employing the 12-part grid…

If you would like to employ the 12-part grid in your magazine/newsletter/brochure layout (I suggest that you do) please read on. Assuming that you use Adobe Indesign (why wouldn’t you?), create a new document and set your margins to whatever you prefer (I use half-inch). Then under the Layout menu choose Create Guides. In this dialogue box insert 12 in the column field and check the radio button next to Fit Guides to Margins. This will setup 12 columns inside your desired margin. Now you’re ready to start laying out your magazine or newsletter.

Once you start laying out your design in your 12-part grid, you should see all of your normal alignment issues take care of themselves. Remember to use the W key to switch to preview mode to allow you to see your layout without the guides and bleeds showing.

Great tip… for Camera Raw.

One of my favorite things about working in Camera Raw is the ability to tweak my exposure. Lately I’ve been reading and testing out various lighting techniques on Strobist.com. Since I’m no Joe McNally, I almost always have to tweak my exposures. This tip is super simple, but it reaps great rewards. Step one, of course, is to open an image in Camera Raw. This will work when opening an image that was shot in RAW, or a jpg you’d like to edit in Camera Raw (a new feature in CS3!) As you are moving the Exposure slider, try holding down the Option key (Alt on PC) to reveal your image in a clipping display. It’s a simplified version of your image that will allow you to increase/decrease exposure until you just start to see some absolute white in your clipping display. This tip also works on the Recovery slider, and the Blacks slider as well. The Blacks slider will reveal the reverse clipping display. Slide this one till you just start to see some black in your clipping display. Hope this helps!

Photoshop CS3: New Black and white adjustment layer.

Tutorial #2 is finally here. This is the best way I’ve found to convert color photos to black and white in Photoshop. It gives great control and it’s not overly difficult. First off you’ll need a color photo, then you are going to add a black and white adjustment layer by clicking on the half white/half black circle at the bottom of the layers palette. You can also get there by using menus if you like. Click Image–>Adjustments–>Black and White, but this doesn’t give you an adjustment layer and once you convert it to black and white, there’s no going back and tweaking it later… so don’t do it that way! Once you have the Black and White dialogue box open, you’ll notice there are a lot of color sliders that may make this seem daunting… relax, this is where my tip comes in handy. Once you take your cursor outside this dialog box and over your photo, you’ll see you get an eyedropper tool instead of your normal arrow. Try clicking on an area of your photo that you would like to see lightened or darkened and click and that area of the photo. When you click and hold your mouse button you will notice you get a finger cursor with arrows pointing left and right. That’s your cue in Photoshop that you can now change your color values by dragging left or right. Right to make that area darker, left to make it lighter. In these samples I’ve adjusted my son’s face to exaggerate the effect. Try it out on a few different areas… you’ll notice the color values in the dialog box changing. It’s that simple.

Tutorial: Extending the dynamic range.

Here is my first attempt at an actual tutorial for photographers and photoshop users.If you don’t have the latest version of Photoshop, you can still make some pretty nice enhancements to your photos and extend the dynamic range to levels that cameras today cannot capture. First off, you are going to take two exposures of a single identical composition (using a tripod, of course). One slightly overexposed, and one slightly underexposed (also called Bracketing). I am going to take you through some steps to combine these multiple exposures so that you can make an image that combines the best shadows from your overexposed picture with the great highlights of your underexposed picture.

First off, take your two exposures of a single identical composition (using a tripod, of course). Then, when you get both images open in Photoshop, you are going to drag your darker image into the lighter one (holding down the shift key will drop your darker image directly into the center of your lighter image).

Now you should have both images in a single document, and we are going to use blending options and blending modes to combine those perfectly exposed shadows and highlights from both images. Once your images are aligned as best you can select Layer>Layer Styles>Blending Options. We want to keep the highlights from the top image, and combine them with the shadows from the underlying image, so we are going to move the sliders in the bottom of the Blending Options dialogue box. Move the upper-left Blend If slider to the right until you start to see sufficient shadow detail appearing, then hold Option/Alt and drag the right edge of that same slider toward the right until you create a smooth transition between your shadows and midtones. You should see your slider split into two pieces. Then, before leaving this dialogue box, select Darken from the Blend Mode drop down menu, and this should help you improve the image in any areas where there may be some alignment issues from things such as wind. As this is my first attempt at a tutorial, please feel free to ask questions, and comments are always appreciated.