Apr 09

4 Great Ways to Get the Look of Film in Your Digital Darkroom

A lot of us still shoot film for love and for fun. I'm often dragging around my Polaroid 600, my Hassie 500cm, some Lomo stuff (or these other film cameras)... but it's next to impossible to have clients get fired up to shoot film in a professionals setting. They wanna see their picture NOW. Well, if you've ever been in a pickle over how to get... read more ›
Mar 07

Photoshop Action Hack ‘Un-Airbrushes’ Women’s Bodies

Dove has been running "Real Beauty" ads for more than a decade. Their agency Ogilvy in Toronto cam up with a pretty dope hack/secret weapon to raise awareness with photo re-touchers, art directions and designers to reconsider the messaging that they and their clients are promoting by thinning, coloring and generally adding or subtracting to women's bodies for benefit of advertising to the masses. By disguising a desirable Photoshop action in popular blogs Dove has... read more ›
Dec 27

Holiday Sale + Round-the-Clock Creative Education Streaming at CreativeLIVE.com

What does a stream of non-stop 24/7 creative education look like? In case you've been on vacation, it looks like what http://www.creativeLIVE.com/live has looked like for the past two weeks...and will continue to look for the remaining few days of 2012. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the rest of the year, you can join a community of more than 1 million people strong and check out the most popular segments of... read more ›
Nov 28

How to Shoot a 7 Gigapixel, 60-Foot Wide Photo in 5 Easy Steps [The Devil is In the Details]

I've always been a fan of photographic works by Andreas Gursky and others that are huge in scale and still maintain amazing detail. While Gursky is a living legend and none of us are approaching his sphere any time soon, there are a variety of more accessible approaches to creating massive images that maintain incredible details available to most of us As such I want to take a second to introduce Ben Pitt. Ben is... read more ›
Mar 23

New Twist To Iconic Photographs [Abe Lincoln + Others Via Fresh Photoshop Colorization]

Might have caught this earlier, but here's a fascinating look at iconic portraits that were originally shot in black and white that have since been colorized in Photoshop. Normally, I don't fall for this stuff, but this is incredibly elegant I'd say. Seeing Abraham Lincoln in color just seems to make him more a little more "real". Same goes for the others above. These guys/gals look like a bunch... read more ›
Jan 25

No, But I Can Learn

i can learn
Do you know how to load a roll of film? Work a light meter? Edit slides on a light table? Scan film? Color correct scans? Track a photo inventory? Submit photos to clients? Work with a stock agency? Make prints? Pack a camera bag? Ship equipment? Set up lights? Scout a location? Drive on the left side of the road? Order food in French? Clean a digital sensor? Work in Photoshop? Create a workflow? Edit... read more ›
Dec 19

Holiday Sale + Round-the-Clock Creative Education Streaming at CreativeLIVE.com

What does a stream of non-stop 24/7 creative education look like? It looks like http://www.creativeLIVE.com/live looks for the rest of 2011. That’s right...24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the rest of the year, you can check out the most popular segments of streaming video education (there's even a published schedule on that page...) on lighting, fundamentals of photography, studio setup, gear, Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom, InDesign, fashion photography, wedding photography, portraiture, retouching, filmmaking,... read more ›
Oct 10

Preset Photo Adjustment Follow Up — Debate is Split, Scott Chimes In

lift-and-stamp
It’s been gratifying to see that the great preset debate from my earlier post is not isolated to this office, instead there seems to be a lot of interest in this topic and a fairly even split in favor of and against using adjustment presets.  The majority of comments landed somewhere in the neighborhood of “I use them in moderation in order to get initial settings or ideas, then custom tweak from there.” This is... read more ›
Oct 05

Preset Photo Adjustments: Instant Gold or Drab Repetition?

Adjustment_Presets
Scott here. Many of you know that I'm the primary retoucher here around the Chase Jarvis studio. I was surprised to get into a fairly spirited debate the other day with some of my co-workers. The topic? Adjustment presets and plug-ins in Aperture or Lightroom or Photoshop. I’ve got a strong opinion on this, but this experience has once again reminded me that there are a thousand ways to skin a cat and that my... read more ›
Aug 19

Photoshop of Horrors: Vogue Mag Forgets Body Parts, Do You Care?

Happy Friday. Over at Vogue magazine, it seems the retouching crew was a little remiss with Mario Testino's shot of Kate Moss and her daughter Lila --seems they...er...left off a few of her daughters fingers. Or worse, that her daughters fingers actually fused into her mom's back. So, we all know Photoshop happens. They're in there taking out zits and making people skinnier than they really are, and taking out wrinkles and on and on.... read more ›