Software

A Photoshop Layers Breakthrough

I had a breakthrough tonight that I just had to share.

few weeks ago I took the plunge and downloaded Photoshop. I'd never used it before. It is overwhelming. But I felt like it's was an essential part of any serious photographer's workflow so I needed to learn it. To fix ghosting in some of my amateur HDR photography I had to passably master Layers. 

Layers, for those of you that don't know, and that included me a few weeks ago, is a great tool in Photoshop that allows you to pull in multiple photos and use component parts of different exposures. For instance you might want to lighten the sky using the sky from a brighter exposure. 

had the hardest time trying to figure out which 'layer' I was working with and which 'layer' I was attempting to pull in. I was ready to throw my computer through the wall when I had a breakthrough. I finally realized that the main layer was, of course, sitting on top but the layer I was pulling in is simply one below the top layer. It's that simple and no amount of searching on Google helped me figure that out. 

Snapheal 2 a review

Want to remove or fix some objects in your photos but you're scared to death of Photoshop? Then Snapheal 2 is for you (and me). 

Snapheal using some really impressive algorithms to erase and heal objects in your photos. You can use either a lasso tool or higher precision eraser modes. I found the lasso tool to be my favorite.

Snapheal 2 is a sequel to Snapheal 1. Imagine that! I never used the original but I'm hearing that it's twice as fast. Faster is always better when dealing with photos. I found the software to be lightening fast. I tested it on a variety of photos including the example below of this church in Heidelberg, Germany. In this photo you can see two women who were wandering slowly through my photo and I wanted to get rid of them. I used the lasso technique and one click later Snapheal artfully removed them from my photo and my life. 

 I used Snapheal on both my new Retina MacBook Pro and my 2009 iMac. It worked just as well on both computers and it's optimized for the jaw dropping Retina display so that's an added bonus. It's available in the Mac App Store for only $7.99. It's worth it!

efore Snapheal

fter Snapheal