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5 For $5 Friday: Actions For Photoshop: 5 Winter Tones

1/30/2015

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5 Photoshop Actions for $5.00 Every Friday

5 For $5.00 FRIDAY:  5 Winter Tones

Happy Friday!  We have 5 gorgeous tones for you that emulate the beautiful winter colors and effects that we are all striving to capture this year.  Each tone was carefully crafted to help you achieve the greatest results in the quickest manner.  At the same time, we left room for total customization.  Each layer of each Action is ungrouped and includes a layer mask for ultimate flexibility.

5 Tones Of Winter

1.  Deep Winter- includes three layers to shift, boost, and give you an optional winter haze.  The tone is a gorgeous, rich, royal blue.
2.  Icy Blast- includes four layers to shift, boost, add a touch of winter, and and includes a velvety smooth matte finish.
3.  Sweet Winter-  includes four layers to shift, boost, add sweet winter contrast, and pop with added richness.
4.  Lost & Found- is a deep moody edit that includes 3 layers to give gorgeous contrast, deep mood, and a moody low finish.
5.  Vintage Winter- includes four layers to boost, shift your image to a vintage film look, and finally give a subtle vignette.

These Actions play very smoothly on all of our test images, with minimal layer masking.  The option exists on each layer of each Action to use a layer mask.  This makes each Action fully customizable enabling you to achieve the greatest results!


Watch How Easy It Is!

5 Tones Of Winter
$5-
 For use with Adobe® Photoshop® CS4-6 & Creative Cloud®

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For use with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements® 7-13

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How To Naturally Smooth Skin In Adobe Photoshop

1/29/2015

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Have you ever seen images that go way too far with skin smoothing?  So much so that it is completely un-natural?  That is so disappointing to me as someone who develops these products.
I like to call this phenomenon "When Actions Attack". 

Skin Smoothing Actions for Photoshop

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5 Reasons You Should Switch To Adobe Creative Cloud Right Now

1/27/2015

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The Adobe® Creative Cloud® Shift

In May 2013 Adobe® made a shift away from the line of Creative Suite® products that has been a staple of professional toolboxes for the last 12 years.  It instead announced a shift toward the now popular cloud interface.  Boxed software, perpetual licenses, updates for Photoshop® CS2 - CS6, will no longer be available.  

Going forward, Adobe's Creative Cloud® subscription service is the only way to update your software.

You may be content with the boxed version of Adobe® Photoshop® CS3, CS4, CS5, or CS6, 
but here is why you should consider making the switch.

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Three Essential Products That Will Instantly Boost Your Mobile Photography

1/27/2015

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Recently I have been astounded at how horrible my mobile photography is.  I watch the Instagram posts of others and covet their light, bright, noise free images.  I just haven't understood why everyone has such great pictures and mine are so horrible.  I even rarely post to Instagram from Magic & Light Collection because my iPhone 5 pictures are so noisy...and just horrible.  I'm pretty sure my Facebook friends are scratching their heads saying "isn't she a photographer".

This morning I was scrolling through my Twitter feed and stumbled across this amazing start up company, Moment.  Have you heard of them?  OMG.  They know what's up.  If you are into mobile photography, this is totally your jam.

They have a truly great project going on with the Moment Lens.

1. The Moment Lens

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Moment Lens for Mobile Photography
Moment Lenses are the only lenses that work with or without a case.  The company touts three advantages to the moments lens.

1.  No Distortion - Moments a
dvanced lens designs minimize the geometric distortion to fractions of a percent. They claim that no Photoshop is required but we all know that Photoshop makes the magic.

2.  Clean Edge To Edge - Moment lenses have a slightly larger lens diameter that fully optimize the quality from the center of the frame, all the way to the edge.

3.  Minimal Chromatic Aberration- Not sure what this is?  Its ugly.  They claim to minimize this unsightly phenomenon via expert glass selection and expert design forms.


They are working on raising funds to build the Moment Case.  The case, lens, and app they have created will work together as a single apparatus to give you the best possible mobile images.  The case would allow for a shutter button similar to what we are used to on our DSLR's, with a half push lock feature.  You will also be able to lock focus which in terms of mobile photography is amazing.  Does anyone else's iPhone continually attempt to lock focus, and not allow you to take a picture until the moment is over?  Mine does.  The company needs money to develop and produce this product, and have been using Kickstarter to achieve this goal.  It looks like they are about to reach their goal soon and that means we can all start benefitting from this propriety lens interface.
Moment Lens and case for mobile photography

2.  Grip Tight Gorilla Pod Stand XL

Grip Tight Gorilla Pod Stand for Mobile Photography
I almost always struggle with motion blur when taking pictures with my iPhone.  The Grip Tight Gorilla Pod can cling to almost any surface to steady your camera allowing you to take crisper photos and eliminating camera shake.  This outstanding product is also great for taking selfies! 

3.  Luxi For All

Luxi For All Diffusion Dome for mobile photography
Luxi For All is a diffusion dome attachment for the front-facing camera of your mobile device, such as iPhone, or iPad.  It can be paired with the Luxi app (available on iOS and Android) to help you determine the best exposure settings for your DSLR or other camera.  I think we can all agree that whether it is a mobile camera or an ultra expensive DSLR, the on-camera flash is horrendous.  This is the perfect solution!

I see applications of these products for Lifestyle Bloggers, Food Bloggers, & Photography Bloggers.  They are unobtrusive enough to allow you to snap away and share with your social media following.

This is a non-sponsored post.

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5 FOR 5 Launch! This Week: Bubble Overlays

1/23/2015

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We are rolling out a brand new program to coincide with the launch of our newly improved website.  This is such exciting news as this is an incredible opportunity for our customers to get amazing deals on our products.
Every Friday we will release a new set, comprised of 5 products.  It may be Actions, it may be Overlays, it may be a mix.  It will be a surprise for everyone.
This week we are releasing Bubble Bokeh©.

How Do I Get More Bubbles In My Pictures?

We have the answer for you.  Bubble Bokeh.
I remember taking pictures of my daughter on her first birthday.  I was telling her to sit still (yes, Im that mamarazzi) while magical balloons flew around her.  I had my Mom trying to blow bubbles in a windy-ish situation from the side while I ran around and fixed balloons and generally got upset about everything.

I was so flustered.

I wanted it all to be perfect.  If you are a Mamarazzi like me you know the feeling.  The bubbles weren't coming out right.  I would snap away and only manage to get 2 or 3 full bubbles in the picture.  Finally, I gave up.  I truly wanted a magical picture full of bubbles, in a completely uncontrolled environment, with a one year old subject.  I set myself up for disappointment.

" I truly wanted a magical picture full of bubbles, in an uncontrolled environment, with a one year old subject"

I ended up developing this set of real bubble overlays to compensate for this problem.  There are 5 overlays total, all serve a different purpose:

Bubble Bokeh:  A true bokeh to fit outside the plane of focus.
Sharp Bubbles:  Designed to fit within the plane of focus.
Stream of Bubbles:  Designed to be blown away from the subject, as if they were blowing bubbles.
Bubble Explosion:  A true explosion of bubbles to be fitted to the size of your image.
Glowing Bubble Explosion:  This is the same bubble explosion mentioned above only most bubbles have a gorgeous soft glow.

Slide 1:  Original Image  |  Slide 2: Bubble Bokeh  |  Slide 3: Sharp Bubbles  
Slide 4: Glowing Bubble Explosion
This is a great example of you can work smarter and not harder.  Whether you are a photographer, or a Mamarazzi, or both, like me...you need one less thing to worry about.

Bubbles of all things, being one them.

" You need one less thing to worry about.  Bubbles of all things, being one of them"


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    Hi!  I'm Amy,
    a former commercial photographer turned Mom-tographer.  I started Magic And Light Collection 8 years ago and have loved watching it grow over the years!  I am currently working hard on raising those littles, and sharing all the Photoshop shortcuts that help me work smarter, and not harder!

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  • Home
  • Actions
    • Real Estate Photo Actions
    • Essential Food Photography
    • Essential Vintage Action Set
    • Black & White Actions
    • Retouching Actions
    • Magic Mini Action Sets
    • Harvest Actions for the Fall
    • Magic Eyes: Single Set
    • New! Workflow Essentials
  • Overlays
    • Sky Overlays
    • Gypsy Color Overlays
    • Magic Mini Overlays
  • 5 for $5
  • Digital Paper
  • Textures
  • Marketing & Design
    • Storyboards
    • Graphics You Need
  • Ebooks
  • Free Actions
  • FREE DAILY PHOTO TIPS
    • 5 For $5 Fridays
    • Photo Editing Software
    • Photography Equipment
    • Watch Me Edit
    • Free Photoshop Actions
    • Photoshop Elements
    • Food Photography
    • Macro Photography
    • Photography Fun
    • Learn Adobe Photoshop
    • My Photography Insight
  • Video Library
    • How To Install Actions & Overlays
    • How To Use Portrait Magic
    • How To Use Real Estate Actions
    • How To Use Food Photography Actions
    • How To Use Gypsy
    • How To Use Sweet Sky Overlays
    • How To Use Dark Sky Overlays
    • How To Use Absence Actions
    • How To Use Photoshop Elements
    • General Editing Tutorials
    • Freebie Tutorials
  • Resources
    • Support
    • Disclosure