What's New, Some New Tutorials, and PIXLS!

What's been going on?! A bunch!

In case you've not noticed around here, I've been transitioning tutorials and photography related stuff over to PIXLS.US.

I built that site from scratch, so it's taken a bit of my time... I've also been slowly porting some of my older tutorials that I thought would still be useful over there. I've also been convincing all sorts of awesome folks from the community to help out by writing/recording tutorials for everyone, and we've already got quite a few nice ones over there:

A Blended Panorama with PhotoFlow

Basic Landscape Exposure Blending with GIMP and G'MIC

An Open Source Portrait (Mairi)

Skin Retouching with Wavelet Decompose

Luminosity Masking in darktable

Digital B&W Conversion (GIMP)

So just a gentle reminder that the tutorials have all mostly moved to PIXLS.US. Head over there for the newest versions and brand-new material, like the latest post from the creator of PhotoFlow, Andrea Ferrero on Panorama Exposure Blending with Hugin and PhotoFlow!

Also, don't forget to come by the forums and join the community at:

discuss.pixls.us

That's not to say I've abandoned this blog, just that I've been busy trying to kickstart a community over there! I'm also accepting submissions and/or ideas for new articles. Feel free to email me!

Luminosity Masking in darktable (Ian Hex)

Photographer Ian Hex was kind enough to be a guest writer over on PIXLS.US with a fantastic tutorial on creating and using Luminosity Masks in the raw processing software darktable.

You can find the new tutorial over on PIXLS.US:

PIXLS.US: Luminosity Masking in darktable

DIY Ringflash

The world probably needs another DIY ringflash tutorial like they need a hole in the head. There’s already quite a few different tutorials around explaining how to create one…

So here’s mine! :)

The Ringflash and I, by Rolf Steinort

At LGM this year I hacked together a quick ringflash using parts I picked up in a €1 store while walking through the city with Rolf (he helped me pick out and find parts - Thank You Rolf!). I built one while I was there because it was way less hassle than trying to bring mine from home all the way to Leipzig, Germany (they don’t really collapse into any sort of smaller size, so they’re cumbersome to transport).

Calvin Hollywood Freaky Details in GIMP

This article (possibly updated) is now available on pixls.us:
PIXLS.US: Freaky Details

German photographer/digital artist/photoshop trainer Calvin Hollywood has a rather unique style to his photography. It's a sort of edgy, gritty, hyper-realistic result, almost a blend between illustration and photography.

As part of one of his courses, he talks about a technique for accentuating details in an image that he calls "Freaky Details".

The rest of my GIMP tutorials can be found here: 
Getting Around in GIMP

Here is the original video I saw him describing this technique in from Scott Kelby's blog, Photoshop Insider during a guest appearance:

[Update]
I've been told there are problems loading the page with IE if I include the video I first saw this technique on. So, to make sure everyone can see this tutorial, the original video is on this page towards the end (it's the only video on the page)...

Go check it out, then come back to read the rest of the tutorial!

And here is a more current Youtube video from Calvin that describes this technique using a different image:

In my meandering around different retouching tutorials I came across it a while ago, and wanted to replicate the results in GIMP if possible. There were a couple of problems that I ran into for replicating the exact same workflow:

1. Lack of a "Vivid Light" layer blend mode in GIMP
2. Lack of a "Surface Blur" in GIMP

Those problems have been rectified (and I have more patience these days to figure out what exactly was going on), so let's see what it takes to replicate this effect in GIMP!

Focus Stacking Macro Photos (Enfuse)

I recently got a new camera to update my aging (gracefully!) Olympus E-P1. Deciding to stay with the µ⁴⁄_3^rds (or µ43^rds, or micro four-thirds - I just wanted to play with some HTML entity codes), I found a really tasty new Olympus OM-D E-M5 waiting for me for Christmas! In deciding which kit lens to go ahead and get with it, the Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-50mm F3.5-6.3 EZ was a no brainer. Water-resistant (to match the camera), and a neat macro function!

This article is about focus stacking, for exposure blending, see here:
Automatic Exposure Blending with Enfuse (HDR-ish)

Well, I couldn't help but snap a couple of macro shots of my trusty Warhammer 40k Space Marine to play with this newfangled lens.

The problem, if you haven't done macro photography before, is that the depth of field will become razor-thin. You can alleviate it a bit by closing down the aperture a bit, but at some point you'll hit diffraction limits (and reduced sharpness).