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March Meeting Information
The March Photoshop SIG meeting will be held on Thursday, March 13th, from 6:30 to 8:30pm at Voorhees High School in room 245. March's meeting will continue where February left off, with the discussion of a good digital workflow using Photoshop. We will look at the steps to take starting from a scan, digital photo, or original image, through editing and touch-up, to producing a final digital master. Members who wish to bring in their images for discussion during the question-and-answer session should contact SIG chairman Matt LaRusso prior to the meeting.
Adobe Announcement
Last month, we noted that Adobe may announce some new technology at the National Association of Photoshop Professionals' PhotoshopWorld event. That announcement came in the form of Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw and JPEG 2000 plug-in bundle.
Adobe's website reports "The Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in provides fast and easy access within Photoshop software to the proprietary 'raw' image formats produced by many leading professional and midrange digital cameras. By working with these 'digital negatives,' you can achieve the results you want with greater artistic control and flexibility while still maintaining the original 'raw' files.
"The Adobe JPEG 2000 plug-in lets you open and save files that comply with the latest industry-standard file format. The JPEG 2000 format provides a variety of compression options that allow for optimum trade-offs between file size and image quality. With the Adobe JPEG 2000 plug-in, you'll be prepared as this format gains wider use in digital cameras and on the Web."
Most users may get along fine without these new tools, but it is worth keeping an eye on. Find the full story, including a list of supported cameras and important pricing information on Adobe's website. http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html
Raw Image Redux
A few months ago, the topic of using the Raw image format came up in discussion. Creativepro.com has just published an article discussing the benefits of working with raw camera files (as opposed to compressed JPEG files.) Read about this and how it relates to Adobe's recent announcement on the Creativepro website. http://www.creativepro.com/story/review/19008.html?cprose=4-09
Tips and Tricks
Lasso Tool and Navigation
When using the Lasso tool, you can still utilize to many of your navigation tools without stopping your selection process. Holding the spacebar will change to the Hand tool, and Command + and - still work to zoom in and out.
Copy and Transform
Using Option-Command-T will create a copy of the object you are transforming, leaving the original untouched.
Make Shrunken Images Look Better
When you shrink an image down to screen or web size, you may lose detail. To gain some of this back, use the Unsharp Mask filter with a Radius of 1.0 and Threshold of 4, then play around with the Amount.
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