Digital Cross-Processing

Often, I'm sad about having dull digital photos, but for various reasons, I don't have the time to go through and make a thoughtful edit.
I've found an Action for Photoshop that makes colorful photo edits in just seconds, by one click.

It's digital cross-processing.

Cross-processing is a technique that originated with film photography: during developing, the wrong chemicals were used, which causes colors to be switched, changed, or amplified. What's great about this Action is that it has many options. Within the one download are many ways to create cross-processed photos.

The four lower photos have been digitally cross-processed.
The top photo is the original.

Cross-processing is a popular technique among artistic film photographers, particularly lomographers. Cross-processed Lomo film yields ridiculous colors.

Photo by Teppo.

This Photoshop Action is very useful for making nice-looking photos very quickly, but it's even better when used as a tool for making a thoughtful edit. When the action is used on a duplicated layer, the layer can be played around with. Different blending modes and transparencies produce different effects, and typical photo-editing tricks can also be applied.

On Projects

Teppo Moisio of Helsinki Finland
is quite an influential photographer.

Not only did he start the 365 project, which led to the creation of Dailybooth, which was mentioned in an earlier entry; but he also started the 100 Strangers Project, which has grown into a rather popular trend among aspiring photographers and photojournalists.

The 100 Strangers Project has its own website, where people can post their photos and progress in their own attempts at the 100 Strangers Project.

I keep seeing projects like this popping up, which leads me to believe this is a new trend. And I think it's one that will stick. Projects are a great way to keep yourself focused on something you are really interested in, and they are a great way to stay dedicated to something. I believe projects will stick because of the growing digital industry (New Media and such). It needs people who are dedicated and passionate about what they're doing, and a great way for a person to show their dedication and passion is to do a project about it. Also, projects are a great way to learn and exercise curiosity in an area. This is also vital to the future of the digital industry.

Dailybooth

I was running around on Flickr one fine day, and I came across a brilliant photographer called Teppo. He's currently doing a project called 365, in which he takes a photo every day. I think this is a brilliant way to stretch oneself as a photographer. It's always good to get as much practice in as possible, and doing something daily is a great way to stay dedicated to that practice.

So I looked into the 365 project a little more and found a website that has that as the premise. It's called Dailybooth. But it's a little bit different than Teppo's project. It is designed so that users take one photo a day in order to see how they have changed over an amount of time.

But of course, as with almost all technology, it's never used entirely how it's intended to be. Several Dailybooth users use the website as a creative photography outlet, where they can get feedback from a real community. Dailybooth is large enough that there is a big enough crowd of viewers and commenters, but small enough that everyone is fairly connected with everyone else.

Dailybooth is a social photography site based on the idea of a daily photo, which originated with Teppo. This sort of daily photo project can be done for several reasons: to preserve history and nostalgia, and to improve as a photographer.