Learn all about sharpening photographs with Photoshop's Unsharp Mask filter in this tutorial.

Sponsored by Logitech, makers of the NuLOOQ Navigator design controller.

Robert Scoble, producer of The Scoble Show, has posted Part 1 and Part II of the Photoshop lessons I recently gave photographer Thomas Hawk at Scoble's house in Half Moon Bay.  These videos show how to apply some of the principles I've been teaching you here to Hawk's photographs. We talk about shooting RAW, using Adobe Bridge with Photoshop, and some practical techniques for correcting photos in Photoshop.

This is part of Scoble's Photowalking series at Podtech. Other shows in this series feature Hawk shooting photographs on walks with Scoble in the Bay Area. There's more on the Photoshop lesson adventure here and at Hawk's blog.

The Vloggies for the top video podcasts were awarded in San Francisco this weekend. Here at Photoshop Online we were honored to have been considered in the Instructional/Educational category.

Congratulations to all the winners, including our very cool friends Phoebe Ventouras and Julie Daman at Nontourage (Favorite Female Vloggers and Favorite Music-Peoples' Choice), and Ryanne Hodson (Favorite Female Vlogger-Judges' Choice). And a special shout-out to co-hosts Irina Slutsky and Daniel McIvar.

If you weren't there, you can live the event vicariously through these photos by photographer extraordinaire Thomas Hawk (who also managed to make me look presentable a couple weeks ago), these videos at Podtech and Weird America, and these lists of winners at Scobelizer.

I spent Saturday afternoon with Robert Scoble and Thomas Hawk filming future episodes of Scoble's hot new video cast, the ScobleShow. Scoble filmed me walking "photowalker" Hawk through some techniques for processing his photos in Photoshop.

If you've been watching the ScobleShow, you know that Hawk and Scoble have done a series of Photowalking episodes in which Hawk shares his techniques while shooting. Processing Hawk's digital photos in Photoshop takes the idea one intriguing step further. Interacting on camera was an interesting and novel way to teach Photoshop in a podcast. I think you're really going to like it.

I'll post a link here as soon as Scoble posts the first of the Photoshop episodes on the ScobleShow. In the meantime, enjoy Hawk's photos at Zooomr (a cool photo-sharing site of which Hawk is the CEO), and check out Scoble's and Hawk's posts about the fun day we had Photoshopping and hanging out in Half Moon Bay.

Learn how sharpening works in Photoshop. This show covers what sharpening does, how to make a composite layer for sharpening, when to sharpen, and how to avoid changing image colors when you sharpen.

Stay tuned for the next couple of shows, where you will put these general sharpening principles to work sharpening photographs with the Unsharp Mask and Smart Sharpen filters.

I'll be offering more Photoshop tips on the upcoming October 10 episode of the popular iLifeZone podcast [iTunes link], which I'll be guest hosting along with regulars Derrik Story and Scott Bourne. Check it out.

The preferred way to convert a color image to black and white is with a Channel Mixer adjustment layer. This method gives you the most control and often produces the best results. Learn all about using the Channel Mixer adjustment in this third installment of our series on converting color photos to black and white.

Use two hue saturation adjustment layers to gain control over converting a color photo to black and white. The results are often close to what you'll get using a channel mixer adjustment (which we'll cover in the next show), but the interface is more intuitive for many folks.

Learn a couple of quick and dirty ways to convert a color photograph to black and white. The desaturate and hue saturation adjustments offer quick solutions. The results of these methods are similar, but the hue saturation adjustment is the better of the two, because it can be applied in an adjustment layer that doesn’t change the underlying color photo.

These methods are useful if you’re in a hurry, but they don’t maximize the range of tones in the resulting black and white photograph. In the next two shows, I’ll show you some better ways to convert a color photo to black and white. So stay tuned.

Use a gradient map adjustment layer to sepia tone a photograph. This method maps different shades of browns, blacks, and whites to the grayscale tones in the image. The results are richer and more varied than you usually can achieve with the photo filter or hue saturation methods of sepia toning you learned in part 1 of this episode.

Learn two quick ways to sepia tone a photograph, with a photo filter adjustment layer and a hue saturation adjustment layer. Check back for part 2 of this episode, where I'll show you a third way to sepia tone, using a gradient map adjustment layer for even richer sepia tones.

Learn to animate a layer mask in Photoshop CS2. We'll animate a night scope in a forest, but this technique can be used to make lots of novel animations. Think about some other ways you can put this technique to use: - animate a magnifying glass or a view through a telescope by scaling the two images differently, - animate a spotlight on a scene by lightening the image on the masked layer, - throw one of the images out of focus, - make one image black and white and leave the other in full color. Use your imagination!

Photoshop Elements 5.0 was released today. Although I love Photoshop, I have to admit that Elements is a great deal, particularly for non-professional photographers. It's $89.99 or $69.99 for an upgrade version at the Adobe Store. Elements 5.0 has some cool new features, including:

• Interactive Flash Web Galleries, with very cool themes, including a book whose pages turn, and a turning carousel of your photos, as well as a more classic layouts.
• Photo Maps, that show the location of your photos on interactive Yahoo maps.
• Color Curves adjustment, with an easier to use interface than curves in Photoshop.
• Adjust Sharpness adjustment, giving you more control over sharpening photos than Unsharp Mask.
• Convert to Black and White, a collection of visual controls for getting the best color to black and white photo conversions.
• Correct Camera Distortion filter, for fixing photo perspective and vignetting.
• Photo layouts, with fun templates for sharing multiple photos on the Web or burned to CD.
• Artwork and Effects palette, with new backgrounds, frames, graphics, and themes to enhance your photos.

A background gradient is a great way to add color, focus, and spice to a photograph. In just a few easy steps you can jump the subject of your photo onto its own layer, and create a glowing radial gradient behind the subject.

Thanks to iTunes Music Store for listing our Photoshop Online podcast in the New and Notable section. We're in some heady company -- right next to Conde Nast Traveler and HBO podcasts no less.

w00t!

I just got word that Adobe will offer a sneak peek of new Photoshop technology at Photoshop World in Las Vegas next week. John Loiacono, senior vp of Adobe's Creative Solutions Business unit, will give Photoshop World attendees a glimpse of what's to come in Photoshop in his keynote address on September 7.

Photoshop World is a huge party and the premiere Photoshop educational event, now in its seventh rockin' year. This time the conference is  September 7-9 at the Mandalay Bay Conference Center in Las Vegas. I'll be speaking at the Peachpit Press booth in the Photoshop World Tech Expo at 10:00 a.m. on Friday morning. If you're going, let us know by adding a comment below.

Shooting a scene with lots of sky often results in a photo with a dark foreground. If you carry a graduated neutral density lens filter in your camera bag, you can use it in the field to even out exposure. But if you don’t have that filter, or you forget to put it on your camera, no worries. You can simulate the effect of a graduated neutral density filter in Photoshop with a black to white gradient on an adjustment layer.

Windows users of Photoshop CS2 can head over to the Adobe site for a free download of Photoshop update 9.0.2. This update includes the following fixes:

- Menus now respond correctly after a single click.
- Undo/Redo work properly when multiple documents are open.
- Photoshop no longer produces a program error when encountering unsupported file types through the Acrobat Touchup workflow.
- Supported files that incorrectly produced an "unsupported color space" message now open as expected.
- TIFF files with layer data greater than 2GB now open correctly.

9.0.2 also includes fixes in the previous update 9.0.1, so there's no need to download both updates. Adobe expects to release a Mac version of 9.0.2 shortly. Apparently there was a glitch in the Mac version that Adobe posted prematurely last week and has since removed from its download page.

Combine multiple photographs into a composite image using layer masks. You'll learn how to size photos to match using Free Transform, how to flip a photo, and how to use layer masks to blend multiple photos into one realistic looking composite.

The Auto Select Layer feature in Photoshop comes in handy when you have lots of layers, but watch out for some gotcha's when you use this feature. Learn all about Auto Select Layer in this episode.

Did you know you can copy a layer mask between layers? I'll show you how to use this technique to limit the area affected by multiple adjustment layers.