Here is the link to the Fourth Schmap online guide to attractions in and around Seattle.

Northwestern Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Vernal Falls, Yosemite National Park, California

San Francisco, California

Downtown New York City, New York

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, California

New York from Liberty Island, New York

Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois

Nevada and Vernal Falls from Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, California

Tunnel View, Yosemite National Park, California

Space Needle, Seattle, Washington

Mammoth Mountain, Mammoth Lakes, California

San Francisco from Treasure Island, San Francisco, California

Photoshop is the premier image manipulation software for graphic designers, photographers and many more professionals in the business. Some people do complain about the lack of vector support and text support, but those features are present in the current version of Photoshop – not too advanced though !

How I got into Photoshop, I myself do not remember. The earliest memory of me using Photoshop was when I was designing a poster for the IEEE society at my Engineering college – Thadomal (undergrad) called 360 Degrees. I think I had used ver. 3.0 for this. This is when I realised the power of Layers in Photoshop ! I became pretty good soon and started teaching the basics of Photoshop by example – This is the way I learned it and this is the way I was going to teach it !

I must say, I was pretty famous in my college and no one came near when it came to designing – I may sound arrogant right now, but I am not. Everyone has their talents and I had just found mine ! I learned Photoshop by following tutorials on the web. There are tons of tutorials out there – probably the most number of tutorials that I have seen on the web are the ones for Photoshop. I also did a website where I put up some of my own tutorials. This is quite an old site, but the tutorials are still good if you are a beginner ! Check it out if you are starting off as a beginner. Here is some of my Photoshop works…

That was the beginning – I have come a long way now. I have made Logos from scratch, CD covers, web interface, posters for different groups – IEEE, Bombay’s local Art of Living chapter etc. etc. and throughout, the only resource that I ever referred to was the tutorials on the web. My “portfolio” – though quite outdated can be found at my Photoshop site.

To really understand the power of Photoshop you need to see someone (proficient at Photoshop) at work ! Especially someone using the stamp tool – that is such an innovative tool ! Whoever thought of it is a pure genius ! One can correct photos and remove defects using this tool in Photoshop – I learned of it sometime when I was using Photoshop ver 5.0 (I think) and it opened up a whole new world of retouching ! Here is one of my best retouching works…I am proud of these !

The story behind this restoration :

“This photo of the Indian deity – Shiva, was ruined as water got into the frame and the glossy photo got stuck to the glass. I tried to remove the photo but to no avail…as you can see (on the left). I love this photo and I really needed to do something. So I scanned it (High res) and restored it using Adobe Photoshop. It took days before I finished it. It required every bit of patience that I had !! I love the final work…..in fact I surpassed myself with this work. Only a mouse was used…..no tablet etc. Love the work….hope you all see the amount of effort gone into this and appreciate that of nothing else.”

Photoshop is constantly being improved by Adobe, and I love that about it ! They have added RAW support which is good for images taken in the RAW format by digital cameras. There is some vector support and a lot of text support has also been added. I believe there is a free web version is the works – that should be amazing, with everything moving to Web 2.0 !! I am currently using Photoshop CS2 and can’t wait to upgrade to CS3 ! I love Photoshop – I do all the framing of my art in Photoshop; All the retouching of photos in Photoshop (before printing it) – Every graphic related action is done in Photoshop ! I have even stitched Panoramas in Photoshop ! There is no bounds to how you can use Photoshop – like everything else, I learned this out of curiosity and some interest – If I have roused any interest or curiosity in you then here is my advice to you – Go for it !! Start off – there will be stumbling blocks but you will overcome those I bet – like I did !!

Here is an image showing the evolution of the Photoshop toolbar – it shows you how Photoshop has evolved !

And some more articles about Photoshop

• Screenshots of every Photoshop since ver. 0.63
• History of Photoshop

That’s my story…Here are some videos of people creating art from a scratch using Photoshop :

[youtube 8K_NQe57C-k]

[youtube P4wI_o8gyxA]

[youtube bib1Mz8dDrA]

[youtube QNREP5l4xTw]

[youtube 423DLqobgYc]

These guys are amazing – to see them paint in front of a large crowd without a reference picture is quite something ! Everything is right out of their heads – at times you don’t even recognise what they are doing until the piece is all done. Its pure TALENT ! Their only tools are the Spray Paints, a circular cover (for the planets), a small blade, and magazine pages (to give the texture on the planets). Amazingly, the theme is always a “Space Scape” and some famous landmark of the city – The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz or even the Transamerica Pyramid. I have also seen this kind of spray painting in other cities – New York, Las Vegas etc.

Check out these videos if you haven’t seen these people doing their thing . The next time you are in one of these cities do not miss out on this – You can even purchase one of their paintings for a mere $20.

I just figured out that there is a website dedicated to this kind of art. Check it out : spacepaintings.com . It also has some tips and instructions for beginners – in case you get inspired and try to do this on your own – I am planning to do this sometime

UPDATE: I actually went out and got the paraphernalia to spray paint and tried it out. The result – Well, I am not (yet) as good as the ones in these videos but am just starting off – I will learn more and more and become good at it ! I encourage you to go out there and try it out as well – Its fun – try to mimic these guys in the video and you will learn !

[youtube 1QSJVihpRDw]

[metacafe 453738]

[youtube RkgEUUYcQUM]

[youtube 3YV177SZ1Jk]

[youtube HvGtKT9N1xQ]

[youtube KM_xdhWT7-M]

What I did was to combine all the panoramas that I have taken (all arent marked yet) and mark the spot from where I took that panorama (or any other photo). Here is the link to my maps – they are all public.

• Southern California
• Pacific Coast Highway
  
• Chicago
• Seattle
• Lake Tahoe
• Bay Area

Anyways, as an avid photographer myself, I have taken a lot of Panoramas (yes – I love the wide angle views !) around the Bay. Here are panoramas from around the Bay – I never get tired of shooting Panoramas !!

North :

Further North :

South :

Further South :

East :

Further East :

West :

Further West:

Here is the journal : deviantART journal

The technique is to reduce the opacity of the images to about 50% or so and use an image editing tool such as Photoshop to rotate and align the images appropriately.

It is an innovative concept and I really like it…Maybe I shall make a few of my own

Till then here are few examples…

For a tutorial see…

Panographies: Panoramas on Steroids

And see a pool of panographies at Flickr…

The Panography Pool

Also, check out panographies by *partoftime ……..thanks to *Blofeld60

Hope ya diggs this..
Rohit

For some of my best panoramas check out:
Rohits Panoramas at Picasaweb

The whole set of Panoramas that I took (good or bad) is at :
Rohits Panoramas at mordani.com/gallery

Some of the others that I love personally are: