.oOo. The Horsocope Fishbowl-O-Rama Non-365 for 2017 .oOo.

[Horoscope Fish]

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Desert Sentinels​

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Desert Sculpture, #1​

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Desert Sculpture, #2​

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[Horoscope Fish]

A couple quickies just because I'm so excited to have my Tamron 70-200mm back!!!
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White Angels Trumpet #1​

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White Angels Trumpet #2​

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[hark]

A couple quickies just because I'm so excited to have my Tamron 70-200mm back!!!

I must have missed it--what happened to the lens?

 

[Horoscope Fish]

I must have missed it--what happened to the lens?

I'm not sure if I posted about this little mishap or not, now that you mention it...

Executive Summary: I'm getting some awesome shots one evening at an open-air farmers-market sort of thing when the zoom ring on my Big Tam goes nutty on me. I'm feeling hard "clicks" and it's hitching really bad as I turn it, both to and fro. Applying some elbow grease pops the zoom ring past the hitchiness but it comes right back after a few more turns and the hitches are becoming more and more like "hard stops". I decide to simply leave it be and finish the night pretending it's a four-pound tele. But, it's a Tamron... Six-year warranty. Yeah!! So off it goes, cross country, for repair. Come to find out, Tamron's standard repair policy is to turn things around in three days (are you listening, Nikon??), which is exactly what they did. The zoom ring was fixed (no charge) and it was shipped back FedEx 3-Day (also at no charge). Still, five days to get from San Diego to Cormack (sp?), New York; three days in the shop, and three days to come home...

 

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[Horoscope Fish]

This is Jesi, my fiancee... We were playing around I grabbed this shot.
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Jesi's Revenge​

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[Horoscope Fish]

Just playing around in Photoshop with a new selective color technique... Thanks @Slipperman!
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Dark Places #4, (Testing... Testing...)​

 

[Slipperman]

Just playing around in Photoshop with a new selective color technique... Thanks @Slipperman!

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looks like you processed the b&w portion as well. how did you do that after selecting the colors? i settled for the standard default adjustment in the image menu since i didn't know how to process the b&w after the colors were selected. i'm assuming you used layers in some regard.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

looks like you processed the b&w portion as well. how did you do that after selecting the colors? i settled for the standard default adjustment in the image menu since i didn't know how to process the b&w after the colors were selected. i'm assuming you used layers in some regard.

Oh I used some layers alright. In short, here's what I did...

I used Ctrl+J to duplicate the Background Layer before going to Select/Color Range, Inverting the selection and converting it to B/W via the Adjustment menu as you explained.

With Layer 1 as the active layer I applied a Vibrance Adjustment Layer (Vibrance 1) and boosted the graffiti colors. I went back to Layer 1 and created a second Vibrance Adjustment Layer (Vibrance 2), set the Saturation slider to (-100), applied a Black Mask and used the Brush Tool (set to White) to desaturate parts of the image, bringing them back to B/W. I had to do this because there were some small areas selected by the Color Range tool I didn't actually want colorized. While still on layer Vibrance 2 I changed the Blending Mode from Normal to Soft Light and reduced the opacity.

Finally, it was back to Layer 1 (the background-copy) for some Dodging/Burning and selective Sharpening using the Sharpen Tool.

 

[Slipperman]

Oh I used some layers alright. In short, here's what I did...

I used Ctrl+J to duplicate the Background Layer before going to Select/Color Range, Inverting the selection and converting it to B/W via the Adjustment menu as you explained.

With Layer 1 as the active layer I applied a Vibrance Adjustment Layer (Vibrance 1) and boosted the graffiti colors. I went back to Layer 1 and created a second Vibrance Adjustment Layer (Vibrance 2), set the Saturation slider to (-100), applied a Black Mask and used the Brush Tool (set to White) to desaturate parts of the image, bringing them back to B/W. I had to do this because there were some small areas selected by the Color Range tool I didn't actually want colorized. While still on layer Vibrance 2 I changed the Blending Mode from Normal to Soft Light and reduced the opacity.

Finally, it was back to Layer 1 (the background-copy) for some Dodging/Burning and selective Sharpening using the Sharpen Tool.

thx.. i really need to take a class in Photoshop or something but i don't know of any good/affordable ones in my area..

 

[Horoscope Fish]

thx.. i really need to take a class in Photoshop or something but i don't know of any good/affordable ones in my area..

If you can, I highly suggest a subscription to Lynda.com for learning not only Photoshop, but also Adobe Bridge and Camera Raw. Lynda is where I learned to use all three applications in a continuous workflow from culling images to finished product.

I like Lynda because it's not just a jumbled collection of videos on a topic, they offer actual courses on a topic that are coherently arranged and build on one another in a sequential manner. They have several thousand courses on Photoshop alone. Most videos in the courses I've taken are also pretty short, some just a few minutes in duration, with a "long" video being maybe twenty-minutes; which I think is nice because you go into a course knowing you're not going to be stuck in the chair for an hour at a time, unless you want to. The website keeps track of where you are in a course -- so it's easy to come and go and not lose track of where you are -- and you can keep several courses in a personal Playlist. The videos on Lynda are professionally produced in high def with good, clean audio, unlike most videos I ran across on YouTube. If I come off sounding like a Lynda.com salesman I assure you I'm not; it's just that Lynda has been, and continues to be, an amazing resource. Had I not found Lynda, I'd still be intimidated and confused by Bridge, Camera Raw and most certainly by Photoshop. But not anymore... The courses on Lynda blew the lid off Photoshop for me and that's where all my enthusiasm for it comes from.

You can try Lynda.com free for thirty-days and a basic subscription is $20 a month. At the very least get a free trial... You can learn a lot in thirty-days! If you need some suggested courses I'd be happy to point you in the right direction.

• Lynda.com :: (filtered for Beginner/Photoshop/Photography).

 

[Slipperman]

If you can, I highly suggest a subscription to Lynda.com for learning not only Photoshop, but also Adobe Bridge and Camera Raw. Lynda is where I learned to use all three applications in a continuous workflow from culling images to finished product.

I like Lynda because it's not just a jumbled collection of videos on a topic, they offer actual courses on a topic that are coherently arranged and build on one another in a sequential manner. They have several thousand courses on Photoshop alone. Most videos in the courses I've taken are also pretty short, some just a few minutes in duration, with a "long" video being maybe twenty-minutes; which I think is nice because you go into a course knowing you're not going to be stuck in the chair for an hour at a time, unless you want to. The website keeps track of where you are in a course -- so it's easy to come and go and not lose track of where you are -- and you can keep several courses in a personal Playlist. The videos on Lynda are professionally produced in high def with good, clean audio, unlike most videos I ran across on YouTube. If I come off sounding like a Lynda.com salesman I assure you I'm not; it's just that Lynda has been, and continues to be, an amazing resource. Had I not found Lynda, I'd still be intimidated and confused by Bridge, Camera Raw and most certainly by Photoshop. But not anymore... The courses on Lynda blew the lid off Photoshop for me and that's where all my enthusiasm for it comes from.

You can try Lynda.com free for thirty-days and a basic subscription is $20 a month. At the very least get a free trial... You can learn a lot in thirty-days! If you need some suggested courses I'd be happy to point you in the right direction.

• Lynda.com :: (filtered for Beginner/Photoshop/Photography).

thanx.. this info will definitely come in handy..

 

[hark]

You can try Lynda.com free for thirty-days and a basic subscription is $20 a month.

Sounds like they changed their pricing. Didn't it used to only be one week free then around $25 per month afterwards? There are only a couple of times I remember reading they were offering 30 days free, and several members here jumped on it.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

... Didn't it used to only be one week free then around $25 per month afterwards? There are only a couple of times I remember reading they were offering 30 days free, and several members here jumped on it.

I had a regular subscription for a long time but I forget how much I was paying for it. I now get my subscription for free through the college where I work, but if I didn't, I'd be happy to pay them $20 a month again. I double-checked their website, though, and Basic membership is $20 a month, Premium is $30. The biggest benefit, IMO, of the premium membership is access to the practice files, which I don't really think is worth the extra $10 a month, personally.

The free trial is definitely for 30-days.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

Just a fun shot from the other night, hanging out with some friends at a local carnival.

The two rides duking it out are the The Kamikaze, on the left and the Area 51 at the bottom right.
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Kamikaze vs Area 51​

 

[hark]

Nice carnival shot, Paul. For several summers I took some when a local carnival came during the July 4th holiday. Unfortunately last year there was some type of fight that broke out so I stopped doing it. Were you able to take any others?

 

[Horoscope Fish]

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Getty Stairwell​

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