When most photographers think of Dodging and Burning they immediately think of portrait retouching. Adjusting the contouring of the face and other body features to sculpt the lights and shadows. However, the technique can be used on almost any photo where objects need to take on an increased depth through the addition of contrast. While global and even localized contrast can be used to bring punch and detail, it can not reshape or refocus the light like a little bit of dodging and burning can do. Regardless if it’s a …
Exceeding Photoshop’s PSD 2GB File Size Limit
I remember when my family got their first computer. It was an Acer, it was this huge, heavy, dark colored tower case and even heavier 15″ CRT monitor. It was top of the line, Pentium 100 mhz (yes, mhz), and it had a 1 GB hard drive. Our neighbor exclaimed that we’d never possibly fill up a 1 GB hard drive. Six months later my father was none too pleased when I proved the old phrase “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Somehow, over a 56k modem, I had …
Canon Camera Options – Tips & Tricks
From the factory your new Canon DSLR is going to be setup for ease of use and a direct path from the box to shooting. However, there are a few small menu options you can change to make your camera more fool proof when in the heat of a shoot, or for it to simply work better for your style of shooting. The options below are all from my Canon 6D and 5DmkIV. Depending on the model, your camera might not have all the options mentioned, newer models may have …
Eliminate background clutter!
Photography is all about light – and with light comes contrast. Anything that contains contrast – be that color, light, sharpness, anything – will draw attention. And while I plan to give the subject of contrast in its many forms a full length article in the future, a photo I was editing this afternoon gave a wonderful example of why you should take a few moments to clean up the background, and also the foreground or edges of your frame – either before you take the photo – or afterwards …
Simple luminosity masks in Photoshop
View PostStar Trail Stacking in Photoshop CC – the fast way
For the first year after I started working with Star Trail photography, I’ve used StarStax to blend my individual frames together into the trail photo. Unfortunately, StarStax has some limitations, and I have suspected that the resulting star trail image wasn’t as high of quality as the input images. So I started researching other options, including stacking manually in Photoshop. The root of the idea is to set each of your layers above the bottom layer to blending mode = ‘lighten’ – so the bright starts shine through on each subsequent …
Show & Tell: Texas Star Bluebonnet
One of my resolutions for 2016 is to visit at least one State Park (of any State) each month, and thus, it’s been a great resolution to plan and peruse. As luck and timing would have it, I was able to get my April visit checked off on the very first day of the month with a last minute impromptu run to Eisenhower State Park on Lake Texoma. The sunset forecast on SunsetWX.com said the colors were supposed to be spectacular close to the border vs closer to home in …
Layering Long Exposures in Photoshop
View PostPhoto Backup Strategies
There are two ways to learn – by first hand experience, and by learning from other’s experience. And while in some situations learning things second-hand doesn’t always sink in quickly enough, in other cases simply seeing the fallout is plenty to motivate one to be proactive. Thankfully, on this particular topic, I’ve been lucky and have learned from the unfortunate misfortunes of friends and fellow photographers. Simply put, in the world of digital photography, one can never have your photos in too many (secure) locations. Additionally, you can never get …
Gritty Color: Nik Silver Efex & Photoshop
View PostThe PNW Chronicles: Waterfalls (Part I)
The Pacific Northwest is known for many natural wonders, and its abundance of flowing, cascading, and plummeting columns of water is right near the top of that list. Any Google query for “Waterfalls” and “Pacific Northwest” is going to come up with an endless number of photos and lists of locations and descriptions. One such list that I used when starting to put together my itinerary was “The 100 best waterfalls of the Northwest“, also relying on print material such as “Photographing Oregon” available on Amazon. as well as specifically …