Photocritic photography blog

Movie audiences of the world are vastly and completely amazed by the beauty of the new movie 300. With its extremely distinctive style, quick-moving plot and — like Sin City, another of my favourites — relatively closely based on one of Frank Miller’s graphical novels, it’s got it goin’ on.

If you’ve seen the film, you can’t have failed to notice the amazing quality of the artwork involved: The CGI is amazing, of course, but even the live-action bits of the film is nothing short of stunning. So, how, exactly, can you recreate the effects? We interviewed graphic artist Jason Niedle to find out more… Read the rest of the article »

Ever find yourself on a computer without any editing software? All you want to do is to crop an image, fix the contrast, and resize it?

Well, if you’ve got a reasonably new browser, you’re saved: Enter Picnik, a brand new type of image editing software, bringing the genre well into line with all the other Web 2.0 apps out there.

In short, Picnik is to Photoshop what gmail is to e-mail, YouTube is to videos, Flickr is to pictures, Pandora is to music, and CleVR is to panoramas! Read the rest of the article »

Photo editing falls into two categories: Adjustments, which affect the whole photograph (much like our introduction to contrast, using the levels tool, from yesterday), and spot editing, which affects a smaller part of an image. Any photo editing you do with brushes, selection tools etc would be a spot edit.

While spot editing can be useful, it’s adjustment editing which is the big advantage for most photographers. Exposure a little bit off? Fix it in Photoshop. White balance problem? Photoshop. Want your picture in black and white? Photos… you get the idea.

What most photographers don’t know, however, is that you can do a wide array of adjustment editing experiments without even touching the original photograph. You can do this by adding so-called adjustment layers. This is a layer added on a photo which affects all the layers underneath. The upside of using this technique is that you can turn adjustments layers on and off, you can change their order, and their parameters. The main effect is that it is much easier to experiment with your photos, in the hunt for finding a combination of adjustments that makes your photo perfect. Read the rest of the article »

If you are reading this, you have probably heard people moaning about lack of contrast in one of your pictures. I am sorry about that, but — really — it is one of the most annoying things in the world. The medium of photography allows you to enhance the way you see the world, so you have an option of showing what you would like to show better. When the option is there - why not use it?

This is the picture we’ll be working with for now. I know it isn’t exactly the best picture in the world, but at least it is bland - it is nothing short of boring. Why? Well - mainly because nothing is the way it should be.

I believe that, in photography, black should be black. White should be white. In most cases, there is no real excuse for having almost-white and almost-black as the darkest and lightest point of your photograph (unless it is part of a photographic effect, in which case this all doesn’t apply.)

It’s worth noting that this article is aimed especially at beginners, who aren’t that clued up on Photoshop. If this doesn’t apply to you, you may just want to dive right into the adjustment layers instead! Read the rest of the article »

There’s a lot to be said for the persistency of time lapse photography - it makes life rather interesting. Reducing a period of a few hours (like a flower opening to the sun), a few months (like a flower growing or a baby growing inside a mother’s belly) or a year (seasonal timelapses, construction work) is amazing stuff. Read the rest of the article »

Curves is one of the most powerful tools a photographer has in his or her arsenal. You can do a lot more with curves than you can do with the Levels tool. In fact, most photographers who embrace curves stop using the Levels tool altogether - although until you fully understand what Levels is, what it does, and how to use it, you’ll never be able to get the full potential out of the Curves tool either. Read the rest of the article »

According to a press release on the Adobe site, the company is about to release a Beta of Adobe Photoshop CS3… Read the rest of the article »

You can’t argue the fact that Photoshop is an incredibly important tool to photographers, so when I found more info about the upcoming Photoshop CS3, on Think Secret, I was incredibly excited. Sad, isn’t it? Read the rest of the article »

The Palette is your single most important point of contact with Adobe Photoshop. Your palette might look slightly different from the picture on the left, depending on your version of the software, but most of it will be very similar or the same.

Step 1 towards becoming a true Photoshop wizard is to master the tools - so here’s a rundown of all of them, what they do, and how they can help you. You’re welcome… Read the rest of the article »

So, I have a shitload of photos. I don’t know how many, actually, but there are a fair few - about 35 thousand, i reckon. And somehow, I manage to keep them organised. Mostly.

I’m a strong believer in finding your own way of working, and my system isn’t without flaws, but if you can draw any experience or help from any of this - all the better! Read the rest of the article »