Photoshop: Auto-Fix Colors aka Color Tint (PIXimperfect)

I recently ran across a post in the YouTube PIXimperfect channel that ran through how to make 5 specific photo improvements with Photoshop.  All of them have application and I want to learn them.  This post walks through how to Auto-Fix Colors technique 1 from the videos.  The example removes a blur cast from an image that resulted from shooting through a tinted window.  

Sample Images for the video are available here.

Unmesh flies through his steps, I'll be taking the video apart to get the steps to a form that I can use.

Enlarging Techniques

I just bumped into a nifty page on enlarging techniques published by AdoramaPix.  I think it is worth a read and may come in handy in the future, so I'll link to it:

AdoramaPix: Going Big

Preparing for a Photo Expedition (Pre-Build Smug Mug Page)

I'm blessed to be able to go on one or two pretty significant trips each year.  I always depart with the intention of building a set of pages on my SmugMug site that will host images captured by me, my family, and when I am lucky fellow travelers. Sorting, rating, post-processing and ultimately posting the images to my site takes a fairly large amount of time and effort.  Having the images appearing on the site as fast as possible is useful, having some of them appearing during the trip encourages other to participate making it even more important to me.

My desire for speed combined with my natural inclination to laziness has spurred me to create a cookbook for pre-trip prep to make posting of images faster during and after the expedition.  This post lays out the steps I go through to setup my working environment for a trip, your milage, will of course, vary.

Fixing Pet Eye in Photoshop CC 2019

Lightroom has a handy red eye and pet eye fix tool but often, at least for me, it seems like pointing in a finishing nail with a sledge hammer the results are just too heavy handed.  I ran across a couple of approaches on the inter webs and found one at digital-photograpy-school.com that inspired me to create my own step by step.

Removing Skin Shine

I'm never very happy when I have to use flash for a shot.  It is so easy to create horrible hot spots of shine, especially on people's faces. It's worst when using the built in flash. or ugly maker, that most cameras have, but even a bounce flash can create nasty bright spots.

What is a BarrettPhoto Book?

The books I create are compilations of images taken at a specific event or series of events.  My intent in putting them together is to capture memories and build something that is a worthy keepsake for the participants in the event.

Photo books allow me to utilize images that would otherwise end up in a shoebox or just sit on a disk drive into something that I am proud to share with people who may be interested in where I have visited and/or seen.

Some of the books are intended for any/all participants in a group trip, such as the Grove City Alumni travels that Linda and I enjoy participating in.  So far, I’ve produced three such books, with one more slated for June/July of 2018:

• National Parks of the High Plains, June 2015
• Galapagos, January 2017
• Machu Picchu, January 2017
• National Parks of the South West, June 2018

Consumer Reports rates Photo Print Labs - 2017

Consumer Reports recently published a rating of Photo Printing Services with some analysis.  Top quality honors went to Walgreens (98 of 100) with AdoramaPix close behind (97 of 100). The best pricing on 4x6 prints was a tie at 9¢ between Walmart, Amazon, and Snapfish.  Several labs charged $1.79 for an 8x10 (Walmart, Amazon, and Costco).  Adoramapix was competitive on pricing for an 8x10 at $1.89 while offering a higher quality print.

The Consumer Reports Article is available on the CR web site.

I am pleased to see my photo lab of choice coming out on top.

Freezing Flowing Water

This is old hat to many photographers, but the use of shutter speed to freeze flowing water is something worth understanding even at the risk of repeating what might be obvious.

Water in motion can make striking images.  Our eyes naturally blend the motion of falling water drops and make water falls / rapids into silky ribbons of water even when they are actually individual droplets of water.  A camera can freeze that motion, or allow it to flow, it all depends on the shutter speed.

The accompanying shot of the water wheel was shot at 1/50 of a second.  This allowed the water to move a short distance during the exposure and blurring, but not forming a long smooth silky fall.  In this case, I wanted the water to show motion, to make the shot feel like it's in motion, but I wanted the spokes of the wheel to be relatively sharp, nearly frozen in time. That's what I was seeing when I looked at the scene and that shutter speed (on a tripod, BTW) was just right.

Photography Tips: AdoramaPix

It's pretty obvious that I like working with AdoramaPix.  The books that they print are just amazing, always bringing smiles to viewers eyes and they aren't too hard to build.  So I follow what they are doing.  I also am a big fan of learning.  Nearly everyone can and should learn.  Getting better is always a solid objective.

I recently came across Adoramapix's blog that mixes these two things.  They have solid advice on a number of aspects of photography and are easy reads.  If you're in the mood for photographic learning, take a moment to visit them at their blog.

Synchronizing Camera Clocks (for the lazy)

I use the omnipresent time stamp in my image files for several things, the most important is recreating the sequence of events.  That is essential to my Photo Books which normally are used tell a story.  Presenting that story in order is really important.  Knowing the exact time of any given image typically doesn't matter at all; it's almost all about relative time, or ordering.

Crafting a Photo Web Site

Recently, I've been feeling the need to have my own photo website. Somewhere that I can place images and point people to see them.  Specifically, this has been driven by my Photo Memory Book habit and group trips we have gone on with one of our college alumni groups. I've been making my own photo memory books for years, offering them to my fellow travelers seemed easy and something they might like.  So far it's turned out that they pretty much love them and I receive lots of interest and more photos that I can use when building my books.  All of those images just demand sharing, a photo web site seems a natural solution.

Travel Memory Books

A few years back I discovered photo books as a way to make my images from travels a powerful tool for bolstering my memory and enjoyment of vacations and other trips.  Before that, I had taken pictures, often printed some of them, looked at them and put them in a box or drawer.  When I looked at them years later I really couldn't appreciate what I was looking at.  The images just didn't work as a way to really remember the event.  Putting those images into book format forced me to really think about what I saw, adding some organization and narration, allows my to save the memories much more accurately and gives me something that I can look at long after the fact and once again enjoy the experience. These books, for many people have become the ultimate souvenir.