We are working on our upcoming ebook (another ebook and video from latest masterclass will be available next week), and here I would like to show you the progress. It is not a regular “before and after” image, as before is not a one image, but a picture that showing what you can get from a set of the images using Photoshop and creativity.
Now we (Alex and I) have a good grounding in techniques, so this is time for us become more creative. We will experiment with new devices, techniques, objects. Hope it will be very interesting time.
Mouse Over to see Before and After

jewelry photography, post-production and retouching
New ebook about how we made this photo will be ready very soon.
Thank you for looking. Any feedback and suggestions are very welcome!
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I noticed a big interest to the focus stacking topic. I will explain a post production part in Photoshop CS5 more detailed. You can read and see the video of a shooting part on Alex’s blog Focus stacking technique using Adobe Photoshop CS5
So, we have a sequence of images: 5, 8, 12. I mean, as many as we need. I have 11 images.
Step 1.
Select the sequence of the photos in Bridge CS5:

Images selection for focus stacking
Step 2.
Continue reading How to do Focus Stacking in Photoshop CS5. Jewelry photography post production.
Based on the responses from Alex’s last post about jewelry photo session I”ve decided to post images before and after post production and 100% crop to see amount of work. Some times I had to almost completely re-create a part of the item: it appears to be faster that to trying to restore lost finish and colors.
We made about 50 images for a talented jewelry designer Elizabeth Dupree Lynch for her Fine Jewelry collection. All jewelry was hand crafted by Italian jewelry master; therefore, retouching was not easy. It took us many hours (big thanks to my helper Anna Yenina:-) to do it.
All “before” objects showed as-is (Camera RAW default settings) photo without focus stacking applied. First image from a sequence is what you’ll see. Images ‘after” have a focus stacking applied.
I am going to do “focus staking in Photoshop cs5″ post next time, but for now you can check out this video how we do a focus stacking.
Some images may look overdone, (especially at 100% crop), but this is what we were able to do considering items’ condition (not new) and an extreme tight schedule for a post production.
Mouse Over to see Before and After

Diamond ring retouching.
Continue reading Jewelry photography retouching: Before and After.
In this post I want to show the difference in visual perception of retouched and not retouched images. There is nothing special in post-production: levels, curves, healing, cloning, transforming. Just routine work and images become more clean, crisp and finished.
For some cases we should spend more time for retouching to make photos perfect. However you have to know your final goals and ability to say yourself “Stop! It is good enough now.”:-)
Mouse Over to see Before* and After
*When I say "Before" this means Camera RAW Default settings.

Alcohol drink photoshop retouching.
Continue reading Still life retouching. Glass on black, white and grey. Before and After.
I was asked couple times what the strange mode I used in my video. So, here is the answer:
I used curves presets to see differences in gradients and colors. When I apply various curves even slight difference in color or brightness become extremely visible. Here are two examples:
1. On this image I want to see clearly every tiny dust piece on the black background. It highlights it very well by using such curve:

Continue reading Using curves in photoshop for retouching. Very useful trick.
A recorded LIVE broadcast from the product photography masterclass you can find at
Alex's blog. Here is a post production part with some explanations what I did. Hope you will find it interesting:-)
Mouse Over to see Before and After retouching

Product photography retouching, video.
Thank you for looking. Any feedback and suggestions are very welcome! If you like our work, you can subscribe to our RSS feed and "Like" our AKELstudio page on Facebook:-) All the best, Genia
I am glad to start a first post in New Year with our recent creative shot for our good customer, a company called aDesign. The assignment was to create an image for the front page of the company website, and should look WOW!
It was really fun to work on such project and play with the lighting. We did several different variations and I choose these two photos to show them here, at my blog:
Mouse Over to see Before and After

Post production in photoshop. Before and after.
Continue reading aDesign makeup brushes WOW! shoot and post production in photoshop: Before and After.
Another collaboration wish talented fashion designer Alla Koval. Now it’s Christmas outfit designed for mom and daughters matches pieces.

Continue reading Fashion photo-session for Alla Koval Design and preparing for Christmas.
This is the announcement of our next LIVE Masterclass. More details please find at Alex Koloskov’s blog.
LIVE Masterclass will be completely free, but recorded video will cost $49. Video will include bonus; a retouching for the watch.
Below is the image before and after post-production. Similar photo we will do on our Masterclass.
Join us Sunday 24 of October 2010, 4PM Eastern time. The link to LIVE broadcast is on AKELstudio main page, top menu: AKELstudio LIVE! You have to have an account to get there, member login is on top of the page.
Mouse Over to see Before and After

AKELstudio product photography, watch lesson masterclass
Just finished a next FUN photo-session with our little models:-) It was awesome collaboration with brilliant fashion designers Alla Koval and Francoise Lama-Solet
How it was in reality see our behind-the-scene video below. As always, all technical aspects and full length video from this photo-session you can find on Alex Koloskov blog

Continue reading Kids fashion photo-shoot. Whimsical Forest.