How To Use Photoshop To Add A "Starburst"

NEW WORKSHOP: Photography & Photoshop At Pelican Point

Hi Everyone,

I'd like to introduce you to the NEW Photography & Photoshop At Pelican Point workshop on the weekend of November 5-7, 2010 in Pismo Beach, California.

Pismo is located in the spectacular California central coast area about 15 minutes south of San Luis Obispo.

The Photography & Photoshop At Pelican Point Workshop event is a fun and information packed educational intensive that includes:

5 classes - including Photoshop & Lightroom - covering workflow, GPS geotagging, panoramas, high dynamic range (HDR) and fine art printing

4 guided photography sessions - including sunrise and sunsets at the water's edge and the Pismo sand dunes

2 de-briefing show & tell sessions - in the evenings - including desserts

You will be coached and taught by 2 photography instructors:

Chuck Behrman -  a Los Angeles based advertising and fine art photographer, has been holding workshops in digital photography, Photoshop and Lightroom in the Los Angeles and Central Coast areas since 2004. He also teaches Photoshop, part time, at Cal State - Dominguez Hills.

Jim Vincolisi - an Atascadero, California based fine art photographer and owner of the B & W Gallery in Atascadero. Jim specializes in black and white photography and printing, both digital and traditional.

The workshop is limited to 10 students, insuring personalized instruction from the 2 professional photographers present.

You can see all the details at:              http://www.chbphoto.com/p4workshop

There is an EARLY BIRD special rate in effect until September 15 that will save you $66 off the normal workshop price!

There is more -

FREE EXTRAS included in the price of the workshop:

FREE - Continental Breakfast (Saturday, Sunday and Monday) - provided by the hotel

FREE - Lunch on Saturday & Sunday

FREE - Wine & dessert on Friday, Saturday & Sunday evenings

FREE - Video tutorials of everything covered in the workshop + some things not covered in the workshop

FREE - Color fine art giclée print of one image you have created during the workshop (up to 20"x24")

The hotel has offered us special room rates of $89 per night (includes free wifi). The rooms are normally at least $132 per night!

Room reservations must be made by October 1, 2010 to get these rates!!!!

Please call the Shore Cliff Lodge directly at 1-800-441-8885 and request the CH Behrman Photography Block.

If you have any questions after visiting the site, please feel free to contact

Chuck at:   310.216.6611

or Jim at:   805.460.9776

A Few News Items

Hi Everyone,

I've got a few news items here, I hope they're of interest to you.

Facebook - 

I've established a presence on Facebook both as "Chuck Behrman" and as "C H Behrman Photography." Since I'm going to be announcing new events, workshops, etc. via Facebook, I'd like to invite you all to join Facebook and become my "friends" (many of you already are).

Face2Face - 

The Face2Face program, where I can work with you on an individual basis over the phone  or in person at your location or mine has been working out well. 

I'm available in the LA area at any time and, on occasion in the Central Coast. I'll be in the Central Coast doing Face2Face on May 16 & 17 (May 16 is totally booked - I do have some time available on the morning of May 17). If you're interested, please contact me by email, on facebook.com, or by telephone at 310.216.6611.

Discounts on ink - 

As you are probably aware, I am a great proponent of the Cone inks, made by Jon Cone of Vermont (www.inkjetmall.com). I use both his Piezography black & white inks and the ConeColor pigment inks in my Epson printers. They make reusable cartridges too.

Until today, you have been able to get a 10% discount on the inks at inkjetmall.com by using the code: chbehrman10. You can still do that for the black & white inks; but, I've got a better deal for you -- 15% off on ConeColor Pigment inks!

These inks are about ⅓ the cost of Epson inks to start with - so it's only getting better!

Use this discount code [ FRIENDS15 ] so that you can receive a 15% discount off ConeColor inks. You must place this code in the Apply Coupon Code field of the shopping cart when you checkout. 

At the same time you must enter chuck@chbphoto.com in the Customer Comments field.

Their inks are very reliable and consistent. I've been using the color inks for a couple of years in multiple printers and have had no issues as far as color, clogging or fading on both fine art or photographic papers. Their inks are tuned for the K2, K3 and K3 Vivid systems.

Photoshop CS5 - 

As you are aware by now, Adobe has started shipping Photoshop CS5. I've been using this program and it is AWESOME! I'm putting together a workshop (and CDs) that will cover the new aspects of Photoshop CS5 as they apply to photographers and hope to present these within the next couple of months. I'm planning on concentrating on the improvement and the differences in the workflow brought about by the updates. I'll let you know as soon as I can come up with a schedule for classes both in the LA area and the Central Coast.

I'm also creating a class on using layers in a non-destructive workflow to be presented in the same time period. 

 Good luck to all,

Chuck

Getting “It” Right For Better Photographs: Printer Profiles

In past articles, we’ve discussed seeing the proper colors on your monitor and how to profile the monitor accuracy.

Our next step will be to learn about “printer profiles” and how to use them.  Printer profiles are how your application (like Photoshop or Lightroom) tells your printer what colors to print. It’s really difficult; nor is it as intimidating as it sounds.

When you make a print, you must tell your printer which paper you are printing on. The printer profile does just that.

All papers made by your printer manufacturer (like Epson or Canon) have these profiles built into their software. In Photoshop, you simply tell your printer that you are printing on “Premium Glossy”, “Watercolor Fine Art”, or other paper and the printer will do the rest.

But what if you are printing on a paper that was made by another manufacturer? That’s usually not a problem since most independent paper manufacturers (like Moab or Lexjet) will provide paper profiles on their web sites for their various papers.

Now the problem… companies like Epson don’t make profiles for their papers for use on other companies’ printers. Or, conversely, they don’t make profiles for printing anyone else’s papers on their printers. So, if you’re going to print an Epson paper on a Canon printer, you’ll have to make your own custom profile.

Again, this is not difficult… but it is possibly expensive. To make a paper profile you’ll need a Spectrophotometer such as a  ColorMunki, I-One, or Spyder 3. These devices can cost anywhere from $350 - $1500. But, they do a great job and can also be used to make profiles for your monitor and projector. There are companies around that will make custom profiles for you for $50 - $100 per profile.

Using a custom profile when you print is very straightforward also. Next time I’ll talk about the nuances involved when sending your image to your printer.

You can add your comments and questions below.  I’ll be happy to answer them. The idea is to just enjoy and learn.

Getting “It” Right For Better Photographs: Color Space

What do I mean by “color space” and why should you care?

Your monitor is the primary device you rely on to show you the colors of your photographs or other artwork on your computer. Today’s monitors are primarily flat screens and may use various technologies for displaying images (this sounds suspiciously like the beginning of the last “Getting ‘It’ Right” entry, doesn’t it?).

The color space, in fairly simple terms, is how many colors are available and how many can actually be shown on the monitor or the printed image.

Your eye can see billions of colors but a typical 8-bit image can contain 2⁸ colors per each of the three channels, or a maximum of 16.7 million colors. That’s a lot of colors. I don’t want to get into a deep discussion on color theory because I’d like to keep this on a basic level.

The bad news is that a typical 8-bit monitor can’t see anywhere near 16.7 million colors. Nor can a typical inkjet printer reproduce them. Although a good printer can reproduce more colors than a monitor, the colors are different.

Let’s talk about monitors for a minute…

Back in the olden days when color specs were being defined, a standard called “sRGB” was created to cover what could be reproduced on monitors of the day. This was (and still is) the standard for image viewing on monitors and the internet. An sRGB image should look the same (or at least similar) on monitors that are correctly profiled. This should be true in most applications and all web browsers without any need for additional color management. sRGB color space is also used for many digital cameras (when creating jpeg images) and is required by many print labs using chemicals to process their images.

In the late 90s, Adobe came up with a new standard that expanded the color space to include what could be reproduced on more up-to-date monitors and the better color inkjet printers. They called this “Adobe RGB(1998)”. This is still the color space of choice today for most commercial and fine art inkjet printing. Some of today’s 10-bit and higher monitors can display most, if not all of this color space.

Today, some people use an even larger color space called “ProPhoto.” However, you can’t see all of the ProPhoto colors on any printer or on most monitors (maybe on a 32-bit monitor, but there aren’t very many of those and I don’t know anyone who can afford one).

By the way, most good digital cameras will produce jpeg images using either Adobe RGB(1998) or sRGB. My preference is to shoot RAW and to apply the color space I need to use for each image on an “as-required” basis.

Knowing this, and hopefully not too confused, let’s try to simplify the process. If you stick to the following rules, you’ll be okay.

If your aim is to make prints on a giclée or inkjet printer - use Adobe RGB(1998) for your working color space. Do not use Adobe RGB(1998) for the internet - your images will look horrible (or at the least different from what you intend). This is because of how sRGB interprets colors that are not within its gamut (or range of colors).

If you are going to use the images for Powerpoint or similar presentations, on the internet, or for printing at a color lab - use sRGB. You can use sRGB for images you’ll be printing on an inkjet printer but they might not look as good as those you’ve printed based on Adobe RGB(1998).

What about ProPhoto? Well, for right now I just want you to be aware that it exists.

How do you specify the color space? In Photoshop, go to ”Edit > Color Settings...” and set your RGB color space preference. Photoshop will ask you what it should do when you try to open an image with a different color space.

How do you change an image’s color space? In Photoshop, go to “Edit > Convert To Profile...” and chose your new color space. Photoshop’s “Save For Web & Devices” also has a check box for converting to sRGB since that action is intended for images destined for the internet.

Oh, by the way, you can convert from a larger color space to a smaller one as needed (Adobe RGB(1998) to sRGB). But you can’t go the other way and expect to pick up any of the colors in the larger color space.

Our next step will be to learn about “printer profiles” and how to use them. It’s really not as intimidating as it sounds and we’ll cover it next time.

You can add your comments and questions below.  I’ll be happy to answer them. The idea is to just enjoy and learn.

iPhone Geolocation

There’s been quite a bit of interest recently about using a GPS device to track where you’ve shot photographs - this is called geolocation. There are many devices on the market that will do this for you... at a price.

How would you like to be able to geolocate for free - or almost free? You can if you have an iPhone or other smart phone that can use apps.

All you need to do is to find an appropriate GPS tracker and activate it when you’re taking pictures. Then you transfer the GPS data to your computer and use a program on your computer (there are free ones available for that too) to associate the time that you made your image with the location in the GPS data. These programs will put the location into your image’s metadata.

There are several programs that will read the metadata and show you a map, hi-lighting the point where you shot your image. I use Adobe Lightroom - it automatically opens Google Maps on my web browser.

for the original tracking, I'm using a free iPhone app (GPS Stone - from the AppStore -  on the iPhone and a free geocoding software package, GPSPhotoLinker - http://www.earlyinnovations.com/gpsphotolinker) for the Mac.

There are others available for windows - use google to find them.

It takes a little getting used to but it's been working reliably for the past few weeks. It is pretty accurate within a few yards. You can then use Lightroom or GpsPhotoLinker to display the photo's location on Google Maps.

One of the neat things about GPS Stone is that it can be set to record at various intervals in both time and distance. It also can be set to automatically resume recording after a phone call or activating another app (the iPhone OS only allows one app to run at a time). To get the data from your iPhone to your computer, simply email the .gpx track file to yourself - that's not automatic - you have to push a button.

GPSPhotoLinker is very fast and easy to use. Drag the images into the application from the computer or from Lightroom - copy the images to your HD first - don't do it from the CF card because this program will write directly to the metadata in the image files. This way you keep your original files intact if you mess things up.

You can view your position directly from GPSPhotolinker or from Lightroom. If you have imported your images into Lightroom prior to geocoding, you must read the updated metadata from the file (Metadata > Read Metadata From File) after running GPSPhotoLinker. Then you can click on the arrow next to the geolocation metadata (Library mode) to see the image location on Google Maps.

There is one caveat - you must have cell service to use GPS on a smart phone. It does work with ATT’s E network as well as with the G3 service. It just takes a little longer to initiate.

I’m planning on creating a video screencast of the process soon - keep checking here.

Getting “It” Right For Better Photographs:

Calibrating & Profiling Your Monitor

What do I mean by calibrating and profiling your monitor?

Your monitor is the primary device you rely on to show you the colors of your photographs or other artwork on your computer. today’s monitors are primarily flat screens and my use various technologies for displaying images.

Unfortunately monitors, even the really good ones, are not totally stable and need to be profiled every one to four weeks. Also, you should probably replace a monitor you’re using for critical color work after about five years.

Oh, by the way you really need to understand this... a monitor that is properly calibrated and profiled for color will not be as bright and punchy as one you might use for gaming or watching movies. But then you’re reading this blog because you want accuracy... right?

The process is easily defined and done well with a little more effort. Calibrating & profiling is basically setting your monitor to it’s factory standard and having your computer tell it how to correctly and accurately display color and density.

There are ways of doing this using only a combination of your eyes and software (like the calibration function in Apple’s Displays Preference Panel or with Adobe Gamma on Windows). Sometimes this works fine but it’s not totally consistent. There are other methods that are more accurate but require a hardware investment.

The next step up is using a “Colorimeter” - a hockey puck like device that you place on your monitor that works with software to build a Lookup Table (LUT) that will (hopefully) generate the correct colors on your monitor. There are several such devices available like the Huey, Eye-One Monitor, and the Spyder. These will range in price from under $100 to about $300 and will do an ok job.

If you want to do the job right, you’ll want to invest in a spectrophotometer like the Eye-One Spectrophotometer, the ColorMunki or the Spyder3. These devices not only read light transmitted by your monitor, but have their own light source and can create custom paper profiles for your printer (more about that later). These devices are not inexpensive, running between $300 - $1500.

Using either the colorimeter or spectrophotometer is pretty easy - start the software and follow the on-screen instructions. The software will automatically tell applications like Photoshop which monitor profile to use.

The next step is to learn about “color space” and ow to set up your applications to use it. It’s really not as intimidating as it sounds and we’ll cover it next time.

I have created a number of video tutorial CDs covering this topic in detail as well as many other Photoshop & Lightroom subjects. These CDs are available at http://www.chbphoto.com - click on the the “Tutorial CDs" button.

You can add your comments and questions. I’ll be happy to answer them. The idea is to just enjoy and learn.