Shouts of Nothingness

A Tram…A shop..?,
originally uploaded by balachandar.

Just trying out the Flickr to Blog feature.Well for people who haven\’t discovered this yet..! Flickr has an option for directly posting photos to your Blog.try it out its really cool!!

You can get to that from the \”Your Accounts\” page.

Next in line…yep it was the Wordprocessor first..now the photoeditor…come on…i’m waiting for the OS..

Need to know how to create such snazzy effects..(or Photomontages) here is a tutorial for you.

Perhaps the most common reason why people find it difficult to use Graphic gizmos like Adobe Photoshop is because the difficulty…no..not in using the program but in the following the tutorials/help.If you can identify yourself with this category then Russell Brown’s Tips tricks and tutorials page is the place for you to let loose your inhibitions.

This is site provides quick time movies for all Photoshop techniques which makes things much much easier.So head on to Russell Brown’s

And remember….

“Beware, these QuickTime movies are large and will take time to download if you’re on a slow connection. Also, if you are viewing them using Internet Explorer, the movies may take several minutes to appear. For best results, Dr. Brown recommends that you use the Firefox browser. These tutorials have been provided to you as a free service from Adobe Systems and Russell Brown himself. Please do not redistribute this content without the written permission of Russell Brown. This content should never be sold!”

Adobe Photoshop is one of those softwares that ought to be in every aspiring photographers arsenal. Most people think that Photoshop is a package for advanced users…yes!..it is for advanced users, cause its capable of performing ‘great’ marvels in the hand of a specialist.But nobody said that it should not be or it is difficult to use for amateurs.My idea is this,you dont have to make great works of design & art but can definitely learn the stuff that just helps you make better pictures of your snaps.So here goes a tutorial on sharpening photos with Adobe Photoshop.

1) Open the image in Photoshop, crop out any undesirable portions and set it at the size you want for final display.

2) Create a new layer - click LAYER> DUPLICATE LAYER> a dialog box opens BACKGROUND LAYER - Click Okay

3) Next click: FILTERS> SHARPEN> UNSHARP MASK a dialog box will open and you will need to set the controls as follows:
AMOUNT = 500%
RADIUS= 0.2
THRESHOLD= 0
Now click OK

4) Now go to EDIT> FADE UNSHARP MASK> another dialog box will appear that is called FADE - set the slider to 100% (it will be that by default) just below that - there will be a drop down menu - MODE - by default it will be set at NORMAL - click the menu and set to LUMINOSITY > then click Okay.

5) Next go to the FILTERS> BLUR> GAUSSION BLUR> a new dialog box appears titled RADIUS and set the slider to 2.1px - Click OKAY - This will make it look very blurry but don’t be concerned the next step takes care of that!

6) Go back to EDIT> FADE GASSION BLUR - this time select COLOR from the drop down menu and click Okay. NOW YOUR IMAGE SHOULD BE CRISP AND SHARP -

(a) If the image is still not quite what your wanting one additional step may be required - CLICK: FILTERS> NOISE> DESPECKLE.
The last step is usually not needed unless you are trying to salvage a grainy looking image.

This will bring the image to a nice sharpness in most cases. The term UNSHARP MASK is kind of misleading as it does not really un-sharpen the image rather sharpens the softness from it and makes it very crisp and defined!
It is always a good practice when you save the image to flatten the layers or you will come up with an image you can only work with in Photoshop. So the final step I do is click: LAYERS> FLATTEN IMAGE.

To save this revised work and maintain your original click FILE> SAVE AS> whatever you decide to use tiff - jpg – gif – etc. I have found that tiff works the best as it is a looseless format and will not degradate as jpg images do each time you save or re-save them.

Acknowledgement: Digital Demon of Fotofight