MACNJ PSIG: News

December Meeting

The next Photoshop SIG meeting is scheduled for Thursday, December 16th. We will work on the images collectively in an attempt to provide members with real-world solutions to their Photoshop problems. Images can be of any subject matter, and should be brought on a CD, Zip, or e-mailed ahead of time.

November Project

November’s meeting explored methods of changing the color in an image and looked at member’s various results with a sample image. Results can be seen on the PSIG website in the November Project section.

AKVIS Enhancer

AKVIS Enhancer is a plug-in which helps bring out details from underexposed, overexposed and midtone areas of a photo without manipulating exposure. AKVIS is offering our group a full version of the software for review; any MACNJ PSIG member interested in reviewing the software, please contact Matt. You will be required to give a demo to the SIG at a future meeting, as well as write a brief review for the MACNJ newsletter. Find out more about AKVIS Enhancer on their website at. This review opportunity will be given out on a first-response basis.

Tips and Tricks

Better Color-to-Grayscale Using Lab

Converting a color image to grayscale by choosing Grayscale from the Mode menu often produces flat-looking grayscale images. For better results, start with an RGB image, then under Image > Mode, choose Lab Color. Then go to the Channels palette. You will see four channels. Drag the B channel to the Trash icon to delete it. Now, delete the channel called Alpha 2, leaving just Alpha 1 (which was the original Lightness channel). Now go under the Image menu, under Mode, and choose Grayscale. Go to the Layers palette and click on the Background layer. If the grayscale image appears too light, make a copy of the layer and change the Blend Mode to Multiply. If it appears too dark, lower the Multiply layer’s opacity until you dial in a perfect-looking grayscale image.

Making Changes To Raw Photos Without Opening Them

Open the Raw digital camera image from within the File Browser, and it brings up the Camera Raw dialog. Make the tonal processing changes you want within the Camera Raw interface, but DO NOT click OK. Instead, hold the Option key and you will see the OK button change into an Update button. Click on it (when it says Update) and Camera Raw will close, without the photo opening in Photoshop, but the changes you made will be visibly applied to the thumbnail in the File Browser. (Note: Like all changes in the Browser, they will not be applied until you actually open the photo in Photoshop.)

Assigning Metadata To Multiple Files

Want to assign metadata to more than one photo at a time? This can be useful for embedding your copyright information into many photos at once. Just Command-click on all the photos you want to affect, then enter the custom info you want (in one of the IPTC fields in the Metadata palette) and that info will be added to every selected photo at once.

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