Photoshop 6 (and previous versions?) Mystery & My Solution

What’s Up?

First off, thanks a zillion to the folks who wished me a Happy Bird-day both here and especially on Facebook. I really felt the love. I worked very had yesterday but after the fact I am not sure what I accomplished. Did enjoy my core exercises, a lightning and thunder-shortened swim, and an ice bath.

Today I need to have some prints made and then sign them, and catch up on e-mail critiques from the two Palouse trips. Ah, I remembered what I spent so much time on: I have two images in the very final rounds of judging in the 2015 Nature’s Best photography contest. They ask for the RAWs, the optimized TIFs, and fleshed out capture info and captioning. Good luck to me. You have seen both images here on the blog, an Antarctic (or Blue-eyed) Shag with a feather and a tight head portrait of Little Mr. Huffer, a young coastal Brown Bear with a mask like a raccoon.

Congrats to the Stanley Cup-winning Chicago Blackhawks; I am sure that Maya and Jen are thrilled. This blog post took about two hours to prepare and was published after 6:00am early on the morning of Tuesday Monday, June 16.

This image was created on last August’s Nickerson Beach IPT with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/1600 sec. at f/6.3. AWB. Four AF points to the left and one row above the center AF Point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.

The Preening Head Angle

There are lots of young oystercatchers at Nickerson Beach in August. If you would like to join me, see the IPT info below.

How would you rate the head angle of this preening young oystercatcher?

The Image Clean-up

After converting the image in DPP 4 and leveling it in Photoshop I spent about 20 minutes on the clean-up. In addition, I removed the aluminum band on the bird’s leg. As regular readers know, I am a huge advocate of using keyboard shortcuts to reduce the time spent in Photoshop. In fact, I have created probably close to a dozen personalized keyboard shortcuts that allow me to save a ton of time. All, and the methods that I use to create them, are detailed in Digital Basics. See more below. For the clean-up I used the Patch Tool (my P), the Clone Stamp Tool (S), the Spot Healing Brush (J), and a series of small Quick Masks fine-tuned with a Regular Layer Mask. The latter was used to cover the band.

Photoshop 6 (and previous versions?) Mystery & My Solution

I am currently running Photoshop CS-6 CC (if that it the proper designation) on my Macbook Pro with Retina Display. Half the time when I first open Photoshop, none of the keyboard shortcuts work. That includes the many default keyboard shortcuts that I use routinely as well the personalized ones that I have created. In addition, if you manually select the Clone Stamp Tool and attempt to use the left or right bracket keys to make the Clone Stamp Tool smaller or larger, nothing happens. Photoshop is simply dead to the world as far as keyboard shortcuts.

At times, everything is working fine from the get-go when suddenly the situation above is replicated. I remember similar things happening with CS-6 and perhaps with CS-5 as well. For folks like me who like to work quickly, this can be a real drag. Though it takes a few seconds to execute, I have come up with a fix: select the Clone Stamp Tool manually, go into the Brush Dialogue Box, and change the size of the brush manually with the slider. If your computer works like my mac or like Denise’s PC, all of your shortcuts will come back to life, and you will be able to change the brush sizes with the bracket keys. At least for a while….

I would love to hear from folks who have experiences this problem. My opinion? Adobe should be ashamed of itself. Of course, if anyone knows a permanent solution to this problem, please do share.

Digital Basics

Everything that I did to optimize today’s image is covered in detail in my Digital Basics File–written in my easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand style. Are you tired of making your images look worse in Photoshop? Digital Basics File is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, details on using all of my image clean-up tools, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding and filling in canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, Contrast Masks, Digital Eye Doctor techniques, using Gaussian Blurs, Tim Grey Dodge and Burn, a variety of ways to make selections, how to create time-saving actions, the Surface Blur (background noise reduction) settings as taught to me by Denise Ippolito, and tons more.

APTATS I & II

Learn the details of advanced Quick Masking techniques in APTATS I. Learn Advanced Layer Masking Techniques in APTATS II. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount to either with phone orders only. Buy both APTATS I and APTATS II and we will be glad to apply at $15 discount with phone orders only. Please call Jim or Jennifer at 863-692-0906 weekdays to order.

You can order your copy of “The Photographers’ Guide to Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.0” (aka the DPP 4 Raw Conversion eGuide) by Arash Hazeghi and Arthur Morris by clicking here.

The DPP 4 eGuide (PDF)

Learn how and why I and many other discerning photographers choose and use only DPP 4 to convert their Canon RAW files in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly. The latest version supports all of the newer Canon camera bodies and several older models including the EOS-7D and the EOS-1D Mark IV. The DPP IV Guide is the ideal companion to the 7D Mark II User’s Guide, a runaway best seller.

The strange thing is that when I lived in New York, I never knew about this amazing and consistently productive location.

Nickerson Beach/JBWR (possibly…)/Black Skimmer/Oystercatcher/migrant shorebird IPT: August 13-16, 2015. 3 1/2 DAYS: $1399.

Meet and greet on the evening of WED August 12. Limit 10/Openings 5.

Most of our seven photo sessions will be spent at Nickerson beach photographing the nesting Black Skimmers. In flight, sometimes battling. Carrying fish. Chicks of varying sizes from a very few just-hatched to lots of fledglings. It is likely that we will get to see some Great Black-backed Gulls preying on the juvenile skimmers. They swallow them whole. There will be lots of gulls to photograph as well as some Common Terns. Locally breeding shorebird species include American Oystercatcher–pretty much guaranteed, Willet, which is likely, and Piping Plover, which is probable but we need to get lucky with those to get close….

Save a space by calling Jim or Jen at the office and arranging to leave your deposit of $499. I hope to see you there.

JBWR?

If local conditions are ideal we may visit Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge to photograph southbound migrant shorebirds on one or possibly two mornings. Even if we do not visit JBWR we should get some good chances with the migrant shorebirds at the beach, especially Sanderling and Semipalmated Plover. Red Knot and others are possible.

As you can see, the oystercatchers are quite tame at Nickerson. And we will get you up early and we will stay out late.

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge In-the-field Instructional Photo Workshop/Scouting Session. August 12, 2015. Morning only: $250. Cheap!

The tide will be pretty good at the East Pond…. If I learn that conditions there are un-photographable we will do Nickerson Beach as a back-up. This will work either as an add-on for out of town folks coming for the IPT above or as a stand alone session. Either way, you will, as always, learn a ton. And we might even get some good images.

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