My Mat & Frame actions are now available for purchase/download on my website www.ryandesjardins.com (see examples attached to my previous blog post or my website).  For photographers and other artists, I think you’ll find these actions create very nice effects around your artwork.

A free version is available on the website.  Give it a try and then consider purchasing the entire line of mat & frame actions ($7.50 to $17.50) that I believe you’ll really enjoy!

I’ve developed some great Photoshop actions for creating very nice mat and frame around digital artwork for display on the web.  They have been released before and got some great reviews.  I’ve since done some tweaking and will be releasing version 2.0 of the actions.  They will come in four different sets:

1. Mat & Frame Single – A free action that creates a simple (but very nice) mat and frame.
2. Retro 35mm Slide Action – Another free action that creates a very nice 35mm slide look around an image.
3. Mat & Frame Basic – An action I’m selling for $7.50 that gives some creative options for creating white mats and black frames of various widths around your artwork.  There are six actions in this set.
4. Mat & Frame Basic + Color – Includes the Mat & Frame Basic actions plus the ability to have different colored mats and colored frames to really customize the look of your art.  You can even use the Color Picker to match your mat and frame to colors directly from your artwork.  There are 12 actions in this set.  $12.50
5. Mat & Frame Complete – Includes everything in Basic and Basic+Color and also my AutoMat & Frame actions that can be used in Batch Processing to create mats and frames around several images in one process, and my QuickMat & Frame actions that allow mixing and matching of mat and frame sizes without the need to input specific sizes.  This action set also includes custom look molded frames.  The mats and frames can be different colors of your choice.  There are over 24 actions in the Complete set. $17.50

I’m going to be developing some more mat and frame actions as well.  I’m working on a “wood” frame option.  I’m also going to be developing some scripts to automate some more of these functions.  Look for these features in the next three months.  I’ll be making the announcement on my Blog.

My Mat & Frame Actions Version 2.0 will be available for download on my website www.ryandesjardins.com this weekend (April 3rd/4th).  Here are a few examples of what you can do with these actions – There are a couple that are compressed…click on them to see full size:

I believe these create the finest mat and frame appearance that you won’t find anywhere else.  There are a few out there, but the I feel the time I’ve invested in these has really paid off.  The actions will be available soon on my web site!

I’ve added a Bird Gallery of photographs to my website at www.ryandesjardins.com

On April 12th at 8am pacific, photographers (and other graphics aficionados) will be glued to their computer screens watching the announcement of the Adobe Creative Suite 5, which includes Photoshop CS5 (aka Version 12).  It’s quite the anticipated event when a new version of Photoshop is released because it is often filled with some enhancements and upgrades to make it work faster and more efficient.  Arguments can always be made if a single version upgrade is worth the money or not.  By single version, I mean going from Version CS4 to CS5.  It’s always debated every time a new release comes out.

Will I be upgrading?  At some point.  I probably won’t be one of the first to jump in and buy it, but I suspect when the trial software is available, I’ll download and try it out for a month.  I’ve seen some sneak previews and talked with some people who have a little insight, and I believe we’ll be seeing some incredible new feature in this latest version.  One of the most amazing which is assumed to be in this new version is Content Aware Fill.  You can see the demo here.

Some of these upgrades will probably again spark the debate about manipulation of photographs.  If you haven’t read my article “Is that Picture Photoshopped” you can get my take some some of the debate.  One thing I’ll reiterate is the difference between journalistic or editorial photography, which in my mind but be completely true to a scene, and artistic or fine art photography, which I believe is an opportunity for the photographer to share his vision, as manipulated as he wants it to be.

Where the line is that determines if an artist should “claim” what manipulation was done to a photograph is a gray area for most people.  If I remove a distracting twig, is that a big deal?  What if that twig is covering the eye of a bird and the eye has to be “reconstructed” to look correct after the twig was digitally removed?  It’s a hard call, at least for me, as far as art goes.

Photography tends to be the Rodney Dangerfield of the art world – “no respect.”  Anyone can make a photograph, right?  It takes real talent to make a painting.  It’s a really stupid line of thought, but there are a lot of people out there who feel that way, which brings me into a tie in with image manipulation.  A painting is a complete, from beginning to end, manipulation of a scene, why can’t photographers create something special from their photograph that didn’t exist when they took the photograph?

It probably won’t be the last time I go off on this subject, but I do believe that photographic art and manipulation will gain ground on traditional painting to a certain extent.  You can’t just open up Photoshop and create a photo-realistic image, or make alterations to an existing photograph without any training or time working with the media, just like painting.

Okay, I’m done for now.

I added a “Birds” gallery on my website and a few other minor updates.  I also fixed the RSS feed on my Blog and e-mail subscriptions now work.  I’m sorry this is a short one.  My wife had back surgery today, so my mind really isn’t on photography and blogging.  I should have some more time soon because I have quite a bit to share.

Until next time, please visit my website to see the new galleries: http://www.ryandesjardins.com,

Was out today at a photo blind hoping some birds would wander my way.  The most likely subjects were waterflowl.

It was cloudy, sometimes rainy, but pretty warm (high 40s, maybe low 50s).  It was an easy 1 mile walk to the blind.  On my way there some of the largest groups of geese flew over head, their trumpeting almost deafening.  It was pre-dawn, so there was no light to photograph the birds filling the sky, but it was a wonderful spectacle to witness.

I spent a few hours at the blind, and unfortunately, there weren’t too many birds that came close to the blind.  I saw some American Coots, some Canadian Geese, a Ring-necked duck, a Mallard, and some others in the distance I couldn’t identify.

I decided to start my walk back to the parking lot.  About 1/4 back down the trail I decided to stop and photograph some Trillium.  I have always really liked these somewhat unusual flowers with their three petals.  There were quite a few dotting the area around the forested part of the trail.

Just around another bend in the trail a nice woman said she had spotted a Red-breasted Sapsucker nearby.  Honestly, I’m just getting into bird photography more seriously this year, so my bird identification is, well, nonexistent.  However, I something told me it might have some red in it (don’t ask me how I figured that out) and that it might be a bird worth photographing.

The light was pretty dark in this forested part of the trail.  As it turns out, the Red-breasted Sapsucker is in the woodpecker family, and it’s only seen occasionally in this area, so it was a pretty good find.  I saw the bird and set up my tripod and camera.  It took some post-processing work to balance the light in the image, but it turned out okay.  It was a nice bird to see, regardless.

After taking some time photographing the sapsucker, two other women came walking up the trail and said there was a male and female wood duck in a tree not at the Riparian overlook.

I had not seen a Wood duck in the wild yet, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a duck in a tree…it doesn’t seem quite right, if you ask me.  Anyway, I loaded up my gear and continued back up the trail to see if I could find those ducks.

When I got to the overlook, for the life of me, I couldn’t spot the ducks, I suspected they had left, but I continued to look.  Behind me, the two women who had told me about the duck had come back up the trail and she started to help me look.  At first she couldn’t find the birds, but then she did.  They blended into the mossy trees pretty well, but I was able to zoom in for a reasonable photograph.  The lighting again was pretty dark, and it had me wishing for a flash extender to add a little fill light.  I’ll be picking one of those up sometime in the near future.  They are pretty inexpensive and just snap over the flash giving it some extra range.

I think you’ll agree although it was lacking dramatic light, it was a nice day to be looking for new photographs, and it has me thinking about a new article about getting out to take new photographs when the weather doesn’t seem like it would be conducive to a good shot.  Bad weather and the transition between storms can be great times for photography.

Although the bird blind itself was a bit of a bust this time out, it was a very nice outing overall.  I don’t have any complaints about it, and you shouldn’t either, other than you weren’t there and probably wish you were (if you are into birds).

This will probably be my last photo outing for the next few weeks.  My wonderful wife is having back surgery next week, and we’ll soon be off to Newfoundland to visit family shortly after that.  I love Newfoundland, and it is a wonderful island to get some good photography, but unfortunately, it’s probably the worst time of the year to get good photographs there.  Rain/Snow/Slush and very, very gray.  I suspect I’ll still find some time to get out and photograph some of the wonderfully colorful buildings in St. John’s, but it is secondary to spending time with family and some friends while we are there.

I’m pretty sure every artist goes through a slump or something similar to writer’s block.  I know I have a time or two.  I know how to take a photograph.  I know exposure.  I know composition.  I know that I have taken some good photographs, but for whatever reason, I’ve gotten stuck.  Frankly, my photographs sucked.  I get back home and look at them and wondered, “What in the heck was I looking at when I shot this?”

I’ve talked to a few people who have gone through something like this, and I started to recognize some things they all had in common:  withdrawal.  Instead of facing their block head on, they backed down and didn’t get back on the horse.  They waited for something to happen.  In most cases, it would turn around eventually.  It probably didn’t happen all at once, and to a certain extent, I’ve seen some people with insane photographic talent essentially give up the camera after a slump and haven’t really returned.  I have to say that I’ve been there, but I also got out of it, and I couldn’t be more motivated about photography.

You can find a lot written about breaking out of a slump or a block.  I suppose some of it is pretty good advice, but I’m going to share what I feel has a higher chance of helping than anything else: friends.

Yes, friends.  In this case, I mean friends with cameras, friends taking photographs, friends using Photoshop, and friends talking about photography.  Immerse yourself in your friends who are also into photography.  If you don’t have friends who are into photography, join a forum online, or a Facebook group or something similar to that.  Heck, you can e-mail me and I’ll talk photography as much as you want!  Don’t worry about the photographs you are producing.  Let it go.  See what your friends are doing.  Ask them about their photographic outings, and most important of all meet up with them in person and go out to take some new pictures.

Get out there!  Don’t worry about what you’ll be bringing home.  I know that’s tough because photographers fret over their comps, they pre-visualize, visualize and post-visualize the shot they want, they obsess over the lighting, heck they fantasize about the lighting.  STOP IT!  Yes, I’m yelling.  Just stop it.  No expectations.  Hit the trail with your friend or friends, camera and tripod in hand.  You don’t even need to take a photograph, in fact, try not to.  Our tendency is to try to force a shot when we are in a slump, or take to many shots, or too few, or to concentrate too much.  I’m going to yell again, STOP IT!  Let yourself be truly inspired before you unfold the tripod and mount your camera.

I can’t place enough value on that of friends.  I hit a slump not that long ago.  I stopped reading about photography (you can never really read enough or learn enough).  I wasn’t involved in my favorite forum online either.  I hated everything I tried to do creatively.   In some ways, I stopped having fun trying to make a good photograph.

I had been out in the past with quite a few different photographers, but when the slump started, I stopped getting out there.  I withdrew, and I knew it was wrong.  Then I met a new friend.  He is a successful photographer and in many ways embodied what I’d like to do someday with my knowledge and craft.  I know we’ve spend more hours talking about photograph and non-photography topics than actually taking photographs.  I was deep in my slump.  He invited me out to do some photography.  I went, we drove around, B.S.’ed and took some shots.  The couple times we went looking for subjects, I struggled and really wanted to make a good photograph, but it just didn’t happen.  When I got home, I lost the focus of the more important aspect of the trips we took: the friendship.  Not that I had forgotten I had a great friend, but I let the photography over-shadow it, and that’s when I realized I needed to change my focus, and not necessarily my camera.

My friend teaches photographic workshops all over the west.  He works hard and is on the road most of the year away from his wife.  He helps others more than he spends taking photographs for himself.  With that in mind, I figured out that I needed to stop worrying about what I was going to accomplish when I went out.  When I was younger and went out with my friends to do some fishing, it didn’t really matter if we came home without a fish, we always had a great time being outdoors, talking, relaxing, etc.  The same should apply to photography.

So, now my focus was on enjoying friendships.  I started contacting others who I hadn’t talked to in awhile and set up places to go.  Sometimes, the meetings weren’t photographic, we just got together for coffee and talked about photography or whatever suited us.  Soon, and fairly quickly, my inspiration started to return.  I could feel the motivation and the desire to be creative building back up.

The other thing I did, and I highly recommend, is borrowing some books from the library.  I immersed myself in everything photographic, from guide books, beginner books, advanced techniques, and coffee table books.

Slumps happen to everyone, but you can take steps to break out of them.  Don’t let your camera gather dust, pick it up, call some friends, get out there!

Finally!  I’ve got a rough draft of my website back online.  It’s taken longer than I had planned, but it’s starting to come together.  Ordering prints and such isn’t as automated as I’d like, but I’ll be working on that.  Secure orders for fine art prints can still be made, it just has a couple extra steps that I will be eliminating in the future.

Things aren’t moving ahead quite as much as I had hoped.  My family has many things going on right now, which is a priority over all things photography and computer related.

My target date for the website reveal and the blog is now April 1st.  However, I may be taking a trip to Newfoundland, which will push this back, unless I get things done beforehand.

Ryan