February 2012

Lightroom Tutorial: Use Import Presets to Save Time and Apply Edits Automatically

Thumbnail image for Lightroom Tutorial: Use Import Presets to Save Time and Apply Edits Automatically February 29, 2012

EDIT:  Today, February 29 only, Lightroom 3 is on sale at Amazon for $89.  On March 2, Lightroom 3 is on sale at Amazon for $129. I suspect that vendors are trying to turn over their LR3 stock before Lightroom 4 is released.  This is a great way to get started in LR if you’re not [...]

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Live Online Classes: New Schedule for Lightroom and Elements (plus an Earlybird Discount)

Thumbnail image for Live Online Classes: New Schedule for Lightroom and Elements (plus an Earlybird Discount) February 24, 2012

The new Texas Chicks LIVE ONLINE class schedule for the next couple of months is ready for you! Sign up for Elements classes here.  The Elements classes consist of 3 hour and a half to two hour classes. Is it Lightroom you’re ready to master?  Register for LR classes here.  The Lightroom series has 2 [...]

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Lightroom Tutorial: Correct Distortion and Remove Vignetting (Yes, your photos are distorted. You just didn’t notice.)

Thumbnail image for Lightroom Tutorial: Correct Distortion and Remove Vignetting (Yes, your photos are distorted. You just didn’t notice.) February 24, 2012

Lightroom can do amazing things. You probably didn’t even realize your photos were distorted, right?  And you think a lot about adding vignettes without realizing that your photos might have natural vignetting already.  The distortion and vignetting in the image below has been corrected.  Mouseover it for the before view. Pin It Big difference, right? [...]

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Photography Tutorial: Back Button Focus (Reprise)

Thumbnail image for Photography Tutorial: Back Button Focus (Reprise) February 23, 2012

Back Button Focus is one of those intimidating photography techniques that we hear about and think they might help, if only we could figure them out.  In my opinion anyway. Pin It I wrote about BBF a long time ago and used it for a couple of years, but have drifted away from it lately. [...]

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Photoshop Elements Tutorial: Free Transform to Resize and Locate

Thumbnail image for Photoshop Elements Tutorial: Free Transform to Resize and Locate February 22, 2012

Free Transform is a Photoshop Elements command that lets you size and locate design elements in your photo or graphic file. Pin It You’ll most often see it in one of the following situations: Adding a texture to an image (locate and size the texture to fit the image) Watermarking an image (place the watermark [...]

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Camera Tutorial: My Menu Settings, Part 2

Thumbnail image for Camera Tutorial: My Menu Settings, Part 2 February 17, 2012

Yesterday, I wrote about the Quick Menu settings that I shoot with on my Canon 7D and 5DMII.  Today, I’ll be going through the big menus on both cameras! And you thought yesterday’s post was wordy…. A few notes before we begin.  I’m only going to address the settings that I’ve changed – if I [...]

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Camera Tutorial: Want to Know What My Camera Settings Are?

Thumbnail image for Camera Tutorial: Want to Know What My Camera Settings Are? February 16, 2012

My blog post a few weeks ago about changing a setting on your camera to improve focus generated some questions about my other menu settings.  What a fabulous idea for a tutorial! Camera configuration is a work in progress – as you learn new techniques, tweak your style or learn about your camera, you can [...]

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Lightroom Tutorial: Make This Your First Step Every Time You Edit a Raw Photo

Thumbnail image for Lightroom Tutorial: Make This Your First Step Every Time You Edit a Raw Photo February 15, 2012

You know how you load your photos into Lightroom, and the first time you look at a photo it looks great for just a second, and then it becomes dull and less vibrant? What you are seeing for that split second is a JPG.  The diference between Raw and JPG photos is that cameras add [...]

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Photoshop Elements Tutorial: How to Move Actions When You Upgrade PSE

Thumbnail image for Photoshop Elements Tutorial: How to Move Actions When You Upgrade PSE February 14, 2012

As if it’s not hard enough to install actions into Photoshop Elements, what happens to your actions when you decide to upgrade to the latest version of PSE? The unfortunate answer is that you have to re-install the suckers. Luckily, you can, in most cases, just copy the files from your old version of Elements [...]

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The Difference Between the Canon 7D and 5D Mark II, in Plain English

Thumbnail image for The Difference Between the Canon 7D and 5D Mark II, in Plain English February 10, 2012

My Canon 7D has been an incredible friend for the past 2 years.  And I’m looking forward to the same type of relationship with my new 5D Mark II.  (Thanks again, Photovision.) As I’ve been getting to know this new camera, I’ve paid special attention to what’s different about it compared to the 7D. Since [...]

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Do You Need Photoshop Elements AND Lightroom?

Thumbnail image for Do You Need Photoshop Elements AND Lightroom? February 9, 2012

Lightroom vs. Photoshop Elements.  I am asked a lot which one to buy – this is a tough question! Personally, I couldn’t live without either.  And I would rather have LR+PSE any day over full Photoshop by itself. So here is how I answer that question when I’m asked: If you are professional photographer or [...]

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Photoshop Elements Tutorial: The Best Way to Soften Skin

Thumbnail image for Photoshop Elements Tutorial: The Best Way to Soften Skin February 8, 2012

Each time I teach a Photoshop Elements class, the top thing that people want to know how to do is to smooth and soften skin. There are about 46,000,000 ways to do this in PSE.  Here are 3 of them, along with a comparison. The first thing I can say is that the softening methods [...]

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Ready, Set, Actions! Free Download for You

Thumbnail image for Ready, Set, Actions! Free Download for You February 7, 2012

Did you know that you can read the first 2 and a half chapters of my eBook, Ready, Set, Actions! for free, just by liking my Facebook page? You will learn: What actions will do and what they won’t do An overview of the two ways to install actions into PSE What to do before [...]

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What to Do When You Get a New Camera (Do This For Your Old Camera Too)

Thumbnail image for What to Do When You Get a New Camera (Do This For Your Old Camera Too) February 3, 2012

Do you want to hit the ground running with your new camera? Or what if you don’t have a new camera?  I suspect that most of us haven’t done all this anyway on the cameras we’ve had for a while, so these are good tips for everyone. Read the manual.  Read all of it, cover [...]

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