richam

<p>Check out Kelby: http://www.kelbytraining.com/books/index.html</p>

<p>Lots of free tutorials out there. Just google "photoshop tutorials." Then survey for ones that look interesting to you. I subscribed to an RSS feed that has many: http://www.thedigitalphotographyconnection.com/PFDP.php Once you get a routine that you like, you can record it as an action. Good luck.</p>

<p>Haven't tried it, but I understand you can publish other web pages/sites (that were not iWeb developed) to the mobile me site. Just open [your iDisk name] > Web > Sites on your iDisk; save the web pages folder there; then sync your iDisk. And I get .me mail on my normal .mac account. So far I've only used iWeb, and you can check mine out: http://web.me.com/richam. And Jon, well done.</p>

<p>I have two WD portable drives, and they work perfectly. If you want to have a disk compatible with both Mac and PC, you can choose the "MS-DOS (FAT)" option in the Mac Hard Disk Utility, and then erase the disk.</p><div></div>

<p>

 

<p>Just Google "film leader retriever" for a commercial solution; many of these cost around $5, and are very handy to have.</p>

 

</p>

<p>Jeff,<br>

Put them side by side and notice there is a difference in green luminosity. Thanks. More of an eyeball than a monitor problem.</p>

<p>Here is a corrected example:</p><div></div>

<p>At this point, you can open the curves dialog and see which way the individual channels have been "corrected." Then you can back off the over-corrections till it looks right. The whole point of the exercise is to get all the channels balanced and not just adjust the green channel. You might end up with something like:</p>

<p>Forgive me, but I could see little difference between your original and corrected images. Anyway, I tried a color correction method that first will almost always over-correct; then re-adjust for the over-correction, once I see the way the channel curves have gone:<br>

1. Duplicate the background layer.<br>

2. Apply Filter>Blur>Average. This leaves a solid color (in this case green) of the average of the image.<br>

3. Open a Curves Adjustment layer. Select the gray (middle) dropper and click on the image. This turns the green to gray.<br>

4. Hide (or delete) the solid Background copy. At this point you should have an over-corrected image:</p>

<div></div>

Shannon, I've had similar problems with my 2200 when trying to print panoramas. I understand that <a href="http://gimp-

print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3">Gutenprint drivers</a> will solve the problem, although I haven't tried them yet. Sorry I

can't give you more specifics right now; I'm still at my summer home, and my 2200/Mac setup is at my other place.

I note many good technical reasons for shooting traditional B&W, most of which I agree with. But there's also a psychological or mental

discipline element in shooting with B&W. B&W and Color are different mediums. If you shoot B&W, composition concerns center on tones,

textures, and positioning or balancing of dark and light areas to achieve a pleasing image. If you shoot color, composition often means

juxtaposition or balancing of the color elements, where tonality and luminosity are secondary concerns. If you're loaded up for B&W, you can

free your mind from color considerations, and think in B&W terms without color hindering your thoughts. If you are loaded with color, and have

the attitude that "it might work in color; else I'll convert to B&W," your images will likely suffer, or at least not reach their full potential -- the

"ready, fire, aim" syndrome.

Preston, you now have a full quiver of ammunition to achieve the results you are looking for. As I said, it depends on your

personal definition of "pop." Patrick is a master of the "natural" look, and he provides sound advice if you want to maintain that

look. The Lab procedure I suggested actually distorts the colors of the image, and can provide you an offbeat "pop," if that is

your aim. And using USM for midtone contrast control can be adjusted by setting the 10% amount to some other value. I set

up a PS action for USM at the 10% level, which provides me an easy alternative to using curves to get a similar adjustment.

There are many ways to achieve similar results, and by setting up your own user actions, you can automate much of the

process. Have fun.

A couple of suggestions:

1. Midtone contrast: Apply unsharp mask with amount 10%, radius 250, threshold 0. Repeat several times (cmd-F) till the

midtones look as you want them to.

2. Another contrast punch: Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Set master saturation to -100 and blend mode to "soft

light". Then adjust opacity till you like it.

3. A "wow" pop. Change mode to Lab. Add a curves adjustment layer. Bring the upper right and lower left toes of both a

and b channels in a bit (straight, horizontally) -- about a half grid mark, maybe less. Adjust L channel curve for desired

lightness.

 

It sort of depends on your personal definition of "pop" is, but I'll bet you can use combinations of the above on separate

layers. I played with it a bit -- here's an example.<div></div>

"Michael how did you make the mask...did you use pen tool?...or is there a faster way"

I used the gradient tool with the mask selected. It's located with the paint bucket tool, and selected with the G key. you need

to press the D key first to restore foreground/background to black/white.

Another gradient variation, this time dragging from the bottom of the frame to Mike's left knee.<div></div>

Here is what the layers palette looked like.<div></div>

"an you do the grad blur on the first picture to see how that would look?" Here is a sample. The problem here is to apply the

gradient so that it looks natural. In this case, I dragged from a spot just below the point where the ball and tire meet on the

concrete seam to the edge of the photo following the concrete seam. I tried several variations, but this seemed to be the best.<div></div>

Pete, just an illustration of graduated blur technique. I wasn't expecting preference comments.

And here's the result.<div></div>

Here's the original. The background is a bit distracting, unfortunately.<div></div>

For a graduated blur, you can put two layers of your sharp background on top of each other, blur the top one, and then mask it

with the gradient tool by dragging from the sharpest desired part to the most blurred part. You can drag in any direction to

make the gradient work the way you want. Then your masked foreground goes on top of it all. I'll try to post an example.

First, here's what my layers palette looked like.<div></div>

On the background, you can use the clone stamp to rub out the glowing edges. Sample a point just outside the subject or on

some similar pattern and drag over the edges.

Right click and choose "open in camera raw"

check out Memeo LifeAgent. It runs backups the way I like and makes sharing easier. Right now, I'm using both time

machine and lifeagent on separate external drives. You could set it up for networked backups, and it will keep folders

synchronized on both your macs, doing it all in the background once you get it initiated.

I've had better results with the built in NikonScan ROC than the PS plugin; at least I got a smooth 8 bit histogram. When I tried

ROC as a PS plugin, I got a very scattered histogram indicating lots of data loss. I don't have the latest ROC; it probably

does 16 bit tiff files now, where my original version is limited to 8 bits, so it might work better if you scan in 16 bit mode.

Nonetheless, I'd give the NikonScan a try on a few of your old slides to see if it compares favorably with the trial plugin. If

NikonScan is at least as good as you get with the plugin, there's no need to spend the extra money.