Vamoose the Grid - Photoshop Vanishing Point Filter

Ok, this one has had me stumped for forever. Problem is I really needed to solve it. You have used the Vanishing point filter in Photoshop to create a grid then you don't want it any more.. perhaps because you want to show someone how to create the grid. So how do you get rid of it. Delete button? nah! doesn't work. There isn't an option in the filter for deleting the grid and starting over, at least I can't find it. So, what's a gal to do?

Answer is.. BACKSPACE. Who would have thought it, but it works. Click the panel of the grid you want to remove to select it and press Backspace and it is removed (so too are any grids built off this one). So, to remove the entire grid, select the first panel and press Backspace and all the other grids disappear.

Like so much in Photoshop, easy when you know how!

Walking the walk in Paris - Before Sunset

My one full day in Paris I followed the path taken by Jesse and Celine in the movie Before Sunset... it took me all over Paris but it starts at the wonderful Shakespeare and Co book store in the Rue de la Bucherie just opposite Notre Dame:



I strolled across to Le Pure Cafe at 14 Rue Jean Mace and it was as quirky a cafe as you are ever likely to find and well worth a visit:




Then I walked to Le Viaduct des arts which is a converted old railway line - the overhead line is now a narrow park and underneath are shops. It's almost invisible so you won't realise it is there unless you know it is - the park is well worth walking through:




In Paris, graffiti is different to the other places I've been. You have to look high up as much of it, as this shot shows, is at roof top level - and that's five or six stories high:



Stencil art is also popular. Last year I captured a large wall of graffiti in Paris which included a Shepard Fairey piece of stencil art. What a blast to have seen it and to have a photo of it. This year, this is one more addition to my stencil art collection.



And, at first glance this doesn't look like graffiti but it is. The building is abandoned and derelict and this graffiti and a couple of pieces of stencil art (can you see the cat?) decorate one side of the building:



The Place des Vosges is like Paris' backyard. When you come here, Parisiens are sitting in the park, running around its outer edges and kids are running and playing. It's the most amazing place, tucked as it is just off a very busy street but very peaceful and green. I love entering it through the lovely gardens of the Hotel Sully - go through the hotel entrance, across the courtyard, straight through the arch and past the bookshop and out into the hotel garden. In the bottom right corner facing you is a small archway which takes you direct to the Place des Vosges - you simply won't know you are in Paris and entering this way makes you feel like you're in the know!

These are some reflections from the Place des Voges, the gardens are gated and around them is a road and around that a courtyard of beautiful buildings. The gardens themselves are probably an acre or two in size:









These are the beautiful gardens of the Hotel Sully - I'm standing at the entrance to the Place des Vosges looking back to the Hotel itself:



Here are some colourful and quirky things I found. First of all - just what are you supposed to think will be the result of drinking THIS soft drink?



You have to wonder what Neo and Trinity were doing in Paris - I never did quite work it out but they were on ads at metro stations and on the back of every third bus - too strange!



I love getting up and out early in the morning. You see things then you just don't see later in the day. Here are the ubiquitous cafe chairs piled up ready to be set out for the day:



Sure, can do:



Finally, some rooms built out of the side of a building - the colour were so unexpectedly modern, the remainder of the building not so..

Arrivederci Roma

Proof positive that it is impossible to have too much of a good thing. When one reflection is just not enough, what about four or five?

Today, I walked around Rome for a couple of hours before heading to the airport for flights to London and then CDG in Paris.

I have loved Rome, I really didn't expect to even like it - not sure really why I decided to come here but I certainly left a little piece of my heart here.

So here are todays pixs. First is proof postive that the early bird, if she doesn't get the worm, at least gets the wonderful photo, I loved this tree throwing such a perfect shadow in the early morning light:



This wall is near the Villa Borghese gardens and it really captured my eye:



This statue made me laugh. It looks pretty angry with having to hold up the front of the Westin Hotel - and I'm not sure who the artist modelled it on, but it is a very ambiguous piece!



One of my themes this trip is lights and this morning I lucked out with this perfect shadow - you don't get these in the middle of the day - you have to be up early enough to capture the light coming at just the right angle:



Here's another of the light fittings I shot, they have such wonderful detail and they are so varied:



No great graffiti today, but this snippet caught my eye:



Autumn in Rome, I love how the reflection of the trees has painted this car:



When I was a kid, my brother had this cute little minature train set. This petrol station could have been part of his set. I guess when you have little cars and lots of scooters you don't need petrol stations the size of supermarket parking lots:



And finally, another really old number plate on the cutest Fiat car:

Caesar has cool boots

Julius Caesar gets to wear very cool shoes, I want boots like his.

Today is my last day in Rome and tomorrow I fly to Paris via London. Yes, I know, that makes no sense, neither does it that BA charges $250 for this flight and Air France from Rome to Paris would have been 10x that price. So, I go via London and get to check out the new Terminal 5!

But, today belongs to Rome. The weather was fantastic and I got an early start. The bright sunshine means that reflections abound - here are some I captured:



I am becoming a conniseur of which cars give the best reflections, love the way this one curves around and I promise, that paper was there already, I didn't put it there:



I struggled to find any meaningful way to photograph the Colosseo and the Arco di Constantino. It was frustrating to think I'd come home with the same photos that everyone else had. And then I stepped in this really big puddle of water - hmmmm, puddles, water, reflections - got it! These are the two shots that made my day:





I walked past this church and didn't even notice it - from the ground it looked like any other building. But, as I was checking out reflections, I caught sight of its tower and bells - I would have missed it otherwise. Double glazing in the windows has added character to these cool reflections:





Gotta love this guy, Piazza Navona is full of tourists in casual gear, cameras going everywhere and tons of noise and music and this guy is sitting, very dapper in his tie, drinking caffe and water and working - on a Sunday!



Ok, so this angel might look innocent enough but he is holding a mamoth sword in one hand - angels with swords? It's Rome!



Remember your history lessons? Pop Quiz: a) ionic b) doric c) corinthian?



This is how they fix a horse that split his seams, statue detail, Piazza del Quirinale:



Very old number plate on a very old car:



Today was a little light on grafitti but this one caught my eye:



Statue detail from Piazza del Quirinale:



Finally, the sun sets over Rome's Fiume Tevere:

Falling in love with Rome

I have been surprised at how easy Rome is to walk. On the map it looks so much bigger than it really is. You need to walk it too or you miss so much of the tiny details that, together, go to make the city.

As you look at these photos, insert backing sounds of church bells ringing, traffic and the sirens of the local carbineri and politzia as they whizz around this wonderful city.

Here are some images from the themes I've been shooting. One is roof tops and the wonderful chimney pots and layers in the roofs of the city:







Close ups from statues, churches and fountains is another of my themes. The first is detail from the Trevi fountain and the second is from one of the three fountains in the Piazza Navona:



OMG, there's a pigeon on my nose!





From a church in Orvieto:



Same church, here are the colours of Italy in the door detail:



Another theme is windows, here is one through which you can see to the building behind. It is from the Forum area in Rome:



This window harbours a reflection of a nearby building:









Mirror, Mirror on the wall...



I find that domes are much more interesting in the context of their surrounds, like this one:



Another of my themes this trip is light fittings. I have a huge collection of wonderful street lights and shop lights. This is a set from near the Colosseo in Rome:



As luck would have it, United Colors of Beneton is right opposite the Trevi Fountain. So, with your back to the fountain you can see it reflected in the shop window. Here's the result:







Another morning, I found a map and paper shop with a street light in front. This photo is more reminiscent of a multi shot taken using film and has a collage feel to it - gotta love reflections:



Everywhere throughout Italy you can find religious icons above houses and at nearly every street corner. I have a grab bag of photos of them, this is one of the more elaborate I've found:



Finally, who can resist a market such as the one at the Campo de Fiori, and the wonderful variety of fruit on display:



Or this streetside tie display:



And what is a day without some wonderful graffiti?

Goodbye Florence, Hello Roma!

Today I ended my stay in Florence and took the train to Rome. Before I left Florence, I got up early enough to take the D bus to the Ponte Vecchio as I wanted to photograph the "other side" to the one I'd seen previously. As luck would have it there were a couple of other things I'd seen on earlier trips that I also saw as I walked back to the hotel before checking out so it was a successful hour of photographing.

This corner fountain was one of those things I wanted to capture. So wonderfully unexpected - you fly round the corner and see this... very Florentine:



These are sundry photos from the Ponte Vecchio - it is a very very old bridge with shops along it and the cutest little buildings growing out of it:







This guy was working on a house, and passing bucket loads of broken rubble down to his mate below. They thought it too funny I wanted to photograph them and we exchanged lots of laughs as they posed for the camera:



One of my challenges this trip has been to photograph reflections. They aren't so easy to capture as we're so used to looking past them - we just don't notice they are there. These are first, bright morning sunshine in a window in Florence and then two buildings captured reflected on cars in Rome:








One thing I wasn't expecting was that it would be still Autumn in Italy. I seriously thought that since I was in Paris last year in Sept/Oct and it was Autumn then that it would be well past it in Italy. Well, I lucked out. Italy has been experiencing very hot weather until the week before I arrived when it started to turn cold. Result? It is Autumn in Italy and the colours are magic. Here are some photos from along the banks of the Arno River showing some of the Autumn colours in the leaves:






It wouldn't be a happy day if I didn't find some great graffiti. I'd seen this piece a number of times across the city, and this morning I finally captured it:



More from alongside the Arno River in Florence:



Now we move to Rome. This building towers over the top of the Spanish Steps which, themselves, offer breathtaking views across Rome:



Because no buildings can be taller than one of the churches here, the panorama is spectacular from the Spanish Steps you look out all across the tops of the buildings below:



Last photo for today is this one. Taken as the sun was retreating in the late afternoon, it encapsulates some of the magic of this city - it's really in the small things that Italy etches herself deep in your soul:

Florence IT, wow!

Roof detail, Florence, IT.



Clock near the Domo, Florence, IT.

I came to Florence really to see the statue of David which I had missed out on seeing when I was here the first time. I spent about an hour just sitting and looking at it - it really is a beautiful piece of work. You can't photograph in there but luckily someone had taken good photos which were available as postcards so I have them.

The rest of Florence, I have now spent two and a half days photographing and I spent today in Siena.

Here are some of the results.
These first photos are from the statuary in the Piazza della Signoria. Photos of some of these statues I've been working with for a while now, courtesy of a friend (thanks Greg) who shot them about 8 years ago. It was funny to actually see them with my eyes. I spent quite a time shooting these capturing all sorts of detail as you see:













Of course, obsessed as I am by Graffiti there are always some shots of graffiti to entertain:





These are photos of the Arno River which flows through Florence. The first is of the Ponte Vecchio which is the oldest bridge here. The second is looking the other way.





You think when you see photos of the Domo that is looks pretty but, in reality, it is absolutely spellbinding and the colours and detail in the building are stunning. Here are some detail shots:





This is a tower in Siena - about 50km from Florence. The day was alternately wet and sunny - as luck would have it, sunny at just the right time and the clouds really made the shot:



My themes for this trip include manhole covers and this is one of the ones I found in Florence, I have a very big collection which is growing daily!:

Venice in Pictures

Venice is the most wonderful place and I took an awful lot of photos. The above is detail from the houses along the Grand Canal.

I loved capturing reflections and these are some of those I lucked upon - you have to catch the canals without traffic and that's not easy in a city that has no cars so everyone walks or boats:





These next photos are the same place - one is a what is above the water and the other the reflection. I just love laundry hanging out to dry and Italy is laundry heaven!





Just to prove I can get up early. These photos are from a walk along the Grand Canal at dawn just as the sun came up. You won't catch St Marks's square empty like this at any other time of the day:







Gondolas are one method of transport in Venice but not the only one. Vaporetti are public ferries and they go up and down the Grand Canal and around the lagoon. The Vaporetto stops are floating barges with yellow strips so they're easy to see. Some stops have barges for each direction, some stops the same barge works for both:



Gondolas go where you want them to go - they're expensive and only 2 of the 6 seats are actually side by side and sitting back, the rest are upright and look pretty damn uncomfortable if you ask me.







Traghetti go across the Grand Canal. Because there are are only 3 bridges in around 2miles of Grand Canal sometimes you have to get across it where there isn't a bridge. A traghetto is the answer - it is cheap to ride - the catch is that you stand up - not for the faint of heart. There are traghetto stations at intervals along the canal.



At one side of the Rialto Bridge there is a huge market each morning where people go to buy food for the day. Here are some images from early morning at the Rialto markets.





This is detail from St Mark's Basilica:



Ever wondered how UPS, FedEx and DHL deliver in a city with no cars - check this out - DHL boat delivery service:



V for Venice or V for Vendetta - you choose:



Graffiti Venice style:



Lion detail from Victor Emmanuel equestrian statue - Grand Canal:



Grand Canal and minor canal photos:





That's it for today.

This post carries a warning - sensory overload ahead

Burano is an island in Italy and it has to be one of the most colourful places in the world. It's proof that what your mum told you about mixing colours was way wrong. You see, red and green "can be seen" and if pink and blue aren't enough, go ahead, add orange and mauve - it's ok!

I spent half a day photographing this wonderful place. I just put the map in my backpack and started walking. It's an approach I took to discovering Venice - as soon as you leave the tourist areas, things get really interesting and, it's an island - it's not like you can get really lost.

So here, for your enjoyment is the first batch of Burano pix:

Paint in color in Phothoshop with color brushes

If you ask most people they’ll tell you that brushes in Photoshop don’t paint in color. That’s not true. Brushes can paint in all sorts of colors when you know how.

To see this at work, select two colors in your color palette for foreground and background colors and display the brushes palette by choosing Window > Brushes. Click the Color Dynamics checkbox to make sure it is enabled. Drag the Foreground/Background Jitter to a high value and adjust the Hue jitter to a high value as well.

Click the Brush Tip Shape option and, if desired, adjust the spacing to get the best results. For example, if you want the shapes that you’re painting with the brush such as a leaf shape to be separated from each other choose a value higher than 100 percent.

In the Shaped Dynamics area, adjust the Size and Angle jitter, for example to angle the brush and change its size as you paint.

Now click back in the document and drag to paint. You’ll see that the shape that you are painting is rotated and sized because you are using size and angle jitter but it is also painted in color because of the hue jitter value. To get brighter results adjust the brightness jitter so you get some variety in brightness in the painted elements. Whatever the choices you make you’ll never again believe that you cannot paint in color in Photoshop.

Return to your Photoshop tool defaults

One issue with tools like the Photoshop Type tool is that it remembers the settings from last time you used it. Sometimes this is a good thing, most often it is not.

If you need to reset the tool or its associated Character or Paragraph palette options, click the tool or palette and from the appropriate flyout menu (the Type tool's flyout menu is in the top right corner of the Tool Presets dialog), choose Reset Tool.

Make sure you don’t have a text layer selected when you do this if you don’t want its settings changed to match the reset options.

How many megapixels do you need to print at...?

It's a confusing question for new camera buyers. You think you want to print at 8 x 10 inches but just what do you need to do this? Well, as a rough rule of thumb, to print at 300 ppi you need 10 x 300 pixels in one direction and 8 x 300 in the other.

Ok, so you need an image around 3,000 x 2,400 but what is that in megapixels? Frankly this is about where my mind fogs over. It's time to go search the web for someone who can do the math for me so I can go back to doing much more fun stuff like Photoshop layer masks :)

The site to go visit is the Megapixel Calculator here you simply type in the measurements you're interested in and it will tell you how many megapixels you need (7.2 in case you were curious).

The site also has heaps of other information about a camera which shoots at that resolution including how many pictures you'd fit on various size cards, compressed file size values etc.. But don't just take it from me, head over there and check out how useful it is.

Lighten versus Screen in Photoshop

If you’re confused about the difference between the Lighten and Screen blend modes in Photoshop, here’s how they work:

The Lighten blend mode compares the pixels on the effected layers and selects the lightest to display.

The Screen blend mode multiples the pixel values on each layer and then takes the inverse so that the resulting image will always be lighter than the original.

So, use Screen mode on a duplicate of an image's background layer to lighten the image – Lighten mode, in this situation, won't have any effect on the image.

Quick and dirty color cast removal

I love quick and dirty solutions and this one is just that. Got an image with a color cast that needs removing? Here's a Photoshop solution worth looking at:

Open the image, choose Image > Adjustments > Color Match and click Neutralize. It's a fix that neutralizes the image and, if it's too much of a fix, drag the Fade slider to the right to get a balance between the original and the fixed version.

Simple huh?

I killed my blogs..

Sometimes I really hate things I do. About a week ago I had high ideals about fixing my articles page and adding mini images to it. I slaved away in FrontPage for an hour or two and I had everything sorted out. I also added a new tutorial on creating planets, mini worlds - amazing circles - whatever you like to call them in Photoshop. Then I did something stupid. I uploaded it all but without really thinking about what I was doing. All I can assume is that I told FrontPage to synch the on and offline sites - result - it clobbered my blog - deleted everything including all my images.

Yikes. First thing I knew my Ad stats were down. I blamed Google for a day then went to see if the blog was live. Well that was a big No! Both of them totally gone. Luckily Blogger retains the text - what I lost was all the images. It has taken me a week to get this blog back up, the other one isn't half done yet. I am seriously bummed.. what a big waste of time that was. But my articles page looks good [insert wry grin here]!

From here on in - I back up my blog images before I mess with the site. And, long term, I'm thinking about moving from FrontPage to Dreamweaver.. but first - Hey!- I have a blog to fix.

So, in the meantime, this lovely boat was high and dry in a creek near Brighton in the UK. Love the colours and the setting - this is one of my favourite images from the UK and it will be appearing in my new book next year.

Basilique Sacré-Coeur, Paris

I'll admit I fell in love with Sacre Coeur the day we visited it in Paris. While I could give the tourist trap parts of Montmartre a big miss, Sacre Coeur is magnificent. It stands tall over Paris and it's such a beautiful building.

We were so lucky to be there on a day when cute little puff ball clouds dotted the sky. It was a scene that called out for my fish eye lens. I love this lens. It has such a wide angle that it sees so much - more than the human eye can in terms of angle, and it does funky things to buildings at the very edge of the image. With it you have so much creative potential that it's worth lugging it around for 3 days and only using it a couple of times.

This image is here for Andrew Chow whom I met on a flight recently from Orlando to Los Angeles. We got talking - he was from Hong Kong originally so we had plenty to talk about and he was checking out some of my photos when I was organizing them. He really liked the ones of Montmartre.. so this is for you Andrew.. Enjoy!

French Quarter

I have never been to New Orleans, so this is a first. The mighty Mississippi has to be seen to be believed, it's huge. I haven't seen a river like that before - ever. You can hardly see from one side to the other and the river dwarfs the paddlesteamers and the container ships that plow their way up and down.

We spent a morning in the French Quarter, dubbed the "sliver by the river" and the "isle of denial" by locals as it remains less touched by the ravages of Katrina than other areas. We ate beignets at Cafe du Monde which is the quintessential New Orleans experience. Beignets are wonderful doughnut like square pastries piled high with powdered sugar which ends up everywhere - over your face, over the table and everywhere in between. Topped off with Cafe au lait, it's not to be missed.

Fresh from California, where signage is in English and Spanish, here it is English, French and Spanish and it's the deep south so it's hot, marshy and humid but so very compelling in it's own way.

This guy was playing the trumpet raising money to rebuild his church. He was very funny and, to my delight, only too happy to let me capture some photos which I've promised to send him with an invitation for him to use them on his next album cover... who knows?

I had to work to get the exposure right, shooting from a covered area into a bright street was challenging and he was wearing that wonderful cap which added to the problems of lighting him without using a distracting fill flash. I had to use Curves to enhance the darks as the +2 exposure compensation muddied the blacks and blew out the highlights. The Photoshop Shadow/Highlight tool brought back enough detail in the highlights to give the images the richness I wanted to see.

Too cool for school

Everyone gets captivated by IR photography, right? The wonderful inverted black and whites are just too cool. Traditional IR photography is a pain in the bum. You have to put this filter over your camera lens to filter out visible light so you only get IR. Trouble is your digital camera is designed to capture visible light not IR, and digital cameras have a hot mirror filter to deliberately block IR. In all, it's a recipe for frustration. You can't see to check your focus or to compose your shot and you have to take really long exposures so you have to use a tripod. Forget about capturing a scene with things that move.

But, the news isn't all bad. This image was shot with a brand new (albeit without any warranty remaining) Canon SD870 point and shoot. There is no warranty on this camera any more because 5 minutes after I bought it I shipped it to Lifepixel.com who pulled it apart and rebuilt it as an IR point and shoot. So, it captures IR, not visible light. And, because the camera is customised and only captures the light you're wanting to capture, you can focus it, compose your shot in the viewfinder, adjust ISO and shoot moving objects - how amazing is that? I've only had a few minutes to test it so I took it down the road to shoot the hills and some farmland. I'm taking it to Mexico this week too.

Hong Kong Trams

One of the most wonderful things about Hong Kong is its cultural and social diversity. Along side this tram is a person on a push bike - with a basket full of things they are pedalling around town. It's a sight you see a lot, high rise buildings, wealthy people contrasted with push bikes and mountains of laundry hanging off the sides of buildings. Gotta love this place, I certainly did.

This image needed more contrast and a bit of tweaking on the colour side to highlight its delicious pastels. My contrast fix of choice is now, officially Curves in Photoshop. But these aren't your dad's curves or your mums! They are curves on steroids - select the channels R,G and B and adjust each of them to get the best contrast in the image, just don't look at colour - look at contrast. Then, when you're done, you did apply your fix on an Adjustment layer didn't you? Set the Adjustment Layer blend mode to Luminosity. Notice how the wonky colours disappear and your image's contrast is adjusted perfectly? Luminosity blend mode applies the change to the image's luminosity (lights and darks on a grey scale) and keeps it away from messing with colour - Like I said, not your mum and dad's curves.. these are for real Photoshoppers!

Photoshop on the web - Yes, you heard right!

Ok, so it's not the entire Photoshop program but it is edit to go Photoshop style and you can find it here - it's called Photoshop Express and it's the Beta release we've all been waiting for.

You register on the site then wait to get your email confirmed. Then login and upload your photos. There are heaps of great tools for adjusting your images. Of course, no layers or adjustment layers or any of the advanced stuff and you can whistle "Dixie" if you dream in LAB. However, these limitations aside there are plenty of good tools to use. These include Crop & Rotate, AutoCorrect as well as Fill Light, Sharpening and Soft Focus and even fun effects like Distort, Tint and Sketch.

The interface is dead easy to use - most options involve pointing and clicking at a display showing the effect applied at different levels, just like a linear version of the Photoshop Variations tool.

It's well worth checking out and seeing that it's so new, you get to snag a good URL for your gallery. But forget getting http://helenbradley.photoshop.com since I just grabbed that!

Fixing with Luminosity masks

Luminosity (Luminance) masks are an interesting tool. Consider the situation where you need to apply a fix to an image but the lighter portions of the image are ok, it's the darks that aren't - or vice versa.

Start by duplicating the image layer and apply the fix to the top layer. Concentrate on the portion of the image that needs fixing, ignore the disaster that's happening in the areas that don't need fixing.

When you have the fix in place, it's time for the fun stuff. Locate a channel which has the detail you want for your mask. You need a channel that is dark where you want the fix to be less and light where you want it more (or vice versa, as you can invert the mask). When you have your channel, Control + Click on the channel (Command + Click on the Mac) to load it as a mask. Now go back to the image and add a mask to the layer - it is automatically created as a luminosity mask based on the channel you used. So, your new mask is white where the channel is light and dark where the channel is dark. Of course, if you need it in reverse, add your mask, select it and press Control + I to invert it. Where the mask is lighter, the fix is more strongly applied and where the mask is darker, the fix is least strongly applied.

In the image above, shot in Harajuku, Tokyo on New Year's Day, I've used a Luminosity mask based on the image's own red channel to add some extra contrast and colour to the wonderful hat. I duplicated the image layer and applied a simple Overlay blend mode to that layer. Then I added the Luminosity mask to force the fix into the areas lightest in the red channel - ie where the reds in the image are located and less so in areas which weren't red. (If this sounds wrong to you, remember that in RGB mode, the red channel is lightest where red is located and darker where it isn't, ditto the green channel - it's lighter where the green is and darker where it isn't, etc..)

There's also a handy shortcut you can use to make your masks if you know which channel to use. Use Control + Alt + 1 for the Red channel in a RGB image, Control + Alt + 2 for the Green and Control + Alt + 3 for the Blue. In LAB, the same shortcuts will get you the L, a and b channels respectively.