All that is prologue, however, to actually SEEING what I’m talking about, so if you are still reading this far, go ahead and check out this little preview of what Dirty Pictures is all about (and apologies for the somewhat annoying mic popping…):

[See post to watch Flash video]

Update – It’s ALIVE! Head on over to Dirty Pictures at the Totally Rad Store and pick it up!

The best thing to happen to the Totally Rad Actions in nearly a year just went online at www.trarecipes.com.  We’ve showcased over 160 awesome ways to use the Totally Rad Actions (and counting!) with before and after examples, step-by-step recipes and instructions.  Browse recipes by the actions used, by genre, or by the action set required.  Vote on your favorites and discuss the recipes with your fellow rad photographers.  Whether you shoot portraits, weddings, landscapes, or fine art, you’ll find tons of inspiring examples for how to transform your images using the Totally Rad Actions.  Best of all, it’s 100% free!

Check it out at www.trarecipes.com!

Lastly, we are so stinkin happy with all the photos submitted that we’re busy preparing a new website to host them all – it’ll be both a showcase for your raddest images, as well as a place to go for inspiration and ideas on how to get 100% from your favorite Photoshop actions – the Totally Rad Actions!  Look for an announcement hopefully sometime in May this year.

So without further ado, here are the winners we’ve picked for our first ever TRA Recipe Contest:

John and Kimberly will be receiving the DREAM PACKAGE from Into The Darkroom.

1st Place

The TRA Recipe:

• TRA – Bitchin B&W (as is, no changes.) (If wanting image to be B&W)
• Special action I made called “Buttery” (see below) made up of exclusively TRA actions:
• Very Mild B&W texture added for grain.
• Serve warm straight from the oven.

“Buttery” Recipe.

1. Oh Snap (as is, no changes.)
2. SX-70 with layer set to 45% opacity.
3. Cinnamon toast with layer set to 47% opacity.
4. Boutwell Magic Glasses (as is, no changes.)

2nd Place – Teri Fode, Sacramento, CA

One Year in the Wedding Chicks online directory, and one month on the site’s front page.

2nd Place

The TRA Recipe:

Photo Prep:

1. Basic levels/curves
2. Liquify and Healing Brush for skin/flaws
3. O Snap100%

Photo Art:

1. Flareup Golden 100%
2. F/Zero 100% for Background / 47% foreground / 0% subject
3. Saturation Brush: 35% yellow areas (dress/building/flare areas)
4. Grainstorm 100% (erase out skin)
5. Len Flare (create a dup layer and select 50-300mm under Filter > Render > Lens Flare @ 99%)

Christine wins a brand-new ShootSac, with her choice of custom cover.

After

Before

The TRA Recipe:

1. Yin/Yang
2. Select-O-Sharp
3. Pool Party  100%  (minus curve torture layer)
4. Get Faded (summer)  30%
5. Warm it up Kris  54%
6. Get faded (winter)  37%
7. Pool Party  50%  (minus partial desat layer)
8. Sharpen for web 2X

Thanks again to everyone who entered, and to our generous sponsors for the fabulous prizes!  The contest was so much fun that we might just have to do it again sometime… until then, keep shooting, and keep rocking the Totally Rad Actions!

We want to see your raddest images.  Your eye-popping, jaw-dropping photo magic.  That kind of stuff.  We want to see before and after shots that show off the Totally Rad Actions.  Show us how you’ve transformed your photos, and tell us how you did it.  All genres and styles of photography are welcome and encouraged.

To submit images, send an email to contest@gettotallyrad.com along with:

• Your Name
• Your Location (city, state, country)
• The recipe for your image (what actions you used, in what order, and at what strength, along with any other special stuff you did to the image)
• Two versions of the image – one straight out of camera, and the final version.  Please resize them down to 1000px on the wide end.  JPGs only.

By entering our contest, you agree to allow us to use your submitted images and your recipe, along with a photo credit, for promotional purposes on our website and in printed literature.

Our TRA Recipe contest through April 5, 2009, and we have some awesome prizes for the best images submitted.

The Dream Package from Into The Darkroom.  The first place winner will get a new template website, blog template, AND slideshow program from Into The Darkroom.  These are the people that designed the Totally Rad Actions website, the Boutwell Studio website, and Chenin’s Blog, and they do great work.  The retail value of this prize is approximately $750.

Check Out Into The Darkroom’s Website

Learn More About The Dream Package

One Year in the Wedding Chicks online directory, and one month on the site’s front page.  Wedding Chicks is a bridal blog that connects stylish brides with elite wedding vendors.  This prize’s value is approximately $300.

Take a Peek at the Wedding Chicks Website

A brand-new ShootSac, with your choice of custom cover!  The ShootSac is the first lens bag designed to pick up where your camera bag leaves off.  Lenses, batteries, flashcards & necessities are comfortably at your fingertips.  Plus, you can customize the bag with stylish custom covers.  The value of this prize is approximately $179.

Learn more about ShootSac.

Are you going to Imaging USA in Phoenix this year (next week)?  Then stop by booth 1453 (that’s us!) for free mini-seminars on the Totally Rad Actions!  Doug Boutwell, creator of the Totally Rad Actions (that’s me!) will be presenting live demonstrations of how you can use the Totally Rad Actions to get the most from your photography.  Each mini-seminar will be 20-30 minutes, and will concentrate on a specific topic, using real-world examples to show you how to create amazing results with the TRAs.

We’ll also be there to answer your questions, and both TRA1 and TRA2 will be available at a special tradeshow discount, so if you don’t have both sets already, swing on by and save!

The schedule of classes is as follows:

Sunday 1/11 and Monday 1/12:

12:05 – Black and White – a crash course in the TRA B&Ws

12:45 – Mixing and Matching – how to combine actions together to create your own unique look

1:30 – Screaming Color – get the most vibrant colors possible from your images.

2:15 – Retouching – making people look their best

3:00 – Faded Beauty – adding vintage character to your photos

3:45 – Light/Dark, Soft/Sharp – controlling tones and focus to make your images come alive

4:30 – Modern Grunge – high-contrast recipes for maximum impact

5:00 – Q&A – ask Doug your questions and get instant answers.

Tuesday 1/13:

9:35 – Black and White – a crash course in the TRA B&Ws

10:00 – Mixing and Matching – how to combine actions together to create your own unique look

10:30 – Screaming Color – get the most vibrant colors possible from your images.

11:00 – Retouching – making people look their best

11:30 – Faded Beauty – adding vintage character to your photos

12:00 – Light/Dark, Soft/Sharp – controlling tones and focus to make your images come alive

12:30 – Modern Grunge – high-contrast recipes for maximum impact

1:00 – Q&A – ask Doug your questions and get instant answers.

Please include a self-addresed, stamped envelope, and allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.  Offer void where prohibited.  Check your state and local laws before entering.

If this is news to you, then why the heck aren’t you on our mailing list?  Head on over to www.gettotallyrad.com and sign up!

And yes, it’s 100% free if you already have the actions!  You’re welcome!
TRA v1.2 includes a whole host of updates for both TRA1 and TRA2.  The biggest news is that the actions should now be 100% compatible with CS4, while still working perfectly under CS2 and CS3.  We’ve also incorporated several minor tweaks and feature requests.  All in all, this is a big update for the Totally Rad Actions, and users of TRA1 in particular have a whole lot of new goodies… A full list of changes follows:

Now 100% Compatible With CS4
We fixed minor issues with CS4 compatibility in:
Vignette & Blur
Old Skool
Super Old Skool
EZ-Burn

Easier Layer Masking, Less Confusion
Any action that requires you to do layer masking now selects the brush tool and sets the foreground color to white automatically.  F/zero and Big Blue are best used with the gradient tool, and you’ll need to select that on your own after running the action (just hit “g”).  You’ll still need to select the reflected gradient mode in f/zero to create tilt-shift effects.  Opacity, flow, and brush mode aren’t set by the actions, so you’ll have to do that yourself.  Now all you’ll need to do after running one of those actions is start brushing – no other tool setup should typically be required!
Actions affected:
Yin / Yang
Good vs. Evil
Green With Envy
Big Blue
Pro Retouch
Can-O-Whoopass
f/zero

More Control for TRA1
Vignette and Blur now puts the Vignette and the Blur in separate layers, and then groups them together.  The results is functionally identical, but now allows you to independently control the amount of blur and vignette by varying the opacity of the two layers in the resulting layer set.

Old Skool and Super Old Skool now offer some degree of control over the different components of the action.  Whereas the result was previously flattened into a single layer, the new versions preserve many layers inside the resulting layer group.  You can now independently control the amount of desaturation, edge burn, blur, grain, contrast, acutance, and toning.  The resulting files are larger, and the results are very slightly different from the previous versions, but we think the tradeoff is worth it for the added flexibility.  It’s a change that’s been a long time coming…

EZ-Burn now plays better
We’ve made some minor changes to EZ-Burn that will help it play better with some actions.  Previously, some situations would cause error messages, forcing you to flatten the image before running EZ-Burn.  Not anymore!

3 New Actions With A New Edge Blur Algorithm
Three new actions join the Original Totally Rad Action Mix in this version.  In addition to the Fast and HQ versions, we now offer a “Standard” variant of Old Skool, Super Old Skool, and Vignette & Blur.  This new variant incorporates the same technique that f/zero’s Super HQ conversion uses in TRA2.  The result is a much higher quality result than the Fast version, very similar to the result from the HQ version, but at a fraction of the time to run.  Unless you’re absolutely attached to the look of the fast version, I recommend using the Standard versions of those actions from now on.  The Fast and HQ versions are still in the set, and both have been upgraded with new layers to play with.

Super Fun Happy Gets Tweaks
You’ll now notice that Super Fun Happy doesn’t produce a “lighten shadows” or a “burn” layer.  You can use Yin / Yang to accomplish virtually the same thing, so it seems redundant in hindsight.  Also, we’ve added a variant to Super Fun Happy without the glow, for those of you who aren’t particularly keen on the glowiness.  It has a more punchy look.  Hopefully you likey.  It’s free!

No More Automatic Snapshots
This is another change to TRA1 that 99% of people won’t notice, but actions no longer automatically create snapshots before running (except Banding-Aid, where it still serves a legitimate purpose).  A few actions did this in order to provide an easy way to undo the effects of the action, but it’s a redundant feature since you can just delete the layer set if you want to undo.  Very minor change.

P.O.S. Lens now has less “S”
I basically decided that the original POS lens went way too far in the blurring toward the edges, so I reduced it to a more manageable level.  I think most people who used that action were reducing the opacity of the blur layer anyway, so this should be a good fix.  Let me know if you hate it, and I’ll write a little ditty on how to get back the old behavior (really simple to do)

A Quick Note About CS2
None of these changes should affect compatibility with Photoshop CS2, theoretically.  However, I no longer have a copy of CS2 that I can test the changes on… if you are a CS2 user and notice new problems with this update, let me know and I’ll look into it.  We still intend to support CS2 users, but it becomes tougher with every new computer I buy.  (insert your favorite winky-face emoticon here)

That said, I’m pleased to introduce Kristen Kalp, who will be helping me keep up on emails, and answer people’s questions about our actions.  Kristen is a children’s photographer in the Philly area, who makes great photos, loves the TRAs, and who is a great fit for our “corporate culture” if can call it that :)  She’ll be taking some of the workload on the customer service end of things, so that I can concentrate more on making our products the best they can be.  So everyone say hi!

Also, we have made some changes to the TRA site, mostly in how emails get funneled to us (for the sake of efficiency).  Most noticable, however, is that we’ve added a Support section, which will have an evolving set of articles on dealing with the actions, and a new, fancier way of contacting us.  Our new system allows us to be more thorough and timely in answering your questions.  So http://www.gettotallyrad.com/support is now the place to go for answers to all your questions, and the forms on the site are now there only for mailing list signups.  Let us know what you think!