Photography

Hey gang. This week's Deke's Techniques videos are all about adding text and shapes to a 3D stereoscopic photograph, like the one created in last week's technique. In today's free movie, I show you how to add text and shapes at different planes of depth. In the follow-up video at lynda.com, I show you how to tilt the text and shapes so they incline in 3D space toward the viewer.

Here's the official description from lynda.com: Read more » 

As I write this, I've published 20 hours of video training on the topic of 3D imaging in Photoshop. (For those who may be curious, it begins with the 5-hour Photoshop CS5 Extended One-on-One: 3D Fundamentals, about which you can learn more at lynda.com.) These movies are all about creating photorealistic 3D artwork from scratch. But what if you're not interested in 3D artwork? What if you want to create 3D photographs? Well then you're in luck, because that's precisely what this week's technique is all about.

Remember those old View-Master images? It's like that, only with glasses. Plus loads of fun and really easy.

In today's free video, I show you how to shoot two photographs---one for each of your naturally stereoscopic eyes---using a standard single-lens camera. And then I assemble them in Photoshop so that the composite image appears in everyday-average lifelike depth when viewed through a pair of red-cyan glasses, like the ones pictured below, provided by Fotolia.

Red, white, and blue. What a fitting day-after-Fourth-of-July tribute! Meanwhile, here's the official description from lynda.com: Read more » 

It's tempting to dismiss stitched panoramas as a kind of trendy fad, one that passed about the same time that Adobe finally got its act in gear with the current version of Photomerge. But I see panoramas very much in the realm of ongoing relevance, and for two reasons. First, the obvious: You can build an image with roughly the same proportions as human eyesight, thus permitting the viewer to fully immerse in your photograph. Second, and more importantly (because there's nothing that says these things have to be wide), you can assemble a higher number of pixels than your camera can otherwise capture. For example, a collection of 12-megapixel shots can grow upwards of 30 megapixels---even after cropping---enough to measure at least 3 feet wide (or 3 feet tall, if you prefer) at 267 pixels per inch.

Photoshop's Photomerge command is easy enough to use. But getting flawless results out of it is another thing. It's less a matter of Photoshop wizardry---there's not a whole lot you can do to control Photomerge's automated behavior---and more one of capturing the best scene while behind the camera. And because panoramas are best suited to grand vistas and other location shots, you may have just one chance to get it right. Which is what this video is ultimately about.

Here's the official description from lynda.com: Read more »