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What is Growl and why is it installed on my mac?

February 15, 2011 By 1 Comment
Growl-48

I bought the family pack of Snow Leopard prior to launch. And yet, for someone who has packed up and moved across the country as well as out of the country at a moment's notice, I am resistant to change. At least where my computer is concerned. David Allison and Dr. Roach both upgraded immediately upon receipt and detail their process in separate posts: UPGRADING TO SNOW LEOPARD by David Allison Snow Leopard: One More Installation by Dr. Roach In both cases, the upgrade didn't seem … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Photoshop, Software Tagged With: Adobe, CS5, growl, mac OS X, photoshop, snow leopard

Dr. Roach’s Guide to Photoshop CS4 For Beginners: Preferences

February 9, 2011 By 9 Comments
intro-prefs

There are still a lot of people using Photoshop CS4 even though Photoshop CS5 has been out for some time. In the spirit of sharing, this series of downloadable lecture notes for CS4 is placed online for those who may need some help with the basics of the program. Much of the basics remain unchanged in CS5 and I believe that the original tutorial will prove useful for many of the steps of the revised Photoshop CS5, but there are minor differences sometimes. Originally, these notes were part of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Photoshop, Tutorials Tagged With: cs4, photoshop, tutorial

Review: Pixelmator 1.6

July 19, 2010 By 7 Comments
Pixelmator 1

About a year and a half ago (January 7, 2009 to be exact) I wrote a review of Pixelmator as a potential light-weight image-editing software. At that time I found it a very useful and inexpensive image-editing software that was well worth its $59.00 cost. (Download from Pixelmator.com) A new version of Pixelmator (1.6) is available as a free upgrade to current Pixelmator owners, but a word of caution goes along with it. Pixelmator has been rewritten for Snow Leopard 10.6 and the new version … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Graphics, Photoshop, Reviews, Software, Workflow Tagged With: apple, cheap photoshop alternative, composite, Graphics, image editing, mac, photoshop, Pixelmator, Software

Topaz Labs Releases DeNoise v.4

May 6, 2010 By 2 Comments
Click To Enlarge

One of my favorite software companies, Topaz Labs, has just released an upgrade to their DeNoise software, rasing version 3 to version 4. This is a free upgrade to version 3 owners and is a major upgrade. Check it out at here.  It's not just that the "look" has changed, but the new layout makes it much easier to navigate and also incorporates a new "IntelliNoise" technology. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Photoshop Tagged With: apple, art, image enhancement, mac, photoshop, plugin, Topaz Labs

First Look At CS5

April 12, 2010 By 1 Comment
cs5

Creative Suite 5 is out, and it's got bells and whistles.  I am hesitant to call it a game changer.  Just better bells and whistles.  Here are some highlights that immediately jumped out at me: Photoshop, Premiere, and Aftereffects are now 64 bit.  Snow Leopard users should see an improvement in performance as a result, especially in video preview and playback. Photoshop junkies...the content awareness capability is actually "all that".  I can't wait to try it.  Of equal importance is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Photoshop, Software Tagged With: 64 bit, Adobe, CS5, iPhone, photoshop, Video

Tablet Draw By MooSoftware.com

November 18, 2009 By 2 Comments

I just found a Shareware program that had me reaching for my credit card within fifteen minutes of first downloading it to try out. From mooSoftware.com is TABLETDRAW® a simple drawing program that uses the pressure sensitivity of the various Wacom tablets to allow you to draw freely. It's a sketching and drawing program with the look of pencil, pen, or felt marker. It runs on Intel-based or PowerPC Macs and requires Mac OS X version 10.4 or later. Sorry, PC users, this one is Mac only. What … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Photoshop, Software Tagged With: draw, Graphics, moosoftware, pressure-sensitive, Sketch, Software, tabletdraw

Photoshop Plugin: Akvis Sketch v9.0

August 31, 2009 By 3 Comments

Ever wanted to turn a photograph into a drawing without spending an hour in Adobe Photoshop using layers and high pass filtering to finally separate out a line drawing of that photograph? It's possible with a plug-in from Akvis Software. The last time I looked they had some thirteen sofware applications for Macintosh and PC computers. Running either as stand-alone software applications or as plug-ins for image editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Photography, Photoshop, Software Tagged With: Akvis, effects, filter, photoshop, plugin, Sketch

Photoshop Plugin: Topaz Simplify

August 24, 2009 By 3 Comments

During the last month I took a trip back to Topaz Lab's webpage and downloaded another of their interesting programs. (Topazlabs.com) If you remember, they make imaging enhancement software for both still and video photography. This time I thought I'd try their Simplify 2; it's a $39.95 program that can be downloaded in minutes—there's a fully functional 30 day trial version also. All you have to do is request the 30 day key and you can play with any of their … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Photography, Photoshop, Software Tagged With: Cartoon, filter, OIl Painiting, Painting Harshcolor, Photoshop Plugin, Sketch, Topaz Labs, Underpainting, Watercolor, Wood Carving

Photoshop CS4: Introduction to Adjustments Menu

June 8, 2009 By 2 Comments

I've been teaching workshops on the new Adobe Photoshop CS4 for the last several months. The part of CS4 that has drawn the most comment and the highest response has been the addition of the new Adjustments panel. Individuals who are upgrading from the older CS, CS2, and CS3 find this the most positive part of the upgrade. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of other wonderfully positive changes, but Adjustments has seemed to be the one that draws the most positive … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Photoshop Tagged With: Adobe, cs4, image adjustments, photoshop

Topaz Labs DeNoise: Another Winning Photoshop Plugin

June 1, 2009 By 3 Comments

UPDATE: Dr. Roach reviews the latest release of DeNoise here A few weeks back I wrote about TopazLabs application TopazAdjust3, and I liked it so well that it obviously influenced me to take a look at its sister (brother?) application DeNoise.  Topaz Labs makes applications for both still and video imaging, and it is the digital still imaging area that have my interest because Photoshop from Adobe is the center of my workflow and I like things that plug-in to Photoshop.  … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Photography, Photoshop, Reviews, Tutorials Tagged With: apple, art, image enhancement, mac, photoshop, plugin, Topaz Labs

Photoshop Plugin: Topaz Adjust

May 4, 2009 By 12 Comments

I don't know how many hours I have put in writing actions to allow me to produce some of the currently popular photoshop effects; really more than I want to admit.  By the time I've worked my way through reading tutorials, performing the action(s), refining the effect(s), redoing the action(s) and getting client feedback, I have quite a bit of time committed to some projects.  Not that I don't think some of the techniques aren't pretty cool and I admire the developers of the concepts; some are … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Photography, Photoshop Tagged With: apple, art, filter, HDRI, mac, photoshop, plugin, Topaz Labs

Photoshop Basics: Make Color Image B&W and Sepia

January 29, 2009 By 1 Comment

While advanced versions of Photoshop (CS3 and CS4) have the option to produce a black and white print from a color image, older versions of Photoshop and some other programs depend upon other methods of converting the color image to black and white. Desaturate: Obviously, the simplest method of converting a color image to black and white is to desaturate it.  This will produce a black and white image that seldom has truly good blacks, so it is often necessary to use contrast controls to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Photography, Photoshop, Software Tagged With: channel mixer, desaturate, MONOCHROME, photoshop
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