The 6 best photo editors for Mac

You might think image editors such as Photoshop are the be-all and end-all of digital photography. But the more photos you take, the more the issue of organization rears its head.

You can file away a small amount of photos in named folders and be reasonably sure of being able to find them again. But when you run into thousands, filing problems take on a new dimension. This has led to a new type of all-in-one photo cataloging and editing app, with iPhoto at one end of the spectrum and Aperture at the other.

Here are the six best Photo Organizers/Editors for the Mac:

• Adobe Photoshop Elements 9
• Adobe Photoshop CS5
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.3
• Apple iPhoto '11
• Apple Aperture 3.1
• Google Picasa 3.8

Continue reading... http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/6-best-photo-editors-and-organisers-for-os-x-939384#ixzz1IljM0HYw

Using Photoshop To Create The Perfect Shot

Many amateur photographers have recently switched over from using traditional film to the digital realm, especially with the advent of the cheaper digital SLR or DSLR cameras.

Now you can use your digital camera in exactly the same way that you could a traditional 35mm SLR. In fact the digital models are even better as you can set the film speed and make previews etc etc.

Having made the change to digital there are far too few photographers who realize the power of Photoshop.

Digital enhancement of your images is something that can turn some of the most amateur photos into professional looking shots.

The possibilities are endless but include;

Creating better composition.

This is the first and most important step in creating the perfect image. Get this right and your photo could be stunning.

There are certain rules to the composition of the perfect image which we will not go into in detail here but you can adjust your image in Photoshop so that it adheres to some of these rules. For example, with a little creative use of the crop tool you can resize your image and adjust the position of the subject to fall into one of the key positions making it more pleasing to the eye. For example, in most cases, a central subject is not as effective as one that is offset to the side (adhering to the rule of thirds). Using crop can effectively move the subject over, up or down to position it perfectly.

Create depth of field.

You can quite easily add depth of field to the images that you have taken "snaps" of. If you have an image that is completely in focus and the background too is in focus (a common effect of non SLR digital point and shoot cameras) the you can solve this using Photoshop. You simply draw a mask or make a selection around the subject, invert that mask so that it selects all but the subject and apply a blur effect to the part of the image that is selected. In the later versions of Photoshop there is actually a filter that emulates the natural lens blur. The end result is a sharp, in focus subject with an out of focus background. This can be very effective and can draw attention to the subject.

Color Correction

You can change the color of your image and balance the overall exposure of your images in a number of ways. The most common is by using the levels function or the curves. Here you can gently touch up your photo making the dark areas darker and the lighter areas lighter to achieve greater or lesser contrast.

There are countless other methods and techniques you can use with Photoshop to better your images without having them look like they have been altered. Selective blurring can give the impression of movement, you can change certain areas of a photo such as the color of a specific object, red eye effects can be removed, skin blemishes and spots can be hidden and even with a little more skill and knowledge, complete makeovers can be achieved.

We have an ever increasing collection of video tutorials on our Photography Book web site which show you step by step how to achieve some of these process.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that Photoshop is a tool for designers and fantasy artists alone. It is fast becoming the chosen tool of the trade for most professional photographers and is used on a daily basis.

If you found this article of interest you might want to check out some of the tutorials on offer at our web site. We also have a popular digital photography blog which offers many tips and trick on a daily basis. Subscribe to our blog here.

Is Photoshop Killing Your Studio Photography?

Image : http://www.flickr.com

How can a photographers most important tool be the problem?

Photoshop is wonderful. Ask any photographer about their most important piece of software and you will hear tales of wonder about Photoshop and everything that can be accomplished with this software. All this wonderful technology takes time. Time away from shooting, marketing and helping clients. It's time to envision life without this wonderful software.

Why should a photographer pretend Photoshop doesn't exist?

For photographers who were born into the digital age, Photoshop has always been available. Unfortunately, it has become a crutch that photographers depend on. The result of which is hours and hours spent on the computer fixing images. Photographers everywhere are spending an amazing amount of time fixing images. All this time cuts into profit. Profit can be pretty hard to make, so there is no reason to give it away because of sloppy shooting. These are images that could have been created correctly in the first place, just like before Photoshop ever existed.

What happens when Photoshop isn't an option?

When Photoshop isn't an option wonderful things happen. No not at first. At first it will be horrible. Dozens of sessions will pass before you feel at home behind the camera. At that time you will be amazed. You will shoot your session and feel completely comfortable. This isn't the amazing part. The best part comes when you download the photographs. You will see exactly what you expected and wanted to see. There won't be anything that must be fixed in Photoshop. You will no longer be a slave to your computer

When is the right time to even consider Photoshop?

There is a time and a place for Photoshop. It will still be the go to software for removing zits from teenagers and drool from babies. But you don't need Photoshop to fix problems that can be solved by proper posing and lighting. The right time to consider Photoshop is when the image is already as perfect as it can be. Its job is to enhance and make the good into great, not to make the poor image into an acceptable image.

Adobe Creative Suite 5, first look

Once it is again the time when Adobe releases a new version of Photoshop: Photoshop CS5 (Version 12).

Have a read of the following first looks at CS5 and you'll find that Photoshop CS5 is a powerful new release and for many worth the upgrade.

• Photoshop CS5 preview for photographers at Digital Outback 
• Photoshop CS5 preview at Imaging-resource  
• Photoshop CS5 hands-on preview at DPnow

GIMP 2.6.0 Released

The GIMP developers are proud to release GIMP 2.6.0

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. The most important change is a switch to GEGL engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEGL). By default the legacy 8bit code paths are still used, but a curious user can turn on the use of GEGL for the color operations with Colors / Use GEGL. I'm excited. I wonder how soon the the various plugins will be ported.

Release notes: http://gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.6.html

It features changes to the user interface addressing some often received complaints, and a tentative integration of GEGL, the graph based image processing library that will eventually bring high bit-depth and non-destructive editing to GIMP.

I just installed GIMP 2.6 and tried to open a 16 bit image and it converted it to an 8-bit image. The release notes says that GIMP has taken the initial steps towards integration with GEGL. I expect to see 16 bit implementation next year.

Binary packages for the various supported platforms should become available soon; please check the Downloads section

Picasa 3 beta

Picasa is a software application for organizing and editing digital photos, originally created by Idealab and now owned by Google. "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase mi casa for "my house," and "pic" for pictures (personalized art) source Wikipedia.

Picasa 3 is the latest incarnation but is still in Beta which means they want feedback from users. I didn't know Picasa 3 was out until some one told me. Installing the new one is painless if you have an older version. You download the new one and get rid of the old short cut on your desk top, that's it.

There are some great improvements, I love the blemish tool; even an idiot such as myself can use it. Over all, a better product, the price is right, but the sharpening tool still sucks.

Picasa isn't my major editing tool but I often use it for family snapshots. I've recommended it to many, many people who don't want to get into heavy editing.

The improvements to Picasa 3, which I downloaded a couple of days ago, are nice indeed. But, again, the sharpening tool needs improvement!

The only tools I can see that have been added are a better crop tool and the "blemish" tool. I like the blemish tool, it works well.

Read about all of Picasa 3's new features here...

Ansel Adams Effect in Photoshop

The Grand River

Here is a photo I took a couple of months back but just got around to converting to black and white. I really like the way the clouds provide drama over the serene river. If you look closely, you'll see the canoeists paddling downstream.  What a gorgeous day it was. 

To help achieve this drama I used one of the many simple techniques used in Scott Kelby's book, the photoshop book for digital photographers. Great book. I used the Channel Mixer in Photoshop to boost reds by 160%, greens by 140%, and reduce blue by 200%.  Then made the output monochrome.  It was that easy.

The Digital Photography Book

Scott Kelby, the man who changed the "digital darkroom" forever with his groundbreaking, #1 bestselling, award-winning book The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers, now tackles the most important side of digital photography--how to take pro-quality shots using the same tricks today's top digital pros use (and it's easier than you'd think).

This entire book is written with a brilliant premise, and here’s how Scott describes it: "If you and I were out on a shoot, and you asked me, 'Hey, how do I get this flower to be in focus, but I want the background out of focus?' I wouldn't stand there and give you a lecture about aperture, exposure, and depth of field. In real life, I'd just say, 'Get out your telephoto lens, set your f/stop to f/2.8, focus on the flower, and fire away.' You d say, 'OK,' and you'd get the shot. That's what this book is all about. A book of you and I shooting, and I answer the questions, give you advice, and share the secrets I've learned just like I would with a friend, without all the technical explanations and without all the techno-photo-speak."

This isn't a book of theory?it isn't full of confusing jargon and detailed concepts: this is a book of which button to push, which setting to use, when to use them, and nearly two hundred of the most closely guarded photographic "tricks of the trade" to get you shooting dramatically better-looking, sharper, more colorful, more professional-looking photos with your digital camera every time you press the shutter button.

"The Digital Photography Book" (Scott Kelby)

Adobe Photoshop Express

Adobe Photoshop Express is a new FREE service that allows you to polish, sort, store and show off your photos. It’s also completely web based! Some of the most frequently used features of Adobe Photoshop available for use on the web anytime for FREE. It works in your web browser as long as you have the Flash 9 Player, so you can work on any platform.

This is not going to replace the Photoshop you’ve come to know and love. There are no Layers here, No CMYK, No pro level filters and the list goes on.

You’ll be able to upload, tweak/enhance your photos, put together your own Flash based web galleries and share them with your friends. You can also access your Facebook, Photobucket, and Picasa accounts directly. Once you’ve edited your photo you can either share it with someone or download it back to your computer for printing.  Very cool.

100 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Beautiful Art

Each one starts as a thumbnail that can be hovered over to display more information. A truly great resource.

Visit 100 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Beautiful Art

One example is this one:

The idea behind this image was fairly simple – the profile of a young woman. I had a reasonably clear picture in my head before I started, the girl’s expression, the art nouveau abstraction of her hair and headwear, and the visual style. I wanted to use blue, since I feel that my art relies a bit too heavily on warm palettes. You can clearly see the influence of some of my favourite artists; Alphonse Mucha, Moebius and Yoshitaka Amano. Blue was created with Adobe Photoshop 7.0, but these techniques can be applied to all the most recent versions. I use a Wacom Graphics tablet.

Great Photoshop Brushes You can Download

The PhotoshopRoadmap has put together a collection of 100 high-resolution brushes for Photoshop that are ripe for the browsing. Some looked more useful than others to me but the quality of the collection is still impressive. The article also provides some choice links to other Photoshop brush resources. Read 100 Awesome High Resolution Photoshop Brushes.

Photoshop Support Brushes

One of the best Photoshop brushes page available. It gathers links to some of the finest brush designers on the web. There you will find some amazing Photoshop brushes sets created exclusively for this site.

Brushes at Obsidian Dawn

Stephanie is a talented artists and a regular contributor to The Photoshop Roadmap. At her site she offers a vast gallery of beautifully designed brushes that you can download for free.

500ml Brushes

Loads and loads of unique and high quality Photoshop brushes. Go there and download them all.

Valhalla Vania Brushes

A great selection of high quality brushes.

Mutsie’s Brushes

An excellent collection of frame brushes of all kind. Lots of creative ideas.

Sage Brushes

A collection of beautiful classy brushes. Some commercial, some for free. .

Brusheezy, Ps Brush, Get Brushes, Ps Brushes, Chez Plumeau, Photoshop Mosaic and The Photoshop Roadmap

Photoshop Brushes directories.

Deviant Art Photoshop Brushes Section

Although I’ve been browsing this site for three days, I wasn’t able to reach the last page of the Photoshop brushes section. Huge Photoshop brushes source. The largest of all sites mentioned in this article.

10,000 Photoshop Brushes Collection from GraphicXtras

If you still believe you need more brushes, take a look at this commercial collection.

Grain in Digital Photography

Originally uploaded by RickBlythe. click to view larger image.


I love black and white photography.

One of its key traits is how it represents grain. In the old days of film processing grain was a byproduct of the chemical process and the physical traits of the media involved. Today with digital, grain no longer exists in the same sense, but has been replaced by noise. Noise is a byproduct of the electronics involved. Noise in digital cameras is not even close to film in the way it can add a sense of age or grittiness. Noise basically sucks.

This image however is the result not of digital noise, but of a piece of software know as Exposure from the folks at Alien skin. I did a review here of an older version. I think they do a great job of simulating old film style grain in the digital world. Don't you agree?

Alien Skin's new Exposure 2 lets digital photographers and graphic artists enhance any digital photo by simulating the rich, organic look of film. Exposure 2 features more than 200 presets that emulate the warmth, softness, and realistic grains of film. Beyond the ability to reproduce the look and feel of film, Exposure 2 also offers a range of effects previously available only in darkrooms and photo labs, such as push and cross processing and glamour portrait softening.

Glow Effect in Photoshop

Want to know how to add a really cool glow effect to an image using Photoshop? You've come to the right place. This method creates really sharp looking glow effects using a combination of Photoshop's layer styles, the pen tool and colour blending. The end effect is quite stunning and hopefully you'll pick up some tips you didn't know before. The overall effect is very nice, simple and effective. Though I wouldn’t say it is hard to figure out how to do this effect, it is a very well presented tutorial and should help many people who are in the earlier stages of the learning process.

Read Advanced Glow Effects

Some Good Photoshop Shortcuts

Here are 30 secret Photoshop shortcuts that Nick La has learned from years of experience.

What he means by "secret" is that these shortcuts are not documented in the menus. Keep reading over at Web Designer Wall and you will find how these shortcuts can speed up your productivity. Handy shortcuts for making photoshop easier to use. He bets you won’t know all of them!

Photoshop Secret Shortcuts

Text Effects Tutorials for Photoshop

For those like me that love text effects and have the courage to admit it, here’s a thorough guide to the best 80 text effects available on the web.

This guide includes 78 Photoshop tutorials and 2 impressive collections of Photoshop Actions, plus 3 books on the subject.

These text effects are the most creative, unique, complex, wild and fun of all effects I’ve ever seen. These actions were created for Photoshop 5 and 6 but they should work in newer versions. There are a lot of actions to download!

Read more about Photoshop

Free Photoshop Plugins

Looking for free Photoshop Plugins?

There are lots of plugins that you can buy but TutorialBlog takes a look at the best of the free plugins you can download. Alot of these plugins are things that you can learn to do in Photoshop alone if you have the time, without installing any unnecessary software on top of the program. A nice list regardless.

Free Photoshop Plugins

ACDSee Pro Photo Manager

The Imaging Resource have done a full review on ACDSee Pro, calling it a pixel data editor and says it compares not to Aperture and Lightroom but to Photoshop Elements. I would agree. Where Aperture and Lightroom edit mostly jpeg header data, ACDSee is a full fledged photo editor.

"Your camera may have shipped with free image editing software. If not, there are several free options out there including Picasa and Irfanview. But there isn’t a free Windows workflow tool. And as soon as you take a few hundred images, you’re going to wish there were.

Fortunately for Windows users, ACDSee is an inexpensive workflow tool. And there’s really not much ACDSee Pro can’t do. If you shoot just JPEGs, it’s a fabulous bargain at $40. If you shoot Raw, it’s only a bit less compelling at $129.99, particularly since it does not offer metadata editing of image characteristics (although you can batch edit IPTC metadata like copyright). And that’s really our biggest qualm about recommending the product.

But it provides a single environment to import, sort, catalog, edit, create HTML pages and contact sheets, archive and track your image collection. And while we may have qualms about the interface, the horsepower behind the application makes a very sweet sound."

Read the full review here..

I have used ACDSee products over the years, always upgrading to their latest version, and love the flexibility it provides me.

Photoshop Tutorial-Cool pop art effect

This has got to be one of the coolest photoshop tutorials I have seen in a while.  It is also currently the number spot on Digg.com, a site which lists currently popular webpages.

A very cool way of making a picture of anyone look like a lichenstein-esque drawing. Roy Lichtenstein became one of the leading pop artists of the sixties with his comic-strip paintings. His work also often included boxed captions and words such as "WHAAM!", commonly found in comic books.

Photoshop plugin for Black and White Conversion

LetsGoDigital found this Photoshop plugin from The Plugin Site which claims to recreate the look of film, lens filters, lab effects and photo papers that are popular in traditional B/W photography, but even goes beyond that.

"The Plugin Site released B/W Styler for Windows, which is another product in the PhotoWiz series. B/W Styler is a Photoshop plugin for B/W conversion, creating traditional B/W effects and styling B/W photos. B/W Styler works in dozens of graphics applications including Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop Elements, Photo-Paint, Photo Plus, IrfanView and PhotoImpact. It supports 8bit and 16bit RGB images. B/W Styler simulates the whole work flow of B/W photography from shooting a photo to processing it in the lab and framing the end result. It recreates the look of films, lens filters, lab effects and photo papers that are popular in traditional B/W photography, but even goes beyond that."

Photoshop converts a Photo to a Pencil Sketch

I get regularly asked for any help using Photoshop to convert a photo into a sketch -- pencil, charcoal, conte, or other mediums. This is by far the very best tutorial I've seen to date -- bar none! When I saw this technique in the Photoshop Photo Effects Cookbook I knew at once I had to share it with you!

Tim Shelbourne writes...

"Ask any artist and they'll tell you that all the tubes of paint in the world cannot replace the simple pencil when it comes to artistic potential. Through the centuries, the litmus test of an artist's ability was demonstrated best through the medium of drawing. In days of yore, student painters spent years drawing with graphite to hone their skills.

The so-called "Sketch Filters" in Photoshop consistently yield very disappointing results; re-creating the quintessential sketch demands a little more inventiveness and an approach that mimics traditional techniques. Pencil sketches work especially well when very soft leaded pencils are used on a tinted paper, with a few touches of white chalk here and there to heighten the tones. This is what we'll produce here, digitally.

Don't worry if your drawing abilities aren't up to snuff, all that's required here is the ability to scribble."

Read Photo to Pencil Sketch