Have you ever wondered how you can make someone or some thing look like it is melting or bursting into pieces in Photoshop?  Another way to describe it is dispersion techniques or fragmentation.  Here is a tutorial I found of basketball player melting or being liquified by Doucin Pierre that will walk you through it step by step.

Tutorial shared from the Red Dot Blog.

Ever wonder how to make something look like it’s exploding into bits and pieces in Photoshop?  This easy to follow video tutorial will walk you through this technique step by step.  Here is part 1 of 2.  Stay tuned for the second half of this cool method of making things look like they’re exploding, or breaking into tiny pieces.

We recently got our hands on a fresh copy of a new ebook by photographer Evan Sharboneau. Evan has a really informative blog with some amazing tutorials at PhotoExtremist.com.  Not knowing what to expect, I ended up being really delighted with the way the book was organized.  It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner, an advanced, amateur, or a seasoned professional.  This book was written and organized in a way so that all that read it will take something home with them.  I was pretty overwhelmed with the amount of techniques and lighting variables in this ebook.  There are so many real examples, all clickable that link to the web for even further review.  This book even has clickable links to step by step tutorials for many of the techniques illustrated.

Sometimes you don’t know what to expect with ebooks, and may be a little skeptical, like I am. Online only ebooks sometimes catch a bad rap because there are a lot of them, and most can be really poorly put together.  Everyone and their cousin is taking their best blog posts, and shoving them together in a pdf, calling it an ebook.  This is definitely not your average run of the mill information.  As photographers, we can sometimes get a little stale or get stuck in our own comfort zone.  This ebook teaches some great tricks and techniques that will get your creative juices flowing.  The hundreds of images and visual eye candy will inspire you to attempt some of these on your own.

Trick Photography and Special Effects covers the following topics very thoroughly:

-photography basics for beginners: cameras, lenses, tripods, aperture, iso, shutter speeds, white balance, etc.

-360 degree panoramas

-HDR and infrared photography

-painting and drawing with light

-fundamental trick lighting tools and techniques

-long exposure photography: skies, water, people, star trails

-advanced lens filters

-lightning photography

-the Droste effect

-shaped bokeh

-double exposures

-multiplicity

-tons of Photoshop tutorials, projects and ideas

That’s only scratching the surface.  To view the entire table of contents and to get an actual preview of some of the e book’s many pages, click here

I really enjoyed this e-book and would highly recommend it – all 190 pages. It’s worth it’s weight in gold, even if you are able to implement just a few of the techniques into your skill set.  The quality and content of this book is better than most printed books I’ve thumbed through at the bookstore or library.  It took me over a few hours just to quickly skim through it, but I plan on going back and reading it more in depth when I need to get inspired with some new photography and Photoshop techniques.  This book is chock full of them, that’s for sure.  Check it out yourself – I’m sure you won’t regret it.

For a limited time, thru the last day of 2011, you can enter here to win a free copy of this ebook and video course!

Photoshop Tutorial – Getting Rid of Wrinkles from Todd on Vimeo.

A quick and painless demonstration of wrinkle removal using some tools in Photoshop. I apologize for the fact that it sounds like the mic was inside of my mouth…

I just found this portrait I had laying in my “to do” folder.  This is an example of what you can do when you go wide, and get close up.  The face gets distorted near the edges, creating a funky effect.  This shot was 18mm and I had my wife crouch down so I could get this higher angle.  The DOF was a tad bit on the shallow side, and the window lighting wasn’t perfect, but you get the idea.  Give it a try, next time you’re shooting people.