TJM Media Group Presents - Start to Finish, Episode 1

The TJM Media Group is pleased to announce the release of the first episode of "Start to Finish" - a series where you, the reader, will help select each month's photography and graphic design assignment and then watch as your projects are completed, from start to finish. The key to this being a fun, interesting, and informative feature is your interaction. In this first episode, we had to come up with a basic concept on our own. 

In this episode, we go on assignment to the grounds of the University of Virginia and photograph Thomas Jefferson's historic academic village. Photographs are captured to demonstrate basic pano-stitching techniques back in the studio. It was a simple task to get the series up and running.

We have every confidence that you can do much better!

Here's how we'd like it to work:

Each month we need two basic assignments - a photographic concept and a final presentation.

For example, a suggestion for a photographic concept might be: Demonstrate the process for capturing the photos needed to render an HDR image of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting final presentation concept might be: Render the HDR image and present as a fine art print.

(OK, that one seems pretty neat. We might use it... )

Email your suggestions to: start2finish@tjmmediagroup.com

We look forward to working on YOUR assignments.

All the best,

 

Rob Jones and Jason Moore

Founders, TJM Media Group 

Experimenting with Textures by Andrew Smith

One technique I like to use when looking for a unique result is the use of textures. This may bring to mind specific looks that we've seen in use, but in reality the results are endless in variety, ranging from very subtle effects barely noticeable to immediately dramatic changes. This variety allows an extra level of creativity in our photography processing. The idea initially became popular with traditional photography, printing the photograph on textured paper. Fortunately for us, we can layer our texture files on top of our photos and have vast control of the result.

While excellent textures are available for purchase, part of the creative process that we can utilize, and one that ensures unique prints, is to create custom textures ourselves. Interesting textures we pass by can be photographed and manipulated or they can be created from scratch.

One of my favorite textures to use is an easy one to create, which I adapted from Nitsa's excellent "Still Alive" web site. (http://nonphotography.com/blog/) Crumble a regular piece of copy paper and soak it in a container of coffee. Remove, lay flat, and air dry the paper. Scan the result and manipulate at will. I've included a small sample of one such texture, as well as a resulting photograph.

To experiment, do initial work on a photograph using your regular work flow. Once it's resized as you wish, select the crop tool in Photoshop and click "Front Image" to set the cropping tool to the image size of your photograph. Open the texture file you created and crop to those set dimensions. Drag the texture (holding the shift key down to center) on top of the photograph and release.

Select the texture layer and experiment with various layer styles and opacities. You'll most likely develop favorite styles and soon have a feel for what photographs work the best with the technique. After making initial settings, you may wish to go back and adjust some of your initial workflow decisions.

The creative possibilities are endless. Use the textures on color, black and white or duotone images, and experiment with new texture ideas. It's not often that we can utilize a new tool that is literally free to produce. Or at least for the cost of a cup of coffee!

Andrew Smith is a talented Pennsylvania based-photographer and blogger who runs - Visual Realia.

Thank you, Andy for the creative inspiration, your friendship, and your support!

Software Review: onOne PhotoTools Professional

Hello all. Thanks for checking out this week's software review of onOne Software's, PhotoTools 2 Professional Edition. 

From the onOne website: With PhotoTools 2 you get hundreds of professional-grade photographic effects designed by Jack Davis, Kevin Kubota and onOne Software in house Photoshop professionals, all wrapped up in an easy-to-use program making this the fastest and easiest way to make your photos stand out from the crowd. With PhotoTools 2, you can preview, stack and combine effects to produce professional grade results in just a few clicks. You can even save an effects "recipe" as a preset and use it not only with Photoshop, but also with Lightroom 2 and Aperture 2.1.

I have to say, I do like the results I've seen from the tool, and they are correct when they say it is fast and easy. Many of the results can be produced using native photoshop effects, but it takes much longer than the one-click access you'll find with PT2.

Like we've mentioned before, everything in the Plug-In Suite can be found under the onOne menu in Photoshop. Once open, PhotoTools presents a pretty easy to navigate user interface. I'm going to include a screen capture I got from onOne to show you what it looks like. Like many of the onOne tools you find the ability to mask the effects, and a photoshop layer-like "Stack" available to arrange multiple effects on top of each other.

The main purpose of the interface, however, is to select and preview the massive library of effects. (271 total effects straight out of the box) With that in mind, instead of taking a lot of time showing how to use the tool (which really is quite easy), I've decided to show you a half a dozen or so cool effects applied to one of my photos all done with a single click in PhotoTools.

Here's my starting photo:

Nikon D3, 24-70mm (at 35mm), f/2.8 at 1/500s, ISO 100

Effect - Feel the Dragon

Effect - B&W Grainy Film

Effect - Impressionist

Effect - Day For Night

Effect - Wow Tint Brown

Effect - Kodachrome

... and as I mentioned - there are 265 other effects to try out too.

In conclusion, I first tried PhotoTools 2 in order to write this review. I've had a lot of fun playing with it, and it yields some pretty cool results. It would certainly be worth downloading the demo, particularly if you're one of those folks that doesn't want to take a lot of their time learning all the intricacies of photoshop.

Make sure you check back next week to see the final plug-in of the suite, Mask Pro 4.

If this, or any of onOne's software interests you, the folks at onOne have generously provided a 20% discount to all of my readers. Simply click on the link below to go the onOne store, and enter coupon code "TJP10" at checkout to receive your discount.

Software Review: onOne PhotoFrame Professional

Hello all. Thanks for checking out this week's software review of onOne Software's, PhotoFrame 4 Professional Edition.

So we've all seen really cool frame effects (and how to generate them) in photoshop books and classes ever since digital photography hit the scene. Now imagine you could add these stylish frames with just a couple of simple clicks instead of 10 minutes of photoshop work - enter PhotoFrame 4.

Here's a gorgeous shot of the very lovely, Melanie, taken in the church garden before her ceremony. We're going to imagine adding it into a modern style wedding album. With that in mind, we'll choose a frame that puts a little more of the focus on Melanie, while keeping an edgy modern look. Let's see what we can find.

Like everything else in the Plug-In Suite, you can find PhotoFrame 4 under the onOne menu in Photoshop. Once open, the interface provides a simple user experience for browsing through the massive frame catalog. You can find frames of all different styles and types, and even search for frames created especially for onOne by noted photographers and graphics designers.

Here I've selected a frame that fits the profile I was looking for. You'll notice that I can stack multiple frames in a layer-like interface within the PhotoFrame plugin. 

Now's the point in the process where you get to play around and have some fun. For space and time, I haven't included ALL the many options that can be tweaked for each frame. However, it's worth noting the level of control given to the user in terms of modifying the original catalog frame design. In this example, I've sampled a frame color from one of the trees in the image and adjusted the size of the frame.

The final step is to simply apply the changes. PhotoFrame gives me the option to add the modifications as a new layer in photoshop, protecting the integrity of my original pixels. Gotta love it!

Here's the result of two minutes of playing around in the plug-in. We've added an edgy border which has put more of the focus on Melanie, but has more character than a simple vignette. 

In conclusion, I've been an owner and user of PhotoFrame for a while. It's fun and easy to work with, and it consistently yields excellent results. I've used it in albums for my clients, in presentations, and in print work, and I'm pleased to recommend it's use.

Make sure you check back soon to see the review of, PhotoTools 2 Professional Edition.

If this, or any of onOne's software interests you, the folks at onOne have generously provided a 20% discount to all of my readers. Simply click on the link below to go the onOne store, and enter coupon code "TJP10" at checkout to receive your discount.

Software Review: onOne Genuine Fractals

Hello all. Thanks for checking out this week's software review of one of best tools available from onOne Software, Genuine Fractals.

So here's the deal. Of all the onOne tools, this one has had the most effect on the output quality of my printed images, and that is exciting. This is one of those tools that is extremely specific to accomplishing a certain task - namely, big high-detail enlargements. If you don't print things big, you probably don't need to mess with it. 

But if you do like to print stuff large, and I can speak from experience - nothing works better at enlarging images for print than Genuine Fractals - you'll just have to trust me, try it out, and see for yourself. 

With that said, I could end the review, but I would like to mention the other nice thing about GF, it's incredibly easy to use. If you're familiar with resizing images in photoshop, using the basic functions in GF is as easy if not easier.

Like everything else in the Plug-In Suite, you can find Genuine Fractals under the onOne menu in Photoshop. For this discussion, we'll look at the interface for regular and express mode. GF also has a powerful batch processing component, but we'll save that for another day.

Here we see the full version of the tool. For simplicity, I've minimized most of the menus on the right sidebar of the screen. I've left open the screen and print size controls so you can see just how similar they are to what you'll find in Photoshop. On top of these simple controls, when you start to play with things like textures, sharpening, film grain, etc. the folks at onOne have built an extremely efficient WYSIWYG display which updates with a preview of your tweaks in almost real-time.

So you just want to resize without messing with all the other stuff? Fire up the "express" version of GF and you get a very familiar control box (straight from the full version, and much like photoshop's native tool).

I really provided my summary at the beginning of this post. Until I tried Genuine Fractals, I had always thought that photoshop's bicubic smoother did just fine. But I suggest you do the same experiment I did. If you're willing, download the free trial of GF, and print a 12MP image at say, 20x30, upsized with GF. You WILL see a difference in sharpness, and you won't go back to what your were using before.

Make sure you check back next Wednesday when we review, PhotoFrame 4 Professional Edition.

If this, or any of onOne's software interests you, the folks at onOne have generously provided a 20% discount to all of my readers. Simply click on the link below to go the onOne store, and enter coupon code "TJP10" at checkout to receive your discount.