Twitter
RSS
Sponsored by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Learn More
ScatterLight Lenses
We spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to acquire the sharpest lenses possible.
But photographic tradition holds that “romantic” effects are best made with lenses that are less than sharp. Old timer “romantic” soft-focus tricks include nylon stockings stretched across the lens or a crumpled cellophane wiggled under an enlarger during exposure.
Cokin and other manufacturers have sold specialty filters for years: fog, star, haze, etc. Filters to decrease the sharpness of your lens.
Andromeda has introduced a plug-in that will accomplish many of the same effects in Photoshop. Called ScatterLight Lenses™, the plug-in consists of five effects that add a number of soft-focus, haze, diffusion and star effects to images.
Portrait photographers will like the SoftFocus lens which approximates the results from an expensive specialty optic. I ran a medium halo optic on this portrait of a girl and her kitties on a separate layer, then used a soft eraser brush to bring out the detail in her eyes and those of the cats. In the darkroom, this would’ve been done with crumpled cellophane with a hole burned in it.
DreamOptic lenses added a soft glow to this still life of flowers. In a future column, I’ll detail a technique for the same effect using only Photoshop 7 tools.
The StarLight lens works on highlight selections and is ideal for adding the star effects to night photos or special effects, such as the colored stars I’ve added to the bouquet.
One criticism I have of ScatterLight, it is extremely slow to show the effect in the preview window of the dialog box. Each time a setting is altered, the preview starts again from the top and plods its agonizing way to the bottom. Image processing is relatively quick once an effect has been selected.
ScatterLight lenses are available from www.andromeda.com for $98.00.
No Comments
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Photoshop Tutorials
Hollywood Touch-Ups
See how you can add some subtle touches to give that green screen studio shot the Hollywood treatment.
3D Christmas Ornaments
Corey shows how to create reflective holiday ornaments using 3D in Photoshop.
Styles & Text
This week Corey has a tutorial using layer styles and text shapes to create energetic effects.
3D Light Beams
This effect was discovered by a 'happy accident' and uses the 3D features inside of Photoshop CS4 Extended.
-
Flare Effects
Corey has a cool trick for creating a flare brush and see how one effect can lead to another.
-
Hollywood Touch-Ups
See how you can add some subtle touches to give that green screen studio shot the Hollywood treatment.
-
3D Christmas Ornaments
Corey shows how to create reflective holiday ornaments using 3D in Photoshop.
-
3D Distortions
This week Corey has a cool new trick for using 3D reflections in a rather creative way!
Premium Video Tutorials From NAPP
Photo Retouch
Scott Kelby shows you how to take an overexposed photo into a great photo using Photoshop. Want Great Photoshop & Photography Skills?
Extended Definition Processing
Scott Kelby shares a technique he's been working on, which gives your final image an HDR look using just one photo.
Join NAPP & Get a Free DVD.
Smart Object Masking Trick
Dave Cross shares a trick he discovered that will help you remove white from around your subject when using smart objects.
Want More?
Light Painting
Dave Cross takes a popular trend - light painting - and shows you how you can paint text recreating this cool trend.
You Don't Need to be a Pro to Join NAPP.
Create A Composite Layer
If you have a multilayer composition and you
want to apply an effect to all the layers at once, don’t flatten the layers–use a composite layer instead. Hide the layers you want excluded, and press Shift-Command-Option-E (PC: Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E). A new layer will be created at the top containing a merged copy of all the visible layers.
Another option is to create a new layer at the top of the stack and make it active. Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) each layer you want to include to make those layers active, as well. Press Option-Command-E (PC: Alt-Ctrl-E).
by Colin Smith
