The Hulk

First and foremost, I have to thank Shane Van Boxtel for letting me use the portrait he photographed. It was originally used in an advertisement for a financial institution. They decided to convert the image to black & white and give him green eyes. I mentioned to Shane that I thought this image begged to have more done to it so we decided to have some fun with it. Shane went in one direction with it and I went in another. Both images ended up kicking some serious hulk. If you scroll over the image below you will see the original that we started with. The final Photoshop file had 69 layers for a total file size of 300 megs. I started first with creating the Hulk figure by changing him to green, adding motion, and dirtying him up a bit. The next part was trying to figure out what background to put him in. This is where Shane and I went in different directions. I decided to play off of the energy that there seemed to be with the image. I had taken some storm photos last summer and decided to use that as the backdrop. I also photographed a couple of wind farms last summer. The wind turbines are quite fascinating in that they are so immense. It really makes you feel small in comparison. They are a representation of how we try to harness the energy around us. I added lightning and then decided it would add a lot of drama if it looked like everything was starting to overload because of the energy the Hulk was creating. I also applied some dramatic contrast and color tint to give it that extra feel to it. I hope you have as much fun viewing it as I did creating it and hopefully you will be inspired to create your own "Hulk".

"Tricks Are For Kids"

People often ask us if we know any new tricks or what tricks we used on a project. Well there aren't any. Most people can't believe it but there are only techniques, no tricks, that help make it look like magic. I like to tell people "tricks are for kids". If you work hard and know the right techniques you can create the illusion that you did something magical.

This section is dedicated to testing your skill in determining
whether or not an image has been Photoshopped.

All you have to do is mouse over them to find out. Be careful though - the captions below the photographs will give away the answer so if you really want to test your skill make your decision before you read them.

I actually shot the Mustang and the F22 Raptor together as they flew overhead. I decided I really liked the shot but needed to give it some more drama so i got rid of the boring sky in the background and put in one with much more character.

This photo is of the Haceta Head Lighthouse in Oregon.
It happened to be one of those perfect moments where all the elements
came together to capture this shot.

Sometimes it's hard enough to get photos of birds, not to mention in a great location, so I decided to make the process a bit easier.

This image was shot for a client and we wanted it to feel more winter like. I decided to try some effects to make the trees look snow covered.

People think I added the kayaks to the tree but they really do grow on trees!

This image was taken in St. Marten in the Bahamas.
The village had these wonderful colored roofs and the
sailboat just happened to be passing by.

I liked the image of this farm with the old windmill and decided it would be fun to contrast the old with the new so I put in a wind turbine that i had recently shot and cleaned up some of the clutter to simplify the image.

This image was done for a client who wanted the freeway to look really busy so I took multiple
shots and combined them together to create a freeway that had lots of vehicles on it.

This image was a composite I worked on for our client. I added the truck to the background,
added dust and had to do some dramatic lighting to the background.

The client wanted this snowmobile dropped into a better looking background.

This might seem hard to believe but i actually was able to quickly snap a picture of this Gnome hanging around before he knew what was happening.

The Magic of Photoshop

These images were done by me at Image Studios

Photoshop Trivia

Photoshop Trivia Quiz

Below are a list of questions for you to test you Photoshop knowledge.
The answers will be revealed at the end of the last question.

1. What year was Photoshop 1 released?

a. 1988 b. 1990 c. 1992 d. 1994

2. How many versions of Photoshop have been released so far?

a. 9 b. 10 c. 11 d. 12

3. How many different languages is Photoshop distributed in?

a. 5 b. 10 c. 20 d. 25

4. How many products are in the Photoshop family?

a. 1 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4

5. When was camera raw first introduced in Photoshop?

a. 1999 b. 2001 c. 2003 d. 2005

6. What was the current Photoshop icon modeled after?

a. The periodic table elements
b. M&M's
c. The Red Cross insignia
d. None of the above












1. (b) Photoshop 1 was released in the year 1990.

2. (c) 11 versions have been released so far.

3. (c) Photoshop is distributed in 20 different languages.

4. (d) There are four products under the photoshop name, Photoshop CS4, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop Lightroom 2 and Photoshop Express beta.

5. (c) In February 2003, Photoshop shipped with the Camers Raw 1.x plug-in, which allowed users to import Raw formats from different digital cameras directly into Photoshop.

6. (a) The periodic table elements.

Photoshop Transformation