Daily Archives: June 16, 2008

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darn those terms

June 16, 2008 – 7:48 pm

This afternoon I received a great photography email newsletter and in the newsletter they advertise a really cool business that allows users to upload content and create online magazines and even print and distrubute them if they like. The users can create an entire magazine themselves, or form a group with their friends and colleagues and create a magazine together. The online mags look really cool and seem like they’d be a super fun thing to do.

BUT.

Because of the Terms, I won’t be using them, as is often the case with this type of thing (and also why I very rarely enter contests):

“(reworded terms) by submitting your stuff to the website, you grant (name removed) a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to use, copy, display, perform, modify, transmit, make derivative works of, and distribute the stuff you submitted, including without limitation, for redistributing part or all of your stuff (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.” 

Hmmm, I think I’ll pass.

This is just a reminder that for any service (whether it be online or in person), if you are presented with a Terms of Agreement (otherwise known as a contract), please ALWAYS read the terms before agreeing to anything. 

On a related note, last week I received a different newsletter, also from the same company, which included a link to possibly the coolest (and best looking) news blog in the world. It’s the Boston Globe’s news blog and the format is very similar to my little blog’s (ProPhoto) theme, with humongous images on each post. It’s truly the most incredible photography. The kind of photos that stay with you for a long time. I now have it bookmarked in my bookmarks bar (a very exclusive place to be btw).

Go check it out here: Boston.com’s The Big Picture. 

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in miscellaneous randomness | Tagged , | Comments (4)

super cool photoshop trick for better black and white digital images

June 16, 2008 – 6:35 pm

Last week I was on my way out the door to meet a friend for dinner, and I stumbled on a website while doing a search for another website to send to a photographer in an email I was composing to her about digital editing. It was so engrossing I ended up being late for dinner (and fell on the pavement on my way out in a rush- more on that later).

The ‘accidentally stumbled upon’ site had a tutorial about editing black and white images, something all digital photographers know can be challenging.

This tutorial wasn’t about how to convert a color image to a fancy black and white in one step, or create a processing action, or use filters or anything like that. It was about how to take your b/w images from good to “awesome!” using the very strange (and counterintuitive) process of selectively applying the saturate sponge to your image.

Example below of Duke:

Original, unedited file. (I prefer to say ‘SFTC’- straight from the camera, which to me is more natural than ‘SOOC’- straight out of [the] camera)

File converted to grayscale:

File after receiving the ‘magic treatment’

Let me explain. This so easy to do you won’t believe it. 

Here is what you do:

  1. Open your original, unedited image in photoshop (any version)
  2. Duplicate your background layer
  3. Convert the layer to grayscale using image-mode-grayscale
  4. When it asks you if you want to discard the color information, click yes. (be sure to save this new file as a copy!)
  5. Go to your sponge tool (it’s with the dodge and burn tools)
  6. Select a fairly large soft brush (350-500 pixels) in the preferences bar at the top
  7. Select ‘saturate’ from the drop-down ‘mode’ menu
  8. For ‘flow’ select somewhere between 40-60% depending on how dark or light your image is (lower percentage for darker images; higher for lighter images). I used 52% for Duke above, which was a fairly overexposed image. 
  9. Start applying the saturate sponge to your image and watch the magic happen.

If this works for you the way it did for me you will be saying “wow……. WOW!” and wondering how in the world it does that. Apparently the process increases the local contrast in an image, in ways I don’t really understand. Note: I didn’t do anything extra to the shot of Duke above- no sharpening or levels or anything else- just exactly the steps listed above. 

To read more about this cool trick, check out the forensic photoshop blog post where I found the tutorial. 

Also, be sure to do a google search for ‘local contrast’. You can learn a lot about how the brain processes visuals. It’s really fascinating stuff!

LOVE this trick! It even fits in with my TMOL (two minutes or less) editing philosophy. Have fun with it all of you shutterbugs!

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in digital editing, for photographers | Tagged , , , , | Comments (6)

Slice of Life: South Lake Union: we have a winner!

June 16, 2008 – 4:53 pm

Remember the recent contest on my old blog: slice of life?

Well guess what? We have a winner!! Paul from Seattle was the first person to accurately guess that the image above represents the up-and-coming South Lake Union neighborhood so he wins a free mini-shoot at SLU/Cascade for his bassett hound puppy Daisy, who ironically Fergie and I met at a barbeque on Saturday! I can’t wait to do the shoot for Daisy, she is adorable. Along with his free shoot, Paul also wins a free one-year subscription to CityDog Magazine! (score!)

Let’s all congratulate Paul on having some really good super sleuthing abilities!

For those who just hopped on board, the image slice represents editorial photography I did for CityDog Magazine for the ‘Dog’s Eye View’ neighborhood feature article in the summer issue, which is on newsstands now so go check it out. BTW: South Lake Union is really an awesome place for dogs and makes for a great 1/2 day trip to explore all of the dog-friendly parks and stores and pretty hidden spots. I have already read the article all about places to go and things to do with your pooch and I have to say it’s a must-read.

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in Contests, Private client shoots | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

I’ve been tagged!

June 16, 2008 – 3:53 pm

Last week I was tagged by the lovely Mia Clapton, uber-talented dog photographer and owner of San Diego-based Thousand Hound Photography. 

The rules of the game are as follows:

  1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
  2. Share 5 songs you are embarrassed to admit to others you like and tell why.
  3. Tag 5 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
  4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
This is a toughie for me because I don’t really feel embarrased about any of the music I listen to, regardless of how ridiculous, and I don’t really care all that much what other people think of me, so it’s hard to judge what other people might laugh at. Having said that, if I were sitting in my car at a red light with the windows rolled down next to a really cute guy in a convertible, the following are the songs I would probably hope were not blaring from my stereo at that moment.

1. Duran Duran ‘Rio’, from, well, a bunch of albums. I always have and still do love this song. In fact, I have the CD in my CD changer in my car right now. I had a HUGE crush on John Taylor when I was young, and was convinced we would get married someday. Probably on the sailboat in the video. 

2. Madonna ‘Into the Groove’ from ‘You Can Dance’. My dad was impressed with me last night when we were talking about karaoke and I busted out with this song and remembered all of the words. A classic really. I still have the cassette tape (remember those?). You know what? If I were next to cute guy at a stoplight, I’d probably just turn up the song and belt it out with all my heart and then smile at him. Cause that’s just how I am. :-)

3. Howard Jones ‘Like to Get To Know You Well’ from ‘Dream Into Action’. (can you tell I am a product of the 80′s? my family had free MTV for a year when it first came out and I LOVED it. I swear that was the very best time in my life.). Actually, I love this whole album- every song. Still have the cassette tape for this too. Brings back sweet, sweet memories of a family road trip from Seattle to Southern Cal.

4. Oasis ‘Wonderwall’. Ok, I actually am a little embarrassed about this one. I have a feeling most people are so sick of this song after hearing it 5 billion times when it was popular that if they heard me play it they would probably grimace.

5. Sublime ’40 oz to Freedom’ from the album of the same name. This is so not a CD you would think a 36 year old woman would like, but Sublime is one of my favorite bands (damn that Bradley Nowell for going off and having a heroin overdose and dying before I got the chance to see them live; still pissed off about that), and this song is one of my favorites. 

The folks I am tagging for the ‘embarrassing song confession’ are:

I look very forward to reading their answers! :-)

Oh, and, lots of fun stuff coming up this week, be sure to check in often!
By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in miscellaneous randomness | Tagged , , | Comments (4)
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