Jeff Tranberry's Photoshop Crawlspace

June 26, 2008

Photoshop World Pre-conference Workshop with Russell Brown

Russell Brown and the good folks at Photoshop World have announced a fresh new pre-conference workshop: 3D Lenticular Imaging with Photoshop.

Registration and a class description can be found on the Photoshop World website:

In this special advanced Photoshop class we will cover the techniques behind layering and animating images to make lenticular stereo grams that create the illusion of 3-dimensionality. This class is specially designed for graphic designers and photographers who want to experiment, and play, in the 3rd dimension. Adobe's senior art director, the mad scientist "Dr. Brown" will guide you through this amazing adventure. Learn some advanced masking secrets of Photoshop as you create your very own lenticular poster.

Warning! This class is definitely not for beginning Photoshop users. All participants must bring their own computer to class and they must have Adobe Photoshop CS3 installed on their computer prior to class starting. This event is limited to 50 participants, so sign up early."

Additional information about class can be found on Russell's website.

We tried this class out on a group of Photoshop World instructors at the previous Photoshop World and everyone seemed to really enjoy it.

Photoshop World is in Las Vegas, September 3rd through the 6th.

As much as I enjoy working at the event, I won't be able to attend. My wife has a baby 'berry in the oven and she is due September 4th!

Real or Fake?

Hany Farid, director of Dartmouth College's Image Science Laboratory and Adobe collaborator, recently appeared on PBS's NOVA program to discuss his research on detecting doctored photographs.

If you're interested, you have one day to submit questions for Dr. Farid. Answers to viewers questions will be posted to the NOVA website on July 1st.

Scientific American also published an article entitled "Digital Forensics: 5 Ways to Spot a Fake Photo" by Dr. Farid earlier this month.

September 21, 2007

Awesome Scripts for Photoshop CS3 and Bridge: Dr. Brown's Services 1.9.2

Russell Brown has produced a great collection of FREE workflow scripts for Photoshop CS3 & CS3 Extended in Dr. Brown's Services 1.9.2 which he announced at Photoshop World, Las Vegas earlier this month.

"Background Remover," "Interpret Video," "Fit Video to Audio," and "Slide Show" scripts all take advantage of Photoshop CS3 Extended's spanking new video capabilities. Fit Video to Audio and Slide Show are especially nice for allowing photographers to easily make video slideshows with music.

"Stack-A-Matic" is another script to take advantage of CS3 Extended and it's new Smart Object Stack Modes. If you haven't checked out Stack Modes, check out the tutorial video Russell has provided, and Martin Evening's tutorial over at Photoshopnews.com and open yourself up to new way of shooting and manipulating images.

If you want to save time on your next Photoshop project, do yourself a favor and head over to russellbrown.com and download Dr. Brown's Services 1.9.2!

For all you scripters out there, there's a wealth of code to learn from in Dr. Brown's Services, everything from manipulating the Animation (Timeline) palette to working with Smart Objects.

I'll also point out that Photoshop ships with a folder of simple sample scripts in the "Scripting Guide" folder in the Photoshop application folder. However, some of the best example code, showing you how to tie it all together, can be found in the scripts that are increasingly becoming part of Photoshop - Image Processor, Merge to HDR, Photomerge, Export Layers to Files, and any of the Layer Comps workflow scripts. You can find these scripts in the Presets>Scripts folder inside the Photoshop CS3 application folder.

June 02, 2007

Adobe Media Gallery

As John Nack has already announced, Adobe has just released Adobe Media Gallery.

What is Adobe Media Gallery? It's an extension for Bridge CS3 that lets users easily and quickly create Flash-based and HTML-based web photo galleries.

To get started using AMG, make sure you first update to Bridge 2.1. (It won't run in 2.0)

Then download the Adobe Media Gallery installer from Adobe Labs.

I've created a quick start video tutorial:

• Tutorial Video (8.1mb)
[Disclaimer: I had to to make some edits to match the actions to the words better, and fake the upload section because I didn't have a net connection when I recorded the video.]

• Quick Start Guide
• Known Issues
• FAQ

I'll do another video tutorial on how to modify, create and save your own templates.

I'll also point out some of the interesting ExtendScript code used to extend Bridge and build AMG in future posts.

Lastly, tell us what you think. We want to hear your ideas. That's what Adobe Labs is all about.

June 15, 2006

The Minnesota Office

Jeff Schewe, from PhotoshopNew.com stopped by Adobe's Minnesota Office while in town for one of his Epson Print Academy sessions.

Jeff was here to specifically meet with the Lightroom development team. Besides the Lightroom developers, the Minnesota office also has engineers working on Photoshop, Premiere, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, EncoreDVD and others.

Unfortunately, I was in meetings most of the day, so I missed my opportunity for 15 minutes of fame.

April 26, 2006

DAM: It's Peter Krogh

Peter Krogh, author of The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers, was recently in the Twin Cities to do a presentation on Digital Asset Management. While he was in town, we were able to sit down and talk about the future of digital imaging and DAM. I caught up with Peter to find out how his tour went:

You're fresh off a DAM tour with ASMP. How did it go?

Great. There was a lot of interest, and the feedback indicated that the program is really helping photographers to get control over their collections. It was also great for me personally, since I love talking to photographers and being able to see how business is conducted around the country.

What's your involvement in ASMP?

Right now, I am on the National Board of Directors, as well as leading the DAM “It's Your Business” program. In the past, I have been the founder of the Digital Standards Committee, which changed into UPDIG. That job was also particularly gratifying since it is probably the most successful cross-association effort ever created. If you haven't taken a look, UPDIG.org is a resource for all parties in the field of imaging to ensure predictable rendering of the images as they get passed along the production chain.

How are people responding to your book - The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers?

Better than I could have imagined. I'm getting notes from around the world, and more invitations to speak than I can actually do. We've gone into a second printing.

What's been the biggest reward of writing your book?

Well, unfortunately it wasn't the money ;-). Having an impact on my fellow photographer has been a wonderful effect. I believe in the power of the image, and I believe in the need for photography professionals. This is a time of great change in our art and profession, and I'm happy to be working in the interest of my people.

What's next on your agenda? It looks like you have a new series of Professional Photography Workflow Workshops...

The field is really opening up, and I'm trying to spot the area of greatest need. I'll continue doing workshops and seminars, and I expect to do more writing. The hard part of all of this is making sure that the technology fits the needs. I spotted some needs that the DNG could fill in workflow, and was able to work with Adobe to make sure that functionality was included.

DAM is an exploding field right now, and digital photographers are really just the leading edge of the crowd. Soon everyone will have hundreds of gigabytes or more of valuable data that they will need to manage for a lifetime. It will be interesting to see how the photographer tools will move into more mainstream usage.

You've been a big proponent of Bridge and scripting. You have your DamUseful/Pimp My Bridge website, and some pretty neat scripts to assist professional photographers workflow. Tell me about some of your scripts and what they do...

The one I can't live without is RapidFixer, which lets you make Camera Raw adjustments from within the Bridge window. Not only does it speed the process up for me by at least 50%, but it lets me better integrate Picture Editing (deciding which is the best picture) with Image Editing (making the pictures look right). It's a great way to work, since these two tasks are often intertwined.

Rank and File lets me translate Ratings and Labels to Keywords so that they are preserved and more discoverable. Now that Ratings are picked up by iView, it's less necessary, but I still like it for a couple of reasons. It turns the Bridge Labels into Keywords, which is the only way to get iView to see these. It also writes the filename to the IPTC Title field, and to XMP PreservedFileName space so that I can find the original file, even if it gets renamed. We've just developed a new version that runs a lot quicker. This one will be a free upgrade, once it's out of testing.

Tell me how you got started developing scripts for Bridge?

Well, it was by necessity. I asked Adobe for some of this stuff during the beta-development cycle for CS2 (Labels to Keywords, for instance) and was told that it was not going to happen this version. John Nack suggested that scripting could do the trick. I was having dinner later with some family friends and brought the subject up. Tom Nolan, my partner in DAMuseful, writes onboard software for spacecraft, and was interested in the challenge.

RapidFixer came about after an ASMP presentation. I was showing how you can make menu presets for Camera Raw adjustments in Bridge, when I got the idea of putting the adjustments into button form. I had seen how Bridge had enabled the creation of buttons in the "navbar" area. Tom was up to the challenge, thankfully.

When you were in the Twin Cities earlier this month, you mentioned that you have some ties to Minnesota?

I was born in Rochester when my father was doing a fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. It was my first time back since I was 2. I really enjoyed the Twin Cities, and look forward to a more timely return.

How and when did you get involved with Photoshop?

When I started the Digital Standards Committee for ASMP, I contacted Adobe. (I was trying to get them to make something that ended up being the CaptionMaker. Check it out at www.russellbrown.com, part of Dr. Brown's services). I made a presentation to John Nack, and a few weeks later an invitation to join the Alpha program of CS2 hit my email box. I was flattered to be asked, and a bit intimidated when the time commitment choice was between 10, 20 and 40 hours per week. And, no, I don't get paid for it. Try explaining that to your wife. ;-)

What's your favorite feature in Photoshop CS2?

That would be Camera Raw, hands down.

Where are you based out of?

The Washington DC metro area. Been here all my life.

How long have you been a pro photographer?

23 years.

What's been the biggest change for photographers moving to digital?

In the words of the Firesign Theater, “everything you know is wrong.” It's a huge change in how you think about what you are doing as a photographer, from shooting, to image handling, to business practices.

The changes in shooting are the easy part. Almost every photographer I know has been reinvigorated by going digital. The changes in how to think about image handling are like learning a new language. You just have to start with the new vocabulary and dive right in. Unfortunately this can lead to mistakes, which often means data loss.

The business changes are still evolving. My first big project, the Digital Standards Committee was all about how to identify profitable business practices and spread the gospel. We're still learning, but many photographers charge reasonable rates for digital production. It's been a little hard for many photographers to see how this can be done, but I have hope.

What's been the key to allowing photographers to go digital and embrace going to a digital workflow?

I think the most important part is higher productivity in the field: the ability to make better pictures more quickly. There were a lot of developments that finally made widespread digital photography a reality: Photoshop, less expensive digital cameras, color calibration, fast computers, big storage.

Once you start working with it, you realize it's just better.

What's your impression of Adobe Lightroom so far? Any favorite features?

I love the way you can adjust images in Lightroom. I think it's faster and more intuitive. I also love being able to look at full-size images. I can't wait for it to be done, so that I can put it into production for real photos (not just tests).

April 24, 2006

Masters of the Midwest: Ben Willmore

We all know Ben Willmore as an extraordinary Photoshop author and trainer. What you may not know is he's sold his house in favor of traveling the country, living in a motorcoach bus, and documenting his adventures on his blog: Where is Ben?.

I was able to get a tour of Ben's new wheels/home during Photoshop World, Miami. I was amazed at the number of groupies on his bus - if you can consider Bert Monroy, Bruce Fraser, Stephen Johnson, and Vincent Versace “groupies.”

I decided to catch up with Ben and see how things were going, and maybe find out a few new things about him:

So, Ben, where are you?!?

I'm parked at an campground just North of Gainesville, FL.

You're originally from the Midwest, correct?

Yes! I grew up in a Minneapolis suburb known as St. Anthony Village. I lived there for 30 years before moving to the mountains of Colorado... and now I've sold that house to live on a motorcoach.

What did you enjoy most about Minneapolis?

Growing up in Minneapolis was great. You get a good range of hot and cold, which makes it easy to move to any part of the world (glad I didn't grow up in Florida, which would have really limited my options). The arts scene was great and the lakes make for great recreation. Minneapolis is also a hub for graphic design and advertising, which helped me as a graphic designer. I didn't realize how friendly everyone is until I started traveling the country and noticing a lack of eye contact and conversation when I run into strangers.

How did you get into Photoshop?

I used Photoshop before it was a product. I got a hold of a beta version and played around with it. I didn't really do all that much serious stuff until 2.5 came out. I was using it to modify photos that were used in advertisements... removing backgrounds from images, adding artificial shadows, performing color correction, retouching, etc. I mainly used QuarkXPress, Freehand and Photoshop and was an expert in each one. As time has gone by, I've focused more on Photoshop.

What are you currently up to?

I'm currently touring the country with my Photoshop for Photographers seminar and working on some new training DVD's. You can see where I'm heading on my website at www.DigitalMastery.com.

What's been the best thing about being involved with Photoshop?

Getting paid to spend all my time playing with Photoshop... stuff that I'd do in my free time if it wasn't my job. The other thing I love about it is that going to national parks to take photos can be considered "work" if those photos might end up being used in one of my books or seminars :-)

What's your favorite feature in CS2?

Smart Objects: I love how they let me embed RAW files into my layered .PSD files, scale & warp images non-destructively and use one image in multiple areas while keeping all of them up to date while I make future edits.

What's the least understood feature in Photoshop?

Color Management is the least understood. Some major changes are necessary before this area becomes easily understood and the problem is that too many parties are involved: Adobe with Photoshop, Apple/Microsoft with their OSes, and printer manufacturers with their printer drivers. It's a complete mess and I don't see an end in sight. It affects everyone from photographers, web designers and grandmothers... we all want consistent color and don't want to have to get a PhD, or spend hundreds to make it work.

What's the most under-utilized feature in Photoshop?

There is a long list of under-utilized features:

1. Most people don't even know that you can hide menu commands to simplify Photoshop
2. Variables, which allow you to create many documents that contain a common design (like business cards)
3. The Color Replacement tool, which makes easy work of changing the color of everything from people's eyes to the color of your car
4. The Background Eraser, which can save eons when you need to isolate an area

How's the bus been treating you so far?

I'm loving the lifestyle so far. I keep having to remind myself that I'm not on vacation. I've been living this way for just over a month and tonight is the first one where I've paid to park somewhere overnight (read... it doesn't have to be expensive). I've really enjoyed meeting my of my blog readers and they have been overly helpful in finding me stealth parking spots.

Thanks, Ben. Have fun and keep in touch. We'll look forward to seeing you in Minneapolis in June.

February 23, 2006

New Photoshop Podcast from Jan Kabili

I thought I'd duck my head in and point out a new podcast from Jan Kabili over at The Unofficial Photoshop Weblog.

It's been a while since I've last posted. We've been busy beavers over here since the merger with Macromedia. I've also adopted a special-needs puppy, so between work and the Todd, it's been a busy month.

November 21, 2005

I Want My Photoshop TV...

John Nack posted an entry on Photoshop weblogs, podcasts, and more.

I thought I'd point out a couple more Photoshop related podcasts:

The guys over at the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) have created a new half-hour video podcast called "Photoshop TV." The show includes step-by-step techniques, tips and the latest Photoshop news.

David Biedny has a podcast called "Attention Photoshoppers!" Recent episodes include an interview with Katrin Eismann, the benefits of 16-bit and HDR, and a look at what Aperture is, and isn't.

Check 'em out.

November 14, 2005

Photoshop @ Work

It's been a busy past two weeks for me, but I did have time to meet with some interesting customers.

We all know Photoshop is used by artists and graphic designers, but some of the most interesting uses of Photoshop are in health and science. Think CSI and ER.

I visited a state forensic lab's latent print department. Forensic professionals use Photoshop to enhance images of fingerprints, namely improving sharpness/contrast, and isolating fingerprints from patterned or color backgrounds. Each operation, adjustment, and the settings for that adjustment, needs to be logged and submitted with the evidence.

In the past, users needed to do this by hand. With Photoshop CS and CS2, user can have Photoshop log all the changes to the file. Those changes can be stored in the file as metadata and/or in a separate text log file.

Try it for yourself:

1. Choose Edit > Preferences > General (Win) or Photoshop > Preferences > General (Mac)
2. Check the "History Log" option
3. Choose one of three ways to "Save Log Items To": As Metadata embedded in the file. As an external text file or as both Metadata and a text file.
4. Choose one of three options for "Edit Log Items": Sessions Only (only open and save operations), Concise (just the title of the operation), or Detailed (the title of the operation and all the settings).
5. Click OK.

To view the history log as metadata, choose File > File Info... Then choose "History" from the left-hand column to display the history.

I also met Robbie Halvorson, who works for Guidant, and also leads the Minnesota Maya User Group. He uses Photoshop along with Maya to visualize and design new medical products. The new HDR features in Photoshop CS2 are especially useful for 3-D. HDR images can be used to realistically illuminate scenes and objects. We're working on a demo to show off at a joint Minnesota Maya/Twin Cities Photoshop User Group meeting in the near future.

Here are some tutorials, white papers and other resources for scientists and health care professionals.

I also learned a couple of television misnomers which I found interesting:

Contrary to what is seen in popular TV shows, people never 'overlay' two fingerprints to match them up because it actually makes it more difficult to analyze and compare the two prints.

This is because finger prints get distorted due to different pressure and angles. For example, file prints are made by rolling the finger, which is hardly every the case with latent prints from a crime scene.

Finger prints are most often compared side by side.

Additionally, when people go to use a heart defibrillator on TV, the ECG usually shows a flat line. The ECG would actually show ventricular fibrillation, which is an irregular, fast heartbeat.

A defibrillator will not 're-start' a heart which has stopped.

October 14, 2005

ASMP: Face/Mask: Katrin Eismann

While a lot of my colleagues will be getting ready to attend Macromedia Max in San Francisco next week, I will be in the Twin Cities attending a workshop given by Katrin Eismann. I was able to meet Katrin in person for the first time last month at Photoshop World in Boston. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend any of her sessions, so attending this session will be a treat.

Katrin is both a talented and passionate user of Photoshop as well as a gifted teacher. Her session is going to focus on retouching for portraits and creating masks and selections.

I enjoy attending events like these to see how people work with Photoshop, learn new workflows, and try to determine what could be done to improve those workflows.

The local chapter of the ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) is sponsoring the event.
The Twin Cities is home to companies like Target, Best Buy and host of advertising agencies, which helps fuel the local commercial photography community. Many of these dedicated local photographers are ASMP members.

Attending ASMP meetings is a great way to meet other photographers in your community, share ideas on photography, and exchange tips on digital imaging.