How to Create Rugged High-Impact Portraits with Photoshop

Photo credit Joel Bedford via flickr



When shooting film, a green filter slapped on the camera and an unsharp mask in the darkroom could get you all the wonderful gritty badassery you could want from a portrait. Ever wondered how those ultra hard-edged portraits get made digitally? Wonder no more!

Though the tutorial was done on an older version of Photoshop, the steps remain pretty much unchanged through CS5.




Here's an older example of this technique that I did on my of my own mug. Like anything, it gets easier with practice and patience.

Shooting in Fog or Mist to Capture Lighting Effects

Tomorrow morning I leave for the Hawaiian island of Oahu. I'll be gone for a week enjoying the sun, surf, forests, and beaches of the North Shore. Tough life, I know. But before I go, I wanted to leave you with a tutorial over on Cambridge in Color on How to Take Photos in Fog, Mist or Haze. It could come in handy as summer gives way to fall over the next month, and the dawn hours begin to fill up with fog.

Now, did I remember to pack everything?

How to Take Photos in Fog, Mist or Haze via Gizmodo

Way Beyond Monochrome is on the way...

Just got an email this morning from Ralph W. Lambrecht, one of the authors of the book Way Beyond Monochrome. He says that, "...the books are on the boat from Hong Kong to the US right now, which means the official release date of Oct, 15th will be held."

Hooray!

Shooting in Golden Gate Park with Jose & Emily

This weekend Jose and me ran out to Golden Gate park with our friend Emily for a portrait session. I love getting together with Jose, he's just such a wonderful source of inspiration and I get to push myself into doing different things artistically. I'm not really a portrait photographer, so this is a refreshing break once in awhile.

Project Pinholaroid

In honor of the upcoming World Pinhole Day, I decided to embark on a little build project of my own when I discovered a trashed Polaroid 210 Land Camera at a resale shop in Oakland. I really love taking pinhole pictures, and I love even more the instant gratification provided by instant film!

Now, for those of you that don't know, Polaroid no longer makes instant film, but there are a couple of companies that still produce compatible film, one being Fuji and the other is called the Impossible Project, which has some lovely Polaroid-compatible film, and is marketed at a more artistic market.