PSIG News: May 2005 e-News
May 18, 2005

May Meeting

The next PSIG meeting will be held on Thursday May 19th, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at Voorhees High School in room 245. As part of May’s program, we will continue to look at Photoshop CS2. Additionally, there will be a question-and-answer session and we will bursh-up on some techniques with a few training movies. Members are encouraged to bring their images, prints, and questions for discussion during the meeting.

Adobe Photoshop CS2 Now Shipping

The latest upgrade to Photoshop is now available in stores and online. The stand-alone version of Photoshop CS2 retails for $599. An upgrade (same-platform only) from any previous version of Photoshop is available for $149, and owners of Photoshop LE, PhotoDeluxe, or Photoshop Elements can upgrade (again, same-platform only) for $499. Additional pricing is available for the purchase of Photoshop CS2 with the Adobe Creative Suite.

Got CS2? Get the Camera Raw 3.1 Update

This new version of the Camera Raw plug-in replaces the original Camera Raw plug-in that was installed with Photoshop CS2 and Elements 3.0 software. The plug-in includes support for more digital cameras as well as a DNG <http://www.adobe.com/products/dng> converter. The Camera Raw 3.1 plug-in is not compatible with versions of Photoshop earlier than Photoshop CS2 or versions of Photoshop Elements earlier than Photoshop Elements 3.0. <http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html>

Quick Links

NAPP Radio: Weekly Photoshop News <http://www.photoshopuser.com/radioarchive.html>
Photoshop Blog <http://www.photoshopnews.com>

Tips and Tricks

Removing Noise In Digital Camera Image

Some low-light conditions produce digital photographs with noise. This often appears mostly within the blue channel. To quickly clean up your image and remove some of this noise, select just the blue channel and add a slight Gaussian Blur (it is difficult to provide a specific amount of blur to use as this will change depending on the image size; experiment, but start with a low value like 0.5) to just that channel. This helps get rid of the noise and leaves the detail in the other channels untouched.

Apply Unsharp Mask To CMYK Images

If you have converted an image to CMYK and you want to sharpen your image without introducing color shift or halos, don't switch back to RGB. Instead, go to the channels palette, click on the black channel, and apply your Unsharp Mask there. Applying the filter just to this channel will allow you to apply a higher level of sharpening while minimizing potential damage to the image.

The 100% Unsharp Mask Rule

When using the Unsharp Mask filter, make certain that when you apply it, you're viewing the image at 100%. Viewing your image at other percentages will not give you an accurate view of how the sharpening is effecting the image. To make sure you are viewing at 100%, just double-click the Zoom tool in the Toolbox.