And the winner is…

…Everyone who read’s this blog, follows me on twitter or Facebook.

Thanks to the amazing outpouring of kindness and commitment from so many people over the past two weeks, I’m now the official winner of Adobe’s Next Photoshop Evangelist Competition.

What does this mean for me?
Well, I get some software (which is nice) but more importantly, I get to teach Photoshop tips and tricks in front of a new and potentially much larger audience. Photoshop World in spring 2011 awaits and I’ll be there.

What does this mean for you?
I can’t thank each and every reader who voted inperson, although I’d like to. So instead I’ve uploaded a free video which is exclusively available to you. Call it my gift of thanks.

http://www.vimeo.com/15151381 PASSWORD: thankyou (all one word, all lower case)

You can watch it right now, for free, in High Definition (requires a good broadband connection) when you click the white HD logo under the video. I usually keep HD reserved for my training DVD's, so make the most of this one.

Eventually this video will make it onto my YouTube channel, but not in glorious HD.

Don't forget to take a look at the runners up.
They both made excellent videos. The video by David Rogers is very educational, but I really liked the puppet warp video by Mark Heaps.

Three Photoshop CS5 tutorials in under 6 minutes!

If you’ve been following me here on the blog, on Facebook and now on Twitter, you will have noticed I’ve been banging on and on about being chosen as a finalist in Adobe’s Next Photoshop Evangelist competition.

So far things are going well and I owe a huge thank you to everyone that's voted. I also know many of you have also been busy spreading the word around the internet, which is fantastic. There’s still a couple of days to go so please keep voting (once a day).

As a little "thank you" I have an exclusive video lined up for everyone that’s been voting. Details to follow.

In the meantime here are three of my videos that didn‘t make the cut. They all have three things in common.
1 ~ They all use a new feature of Photoshop CS5
2 ~ They all play for 2 minutes or less.
3 ~ They all have the concept of 20 in them (see if you spot where)

If you’d like to see all 12 videos for the Next Photoshop Evangelist competition

click here.

Creative borders & Lightroom

My blog post for Tip Squirrel is now live. Here’s the link: www.tipsquirrel.com/index.php/2010/09/5-creative-borders-for-lightroom/The Tip Squirrel website is in the middle of running it’s Lightroom fortnight and my post is about adding creative borders without leaving Lightroom. You can watch my exclusive video tutorial on borders and better still there is a collection of border effects which can be downloaded totally free of charge.

If you’re not currently a Lightroom user, Tip Squirrel is giving away a copy of Lightroom 3. All you have to do is add your best photo on their FlickR page. Click here for more details and to see another one of my videos (yes, it’s been a busy week) with some helpful tips.

At the moment there are very few entries so your chances of winning are looking pretty good ;-)

I need your help…

I'm absolutely thrilled to discover that two of my video tutorials have been selected for the final of The Next Photoshop Evangelist Competition run by Adobe.

So now I’m looking for help.

I’ll make no secret about this… I want to win and I need you to vote. Not just you, I need your friends, your followers, your next door neighbour’s friends.. You get the idea.

You can vote once a day until the 20th Sept by clicking here http://www.nextphotoshopevangelist.com/?page=view&video=14250097

Crazy as it sounds, please don’t vote for my other video, it will split my vote in two. Besides http://www.nextphotoshopevangelist.com/?page=view&video=14250097 is the better video in my opinion.

Thanks for your support.

UPDATE: I've recieved several similar comments about the video lacking the "cancept of 20" as required in the competition rules. All I can say is what number was on the Ice Cream hut?

Join me on Twitter

I finally succumbed to the lure of twitter.

It’s still early days, but it’s already proving to be a firm favourite. Partly because it’s accessible as an app on my Android powered phone, but mostly because it’s short and concise.

You can check out my twitter page here. http://twitter.com/Gavin_Hoey

Great photos, you must be good at…

Good at what, Photoshop or Photography? Without blowing my own trumpet too much, I like to think that I’m half decent in both disciplines, but have a look at this photo and ask yourself this... Did Gavin use Photography skills or Photoshop skills to get the finished shot?

The answer is photography, I used off camera flash, but why do I think that's important?

Everyone knows Photoshop can do amazing things to enhance or even totally change an image. "Fix it in Photoshop" is a phrase I hear alot. But Photoshop isn't a fix it tool, it's a creative tool so for straight photography I prefer to get the shot as close to perfect in camera.

I sometimes feel photography skills get under valued.

The photos in this post are all from the wedding we attended last Friday. Taken just after sunset I pulled the Bride & Groom away for a 10 minute low light shoot. I used two locations, the first was the road right outside the hotel which was nicely lit up. The second loaction was under a garden arch and against the nights sky.

The groom is a very talented young photographer which he gets from his Dad. I’ve known the family for years and I also knew they'd understand the camera skills required to get the shots you see here

As a rule I don't show my subjects unedited photos on the back of the camera but ocassionally I will. That way they can appreciate the photography skills and not assume everything is done in Photoshop.

I know someone will ask how it’s done. It’s all about trial and error. I balanced the off camera flash power and the distance to subject with the camera settings to mix flash and ambient light. Google “Strobist” for lots more info.

Here you can see Sam holding the speedlight which is illuminating the bride & groom. A slow shutter speed of 1/15th sec ensured that enough ambient was recorded along with the burst of flash and no, I didn’t use a tripod.