PhotoWalkPro

A couple of months ago, HDR Soft, the creators of the vastly popular Photomatix Pro HDR software, released a new version of their software called Photomatix Light.  This new version is meant to take all the heavy lifting out of the HDR process by reducing the number of sliders and making things much more automatic for the beginning HDR enthusiast.  I hadn’t given much thought to the product but after receiving quite a few inquiries from my readers I thought perhaps I should give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been waiting for this one for awhile now.  The folks at Unified Color have finally released the Mac version of their HDR software for the Mac OS.  HDR PhotoStudio has been available for Windows users for quite some time and there has been promise of a Mac release and now I can’t wait to get my hands on it and give it a try.  I know a couple of people that have been using it and getting some fantastic results but since I work primarily on my Mac I didn’t want to commit until they released a version that would fit in with the rest of my image editing workflow.  it just never made sense to have all of my images on my Mac except for the ones that I wanted to perform HDR processing on. Read the rest of this entry »

It seems like everything you see these days that relates to photography is always so serious.  Everything is so artsy and pure.  So what happened to having some fun taking pictures?  That’s the reason I started taking pictures some 28 years ago.  It wasn’t because I had visions of being some great artist who would spread his vision to the world.  Nope, I just thought it was a whole lot of fun.  It was that same sense of fun that ignited my passion for Photoshop.  It wasn’t that I could take digitized images and create art, it was more along the lines of taking the clone tool and adding a third eye to someone’s forehead (c’mon, you know you’ve done it too).  So when I saw the new Play With Pictures software program from Vertus, I had to give it a whirl, not because I thought it would be a powerful tool for my photographic processing arsenal but because it just looked fun.

Vertus is the company behind my favorite Photoshop knockout plug-in, Fluid Mask 3.  In this new software offering, they have taken their powerful masking technology and simplified it to help anyone make FUN composites.  The interface is very simple and extremely intuitive.  I downloaded the software, watched two short tutorials on the website, and was off and running in no time.  The cut-out technology behind the program is pure Fluid Mask and yet it seems to be easier to use and, I hate to say it, sometimes better than it’s more sophisticated older sibling.  The program is limited in what you can do with the final image to printing or saving as a JPEG or PNG file.  Like I said, it’s fun but not so serious.  I could explain the interface and how it works but I think you would be better served by taking a couple of minutes to just poke around the Play With Pictures website.  There, you can check out the tutorial videos and download a 15 full working trial of the software (it’s available for both Mac and PC).

After you get your trial copy, make a few composite images and then tell some friends about it.  You could score an iPhone for yourself and your friend if they draw your name.  The Recommend a Friend page is here if you want to give it a shot.  Either way, I am betting that you will have some fun with this program.  All work and no fun is no way to go through life.

Balloon photo by nicoyogui

Have a Safe and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!