Experimenting with Photoshop

It sounds odd, but one of the most entertaining things I do with Photoshop is to improvise on a theme. That theme can be a compositional style, an effect, a genre, etc. Part of this experimentation relies on anchoring around some idea or look. For example, I recently posted a challenge on PhotoshopTechniques to come up with different ways to use noise in an image. Most folks use noise to simulate film grain, and this is where I started. The specific challenge was to get noise to behave in unusual ways.

Since I like to have the image do much of the work itself, I try to build effects that rely on color or brightness information. This allows for some custom looks, but also helps when building film simulations since much of the look of film is tied to how it handles tonal variations and exposure. Noise in film is actually grains of photosensitive material, with grain size being related to the sensitivity of the film.

Without getting into the technical details, here's the summary of film, and why it's important to this discussion... Color film is made up of layers, each sensitive to a different spectrum of light. Sometimes these layers react differently, or have different sensitivity to various frequencies of light. Noise in these layers comes from "improper" exposure, typically underexposure. So, to get good (or realistic) simulations of film grain, you have to apply noise in a way that mimics how the film reacts to being underexposed.

The best way to do this is to use channel information and blending modes. There are several approaches, some requiring more finesse than others. Here some things to try: create various noise layers and adjust the color with hue/saturation, then apply different blend modes and opacity changes; add noise to special selections, like highlights or mid tones; warp your noise layers using displacement maps created from edge masks.

These are fairly advanced techniques, so if you are not sure how to get started, check the links on the right and send me a question!

Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog!!

What do you get when you mix Joss Whedon, Doogie Howser, and That Guy From Waitress in with a slumped Hollywood economy?

You get more awesome awesomness than has ever previously been awesome on this blog. And that, my friend, is an awful lot of awesomeness.

If you have a myspace account, go get Dr. Horrible to add you as a friend. If you don't have myspace, go get an account and go get Dr. Horrible to add you as a friend.

But first, watch this.

What does this have to do with Photoshop? Not a gorram thing. But it's good, and you should support it. You should at least be aware of it.

Twitter!

I've been on Twitter for a few weeks, since the Adobe Community Summit in San Jose, Ca. I will be using it to post little snippets from the upcoming book, and you may just get some tasty little bits you won't hear from anyone else. Or not.

Follow me: sjv

101 Photoshop Tips in Five Minutes

Deke McClelland has a spiffy little video for you; 101 tips for Photoshop, delivered via podcast in about 5 minutes. Watch. Learn. Enjoy!

Top 10 Apps for Adobe AIR (via Lifehacker)

Found a neat list of 10 applications worth trying out. I haven't installed them, yet, but plan to as soon as I get an opportunity:

Lifehacker's Top Ten Apps for AIR

The connection to Photoshop isn't clear yet, but stick around. Head over to Adobe Labs and check out something called SwitchBoard on Adobe Labs.

Starting to get the ...uh... picture?

Book news - We're on!

My writing partner, Dan Moughamian and I are waiting for a contract to show up. We talked with Peachpit and have agreed to terms and schedule for a book on Photoshop, due some time this winter.

So, help me buzz the living snot out of this sucker! Get our names out there, refer folks to our blogs and articles whenever you can. We'll try to make it easy for you by continuing to write online as we go. Some lucky folks might even get to proof some sections (we have to clear that up for non-disclosure reasons - but there's hope!)

What will the book cover? Well, the target audience will be intermediate to advanced users, mostly photographic manipulations. I can't give any more detail than that, but I can guarantee you've not seen anything like what we are presenting.

You can subscribe to our blogs to get news on Photoshop and the visual communication world, and keep tabs on our forthcoming book. There may be some rewards for those who are diligent and responsive, so write to us!

Ask me directly about Photoshop or Digital Photography questions on AllExperts.com.

Acrobat.com goes live

I've been waiting to announce this for some time, and finally here it is. However, I don't have time right now to go into detail, so I'll save that for another post:

http://blogs.adobe.com/acom/2008/06/welcome_to_acrobatcom_work_tog_1.html

If you work collaboratively, or think you may need to, go take a look. There are some great services being developed. I'm using some of these to collaborate on a book, and will be setting up client accounts as the service matures. This will make document handling online much easier, though the current offerings lack enough formality to be much beyond the 'convenience' level right now.

Still, get signed up!