NEW WINDOWS IN CS4

This is part of the new navigational advances in CS4. This upgrade seems mostly about better use of screen real estate and navigation along with a few other nice bonus features we'll talk about soon.

HI PASS SHARPENING

There are so many ways to sharpen an image and it posses another question of when to sharpen as well. With all of the possibilities that Photoshop offers, the hi-pass sharpen has given me the most flexibility and success. Check it out...

PHOTOSHOP CS4 - NAVIGATION

Again Adobe has produce another version of Photoshop. Like it or not - it is what it is. I will say a number of the new features are small but robust. The use of monitor space and navigational workflow is pretty nice as are a number of other features. Here are some of the navigation changes i CS4.

BRIDGE CS4 NAVIGATION

I am finding the major boost in the upgrade to CS4 seems to be mostly about navigation.  There are a number of other features in Photoshop proper that have a lot of value, but navigation and workflow would surely be one.  By the way - stop calling me Shirley

DEKE MASKS...

DEKE DOES IT AGAIN...

DEKE AND GRAYSCALE

RETOUCHING - ETHICS!?

Recently, the New York Times aired a video on some ethical questions about Beauty retouching.  You should check it out.  It begs the question of how far is far enough when it comes down to how we influence our children about role models and "un-achievable" goals for the sake of advertising.  As a father of an 18 year old daughter and a professional retoucher I am confronted with this question every time I pick up my mouse and begin to work on an image.  After a while you come to the realization that first of all it is certainly not only the retouching of an image that creates this issue, but let's just focus on those aspect of it.  At the end of the day it is YOU the retoucher that decides how far to go and wether or not you choose to use the bat to hit a softball or crush some ones skull.  It is not the bat that is the problem.

I promised to keep this rant as short as possible, but we typically give the client what the client wants and don't really worry too much about the ethics and leave that to the client - maybe-maybe not.  This video does mention one important thing (I think) along with the ethical questions it poses.  Why don't retouchers get credit on images where retouching has taken place???  This brings me back to the change in times that digital has fueled in that retouching can be a large part of the image making process and perhaps by giving the retoucher credit it would not just give credit where it is deserved but also help readers understand that in some cases the image does not reflect reality - really!  Check out the video and ponder this the next time a client asks you to piece together a fashion image from 4 separate photos of the same model to get the very best part of each and ask yourself - should I get any credit and does the reader dererve the right to know that something was done to retouch this image???