In this tutorial, we learn how to make a simple selection using the lasso and magic wand tools in Adobe Photoshop. After making the selection, Bob shows how to clean it up with masking, using the quick mask mode. Later, the actual color of the gumdrop candy is actually adjusted in the hue / saturation dialog box. Yes, this is just one of many ways to adjust color of an object in a photo, selectively. If you get adventurous, try also playing around with “select color range” as an added selection option. The “replace color” feature is also a pretty valuable resource, when used properly. Each of these techniques can be done very wrong, if the details are overlooked. Be careful to watch surrounding color casts. If a green object is casting red, it’s just not going to look all that real.

I have been wanting to use some palm tree vectors in some of my designs and stock vectors.  Seeing that last summer I was able to visit the Caribbean to shoot stock photography, I have a lot of elements ready to go.  I’ve always been such a sucker for palm trees.  Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in New England my entire life.  The maple, pine, and oak trees are beautiful as well, but to me, coconut palm trees are probably my favorite.  I have a huge print of one on the wall in front of my desk, just about my monitor.  I like to stare at it and drift away sometimes… LOL

You really can use this technique with any type of shape or silhouette.  If you just want to employ this technique on a photo of a person or an object that is already isolated over a white background, then you can very easily do so.  Just darken the person with the levels and dodge/burn tools, if necessary.  Then, follow the same process we guided you through in the tutorial video.

Tutorial shared from the Red Dot Blog.

Here Bob takes a simple landscape image and shows how to turns it from dull to interesting in photoshop in just around 4 minutes.  By adding highlights to some of the tree limbs and tweaking the levels, as well as adjusting the way the sky looks, the image really comes to life (as compared to the original). The techniques covered in this tutorial video include layer masking, saturation, curves adjustment layers, and sky replacement.

This is a short video tutorial by The Miz on how you can very easily set up a rule of thirds grid for your designs and images in Photoshop.  Composition is important in effective imagery, and this grid will definitely help you in both your design work layouts, as well as in your photo cropping in post-production.  The newer versions of Photoshop also have a “rule of thirds” grid automatically when you select the entire canvas using the crop tool.

Unfortunately the weather and time of day have a lot to do with how your outdoor photos are going to come out.  Landscapes are something I find incredibly challenging, just because of the lack of control you have over all these elements.  When you go on a trip, on vacation, or wherever you are at the moment, you pretty much are at the mercy of nature.  There are certain educated guesses you can make by planning what time of day you might shoot according to the direction of the sun, and it’s height in the sky, but when the clouds or fog start to roll in it’s an entirely different story.  Here is a Photoshop video tutorial by our good buddy Bob that shows how you can repair these types of hazy images in post processing.  Using lab color mode, and later switching back to rgb, you can maintain control of adding too much extra artifacting.  Here we learn how to use the curves on the lightness channel, as well as on a, and b by moving the little points around.  I have to be honest, this stuff was greek to me until I watched the video.  It ended up being a very simple and to the point technique which I find myself using more and more in my daily workflow.  The beauty of Photoshop as I always say, is that there are so many roads to the same outcome, so sit back and enjoy this one.  I’m sure you’re going to find it very useful to remove haze, increase saturation and mid to low level contast.  The results might actually impress you; a lot. They did for me, on an image that I just processed of Flamenco beach.

Here Bob explains how to creatively use exposure adjustment layers to add highlights and subtle lighting effects to your photos.  This feature was originally implemented in the CS3 version of Adobe Photoshop.  Amazingly what he describes as “subtlety” here makes an incredible improvement over the original image.  If you enjoy this tutorial, click the tutorials category to the right of this post for more creative digital goodness.

In this Photoshop video tutorial Bob “The Miz” Mizerek shows how we can replace skies and clouds in our photos quickly and easily.  There are a lot of methods to doing this, as I have posted earlier.  That is the beauty of post processing – it’s similar to programming or web development, where there are 100 ways of doing anything.  You just need to stick to what works best for you.  It still never hurts to pick up a few pointers on how to do something a different way, because you never know; you might just find the new way faster or easier.  This video shows how to use the “blend if” or the blending if option.

Here Bob “The Miz” Mizerek shows us how we can simulate reflections quickly and easily in this Photoshop video tutorial.  Creating realistic reflections can be challenging, but this tut will send you in the right direction towards mastering the technique.

Getting Organized One of the toughest parts about stock photography is all the organization that goes into planning and properly executing a shoot of any given topic.  It’s a lot of work and effort.  Sure, there are times you might wing it and come up with a nice variety of different themes, but if I find that if I’m always trying to “wing it” my time isn’t used the most effectively.  If you’re going to be shooting models, you need to orchestrate the entire shoot with them.  Then, you need to decide on a location, wardrobe (what to tell them to wear) props, ideas and themes to try.  You want to make the shoot effective for the short amount of time you’ll be working together, for me it’s usually 1-2 hours tops.  Making sure you have your model release ready for them to sign, and not forgetting to have them actually sign them is even a chore.  Then there is the scanning and uploading of the releases to each and every agency you’re submitting those images to.

Shooting Subjects That Can’t Talk BackIf you want to shoot food there is the purchasing of the ingredients, the prep and cooking time, the presentation of it all on the plate and table setting.  Food could sometimes be easier to work with than models, depending on the model.  Sometimes models can decide to cancel last minute, then what do you do with your time slot?  It’s very similar to any other business where you have to make appointments for your clientele, such as dentistry or a beauty salon.  There also is no “extra work” later on when shooting subjects other than people.  You don’t even have to edit the entire shoot unless you want to, and there is no mailing of a disk required.  You save on your time and money shipping a disk out to them.  Maybe you’re not interested in food. Well, maybe you could shoot other objects over white. Please don’t bother with apples, unless it’s done in a truly creative way.  Stock sites’ reviewers have seen enough of those and they’re be extra eager to slap that “reject” button as quick and hard as they possibly can.

Motivation This is the part where you come in. If you can’t get yourself motivated, nothing creative is ever going to happen.  Working from home, and being your own boss, can especially be challenging.  Maybe there isn’t a boss looking over your shoulder, and asking you whether or not you’re going to make the deadline.  You need to make your own deadlines for yourself.  Without having weekly, daily, even hourly goals, your time is going to be wasted.  I’m living it right now – some days I spend way too much time doing social networking on twitter or facebook.  Other days I spend too much time editing older, similar images that probably should have just been backed up and tucked away.  If you are having a rough time staying on task, don’t think you’re the only one.  Stay tuned, as one of my future posts here will address this topic.  There are things you can do to minimize distractions, and stick to your workflow.  Speaking of which, I think it’s time for me to stop blogging and start keywording my images!

http://download.cnet.com/File-Renamer-Basic/3000-2248_4-10306538.html

File Renamer Basic is simple to use and does an excellent job.  A must have utility for your Windows PC. The best part – it’s free.

(screenshot via download.com)

PicNiche Contributor Toolbar

Today I discovered something that is going to greatly improve my workflow.  This toolbar for firefox has a slew of features, the greatest of which (I feel) are the workflow functionalities.  When you submit images to certain stock agencies, you always have to go through and check off boxes or click certain buttons before pushing through the submission.  I always referred to this part of the job as “pushing” as many other microstockers do.  Well, pushing just got a whole lot easier for Fotolia, Shutterstock, and Dreamstime.  More features are sure to come, as the toolbar gets developed further as time goes on.  Thanks so much to Rob Davies (follow him on twitter: @bobbigmac) for all of his hard work on this excellent tool.

You can also enter in your username for FT, SS, IS, DT, BS, SX, and 123 so that it will instantly alert you of any new sales, as well as your current total earnings.  It reads all of this stuff from cookies, once you’ve logged into each specific website.

The bar does way more things than I even have time to mention.  Read the full instructions here:  http://www.picniche.com/toolbar/help.aspx

TIP: to hide the toolbar for more screen space, simply middle click on the P icon that shows up at the lower right hand corner of your screen.

Anyone that sells microstock photography is going to love this program. Try out the free demo they have here:
http://cushystock.com

This is a really easy program to learn, and it saves a lot of time. Once you have your latest batches done, set it and forget it. Cushy will upload your daily batches while you get on with your life. No dragging files to multiple FTP site windows, and waiting for one to be done to start the next.

If you haven’t already heard about it, Cushy Stock is a new application designed specifically for photographers and illustrators to speed up workflow and make submitting images to these agencies a breeze. It allows you to upload to any site that has FTP upload, as well as the others that are currently supported.

Let me know what you guys think – so far I’m very impressed with it! Cushy Stock seems to be very active with program improvements and updates as well.