Photography

Photoshop Actions

Some actions I've created.

Darken sky

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Two actions to selectively mask the sky—one using the blue channel; the other looking for saturated blue areas.

Orton effect

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A classic landscape photography effect that enhances saturation and softens the image.

Saturation mask

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A method for producing a true saturation mask, then using the mask to selectively increase or decrease saturation without giving the “fake effect” that simply adjusting saturation would do. When increasing saturation, the highly saturated areas are masked off, to avoid clipping the color channels. When decreasing saturation, the highly saturated areas are selected, to avoid completely desaturating the more subtle tones.

You must install the HSBHSL plugin that comes on the photoshop disc (it is not automatically installed when installing photoshop). To install, find the plugin in the Goodies/Adobe Photoshop/Optional Plug-Ins/ folder (the folder names may vary slightly depending upon your version). Copy the HSBHSL folder to your adobe program directory plugins (the path will be something like C:/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop/Plug-Ins). Then restart Photoshop. The plugin should show up as a filter in the “Other” category. This action gives you several different variations--a number of different boosts/desats using the channel mixer (each labeled with the amount of effect) and one boost and one desat using the Hue/Saturation control (since the saturation can easily be adjusted after running the effect when using the Hue/Sat control). You are also left with a copy of the Saturation Mask as an alpha channel.

Lomo

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Simulates the effect of a Lomo camera. CS3 required. Uses smart filters and one adjustment layer (only one adjustment to minimize banding in 8-bit images). Each part of the effect can be tweaked afterwards.

Shopping on eBay

Lots of inexpensive used camera equipment there, but it’s best to use a “sniping” service to get the best price. You can use eBay Sniper at no cost.