Students Will Win $1000 Walsworth Scholarships

How's a $1,000.00 scholarship sound to you? You and your parents can register to win a scholarship. In a random drawing, Walsworth will select a scholarship winner in the October, November and December. Once you register you are enrolled in all the remaining drawings. Don't miss this opportunity to win... you can be sure my son Sam is entered. Go here to register yearbookforever.com/win.

Reducing Noise in Photos

When shooting in low light situations like school gyms, a photographer often has to increase the ISO to shoot usable photos, however the result is often grainy photos. In "digital speak" they have excessive noise. There is software available that reduces the noise and magically smooths the photos. You will not believe the results. I use a stand alone product called Noiseware Community Edition on the PC and love it. You can download a free version at http://noiseware-community-edition.en.softonic.com/ On the Mac I use Imagenomic Noiseware and while it is not free, it works with Photoshop so you can do all your corrections at once from within Photoshop. You can down load this software for as little as $50 at http://www.imagenomic.com/ they have both PC and Mac versions.

Click on the photos to see the before (at top) and after (above) to see the difference. After using this software a while, you'll find, like I have, that virtually every photo is improved by it's use. Even photos shot at low ISOs often have noise in the shadows and by reducing the noise, the photo is better.

Using Noiseware software can make a dramatic difference in the quality of your photos. Next I'll show you an action for taking color photos to the next level with my color enhancement action.

ClassScene is Walsworth's image sharing community for schools

Who'd expect a 70-year-old to introduce the coolest image sharing technology imaginable. Of course you would; when that 70-year-old is Walsworth. As Walsworth celebrates its 70th birthday, we introduce ClassScene.

ClassScene is a safe, secure image and video sharing /archiving site for schools. ClassScene is at first glance similar to youtube or flicker but, with in-school approval of all content, it's a site your school would be proud to share. ClassScene will, as it evolves, become much more as we expect it to become integrated into the fabric of how you produce yearbooks, sell yearbooks, sell sporting events and prom tickets, present class projects and communicate with the school community. ClassScene can even become a profit center for your school.

There is special pricing for the first schools joining, so if you want to know more... contact me right away. email me

I welcome your comments and suggestions.
Visit my other pages InDesignYearbook and PhotoshopYearbook

(c)copyright 2008 Bill Stoess Knoxville, Tennessee

Webb School of Knoxville 2007 Princeps Win Tennessee's Highest Rating

The Tennessee High School Press Association awarded the ALL-TENNESSEE award to the 2007 Princeps the yearbook for Webb School of Knoxville. The award will be officially presented at the THSPA spring conference at Vanderbilt University on March 3. Editors Aftyn Behn and Emily King used a witness the evolution themed graphics package to capture the essence of a year dominated by "colossal construction" and continual change. Earning Tennessee's top award is nothing new for advisers Meg Crawford, Nancy Manikas, Janet Bigelow, Ben White and Pat Wright as the Princeps consistently wins top awards and earned the ALL-TENNESSEE award previously.

The Oak Ridge High School Oak Log, Knoxville Catholic High School's Shamrock and the Yellow Jacket of Roane County High have also previously won the ALL-TENNESSEE award.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.
Visit my other pages InDesignYearbook and PhotoshopYearbook

(c)copyright 2008 Bill Stoess Knoxville, Tennessee

Using Layer Masks to modify part of a photo

Batman uses a mask to obscure part of his face and change his appearance. Layer masks do the same thing. Layer masks and adjustment layers work much the same way, by placing a mask over a photo to hide or change the photo below.

I like to create a duplicate layer of the original photo first in case I want to go back to the original. Do this by dragging the original layer (usually named background layer) to the new layer icon at the bottom of the the layers palette.

I started with this photo and will use an adjustment layer to change the saturation and lightness to fade the background. If I wanted the background black and white. I would slide the saturation all the way to eliminate the color.

Once you click on the new adjustment button at the bottom of the layers palette, you'll select the adjustment you want. I'm using hue and saturation to fade the background. Just adjust the sliders until you get the parts you want faded the way you want them. The changes will affect the whole photo, but we will use the mask in the next step to bring parts back to life.

Now make sure the mask layer is selected by clicking once on the top layer in the layers palette which says hue and saturation.

In your tools palette select the paint brush tool and choose a relatively large brush. I used 200 for this example. Painting with a black fill will eliminate the mask in that area and bring the color back to the photo. Switching to a white fill will mask the area again. You can use a shade of grey to change the opacity.

In this photo I used the black brush to bring back the man and one of the oranges.

Layer masks are similar to adjustment layers and work the same way. Instead of selecting an adjustment to make using the mask, you use tools to draw on the mask. In this example, I'll use a radial gradient to fade the edges away.

In the layers palette select the layers mask.

With the layers mask selected, I use the gradient tool with a dark grey as the foreground color and black as the background color.

I'm using the gradient tool set to radial and I will click an hold the curser on the man's face and drag down and right to mask out the edges. Remember you're putting a mask over the photo... so drawing on the mask with black hides that part of the photo.

There are lots of effects you can achieve using adjustment layers and layer masks from all type of corrections to adding patterns as I've done here.

Using layer masks is also a simple way to blend multiple photos together. Play with masks and soon you'll be an expert at quickly modifying images. Email me if you have any questions.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.
Visit my other pages InDesignYearbook and PhotoshopYearbook

(c)copyright 2008 Bill Stoess Knoxville, Tennessee

Scholarships list

There are lots of scholarships available... the difficult thing is to find them. Radio computer expert, Kim Komando, recently posted this list. Also for yearbookers most colleges offer paid positions for yearbook and newspaper. A few schools even offer full or partial scholarships to yearbook editors. Contact the director of student publications, yearbook adviser, dean of students, or director of student activities at the college you wish to attend. A great high school yearbook and recommendations from your adviser and rep could be your ticket to future success. The list of scholarships is at http://www.komando.com/tips_show.asp?showID=9616

Blaze Hayes new Area Manager

Long time yearbook expert, Blaze Hayes, is the new Area Manager. As my boss, Blaze will help us provide better services to our valued clients.