Not all Photoshop Panels are created equal and all of them could have a place in your workflow. However, when I set out to make my Panel for Photoshop, I knew I wanted it to be different. I wanted it to be a Workflow Solution and not another tool for Photoshop.
Photoshop is already difficult enough to learn, why make it even more complicated with another complicated tool?
The Zone System Express 7 was built with your workflow in mind, but more importantly, to make navigating Photoshop MUCH easier and more efficient. In this video, I will give you a brief overview of my panel as I do a full workflow edit.
f.64 Academy and f.64 Elite are the brainchildren of Blake Rudis. While he is a landscape photographer, he is most passionate about post-processing images in Photoshop and mentoring others.
For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
Hello Blake !!! … Just to confirm that your ZSE7 is a GREAT Tool !!! … It has being above and beyond others for many years !!! … Keep safe !!! … Best wishes …
Hi Blake,
Thanks for the run through video of the new ZSE7 panel. I’ve just upgraded mine thanks to the generous offer of lifetime updates. I would highly recommend it to anyone thinking of getting it. The panel is great in helping you develop your own workflow and is packed with so many great features.Not only that, the training that comes with it is very detailed and informative. Yet another quality product from f.64, I wish you every success with it. Great job…..
This is my 3rd free update to ZSE! <3 The new tone tools, brush panel and speed enhancements are fantastic. Thanks for making this awesome tool and training for us Blake.
Many thanks, Blake, for the latest lifetime SSE7 panel – the tutorials are brilliant – starting to understand this panel a bit better now
Awesome tips! Thank you!
Thank You Blake! This video may have been the motivator for me to get my tail busy with the new system!
Great tutorial, thank you Blake. I needed a good, succinct refresher, the old brain-box isn’t as good as it used to be.
Hi Blake,
I’ve been a long time follower of your excellent work and ZSE7 looks like another great uplift in your ( now our ? ) workflow.
I would like to ask your opinion though on how you might approach integrating other tools into your workflow. I also use Topaz Labs deNoise and Sharpen on my images. Firstly, do you use these tools too and if so, at which stage of the process? Before sending the image to PS, at the beginning or end of the ZSE7 workflow? Or post PS processing?
Cheers, Mark
Version 7 really has, in the divine sense of the number seven signifying perfection, achieved a level of workflow perfection heretofore perhaps never seen in any tool for any software photo editing platform. It is hardly possible to imagine a more comprehensive yet easy to learn system for editing photographs with Photoshop, making the most powerful editing tool in the known universe as accessible as a children’s section library book for the beginner to the encyclopedia of advanced digital imagery for the advanced practioner. The great benefit besides obvious time saving advantages is the ability to impact the image only as one intends and only to the level one needs or desires.
Thank you Blake, I was wondering if your work flow was the same as in earlier versions of ZSE. I like the new additions, and am off to go play in ZSE7.
Having followed this extraordinary instructor for years, I can attest to the amount of work that is behind this product. The original version of the Zone system was a set of PS actions for both tone and color. Eventually, to make things more accessible to the user/students, he incorporated this workflow philosophy into PS panels, along with additional workflow tools. Each iteration of this panel has not merely been to keep up with changing operating systems or modifications to the workings of PS, but each represents an advance in the productivity of the product along with more and more new workflow tools. Also, in each upgrade, which is free, you get extensive education on what he changed, why he changed it, and how to best incorporate it into your individual processing. As an engineer, I can tell you that this product and the workflow it enables has been worked through and developed with professional engineering expertise. Blake is an artist by education but he is, in my opinion, an intuitive engineer. I can’t tell you how rare that is and given his commitment to teaching how lucky that makes you to be the benefactor of such teaching. He is literally showing you how to be an artist photographer, with engineering precision and tools to facilitate that. Blake is rare, in my opinion, in that he explains the why of things, not just the how. So, If you are serious about processing your photos like a professional or you are a professional that doesn’t like all the time he/she spends on processing, this one tool will be worth 10x, if not more, the cost – which is actually quite reasonable. I give Blake and ZSE, as well as other tools he has created my highest recommendation as both a professional engineer, and long time photography enthusiast. You simply cannot go wrong – you have found the best PS educator on the planet, take advantage of it.
Blake. My PC comes to a crawl when I try Topaz AI. Will I experience speed degradation with ZSE 7?
No, it doesn’t use anymore system resources than Adobe would.
Again Blake, in ‘no time’ you managed to give us a good and practical insight into your workflow and the tools built into ZSE7 to achieve these goals… Artistic and excellent photos! Thank you for that!!!
Blake,
Can you tell me how this panel would work with ACR? Where do you start your workflow in this course… in ACR or in Photoshop? If you start in ACR what do you do there before moving the image over to PS? Or, is everything done in PS with this panel? Is this something you could please elaborate on? I am really interested in the course and in the panel, but I would like to understand the entire workflow a little better.
Thanks
ACR is a Raw processor so it doesn’t work inside ACR, only inside Photoshop.
The education shows exactly how I operate with the panel with extensive workflow aids. Basically, I start in ACR, then move into PS and use the panel to edit from there.
Blake, Just wondering if I can do B&W editing in the ZSE7 panel or do you have another program for B&W editing.