November 2016 – Photoshop Patch Tool, Layer Mask, Nik Collection, Planning, Dreamy Photos
I’m sure you’ve all found some strange things in your images after you got home and downloaded your images. A telephone line across the image, a pole sticking out of someone’s head, a piece of garbage floating in the river or a crushed beer can in the baby’s crib. (Sorry to say I’ve actually seen that one.) There’s couple of ways to remove those items but here’s a tutorial from Blake Rudis of the f64 Academy on using the patch tool in Photoshop. Blake goes into a lot of detail but once you understand it it’s very simple to master.
http://f64academy.com/?s=How+to+use+the+patch+tool
This is just a reminder of something I’ve sent out to the members before. If you remember back several years ago there was a group of plugins called the Nik Collection. It consisted of several different photoshop or Lightroom plugins that covered Effects, B&W conversions Spot adjustments, HDR, Sharpening and Noise Reduction. When it came out, the whole package cost around $400. I remember because I paid for it. A few years ago, Google bought NIK to use their software on mobile devices but they maintained the Photoshop and Lightroom versions and reduced the price to $0.00. That’s right, it’s free. This is something I use on practically every image I process to some extent. It may be as little as noise reduction, enhancing the color of a sky or some more extensive detail enhancements. Everyone should really grab this, for the price, you can’t beat it. You can download it here.
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
Layer masks are one of the most useful tools in photoshop. They let you control exactly where your adjustments are applied. They’re not that difficult to use once you understand the basics of what they do. Here’s Aaron Nace from Phlearn (the guy with the man bun) with a tutorial on How to Use Layer Masks in Photoshop.
https://phlearn.com/use-layer-masks-photoshop
I’ve got the Rome Air show coming up the last week of October and the Head of the Hooch the first week of November. One thing I’ve noticed at the air show is that my images from Sunday are much better that what I shoot on Friday. The reason is I’ve spent a couple of days practicing panning. It’s a physical skill so like anything, if you want to be good at it you’ve got to practice. But there’s some things you can do to help yourself out when the need for panning arrives. Here’s an article posted on Light Stalking by Dzvonko Petrovski titled Master the Art of Panning with These 9 Useful Tips.
http://www.lightstalking.com/master-the-art-of-panning-with-these-9-useful-tips/
This is my favorite time of year for sunrise and sunset photography. You don’t have to get up so early or stay up so late. Our friend Rick Sammon used to have an iPhone app on his sunrise and sunset tips that you could buy. Rick recently discontinued that app but has made all his tips available on line. Here’s a link to his post – 34 Sunrise & Sunset Photo Tips.
http://www.lightstalking.com/master-the-art-of-panning-with-these-9-useful-tips/
We’ll wrap up this month’s article with another tutorial from Aaron Nace (this time without the man bun) on How to Create Soft & Dreamy Photos in Photoshop. Arron demonstrates this on a bride but the techniques he teaches are transferable to most any type of image. I’m not sure I’d use it on things like football or an alligator but let your imagination run wild. I’m rethinking the soft and dreamy alligator thing.