Alpha Photography Blog

When I first started to learn photography, I was using a film SLR and slide film.  Digital photography changes the playing field substantially.  In order to use some of those images I’d taken on slide and negative film, I wanted to scan them to create a digital file.

I ended up getting a Qpix digital film scanner, which while not the best on the market, suits my purposes.  Now I can manipulate my slide and negative film images digitally!

Here is an image I took while I was studying photography that I wanted to use:

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In last week’s post we went through how to insert text into a photograph.  This week I’ll go through how to edit that text and make it look less flat.  Here again is the final image:

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I had a question the other day about how to enter text onto a photograph using Photoshop.  It’s one of those things that as soon as you know, it’s really easy.  Here is what I’m creating:

I’m sure there are a few ways to do it, but here’s what I find the easiest.

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Going through some recent photos, I can across two shots which looked pretty hopeless when I took them (I was scouting out wedding photography locations with a bride and groom to be, and the weather that day was miserable).

But, I decided to have a play in old faithful Photoshop….

Here is one of the originals:

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This week I’m trying out some more Photoshop filter effects.  This image is from the same location as last week - different subject though.  I liked the chicken as it really stood out against the dark surroundings of the sculptures.  This is the original:

I was going for an other-worldly effect, and first duplicated the background (Layer > Duplicate Layer > Background Copy). Next I converted the image to black and white (Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer > Monochrome).

Then I used the history brush to colour the chicken and bring its colour back into the image, while keeping the rest of the image black and white.  Here is where to find the history brush:

Next I used the Magnetic Lasso tool to select the chicken and inverted the selection (Select > Inverse) so I could change the appearance of the background.

I adding an effect called Ocean Ripple then to the background: View > Distort > Ocean Ripple.

This is the result:

The effect is a little different.  Not too other-worldly, but getting there.

The different filters are fun to play with and see what kind of ‘distortion’ is possible.

Following on from last week’s post, I took a drive up to the beautiful Sunshine Coast Hinterland over the weekend and scoured out some photography subjects.  I ended up looking at things I normally wouldn’t and came up with a few interesting images.

I’ve also had some fun editing them in Photoshop.  I’ll take you through a few of them today, and continue on next week with a few others.

Here is the original image:

Now for the Photoshopped image.  To achieve this you follow these steps: Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer > Monochrome; then, Filter > Texture > Grain.  Intensity = 30, and Contrast = 50.

Chinese warrior sculptures always look so solemn and intimidating.  I wanted to amplify this, and black and white with a grain applied seemed the right way to achieve it.

Now, the next one isn’t quite as dramatic.  Looking at the images side by side you can see that there is a difference, but you might not really have noticed the photoshopped image if you hadn’t seen the original…

It is subtle, but you can see that the craquelure effect in Photoshop makes the image a little grainer.  The Grain effect made too much of a difference, and I wanted it to be subtle.

To achieve this, you go to the Filter menu, then select Texture, then Craquelure.

Have a play with the filter effects in Photoshop - it’s amazing what you can do.

Photoshop is a fun program to use for editing photos.  It can also be an incredibly frustrating program.  This post is only semi-related to photography, as I was recently trying to create a funky background for another purpose.  During this process I discovered a way of making some great, different backgrounds to put photos on.

Keep in mind that this experiment wasn’t meant for a portrait, this is just to illustrate my point…

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Here is a night shot I took of the Brisbane skyline.  I’d never noticed all the colours before, so decided to have a little fun with it, and play with a few of the Photoshop Filters…

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One of the beauties of digital photography is the flexibility.  No longer do photographers need to carry two SLR bodies around - one with colour film, and the other with black and white film.

With digital, you can take the photograph in colour, and convert it to black and white with a few keystrokes in Photoshop…

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In the ‘old’ days of film photography, photos were printed in monochrome, on paper that didn’t really stand the test of time. These images are still cherished memories, and can be easily improved, while not completely restored to their former ‘glory’.

Here is a relatively quick way to breathe some life back into your historic photos, using Photoshop.

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