Hard Core Monday

Here is the Techno-Geek Alert. Those not interested in Lightroom... Cya tomorrow!

If you are still here this is a process in Lightroom that has similarities to iTunes library and play lists. You can look at this way. The Library is the database holding all the information about the contained images, The folder is physically where the images are stored. The Catalog is like the iTunes Music Library, it's all there, you just don't necessarily know where and what you have unless you look through all the stuff. Collections on the other hand are very much like the play lists in iTunes. The hang up is how to get rid of bad images when you are never going to look at them again. Read on!

What we have here is what Lightroom looks like just after an import from a card.

You can see that 13 images have been imported in the Previous Imports Catalog. This is the ideal time to go through the images and do your picks and rejects, keyword, and possibly rate the images.

Once you have made your picks and rejects you can go to the Photo menu and select Delete Rejected Photos, or use the keyboard shortcut of Command-Delete (Ctrl-Del on Windows) and accept the Delete from Disk option. The images are removed from the drive and sent to the trash. It does not however remove any files from you backup folders. That can be another post all together.

Like I said, that is the ideal way to take care of house cleaning. All too often though we make an import to get the images onto the drives and come back later to work with them. From here on we will cover deleting images after a successive import has occurred. Below you can see the Para Glider Collection has been crearted with 13 images. The same 13 images that are in the Previous Import Catalog.

This next scree capture is simply to show that once an import has been accomplished, the Previous Import Catalog is cleared and the new imported images have a temporary place to live. Notice the 1 in previous Import and 13 by the Para Glider Collection!

Now we are picking, rejecting, rating, and color coding our images in the Para Glider Collection. Here is where Lightroom gets a little funky. Flagging only resides in the current Catalog or collection. You can see in the two images below how this is reflected. The upper is the Collection and the lower is the All Photographs Catalog. Notice how the star rating and color coding transfer but the picks and rejects flags do not.

SIDE BAR

If you try to Delete Rejected Photos while in the Collection it will only remove them fro the collection and not the disk.

The next tow screen captures illustrate the quickest way that I have found to delete images from the hard drive when originating in a Collection.

1. Open Collection
2. Flag images to be deleted and rejects (X)
3. Filter for Flagged as Reject (the black flag)
4. Select ALL (Cmd-A)
5. Change to All Photographs Catalog
6. Flag images to be deleted and rejects a second time (X) as these images should already be selected.
7. Delete rejected photos (Cmd-Delete)
8. Accept Delete from Disk

The selected images in step 4 above remains selected when you change to the All Photographs Catalog.

Every application has its quirks and idiosyncrasies but Lightroom is just a dynamite application for image management. Possibly Adobe could add one option in the removing from a catalog dialog window. My vote is for what you see below!

Cya.. Doug

Graphic Authority Slams

Before I get rolling with this post I want to make a comments about it. I did not take the image of the young man in this post, it was a screen grab and is a very low resolution at that. This may raise some objections in some circles on web ethics, but it is what it is. I normally try to use images in my library but will occasionally  jump out to the web (this is funny as using blogger, I'm already in the cloud) and snag an image. While I do not remember where this image came from I certainly will not take credit for its existence. Nuff Said!

This company has taken a different approach to photo effects than others companies. While many provide a one button click to an edge effect, Graphic Authority provides the Photoshop Jockey total control over every aspect of their creative process. Each GA file is a full fledged psd file (ok, that is a PhotoShop Document) with each element of the image on its own layer just waiting to be transformed, hacked, moved, resized or even used on other files. The options are only limited by the already limitless possibilities that photoshop encourages.

So here is the final image below of what I will now call my screenshot boy. Following are the steps and thoughts of the process.

I am not totally satisfied with the outcome but for the sake of this post it will work fine. I am simply showing the process of woking with the GA files here. Not photographic excellence. There are three files involves in this image. First of course is the image of Screenshot Boy, then an Distressed Edges file form the GA Extreme Edges collection  and finally an image  from the GA Fine Art Frames collection.

As you can see from the layers image below, the group on the left is what was done to the original image. Ultimately flattening (non-distructive by selecting the highest visible layer and contorting your fingers for  a Cmd-Option-Shft-E shortcut).

Below you can see the flattened image of the first part of the process. That flattened layer in the left stack of layers was then brought into the Frame file provided by Graphic Authority. Positioning the image below the layer "your_image_here" in the GA files makes sure all the effects of the GA file will apply to your image. Normally I would delete that layer but I wanted to have it here to demonstrate the ease of use of these files.

If the images are close in size a simple transform to resize your image works fine. If it is way out of wack, back up a couple of steps and resize the entire GA file using Photoshops Image>Image Size dialogue.

There are two bug plusses in using Graphic Authority files. First is the total control over the creative process that you retain. Secondly is the ability to grab layers from one image and apply t to here every you want. GA releases the right to use any portion of the files for the purchaser of their products. The down side is that it takes longer to decide which image and effect to use than it does to apply the effects. So it really isn't a down side.

The images come on a DVD with some really good tutorials on how to use the product. Each DVD comes with pamphlet on what images are on the DVD and a pdf file you can also print out. I must say these are a little clunky. What I ended up doing is putting them all (3000+) files on a drive and created a Lightroom Library. Yes it is taking up some 40 Gb of space but it sure is easy to brows the images and then make note of the location, go grab it and jump into PS. I do not open the GA image from LR as it makes a copy and I don't what the extra files on my drive.

Hey That will wrap it up for this week. Have a great weekend all.

Cya... Doug

Resurrecting the Dead

The tittle is not intended to be taken literally. In fact, my grandmother has been passed away for quite some time now, and I do not want the tittle to be take irreverently either. Ok... Enough of the disclaimer!

In my quest to move my images from one hard drive to another, I have fallen victim to the dreaded memory lane syndrome. I was doing very well until I saw this image and it screamed MAKE ME ALIVE! Kind of in the context of the Frankensteinian It's Alive! quote.

Alright, I'll stop bashing my grandmother, she was not exactly Frankenstein. So the image above was actually in pretty good shape for a scan of eight or ten years ago. I took some time, err, a break from my Lightroom two step and brought it into Photoshop to see what I could make of the image. Look at the layers panel below to see what all transpired.

The Layer 0 copy is something I just always do when editing in PS to keep it ultimately non-destructive. Besides it provides a great before and after image. On the copies layer I did some spot healing but it did not take much to get it looking good. The Levels adjustment layer brought the haziness out of the image and better set the shadows and highlights where I wanted them.

I did not want to do a complete colorization of the image but thought a slight effect would add a nice effect. To get the skin the right color took two different layers and the key here is to use a Soft Light blending mode and adjust the opacity of each layer. This is a slight juggling act to get them both just right but it is definitely a season to taste effect. I had to leave the lips, eyes, and brow alone in the colorization and come back to them seperately.

Now here is the creepy part. I was sitting there putting digital makeup on a photo of my dead grandmother. I have no idea how old the image was but it must have been at least 95 or 100 years old. Anyhow, here is the final result. Hopefully I gave it the respectful treatment it is due.

It is not a full colorization nor is it a duotone but it is definitely better than an aged black and white print. So Ansel Adams may be rolling over in his grave for toying with a B&W but he can take it up with my grandmother.

Cya... Doug

Post Processing

The 90/10 rule is getting stronger for those that have both Adobe product of Lightroom and Photoshop. That being 90% of image post processing is accomplished in Lightroom and 10% in Photoshop only when serious pixel manipulation (mutilation if you like) is necessary. With that I like to spend some time in PS to keep my pixel pounding fingers in shape. 

Below is an image of a nice young lady that for the most part is totally acceptable for a senior portrait.

With a little work in Photoshop (Elements in this case) we can take this image and spice it up. Some may say this is wrong but others call it artistic creativity. The ultimate decision is when the client orders the prints. This certainly does not stop the creative mind from wondering down the pixelated brick road once in a while. Such is the case here.

Below is a screen shot of the layers used to generate the image below the layers. I must say there are three layers missing in this screen shot. Those are the color change of the sweater, a sharpening layer using the High Pass filter technique, and a shadows, highlight layer using a 50% Overlay gray layer.

As you can see form the image (or by reading the layers above) lip shape and color, eye work including clarity, shadow (upper & lower), and overall size have all been enhanced. Finally some cheek blush was added. The shadows layer was used to darken the background to give some separation and some facial shadowing to give better definition. 

Ok, so the purple eye shadow may be a little different but I had a final destination for this image. Looking at the screen grab below you can get an idea of how I ended up with some grunge look.

When ever you are going to grunge an image using a different image as a texture, you want to have two textures or at least the same texture in a different orientation as I have here. Two different colors works well too. Color change is really easy with the Color Replacement Tool. Here is an example of how much is enough (I may have gone a little too far, nit it is what it is).

When my dad taught me how to fly, I would ask him how much pitch? He would say "Just enough!" it took me a little time to really grab that thinking (I was fifteen at the time) but it is true. Too much pitch and you are too high, too little pitch and you don't get to your altitude. This applies to many things in life. So here is the end result of my tinkering.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed the post and picked up a thing or two.

Cya... Doug

HD-R-Not MkII

I just don't know how Kelby and Ziser do it every day. I mean every day a giant posting. Well ok... Scott Kelby has a guest blog Wednesday and that accounts for one day. And I am pretty sure David Ziser talks his way through a posting and has some voice recognition software translate it. I have seen him hunt and peck on his videos so he can't get all that information up all by his lonesome little fingers.

No I am not bitter or upset, I am in awe in there ability to get out vast amounts of information each and every day. Kudos to the both of them. Me on the other hand... I am still here plodding along in the Blogspot world. So that was a little long for missing yesterdays post, sorry.

So picking up where I left off on Tuesday. The how to on the not so real HDR that looks kind of like an HDR but not the wacky too burned HDR image that I had to recreate because I was a bone head by deleting the original psd file (oops, my bad) is here. Brand spanking new!

Wow that was a though flush. I think I feel a little bit of blood oozing out o my ears :)

So here is a little more of the how to on this image. It was five images (must have tri-pod) at 2/3 stop difference in exposure. The layer panel below shows what I started with. Setting the darkest in the stack to the most exposed on the top of the stack. Add a layer mask on all but the bottom layer and fill them with black to block the layer.

Now the fun part. I really mean that as it allows your creative eye to tell the story in the image of what you thought you were actually looking at. You don't realize it at the time but subconsciously you are picking up all the detail in the scene and during this process you relive the experience of the moment you captured the image. (That was borderline Versace in a zen way).

It is even better with a Wacom tabled as the pen pressure maximizes you control. The process it this. Start with a soft brush at 50% opacity on the first layer mask from the bottom of the stack (layer 1 for those that are keeping track). If the first pass is not enough then you hit it again exposing 100% of that layer. If is still not strong enough, move up to the next layer mask and do it again. Eventually you will get the feel of each exposure layer and be abel to go right to a particular layer to draw the shadows out the way you want. If it sucks? Hey... You are on a layer mask, hit it with black and start over! Sweet!!!

That's it, pretty straight forward. A little time spent in layers and masks and you have yourself an HDR knock-off. But the memories give you a greater connection with that moment in time than you will realize.

Take care and let's see if I am here tomorrow?

Cya... Doug 

Experimantal

Here is another image from the Maryland wet morning photo-drive. I think I just coined a new photo word. I am leaning towards making all of these images black and white because frankly, they have good composition and contrast, there just is no color in them from the drabness of the day. I was going to do a little dodge and burning on this image but the more I looked at it the more it stood on its own. All I did was a small levels adjustment and build a mild vignette.

The image is in its native crop and I got to thinking how it might look as square or in a 4:3 ratio. There are two layers  layers on the screen capture below labeled 4x1 and 1x1. These were created using the rectangle shape tool and set the constraints as shown in the second screen capture. These automatically go to their separate layers when created.

Now with the original image on the top layer you can go to Layer>Group with Previous to use the layer below to clip the layer above. You can also move your cursor over the line dividing the two layers while holding down the Option key noting the cursor turns to what I call the Ying-Yang scrubber and click.

Below is the rectangle options panel. I used proportional as I was not concerned with the final output size. Experiment with the other options id you like.

In the image below you can see where the original image is clipped to the 4x3 mask. What is nice about this it that up until now it is non-destructive. You can move the 4x3 layer around as well as transform its size.

Once you are satisfied with how the "soft crop" looks you can go ahead and commit to a final crop that removes data. It is time like that when I really enjoy lightroom.

I think that will do it for today. Check back tomorrow to see if I am still here.

Cya... Doug

Work With What You Have

Being at recurrent training this week does not allow me much time for blogging but I have some images I can get up this week anyhow. Before I get going I hope everyone has made it or will make it under the wire for tax day. Speaking of that how about these Tax Day Tea Party events going on across the country. Personally I think it is very healthy for an electorate to be able to protest when they feel the government is out of bounds or is not representing their values and positions. Unfortunately the press has been less than enthusiastic about the events unlike some of the other activist events that have happened in the past. Hmm... Bias anyone?

Anyhow here we go with the photo-blog. The image above was really fun to work in Elements. I was on the plane to Wichita KS yesterday and was able to work it. The image was shot a couple of weeks ago when I was getting ready to leave Maryland and head back to Michigan. The weather was absolutely yucky with fog and some light rain. I wanted to get some water shots so I jumped onto Google Maps and scoped out where there might be some locations. I matched them up in my Garmin and headed out. It was just after sunrise even though you could not tell by the photo. I had reached a gated area on the road I was on and had to turn around. Ok Google Maps missed that one. As I was driving back I remembered one of Rick Sammon's 1o rules of photography. That being to look behind you.

The structure is a boat house at the end of a small pier. The fog and mist made the image really dull and flat even after booting Clarity in ACR, so I took a different tack on the image. Going old school with a slight sepia effect would give the image more interest than just the shot from camera.

Here is the process I took and ended up with about six layers to get the effect.

• Levels adjustment layer to set the shadows and highlights
  
• Slight S-curve in Curves establish a modest contrast.
  
• Added a solid color layer of an orangish brown and set the blending mode to Overlay and brought the opacity down to give the sepia effect.
  
• My final touch was to make a vignette for the aged effect. This was done my making a selection, feathering it by 120 pixels, Inverted, and filled with black. The the opacity was dropped real low until it looked good. But is just seamed to be missing something.
  
• On a seperate layer filled with a darker brown, I applied a fiber filter to it with a strong effect. As the fibers were too tight, Transforming the layer then stretching it out so the spacing looked right did the trick. I re-cropped the original image size to remove the excess fibers (makes the file smaller). Last was to set the blending mode to Overlay and drop the opacity down to where it looked right. Let there be aged film scratching.
• A couple more layers to make the virtual frame and the image was complete.

Below is the original image and it just goes to show you that even a drab image can be made to look interesting.

Thats going to do it for me today. I'll have to see if I can get something up tomorrow night, but no promises. It depends on how beat up I get in the simulator tomorrow.

Take care...

Doug

Quickie Web Item

Here is a real quick way to get information up so people can view at their leisure and as often as they like.

My website peekfoto.com is obviously a photography based website. Now my daughter is getting ready to have our first grandson and the baby showers are a must event. Without generating a whole website for the event, I created a simple page on the peekfoto site that is not linked from anywhere in the site. It does however have a live URL. This is what we give people on the invitation. On the web page are links to a Google Maps, and links into the specific registry at the stores so people do not have to go searching around for the right name combinations.

When it is done, I will simply deleter the page and be done with it.

Simple, Quick, and Convenient... I like that!

Cya... Doug

Black and White Color Technique

Here is a nice photo of a gal looking into a mirror. An often shot wedding image that gives the viewer a look at a brides moment of contemplation and thought as she looks introspectively into the mirror. Strictly black and white images hold a very special affinity in and of there own. They are timeless and provide a sense of grounding in their own purity.

I will not be the one to slight the black and white purist but in the age of digital we have the ability to much more easily add an aspect color enhancement to the black and white image. So here we go.

This is really a quick effect on the black and white image. Four simple adjustment layers applied to the image and it takes on a whole different effect. First is a Solid Color adjustment layer set to a Color Burn blending mode. You can use what ever color you like but for this example I settled on a color of R:222, G:198, and B:144. The mask that comes with the adjustment layer get shot to black to block the effect and then a soft brush paints it joust over the skin area.

That could have been enough but I wanted to push the image a little further so I copied the  Adjustment layer by pressing Command-J and setting the masks all to black. You can tell by the red color in the adjustment layer icon that the lips were going to be really punchy so I dialed down the Fill Opacity to 26 so there would be just a hint of lip color. The Eyes adjustment layer may not have been necessary but it darkened the iris to give it a bit more depth.

Finally I wanted to add a vivid contrast to the whole image so I painted in at 10% opacity the blue eye shadow. Here is a big difference in opacity. When painting at a reduced opacity you are setting the brush opacity in the brush attributes bar just below the Photoshop menu bar. Buy using this method you can paint without releasing you mouse or pen and get a consistent "amount" of effect. When you repaint, you can build-up the effect by however much you have the brush opacity set until you reach 100% opacity. Once you have the effect painted in, it may look overdone as in this case. Here is where the layer opacity saves the day. You can see that Eye Shadow layer has an opacity of 68% attached to it. Having those value appear automatically would be nice but I type these values in so I can look at the layer stack and see all the settings at once.

So the final image gives a different depth to the original black and white image. Again, nothing against the original, just a different take.

Take care for today... Doug

It's Friday... Must mean Snow

We are getting a good bit of snow for this early in December. The snow has come and gone and now is coming again. Hope it makes it's mind up so we can get on with the cold weather and not have to deal with the slush and ice so much.

Moving on... Yes I am making progress with the office and no I am not going to have it done by the time I return to work on Monday. My target is now January 1, 2009. Seems like a while to put together one room. Well it's like this... Come Monday, I have six days at home until the end of the year.

I feel badly for not blogging very photographically this week but it is what it is. I was blog sniping earlier and came across John Knak's post about another photographer by the name of Seam McCormack and he had a very cool way to generate a triptych right in Lightroom. You can check out the video right here.

What is really cool about this is it took about three minutes to generate the effect. Of course I saved it as a preset so next time I just get the three copies, position and I am done. This can be done in Photoshop also by using a number of layers and layer masks, back ground layer and a stroke layer. It was just to easy to go do it in Lightroom. Way cool program Adobe!

Take care and I will see you all on the road... Doug

Back To Work

Well... For most everyone but I still have a week left on my vacations so I will be having my big push in the office project. I hope we all had a good Thanksgiving and restful weekend. Seems the football was rather lopsided and black Friday was  very dark for some families. I like the idea of Cyber Monday which started on Thanksgiving day. It is really too bad for the family in Long Island that lost a son just picking up some work at Wall-Mart. Or the two families that lost husbands and fathers in the shoot-out in a Toys-R-Us in California. Just amazing!

On with the blog. But before I start in I will make the obligatory 

*  *  *  G E E K  A L E R T  *  *  * 

for those that want to take a pass. Cya!

Ok... Here we go! 

One of my brothers-in-law gave me a CD with a number of images he had taken of a lighthouse while we were out on the west coast in September. I am not going to get into composition, framing or the rule of thirds as I actually think the strength of the lighthouse with the foreground elements draws the viewer into the image. The one thing the image is lacking is the pop and depth that post processing really excels at.

Photo by Terry Schnell © 2008

Not being an HDR processed image the fact there is a dynamic horizon in the image make layer composition very formidable. This is simply where a portion of an image is extracted and treated differently than the rest of the image. In this case where the sky is overexposed and the foreground is not too far off we can simply make some levels adjustments then select a blending option that works the best.

Above you can see the layers pallet that make the image below. The "Levels 1 MLP" layer adjusts the sky to a level that bring definition. The MLP is my code to let my know that I am using the Multiply blending mode which further deepens the effect of the level adjustment. As I did not need to do this effect to the  foreground I used the layer mask to block the levels adjustment.

The "Isolated SC" layer is a copy of the foreground. This was done by selecting the mask from the layer below, activating the Background layer and extracting the foreground to a new layer. The last adjustment on this layer was to change the blending mode to Screen. Hence the SC on the layer name.

These adjustments gave the image the pop and depth I was looking for. Now for a small vignette to furteh focus the viewers eye on the primary image. All in all it took about ten minutes (five in selection) of work on make a good image to make it a really cool looking image.

I guess it is back to work for me afterall. back to the office project.

Cya... Doug

Paste Into Selection

Now there is an official looking title to a post.

Saturday I put up some images of the 5D MkII and on one of those I put one of my images into the camera rear screen. This gave me an idea for a little tutorial on how easy that process is.

One of the first process in using an image is getting the background out of the way. We turn to the Background Eraser Tool. I like to start out at a tolerance of 40% and Contiguous to prevent colors on the portion of the image I want to keep from being lifted. It is best to have a solid color as a background but you just have to tweak the Tolerance if it is not. There is usually a fringe of background remaining (especially if you are working with a jpg from an online capture). Once the background is removed, select the layer and go to Refine Edge and reduce the selection by 2 or 3%. Invert the selection and hit Delete a couple of times. With each deletion more of the fringe will be remove. If you do this too much you will end up giving your object a feathered edge.

That part was free as it did not have anything to do with the posting. Start by having both images you want to work with open. Select all of the image you want to copy (Cmd or Ctrl-A), use Edit-Copy (Cmd or Ctrl-C) to copy it to the clip-board and then you can exit that image.

Now go to the image you want the clip-board image to be pasted into. make a selection by what ever means you like. What this is doing is setting up the process where the pasted image will be clipped by the selection you have just made.

Now simply go to Edit-Paste Into Selection to drop the copied image into the current image. Note that when using the Paste Into Selection, the copied image is not put on it's own layer. rather it's dropped into the selection.

The selection lines (marching ants) in the image below represent the copied image from the original file. Obviously we need to resize the image to fit the clipping. Do not worry that the selection on the camera layer went away, it simply defined where the clipping would take place.

The key here is to transform the newly imported selection. Using Cmd or Ctrl-T resize the image as necessary and click return. The inserted image will remain a selection until you cancel it.

Position the image while you resize and it looks as though you took the picture with your own camera... Which you actually did but now it looks like you took it using swanky high end camera gear.

*  *  *  *  B L O G G I N G   N O T E  *  *  *  *   

I am going to be working on my office for the next couple of weeks so I am going to limit the amount of blogging I am doing. I will try and get some shots up of my progress but don't expect blow by blow coverage of my progress.

Cya... Doug

Just Check'n In

This one is going to be short as I have been stuck babysitting an aircraft in Statesville North Carolina. That is after airlining over from Little Rock Arkansas. It is amazing how fatigued you can get doing absolutely nothing.

Unless it is relevant, I really try not to use the same image in my blog as I like it to be fresh. The post Just In Time 2X has this same image in it but honestly, I was not happy with how it turned out before I posted it. Yes I could go back and insert a better copy, but that's kind of faking it. Call it honesty or full disclosure, but it is what it is. I could do better. 

I started off at near sunset on the shores of the South River in Annapolis Maryland. Gazebo and a daughter and son-in-law. The lens was an EF 50 mm prime f/1.4. As everybody says this is just a great lens on the APS-C sensor. This shot was at f/6.3 at 1/320 second. There was no setting in the white balance presets so it was a custom adjustment. This is where the other image fell just a little short.

Finally the image below shows the layers that defined the above image. The bottom four layers had to do with developing the image itself in that the sharpening was by the high pass filter and the shadows were boosted to give the image just a touch of depth and then a vignette was added.

Moving up the layer stack is a white background, a flattened version of the lower four layers with a foreground to invisible gradient layer mask. That gives a nice white area to add the text. Finally the top layer a stroke was added to enhance the tim of the image.

Well, it was not that short. Take care for now.

Cya... Doug

Cool Tools

Smart people are really amazing. They somehow find the time to put together thoughts and processes that make life easier for everyone else. For some reason Adobe has chosen to keep one of the most useful tools from the hands of the Photoshop Elements user. This would be the layer mask. Now there is a work around in Elements (see the shot below) that creates a clipping mask that is simply a static levels adjustment layer.

Ok... So here comes the smoke and mirrors. I was looking over the twenty five or so blogs I peruse on a daily basis and stumbled on this wonderful tool on ProphotoLife's blog. The layer mask is actually located on another site (which seams to be a clearing house if cool tools), here is the link.

What you end up with after following the directions of the installation of the effect is the screen capture above. The white/black box (highlighted in yellow above). Simply activate the layer you want the mask applied to and double click on the layer mask effect. In order to see the mask selection in the effects pallet, "Show All" must be selected in the effects option window.

At that point you can paint on the mask with black to conceal the effect or leave it white to reveal the effect. Just like Elements heavy hitting brother Cs4.

I took a real quick example in the two images below and the result is the same with either of the two processes above (work around or layer mask). I mad an adjustment in using the Shadow/Highlights adjustment tool then using the mask to leave the water and sky alone.

Before (above) and after (below)

Well... It may not have been the best example but you get the idea (I hope). Anyhow, someone had to sit down and think really hard on how to code an effect for this to happen. Thank you Sue Chastain (oh smart one) for giving this to the Elements community.

That's going to do it for today. 

Cya... Doug