June 1st, 2008 Photographers’ Rights Rally at Hollywood and Highland

The following text is from http://discarted.wordpress.com/

Photographers throughout Los Angeles, with cameras in hand, will gather at Hollywood and Highland and Union Station to peacefully rally against the unnecessary treatment they have received from security guards, LAPD, and LASD while photographing in public places, and on the Metro.

Start Time: 11:00am
Location: Hollywood and Highland, 6801 Hollywood Los Angeles, CA 90028

At about 1:30pm we will board the Metro and travel to Union Station for more picture taking.

Start Time: 2:00pm
Location: 800 N Alameda St Los Angeles, CA 90012

Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/laprotest/
Press Inquiries: [email protected]

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 07:19 PM | Permalink

I just received a review copy of PulpMotion Advanced from Aquafadas today and I've been playing around with it a bit ... it's an amazing piece of software.

Here is a quick sample of what I was able to do in about an hour of messing around with the software. I did not read any manual or help files... I just stumbled around like I always do and this is what I came up with.

Note: This is a Mac only program.

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 12:53 AM | Permalink

Are you having a bad day? Working too hard for too little in return? Life got you down? Wish you had more "things"?

Check out this photo essay http://alexiuss.deviantart.com/journal/17919112/

It's amazing, uplifting, depressing, inspiring, sad, eye-opening, moving, sobering, dark and light all at the same time.

I think it's a very sad story ... but at the same time it does demonstrate what humans are capable of accomplishing when confronted with few choices. I'm sure I'll think about this story the next time I hear someone in America say that they "cannot find work" or that the "government needs to do more" to help them out. This story is about people that have nothing and work in conditions that most Americans would not last a day in .... and yet somehow they (most of them) survive and are thankful for what they have.

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 02:01 PM | Permalink

I've been very interested in the Lucis Art plugin for Photoshop for a while and I contacted the developer to see if I could get a copy for review for the podcast but they declined my request. So I created a Lightroom develop preset that mimics the process.

It's a 2 step process ... apply the preset in Lightroom and play around with the develop sliders to get the basic look you want (every image will look different, adjust to your liking) ... and then edit the image in Photoshop following these steps.

1. Duplicate the background layer (CMD J or CTL J)

2. Apply Gausian Blur filter to Layer 1 with a value of about 20 pixels

3. Reduce the opacity of Layer 1 to about 50%

4. Click the Add Layer Mask Button (at the bottom of the Layers palette) then select the brush tool with a soft edge and paint (mask) areas you want to keep sharp like eyes, nose, mouth.

5. (Optional Step) Select the background layer and then grab the Smudge Tool (R) and soften further areas that you think still show too much detail (like skin).

That's it. Save it and go back into Lightroom and play around with brightness, exposure, contrast, saturation, etc to you liking if it needs it.

Download the preset for Lightroom here.

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 10:22 PM | Permalink

A nice day of shooting at March AFB during the Airfest '08 AirShow.

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 01:14 AM | Permalink