Category — Photoshop

Because I never did look like this, honest!

For some reason, back in 1999, I found it amusing to shave my head with Photoshop, add a moustache and goatee and insert a bit of ear and nostril jewellry. The peace symbol tat is true to my sentiments, but I don’t really have one of those, either.

The JPEG showed up in a rummaging search for old files on some zip disks. Remember zip drives? 20 MB of storage on each disk. Ooooooo!

The plugin is free from Adobe and I finally got it installed after weeks of dealing with a crashing Extension Manager CS4. It turned out to be a conflict with the Safari AdBlock that came with Safari 3. Upgrading to Safari 4 solves the problem. So does removing Safari AdBlock from this folder: Library/Input Managers

Anyway, once installed, the Pixel Bender plugin gives you a dozen slider-modifiable filter effects… the funhouse mirror sort of stuff we all know and love. Above, I have my head stuck into the CircleSplash effect.

Overexposed background needs burning in… actually, a lot of the foreground does too. But and overall Burn in removes detail in some areas that need to be brought back with non-destructive dodging.

Create a Dodge and Burn adjustment layer by option-clicking on the new adjustment layer button and setting the layer to Overlay mode. Check the Fill with overlay neutral button to fill the adjustment layer with 50 % grey (neutral to Overlay mode). Paint in black with a soft brush set to a low opacity to burn. Paint with white to dodge.

What could work better than a demonstration? Above: an original shot that is 425 pixels wide. Below, the same shot, same width, but “Content-Aware” scaled to reduce the size of the unimportant bits, keeping the subject matter unscaled.

You can do the same thing without Photoshop. See my entry on Rsizr.

In Photoshop, the key to controlling what gets scaled and what does not liies in the creation pf an alpha channel to protect certain area. White is protected, black will scale. Use the button in the toolbar to select your alpha channel when you use Edit >Content-Aware Scaling.

This is a fake tiltshift effect, done on a normal photo I took in Quebec City. You can make your own online (for free) using tiltshiftmaker.com (Thanks for the link, Brian.) You can click the image to see a larger version.

See how it tends to make things look like miniatures? The fake-it process works better on some photos than others, but it’s strange, isn’t it?

Here is the same shot, unprocessed.

I first became aware of tiltshift photography when Sam Javanrouh began experimenting with it. The real camera effect is stronger than the fake one …especially in the hands of a photographer like Sam.

Here is the effect at work in video…