Printing Your Own Holiday/Greeting Cards (Tutorial Included)

Red River Greeting Card Stock Home

If you are like me, you want to send out custom holiday cards with your own photos but often times you find yourself too busy to bother. If you’ve tried it and had horrible results, then you aren’t alone either!

Fortunately, my friends at Red River Paper are experts on this subject and have done an incredible job of providing user education on this topic for use with their papers and envelopes. It’s really the one stop shop no matter if you are using Canon, Epson, or HP papers with just about any software that you can imagine (for both Mac & PC)!!!

I’ve been a fan of Red River Paper for a couple of years and have featured their products on my printing series page, but honestly I’ve never tried their greeting card products – until now. Admittedly, I was very intimidated by this whole process because I’ve had horrific results in the past when I tried to do it all solo. What’s worse, is that I often found myself without paper that could be printed on both sides (especially Luster paper), so I was never really able to do what I wanted. In the end I had to resort to throwing out my hard work and just picking up cards from a discount store. This left me both frustrated and dissatisfied.

How much will it cost to print my card?

Click here to get an estimate from Red River Paper about how much it cost to do your own cards. In most cases, it’s typically under $1 per card.

Templates & Videos (Mac & PC – Aperture, Lightroom, Photoshop, Elements & more…)

Click here to learn more both in written and video form about how to do your own cards in both vertical and horizontal orientation for Canon, Epson, and HP printers using most of the popular photo editing software for both the Mac & PC.

Can I print borderless?

Yes, you can. Click here to learn how.

Can I get envelops and display bags or boxes too?

Yes! Click here to get envelopes, display boxes, Photoshop actions and more.

FAQ’s & Additional Help

Click here to learn more as there’s tons of questions people typically have when trying to do this themselves.

Are there double-sided luster cards?

Yes, and no. There was a 80lb. Red River Luster Card Double Sided paper, but without notice the mill discontinued this paper just as soon as Red River rolled it out.

My Experience

I have Canon iPF6450, PRO-1, PRO-10, and Epson R3000, 3880, and 4900 printers on hand, but I quickly discovered that the 3880 was the best printer for the job due its easy support for custom paper sizes. The paper I was using was 7x10 so that eliminated my printers that didn’t support custom size papers (the PRO series printers). I had no desire to do this on my 6450, so that left the Epson’s. The 3880 is the sheet paper king, so I decided to go with it.

While Red River Paper has instructions for Mac and PC with a variety of software, I decided to stay in my comfort zone and print from Photoshop CC on my Windows 7 PC. You can see my Photoshop settings and how I printed above and below.

Here’s my printer driver settings using the Red River paper profile for my test paper (temporarily not for sale):

To keep my settings handy, I created a custom setting called “Red River 7x10 Card”. This won’t exist on your printer, so don’t go looking for it.

The template was handy and I managed to print on both the inside and outside without any problem. I did heed the warning that you should print your inside text first and save your photos on the outside for the second pass through the printer.

For my test prints I did leave high speed (bi-directional) printing on and it seemed to be okay. I also didn’t wait any time before flipping the paper and printing both sides, but I managed to insert the paper in the wrong way – twice!!! This was carelessness on my part, so a heads up that you really need to pay attention when reloading your paper! I chose the sheet feeder since that was the only one that the driver would allow me to use a custom size.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to test borderless because my driver complained that I had to use a supported size if I wanted borderless.

Overall it worked great and I’m thrilled with the results. The scored groove made folding super easy, so my results look like they came from a pro print shop – just what I wanted! Here’s a snapshot photo of how my card turned out (colors displayed inaccurately due to photo of a print):

Test Card - Outside

 

Test Card - Inside

I didn’t have any envelopes to test with, but you can buy them here.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m happy enough that I plan to do all my cards on my own this year. Heck, I may even get creative and start doing my promo cards and create some fine art cards too! I’m also thrilled that I don’t have to cut the paper or fight to get the perfect fold thanks to the pre-scoured fold groove.

I highly recommend Red River Paper’s card products.

Where to order

Click here to learn more on Red River Paper’s web site.

Looking to buy a printer?

If so, then check out these articles:

• Which Printer Should I Buy? Epson or Canon?
• Printing Series
• Choosing the right Epson printer
  • Epson SureColor P600 Review
  • Epson SureColor P800 Review
• Canon PIXMA PRO-10 Review
• Canon PIXMA PRO-1 Review

Other articles you may enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these:

• Red River Paper vs Epson Papers - Fantastic papers for Canon and Epson printers

• Getting Great 4x6 Prints Without Any Hassle–Part I of II

• QImage 2013 – Complex Print Layout Made Easy
• Printing 101 eBook 
• Color Management 101 - How do I get prints to match what I see on my display?
• Choosing The Right Display Calibration Device
• How to print a 4x6 strip of prints without wasting paper
• Understanding Epson’s Printable Area Feature to Avoid Uneven Margins on the 4900
• See my Printing Series for much more like this

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.

What Plug-ins should I buy? [Updated Dec 10, 2015]

Ron Martinsen’s December 2015 Best of the Best Ranking of the top Photography Plug-ins

Imagine that you were as rich as Bill Gates and retired. Even if you were and you have all the time on your hands to learn new things, I still doubt that any one normal human could use all of the great plug-ins available for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom. There are just so many choices and so much overlap that it can make your head explode trying to figure out which ones you really need! What’s more, there are a lot of very good ones available that do save you lots of time, but you may waste a lot of time tinkering around with all of the options they offer!

I’ve tried to be selective about what I review on this blog based on my own research. The products I focus on are mainly what I determine are the best products and what I’m hearing my Top Photographers and other industry experts are telling me that they use.

I have found an awesome collection of products that do really make my editing process quite enjoyable, but I must admit that as much as I love most of the products I have it is hard to find time to use them all. As a result I’ve decided to finally throw down the gauntlet and rank the products that I have on my machine in order of importance to my personal workflow. What this means is that if I could only use X (i.e., 5) then you could look at numbers 1 through X (i.e., 5) to see which ones I’d keep.

With this information available to you, you can then look at your budget and make your selections based on either your own research.  You can compare that with my advice to come up with the best plug-ins on the market to help make you more productive.

This list is only about plug-ins, even though some may run stand-alone in addition to being a plug-in. This means that some programs that I can’t live without (i.e., ImagePrint) will not appear on the list. I also will just flat out say that Lightroom is my #1 photo editing and asset management product but I’d have a hell of a hard time living without Photoshop. I’m not a fan of Aperture, but it is a nice product that will be perfect for some – just not me. As a Canon shooter I also find Canon Digital Photo Professional has a horrible user interface, but it is still a critical part of my workflow for certain RAW processing tasks. I know there are Nikon shooters who feel the same way about Capture NX2, which is actually a decent product that can serve as an end-to-end solution if you are on the Nikon platform.

Recommended Plug-ins as of Dec 10, 2015

Previously this was a stacked ranked list of what I’ve reviewed but with my Dec 2015 update, I’ve decided to trim it down to just what I’d recommend to a family member or close friend. Yes, there are a lot of other products on the market, but this boils it down to what I’d get if I had to start all over from scratch today.

• Topaz Labs Adjust – I used to think of this as the secret sauce for HDR images, but now I use it for so much more. In fact, Topaz has so many strong offerings that I’m often telling people that this product is just as valuable as Color Efex, so if you only buy one bundle then go for the Topaz bundle and trust this. Yes, some effects are hideous until you learn how to use them, but watch my one of my webinars and you’ll see that they don’t have to be.
  
• Imagenomic Noiseware - Noiseware won my Noise Reduction Roundup and I find myself using it the most out of all the products I’ve tested (including some not featured on the blog).
   
• Athentech Perfectly Clear / Lucid – I tried this product out a couple years ago and hated it, but now I find myself constantly using it both on my computer and my phone. I’ve edited more photos this year with this product than any of the others – combined (especially on my phone) – and I didn’t even start using it regularly until March! While I hate the skin softening results, I do find that it does make images look great – often by default – so I’ve poured countless images through Perfectly Clear. If you haven’t seen or tried this one out yet – you MUST – it’s pretty good with no hassle. [Note: Lucid is the stand-alone version with some reduced features so check out my review for more info.]
  
• Imagenomic Portraiture – I process a lot of portraits every year so I’m always re-exploring skin softening products to try to make this process easier. While many products have come a long way, there is still nothing better than Portraiture.
  
• Topaz Labs B&W Effects – There’s lots of great products in this space, but if I’m going to advise a friend to spend their hard earned money on only one then I have to go with this one. Topaz Labs has emerged as the industry leader in innovation with an active community to support it. Yes, Silver Efex Pro is good, but I’ve yet to find myself unable to get the same or better results with B&W Effects, so I’ve finally given up on it in favor of B&W Effects.
  
• Topaz Software’s ReMask –  This is the fastest and easiest tool to create complex masks fast. onOne Software’s Perfect Photo Suite has the potential to be greater, but I’ve just had a much harder time mastering the masking features. I find ReMask to be much easier to use and very powerful. It can save you a hell of a lot of time separating your subject from a complex background or doing complex masks that can’t be adequately handled using Nik Software’s U-Point control technology or the vastly improved Refine Edge feature of recent versions of Photoshop. 
  
• MacPhun Aurora HDR [Mac only] or HDRSoft Photomatix (esp with Trey Ratcliff’s Photomatix Presets) – If HDR is important to you then one of these has to be in the top 5. For as good as built-in HDR processing is in Photoshop and Lightroom, I still prefer stand alone applications. Aurora HDR is simply the best product on the market for HDR – bar none – but currently it’s only available on the Mac, so PC users will have to use the long-time industry standard Photomatix. Photomatix can create great results, but it’s cryptic controls can be difficult to master – especially if you want realistic results (and white clouds). Yes, you can go to Photoshop and work around its shortcomings, but Aurora HDR makes that easy to do in its UI without the need for Photoshop (or anything else).
  
• Topaz Labs Texture Effects, Glow and Impression – These are the hottest new plug-ins on the market for a reason – they create amazingly original looking work from the most boring of images. I really, really, love these products, but I do wish that they were all just merged into one product.
  
• Topaz Labs Restyle (alt review) – This is another one of those one click editing solutions that I love, but I don’t use it as much as I’d like to because it has so many choices! Seriously, I love choices but I sometimes find myself spending 20 minutes just pouring through all of the awesome choices it offers!
  
  It is very usefully for coming with up a “look” or “theme” for a project and leveraging favorites help reduce the time spent in the app. I adore this product and STRONGLY recommend you to check it out as this product is a game changer for those who want to focus on their photography, and not photo editing – yet still have professional results that don’t look like it was processed on Instagram.
  
• on1 Perfect Resize – There was a time where this would have been in the top 3, but resizing in Adobe products and printer drivers have gotten pretty good so this is more useful when you need the best possible results or when other methods just don’t do a good job. Generally speaking if you are going to increase an image by 200% or more, then this is the best game in town. Sadly it’s a hidden feature that is an optional install for the latest version of the on1 Photo bundle. My review covers an older version, but nothing has really changed in this product for quite some time. Sadly you can only get this with the entire on1 Bundle.
  
• Topaz Labs Simplify (review) – Great for turning your images into cartoons or drawings. It’s a cool app that I didn’t used to use that much, but I’ve learned that with the right scenes (especially leafy landscapes) it can create some exciting images that people want to buy. I also like to use it on busy backgrounds sometimes to remove distractions. This isn’t a product that most photographers would use every day, but when I pair it with the right image I often get a big grin on my face. Topaz Clean also is capable of doing this and more, so check it out while you are at it to see which works better for you. Personally, I tend to favor Simplify.

There’s of course a lot more that isn’t included here, so check out the Software Reviews section to the right or on my recommendations page to see if I’ve reviewed your favorite product. If you’d like my opinion one one not featured on my site then contact me.

What Happened to the Nik Collection by Google?

For as long as this blog has existed, I’ve been singing the praises of what used to be called the Nik Software Collection. They were the defacto standard by which all others were judged, and myself and so many others couldn’t live without it. However, my personal opinion of Google’s purchase of Nik Software, is that it seemed to be more of a patent grab than anything else as the innovation that Team Nik brought vanished after the acquisition (as well as many of the Nik employees).

If my calculations are correct, we are approaching 4 years since the last update of Color Efex and 2 years since the last update of anything (Analog Efex). As a result, it’s appears that these products are in sustained engineering mode. Given Google’s history of cutting products and services that aren’t part of their core business, I can’t escape the fear that one day an operating system change will come and we’ll hear that the Nik Collection will not be updated to support it.

With this in mind, I’ve been trying hard to wean myself off my favorite products like Color Efex, Silver Efex Pro, and Viveza for fear that I’d be up a creek without a paddle if I had an important job and they stopped working – with no plans to fix them.

I’ll be clear and state that these are still phenomenally good products, but if I’m going to advise my readers to spend their hard earned money then I want to point them to software solutions built by people with a ton of passion to make their products better (i.e., companies like Topaz Labs with their Complete Collection and MacPhun with their beautifully designed Creative Kit).  Sure, if you have bought the other recommended products and have an extra $149 to spare, then by all means pick these up as they are still quite good. However, I don’t recommend that people with limited funds make this their first purchase for the aforementioned reasons.

A Word About Bundles

One thing that is very clear is if you think you’ll ever want to own more than 2 or 3 products from a given company then you should just bit the bullet and get their largest bundled version. While it might be painful in the short-term buying such an expensive product, you’ll spend exponentially more if you find yourself buying all the products over time. The bundles are a great deal and the only way to go if you can make that happen. With that said, I do a quick run down of my favorite bundles here in priority stack ranked order:

1. Topaz Labs Plug-In Bundle – It has taken some time, but Topaz Labs has gone from the bottom to the top thanks to so many creative and game changing products. I find myself using Adjust and B&W Effects quite a bit now. Texture Effects, Glow, Impression, ReStyle and Simplify highlight the amazing innovation coming out of this new industry leader in photo editing.
   
   These products can give your photos that wow with minimal effort allowing you to focus on photography instead of photo editing, and save shots that would otherwise be duds. I’m also a huge fan of ReMask when I have to do masking because it is much more accurate than Refine Edge in Photoshop. As a result, these 8 products easily justify the cost of the bundle (which is available at a discount on my blog).
   
   While many people swear by them, I don’t really use Clean, Detail, Lens Effects,or Star Effects that much, but the other products still make the bundle worth it. I don’t care for  DeNoise , so I always use Noiseware when I need to do digital noise reduction (from using higher ISO’s).
   
   This is my new “if you could only have one” bundle choice because it offers so much to help create new art from your photography, that I think it really deserves the top spot.
   
2. Imagenomic Pro Plug-in Suite – Noiseware is the winner of my noise reduction series and as of now, nothing has changed that. I also have become obsessed with Portraiture as my preferred skin softening product for both photos and videos, so you may as well get the bundle. You’ll effectively get Real Grain for free, so it’s worth getting the bundle.
   
3. MacPhun Creative Kit – This company has some of my friends from the once brilliant Nik Software, and its beautifully built user interface is the one by which all other products should aspire to mimic. While it lacks the brilliant U-Point controls that are the secret sauce of the Nik Collection, it has everything else and so much more. This is really a great solution for Mac users, but sadly isn’t on Windows yet so I can’t give it a better rating.
   
4. Google Nik Collection – As I previously mentioned, this had been my favorite for many years. However, the product seems to be in maintenance mode with all of my Nik contacts leaving Google without any apparent replacements. Google has no meaningful financial interest in the product anymore, so I have concerns about its future. As a result, I’m reluctant to recommend it anymore, despite the brilliant software that remains.
   
   Yes, this is still a great product and I adore it, but I’m lost as to what Google is really doing for its future. As a result, IF you’ve got the other suites and a an extra $149 lying around then it’s a worthwhile investment – just make sure you have a plan B if it stops working unexpectedly in the future.
   
5. on1 Photo 10 – I used to be a big fan of onOne Software, but this suite has been dumbed down so much with its confusing user interface that it’s left nothing really compelling to me anymore. I’m also tired of it coming out with new names and releases before they get the bugs out of the current one, so I really can’t get excited about this one anymore. Yes, Matt Klosowski makes it look pretty cool, but unless you’ve got his gift for photo editing, I think you’ll find yourself frustrated with the results you get with your own photos.
    
6. Alien Skin Bundle – Alien Skin makes decent products, but with so much goodness offered these days I just don’t find myself saying “I need that” over the other products in my workflow.

You really can save a bundle by getting bundles, so before you make that stand alone purchase ask yourself – will I want to buy any of these other products in the future? If you say yes to at least 3 products offered in the bundle then pony up now to save big later – get the bundle!

Topaz Labs Photoshop Bundle – The Best Place to Spend Your Money

Adjust is a mainstay in many great photographers digital workflow because it’s a product that is so unique that really nothing competes with it. Topaz created this same kind of magic with Glow, Impression and ReStyle all of which are super hot sellers that I love. With ReMask still being the best manual masking solution and the strength of Simplify and B&W Effects, you really have a true artist toolkit with this bundle. Lens Effects, Clean, Detail. Star Effects  and InFocus add value but I just have so many plug-ins that I don’t have a need for them. I’m still not a fan of Denoise even though some readers swear by it.

Imagenomic

Imagenomic makes three popular products which can only be purchased separately. The first two mentioned below are staples in my regular work, so I couldn’t live without them.

Based on my extensive testing during my Noise Reduction Roundup, nobody out performed Noiseware.  It’s a great product that I go to for my most important jobs because I know it will do the best job to preserve the detail. It’s only disadvantage is the lack of Nik’s U-Point controls, but most of the time I will just create a layer mask and roughly sketch out where I want selective noise reduction, so I’ll just use Noiseware in both those and global noise reduction scenarios.

I’ve stopped using my long-time beloved Nik Software’s Dynamic Skin Softener (filter found in Color Efex) in favor of Portraiture which does the best skin enhancements I’ve ever seen. I turned my mentor on to this product after his copy of Color Efex wouldn’t work on his upgraded version of the Mac OS, and he loves Portraiture more than anything now! 

Real Grain isn’t my cup of tea, but most people probably don't realize that it simulates a lot of films which could be handy to some. It also has nice grains which can prove useful in printing or dramatic stylistic effects like reproducing the artificial grain found in the movie Saving Private Ryan.

The Rest

There are thousands of Photoshop & Lightroom plug-ins, and many of them are fantastic. However, I don’t have the bandwidth to test everything, nor can I use everything, so what you see in this article represents my reality. Don’t assume that if  product isn’t mentioned here that I don’t like it, but rather assume I probably haven’t used it very much – if at all.

I will say that I’m no fan of Portrait Professional and Focus Magic as I feel both offer mediocre solutions for which there are much better options.

If you’ve got a great product that you think I must know about then feel free to leave a comment with your suggestion(s). Do not link as spam comments will not be approved.

Special Offers

Visit my Discount Coupon Code page for specials on plug-ins and a wide variety of products – many of which aren’t available any where else on the web!

Other articles you may enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these too:

• KelbyOne Review & Discount 
• Discount Coupon Codes 
• Printing Series 
• NEC PA322UHD 4k for Pro Photo & Video Editing Review
• Wacom Intuos Pro Review
• Wacom Cintiq 13 HD Review
• Ron’s Recommendations 

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.

DISCOUNT: PhotoshopElementsUser.com - Photoshop Elements Techniques

Do you find it frustrating that nearly all of the photo editing training is for Photoshop and not Photoshop Elements?

Are you tight on cash, but needing help getting the best result you can with your limited budget?

Are you tired of being overwhelmed by Photoshop when all you want to do is make your photos look great using features not available in Lightroom?

If this sounds like you, then you are going to want to check out Adobe Photoshop Elements Techniques where you get easy to follow articles explaining how to use every feature in Photoshop Elements; a bi-monthly magazine filled with tips and step-by-step techniques; and a 8 year archive of  past issues and videos.

From my tour of this product, it feels much like what KelbyTraining and NAPP readers are used to from tutorials featured on those great sites. If you are an Elements user, I think you’ll really love it!

Special Offer

Click here to visit http://PhotoshopElementsUser.com where you can enter the code RONMART to save $10 off the normal price. It’s not valid with any other offers, so you have to use my link to get this exclusive cash off offer.

Other articles you may enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these:

• NAPP Review – Great magazine and short tutorials on Photoshop (includes cash discount)
• KelbyTraining.com – Great video training for Photography, Lightroom & Photoshop. (includes cash discount)
• Picture Perfect School of Photography (PPSOP) – Bryan Peterson’s online school with human instructors and homework that is critiqued
• The Photoshop Elements 11 Book for Digital Photographers Review
• Things You Need AFTER You Buy Your New Camera - Must Have Photography Accessories

Disclosure

This is a discount announcement and not a review or testimonial. 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.

I was provided a DVD sample of contents of this site for Photoshop Elements 11 so I could review it for myself.

The Photoshop Elements 11 Book for Digital Photographers

Have you got a copy of Photoshop Elements 11 (as little as $54.95 at B&H) instead of Photoshop and have been wishing there were some great books on how to use it? I’ve got my Which books should I read? article for photography and What Photoshop books should I read? for Photoshop, but nowhere do I ever mention anything about books for elements. Now that’s changed because my favorite photography book author, Scott Kelby, has brought his successful formula for writing books that people actually understand to Photoshop Elements. Well, truth be told he’s been doing it for a while but I never saw any of his past books and when I got this one from the publisher I thought – sweet, this is actually pretty good!

So, if you are one of the many who already know about these then this is just an update that he’s got a new version out and it seems great. If you haven’t heard of it, and own elements then this is definitely a book you’ll want to pick up. Scott’s famous for showing you how to get results right away, and that’s the case in this book.

Click here to buy it now on Amazon.

Hate reading and prefer videos? Then check out my review of Kelby Training and use the special discount coupon code that I have to save on the best online training on the planet.

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. I was provided an unsolicited copy of this book from the publisher and thumbed through it before publishing this announcement. This is not a review, but I do like what I see and have read enough Kelby books to feel comfortable to recommend it.

Ask Ron: What do you think about Pixelmator 2.04?

Aleem Hossain asked me on Google+ what I thought about Pixelmator, so I thought I’d give it a try. This is Mac app that is only available via the App Store with no Windows counterpart. It’s designed to be a Photoshop alternative, but realistically it’s more like a Photoshop Elements alternative.

Since it runs on the Mac OS, it can open any RAW files supported by the system so I had no trouble opening my 5D Mark III and D800 raw files. Now there’s no raw processor so I couldn’t control how that RAW file was opened, but it did seem to be have the same way was you’d see in iPhoto. I did notice that some filters worked fine but others really struggled with these big files, so it supported but didn’t really like RAW files. In my opinion its best to use this product AFTER you’ve done your RAW conversion in Capture NX2 or DPP.

I was also able to open some of my Photoshop file with layers, but others failed. I’m not entirely sure what it didn’t like about some, but the behavior seemed to be on par with what I saw using Perfect Layers in my Perfect Photo Suite review. Perfect Layers is now free, so if you just need layers then this isn’t necessarily a must purchase product.

After using it for about an hour I reached the following conclusions:

• It’s performance is great with JPEG’s, but sluggish with RAW files 
• Fantastic selection of built-in filters
• Layers and content aware healing make it a great tool for those who can’t afford the Adobe alternatives
• I’ll still keep using Photoshop, but this isn’t bad at all

Here’s a little video that I made where I explore some of what’s available in a simple overview.

Play in HD

Some filters like Film Stock seem exciting, but really don’t do much. Others like Bulge & Dent mimic the Liquify filter, but its as nasty to use as spot healing in Lightroom. However, there’s lots of really cool and unusual filters that are decent which you’d usually have to pay extra for in Photoshop.

I didn’t see any way to use my existing Photoshop or Lightroom filter with this product, so you are out of luck there. There’s also key things like the fade feature and channels palette that Photoshop users will likely miss.

Conclusion

If you can afford Photoshop then I still say get it (especially CS6) as it’s still the king with no serious competitor. However, if you are just getting started and don’t have any budget for software then Pixelmator is a great solution for Mac users to get started.

You’ll be able to do basic editing of your image and even some advanced stuff thanks to the content aware healing brush, stamp tool, layers and an excellent array of built in features. It’ll be happiest with your JPEG’s, but it will work on your RAW files with a bit more sluggish behavior.

Snapseed by Nik Software and Perfect Photo Suite are other good Photoshop alternatives, but neither product is as powerful with portrait retouching as Pixelmator. However, those products also have a lot of features that Pixelmator doesn’t have so I’d really call them more complementary than competing products.

At $29.99 at the time of this writing, you can’t go wrong. I’ll still use Photoshop, but I picked this up just for the filters. You are getting a $30 product so set your expectations accordingly, but I still think it’s a no brainer purchase for Mac users just for the filters alone.

Click here to buy Pixelmator on the AppStore. You can also try it for free for 30 days, so you can’t really go wrong.

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may get a commission. Please support this blog by using my links when you are ready to buy your copy of Pixelmator.

35% Off All Topaz Software Products THIS WEEKEND ONLY

Topaz Labs is offering 35% off ALL their products this weekend only when you use my special coupon code ronmartTWP at http://www.topazlabs.com/store. Here’s what your cart should look like after you've applied the code:

Enter the code and click apply to see your discount

Personally I recommend the bundle because you only need to buy a few products before you’ve exceeded the cost of the bundle (especially with this great deal), but even if you only buy one product this is a great offer.

This offer ends just before midnight on Sunday April 22nd, so act fast!

Here’s some of the Topaz Software products I’ve reviewed on this blog:

• Toapz Adjust 5.0
• Topaz Labs B&W Effects
• Topaz Labs DeNoise 3.0
• Topaz Labs InFocus
• Topaz Labs ReMask 3.0
• Topaz Labs Star Effects

Disclosure

I may make a commission if you make a purchase using this deal. This offer is not valid with any other offers or codes.

REVIEW: Photographing Children Photo Workshop Second Edition by Ginny Felch

Photographing Children by Ginny Felch is basically a text book format written for the beginner who wants the A to Z info how to use their camera, compose shots, get shots of a children, and process those photos in Photoshop (including Elements). It’s 268 pages are dense unlike your typical photography books which are usually mostly just photos. In this respect it is good and certainly a lot more detail oriented than Mamarazzi (a children's photography book I reviewed earlier this year).  However, both books target a different type of audience and learning style.

Who's afraid of driving in the snow?
Copyright © Ron Martinsen
All Rights Reserved

For those who like to just learn concepts in digestible but meaningful chunks, I still think my Which Books Should I Read? is the still the best route to go. For the busy mom who just wants bits of help for those rare times she can actually read a book then Mamarazzi is probably still a good choice. However, Photographing Children is the book for the self-study types who want to take a class but who just don’t have the time.

Just say no to greens
Copyright © Ron Martinsen
All Rights Reserved

What makes this book different than most books is that it actually features assignments and it assumes you know nothing. I think some busy parents who are intimidated by photography might find this approach helpful.  The process of going through this book as a couple could be a fun adventure for new parents looking to get some shots like those featured in this article of my kids and those featured in GInny’s book.

Caterpillar Girl
Copyright © Ron Martinsen
All Rights Reserved

Conclusion

A good chunk of the people I interact with are either engineers or pro photographers, so this isn’t a book I’d typically recommend for them. Instead, I think this is a good book for those who are looking for an A to Z approach to getting better photos of their kids (excluding the process of getting a new camera – see here).

As a side note, for those who are wanting to improve the shots they get of their kids without making the big leap into investing into an expensive DSLR system, I think the Fuji X10 might be a good tool to help you get the shot (excluding sports) where your main objective is just nailing the composition.

Disclosure

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

REVIEW: onOne Software PhotoTune 3 (Updated 4-29-10)

onOne Software is known for making a large selection of great products, so their faithful followers were excited about the new release of Plug-in Suite 5 which included many new updates. One of those updates was a product that I’ve had  on my “todo” list to review for a long-time, and it’s called PhotoTune 3. It is a product that can be purchased separately or with the suite for the best value, and it’s basically a step by step wizard for enhancing your photos. It allows the most basic of beginners using Photoshop Elements 7 or greater or Photoshop CS2 or greater (32 or 64-bit) users to use their eyes and click which of two pictures looks best, slide some sliders (optional) to improve the choices on some steps, and voila – a drastically improved image is the result. This is the kind of plug-in my Mom can use, so I’m excited to finally get a chance to show you how it works.

Everyday tasks, like Sierra’s basketball pictures

If you are a parent, you inevitably will end up in a school gym taking photos for basketball, the school play, volleyball, etc… If you’ve done this then you know it is a dungeon so you are going to have to do some post processing. For those who aren’t skilled in Photoshop or Lightroom, PhotoTune 3 might be the answer to your editing prayers. Consider the image below (or mouse in and out of the one above) that is the final step of the PhotoTune 3 wizard where it shows what we started with and the final result. A big difference, huh?

The after image is simply the result of running PhotoTune 3.0’s wizard on the before image. I’ve done no additional post-processing after running the wizard. Now, I would probably do some things a little differently if I processed the photo entirely from scratch, but I thought this was a pretty darn good result that the average soccer Mom (or basketball dad in this case) could accomplish! To see how I did it, follow each step in the photo gallery here (and be sure to read the captions). You can click on any of the images here or in the gallery for a larger version.

Is it any good for images without people?

I won’t go through all the steps, but the short answer is yes – I think it did a decent job for a beginner. You can hover over the image above to see a before and after or take a look at both side by side in the user-interface below:

You’ll notice that there’s only 5 steps for the summary in the gallery here which shows each step. I think more could be done, especially for shots where the sky is a little bleached out and the foreground is dark. It works, and depending on your choices it will be an improvement – but I can definitely do much better with my Ninja Photoshop skills. :-)

Pro Mode

I’ll be frank and say, I don’t see the point in Pro Mode. I’d rather use Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom to make the types of tweaks offered in Pro Mode as it is more effective and less frustrating. This product isn’t geared towards pro’s, so I found this feature to be less than useful. You can see some detailed screen shots here, but my advice is that if you aren’t getting anything out of the wizards then the Pro Mode isn’t going to make you any happier.

The Color module also drove me insane, so while I commend the out of the box thinking – this solution isn’t it very useful to me.

Video Demo

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth even more. Here’s a simple video I made to demonstrate how this product works. Let me know if you enjoy these as I will try to do more if the feedback is positive.

Conclusion

This is an application that I think is clearly geared towards beginners, but that’s okay. There are a hell of a lot more beginners than pro Photoshop users (including Photoshop Elements) out there, and this is a product that will help them be productive fast. It’s especially useful for those who just haven’t figured out what all the fuss is about with Lightroom, and feel that just making there pictures look a bit better is enough (i.e., they aren’t interested in investing huge amounts of time to make their photos look magazine worthy). This represents a lot of people I know, so I think it is a good choice for many beginners. I’ve used the previous versions and always was a little disappointed, but the the third time seems to be a charm. This version gets the job done quickly and easily, but don’t forget that it requires Photoshop CS2 or greater or Photoshop Elements 6 or greater to run. Visit the web site for more details.

Great Videos

See some great videos here to see how this product works, but don’t forget to return to this blog for your discount when purchasing!

Special Offer

Click here to order at 20% off the retail price (or click here for 20% off the upgrade) using the code RMART20.

Disclosure

onOne Software is a paid sponsor and I earn a commission if you take advantage of the special offer. Please support this blog by support onOne Software and using my special offers.

onOne Software Plug-In Suite 5 - $100 off discount coupon code, and 20% off the upgrade

NOTE: This offer expires April 30th!

Save $100 off or 33% off the full retail price when you order by clicking this link (make sure that RONM15 appears in the Coupon Code box as shown below). If you already own an existing version of Plug-In Suite and you want to save on the upgrade to 5.0, you can upgrade using this link (make sure that RMART20 appears in the Coupon Code box) to save nearly $40!!!

To learn more about Plug-In Suite 5, click here.

Press Release

Portland, OR– October 27, 2009 – onOne Software, Inc., a leading developer of innovative, timesaving solutions for professional and advanced amateur photographers, today announced Plug-in Suite 5 for Adobe Photoshop. Designed to solve the most common problems facing photographers in the areas of color correction, enlarging, masking and professional photographic effects, the Plug-in Suite 5, combines full versions of six essential software tools in one affordable package: FocalPoint 2, PhotoTune 3, PhotoFrame 4.5 Professional Edition, PhotoTools 2.5 Professional Edition, Genuine Fractals 6 Professional Edition and MaskPro 4.

With support for Photoshop CS2, CS3 and CS4 the onOne Software Plug-in Suite 5 now includes the new onOne Panel which provides quick access to all products, Windows 64 bit support and the ability to access select plug-ins from within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 and Apple Aperture 2.1. Plug-in Suite 5 will be available in November.

"This is our biggest product update and release in over 4 years," said Craig Keudell, president of onOne Software. "Since the release of Plug-In Suite 4, we have been working closer than ever with both professional and enthusiast photographers to make sure that Plug-In Suite 5 continues to solve the most common problems they face as photographers. We are confident that Plug-In Suite 5 continues in the onOne tradition of providing photographers with software that sets the standard for value, quality and ease-of-use."

Plug-in Suite 5 includes full versions of the following onOne Software products:

FocalPoint 2 – Like bringing the camera lens inside Photoshop, this new version of FocalPoint 2 gives photographers the best way to add the most realistic depth of field and selective focus control to any image after it is photographed. Photographers now have an incredible amount of flexibility and control over the look of the blur with FocalPoint 2's new blur algorithm, FocusBrush, Lens Presets and multiple FocusBug features.

PhotoTune 3 – Getting great color doesn’t have to be so hard. This new version of PhotoTune 3 uses patented eye-fidelity^TM technology, originally developed by and licensed from imsense to optimize the dynamic range, color and sharpness of images so that they look more true-to-life. The improved Wizard offers fast color and tone correction in as little as two steps while giving pro users direct access to advanced and innovative controls. SkinTune, which represents two years of research and analysis of thousands of skin tones, now offers one-click color correction of portraits and the option to correct just the skin in an image.

PhotoFrame 4.5 Professional Edition – With PhotoFrame 4.5, you can add the perfect finishing touch to your images with over 100 exciting new professionally designed frames, backgrounds, textures and layouts including over a dozen from professional photographer Kersti Malvre. With one thousand design elements like film edges, borders, textures, backgrounds and adornments, PhotoFrame 4.5 Professional Edition even has complete layouts where users can simply drop an image in and they are done. It is the easiest and fastest way to add an authentic darkroom touch with a film edge or to create beautiful albums or scrapbook pages

PhotoTools 2.5 Professional Edition – PhotoTools 2.5 is the highly acclaimed Photoshop plug-in that allows photographers of all skill levels to maximize the full power of Photoshop with it's ability to preview and combine Photoshop Actions in a single, intuitive interface. Designed by photographers for photographers, PhotoTools 2.5 Professional now includes a new MaskingBug control based on the FocusBug control from the award-winning FocalPoint plug-in. The new MaskingBug allows photographers to create high-quality masks to selectively apply effects to images. With over 30 new creative effects, for a total effect library of 280, photographers can easily find, combine and save the results to create images that truly stand out.

Genuine Fractals 6 Professional Edition - The industry standard for enlarging photos, Genuine Fractals 6 enlarges images up to1,000% while maintaining sharp edges and important image details. Genuine Fractals 6 now includes an automated gallery wrap feature and output options for tiling an enlarged photo. No other resizing plug-in is as widely used by more professionals than Genuine Fractals.

MaskPro 4 – For those times when you need to extract a subject from a photo, Mask Pro 4 uses a color-based method that allows users to easily remove unwanted backgrounds from your photos. Mask Pro's unique Color Decontamination technology allows users to get realistic results by maintaining transparency in hard to mask objects like hair, smoke and glass in a fraction of the time using traditional tools.

Other Cool onOne Software Products Available at 20% off

Enter the coupon code RMART20 when you check out to save 20% off any of the above products sold separately or for onOne Photo Essentials 3 for Photoshop Elements.

onOne Software Photo Essentials 3 (20% off and Free Upgrade)

If you’ve lusted after onOne Software’s plug-in suite but didn’t have Photoshop, you may be thrilled to know that Photo Essentials 3 for Photoshop Elements has a lot of similar technology for a fraction of the cost. Photo Essentials 3 is a collection of five tools that correct color, remove unwanted backgrounds, add photographic effects and enlarge photos. Using the new Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0 (Windows / Mac), onOne’s Photo Essentials 3.0 offers these capabilities:

• New Photo Essentials Palette – The Palette provides quick access to all five modules from a single location right inside Photoshop Elements.
• Make It Cool – New in Essentials 3, this offers a library with dozens of professional effects that can be added to images in one click.
• Make It Better – Turn your snapshots into professional images. Automatically fix brightness, contrast, color and sharpness with no need to understand cryptic sliders.
• Cut It Out – Easily remove an unwanted background while maintaining fine detail such as hair, clouds and glass.
• Frame It – Choose from hundreds of easy to add edge and border effects to give pictures the perfect finishing touch.
• Enlarge It – Get sharp, poster sized prints out of your photos, even from camera phones

In addition, this product is super easy to use. Click here to learn more about Photo Essentials.

The best part is if you order the current version using the 20% RMART20 discount code from this blog on the Discount Coupon Code page, you can be one of the first people to get the updated Version 3 FREE when it ships. onOne Software’s Photo Essentials 3 will be available in October 2009 for $69.99. Customers who purchase Photo Essentials 2 on or after September 24, 2009 will receive a complimentary upgrade to Photo Essentials 3 as an electronic download for free.

Here’s a picture of the onOne shopping cart with the coupon code box highlighted (NOTE: the code shown in the picture does not apply to this offer).

If you already have Photoshop, a special promo price for Plug-in Suite has been extended. Read here for details. If not, then Amazon has a great deal that features a $20 discount rebate off the prices shown below when you pre-order. It’s a great for those just getting started!