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Adapted from Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom, 2nd Edition (Peachpit Press)
By Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe
Version: Adobe Photoshop CS4

Creative sharpening is the catch-all term for localized adjustments to image detail. Unlike optimizations for capture and output processes, creative adjustments can’t be applied automatically based on specific parameters—they require creative judgment, hence the name.

But automation plays an important role in making many of the tools we use for creative sharpening. The only part of the process that can’t be automated is the actual localizing of an effect to a specific area of an image. So in this section we’ll discuss building creative sharpening (and blurring) tools and applying them effectively to images in Photoshop. The first valuable lesson to learn is that you can turn any adjustment into a brush!

Read the full article on Graphics.com

Adapted from Glitch: Designing Imperfection (Mark Batty Publisher)
By Iman Moradi, Ant Scott, Joe Gilmore & Christopher Murphy
Dateline: October 23, 2009

Q: Please outline your working ethos and history as a graphic design studio—your experimental glitch research and the commercial side. How did this way of working come about?

Adapted from EdgyCute: From Neo-Pop to Low Brow and Back Again (Mark Batty Publisher)
By Harry Saylor with Carolyn Frisch
Dateline: October 20, 2009

I believe in art. I collect it, search for it and am driven to own it. My first “real art” purchase was in 1988: an Andy Warhol “Cow.” I loved the use of a trademarked character—Elsie the Cow—to create a homey feeling that was so familiar to me that it created instant comfort. Next, I acquired a piece by Rodney Alan Greenblat: “Challenge of the Suburbs.” At first glance it comes off as very silly. At the time none of my friends understood why I bought it. But I understood it and that’s all that matters anyway. It was like a new roommate. I look at all my art as roommates, silent, joyful, sometimes scary, always thought provoking, and happy! When I look at them they speak to me and even haunt me.

See the collection of images on Graphics.com

Adapted from What is Illustration? (RotoVision)
By Lawrence Zeegen
Dateline: October 9, 2009

“I’m a graphic designer at heart. I understand that different problems require different treatments, and that the mantra ‘form follows function’ is going to save my ass one day,” says Christoph Niemann, a passionate advocate for ideas-centered, problem-solving illustration. Niemann trained in graphic design at Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts in Germany, moving to New York upon graduation in 1997 to begin a career in illustration, working predominantly as an editorial illustrator.

“Despite studying graphic design, I majored in illustration,” Niemann admits. “I had a harsh tutor, but it was a fantastic education.” The harsh tutor was no less then Heinz Edelmann, art director and illustrator of the 1968 classic Beatles movie Yellow Submarine. It was this education that set Niemann on his path to concept-led illustration.

“I have a real problem with illustration that isn’t created within the context of graphic design,” he continues. “Being an illustrator is like being an artist without being an artist; it is not about self or ego, it is always about collaboration and compromise.” Niemann understands the complexities of working to a brief, for a client and for an end user or “reader,” as he refers to his audience. “For an illustrator, the collaboration with a good art director means that it is never just about making a picture to fill a white space on the page—an art director will always have an opinion,” he explains.

Read the full article on Graphics.com

Adapted from Photoshop CS4 for Nature Photographers: A Workshop in a Book (Sybex)
By Ellen Anon and Josh Anon
Dateline: September 24, 2009
Version: Adobe Photoshop CS4

The Shadow/Highlight adjustment is an excellent way to reveal subtle detail in the shadow and/or highlight areas of your images. Although you could theoretically produce similar results with sophisticated use of Curves, the Shadow/Highlight adjustment is far easier to use when you need to recover detail that has been lost in shadow or highlight areas because of excessive contrast. It’s similar to the Fill Light and Recovery sliders in ACR, but it has additional controls so you can fine-tune the results.

Read the full article on Graphics.com

Adapted from Negative Space
(Mark Batty Publisher)
By Noma Bar, with an introduction by Buzz Poole, Dateline: September 11, 2009

When a student enrolls in a class to learn the craft of writing there is one adage that cannot be escaped: Show, don’t tell. This ubiquitous sentiment reminds writers of all stripes that their readers do not need to be bludgeoned over the head with the text’s “message.” Rather, writers need to do little more than pepper the scene with details of the moment—Is the room cold? What does the woman do with her hands when she is on the phone? The bread in the toaster is burning. The litter box has not been changed in three weeks—which permit the meaning to form in the reader’s mind.

Excerpted from Tricks of the Trade, an online bonus chapter for Photoshop CS4 QuickSteps (The McGraw-Hill Companies)
By Gary David Bouton and Carole Matthews
Dateline: August 28, 2009
Version: Adobe Photoshop CS4

I'll be showing you how to build a brush in Photoshop, specifically a natural media-type tip that simulates watercolor, complete with “wet” edges.

Begin By Painting a Brush Tip

There are two types of brushes you can build and use in Photoshop:

• One based on math, i.e., geometry. This sort of brush is created by duplicating a Photoshop preset labeled “Soft Round” or “Hard Round”, and then customizing it as shown in the following sections; you click a brush, click New Brush Preset on the pop-up menu, name the brush in the Brush Name dialog box, and you’re all set to modify it. The limitation to building this type of brush is that it’s always elliptical in shape—you cannot give it an irregular outline as a stroke with a physical paintbrush can produce.
• One based on a bitmap. This is the type of brush you’ll learn to create in this chapter. It’s a mental, not a physical challenge; and the payoff is that a saved bitmap-type brush can be used in scores of design and retouching situations. The strokes it produces can look quite natural and photographic; additionally, all the options on the Brushes Panel are available for customizing the bitmap brush tip.

Read the full article on Graphics.com

By Peter Krogh
Excerpted from The DAM Book, Second Edition: Digital Asset Management for Photographers (O'Reilly)

Dateline: August 19, 2009

We’ll start with some generic system configurations, and then look at some specific implementations.

Adapted from Photoshop CS4: Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks (Wiley Publishing)
By Lynette Kent
Dateline: August 17, 2009
Version: Adobe Photoshop CS4

You can paste one image onto another and blend the pasted image into the Background layer by changing the blend mode. The layer blending modes control how the colors in the top image combine with the pixels in the underlying image. They do not affect the texture of either image. To make the top image blend into the texture of the base image and make the final image appear more realistic, you can use the Distort filter and a special file called a displacement map.

Adapted from Printing with Adobe Photoshop CS4 (Focal Press)
By Tim Daly
Dateline: August 12, 2009
Version: Adobe Photoshop CS4

Toning

Historically, photographic print toning has used chemical toners like sepia and selenium to make prints with fairly limited colors ranging from brown to purple-reds. With the digital process, however, there are many more color options available together with a near Zone System level of control. For the fainthearted, this digital route is also reversible, so there’s no danger of ruining your perfectly good image file. Subtlety, if you want it, is there in bundles, with no need to produce intimidating Colorvir-like prints, unless hallucinogenic effects are your thing. Digital coloring in CS4 means you can have infinite control over the toning process adding color across the whole image or dropping it in up to ten different tonal sectors. Following is a number of different routes to image toning, starting with the easiest and ending with the more interesting Duotone techniques.