The latest of the photoshop tutorials is now online. This is a Curves Tutorial Check it out along with the other tutorials on the photoshop tutorials page.
I’ve just created the latest photoshop tutorial… It’s on how to create a digital photographer’s muslin type background and lighting effects for those images that we’ve been extracting lately.
The video is not up on the website as yet but you can check it out on YouTube - Enjoy
There seems to be nothing but great reviews for this well established model at the moment. Although only 6 Mega pixels it still gets top marks from most of amazons happy purchasers.
Technical Details * 6.1-megapixel CCD captures enough detail for photo-quality 14 x 19-inch prints * Includes AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-70mm f3.5-4.5G ED-IF lens * 2.0-inch LCD display; power-up time of approximately 0.2 seconds * RAW and JPEG capture; burst mode allows for capture of three frames per second for up to 144 pictures * Stores images on CF cards or Microdrive; powered by EN-EL3a or EN-EL3 rechargeable lithium-ion battery (includes EN-EL3a battery and charger)
Well the first photoshop tutorial has been a great success and I have had many interesting and supportive comments. In the first day online it was viewed over 500 times.
I have received many supportive comments and a lot of requests for more material…
So I have now finished the second part of the background extraction tutorial which deals with advanced techniques on blending your newly extracted image into it’s new background.
Here is the YouTube Video… and as beore there is a link to the high definition version which can be viewed here: Photoshop background Tutorial
I’ve just been preparing a series of photoshop video tutorials. The first two are nearly complete and concentrate on background removal techniques - Basic and Advanced. I’ll let you all know when they are available.
A different light on digital photography
Posted by Stephen Shankland
If you want to learn about digital photography but have had your fill of redeye reduction tips and unsharp mask tutorials, a new book by Stephen Johnson is worth a look. On Digital Photography (O’Reilly 2006, $40) has plenty of pointers on color correction and tonal balance, but what sets it apart is Johnson’s enthusiasm for the history and mechanics of digital photography–and the abundant landscape pictures that serve as inspiration.
This looks like a great piece of kit… Advanced SLR Functionality at a Consumer Price-tag
find out more by following the link.
DIGITAL CAMERA: Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd - 18x zoom
Fujiflm has joined the ‘big zoom’ brigade with a camera designed to go head-to-head with the Olympus SP-550UZ and the new Pansaonic FZ18. Sporting an 18x (27-486mm equiv.) zoom, 8MP sensor and - for the first time in a Fujifilm ‘bridge’ camera - image stabilization (CCD-shift), the new FinePix S8000fd is Fujifilm’s most ambitious S series to date. Other features of note include face detection, 15fps shooting (at reduced resolution) and sensitivity settings of up to ISO 6400 (again, at reduced sensitivity). Like most recent FinePix digital cameras the new S8000fd accepts both xD and SD/SDHC media.
FUJIFILM FINEPIX S8000fd GETS CLOSE UP WITH INDUSTRY LEADING FEATURES
Don’t take another digital picture until you read this book!
Someone has finally gotten into the “secret files” of top photographers and is sharing the information for the first time ever!
“Finally! There’s a Fast, Easy, Affordable Way To Access Professional Picture-Taking Secrets And Capture The Best Digital Images Of Your Life!!!”
Digital Photography Secrets
by David Peterson
A Book To Instantly Transform The
Quality of Your Digital Photographs
This is basically a sales site for the book 50 tips to great outdoor images. The first 6 tips however are free and there are some quite special images to accompany these great tips.
Great Discussion on which format to use. This blog has a lot of subscribers who put forward some great points to bear in mind when choosing between the two formats.
Some of you will have to answer JPEG because your camera doesn’t offer you RAW - but those of us with the choice - I’d love to hear your opinion and some of the reasoning for you choice.
Its a map of the British Isles. They are tying to get every square kilometer of the country photographed. Amateur photographers submit their photos of each grid square on the map.
The Geograph British Isles project aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and you can be part of it.
Adobe Photoshop BlogWow. This is no ordinary tutorial website. Taught by freelance photographer Jodie Coston, the Morguefile site has archived a free online photography course that not only includes a satisfyingly comprehensive curriculum but also a Q&A session and feedback on student work.
The mission of photography laureates is to promote photography and photographers through technical workshops, improvisation sessions and contests and to get talent recognized by big publishers. An independent panel of experts reviews photographs based on the following criteria: technical quality, composition, flow, texture and light. Amateurs and professionals compete for publication and for a prize of $6500.
The article linked to here covers many aspects to help you make your desision. Beware though, I think they are really selling their online photography course.
Here is a great site which has a load of instructional tutorials / Lessons on many aspects of professional photography. Check out the entertaining idea below of promoting an 8 inch bmw
The car above is a BMW 700 series sedan, but you can’t drive it because it’s
only 8 inches long! With the help of a good digital camera, some basic
lighting equipment, and a little photo editing, this photograph comes very
close to looking like the real thing.
A great resource which takes some of the mystery out of flash photography. Everything from how the flash units actually work through guide numbers, distances and synchronization to what to look for when purchasing a flash unit.
A great resource which takes some of the mystery out of flash photography. Everything from how the flash units actually work through guide numbers, distances and synchronization to what to look for when purchasing a flash unit.
Our resident photography expert, Philip Bramhill has just been named the ‘Official Download Photographer’ for the infamous British rock festival held each year at Donnington.
After having worked the festival for the last 2 years and having the pleasure of photographing rock stars to the like of Lemmy and Motorhead, Slayer, Feeder and Black Sabbath, Philip admits that he was given the post of official photographer due to his studies of the festival goers and his ability to capture the general festival atmosphere more than his stunning photos of the bands.
Fitting in the festival with his university classes shouldn’t present him with much of a problem as most of his students will actually be attending the festival this year as an unofficial extracurricular event where they get to check out some great bands and see their professor at work.
Check out some of the photos from Last year’s 2006 festival.
Below is a link to shortcourses.com where they hold a fairly comprehensive list of short courses, most online and most free.
Some interesting tips can be picked up by scanning through the various sites. However, a lot of the tips ore repeats, some are of no use at all and of course there are some hidden gems to be found too.
Would be interested in hearing from anyone who finds some real photography gems (tips, pics or galleries) so that we can share them here.
Another question that we have been getting recently is how to get your photos looking like paintings. There are many many different ways of doing this… You could use the painting filters from photoshop or one of many other techniques… Here is a good one.
There are lots of ways to make a photograph look like a painting. Here’s another one that simulates painted strokes by blurring dark areas of the image and sharpening lighter areas. It takes just a few steps and works very well with landscapes and other images that include lots of detail.
Yet another great site I stumbled upon. This one is quite large and has many different sections.
On-Line Magazine for everything Photography from the Photoimaging Information Council. Read helpful photography tips and articles from the pros and celebrities, take surveys, and join in photo contests.
In these days of instant gratification our Nikonians professionals have noticed that some of our members don’t want to wade through a pile of technical explanations. They just want good pictures — fast.
If fast is what you’re looking for we have it condensed into five easy tricks.
Once you have effectively selected the hair as described in the previous article then you can go about changing the color as indicated in the article here:
Changing hair color is often simply a matter of adding a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. However, when the hair needs substantial lightening, such as when converting from brunette to blond, the Selective Color command may be more effective.
We have had several people asking how to change hair color using photoshop. Well there are many ways to do this… I plan to elaborate a little upon this in the next post or two.
For now here is an excellent tutorial on how to select the hair and all of the flyaway hair too.
Once you have the hair selected then it is quite easy to change the color.
Selecting fly-away hair can be one of the toughest assignments in Photoshop. The Extract command can be helpful. Third-party plug-ins, such as Mask Pro (www.extensis.com) and KnockOut (www.corel.com), are great. But sometimes the easiest way to select those random strands of hair is right in your Channels palette.
Tony Howell uses his website to show off some of his superb images and along the way he gives tips and advice including some tutorials and a load of images where he explains exactly how he created them.
To rename the files sequentially first of all select all of the files you want to rename, (in this case all the files in the folder) You can do this by selecting the last file in the list, then pressing shift and clicking on the first file in the list.
Then right click on the first file in the list and choose ‘rename’ from the emerging menu. Type in the new name and then click in the blank white space to de-select the files.
As you deselect the files they will automatically get renamed. (This may take a short while depending on how many files you have selected and how slow your computer is)
So using the example before, you could re-name the first file Holiday 2006.jpg and you would get the following result.
As much fun as they are to watch, fireworks are equally as challenging to photograph. Working on the Mall gives the Smithsonian’s staff photographers on-going opportunities to capture these events on film, and to test and improve their individual photographic techniques. Although their individual techniques may vary, the Smithsonian photographers all have some basic recommendations.
If you are a professional photographer or if you are thinking of getting into selling your work as stock photography then you should definitely take a look at the site below. Take a look at the work of the other professionals to get an idea as to what you are up against. Also have a glance at the multiple forums where you will be able to pick up tips and support on many aspects of professional photography.
Online photographer portfolios and stock photography catalog for photo buyers and professional photographers who specialize in nature, travel, outdoor and sports photography. Our online photo portfolios and galleries offer a unique blend of elegant presentation, ease of use and utility.
The use of light in a photograph can be the deciding factor of whether that picture will be spectacular or terrible. When you use your camera to automatically chose aperture and shutter speed, what your camera is actually doing is using the built in light meter and measuring how much light is being reflected to the camera.
The extract command
The Extract command in Photoshop enables you to isolate a foreground object from its background. Even objects with undefinable edges like hair can now be clipped from their backgrounds with very little manual work.
I just had to let you in on this one… Dr Russell Brown Has put together a whole library of free and highly effective Photoshop tutorials. They’re all really good and I counted over 75 of them. There are also loads of free photoshop scripts.
One of the most challenging montage or masking jobs in the profession of post-production editing is the hair lift. When the model has long flowing hair and the subject needs to change location many post-production artists call in sick. Get it wrong and, just like a bad wig, it shows. Extract filters, Magic Erasers and Tragic Extractors don’t even get us close.
Digital Backdrops can be a great Idea… The company below is selling CDs and DVD loaded with them so you can make your own studio backgrounds to your photos.
Check out the quality of these, and then ask yourself if you could do any better yourself.
I believe that if you have the skill and imagination it requires to digitally edit your photos so they can use the backgrounds on these cds then you will probably also have the skill needed to create your own.
Five years ago, Brad Owen invented the term Digital Backgrounds and introduced his first digital background CD. Since that time we have added many digital backdrops to our collection. While others imitate, we will continue to innovate and bring fresh new ideas and products to the digital photographer.
Calibrate Your Monitor
Make the photos you see the photos you print
I can hear those folks in the back row saying “Do WHAT to my monitor?” It’s not as bad as it sounds, and it will make a world of difference when you want to get a printed photo that looks the same as it does on your screen.
Photo to Pencil Sketch [Editor’s Note: Folks, we regularly get two or more requests from readers for any help using Photoshop to convert a photo to a sketch — pencil, charcoal, conte, or other mediums. This is by far the very best tutorial we’ve seen to date — bar none! When we saw this technique in the Photoshop Photo Effects Cookbook we knew at once we had to share it with you! Thanks to O’Reilly Publishing we’re able to bring the technique to you in its entirety! ]
It’s the perfect picture… except it’s been ruined by those unsightly, glowing red eyes from camera flash. It’s happened to us all; and fortunately, it’s fairly easy to correct. Follow these simple steps to remove red eye from your photos using any version of Photoshop.
Check out this new photo backup drive from Polaroid. It is just about as ‘plug-n-play’ as you can get… Plug it in and it starts to back up automatically all of the photos on your computer, even those in email attachments and it leaves the system files alone too.
Ultra Simple Image Backups Polaroid’s photo backup drive designed for ordinary folks; useful, weird, and bizarre products from the Consumer Electronics Show.
I stumbled upon this Blog where the owner has put up some of his nature photography.
There are some really spectacular images here… if you go to the site you need to scroll a little way down to get past the snapshots of the of the ramblers but once the nature photos start you will be glued to the screen until the end.
One of the futurist forecasts back in the 1950s was that we’d soon have thin TV sets hanging on the walls just like paintings. For decades nothing happened and TVs got bigger and fatter every year. It’s just within the past few years that the first hints of the future began to appear. One of these hints is the digital picture frame that displays slide shows and movies, with or without audio. Thin these may be, but cheap they are not. However, if you want to have an ever-changing slide show of your images, you might want to check into these devices. Some even let you, or others you invite, change the images from anywhere in the world.
The CNET editors review has a video review and has this to say…
The good: Bright, high-resolution 5.4-by-3.6-inch display; slots for most types of memory cards; images are automatically resized during upload from cards; rechargeable battery.
The bad: Navigating through menu systems isn’t as intuitive a process as it should be; battery life is relatively short at 50 minutes.
The bottom line: The Philips Digital Photo Display may not be cheap and doesn’t have the ability to tap into the Internet for automatic photo delivery, but it is one of the nicer digital photo frames currently available.
SLRtoday.com Has a series of interesting articles.. most are written by professionals for professionals. This one is great, it explains in depth the process needed for resizing and enhancing, Stuff that seems so simple but reading the article you will soon discover that there is a right way and definitely a WRONG way to do this…. Read on:
For the best print quality, especially if the digital photo is to be enlarged, there is a certain order of enhancement steps that should be followed. There are also a few functions that should not be performed until after the digital photo has been enlarged to target print size.
Family photography tips include everything from snapping off 20 baby pictures to posing everyone at your family reunion.
Photographs of our family are the most valuable memories we have.
But, are you deleting more digital images than you keep? Are you ecstatic AND proud of the images you do keep? Don’t worry if you’re not… you will be soon!
Before we begin, it is essential to understand this key photographic truth:
Digital Cameras Don’t Take Great Pictures…
PEOPLE DO
A Collection of three interactive webpages where you can supposedly simulate certain photographic situations and see the expected results. Worth a look at if only for entertainment value. Beginners may get some insights from this but most will be obvious.
SIM-CAM - For learning about photographic exposure - digital or SLR. Adjust the “camera” and click the shutter. You will see the results on screen! This is a superb tool for learning about EXPOSURE. For a more updated camera simulation, please visit the new simcam page.
Take a look at this great software for stitching together panoramic photos. At their site you can download a free trial version of the software to try it out before buying.
The demo image contains 57 photographs (aligned) and then the output result is shown…. and just as the sales page states, not a stitch or seam in sight. Looks great. AutoStitch
Autostitch™ is the world’s first fully automatic 2D image stitcher. Capable of stitching full view panoramas without any user input whatsoever, Autostitch is a breakthrough technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications. This is the first solution to stitch any panorama completely automatically, whether 1D (horizontal) or 2D (horizontal and vertical).
The demo image contains 57 photographs (aligned) and then the output
result is shown…. and just as the sales page states, not a stitch or
seam in sight. Looks great.
All lenses are measured in ‘focal length’ - the length in millimeters (mm) of the internal focusing lens itself. This is written somewhere on each lens usually on the front glass. As you know, lenses vary in length within each category above. For instance, the focal length for wide angled lenses can range from 24mm to 38mm. A normal lens can range from 50mm-58mm. Zoom lens and telephotos range from 70mm to 1200mm. The longer the focal length, the more magnification you get from the lens.
Wide Angle: These take in a lot of the scene from side to side .. more so than with any other lens. Because of their rather short focal lengths, they also shrink the scene. This shrinking often disappoints the photographer when the prints come back. So …. unless your subject can fill the frame or at least half the frame when looking through the camera, don’t take the shot (in most cases).
Normal: These are called ‘normal’ lenses because the render a subject at the same scale that we see the subject. Usually, these are the lenses that come with the camera - range is about 48mm to 58mm.
Telephoto: These are the so called big boys. They have a fixed focal length like the other two lenses just mentioned but because of their long and extra long focal lengths, they have greater magnification too. Telephotos usually start at 100mm and continue 200mm, 300mm, and up to 1200mm or more. A tripod is recommended for shutter speeds of 1/125 or less.
Zoom: A zoom lens is a telephoto that can change focal lengths and thus change magnification too. Zoom lenses are easily identified because they show a range like 70mm-230mm or 100mm-300mm.
One of the biggest mysteries of digital editing is the correct use of the levels curve. This can drastically enhance any photo with just a few minor adjustments.
Check out this tutorial on photoshop curves and whilst you are there you could get to see the rest of the wonderful tutorials on offer at the website.
Miles Hecker has a very nice Curves 101 tutorial on Luminous Landscape. I urge you to read it before continuing if you’re new to curves or rusty. In spite of Miles’ and dozens of other Curves tutorials I keep reading that beginners and intermediates have endless trouble getting the hang of this exceedingly useful tool.
If you are a professional photographer, chances are you already know the principals of photography and practice most of what we discuss here. If photography is your hobby, or if you occasionally take pictures and would like to improve on your skills, you will find useful information here.
The art of photography is as complex as you make it to be. The key to taking good photographs is to understand the principals behind the operation of the equipment and materials you use to produce photographs. There are three major components in photography: camera, light, and film. The camera is a light-tight box that gives you the ability to control the amount of light that reaches the film.
