Lynda's shared items

Most of us here at Geeks are Sexy have a social media presence, a virtual personality made up of everything you’ve ever posted online: Facebook status updates, tweets, online videos, blog entries, and so much more. So here’s a question to you dear readers: What do you want to happen to your online “personality” once you’re gone for good? Let us know in the comments section below, but in the meantime, listen to journalist Adam Ostrow as he explores a few possibilities for your online “afterlife.”

Related posts:

1. Social Media Revolution – Is Social Media A Fad?
2. Everything Old is New Again: Social Media and the Geek Connection
3. Twitter Lists, Google Alerts, and the Changing Face of Social Media

Lisa Harrison, our ClickinMoms resident Photoshop guru (we also call her Yoda because super knowledgeable she is) was wonderful enough to whip us up a little something for the blog today.  Working in Photoshop can be so time consuming especially when you’re a new user that any helpful shortcuts can make a world of difference and can help cut down on frustration.  Thanks so much, Lisa!

When you really start spending a lot of time in Photoshop, you may start to become annoyed with the time spent going from your working space to menu items and your toolbar.  Solution? Keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts allow you to keep one hand on your mouse and the other on your keyboard. Keyboard shortcuts can seem cumbersome at first but once you learn them you’ll never look back – promise!  They cut down your workflow time and we all know time is money and that we’d rather spend that time with our family. So what are you waiting for? Learn them. Use them. Love them. Here are some of my most used “beginner” keyboard shortcuts. Print them out and hang them near your computer. You’ll have them memorized in no time and you’ll be seeking out more keyboard shortcuts to speed up your workflow even more – it’s a little addicting.

• Hold down the spacebar to get the hand tool to pan around your image.

• Ctrl + / – to zoom in and out on your image.

• Double click on the zoom tool to take your document to a 100% view.

• Ctrl + 0 will fit your image to the screen.

• Press B on your keyboard to get the brush tool.

• Use the right and left bracket keys to increase or decrease your brush size.

• Ctrl + J will duplicate the active layer.

• Shift + ctrl + N to get a new layer.

• X will swap your foreground and background colors.

• D will give you your default foreground and background colors.

• Alt + backspace will fill your layer or mask with the foreground color.

• Ctrl + backspace will fill your layer or mask with the background color.

• Ctrl + Z will undo your last step.

• Ctrl + alt + Z will continue to take you back in your history.

• Ctrl + S will save your image.

• Ctrl + K to access your preferences.

If you’re using a mac, replace alt with opt, ctrl with cmd and backspace with delete. If you don’t have right click enabled on your mac mouse, what are you waiting for? You can read how to do that here.

Want to learn more? Check out Lisa’s class, Processing 101: Fundamentals for Photographers. Registration opens to everyone today, June 24th. Class begins July 4th.  To register you can go to the CMU page here.

Also, if you are at a more advanced level of Photoshop be sure to check out Processing 201:  Intermediate Photoshop for Photographers – class starts next week so grab your spot!  And don’t forget to try to snag the free spot in Processing 201 here on the blog – more details here.

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Have you ever heard the old saying “if your photos are good enough, you’re not close enough?” Today we are going to get really close with some macro photography. Macro photography is close-up photography, usually focusing on small areas. We will look at five tips to get you started in macro photography.

Pack the right gear

Macro photography does have some gear requirement, particularly a macro lens or close-up filters. In this arena of photography, if you have the better gear there is a greater chance of getting better pictures.

So let’s take a quick look at the basic gear that will make your macro experience better.

• DSLR Camera or compact camera with macro function.
• Macro lens (if using a DSLR)
• Tripod
• Flash (external if possible)
• Reflector

1. Live View

Over the past few years, a live view function has become available on almost all digital cameras. Its an extremely handy feature to use when shooting macro.

You never know where your subject is going to be. You could be shooting extremely low to the ground and in that position getting to the viewfinder might be more hassle than its worth. Switching on your live view is easy and saves you from bending down and hurting your back.

On many new DSLR camera, the screen is also larger and you can often judge how sharp an image is on the screen a lot easier than in the viewfinder.

Cameras such as the Canon 60D and G12 also now have pop out screens which you can turn and rotate around. These are very handy when shooting bizarre angles.

2. Macro mode

Compact:

Compact camera users will have to switch to macro mode. Macro photography mode is typically easy to find, as it is usually identified by a small flower logo.

Macro mode allows you to get slightly closer to your subject as well as telling the camera to increase the aperture, blurring the backgrounds and keeping the subject in focus.

DSLR:

DSLR users on beginners cameras will also have a macro mode, but I would suggest using the manual modes as they will give you more creative freedom.

A true macro lens offers 1:1 magnification (life size magnification). However most other lenses will only be able to offer 1:2 (half life size), on these lenses you are normally able to find the small flower logo, with the details on the minimum focus distance. My kits lens for example is 0.28m/0.9ft.

Find the number and remember it as you will not be able to focus very well if you get any closer. You might find that if you are using a telephoto that number could be quite large and getting in close might be quite tricky.

3. Use a tripod

The obvious problem with close up photography is camera shake, therefore I believe you should use a tripod. This will reduce the chances of blurry photos and also allows you to play around with your settings without losing your composition.

As well as using a tripod, using a high shutter speed as well as a cable release will also help reduce camera shake. These can be picked up on Ebay for around $4+ depending on the model of camera you own.

If you cannot take around a large tripod at all times then I would look into a “Manfrotto 709B Digi Table Top Tripod”. For around $44 this mini tripod is able to hold even the heaviest SLR’s.

However if you are balancing a compact camera then you can pick mini tripods up for under $8. Also don’t forget about my favorite, the Gorillapod!

4. Aperture

As previous mentioned aperture makes a big difference when shooting macro photography. Most compact cameras will not allow you change the aperture once in macro mode, however if using an SLR I would suggest choosing a larger aperture (small number) to get a nice shallow depth of field.

Most dedicated macro lenses will allow an aperture of around F2.8.

5. Use a flash

Shadows are a macro photographers worst nightmare, so a flash is very important.

If you have a DSLR and are able to afford an external flash for off-camera work then you will be in the best position. This will give you the freedom to light the subject from any angle you wish.

However, if your using the built-in flash of your compact or SLR then I would suggest shooting around midday when the sun is at its highest, using the on-camera flash a fill light.

Think about using a diffuser as well so that the “hard light” of the flash doesn’t appear to un-natural. Contrary to what you might think, if a light source is bigger than a subject (think flashhead vs. small bug, or big softbox vs. a person’s face), the closer you put the light to subject, the softer the light gets. But when dealing with macro situations, the closeness of your flash will cause more problems with overexposure than anything else. Even at it’s lowest power a flash pointed directly at a subject from one foot, may be too bright at f/22. A diffuser will help with this as well issue as well.

You might also find that a reflector can also help light your scene.

Other articles on Phototuts+

40 Remarkable Examples of Macro Photography

A Poor Man’s Guide to Budget Macro Photography

130+ Stunning Examples of Macro Photography

Thanks For Reading!

Just remember the rule of thirds, to use manual focus and to shoot from multiple angles!

I hope these tips and ideas will be useful to you. Post links to your own favorite macro shots below and share the tips and tricks you use when shooting macro photos.

If you work in Lightroom, at some stage you’ll probably want to take an image to Photoshop for some additional processing. How you send it to Photoshop will have an impact on the options available to you. One option in Lightroom is to take an image to Photoshop as a Smart Object and that has some advantages. Here’s how to do it and why you might consider using this feature.

Open as a Smart Object

In Lightroom, when you’ve finished processing the image and you’re ready to head to Photoshop, right click the image and choose Edit in > Open as Smart Object in Photoshop (this is available if you’re using Photoshop CS5, CS4 or CS3 – Smart Objects weren’t available in earlier versions of Photoshop).

Photoshop will open with your image open on the screen. If you look at the Layers palette you’ll see the layer has an icon in the bottom right corner of its thumbnail. This tells you the image is a Smart Object.

If you want to make further adjustments to the image you don’t have to start over. Instead, double click the image thumbnail in the Layers palette and the image will open in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR). The processing options in ACR are the same as you have in Lightroom so you can change how the image is processed.

When you are done making changes, click Ok. The changes to the image will appear in the Smart Object back in Photoshop.

Double processing

The obvious advantage of opening an image in Photoshop as a Smart Object is being able to make changes to the image even after it has been brought into Photoshop and even after you have made changes to it – such as adding an Adjustment Layer, for example.

In addition you can use this feature to process an image in more than one way and to blend the two versions together. To do this, right click on the smart object layer and choose New Smart Object via Copy. This creates a copy of the smart object layer.

Double click on the thumbnail of this second Smart Object to open it in ACR and now process it a second time to bring out detail in another part of the image. In this case I adjusted to get a better sky. When you’re done click Ok to return to Photoshop.

The changes have been applied to only the second copy of the image and not the first so there is a different version of the image in each layer.

To blend the two layers together add a Layer Mask to the topmost layer – to do this, select the layer and click the Add Layer Mask icon at the foot of the Layers palette. Target the mask by clicking its thumbnail in the Layers palette and paint on the image with black to bring back detail in the layer below.

If any of the layers still needs fine tuning, return it to ACR to fix it.

Because the two versions of the image are on separate layers you can blend those two layers together using a blend mode or adjust the Opacity of the top layer.

When you are done, click Save to save the file, close it and return to Lightroom. Your edited version of the image will be saved in the same location as the original image and will appear in Lightroom too.

If you want to edit this image again at a later date and have the Smart Objects still in place, when you right click the image and choose Edit In > Adobe Photoshop CS5 (or CS4 or CS3), choose Edit Original.

Taking your images to Photoshop as Smart Objects gives you additional tools for working with your images in Photoshop – it’s a handy technique to add to your Lightroom/Photoshop toolkit.

Post from: Digital Photography School's Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.

More Flexible Lightroom to Photoshop Editing

Since I share tutorials in no certain order, I thought an index of all my written and video tutorials would be helpful to those just finding Everyday Elements.

New to Photoshop Elements (or Photoshop CS5)? I listed the Editing tutorials in level of difficulty, with the most basic and essential tutorials listed first. Start at the top and go down until you feel comfortable enough to jump to other tutorials.

This was a bit of an eye-opener; I was surprised because I thought I had done more. I better get cracking! As I post new ones, I will update this master list.

For those new here, I also offer video and live online workshops for various levels that cover what is listed below plus a lot more: Beginners, Intermediate, Skintones, Collages & Clipping Masks and Textures.

Editing:

• Layer Types Explained
• Understanding Layer Masks
• Learn to Use Levels
• Tweak WB With Levels
• Defog With Levels
• Make Use of Photo Filters
• Teeth and Eye Whiten
• Sharpen Eyes With High Pass Filter
• Softening Skin
• Cropping Images and Using the Aspect Ratio
• How to Resize an Image for the Internet
• Dodge and Burn Layer
• Reduce Under-Eye Circles – Two Ways
• Four Step Edit
• Correcting Color Casts with Lasso Tool and Hue/Saturation
• Blending Backgrounds (newborn pics especially)
• Use Lasso Tool For Small Areas of Color Pop
• Using Levels to Fix Sun Haze
• How to Use The Liquify Tool
• How to Use Curves in Photoshop Elements
• Give an Image a Clean Edit in PSE
• Gradients
• How to Use Noiseware to Reduce Digital Noise

Adobe Camera Raw:

• Opening a JPG File in ACR
• Editing Raw Files in ACR
• How to Batch Edit in ACR

B&W Conversions:

• Sweet and Simple B&W Conversion
• B&W with Selective Color

Actions:

• Types of Actions And When to Use Them
• Installing Actions
• Organizing Actions With Drop-down Categories

Textures

• Fix It Friday With Textures
• Use Textures and Photo Veils to Enhance an Image

Brushes and Templates

• Create a Watermark Brush
• How to Make a Bar Watermark

Photoshop Elements Workspace:

• Customize Your PSE Workspace
• Favorites Panel for Favorite Actions
• Red Screen Trick to Quickly Paint on Masks

Photoshop (CS5) Specific Tutorials:

• Clean Edit in CS5
• How to Record an Action in CS#
• Using the History Panel in CS#

Anyone who has been reading my posts since March knows that I am enamored with my IPhone, which allowed my son to have voice during an emergency, and has an extraordinary lens in its smart phone container. Okay, so  I hate that the battery may have issues and that its inability to function requires a complete overhaul, e.g. an eniterly new phone. And frankly, on some level, who care about the GPS? They can track my every move, but I just want a phone that will last more than 4 hours without wane, especially when the device is brand spanking new. So this battery issue should be the real FTC issue, not the GPS.

Nevertheless, what I really want Iphone users to witness is the latest social media darling of photo apps,  the Instagram and Inkstagram, its social web feed were you can communicate with millions of other users.This new-fangled tool and social media darling made a big splash in the NY Times. This app can make cool postcard images, with effects that rival Kubota tools for Photoshop. I particularly like the following effects: Toaster, Hefe, 1977, and Lord Kelvin. But what this does to your images, in literally a snap, makes art possible. As I said before, digital camera sales are weak, and soon may be replaced entirely by smartphones. But thanks to cellphone apps like Instagram, picture-taking has never been easier or in fact more fun. In the words of this article, "Now a wave of mobile applications is letting people tweak their cellphone snapshots and share them with friends and strangers." Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom, the founders of the photo-sharing service Instagram have realy struck pay dirt with this Wunderkind. Move over Facebook and Flickr; there's a new game in town. And Instagram has a milion new users every month. Read about it below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/technology/04photosharing.html?ref=technology