Processing Underwater Photos with Jason Bradley

Nature and underwater photographer, workshop leader and author Jason Bradley joins host Seán Duggan for a wide-ranging conversation on scuba diving, underwater photography, portraying the undersea world in black & white,  tips for processing underwater photographs in Lightroom, and random Star Wars references. And in a segment that will resonate with any photographer who has ever been in a creative rut and dissatisfied with their work, Jason shares how a period of time he spent in the creative doldrums led to a renewed engagement and passion for his work through interpreting the world beneath the waves in the rich tones of classic black & white.

About This Week’s Guest

Jason Bradley is a nature and underwater photographer based in Monterey, California.  Jason is the author of the book, Creative Workflow in Lightroom, published through Focal Press (on sale soon). He operates Bradley Photographic Print Services, leads photo expeditions for underwater photographers and surface dwellers, and is a blogger for Outdoor Photographer Magazine.

Links mentioned in this episode:

BradleyPhotographic.com  |   Jason Bradley on Twitter  |   Jason Bradley on Facebook

Jason’s new book, Creative Workflow in Lightroom (coming soon, available for pre-order now)

Emma the Tiger Shark  |  Art & Fear by Ted Orland and David Bayles

WetPixel.com   |   Backscatter.com, Underwater Photo & Video Gear

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

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You can enjoy this and every episode of TheFIX in its video or audio version. Click the video at the top of this page to watch the video version or use the audio player on this page to listen to the show. To enjoy the audio version when you’re on the go, subscribe to TheFIX in iTunes or your favorite RSS player.

Making Monsters in Photoshop Mix

In this episode of TheFIX, Russell Brown the Senior Creative Director at Adobe Systems, stops by for some monstrously good fun on our special Halloween show. Russell demos how you can use the mobile app Adobe Photoshop Mix along with Creative Cloud and his updated Monster Make-Up Kit to create monsters using your own photos of your friends, family, or even yourself.   He also shows how a Creative Cloud account allows you to move files between the mobile apps Photoshop Mix and Photoshop Fix. You can even send your layered files from the mobile app to Photoshop on the desktop for further editing, with layers and layer transparency preserved. You can download the special Monster Make-Up Kit that Russell prepared especially for this episode, featuring monster illustrations by John McConnell, and either use the layered files in Photoshop on the desktop, or, if you’re a Creative Cloud member, you can access them on your iPad or Android device and import the make-up layers, including transparency, into Photoshop Mix.

See the extra video tutorial  for tips on syncing the Monster Files with your Creative Cloud, and speeding up the process.

Download the Monster Make-Up Kit & Make Your Own Monster Images!

Click Here to Download the Monster Make-Up Kit   (46.2mb)

Once you have downloaded the Monster Make-Up Kit to your computer, double-click the .ZIP file to uncompress it. To access the Monster Make-Up Kit in Photoshop Mix on your iPad, move the folder into your Creative Cloud Files folder (this requires a subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud). NOTE: Removing the final layered composite images from the Monster and Zombie folders will result in a faster synchronization (see extra video above).

Share Your Monsters on Social Media

If you come up with something cool using the Monster Make-up Kit, we’d love to see it! Share your images on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+ and tag them with #TheFIX and #MonsterMix so we can find them

Links mentioned in this episode:

Russell Brown’s Tutorials on Vimeo  |  Behance Page   |   Facebook Page

Flypaper Textures

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You can enjoy this and every episode of TheFIX in its video or audio version. Click the video at the top of this page to watch the video version or use the audio player on this page to listen to the show. To enjoy the audio version when you’re on the go, subscribe to TheFIX in iTunes or your favorite RSS player.

Where’s Seán?

Check out Seán’s website to learn more about his photography, workshops, and his Lynda.com courses

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A Conversation on Creative Process

In this episode of TheFIX, Chris Orwig joins host Seán Duggan for a conversation on creativity and the creative process as it relates not only to your photography, but also to other areas of your life. Everyone has the potential to be creative and learning how to more effectively tap into your creativity and take care of it, can elevate the role that creativity plays in your life. He covers this and many other aspects of creativity in his new book The Creative Fight. Since this is a photography and post-processing themed podcast, we also delve into some of the different creative ways that photographers use post processing, as well as how to avoid some of the creative-block pitfalls that image processing software can sometimes put in our path when we’re trying to figure out the best way to process an image.

About Our Guest:

Chris Orwig is an author, teacher, photographer, and creator of more than 80 courses at Lynda.com. His previous books include Visual Poetry and People Pictures. He speaks on creativity and photography frequently and has been invited to speak at places like the Google headquarters and on the TEDx stage. Whether shooting photographs, speaking, or writing books, he inspires others to become more creative and to lead better lives. Chris is based in Santa Barbara, California.

Links mentioned in this episode:

ChrisOrwig.com

The Creative Fight, Blog & Podcast

Chris Orwig’s Lynda.com Courses

 

Enjoy the video or audio version of TheFIX

You can enjoy this and every episode of TheFIX in its video or audio version. Click the video at the top of this page to watch the video version or use the audio player on this page to listen to the show. To enjoy the audio version when you’re on the go, subscribe to TheFIX in iTunes or your favorite RSS player.

Where’s Seán?

Check out Seán’s website to learn more about his photography, workshops, and his Lynda.com courses

* Iceland: Winter Landscapes & Auroras March 13 – 19, 2016

* Photographing the Night Landscape

– a Lynda.

The Lightroom CC 2015.2/6.2 Update

In this episode of TheFIX, Victoria Bampton, aka the Lightroom Queen, joins host Seán Duggan to discuss the update to Lightroom that was announced and released on October 5th at the Adobe MAX conference. We look at the tremendous (and in some cases furious) uproar and chaos that this update has created within the Lightroom photography community. In what is now widely regarded as a release that was not ready for prime time, the problems with the update have caused a significant PR/customer relations situation for Adobe: Users have experienced performance and stability issues, as well as program crashes on the Mac El Capitan platform. Adobe issued an official apology, and an update on Oct 9th to fix the update (2015.2.1/6.2.1) was only partially successful and introduced new problems for  some users who had not experienced any issues with the first update, this reporter included (a new update is promised for this week).  In addition to the stability and crashing issues, there has also been a big controversy surrounding the new import dialog, which saw useful features removed or hidden, and although the simplified interface may be welcomed by new users, it has been received with a resounding thumbs-down from many professional and advanced Lightroom users, who saw their workflows disrupted due to the changes. On a more positive note, there is the welcome addition of DeHaze to the Local Adjustments (for Lightroom CC users), as well as the addition of new camera and lens support. A tumultuous week in the Lightroom universe! Tune in as Victoria and I deconstruct the update and offer some insight and perspective on the chaos and what might be coming next.

Update, 10/16/2015 — Adobe has announced that they will be restoring the import experience from the previous version in the next dot release. Read more at the Adobe Lightroom Journal.

About Our Guest:

Victoria Bampton is based in England and runs the popular Lightroom Queen website and blog, where she offers helpful tips, techniques and advice on getting the most out of Lightroom. She offers a free 70-page Lightroom Quickstart Guide eBook, as well as a more in-depth book (available both as an eBook and in traditional printed form) on Lightroom CC/6: The Missing FAQ. There’s a lot of incredibly useful information at her website. Check it out!

Links mentioned in this episode:

Victoria Bampton’s excellent web site The Lightroom Queen

Instructions for Rolling Back to Lightroom 2015.1/6.1

Victoria’s Blog Update for today, Oct 13, 2015

 

 

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Smart Objects in Photoshop

In this episode of TheFIX we take a look at Smart Objects in Photoshop and some of the ways they can be used in a non-destructive workflow. That exploration of smart objects begins as an extension of a topic from a few weeks ago: the Lightroom-Photoshop Connection, since smart objects are another avenue for that connection between Lightroom and Photoshop. Once in Photoshop, we explore using duplicate smart objects, how to use smart objects for non-destructive retouching, nested layers inside of smart objects,  applying Camera Raw as a Smart Filter, and non-destructive transformations in composite projects.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Photoshop Masking & Compositing

by Katrin Eismann, Seán Duggan & James Porto

 

 

Enjoy the video or audio version of TheFIX

You can enjoy this and every episode of TheFIX in its video or audio version. Click the video at the top of this page to watch the video version or use the audio player on this page to listen to the show. To enjoy the audio version when you’re on the go, subscribe to TheFIX in iTunes or your favorite RSS player.

Where’s Seán?

Check out Seán’s website to learn more about his photography, workshops, and his lynda.com courses:

* Enhancing Night & Low-Light Photos with Photoshop

* Photographing the Night Landscape – Night photography at the Salton Sea and Anza Borrego desert.

* Iceland: Winter Landscapes & Auroras March 13 – 19, 2016