Over $3000 worth of products for $99 until July 13th–The Big Deal 2016–OBSOLETE

 

This Sale Has Ended

 

In an industry flooded with training and software-  finding what works for your photography workflow can be time consuming and expensive.  Unless - you can cut through all of that with a bundle that gives you access to top notch training from industry experts and software for one low price. 

That’s exactly what you’ll get in The Big Deal 2016.

The largest online photography bundle is back- bringing you the best in education, presets and resources from top trainers like Joe McNally, Peter Hurley, Matt Kloskowski, RC Concepcion, Renee Robyn, Corey Barker, Tamara Lackey, Kristi Sherk and more. In fact you can even get a free copy of my Printing 101 eBook in this deal:

This year, they are adding powerful software like Photo Mechanic 5, Particle Shop, Topaz Clarity, and Perfectly Clear to your toolbox.  Hours and hours of training and software that would cost thousands of dollars if you purchased them all separately, are now part of the The Big Deal 2016 for just $99.

You’ll get the training and the tools to create jaw dropping Black & White photographs, incredible landscape images, beautiful portraits and exceptional wildlife photos.  You’ll learn essential Photoshop techniques and get brushes, presets and actions to help you create stunning images.  You can turn every shot into a printable, shareable work of art.  Plus the key component to make every photographer’s life easier - how to organize and work with your image library in Lightroom CC. 

Here’s a short video where you can learn more about what is included:

Learn More

Click here to learn more.

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles like this.

Background Replacement By Shooting On A Chroma Green Screen

Chroma Green Screen Background
Impact Chroma Sheet Background - 10 x 12' (Chroma Green)

When readers and my students ask me how to do background replacements on shots and generally I’ll tell them to just shoot on white or black and use the techniques found in Photoshop Compositing Secrets or The Photoshop Channels Book to mask out the background. This works for me, and if I do a good enough job lighting the background then I can also just drop a U-Point control on the entire background and dial up the brightness in Viveza shown in this example here:

Viveza background substitution from white background
shot using a Elinchrom Quadra Ringflash

However, the industry practice for video (i.e., your local weather forecast where the weatherman walks around with the map behind them) is done with what is called a chroma green screen.

To do this technique yourself you need a lighting setup that can be as complex as mine, or as simple as this kit that you can pick up for less than $100 at B&H:

Impact Digital Flash Umbrella Mount Kit (<$100 at B&H)

For this article, I used the kit above but I’ll admit that I prefer this kind of umbrella adapter rather than the cheap ones included in this kit. In fact, I don’t even use a cold shoe – I just screw my 580 EX II flash directly into them using the little stand that comes with my flash (it has a screw mount on the bottom). I’m pretty sure this works for Nikon’s too, but honestly I haven’t ever tried it with something like a SB-900 or SB-910.

You also need a green screen of course, so for this article I chose the Impact Chroma Sheet Background - 10 x 12' (Chroma Green) which retailed for < $59 at B&H. I tossed this on a Impact Background Support System (12' Wide) and I had Kimberly sit on a posing stool. I positioned the white shoot through umbrellas (with the black covers removed) on the left and right of Kimberly and let ETTL do the rest. My handheld shot with my Canon 1D Mark IV was taken using a 70-200mm lens set to 102mm at f/2.8 using ISO 320 for 1/60 sec. The result was the shot at the top of this article and also shown later when you hover over the shot where I’ve replaced the background.

Replacing the Background in Photoshop

The key to replacing the background in Photoshop is the Color Range dialog that you’ve probably never used before. However, it’s easily found under the Select menu of CS5 (and presumably in the same place in earlier versions).

Once you have this dialog the easiest way to get the results you want is to HOLD THE SHIFT KEY and drag downwards over the areas where you know your background appears. REPEAT this process for the big areas until you get something that looks like the screen shot above.  Click OK and you get a selection like this:

To fix the eyes you can just use your favorite method of removing an unwanted selection. I like the quick mask tool, but a minus selection using lasso would work (as would many other ways).

Once your selection is good, then go to the select menu and inverse your selection. This selects the subject instead of the background. You can now do a CTRL+J (or CMD+J) to create a new layer with just your subject as shown here:

From here you can either fill your background layer with another color or just replace the background layer with a new background. For this example, I chose to replace it with black:

This of course reveals what I hate about using Chroma Green Screens – the horrid green fringe! If you are lucky you can go select the layer with your subject (Layer 1 in this example) and then go to Layer –> Matting –> Defringe. Enter a value (usually try 1 and work your way up from there) and voila the green halo goes away. However, that never seems to work perfectly from me (although it does help).

The easy way to remove the green screen

I use the free version of a tool called Easy Green Screen found at http://www.photoshopgreenscreen.com/ that just works at getting rid of most of that nasty green screen. Here’s a quick video that shows how it works:

Play in HD

With a simple few clicks I ended up with a much better separation of my subject from the green screen and doing a 1px Defringe fixed 99% of the problem. The net result of the before and after (using a new background is shown here):

Mouse in and out to see the before and after

There’s a little area by her right arm, hair and shirt that isn’t 100% perfect but I honestly called it close enough for this article. In a real shot I might spend the time fixing it, but honestly that’s what I don’t like about green screens – you have to fight the green halo issue.

Of course you can use tools like Remask and Perfect Mask to quickly deal with contamination issues like this, but they can also be used to remove more complex background when you didn’t use a green screen in the first place.

Conclusion

This article shows that you don’t have to spend much money to do simple background replacements and that there are a wealth of tools to help you get perfect results. Lightroom users are probably better off using a white background and my Viveza trick for the cheapest way to just get a pure white background. However, Photoshop (and equivalent) users can use a product like Easy Green Screen and get great results in a hurry. The biggest tip to remember though is to be sure you get enough light on your background as the more evenly lit and bright it is, the easier it will be to remove it.

Disclaimer

If you make a purchase using the links found in this article, I may make a commission. Thanks for supporting this blog by using my links!

REVIEW: Photoshop Compositing Secrets

Photoshop Compositing Secrets is the latest book by Photoshop Guru Matt Kloskowski. For those of you who have seen him on Photoshop User TV, Kelby Training, etc… you know he’s a pretty talented Photoshop master. Many readers of this blog took their work with layers to the next level with his book Layers (Layers 1st Edition review), so I’m sure if you are wondering if this book is just as good.

First Impressions

I read a lot of books, so the more I reader the more cynical I get. As someone who works 80+ hours a week, I have little tolerance for books that waste my time. I’m very happy to report that this book was a very good use of my time, and honestly I think it’s the strongest book Matt has done thus far. Granted, I didn’t read the 2nd edition of his Layers book, but I’ve tossed other compositing books in the garbage pretty quickly for being utterly useless.

What Chapters Should You Read?

When given enough time I like to do chapter by chapter comments on books so I can give you a good idea of what’s worth your time and what’s skipping, but for this book I found everything but chapters 12 & 13 to be worth a close read. Now there was nothing wrong with chapters 12 & 13, but they are just chapters that seem rather simple and lame by the time you get to that part of the book. If they would have been chapters 2 & 3 I probably would have thought differently.

Despite the advice in the book, I do encourage reading the chapters in order. I find that he does build up on concepts that make them easier to digest if you follow them in order.

Read This Book At Your Desk

I encourage you to be next to a computer where you try out the techniques described as that repetition will burn the concepts into your brain so that they are second nature. In fact, I strongly encourage you to create the tough masks yourself rather than using the included files that already have the mask as that’s the stuff that will transfer to be most applicable to your own work. Yes it is hard and time consuming, but it’s worth seeing how the techniques in this book can really help you.

Conclusion

I think this is a good book for the intermediate to advanced Photoshop user. While Matt does a good job of explaining things in a simple way, it is still not quite as “step by step” as Scott Kelby’s books (especially 7 Point System). While that could frustrate some, I think most will find that they are able to get the same results as Matt by following along. There are some great examples and lots of new techniques that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere before.

I’m jazzed after reading this book because I feel like I picked up about ten new tricks to my Photoshop skill set. In fact I marked them all with post-it flags so I can get back to them quickly.

I think you’ll love this book if you like Peachpit or Kelby style books. I also appreciate how he shows how you can do certain things directly in Photoshop, but he also shows how its even easier when you use products like Nik Software’s Color Efex Tonal Contrast (which is vastly improved in 4.0).

This book has great bang for the book, good examples, and I highly recommend it. In fact, I’d suggest to your loved ones that it would make an excellent stocking stuffer!

This book will be added as a recommended additional reading in my popular What Photoshop Books Should I Read?  article.

Ordering Info

Click here to order Photoshop Compositing Secrets. It is available in both printed and Kindle versions. I saw it on a friends Kindle Fire and it looks awesome – that’s the way to go for electronic photography books.

You may also enjoy:

 

Disclosure

I may get a commission if you make purchases using the links in this article. Thanks for supporting this blog by using my links.

REVIEW: Layers by Matt Kloskowski

Layers by Matt Kloskowski

For those of you who watch the popular podcasts at Photoshop User TV, you'll recognize that this book is by the same Matt that is on the show. This popular show also co-hosted by National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) experts Scott Kelby and Dave Cross features lots of great tips, and I've noticed that some of the best of them come from Matt.

With this in mind, I didn't think twice about ordering this book. I typically get a book from the library and decide if I should purchase it after reading it, but in this case I went straight for the purchase. Read on to find out if that was a good move or not.

First Impressions

I was surprised to see that this book was fairly thin given its hefty price, but some of my favorite books are thin so I figured that it was probably light on theory and heavy on good useful information. After all, Matt Kloskowski is a pretty sharp guy so I was hoping his extensive knowledge of layers would translate into some really great tips and tricks.

The pages looked nice and the organization of the book is pretty good, so now all I had to do was read it. And read it I did on a flight to Chicago (not recommended for most since this is an interactive book that requires using your laptop to do the samples as you read along). It took about 4 hours to read straight through without doing the examples, so plan for at least 3 times that if you follow along as you should.

Chapter by Chapter Comments

Here are my thoughts of each of the chapters of this book after reading them, and later going back and doing the samples.

Chapter 1 - Layer Basics

This chapter is for the true beginner who doesn't have a clue about layers. If this is you, then definitely read this chapter. If it isn't you, then still glance at it to make sure you aren't missing any fundamentals and then move on to chapter 2.

Chapter 2 - Blending Layers

There's some good stuff in here, especially for those who are clueless about layer blending, that will help you understand how blending works and why gradients work the way they do with a specific blending mode. It starts off with the most popular blending modes, and then quickly puts them into use (doing tricks like using threshold to allow for a slick blend). The chapter quickly fades as he does some rather lame examples which prove a point but build something utterly useless. Overall it is an A+ start with an F middle, and an A+ finish where Matt shows how you can use blending techniques to add a Moon to a shot in a very convincing way. The moments of brilliance in this chapter are very useful in real-world applications and demystify some of the things you may have never other understood from reading other books (I know I didn't).

Chapter 3 - Adjustment Layers

This chapter goes into one of the most useful features in Photoshop and explains them in a fairly simple manner. Unfortunately some of his techniques are a little more cumbersome than they need to be (i.e., he chooses to layer mask brush everything you don't need instead of what you do need), but most of the concepts are sound. He leaves out some important details and doesn't really go too in-depth on the how to use these adjustment layers like Scott Kelby does in the 7 Point System for Photoshop CS3.

Chapter 4 - Layer Masks

Layer masks changed my life and improved my Photoshop skills dramatically. In fact one of my first blog entries was about an overlay (blending mode) mask that changed the way I do photo editing forever, and it was a tip I learned from Matt on the show.

Matt shows some cool tricks here and overall the chapter is successful, but I left wanting for more and thinking that if I wasn't already very comfortable with this feature that I might have been a bit confused by how to do some of the tricks he showed. Matt definitely makes assumptions about people's Photoshop knowledge, and this is one of many chapters that really demonstrate that point.

Chapter 5 - Type and Shape Layers

For some this chapter might be great and super useful, but for me it was more of a filler chapter as I have little use for the concepts presented in this chapter. However, I can say that I did learn some new tips and tricks which might come in handy at some point, so it was still worth reading.

Chapter 6 - Enhancing Photos with Layers

This is where Matt could have written a phenomenal book, but instead he wrote a pretty brief chapter that covers the basics. Sure, there's some great stuff in here for those who don't know about the techniques show, but if you've read Scott Kelby's 7 Point System for Photoshop CS3 then nothing here is news to you.

Chapter 7 - Retouching with Layers

Again, like Chapter 6, this is the chapter that screams out for the kind of useful details provided in Skin, The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers and Scott Kelby's 7 Point System for Photoshop CS3, but fails to deliver on it. Sure, there's some good stuff here, but he leaves a lot of critical details out (especially in the teeth whitening section) which novices will find to be very frustrating.

Chapter 8 - Layer Styles

Once again, Matt only touches the tip of the iceberg on this complex and rarely discussed feature set. He provides some great examples of how to apply them in a meaningful way, but he only scratches the surface. Towards the end he really gets lazy and only provides the dialogs to show what you set to get a particular effect, but I think he's missed some useful instructions along the way.

Chapter 9 - Smart Layers

Smart Layers are super helpful and it is good to see Matt trying to make an attempt at demystifying them, but sadly he does nothing different from all of the other books out there that talk about smart layers. There's plenty of oddities about this feature that he could discuss, but he simply dives into some examples (some of which are excellent) and moves on.

Conclusion

Skill Level: Beginner to Intermediate
Value: Poor (a bit overpriced for what you get)
Recommendation: Recommended*

I really wanted this to be a great book that I could recommend to anybody, and I wanted it to be a book that really advanced my skills. However, I think what we have here is a book with lots of good information, but even more potential because the author simply failed to follow-through on a good idea. This book convinces me that Matt is probably a bright guy who likes to start great eyes, but who fails follow through and finish them. This book could have been great, and it could have been a Kelby-killer, but in the end it is a brief but useful primer on Layers. For a better value, consider getting The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers and/or Scott Kelby's 7 Point System for Photoshop CS3 instead.