September 25, 2007

spyderjpg.jpgThis is a topic that comes up often, and one that people really seem to fluster over. They really want their work to look great, and just aren’t sure how to handle their color. It and understandable concern, but there are fairly simple precautions to take to make sure you get accurate color, and make those photo’s look their very best.

The first and foremost thing to remember is to make sure you monitor is calibrated. Computer monitors vary quite a lot, and actually change the color they display over time. Even when just sitting on your desk.
For this reason you need to calibrate your motor fairly regularly. I try to do it once every month or two, and more often will certainly not hurt. Even if you get the pictures to look great on your screen, you may be unpleasantly surprised at how they look when you, (or a client) get them back from the lab and find that the vivid glory that graced your image is suddenly gone.

“picking up a color calibration unit will help you not only have peace of mind about your color. It will help you get truly better quality work”

Read More

September 23, 2007

ad.jpgHey all. I just wanted to announce the soon to be released Hollywood Effects actions. It’s fourteen really cool effects that I’ve made up into Photoshop actions and can applied at the click of a mouse.

These ones won’t be free, but I like effects that don’t cost a fortune so I priced them less than actions usually cost, and you get a lot of effects in one package.

There’s some really neat special effects here, and I’m pretty excited about them. If you have not used actions in the past now is a good time to start. The set will even come with a video to get you flying, and there’s even actions that were designed to work with HDR portraits and make them look great!

They’ll be an instant download, and are not available quite yet but you can check out the brand new Seim Effects site, and see samples of the effects, plus sign up to be notified when their available, and get a special discount.

Read More

September 18, 2007

Click Button To Listen, PPS #37, Gavin’s Workflow & Blurry Photos
To download mp3 podcast, right click above link, and “Save As”
Podcast subscription feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/prophotoshow

 

Subscribe in itunes

Show Notes…
Todays review was the Together books. which takes regular prints and binds them into a book.

One One Soft has some new releases including photo tools pro, and photo tune 2.o.

Embassy Pro Books are coming out with some neat photo books that compete with Asuka, and Collages.net is not doing their own albums as well.

Here the free presets from Gavin, and also check out the histogram video for some histogram tips.

Show listeners You can win a copy of Corel painter X on the up coming show where we review painter, and it’s use to the photographer. We don’t want to list the email here for spam reasons, but you can find the details at time index 20:55 in this weeks show.

Picks of the week. Are photo watermarking software that run independent of Photoshop.
PC…
Photo Watermark Pro

Mac…
Easy Batch Photo
iWatermark

Lastly here is that the blurry wedding picture that I was talking about in the show when we talked about emotional pictures. To see more of my non blurry pictures visit my website at www.seimphotography.com, or my Flickr page.

gavin’s blurry pic that had emotion

 

Read More

September 14, 2007

box_lightroom_112×112.jpgUpdates are now available to Lightroom 1.2, and Camera Raw 4.3. The updates provide raw file support for 14 additional camera models and camera backs within Lightroom and Camera Raw, including the Canon EOS 40D.

We don’t know yet if there have been any other features added, but as far as we can tell this is not a huge update like 1.1 turned out to be. We’ll play with it however and keep you posted. Of course you can find out for yourself! You should get the auto updater as soon as you start Lightroom, and be able to get your own update.

Read More

September 9, 2007

I use using Lightroom Presets like crazy. I’ve decided to add to the mix of free Lightroom presets, with a few of my favorites that come from my Power Workflow2 Lightroom presets.

On to the free stuff. These have both RAW & JPEG versions just like you’ll find in my PW2 collection. You can also find more of my free presets right here.

These are a few of my favorite special effects from my Power Workflow. 400 is loosely based on the very popular “300”series by Mikelao. It’s a cool fantasy effect that adds some snappy drama to a scene.

Fantasy is a preset I use all the time, and have found it to be very useful since it gives a creative look. Fantasy Basic is a great lightweight general use effect that gives a nice gentle look. It works great on nearly any image. There’s more variations in the my complete set but this should get you rocking!

fantasy2.jpg

More than everyday Presets: POWER WORKFLOW Lightroom Presets by Gavin Seim. Define your style!!

Read More