Web browsers and Facebook

I get SO irritated every time I see somebody say "Facebook changes the colour of images".

NO IT DOESN'T.

Facebook makes a mess of the clarity of images, we know that.  Its compression settings are pretty strong, and it plays havoc with our sharpening, in particular.  Nothing we can do about that.  With all the billions and gazillions of images on their servers, can you blame them for compressing them a bit?  Of course not.

But it doesn't change colour.  If you see that your images' colour looks different on Facebook than it did in your editing program, it's your fault, not Facebook's.  It's because you're not using the right browser.

Let's discuss the four main browsers.  We'll start at the bottom of the pile, with Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.  These two have no colour management at all.

Simple storyboard tutorial - part 2: multiple photos

This post is an extension of my last one - Simple clipping mask and storyboard tutorial.  If you're new or relatively new to clipping masks in Photoshop, I encourage you to go back and read it before continuing here.

If you're not new to storyboard creation, you'll notice that the method I'll explain in this article is a little different from most storyboard tutorials.  I assure you I have good reasons for this, and I'll explain them as I go along.

I've captured the screenshots for this tute in Photoshop CS2.  The methods apply to all versions of Photoshop, and to Elements 9 onwards, but NOT Elements 8 or earlier.  If you'd like the tute for older versions of Elements, come and hassle me at Ask Damien :)

As I explained in the previous post, half the battle can be won before you even start, with a bit of planning.  For this example, I want to make a three-image panoramic storyboard to go on Facebook.  I choose a width of 960 (the Facebook maximum) and a height of 300.  I turn on gridlines every thirty pixels, and I'm ready to go:

Simple clipping mask and storyboard tutorial

If you'd like to make your own storyboard or collage, or if you'd simply like to place your photos in a template that somebody else made for you, you need to know about clipping masks.  Clipping masks are the way to fit a photo to a specific shape in a layout.

This is a VERY simple tutorial for beginners.  I've created it in Photoshop CS2, but it will work just the same in all versions of Photoshop and Elements.

Here's the basic little design I'm going to make:

Ok, ok, I know it's simplistic and cheesy.  My creativity is pretty dismal.  But that doesn't matter.  I'm going to show you how to make this design, and in the process I hope to give you the skills and confidence to create your own ... much grander than this :)

STEP 1: Plan plan plan!

Storyboards and collages are a heck of a lot easier if you have a firm concept in your head before you begin.  Sketch it on a piece of paper if it helps (that's what I do).

Tutorial: Orange gradient for a dusk sky

Ok, here's what we're aiming for:

We want a bit of colour in that blown-out sky.  Many thanks to Sue for allowing me to use this photo.

As usual, I've done this tutorial in Elements.  The method is exactly the same in any version of Photoshop.

Here's the original.

First things first, folks.  Make sure you process your photo warm enough!  It looks absolutely stoopid if you add a really warm sky to a really cold photo.  Let's face it, if you take photos at this time of day, they're going to be warm.  Don't fight it.

Strategies for managing out-of-gamut clothing

Very brightly-coloured clothing present a unique problem in post-processing.  Most commonly it's red and orange garments, but it can happen with any vivid colour.  They're invariably out of gamut, and cause channel clipping.  If you shoot Jpeg and this happens, you're screwed.  Make sure you shoot Raw, so that you have plenty of latitude for dealing with it.

When time permits, I intend to write more comprehensive information about this.  For now, here's a brief overview of your four options.

Option 1. Ignore the clipping. This is a genuine option - a lot of people don't mind a bit of clipping in clothing.  Remember that this whole issue boils down to a choice of "bright and clipped" vs "dull and safe".  You might prefer the former over the latter.  (Of course, some clipping is so severe that it can't be ignored.)

Why PPI doesn't matter - yet another analogy

This morning my children asked for a drink of milk.  So I told them to get cups out of the cupboard, and I'd pour them one.

My daughter (4) found a short fat cup, and my son (2) grabbed a taller, thinner cup.  They put them on the table, and I poured the milk.

My daughter immediately asked why her brother had more milk than her.  I tried to explain that they both had the same amount of milk, but it looked as if she had less because her cup was fatter, whereas her brother's cup was thinner.  Needless to say, she didn't really understand the explanation (how do you explain fluid volume to a 4 year old?), so I brought the discussion to a hasty halt with my most fatherly "Just drink your darn milk, ok?"

Replace "milk" with "pixels", and it's pretty much the same discussion we have regularly on forums and Facebook ...

"That photographer's images are 300ppi, and mine are only 72ppi!  Why are hers bigger?"

They're not.  Yours are just as big as hers.  Hers are just in a "thinner glass", that's all.

Just take your darn photos, ok?

:D

"Front Image" (Crop Tool): Don't touch it!

When you choose your Crop Tool in Photoshop (I don't think this applies to Elements), one of the features of the Options Bar is the "Front Image" button:

When you click this button, it populates the three fields with the Width, Height and Resolution of the image you're working on.

There is only ONE reason to use this button, and it is a very rare one.  You use it if you want to crop another image to the exact same size as the one you're presently viewing.  You press that button to get the specs of the current image, then switch to the other image, and crop it.  Both images will then be exactly the same height, width and resolution.

That hardly seems worthy of a blog post?  You're dead right. It's such an obscure function that it's barely worth mentioning.  The reason I'm writing this post is because an alarming number of people misuse the Front Image button.

Faulty Camera Raw plug-in

Last night I did a fresh install of Photoshop CS5 on my PC.  After the install, I immediately chose "Updates" from the Help menu, and it installed all of the latest plug-ins, patches, etc.  All pretty straightforward - the kind of thing we've all done a few times.

But this morning when I came to do some work, I found that there were a couple of CR2 files from one particular client which I couldn't view in Bridge, nor open in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw).  I could see everybody else's raw files ok, it was just this one set.

I was totally perplexed, because I knew I'd viewed these files only a couple of days earlier, before the re-install.  And what was more, I found I could open them just fine in Elements 9, so I knew the files themselves were ok.  It was a problem with CS5.

But what was the problem?  Like I said, I could open other raw files without any trouble.  So I thought, well, maybe I didn't do the Updates properly?  So I went to Help>Updates again, but it told me everything was up to date.  I tried the same thing via Bridge - same result.

I'm happy to report I found the solution, and I'm posting it here on the remote chance that somebody else has this same problem, and finds my blog ...

I went to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-Ins\CS5\File Formats and found the file called Camera Raw.8bi.  I deleted it, then went to the Adobe site and manually downloaded that file again.  I put the newly-downloaded file into the folder, and launched Bridge - voila!  I could see and edit all of my raw files again.  Huzzah!

So I guess it means that the Camera Raw plugin file must have been faulty somehow. I don't know how it happened, but I'm very glad that my tale had a happy ending.

(I assume this problem and solution could apply to any version of Photoshop.  If you're on a Mac, I believe the path to find your plug-in is /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Plug-Ins/CS5/File Formats.)

Blanket fade examples

In my last post I demonstrated my technique for blanket fade.  I hope you liked it.  (If you haven't read it, please do so, or this post won't make much sense!)

Here, I'll show you two more examples using the same method.

Many thanks to Amanda Miley for this image:

Blanket fade tutorial

By popular demand, I finally got around to writing this tute.  Let's take a look at what we're aiming to achieve:

It's the classic blanket-blurring-off-into-the-distance.  In most cases, it's really easy to do, as I'm about to demonstrate.

Before I start, I must express my gratitude to Amy Cope Photography for the use of this gorgeous image. Thanks Amy!  Also, I've recorded this tutorial in Photoshop Elements 9.  I never pass up an opportunity to show Elements users how seriously their software ROCKS.  CS5-CSschmive, I say ;)