Tag: hacks

Ultimate Guide To Blending Modes in Photoshop

By Melanie Mayne
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The blending modes feature is one of Photoshop’s most undervalued tools for Photographers. Blending modes can be used to alter the ways in which each layer interacts with the layers below it, allowing for endless possibilities when it comes to setting the right tone or adding artificial lighting.

How to Master Blending Modes in Photoshop

Graphic designers and digital illustrators use blending modes all the time to create interesting lighting effects or textures; however, most digital photographers don’t realize that blending modes can be useful when working with photographs, too. The right combination of blending modes can set a dramatic tone that is otherwise difficult to achieve.

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Quick Tips for Photographing Autumn

By Ray Davis
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Up here in the Northern hemisphere autumn is most definitely on its way. In my town we went from 90F+ last week to 60F this week and some rain came along too. It’s not bad news though because autumn can be the best time of year for photography. The light is great and there’s all those pretty colored leaves to document. Here are a few quick tips to help you make the most of the season:

1.Take advantage of the shorter days. You don’t need to get up at the crack of dawn to photograph a sunset and that pretty warm evening glow occurs early in the evening. So even if you’re too lazy to photograph in the beautiful first-light/last-light in summer now you can get out there and capture it.

2. Get the details. Leaves are, of course, a big part of autumn photography. Put your camera on a low f-stop and get in close, capture the color and the detail of the leaves. Don’t leave out the big picture but these closer shots can really capture the color of the season.

3.

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Thanksgiving weekend photo tips

By John Watson
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Thanksgiving is upon us once again. Like many of you, I will be spending time with my extended family, feasting, and of course taking photos. My plan of attack, photo-wise, is to skip posed shots and go light and go candid. That is, I’m bringing only one lens (the 18-105 VR kit) and a flash and I’m going to shoot lots of portraits of people doing things other than posing for photos.

I think a set of candid photographs is a much better way to capture the true spirit of a gathering than individual and group poses. But that’s me. Your mileage may vary.

Here are some tips for candid photography that you might want to try this weekend:

  • Choose a medium to wide zoom lens. That will give you the most versatility moving between the action outdoors and the action in the kitchen. Fast glass is preferable, of course, but bring what you can.
  • Use your auto-ISO setting to give you faster shutter speeds when you need it. You’re likely to be shooting indoors a lot of the time.

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Advice to young photographers from Magnum photographers

By John Watson
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Alec Soth asks 35 of his fellow Magnum photographers two simple questions:

  • When did you first get excited about photography?
  • What advice would you give young photographers?

One of my favorites:

“Forget about the profession of being a photographer... Make the pictures you feel compelled to make and perhaps that will lead to a career. But if you try to make the career first, you will just make shitty pictures that you don’t care about.” — Christopher Anderson

Click to read all of their answers: Magnum Blog / Wear Good Shoes: Advice to young photographers

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Basic Travel Photography

By Ray Davis
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I’ve just returned from a little jaunt to Portugal and I have to say there is little else that gets me as eager to get my camera out as wandering around a city I’ve never seen before. And of course, in the age of the compact digital camera pretty much everyone takes a camera with them when they travel these days. But how do you come back with photographs your friends and family won’t have to feign interest in? Here’s a few basic tips:

1) Be selective. It’s tempting when you’re surrounded by new things, impressive architecture, beautiful landscapes, and photogenic locals to go nuts and photograph everything ten times over. Especially when you’re using a digital camera and can tell yourself you’ll delete half of the photos later. While there’s nothing wrong with taking lots of photos make sure you scale it down a bit (i.e. do the deleting part) before you showcase your holiday snaps. Even Great Aunt Maude is going to struggle to feign interest in 200 photos of a church, however architecturally brilliant it is.

2) Try a little originality. If you’re photographing an iconic site see if you can come up with a more original way to photograph it.

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Photographing Children

By Ray Davis
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the culpritIf you get it right photographing your children can produce pictures you’ll want to treasure for years to come, whether it’s snaps of their tenth birthday displayed in a professional coffee table book or the embarrassing shot of Timmy wearing his underpants on his head that you choose to keep lovingly displayed where all your visitors can see it. But it can be a frustrating process, children are rarely still for any length of time and as they get older often get either camera-shy or obsessed with making that face that involves rolling their eyes back into their head and sticking out their tongue.

If you’ve got little ones you want to photograph here are a few tips to help you avoid those blurry, monster-face shots being the only thing in your memory book.

1. Make it fun. This is the golden rule of photographing little ones. If you want to have photographs of your children having fun, smiling, looking happy and adorable then you will need to let them have fun while you’re photographing them. Standing still for ages while you tell them how to pose is unlikely to appeal to them as fun.

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Big and Tasty Food Photography Tips Roundup

By John Watson
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I’ve got a nice roundup here of food photography sources with a ton of great tips, tutorials, and videos for making food look tasty on camera. How seriously you take this probably depends to some extent on whether you’ve ever heard the term “food stylist.”

Last week felt like food photography week with several blogs posting about it. It was interesting timing for me because I’ve coincidentally been shooting a lot of food for the past couple of weeks. I don’t have much to add tip-wise except this: it is more challenging than it looks.

If you’ve got food photo tips, please share them in the comments!

Photo credit, above right: Mr. G (cc-by)

Tips, Tutorials, & Inspiration

The Ten Tastiest Food Photography Tips, Photojojo.com

Tips from Pixar’s Sharon Calahan, the director of photography for Ratatouille, Becks & Posh

Food Photography—An Introduction,

… Continue reading Big and Tasty Food Photography Tips Roundup

Stringpods: Pocket-Sized Camera Stabilizers

By Elizabeth West
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On the off chance that I’m not the last photographer in the world to hear about stringpods, allow me to introduce them. A stringpod is a pocket-sized alternative to a tripod or monopod. It is a way to stabilize a handheld camera using a piece of string, a 1/4-inch bolt with a #20 thread, and a few washers. Essentially it works like this: the photographer secures one end of a string to the bottom of the camera. The other end of the string drops to the floor and the photographer steps on it. By pulling up on the camera gently, the string gets taut and helps to stabilize the camera.

I suspect that the MacGyver-quality of this little tool is what gives it such broad appeal (MacGyver is a television action hero known for inventing quirky tools from common items). Last week I found at least five images of stringpods, as well as numerous instructions how to make them. At least one flickr photographer showed a simple stringpod, while another showed a similar tool made using a thin chain instead of string. I even saw a video showing not only a stringpod,

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Ice Cold Photography

By Ray Davis
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npsmall.jpg I spent this past weekend in Chicago and, as you may know, it was FREEZING in Chicago this past weekend. But since a mere 6 months ago I was living in Alaska I know that extreme cold doesn’t mean I can’t take my camera out and I now have some lovely photos of very cold Chicago dwellers. For those of you that have never yet ventured out with your camera at 25 below but think you might be brave enough this winter here are a few tips:

Use A UV Filter
They are a hell of a lot cheaper to replace than a lens. Extreme cold makes glass more brittle, last winter I was out shooting at -30F, put my camera down, gently, and the UV filter simply shattered. But it cost ten bucks to replace so I didn’t have to be too worried!

Get A Good Camera Bag and Heat It!
A decent camera bag is a worthwhile investment anyway but especially if you do a lot of outdoor photography. In the cold it’ll offer some protection by itself and you can make it even better by padding around the camera with hand or foot warmers (they cost about $2 at sports stores).

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I’m ready for my closeup: 6 methods for perfectly focused self-portraits

By John Watson
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Self-portrait shooters usually rely on the trial-and-error method of focusing. Shoot, shoot, and shoot again until the perfect combination of pose, exposure, and focus are achieved. But there is a better way (several, in fact)! All of these methods are quick and easy and will give you accurate focusing without a lot of frustrating trial and error.

Before you begin, you’ll just need to acquaint yourself with how to put your camera into manual focus mode. You won’t actually use manual focus for focusing—you’ll just use it to keep the focus once you’ve got it set just the way you want. For each of the methods below (except the last one), you’ll auto-focus first and then set the camera to manual focus so that it won’t attempt to re-focus when you take the shot. You’ll also find that having a remote shutter release helps immensely.

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