Canvas is great!

I often see photographers on forums saying "I'm thinking about getting a canvas printed - is this photo good enough?"

There's a very simple rule here:  If you like it on screen, you'll LOVE it on canvas.

Canvas is wonderful.  Nothing beats a great photo enlarged on your wall.

New action: Rule of Thirds cropping guide

I just posted a new addition to my actions page:

Rule of thirds cropping guide

Hope it helps somebody!

Colour modes vs colour spaces

Sometimes, in my virtual travels, I see this question: "I thought I was working in sRGB, but it still says RGB at the top of the window in Photoshop!"

This refers to the title bar, where it says "RGB/8":

At the heart of this question is a common and lamentable problem - people refer to Adobe RGB as simply "RGB".  This is bad.  Adobe RGB is a type of RGB.  RGB is a colour mode, whereas Adobe RGB is a colour space.  Let me explain with an analogy ...

When I'm out driving, I see several modes of transport - eg cars, buses, motorcycles and trucks.  Each of those transport modes have their own purposes, their own benefits, and their own drawbacks.  Within those modes are various types - if you drive a car you could choose a Toyota, a BMW, a Hyundai, a Porsche, etc, etc.  If a motorcycle is your preferred mode, you could choose a Ducati, a Honda, etc.  And so on.

So, you've discovered you're in Adobe RGB ...

This article has been removed, because it has been superseded by this even better one.

Choosing house paint colours

Our poor old house hasn't been painted for a long time, I'd say.  It's fading and peeling and sad; and frankly, the colours are daggy:

Time to reach into the savings and get it done.  We've more or less settled on a painter, but choosing colours is HARD!  Luckily, I know a guy who knows Photoshop ;)

I guess there are numerous ways to do this, but I found I like using Hue/Saturation with Colorize.