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Welcome to the 21st issue of the Digital Darkroom
Hi
A happy holiday season to all, and for everyone who celebrates it, a very Merry Christmas!
At BetterPhoto, we are busy with preparations for our next set of online courses, which begin January 5th. Our stellar winter schedule also introduces new instructor Jeff Wignall. His terrific course - The Joy of Digital Photography - is patterned after his fine book of the same name. For details:
http://www.betterphoto.com/photocourses/JEF01.asp
We also extend a warm invitation to any BetterPhoto members who would like to join Jim Miotke and Kerry Drager at a Winter Horse Roundup in Montana! This event (January 11th-12th) isn't a workshop or seminar; rather, it offers the chance to shoot colorful running horses and Western-dressed wranglers in winter scenery, while hanging out with Kerry and I. If you're interested, sign up with Triple "D" today, since there are just a few spaces left:
http://www.tripledgamefarm.com/horse-sessions.html
In this Digital Darkroom, check out my article on combining images with text. In addition, our photo discussions involve a wonderful range of imagery: "straight" shots with a Photoshop "accent", fine photos that are pure digital art, and everything in between.
May your holidays be filled with harmony, joy, and great photo ideas.
To read the online version of the Digital Darkroom at our Web site, visit http://www.betterphoto.com/digitalpics/
Have a great month!
Jim Miotke
http://www.betterphoto.com/MG.asp?ID=124
In This Issue: Thursday, December 23, 2004
Featured Photo: Happy holidays from Lexus
 Happy holidays from Lexus Shot in b/w used colorize brushes in microsoft digital 9 to add soft red color. © Darla Cobus Fuji Finepix s7000... |
Featured Article: Combining Words, Images, and Inspiration ... By Jim Miotke
With many image editing programs like Photoshop, you can easily incorporate words to photos and add instant meaning. This is so easy - anyone can do it. In his article, "Text and the Type Tool," BetterPhoto founder Jim Miotke shares his tips and tricks for blending photographic images with text. Also, don't miss Jim's inspiring new gallery - entitled "Inspirational" - where he places biblical and other inspirational quotations on some of his favorite images.
Read more...
 The Porthole A composite. I included the original image for comparison in the discussion comments of this image. I added the view through the porthole from another one of my images and the reflection. I also toned the image gold using Autofx Tint/Tone/Color software. |  Original Porthole Image |
| Each month, the best Before and After will be featured in the Digital Darkroom. To participate, upload a Before (original) picture then start a discussion on it (using the Discuss This Photo link under the picture). After telling us how you did created the effect, select "1" or "2" from the Upload Image pull-down menu, and submit an optional intermediate image and a final (After) photo. Aim to educate and inspire by sharing a concise, detailed explanation of your technique. Enjoy! |
A Season of Photography, Education ... And Fun!
| Are you ready to take the next step in your photography? We have a fantastic schedule of winter online courses covering these categories: Photoshop, beginning photography, composition and the art of seeing, digital photography, shooting technique, specialty subjects, business and marketing, and lighting and exposure. Our standard classes run 8 weeks, but we also offer some exciting 4-Week "Short Courses" on specialized subjects. See BetterPhoto's complete schedule: Learn more... |
New Photo Discussions
New Photo Discussion 1: Untitled
- Kevin Elliott See Kevin's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:Hi, Lisa!! Good to see you here!! Very artistic creation, and wonderful play with those gorgeous colors! Care to tell us which flower you used :-)? Much Aloha, Stan - Stan Contrades See Stan's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 2:Thank you for your comments, Kevin and Stan! :) Stan, to answer your question ... I didn't use a flower. This image stared out as just a few blobs of color on a white background, and as I began brushing and smudging ... the image you see took form. I used a similar technique for my other image also (The digital airbrush). Creating this image was a nice, creative change for me. I enjoyed creating it and am glad you like it. - Lisa Pereira See Lisa's Premium BetterPholio™ Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 2: Purple Gaze
- Cathy I. Barrows See Cathy's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:I agree. This is a great image, Candice!!! - Tammy D. Nuxoll See Tammy's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 2:Thanks, Cathy and Tammy. To answer your question, I cut the eyes out of the original photo and applied accented edges adjusted to a smooth texture. Then I boosted the contrast way up and did a hue adjustment until the colors were the way I wanted them. Finally, I sharpened the edges and applied USM ... ccc - Candice C. Calhoun See Candice's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 3:Great use of effects, Candice. I like the originality. - Donna Pagakis See Donna's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 4:FANTASTIC image, Candice! Love your dramatic framing and effects on this! - Dan J. Holm See Dan's Premium BetterPholio™ Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 3: '54 Vette
- Arthur S. Brood Response 1:Thanks, Arthur! Actually, the car was white. I used a solarization filter, and the car turned black. I then removed all color from the reflections in the chrome. - Rob Bishop See Rob's Premium BetterPholio™ Visit robgbob.com - Rob's Deluxe BetterPholio™ Response 2:Very nice job on this, Rob, and great effects work as well!! Will have to check to see if my brother still has his red one ... maybe I can turn that one white :-)!! Well done!! Aloha. - Stan Contrades See Stan's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 3:Marvelous capture and presentation, Rob, I love the cropped composition and the effects. Very well done, my friend - your friend, Allan - Allan L. Whitehead See Allan's Premium BetterPholio™ Visit ArrowheadFotos.com - Allan's Deluxe BetterPholio™ Response 4:Superb!! - Laurence Saliba See Laurence's Premium BetterPholio™ Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 4: Pencil Portrait
This is great! How did you accomplish this? - Randy L. Morgan See Randy's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:Thanks, Randy... Essentially, the majority of modification is done adjusting the levels in Photoshop (after converting to black and white). You slide the white point slider to the right far enough to almost blow out the whites and then slide the grey pont slider to the right to get the pencil look. Add a little gausian blur (but bring back the sharpness to the eyes, mouth, and nose). Then tweak to taste ... - John Wright Visit photobing.com - John's Deluxe BetterPholio™ Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 5: Van Gogh Inspiration
- Murtaza H. Saeed See Murtaza's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:Thanks so much for your kind words, Murtaza. I'm really not quite sure how I did this. It was supposed to be a holiday card with palms, and somewhere along the way it got kind of wild and reminded of "Starry Night" ... albeit not THAT great I admit:) I used various PS filters, as well as Alien filters. To paint on the color, I took a snapshot of the image at the highest saturation, used a guassian blue, took a snapshot and then used a "history" star brush to pick up the color. - Kristi A. Howson See Kristi's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 2:I hope it did become a holiday card in the end, it certainly deserves to be one. It looks really special. I like wild-looking images! Thanks for the information on how you made this. The history star brush is a simple yet outstanding idea put to great effect by you! I have to get my hands on some alien filters one of these days ... :) - Murtaza H. Saeed See Murtaza's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 3:Very nice use of filters and colors!! Great design!! - Donna Pagakis See Donna's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 4:Thanks again, Murtaza:) Now if I could just photograph Santa and the Raindeers I might get a card out of it:) Everything was done with this in Photoshop except for the massive Star effect ... which was "constellation" from Alien. The colored stars and large ones is the corner is from the brush in PS. Thanks very much, Donna, for your kind comments. Coming from a Brooks grad, that means a lot. Brooks has some great classes on digital photography that I've taken ... particularly one on expsosure and lighting has helped me so much with my digital SLR. | |
New Photo Discussion 6: Rte 7 Farm in Western Massachusetts
LarryL http://lsqrd.blogspot.com/ - Larry Lawhead See Larry's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:Thank you, Larry :). Muted is correct! The day I shot this started out sunny and then (typical of western Massachusetts) the sky just completely clouded over. There were a ton of brambles in front of me, so I had a hard time getting the composition I wanted - and still wasn't totally happy with where the pony was. Oh well, you take have to make the most of it. I softed the color of the barn by "selecting" it (using the "Magic Wand" tool) in Photoshop and then adjusting the color balance. - Jeff Wignall See Jeff Wignall's Premium BetterPholio™ Take an Online PhotoCourse™ with Jeff Wignall: The Joy of Digital Photography with Jeff Wignall Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 7: Countryside Impressions
- Joannie M. Bertucci See Joannie's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:Thanks, Joannie ... I went wild with my Thumbs Plus program. Playing around mostly ... looks like a painting now instead of a photograph ... but I kind of liked it. :-) - Randy K. Baldwin Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 8: Santa's Cosmic Tea
- Marcie Fowler See Marcie's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:Awesome image ... love the whimiscal colors ... just a great holiday image! - C.J. Patterson See C.J.'s Premium BetterPholio™ Response 2:Thanks, Marcie and C.J.. This was a fun image. I wasn't really going for this cartoon style at first, but just loved it so much I had to submit it. Thanks again! - Kara L. Hendricks See Kara's Premium BetterPholio™ Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 9: Paul's Roses 03
- Michelle Prince Response 1:Yes. I used a PS version of the sandwich technique. I started by copying the layer and applying a gaussian blur. I then varied the opacity of this new layer so that the sharp layer (beneath) became more visible. Finally, I created a mask on the blurred layer, and painted it in with shades of gray so that parts of the sharp layer became even more visible. The gaussian blur was the only filter that I used. -Bob - Robert A. Burns Visit robertburnsphotography.com - Robert's Deluxe BetterPholio™ Response 2:Thank you for sharing that. It is beautiful. - Michelle Prince Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 10: Home For The Holiday
- Dale Gast See Dale's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:Terrific image and wonderful effects, Kip! Great composition! - Sanjay Pindiyath See Sanjay's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 2:Wonderful presentation and effects, Kip. I know how much work this was and the results show. Very well done, my dear friend - your good friend, Allan - Allan L. Whitehead See Allan's Premium BetterPholio™ Visit ArrowheadFotos.com - Allan's Deluxe BetterPholio™ Response 3:So very, very well done Kip. Would make an absolutely beautiful Christmas card! - Marcie Fowler See Marcie's Premium BetterPholio™ Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 11: Yellow Headed Blackbird
- Leanne M.E. Boyd See Leanne's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:Outstanding capture, Jim!!! Gorgeous detail and color! I love the white BG. - Sharon D. See Sharon's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 2:Thanks, Leanne and Sharon! When I did the levels adjustment layer, I used the white eyedropper on the background and it gave me the above but still preserved the black and yellow details in the bird. The original BG was a shade darker (grey/blue). - Jim Kinnunen Visit KinnunenPhoto.com - Jim's Deluxe BetterPholio™ Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 12: Emergency Meeting of the Astral Lords
- Dan J. Holm See Dan's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:Thanks, Dan, love your work with patterns! The various filters/tools used were, curves, diffuse glow, render-lighting effects, poster edges, a cartoon art plugin from harry's filters and Nik sharpener pro to add the final touch! (Smile) Norm ,:-) - Norman P. Banks See Norman 's Premium BetterPholio™ Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 13: Glyph
- Janet Skinner Visit jskinnerphotography.com - Janet's Deluxe BetterPholio™ Response 1:LOL I have to agree with Janet- fantastic curves, Paul! - Kathleen Clemons See Kathleen's Premium BetterPholio™ Visit kathleenclemonsphotography.com - Kathleen's Deluxe BetterPholio™ Response 2:I really like this Paul! Strong graphics make this pleasing! Good luck with this! - Dolores Neilson See Dolores's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 3:WOW! Very cool! A super abstract, Paul. I love these vibrant blue slicing swirls; much more of a futureglyph than a hieroglyph. I hope you're going to post the before so we can all see what the heck this is. ..mike ;-] | |
New Photo Discussion 14: Romance is Ageless
- Noel Baebler See Noel's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:Thanks for your comment, Noel. Admittedly, the mid-afternoon concourse wasn't a very romantic setting. However, these seniors demonstrated such affection for each other that I hoped their photo could capture that. I appreciate knowing you thought the feeling of romance was achieved. - Glenda M. Powers Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
New Photo Discussion 15: Quick! Get the Tylenol!
- Jane Summa See Jane's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 1:Thanks so much Jane! Just trying new things with different exposure times. It's all so much fun! - Kristy E. Lane Response 2:I've been truly amazed since I've been on BP at the strange things that make cool pictures. This is very different. I would never think of snapping a shot like this. Thinking outside of the box! Very neat. - Kara L. Hendricks See Kara's Premium BetterPholio™ Response 3:Yes, I just love this site. It's wonderful. I don't know what my train of thought was with this picture. I just know it started with the fact that my 6-month-old has his first cold so we had all of our baby meds. sitting on the counter ... so, of course, I got the camera out! - Kristy E. Lane Read this discussion online Respond to this discussion | |
The Next Step: Where to Go From Here
