© 2013 by Michael Roy Pasini

Mike Pasini wrote a great review of Exposure 5. He compares Exposure with some other film emulation tools and finds that “Exposure 5 has upped the ante.”

The second half of the review is a case study for applying a vintage look with Exposure. He also gives a nice tour of Exposure’s new interface.

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I came by my love for photography honestly. My father always had a camera in hand. He has an archive of well over ten thousand slides. One of our family pastimes was to set up the projector and watch those slides. Certain photos would pop out at me because of their fabulous rich and contrasty color. It came as no surprise that I fell in love with Exposure. Now I can recreate some of those great looks.

I’m really excited that most of the pictures shown below were taken within ten minutes of my house. Real life means that you can’t always be in exotic places, so learn to shoot where you are. I often hear, “I wish I lived in a beautiful place like you!” I do live in a beautiful place, but I want to produce beautiful art wherever I live. The secret? Get out there! Get out and scout your area. Use an eye for the unique and/or beautiful. Be willing to be out shooting at the right times too. Most of the shots shown here were taken in the early morning. Sometimes it’s 30+ below zero when the light is right. Convenient shooting times can equal the poorest light or conditions. Getting something special will cost you.

So that great shot is captured. What now? My starting point is always Lightroom. I have set up custom presets for metadata, keywords and some basic develop settings to automate the import process. I want to create a technically perfect photo, from white balance to setting white and black levels. I’ll tweak the shadows and highlights to give a broad dynamic range. Sometimes that is enough, and I’m satisfied. Other times I have a certain look in mind, so I go into Exposure.

If you’re a Photoshop guru, you can create similar looks to Exposure without it, but it takes a lot of time. The magic of Exposure is the speed at which you can do it. It takes me no more than 2-3 minutes in Exposure to achieve the look I want. I want to spend more time shooting, and less time processing. Exposure is the perfect blend of user friendliness and “tweakability”. I save even more time by developing custom presets that suit my particular tastes. My hope is that, by the time I share that picture,  it will give viewers the same joy I got when watching those slides as a boy.

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See more of Dustin’s work on his website, Flickr, 500px, and Facebook. He has a bunch available as stock on websites such as iStockphoto and Getty Images.

Tyson Robichaud is the first to write a review of Exposure 5 and it’s a great one. I’m always happy when reviewers provide detail, opinions, and photos so you can tell they aren’t just reprinting the press release. For info on the new features, including videos and examples, visit the Exposure 5 web page.

While I was reading Tyson’s blog, I enjoyed his article comparing the Olympus 75mm f/1.8 and Canon 135 f/2 L lenses. They are similar lenses from the Micro Four Thirds and full frame worlds. I own the Olympus 75mm f/1.8 and love it.

Visit our Exposure 5 website for more details and an introductory video!

What is the Adobe Creative Cloud?

You can find long explanations of Adobe CC on the web, but here is my simple version. Adobe is switching the payment model. For Photoshop CS6 and earlier, you buy it and then you own it forever. In Adobe CC, you will rent it by paying a monthly fee. If you stop paying then Adobe CC products will stop working.

This is more a pricing change than a technological change. The “cloud” part means that you get some file storage on Adobe servers and there are some collaboration features. Applications like Photoshop will run on your local computer, just like they do today. Photoshop CC will not be running on an Adobe server or in a web browser. You will be able to run Photoshop CC without an internet connection for periods of time, but occasionally you have to let it contact Adobe to confirm that your subscription is paid up.

Will Alien Skin products work with Adobe CC products?

Photoshop CC is not out yet, but we have been testing our current products with a pre-release version. We will release free updates for the current version of all our products to fix a minor installation issue. You will hear about the updates here, in e-mail, social media, and the “new message” newspaper icon in our products.

We have also been testing with the pre-release version of Lightroom 5 and everything is working great. By the way, Adobe plans to keep Lightroom as a non-subscription product.

Exposure 5 (out in June) will be our first product that can run as a stand-alone application. You will be able to use it by itself or within Photoshop, Lightroom, or Aperture. Over time we will move in that direction with all our products.

Will Alien Skin move to the subscription model?

We plan to stick with the traditional software model. For example, that means that you buy Snap Art 3 and you own it forever. If you lose your installer then you can download it again for free at any time. If you lose your license code then you can look it up or contact tech support so we can find it for you. You can activate your software on two computers at once and you can move those activations to new computers, including switching between Mac and Windows. While Snap Art 3 is the latest version, we will make free updates to keep it working with the latest host programs.

I’m not going to promise it will be this way for eternity, but this system feels like a good fit for our customers and us for the foreseeable future.

Texture Overlays in Exposure 4

In Exposure 4, on the Age Tab there is a group of controls labeled Texture. This system overlays analog features on your photo. Early versions of Exposure simulated scratches mathematically, but we found that it looked too artificial. Now these features come from scans of real photos.

What’s New in Exposure 5

In early versions of Exposure, we provided dust, scratches, and rough borders, so “texture” seemed like a good name. In Exposure 4 we included light leaks. Exposure 5 provides more versions of those effects, and expands into old print borders and sun flares. I usually refer to this wide range of features as “overlays” since texture is just part of it.

You’ll find the overlay effects in the new Borders & Textures area on the right side of the Exposure 5 user interface, as seen below. Click for a larger version.

In Exposure 5, you can now separately control overlays from the Border, Light Effects, and Dust & Scratches categories. For more variety and control, they can be randomized, flipped, zoomed, and inverted.

One of my photos is shown below after two treatments with overlay effects. I used a distressed old border, a paper print border, subtle scratches, and one of the new light effects from the Sun Flares category for morning sunlight in fog. I used the improved Protect feature to keep the bird clear. In Exposure 5 you can move the center of the protected region and control its strength. For a scene with a person, I would use it to keep scratches off their face.

When can I get it?

Exposure 5 will be out in June. When it is ready we will announce it here, in social media, and e-mail. You can get on our e-mail list by scrolling to the bottom of any page on our web site. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. If you don’t own Exposure yet then you don’t need to wait for Exposure 5 to come out. If you purchase Exposure 4 in March, 2013 or later then we will e-mail you Exposure 5 for free as soon as it is ready.

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Set specific goals before you begin creating your wildlife haven. Make the transition easier to manage by starting small. Even minor changes will increase the diversity of birds you attract.

Wildlife has four essential needs: cover, food, water, and places to raise young. For a bird, a typical manicured lawn is too barren. The worms found there probably taste like chemicals anyway!

Cover

Birds need a place to hide from predators. This will make them feel safe and comfortable. The best kind of cover is a combination of trees and shrubs at varying heights that mimic the natural landscape. Before heading off to your nearest nursery, investigate native plant species for your area.

I suggest that you arrange the plantings in a tapered angle. Fill the perimeter with tall trees, and then plant shorter trees that can take shade. Add shrubs next, then add ground cover in the center. This provides safety for the majority of bird species. Consider coniferous trees for plantings on the north & west sides of your home to block winter winds, deciduous trees work best on the south and east to provide shade in the summer.

Water

A bath need be no more than 2 or 3 inches in depth. If you already have a bath with deeper dimensions, put a layer of rocks inside to raise the floor level. Try to keep it clean and full at all times. Provide roughly 10 feet of clear space from the nearest cover; close enough for birds to escape a predator and far enough that they can see one approaching. Running water is best, the sound alone will bring birds.

Places to raise young

The right combination of trees and shrubs will provide plenty of nesting places.

If you want bird houses, learn about the kind of bird species you want to attract first. House size, placement, and hole size need to match the species you target. A good place to start learning is a nearby store that specializes in bird equipment and native plants. So is your local Audubon chapter.

Food

To draw in a variety of birds, provide a variety of food. Naturally occurring food is your best bet. Feeders will bring birds out where you can see them, but they’re not a complete food source. If you want the birds to move in permanently, give them a combination of varied height native fruit, seed, and, nut bearing plants.

It may take a couple of years to incorporate all of the ideas I’ve shared, but just a few minor changes can help improve the bird variety you see.

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Here are a couple of shots that Marc shared with us. Thanks Marc!

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Exposure is the best film emulation software out there. Trust me, I’ve used them all. The B&W capabilities in Exposure are on par with more dedicated B&W programs, and it has additional properties unique to itself.

#1: Silk Loom

Let’s start with an image from one of my favorite indoor “grunge” locales, the Lonaconing Silk Mill. It’s in the mountains of western Maryland. Color can work well for this shot, but black and white replicates the feeling of the old working mill more accurately.

The finished color image is pictured above. It’s best to convert to B&W after the color version is finalized. The order of operation is important to get the richest tones.

In Exposure, there are a bunch of film options in the presets panel on the left. I scrolled through the list to see what was available. I settled on Kodak TRI-X 400 with Dust & Scratches. I made one small adjustment to the preset–I added a touch of sharpness on the focus tab with one of the group presets. Below is the final.

Click on the image above to view a larger version of the final.

 #2: National Building Museum

The National Building Museum in Washington, DC is an extremely cool place to photograph. It’s huge. No one bothers you, and you are allowed to use a tripod. The shadows and moody light can be pretty spectacular; those were the conditions we had during this shoot.

I suggest that you find out what time it will be the least crowded during your visit. Then you’re good to go.

I’m going to build a custom look for this image. Here are the steps:

• Leave the preset set to Neutral (B&W).
• On the Tone tab, boost the contrast to taste.
• In the Split Toning section, I chose one of my favorite presets, Platinum (warm).
• On the Focus tab, apply the Sharpen – Low Radius – 25 group preset.

The sharpening presets are unique to Exposure. The results depend on the image, but, in my experience, they are almost always effective.

Click on the image above to view a larger version of the final.

One of the great features in Exposure is on the Age tab. I particularly like the lumping and distortion controls for the Vignette. These features are unique. In Exposure, the various levels of “Lump” create uneven vignettes. I feel that this uneven-ness enhances the mood, feeling, and asymmetry of this image.

#3: Tremont, Great Smoky Mountains, TN

Springtime in the Smokies is always inspiring. The mountains are full of flowing water and lime green moss; both attributes make for beautiful B&W shots.

I’m going to build another custom preset for this image. Here are the steps:

• Leave the preset set to Neutral (B&W).
• On the color tab, apply the Green Color Filter group preset.
• Color Sensitivity, choose the Only Red group preset.
• On the Tone tab, choose the Harsh Landscape Tone group preset.
• On the Focus tab, apply the Sharpen – Low Radius – 25 group preset.

I made some tweaks with the sliders on the Tone tab in order to brighten the water. I increased the contrast, opened up the shadows, darkened mid-tones and brightened the highlights. It was just a few tweaks to pull out the detail I wanted.

 Click on the image above to view a larger version of the final.

My advice, mix it up with Exposure. This will teach you how the very cool and unique black and white effects can add another layer of creativity to your work!

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Tony Sweet is a workshop instructor, lecturer, author, occasional columnist, online instructor for Betterphoto.com, and is a Nikon Legend Behind the Lens.

Visit http://tonysweet.com

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Modern Interface

We remade the Exposure interface to be more familiar to users of recent versions of Lightroom and Photoshop. The color scheme is dark gray to reduce distraction from your photo. Effect controls are in collapsible groups in a scrolling panel on the right, just like Lightroom. Most of our shortcut keys have the same behavior as Lightroom or Photoshop.

We purposely chose slightly larger fonts than the ones in Lightroom and Photoshop. Tiny text is stressful, especially for old eyes like mine.

The left and right panels can be collapsed to reduce distraction and make more room for the preview.  In the screenshot above, the preset panel on the left is collapsed. On the right are new flexible controls for texture overlay effects. We will get into those in another article.

Visual Browsing of Presets

One of Exposure’s strengths has always been the hundreds of well-researched presets, but exploring them was hard. As you can see in the screenshot above, presets are now explored visually. You can resize the preset browser pane and set it to show two or three columns.

The buttons at the top of the panel let you quickly focus on just a subset of the presets. You  can filter on Color, Black & White, Favorites, User, and Recent. Click a star in the corner of a preset to mark it as a favorite. “User” is for presets you created. “Recent” is of course the last presets you applied to photos.

As with Exposure 4, there is a text search bar that is a very fast way to narrow your search. By the time you type “kodach”, you are seeing only the Kodachrome presets.

When can I get it?

Exposure 5 will be out in June. When it is ready we will announce it here, in social media, and e-mail. You can get on our e-mail list by scrolling to the bottom of any page on our web site. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

If you don’t own Exposure yet then you don’t need to wait for Exposure 5 to come out. If you purchase Exposure 4 in March, 2013 or later then we will e-mail you Exposure 5 for free as soon as it is ready.

We will write at least one more blog article about Exposure 5 texture overlay controls before June.

Matt shared his editing workflow. He’s a Lightroom user. The rest of this article is from him. Read on to hear how he edits most of his work.

Thanks for sharing, Matt!

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I hunted around for a while after a tool that could help me replicate the smooth colours and grain of 35mm film. I tried a handful of presets and plug-ins, but few worked nicely with Lightroom, and fewer still gave me natural-looking grain. Lightroom’s grain feature (and any presets that use it) is decidedly basic. It looks more like noise under the right wrong conditions. I was impressed when I first used Exposure. It had a wide variety of film emulations, it fit in nicely with my existing workflow, and it produced great-looking grain.

Lightroom still does the bulk of my library management, so it was easy to add Exposure. I’ve been using Exposure for a while now, and I’m always happy with the results.

Here’s how I edit. I start off with a first pass in Lightroom to fix the important stuff like exposure, white balance, sharpening, and curves. I usually apply a medium contrast curve; I’ll bring the highlights down a bit, pop the light tones, and pull back the dark tones & shadows.

I then apply my preferred Exposure film emulation. I’m a big fan of the Fuji Reala or Fuji Pro 400H presets for my color work. For black & white, my favorites are Ilford HP5 and Tri-X.

I “finish” my images with a solid fill grey layer in Photoshop. I use 54% grey and set the layer to exclusion mode. For colour images, I set the layer to 10% opacity. I set the opacity slightly higher for black & white photos. This flattens the image out a bit, and it lightens the blacks. Keeping the opacity of this layer low keeps the image contrast up; more opacity makes the effect more extreme.

Save, close, and go back into Lightroom. This will automatically “stack” the new file onto the original, so you don’t have a messy library. You can experiment with some other Exposure emulations using the original file. Press “C” in Lightroom to compare different versions side-by-side.

Having the ability to replicate some of my favorite films means that my photos have a final look that’s consistent and identifiable, regardless of whether I’m shooting digitally or analog.

For me, editing is about putting your personal touch on an image. Don’t let the camera’s JPEG engine do it for you. Make the image look the way you intend it.

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Check out some of Matt’s work below. For more, take a look at his blog and his Flickr Photostream.

In a nutshell, blend modes control how colors mix. Most often they are used on a layer to modify the coloring behavior of the layer(s) beneath.

The modes are always separated into behavioral sections when displayed. There are only six sections. You don’t have to memorize the entire list. When you understand the basic behavior of each section, the modes become easy to use. Take a look at the list from the Layers Panel.

Other Uses

Blend modes are not just for layers. You can use them with the Painting and Editing tools such as Clone Stamp, the Healing Brushes, the Brush/Pencil tool, the Blur and Sharpen tools, and more. When you select your tool, a mode drop-down will appear on the Options bar at the top. Here’s a screenshot.

Useful Shortcuts

Working with blend modes is a process of experimentation, which can burn up a lot of time. There are many keyboard shortcuts to speed things up. While using the move tool (V), press Shift+ or Shift- to quickly scroll through the modes list. Below is a cheat sheet of keyboard shortcuts for most of the modes. Remember that if you’re using a tool, the tool mode will change in the Options bar.

Applications

Here is an example of using the Spot Healing Brush for skin retouching in Lighten vs Normal modes. Lighten mode makes the dark areas in the skin become significantly lighter, while the bright areas are only slightly lightened. This helps to keep the image from losing detail and looking muddy.

Below is an example of using the Clone Stamp for thickening up a scalp spot in Multiply vs Normal modes. Darkening this light spot with the Multiply mode retains the hair texture in the original photo. Normal mode covers up the spot with hairs in random order, making it tough to line things up just right without repetition.

The color mode is useful when you want to make color adjustments to a specific area of a photo without losing detail. In this example, I changed the eye color using a solid color and then again with a gradient.

His passion for photography began as an obsession for landscape photography. A few years ago, his focus abruptly changed after a modeling shoot that he did for a friend. The photo shoot went extremely well. It showed Robert that there is great power in emotion, which transformed his way of thinking.

Now, he’s on a mission to capture powerfully emotional photos.

He uses Exposure on almost every digital shot. It’s primarily used as the finishing touch. Robert really loves the look of film. Exposure, for him, is a godsend.

Below are some of his photos. Check out his website and his Flickr photostream for more.

I used blur to my advantage in a recent tutorial video. I combined a blur effect from Bokeh with a simulated film effect from Exposure to change a photo’s mood. Although the effects are subtle, the results are significant.

Robert Hamilton let us use his photo of Jillian Rabe for the video. Thanks Robert and Jillian!

Click here to view the embedded video.