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Welcome back to the part four in our series on watermarking your photos. By now we’ve examined the reasons why watermarks are important and what information you should be adding in your watermarks, along with some Photoshop techniques for creating watermarks. In this tutorial, we’re going to take a look at Adobe Lightroom 3 and see just how wonderfully easy Adobe has made watermarking in …
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Aug 25th, 2010 – VANCOUVER, CANADA: PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 31st edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. PhotographyBB Online Magazine is a free publication with the goal of educating beginner to intermediate level photographers, and has become a leading resource in the future of free information distribution. PhotographyBB Online Magazine offers readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, discussions on issues surrounding the photo community, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom.
The edition features an in-depth look at lighting techniques for corporate and industrial photography, along with an exploration of light modifiers and their uses in portrait photography. Additionally, this issue looks at how and when to break photography’s sacred composition rules. Sometimes professional photographers experience a loss of passion for their own personal photography, and this month’s magazine explores 5 tips for keeping the passion alive beyond professional photo life.
Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:
This month we release our 31st consecutive monthly edition of the magazine. Right now the buzz is all about social networking online, which is why we’ve devoted a column to Social Media for Digital Photographers. However, this month we take a look at so-called ‘old fashioned’ social networking, and how today’s photographer can benefit from traditional networking. For those of us who have multiple computers in the home, we also have a great article outlining the various options and procedures for setting up a centralized storage point for your digital images, to be accessible by all the computers in your home. We’ve included a brief tutorial on how you can now import the PhotographyBB Online Magazine into iBooks for the Apple iPad!
Additionally, our new FREE subscription method has garnished overwhelming positive feedback on our brand new weekly photo-journals. Readers can subscribe at http://www.photographybb.com/subscribe where a handful of lucky readers will win an extremely cool Canon lens-style coffee mug!
By way of download in PDF format, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. Each edition contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers. In addition, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and practical tutorials on how to use image processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom to build on digital photography post-processing skills.
PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine
PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004).
For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at: http://www.photographybb.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/photographybb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photographybb
Just in time for the weekend we have a brand new photography assignment posted for you! If you are wondering why you should participate in these photo-assignments, here’s why! In our efforts to help photographers grow and improve, our photography assignments are designed to test and push your creative bounds to the limit. These photo assignments are intended to encourage our members to see the world in different ways, try new camera techniques, and photograph subject which you may normally shy away from. We feel that in doing this, you will ultimately find new challenges for yourself which will help us to all grow as photographers.
Our photography assignments are open to everyone at all skill levels and are to be submitted through our assignments section in the PhotographyBB Forums. Membership is completely free and you can register in seconds, so feel free to join our community of photographers where we participate in assignments, share photos, and discuss photography all day long! Now, onto your next photo assignment…
Assignment #42 Theme: Repetition
Timeframe: Aug 20th to Aug 31st, 2010
The challenge is to take a BRAND NEW showing the theme: Repetition
Entries are to be submitted here: Assignment 42: Repetition(PhotographyBB Forums)
Photographing repetition (repeating subjects) is a popular photographic technique to demonstrate a variety of things such as depth, texture, perspective, patterns, etc… It’s up to you to look at the world around you and find various instances of repetition, then photograph it for the assignment!
Important: With all of our photo assignments, the object (besides having fun) is to learn something new, even if that means learning how to see the world around you in a different way. Therefore, we only accept entries for new photos which have been taken during the assignment time frame (see above). You may submit up to 3 entries in total, and the top 3 photos will be selected and published (with image acknowledgments) in an upcoming issue of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine.
Everyone is welcome to participate. We have a supportive and friendly community of photographers and beginners, and this is a great way to get to know one another. Have fun, and happy photographing!
Hot off the digital press this morning comes another visually stunning epic from the Craft & Vision photo eBook library! The Magic of Black & White – Part III by Andrew S. Gibson continues where the first two left off; this time providing a deeper look into the thoughts behind each image, and the processing techniques used in this exploration of 9 works of photographic art.
Thoughtfully, the author does not leave the Photoshop Elements users out in the cold. There are a number of applicable techniques which Elements users are able to use, and some more advanced (albeit very easy to follow) techniques utilizing features of Photoshop. I found the split toning techniques to be especially inspirational, and they are methods I will be employing on my photos in the future.
As photographers, we must venture inside our own minds and thought processes sometimes, to become consciously aware of how we actually perceive the world around us. It’s not just about picking up the camera and looking through the lens… it’s about learning to translate the visual into an emotive vision. I happen to love self-exploration exercises, and this eBook starts off with a beauty! I won’t give it away, but going through this 5 minute exercise on any given day before a photo shoot will drastically improve your photos; even before you put your eye to the viewfinder.
This is the third in The Magic of Black & White series from Andrew S. Gibson. The first two, in my mind, were brilliant and this third one is equally so.
“The Magic of Black & White – Part III, Nine Photos, takes us through nine gorgeous black and white images with the goal of teaching more advanced techniques to give our images more subtlety and power. Clearly taught in Photoshop, and 5 of the lessons in Photoshop Elements, Andrew takes us through Toning, Split Toning, Exposure Blending, Textures, and the creation of Diptyches and Triptyches, all without losing sight of the idea that our work should be driven by intent with the goal of creating photographs that honour the Artist’s need for expression and the Geek’s need for excellence of craft. And all that without getting mired down – the examples and the illustrations Andrew provides compliment his clear teaching style and make this book a pleasure to read.
Of course, there’s a spectacular offer as you can imagine: For the first four days only, if you use the promotional code WHITE4 when you checkout, you can have The Magic of Black and White – Part III for only $4 OR use the code WHITE20 to get 20% off when you buy 5 or more books from the Craft & Vision collection. That’s cheaper than a whole photo course, and equally worth it! These codes expire at 11:59pm PST AUGUST 22, 2010.
Welcome to the third post in our series on Digital Watermarking Techniques! Many of you have asked about using frames, and while they are not a typical “watermark” so to speak, they do offer the same limited protections that a conventional watermark does. The use of frames as a watermark per se, is a rather controversial decision, and some would say it serves a more aesthetic purpose. As we discussed in our previous posts on watermarking, unless you cover your whole image with an unsightly watermark, NO watermark technique provides 100% protection for your photos from the online image-bandits. However, using as frame such as the following, does lend a nice finishing touch while letting the viewers know more about yourself, website, and photo location. Of course, these techniques can be modified to suit a number of styles, so feel free to experiment and have some fun with this!
To make the automation of this process easier for future images, let’s start by creating a Photoshop Action which can be used over and over again with one-click.
Open your Actions Palette (Menu: Window > Actions) and at the bottom of the Actions palette, click on the little folder icon to create a new Actions Set. When the dialog box pops up, name this set “Watermark Frames” or something along those lines.
Next, click on the “Create New Action” icon (at the bottom of the Actions palette) and name this Action “Poster Frame 1″ while making sure it belongs to the Watermark Frames Set which you just created. Once you click OK, you’ll notice that the little red “record” icon is lit at the bottom of the Actions palette, indicating that your Action is now recording.
Since we are dealing with images intended for web sharing, let’s resize the photo using the methods we’ve previously discussed. Go to the menu: File > Automate > Fit Image… and constrain your photo to 900 x 900 pixels (or whichever maximum dimensions you decide are appropriate).
We’re going to start building the frame from the inside outward, so let’s add some detail to the edge of our photo now. Double click on the “Background” layer in the layers palette, and rename this layer to “photo” or simply the default which is “Layer 0.” This tells Photoshop that our photo is no longer going to be the “background” layer, which allows us to do some additional editing to it.
Add a stroke to this layer by going to the menu: Layer > Layer Style > Stroke…
Use an inside stroke of 1 to 2 pixels, with the color set as black.
Next, go to the menu: Layer > Layer Style > Inner Glow…
First, click on the glow color (default is a pale yellow) and change it to black. Next, change the blend mode of this layer to “Multiply” from the drop-down menu. You can choose the best settings for your image, but I used a size of 5 pixels, and changed the technique from “softer” to “precise.” Feel free to play around with any of the settings to see how they affect your image. As you’ll see from the result, this adds a nice inner shadow to your photo.
Hold down the Control (PC) or Command (Mac) key, and click on the “Create New Layer” icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. This creates a new layer under our photo layer.
With this new layer active in the layers palette, go to the menu: Image > Canvas Size…
Here you can change the canvas size to add some space around your photo. Make sure you click on the “Relative” checkbox, then you can decide how large you want your border to be. Of course, you can choose the dimensions you desire. Here I went with an extension of 150 pixels around the who image. Click OK.
Since we plan to add some text to the frame, you may like the bottom part of your border to be a bit larger than the rest of the border. We can do this by going back to the canvas size menu again: Image > Canvas Size…
This time, keep the “Relative” checkbox clicked, and click on the center-top arrow to anchor your image, which will only extend the canvas along the bottom. Consequently, you’ll want to enter a pixel value in the “Height” field to indicate how large the canvas extension should be. Here I went with 100 more pixels.
You will have noticed that your frame has no particular color at this point. Now that the canvas size is set the way we like it, go to the menu: Edit > Fill… choose “White” as the fill color, and ensure that “Preserve Transparency” is NOT checked. Click OK!
Before we add the text, let’s finish the canvas by adding a small border around the edges also. As we did in step 3, go to the menu: Layer > Layer Style > Stroke… and add a black border, 3 pixels (or however thick you would like it), with the position set to “inside.”
Using the Text Tool, click on your image in the bottom area of your frame (where you’d like the text to show), and type any information you would like to include. You can give your image a title if you like, but remember the goal of the watermark is to provide the viewer with some way of knowing who took this photo. It’s probably best to include either your full name or website in your text. Once you have typed your text, click on the little checkmark icon at the top of the screen to commit your text to the image.
With your text layer still active, hold down the shift key and click on the canvas layer (named Layer 1 if you did not rename it). This will select both layers in your layers palette. Go to the menu: Layer > Align > Horizontal Centers which will center your text horizontally with your large border.
Since adding the outer border by expanding the canvas dimensions, we’ve increased the overall dimensions of this image. If you would like to resize it back to 900 pixels maximum again, simply repeat Step 2 and constrain the image back to 900 pixels.
Go back to your Actions palette, and click on the stop recording button at the bottom of the Actions palette. Your framing Action is now complete and ready to be used on any of your photos! To run this Action on any of your images, open a photo in Photoshop, open your Actions palette and choose this Poster Frame action, and click Play. Everything you just did in this tutorial will be repeated automatically!
Of course, with each different photo, you may wish to edit the text. Since the text is on its own layer, you can double click on it anytime with the text tool to make any changes you desire.
Have fun with this technique and feel free to adapt it or make any modifications you’d like. The possibilities are endless! In our next watermarking article, we’ll have a look at watermarking in Lightroom 3. Until then… Happy Photoshopping!
