I have written up this short tutorial to show how to achieve classical cross-processed look on a JPEG photo, using Adobe Photoshop. The main objective is to turn a normal daily life photo into vintage-feel in a few steps, without the need to work with RAW files.

For your information, cross-processing is the name given to the practice of developing films in the wrong type of chemistry, resulting in strange color casts but at the same time adding impact onto photo. This can be easily done on digital photographs, especially when you get to see the result immediately.

Take any JPEG photo you have in your photo library to start with.

Select Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Curves

Select Red from the Channel drop-down list and move the curve into the “S” shape shown below.

Select Green from the Channel drop-down list and move the curve into the “S” shape (similar to previous step) shown below.

Select Blue from the Channel drop-down list. This time, move the curve into the “S” shape in the reversed way, as shown below.

The following steps are optional, depending on the original photo and what you would want to achieve in the result photo.

You may want to cast further more blue on the shadows and midtones to increase the impact of the photo.

Select Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color

Select your choice of color as “Blue”, and Opacity around “20%”, with mode changed to “Color”.

Click OK and choose the precise tone you want to add on the color picker that appears next.

On the other hand, you may also decrease the brightness and contrast of the photo, depending on your taste and instinct.

Select Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast

Remember that this tutorial only serve as a guideline on how to achieve the final effect. Depending on your personal preference and judgment, varies the settings and test with different levels of changes to see the effect yourself.

The following was what I achieved, and that I thought it suited what I had in mind at the first place.

In fact, there are no right or wrong in photography art.

Have fun!

Standing at a point, you may be seeing the dark side;

[Click on the image for panoramic view]

or you may be seeing the bright side of it.

Hence,
it is not where you stand that matters;
it is where and how you are looking at it.

I have always wanted to get a backpack photo bag for day-to-day usage. Upon a few considerations, I eventually got myself the Crumpler Sinking Barge for SGD$213.

This is my second Crumpler camera bag, and I will not be hesitated to own more of Crumpler’s bags in future simply because of its great padding, trendy design, excellent quality, and justifiable price tag.

I chose this color over the black outlook + olive green padding simply because the dark brown + oatmeal color makes the perfect Crumpler camera bag (simply my own preference). I had the dark brown + oatmeal color with olive green padding 7 Million Dollar Home, so I thought the orange padding would be a nice option for me.

Although I have not put this on my shoulders with the fully loaded gears, I can be assured that the pads will definitely give me a pleasant outings.

The first pocket offers a compartment for laptop up to 15″ screen size, another compartment for documents and files and a handy half-height space to store stuffs like water bottles, umbrellas, some t-shirts and shorts for short trips.

The compartment can definitely hold my 12″ Laptop easily.

Oh yes, the space within this pocket can also used to hold the laptop charger as well as my wireless mouse. Simple and neat!

When the two pockets are fully opened, this is how the bag looks like. Pretty well designed to fully makes use of the spaces.

As you can see, the second pocket comes with a detachable small padded bag. I believe that upon loading the camera gears, there are still spaces for stuffs like rolled-up jacket, reflectors, etc.

It has two padding that offer three compartments, perfect for a body with a lens attached on it, either a flash unit plus an extra lens, or two extra lenses.

Here comes the best part of this bag! When the small padded bag is detached from the bag, it allows the bag to go slimmer when looking from the sides. It solves the common issue of camera bag being used as a normal backpack, where it can get slightly too bulky. But now I can use this as my day-to-day backpack too! A bag for two usage, let alone this to justify its price tag.

I owned a Crumpler 7 Million Dollar Home for SGD$150 and it has served me very well for more than a year now. I will still be using it over the Sinking Barge for the following reasons:

• It simply holds more equipments (E.g. two DSLR bodies with lenses attached, a flash, an umbrella and a 600ml water bottle)
• this sling bag allows me to easily and immediately access to the equipments I need, simply the best choice for shootings when impulsive responses needed

Otherwise, I will try to carry this Sinking Barge for most of the time because:

• - the padded camera bag can be removed which turns the bag to be a day-to-day backpack (one bag for two usage)
• - optimal size to hold a laptop, a body with few lenses (not too large to compromise the weight my body is going to handle)
• - great padding for comfort backpack (this is important! as I’m getting neck strained from my sling bag when carrying the similar gears for a whole day trips / outings

Do check out other detailed reviews on this Crumpler Sinking Barge bag:

• - http://photo.net/equipment/bags/sinkingbarge.adp
• - http://www.shuttertalk.com/articles/sinkingbarge
• - http://www.imaginginsider.com/?p=82730
• - http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Crumpler_Keystone_Sinking_Barge_bag/

And check out the official site for the bag, to give you more excuses to get this bag

This is my first outdoor portrait photography ever. I had a 2-mins studio portrait shooting, on an old man with long beard, but this one is totally different from that. No preset lighting, no set-ups, 5 amateur photographers without portrait shooting experience, and an inexperienced (but outgoing) model – Olive. And the best part is that – we went to Old Changi Hospital.

I was on my Canon EOS 400D with 24-105L F4 lens. It was a difficult choice between this zoom lens and 50mm F1.8. F4 aperture is too much for a focused bokeh portrait feel (which can be fixed by shooting at long range), while 50mm prime is slightly too restrictive and long for indoor. To start with, I thought I would use a zoom lens instead, to compensate for more flexible focal range.

While it is definitely not the best one can do, it was a satisfying session with the friends.  We all had fun, had slight experience, and had made our cameras more justifiable now (haha).. What’s more it was my first outdoor portrait shooting, can’t ask for more!

Do have a look and let me know what you think, if you feel like doing so

Blissful Olive

Linear Olive

Uncertain Olive

Peeped Olive

Posing Olive

Focused Olive

Free Olive

Doubtful Olive

Ponder Olive

Stretched Olive

Arrogant Olive

Noble Olive

Lone Olive

Cheerful Olive

We then came across Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall, but too bad it was closed for maintenance. Peeked from the gate and had few shots and went over to a Burmese temple beside it. It was more enjoying when we shot under the flyover =P

Stopped by at a well-known (or maybe well-mentioned?) Bak Kut Teh place and gave it a try. Singaporeans like it, I don’t know why, but we Malaysians still love our “home-grown” Bak Kut Teh to us this is merely Bak Kut in pepper soup! The tea is missing!

We then kept walking down the road, and ended up at Martaban Road where we had quite a few shots. Oh by the way, I love the birds at the birds shop at the corner entrace to Martaban Road. For a moment, I felt like being in Chatuchak, Bangkok.. haha!

Balestier Point was our last stop, and we splitted after that. It was another nice Sunday morning photo shooting..

By the way, photos are treated intentionally as it is, to add on and enhance the feel Balestier Road suppose to bring (that’s what I think!). Feel free to comment on them!

Also check out photos at wayner’s album