Tag: techniques

Quick tip: did you know you have a photo studio in your house?

By John Watson
0 comment

The BoyOne of my favorite photo locations right now is our upstairs bathroom. The tub and toilet are separated from the rest of the bathroom by a door which can be opened or closed to let in varying amounts of sunlight from the window in the outer room. Combine that with a small flash and you get perfect portraits every time:

  • Just drape a cloth over the shower bar (or buy a nice looking shower curtain)
  • Turn off the lights
  • Point your flash at the wall behind you and to the left
  • Fire away!

If you’ve got a window, a little investigating may reveal that you get perfect light in your bathroom (or some other small room in your home) at certain times of the day just from that. Sure, it’s a little cramped but you can’t beat the price and you can’t argue with the results.

… Continue reading Quick tip: did you know you have a photo studio in your house?

Exposure Blending Tutorial

By John Watson
0 comment

After posting Getting the Exposure Right, I received a quite a few questions about how I achieved the HDR (High Dynamic Range) version of the mailbox photo (last photo in that article). This tutorial will walk you through the basics of creating the same look by hand. All you need is camera and photo editing software that supports layer masking (you can follow these steps in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, and The GIMP, among others).

… Continue reading Exposure Blending Tutorial

Silhouettes: An Old Art Form Made New

By Elizabeth West
0 comment

Silhouettes were a popular art form in the early 1800s. Film did not yet exist, but skilled artists could look at subjects and then cut out remarkable likenesses using black paper and sharp scissors. People had silhouettes made of loved ones and framed them like portraits. The fad declined in popularity after cameras became more universally available.

Still, silhouetted images can be striking. They are also remarkably easy to create with digital cameras and worth mastering. If overdone, they can be tiresome, but when well done they can be fun.

… Continue reading Silhouettes: An Old Art Form Made New

How to Preserve Your Photo’s Colors on the Web

By Michael Fletcher
0 comment

Have you ever uploaded a photograph from your computer to a photo hosting site or your blog and find the colors seem less or more vibrant and just generally not as impressive as you see on your monitor?

When I first started posting my photographs on the web to sites like Flickr, I noticed that often the colors would look less vibrant and subdued when I viewed them on my browser. Somehow they seemed to lack the pizazz and zip they have when viewing them in Photoshop.

… Continue reading How to Preserve Your Photo’s Colors on the Web

Favorite “everyday” camera settings

By John Watson
0 comment

For just about everything these days I shoot my Nikon at +0.7 exposure compensation, +1 tone, +1 saturation, +1 sharpening. I almost always use matrix metering (rather than spot or center-weighted) and dial in exposure compensation to adjust for different conditions. I change modes a lot but spend most of my time in aperture-priority, program, and manual. I shoot JPG almost exclusively except when I’m really paranoid about getting a shot.

Out of curiosity, how about you? What are your favorite “everyday” settings?

… Continue reading Favorite “everyday” camera settings

RAW vs. JPG: Correcting under/over-exposure

By John Watson
0 comment

I was reading a discussion the other day about how shooting in RAW mode saved some under-exposed shots. Accepted wisdom seems to be that correcting under and over exposure is much easier/better with RAW than JPG. Without making any judgments, I decided to try it out and see if it was true.

… Continue reading RAW vs. JPG: Correcting under/over-exposure

Anatomy of a photo edit: Ready in 3 minutes

By John Watson
0 comment

I really enjoy the process of editing a photo. Each one is different. And it can be a lot of fun playing with ideas, colors, highlighting this area, downplaying another. A single photo really does have a lot of possibilities depending on what you do with it. But I’ll often make a photograph knowing in advance the edits I’ll need to make to “develop” it. Ready in 3 minutes was such a photo.

… Continue reading Anatomy of a photo edit: Ready in 3 minutes

Still life photography

By John Watson
0 comment

Still life photography is the photography of inanimate objects purposefully arranged and lit. There’s something very satisfying about capturing something exactly as you pictured it in your mind. The items themselves, their arrangement, lighting, and camera settings are all meticulously controlled to produce the desired result. Still life photography is arguably the most technical of the photographic disciplines. Because the scene, the lighting, and the camera are all under your control, it is good training for becoming proficient both technically (camera control) and artistically (composition and lighting).

… Continue reading Still life photography

Quick tip: Flare control

By John Watson
0 comment

When you’re shooting towards a bright light source, like the sun, light may hit the lens directly. When that happens, flare will inevitably appear in your photos. Flare introduces strange reflections and robs contrast from your images. Lens hoods control flare by shading the lens.

Flare from sunlight hitting the lens
Flare from sunlight hitting the lens

But if you don’t have a hood or it isn’t working at the angle you need, use your hand. Raise your left hand to block the light source and shade your lens. You may have to hold your hand at arms length to get it out of the frame. On SLRs and DSLRs you can see the flare in the viewfinder so you’ll know when you’ve got it right. On point and shoots you can see the effect in the LCD.

Flare removed by shading the lens with my left hand
Flare removed by shading the lens with my left hand. (This image is darker because I also changed the exposure between shots.)

… Continue reading Quick tip: Flare control

Popular Posts