July 7, 2010 by
Mike Hoffman
Today’s post is all about lines. Straight lines, curved lines, jagged lines, criss-crossed lines, you name it. This morning I saw a ladder, and it got me to thinking about lines, and after that everywhere I looked, I followed the lines, and I encourage you to do the same. By recognizing the lines in a scene, you can take advantage of the opportunity to take a simple snapshot and make it into a great image.
Lines can be interesting or boring, and when they are plain horizontal or vertical, they can fatigue the viewer. When angled and especially when asymmetrical, they can really add depth and perspective to a photo. Consider the way the offset lines draw you right into these images:
Sometimes the lines can be curvy or wavy, but the effect remains – grab your attention and pull it into the scene:
Within nature, we find the same organic trend towards perspective and symmetry.
But, by breaking the symmetry, we impart greater tension, interest and impact with our images:
Take note of the lines in your photographs. Strive to break the symmetry, shoot to add perspective and draw the viewer in. Give it a try!
May 13, 2010 by admin
I’ve recently completed a series of tutorials on Photoshop’s "Blend Modes," which are interesting and creative ways of mixing layers together according to color and brightness of the layer contents. If you haven’t explored this facet of Photoshop, I encourage you to give it a try – there are virtually unlimited ways you can use these capabilities to enhance your images.
You can find my series over at the TipSquirrel blog – where we’re nuts about Photoshop! Pop over and check out my tutorials, as well as those of quite a few other excellent instructors and artists!
My blend modes series includes:
Blend Mode Basics Part 1 – Screen Blending for Lightening
Blend Mode Basics Part 2 – Multiply Blending for Darkening
Blend Mode Basics Part 3 – Layer Styles and Blend Modes
Blend Mode Basics Part 4 – Overlay Blending for Contrast
Blend Modes Part 5 – Overlay Blending for Sharpening
Blend Modes Part 6 – Overly Blending for Softening
Blend Modes Part 7 – Refining Masks with Overlay Blending
Blend Modes Part 8 – Image Alignment and Analysis with Difference Blending
Blend Modes Part 9 – Creative Difference Blending
Blend Modes Part 10 – Introducing Luminosity Sharpening
Blend Modes Part 11 – Luminosity Sharpening Three Ways
Blend Modes Part 12 – Creative Luminosity Techniques
I hope you find these tips and tricks to be helpful and inspiring!
April 8, 2010 by admin
As I mentioned yesterday, Adobe will conduct their official global launch of Creative Suite 5 on Monday, April 12… at 8am PDT. Here’s the great part – once the announcement and launch is official, those of us who’ve been testing the beta version of the software will be able to talk about it openly and in depth. And, that means tutorials galore!
Hoffman Art Design has teamed with some exciting partners to provide a stream of high quality tutorial information, starting Tuesday, April 13, over at the TipSquirrel blog. I’m proud to join Tim Shelbourne, Janine Smith, Justin Seeley and A.J. Wood in providing a suite of education to help ease your migration to the latest Adobe platform!
Stay tuned!
April 5, 2010 by admin
If you’re using Photoshop, and aren’t familiar with the Blending Modes available for use within this powerful program, you are missing out! Blend modes can apply to layers, but can also be used in conjunction with various tools, layer effects and other parts of Photoshop.
I’ve been running through a series of tutorials on the Photoshop Blend Modes over on TipSquirel.com, and I encourage you to drop by to take a look at the possibilities that Blend Modes can bring to the creative party! Head over now to see what you’ve been missing:
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December 29, 2009 by admin
We see loads of tutorials online teaching aspiring photographers how to retouch portraits of people, but it’s not very common to see one that deals with our avian friends. Nevertheless, retouching in bird photography is every bit as important (maybe more so) than retouching people. Since most birds haven’t had the chance to apply makeup before the shoot, we’re going to have to give them a little bit of help in post production to have them looking their best!
So, join me as we apply a little bit of makeup, mascara, and maybe even (gasp) a little plastic surgery as we retouch our bird portrait – and take it from good to great.
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December 22, 2009 by admin
Over in the NAPP forums, last Christmas a user asked about creating textures of pine needles or straw to be able to draw a Christmas Tree. I offered a simple solution using the brush engine, and after a few requests, and enhancements (adding snow) decided to create this tutorial. I posted it on the forums at that time, but now have decided to post it online here for all to share.
Merry Christmas! I hope you’ll enjoy this!
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November 17, 2009 by admin
One thing I really love about Photoshop is that it offers many different ways to solve a problem. There is generally no right or wrong way, just another way! And in coming up to speed with Photoshop, one of the key skills you’ll need to develop is creating selections and masks.
As with most other areas of the program, there are many ways to create a selection: ranging from the selection tools themselves (lasso, marquee, quick select, etc), to brushing on a layer mask or quick selection using any of the brush tools (brush, pencil, eraser, stamp, smudge, gradient, dodge, burn, etc) to even alt-clicking on a layer’s or channel’s thumbnail to load it as a selection (opt-click for you Mac users). However, I’m going to set all that aside today, and focus on another way to create complex selections – using paths and the paths panel.
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November 13, 2009 by admin
We’ve seen that Adobe Bridge is a very powerful tool for managing many types of files, but with Creative Suite documents, and Camera Raw files, the Bridge is outstanding. This power comes at a cost in terms of system loading, though, and Adobe’s developers realized that not all systems are state of the art, blazing fast systems with unlimited memory. For that reason, they have added some ability to control Bridge’s on-the-fly performance and throttle back some of the processing power demanded, for those occasions when your system (or your patience) just isn’t up to it. One of the ways this is done is by controlling the display of thumbnails in the Content window.
Unfortunately, these settings frequently confuse new Bridge users. I’ll look at this problem and offer some solutions and pointers for taking control of Bridge’s display of thumbnails, and making it work for you.
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October 29, 2009 by admin
Today, I have two quick Power Tips for using Adobe’s Camera Raw. These are just a couple of little time savers that aren’t obvious… and if you didn’t know they were there, you could skim right past them without seeing them.
Take a gander at these tips, and I hope they will lead you to further discoveries in the world of Adobe Camera Raw. Should you want to learn more, I’ve added some links to further learning at the end of this article.
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October 20, 2009 by admin
One of the most frequently asked questions regarding Adobe Bridge CS4 is, “What happened to Contact Sheets?” They are no longer available as a script, although the Contact Sheet II, Picture Package, and other “missing” scripts are still available for download (Mac). In fact, if you ordered Photoshop CS4 in the box, you’ll find this and other scripts in the “Goodies” folder on the Content disk.
However, the reason these scripts aren’t installed by default, is that they’ve largely been replaced by Bridge’s new Output work space. With this work space, the Bridge developers have taken a hint from Lightroom’s Output Module, and have created an experience that, well, heads in that direction. As you’ll see, there is still room for improvement; but give the new work space a chance – it is certainly an improvement over the CS3 scripts, and I’m sure you’ll see many ways that it will help make you more productive.
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