March 31, 2006

links for 2006-03-31

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March 30, 2006

links for 2006-03-30

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March 29, 2006

links for 2006-03-29

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March 28, 2006

links for 2006-03-28

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March 27, 2006

links for 2006-03-27

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March 26, 2006

links for 2006-03-26

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March 25, 2006

links for 2006-03-25

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March 24, 2006

links for 2006-03-24

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  • Another service that will let you create a smaller url for a really long one. This one also tracks usage of your url (stats) and lets you associate del.icio.us tags with it. Not exactly sure why you’d want to do that (the tagging part) but interesting none the less.
  • A really interesting application of a Worpress theme. It’ wraps up the Wordpress parts into modules (blox) and gives the user the option of rearranging the layout on your site. Users can also add blox that weren’t there before, so it’s kind of like a portable Netvibes.
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eSnips Feedback

I was happy to hear about eSnips re-releasing this week on Mashable, even if Pete is less than optimistic about it. One of the eSnips team, Efrat Moshkoviz, liked my comments there and even put me on the blogroll! eSnips currently does a lot of things other bookmarking/archiving services don’t and I’m glad they seem to be still working on making their service even better!

Beta invites are fun.

I got several invites to betas over the last few days, Boxxet, Krugle and Riya. They’re all pretty cool so far… Hopefully I’ll have a chance to write up some reviews soon. I love betas!

How to make colors pop in Photoshop

Filed under: HowTo, Photoshop | Lindsay @ 10:56 am

I was having a conversation with a friend last night about Photoshop and how there are about 900 ways to do the same thing or variations on the same thing. Photoshop is such a versatile tool that I don’t think you can ever run out new options to discover.

My friend was looking for a method to make colors pop in pictures so here’s what I came up with. I have been experimenting with inverting layers and playing with blending a good bit lately to see what interesting things might result. There are already many tutorials on how to make colors pop out there, but maybe you’ll find this one has a slightly different effect. I’ve noticed it tends to emphasize Yellows a bit more than some approaches I’ve tried before.

Before After
Before After

You can download the action that I created for this, but if you’re curious about what it’s doing or you just like to do things the hard way, here are the steps:

  1. Open a copy of the photo that needs some enhancement
    Step 1 - Open Photo
  2. Duplicate the background layer (Layer->Duplicate Layer) and name it Inverted
  3. Select Inverted and choose Image->Adjustments->Invert
    Step 3 - Invert the image
  4. Change the Blending Mode on Inverted to Luminosity
    Change Blending mode to Luminosity
    Step 4 - Inverted and blended with Luminosity
  5. Duplicate the background layer again and name it Merged 1
  6. Select Inverted and choose Layer->Merge Down
  7. Change the Blending Mode on Merged 1 to Linear Dodge
    Step 7 - Blended as Linear Dodge
  8. Duplicate the background layer again and name it Merged 2
  9. Select Merged 1 and merge down
  10. Change the Blending Mode on Merged 2 to Multiply
    Step 10 - Blended as Multiply
  11. Duplicate the background layer again and name it Color Pop
  12. Select Merged 2 and merge down

There you go! Your colors should be pretty saturated. At this point it’s a matter of playing with the Color Pop layer. You can tone it down by adjusting the Opacity, and you can also get some interesting effects by changing the Blending Mode:

  • For pictures that started out “pastel” (not saturated and possibly over exposed), Multiply gave good results.
    An image that's washed out to pastel colorsPastel image boosted with Multiply on the Color Pop layer
  • For pictures that started out fairly well contrasted, Overlay and Soft Light had nice boosts.
    An image with decent color contrast but lacking popThe colors pop out when blended with Overlay
  • If seems that there’s too much yellow in your Color Pop layer, try Saturation
    Image that needs a color boostThe Color Pop layer blended normally adds too much yellowBlending in Saturation mode keeps the pop but tones down the yellow
  • For hyper saturation on an almost cartoony level, try Vivid Light.
    An image that needs a boostThe colors are hyper realistic after blending in Vivid Light (at 65% Opacity)

While playing with this, I also found an interesting way to subdue the colors in an image for a nice washed out effect that doesn’t reduce the depth of your shadows. See the Subdued Color tutorial if you’re interested!

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How to make subdued colors in Photoshop

Filed under: HowTo, Photoshop | Lindsay @ 10:55 am

While playing around with inversions and trying to figure out how to make colors pop, I stumbled across a nice way to achieve the opposite effect: making colors subdued and washed out. The nice thing about this effect is that it doesn’t also wash out your shadows, only the color is affected (unless you use some special blend modes).

Before After Second Pass
Before After Second Pass

Here is the action I created if you’d like to download it and save some effort. Otherwise, here are the steps to do it yourself:

(more…)

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March 23, 2006

links for 2006-03-23

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March 22, 2006

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March 21, 2006

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March 20, 2006

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March 19, 2006

links for 2006-03-19

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March 18, 2006

links for 2006-03-18

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