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Photoshop Action :: Yosemite Sky ::
Make a donation of US $5 (£2.50) or more to Creative Stoke and you will be
e-mailed a gift copy of our exclusive :: Yosemite Sky :: Action
for Adobe Photoshop 7.0, CS2, CS3 and CS4.
This exclusive Action takes a "blue skies" landscape image from a digital camera
- and closely simulates the classic B&W effect gained by combining a
glass 25A red filter, a polarising filter, a glass ND-grad filter, & special B&W film.
This very complex 45-step Action runs automatically, and works much like a Photoshop Filter.
It's intended to be a quality emulation of the "Ansel Adams style" black sky effect.
It gives noticably finer & more balanced results than any of the
Channel Mixer 'recipes' available for darkening skies in Photoshop.
The Creative Stoke service is not funded. Any donation is very welcome.
Donate US $5 (£2.50) or more to be e-mailed your copy of the Yosemite Sky Photoshop Action.
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Features:
Very easy to use.
A reliable effect that will save you hours & hours of time!
Works with Photoshop 7.0, CS2, CS3, CS4 & Elements
Works with Windows & Mac
Flexible - the Action pauses at crucial points, for you to adjust the
suggested settings to exactly suit your own image. Changes are previewed "live".
The slight sepia colouring effect (seen above) is easily removable, if you want "straight
black & white".
Is much more subtle and faithful than any of the
dark-sky Channel Mixer "recipes" tested.
Comes with instructions for installation & use.
Tested with megapixel images from the popular
digital SLR Canon 300D (aka 'Rebel' in USA, 'Kiss' in Japan) and the
compact digicam Fuji Finepix 601Z.
Vital for post-processing photographs that have no simple level
horizon, have trees branches against the sky, of which
you don't have multiple perfectly-registered bracketed exposures, and/or where you didn't use a
glass ND grad filter in front of the lens.
FAQ:
Q: "What is an Action?" - a script which automatically
runs complex processes in Adobe Photoshop,
the world's leading image-processing software. You access & run Actions
from the Actions palette. It's as simple as clicking a button.
Q: "Will it run with Photoshop Elements?" - you should be able to run it with v.2.
Eith help from Ling Nero, developer of a third-party Elements add-on called snapActions,
we now have Yosemite working with Photoshop Elements v.1 and v.2. snapActions is
excellent freeware that allows you to run PS actions
in PS Elements! It does not yet work with v3.
Click for snapActions v2.0 for Photoshop Elements - it's freeware!
Q: "Will it run on my Mac?" - it hasn't been tested with a
Mac, but we've had this feedback from Jason in Texas: "Thanks! Works great on a Mac running OSX 10.3.3 in Photoshop CS.".
It will be e-mailed to you in a Windows .zip file.
Q: "Can I see another example of it in action, on a less contrasty picture?"
- sure, click here.
Q: "How long does it take to run?" - on an average modern PC with a
quality graphics-card, using a 'fine' JPEG image from a Canon 300D, it takes about 80 seconds to completion.
Q: "Why is it called Yosemite?" - Yosemite is the famous
National Park wilderness in America, so lovingly photographed by the
master photographer Ansel Adams. Many of his classic landscape photographs
feature the dark-skies effect.
Q: "Who was Ansel Adams?" - to learn more about Adams
and his work, I highly recommend the
wonderful feature-length 2002 DVD documentary
Ansel Adams by Ken Burns (Sierra Club/PBS),
and the 1983 book by Ansel Adams, Examples:
the Making of 40 Photographs. The BBC also offer some
free online audio interviews.
Q: "Can't I just put a big red glass filter in front of my digital
camera's lens?" - The Bayer Array system used in the CCD's of
many digital cameras (such as the popular Canon 300D/Rebel),
means that using a heavy glass red filter sends shutter
times up to 20-30 seconds or more. Due to the Bayer Array the image will be fuzzy, even with the most stable of
tripods.
Q: "Can't I just get a black sky by putting a special infra-red filter
in front of my digital
camera's lens?" - infra-red filters simply don't work with most
newer digital cameras, especially the SLR type such as
the Canon 300D/Rebel. They have anti-IR filters
built-in to the camera body.
Q: "Can I find this Action elsewhere on the web?" - No; and please tell
Creative Stoke if you spot this Action being touted on a freeware site.
Text inside each copy is steganographically "branded", so we can tell exactly who leaked it.
Q: "Will there be upgrades in future versions?" - this Action
is currently at version 1.0.
Q: "Will I get more spam if I send you my e-mail address?" - your e-mail address
will never be passed to anyone else, and you will get
no further e-mails from Creative Stoke.
Q: "Is there somewhere I can get more advice on B&W digital conversion?"
Try the many Forums at DPreview,
Phototakers,
pBase Forums,
Canon forums,
and the BJP Forum.
Q: "Would Ansel Adams have gone digital, used Photoshop, & shown work on the web?"
"I eagerly await new concepts and processes.
I believe that the electronic image will be
the next major advance. Such systems will
have their own inherent and inescapable
structural characteristics, and the artist
and functional practitioner will again strive
to comprehend and control them." - Ansel Adams,
"The Negative" 1981.
"For me the future of the image is going to be in electronic form.
... You will see perfectly beautiful images on an electronic screen.
And I'd say that would be very handsome. They would be almost as close as
the best reproductions." - Ansel Adams,
interview with Paul Hill, 1975.
Q. Are you able to send to freebie e-mail accounts? & "Where is my action!!?"
The "usual suspects" have problems caused by their poor spam-filtering:
AOL, Hotmail and similar freebie addresses. We get e-mail fine from those accounts. Sometime our
reply gets to such free accounts too, but most often it
doesn't - and we get no indication that it hasn't reached you. A proper paid-for
e-mail address using reliable spam-filtering methods is preferable. After 48 hours, please let us know if you haven't
had Yosemite; and we'll try another route.
Some feedback from users:
"Just a quick line to say a big thanks for Yosemite Sky. I've used it
on a couple of my photos now, and I absolutely love it." -- Ben in the UK.
"Thank you for the Yosemite Action - it does give beautiful results.
Please can you put me on your mailing list if you ever develop any other actions!"
-- Nicholas in London.
"Thanks! Works great on a Mac running OSX 10.3.3 in Photoshop CS."
-- Jason in Texas.
"Thanks for the action. The best Ansel Adams simulation yet !
The action works just fine in Photoshop CS for Windows."
-- Robert in the UK.
"It works a treat!! I am using it at the moment and the results
are excellent, the effect is so easy to achieve."
-- Michael in the UK
"... the results have actually overtaken my expectations. It works
amazingly and saves so much time in man-hours it's unreal.
Attached is the first go on it, just using standard settings -
looks good without any tweaking. Awesome!" -- Nick, in the UK.
"Hi, thanks for software. Have loaded it into Photoshop CS2 and
it works very well." -- David, in Scotland.
"I am using the Yosemite Sky action not only on landscapes but other images,
I am very pleased with it and I try it on just about every image I have...
thanks, it's a great action." -- Barrie, in the UK
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