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 …
Photo Backup – Local Storage Options
Looking to improve your photography storage and backup solution? Start Here – Photo Backup Strategies It only takes one frantic heart stopping moment when your hard drive fails to wish you’d been more prepared. Especially if it’s at 3am after an all night editing blitz to get a client’s set finished for delivery the next day. I’ve heard enough of these horror stories to know it can and will happen – usually at the most inopportune time. Most of the time, a photo can only be captured once. You only have the …
Astrophotography Lenses – Beyond the f-number
Just getting started in Astrophotography? Please check out my introductory article, ‘Astrophography – Seeing the Light in the Darkest Places’ first before you dive in here. It’s been recently updated for 2017! Astrophotography is a wonderful, and at the moment wildly popular, style of photography. From the peace that comes from sitting in the still darkness taking in the sights of the night sky, to the wonder of seeing far more than the eye can behold light up the back side of your camera’s screen after each click – there …
Landscapes 101 – Beyond the pretty snapshot
Every photography site out there seems to have one, the “How to improve your Landscape Photography” article. Usually they have 5, or 10, or even 12 bullet points that cover the same general set of tips to taking better landscape photos. And this is mine. Why should you read it? Well, for starters, you’re already here, so you might as well. Additionally, I’m not so far removed from ‘before I knew these tips’ that I’ll assume you already know why they are important. I’m going to take the time to say …
Show & Tell: Creative Canoe
Early this year, at Tyler State Park, I finally found one of those ‘wish list’ locations and opportunities that had lived in the back of my mind for a good long while. A nice stacked line of canoes in the early morning light. Making use of the amazing 70-200’s compression, I took a sequence of photos down the row of canoe bows. Shadows in hues of blue, the morning light in hues of gold. What more could you ask for? How about a little creative editing? Golden light, shallow depth …
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 …
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 …
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