Subscription only Photoshop

It has been a while now since professional users of Adobe products, which include Photoshop, have had the opportunity to pay a subscription and have all of the products available on line. This means that  applications are downloaded onto your computer but need to be authorised regularly (my words) as such and that the new versions and updates have been instantly available. Sounds good? Well yes if having the most up to date version of software is important to you but for those who like to buy software, own it, install it and decide if they want to upgrade it then perhaps no. Until this point it has been possible to use much older versions of Photoshop as long as they were compatible with your operating system (OS). I found that when I upgraded my OS so that I could install Lightroom 4 I could no longer use Photoshop CS2 which I was happy with.

This extended article on Photo.net explains more about this process and I am sure you have worked out that Adobe are doing this for their benefit not yours. Not having software you can buy means you pay, and you pay and you pay, every month or year as you prefer but pay you will. Maybe this is the way of things to come and all software will be this way in the future, somehow hosted in the cloud and ready for you when ever and where ever you want it……hmmm. I only want it on my desk computer in my office and I don’t need the latest versions all the time.

How does it work?

You need to download and install the apps on your computer and that’s where the software lives. Your current version of Photoshop, or other CS applications, do not have to be uninstalled; they’ll continue to work even with CC software on the same computer (there have been some issues with CS6 reverting to a trial version after the CC install but Adobe should have fixed that issue by now). And, you do not have to be online for CC to work…….

Pricing

The best Creative Cloud pricing is based on an annual subscription. You’ll pay more for month-to-month leasing of the software. Prices also depend on how many applications you want to access, whether you choose an individual or teammembership or are a student or teacher.

Adobe is currently offering special promotional prices for current Creative Suite users. If you have a serial number or have registered your CS3, CS4, CS5 or CS6 product (Photoshop or the entire suite, for example), your first year will cost $10 a month with an annual contract. Access to a complete subscription for CS6 users is $20/month for the first year; $30 for CS3 and later….…MORE

What do you think about this, we have been bludgeoned into thinking the cloud is everything and will free us but unlike clouds in the sky this cloud is going to be finding new ways to grab our money.

The shape of things to com….

Did North Korea photoshop its hovercraft?

The many uses of Photoshop are obvious but world domination is not common however as The Guardian reports here those naughty NK’s have been at it again

It appears North Korea has doctored pictures of its military to make it look more impressive than it is – and not for the first time, read the full article with diagrams and explanations here

This picture released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on March 26, 2013 and taken on March 25, 2013 shows the landing and anti-landing drills of KPA Large Combined Units 324 and 287 and KPA Navy Combined Unit 597 at an undisclosed location on North Korea’s east coast.   Rather thrilling it is too!

Photography Courses starting January 2013

We have now released our most recent schedule of courses for next term, we have places on all the courses listed and full details can be found on the Oxford School of Photography website

Here are the dates, I will post more details later, if you are interested in taking a course please send me an email

Understanding Your Digital SLR Evening Classes:start dates 23.01.13; 7.03.13

Understanding Your Digital SLR Saturday Morning Classes start date 02.03.13

Understanding Your Digital Compact Camera – starts: 24.01.13

Introduction to Photoshop and Photoshop Elements starts 20.02.13

Composition In Photography – Seeing Pictures - starts 06.03.13

Understanding Flash Photography starts 05.03.13

Portrait Photography: starts: 04.02.13

Intermediate Photography - starts: 21.02.13

Black and White Digital Photography – starts 04.03.13

Travel Photography starts 04.03.13

One Day Understanding Your DSLR - 27.01.13; 17.02.13; 24.03.13

Photography Course Dates for the autumn term

We are now able to release the dates for the next term starting in September.

We have our new schedule of courses ready for the next term which starts in September. We have most of our usual courses available and plan to have a couple of new courses available in time for the new term. Details of these will follow in early September. Full details of our courses can be found on our website

Understanding Your Digital SLR Evening Classes: 4 sessions 2 start dates 17.9.12;      7.11.12

Understanding Your Digital SLR Saturday Morning Classes  4 sessions start date 3.11.12

Understanding Your Digital Compact Camera – 4 sessions starts: 26.9.12

Introduction to Photoshop and Photoshop Elements 6 sessions starts 25.10.12

Composition In Photography – Seeing Pictures – 4 sessions starts 15.10.12

Portrait Photography: 4 sessions starts: 25.9.12

Intermediate Photography – 6 sessions starts: 23.10.12

Black and White Digital Photography – 4 sessions starts 27.9.12

Travel Photography next start March 2013

One Day Understanding Your DSLR – 23.9.12;     21.10.12;     18.11.12;

Most courses are 4 sessions one per week, (Photoshop and Intermediate Photography are 6 sessions) all run on consecutive weeks from start dates. 1 Day DSLR is a one day course, there are 3 dates this term

Evening classes start at 6.30pm and the Saturday morning Understanding Your DSLR Camera starts at 10am. All classes are 2 hours in duration

To book a place please send us an email with the course title and start date you wish to attend.

18 Essential Free Photoshop Tutorials for Black and White Photography Lovers

From those very nice people down under another great post from Lightstalking

Black and white can add drama and emotion to many different kinds of photographs. There are however, many different ways to convert your digital images to black and white and an almost limitless amount of effects that you can apply after that. Here are some of the best Photoshop tutorials for black and white lovers that we could find.

Hitchcock by 85mm.ch, on Flickr

Standard Black and White Conversions in Photoshop Tutorials

7 Black and White Photoshop Conversion Techniques – You should probably familiarise yourself with the different basic options available to you when you want to make black and white images from your colour digital files. This is a good start.

Converting to B&W – There are a lot of ways to use Photoshop to convert your colour files to black and white. This tutorial gives a fast rundown of 4 of the main ways you should know about.

Fast, High Quality Black and White Conversions in Photoshop – This is a solid way to quickly convert your colour digital images into high quality black and white images. Simple steps and plenty of screen shots too!

Click Here For More: 18 Essential Free Photoshop Tutorials for Black and White Photography Lovers

Anyone Can Learn Photoshop With Tutorials At Photoshop Essentials

I am not in the habit of recommending places where you should spend money but in this instance I make an exception. I found Photoshop Essentials in the usual way, looking for something else, followed some links and ended up at a place I hadn’t expected but found something interesting. Isn’t that what everyone does…..?

So Photoshop Essentials is a site with lots and lots of photoshop tutorials, so what you say. Well this is really well organised and every tutorial I have looked at is on the button. They are organised as pdfs which you can download and then follow the very easy steps to achieve the result you were looking for. There are tutorials dealing with absolute first basics through to quite complicated procedures. There is some free stuff there but the thing that costs and which I think is worth the money is the opportunity to download all the current pdfs available for less than $20, that is about £13.50 in real money.

You can sign up for the one month membership which is $20 or longer if you want more regular use. In the first month you can download all the current pdfs if you want to use at your leisure, if using photoshop is how you spend your leisure time.

OK that is enough of a plug, just to say I am not connected to this site I just think it is pretty good, check it out for yourself here.

Macro Flower Photography: A Tutorial in Focus Stacking

This tutorial by Harold Davis explains how you can use Photoshop to achieve crisp focus throught a macro image.

“The closer you get in macro flower photography, the fussier focus gets. Since “fussy” is not a technical term, let me explain. Because focus is inherently shallower as you get closer to your subject, slight variations of distance between camera and subject throw you out of focus very quickly, and even fully-stopped down you may not have enough depth-of-field for your entire photo to be in focus.

Certainly, stopping your lens down to its smallest aperture, observing whether you have the in-focus areas you want, and seeing if there is any way to position the camera to improve the amount that is in-focus is a good way to start. But bear in mind that stopping down a lens comes with some downsides: optically your lens may not perform best at its smallest aperture, and when the aperture is small you can’t use a shutter speed fast enough to stop motion.

An approach that often can surmount these obstacles is to use focus stacking: shooting at a number of different focal points and combining the images in Photoshop to create a hyper-focal image that has an extended area that is in focus.”…MORE

A Rough Guide to Adobe Camera Raw

Shooting in RAW and having to spend time processing your images might seem a bore when your camera produces perfectly nice jpegs as you press the shutter release however most serious photographers only shoot in RAW. This is because of the extensive image adjustments you can make to colour and density without producing ugly damaged looking images. Shooting RAW and using Adobe camera RAW found in the various versions of Photoshop and as the backbone of Lightroom has distinct advantages in the range of adjustments but also the plug ins and controls on offer.

On the pages of Lightstalking  Jason Row  gives a basic breakdown of the important options available

“Although many of us now use image management programs to process our Raw files, Adobe’s Camera Raw is still one of the most comprehensive convertors around and benefits from being tightly integrated into Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. One bonus of this, is that its user interface will be very familiar to Photoshop users. In this brief guide, we will give a rundown of ACR’s interface and most important features.

ACR’s Main Screen

When you open a Raw file in Photoshop, the program will automatically open the ACR plugin and preview the image in a large window. Surrounding this window are the important tools you need for your Raw conversion. Running along the top of the preview window are a set of image manipulation tools, in essence, very similar to Photoshop’s own tool palette.”

Click Here: A Rough Guide to Adobe Camera Raw

96 Fantastic Photography Links

from Lightstalking By Toad Hollow Photography

Man on The Street by Bob Jagendorf, on Flickr

Please feel free to check out the Toad’s newsletter!  If you head over to sign up for exclusive Free HDR Guides, Tips and News you can download his first edition eBook “The Toads Tog Tips | The f-stops Here” instantly!  The next edition of eBook is well underway now and will be made available exclusively for free to his subscribers.

TUTORIALS

Dodging and Burning With a Purpose: Photoshop CS5 – Blake Rudis creates and shares a new 10 minute tutorial video that takes the viewer through the process of using the dodging and burning tool in Photoshop CS5.

HDR – The Capital Transit Snow Sweeper – Monochrome HTDS – Mark Neal shares a brief article on the drama inherent in monochromatic images.  Using a true HDR shot as the source, Mark takes us through his steps in converting this shot and posts examples of the workflow in progress.

Learning Speedlights – The First Step in Expanding Your Photography with Lighting – Chase Jarvis introduces us to what looks like a wonderful online workshop to help those just starting out with speedlights.  Mark Wallace hosts a 3 day symposium online that is free to register for that looks to be of huge benefit to those breaking into this genre of photography.

GREAT PHOTOGRAPHY

Return to the Penitentiary – a leader in the realm of incredible UrBex HDR photography, Mike (Theaterwiz) takes us deep inside the famous Eastern State Penitentiary for a close-up look at two presentations on display there.  You will find some of the most incredible colors, details and textures in these mesmerizing images.  Great drama is found in the details visible, but the real strength in these shots lies in what remains unanswered.  An absolute must-see post in this week’s list.

Hayley Lewis Photography – Hayley is an amazing 15 year old photographer with much passion and hope for her life.  She has a natural knack for photography, and her site contains some really great examples of her work broken down into categories.

Shepherd with 300 – the power of the ability to express scale and scope in a single image is shown in this great photograph by Marcin Sobas.  A shepherd works his flock on a beautiful hillside, and we get an incredible image that is sure to captivate the imagination of all who visit.

Tower of Dust – Mike Olbinski captures a stunning image of a natural phenomenon.  A massive dust cloud creates a scene of incredible drama, and Mike takes a picture that leaves the viewer absolutely astonished.

Click Here: 96 Fantastic Photography Links So You Get No Work Done Today!

Photoshop CS6 Beta: A Quick Look

By Jason Row at Lightstalking

We teach the basics of Photoshop on our Introduction to Photoshop and Photoshop Elelments Course so it doesn’t matter a great deal which version of the program you use, but new updates keep coming.

Very quickly Photoshop CS5 has been superceded by the new version CS6. It is not available to buy yet but you can download the Beta versions and use this as a fully functioning program until it is properly released when you will have to hand over some money, well probably quite a lot of money. This is some of what Jason has to say about CS6

“As with other recent incarnations of Photoshop, Adobe have released a beta version of their latest image editing software. You can grab yourself a copy from Adobe here http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/photoshopcs6.html If you don’t have one, you will need to register an Adobe account as once installed the software will connect with Adobe via the internet. The beta is an unlimited fully functional version that will only expire once the testing is complete and the final product is released. So what are the headline features in this new version of Photoshop.

The first thing that will grab your attention is the new “dark” interface. This is radically different than previous versions and in my opinion a welcome change, the images seem easier to look at and adjust out of the darker grey. The interface is also customizable, allowing you to create a look that suits your workflow. Another obvious change for Mac users is that images are now loaded fully in the interface and not as separate windows, although one of the less advertised changes is that it now does not support 32 bit Mac systems anymore, as it is fully 64 bit application. Another, under the hood feature is the introduction of an autosave facility. This will regularly save a version of your image in the background and is invaluable if you have taken the wrong direction whilst editing and have no way back. This is customizable from saving every 5 minutes up to every hour.

One of the headline new features is content-aware patching. Many of us use the patch tool, to remove unwanted elements from an image such as people in the background or dust spots. The new version of this tool adds to Photoshop’s range of content-aware tools first introduced in CS4. The new patch tool allows you to select the unwanted item then drag it into the area you wish to replace it with. The new algorithms blend the surrounding pixels effectively removing the selected item. From my initial tests this is a clever and valuable tool.”

New look interface on CS6

Read the full article here Click Here: Photoshop CS6 Beta: A Quick Look