Whether you’re familiar with compositing or you’ve always wanted to explore it, you’ll love Mark Johnson’s latest video tutorial series, “Dramatic Portrait Compositing: From Capture to Completion,” because it reveals every secret you need to accomplish mind-blowing composites. Although the specific focus of this series is on creating a dramatic portrait composite using a studio-lit model and an edgy HDR background, the concepts covered here apply to every type of compositing, whether the subject is a person, a pencil, or anything in between. Through precise control of light, color, texture, and atmospheric effects both in the studio and in Photoshop, it’s possible to craft scenes that would be nearly impossible to capture solely with a camera.

You’ll learn how to…

1. Light and photograph a subject for compositing
2. Capture a striking background
3. Make accurate selections
4. Use Photomatix Pro to stylize the background
5. Merge the subject with the background by balancing light and color
6. Add dramatic atmospheric effects that help sell the composite
7. Finish the composite using Nik Color Efex Pro Complete
8. Create the popular edgy look made famous by Joel Grimes

To view the complete contents, watch the Introduction, and to order, visit www.msjphotography.com.

About Mark S. Johnson Photography

Mark S. Johnson is an Adobe Photoshop luminary, a photographer, an author, and one of the most passionate instructors you will ever encounter. Through the Rocky Mountain School of Photography, The Radiant Vista, and Boulder Digital Arts, Mark has lectured in front of and worked side-by-side with countless individuals, including Adobe’s Chief Executive Officers, Jane Goodall, the U.S. Ambassador to Finland, and 2010 Academy Award winning director, Louie Psihoyos. His tutorials appear regularly on the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) web site, and his imagery and articles have been featured in Photo Techniques, Nature’s Best, and After Capture magazines. Watch hundreds of Mark’s free and entertaining Photoshop tutorials at www.msjphotography.com.

Join Photoshop luminary Mark S. Johnson from May 3 through May 12 as he introduces Photoshop CS6′s most exhilarating new features in a series of ten enlightening video tutorials. To view the tutorial series, visit www.msjphotography.com.

Tutorial Schedule:

1. Thursday, May 3

   Episode One – Content-Aware Move and Patch
   Learn how to move a subject while simultaneously (and miraculously) hiding the original.

2. Friday, May 4

   Episode Two – Camera Raw Improvements
   Discover the brave new world of Camera Raw editing, complete with improved Tone Correction sliders, better Clarity, and brushable White Balance and Noise Reduction.

3. Saturday, May 5

   Episode Three – The New Blur Gallery
   If you’ve ever dreamed of selectively controlling depth of field during post-production, you’ll get a kick out of the new Blur Gallery. Use Field Blur to produce a graduated blur, Iris Blur for shallow depth of field, and Tilt-Shift Blur to simulate the look of photographing a toy model.

4. Sunday, May 6

   Episode Four – Adaptive Wide Angle Lens Correction
   Fix geometric distortion and perspective issues caused by a fisheye or wide-angle lens using blazing fast on-canvas controls.

5. Monday, May 7

   Episode Five – The World’s Best Oil Paint Filter
   Adobe holds the title for the best and easiest to use Oil Paint filter. Come see what I mean.

6. Tuesday, May 8

   Episode Six – Crop Tool Refinements
   Experience the completely reengineered Crop Tool and the new Perspective Crop Tool.

7. Wednesday, May 9

   Episode Seven – Color Range Skin Tone Detection
   Learn how to quickly create selections of skin that make color correction a snap.

8. Thursday, May 10

   Episode Eight – The Overhauled Lighting Effects Filter
   Discover a faster, more dynamic Lighting Effects Filter that produces stunning lighting and texture results.

9. Friday, May 11

   Episode Nine – 3D Enhancements in Photoshop CS6 Extended
   Learn how to generate realistic 3D effects complete with lights and shadows using a more intuitive user interface.

10. Saturday, May 12

    Episode Ten – Little Improvements that Make a Big Difference
    These “Just Do It” (JDI) improvements won’t get much hype, but boy will they make a big difference!

About Mark S. Johnson Photography

Mark S. Johnson is an Adobe Photoshop luminary, a photographer, an author, and one of the most passionate instructors you will ever encounter. Through the Rocky Mountain School of Photography, The Radiant Vista, and Boulder Digital Arts, Mark has lectured in front of and worked side-by-side with countless individuals, including Adobe’s Chief Executive Officers, Jane Goodall, the U.S. Ambassador to Finland, and 2010 Academy Award winning director, Louie Psihoyos. His tutorials appear regularly on the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) web site, and his imagery and articles have been featured in Photo Techniques, Nature’s Best, and After Capture magazines. Watch hundreds of Mark’s free and entertaining Photoshop tutorials at www.msjphotography.com.

Two of my favorite photographic educators are now offering a new vision of the traditional photographic workshop. Tony Rizzuto and Elizabeth Stone, both old friends and constant sources of inspiration, are starting a new workshop and online critique company centered around fostering personal artistic growth. As someone who teaches digital photography and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for a living, I can say with confidence that this is a unique opportunity to learn from two of the best educators working in photography today. –David Marx

Photographer’s Breakthrough: Personal Photographic Education

The Photographer’s Breakthrough offers a fresh, student-focused experience delivered by two passionate and seasoned educators: Tony Rizzuto and Elizabeth Stone. A highly individualized approach to education is at the core of each student’s experience. Through a mixture of online critique, mentoring and inspiration combined with in-field education Photographer’s Breakthrough ensure that the needs of each photographer are identified and true artistic breakthroughs are achieved.

Daily Online Video Critiques

Improve your photography daily. Each Photographer’s Breakthrough member receives two video taped critiques of their own images and will have access to the daily critique section of the site. Critiques are targeted to the goals and skill level of each member. The process of regularly gaining inspiration from the work of others as well as listening to honest feedback will help your own photography mature.

Field Workshops

Combine spectacular locations with instructors by your side, surround yourself with others that share your passion for photography and figure out those buttons that don’t make sense. At each location, we handle the details so you can focus on your photography. In each Breakthrough Workshop we identify your specific needs, give personalized assignments and feedback during the week. Plus, we follow up after the workshop, all in an effort to help you unlock your potential.

Workshop highlights include:

• Two full-time instructors in the field and classroom
• Pre and post workshop mentoring and critique
• Individualized assignments
• Rich group experience
• Daily critiques
• One on one sessions at the end of the workshop
• Well scouted daily field shoots (and coffee houses) in spectacular locations

Who leads these workshops and critiques?

Tony Rizzuto and Elizabeth Stone have been passionate about the art of photography and teaching for more than a decade. They have been inspiring students in classes across the US and internationally, in some of the prettiest spots of the world. In each class they strive to help students find their photographic voice, strengthen their skills and perfect their craft.

In 2011, they joined forces and created Photographer’s Breakthrough; a new venture dedicated to inspiring and teaching photographers of all skill levels through personalized mentoring, workshops, online critiques, and resources. We meet you at your level, recognize you as an individual and help you grow. We do it with enthusiasm, attention to detail, and a touch of humor.

About Tony in Elizabeth’s Words from Photographer's Breakthrough on Vimeo.

About Elizabeth in Tony’s words from Photographer's Breakthrough on Vimeo.

Star trails over Electric Peak. This image was created by stacking together a series of short exposures.

21st Century Landscape Tricks

I did make two changes to my presentation after the lecture. First, I added active hyperlinks to all of the websites and applications that I discussed. This links are now included in the pdf! I also removed the demo movies to keep the file size reasonable. Just in case you want to see them again here are the videos that I showed during the lecture.

3D Sunset Predictions Using Google Earth Demonstration:

Time-Lapse Video Demonstrations:

I recommend reading Jim M. Goldstein’s excellent eBook on Photographing the 4th Dimension-Time if you would like to learn more about time-lapse or star stacking techniques.

If you enjoyed my presentation please consider joining me for an Adobe Photoshop Lightroom seminars or a digital photography field workshop. Thanks again to the Shooting the West committee and all the awesome participants. I hope to see ya’ll again next year!

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is an image management tool for serious digital photographers!

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is designed to streamline and accelerate the serious digital photographer’s daily workflow by taking the best features from many other digital photography programs and combining them together into a single fluid package. Photoshop Lightroom is fun, efficient, powerful, and creative. Lightroom is an excellent tool for professional photographers and serious hobbyists who need an image management system that is capable of tracking thousands of images and multiple hard drives.

Photoshop Lightroom is a huge help to serious digital photographers, but the complexities of Lightroom’s image cataloging system are overkill for most “point and shoot” photo enthusiasts. Other programs, such as Apple’s iPhoto, Google’s Picassa, or Adobe’s Photoshop Elements, are more appropriate tools for novice computer users and the average snapshot photographer. Photoshop Lightroom is a “professional-grade” application with advanced, and complicated, tools and features. Don’t be scared though once you grasp some core concepts this program is fun and very forgiving. Our expert instruction has helped thousands of photographers master this awesome tool.

Who benefits from this program?

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is an excellent image management system for single-employee photography businesses, like mine, and for most of the dedicated amateur photographers who frequent our digital photography field workshops. For solo photographers, Lightroom is an indispensable tool but this it is not necessarily the ideal image management solution for large photography studios and businesses that employ multiple photographers.

Unfortunately, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is not a “network-ready” application and the core Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog file cannot be run on more than one computer at a time. Lightroom is not designed for collaborative projects with multiple simultaneous database users. This limitation makes it a poor choice for busy photography studios and for news-reporting organizations.

What can Adobe Photoshop Lightroom do for you?

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can help you create a searchable index of your photographs. This searchable index is called a Lightroom Catalog. The Catalog is a visual database that you can use to instantly sort and search through hundreds or thousands of digital images. Hunting down the perfect image is painless once you understand how to use Lightroom’s powerful search tools.

There is more to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom though than just a searchable image database; this is also a powerful tool for digital image enhancement. As you will see throughout our tutorials, it is easy to make a digital image sing using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s sophisticated raw processing tools. Lightroom’s image enhancement tools are truly state-of-the-art. What’s even more impressive is that you can use these tools to enhance multiple images at the same time. Bulk image repair has never been this fast and efficient.

Finally, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a workflow tool that makes sharing an improved image extremely easy. Lightroom includes a slideshow utility, an ink-jet printer control module, and the ability to create web pages and galleries. It also makes sharing copies of your images with social networking sites like Facebook or Flickr ridiculously easy.

The “secret beauty” of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is in its automation and efficiency. Power Lightroom users learn to create “templates” and “presets” within this program to avoid repetitive tasks. Learning how to automate most of the repetitive steps involved in professional-grade image delivery is a great blessing. Mastering Adobe Photoshop Lightroom means capitalizing on every possible time-saving feature!

The latest version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom pushes these concepts to new levels. Lightroom users who truly understand this software will love the way that the newest tools and features expedite the entire workflow. Lightroom 4’s new Map Module, for example, enables us to search through our geocoded images simply by zooming in on a Google map!

Lightroom 4’s new Develop Module controls can draw out unprecedented levels of highlight and shadow detail. These new tools enable us to see detail in a digital image that we have never seen before. Finally, the new Book Module makes it easy to order beautiful bound books of our images from Blurb publishing without ever leaving the core Lightroom application. There has never been a better time to master this powerful and creative software!

Where can I buy Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4?

I like to try out any program before I buy it and I suggest that you do the same. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 is a wonderful tool for photographers like me but there is no reason for you to give Adobe your money until you are convinced that this software meets your needs. The good folks at Adobe agree with this “try before you buy philosophy.” So use this link to download the full Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 program and try it out for thirty days before investing!

Once you are convinced that this software will work for you I suggest purchasing either the full boxed Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 software, or the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Upgrade from a reputable merchant like Amazon.com. The Upgrade version is available only to photographers who posses a valid serial number for an older version of this product.

Getting Started with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

It pays to do a little research and a little thinking before you jump into this software. I strongly suggest reading our complete tutorial on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog Creation and Image Storage Fundamentals. For those who just can’t wait to get started here are two short tutorials on how to install Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 and how to create a Lightroom Catalog.

We have a slew of additional articles and videos that can help guide you through the learning process. Again, I strongly suggest reading our Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog Creation and Image Storage Fundamentals tutorial before you get too involved with this program. Understanding what the Lightroom Catalog does, and where to store your images, can take a lot of the pain out of this program’s learning curve.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is now available! You can make the switch now. There are some great new features including expanded shadow and highlight recovery, the new Map Module, and the ability to order beautiful books of your photography directly from Blurb press without leaving the main program. Most surprising of all, the newest version of this awesome software is available for a significantly lower price.

Yes, I said lower price. The full retail version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 is just $149 (US) and the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Upgrade for existing Lightroom users is just $79! For a complete list of the new features, and technical details, see http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2012/03/lightroom-4-0-now-available.html

Be aware that the new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 software will not work with Microsoft Windows XP or older 32-bit versions of the Apple OS X operating system. The new software requires a very modern operating system. Please make sure that your computer meets these system requirements before you purchase the new software:

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book Module

Mac

• Multicore Intel® processor with 64-bit support
• Mac OS X v10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) or v10.7 (Lion)
• 2GB of RAM
• 1GB of available hard-disk space
• 1024×768 display
• DVD-ROM drive
• Internet connection required for Internet-based services*

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 New Graduated Filter Controls

Windows

• Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 processor
• Microsoft® Windows Vista® with Service Pack 2 or Windows 7 with Service Pack 1
• 2GB of RAM
• 1GB of available hard-disk space
• 1024×768 display
• DVD-ROM drive
• *Internet connection required for Internet-based services*

Based on my extremely unscientific testing, I would suggest that you need at least 4 gigabytes of RAM and a display that can produce more than 1024×768 pixels to truly enjoy this software. All versions of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom run better with more RAM and faster processing chips. It is also worth noting that use of the new Map Module requires a strong Internet connection. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 uses the Google Maps technology to power this module, so don’t expect any of the tools in this area to function if you are not online.

If you find our tutorials useful, please consider joining us for one of our Adobe Photoshop Lightroom seminars or a digital photography field workshop. We will be teaching Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 classes all over the country this year. I am on my way to teach Lightroom at the 24th Annual Shooting the West: The Nevada Photography Experience conference tomorrow morning!

Learning from the web is great, but a video tutorial is no substitute for the patient, hands-on instruction that we offer you in a structured classroom environment or a one-on-one training session. Mastering Photoshop Lightroom is much easier for those who seek out expert guidance!

We will have a slew of new Lightroom 4 video tutorials posted soon. While they are getting finished and uploaded, please check out the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta video tutorials that we posted last month:

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Tutorials:

• Introducing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Version 4 Beta
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Library Module Enhancements
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 New Map Module
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4′s Big Develop Module Changes
• Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4′s Book Module to Create a PDF Portfolio

Add Effervescence to Your Creative Juices Using Filter Forge and Adobe Photoshop CS5

Mark S. Johnson’s most requested video tutorial series ever, Maximum Creativity with Filter Forge and Adobe Photoshop CS5, is available for immediate download! Featuring 16 indispensable video tutorials and more than 2 1/2 hours of instruction, this series will invigorate your creative juices.

Filter Forge is the most versatile and exciting software that Mark has encountered in a long time. When it’s partnered with Adobe Photoshop CS5, there’s simply no limit to your creativity. Unlike other filter products that often meet just one need, such as black and white effects or sharpening, Filter Forge is multi-faceted. It features over 4000 creative photo effects and almost 4500 realistic textures. The number of effects and textures is growing by the day because Filter Forge filters are created not by 10 engineers in a lab, but by thousands of users from around the globe. Because there are so many contributors, Filter Forge is home to several of the most breathtaking and realistic effects that Mark has ever seen. Each of these effects can be applied directly to a photograph or can be combined with the source image in Photoshop to produce astonishing results.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

1) Introduction
2) How to purchase Filter Forge at a big discount
3) Why it makes sense to use Filter Forge as a stand-alone application rather than as a Photoshop plug-in
4) Understanding the Filter Forge interface
5) Mark’s favorite Filter Forge effects and textures
6) How to back up your Filter Forge library
7) Blending watercolor with photorealism
Adding watercolor and film frames
9) Generating a seamless texture for tiling in Photoshop
10) Creating a starry sky for compositing
11) Generating fog for compositing
12) Producing a texture to use as a distressed mask in Photoshop
13) Old drawing blend effects
14) Mixing a photo with a crosshatch drawing
15) Creating a radial acrylic explosion
16) Adding a grunge frame with a transparent background

Each lesson opens with an explanation of the technique followed by a concrete example. Viewers are then guided step-by-step through the creative process from start to finish using either their own images or the provided sample images.

To view the complete contents, watch the Introduction, and to order, visit www.msjphotography.com.

About Mark S. Johnson Photography

Mark S. Johnson is an Adobe Photoshop luminary, a photographer, an author, and one of the most passionate instructors we have ever encountered. Through the Rocky Mountain School of Photography, The Radiant Vista, and Boulder Digital Arts, Mark has lectured in front of and worked side-by-side with countless individuals, including Adobe’s Chief Executive Officers, Jane Goodall, the U.S. Ambassador to Finland, and 2010 Academy Award winning director, Louie Psihoyos. His tutorials appear regularly on the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) web site, and his imagery and articles have been featured in Photo Techniques, Nature’s Best, and After Capture magazines. I watch Mark’s free and entertaining Photoshop tutorials every week at www.msjphotography.com.

We are not paid to endorse any of Mark S. Johnson’s Photoshop videos, books, and workshops. We post these updates about Mark’s educational products because this guy never fails to inspire us. — David Marx

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s New Book Module

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta Book Module

Once I started experimenting, though, I quickly discovered that you can also use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s new Book Module to create your own PDF “portfolio pieces” that combine images and words! This is not a replacement for Adobe InDesign or a professional-grade page layout program, but it is a wonderful new way for me to share my photography with friends, students, and clients.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s new export to PDF via the Book Module made it easy for me to put together this PDF portfolio without having to buy and learn any additional software. Right click on this link to download my Landscape Portfolio PDF!

One of my favorite digital landscape photographers, Jim M. Goldstein, has been distributing his best images this way for a few years. Goldstein has also written an excellent eBook on Photographing the 4th Dimension-Time. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s book module is not powerful enough to make a professional-looking eBook yet, but it is already more than adequate for creating nice portfolio pieces. This video tutorial demonstrates the “Export to PDF from Book Module” process.

I must again warn you that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta is still a beta program. It’s new and not everything works properly yet. The Book Module, in particular, is full of oddities and unexpected behavior. Try it out, but please don’t forget that this is very, very new and still has a few kinks to be worked out before we get the finished product.

Related Tutorials:

• Introducing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Version 4 Beta!
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s Library Module Enhancements
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s New Map Module
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s Big Develop Module Changes

Attend One of Our Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Seminars or a Digital Photography Field Workshop!

If you find our tutorials useful, please consider joining us for one of our Adobe Photoshop Lightroom seminars or a digital photography field workshop. We will be teaching Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 classes all over the country this year and leading digital photography workshops to some of America’s most scenic destinations. Learning from the web is great, but a video tutorial is no substitute for the patient, hands-on instruction that we offer you in a structured classroom environment or a one-on-one training session. Mastering Photoshop Lightroom is much easier for those who seek out expert guidance!

New Features In The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta Develop Module

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom v4 Beta New Graduated Filter Controls

New 2012 Process Version Basic Panel Controls

“If I could return in twenty years or so, I would hope to see astounding interpretations of my most expressive images. It is true that no one could print my negatives as I did, but they might well get more out of them by electronic means.” –Ansel Adams

Process Version 2012 introduces new sliders to the Basic image development panel which replace the old Exposure, Brightness, Fill Light, and Blacks sliders that we have come to know and love. It is going to take those of us who have been using this software for many years a little while to adjust to these new controls, but they are indeed improvements. Using the new sliders, we can now pull more detail out of the brightest highlight areas and the darkest shadows in our images, which will certainly be appreciated by landscape, architecture, and astral photographers, among others.

New Lateral Chromatic Aberration Repair

Chromatic aberration is the fancy scientific term for those weird color fringes that we often see around the edges of objects in our photographs; it is a photographic flaw and is something that we want to remove from our images whenever possible. We have been able to repair chromatic aberration for many years in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom using repair sliders that could hide this flaw. They were effective, but it took a bit of time to use them well and the appropriate settings often varied dramatically from image to image. In Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3, there was the option to automate this repair for certain lenses using the new Lens Profile data.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta uses an elegant new algorithm to remove chromatic aberration for all lenses. The new code is so good, we no longer need any sliders or manual controls. Fixing this common flaw now merely requires toggling a single switch! I am so impressed with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s ability to find and eliminate this problem that I have made the repair command the default behavior for my Lightroom Catalog. This video tutorial demonstrates how easy it is to fix chromatic aberration now and how to make its removal a completely automatic process!

Expanded Graduated Filter And Local Adjustment Brush Controls

“Were I entering photography now as a young man, I undoubtedly would deeply concern myself with color. I stayed with black-and-white simply because I enjoyed the controls that the process offered. I feel strongly that color photography is one of the major expressions of our time.” — Ansel Adams

I was floored when I first saw the Graduated Filter back in the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom version 2 days. The Local Adjustment Brush is nice, too, but when I really need this kind of precise image enhancement, I prefer working with Adobe Photoshop CS5 or one of the Nik software plugins like Viveza. As a sports and landscape photographer, I consider the Graduated filter to be a vital part of my image processing routines and almost all of my images are improved with graduated filters.

I am delighted to announce that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta gives us even more controls when using these tools. The new Graduated Filter and Adjustment Brush use the Process Version 2012 controls which expand their ability to recover fringe highlight and shadow detail. We can also change the white balance of the affected area when using these tools and are able to add or reduce noise and moire.

In this video tutorial, I take an old favorite, an image that I have been pleased with for many years, and push it even further using the new Graduated Filter. Although you can’t see the comparison in this video, I promise that the results I get now on this image using the new Lightroom 4 Beta tools far surpass anything that I have been able to accomplish until now!

I love it when new and improved software forces me to rework my old favorites, and even more so when the results exceed my expectations. Getting better results with new tools always reminds me that the digital processing technology available to photographers is continually improving and that my best images are never truly “done!”

Artistic Effects and Precise Color Corrections Are Now Possible Using Per Channel Curves Controls

Cross processed film effect created using per channel curves in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom v4 Beta.

For some photographers, per channel curves will be a blessing. Those needing very precise color correction or looking for a new method to create “artistic effects” are going to love the expanded capabilities. Other photographers are going to ignore this new feature entirely and, for a few, this will be terrifying. More than any other control, messing with the per channel curves can radically alter your image. Fortunately, you can always hit Reset in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and undo any horrific experiment.

One of the things that I like to do with Curves in Adobe Photoshop is to simulate the look that we used to get by “cross processing” our film. This stylized use of strange color is not appropriate for every image, but there are times when it creates a wonderful, dramatic mood.

In this video tutorial, I show examples of the cross processed look from my mentors Athena Lonsdale and Elizabeth Stone. I create the cross processed film look in this video by following an old Photoshop recipe from one of Mark S. Johnson’s fantastic Photoshop eBooks. I have mentioned Mark’s videos, books, and workshops on this site before because he is one of my favorite Photoshop instructors. If you are looking for cutting-edge Photoshop skills and artistic inspiration, please check out Mark’s website!

Related Tutorials:

• Introducing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Version 4 Beta
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s Library Module Enhancements
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s New Map Module
• Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s New Book Module to Create a PDF Portfolio

Attend One of Our Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Seminars or a Digital Photography Field Workshop!

If you find our tutorials useful, please consider joining us for one of our Adobe Photoshop Lightroom seminars or a digital photography field workshop. We will be teaching Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 classes all over the country this year and leading digital photography workshops to some of America’s most scenic destinations. Learning from the web is great, but a video tutorial is no substitute for the patient, hands-on instruction that we offer you in a structured classroom environment or a one-on-one training session. Mastering Photoshop Lightroom is much easier for those who seek out expert guidance!

What Does the New Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta Map Module Do?

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta Map Module

The new Map Module is going to be a huge help for landscape and documentary photographers and anyone seeking an easier way to organize images of the natural world!

Related Tutorials:

• Introducing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Version 4 Beta!
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s Library Module Enhancements
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s Big Develop Module Changes
• Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta’s Book Module to Create a PDF Portfolio

Attend One of Our Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Seminars or a Digital Photography Field Workshop!

If you find our tutorials useful, please consider joining us for one of our Adobe Photoshop Lightroom seminars or a digital photography field workshop. We will be teaching Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 classes all over the country this year and leading digital photography workshops to some of America’s most scenic destinations including Yellowstone National Park. Learning from the web is great, but a video tutorial is no substitute for the patient, hands-on instruction that we offer you in a structured classroom environment or a one-on-one training session. Mastering Photoshop Lightroom is much easier for those who seek out expert guidance!