Hey all you Seim Effects, and Pro Photo Show fans. You may have already seen this on the PPS site but for those over here at Seim Effects I just wanted to wish a great Christmas, and post up a link to a free photo shop action.I made a special Photoshop Action just for the occasion called Christmas Glow. It’s a nice effect that will make that Christmas tree photo look great, along with anything else that you want a nice smooth effect on. It’s great for portraits, even for a landscape effect, or just about anything else.
It’s not a big gift, but I know most of you have Photoshop, and it’s something I could give to you all. It should work on CS2, and CS3. For earlier versions just try it and see, it’s free after all! Have merry Christmas and a happy New Year… Gav
This is a shot I took last spring but just recently finished editing it for fine art prints. It’s an HDR of the downtown Seattle skyline. After the HDR was rendered it looked goos but it was still just a skyline show. I started to work in Photoshop to make something more. Of course fine art and is in the eye of the beholder so I’ll let you be the judge, but I thought I would talk a bit about how to achieved this shot.
I started with the above three images taken at various exposure levels and made an HDR using Photomatix Pro. Of course your image does not have to be an HDR.
I then used “The Edge”action from my Hollywood Effects Photoshop actions set. This can also be done without an action though it will take a bit longer. The Edge basically adds some snap using curves, levels and sharpening. This gave me a cool looking image like we see below.
Next I wanted to go a step further. I made the image into a high contract black and white using Le Creme Infrared from Hollywood Effects actions. You could also use your own B&W method. As I add effects to the image I fine tune it, mask off areas ect to keep things looking the way I want. I also went thru using the burn and dodge tools to lighten/darken clouds and other areas. This is one of my secrets for adding dimension to an image. I especially darkened the edges. Play around with it and you’ll see what I mean. Then I cropped the image for a wide look.
It looked good whole, but it felt better in this widescreen look. Finally I added an acid burn type border to it. I used Photo Frame Pro, but there are various ways to achieve this, and many border styles would have looked good.
In the end I got this final image that I’m really happy with. There’s a thousand different directions I could have gone with this, so it certainly does not define a fine art print by itself. The key to taking and image and making it a masterpiece is proper editing and many of us overlook that. Of course you don’t spend an hour on every image, but I see people all the time with cool images that still look plain because they are straight out of the camera. In the old days it took lots of time in the darkroom burning, dodging, and whatever effects could be mustered to make an image great. Now we don’t have to do that. We take some time to make our snapshots into grabshots!
There are no new presets, but various fixes in some of the presets to make them work better. There is information included in the download detailing the updates.
All current purchases and download will be V1.1. If you were a previous purchaser you should have gotten an update doenload in your email. If you didn’t then just contact me so I can get you taken care of.
I just launched my big lightroom preset collection. It has over fifty presets, and lots of creative killer effects.
I’m pretty excited about them as there’s some really cool stuff inside, and I’ve spend a long time working on them. Check it out over on the lightroom presets page.
Well with all the wedding plans, and getting things in order I’m a bit behind.
I spend the weekend moving Sondra into the house we’ll be in after the wedding, so I just did not get time to record.
I should have a show out to you guys by mid week however so stay tuned.
In the meantime drop over to the PPS Flickr group, and post up. Talk to ya all real soon
