December 3, 2010

0

Gavin Seim, ProPhotoShow, Review

Gavin's Thoughts on Photoshop CS5. The Straight Dope

by Gavin Seim: I’ll keep this brief because Photoshop CS5 has been out for months now and reviews have been floating all over. Rather than get redundant with an ultra in depth review, I’ll just talk a little about what I think. I’ll be frank and you can make your own decision from there.

Photoshop CS5. Full = $699 – $999.
My overall rating 6.5/10.

New features worth noting…

  • Content Aware tools are the big news in CS5. It works when lassoing and deleting sections of an image, using the healing brush and more. Neat tool, but not perfect. More on that below.
  • New “Mixer Brushes” blend color like paint, similar to something like Painter (but less powerful).
  • Crop has a rule of thirds overlay now (finally).
  • Remastered HDR tools and Pseudo HDR with HDR toning. Better, but not perfect.
  • Remastered Refine Edge. Will find more detailed edges for better masking and has automatic edge decontamination.
  • Puppet Warp allows you to modify in a new ways. Move limbs, horizon lines and more by defining control points.
  • New process versions and improved camera RAW.
  • Mini bridge right within PS.

Content aware fill. This feels more like a beta feature. It got hyped a lot prior to release. Probably over hyped. Once we got the product in our hands, reality set in. Content Aware was not the magical tool that Adobe made it out to be in demo videos and they took some flack for it. I think the problem was that they showed it as being so perfected. Erasing entire areas of photos, cleaning out power lines with a single stoke. It looked wonderful in theory.

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January 21, 2009

4

Biz Sense, Gavin Seim, PPS Photography Tips, ProPhotoShow, Weddings

The Bridal Show:

by Gavin Seim: This weekend I had a booth at the Wenatchee Bridal Show. The confession I have to make is this. While I was happy with my setup and received great feedback, I ran into my typical problem. I was not a good enough salesman.

Now those of you that listen to Pro Photo Show know that I’m not a shy person. It’s as if like I sit in my booth making weird sounds as I flick my lip with an index finger making that interesting “buh buh buh” sound. Nope, I do fine interacting with people and being professional. Until it’s time to seal the sale that is.

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January 30, 2008

7

lightroom, presets

Raw vs Jpeg. With Lightroom Presets & Workflow In Mind!

UPDATED 07/11:
As a photographer I prefer the RAW file format. I find I can get more flexibility in post production, more dynamic range and ultimately a better image quality with less hassle. Having said that, there are plenty of great JPEG photographers.

What’s It All About:

This article is not so much about the which format is better. We’ll save that for another day. The situation in question is editing images in speedy workflow programs such as Lightroom. Lightroom has revolutionized photo workflow because it’s fast and batches are a snap using Develop Presets.

Presets allow you to add effects and settings to images with a single click, or even apply them to countless of images. This is priceless when it comes to a photographers creative workflow. Also this type of editing is non destructive to the photo, meaning that you can make edits, and reset them to original at any time.

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