A guest post by David Spickett

Watermarking is something that many people use to protect their images online. It is basically placing a mark such as a logo, U.R.L or simply your name, over a part of the photo. This discourages people who intend to steal your images (to a certain extent) and also gives you the chance of getting credit even if the image is moved out of your control.

Now we know what watermarking is, and why we might want to do it, let’s look at how to do it. Methods include making a custom brush, using a document as a frame for all of your images, or simply typing your watermark onto the image. I use the latter in my post processing because I watermark with my U.R.L and also text boxes …

When you have a lot of similar images from a shoot, you can organizing them using the Lightroom Stacks feature. This allows you to stack images together so that only one image representing the stack appears in the Grid, Filmstrip and Loupe. This can clean up the screen reducing the number of images you see.

To stack images, in the Library module, select the images to stack, right click and choose Stacking > Group Into Stack. This stacks the images on top of each other.

In Grid view you will see a small number in the top corner of the image at the top of the stack showing the number of images in the stack.

When you think of photography, YouTube probably isn’t the first website that comes to mind. But by using the slideshow export feature of Aperture 3 you can show off your work in an entirely new way on the site. Chris Folsom explains.

Step 1 – Create a slideshow

Click File, New and then click on Slideshow. You’ll be prompted to name your slideshow and pick the transition effect. Click the “Choose Theme” button and you’ll be able to add photos to the newly created project… just drag them in and rearrange them in the order you want.

The slideshow settings will allow you to change things like the Aspect Ratio of the presentation, how long slides will be displayed and whether or not you want the title shown. All of these settings …

One real annoyance with Photoshop CS4 is that Print Package and Contact Sheet printing is missing. These options appeared in earlier versions of Photoshop but they aren’t installed automatically in Photoshop CS4.

You might be excused for thinking this means you can’t print multiple photos per page in Photoshop CS4. Nothing could be further from the truth. The secret is to find the missing features on your program disk or, quicker still, download them from the web.

In a previous post I showed how to fix this image by creating duplicates of the background layer, fixing one copy focusing on the shadows and fixing the other focusing on the highlights and then blending the two layers using masks. If you find masks tricky to use or if you have never used masks before then this post: http://digital-photography-school.com/photoshop-applying-fixes-using-masks is a great way to get started.

However, as many readers pointed out, working with duplicate image layers results in the file growing in size at an alarming rate. Each time you duplicate the background layer of a photo you add the approximately equivalent of the image size back into the image. So an image that contains three copies of the background layer is around triple the original image size.

If you save your images in a format that saves the layers such as PSD or a layered TIFF, using duplicate image layers also results significantly increases the image size. In contrast, if you perform the same fix using adjustment layers and masks, the increase in file size is negligible. So, when faced with a choice, it is better to perform fixes to an image using adjustment layers and masks rather than duplicating layers where this is practicable. Not only does this keep your file sizes small but adjustment layers are editable so, if a fix is too strong, you can double click the adjustment layer and change its settings.

So, here’s how to perform the same fix as I did last time – lightening the sign in the foreground and darkening and adding contrast to the background – using Adjustment Layers and Masks.

Step 1

To fix the background of the image, choose Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Levels and adjust the levels to improve the contrast in the lighter areas of the image. Ignore the darker areas of the image as they are not part of this fix.