We’ve had a few tutorials showing how to balance strobes and ambient light. Usually we focus on a how the exposure work, adding a strobe, and then knocking 2 stops off the exposure. In this video Manny Ortiz, does it all without dealing with calculating exposure. (Manny is also not using a light meter). Instead, Manny works his way through chimping the camera, which (at least for one light) may be a faster process....
For changing the color of the eyes in portraits, most of us would most likely use Photoshop. But have you tried doing it in Lightroom? It’s quite simple and you can do it in just two steps and get great results. In the video below, Anthony Morganti will show you how. It’s worth noting that you can change the eye color in any photo, but the results will vary. It all depends on the original color of your model’s eyes....
Many of us might not ever need to create a mock-up of how a photograph might look in a frame on the wall. If we’re only shooting for ourselves, we’d just print it, put it in the frame and hang it. Then we’d just know what it looks like. But for family, wedding and portrait photographers looking to sell prints to clients, it can be a very valuable tool to have in your arsenal....
Unbelievably soft lighting is actually trickier to do than many think. Sure we can place a large softbox in front of our subject to light them, but does that really look good? No, I’m not trying to trigger anyone here and I’m genuinely curious because, to me, the classic softbox look is a unique look to studio-style lighting. Does that softbox light really look like daylight? If that’s the look you’re after, is a softbox really the best solution we have?...
As well as often producing fantastic images, light painting is great fun. While you might have an idea in mind, you never really know what you’re going to get until you see the final shot. For some, that’s the whole point. The excitement of seeing if you can pull off your vision, and the unexpected surprises you encounter. One difficulty in light painting, though, especially when your light source is in the shot is blowing out the highlights....
LUTs have become a big thing recently. Once only used for grading video, they’ve become extremely popular for regular photography, too. Photoshop’s been able to read LUTs since at least CS6. But in CC it can also create them, too. In this video from Unmesh Dinda at Piximperfect, we see how to quickly and easy create LUT files from within Photoshop. From there we can either install them as “filters” for use on future images, or we can even use them in Premiere, Resolve and other editing applications for video, too....
The idea that a person’s face has a “good side” is not an unfamiliar concept. Many of us consistently favour one side of our face when we see a camera pointed at us. We are presenting what we believe is our “good side”. But, have we got even our own face wrong? In this video, portrait photographer Joe Edelman discusses some of the science behind a person’s “good side”. Science, however, can only take us so far....
If you are doing any kind of beauty work, you know that skin is one of the hardest things to deal with. You want to make the skin look good, while not ending up with a porcelain face that looks too smooth and textureless to be real. There are many tricks of the trade for beauty retouchers and Stefan is sharing three of his favorites: 1. How to remove Peach Fuzz (turns out that this is how you call those little facial hairs)....
If you have a TLR camera you can try this simple trick, that can help you to focus more easily. And if you like, you can share this content with your friends. Materials you need: Some small rubber bandsscissorsaluminum foilone ruler (optional) Here is a visual guide to the process. I think the pictures speak for themselves. These images illustrate what you will see in the focus screen using this trick....
If you need a light tent you can easily carry anywhere, Adam Rahn of DroiMedia has a fantastic DIY solution. In this video, he shows you how to make your own portable booth for product photography. It’s simple to make, easy to carry around, and it will cost you no more than $10 to build. You will need two pieces of 20 x 30” white foam board and a piece of 22 x 28”poster board for the background....
There’s been a lot of drama recently over the latest Photoshop updates, especially for Mac users. But regardless of compatibility issues, new bugs or whatever, many people put off upgrading to the latest version simply because they’re worried about losing their presets, despite the advantages the latest edition of Photoshop may offer. In this video, Colin Smith at PhotoshopCAFE walks us through how to keep our presets when upgrading, as well as how to share them with others....
The goal was to create a summery picture. But it was December, and we shot inside the studio. Here’s how we did it. Equipment 1x normal reflector with color foil (1/4 CTO) on a 500Ws monoblock2x Striplight with color foils (cyan and green) on 500Ws monoblocks1 reflector (foam core board) The Setup I looked at a lot of pictures and I have to say: sun-drenched models against a perfect blue sky aren’t that common....
Time lapses that transition from day to night (or vice versa) are considered the Holy Grail of time lapses. Aside from the actual tactics of taking a time lapse you add in the added complexity of changing light. I’ll admit that it can be quite intimidating to even try. This video from Mark Thorpe make it look all to easy though. It is 15 minutes long, but it is packed with some tips that I’ve never seen before, so its definitely worth the time....
Photography has been in the digital age long enough now that even a used $200 or less DSLR can produce some pretty amazing photography – when placed in the right hands. And with many restaurants closed, a lot more folks are eating at home, where you don’t need to be subtle with your smartphone to snap your dinner. In this video from The Bite Shot, Joanie Simon shows us some great ways to shoot dramatic food photos using her $200 used Canon Rebel T2i (EOS 550D), originally released back in 2010....
We had a death in the family this week, as my brother-in-law Michael Stroud passed away, after a three-week hospital stint. There are many parts of the grieving process, of course, and one big one is revisiting memories, with photos and video. As the photographer and archivist in the family, I spent several days this week pulling photos together for a memorial. My records are probably better than most, but they’re still woefully lax....
A few months ago I was commissioned by a boutique safari company to travel to Tanzania and document my experience throughout my adventure. Here is WILD: Africa is Calling Africa begins with a smell. From the moment I stepped out of the plane, I was enveloped by the strong scent of the earth. Riki, my guide, waited for me outside the airport and together we began my adventure across the endless plains of the Serengeti....
Frequency separation is typically seen as a technique for retouching skin – albeit often quite badly these days. But that’s not its only use. Separating colour from detail offers a lot of other potential benefits for working on your images. In this particular example, from travel & landscape photographer Michael Breitung, it’s chromatic aberration and colour fringing that get the frequency separation treatment. No matter how good our lenses, chromatic aberration and colour fringing can still creep into our shots occasionally, especially as we move towards the edge of the frame at wider apertures....
When it comes to setting up flash for a portrait, one might usually grab a big octabox or beauty dish. Normally, we wouldn’t consider something like a strip softbox. Strip softboxes are typically relegated to rim light duties. But they can also be extremely effective as a main light source. In this Profoto Tiny Talk, photographer Neil van Niekerk talks us through how he uses his gridded strip softboxes for lighting portraits....
OK… so the title is only mostly true. I rarely con shoot. But the reasons for that still come from the same place. One thing I’ve discovered in all my years of paying attention to cosplay photography is that how much of it is very similar in nature. A lot of it tends to happen at various conventions, or at least in the US anyway. Quite a while back I started noticing this… and I knew I didn’t want my work to be the same way....
I started this project because, well, it seemed like it would be hella fun, and it truly has been, every agonizing moment of it. I can’t say it’s been hard work, very little of my life as a photographer has ever really felt like work, even when I’m shooting jobs I’m not really ‘in’ to, this series in particular though has felt like a dream! The driving force of the GIANT series was to create dreamlike scenes from my head without the use of extensive Photoshop – unusual, awe-inspiring images which are as real off-camera as they are in the photo....
