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What is that purple line on your Photoshop Brush tool, and how to turn it off

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If you just updated to Photoshop CC 2018, you may have noticed a small purple line that follows your brush around, and until you figure what it is, you may be frustrated by it. Retoucher Pratik Naik put out a great video explaining exactly what this purple line is.

Turns out this purple line is an indication of a feature called smoothing that is turned on. Smoothing makes your brush strokes… well…. smoother.

There are quite a bit of options on that tool and the video does a great job of breaking them down.

[What Is That Purple Line On My Brush Tool In Photoshop CC2018? | Pratik Naik]

VSDC is a free and mighty video editor for Windows + VSDC PRO Giveaway

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This is a sponsored giveaway with VSDC. Hit the jump to enter

VSDC has been one of those under-the-radar pieces of software until recently when GoPro started recommending it as an alternative to Studio for Windows users. It happened after GoPro Studio video editor has reached its end-of-life, and in case you’ve missed the news, here is a short F.A.Q. to bring you up to date. After a closer look though, VSDC appears to be a program worth attention of many video editing enthusiast, not just GoPro owners.

Moreover, if video post-production is not a part of your daily routine, but rather an occasional job, this video editor might be a better choice instead of spending hundreds of dollars on professional software.

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Using an invisible shotgun microphone right in the shot

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Sometimes, you want to use a shotgun microphone, but the angle is too wide, or the location demands that the microphone would be very close to the subject. So close that it gets in the shot. Videographer Griffin Hammond has a great tip on placing a shotgun mic very close to your subject, while not seeing it in the final frame. Think invisible shotgun mic.

The trick is to actually place the shotgun very close to the subject (i.e. in the frame) but making sure that nothing is moving behind or in front of it. Then masking the video “in post” with a piece of frame that does not have that microphone in it.

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We are giving away a gorgeous Lomography Daguerreotype Achromat 2.9/64 Art Lens

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UPDATE: this giveaway is now over, thanks everyone for playing and a huge thanks for Lomography for the prize. Hit the bottom to see if you won

Some lenses produce stunning photos, and some lenses are also just stunningly beautiful themselves. This is the case with Lomography’s Brass Daguerreotype Achromat 2.9/64 Art Lens  (street value €499.00) which we are giving away.

I have to admit, I love the look of the lens, but I am equally excited about how magnificent this lens looks like. It’s a stunner! Looks aside though, this lens is made after the world’s first photographic optic lens from the 19th century, so shooting with the Daguerreotype has some serious heritage to it.

Entering is easy just fill the box above and you’re in. (share with your friends for extra entries, they will thank you for it!)

Come October 18th, we will pick a winner at random to receive a Brass Daguerreotype Achromat 2.9/64 Art Lens with their mount of choise

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How camera cages are built

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Earlier this year I was visiting a few camera gear factories in Shenzen China. Aside from getting my phone nicked in a cab ride, it was an enlightening experience. One of those factories was the Small Rig factory. If you are following the blog, you know how much we love our A7 cage (and a bunch of other small gadgets from Small Rig). Actually, this is the rig we take on most of our productions.

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It’s not really a camera, yet this Canon invention will record video from any vantage point in a sports field

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With sports in-stadium income on the decline, stadiums are trying to figure out new revenue streams. But this is a photography blog, so there is a photography angle (no pun intended) involved.

Canon is developing a new “camera system” that will enable viewers to “fly” in the stadium and view the game via any vantage point that they choose.

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This is the only lens filter you cannot replicate behind a computer

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When I took on photography, there were a lot of filters to consider. ND, Haze, warming, cooling, grad-ND, polarizers. Heck, I had so many filters that sometimes they needed a little bag of their own inside my photography bag. Today though, most of the filters can be mimicked with photoshop.

Landscape photographer Mark Denney makes an interesting point, he shows three of the more common filters, ND, Grad-ND and a circular polarizer and while two of those filters can be replaced with photoshop-work. Mark asks a simple question, would you rather be spending your time editing in front on a computer, or hiking and shooting behind a camera.

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Photographer dad composites his kids into the most hilarious scenarios

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Usually, it’s a gradual transition, you go from zero kids to one kid to two. Gives you time to get used to the havoc. But sometimes, God blesses you with twins, going from zero to two (or rather zero to hundred) in a split of a second. You can either get buried under the mess or… or transform your kids lives into a roller coaster of impossible scenarios. This is exactly what Guy Vainer did when he got two adorable kids.

DIYP got Guy on the line to asked him what the duck?

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Deal Alert: switch to spyder5elite+ for $139 till the end of the month

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Datacolor is running a super duper promotion and if you are into colors, you definitely want in. The package is $308 value and sells for only $139. The promotion runs through the end of the month and is available via special links (US, CA, EU).

Until the end of the month is longer than a usual Flash Sale and we love Datacolor for that, but I would still jump on this before stock ends or just so you don’t forget and find that it has expired. You would need to show that you own an older calibration unit (from any brand), but this should be a no brainer *cough, cough*. Here are all the details:

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How to melt your camera sensor shooting the eclipse

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You know how a tiny, toy magnifying glass can burn little pieces of paper? Well, the camera lens is a not a small, toy, magnifying glass by no means, it is a powerful well-polished tool of optics and using it in the wrong way – say to photograph the sun during an eclipse – can be devastating to the camera sensor.

The team at Everything Photography did a little experiment and showed what an unfiltered six seconds exposure would do to your sensor. TL;DR – it fries te sensor.

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