Perez Studios

Over the years I have hated the fact that I didn’t have the patience to go and touchup people’s faces in Adobe Photoshop.  I gave it up actually and fixed just the major issues with a charge of course.  That was until I came across Portrait Professional which is a very powerful program that allows you to draw the outline or major features of a face and it does all the touching up for you.  If you look at the photo above and look to the left you see a girl with a case of bad acne.  On the right you see the work that Portrait Professional does.  If you are into portraits and need to do a lot of touching up I highly recommend it. 

You can purchase Portrait Professional by going to http://www.portraitprofessional.com/ and paying $69.95 right now.  If you are interested in a free trial they offer that as well.

Have you ever had been at work and forgot to do something on your computer?  I have been listening to all the commercials about the ability to log into your computer from anywhere and remote to your computer.  The only problem with that is that they charge you a monthly service fee.  When I first started working at my current employer we came across a program called LogMeIn which is just as powerful as those other guys but its free.  They have some additional features for an additional price but the base package is free and comes with more than enough ability to take care of just about anything at home.  They even have plug-ins that allow you to work on a Blackberry or iPhone and remote into your guest computer.

I currently set this up for my clients so that when they have an issue I am able to check their computers remotely.  They even give you the ability to send email links for your clients so they can install it on their computer and then you have the ability to login from your home or office. 

If you haven’t seen this program go and check it out.  http://www.logmein.com.  If you have any questions or concerns about the software just let me know.  If you have had experiences with this or similar software I would love to hear about it.

I recently began using Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom and I must say that I am impressed.  It is a very powerful tool that allows you to import and manage your photo library.  I like the way it will allow you to customize the import options so that you are in control.  It also lets you keep control of your photos’ location by keeping them where they are.  This can be bad because if you move or rename any file or folders then you will have lost the connection from Lightroom and it will delete the file.  I haven’t got too far into the nitty gritty but I am running out of space on my machine and cant have all of my photos on the same drive so I will try to experiment with importing files from CD/DVD and see how that works. 

I do love one feature and that is the ability to write meta data to the photos.  You can add keywords and tags straight from the program or the import.  It all depends on you. 

If anyone hasn’t had a chance to play with Lightroom yet, I highly suggest it.  It might make your photography career move a lot smoother.  If anyone is already using Lightroom and would love to share their feedback on it, then please let us hear about it.

I was checking out The Digital Photography School site and found this post by Helen Bradley which shows you how to create a Triptych in Adobe Lightroom.  I recall wanting to be able to print out my work side by side and what an easy and excellent way to take Adobe Lightroom and make it so easy for you as a photographer to do it.

To read more of the article click here! 

If you are using some other type or method for printing your work out then please share it with us and let us experience the way you might do things.  Who knows, it might be easier or cooler than some.

Have you ever had a message that you needed to get to someone but didn’t want the whole world to see or hear it?  I was looking through some old files and documents from one of the college classes I took while I was in school.  I recall a class on computer ethics and we covered the topic of Steganography.  I know you are probably thinking what does this have to do with Photography or anything like my usual stuff but I thought it would be cool for other photographers out there to know about this stuff.

Steganography is  the art and science of writing a hidden message in a way that no one except the sender and the intended recipient can read it.  The word steganography is of Greek origin and means “concealing writing”. 

I took a snapshot of a program called JPHS for Windows and allows you to take a photo like the one below and conceal a text message or some other file inside it.

If you used JPHS Windows program on the photo above and used the right passwords to decrypt the image you will see something similar to the file below.

It is nice and there are probably millions of other ways to go about doing the same thing but it is just cool to me that you can take a photo and hide something in it. 

If anyone has experience with this or ideas on how it all works, I would love to hear about them.

I did a trial of Alien Skin’s software called Bokeh for Adobe Photoshop.  I compared Bokeh and Focal Point from OnOne Software and I believe that Focal Point is just too much easier than Bokeh. 

I thought that Bokeh would be easier because of Alien Skin’s other software products but  I found out I was wrong.  Maybe I need more training on the program but I found its whole navigation and customizing layers and using the effects more difficult compared to the Focal Point’s easy bar that lets you adjust the settings for each effect. 

Bokeh does have one plus probably and that is that it probably doesnt require a specific video card where I had to purchase a new one for OnOne’s Focal Point. 

If anyone has any details to share or experiences about either one of the programs I would love to hear about them.

Recently, I began a trial on using OnOne’s Plug-In Suite for Adobe Photoshop and I must say that I was very impressed.  It makes things so much easier with all of the built-in effects and snap-ins.  It has the ability to enlarge photos, make photos pop and so much more.

I love the PhotoTools plug-in because of all of the cool stuff that it allows you to do with just the click of a button.  It asks you for some options but it shows you instantly right there what the before photo looked like and what the after will look like. 

I am seriously considering purchasing this program because it gives photographers a lot of power without having to know all of this computer, art and Photoshop tricks.  It takes all of the features and gives them to the ordinary person. 

If you want more information make sure you check out the OnOne Software web site.  If you are using OnOne and want to share your experience with it then please feel free to.  If you are using another plug-in that is similar then share the name of the program and I will do a trial and let others know my opinion on it.  I am trying to compare the OnOne plug-in to Bokeh’s plug-in.  I will keep you all posted.

Recently, I upgraded my computer to Vista Ultimate.  I must say that it has been a very cool move.  I first backed up my entire system before I did anything using a program called Storage Craft which I must say works great. 

Once I had the backup I was ready to make the move.  The look and feel of Vista is pleasing to the eyes.  It does some wear and tear to the memory though.  I have about 2Gigs of Ram in my machine and am already looking at upgrading it to 4 because of the amount that Vista sucks up. 

Vista has some really cool features for photographers.  One is the Windows Photo Gallery.  Viewing pictures in Vista does seem a bit prettier on the eyes.  It somehow gives the photos a look to them.  The built in slide show feature that is similar to the one in Windows XP is a lot easier to view. 

I did however encounter some issues with some hardware and software.  I came across an issue with Adobe Encore 1.5 so now I am forced to upgrade to a newer version.  I also came across an issue with my Epson R1800  Photo printer.  It turns out that the FireWire port on the back of the printer is not compatible with Vista but the USB port worked just fine.  I also came across an issue with my Creative Sound card but I am working on resolving that issue with Creative. 

If you have any experiences with Vista that you would like to share with the rest of us please feel free to do so.  I am sure there are others out there that are kind of hesitant about making the move but it is something that has to happen.  Windows 7 is supposed to be coming out soon and I am sure we will feel the same about that one like we did about Vista.