feature the group member. / Example: The number below in bold is my number / http://www.redbubble.com/mybubble/conversations/new?recipient_id=14964058&return_to=%2Fpeople%2FEnvelope150 / Highlight and copy the members number / Go to the featured members link on the groups page / EXAMPLE: http://www.redbubble.com/groups/groupname/featured_users / and add the copied number at the end of the address in the address bar / Like this / http://www.redbubble.com/groups/groupname/featured_users/14964058 / Press enter and presto a featured member. Featuring Writings and Journals / also works by going to the members writing or journal page and clicking the work to feature and pasting the address like we did above. / Examples:replace the part in bold / Writing / http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/writing/3092254-feature-me / Journal / http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/journal/3092254-feature-me See this Tutorial in action on youtube / Happy Bubbling (Happy Featuring) / Dan Need More Help? / Chat with me on Skype User Name / envelope150 Get the Firefox and Internet Explorer Tool bar for Redbubble Here / See more info See all my How-to’s Here Includes “Framed image on Bubblesite home page”, “Adding Calendars to your bubblesite”, “feedjit Live Traffic Feed”, “Using tags on Redbubble”, “Add a visitor counter to your bubblesite or profile page” and More Please don’t Copy and paste this written work as that would really hurt my feelings :) / you can copy the code below and paste it if you would like to share with others on Redbubble "Featuring the easy way(Host Tutorial)":http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/journal/2948588-host-tutorial-featuring-the-easy-way / or to share on the web / <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/journal/2948588-host-tutorial-featuring-the-easy-way" title="Host Tutorial">Featuring the easy way</a> / or / /

I’ve noticed quite often, in both journal entries and in banners on images that have been featured in a group, that few of the images are linked directly to the page the image comes from or is associated with. You can increase the views and comments on your images by simply making your posts with images in them clickable. This would also be a great way to showcase images you are proud of, but may have gotten lost in the shuffle and gone unnoticed. This happends to the best of us – sometimes timing is everything. If you post a journal entry showing your featured work to your followers, or even the work of others that you have featured in your group, it is super easy to create a clickable link to the artists artwork page by simply adding the URL of the image page to the link of the image or the image itself right after the image code. Here’s how to do this: One of my older images has been recently featured again, and so here is the image page link embeded into the image to make it a clickable image (don’t be shy – test it out!): / Now the entire link code that made this image clickable (linked directly to the image page) is as follows: / ! http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/framecolor:black/framestyle:flat30/mattecolor:off%20white/product:framed-print/size:medium/view:preview/2829989-2-artisan-glass.jpg!:http://www.redbubble.com/people/sigfusson/art/2829989-4-artisan-glass#comment-23729626 Be aware that in order for me to show you what this link looks like, I had to put a space between the first ! and the html code for the picture (otherwise you’d see the image twice in this journal). Make sure when you do this that there are no spaces in the code. So, what you have here is the image URL with the ! at the front and end of that code, plus a colon ( : ), and then the actual URL of the image page. Hope this helps you get more clicks, views and comments on your featured work! Cheers, Sandra

Here’s some interesting texures you can make using watercolour paints. from top to bottom: Alcohol – Drip some alcohol on the painted area and the paint will separate from the area. the dryer the paint is, I’ve found, the darker and crisper the edges of the seperated area of white will be. Salt – Sprinkling Salt on the paint created a sandy texture. the longer you leave the salt there as it dries, the more the paint will spread but this works best the more semi dry the area is. Blotting/Lifting – As an area dries, you can used water in your brush to blot areas back to white by making the paint spread away or you can use a dry brush to absorb or lift the paint from the area. Stencils/erasing – While an area is semi dry, you can use paper or plastic shaped to remove the paint in a shape. I like using tape when i do this, shiny side down and sticky side up, this way you can touch it with the other end of your paintbrush to pick it up instead of trying to peal it away with your nails. Sandpaper – This is hard to pull off in my opinion but is you use good, thick watercolour paper so you dont get holes and wait for the paint to be nearly dry like on the right rather than the left, you get a scratchy effect. Wax – Use candles or wax crayons to make marks and shapes but drawing with the candle or crayon then adding the paint. Like on the left. You can go back after the paint dries and wax out more areas to keep that colour and then paint again like on the left to create layers.

GO VISIT tutvid.com They have some awesome tutorials regarding adobe programs for both beginners and people with more experience… if the videos wont play on your computer (they wont on mine) then choose your video and copy the title and paste it into youtube.com along with ‘tutvid’ or buy it :) Enjoy!!!!!!!