Tag Archives: Blake Rudis

Why do my photos suck? – f64 Academy

2018-11-18 by Fodifi | 0 Comments

Why do my photos suck?

Blake Rudis and Jim Welninski have both been asked various forms of this question over their years of teaching and coaching photographers.  In these two videos, they will give you their perspective and the result might shock you as it has nothing to do with your technical skills!

The answer is already inside you.

Source: Creative Mechanic free video #1 – f64 Academy by Blake Rudis and Jim Welninski Jim

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The Vivid Light Blend Mode [Video] – f64 Academy

2018-08-19 by Fodifi | Comments Off

There are 27 blend modes in Adobe Photoshop and if you are anything like the “me before I learned them all“, you are only using three, maybe four to their maximum potential.  One of those you may be missing out on is the Vivid Light Blend Mode.  It is a powerhouse for color grading, but on the surface, it looks far from it!

Eight Blend Modes don’t function like the rest of their friends in the bunch.

Vivid Light Blend Mode one f the 8 Fill Blend Modes

These eight Blend Modes rely heavily on the Fill slider.  Each blend mode is a sort of calculation happening in the background after you select it.  While they all have different calculations, they are essentially pre-programmed to turn pixels on and off, add, subtract, multiply or divide pixels, or told to call upon other blend modes.  The Vivid Light Blend mode is a mixture of Color Burn and Color Dodge and interacts with your image differently based on the selected layer.

Source: The Vivid Light Blend Mode [Video] – f64 Academy

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Vivitar 500mm lens, too good to be true? – f64 Academy

2018-07-22 by Fodifi | Comments Off

Does the Vivitar 500mm lens hold up to it’s hefty $119 price tag?

It is not very often that I need a 500mm lens.  I can recall a handful of times I said it would be nice, and maybe once at Indian Beach in Oregon where I NEEDED it.  Therefore, the likelihood of me running out and buying a $2000+ lens for one or two shots every once in a while is very impractical.

Before we take this any further, let me clarify something.  I am primarily a landscape guy who is tripod mounted and more often than not, shooting between f/11 and f/16.  A super-fast telephoto is one of the least of my worries.  However, if you are a wildlife or sports photographer, by all means, you need a fast telephoto.  This post is for the tripod mounted photogs. 

While I was researching off brand telephoto lenses on Amazon, I ran across this super cheap ($119 at the time of purchase) 500-1000mm telephoto lens.   I thought it was too good to be true so I picked one up.   I figured I’d only be out $119 if it turned out to be a lemon and it might, at the least, make a good conversation piece in my camera and lens collection.  To my surprise, it is much better than expected.

Source: Vivitar 500mm lens, too good to be true? – f64 Academy

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Blake’s 3 Favorite Features of the Zone System Express 5 – f64 Academy

2018-06-15 by Fodifi | Comments Off

It’s not “just another Photoshop Panel”, it’s a workflow solution, a mindset shift!

Over the last three years, Blake has been refining his editing process using the Zone Systems.  What started out as an idea evolved into an actionable sequence of layers designed to get you in and out of Photoshop with the best results in the least amount of time.  While time savings was the intention, the resulting Digital Zone System created masterpieces with a fraction of the effort.   It quickly became apparent that the System was a photo workflow workhorse.  The only real problem was that the system was based on actions in Photoshop.  While actions are powerful, they can be convoluted, confusing to beginners, and daunting to open and close everytime you want to use them.  There was a need for something better, something more efficient, more accurate, and more deliberate.

Source: Blake’s 3 Favorite Features of the Zone System Express 5 – f64 Academy – Blake Rudis

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What’s New in Adobe Camera Raw 10.3.0.933 – f64 Academy

2018-04-06 by Fodifi | Comments Off

Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom went out for a mani/pedi

Adobe Camera Raw updates usually entail camera raw profiles and minor tweaks.  This week, however, ACR and it’s sister Lightroom went out for a manicure and pedicure and had one too many mimosas.  They came back all pretty with a whole bunch of great new ideas.  Here is the skinny:

  1. Dehaze has been moved to the basic settings
  2. Presets are Active and show on the image when you hover over them
  3. Presets can now be put in folders and organized (thank goodness)
  4. Profiles have been moved out of calibration and work as phenomenal starting points for images

Lees meer in: What’s New in Adobe Camera Raw 10.3.0.933 – f64 Academy

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The Color Dodge & Color Burn Blend Modes – f64 Academy

2018-03-30 by Fodifi | Comments Off

Dodging and Burning with Blend Modes and Colors

If you have spent any amount of time with me you know that I am always trying to come up with new ways of using Blend Modes.  I have recently started experimenting with the Color Dodge and Color Burn Blend Modes.   At first I thought they were trash at best!  That was before I figured out how to use them effectively.

Source: The Color Dodge & Color Burn Blend Modes – f64 Academy

Met gratis Photoshop Acties!!!

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Snapshots in Adobe Camera Raw – f64 Academy

2018-03-23 by Fodifi | Comments Off

Snapshots – A great way to test different looks

Adobe Camera Raw is a powerful editing tool with many features we often overlook.  With its ability to transform a RAW image it is easy to gloss over the techy things that we can do with our pictures.  One of those lesser known functions of ACR is Snapshots.

Snapshots allow you to save your work as you edit your image.  After saving a snapshot, you can bounce back and forth between saved looks.  The snapshots are saved right in the XMP sidecar file of the RAW image and will be there anytime you open your photo.

Lees meer : Snapshots in Adobe Camera Raw – f64 Academy

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The 5 Tone Heat Map in Photoshop – f64 Academy

2018-01-12 by Fodifi | Comments Off

Another astonic en interesting video tutorial by Blake Rudis you have to watch!!!

Source: The 5 Tone Heat Map in Photoshop – f64 Academy

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Sharpening in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom – f64 Academy

2018-01-09 by Fodifi | Comments Off

Source: Sharpening in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom – f64 Academy by Blake Rudis

These 5 steps you may use as a starting point either in Lr or ACR:

  1. Drop the Sharpening sliders down to zero… all of them!   Afterall we do not want to be reducing our noise reduction efforts while seeing our sharpening, that would not be helpful for either.
  2. Address the Luminance and Luminance Detail.  I tend to keep these pretty close on every photo.  Whatever Luminance Detail I set, I usually set the Luminance to half that.  So if 50 for Detail, then 25 for Luminance.
  3. A Healthy dose of Color Noise Reduction and Color Detail is a good idea.  Most of the “noise” in noise comes from the color.   Reducing the color noise all the way can usually produce what looks like grain rather than noise.  Sometimes I just reduce the color noise a great deal and call it a day if I like the grain that is leftover.
  4. Now you can address the Sharpening, but start with the Mask FIRST!  The mask slider has this mysterious hidden hot key. Pressing Alt (Option on a Mac) will show you where the mask is affecting the photo.  Hold that hotkey while you drag it over and when all of your detail is in white and your smooth surfaces are black, you should be good to go!
  5. Hit the Amount, Radius, and Detail simultaneously.  There is no magic bullet setting here.  I use these three at the same time and dial in my sharpening with them as a set of sliders rather than individuals.  Amountis how powerful the sharpening is going to be.  Radius is how many pixels around the sharpened pixels is going to be, the smaller the number the more subtle the sharpening. Detail is the amount of contrast between the sharpened pixels, or how light and dark those pixels are going to be as a result of moving it.
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