I’m excited to announce that I’m making my luminosity mask action set available at KillTheAmbient.com for everyone. What’s a luminosity mask, you say? It’s a way to select parts of an image based on brightness. For example, you might want to darken the deepest shadows of your image a little more. Or, you might want to warm just the highlights of your image. This action set will do it. With it, you can select 5 brightness ranges including Super Darks, Darks, Midtones, Lights, and Super Lights. Once selected, use the included color toning actions (or any of your own actions) to enhance your image.

I use these on my images, because I don’t want the heavy-handed approach of adjusting the entire image at once. You could do similar work with curves, but it’s a lot easier having Photoshop select the tonal values for you!

The Luminosity Mask action set features 11 luminosity mask actions + 4 color toning actions. This action set is available for immediate download. To get an idea of what you can do with it, check out the video below!

If you’d like to purchase the action, just click here to head to the store. The price for the action set is $59, but if you enter your email where requested on the store page, I’ll send you a discount code which will get the price down to $45. The discount code is good until Monday, February 21st.

I am pretty excited as WPPI is right around the corner! My presentation is almost complete. I’ll be talking about shoot planning, location lighting, post production in Photoshop, plus tools and techniques for composite work. We’ll also have some coupons/giveaways from Triple Scoop Music, Totally Rad Actions, White House Custom Color, and Asukabook. I’m looking forward to a fun two hours!

If you plan on attending WPPI this year and would like to say hello, catch me on twitter at @ericdoggett. For you Austin photogs, we’ll be doing a breakfast on one of the days as well.

I’ll be having a small product announcement before WPPI starts, so be sure to check back before then!

Today, Apple launched their new Mac desktop App Store. Think of it as a way to buy apps for your home computer. One interesting development is that Aperture is only $79 when purchased through this store. This is a big savings over the $199 in-store/physical box purchase price. I can’t see any particular downside to purchasing it through the App Store, except that purchases are tied to your iTunes account. So, if you have multiple machines, you might have to login with your iTunes account on them to download the app.

I’m more of a Lightroom person myself, although at $79 it does make it worth playing with the trial. To get started, just update your Mac to 10.6.6 via Software Update, and you’ll see the new App Store icon in your dock.

I am excited to announce the launch of a new blog, KillTheAmbient.com.

KTA was designed to offer my thoughts on lighting, business, marketing, and any other aspect of photography that sounds interesting. While I hope the info I post there will be valuable, it will definitely also have a little bit of humor thrown in for good measure. For example, where else can you read that you should get pregnant to guarantee new camera gear, or pack heat when traveling?

Down the road, I might offer some training programs at the site if there’s enough interest. But for now, visit the site, sign up for updates, and enjoy the curiously fun photo tips and comedic stylings of yours truly.

Imagine this: You’ve just signed up for Facebook or LinkedIn and are all ready to meet new friends, but you can’t stand your profile picture! You don’t even remember owning a pair of leg warmers.

Let’s fix that. Announcing the Austin Headshot Shootout!

 

We are going to do this in a fun and relaxed way! For $75 and a few minutes of your time, you’ll receive 2 retouched, high-resolution JPEG image files. One will be a straight headshot, and the other will be a waist-up shot. You’ll receive a license to use the images however you wish – profile pictures, marketing, actor auditions, advertising, even the cover of your next ground-breaking CD.

The shoot will happen at 10:00 AM on Saturday, May 23, 2009.

** LOCATION ** We’ll shoot under the trees at One Congress Plaza, which is located at 111 Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas. The building is on the east side of Congress | map.

Have friends? If 2 of them sign up and mention your name on the reservation form, you get your $75 back.

We have a limited number of slots available, so just head over here to RSVP for the shoot. You must RSVP before the shoot to be on the list. You can also sign up via Paypal:

And if you want to pass this idea on to anybody, send them to http://www.HeadshotShootout.com. And if you have any questions, feel free to call the studio at 512.282.7674, or catch me via email at doggett _-at-_ doggettstudios.com .

The guys over at DadLabs just posted the latest episode for Photo Month, where we talk about 4 different camera options for you new shooters out there. Of course I am biased, so it’s all Canon gear. But you can get equally good results from the latest Nikon equipment. We talk about the Digital Elph, the Powershot G9, the Rebel series, and the 5D Mark II.

Next week we hit up some simple techniques to make your point and shoot pics much better.