Digital Art & Photography

There are many Photoshop Plugins. One of the more useful one is Fluid Mask 3. More specifically, it is a Still Image Cut Out Tool.

Basically, this photoshop plugin is a masking and selection tool par excellence. Masking tasks that were virtually impossible to be carried out otherwise are competently dealt with by Fluid Mask 3. These include selecting objects as challenging as hair. The images below show the capability of this plugin in selecting hair.

One of the strength of Fluid Mask 3 lies in its ability to easily isolate a difficult area and applying alternative edge finding and blending techniques to it.

Additionally, Fluid Mask 3 can also perform intelligent edge blending. What this means is that this tool is able to understand the width and attribute of the edges. Because of that, it is able to determine the most appropriate edge width, even when feather function is being used.

On tests carried out with comparable masking tools, the results showed that Fluid Mask 3 performed significantly faster. Fluid Mask appears to be about 3 times faster than other masking tools.

To see the power of this plugin, you may want to view some photoshop tutorials that illustrate the functions of Fluid Mask 3. >> See Photoshop Tutorials.

OK, I must confess that although I use Photoshop at work, I am a regular GIMP user at home. How I wish that such as tool is available for the GIMP.

If you are looking for a tool to create superior photoshop mask, you should check out this plugin. You can download a trial version here.

Sport Photography is one of the most challenging type of photography. The equipment acquisition alone is expensive. You will need a good digital SLR and long telephoto lenses. The recommended minimum for a lens is 200mm.

Two areas of challenges with sports photography are:

1. Getting the right timing. Because sports are usually occurring at a very high pace, the photographer will need to be very skilled at locking the camera to the action. To add to the challenge, a photographer do not always has the luxury and luck to be in close proximity to the location where the action is. That is why, a long lens is recommended. However, long lenses tend to magnify the panning or any movement to the camera. This makes following the action and framing the scene very challenging indeed.

Typically, a fast shutter speed is used so as to capture the details and not be succumbed to blurry images that are caused by fast movements.

A continuous powerdrive that allows for fast sequential capturing of shots is an added advantage. This will allow the photographer to select the best shot from the series of sequences.

2. Lighting. Lighting is another challenging aspect of sport photography. It is not so much of a problem if the action is taking place in the bright outdoor. Under this kind of condition, it is easier to match fast shutter speed with the brightness. However, when the sport action is taking place indoor, the lighting condition is not so favourable. To use a fast enough shutter speed, the ISO setting have to be increased. This may result in increased graininess of photographic outcomes.

My Sony Cybershot S-700 is down again. This is the second time that the digital compact camera from Sony is not working well. The previous time, its lens failed to focus. I brought it to the Sony Service Centre to get it repaired.

This time round, the problem is even worst. The screen fails to power up. Looks like I have to make another trip to the Sony Service Centre

My own personal experience is that digital cameras are not as sturdy as traditional ones. I had a Pentax P30 Manual SLR for many years and it never ever gave me any problem at all. The only time that I need to bring the manual SLR to the service centre was for it’s lens to be cleaned of fungus. Other than that, the Pentax SLR was as sturdy as a rock.

In a previous post, we talked about Splashup free online image editor. In this new article, we will dwell into another free online image editor call Pixenate.

Pixenate is a very basic online image editor. The interface is very easy to understand. Most of the commands of this free online image editor are placed on the left side of the webpage. See the screenshot below:

If you only want to do very basic image editing, this program may be good enough.

However, if you intend to do more indepth and serious image editing, GIMP or Paint.NET are two of the better free image editors. Unfortunately both GIMP and Paint.NET are not online image editors, although they are free. For me, Splashup is a better solution as a free online image editor than Pixenate. Good affordable alternatives for more comprehensive editing are Photoplus or Corel Paintshop Pro.

Dental Digital Photography is a highly niched type of photography. It is employed by dentists to take pictures of teeth and dental conditions. Often, this is done to show clients the appearance of their teeth.

Dental Digital Photography requires special equipments. One of the reasons for requiring specialized equipments is because some of the photo images need to be taken within the tight confines of the mouth. Some of these equipments come as a packaged kit. Such kits often contain a digital camera, Ring Flash and close-up lens kit.

One camera that is specially designed for Dental Digital Photography is the Dine Modified 8 mp Digital Camera. What is different about this camera is that it allows for complete intra-oral illiumination without the need for the usual add-on kits required for the job