Download these sample files and follow along with the tutorial.

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(Click here to get a trial of Lightroom 2 - you know you want to )

The Lightroom lrcat and lrdata Files
(agreed that this may be an oversimplification of the process here.. but it’s enough for you to understand what Im doing… )

When you work with Lightroom, the program works like a giant hall monitor - keeping track of where your images are located (on a hard drive, on an external drive, what the folder structure is) as well as keeping track of any changes that you make to them such as keywording, ranking, flagging, collections and -processing-.

To do these two things, Lightroom creates a couple of files - the lrCat file and the lrData file. The lrcat file is the file that holds all of this and is a type of a database that keeps all of these records in order. The lrdata file for the most part holds the previews of the images - but not the original images. In that, the lrcat file remembers the “location” of where you put the file.

Why all of this Rocks
Now, this is really what I think makes Lightroom ROCK in terms of use, and why everyone needs to use it. When you are working with images in Lightroom, you’ll notice that your processing of them is FAST. Making exposure changes, adjustments, changes in tone - all of it runs very very quickly, and completely editable. You can go back SO MANY steps in the process because all of this information ISNT being saved to the file itself. All of these changes that you’re doing (Even brush based /crop adjustments in the develop module) are a type of metadata thats being stored in the catalog. All of these changes arent applied to the image until you export out or edit to in Photoshop, which I think is sweet!

My Recommendation
Because the lrcat and the lrdata files are files that are in constant use from Lightroom, it is why I always keep those files locally on the hard drive. The images are the only thing that I remove from the computer and store on an external drive - and sometimes even move them around in drives. That part doesn’t really matter.

If by some chance I move the file to a new hard drive, and Lightroom cant find it, Lightroom will say “Hey.. I cant find this file.. tell me where it is.” You then have an option to go and point to where you moved the file to. Lightroom is additionally smart in that it will then go and make sure that all of the other references to those files are updated in Lightroom (specifically the lrcat file).

Without those two files, Lightroom wont start, so its essential it can always find them.. the images.. not all that important - comparatively speaking.

Backup, man, Backup!

This also brings up the point of backup. You can set Lightroom to backup at specific points.. and what it does is take copies of your lrcat and lrdata file and store them for safekeeping. The problem here is that if you have a large database.. these things can get pretty big. I my example above, 2 days of backups equal almost 1/2GB. That can get big pretty fast..

As a strategy, I say backup as often as you need to in your case.. but after a few backups (Lets say 5) delete all of the other ones. You wont need them. If you’re incredibly paranoid, you can take one of them and place them in an external drive.

(Click here to get a trial of Lightroom 2 - you know you want to )

This should give you a good idea on how to use Lightroom 2 on a machine and not have your shoots take over all of your space. Obviously if you have any questions, feel free to comment or ping me on Twitter! See you guys back here tomorrow!

1 PREFLIGHT BEFORE PRINT
Prior to activating the print dialog in Acrobat, it’s well advised to perform a preflight on your PDF document to determine its print dimensions and quality of content. You’ll want to determine content characteristics, such as the color space and linear resolution of any placed images; the number of assigned print colors, including spot colors; any color profiles that have been assigned; the printability of items, such as vector paths; and the presence of any printer’s marks you may want. (For more details on preflighting, see “Customize Preflight Profiles in Adobe Acrobat” at www.layersmagazine.com/category/acrobat.)

2 MATCH DRIVERS AND PDF TO PRINT DEVICE
First, download and install the latest print driver for your print device. Based on your preflight results (see Step 1), make any adjustments to the content of your PDF so the linear resolution, color spaces, and assigned print colors match the device to which you’ll be printing. For most commercial print documents, you’ll want to have 250–300 ppi CMYK images, plus or minus spot colors. For inkjet printing, your images should be around 200 ppi and RGB color space—keep in mind that any spot colors will be printed as CMYK+ colors.

3 PICK PRINTER IN PAGE SETUP
The next step is to format your PDF for your specific print device. The best place to start is to choose File>Page Setup. First, choose your specific print device from the Format For drop-down menu (in this example, we’re going to be printing to an inkjet printer, so we’ve selected Epson Stylus Photo R2400). Then choose your paper dimension from the Paper Size drop-down menu. Note: If you want to print full bleeds on an inkjet printer, be sure to select a full bleed option, usually a submenu selection, from this menu. To finish, confirm your Orientation, leave the Scale at 100%, and click OK.

4 LAUNCH THE PDF PRINT DIALOG
To enter the actual print dialog, choose File>Print. Once again, the first step is to select your specific printing device, this time from the Printer drop-down menu. The printer driver you select determines the available print options in the other portions of this dialog. You’ll likely see one or more Adobe PDF printer drivers. Choosing one of these drivers allows you to create an onscreen, color-separated version of your PDF without having to actually print the color separations.

5 ASSIGN PAGES TO PRINT
From the unnamed menu located below Presets, choose Copies & Pages (this should be the default selection). Now work your way through the options at the top left to select which PDF document pages you’d like to print. The options you see here will depend on the printer driver you selected in Step 4. If you selected specific PDF pages in the Pages panel prior to activating this print dialog (see image in Step 2), click the Selected Pages option to restrict printing to those pages. This feature allows you to visually select your print pages.

6 SELECT OPTIONS FROM COMMENTS AND FORMS
To control which components of your PDF document will print, click on the Comments and Forms drop-down menu. Notice you have the ability to print just the Document, the Document and Markups, Document and Stamps, or Form Fields Only. This is a little-known and often ignored print control capability that adds a great deal of flexibility and customization to your PDF printing. Here, we chose to print the Document only.

7 DETERMINE PAGE SCALING
With Acrobat, you can apply on-the-fly scaling of your print image. Click on the Page Scaling drop-down menu. Here you see many print dimension options, including the ability to print multiple pages on one sheet or print large images across several sheets. There’s even a Booklet Printing option that allows you to print facing pages on single sheets (see image). The default setting is typically Fit to Printable Area. If you’ve already set the dimensions of your image exactly as you want them (as we’ve done here), then choose None from this menu list.

8 SELECT MEDIA TYPE
From the unnamed drop-down menu, choose Print Settings. (Note: Depending on your printer, some settings in the following steps may be located in sections with different names than the Epson driver we’re using here.) Check that you still have the proper printer driver selected, then review the Page Setup, which indicates the print dimension you assigned in Page Setup in Step 3. Make sure this matches the page setup you expect (here Sheet Feeder—Borderless). From the Media Type drop-down menu, select the media type on which you’ll be printing (here Ultra Premium Photo Paper Luster). Then from the Color menu, choose your preferred mode (here Color).

9 TURN OFF COLOR ADJUSTMENT
Steps 9 and 10 are critical for determining which color controls will be used in your printing. From the Color Settings drop-down menu, choose the default printer driver control color profile (here Epson Standard [sRGB]). Now click on the Advanced Color Settings tab, and note the printer driver-based controls. Return to the Color Settings drop-down menu and choose Off (No Color Adjustment). Once again, click on the Advanced Color Settings tab and note the paper-specific color profile that’s indicated. This setup will typically achieve the highest quality and most consistent print results.

10 USE COLORSYNC FOR COLOR MATCHING
Return once again to the unnamed menu, currently with Print Settings selected, and choose Color Matching. Here, you see a choice between two color control modes: ColorSync and an option for your particular printer (Epson Color Controls in this example)—in the printer option, the printer driver controls the color matching. Click on the ColorSync button and you’ll see the paper-specific color profile. You can click on the Profile drop-down menu to select another profile if you wish, but we’ll stick with the same paper-specific Premium Luster profile we used in Step 9. This avoids any potential conflict with the Epson driver.

11 CHOOSE PRINT QUALITY
Now return to the Print Settings menu, click on the Advanced button in the Mode section, then click on the Print Quality drop-down menu. The choices you see will depend upon your printer and printer driver. You can experiment with the various print modes to understand their effect on image quality. Here, we’ll select either Best Photo or Photo RPM to achieve high-quality prints. Note: RPM is a higher resolution mode that’s useful for images containing high detail such as text. Also test the High Speed setting (turned off here), which allows bidirectional printing, but can sometimes lower image quality.

12 EXPERIMENT WITH EXPANSION SETTING
Return to the unnamed drop-down menu and choose Expansion. You want to pay attention to this setting if you’re printing full bleed—that is, to the edge of your print. Feel free to test the effect of the various Expansion settings. The Expansion setting is the printer version of dragging an image past the bleed marks that you set in a page layout document. You may simply want to use the Max setting to make sure your images always bleed off the edge of your print media.

13 ADVANCED PRINT SETUP: SEPARATIONS
If you want to print color separations or control overall color-management settings, choose Copies & Pages from the unnamed menu and click on the Advanced button located in the lower-left quadrant of the print dialog. Click Output (in the list on the left). From the Color drop-down menu, select the type of output you’d like (here Composite). This is the menu from which you can choose to print separations either directly from Acrobat or send them to a RIP (Postscript Level 3 only). If you print separations, click on Marks and Bleeds and assign printer marks in that menu.

14 ADVANCED PRINT SETUP: COLOR MANAGEMENT
Click on Color Management in the list. From the Color Handling drop-down menu, choose whether you want Acrobat to manage the color (selected here); the printer to manage the color; or disable color management and allow embedded color profiles to be used. If you choose Acrobat Color Management, select the paper-specific Color Profile from the drop-down menu. You can even direct Acrobat to simulate printing on another device: Just check the Apply Output Preview Settings box and assign the device to be simulated using Advanced>Print Production>Output Preview. (See “Output Preview” in the preflight article referenced in Step 1.) All that’s left now is to press Print.

ALL IMAGES BY TAZ TALLY UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

“…In a July 9 blog post, Google software engineers Lance Huang and George Ruban quietly and calmly unveiled a change to Google’s Image Search that could save countless designers from violating image copyrights.

By checking a few boxes in the “Usage rights” section of the advanced image search page, you can now filter every image Google has ever indexed so that you see only files tagged with a license that allows re-use of the image.”

This is going to be a HUGE thing for the creative professional, so I suggest you guys hit this article up and check it out. Much thanks to Terri and Creative Pro for the info. Click on the link below for more info:

Safely Find and Use Images Via Google by Terri Stone - Creative Pro

Lightroom Galleries with External Drives
If you use Lightroom, youre a Photographer that is doing a bit of shooting (even though I think ANYONE shooting pictures should get Lightroom). If you are doing a lot of shooting.. you are invariably going to run out of space. This means that you will need to get a bigger hard drive. OR!!! You can setup your Lightroom catalog to stay on your machine and have all the IMAGES on a removable hard drive. Check out the video below to see what I mean:

Lightroom Galleries with External Drives - by RC!

Contest Time
Go to the Contact page, select the Layers Blog drop-down, then fill in your name, email address and answer to this week’s following question. Remember, the contest will end Thursday 5PM,. and the winner will be announced Friday morning.

The Contest Question:To create his newest masterpiece, Photoshop Guru Bert Monroy uses many tools. In his latest column available here, he is using one specific effect to add some depth to some iconic text. What’s the text he’s working on, and what effect is he using?

The Prize:
A copy of Adobe CS4 Real World HDR by Matt Kloskowski

We’ll see you back here tomorrow morning!!

Even the act of displaying a photo on a monitor puts it a screen capture away from being saved by the viewer, and a digital file can be reproduced an infinite number of times without loss of quality. All the files you view in a webpage are saved into a special file on your computer (the browser’s cache), which is periodically cleared out.

In trying to get a handle on how much of a problem unauthorized image usage is, I spoke to Niran Amir, the Director of Marketing & Sales for PicScout (www.picscout.com), a company that specializes in using its proprietary image-recognition technology for finding its client’s rights-managed images being used online in commercial projects. (Their client list reads like a who’s who of stock photo agencies.) All matches found by their Image Tracker technology are passed on to the client, and if a use is determined to be unlicensed, PicScout will assist in recovering financial compensation for that use. According to Niran, 80–90% of the matches they’ve found were illegitimate uses. (I expected the percentage of unauthorized uses to be high, but that’s a staggering figure.) Reasons for unauthorized uses by image consumers include ignorance of copyright, mistakes in the image acquisition and approval chain, and plain old bad decisions.

While it may be impossible to prevent a determined person from using your work without your permission, there are a couple of things you should do to protect your work: Establish yourself as the copyright owner; make it harder for the wrong people to use your work; and make it easier for the right people to find and contact you when they want to use your work with your permission. Compromises may have to be made and costs considered, and although not every solution will be suited for every place you upload images, it’s best to focus your attention on the areas that are within your control—right before you click the Upload button.

Register your copyright
According to U.S. Copyright law, you own the copyright to your original work the moment it’s created (assuming it’s not a “work for hire”) without having to register it and without having to affix a copyright notice on the work. Registering your work with the U.S. Copyright Office creates a public record stating that you’re the copyright owner. In this digital age, everything you can do to cement the connections between you and your work is in your best interest.

While this won’t prevent your photos from being misused, it’s a required legal formality before you can file a copyright infringement suit. If you register your work within three months of publication, or prior to an infringement, and a court decides an infringement took place, you’ll be able to recoup legal fees and punitive damages in addition to actual damages. If you register your copyright after an infringement has taken place, your award is limited to actual damages, which means your legal fees come out of your pocket!
You can register both published and unpublished work through the U.S. Copyright office (http://copyright.gov) by mail for a fee of $45 per registration. With an eye to the future, the Copyright office is now offering an online registration service called eCO (electronic Copyright Office), which is intended to be faster and cheaper ($35) than the traditional paper-based method. Go to http://copyright
.gov/eco if you’d like to give this new service a try. Keep in mind, however, that you’re limited to a 30-minute upload session, so your connection speed will determine the number of photos you can upload per $35 fee.

Pros: Creates a legal public record of your copyright ownership, required before filing a lawsuit, and increases amount of award
when infringement is determined.
Cons: Costs a nominal fee and takes some time.
Verdict: So, what are you waiting for?

Embedding metadata
Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s all too easy for the end user to strip out the metadata, but just because someone could remove it, shouldn’t prevent you from including your copyright notice and contact information in every photo that leaves your computer. Plus if you’re using Adobe Photoshop, Bridge, or Lightroom to manage your photos, you already have the means to add this to your workflow at no additional cost.

With Bridge and Photoshop, here’s how to create a metadata template that contains your essential copyright and contact information (feel free to add more information) and easily apply it to all your photos:

1.
Open a photo in Photoshop, or select one in Bridge, and go to File>File Info to open that dialog.
2.
Choose Copyrighted from the Copyright Status drop-down menu and then enter your Copyright Notice and Copyright Info URL.
3.
Select IPTC Contact from the list on the left side of the dialog and fill out all fields.
4.
Select IPTC Status and fill out the Rights Usage Terms.
5.
Click the flyout menu arrow at the top of the dialog, choose Save Metadata Template, give it a name, and click Save. Then click OK to close the File Info dialog.

In the future you can easily apply this metadata template to all your work via that same flyout menu.

If you’re using Lightroom, it’s just as easy to create a similar metadata template that you can apply to every photo as part of the Import process. Here’s how to do that from the Import Photos dialog:

1.
Click the Metadata drop-down menu and choose New,
which will launch the New Metadata Preset dialog.
2.
Complete all the fields in the IPTC Copyright and IPTC
Creator sections.
3.
Enter a name in the Preset Name field and click Create.

You’ll see that your preset name appears in the Metadata field back on the Import dialog, which means that information will be applied to the metadata of all your imported files. Just make sure that you always select that preset on future imports as well.

Of course, the key here is not to strip this data out when saving your JPEG file destined for the Web. In Photoshop, if you choose File>Save
As, then all the metadata is preserved, but if you choose File>Save for Web & Devices, only your copyright notice and copyright URL are left in the metadata, unless you check Include XMP from the Save for Web & Devices flyout menu. In Lightroom, just remember to leave Minimize Embedded Metadata unchecked on the Export dialog, or it will leave only your copyright notice, usage terms, and copyright URL in the exported copies. Tip: If you do need to strip out all but the copyright notice and copyright URL for certain uploads, make sure there’s adequate contact information for you at the copyright URL you designate.

Pros: Embeds your name and detailed contact information into the photo, no cost involved, and easy to incorporate into your workflow.
Cons: It’s not permanent and easily removed after it leaves your control.
Verdict: Make it part of your workflow now.

Adding a visible watermark
With the legal formalities out of the way, the next consideration is the application of a visible watermark, which can be anything (name, logo, copyright symbol, etc.) that’s placed somewhere on the photo and “burned” right into the pixels. Ideally, adding a watermark should serve three purposes: making the photo less useful to those who may download it; stating that it’s copyrighted; and identifying the copyright owner. According to Carolyn E. Wright (a.k.a. the Photo Attorney), a simple watermark that includes the copyright symbol and your name works great to achieve those ends. Think of it as digitally “signing” your work. With that kind of visible notification embedded in the image, it reduces the number of people who can claim they didn’t know it was copyrighted; it further cements the connection between you and your work; and it may facilitate the right people making contact with you for legitimate uses.

Three key variables to consider when applying a watermark are: size, location, and opacity. While you want to deter people from stealing your photos, you don’t want to turn off your paying customers, so finding that sweet spot between just enough and too much is a subjective decision that we each have to make.

There are a slew of free watermarking tutorials for Photoshop out there (including some at www.layersmagazine.com). Just do a search for “watermark.” But the simplest way is to use the Type tool (T) to enter the © symbol and your name. (To create the copyright symbol, just press Option-G [PC: hold the Alt key and enter 0169 using the numeric keypad]).

When exporting photos from Lightroom, you can leverage the copyright metadata you already entered and check the Add Copyright Watermark box on the Export dialog. This pulls the data you entered in the Copyright field and displays it as a small white watermark on each exported photo. For a more configurable watermark option from Lightroom, I highly recommend the LR/Mogrify Export plug-in (donationware) at http://timothyarmes.com/lrmogrify.php. And there are also low-cost watermark applications for both Mac and Windows, such as iWatermark (http://scriptsoftware.com/iwatermark) and Dropwatermark (http://dropwatermark
.com) that are great for batch watermarking large groups of photos.

Pros: Literally puts your name on your work where people can see it, and there are lots of options for how it looks.
Cons: Can detract from the eye appeal of the photo; may not be appropriate for every place you upload photos to; and can be digitally cropped or removed.
Verdict: Do it when you can, and as appropriate for that outlet.

Diminish usefulness with diminished sizes
People can only use what you make available. The usefulness of a photo decreases as its pixel dimensions decrease, and of course the eye appeal decreases at the same time. The sweet spot you’re looking for is just large enough to meet the needs for which you’re uploading the image—and no larger. Whether you’re making comps available to potential customers, posting photos to Flickr, or uploading them to your blog, the reason you’re uploading the image is the determining factor in how big is big enough.
Before we go any further, there’s a huge point of confusion around the word “resolution” that often enters this type of discussion. On the Web, the resolution of a photo is simply a function of its pixel dimensions (that is, x pixels long by y pixels wide). You may often hear people say, “Only put photos at 72 ppi on the Web,” but the term “ppi” (pixels per inch) is meaningless in regards to Web display; it’s just a metadata tag that tells a printer how large to print a given photo. Onscreen, however, it’s pixel dimensions that determine the size (and usefulness) of the photo.

For example, if you take a photo that’s 800×600 pixels into Photoshop and open the Image Size dialog (Image>Image Size), you can uncheck the Resample Image box and set the Resolution field to any number you desire. Let’s say we set it to 300. All we’ve done is set the document size to print that photo at 300 ppi—the photo’s still 800×600 pixels.

Now, keep Resample Image unchecked and change the Resolution to 72 to set the document size to print that photo at 72 ppi. But it’s still the same 800×600-pixel image we had before. Nothing about the pixels has changed.

If you saved a copy of that photo at 300 ppi and another copy at 72 ppi and put them both in a webpage, they’d both take up exactly 800×600 pixels onscreen. There would be absolutely no difference in the quality of the two photos and anyone who downloaded either one could just as simply set the resolution to any value just as we did.

So, how large is large enough will vary with your needs. After polling some of the staff at Digital Web magazine (thanks to Nick Fink and Matthew Pennel), a slew of photographers, and the Photo Attorney, the dimensions of 800×800 pixels seemed to emerge as the upper limit you should consider making images available for display purposes.

Pros: Easy to implement, resulting in smaller file size, which leads to faster upload time and less storage requirements.
Cons: Too small size can reduce visual impact.
Verdict: Err on the side of being a little too small.

JPEG over-compression
While I’m not a big fan of this method, it’s used often enough that we’ll address it here. Some people use the lossy nature of the JPEG-compression algorithm as a means to slightly degrade the photo in an attempt to decrease its usefulness to others. While this can be effective to a certain extent, I find that degrading the photo quality usually runs counter to most reasons for why you’d put the photo online in the first place. It may also give the impression that the quality of the original file is poor, which is the last thing you’d want people to think.

Saving images as JPEGs is part and parcel of putting them online, so choosing a compression level will always come into play. Generally speaking, you always want to use as much compression as possible to reduce file size (which has ramifications for file storage and bandwidth), but without introducing visible JPEG compression artifacting. If you want to use artifacting as a theft deterrent, then you’d add a little more. This is very subjective and you, as the artist, need to be satisfied with how your work is displayed.

The Save for Web & Devices dialog in Photoshop is great for getting a visual on the effect of the amount of JPEG compression being applied. It even has five JPEG presets (Low, Medium, High, Very High, and Maximum) that correspond to the Quality setting being used. The High preset uses a Quality setting of 60, which is often a good starting point, as it reduces file size quite a bit with minimal artifacting. You can then adjust the Quality slider as needed. Here’s an example at the Low setting that works as advertised. Note: I’m referring specifically to settings used for displaying your work, not for delivering to a client or stock agency where high quality trumps file size and minimal compression is desired.

Lightroom doesn’t offer a visual during export, but it does use the same 0–100 quality scale, so start with 60 and check your results.

Pros: Reduced file size, speeds upload time, and decreases storage demands.
Cons: Too much compression can degrade visual impact.
Verdict: Use with caution, as you don’t want to give the wrong impression.

Finding your photos in use
Okay, so you’ve registered your copyright, embedded your metadata, applied a conspicuous (but not too obtrusive) watermark, resized the photo to a size you feel will get the job done, applied a suitable amount of JPEG compression, and released your photo to the wilds of the Internet. Now what? How will you know if they’re used without your permission? Admittedly this isn’t an easy task but there are some interesting technology solutions available.

We already mentioned PicScout and if you’re a photographer dealing with rights-managed work and not already using the service (or not submitting work to an agency that is), you might want to consider giving it a test drive. There are fees involved but there’s also great potential to recoup losses on unauthorized usages. Go to www.picscout.com to learn more.
For the rest of us, there’s an interesting alternative called TinEye that’s currently in private beta release. This image search engine uses its own proprietary image-recognition technology to compare your photos against its (growing) search index of images found on the Web. TinEye is constantly building its search index by crawling the Web and analyzing each image it encounters. With more than 1 billion images already indexed, Leila Boujnane (the co-founder and CEO of TinEye’s parent company Idée) expects to have tens of billions of images indexed by 2009. To use this technology, you just upload a photo, paste in a link, or use a browser plug-in to quickly search the Web to see if your image is found. Head over to http://tineye.com to learn more and request an invite. The days of wondering where your images are used online will soon be over.

Putting your photos on the Web involves a series of decisions and compromises, but there’s a lot to be gained. While you should never put any work on the Web that you absolutely wouldn’t want to see used without your permission, you shouldn’t be afraid to share your work with the world. Just remember that the power to protect your copyright starts with you.

This video requires Adobe Flash Player.

Working with Flash Sound by Tom Green
Tom Green’s got the right idea here - it’s all about the playing around! In this video, he talks about the process of taking code to audio visualization in Flash CS4, and without having to delve too deep into it, making changes to it for some interesting results. Its very interesting listen, and even comes with some cool Jazz. Click on the link below for more information:

Flash Audio Visualization by Tom Green

Shooting a Silhouette by Jean Francois Okane
Jean Francois is back at it again with a new video on shooting Silhouette images. Definitely something cool to check out. Click on the link below to see the video.

Lighting and Shooting a Silhouette

OK.. so i’m off to see if I can do some shooting this weekend. Wish me luck! Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

This video requires Adobe Flash Player.

Begin in Illustrator
As you can see, the sign is made up of colorful letters that are embedded in metal shapes that extrude from the edge of the building. Begin by drawing the paths that make up the basic letterforms of the store logo in Adobe Illustrator, and then export the basic shapes to Photoshop via Edit>Copy in Illustrator and Edit>Paste in Photoshop. Select Path in the Paste dialog. These paths will be used later as selections for the basic metal shapes and colored parts of the letters.

In Illustrator, you can create the extruded sides of the metal casings using the 3D tools. Start by giving the shapes a black Stroke with no Fill color. To achieve the slight depth visible on the sides of the logo facing the viewer, choose Effect>3D>Extrude & Bevel. Modify the x- and y-axes slightly, just enough to get the desired visible edge, then set the Perspective to a value that matches the viewing angle for the overall image.

Now set the surface lighting to give the shapes added dimension and highlights, making them appear to be made of metal. In the Surface section of the 3D Extrude & Bevel dialog (click the More Options button if you don’t see it) set the direction of the light, as well as its parameters, to give the appearance that the light is coming from below, as it is in the actual scene. The black outline extruded the letters in black, demonstrating the reaction to light with a series of gray values.

To get the sides of the letters on the left part of the sign that’s facing away from the viewer, duplicate the layer by dragging it to the Create New Layer icon in the Layers panel. Hide the original layer and then target all the paths in the duplicated layer. Open the Appearance panel (Window>Appearance), and click the 3D Extrude & Bevel effect to edit it. Further modify the x- and y-axes with a greater emphasis on the y-axis to turn the letters away from the viewer, thus exposing the entire sides. The Perspective remains the same as before but adjust the Extrude Depth to give the shapes the appropriate depth. Make sure you adjust the highlights too.

Assemble in Photoshop
Once the two different sides of the logo are complete, send each layer to Photoshop via Edit>Copy in Illustrator and Edit>Paste in Photoshop. This time, however, paste them as Pixels. Because the gray values were created in Illustrator, this will import the shapes into Photoshop with all their appropriate tonalities in place. If you paste the layers separately, each shape will be imported into its own layer.

After moving each layer into position, the face of the letters is next. With the Path Selection tool (A), place the originally imported paths in position over the their three-dimensional counterparts. Click the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, choose a gray color, head over to the Paths panel, and click the Fill Path with Foreground Color icon.

Create another new layer to fill each individual letter shape with the bright colors that match the actual sign. Because the entire logo is a set of paths, use the Path Selection tool to select each letter, and fill the letters with the appropriate colors with the Fill Path with Foreground Color icon in the Paths panel. Now click the Add Layer Style icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Inner Shadow from the list. This will make the letters appear slightly indented into the metal cases. With the Layer Style dialog still open, choose Stroke from the Styles list. Adding a Stroke layer style gives the letters an edge, thus making them look separated from the metal shapes of the cases.

Now create a clipping group with the brightly colored letters layer and the layer containing the gray letters. To do this, press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and click between the two layers in the Layers panel. Using the Move tool, move the colored letters to the right and down slightly to expose the gray letters underneath. This creates the effect of seeing the inside edge of the metal shapes where the colored letters are indented.

More detail
To add a little more dimension to the inside edges of the metal casing visible along the edge of the colored letters, use the Dodge and Burn tools to create highlights and shadows along the inside edge. Because the inside edge is made of metal, it’s necessary to add these shadows and reflections to complete the effect. In the two-dimensional workspace of Photoshop, how you handle highlights and shadows will give an object a sense of what material it’s made of.

With the colored part of the letters visible, move them further down than they should be to allow the highlighted edge to be easily visible. Can you see how the shadows and highlights give the edge that added dimension, making the whole image appear three-dimensional?

What’s next?
Once all the elements are in place, we’ll add the final details to make the sign look real. One of those details is the presence of dirt. What would a New York scene be without a little dirt here and there? This painting will take at least another year to complete.

Though the concept of 3D tends to scare many people, it’s there to make things easier. Understanding how it works will open the door to creating many effects that before required many convoluted steps and still didn’t guarantee the best results. I love telling people, “Sit there and play.” Think of yourself as a sculptor and create shapes. What about lighting? You can add and position multiple light sources and create a mood, as you would for that perfect photograph. The only difference in this lighting is that you’re using a lot less electricity. That’s important nowadays. Have fun!

The Nikon Screening Room
I got this in the email and thought it was very cool. Nikon has released The Nikon Screening Room, a place where you can see videos taken from the D90 and the D5000. The site is also augmented by the addition of videos from Award Winning Director of Photography - Harris Savides:

“Nikon Inc. today announces the official launch of the Nikon D-Movie Screening Room (www.nikondmovie.com), an online collection of creative and inspiring videos captured with Nikon’s D90 and D5000 D-SLR cameras. Award-winning director of photography Harris Savides showcases an artistic compilation of life’s most common, anonymous and beautiful moments. Savides, known for his work on Gus Van Sant’s Milk and Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, will be joined in the screening room by other accomplished professionals, as well as aspiring film makers and D-SLR photographers.”

Click on this link to be taken to the Nikon Screening Room

Review of NIKKOR AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G
Mike McKenzie also goes over the NIKKOR AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G lens for us:

“If you’re a Nikon shooter and you’ve been contemplating buying a reasonably priced, professional prime lens, you should give serious consideration to the new NIKKOR AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G. What makes this lens so special? For less than $200, you get a fast, lightweight, well-made lens that features Nikon’s Silent Wave Motor, so focusing is quick and quiet.”

Click here to read the rest of the review