12 Incredibly useful and handy HDR ready-to-use Photoshop actions for instantly improved photo effects. Fix dull, lifeless and dark photos in seconds! As you can see from the preview file, some actions give higher contrast HDR effect (designed for particularly dark photos), others add an artistic touch such as outline, noise here is a brief overview of what’s included in your download:

• Action 1 – Mild HDR effect, fix shadows and dark areas, enhances colors
• Action 2 – Classical, intense HDR effect
• Action 3 – Moderately mild HDR effect with sepia colors scheme.
• Action 4 – Very mild HDR effect, fixes shadows and unlit areas, adds artistic light noise.
• Action 5 – Very intense HDR with extreme colors enhancement, designed to fix extremely dark and colorless shots.
• Action 6 – High contrast B/W HDR with mild glow / blur effect
• Action 7 – Colorful HDR with semi-visible noise (less visible noice and more colors, compared to action 4)
• Action 8 – Highly artistic HDR with dark outline and vertical strokes.
• Action 9 – Highly artistic HDR with overall dark blue scheme and emphasis on light areas. Fixes shadows enhances colors.
• Action 10 – Vintage-HDR. Add stains and spots to your HDR effect, get artistic and very beautiful result.
• Action 11 – Intense HDR , and very visible glow / blur effect
• Action 12 – HDR + Noise + light sepia + even shadows, last action is once again classed as a more of an art-HDR, makes the tones even adds a vintage-style color

After you have successfully loaded the actions, just play around and enjoy! All the 12 actions are stored in 1 folder called “HDR pro”, click the arrow to collapse the menu with all the actions.

I am also enclosing 2 sets of examples, based on photos I took myself, together with the original images (unprocessed). Feel free to use them as a base or use them anywhere else, crediting me is You will notice that, just like any HDR photo effect, it works best for dark, dull and lifeless photos, particularly – landscapes, however, I tried them out also on portraits and other photos – in any way the result is incredibly impressive.

If you have any questions, please drop me a line.

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This tutorial inspired by all the sci-fi movies where radiation glowing circles are pictured in great details; so we are going to make very vibrant, glossy and realistically curved text effect with extremely beautiful and original glow circles, that no other text effect has. We will be working with a lot of Contour settings, so this tutorial is for more advanced users.

So, let’s get started. Create a new canvas, we are using 600 x 370 pixels here.

Fill it with any background color and for best effect, fill it with background texture. Simply double click the background in Layers Panel, and Layer Style’s menu will pop up. Go to Pattern Overlay mode and fill with, preferably floral, pattern. Here we used Damask pattern which unfortunately isn’t available for a download by the author anymore, but you can get more free textures here.

When you are done, select the typing tool and type your word in the middle, with very big and gold letters. Should you decide to use a narrow or small font, the effect simple won’t be visible. We used the GEronto Bis font, 236 pt size, exactly as you see on the canvas below:

Now the magic will begin. Double click the layer with the letters, and start applying the layer styles as you see below. First, make a small shadow with Gaussian Contour.

Add inner shadow with dark gray hue (we used #4f4f4f) and for contour we available of another pre-installed curve called “Half Rounded”. If you are using Photoshop CS2 + version, you should find it among your default curves.

Add outer glow with a color that will complement your background, in our case we had blue damask texture as our background and chose the #3c447a blue hue as Outer Color.

For the Contour here, we used Ring – Double. This will also come pre-installed to your Photoshop. Please note that every setting in this tutorial makes use of different Contour curve, which makes our effect particular interesting and the effect stands out. This Double Ring is exactly what gives the nice radiation / explosion glowing rounds wrapping the text.

Inner glow with #ffffff white color, and once again Gaussian Contour.

Bevel and Emboss will give our text the depth it needs. Use the default Ring contour to get the best metallic / plastic look effect.

For contour, use the “Wow-sharp highlight” Contour element.

We also want to give more deep and extreme Satin effect but this time, since we found no contour that suited our needs, we created our own curve…

To get exactly the same results as we have here, please copy our mapping to your Contour Editor.

Finally add stroke to your text, with a lighter hue of blue that will complement your background. Please do not use white or black as these colors will look too contrasted with background.

This is what you have got so far:

white to transperant gradient

Finally, load a selection of for the upper part of the text . If you do not know how to do it, read on:

• Create a new layer on top of the text, and then hold down Ctrl and click on the layer in the layer’s panel, in order  to select it.
• Using the Gradient Tool Now that goes from #ffffff to transparency.
• draw a gradient from the beginning of the selection on top, down to it’s bottom.
• Using the Elliptical Tool, draw a selection from the middle of the text to the bottom, and press Delete, to leave just the little gradient on top of the letters.
• This will do the gradually-glossy topping effect.

Done! Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and please feel free to download the PSD file of this effect, the file is of 600*370 size, same as you see here.

6 Photoshop Actions

To photograph the sunrise is a great challenge. Every photographer has wanted to capture the beauty of a sunrise. There are many tips such as the camera lens, position; angle and lighting that you will need to keep in mind to produce a great picture. Every camera is unique, and each has its own set of requirements to perform while taking a sunrise photograph.

Cochrane Hill Sunset by D'Arcy Norman

You can capture a sunrise with any type of camera but an LCD camera is the preferred choice.  A photographer is able to hold the camera closer which helps to reduce shaking while taking the shot. If the photographer is concerned about shake, he can always use a tripod to eliminate the problem. You will want to take sunrise photos that will highlight the natural colors of the morning sky to give your photos a graceful feeling. While taking a sunrise photo, a photographer needs to keep in mind the position of the horizon in the photograph.

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If a photographer is using an optical lens digital camera he has to insure he is not putting his lens directly in the sunlight, this can cause permanent damage to the lens. If the photographer is out on a hot day he should always keep the lens cap on when out in the sun and turn the camera off when it is not being used.  When the photographer uses the camera, he can snap his shots and then turn off the camera again to protect it. But most of the information here is common sense, just don’t leave your camera out in the sun unprotected such as on a picnic table in the middle of the hot summer.

A sunset view in HDR from BayShore Village Taken with Canon 1D Mark III w/24-105mm f/4L supported on a Gitzo GT5531S carbon fiber tripod and RRS BH-55 ballhead. Photo by kevincole

The color of the sky at sunrise is beautiful. If you add a subject such as a silhouette or tree, you can add great perspective to the photo. If the photographer enjoys his sleep in the morning, he is sure to miss out on some spectacular shots of a sunrise so it is important to plan your days so you can get out and capture the beauty that is a sunrise. A photographer should always insure balance between exposure and color when shooting the sunrise, and he should always use the proper equipment such as filters.

You should never place the horizon in the center of the photo. If the sunrise in the center of the photo there is no draw to the eye so it is best to place it lower in the photograph to draw the eye of the viewer in. Adding fog or a rainbow adds depth and more color to your photo. A photographer is an artist and should always be coming up with new ideas; this is how you become better at your craft and taking sunrise pictures. If a photographer doesn’t like the look of a certain shot, he can always take more photos until it matches the picture that he has in his mind.

Morro Strand State Beach on the Central California Coast 16 Nov. 2008. Michael "Mike" L. Baird, Canon 1D Mark III EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM handheld.

The funny thing is that the best sunrise/sunset photos always seem to be in the places that are so inconvenient for the photographer. These are places like marshland, desert, and hilltops and so on, but this should not deter your efforts because the outcome can be spectacular. The key to a good sunset photo is light distribution and horizon, also catching the different colors of the sunset is difficult too.  The color schemes are red, blue, green and all of the colors in between but here are a few tips that you may find helpful.

A good first attempt should happen in winter. The reason for this is because in the winter the sun is setting earlier and you don’t have to wait till all hours of the night to capture your photo. Sunset can begin as early as 3:30-7:00pm depending upon your geographic location.

Choose your shot carefully and add only the subjects you want in the photo. Sometimes there may be obstacles but a good photographer can work with them right in his photos, silhouettes, if done properly can add to the beauty of the sunset and add great perspective to your photos. Of course it would look better without electric lines running through the center of the photograph so the site should be chosen wisely and you are sure to come up with some beautiful photos.

As your out and traveling during the day it is never a bad idea to take a few notes on potential spots that would be good to capture your photos, describe the area to yourself for recollection later. Do not let the weather hinder your plans because adding cloudscapes in your photography can create interesting elements, they can change the colors and patterns of light and add great effects to the photos. The weather should not be a factor in your photos unless of course there is no sunrise/sunset at all due to the conditions. You can learn to make the best photo with some imagination and you should never let the opportunity pass you by.

There is another issue when it comes to photographing the sunrise/sunset and that is they only last a few brief minutes so your shots need to be aligned to the best of your ability quickly to capture your best shots. Planning is the key and if you have time to do so, you can plan out your shots a day ahead of time so that you are prepared, set up your equipment and take notes as to how you want to be positioned in the morning or evening. Allow set up time when you go out to start taking your pictures. The use of a tripod is not a bad idea in this case also.

Becoming the master of your skills

Everyone loves the look of the sunrise or sunset and many photographers want to capture the moment, it is one of the most common subjects for photographers. This is why you need to practice and become even better at your craft because the competition can be brutal.

The first thing to do is to come up with a plan. Just going out and taking a random aim and fire shot is not going to be the right choice. Your goal is to create a beautiful photo, not just a picture. Be creative and add things to the foreground, middle ground and even background, this can add depth to your photos. Plan and picture the photo in your mind, come up with the feeling you want to express to the viewer, you are not a kid anymore and creating a good photo takes a little more time than just pointing at something and snapping the shot.

Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1600) Aperture: f/10 Focal Length: 100 mm ISO Speed: 400. by ronnie44052

Researching photographs of other sunrises and sunsets on the internet is a good idea to get tips hints and lighting ideas from those that have gone before you, you can see how someone captures the light, colors and so on and it gives you a goal or something to aim for in your photography. You have to learn to see things with the viewer of the camera to come up with those great shots. You need to let your imagination take over and forget about the filters that we tend to use in our own mind. You have to be the camera and the eye of the camera, so don’t be shy put on your creativity cap and give it a whirl.

Changing your lenses, shutter speeds and aperture values all create different looks to your photographs so it’s a good idea to practice and try different things. Look around for different elements to add to your shots and have fun. Practice here is the key to creating great sunrise/sunset shots. If you don’t like one element you can move on to another and another until you find just what it is you are looking for.

If you’re using a DSLR camera you can set it to the auto bracketing mode. You should shoot in RAW because this is ideal for post processing. You can read about “RAW for Beginners” in my previous article.

To shoot two people in the sunset you should set the ISO to 300+ and the aperture level at F/5-F/8 while shooting in the manual mode. If your shooting format is JPG, set your white balance to the cloudy position, use the camera in manual focus. If the need be, you can lie down to avoid any obstacles that may get in the way while taking your sunrise/sunset photo.

You can always return to a site if you are not happy with the outcome of previous photos, you can take them over and over again until you come up with the photograph that you had pictured in your mind. It all takes time and practice but as the old adage goes, practice makes perfect!

Following are 5 tips to sunrise/sunset photo taking

• Learn how to predict a great sunset. You need to always have your camera ready and you need to be in position before the moment comes. The moment of the sunset lasts only a few short minutes, so you should be prepared. Scout out your locations and know where you are going to set up for taking your pictures. This will take away from a lot of wasted time in the future if you plan it out a little in advance.
• Be patient to capture color. There is always a short few minutes after the sun looks like it has set that there is a burst of brilliant color. Be patient so you can catch these brilliant colors of sunset. You do not have to rush through all of your shots sometimes taking a few extra minutes can make all the difference in the world in your photography.

• Find a foreground subject. This could be important. Everyone has shared the same boring pictures of “just” a sunrise or “just” a sunset, and I have seen many of my friends show me the same pictures over and over. Why not add something interesting in the foreground? Why not add a great silhouette to your picture, it does not have to be a large object in the photo and you can create a silhouette that will capture the eye of the viewer and draw them into the beautiful colors of your sunrise or sunset.
• Get all the color you can into your photo. The rule of thirds can be discarded here as we are talking about sunrise and sunset and let me explain why; the rule of thirds simply means you should place the horizon of your picture either at the top third of the page or the bottom third. If you do this in a sunrise/sunset picture you will be looking at a large part of your photo being dark. If you want to capture the true beauty of the colorful sunrise or sunset then you need to ignore this rule for once to get the most out of the vibrant colors that are offered at this special time of day.
• If you are near a water source use it creatively to reflect the beauty of the colors in your photograph. Many people try to avoid adding the element of water but it can create a wonderful work of art when added to your photography. The water can reflect and echo all of the wonderful colors and create a whole new dimension in your photograph.

There are the tips for you on sunrise/sunset photography. Here the concentration was on being creative not so much the technical part of the photo taking. Your ability to read nature and catching the right moment is much more important than the technical part of the photography in this situation. A great sunrise or sunset photo is just on the horizon for you as a photographer, so go and have fun practicing and enjoying nature, let it inspire and move you to create beautiful works of art in your photography.

When the older generation were young, and needed to create a school design or anything that involved cropping letters, we often cropped them first from an old newsprint, before proceeding to work with a colored paper. So this is pretty much what I wanted to create here — a newspapers cropped draft!

Let’s begin with making a new canvas and fill it with any solid color, our choice was #2b362b:

To give it a bit of depth, while the background is still selected, go to Layer Styles (Layer >> Layer Style >> Gradient Overlay) and apply the following settings.. This will give a lighter spot in the middle of the canvas that normally gives nice depth.

Now, find online or scan any newspaper pager. We couldn’t find one big sheet so we combined ours from a several ads in the local newspaper. Place the newspaper on the canvas.

Using a huge Cooper Black font, type your word on top of the newspapers layer. If you are using a different font, however, be sure to work with BOLD letters because the whole effect is based on the boldness of the typography.

Now it’s a little bit tricky for those of you who are still beginners, so please pay attention..

1. While the typed letters are still selected, hold the CTRL key and press on the layer with the word “News” in the layers panel, this will load a selection around your letters.
2. Go to Selection >> Modify >> Expand, and expand the selection by about 3-4 pixels. If your font is too narrow, you might want to use a bigger number.
3. Press Shift + Ctrl + I, to reverse the selection.
4. Press Delete.

You are now left with 2 layers, cropped from newspapers letters and the typed letters layer, which you can now delete. (or hide, but you certainly not going to need it anymore!).

This is what you have left:

Using the Lasso Marquee Tool, crop each letter individually, and once selected, press Ctrl + T to start transforming. Align them in any fashion you want, but do not overdo this effect if you don’t want to end up with  a messed up canvas..

Typography on a web page is as important as it is in any other medium, it does not matter whether you are typing for packaging, publishing television or signage, and all designers must take into account the medium they are using and the techniques they will use to suit that medium. You want your work to be easily read and be pleasing to the eye.

This being said an example is that of an article written in a magazine compared to that of a poster. While a magazine is read at close distance and within arms length, the typeset can be small and still be easily read. Whereas a poster is larger and seen in a more oblique manner, you would want to space the words so they are easily discerned by the viewer.

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When designing for a webpage there is a full set of new problems to overcome. You are dealing with an audience that has different screen sizes and platforms. There is a way a designer must work to take all of this into consideration while designing a page that it easily viewed in all different platforms. You can not assume that all of your viewers are using the same equipment you are; even the speed of connection should come into mind when you are designing.

Examples of Good Use of Typography in WordPress:

Depending upon your content you can change up the style sheets to best suit your needs. You can change heading and sub heading sizes as well as your body text sizes to best fit your page whether it is an informational site, children site or a more technical site. These type settings are simple to change and the style of your webpage should take into consideration your targeted audience. You would not use the same style on a children’s page as you would on a page created for business investors so it is important to keep your targeted audience in mind.

• Orientation - If you are reading a book and you see upside down type the first thing you do is flip the book, not such an easy task with a computer. Vertical type is not possible with HTML but it can be done by using a JPG, PNG or GIF. This can work for you if used sparingly. A heading of this type will grab the reader’s attention and if in a good balance with her things like color, weight and size can be beneficial. This type of heading calls for attention and when used alongside other material can unify this material and become very effective.
• Position - As a different type style used such as maverick, any line that is in a different position will quickly catch the eye of the viewer. Breaking up the natural flow of the page will simply get more attention. You can change any body of text by only changing one element such as font, color position and so on. Anything that looks different or out of place will automatically draw the eye to it. Just like the saying goes, rules are sometimes made to be broken.
• Space – If you type on a white page one word of 8 point type, your eye will be drawn to it. On the other hand if you’re working with a full page of 12 point type you will never notice it. So as you can see not just the type on the page is important, the space that is surrounding the type is just as important. You can easily learn this skill by playing with different type and space settings to get the most out of the idea you want to put across. This is not only a technique used in writing, it is used is painting, architecture and more.
• Priorities used in a creative manner - Typography means that you will also think about the importance of information and what you want the viewer to focus on, you can do this by easily deciding what is important and getting that important information to stand out. You can create a web page that is pleasing to the eye while still getting across what is most important. You will find it very rewarding when you take this important fact into consideration. You want the important content to stand out so the viewer can see exactly what point you are trying to make without having to read through pages of fluff.

Here are some tips for the use of different fonts in HTML:

1. Use the correct font style and case size to get your information processed quickly by the viewer. If your viewer is seeking information you will want the font to be something simple to read such as Arial or Veranda so they can easily read through and find what they are looking for. You should also keep in mind the color and size of the text.
2. When you are looking at your web page design always keep in mind the type, color and size of font, this is very important this can instantly add more value to your web page.
3. Choose a font that is simple to read. Using a font such as Times new Roman keeps everything in uniform, a font such as calligraphy is very distracting and too hard to read. The best thing for you to do is read through a few lines and determine if you can read it easily. If you can do it your viewer can too.
4. Do not fill you page with different font styles, if it is called for such as an artistic site, you may use different font styles but they should be used in the headings or sparingly throughout the text, do not fill your text with different fonts because it becomes distracting to the viewer and they will lose interest.
5. Most of your text should be between 12 and 14 points. This allows all readers the easy access because not all readers have perfect vision a small print may deter some viewers from your site and you do not want to loose viewers, the point is to make a site attractive to all. You should keep in mind that you will have many viewers and you should try to compromise for all viewers, and make sure your heading is in a larger font than the text.
6. The final tip deals with color, use a good contrasting color for type that will not be lost in background colors, the best choice is always black type on a light background, just be careful when choosing colors for your web pages, you do not want to put a dark background and dark type on the same background, it will be too hard to read and your viewer will be lost.