This has been in the works for a long time and I think you’ll find it’s been worth the wait. I’m proud to announce the immediate availability of Hollywood Effects version 2. Hollywood Effects has been a popular set for photographers who wanted to add something special to their best images after basic corrections. Version 2 it taking it to a whole new level.
V2 completely replaces Hollywood Effects 1, with many new effects and improvement to many classic effects for easier customization and better results. V2 is setting a new standard. This is killer set of actions with some AMAZING new effects.
Portraitist: HE2 has something for everyone and especially for portrait photographers. HE2 includes the full version of the brand new Portraitist Series actions. Change the way you work with skin by automatically smoothing skin and masking out critical areas like eyes, making a portrait that’s ready out of the gate. Similar to effects done with plugins that cost far more, now in a simple one click action.
For current owners of Hollywood Effects there’s a discount upgrade program. For those that have purchased Hollywood Effects V1 in the past 60 days (after May 30th 2009) we’ll be sending you a FREE upgrade to V2. If you have not received your discount/upgrade email soon, please contact us and we’ll hook you up.
Around New Years I make a pack of goodies to send out to fans and customers of Seim Effects throughout the year. I sent these in the SE newsletter, but have not posted it officially.
Inside you’ll find a few cool Photoshop actions and a couple great presets for Lightroom. Bold and clear is the order of this year and included in the actions you’ll find Visual Razor X, the 4th generation of my vivid sharp action.
Update! 08/2010: If you’re using Lightroom 3, these templates will not work correctly. LR3 users need the new layout templates. You can download them here for free.
by Gavin Seim Most of us Lightroom users have heard about print templates. What most don’t know is the super cool trick to use them for simple album page layouts for albums and press printed books. Matt recently posted a video on LR Killer Tips about tweaking template settings to allow multiple images on one layout.
I’ve made a set of print presets that allows you to make some quick square layouts like the one’s below. Great for press printed books and albums. Load em up, select the layout, then select the photo’s you want used. There’s eight in this set and all have about 1/4″ edge space to allow trim room for books. Best of all is their FREE.
LR2 has no way to add a black background itself, so I used this workaround. I’ve included a black file in the download and there’s more details in the help file. Once set up you can turn on “Identity Plate” in the settings and load the black background as desired. A future version of LT should include this feature without a workaround.
UPDATE V1.1: 6/2009, Minor tweaks were made and a new square preset was added.
UPDATE V1.2: 4/2010, Disabled auto rotation (more control), added new Square/2 Corner layout. Bug fixes.
One of today’s big hurtles a good photographer must overcome is getting that amazing final edit. If you take your image straight out of the camera and leave it at that, you probably won’t get much notice. But if you over edit you may not either.
Standing out is about being excellent as well as being different. Being different however is more than it suggests. Just looking different isn’t good enough if it’s not attractive to your target audience. The post production details count and are a process of learning when and where to apply them. Today lets analyze a recent image and talk about it.
I call this shot The Gazebo. Though it’s a new favorite, it’s not an HDR or any other special acronym. It’s just a good foundation image, edited right. What I did to it was not so amazing, I just used the right effect at the right time.
The left side is straight out of camera. It’s good. I used my Canon 70-200 @ 150mm 1/125 at 2.8 ISO 320 with just a little fill flash. I got nice compression and blur in the background. The evening light was coming from the right side and worked perfectly but was not really unusual.
I knew right away it had potential, so I started playing. Playing is the the keyword here. I use Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions not because it couldn’t be done manually, but because I want a great variety and I would not have that variety by doing it all manually every time. The effects I used were my own, that are sold here in Seim Effects, but this applies to whatever you happen to use. I started with a vintage preset from Power Workflow2. I tend to use the vintage looks sparingly, but it worked well with this simple scene.
Then it’s on to Photoshop. I used the Old Fashioned Love Song from Hollywood Effects. This helped me manipulate the light into something more interesting and glowing. Then thinking it needed a touch more I ran Simply Soft from Creative Essentials Actions. This is a skin softener. As I did this I used the masks to remove blur from areas of detail like the face.
Finally I finished up the way I normally do, by working with burn and dodge. This is a tool that most people overlook, and it’s one of those editing gems that’s right in front of us. I can draw the eye wherever I want it using burn and dodge. If you want to learn more about that see this post.
So there we have it. The finished product took only a few minutes and had that dreamy loving look to it. My point here is not that you need to use these specific effects to get your look. It’s that you need to do things other than just taking the picture if you want a portrait.
Set up your system so it’s easy to add effects, because otherwise you’ll avoid them. I have my favorite actions or Lightroom presets a click away, and when I’m working on a good shot I’m not afraid to try various looks because I can try ten different effects in the time I could do one of them manually. Also use direction. Just because you find an effect yon love don’t apply it to everything. balance is key and one of the most common mistake it to over do things. I often apply an effect and the fade it back so it’s very subtle, but makes my image more powerful.
What do you see in this image? How would you have done it differntly? Share your ideas in the comments… Gavin Seim
A few months back I posted a sample pack of my Creative Essentials actions. It tuned out that the download somehow ended up with some of my sample LR presets inside, instead of the PS action.
Hundreds of you download this set, and got the wrong thing. I just found out minutes ago thanks to a comment from Tanis. I feel pretty silly.
