X-Equals – Click. Download. Smile.

$24.99 – XeL 2.0 – Black and White Toolkit

All XeL Presets are 100% Lightroom 4 Compatible! We’re so amped to bring you another innovative addition to the XeL Family! Sample image from XeL: Black and White Cold Storage Films XeL:Black and White is the culmination of a year’s worth or research, analysis, development and testing – representing a major milestone release in support [...]

continue reading ...}

Lightroom’s Ultimate Plug-in – Photoshop

We all know of the litany of plug-ins available to Lightroom. There are export plug-ins, Metadata plug-ins and external editor plug-ins. All of these tools extend the capabilities of Lightroom, allowing more control over your images and pertinent metadata. Many times they can be time saving tools, other times they are veritable life-savers. However, there [...]

continue reading ...}

Join Us – Show us what you got …

None of this happens without you I know I’ve said this before, but it’s so true … Your comments, questions, ideas, and feedback are what have made X-Equals what is today! Without you, we’d be nowhere. We’re now looking to get more involved with our community to help bring your ideas to life, and we’re [...]

continue reading ...}

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 [...]

continue reading ...}

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 and masks to [...]

continue reading ...}

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 [...]

continue reading ...}

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. [...]

continue reading ...}

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 [...]

continue reading ...}

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. [...]

continue reading ...}

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 [...]

continue reading ...}