Q. “Can you make a layer for a watermark in PSE so you don’t have to do the text box everytime on every picture? And if so how?”

Catherine Sim - January 13, 2010 - 6:48 am

Hi Elizabeth, I was forwarded your post about shoot to live by my friend Rachael we both have a daughter with Rett Syndrome and have become life long friends as a result of our daughters intorducing us to each other via school.
I so enjoyed your post and also have one of those photo’s of my daughter Georgina, she was bum shuffling her way out of the toilet ( her favourite hang out at that time :-) and I called her name she looked straight at me and smiled and its about the last time she looked at me as if she knew who I was its one of my first saves in the event of a fire, after the family. Georgina is now 14 and I have just received her school photo and for the first time ever the photographer bothered to take the time allow Georgina to relax and I have another precious photo to add to my list.
As we have another snow day here in England, we are so rubbish when it snows a bit in this country I think i will scan them into the computer so my friends can share my joy in old and new pictures on facebook.

Keep well and I hope someone nice comes and does your dishes every now and then :-)

elizabethhalford - January 13, 2010 - 1:27 pm

Oh thank you so SO much for your reply. We just had Grace’s first multiple disciplinary assessment today and I am sooo relieved to get that ball rolling. They’re sending Grace so many amazing pieces of equipment for standing, sitting, bathing, etc. What a huge relief. Where in the country do you live? As I get more entrenched in this world and feel that I ‘understand’ these girls a bit better I would love to do days to photograph them for their families. That would be dreamy.

Adena - February 4, 2010 - 11:40 pm

I just found your site via digital photography school and I LOVE it!! So much wonderful information and I am just a sponge. I started my interest in photography about 8 yrs ago due to scrapbooking. But it has only recently become more of a passion that I really want to pursue. I just bought a Nikon D90 and my order for Photoshop CS4 Extended is being delivered tomorrow. My question is that after I thought I researched this thoroughly and that CS4 is everything I would need, it now seem I need Lightroom also? Won’t PS CS4 do all of the image editing that I need to do? Especially interested in good skin tones/removing blemishes, etc for portraits. Thanks.

elizabethhalford - February 5, 2010 - 6:34 am

@Adena: Oh wow you sure did dive into the deep end! Lucky you with an absolutely amazing camera (love the D90) and, yes CS4 is an amazingly capable piece of software. Photoshop was developed with graphics in mind and, naturally, extended to photography easily. However, photographers have what we call a ‘workflow’ whereby we load images into our computer and put them through our own conveyor belt of customisations. In my workflow, I apply general edits in Lightroom, fix colours, apply presets, heal blemishes, alter contrast, etc and then in PS, I edit a few selected images which I want to texturise or do other special things to. Every photographer’s workflow is different. If you plan on taking a lot of photos (I would imagine so with such a beautiful camera in your hand!) then PS will be time consuming because you have to deal with each photo individually. When you have a set of images in LR, you can apply the same changes to every shot with one button rather than open > edit > save you’d have to do in PS. The list of things you ‘need’ in photography never seems to end :) Stick around I’d love to see what you come up with! Are you on Flickr?

Alison - February 5, 2010 - 9:39 am

Hi Elizabeth, I just wanted to let you know your amazing. Your so talented and its so great that your willing & able to share your knowledge & talents with people you dont even know. I absolutely love your site. I get so excited every morning to wake up and check what new posts are on your blog for the day.
Thank you for all that you do & keep up the good work!!!

Robyn Woodroffe - February 21, 2010 - 10:28 pm

Hi Elizabeth,

I just wanted to share some thouthts with you. I first “heard” of you last week, and since then have been blown away by you and your website. Not only do you use PSE–when other courses I have done or tuition attempted have only used PS and have looked down their noses at me for having an inferior product. SO it is just WONDERFUL to have someone with your talents using this medium.

Secondly I thank you for being SO generous with your ideas, information, tutorials etc. A lot of people believe knowledge is power and are reticent to pass it on, but THANKYOU for your generosity of spirit. ANd your advice is practical, and knowledgeable.

Thirdly, THANK YOU THANKYOU THANKYOU for introducing me to the Florabella actions–I bought the vintage triple set, and am so happy I could cry. I have paid an instructor a few hundred dollars to try to teach me how to do these vintage looks , with not much success. And there it is, the look I want with one click !!!

So keep up the good work , I LOVE your site,

Robyn (AUstralia)

Robyn Woodroffe - February 21, 2010 - 10:32 pm

PS What does SOOC stand for ??

elizabethhalford - February 21, 2010 - 11:03 pm

@robyn: oh my goodness what an amazing and lovely message! 1} I really want to escape full version PS if at all possible and you’re right there isn’t enough out there. 2} people try to ‘warn’ me about the dangers of sharing what I know. They say I’ll put myself out of business. I wouldn’t know anything if it weren’t for all the free help on the internet. So happy you found me too stick around! Oh and SOOC means ’straight out of camera’ xoxo

Nathan - February 25, 2010 - 10:37 pm

Hey, I was wondering how you put together that little insignia at the bottom of your photos. Not how to put it in your photos but how did you make it. I’ve been trying for hours to make a good similar one but have had no luck thanks.

elizabethhalford - February 26, 2010 - 1:30 pm

@Nathan: Hello! I had mine custom made by a designer, but you can find loads of the same type of thing at The Album Cafe (top right square over there in my sidebar —>)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Reader Question Wednesday – Watermark Layers

Posted in PSE Tips & Tuts, Reader Question Wednesday No comments

This question came from Michelle:

Q. “Can you make a layer for a watermark in PSE so you don’t have to do the text box everytime on every picture? And if so how?”

Hi Michelle thanks for a great question! Yes, of course you can and it’s super easy!

1.} Open PSE and file > new using the following:

2.} You end up with an image that looks like this:

3.} Then, layer > new fill layer > solid colour. Make a fill layer in any colour just to give you something to build your watermark against. You’ll be erasing it later.

4.} Now, you can either open a file with your logo or you can use the text tool to type your name. Whatever you want your watermark to be. For me, I’m opening my logo. Then I will drag it onto the new image. My logo is in colour, but the new image we created was done in grayscale so when I drag it onto the image, it turns B&W:

5.} Now go to filter > styles > emboss and play with the options in there until you like the look then slide the opacity of the layer down:

6.} Now delete the fill layer and you’re left with this:

7.} Now save your image as a .psd. It’s now an image you can open and drag onto your images to watermark them! You can change the opacity when you apply the watermark to images depending on how strong or weak you’d like it to be. You can rotate it, stretch it bigger or smaller, duplicate it allover the image – whatever!

THANKS FOR YOUR QUESTION, MICHELLE! AND DON’T Y’ALL FORGET TO KEEP SENDING ME YOUR QUESTIONS. LEAVE THEM IN THE COMMENTS BELOW, EMAIL THEM, TWEET THEM OR LEAVE THEM ON MY WALL.

Posted in PSE Tips & Tuts, Reader Question Wednesday

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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

18 Different B&Ws to Compare

Posted in Textures, Actions & Presets 2 comments

I got the itch to do this and now I’m googly-eyed from looking at so many different shades of grey for an hour!

IMAGE RESOLUTION REDUCED FOR QUICKER LOADING. ALL THE PRESETS AND ACTIONS ARE ADJUSTABLE ALTHOUGH I DIDN’T ADJUST THEM FOR ANY OF THESE IMAGES.

{First the Lightroom presets}

1.} Coffeeshop’s FREE LR presets called ‘CoffeeBar’

2.} Rebecca Lily’s Presets

3.} These are the ones that come in Lightroom

4.} FREE From Matt @ Lightroomkillertips.com

{Photoshop Actions used in PSE}

5.} Coffeeshop’s FREE ‘Splendor‘ and ‘Vintage News‘

6.} Florabella’s BW Actions Set

Posted in Textures, Actions & Presets

2 comments

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

How I did it Tutsday – 9th March {no presets. no actions. just plain old elbow grease}

Posted in How I did it Tuesday, Lightroom, Recipes No comments

As promised, this is how I took and edited the following photo. Not using any fancy schmancy plugins, just some good old fashioned do-it-myself elbow grease.

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{How I took it}

Camera: Canon 7D

Lens: 18-200mm

Data: 200mm, f/6.3, 1/400th second {these are the settings I was using on the boys, not necessarily what I would’ve chosen if I had time to think about it}

Surroundings: A back alley – shaded from the golden 5 o’clock sun

{Recipe}

I did everything in LR – just slid a few sliders so nothing ground breaking. I pumped up the:

Exposure
Contrast
Clarity
Brightness
Highlights
Saturation of the colours aqua and blue

Then I grabbed the adjustment brush and used a brush with amped up contrast and clarity allover the blue fence behind the cat
Added a post-crop vignette (even though I didn’t crop it. Just looked like a nicer vignette)
I added a bit to the sharpness

That’s it!

Posted in How I did it Tuesday, Lightroom, Recipes

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Monday, March 8, 2010

Before & After Monday – 8th March

Posted in Before & After Monday No comments

This week, I’m not going to try to wow you with someone’s amazing presets or actions and blahde-blah.

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I took this while out for a walk with the kids. I’m not a huge animal fan (or even a small one) but I loved the rustic location in which this kitty decided to strike a pose.

Check back tomorrow for the How I did it Tuesday about how I took and edited the photo.

Posted in Before & After Monday

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Sunday, March 7, 2010

I Have an Announcement to Make!

Posted in Personal 10 comments

Hi Mom (knew that’d get your attention. No, I’m not pregnant).

I’m really so extremely insanely excited to announce the launch of my dedicated studio site www.GlacierCake.com. Since starting my photography business only one year ago, my life has been one amazing step after another.

One of the most amazing things that opened up was the world of blogging and photography education thanks to the utterly brilliant Darren Rowse @ Digital-Photography-School.com. Thank you Darren!

Since then, my website has become a rather massive catalog of my daily bloggings and less of a place where my customers can go to view information about my business actually DOING photography (not just writing about it ’till the middle of the night – imagine that!)

That said, my husband and I are also working towards a goal of opening an actual store-front High Street photo studio in the Fall.

I’ve been sitting on the name Glacier Cake for months and was dying to tell people but kept it a secret until this week. I haven’t published it widely (although I’m very happy to tell you lovely folks) that the name is an anagram of my three childrens’ names. Couldn’t get more magical than that!

So now I can resume my daily bloggings and not worry that my customers are getting completely confused by my ElizabethHalford.com.

Now to go work on Before & After Monday for you!

-Elizabeth

Posted in Personal

10 comments