Most people don’t read software manuals, which means that invisible features are usually missed. By invisible I mean part of the user interface that you can’t see, like shortcut keys. Let me share a few of my favorite shortcut keys with you. These apply to almost all of our products.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. We have unlimited undo/redo with Command-Z/Y (Mac) or Control-Z/Y (Windows). Just undo to get back to a good state. To get back to the factory defaults, hit Command-R (Mac) or F5 (Windows).

Hold the spacebar to see your image without our effects applied. I frequently hit spacebar to see how much I am changing my image. Another handy use (in Photoshop too) is to hold spacebar to temporarily switch to the Hand Tool while you are in the Zoom Tool.

All of our preview navigation buttons are the same as Photoshop. If you know shortcuts in Photoshop to zoom in, zoom out, zoom to 100%, fit to window, etc then you know how to do it in our products.

Many of our products have long lists of presets. Instead of clicking with the mouse, you can use the up and down arrow keys to move up and down the preset list. The left and right arrow keys will open and close folders. In Exposure 3 and Bokeh 2 the comma and period keys are the same as the up and down arrows, but they also automatically open the next folder when you get to it.

You can find a list of shortcut keys in the manuals for our products. Manuals are found in the Help menu (? button in newer products) or by hitting F1 on Windows or Command+/ on Macintosh.

We just released updates for Blow Up 2, Snap Art 2, Image Doctor 2, and Xenofex 2. All currently shipping Alien Skin products are now 64-bit compatible on both Mac OS X and Windows!

You can download the latest installers from our downloads page.

On Mac OS X, the updates only support the Intel platform, so PowerPC users should not update.

If you use Blow Up 2 then please check your version number in the about box. On Windows, start Blow Up 2 and open the Help menu to find the about box. On a Mac, start Blow Up 2 and then go to the Photoshop menu to find the about box.

If the version is less than 2.1.0.292 then you should throw away your old Blow Up 2 installer and download the latest version. Older versions use our old activation system which will stop working for Blow Up 2 on June 6, 2011. Blow Up 2 won’t immediately die, but you won’t be able to do a new installation and activate it.

If Blow Up 2 is working for you then you don’t need to reinstall. But if it ever gives you any trouble (like activation errors) then uninstall the old version and run that new installer. Instructions for uninstalling are below.

Uninstalling on Windows

Uninstalling on Macintosh

Here in Raleigh, NC we like food. Not just the chicken n’ biscuit, fried okra, cole slaw and collards kind of food, we’re foodies. We hunger for culinary diversity, exquisite flavors and unique experiences. Recently, while taking in some of Raleigh’s unique cuisines, we made a discovery of epic proportions.

Simon Griffiths, a local photographer, was commissioned to produce some unique artwork for David’s Dumpling and Noodle Bar. Simon delivered images of gargantuan sizes for the design of the space. Out of the 8 prints, the largest ones measured 11 feet wide.

A key component in resizing these tasty beauties was Blow Up. Simon said that the Blow Up enlargements are the same quality he gets from large format film!

I promised Simon to keep his mugshot small, so here it is. For more great shots by Simon, take a look over on his blog or website. Thanks Simon!

We are often asked how large a given image can be printed. This is usually in the context of using Blow Up to do an enlargement, but we also get questions about viewing distance, paper type, etc. So, I finally wrote an article on the topic.

I also ran across a good article on print size here.

Blow Up 3 is here!

In this update to Blow Up we focused on simplicity. Blow Up 3 simply enlarges clearer photos, does it faster, and has surprisingly few controls. Just choose your paper size, set your crop if you want one, and you are done. I won’t give you a long sales pitch here because the photos on our web site speak for themselves. Just click below to explore Blow Up 3!

Blow Up 3 works great with Lightroom, as well as Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.

We had an interesting time brainstorming for the Blow Up 3 about box. It started off with ideas involving explosions, bombs and fireballs. But this didn’t apply to Blow Up because this insinuates destruction. That and I was worried the FBI would start calling because my internet research was questionable.

If you look at the examples Blow Up does just the opposite of exploding, it keeps pixels from being destroyed. We needed something to match this idea. Here is what we came up with.

The first thing I did was took a balloon around the office to have everyone sign their names on it with a marker. I didn’t take into consideration the chemical reaction between a permanent marker and rubber. The balloon blistered and peeled itself apart after a few days. Darn, back to square 1. Plan “B” was to get the signatures on paper, scan it in, and use Photoshop to stretch it around the balloon. Luckily this worked great, I didn’t have a plan “C.”

For the shoot Adrianna used a ringlight with a diffuser. She used another light to fill in the backdrop behind the models. It turned out really well. She shared a bunch of the shots on her blog if you’d like to see more. Here are a few of them.

What does a giant balloon, helium and cameras have in common? Take a look at this.

Edouard Janssens, a Belgian photographer, came up with the idea to send an unmanned camera-carrying ship deep into the stratosphere. My mind thought of NASA and solid-fuel rocketry; Janssens had a better idea. Helium ballon. Brilliant! He named the project Stratos-Sphere.

Officially classified as an “Unmanned free light balloon,” the hoist Janssens used to explore these elevations was a 7-foot latex monstrosity. At around 110,000 feet, the thinning atmosphere pulls the balloon apart. Wind resistance from the descending package opens the parachute, and the cameras’ return trip glides down at a gentle 10mph.

At this point, Jansses has successfully launched and recovered his cameras twice. He dosen’t have plans for a third flight right now, but there could be more coming in the future. *Warning* This can’t be done without an official authorization from your country’s air control regulation authorities and without being covered by a solid insurance policy.

The images he captured will be on display next month in Brussels, Belgium. Janssens used Blow Up 3 to enlarge the images to 60×40 inches. There are plenty of great shots and videos over on the project website. Here are a few of them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I wrote an article on all the ways I know to get extra size out of a photo. I’ve already mentioned it in the blog, but recent questions show that I need to spread the word again. Blow Up 3 gives sharper results with less computer artifacts than previous versions, so you could stretch the advice of that part of the article a bit.

Below is an extreme enlargement from Sandra Selles-Rodriguez. You can see the original beneath the big print. That is way beyond what we normally recommend, but it shows that you need to just try a sample and see how it looks on the wall. Some photos look much better than others in huge enlargements.

Below is a six part landscape from Sandra’s front page that was made with Blow Up and Snap Art. Snap Art helps you go larger because the original pixels are replaced with brush strokes that provide their own detail and sharp edges. For the best quality, enlarge first with Blow Up and then apply Snap Art.

We want more people to get the benefits of all of our photography tools. So, we have permanently decreased the price of the Photo Bundle to $495. That is less than half the cost of buying each product separately.

You can get the Photo Bundle for the upgrade price of just $295 if you already own one of the products in it. Note that you must own the current version, which means one of Exposure 3, Blow Up 3, Snap Art 3, Bokeh 2, or Image Doctor 2. Have your license code ready when you select the Photo Bundle upgrade in our web store.

To see how we’ve been improving these tools, stop by to see beautiful example images and helpful tutorial videos.

When we announced the Photo Bundle price drop recently, some people thought it was a holiday sale. Just to be clear, it is permanent.

The Photo Bundle is $495 (down from $595). It consists of all five of our photography products: Exposure, Snap Art, Blow Up, Bokeh, and Image Doctor.

If you own the current version of any of those products then it is $295 (down from $450).

If you buy the bundle now you will get Exposure 4 for free when it comes out in February. I’ll post more details on this amazing update next week, but here are a few samples. You can see some new looks here like light leaks, texture overlays, and non-centered vignette, but the best part of the upgrade is the completely redesigned user interface. Everything is faster and easier to explore.

Here is a great example of Blow Up used in the real world. Christian Popkes created a dramatic outdoor photo installation at the Schömberg Photo Festival in the Black Forest. Blow Up made the huge prints possible. They are about three meters tall!

If you aren’t familiar with the shortcut keys in our products then I strongly suggest that you read this article and watch the video below. These tips will also make you more productive in Photoshop since we use the same shortcuts whenever possible.

The video was made with Exposure 3, but the shortcuts mentioned apply to all of our products.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The latest versions of all of our currently shipping products are compatible with Photoshop CS6. If an old installer can’t find Photoshop CS6 then get the latest installer from our web site.

Note that you don’t need to save old installers or CDs. The most up to date installers can always be found on our web site.

I’m going to share a few ideas for how to use our software tools in travel photography. For more travel topics, see my recent article on low key travel photography and photogenic destinations.

Exposure: Old Looks

Exposure has many presets for old looks. If you want just a little old then there are faded Polaroids or 1970s bluish Ektachrome. Exposure does many variations of Kodachrome, from 1974 all the way back to 1936. And for really aged photos, there are early photographic processes like Calotype and many texture overlays. Just type “vintage” into the settings search box and then mouse over the huge list to quickly see previews.

When you are trying to make a photo truly look like it was shot many years ago, it is important to choose a scene that does not look modern. You will ruin the effect if a Toyota Prius is in a photo that is supposed to look like it was shot in 1940 or 1890. This is where travel photography can help. On many vacations you will encounter scenes that don’t have modern clutter. Just a few examples that come to mind are a Buddhist temple, European castle, or a tropical island (when you aren’t facing the hotel).

The preset used in the photo below is “Wet Plate – Lens Blur” from the “B&W Film – Vintage” category.

Ta Prohm temple, near Siem Reap, Cambodia

Exposure: Light Leaks

Some of the new texture presets in Exposure 4 are light leaks. Those look most appropriate in sunny outdoor scenes like you would encounter on a beach trip. The assumption is that really intense light is more likely to be seen through a crack in the camera body. You can find the light leaks in Exposure 4 in the Age tab in the Texture section. For presets that incorporate light leaks, browse the Lo-Fi folders.

The preset used in the photo below is “Kodak Portra 400VC – Light Leak” from the “Lo-Fi” category.

I also find that the more washed out or faded presets feel appropriate in bright outdoor scenes. Maybe I’m subconsciously thinking that the print was faded by sitting in a sunny place for a long time.

Snap Art

Skies or landscapes are good subjects for Snap Art paint media, such as oil paint, impasto, and watercolor. With portraits you usually need to use Snap Art 3′s layer system to apply more detail to faces. Landscapes are much more forgiving and often look better when you just use large brushes and abstract presets.

Bokeh

If you are going for the tilt-shift toy model look then you need a scene shot from high above and far away. At home I don’t have any viewpoints like that, but I find them sometimes when I travel. A view from a tall building or hill usually works well. Here is an example made with Bokeh.

Rice paddies near Sapa, Vietnam

Blow Up

Tony Sweet pointed out that he sometimes crops landscape photos to make panoramas with wide aspect ratios that he prints very large. That throws away a lot of the image, so Blow Up really helps to preserve sharpness when enlarging to make those prints. The example below is one of my photos, not Tony’s, but you get the idea.

Creative Bloq is a web site that provides daily design tips and inspiration. I’m pleased as punch that they included Exposure, Eye Candy, and Blow Up in their list of the 20 Best Photoshop Plug-ins. Exposure is #1! I’m not sure whether the list is in order of awesomeness, but let’s assume it is.

Thanks, Creative Bloq!

Marilyn Sholin wrote this article about resizing her paintings. She’s a veteran at preparing art for prints. Her painting style combines photography, Photoshop and even mobile apps.

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Working with technology has many challenges. For example, try to switch between the iPad and the computer on a single piece. It was tough for me to learn how to convert my work into printable files large enough for print sales and art exhibits. There were just too many confusing questions to ask before deciding to print.

Now I have a secret weapon, Blow Up from Alien Skin Software. Blow Up makes resizing a breeze.

Here is a small image of one of my paintings made with an iPad and Photoshop. When I do this, I focus on a few different things when resizing with Blow Up.

Final Painting Before Resizing

First I make sure the hard edges are tack-sharp. This helps features like eyes read clearer and at farther distances. The Sharpen Edges slider was made for this. Also, the paint should look crisp, not smoothed.

300% Enlargement

300% Enlargement

Next I’ll take a close look at the detail of the paper grain, for paintings it’s extremely important. Blow Up can simulate film grain with the Add Grain slider. This makes smooth areas look more detailed and natural.

300% Enlargement

The Blow Up presets do the majority of the work. I occasionally make tweaks, but rarely need to. Blow Up takes the hassle out of printing so I can concentrate on my painting.

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I call this painting style PhotoSymphonies. It all starts with a photo, goes through iPad apps, and continues into Photoshop. Right now my PhotoSymphonies tutorials are on sale. Visit my Digital Paint Shop for more information and  freebies to download. If you want a “Boxer Babe” print it’s on Fine Art America. For more information, more lessons, and more fun find me on Facebook, on PIXIQ, and on my blog.

A gallery wrap is a canvas print stretched around the outside of a wood frame. You can see an example below.

Preparing a photo for a gallery wrap is tricky because part of the canvas is visible along the sides of the frame. Enlarging the photo to go around the sides is usually not a good option because that may cut off important parts of the image. You could leave the sides white or a solid color, but that’s not very interesting. A trick that often works well is to reflect the image around each edge of the frame. That gives the illusion that the photo extends around the frame.

All this can require tedious algebra and Photoshop fiddling. To make it easy we provide a free Photoshop panel that does it for you. Our panel handles a variety of options. In the example below, we used our panel to reflect the photo around the edges, fade to black, and blur.

The gallery wrapper panel is installed with Blow Up. Don’t worry, even if you uninstall Blow Up then the panel is left behind. After you install Blow Up, restart Photoshop and then look in the Window->Extensions menu to turn on the gallery wrapper panel.

You can get a cheap frame from an art supply store and staple the canvas yourself, but we found that it is hard to align the edges perfectly and avoid cracks in the ink. Notice the misaligned edge in our homemade fern example in this article. After trying multiple professional printing services, we found APC to be the best canvas printer. If you give them our discount code of ALIENSKIN0900 then you can get 10% off.

We have a support article on this topic, and the gallery wrapper panel also has built-in help.

We lowered the price of the Photo Bundle by $150, Bokeh by $100, and each of our other products by $50. Most upgrades are less too. This is a permanent price change, not a sale. Enjoy! Stop by our store to see the deals.

We are within the 3-month free upgrade window for Eye Candy 7. If you purchase Eye Candy 6 now then we will send you Eye Candy 7 when it comes out in early December. Just a few more weeks. Patience, young grasshopper…

Recently we had a lot of cold, cloudy, rainy weather. Each morning a voice in my head said, “There’s no light out there for photography. Everything is dead in the winter. Stay in bed!” But then I had some strong coffee, told the voice to stuff it, grabbed my new camera, and headed out. Every time I was glad I did.

Often the thing I intended to shoot didn’t work out, but then I stumbled on other rewarding subjects. That’s how I discovered our heron population. I was going to try a new macro lens for mushrooms, but quickly gave up on finding any in near freezing weather. I was convinced that it had been a waste to go out on a rainy day, but then I spotted a heron. The photo below is all I got at that point, but then I knew to come back. The result was my recent Great Blue Heron article.

Here is a shot from the next day.

Stalking the herons led to other birds.

For the image below, I began with the Exposure 4 preset B&W Split Toning > Platinum (cool). To find it, start typing “platinum” in the search box above the presets. You’ll see it after you type a few letters. Then I went to the Age tab and added the texture “Wet Plate (border)”. For other great black & white work, see the recent Simon Griffiths portrait project.

These white birds (gulls?) were tolerant enough for me to get pretty close. Click this photo to see it larger.

You’ll need to click this next one to see detail. I may use Blow Up to create a big print for the Alien Skin office.

All this fun came from leaving the house with my camera on a cold rainy day. There’s no such thing as a bad day for shooting.