Black and white- Wow missed that...

I was use to the old days of using channel mixer to convert my stuff to black and white and have been somewhat resistant and apprehensive to use the new Black and White... adjustment layer because it looked big and scary.

A couple of tricks with channel mixer first because it still does do the job.
When I am deciding on black and white I always go to the channels palette and look over each channel see to see which one looks the best and the worst





After looking at each channel I would open up Channel mixer adjustment layer and put in the amounts accordingly (total 100 or it will change exposure.) Don't forget to turn check the box for Monochrome.
for example:

Most of time I mask together multiple different black and whites using channel mixer to make a perfect black and white...

But what if it was easier.( thank god for CS3)

So I finally starting playing with the Black and white... adjustment layer. The last few months I have been using the presets and just using the one that looks the best. BUT then I'm not the one controlling the look or being an artist and always would turn back to Channel mixer until....

I happened to move my mouse on the image and noticed that it change to an eye dropper, SO being a curious photoshop user, I click and saw that it turned into a slider hand. I moved it back and forth and noticed that it would change the area of the image I clicked on (most of the time). I can't always get it perfect with one adjustment layer but I can get it closer and usually can do it in 2 Adjustment layers and mask appropriately.

©2008 Weinrauch Photography llc


Give it a try. Its amazing how powerful it is. If you have any questions email me!

Lifesaver- RESET

I always forget about one of the best shortcuts in Adobe products "reset." I have been having problems with missing items under the tools menu and every time I would change a preference in Bridge it would crash. I tried un-installing and re-installing but to no avail. And then while looking for another answer to another question in NAPPs forum I found it: Reset all Preferences.

So if you have problems with Photoshop or Bridge try resetting the preferences by using the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift(Windows) or Command+Option+Shift(MAC) immediately after you start Bridge or Photoshop.

Actions... wedding albums

So a good friend of mine gave me this idea and have incorporated it into my workflow.

I design my own albums and don't want to create a template everytime. Last week I created a file using the dimensions but I can also add guides to the template and now I have a template that has trim and cut lines. I will add metadata to these files as well and can incorporate that into the action. Sometimes I want to be able to find the album quickly in lightroom as well as make sure that I have my copyright on these images because I upload this to my wedding album company and want to make sure no files get confused. I will show some examples of how I do it.

Last week I created a file with all the info, color space, size, resolution, bit depth. So I will do that again but this time adding the the guides and the metadata (you can also add the metadata qucikly in Lightroom and Bridge after all the files are created for the purpose of getting comfortable with actions why not do it this way and if I can do it all in one step...)

So as the image shows I have now created an action with guides.

Lets add some Metadata to the File. file>file info...

Pretty simple. I have found that all actions are like this. I just need to pay attention to what I do so that I can realize I can create an action to make my life easier. Sometimes I will add another step in the above action and make it specific to that wedding album. Don't forget you can copy that action and change or take out specific steps in any action. For instance I will create a duplicate of the above action, run it, and then delete the "Set file info" in that action and then click the record button and add in additional info or change it for a specific wedding(don't forget to stop recording after that step). After completion of that album I will delete the copied action.

There is a million ways of doing this, so find out what way is comfortable for you.

I have created an album. I have 20 files @ 16 bit and all tiff images. Most album companies don't want huge files so we have to create an action so it will take all those files and flatten it and change it to the format they want. But that will be next week, that one can be a bit trickier.

ahh Lightroom.....

So a bit of disappointment.... I have found a way that I can effectively incorporate Lightroom into my workflow. I have spend a month or two just learning about the library module and have found an issue, small but nonetheless an issue for me. I like the idea of cataloging all my files so that I can access them quickly and see what I have. It has certainly put use to my metadata when trying to find a specific file.
But onto my issue. It won't catalog CMYK files. This file type is unsupported in Lightroom. And although I don't use it much I do have to convert files here and there and would like to be able to catalog those files.

Oh well...