Nouveau blog - new blog

Nouveau blog - new blog

I had 4 blogs and decided to simplify and post more often... log here for up to date blog.

http://thestudiocoach.wordpress.com/

J'avais 4 blogs, j'ai déccidé de simplifier et d'écrire plus... suivez ce lien vers le nouveau blog

http://thestudiocoach.wordpress.com/

New StudioCoach product

The videographers dream for white balances, the WhiteBeam now enters the market! It is an 8" disk that is placed in front of the video camera lens in order to do the white balance in 5 seconds flat. This ensures continuity of light and easy matching of sequences.  For more information…

Now available on line, the PhotoMasterTarge t measures only 10"x15" and is ideal for the photographer on the go. Just like the ColorBalanceCoach, it allows you to control contrast and exposure.

The painting effect without the brushes in your hands

WOW , I just got the AlienSkin Snap Art 1.0. It gives you full control over the painterly look. Pastel, oil, pencil and all the effect you may wish I will have a tutorial up within a couple of days telling you how I got around what I tought was a limitation. I was trying to give back some definition in some details while letting the brush effect... I sincerely recomend this Photoshop Plug-In as a way to enhance and give a new flavour to your images... Many other programs offer

a pinter effect, but the knowledge and the time consuming effort needed to reach a similar effect, is out of range to some artist (like me) that are more gifted with a camera than with a brush.

Download a free 30 days trial, and save 10-20% be aware you will get addicted....

PhotoshopUser magazine

Learning new tricks is not an easy job for an old dogs, but even with many years of experience in Photoshop (I started with version 2.5) I still devore end read cover to cover each edition of PhotoshopUser. Tips and even stuff that you do know but have forgotten. Watch shortly for a review of the PhotoMasterTarget in the PhotoshopUser magazine. Also read monthly the column of my friend Jim DiVitale.

Adobe Lightroom

Lightroom, is now the perfect asset to actualy manage the aquirering and preparation and presentation of images for client or for my own reference. Lightroom is a complex software, very intuitive and so obvious that many of it's feature would go unseen if it would not have been of a good training book. I used Lightroom by Scott Kelby a step by step that allow you to jump the steps you do not need. You can find info on NAPP web site and on Lynda.com

Lensbabies

The Lensbabies kit is for me the ULTIMATE fun. In my commercial life, the LensBabies is the tool in the bottom of my bag and when inspiration fails, I put the Lensbabies on and through my camera I see a whole new world...

The ColorBalanceCoach in the figure study

In difficult situation like this one, the ColorBalanceCoach target played a key role.
I wanted a light rolling on top of my nude model's stomach. I needed to calculate exactly the light passing horizontal al the model's point. By putting the ColorBalanceCoach target flat on the floor I was able to preform the necessary readings, and ajust the camera for an exact white balance and exposure setting.


Model: Émilie

Shot at Studio Astre, Paris, France.

Graphic Authority image enhancing tools

Wow! affordability, ease and affordability. They have experience and it shows. Established in 1994 Graphic Authority has provided the graphics community with products of outstanding quality and price. Today you can find Graphic Authority in Layers Magazine and Photoshop User.

I met them at PPA convention in SanAntonio, Texas and I am preparing samples and a gallery with their tools. I will be developping a serie of images to be sold as decor frames. At a rate of 5 minutes per image, I'll populate my store in 2 days.

Lumapix is a fantastic imaging software

FotoFusion assembles professional-quality albums in seconds from your digital images. A unique high-performance interface speeds creation over traditional photoshop approaches, with interactive control over image position and cropping, drop shadows, edges, tiles, blur and sepiaton, among many other effects. An integrated RIP engine allows the composition to be reprocessed for efficient sharing by email or output on large-format printers for wall-mounted portraits. Images can be saved as "flat" images for printing by labs or routed directly to participating labs for per-image retouching. FotoFusion is a revenue-generating machine for professional photographers and a source of pleasure for scrapbookers; a range of price points and feature sets are available.
see my demo images
DOWNLOAD A FULL 30 DAY VERSION

 

Sesame, unlock my colors !

I just discovered a little wonder, in the world of calibrating and expensive tools I found, a couple of days ago, the PANTONE HUEY calibrating tool.
It happens to be a discovery tool. As instructed I installed the software on my Acer (Travelmate 3010) mini laptop, the one I use for my lectures and seminars . When instructed I plugged the probe and used the micro succion cups to secure it on the screen. Follow thw instruction to strat the colorfull lightshow while the probe talks to the computer as it even reads the ambient light.
Then "TADAM!" I never saw my images with such color and richness, such quality I nerver taught possible. My little screen does not have that capacity I said to myself.
Thanks to the Huey I see bright and clear images and got impressed a second time by my laptop.
By the way the Huey, never stops working, just let it plugged in and it will monitor the ambiant light and ajust your viewing conditions in real time. It works on regular monitor also.
Canadian distributor Webbsight Imaging Peripherals

If you can dream it.... you can do it

Auto F/X software... the best suite of plugins for Photoshop. From fancy effects to soft nearly unperceivable, you can tweak and modify your image. Frames, textures and light effect even a photo enhancer that works like magic. I'm a graet fan of Auto F/X since over 7 years when I bought the 1st version of photographic Edges. Try all the effects for free. Buy one buy them all... you are sure to amaze.

I just discovered Tivity softwares: WOW!!

2 new applications: one for flash authoring and one to setup photo galleries and presentations. I have played with the demo for a couples of days and I am amazed, I test and play with many softwares but these one realy blasted me off. It makes hundred of type of presentations and the interface just makes you work enough so you feel you have done it yourself... great achievement.

DOWNLOAD A FREE TRIAL

SEE PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS

Simple Panorama

Simple Panorama
Again from LensPen a super bright idea, they package a simple VR support for the camera, that is combined wit the ArcSoft Panorama software, already configured for usage with the spinning adaptor head. And best of all works perfectly on horizontal and vertical shots. 

Dustless and Panoramic

Fellows canadian, just marketed a tool to clean the CCD of digital cameras, available in regular and deluxe kit. The delux kit contains the cleaning pen, 3 replacement tips (for a total of 200 cleaning, a rubber air blower,camera and lens cleaning colth and a carry bag. This should make the maintenance of CCD a lot easier, but I still suggest that you get an Olympus Camera, you are sure never to have dust in your camera to start with.

Jean-Francois O'Kane 

The next pro body at Olympus...

PHOTOKINA 2006 NEWS At Olympus...
The expected replacement of the E-1 is in final stage of planning, the competion is feirce at the level of top manufacturers. Being the #3 manufacturer in importance, Olympus is under a lot of pressure to develop and market a flawless body that will trone high above the family.
No datas were available neither a final design, but a mock-up of the expected next pro camera body. The look is great. As a Olympus user and advocate, i'm sure that the 4 third concept will be preseved, the dust-free sensor and the ease of the white balance presetting, the only plus I can wish is a faster focus system and 12 MegaPixels. 

Shooting for colored skin

How can you deal with subjects with different skintone in the same picture? How do you expose?

The secret: forget about the skin tone and expose and white balance on a greycard
or even best with the ColorBalanceCoach target. By choosing a neutral and
standardized target, you will make a photographic decision on fixed basis.
HOW-TO: place the target in the same light as your subjects, aim the card or target half-way between the main (more powerfull) light and the camera, set your camera to "M" manual exposure and custom white balance, read the light by filling the frame with the grey target, set the exposure and do not change it; then perform a custon white balance while still aiming at the grey target. Accept the new white balance as the working setting and shoot.

The Color Balance Coach