A week’s worth of work all in one picture

Long-time readers know that I have been on a mission to accomplish in Photoshop everything that I previously had been doing in Corel Draw, Corel Photo-Paint, and Corel PaintShop Pro.

Until recently, those three Corel programs collectively cost less than half of what Photoshop cost.

Now, with software coming to us out of the cloud, Photoshop 2014 is a mere $9.99 a month. That is a significant savings over the previous cost of a full version of Photoshop and upgrades as they came out.

This past week I have been working on really getting to know what I can do using layers and masks, and here is the product of my work:

That is a conglomeration of many pictures: wood floor, curtains and windows but without muntins, sunset, condos overlooking Mission Bay, and water and boats. I created the muntins myself; that took the most time.

I had to use layer masks to get the sun to be bright enough to shine through the window, but since the windows didn’t have muntins, the whole thing look too artificial. After I created the muntins, the sun shining on the floor looked artificial, so I had to add shadows cast by the muntins. That took the second most amount of time.

Although adding muntins created a better look, it was strenuous work then to mask out each of the itty bitty windows in order to let the water and boats show through. That was the third most amount of time.

I am off a little in the perspective with some of the muntins, but considering this was my first time to try to do this in Photoshop, I think I did pretty good, and next time I want to do something like this, it will go much faster and more smoothly.

Remember: Anything you see here at Russel Ray Photos might be a lie!

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Success! (which means it’s margarita time)

You might have noticed that I like to frame my pictures. To me, it simply adds to the picture.

Currently I’m using five programs to modify my pictures:

1. Lightroom 4.2 — About the only thing I use this program for anymore is to take my RAW picture files and convert them into JPGs that are 1000 pixels on the longest side. “On the longest side” is the key phrase here because in every other program in which I’ve worked you cannot set the preference for the longest side. You can only choose horizontal side or vertical side. So if you have a mixture of landscape pictures and portrait pictures, you either have to make two passes through your files, or you have to accept that, choosing 1000 pixels for the horizontal side means that the longest side on the portrait pictures, the vertical side, will be much bigger than 1000 pixels. Ultimately all of the pictures I use in my blog posts are 600 pixels on the longest side. That pretty much means that if someone wants to borrow my pictures covertly, about the only thing they can do with them is use them on the computer. They won’t be worthy of printing because the resolution will be too low.
2. CorelDRAW! X5 — I have been using CorelDRAW! since its inception. I can do virtually anything with this program, making it my go-to program if I need to do something quickly. CorelDRAW! X5 is where I do the postage stamps at the end of each post that feature Zoey the Cool Cat approving the post.
3. Corel Photo-Paint X5 — This program comes with CorelDRAW! as its complementary photo-editing program. I have been using it for as many years as CorelDRAW! and pretty much know it inside and out. This is the program that I am most familiar with, so I don’t use it at all right now. I am forcing myself to use a different program because I am trying to become an expert at the other program.
4. Corel PaintShop Pro X5 — This program is Corel’s answer to Adobe’s PhotoShop, and I have found that it is equally powerful and equally as difficult to use. Thus I don’t use it at all because PhotoShop is that other program that I am endeavouring to become an expert at.
5. Adobe Photoshop CS6 — I bought the first version of Photoshop at the same time I bought the first version of CorelDRAW! That was a couple of decades ago I believe. At the time I needed both programs. However, when I moved to San Diego in April 1993, I had no further need for photo editing programs and quit upgrading them. When I went to upgrade my various programs in 2008, there was a significant difference between my Photoshop 8 and the new Photoshop CS3. I felt like I was in kindergarten again. Photoshop CS6 is where all my photo editing time is dedicated right now.

One of the tasks that I have been trying to learn in Photoshop is matting and framing a picture. Specifically I wanted to do it like they do it in photo galleries. Yesterday and this morning I spent a lot of time on the task and believe I have it down to a science now.

Here is the picture, unframed, that I will use:

I think you’ll agree that it needs some work. First I straightened the picture. Then I cloned out the little branches at the center riight and cloned a couple of other imperfections. After that, I cropped out the gray sky and that little piece sticking up off the roof at the upper right, and then gave it some extra contrast and sharpness. That gave me the following, a much better picture:

Of course, it still needs to be framed. Here it is with the frame that I’ve been using for the past several months:

That frame was created using an Action that I found somewhere on the Internet. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to edit Actions yet so that has been the essence of my ability to frame pictures in Photoshop CS6.

Yesterday I started working on learning how to do frames that are substantially more interesting. The culmination of my work gave me this:

Just like you would find at so many modern art galleries. I’m so happy! Magarita time!

I’m going to work on this some more with my ultimate goal being the creation of a tutorial for my readers so that you, too, can create interesting frames for your photographs!

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!

Find Photoshop expensive? Consider leasing.

Currently on my computer I have these digital photo editing programs:

• Adobe Photoshop CS6
• Adobe Lightroom 4.1
• Corel PaintShop Pro X4
• Corel Photo-Paint X6
• CorelDRAW! X6
• Word 2010 (don’t underestimate it!)

I have had Photoshop, Photo-Paint, CorelDRAW!, and Word since their initial releases decades ago.

When I went to upgrade Photoshop, I discovered the steep price. I also discovered Lightroom, so rather than the steep price for a Photoshop upgrade, I opted to continue using my very old version of Photoshop and learn Lightroom.

When I went to upgrade my very old versions of Photo-Paint and DRAW!, I discovered PaintShop Pro. The price was very reasonable, so I bought it.

I use all of those programs for various purposes, but my current goal is to see if I can get Photoshop to do everything. If I can, then ultimately I’ll be migrating my skills in all the other programs over to Photoshop.

I think that Photoshop is the most powerful individual programs, but if I combine DRAW! X6 and either Photo-Paint X6 or Paintshop Pro X4, I can do in them anything that Photoshop can do. The question is, “How easily?” or “How much time is involved?”

For example, I use CorelDRAW! X6 to do the Zoey the Cool Cat approval stamp at the end of each post. It takes me about 15 seconds. To do it is Photoshop would take several layers and lots of time, and I haven’t found that Photoshop Actions can really automate everything for me yet.

I use Word 2010 to create quick frames, like the one I use for my wise old grandmother:

That took about 15 seconds in Word 2010.

I use Lightroom 4.1 to give me quick JPGs from RAW files and to do quick adjustments for exposure, highlights, shadows, contrast, and clarity (sharpness). Five sliders takes about 30 seconds. The same tasks in Photoshop takes several minutes due to having to go through Adobe Camera Raw first and then into Photoshop. Minimum of five layers in Photoshop.

I use Photo-Paint to create GIFs. It’s the easiest program I’ve found for that:

PaintShop Pro X4 is very similar to Photoshop, and I’ve found it much easier to use. However, simply because Photoshop is the defacto standard throughout the world, Photoshop is where I’m dedicating my time. When you have a defacto standard, you have a lot of people doing tutorials and creating plugins and such. So Photoshop it is.

One you have created certain effects that you like in any of the programs, you can either save the file as a template and then just replace the picture as needed (that’s what I do in CorelDRAW! and Word) or you can create actions, scripts, or macros in the other programs to automate tasks. As with anything, it takes time to set it up initially but then the ROI on your time is returned each succeeding time you do the same thing.

If you’re considering Photoshop and find the price too steep, consider leasing it, which is what I do. I have a one-year lease with Adobe that costs me $19.99 a month. Considering that the full program is $699, it would take me 35 months of leasing to pay for the program. That’s three years. During those three years, Adobe will come out with two upgrades, costing you $199 each, another $400. You’ll never be able to stay up to date with the latest and the greatest. With a lease, you can.

Twenty dollars a month is less than any of my other individual bills — gas, phone, cable, mortgage, electricity, etc., and something I can easily afford. Coming up with $699 all at one time, and then $199 every 18 months, can often be difficult for the 99%.

If you’re considering a Photoshop lease, when you go to buy the product, in the dropdown box, select “Subscription” instead of “Upgrade” or “Full.”

Once you have any of these programs, if you have a question about how to do something, ask me. If I don’t know how to do it, I’ll find out. It helps me learn, and real-world examples are always much more fun than reading through a book or watching a tutorial.

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!

A rose by any other name is still a rose

 

My apologies to the literariasts (!) for bastardizing a great Shakespeare quote in Romeo and Juliet (“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would  smell as sweet”), but I just discovered that in many software programs you can define black, white, and gray.

I started having a little fun by telling CorelDRAW X6 that a deep dark red was actually black. I took this picture of a giant hibiscus at the San Diego Zoo yesterday:

 

I clicked on the color definition eyedropper for black and then clicked a dark red. CorelDRAW then reprocessed the image in just a couple of seconds. Then I clicked on “Auto adjust” and got this:

 

I was trying to analyze just exactly what CorelDRAW did and determined that if red is black, then there is a lot of the picture that is underexposed. Thus, when CorelDRAW went to auto adjust the picture, all those black (red) areas were brighted up a wee bit.

This opens a whole new realm of creating something that is me, kind of like Rubicorno has defined himself. The difference is that I can create my own preset, a preset that no one else in the world has.

At the very least, I’ve found something to do with my 73,000 pictures in my old age. 🙂

If my wise old grandmother were here, she’d say, “Interesting….”

 

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County? I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor with Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re just looking for a home inspector,
I can highly recommend Russel Ray; that’s me!