I just got a nice e-mail to tell me that my Digital Imaging Tune-Up Clinic Blog has just won an award for 2010 Top Photography Blogs from OnlineSchools.org. I would like to thank all my readers for this and also for making my blog the highest readership slot on the Facebook Blog Network for the subjects of Photoshop, Digital Photography, and Digital Imaging. This year has been so busy that my posts and tutorials have been less frequent, but I will be trying harder now to get more tutorials posted more often for you to check out. To see all the winners, go to http://www.onlineschools.org/top_photography/ Thanks again!!!... Jim

A Painting For Every Port

As a self assignment example for a program I presented on board the ship to members of the 2010 Texas School Cruise, I created a digital painting for each of the different ports we visited on the trip. These are very easy to create with the Art History Brush and I spent no more than 5 to 10 minutes on each image. To download the PDF tutorial on how to create a digital painting, click on the link below.... Enjoy....

www.DiVitalePhotography.com/digital_painting.zip

Click on image to enlarge

Speed Up Your Retouching With Content Aware Fill And The Spot Healing Brush

Every new version of Photoshop always has at least one new feature that shines through the crowd of new tools. Photoshop CS5 is no exception with the new Content Aware Fill process. Complex retouching has made a giant step forward in being able to let the computer replace areas of an image with what it thinks should go there. Does it work on every type of situation… No way…. but, it still is a quick option to try when enhancing an image and can do a surprisingly good job considering what it has to work with.

In this hand held stitched panoramic image taken with the Canon S-90 camera in Mykonos, Greece, you can see that I was unknowingly lowering the camera position with each movement missing some the image. Hard to tell that until you put the image together in Photoshop’s Photomerge.

click on image to enlarge

I selected the the Lasso Tool and drew a selection around the missing areas. In Photoshop CS5, I chose Menu>Edit>Fill and picked Content Aware in the dialog box.


The Software took a few minutes, but it completely retouched the sky and sea with a perfect blend back into the original image.


The same technology is also available in the Spot Healing Tool. Just pick the Content Aware option in the Options Bar and just paint over the area. In this example of a early morning scene in Venice shot with the Canon 1Ds Mark III and 70-200mm lens, I decided to paint out the boat in foreground. Just brush over the areas you want to remove, and poof… it's gone….

Images From Venice, Italy

Venice, Italy is a place that no matter where you look, there is a cool image waiting to be photographed. While I am sorting through the files, I thought I would post a few for you to see. We got up very early in the morning each day and worked late into the evening to get the best light.

We stumbled into a small shop of hand painted masks, and while we shopped around for some masks to ship back to Atlanta, I snapped a hundred shots with my Canon S-90 camera to create some interesting still life images.



After three days of great image making, we gathered with our friends in the lobby of the Hotel Marconi the to get ready to start our cruise to Greece… Lot’s more to come.

Photoshop TV Episode

Just getting home from our trip to Italy and Greece with the Texas School and I will have lots of new artwork to be posting soon... Here is a nice view from where we stayed in Venice.

click image to enlarge

If you would like to get a preview and what my new Kelby Media digital photography training tutorials are going to look like, here is an advanced peek at a couple of the setups. While I was down recording in Tampa at NAPP headquarters I sat in on video taping sessions of Scott's D-Town and Photoshop User TV shows. I recorded some samples on the shows and they are now on line. check out the episodes by clicking on the links below.... Enjoy...

http://kelbytv.com/dtowntv/2010/06/18/episode-43/

http://kelbytv.com/photoshopusertv/2010/07/01/episode-236/