BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

Photoshop Actions

So while I was at camp someone came to me and asked a question about photoshop.  I had to bring up my own version of photoshop and figure it out again.  I said to myself "I knew this stuff last summer when I was trying to do band photography".  Eventually I figured it out for that person.  I then kinda started looking at the photos I never finished and the ones I did finish from last summer.  I thought you know that was really fun!  I should follow through with that.

Anywho it re-sparked my interest in the whole band photo thing.  I probably won't do it as a for real deal but if  friend asks at an open mic or it happens to come up in conversation I'll definitely do some promo photos for like posters for shows or a CD cover or a facebook page.

Well today I started re-edtiing the photos I never finished from the fall that I did for my previous boss and his folk band.  I gave them the raw edits because they really just kinda wanted those and not the flashy snazzy spruced up ones.  But I figured I'll finish them and give them to them anyways.  Then I'll upload a small sample to my facebook page or something with their permission of course.

I think I'm going to try and build up my facebook fan page with band photography stuff but just do small gigs of like 5 or 10 pictures.  Nothing major.  Again, if someone asks me or it comes up... I'll do them.  It's just something fun to do.

But I've been playing around with photoshop actions and they are pretty sweet!  So instead of hand doing all the curves and brightness contrast filter settings... I can go on google and type in "free photoshop actions" then using the history and actions buttons I can sit and click through various actions on a specific photo to see how it looks.  I can make my own too!  I can also change actions and combine them to get new cool effects.

It makes the editing processing that much more fun!  Also it makes it even quicker and easier than before.

I'm a big fan of automation and increasing efficiency and time use.  Using photoshop actions will definitely let me do more editing in a quicker time period and make it actually possibly for me to do photo shoots for open mic friends on the side along with all the other things that I do.  I just need to buy one of those really low F-stop prime lenses like the camp dude bought.  He was showing me what kind of pictures it takes... it makes for some seriously awesome portrait pictures.  Which is the exact kind that promo band photos are!