10 Hot Photography Tutorials: October 2014 - Digital Photography School. A Post By: Darren Rowse Who else is slightly freaked out by the fact that we’re about to move into November? Where did the year go! Anyway – it’s time to look back on the hottest tutorials for October. This past month saw a few of our posts go a little viral. Here are the top 5! 1. 10 Common Mistakes Made by New Photographers A post by Jame Mahaer that many of us can relate to and that many new photographers found helpful!
2. 3 Simple Ways to Create Stunning Eyes in Your Portrait Photography Gina Milicia did it again with this helpful tutorial on giving a little extra attention to your portrait subjects eyes in post production. 3. 3. dPS readers love infographics – here’s the hottest one for this past month! 4. Andrew Gibson hit the mark with many dPS readers with this post with 5 simple suggestions on improving your composition. 5. Jim Hamel gives us the low down on finding and using Hyperlocal distance!
5 More From This Time Last Year 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Two Quick and Easy Photoshop Head-Swapping Techniques. A Post By: Melinda Smith Sometimes you get that photo that is almost perfect. If all it takes to make it great is a little head swap, well, today is your lucky day! I’m going to show you two techniques, for quick and easy head swapping. I’ve even included a demo video at the end, if you want to watch the tips in action. I am using Photoshop CS6 for this demonstration.
Ready to see how to combine two photos to make that perfect photo? Method #1 For the first method, we are going to use the Lasso Tool. Use Cmd/Ctrl+C to copy the selection Use the lasso to draw a loose circle around the part of the photo that you want to move. Go back to your original photo, and paste the selection there. Bring the opacity of the layer back up to 100%, and add a mask to the layer.
Now you can select a soft brush. Use that black brush to hide the excess parts of the new layer. Method #2 Not too hard, right? Select your Clone Stamp tool, and let’s give this one a try! Cmd/Cntrl+J duplicates the layer as well. 5 Tips for Newbie Landscape Photographers - Digital Photography School. A Post By: Barry J Brady It doesn’t matter if you are a seasoned photographer or a beginner, most photographers want to learn how to make great landscape images.
Once you have shot a few hundred sunset shots and a few sunrise shots, you may think you know how it’s done. Then you get out into the wild on a crisp early morning, before sunrise, and try and get some dramatic mountain scene or amazing seascape. Suddenly it’s not that easy. Landscape photography requires more than simply setting up and waiting for the shot. The majestic beauty of the Canadian Rockies Landscape images can be seductive. 1. Depending on where you live, you may have to drive somewhere to get some great landscape scenes. Once you have some idea of what you want to shoot you then need to figure out the lighting. 2. The Golden Hours are the best time for dramatic colours in landscape photography. Moving water and a warm sunset make for a great landscape scene 3. A Camera A Tripod Yes, you will need a tripod. Filters 4. Luminosity Masks Versus HDR Software For Creating Natural Looking HDR Images. A Post By: Jimmy McIntyre Jimmy’s Luminosity Masks Tutorials – Art of Digital Blending Course For Photoshop is on sale now at 15% off over at SnapnDeals.
Only until September 6th, grab it now! If you type the term ‘HDR’ into google images you’ll very quickly see why HDR photography has a bad reputation. While we all differ in our tastes, in recent years, those strongly saturated, blurry and noisy HDRs have fallen out of fashion, even amongst HDR photographers. Luminosity Masks Versus HDR Software For Creating Natural Looking HDR Images The goal, among many, is now a clean HDR look. In fact, luminosity masking has become an exciting buzz-term in the world of digital photography, and there’s good reason for that. If you’re new to luminosity mask exposure blending, you can see a beginner’s tutorial on dPS in my previous article: Exposure Blending Using Luminosity Masks Tutorial In this article we’ll take a look at the benefits and challenges of luminosity masks versus HDR software. 1. 2. . #3. A Quick Video with 7 Tips to Create More Powerful Images. A Post By: Darlene Hildebrandt In this short tutorial photographer Josh Cripps shares with you 7 tips to help you create more powerful images right now.
You don’t have to buy any more gear, or take any classes. Put these tips into practice and get out there shooting. So are you getting close enough to your subjects? How about composition? Do you create depth in your images? Are you practiced in the art of using leading lines? That’s a quick summary of the tips in this video. Darlene Hildebrandt is the Managing Editor of dPS. 15 of the Best Cheat Sheets, Printables and Infographics for Photographers. Everyone loves cheat sheets, and photographers are no exception. Squeezed into a set of short tips, schemes, and definitions, a cheat sheet is a quick way to learn something, as well as refresh your knowledge about any particular subject. Moreover, now that infographics are an extremely popular format of delivering information on the Internet, cheat sheets can also be a source for visual inspiration.
Here is a large collection of some noteworthy cheat sheets, infographics, and printables for photographers. From shooting basics to photography marketing tips, every aspect of photography is covered in this round-up. No matter whether you’re an amateur or an experienced professional, below you can find some really helpful resources, all presented as easy-to-read checklists, infographics, and printable cheat sheets for your advantage. Enjoy this compilation and don’t forget to bookmark this page for quick access to this exhaustive cheat sheet list.
Photography Tech and Creative Process. 18 Composition Rules For Photos That Shine. Rules. When you were a kid, you hated them. You probably still hate at least some of them. For all the good that rules do in our world, they have the ugly side-effect of stifling freedom and individual creativity. And what is photography but a way to express creativity and artistic freedom? There shouldn't be any "rules"! Actually, photography rules are kind of like pirate code. Compositional Rules You hear photographers talk about composition all the time, but what exactly is composition and how is it different from subject? The human eye tends to prefer images that have a certain sense of order, while it tends to reject images that are chaotic. In order to develop a good understanding of what works and what doesn't work in photographic composition, it helps to learn the "rules" and practice following them. Portland Maine Ocean Lighthouse by Flickr user Captain Kimo The rule of thirds The king of compositional rules!
The Golden Ratio Golden section by Flickr user Absolute Chaos Rule of Odds. Ten Go-to Editing Tips for Using Photoshop. A Post By: Sarah Hipwell The recent release of Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud (CC) 2014 (which is the 15th release of the product) got me thinking about my own workflow. Photoshop is an amazing piece of software. I have been using it commercially since version 5. However, I don’t necessarily think the latest version is the best one. I’ve just recently upgraded to CS6 and I’m loving it but I can’t see myself going the CC route just yet, as it doesn’t suit my business model. The beauty of this software is the power that it can bring to your images, but it is a complex piece of software and coming to grips with it as a beginner can be daunting.
As a photographer, Photoshop is the main editing software package I use in my photography workflow. I’m constantly refining, and tweaking my editing workflow. Before I start editing my images in Photoshop, I open them with Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) since I shoot RAW format. Ten go-to editing tips for using Photoshop 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Getting Sharper Images - an Understanding of Focus Modes. The longer you shoot, the larger the repertoire of subjects and assignments you photograph becomes.
You start off photographing flowers in the garden, your neighbour’s dog, your sister’s kids, your friend’s wedding and then before you know it you’re doing product shots for your friend’s new company. All this happens over time and there is one pretty fundamental skill that must remain paramount throughout out your process, properly focused images. Sure we’ve all been there, we’ve all taken that shot once in while which is slightly soft (a polite photographer’s term to describe out-of-focus images). But, it’s a great shot so we keep it anyway, even tho we would still have preferred it to be tack sharp. In focus images have been one of the most fundamental rules of photography right from the dawn of the craft.
So, bringing autofocus up-to-date you have a few options to choose from in your modern DSLR. Single Shot Mode Active or Continuous Focus Modes Auto Modes Manual Focus Mode Good Luck! Seven photographic hacks, one short video: Digital Photography Review. Photographers love simple solutions to challenging problems. How many of us have saved a shoot with a strip of duct tape and a piece of cardboard? This three-minute video from COOPH shows seven clever photographic 'hacks' - from using an egg timer and GoPro for a panorama to creating a Gary-Fong style diffuser with a Tupperware container to creating a neutral-density filter out of welder glass and rubber bands. Some of these have been around for years - using vaseline on a lens for a soft blur effect was the staple of Hollywood in the 1940s - and just a few minutes is all it takes to see this collection of creative solutions.
If one of these comes in handy on a shoot, then it's time well spent. What's the most interesting 'hack' you've created? Never forget a Photoshop or Lightroom shortcut again: Digital Photography Review. Even longtime Photoshop and Lightroom users sometimes forget the myriad of keyboard shortcuts used to trigger the program’s powerful features. For newcomers it’s even harder to remember (or even realize) more obscure actions like Alt-F9, which shows or hides the Action pane in Photoshop (did you know that? We didn't) or that Command-Shift-B sets a target catalog in Lightroom. If you also consider the different keystrokes which are only available in different modules or modes, and a user can experience what we like to call 'Keyboard Overload Syndrome'. Previously the only treatment for this condition was by purchasing color-coded stickers to overlay on top of a keyboard as a reminder of its function, but now web developer Waldo Bronchart has made a web application called 'Application Shortcut Manager'.
It's an interactive website that displays all the keyboard shortcuts for Photoshop, Lightroom and Blender - including the shortcuts for all the modes and modules. Unique Flower Photography Using Multiple Exposures. Most of the new cameras from both Nikon and Canon now have the capability to create multiple exposures. The technique is rather simple to set up, but the results can be both unlimited and unpredictable. So try using this feature to create some unique floral images. Set-up Select Multiple Exposure from your camera’s menu. The default option on this setting is, of course, OFF. Taking multiple exposure images does take some practice to perfect, and you will have a lot of throwaways.
Type of Multiple Exposure Images to Try The resulting photos you can accomplish with this technique are limited only by your own creativity. The TwistThe FillThe Shoot Through The Twist In this method, set the number of shots to three. The Fill In this method you will fill the frame with flowers by shooting however many multiple exposures you choose and placing flowers in different locations within the frame with each exposure. The Shoot Through Set your number of exposures to two. Other Tips. Seven photographic hacks, one short video: Digital Photography Review. A Beginners Introduction to Using Layers. Using layers in your photo editing software is one of the most important things you can do to create great images. Layers are so powerful, even the most basic understanding of them can improve your photography tremendously.
The good news is that using layers is extremely easy, and very quick. If you follow along with this tutorial and incorporate the techniques, you’ll see a huge difference in the quality of your images. While there are countless things you can do with layers, it’s convenient to group them into three main categories: Exposure blendingLocal adjustments to specific parts of an imageSpecial techniques We’ll go through all three categories in this tutorial.
Exposure blending is one of the best techniques you can use to improve your photos. First, let’s understand why you need to blend exposures. You simply take two or more photos of the scene at various exposures and blend the best parts of each exposure to produce a single image where all areas are exposed correctly. Before. Five Photoshop Tools to Take Your Images from Good to Great. Seascape image – Before and After image editing We hear it all the time, “That photo has been Photoshopped”. Sometimes it sounds like the photo has caught a disease or that Photoshop is some undesirable effect that has been added to the image. Photoshop is the KEY to making your good images look spectacular. Yes, I said “good” images. Photoshop is not about fixing mistakes or trying to rescue a bad shot. It is more about refining your images and making them look amazing without overdoing it.
Photoshop is a fantastic tool when it is used effectively but can be your enemy when you overdo it. NOTE: the examples in this article simply show you how to make the adjustments on a separate layer. 1. This tool will be used to get more detail in the shadow areas of your image. Open your image in Photoshop and go to: IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > SHADOW AND HIGHLIGHTS. Finding the Shadow and Highlights tool Making adjustments to the Shadows in the image 2. 3. You will want make small adjustments here too. 4. Digital-photography-school. A Post By: James Maher Recently I wrote a New Photographer’s Guide to Camera Settings. Once you become comfortable with your camera settings, the next step is to learn the rules of good composition and design for your photography. So here are the 10 most important tips to take into account when framing your scene.
Your guide to composition. Grand Central Terminal and Chrysler Building, NYC #1 How will the viewer’s eyes flow through the scene? I prefer to think about composition as if it is a game to please the eyes, and if you want to please the eyes, they need something to do and somewhere to go. Fluid Path – an image with leading lines, such as a road or stream, or an image with a foreground, middle ground, and background, which leads your eyes gradually from one level to the other.Jarring path - an image with multiple, well spaced subjects for the eyes to bounce around between. . #2 Watch the Edge of your Images Central Park South, NYC #3 Rule of Thirds Versus Centered Images Rule of thirds.
Digital-photography-school. Digital-photography-school. Better Landscape Photography Tips and Video Tutorials. Digital-photography-school. 3 Easy Steps Using Photoshop to Making your Images POP. Digital-photography-school. Digital-photography-school. Don't Know What to Shoot? These 4 Photography Exercises Will Keep You Motivated. Digital-photography-school. Digital-photography-school. Create a Cast of Light in Your Image using Photoshop or Elements. Digital-photography-school. Digital-photography-school.