X-Equals – image, workflow, technology, business

Link Party – Grab a drink and dig in …

I was cleaning up my laptop the other day in anticipation of my Lightroom 3 upgrade and I ran across a big hunkin’ list of bookmarks so let’s have a good old fashion Link Party! There’s a good mix of Photoshop, Lightroom, and shooting tips in here along with a bunch of free downloads and inspirational [...]

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High Pass Sharpening in Photoshop

In Lightroom, sharpening is a rather simple endeavor. While Lightroom’s built-in sharpening tool is excellent, it is a bit lacking when it comes to fine control of sharpening. Photoshop is a much better tool for doing fine sharpening, as it offers a myriad of sharpening option and the ability to use layers [...]

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Taking a byte out of bit depth – Jpeg vs. RAW

Should I shoot RAW or should I shoot JPEG? That is the eternal question digital photographers struggle with day after day. Take a look at any photography message board or Flickr group and you will likely find a heated discussion weighing both sides of the issue. Proponents of each file type have strong arguments in their [...]

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Adobe DNG – the future is NOW

To the modern digital photographer, the Raw data from the camera is the modern day equivalent of the traditional photographer’s negatives or slides. Everything we need to create stunning final images is provided by the single simple file, regardless of its format – be it .NEF, .CRW, .CR2, .PEF; the list goes on and on. [...]

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Good to the last Drop – Photoshop Droplets

I always loved Photoshop for its ability to create Actions, and in turn automate a LOT of my work by leveraging those actions to create Photoshop Droplets for batch processing. And, the best part is I can access these Actions from directly within Lightroom. By leveraging Droplets within your Lightroom workflow, you can take advantage of Photoshop’s [...]

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Keeping it Raw in Photoshop – Part 2 of 3

Alright, so Part 1 of this series is fully digested, right? Well it is time to build on that procedure and really flex this workflows muscle. If you recall, I asked you to think about what presets you really like in Lightroom and to convert then to Adobe Camera Raw profiles using the past tutorial. [...]

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Keeping it Raw in Photoshop – Part 1 of 3

Previously I introduced X-Equals readers to Smart Objects in Photoshop as a method by which you can maintain the capabilities and quality of RAW, but still utilize many of the stellar features of Photoshop. In this series I am going to outline my RAW workflow within Photoshop, leveraging Smart Objects and Adobe Camera Raw to maintain [...]

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Smart Is As Smart Does – Photoshop Smart Objects

Have you ever been working up an image in Lightroom, and open it in Photoshop for final editing? Furthermore have you ever invested time in retouching said image in Photoshop only to realize that you should have processed the RAW image differently to begin with? A lot of people would just close out the image [...]

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Connecting the Dots – DPI Tips that Matter

Output resolution is one of the most misunderstood topics in digital photography. What is the correct DPI or PPI to export an image to produce beautiful prints or display on a screen just right? Unfortunately there is no simple answer; resolution, DPI and PPI are all different terms, and although inter-related are each distinct concepts in the [...]

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Fixing Perspective in Photoshop – It’s Easy!

This workflow is by far the shortest and easiest path to fixing the Leaning Tower of Pisa effect that often happens when shooting architectural photos without fancy equipment like a View Camera or a Tilt Shift Lens. Let’s start out by by looking at our final image: Check out those nice sweet STRAIGHT lines! But we didn’t [...]

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