Workflow In Photoshop

Was directed to the Tipsquirrel site from a post on Focus. Discovered a great tutorial - Start To Finish Workflow which is generally about workflow but specifically about using textures. Picked up so many hints about Raw, Tools and workflow from this simple tut. Thanks Gavin Hoey .

Rating Tutorials

With the plethora of tutorials on the Net it can be both time absorbing and challenging to wade through the chaff to locate the gold. I found some great Photoshop Effect Tutorials which can be downloaded as PDF files at Photoshoproadmap. The only gripe I have is that shortcut keys are always used for the steps and I like to also know from which menu the options are available. I would also appreciate having the purpose of the steps explained. Having said that I experimented with a "Ghost" effect and was quite pleased with the results.

Another technique I played around with was the 'ghostly image effect' which I'm afraid was a little beyond me at this stage due to the countless layers involved and having no idea why I was completing each step. However I was reasonably happy with the effect I achieved and which I think I can manipulate in order to create some scenarios using the images from St. John's Orphanage at Goulburn

Love the oil painting effect using the Pixel Blender plugin

and again - a great tutorial for this plugin

Another site which has a comprehensive list of tutorials is SLR Photography Guide which link I have placed here rather than in my bloglist due to a request from the owner.

Never Enough

Discovered a great site today - as if I need any more articles to read !!!!  I've just returned from a trip down the South Coast and have so many images to peruse, cull and process that I know I will soon sink beneath the deluge. However, one can never have too much knowledge and Photographylife is a good site.

Photography Techniques
Photography Tutorials
Post Processing

Alex Wise's Blog:
Here I go again - another really informative site about long exposures. I've also added this link to 'turorials' as I was worried I may not be able to find it again :-) A handy hint I picked up from Alex Wise was to slow down the exposure when photographing fog to increase the effect.  Another beauty on AEB and another on ND Filters.

Photoshop Tutorials

Having purchased CS5 some months ago and being cognisant of the fact that it involves a gigantic learning curve, I'm attempting to locate some basic tutorials for newbies to make it possible to launch the learning.

 An article - Setting Up Preferences 

 What is Adobe Bridge

Setting it up using mini bridge

Photoshop CS5: Set-up and Color Management -- Part 1

  Photoshop CS5: Set-up and Color Management -- Part 1b  

  Photoshop CS5: Set-up and Color Management -- Part 2

 Photoshop CS5: Using Curves - Color Correction - Part 1 

Photoshop CS5: Using Curves - Color Correction - Part 2 

  Install Photoshop Plug-ins 

Image Editing by Chip Philips

How to create a fake Grad Filter effect using PS

Rescuing Exposure Using Layers

Creating multiple exposures

Resizing Images

Saving an image

Photoshop Filters

A core site from where I collated the following links:

An article - getting started with Photoshop        

Open Edit and Save in Photoshop

Beginners Guide to Adobe Photoshop

Bridge is going to be your best friend

5 common myths

Layers in Photoshop

Selection Tools

How to use and create brushes

A beginners Guide to Masks

Blending Modes

How to remove backgrounds

Positioning Subjects

Removing Objects from an image

Image Merging to create panorama images

 How to Avatar yourself 

Noise Reduction

Selective Colouring 

Using Puppet Warp to move an object

New features in CS5 - remove an object (content aware)

Replacing a Sky (masking out)

An alternate 'Replace The Sky'

Blending Textures

Photoshop CS5: Correcting Perspective Distortion with the Transform and Warp Tools 

Tutorials recommended by the St. George Photographic Society 

Trick Photography and Special Effects

I downloaded this E-Book by Evan Sharbonough which comes with a bonus 3 books. I looked beyond the exhuberant hype and realised that it would be a really interesting read. One of the bonus books covered the topic of external flash which I'm currently learning about in class so I'm happy with my purchase.

Lightroom 3

Lightroom 3 is more software I've purchased and have not yet used. I needed some good tutorials to get me started. The first step is to learn the names of the different sections of the interface.

The absolute best site I've discovered provides a wonderful succinct explanation of LR functions, menus and settings:

Learn Lightroom in a week  detailed ilustrated tutorials

I discovered that it is vital to understand the "catalogue" function of this software if any semblance of control is to be maintained over images. Digital Photography School provides some great hints commencing with a comparison between 'destructive' and 'non destructive' editing which was eminently helpful. To paraphrase and summarise :

1. Non destructive editing - means any modifications made to an image are not changing the original image. Photoshop by comparison is an example of a destructive editor as changes made to an image are saved directly over the original image, thus destructively editing the original file. 

2. Lightroom Previews - When you see changes being made inside of Lightroom as you adjust "Develop: settings, what you are seeing is actually just a “preview” which won’t actually be applied to the image until you “Export” the image from Lightroom. To save time, it is recommended that prior to developing  you “Render 1:1 Previews” for all of your images  by going into the Library Module, turning off all filters so all images are visible, then selecting the following from the menu "Library –> Previews –> Render 1:1 Previews" This saves  time during developing since Lightroom will no longer have to pause to render a preview or zoom into an image.

3. The Lightroom Catalogue File - "the .lrcat file" only contains information like a giant database. The actual images ARE NOT being stored in the Lightroom Catalog. Lightroom is simply referencing those images at a particular location on your hard drive. Knowing this is important because when Lightroom asks you if you want to “backup your Lightroom Catalog” you know then that you are only backing up the information and not the actual images themselves.  

4. File Management -  If an ? appears over an image in Lightroom, it means that Lightroom has lost the reference to where those images are located. This happens if you move or rename image locations outside of Lightroom. You need to tell Lightroom where the images have been moved to. 

5. One Catalog or More? - We often are asked whether photographers should have only one Lightroom Catalog for all of their images, or have multiple Lightroom Catalogs for every single shoot. There are most certainly benefits to each. Since Lightroom catalogs are independent of each other, images within other catalogs cannot be searched and found from Lightroom, unless that specific catalog is open.

6. Recommended Best Practices - for the event shooter who frequently captures around 1000+ images per event/shoot, create a Lightroom catalog for each event as efficiency is the primary priority since you need to be able to move through catalogs, edit, transfer and archive at a good speed. 

I love the clear method worm3245 has of explaining. I found his videos amongst the best for shedding light on the basics.

Lightroom 3: Set-up and Importing - Part 1

Lightroom 3: Set-up and Importing - Part 2 

Lightroom 3: Set-up and Importing - Part 3

 Lightroom 3: Enhancing Raw files 

      Lightroom 3: Which file format is better? PSD vs Tiff?? 

  Lightroom 3: Developing Images 

Developing Images #2

  Lightroom 3: Collections Explained 

Lightroom 3: Filters Panel Explained

10 Quick and easy Lightroom Tips

Good Summary for default preferences

Installing Presets

Flickr's Preset links

Lightroom Shortcut Keys ( hot keys)

Post Processing Tony Northup style

Apps

1. SLR Photography Guide

So many apps I've downloaded have proven to be less than worthwhile, however the SLR Photography Guide by Tanya Puntti was helpful, interesting, easy to use and is configured to receive updates. Not one for the advanced user, but one to move the beginner beyond the basics

2. Photosmith For iPad - organise, rate, tag and label your photos while you are out on location, then when you are back with your main computer, sync back to Lightroom