dalekincaid.net Blog

Scheduling has begun for 2010 DIPI training sessions. See the Training tab above for more information.

Take advantage of a New Year’s double session special. Now through January 30th, purchase one 1-1/2hr session and receive an extra 1-1/2hr free. (Note: The three hour sessions must be scheduled and used by February 10, 2010.) Use the shopping cart below for payment with Paypal. Mastercard & Visa are accepted. Download the registration and scheduling form and email it to info@dalekincaid.net.

Take your digital imaging skills to the next level!!

Feel free to contact me with any questions.
Dale Kincaid

The Pro B & W Action is a quick, efficient non-destructive Photoshop action for converting color photos to a dynamic Black and White RGB image. An excellent tool for consistant results every time.
This action includes fully editable toning (Sepia, dark sepia, amber tint, cyanotype)
and Vignette (dark, darker, light, lighter) options. Options may be combined for interesting results. Below is a screenshot of the layers pallet options when the action is complete.

See Product listings to the right.

Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Dale Kincaid

The Pro Smooth Skin Action is a quick and efficient tool used to smooth imperfections, minor blemishes and blotchy areas of the skin while retaining a natural look and texture. The action sets up the ability to brush in the smoothing as well as adjusting the opacity for desired results. Below is a before and after sample image.

See Product listings to the right.

Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Dale Kincaid

This Photoshop action set consists of 5 basic editing/retouching actions used primarily for wedding, event and portrait images. Producing a quality product is important. These are essential post-processing tools and will aid in providing efficient workflow. The 5 action set contains the following;

1). Color Cast Correction
Designed to remove an unwanted color cast in an image.

2). Blue cast eraser
Designed to spot color correct bluish color cast on subjects in image.

3). Red Eye Reduction
Easy one or two click removal of red eye.

4). Skin Smooth
This action allows you to paint in skin smoothing.

5). White Exposure Correct
Designed for inkjet printing to bring down blown out areas of an image
where ink may not otherwise be applied to the paper.

See Product listings to the right.

Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Dale Kincaid

We have all done it on occassion. Caught up in a creative moment, we compose our shot in the viewfinder and fill the frame. Our client absolutely loves the picture and wants an 8×10 print for a special frame they already have. Taking the picture into our image editing software, we crop to an 8×10 only to discover this action clips off some of the important subject matter of this beautifully composed image. Now What?

There are a variety of time consuming solutions to fix this problem. Or we can jump right into Photoshop CS4 to use the new “Content-Aware Scale” feature. As you can see in the sample pictures below, the first picture is the original. Next is the cropped image that clips off some of the mirror frame. The last picture took just a few minutes to modify using the Content-Aware Scale feature, which enabled me to include all the important content within an 8×10. No doubt there will be some instances where this Photoshop feature will not solve the problem, but it is worth a try. Feel free to contact me if you would like a personal tutorial on this technique.

Saving content to an 8x10

Thanks for stopping by.

Dale Kincaid

This is the first of many photoshop tutorials I hope to create and share with the photographic community.

Like many photographers, I occasionally find myself totally immersed with being creative in Photoshop. You might say it’s a diversion or an escape from the day-to-day routine of duty, work and/or stresses. Photoshop is a very powerful software program in many respects. I thought I would share one of my time saving tips for anyone who likes to test the limits of the power of Photoshop.
 
Many of the features, filters and scripts in Photoshop require a great deal of computer memory and ram when executing commands. Especially when working with multiple images or large image files of 200mb or more. If at any time you apply a command that seems to take forever to complete, you can abort the process by hitting the “escape” key. This is especially helpful if you applied something by mistake or batch processing files and you need to stop.
 
   Dale

Whether I am out doing a nature shoot or an event such as a wedding or portrait session, I generally arrive home with at least several hundred digital files. When I first began shooting in digital 6 years ago, I was faced with the big question…”Do I shoot in jpeg or raw file format”? Although my results with both formats were similar, I determined very quickly that I would commit to capturing images in raw format to maintain the highest quality and flexibility possible. I knew this would require a little more work editing and processing images, but as a professional, I believe quality has top priority over saving time using what I call the “Digital Polaroid”. 

Once I have all my images downloaded into the computer its time to edit using Adobe Camera Raw. This program has enough features to cover more the 90% of the editing process, which nearly eliminates using Photoshop altogether. Some of these features are not always apparent on the screen, so I thought I would share one with you.   

One of the steps in editing pictures is to trash any that were unsuccessful and eliminate any that will not be saved or used. You can delete these images right inside the Camera Raw window. With the thumbnail selected, press the ‘delete’ key on the keyboard. A red ‘X’ will appear on the image, marking it for deletion. This will send that file to the trash bin when you click ‘done’ or ‘save’. If you change your mind to keep the file, pressing the delete key again will unmark it.

How does the saying go…”There’s more the meets the eye” in Adobe Camera Raw.       

            Dale Kincaid

I spend a great deal of time working with creative techniques to enhance pictures or convert them into one of my “Artistic Expressions”. This is sometimes referred to as playing with pictures, which is the term I prefer to call it since I generally do this during my free time. Whether you are testing out a new technique, working with a picture or playing; often we get to a point where we determine the results are not what we want. We take a deep breath, sigh, and decide to start over.
 
One method of starting over is clicking in the history pallet either to a point that was previously saved or at the very top where the picture was first opened. A quick and fun way to go back to the very beginning is to hit the F12 key. That will “revert” the picture back to its original state. You can find the revert command in the file menu. Using the F12 key will add this step to the history instead of erasing it, which can be an advantage in some situations.
 
Wouldn’t it be nice if life had an F12 key.
 
      Dale 

I have been enjoying some time off from shooting events over the past couple of weeks. It’s sort of a “time out” from devoting many hours of processing and working with massive numbers of images and files. I work very hard until I get tired. And then I rest. So, this has been a good “time out” for me to rest and work on some of my own personal projects. One of these projects that I am very excited about is “Artistic Expressions”: creating a work of art from a photograph. The concept is not new, but rarely offered as an alternative to just a standard print. Partly because of the time involved in creating these, whereas the value of that time often becomes uncompensatory. Now there’s a new word to add to spell-checker.    I want to provide clients with something special. Something they will absolutely love and treasure for many years to come. My idea was to develop a variety of artistic styles to apply to a photograph, thus giving a choice that is appealing to them. The challenge is to create a process that is repeatable, yet maintain a unique quality to each work of art. The next challenge is my choice to remain true to my photography by preserving the photographic quality of the print.      

Preparations are underway to rollout a new addition on my web site to introduce the “Artistic Expressions” and show some samples of my work. I thought I would post a sneak preview of a favorite of mine.

The bouquet is an important part of any wedding and truly provides a precious memory as an “Artistic Expression”.      Dale