Blog Archives
Creating an orb in Photoshop
I use Photoshop CS6 for most of my photo editing work — adding contrast, sharpening, correcting exposure, bringing back highlights, cropping, and so much more.
Once I finish editing, though, it’s fun to find out what other things Photoshop can do.
To me, Photoshop filters are the most fun, and recently I learned how to create an interesting orb, like this:
Not everything makes a good orb. The more little things in the picture, the better looking the orb will be.
Here’s how to do it, step by step.
Open your picture and crop it to a square, or a ratio of 1:1. Click on the crop icon. In your crop options bar, it probably says “Ratio.” Click on that and change it to 1:1 (Square). Your crop marks will move to the center of the image to create a square from your picture. You can move the crop area around if you want it somewhere else. (Click on the image below for a larger image.)
Next, click on Filter ► Distort ► Polar Coordinates…. ► Polar to Rectangular ► Okay
My flower now looks like this:
That creates an interesting item in and of itself, but we’re going to go further.
Now click on Image ► Image Rotation ► Flip Canvas Vertical. That gives me this:
Again, you could stop there and have something interesting. We’re still going further, though!
Click on Filter ► Distort ► Polar Coordinates…. ► Rectangular to Polar ► Okay.
That gives you an orb!
If you don’t crop your picture to a square, you won’t get an orb. Instead, if your picture is wider than it is tall, you’ll get an oval on its side. If your picture is taller than it is wide, you’ll get an oval on end.
Have fun!
Lastly, guess who is in this orb?
I’m Zoey the Cool Cat,
and I would approve this post
if I wasn’t dreaming of catching birds.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
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Look this way! Please look this way!
On a recent hike in the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge, I found three house finches sitting on a wire. I took five pictures before they flew away. My intent was to get all three of them looking at me, or at least looking forward. They refused to cooperate. There was always at least one bird that was looking the other way. Begging all three birds to “look this way, please, look this way!” didn’t have any effect on them.
I got up the courage to do something about it as I was looking at the five pictures this morning. Originally, I was going to simply replace the one bird that wasn’t looking at me with one that was. Then I thought, why stop at three birds? After playing around, I came up with a nice picture of six house finches:
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to tell me which three birds originally were not in that picture. Let us number the birds 1 through 6 from bottom left to top right. And as all good teachers would do, I require that you “show your work,” i.e., explain your decision.
This little exercise reminds me of my wise old grandmother. She carried her Kodak Instamatic camera in her purse everywhere she went, and she didn’t hesitate to pull it out and snap a picture. Once she got home she took all her pictures and mounted them in her scrapbooks and photo albums. However, she didn’t hesitate to crop them, cut them in two, whatever, in order to make the pictures better or make them fit the theme of her pages.
She used to always tell me, “What comes out of the camera is just the basics to start with.” It’s still like that, so if you aren’t using Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, Serif PhotoPlus, Photo Studio, PaintShop Pro, Photo-Paint, ACDSee, Gimp, Picmonkey, etc., you’re missing out on a lot of fun. The ones I use are Photoshop CS6, Lightroom 4, Photo-Paint X6, and PaintShop Pro X5.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
It’s all in the eyes!
When I joined the seventh grade debate team, my wise old grandmother told me to look. “Look at your opponent, look at the moderator, look at the audience. It’s all in the eyes!” she said. She was right.
Obama lost the first presidential debate because he did not look at Romney, did not look at the moderator, did not look at the audience, did not look at the camera. He looked down, almost as if he were sleeping, disinterested, maybe even hanging his head in shame.
In the vice-presidential debate, Ryan (some of my friends call him “Lyin’ Ryan”) did much of the same thing. He drank so much that I thought he was drinking margaritas because I’m pretty sure mere water wouldn’t be worth a drink every five seconds. He spent a lot of time taking notes. For what? It’s not like there would be a test afterwards, and surely his memory could remember something said 30 seconds earlier. When he did look at Biden, he had this weird smirk on his face. And that Eddie Munster hairline doesn’t help matters any……….
Republicans say Biden was rude by interrupting. Better to interrupt those lies rather than let them be spouted out as fact! (Go Joe!) Joe even looked directly at the camera several times, saying, “Folks, listen to me….” or “Folks, here are the facts…..” or “Folks, who do you trust here?” That’s another area where Obama failed. He let Romney spout all those lies as if they were fact, and unfortunately the public believed them. That’s why it’s important to interrupt those lies.
Now on to serious things.
When I was at a photographic art exhibit a couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of talking with the photographer. His work was of flowers and birds. I learned from him how to get my pictures of red and yellow flowers to be more realistic than what my camera was giving me (remember that my wise old grandmother also said “What comes out of the camera is just the basics to start with.”). I also learned from him why I liked his bird pictures so much. It’s all in the eyes!
To wit, here is a picture of a monkey at the San Diego Zoo:
It’s a good picture but I wanted something a little more from it. After realizing that a lot of that monkey’s emotions is in the eyes, I knew what had to be done. I needed to photoshop those eyes so you could see what’s in them:
Subtle, yet seeing those eyes adds a lot to the picture, to the emotions of the monkey and to the emotions of the viewer. All I did was highlight the two eyes and then increase the brightness some. Took all of 30 seconds in Photoshop.
It’s all in the eyes!
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
I lied (must mean I’m a Republican)
In a recent post of mine (Imperial Beach, the most southwesterly city in the continental U.S.), I lied! I was misleading to my readers. I’ll let you decide if I should be punished by having to vote for Romney & Ryan.
Pictures in my post:
Original, unaltered pictures:
I thought the original pictures were too cluttered so I tried to clean them up using Photoshop CS6. Cluttered….. Hmmm. Sounds just like politics, doesn’t it? What’s my punishment?
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
You don’t have to be a purist, featuring Zoey the Cool Cat
“Purist” is a word that I don’t think I’ve ever liked because it often is used to put down the creativity of others, creativity which the purist often couldn’t do or didn’t want to do. Now that doesn’t apply to all purists, just probably about 80% of them, which is a good supermajority.
Several decades ago when I was a Realtor, I used to compile a list of all the properties that were for sale in my farming area. I also had the addresses of all the properties, their most recent sale date, and the price they sold at. I got all the information from going down to the Courthouse and searching through the public records. I was told by the established Realtors that a “purist” wouldn’t work that way. Oh. (I lasted in the Texas oil-boom-to-bust longer than they did.)
When I opened a computer store in the mid-1980s, I sent flyers out to all the houses within a five-mile radius. I was told a purist would just have a grand opening and be done with it. Oh. (My competition eventually packed up and moved.)
I have many more examples, but you get the message.
Photography is the same way. Many older photographers, like me, grew up with film cameras and darkroom developing. Now that digital photography and digital photo editing programs like Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, Gimp, and others are here, some of the older photographers seem to be too proud to use them. They claim to be “photography purists.”
Some are even hanging on to the last vestiges of film cameras and developing in their own private darkrooms. Talk about expensive and time consuming. They are still using filters and filter stacking out in the field. Why? “To get the best I can out of the camera.” That’s all well and good, and it’s a lot of fun to be out and about taking pictures, but there is simply no way to get as many pictures out in the field as what Photoshop will give you back at the office.
I submit that if you want to have a lot of fun, learn a good digital photo editing program as well as your camera and your lenses. Once you know what all three can give you — their strengths and weaknesses — you can double or even triple your fun. The way I do this is to dedicate a minimum of 30 minutes each day to whatever new tasks I am seeking to learn. Right now it’s Photoshop CS6.
You don’t have to be a “purist” in order to accomplish what the “purists” accomplish. In fact, the beauty of technology is that, indeed, you don’t have to be a “purist” at all. If you have an interest in something, or see something that someone else did, don’t question whether or not it is “purist.” Just see if you can do the same thing! Explore. And if you accomplish the same thing using different tools, that’s okay! In fact, it just might give you a leg up on your competition.
I just finished reading Best Photoshop Filters, by Susannah Hall (ISBN 978-0-321-75422-6), 415 pages, retails for $49.99. It discusses all the filters in Photoshop CS6, and there are a slew of them.
Photoshop filters are basically presets that allow you to do one-click modifications to your pictures. Following are 26 examples, using Zoey the Cool Cat as our model. With all of the modifications one can make to the presets, there are probably tens of thousands of different things one can do to one’s pictures. I could have sat here all day playing with these filters but at some point, well, there is work to do and bills to be paid…. 
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Hope you enjoy these. My favorites are 7, 12, 20, 22, and 26, with 20 being my #1. Let me know your favorites.
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Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
I’m gettin’ good
For some reason I have this infatuation with wildlife that is either yawning, eating, grooming, or just letting that lazy tongue have a little look-see. At the San Diego Zoo Safari Park this past weekend, the three lions were up close and personal, about two inches away (or whatever the thickness of the glass is). I got what I thought was a great photo of one of the female lions:
There is not too much that is right with that picture — the lion gets lost in the background; there are flies at the corner of its mouth, on its tongue and on the top of its nose; there’s no contrast between the lion and the background…. Aaack!
Remembering what my wise old grandmother always said as she put together her photo albums and scrapbooks — “What comes out of the camera is just the basics to start with!” — I first went to Lightroom because I know it better than Photoshop. I didn’t really get anything much better.
In trying to get some contrast between the lion and the background, the color cast got shifted. On to Photoshop.
After first working in Adobe Camera Raw, I got a little better contrast and color cast. At that point I took the resulting picture into Photoshop. After duplicating the picture, I applied a layer mask and then highlighted everything around the lion. Then I simply converted the background to black & white. Once that was done, I used a combination of the healing brush, the patch brush, and the clone tool to get rid of the flies.
Photoshop has an excellent feature called Content-Aware. After highlighting the flies, I simply hit the delete key. Photoshop doesn’t actually delete the flies. Instead it fills the area where the flies are, so up pops a Fill window with some options. The option I wanted was Contents, Content-Aware:
All of that gave me the result that I was looking for, and which the LCD screen in the bright sunshine at the Park indicated I had, but didn’t:
Whaddaya think?
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
When the little Adobe bird chirps….
PICTURE OF THE MOMENT
I was going through my flower pictures choosing some for today’s Friday Flower Fiesta when I came across this picture:
It’s a pretty accurate picture of new flowers on a sea lavender (Limonium californicum). As they age, the flowers become a deeper purple. A little Adobe bird was chirping, telling me to play around with that picture in Photoshop or Lightroom. After heeding the chirp of the Adobe bird, this is what I got:
I used Lightroom and, in order, made the following changes:
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increased Point Curve to Strong Contrast
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changed Contrast to +50
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changed Clarity to +50
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changed Blacks to -100
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changed Shadows to -100
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changed Vibrance to +100
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changed Saturation to +100
I usually don’t use such extremes but the more I played around with that picture, the more fun I was having and the more extreme I got. I like the end result, though.
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What comes out of the camera is just the basics to start with
What comes out of the camera
is just the basics to start with
My wise old grandmother, my dad’s mom, adopted me when I was a young juvenile delinquent of 10. She instilled in me a love of plants…. wildlife…. Mother and Father Nature…. life…. by giving me the love and discipline that all young children need. Note that I said “love and discipline.” Too many parents think that toys, iPads, iPods, iTunes…. are substitutes for love. They are not.
I was told the law of the land and the house, and the consequences if I broke those laws. Guess what happened when I broke those laws? Yep. The consequences. It only took two times to realize that she was serious. I labored to uphold the law…. Sometimes I’d still break the law…. peer pressure.
After breaking the laws and suffering the consequences, my wise old grandmother would let me cry for five or ten minutes and then come in to tell me that she loved me and to wash and dry my tear-streaked face. All was well.
She also had a love of photography. Each time a newer and better camera came out, it was hers. She used to spend hours lovingly placing her photos in her photo albums, and she had no problem “cropping” pictures with her scissors…. big scissors…. She used to tell me, “What comes out of the camera is just the basics to start with.” She would love the digital world….
On February 12, 2012, I went birdwatching with a group of about 30 people. I took over a hundred pictures in just two hours. I’m not picky out in the field…. when I get home it’s a different story because I’ve learned never to throw a picture away. If I thought it was good enough out in the field, some day I might be able to use it for something.
Such is the case with this picture:
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Two ravens/crows/grackles…. being all lovey dovey. I watched them for about five minutes, taking 18 pictures. That one used a 28-300mm lens at 300mm…. looks like a bunch of trees with two black, oblong dots in it. Since it was taken with a Canon 550D set at its highest resolution (5184 x 3456 pixels), I knew that I could crop it at the computer (Lightroom 4 is my favorite cropping program) and possibly get a nice picture:
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Not a bad picture…. but a lot of noise. It would require some more computer work to make a good picture out of it. Unfortunately, after cropping the 5184 x 3456 image, the cropped image was only 874 x 582 pixels. Enough for the Internet but not for printing.
Last night as I was studying (I spend a little time each day studying Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 4, PaintShop Pro X4, Photo-Paint X5, and DRAW! X5), I discovered upsizing in Photoshop CS5. Pretty cool.
I resized my big picture from 5184 x 3456 pixels at 72 dpi to 5184 x 3456 at 300 dpi. By resizing instead of cropping, I was able to keep the original resolution but now had a picture that was one third its printing size. Nowhere on the Internet will you need a 300 dpi picture…. 72 dpi is just fine. For printing you want about 200 dpi. I was playing around so I chose 300 dpi.
Once I had the smaller picture at the high resolution, I cropped to get just the two love birds. That crop, however, left me with a small picture at high resolution, a picture much too small to use anywhere. So I upsized it in Photoshop…. twice. First I upsized it by 300% and then I upsized the resulting picture by another 200%. Here’s what I got:
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The second picture has much less noise in it, better contrast, and better sharpness. Still needs a little more work, but the basics are much better to start with. What’s even more amazing is that the double-upsized picture is larger than the original, 5592 x 4104 pixels at 300 dpi resolution (7.17 MB). After recovering some branch detail, some shadow detail in the birds, and adding some contrast, with that size and resolution, I could print a nice poster.
If you have Photoshop CS5, explore and learn. It’s a powerful program.
