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Thursday, December 27, 2007

Vintage Kitchen


Vintage Kitchen
Originally uploaded by runnerone
This is up as an example for the following Quick Tip.

I took this shot from Mel's kitchen floor after we spent a couple of hours making ginger breads for Xmas!

Vintage Decor Look perhaps?

Quick Tip # 5 - The Vintage Decor Look

Well, that's what I like to call it anyway. For me it's very reminiscent of the old 50's and 60's magazine covers of kitchens, etc.

So anyway, I've been asked how I did this one so I've put together a very quick tip. Now I'm assuming you've got a fair understanding of Photoshop (that's about all I have!) and can muddle your way through all the requisite adjustments you'll have to make as you go to get the image looking just the way you'll like it.


Step 1. I used a fairly colour neutral image to begin with; nothing too glary or contrasty (is that a word?). If you've got something like that I think it's the best way to go, if not, I'd be really interested to see how something else comes out.

Step 2. For starters, I applied Shannon Beauford's "Lomo Cross Process" action which you can find here. You can't make much in the way of adjustments there unless you want to step back through the history.

Step 3. I then applied Dave Jaseck's "Midnight Blue" action which you can find here. Depending on what your image's primary colour is will determine which action you'll go with. Obviously mine was blue. You can adjust the opacity of the layer this action is applied to but ensure you flatten the image before the next step.

Step 4. Now you can apply Roman Flossler's "Fake HDR" action which you can find on his website: http://www.nill.cz/index.php?set=tu1

Step 5. I made plenty of changes to the layer presets from this action and here's where you can play around with them to get your image looking right. Again, flatten the image before moving on.

Step 6. Edgar Berendsen's "Glamblur", which you can find here, is up next. You'll have plenty of options during the running of this action to modify it so have fun with it; you can always jump back and try again if it doesn't work. Make sure you flatten that image too...

Step 7. Make adjustments to the colours, contrast and brightness at this point.

Step 8. As a final touch, you can apply Anna Bottom's "Amanda's Edge Vignette", which you can find here. As the name suggests, it applies a nice vignette effect to the image that finishes it off; to my taste anyway.

Step 9. Flatten that image, sit back and appreciate.


Hopefully this has turned out looking something like the image above (only if you've taken a shot of the same kitchen though!).

Happy snapping!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Quick Tip #4 - Creating a Duotone Image

Here's the link to the Duotone Action for Photoshop I mentioned. It's is the easy way out of making a Duotone image, but so much faster than doing it manually.

There's also a Duotone Simulation available here for GIMP as well as a good Sepiatone Tutorial here.

So below is a snappy tutorial on creating a duotone image. You'll need to preload these duotone presets before going ahead with the work. Just unzip them and save them to a safe location, you'll be using them later.

Step 1. Open a copy of the original image you wish to work with.

Step 2. Desaturate the image (Shift+Ctrl+U) and then using the Brightness/Contrast sliders (menu Image|Adjustments|Brightness/Contrast), raise or lower the contrast accordingly to get your black and whites balanced.

Step 3. Open the Duotone dialogue box (menu item Image|Mode|Duotone).

Step 4. In the Duotone options box, there are three choices; duotone, tritone or quadtone (I prefer duotone for most shots). Select which method you prefer from the 'Type' drop down menu. This is where loading the presets comes in.

Step 5. Select 'Load' in the dialogue box. From the duotones/tritones pre-set folder, navigate to where you saved presets, and double click on one of them. This loads the preset into the duotones dialogue box and applies the tone to your photo accordingly.

Note: You can adapt and save your own customised duotones by clicking on one or more colors in the duotone dialogue box. When you do this, either the ‘Colour picker’ or ‘Pantone’ color box will appear. Choose the color you want and select ‘Ok.’

Step 6. If you like, you can further modify the pantone settings by clicking in the ‘Curve’ area to the left of the pantone colour box. This will change the colour brightness across different parts of the spectrum. I don't really see the point of it as you can make adjustments later by applying different Layer filters as required, but each to their own.

Step 7. When you're satisfied with your colours in the ‘Duotone Curve’ option box, Select ‘Ok’, then select ‘Save’ in the Duotone box to save your customised duotone into your pre-sets folder.

Step 8. I like to use a small amount of Diffuse Glow (menu Filter|Distort|Diffuse Glow) and an even smaller amount of Gaussian Blur (menu Filter|Blur|Gaussian Blur) at about Radius 0.5 pixels to take the edge off the sharpness a bit (it's a favourite). You could also apply a Film Grain filter if you want to further enhance the image, but experiment until you're happy.

Step 9. Before you can save the file as a JPG, you'll have to convert back to RGB color (menu item Image|Mode|RGB Colour).


That's it!


Happy snapping ;)

Monday, December 10, 2007

Duotone Otters


Duotone Otters
Originally uploaded by runnerone
I love this effect...I'll post up a link to the action shortly or maybe I'll actually post the process itself this time!

I managed to save this image that I would have otherwise discarded due to too much noise and a bit of blur around the otter's mouths.

Basically it's using a black and sepia colour separation scheme instead of the standard CMYK pallette.


Happy snapping!

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Teracotta Paintjob


Teracotta Paintjob
Originally uploaded by runnerone
Here's another example to the post below, with a light HDR effect applied.

Forest Glow


Forest Glow
Originally uploaded by runnerone
Here's an example of how you can make a fairly average shot more interesting. I applied a simple Fake HDR filter to it after cleaning it up and just played with the variables until I came up with this.

I realise not many of you have Photoshop, but there's a great Fake HDR action available here. The whole process is nicely laid out on Roman Flössler's website here: http://www.nill.cz/index.php?set=tu1

It's a bit lengthy and can probably be translated across to GIMP as most of the actions and processes are pretty much the same there anyway.

When you see the amount of detail in the steps involved to produce the effect, you'll see why using the action is far simpler than me trying to explain the process manually!


Happy snapping!