Photoshop Insider

Wednesday News Update (I’m back, baby!)

By Scott on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 5:11 am | updates.

As much as I love to travel, it’s always great to get back home!

Before I get to the news; I big thanks to everyone in Dubai who made me, Jeff and Jeff feel so at home. What an amazing place! Now, onto the news:

First, above is another shot from Dubai (Click for a larger view). I finally got a chance to look at some of my shots on my myriad of flights back to the states. As usual for this trip, it was taken with the wrong lens.
Thanks to everyone who posted comments and shared your travel ideas yesterday, after my “wrong lens” post. Thanks to your comments, I’m adding one more lens to my Italy trip—my f/1.8 50mm prime lens. It so small and lightweight I can fit it in my pants pocket, and that way if I get in a low light situation—I’ll have a low-light lens I can pop right on. You guys rock!
At my Dubai gig, I met a really great guy named Serge Jespers; he’s an Adobe Evangelist, and one of the conference instructors. Serge is based in Belgium, and I made a joke about the first time I saw “Atomium” (the huge 34-story atom-shaped monument/building just outside Brussels built for the 1958 World’s Fair), and he told me a fascinating copyright/Photoshop story about it called “When Copyright Goes Too Far.” Apparently, a museum in Belgium did an exhibit about the World’s Fair in Belgium which included photos of visitors posing in from of Atomium, and the management group from Atomium sued the museum saying it violated their copyright of the image. So, the museum put an ad in the paper asking for “100 Photoshoppers” so they could clone-out Atomium from all their photos. I love it! Here’s the link to Serge’s Webkitchen blog for the full story.
Last week we released a great new online Photoshop course on KelbyTraining.com, from our own Corey Barker, and the entire course, called “Mastering the Pen Tool” is dedicated to making you an absolute expert on the Pen Tool. It starts with the basics, but goes on to cover advanced topics, including some I haven’t seen covered anywhere. Here’s the link to the 21 lessons, and you can watch a free sample online.
David Ziser’s latest edition of “David’s Digital Newsletter” just showed up in my email inbox, and if you’re not on the list to get this great free newsletter, here’s the link to sign-up (highly recommended).

That’s it for today folks—Have a great Wednesday, and we’ll see ya tommarra!

Comment form for this post

^#1

Scott,

Is that a Lightroom or Photoshop template for the gallery style? Also what did you use for the edge dimensions 1.5 inches and 3 at the bottom.

Cool layout and thanks for the travel lens tips. I concur I usually lug far, far too much kit about. Seriously considering a 28-135 IS to go with my 10-20 and 20D for a travel kit. It seems a bit cheaper than the 24-105 L and is probably smaller.

Scott Wiggins

Scott Wiggins on April 16th, 2008 at 7:26 am

^#2

Hi Scott,

I’m glad you had a great time in Dubai.

Thanks for yesterday’s post on lenses. I will make sure to take all of mine including the 50 you talked about this morning on the Hawaii cruise in August. I am very excited to meet Moose Peterson and Laurie Exell.

You are right about the pen tool lessons by Corey Barker. They are great. The pen tool is one area where I need lots of work. I logged in to kelby Training last night and saw that the pen tool lessons were there. I watched about half of them then and will finish today. I had no idea the pen tools were so powerful.

Thanks for everything NAPP does and stands for.

Mike

Mike on April 16th, 2008 at 7:26 am

^#3

Hi Scott,

I like the picture from Dubai… Did you use the 7 point system on it? Also, the picture of the hallway/tunnel at the beginning of the blog is another one of yours that is pleasing to the eye palette. Is that pic from Dubai too?

Corey rocks on the pen tool lesson!

Happy Wednesday!

Victor

Victor Hudson on April 16th, 2008 at 7:48 am

^#4

I’m planning on going to Italy next year and your comments about your experiences with having the wrong lens at the time really got me thinking. I’m a Canon and I have multiple lenses but not one that will give me the wide angle and the zoom at the same time. I went to New Orleans last month to Photograph the Extreme Makeover Home Edition and dealing with my have bag and multiple lenses was a real pain.

Thank you so much for your everything you do for your fans.

Cesar Palacio

Cesar Palacio on April 16th, 2008 at 8:41 am

^#5

Hi Scott,

good choice taking a small light prime with you on your Italy trip. Only I think you’d be better off with Nikon 35/2 (similar size/weight as 50/1.8) for general purpose low light shooting, 50mm is often too narrow and limiting on D300 body, while 35mm fulfills a role of a classical normal lens on 1,5x crop camera.
Add a 85/1.8 and you might even end up using just those two

Anyway, have fun and enjoy some Chianti & Pecorino cheese
k.

klappa on April 16th, 2008 at 9:12 am

^#6

Nice shot scott. You really gotta start using HDR on these amazing scenes though :-}

Why Don;t you use the 1.4 50mm. I can’t recall if you shoot Canon or Nikon, bit I think they both have the 1.4, and at least on the Canon side the 1.4 is still small, but a much better lens. I use it all the time and it crystal clear with a great Boka.

Gavin Seim

Seim Effects on April 16th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

^#7

I a couple of places in your digital photography book you talk about landscapes and not splitting the photo with the horizon, but either emphasis on foreground or sky - in this photo about equal - it is a beautiful photo - care to comment?

doug mathews on April 16th, 2008 at 12:44 pm

^#8

Hey Scott!!

The photos from Dubai are great!! The shot of the Burj Al Arab hotel is unbelievable!!

Cheers!
The Commodore

Mike O on April 16th, 2008 at 3:02 pm

^#9

Hey Scott - welcome back to the good ole’ US of A! Looking forward to seeing the rest of your pics from the Dubai trip. This first one looks kind of familiar though…

I know you’re a Mac guy, but did you know there’s a Windows desktop wallpaper very similar to this?

http://www.canonblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/images/scottk.jpg

Sorry, just had to poke a little at ya! From the shots thus far, all of you had a great time and came back with some amazing captures! Have a good rest of the week, and (as I say over at CB), happy shooting!

Jason on April 16th, 2008 at 4:01 pm

^#10

Scott,

Can you do a little How-To post on the framing technique you did to this post’s image? I’ve seen this being used over on Moose Peterson’s BLOG, as well as Laurie Excel’s and Moose’s assistants’ sites too. Now you’ve started. Can you give a basic how-to someday? Or point us all where this technique is illustrated in detail?

I have made several attempts at doing this technique, even starting from inside Lightroom via an Export preset I’ve created, then calling a Droplet your Lightroom guided me on how to set up. Works great, but I want to know if there’s a “better” technique for the framing/matting portion.

Love the images you and Jeff have posted from your trip to Dubai!

Gregg Lowrimore on April 16th, 2008 at 6:27 pm

^#11

Hi Scott,

Great to hear you had a good trip over in Dubai. The place looks stunning and is certainly one of those ‘must go’ places on my travel list.

Asl always, some great shots!!!

Gregg … the framing method Scott has used on this image can be found in his Photoshop CS3 for Digital Photographers … infact this and may more can be found in there so I’d highly recommend getting it as I’m sure many others who have it also would.

Cheers,
Glyn

Glyn Dewis on April 17th, 2008 at 2:23 am

^#12

Hey Scott, Bill Fortney said a couple of years ago that he got a photoshop action from you to create the poster look like you have with this picture. Is this action available somewhere? Book, download or the like? I’d love to have it or know which book to buy to learn how to create my own.

Thanks.

Neill Tyler on April 17th, 2008 at 8:55 am

^#13