Ready to conquer a mountain.

On the eve of a hike into the Eastern Sierra Mts. I'm staying at a hostel in the small town of Lone Pine, which sits in the shadow of Mount Whitney. Tomorrow we drive to the Shepard Pass Trailhead , where we will begin a seven mile climb up a ravine to Anvil Camp. Last time I was there, it almost broke me. I know the campsite will be worth it though. It sits among a grove of tall pines and next to a roaring stream.

Basic image touchup in PS. AKA what you should do to every photo

Hello. Today I'm going to share a few simple steps that you should be doing to digital photos in order to make them them look better. Straight out of the camera is never going to give you the best results. Remember, however, that Photoshop only develops a photo; you cannot make a poor photo a good photo. It all starts with proper composition and exposure.

The two basic adjustments you need to make to every photo is to add contrast and sharpening, and both are simple procedures.

Step 1: Open up your photo in Photoshop.

I'm not going to get into cropping at this point but you should crop your images 8x10 or less using the standard presets. Cropping them to standard sizes ensures that they will print correctly on the paper. Custom sizes are a different story.

Step 2: First, let us add contrast. Open up the curves dialog Image > adjustments > curves.

Make a simple S curve by clicking on the line. You want to add a point on the bottom left and drag it down ever so slightly. Add another point near the upper right and drag it up just a touch. Make sure you have the Preview button checked so you can see what is going on in real time.

Step 3: Now all you have to do is sharpen it a bit. Go to filter > sharpen > unsharp mask. Yes, it says unsharp but it will actually sharpen. Don't ask. Once the dialog window is open, start with 60 4 and 1 as your base numbers. There are other base nember methods but this is the one I learned from Adobe's Scott Kelby.

Depending on the image, the range you probably want to stick with for the first number is between 55 and 70.

Here is the final product.

Subtle but effective. The things you want to avoid are adding to much contrast and over sharpening. If your highlights are blown out then your curve is too extreme. If you see a glowing halo around your subjects then you have over sharpened.

Keep in mind that every image is different, and therefore the same adjustments will not work correctly on every photo. Play around with these settings but do not go too extreme. These simple steps will do wonders for your out of the camera images.

Increasing your value as a graphic designer.

A good friend and I were discussing the topic "what makes a designer better than another designer?" the other day. In my observations, the talent gap gets very narrow once a designer reaches a certain level of technical competency. Think about it. If you understand contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity, are fairly knowledgable with typography, proper imaging and color usage, and have the skills to execute ideas, what makes you better or worse than the next person? What can you do to separate you from the pack? The answer is obvious; it's the extras. Fill in the blanks: I specialize in________, and I also can do_________. Maybe you have multiple extras. I specialize in publication, and I also do web design, photography, and am very good with Photoshop. I am good in Illustrator, but my friend Melissa is really good. She is also a good photographer. Those are her extras. I have a designer friend who is a print guru, another who does wedding materials. Yet another who has great communication skills. Starting to get the picture? The famous designers that have inspired me are known for things such as logo creation, typography, and branding. You probably are already aware of your extra skill(s), so why not take advantage of them? Make sure that your portfolio mainly contains examples of whatever field you are trying to get in, and then have the extras prepared. For example, a publication oriented person could have advertisements, brochures, multi-page layouts samples etc., and then a booklet showcasing photography skills. The photography booklet shows that the person is familiar with image processing and can communicate ideas with the photography staff with confidence. It also highlights creative skills that can transcend across the board. Think about your extra skills and how to use them to increase your worth to a potential employer.

Going macro

I'm writing this with my iPad so please excuse the brief article. Just a quick tip on taking macro / micro images. Point and shoots are able to take super close ups nowadays, but if you want high quality results, you need an SLR with a close up lens. The best macro lenses have a 1:1 ratio. Macro lenses are super touchy when in comes to depth of field so I recommend experimenting with aperture to fully understand the effects. For crisp images, a tripod is absolutely essential, as is using a remote / cable release or timed release. Many macro shooters also utilize the mirror lock up function as well. Check your owners manual to see if your SLR has the capability to execute a mirror lock up. These images were taken using a nikkor 60mm 2.8 lens , cable release, no mirror lock up.

Give your images a distressed, grungy look in Photoshop.

Today I am going to show you how to add that cool, dirty, grungy, industrial look to your images. This technique can be used on vector work as well as photography. As always, keep in mind that every image has different tonal values, and therefore, will react differently based on said values.

Step one is to open up your image in Photoshop and do all of the basic editing that you would normally do. I prefer to convert my overlay projects to black and white, especially when I intend to give it the industrial touch. However, have fun and experiment with color images to see what kind of results are possible. I will be using an image I took of an old iron machine that is in the ghost town of Bodie, CA.

Step two is to add a grunge texture. Just Google "grunge textures" and find one that strikes you. I like metal or concrete based textures. For this tutorial, I used this one.

A good practice is to create a folder titled "textures" and save your overlays for future use. Save from the net and take your own. You will be surprised on how quickly your skills in photography and Photoshop will improve by gathering your own textures. Tip: When searching for textures online, be sure to click "large" in the options for best results. Once you save the texture, go to File > Place , in Photoshop, and select the texture.

You may have to resize the texture to fit your image. Hit enter when you have it in place. Now go to Layers > Rasterize > Smart Object. This will make your overlay completely editable.

Your layers palette should now look like this.

If you cannot see the layers palette, go to Window > Layers.

Next, desaturate your overlay texture by going to Image > Adjustmets > Desaturate.

So the final step is easy. With the texture layer selected, use the drop down menu in the layers palette and change it to overlay. This layer style usually gives the best results.

Here is the effect on this particular image.

But wait! This does not look like the image at the top of the article. That is because I wanted an even more extreme look. In the layers palette, I chose Linear Burn instead of Overlay for the layer style. This made the image too dark. I merely went to Image > Adjustments > Levels, and boosted the highlights. I copied the original before doing so just in case I changed my mind later. You can also go to the half black, half white circle at the bottom of the layers palette and add a non destructive levels adjustment layer. Just be sure to chose the original image layer before you make the adjustment. By doing so, your adjustment will only effect the image below it.

There you have it. You can play around with the layers styles for different results. Start with Overlay and experiment from there. You can apply this to portraits as well as still lifes and graphics. Take it a step further by flattening your layers and applying a dodge and burn to add contrast. Enjoy!

How to cross process an image in Photoshop to give it a retro effect.

Here is a relatively quick way to give your photos a cool retro feel using Photoshop curves. This method is referred to as cross processing and you will soon see why. It can be achieved by using a single image, and only takes a couple of minutes once your initial edits are completed.

First, prepare your photo as you usually would. I crop to desired size, touch up any rough spots, adjust levels, and then sharpen. If you are not familiar with developing your photos, there are many tutorials on how to do so. I recommend getting The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter) by Scott Kelby

Next, add a curves adjustment layer from the layers panel. (the half black half white circle at the bottom of the layers panel) Adding an adjustment layer as opposed to going to Image > Adjustments > Curves is a preferred method because it is non-destructive. That is, you can go back and tweek the effect, or remove it all together if you want.

Once the Curves dialog opens, select the red channel by using the drop down menu.

You are going to add two points on the line as pictured, making an "s" curve by dropping the shadows and raising the highlights.

Do the same to the green channel.

Lastly, adjust the blue channel, but make the "S" curve opposite of how you did the red and green by raising the shadows and lowering the highlights.

Switch the drop down menu back to RGB and you should see a similar image.

Check out the before and after results.

Keep in mind that this effect does not work the same on every photo. For best results, stay away from darker exposed images. Also, play around with your "S" curves, as results differ based on tonal range of individual images and how extreme your adjustments are. Enjoy!!

Create a downloadable link to your resume

Do you have an online portfolio with a resume? Nearly every design job posting online request a link to a portfolio. If you have a portfolio gallery, you should also have an updated resume page. And if you go one step further, you should also have a resume in PDF format available for download. Some people like to code this with a php action, but there is a more simple way. First, convert your resume to PDF format and upload it to your root folder on your server. Then create a link on your webpage like this: (<) a href="resume.PDF"(>)download my resume() minus all the parenthesis . When a visitor clicks on the text, your PDF will open in a new window, where it can be downloaded. Some people like to write" right click and save as" instead, which brings up a download window. To automatically make it a download, simply compress the resume into a .zip file. And change your code to:  href=resume.zip. 
It's that simple.