Tutorial – Wind Point Lighthouse

Here is a simple trick for adding a interest to an otherwise ordinary image using Aperture and Photoshop Elements

STEP 1. Open boring image in Aperture

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STEP 2. Add a little pizazz by applying a preset. In this case, I’ve used “Dynamics” by Gavin Seim (thanks, Gavin!).

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STEP 3. Open the image in Photoshop Elements (using Aperture’s “round trip” feature) and add a texture layer.

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STEP 4. Change the blending mode of the texture layer to Linear Light. In this case, I set the opacity to 75%.

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STEP 5. Print and frame!

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Oops! Another Reason to Shoot in RAW

As the volunteer bench coach, score keeper, and self-appointed photographer for my son’s little league team, I’m flirting with photographic disaster. Last week, I followed my usual routine – balancing camera on scorebook for 6 innings and shooting whenever possible. However, as I began to download the day’s images into my Aperture library, I quickly realized that sometime during the first inning I had inadvertently bumped the control dial on my 40D causing a switch from aperture priority to manual exposure. Almost all of the subsequent images were grossly overexposed. I know what you are thinking – I should have noticed this immediately while reviewing the images on the camera’s LCD…oops!

Rather than send the images to the digital graveyard, I decided to experiment with Aperture and Photoshop to see how much information could be salvaged. After adjusting the exposure and levels in Aperture, I used the Recovery and Highlight sliders to bring some detail back into the image. I then opened each image in Photoshop Elements (using Aperture’s roundtrip feature) and duplicated the background layer twice. The first duplicate layer was converted to black and white and the second duplicate layer was changed to either a Multiply, Color Burn, or Linear Burn blend mode. Here is an example of the results:

While this is not destined for the cover of SI, it does have an interesting pop art feel and it demonstrates the incredible amount of information that is stored in your RAW files.

RAW, Aperture, digital processing

Technorati Tags: RAW, Aperture, digital processing

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Digital Film Tools – Light!

Here’s another nifty Aperture plug-in to check out. Light! from Digital Film Tools is useful for adding light and shadows to images. The plug-in is pretty straightforward and is capable of producing some cool effects. Here are a couple of examples:

RAW FILE

Aperture/PS Elements

DFT Light!

RAW FILE

APERTURE/PS ELEMENTS/DFT LIGHT!

Technorati Tags: Aperture, DFT LIght, plug-in, Photoshop Elements

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Simplify your workflow with Aperture’s export feature

Aperture is not only a great tool for organizing your images, but it also sports a powerful export feature. Export options include:

• application of an sRGB or AdobeRGB color space
• resizing for web (e.g., 640×640 pixels)
• watermarking with your personal copyright
• automatic or custom file naming
• save as .jpg, .tiff, .png, .psd
• resize and attach to email (small, medium, large file sizes)

Any of these features can be combined into custom export profiles. This allows you to quickly export multiple versions of the same image with slightly different characteristics. You may, for example, want to export a full size AdobeRGB .tiff version to your backup folder, a 640×640 sRGB watermarked .jpg version for uploading to your web gallery, and a medium size image formatted for emailing to an editor or client.

Ah, but there’s more. Thanks to a number of available plug-ins, you can also export directly to stock, microstock, and online gallery sites. Options include:

• iStockphoto
• Fotolia
• Flickr
• pBase
• PhotoShelter Personal Archive

If you haven’t yet explored the export feature, give it a shot. It may soon become one of your favorite tools!

Technorati Tags: Aperture, export, workflow, image management, photography

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HDR with Aperture and Photomatix

High dynamic range (HDR) images maintain detail in both the highlights and the shadows, often resulting in a striking amount of definition as compared to the original image(s). I have been experimenting with HDR images using a combination of Aperture and the Photomatix software. The process is straightforward – choose an image having a large range of luminescence values and vary its exposure using Aperture’s RAW converter. Depending on the image, two underexposures and two overexposures (0.5 EV each) or one underexposure and one overexposure (1.0 EV each) are a good starting point. The exposure-compensated versions, along with the original (0 EV) are loaded into Photomatix and an HDR image is generated using either an exposure blending or a tone mapping method. The resulting image can then be tweaked to your liking using a variety of value sliders within Photomatix. While HDR images are technically supposed to be constructed from a series of in-camera exposures, I’ve found that the Aperture generated exposures are a good substitute.

ORIGINAL IMAGE

HDR IMAGE (from +1, 0, -1 EV exposures), slight cropping

Technorati Tags: HDR, aperture, high dynamic range

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