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Posted October 6th, 2008
by Dan Feildman
by Dan Feildman
Photography is not just about pointing and pressing a button; it’s a decision-making process. One of the best reasons for working photography into your activities and projects is that it helps people better understand the media images they’re bombarded with every day. Photography is also just plain fun, and it’s a wonderful foundation for community-based projects. If you introduce photography properly, it helps you look much more carefully at the world around you.
When you buy a digital camera, you have to know how to take care of it to keep it in its best condition. In order to have the clearest photos possible, you must make sure to regularly clean your optic lens and keep from leaving fingerprints on it. If this happens, parts of your pictures will be blurry, and dirt can build up over time. Not all cleaning products are suitable for a camera lens, so make sure that you don’t use tissue paper, any household cleaning solutions, and definitely not saliva. Instead, you should buy the proper products at a camera store, in order to keep your camera at its best.
The autofocus of most cameras has a two-step shutter release. Pressing the button down half-way locks the focus of the picture, and pressing it down all the way takes the picture. Depressing the shutter only half-way allows you to select what part of the picture you would like to be clearly focused; after holding the button halfway down, you can move the picture so that the subject is where you want it to be and yet is still focused. Always press the button gently, not jerkingly, so as not to move the camera too much from the frame and composition.
One aspect of taking a pleasing photograph is depth of field. When you look at a picture, you will notice that all the area surrounding the focused subject is also focused. This area is called depth of field. In order to change the way the depth of field in a picture is seen, focused, and lit, you must change the width of your lens. The wider the lens is, the smaller the depth of field will be. To decrease the depth of field you can also move closer to your subject. To increase it, you can use a smaller lens or move further away from your subject.
A great technique that helps photographers create eye-catching pictures is the rule of thirds. This is a composition technique, create a pleasing balance between the different obects in a photograph. In order to use the rule, divide your screen into six different parts: three horizontal sections, and three vertical. The focal points, where the eye is attracted when it first looks at a picture, are where the lines intersect. Placing the subjects of your pictures at or near the focal points can help create a balanced and attractive picture.
To take a successful landscape picture, you want the whole thing to be in focus. You’ll want the focal length to be as short as possible, to create a greater depth of field. You can use the rule of thirds to create a balance between land and sky. Also, having a subject, such as an object in the foreground, might give a better sense of dimensionality. When photographing water, you will want to use a slow shutter speed, giving the impression of water flowing, and when photographing the sea, add a polarizing filter and give the water a transparency effect.
In order to take a panoramic picture, you must have a tripod. Set your camera on the tripod and make sure that it can swivel smoothly only left and right; you don’t want it to go tilt up and down. If this happens, your resulting picture will not look right. You’ll have to mentally note where the edges of your picture are, so that you can know where to overlap the next ones. Keeping the tripod planted in the same place, swivel the camera to one side, left or right, and take a second picture overlapping part of your first shot. Continue to do this until you have all the pictures you want. To put them all together, all you have to do is use a basic graphics or picture editing program to put them all in the right order, and you will have a panoramic picture!
Tags: Photography Posted in Photography
Posted October 5th, 2008
by Dan Feildman
by Dan Feildman
One of the more important aspects of the camera is the lens. There are several different types a particular one is the 12mm TOKINA lens is a 24mm lens designed to meet wide-angle needs, ultra wide depictions, superlative wide-angle ranges, and has a colorful outlook overall. The downside is you will pay around $500, but if you want quality, the price is worth it. If you are searching for an expert lens, you want to keep the highest width and zoom in mind. The lowest priced lens often encounter many problems, which can become a hassle during photo shots. While considering lens you want to consider shutter speeds, defects, aberrations, elements, zoom, speed, mm, and the like. Some of the other types of lens include the fixed, zoom, wide-angled, standard, telephoto, and super zooms. While considering lenses, you also want to consider that photographers will use a Flashgun to get picture perfect effects. The flashguns includes a flash head, diffuser panel, focus assist lamp, test button, hot shoe mount, ready lamp, and control buttons. While the lens does it part in photography, the flashguns work to produce quality lighting for shoots.
What is “low-end?” There’s no real reason to pay over $100, even shopping for a brand-name camera (and you should). It’s easy to find great deals on low-end or older cameras from Fuji, HP, Canon and many more makers as low as $40 at discount stores or online. There are a number of very inexpensive cameras available, but low resolution, unreliability, fixed memory, and often poor or inconsistent image quality plague the bottom of this segment. Avoid anything that says “webcam” in its description or has an unlisted resolution or a rating less than 2.1 Megapixels. Almost all brand-name low-end cameras have certain features in common with more expensive variants, such as shutter-release, flash fill, and red-eye reduction. If you anticipate the need for close-up photography, choose a camera with a “macro mode” and be prepared to work with available light or your own lighting - many low-end cameras disable their flash in macro mode, and even if they don’t you may find that the flash causes more harm than good.
It is commonly believed that cold weather can damage a camera - and it also happens to be true. Condensation can form inside a camera, as it grows cooler, and not just in the lens. Moisture can cause a number of intermittent or permanent problems with the camera’s electronics. Condensation inside the camera can freeze and cause damage if it is in the cold for too long. Warm the camera up slowly after it’s been out in the cold, but do your best to keep it from getting cold in the first place! Many cold-weather photographers carry their cameras inside their jacket to keep them from getting cold enough for condensation to form. Lastly, consider storing the camera in a plastic bag - the condensation will form first on the bag before it forms in the camera.
The great debate about how many mega pixels a digital camera must have for quality photographs rages on. Of course the answers depends primarily on how large you want your print to be and what the characteristics of the camera’s sensor is. Just like traditional silver-based analog prints digital photographs begin to pixilate as enlargements increase in size. To get the best use of your camera and investment, it is best to explore the many facets that affect the quality of digital photography. What is the sensor and how does it affect digital photo quality? No matter how many mega pixels the camera you are looking at may boast, a photograph can still lack field of depth and true colors due to other features you may have overlooked in digital cameras. What is even worse, you may have splurged on an 8 to 10 mega pixel camera, but not have it set up to optimize performance. On the other hand, if you went for a 4 or 5 mega pixel camera there are features that you may be unaware of that could dramatically affect the quality of your photographs. We want you to get the most out of the camera you choose.
You will want to get familiar with a term called the “Focal Length”. This term explains just how far out a shot can be taken, and still be in focus. There are a couple of different categories of focal lengths, including telephoto (perfect narrow sized photos) and wide-angle (best for wider shots). It is noted that most of the digital cameras are built with telephoto lenses, and not the wide-angle. If you are looking to take pictures of wide spaces, then you may need an additional lens.
If you want to capture incredible details and use less flash for night photos, then using a longer exposure time is the only way to go. If you are going to use a long exposure, make sure that you use a tripod, as any movement at all during the picture will cause the picture to become blurred. Also, you can capture some pretty cool effects, like car lights, when using a longer exposure. You will want to make sure that you know how to use and when to use your flash when taking a night picture, too. Most of the time, you probably will not even want to use your flash when you are taking a night photo. If youare taking a picture of an object, like a person, though, you will want to use your flash. When taking pictures of the night skyline, though, it is best to use a long exposure and take advantage of the natural lighting conditions. If you decide to take pictures at night, you will want to be able to control the photo as much as possible. Basically, you would take a shot of the area you want in your picture. Then, you take a picture of that same shot, only with the lens cap on. The reason for this is that at night, some of the pixels in the picture will not be visually good. When you take the picture with the lenses cap on, you will be recording the pixels again, while they are hot in your camera’s memory. You can then use those pixels to repair the bad ones in the photo, with a photo editor. (If you don’t happen to have a photo editor, you can download one for free, just search for one on the Internet.)
Probably the easiest and most popular method of sharing a digital photo is to print it out. You can either print it out yourself, on your own printer and paper at home, or you can have a professional do it for you. In either case, you will need to store the images onto a CD or DVD and use that to print out your copies. (It’s a little like when you have regular file processed, in the fact that the hard copy of your pictures will be used to pick out the photos you would like to print out.) You will then pick out the photo(s) you want to print and they will be printed out onto a glossy photo paper. It’s easy as pie and very inexpensive, especially if you can do it at home! If you are comfortable with using your computer and the Internet, you can also send your pictures with an email. This is a quick and convenient alternative to the old “snail mail” way to send mail to another person. The recipients can also print them out; if they decide they would like to, or use them as a wallpaper background for their computer. You can learn to download the photo and send it right on the Internet, and your computer’s user manual should also have a section explaining it. It is not hard to learn, so don’t let the technology overwhelm and intimidate you.
Tags: Photography Posted in Photography
Posted October 5th, 2008
by David Peters
by David Peters
Adobe will release a free online version of its popular Photoshop image-editing software within six months, the company said Thursday. The online product will be a stripped-down version of the application that has become an industry standard for graphics professionals.
The move to online usage is part of a larger effort by the company to bring key aspects of its software portfolio - which includes audio, video and graphics applications - to bring in advertising dollars and attempt to persuade users into purchasing software upgrades. Prior to this move Adobe’s business has always been based on packaged software.
A sneak peak at Adobe’s photography’s future: Currently the company offers four versions of its Photoshop software, beginning with the high-end CS2 package which is targeted to creative professionals all the way to the free Album Starter Edition which is used by the casual photographer. According to Adobe, the online offering will be more like the consumer products.
Last month, the company also publicized that it was planning on entering a partnership with image- and video-hosting web site Photobucket in order to give the site’s 35 million users free access to Adobe’s web-based video editing tools.
The company said then that it expects to announce more partnerships with Internet companies over coming months, and that the ventures would be driven by its quest for more advertising revenue and increased software upgrades from existing customers.
Plan on Photobucket features to become available to the site’s users sometime in March. As mentioned earlier, Adobe’s shift to free online applications follows similar moves by other software makers. Google (Charts), for instance, has released online word processing and spreadsheet software under the Google Docs banner
Tags: Photography Posted in Photography
Posted October 3rd, 2008
by David Peters
by David Peters
Want to learn how to create your own word shadowing technique? Here it is in four easy steps: 1. Open a new document. (The size I used is 500×100) Now type some text, doesn’t really matter what. (I used Arial Black 36pt) 2. Now hit CTRL A(=select all), CTRL C(=copy) and then CTRL V(=paste). You have now copied the layer. Move the new layer exactly above the original text layer. Hit CTRL T(=transform) and click the right mouse button, select “flip vertical”. Now move the layer down by dragging it or using the arrow keys. 3. Hit CTRL T again and now select “Perspective”. Move the lower right box to the right. 4. Now simply go to the layers window and lower the opacity of the “reflection layer” to whatever you want. (I used 25%)
A fun way to add texture to your photo is by adding lines overlapping the picture. This will create a cool effect often seen in photo albums and slide shows. You can one of the most interesting sites out there. Grids can be used in headers, pictures anything you want really. The first thing you would do is: 1. Open Photoshop. Open an image to apply line effect. 2. Desaturate the image by Image > Adjustments > Desaturate 3. Create New file with 1 pixel width, 2 pixel height and transparent background. 4. Keep Black as a foreground color. Fill the top 1 X 1 pixel of transparent background using Pencil Tool. 5. Select All using CTRL A 6. Create a pattern by Edit > Define Pattern. Name the pattern. 7. Close the Pattern file and go back to image file. 8. Edit > Fill (Choose “Pattern” from “Use” drop down menu and again in “Custom Pattern” you will find newly created pattern) 9. Select newly created pattern and fill the image.
Often websites will use effects that will make their site look really fun. There are fire blasts, smoke, lightening and other cool effects that can make your site look quite professional or fun, whatever way you chose to have it. To create a quick and easy fire blast you can use the polygon lasso tool to select a shape like an elongated triangle. Then fill with white. Then you would Apply Filter > Distort > Radial Blur Zoom 100%. Next you would want to set the eraser as above and brush lightly around the edges of the shape until you have a triangle that has some missing parts around it, you don’t want to go to heavy with this tool, just enough to take off a bit of the outer edges. Finally Apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur Radius 1.2. Now you have a full blown fire blast, you can really do whatever you want to your blast, make it red or yellow, but these are the initial steps to doing it.
Interfaces are around us everyday, they look different for some really fun sites. Some find that is really entertaining is creating a skin for a media player, you can make them look really cool with different fun colors. They can be metallic, hunter like anything you want really. First you want to start with the base: 1. The Base With a new file in blank, make a new layer and in this, create an oval and fill it with black. Center it, and add the soft metal style. 2. Internal shape Make a selection of the oval, reduce it 15 pts. Now take out some parts, making the image more interesting. Copy the entire layer, and paste this into a new alpha layer. 3. Blur In the alpha layer, apply a Gaussian blur of 15 px 4. Levels Then hit Ctrl L, and in the levels box, use the settings I show here in the image. Copy the alpha channel, and paste the image into a new layer ( standard layer). 5. Round corners The trick with the alpha results in an image with some rounded corners, very nice and with this style, better! Well, we need to select the shape again (Ctrl mouse click) contract the selection a bit and create a new shape in a new layer. 6. New shape In the new layer, we need to fill the selection and apply the same style of the “base” but only changing the direction of the gradient fill to inverse. This change increases the effect of bevel here. 7. Screen Now, in a new layer we draw a shape for our screen and make it more rounded using the “alpha trick”. Again, I fill this one with a gradient, inverse to make more effect. 8. Color screen One more layer to create the screen: A gradient (I like this green tones) and an inner shadow. I’ve added here some little lines to give the “scan effect”. 9. Screen details And the rest of the screen details: The text, some lines for the volume and equalizer… Whatever you want. We are almost done… 10. Details Well… Now, the rest are add some details like buttons, screws and stuff like that… And of course, a logo if you want. Remember the use of the “alpha trick” and the styles that give the cool final effects.
You know those images that bring some things into focus and shove others out? Well this is easily accomplished. These photo techniques can be used for anything really. Were going to start off by choosing a image. I used one of a piano. Feel free to download it and do the same as I did with it. Now press the “Quick Mask Mode” (Q) button. Double-click to choose color and opacity. Now grab the “Brush Tool” (B) and start coloring. You can either color what you want to select or what you don’t want to select. Doesn’t really matter at this stage. Go back to “Standard Mode” (Q , button left to the “Quick Mask Mode” button) and now you’ll see that either the part you left blank (and thus didn’t paint red) is selected. NOTE: If you colored the part you wanted to select you’ll see that is that part is NOT selected. You’ll have to press SHIFT CTRL i or Select > Inverse. Now go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and I used a 2,5 Pixel radius. (Experiment with it!) As an extra you can press CTRL U and set the “Lightness” to -15. And now you have a shaded picture.
Want to do something cool? Turn mere chicken scratches into a commonly seen airbrushing techniques, here’s how to do it: Set a pen tool as above and scribble across the canvas until you have a similar lock to the one below. Apply the Filter > Distort > Wave effect with the standard settings. Then Edit > Fade Wave. Repeat another two times but don’t fade the wave on the last round it should look something like this. Apply the Filter > Blur > Radical Blur Zoom 50%. Click Edit > Fade Radical Blur > 75%.Set the eraser as above and brush lightly across the canvas until you have a similar look to the one below. Next Apply a Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur set the radius so you get the required detail of airbrushing Apply > edit > Transform > Distort to create the required shape.
People rarely get the opportunity to see exactly how specific images are created. I am going to give you access to a step by step way to create an awesome picture: Layer 1 Create a normal gradient fill. Layer 2 Apply Filter > Render > Clouds and set the layer to soft light, opacity 25%. Layer 2-5 Importing two different views of the model, Apply filter > Blur >gaussian blur: Radius 5. Also added some lighting to the left model. Layer 6 Using Airbrushing tutorial add “wings” of airbrushing to go behind the main render. Layer 6,7 Import the main render and duplicate the layer on the first layer apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur radius 10 and set to multiply to add a shadow. Layer 7-25 Using the architectural lighting tutorial add lighting to the underside and uppersides of various “blocks”. Layer 26 Duplicate the original gradient layer and place it over the top of the image, then erase the center so the sides are slightly faded as above. Layer 27-42 Importing the three views of the craft model use the architectural lighting tutorial to add engine lights of blue and red, also add airbrushing with motion blur to work as engine trails. Layer 43-46 Add small areas of red lights to the upper blocks apply gaussian blur, radius 3 and then Edit -> Fade Gaussian Blur to 50%. Layer 47 Using the architectural lighting 2 tutorial add lighting to the faces of the “blocks” and the side of the “bridge” on the left of the image. Layer 48 To add “over-clouds” Apply Filter > Render > Clouds. Then Apply Filter -> Render -> Difference clouds 5 times, and erase the bottom third of the layer. Finally set the layer to soft light 40% opacity. Layer 49 On the next layer just use Filter -> Render -> Clouds erasing most of the perimeter of the layer set to color dodge 20% opacity. Layer 50 Create a color balance layer with -44, Yellow on highlight and 5 blue on both midtones and shadows.
Tags: Photography Posted in Photography
Posted October 2nd, 2008
by Dan Feildman
by Dan Feildman
With the ease of use and remarkable effects that digital technology offers, it is no surprise to find an ever-growing segment of photographers turning to digital cameras and photo-editing software with every passing day. While the key elements which converge to create flawless images do remain the same, digital tools do make it a lot easier to correct any blemishes that you may have overlooked when capturing the image while also letting you create marvelous effects with just a handful of tools. but when it comes to the actual process of re-touching your images, your efforts are not just limited to choosing the most appropriate editing software, but also ensuring that you do not spend unnecessary hours toiling over the most basic of functions and lose out on the more elaborate, and also more attractive, ones.
The first thing to bear in mind when editing your images is to ascertain that you have a copy of the original saved. That way, even if you do end up making your image appear completely unlike what you had envisioned it to be, you still have the original to start afresh. You can copy your image by first opening it with your photo-editor and then use the ‘Save As’ option to retain a copy. And it is on this fresh copy that you have created, that you begin to experiment with the various options that your editing software allows you. And if you unintentionally make a change that doesn’t quite match up to the final effect you’re looking to create, you can undo the last change, or couple of changes, depending on what version of software you are using.
Being a pro when it comes to maneuvering around the image is vital to how quick and easy your editing process is. A popular navigating tool is the ‘Hand Tool’ or the ‘Pan Tool’ which allows you to work your way up and down the image, without making any inadvertent changes to it. You can also choose the zoom options to be more accurate in your editing process which are represented by the ‘Magnifying Glass Tool’. This tool displays a plus sign as you draw in to make the necessary changes and the negative sign as you zoom out to assess the effect of your changes to the overall image. While most types of software let you left click on the image to zoom in or out, many versions also let you right click on the image to proceed in set increments.
Although your image may appear unclear and hazy when you zoom into it, it does not mean that the final image that you create will appear quite that way. This distortion appears only because the pixels of your image get separated and hence, more distinct, which also gives you more precision. You can even use the ‘Eyedropper’ tool which lets you select only pixels in a specific color, without having to worry about skipping a minute part of your image when you are in the process of editing it.
Your software will also comprise of what are known as ‘Marquee Tools’ which let you trace squares, circles and even ellipses around the specific parts of the image you wish to highlight. For images which are irregular in shape, you can use the freeform tool by holding your mouse button down as you trace around the image, or simply plot points around it and connect all of them by clicking on the first dot again. Once you’ve made your selection, the appropriate part of the image will be highlighted by a flowing dotted line, informing you of your selection.
Once you’re comfortable with selecting and navigating around your image, you can then move on to creating effects and augmenting your image with the enhancement tools. This can be as simple as cropping your image to draw attention to only one specific part of the image, or even using filters to tint your photograph. You can also make use of the brush and airbrush tools to paint over your image, much like you would with a conventional painting. This tool lets you add color to your image and even paint out minor flaws in your image, to reveal spectacular results.
Modern-day editing softwares can be as effortless or as complicated as you want them to be. As a rule of the thumb, remember that the more experimental you get, the easier your navigation and use of the software will be. And nothing works quite as well as practice does. Once you have these fundamental basics mastered, you’ll find it a lot easier to learn your way around those more sophisticated features and very soon, you’ll realize that photo-editing software isn’t quite the enigma you make it out to be!
Tags: Photography Posted in Photography
Posted October 1st, 2008
by David Peters
by David Peters
Digital photos can be viewed on computer screens or printed on paper. Most of the time you are most likely to print on standard paper sizes like 4X6 or 5X7. Every now and then however you might want to make enlargements of some photos that you specially care about. Print enlargements quality depends on your digital camera mega pixels figure, here is how.
There is a certain resolution referred to as number of pixels in each digital photo that you take. Pixels can be represented by one number or sometimes as two numbers depicting the number of pixels over the X axis and the number of the Y axis (multiply these two numbers together to determine the total number of pixels in the digital photo).
You are actually printing these digital pixels on paper when you print your digital photos. If the paper size is big and the resolution is large, the digital print quality will be poor. The end result can be the ability to actually see the individual pixels on the print. This is known as pixelization.
So how can you establish what is the maximum print enlargement potential of a particular photo? The answer depends on many factors. Not only are the actual number of pixels in the photo a factor, other things can influence the answer such as the number of details in the photo and what the lighting conditions were to name a few. Plus as different people have different levels of what is acceptable in regards to quality, even the number of pixels can vary dependant on the individual.
A rough assessment of what comprises a good print quality is based on the pixels density or in other words the number of pixels per inch on the printed photo. This is also known as PPI (pixels per inch) and it represents the number of pixels over an axis line.
The following qualities are generally associated with a specific PPI number:
PPI 100 - fair to bad
PPI 200 - good
PPI 300 and up - very good
The next reasonable step would be to determine how many mega pixels are needed for good quality printing on a specific paper size. Calculating this number is very easy. All you need to do is to simply multiply the page length by its width in inches, resulting in the number of square inches on the page. Now multiply this number by the square of the PPI number and the result is the number of pixels on the page which is the number of pixels we want our source photo to have. Here are the numbers calculated for some common sizes (for 100,200 and 300 PPI respectively):
4X6 0.24MP 1MP 2MP
page 5X7 0.35MP 1.5MP 3MP
page 8X10 0.8MP 3MP 7MP
page 11X14 1.5MP 6MP 14MP
page 16X20 3MP 12MP 28MP
20X30 6MP 24MP 54MP
This table is just an estimation of what is considered suitable number of mega pixels for different paper sizes. There are many other factors to consider when making enlargements. Experimenting with different paper sizes is the best way to go but it can be expensive. In addition sometimes what is considered poor quality pixelization can actually be a nice artistic effect which strengthen the unfortunate fact that in addition to the above calculation some common sense and experience are needed in order to match a specific digital photo to a specific paper size enlargement.
Tags: Photography Posted in Photography
Posted September 30th, 2008
by James Beck
by Dan Feildman
These smaller cameras really are not much larger than the compact digital cameras, however they offer more user control. You may find the lenses to be larger, heavier, and of higher optical quality. Typically all creative compact cameras offer the option of storing images in RAW format, usually proprietary but sometimes in Adobe’s standard DNG format.
The standard format, JPEG, is suitable for uploading your images to the Web, sharing them with friends, or getting prints. Unfortunately when using JPEG you might find there is a lot of shadow and highlight detail that was captured by the sensor which can be lost with a standard JPEG format.
When using the RAW format, the photographer has the ability to bring out the shadow or highlight detail by using an image editing program on a personal computer (or letting a professional lab do it and make a really great print).
Please take note: you shouldn’t purchase one of these cameras unless you are prepared to do your homework first. You will need to spend an evening reading the manual and learning the settings, otherwise the results will be the same as if you had used a simpler compact camera.
Panasonic LX2 (28-110mm F2.8-4.9 image-stabilized Leica lens; good for wide angle). Canon G7. 35-210mm F2.8-4.8 lens; no RAW capability; very bad noise at high ISO Ricoh GR Digital. This has a fixed focal-length 28mm equivalent lens that will be superb for wide-angle scenic photos. It is not clear if this camera is going to be sold in the United States.
This product category seems to have gone out of favor and therefore there isn’t much to choose from. Camera companies are concentrating their energies on the “SLR-like” category (below) and SLR category
Tags: Photography Posted in Photography
Posted September 29th, 2008
by Dan Feildman
by Dan Feildman
Wedding photography is also concerned with the portrait photography for a bride. Most brides will have an individual portrait of them in their bridal dress taken to be displayed at the wedding and later at the bride’s home. If an entire package is bought, from engagement photos to reception photos, a bridal portrait is included. For many families of the bride, this portrait alone is one that they have dreamed of ever since the woman was a little girl. To capture this vision is very important and needs to be handled with great care and concern. The wedding photography business is a hot and lucrative occupation to be in. If attention to detail is given, a photographer can become well known and make a very good income by capturing intimate moments of a new relationship just beginning. Even though a photographer is behind the lens, the action they see will be caught for lifetimes to enjoy.
Which is better digital or basic film? This is a question that only the person taking the pictures can answer. Digital is a relatively new concept that with the right equipment can allow for easy photo sharing via the internet. A person can also send their digital pictures to a photo lab via the internet also. This allows for a family member several states away to pick up pictures quicker than having to wait for them to come through the mail. But, if a person thinks that digital photography is too difficult to understand, they may opt to stick with the basic film camera. Again, depending on what a person wants to invest in, the choice is strictly theirs.
By using digital photography, even the novice photographer has the capability to produce professional quality pictures at a fraction of the cost. Photography has been around for a long time, and people have always wanted their memories captured to last for generations. By using digital photography, the photography community has opened up the doors for photo sharing in every technological form if one has the right equipment. The first thing that a person must invest in when thinking of using digital photography is the right camera. In order to understand what constitutes the right camera for someone, a person must understand how exactly the digital camera works. A digital camera works is by using an electronic device to store and capture an image into binary data. In other words, the picture is turned into a form of information that can be understood by a computer’s electronic brain.
When you are deciding on a camera to buy it is really helpful to know certain key elements in the camera. Resolution is one of them: How much resolution you need depends on how you plan to use your digital camera. Obviously you plan to take pictures, but what you plan to do with the pictures is what matters. If you plan to take pictures only for online use, such as to e-mail to friends and family or to place on a web page, most any amount of resolution will accomplish this. However, if you plan to print large photos or need clearer pictures for business use, you will need more pixels. A good rule of thumb is to choose a digital camera with the highest resolution you can afford. At the very least, buy a camera with a minimum of 2 to 3 mega pixels. Beware of sales hype, which tends to emphasize high resolution over all other features. While resolution is important, there are many other features, which influence a camera’s output. Make sure the camera you choose has a combination of features important to you, not just high resolution.
When you are selecting a present for your child, they might want a digital camera. You should go for small but not horribly out of focus. The details on the camera should be able to pick up basic things. Even if your kid is aspiring to be a professional photographer you should worry about the price. While buying a digital camera for your child, it is understandable that you really do not want to spend a lot of money. There are lots of choices available in the market today. The price range starts from as low as $30 and can go up to $300. So, it really depends on how much you would like to spend on the camera. Start simple and upgrade if they grow out of the digital camera that you buy for them. Hey share them with the whole family!
There are times when you may want to have an intentional blur in your photo - perhaps to show motion. But most of the time, the sharper your photo the better. Choose the right aperture setting - The aperture setting is how wide the shutter opens when you take a short with your digital camera. It is a trade-off. If you increase the shutter speed to prevent blurring, the shutter must open wider to let in enough light because of the reduced time it is open. If the opening is larger for a faster shutter speed, the you may loose some depth of field, which is whether objects close to your and further away from you are in focus at the same time. To maximize depth of field, shoot with the slowest shutter speed that is appropriate to the situation. If you’re shooting an object that’s not moving, set a small aperture. But if you’re shooting a moving object, you may have to use a higher shutter speed. You may loose some depth of field, but this may not be a problem if the object you’re shooting is what’s really important in your photo and not what’s in the background also.
For photographing fireworks in the sky or at any reasonable distance, switch it off! All flash will do is illuminate any smoke or dust in front of the camera and spoil the picture. But if you are photographing people close by with, for example, sparklers or torches, you can get some exciting effects by combining flash illumination and a slow shutter speed (above). The flash illuminates people and freezes the scene but the long (slow sync) shutter speed lets bright moving objects, like sparklers, leave long trails. Look for settings like slow-sync flash or use a slow manual shutter speed - say, between 1/4 and a whole second, with the flash on. And finally, Take as many shots as you can. Fireworks don’t demand highest resolution camera settings so you can use a lower resolution setting to get more shots out of your memory card.
Tags: Photography Posted in Photography
Posted September 28th, 2008
by Dan Feildman
by Dan Feildman
Experiment with exposure Digital cameras usually work best in sunlight, just like film cameras. When you move indoors, or into dim light, things get much trickier — just like film cameras. So experiment.
If you can, shoot your subject from different angles and with different lighting. If you can manually turn off your flash, do so. Other flash settings can also be tried such as ‘fill flash.’ Sometimes even a perfectly exposed picture can be improved with fill flash. Other times turning off the flash leaving the subject underexposed can add an element of drama.
You can take the same photo three different ways using three different exposure options and the result will be three totally different pictures. What’s even better is that all three can look good, but you have to experiment.
If at all possible, bracket your shots, with one shot slightly underexposed, one slightly overexposed, and one “just right.” Some digital cameras will do this automatically, but even then you need to practice. If you are expecting the camera to shoot one frame and it shoots three, there is an excellent chance the last two will look like they were taken by a very surprised photographer.
Special Features: Many digital cameras now come equipped with a variety of special features. Some of these include allowing you to take short QuickTime clips and the ability to record sound annotations. Even though some allow you to experiment with effects such as black and white or sepia-tones, focus on mastering the basics first before taking on the special effects.
Keep in mind that some of these tricks, such as black and white or sepia-toned images, can be done without the camera. Just load up a normal color image in Photoshop and, in a few minutes, you can have perfect black and white or sepia-toned photos. In other words, if you can do it easily in Photoshop, you might be better off concentrating on taking a good color photo, and worrying about special effects later on at your leisure.
On the other hand, you should try out other special effects. For example, if you pan your camera to track a car moving at high speed, the car will be in sharp focus but the background will be blurred, making an interesting picture. Or you can do the opposite: focus on a particular stationary object — a child flying a kite, a freshly-painted fire hydrant — and allow a speeding car to enter the frame. You’ll then have a sharply focused center of attention with the added benefit of motion.
Silhouettes are another nice special effect. Try taking a photo with your subject in shadow, eclipsing a brightly-exposed object in the background. Now try the reverse, a brightly exposed subject against a dark background. One can be just as interesting as the other. Getting a good silhouette with film is expensive, as you shoot a lot of frames with little or no reward. There is no cost with a digital camera, just a little time and patienceboth of which will be well worth it!
Tags: Cameras Posted in Cameras
Posted September 27th, 2008
by Martin Speight
by Dan Brown
Here are simple step-by-step instructions on how to come up with great panoramic images using Photoshop CS Photomerge: Open several images of a single scenery in Photoshop CS. Go to the File option, the select Automate, and then go to Photomerge. This will open the Photoshop dialog box. Check that the images you want to merge are in the dialog box. Next check the Attempt to Automatically Arrange Source Images box and then select Ok. The program will then automatically select the images one by one, and attempt to merge them into one panoramic photo. If your photos don’t quite match you may get an error because the program cannot merge the images automatically. If this happens don’t panic. It is still possible to arrange the images manually. If an errors does occurs, integrate the image or images that were not merged by pulling that image or the images from the top window into the panorama and arranging to the desired position. Photoshop CS will then integrate the image into the panorama automatically.
When you want to auction off your last minute items, or you have set up an online auction shop, the most common place to do it is on eBay. Bidding online is one of the most commonly used forms of buying anything online. Pictures are often used to say a lot about a product, you want to make sure to get a picture. Here are few tricks of the trade: Take photos of different parts of your product and try different angles. Photographing your product from many angles helps add depth and avoid a flat online appearance. Pick one main overall shot of the item, but also use other detailed photos or different perspective shots. The more buyers can see, the more likely they will buy your product rather than your competitors. Once you’ve saved all your photos to your computer, you can optimize your pictures for online viewing. Make sure your images are saved as JPEG files and increase the compression so that your pages will download more quickly on a user’s computer. Also crop your photos so that it is composed only of your product, eliminating white space and making your product look better. Edit your photo. Adjust the light and contrast to improve on your original photo. Make your subject stand out by adjusting the contrast between the foreground and background colours. You can also make certain parts of your picture lighter or darker to improve the overall look. Once you’ve practiced photographing your products using these tips, visitors will have a better shopping experience and will be more likely to bid on your items.
In earlier times, you took your snapshots with your trusty old Brownie, removed the film cartridge and dropped it off at the drug store for developing. After about a week, you picked up your prints. What you got was exactly what the film was exposed to. No cropping, no sharpening, brightness or contrast adjustments were available unless you had your own film processing and print studio. With the onset of digital photography, it has become possible for everyone to learn and perform successful photo editing. There exists a plethora of digital photography software that allow differing levels of image manipulation. With a decent digital camera, a computer with a quality printer, and one of the many versions of photo editing software, you can produce stunning photographs. You can crop for closer views of your intended subject, darken or lighten the exposure, adjust the contrast, sharpen the image, change it to black and white, sepia, or grayscale. Add a good scanner and you have the ability to edit your old standard photographs. That old faded photo of you as a child can be brought back to life with a few clicks of your mouse. With the right software, you can place objects from one photograph into another. Create a montage of any person containing their pictures from birth to present. That beautiful old Ford you took a picture of at the cruise-in brings back fond memories?
The release of the tenth and newest version of the graphic editing industry standard PhotoShop is called CS3, and it was released on April 16,2007. If you are a novice of the graphic editing and manipulation world, you are going to want to read these three HOT tips to help get you going. They are put together to help you to see that the world of image management is not really as daunting as it may seem right now. Plan ahead when naming workspaces so that in the future each will ring a clear bell in your memory. Multiple projects over time can get confusing to remember.
The first thing that you need to do is to choose a picture that you want to fix the skin color on and open in Photoshop. I do want to warn you that this will not totally fix photos that the skin color is off really bad. You only want to use the fix for photos that have a slight to moderate problem. The next step is to make a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer on top of your original picture. You can do this by clicking on the icon below the layers that looks like a half colored in circle, and clicking on Hue/Saturation. This will bring up the Hue/Saturation window and make it on its own new layer. Next, with the Hue/Saturation window still open, you want to determine which color is overriding your skin color. Like I said previously, I seem to have the problem with the reds, so I am going to choose the reds for my picture. You can choose the color that you need to in order to fix the skin color in your picture. You can choose the color using the drop down menu in the Hue/Saturation window.
Screen test. Check your computer monitor and adjust it if you’re not getting a good picture. Most Windows PCs are set up wrong. For a complete guide to adjusting the display, go to http://twcny.rr.com/technofile and type “adjust” (without quotes) in the search field. Edit your images in a sensible order. First, save a copy. Keep that copy safe by moving it to a separate folder. Next, crop the image. Crop the picture, then adjust the levels, also called “curves.” Your software might do this automatically. Next, adjust the color and what we loosely call the “tint.” Then get rid of noises and blemishes (in the picture, silly, not in your nephew’s skin). Finally, save the image TWICE. Put the copy in a different folder, out of the way.
Everyone has to make the choice between traditional cameras and digital cameras. There are cons and pros for both types of camera. The difference between traditional vs. digital photography makes the taking of pictures more difficult. One of those time consuming tasks is the changing of film and installing a new roll. Of course, the quality of the photo is greater than a digital camera.
Tags: Photography Posted in Photography
