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Into it now and using a combination of wacom and mouse to ease myself into this brave new world of tablet based work. So...the quickest way to learn was to go to the Wacom site and also Lynda.com and have a bit of Kelbyone thrown in for good measure...still waiting for all the button functions to stick so I have them all written out next to the Intuos Pad..a good old fashioned crib sheet. Well without further ado I have been back and getting stuck into painting in Photoshop CC, the image below was made up of 8 different layers using the mixer brush function and various brush sizes, now I'm not going to do any training videos just yet as I'm still at the bottom of the learning curve but can see how this could develop especially in the portrait field  So one more to do tonight and then I'll see what else I can get up to with this new system that I'm working with. I've got the double monitor thing just about set up but first back to the flowers for some more intricate paintwork...and here's one hot off the digitl canvas 
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Simple but effective retouching work in Photoshop. If you havn't used layers and blend modes then try this and there are a few sneaky little tips in here as well. IR72 and ND110 filters polished so off out to the great outdoors for some scenic landscape photography. Old dog, new tricks...it dosn't work apparently so as ever I set my jaw square against the twin imposters and threw myself into a dollop of new learning. Problem I have now is that I seem to be replacing my knowledge base with new stuff instead of adding to it.. doh..mind you if you let me loose on Photoshop 4.1 (from the dark ages) I'm sure something would stir and I could muddle through. That said, I quite like finding something new to titivate the visual tastebuds and this week this is what I've been up to. Oh changed from single app Photoshop CC to Pshop CC and LR5 for £8.98 saving 6 quid for more software....hmm.. have a look here So first up the Nik collection of software from Google, it's great, serious addition to LR5 and CC as a programme based filter, I've been delving but mostly I've gone through all the Nik software training and had a play, if you can't/don't like masks or masking then get it...... so new software learnt... and then there's all the analogue, color efx and if you are of that persuasion...Hdr. Click the image below to have a look  So if you are that regular reader of this stuff, thankyou btw., you'll have been up to speed with my computer graphics card death and the upgrading of the aforementioned...well I think I've come to a plateau in the upgrade front on this here old Dell and as I am a power crazed despot it's time for an upgrade. So I've gone for a data munching 1Tb 16gb of ram Dual 24" monitors monster..apparently it's called Hal and as I'm called Dave I can see no problems occuring at all.... coming this week...have filled 2 Hds with images from this old girl...who strangely is running like a rocket now all the junk has been deleted or shuffled off to a portable HD.... oh and a new Wacom Intuos Pro...hmmm nice and a couple of samsung 1TB Hds ..well..as I am getting a bit creaky I think this could the last big upgrade before befuddlement overwhelms me. meh... Now have some new filters...shiny new Hoya Infra red R72 and ND110...springtime..I have plans.... watch this space, I think this could look mad... Time spent watching all of Dave Blacks light painting tutorials on Kelbyone....again watch this space or go and see Dave Black's work here I have some ideas..oh yes some mad stuff in my head that will look like nothing else and probably be destined for my 'Marmite' folder. Found out I had this option in my 500px account..so played, actually quite a good way of pre-visaulising what your images look like as framed artworks..  There's other stuff but the sun is out and Daisy one of my Tortoises has emerged, yet again, from her winters slumber so before the Rugby comes on TTFN until the next time lensmiths... If you have Photoshop you will find that there are great swathes of it that you'll never use, it's so big, so powerful and if working with Photographs is your thing, well there's enough in there to keep you fully occupied without wandering off into 3D, graphics, design, type....or painting...Now then, I'm running CS6 on this old clunker of a desktop of mine and although I've loaded up maximum RAM and have a host of scratch disks spinning, my graphics card has always adopted the position of reclining on a chaise longue having peeled grapes on tap whilst everything else has been working themselves into a white hot maelstrom of solder melting intensity..until recently that is. So the expiration of said graphics card meant I have had to search about for something that will fit in with this old antique of mine yet pump up the volume on the graphics front and after trawling many a nerdy forum I have this new AMD enhanced GL card carrying it's own ram , quietly flexing it's knotted steel pecs and generally making working in CS6 more yabbadabbado than yabbadabbadon't, I know...get to the point...well I've done some painting in this past but now I feel that I have a machine capable of keeping up with what I want to do and working with me in real time.... so here's the first....  and if we get in lets take a look at that brushwork....  I reckon that this has some legs in the Portrait field and today...after another bout of taking stuff to the local tips...I will crack on. If , at some stage soon, if I manage to get on top of this Chest infection and stop hacking, then I'll start some video tutorial stuff, might be a week or so as my chesticles are still being attacked by whatever Spanish bug I sucked in...... until the next time.....
Just a little nudge here...if you do use any of the techniques and stuff in my videos please add a link back to the tutorial... this is for everyone to try...there's some folk out there not doing it...just like i do share it out. So I made an exec decision and I'm going mono with the shots from Spain, that include some of the multi exposure stuff as well so without further ado, oh the chest infection you ask, getting there but get your cagoule on if I start hacking.....  Salt caked. So longish lens shooting into the sun with a 6 exposure in camera multi shot, just remember that the longer the lens the less you have to 'move' the camera during your exposure run. This one babove is 6 shots working downwards until I ended up shooting the sea, remember that the last frame you take will become the dominant part of the image...lots of ship movements around Algeciras.....  Playground Boats again but the technique modified to achieve this result, very slight movements during the seperate exposures, this is all in camera btw, only conversion work is todo the mono. One thing you have to look out for is dirt and boulders on your sensor...6 exposure multi's means that much more spotting out later so keep your sensor cleaning regime up to the mark. The one below is Vigin Atlantic waiting on the apron which looked like it might work as a multi shot whilst I had a sandwich  Virgin Atlantic ...and to finish off one from the beach...it was 18 degrees...I thought it was hot!!! Locals didn't  Safety Keen eyed viewers will have noticed the re-emergence of the 16 x 9 crop format on the landscape format shots, if you hadn't then ...er... you've just been told...
Well I think I need to go on an online training video but I seem to have got the hang of the basics of sharing. Okay I've had a 'presence' on there for a while but that was all to do with the Photowalk stuff from the last 2 years and as we are into a new year I thought I'd see what happens with this aspect of photo sharing social media. So I joined a lot of photography groups yesterday and made a beginners mistake by leaving the group notifications on, if you like a full inbox then do that, so quickly reversed the notification thing and have stumbled through the next phase of learning which is the 'sharing' thing...I know I'm on the cusp of old dufferdom but it really isn't intuitive, I'll go and look at some training videos with a strong cup of coffee and try to absorb some of the finer points...surely it must be simple...if not I'll just sit there until something sticks. On other news I updated to Windows 8.1...colours a bit brighter and snappier icons but I'm struggling to see what the difference is, probably due to my imminent dufferdom and lack of intrest in the whole thing. Sent off another file of book cover photos ( photos used in the loosest sense) and let the caffeine and creativity wander off into areas anew...have a look at this one...mildly barking I've got to admit but as ever, most of these are dotted along the learning curve so if they get rejected, well at least I've learnt something new in Photoshop.... Oh you'll find me here https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DavidJohnsonphotography/posts 
Load of Cock
Okay another Video tutorial, part one of 'Mirroring'...now that might not make sense so I'll show you some mirror images I've done recently... So from almost real to barking mad..this is the first part where I show you the basic technique and get you started on your own creations. have fun with this and if you do use this technique just give this page a link so other folk can give it a whiz as well. Okay so you survived that one, lets take it a bit further...... So , check your image size, create a crop as a preset which reduces the height by a half and get stuck in....there are images hidden in those files of yours...go find them.
..always in the back of my mind that maybe, well just possibly the worst could happen and someone could fall trip over someone's gear or just hurt themselves in the process of taking some photographs...but we all survived and I think the vast majority had a good time. We really were all blown away by the scale of the Victoria baths...what a building and if you nip over to the Manchester Photowalk flickr group you'll see all the different intepretations of it...including some of my finest 'marmite' wtf type of image creations.... I actually managed to shoot some this year which will help as I want to enter the 'Leader' competition..how my interpretation of image making goes down..well, we will have to wait and see but I'm braced for a crash and burn. Spookily I bumped into one of my old colleagues from Photographing Rights of Way and Traffic snapping... they all seem to be doing the same but with clip boards stopwatches and sharp pencils... meh I liked that job but it all ended when the apocalyptic 2008 crash turned up... Good company during the day and some joshing and socialising later meant it was a very good day. How Gary and I ended up in the Car Park of a Vets at the end of our Taxi home I'll never know but seemed to round of things on the right note...... some images then 
6 shot in camera multiple exposure.
Back arching 6 shot in camera multiple exposure..again but of the overhead rooflights.
Well after that brief brush with Siberian winds last week we seem to have stumbled into a spell of Indian summeryness. So I took the new to me but battered Nikon 300mm out for a stroll along the Pennine way yesterday and then around Bilberry and Digsley reservoirs before traipsing up to Meltham...it was hot sunny, I'd gone layered up as it was grim here in Manchester but halway thorugh the walk summer returned and that lens...it weighs a lot more than a nifty fifty...anyway good walk, grappled with the 300mm and in the next few hours , will see what the depth of field and sharpness look like. Didn't try out the 2x convertor but maybe of Thursday. if you look on my new images page you'll see the latest ones from Newcastle/Gateshead. I've given them an a apocalyptic mono tickle..so have a look. Did a montage for flickr with a dinky Sage colour as I just montaged the Sage on the gateshead side of the river...yep I know, no need to explain.... if you missed it here it is. 
If you are on the Creative Cloud or have a legit copy of Photoshop and Lightroom then you will have been notified that it's upload time again 3 updates yesterday Photoshop CC and CS6 and RAW and today Lightroom 5.2...but do I really need 819mb download to update a couple of sliders and add some new camera/lens models in.... one thing to check is your adobe folder..see how many models and versions you have of Photoshop CS and Lightroom in there and you might want to bin a lot of the old stuff to free up some valuable space on your HD.. just a bit of housekeeping to keep that drive spinning freely. If you are in education or thinking about Post process work and want access to all that Adobe can throw ar you have a look at this I love the creative cloud as you not only get the software but a behance pro site, 20gb of online storage and an Adobe Revel site... no, I don't work for them but it really is a bit of a no brainer... On other matters Getty Images have come calling for more images for the 3rd time this month which is....nice... I'm watching a new lens track it's way from Japan only to see it parked up in customs at Coventry for the past 2 days, good to see it on the way but frustrating that it is so close... All the 120 film I have on ebay ends tonight and most of it will sell so I'm going to invest it back into something I have never had or used before..a stonking big telephoto with maybe a tele convertor...heck this summer I stood on beaches around Scotland looking at all manner of wildlife through Binoculars and I think it's time I gave nature snapping a try...yes.... 
I enjoy the ability to push the boundaries in Post processing, it's a learning process, yep I could slap on the same old same old but there are so many other possibilities to explore. Now the image above started off as an ICM shot of the Lowry and as I'm a wee bit over caffeinated I went off on a Photoshop CC wander. So texture layers, inverted copies, color lookup, hue sat a bag of blend modes..were all invited to the party.One of the tricks in doing these is laying out a trail of breadcrumbs,,if you want to replicate you'll somehow have to remember what on earth you got up to so I save a full layer stack back into LR5 from PshopCC..it's there for me to go back and see what layer did what to whom and why. Now I think this is one of the best ways to learn Photoshop, get your hands in and rummage around until it hurts...but always always...if you discover something great..leave a trail of crumbs to follow, you never know when you might need to do it again. 
If I could live off praise I wouldn't be sitting here now typing this pile of old tosh but for some odd reason we need fresh air to live but can't survive on fresh air alone. Now it's nice when stuff sells, okay if I took more 'commercially minded' images I'd probably sell more but if you read the previous post you will now know that I take photos because I like to...shock horror old man takes quirky snaps beacuse he just wants to...red top tabloid stuff I think you'll agree. Now I also mentioned that I can live without a constant stream of praise to boost my already hyper inflated ego I even considered disabling comments so that folk came and just looked and then floated away...hang on I'm on the cusp of rambling... So approbation, yesterday was a good day, a really good day, Getty sent me an email wanting more images and besides the flappy dither I got into wondering where the chuff I'd put all the old model releases I found uploaded and waved good bye in that 'tear in the eye first day at school' way and look forward to them furthering there fledgling career on Getty images...and then, well for me, a biggie....I got an appreciation..meh shmeh you may well say but it was from Julieanne Kost principal digital imaging eveangelist for Adobe .com. Now this was for one of my behance projects and although the images weren't optioned in the end I think they make a pretty decent set to look at. Check out Julieannes very slick and informative Lightroom and Photoshop videos on Adobe TV Now then I ran my own image library last year and as a sales tool it was as useful as a Chocolate teapot so I binned it..older viewers will know that one of my business principles is 'Give it 12 months....' but I ended up with thousands of images just sitting about, shooting the breeze and drinking caffeine based beverages on a selection of hard drives..and then I realised that those fine folk on flickr had given us all 1Tb of space to fill...so I will... I started yesterday with some North Wales stuff and more 'quirky stuff' will be shovelled on later today.. Feel free to call by, look and if you really have to..offer some approbation, after all it's the fresh air that feeds us all. 
So Imentioned Adobe Exchange and I thought I might as well run up a quick video on how to use it and maybe show you all the flexibility and creative aspects of working with just a few layers...so here we go...I'll start off with a simple mono landscape I shot earlier this summer up in Camusdarach on the North West Scottish coast. So just a quick one but maybe a help in getting your creativity going. If you do use this and publish just put a link back to this so other folk can benefit...cheers
Hidden in plain sight in your top toolbar in CC or CS6 is Window...now then one of the sub menus is Adobe Exchange if you click on it you'll get wafted over to here http://adobe.ly/1cX7NGU . Now most of it in there is self explanatary. Try out some of the free stuff, once you've downloaded any of the free stuff then it'll probably ask you to restart your system. Then you'll have access to them...now once you click on a texture or edge border Photoshop takes over automatically and applies the effect to the image that is open. Try Yale..gives you Holga and Lomo effects plus borders and film types..here's one I did with a simple click  Just part of an anti pasta i was having up in Newcastle..extended the white from the plate and then used Yale from Adobe Exchange to add the border, black and white layer at about 40% to hold back some colour ,....flatten and there you have it.
Can I just ask that if you use any of the techniques I go through ,could you add a link back to the page where you found the technique on...just so everyone can have a go and you spread the word..this is all free remeber, no adverts no agents will call, lets just spread the knowledge base out there together. No not multiple endings for a Mr Hulots holiday film but fins...stuck on the back of Americarna...big bits of metal so here's a few to have a look at Delving ever deeper into the chasms of Photoshop CC so you don't have to..
Right , I'll be off to shovel some manure rather than type it in a short while..better and cheaper than going to the Gym. Some of my images are going to be used for the reprint of Richard Laymons crime thriller novels in Germany...( yep...me neither...) http://www.amazon.com/wiki/Richard_Laymon/ref=ntt_at_bio_wiki . Just nice to know every now and then where your images end up, that is the ones that are bought legit not the ones half inched off site..there is a little reverse search engine you can use to track images you may think are off on a jaunt without your knowledge http://www.tineye.com/ ....that is if the little monkeys havn't stripped out the metadat from your file... ah well Anyway oh yes, nice to get some work out there published albeit under a blanket of type, that's where I seem to be at the moment, on Ordnance survey maps and Paperback covers...I'd lke to say it's a living...no I really would but.... If you havn't made it across to my Behance site then here are the latest images of Manchester, I like this style ...well for the moment so expect more or completely ignore, we still live in a free world apparently... oh TFI Friday folks, big hello to you hundreds...yes I'm not making it up..hundreds of newbies who have dropped in this week for a look. No these arn't shot with the Nokia Lumia 925 but these are
I have the time..I have the tools...a bit of talent..so on these lovely hot days why not put it all together and have a bit of a faff around and see what I can come up with. Now I know, there are folk out there who see, in a photographic sense, Photoshop as the very spawn of the devil himself, I look on it as I would my dinky 50mm f1.8 as an essential part of my shooting kit. Okay you do have to have a level of personal constraint and not every thing I see warrants a whack around the chops with some complex software but if I go out to capture something specific I will already know what the final image will look like...and that includes some uber faffing in Adobes finest..or not. But every now and then I'll pull out an image file from the dusty vaults and give it a bit of a smack sometimes making it cry in the process. Now I've intimated that I might be on a collision course with Portraiture, it has always been my 'elephant in the room' and now it sits on my shoulder, a photographic earworm...just nibbling away. this is the part where I get to the point....but how do I want my portraits to look??? well I thought I might jump in the archives and pull out some head shots and get the old Photoshop CC warmed up and head off for a jaunt and here are some of my experiments....now these have nothing to do with any creative lighting or location or make -up or such they are the first shots in looking at how I want the final images to appear Early days and all the techniques are reproducable, all involve layer work and toys from the Photoshop cupboard. Now the trick is for me to see the final images in my head and when i pursue this and nail this head shooting. I'm looking forward to it and will make sure that procrastination is swept to one side.
Okay I have been trawling the web looking for a portable lighting system that is a bit more sophisticated than a bare flash or tungsten skin melter and I think I have found my ideals. Ice Light and F+V R-300 Yes I do think LED lighting is the future, especially portraiture so all I have to do is rustle up some cash and I'm away.... rustle up some cash...maybe I should have chosen a more finacially rewarding profession looks like a trip to my old mate Mr Ebay and recycle some gear...TFI Friday btw...lots of dashing about this weekend so catch you next week. It may appear that I've had 2 weeks off...I didn't realise how much post operative care the fragrant Mrs Max would be needing after her recent hip replacement, anyway my bedside manner is up there with the best now so I need to get back into the photographic groove... Keen eyed one(s) amongst you will have noted that the learning zone is a bit delayed...(see above)..but will get stuck in this weekend. I'm also on my own learning curve as I grapple with time lapse photography and a recalcitrant video card..juddery dingbat that it is...I think it's bite the bullet time and get a desktop replacement laptop with a more up to date spec than my old 'noughties' desktop. With the time lapse I hope to make it a bit more of a creative outing rather than the usual 'lots of traffic, buildings lighting up , sunrise sunset thing and star trail stuff that seems to hog the genre....hmmmm extra long exposures put together.....and the like, I first need to get something with a pumped up video card and uber amounts of ram to make things work. Good thing is it's all possible in CS6 and although I've done a lot of work learning how to put things together, in practice it's a bit more head scratchy..meh you can do them as a lightroom slideshow if you want something basic. So I reckon that once I get into the groove of these I'll be needing a collapsible chair and something to read....so 30 sec exposure 10 secs between exposures...means 1 second of video = 15 minutes shooting .....sheesh.... make that a big book... Working through all my Welsh Coastal stuff as well and getting (most) of it in one place.  One of my favourite North Wales spots...Llandulas resumes during this week, well my kind of normality, shooting with a DSLR and getting stuck into all the projects I've had brewing over the last few months.. But first, catalogue and handouts to get together for my return to the outdoor market flogging pictures thing that I last did 28 years ago.... my regular reader will already know that I used to zip all over the country selling mounts, pictures and frames I used to make and kept doing until I opened my first shop.. but back on the streets and although I have a lot of stock and a part finished display stand, I've nothing that folk can take away ponder and maybe order from...hmmmm the website will probably have to change again , I havn't got any of the big images of Manchester that I'll have on sale  All kind of mounted and framed images like this will be at the market.... So , after I've gone and picked up Di from the hospital with her shiny new porcelain hip I'll be getting stuck into handout creation...oh and the final talk of this seasons camera club chats...this one is along the lines of 'Don't just sit there....' but with a view to alternative shooting in Blackpool as ever I'm looking forward to it
Morning all, another week and i need to send out a bucket load of marketing emails, or maybe eat toast and drink coffee instead....hmmm anyway well into the latest batch of CS6 youtube tutorials and here is another new one. I won't say this will change your life but it might give you an idea of how powerful CS6 is when it comes to working on your images. I'll be getting stuck into Portrait work this week so I'll keep you posted and maybe get the courses back out there seeing as we are just about getting to the back end of the really grim weather.
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What's all this then????An unyeilding torrent of Photo babbel full of unconfirmed facts and manufactured photo drivel.. take from it what you like, it won't change the world but may leave you feeling nauseous... Categories
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