Pocket Wizard updates.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, a couple of days after my post on remote camera and flash triggers, the strobist had an article about the new Pocket Wizard units.  Specifically, there is a lot good information about dealing with the radio frequency noise issues which can interfere with the range of the new PW units.

Remote Camera Triggers

while digging around on the internet today, I decided to search for an acceptable wireless remote camera trigger for use with a photobooth setup.  I ran across a great (but slightly dated) article from shutterbug about the topic.  I wanted to add there have been at least a couple additions to the field since the article was written back in ‘07: radio popper and pocket wizard both have new eTTL compatible systems out now for wireless flash triggering.  (Also: a few of the links at the bottom of page two don’t link correctly, but the address is right if you manually type it in the address bar).

Adobe Photoshop CS5?

This morning I typed “photoshop cs5″ into my search bar and came up with a pretty cool site showing an artists interpretation of a hyper-realistic photoshop interface.  The webpage from the site (cs5.org) shows the step by step creation and photography of the layout process.  I doubt this is what cs5 will look like, but the pics and ideas are very cool.

P.S.  here’s a blog post from Adobe about some of the new features in CS5

Everybody Sing Along!

When the stripes on your guys,
make a swirly surprise,
That’s a moire….
When the stripes on your girls,
turn into little curls,
That’s a moire….
But seriously, if you don’t know what a moire pattern is you can check out a decent explanation at wikipedia

How to fix them,  the best method that I have seen is to resize the image in photoshop.  To do this you go to the menu at the top of the screen. Select Image, then go down the list and select “image size”.  A dialogue box will open.  Make sure the “resample image” box is checked, then change the number in the resolution box to a slightly smaller number. Finally, don’t save.  Instead select “save as” and add version1 or some other add on to the end of the file name.  This way you can keep changing from the original file until you find a resolution that eliminates or greatly reduces the moire pattern in your image.

here are a couple of other great resources for dealing with moire patterns:

• http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/photoshop/ht/apsremovemoire.htm
• http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/GoAwaySM.mov  – (this one is a video – pretty good tutorial called – ”Moire go Away”)

Shooting Water

found a couple short videos on how to shoot water droplets:

Two New Overlay Examples

After looking at some of the stats for this blog, I’ve discovered that the grunge overlay article was far and away the most popular. I feel that I never really did the article justice by just throwing some samples together, so I have decided to make some impressive examples for future use.

The first picture is my self portrait with two overlays. The first is in overlay mode and the second is in multiply mode (that’s why the background is so dark). I blurred myself in the overlay mode layer while I masked myself out of the multiply mode layer.

Self Portrait

The second image is an example of a marblized paper sample used as an overlay. I used the free transform function in photoshop to stretch the sample to cover the whole image. Then I switched the layer mode to overlay. I took the lasso tool to select everything except the shirt (on the overlay layer). Finally, (on the overlay layer) I used a gausian blur with a high radius number to remove the texture while retaining the color effect (erasing or masking would have affected the color as well as the texture).

Marblized Overlay Shirt

What the duck VIDEO series.

If you follow this site, you may have seen a few references to the webcomic “What the Duck“.  Last night I discovered they have some animated videos on youtube.  I don’t think they’re quite as funny as the regular comic strip, but it does provide a little variety.

 

 

NeXt post will be Monday or Tuesday

New Sears Portrait Special (a parody from MadTV)

found this the other day, wonder which package sells the best.

enjoy!

Lost in the land of one-thousand bookmarks

Have you ever saw something really really cool and bookmarked it, then forgot where the book mark was?

Guess what happened to me today.

I was going to post a video made from time lapse photography but can’t seem to find the link in my 1,000 plus bookmark collection.

Anyways………

I’ve decided to give a couple other links instead.  The first  is a page about metamerism.  Metamerism, if you’re wondering, is what you call it when two prints are made using the same subject (same neg or same digital file) but use slightly different processes (different printer brands, or different labs or even prints from the same printer viewed under different light sources or at different angles) and look VERY different. This link is an explanation of various types of problems you might encounter.  The link is to a site called Colorwiki. It’s not the best article ever (that was in photoshopuser a few months ago) but it’s pretty good.

The other link is from a blog from Gate City Photography about why some couples are willing to see each other before the ceremony while others aren’t.  It is a very informative article and gives insight on the wedding portrait creative process.

Enjoy!

Another page with photobooth ideas

While browsing the internet after two grueling 12+ hour workdays (Mother’s Day rush at the lab), I was researching reviews of the Cactus VR radio trigger (as a cheap tool to use in the photobooth) when I ran across a clever blog entry for using a “Crazy Booth” at a party.  It’s pretty much like the previous Photobooth entry on this blog, but it does have a story and guidelines/tips to go with it as well as some pics from a costume party where they first used their booth.

The blog is John Hawkins Unrated.  The page is simply called “Building a Crazybooth“