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Photography Tips - Buying a digital camera

Before deciding on purchasing a digital camera, it is important that you set yourself a budget. This should happen before going online or visiting an electronics shop. It is just like purchasing any other large item else such as a computer. There are a lot of options, and you don’t want to get stuck biting off more than you can chew, expense-wise. High-end cameras offer the great zoom, more extra features and more megapixels. Having more megapixels doesn’t mean you will have the great picture quality. Unfortunately these cameras can also take a huge bite out of your wallet if you are not careful. When you are starting out in the wide world of digital photography, it is easier to not spend a huge amount of money on the high-end SLR cameras. Look for cheaper, yet effective, compact digital cameras that are a lot easier to hold. The best thing to do is learn the basics with this digital camera and make sure you enjoy the hobby before spending the cash for higher-end digital cameras.

Some people don’t really enjoy going on airplanes or helicopters, how do they take those spectacular aerial photos? Guess what you don’t have to use planes or helicopters! Sometimes aerial shots on planes can sometimes get expensive unless you have a friend with a plane. Flying in a little plane around a city a couple of times can be quite frightening for some people. The little secret that few photographers know is: some “in-flight” photos are not actually taken from a plane. Quite the contrary, they are taken from a countryside or city vantage point. Being in the observation deck of a skyscraper will actually get you just about as high as a low flying plane would. Your photographs will look like aerial shots that were taken as you were flying around, but in fact you didn’t even enter in any aircraft.

For most photographers autumn is one of the most enjoyable times. There are pretty arrangements of colors, ranging from red to gold from tinted green to shades of brown and tan. If you would like to enjoy photography natures fireworks display a well planned trip to one of the best fall places can be arranged. If you live in the US, the Department of Agriculture has a website that displays fall foliage information by geographical area. It is important to plan your trip precisely when the fall colors are their strongest. Information is updated as soon as conditions permit. If don’t plan to travel to the US, check with your country’s forestry or agriculture department website to see if such information is available. A good website for the US is the USDA Forest Service Fall Colors fs.fed.us/news/fallcolors.

A good location can make all the difference when taking fireworks photos with your digital camera. When capturing fireworks on film, composition is critical. Before the fireworks show begins, find a good vantage point that provides you with a clear shot of the upcoming show. Try to avoid streetlights that may compete with the brightness of the fireworks. Also important is to find a spot that will minimize the chances of people walking in front of your digital camera. Do not trespass on private property and be safe where you go at night, but look around for an area that can give you a clear shot of the brilliance that will light up your camera.

Taking photos at night is one of the biggest challenges. It may be best to your photo shoot is sometime around dusk, you will be able to get some great shots of the city line and there will be enough light for your camera to get details. With the amount of light that happens at dusk you will be able to prevent blurry photos of what you are trying to do. The best pictures happen at dusk, not in the pitch black of night. Unfortunately dusk only lasts for an hour or so research your shot locations and time beforehand. Be prepared at the place and time to catch the best photos you can.

Parade shots can sometimes be difficult, people are always moving, and something is generally happening. It is a complete waste of time to be refocusing shots during a parade. Try to shoot as many photos as you can, focus locks can help you do keep the focus on your camera. What a focus lock does specifically is it keeps your shutter button held halfway down and doesn’t completely release it after taking a photo. Or you might want to set your camera up for manual focus. This way, you can take several photos one right after the other, or use your camera’s drive mode for lots pictures within a small amount of time. This enables you to take a bunch of photos without having to refocus for each shot and your digital camera should function much quicker. Some shots you may want to set up for specifically but you can have just as much fun shooting continuously.

When you are taking digital pictures on sunny days, you must be careful. Sometimes the sun can completely damage your electronic camera. Taking pictures of sunsets and rises can be amusing and enjoyable, but pointing your lens directly at the sun may damage it. Try to keep your lens pointed a little bit away from the sun directly. There is a similarity between your eye and the camera lens, they both can see and both can be damaged by the sun. As a little kid your parents told you never to look at the sun or you will see spots. The same concept applies to your camera. When you are not capturing fantastic views, turn off your camera and store in someplace room temperature so you don’t damage it. It is best and easiest to take photos in increments, and then allow your camera to relax by enclosing it somewhere cool.

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography

A Basic Tutorial

The basics of Photoshop are relatively easy to pick up, but can seem a bit of a mystery when you first come to the program, thanks to its somewhat unintuitive interface and lack of simple tutorials.

Photoshop is basically made up of four areas: the menu bar, at the top, the toolbar just below it, the toolbox on the left and the palettes on the right. The menu bar and toolbox always stay the same, as they contain the different modes and options that you can choose, but the toolbar changes depending on context.

The palettes are there to show the current status of your image, including the history of all the actions you have used and a thumbnail overview of how the ‘big picture’ currently looks.

As an example of how the interface changes as you use it, select the type tool from the toolbox (looks like a capital T). Note how the toolbar changes completely to permit changes to the font name, size etc.

In the history palette, your use of the type tool will be added to your history, and a new layer will be created for your text and shown in the layers palette.

No matter the project you are working on in Photoshop, you will most likely start with either the toolbox or the menus. Everyday tools and features will be found in your toolbox, such as selecting, filling and making shapes. The menus contain the more advanced functions such as blurring, sharpening and all of the other possibilities Photoshop can provide, most of which are found under the Filter menu.

You can adjust the settings of tools from the toolbox using the toolbar. When doing this, options from the menu will typically open a dialog box. Should you want to change any actions you have made to your image, simply do so through your palettes. While the palette history is helpful, palettes have other uses also such as changing colors.

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography

Making Money With Adobe Photoshop

While Adobe Photoshop is one of the most popular imaging software packages around, it comes with a price! Here is a compilation of five ways you can generate money using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, as a business endeavor, for some extra money, or just to regain your investment.

1) Photo Restoration Service - Everyone has a collection of those old family photographs that have taken a beating at the hands of time. Old or damaged photos can be made new again using the Healing Brush, Spot Healing Brush and Patch tools.

2. Become a Photograph Doctor. No matter the ailment, from “red eye”, “pet eye”, poor exposure, or “finger over the lens syndrome” Photoshop can make over a ruined image into a faultless one. Photoshop can also change a color photograph over to look like a black and white one, or color tint a black and white one to make it color. There will always be plenty of “sick patients” to make better.

3. Design Greetings Cards. With the photo enhancement and graphic design qualities of Photoshop, designing greetings cards has never been easier. You can enhance photos, make them into drawings or paintings, combine photos for humorous cards, the possibilities are endless. Birthday cards, get well soon cards, condolence cards, Christmas cards or cards for other holidays like Mothers’ Day, the list goes on and on. You can easily find card blanks and envelopes from specialist suppliers.

4) Design T-shirts - How many times have you seen something that you thought would make a great t-shirt? It can be hanging in your closet thanks to Photoshop. Transfers can be found at stationery shops or craft stores and plain cotton t-shirt can be purchased from low cost suppliers or even found in bulk online.

5) Web Design - This is a skill always in high demand. From designing full websites, to a few buttons or banners, you can capitalize on this need. Charge for web site personalization, or design generic templates that can be bought and downloaded for customers to customize themselves.

As with any business, you may need to consider additional equipment. A color printer, scanner and digital camera would help support these job opportunities and can be found at reasonable prices on sale or through eBay and other websites. Invest in a DVD of royalty free images that permit their use for commercial ventures.

Getting the word out is better than any written advertisement. Ask friends, family, co-workers and other contacts if they or anyone else they know are in need of your services. You can even provide a portfolio review for retailers and offer them commissions on any work they send your direction.

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography

Photoshop Tips - Adobe Photoshop and Text

Sometimes, when it comes to getting a picture to convey a particular emotion, or augmenting the theme of the background you juxtapose it against, nothing works quite as well as a few choice words. These could either be in the form of a quirky caption, or an insightful banner, or just about anything that adds to the significance of the picture in terms of the context you want to present it in. However, many photographers and editors have shied away from ‘tagging’ their images for years, for fear of their pieces of art turning into tacky caricatures, by merely adding a not-so-impressive effect that detracts from their image’s artistic value. In recent times, the revolution called Photoshop has literally swept these cynics of their feet, offering an array of features that would have otherwise been considered impossible to attain with more conventional digital photo-editing softwares.

Photoshop relies on the principle of Anti-Aliasing, which literally blends the text in with its background, so that the final result of your editing efforts is not a scintillating image and a few well-thought over words but an image of which the text and the photograph are fundamental parts. Anti-Aliasing works on the pixels of your text, partially filling in the edges to have them merge with the image. And this remarkable tool also allows you to be flexible and discreet in the extent to which you use it. If you are looking for an effect that is well-blended and yet retains the distinctiveness of the text, the ‘Sharp’ option allows you just what you’re looking for, while the ‘Strong’ alternative makes the text heavier than the rest of the image.

If you are working with very small text that is below the font size of 10 or 12 points, then as Photoshop specialists recommend, steer away from using Anti-Aliasing by setting the preference to ‘None’. This keeps the text from being modified inconsistently, a factor that comes into play when working with images of a very small size, or of a low resolution. The ’smooth’ and the ’sharp’ alternatives live up to their name with the effects they bring about, but if you are looking for something in between, try the ‘Crisp’ option which, as the name suggests, makes your text appear decisive. To work with Anti-Aliasing, choose the option you intend to work with from the menu, which you will find in the ‘Type’ layer segment of the Layer Palette. You can move to this menu either by selecting it from the ‘Options’ bar, or from the ‘Character Palette’.

When working with the ‘Type’ options, you first need to activate the ‘Type’ tool with the letter ‘T’. This will bring all the Type Tool alternatives into the Options bar, all of which can be used to add or modify the text that you add to your image. Of the various tools that you find on the Options bar, the first two let you choose between a Type Layer and a Type Mask to work on your image with. If you are looking to add a relatively large piece of text to your image, you can also consider creating a Type Layer, on which you can click and create a rectangle or square to make a text column. You can then work this column to the relevant section of the image, to ensure more accuracy. And if you choose to type directly on the layer, you must remember to pay attention to the ‘I beam’ on the image, which has a small horizontal line across it, to denote the baseline. Adhering to the baseline will further augment the accuracy with which you position your text, saving you a lot of valuable time and effort in the entire process.

With Photoshop, you always have the option of previewing your text to check for font and style compatibility, even before you actually begin to type in the content. However, if you think you need to see the final effect to make your decision, you also have the alternative of typing your text in, highlighting it and then modifying the finer nuances. Coloring your text is another ballgame altogether. With Photoshop, you can not only fine-tune your color choice with every individual character, but also multi-hue your text while using only a single layer. While the Color-Picker is bound to spoil you for choice, you can also pick colors off your image by moving your cursor to the color you want to emulate, while keeping the Color Picker window open.

After you’re through with working on your image and are ready to showcase it in all its creative glory, you can exit the ‘Type’ mode with the ‘Enter’ key on the Numeric keypad. Other ways to move out would be by clicking on any other tool in the toolbox, or the checkmark in the Options bar. For any oversights you want to correct, there is always the ‘T’ icon in the thumbnail section of the Layer’s Palette, double-clicking on which, you can go back to the ‘Editing’ mode once again. An easy way to resize or reposition the text is to simply click and drag it as per your preference while holding down the ‘Shift’ key. This prevents your text from getting distorted in relation to the proportions you set out with and if you aren’t too particular about the same, you can also stretch your text out, or flatten it by not using the ‘Shift’ key.

Photoshop has endless avenues for both amateur enthusiasts and professionals to explore. Although the learning curve can be steep and hard to grapple with, take your time with the software and be as creative as you can when using it. With a little practice and loads of determination, turning everyday plain-Jane images to digital masterpieces will be a forte you have firmly etched out for yourself!

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography, Photoshop

Photoshop Video Tutorials - Learning the Ropes of Photoshop

Color Model: When you hear the term color model we are referring to the method from which we define or classify the color we are to work with. Examples of such are RGB, LAB, CMYK, etc. Color Space: A color space is simply a variation of your color model. For instance, within your RGB framework some common variations are, sRGB, Adobe RGB, and so on. Some of these spaces are better for display e.g. sRGB and Wide Gamut RGB while other color spaces are more suited to printing e.g. ColorMatch RGB and Adobe RGB. Now, it is important to note that every device in our workflow utilizes it’s own unique color space. Meaning, while your monitor, scanner, and printer will base their color spaces basically on what we can see their actual gamut (range of colors) will differ. This is where we lose our consistency across devices. This is the problem we must attend to.

This is where professional level CMS’s and entry level ones differ. At this point with the entry level you will scan in the printed target and the CMS will actually use the before generated scanner profile to correct the scan, so it can the correct your printed target. A professional level CMS will have a separate hardware device designed specifically for reading printed media targets.

I would recommend using Relative Colorimetric as your Rendering Intent when doing the Convert to Profile step and when printing with Print with Preview out of Photoshop. Rendering intents control how the profile is applied to either the scanner or printed image. Relative Colorimetric has proven to be the best in my testing. Read the documentation that came with your CMS in order to learn more about the other available rendering intents.

Adobe Photoshop has also led to a whole new level of art and animation. Did you know that tablets were developed specifically with Adobe Photoshop in mind? Artists of today have gone beyond using paints and a canvas. Today’s painters make use of tablet sensors and Adobe Photoshop to produce their masterpieces. With the technology of Adobe Photoshop, people are able to take the art of drawing, add a bit of computer technology, and come up with a whole new genre of animation. In the past, images had to be saved as specific file types in order to be usable for Adobe Photoshop. However, because of the proliferation of digital cameras and camera phones today, Adobe Photoshop can actually import the photographs directly from the sources. This means that the gap between taking the picture and sharing it is reduced.

Are you amazed by the awesome pictures posted in magazines and various Internet sites? Believe it or not, but even if you are not a professional photographer, you could also come up with similarly fantastic pictures. Introducing the Adobe Photoshop CS. The Photoshop CS is the more advanced and updated versions of the Adobe Photoshop software that has been around for quite some time. During the pre-computer era, you were perhaps engrossed into the hobby of cutting out pictures for better album presentations. But now, everything can be done using the computer. Even the cameras with negative films on it are slowly becoming obsolete, in favor of the modern camera types, where images are stored not on films but virtually through computer memories. In that case, how could you make good albums or edit pictures?

Manipulate objects in the Adobe Bridge. This new generation of file browser enables you to look at photographs and artwork in detail before you open the file, process multiple Camera Raw images, flip through pages in PDF documents, size, rate and organise your work in a convenient and highly user-friendly way. Goes way beyond the capabilities of the File Browser introduced in Photoshop 7. Get rid of imperfections with the Spot Healing Bush The Spot Healing brush enables you to get rid of slight imperfections - like dust or scratches at the click of a mouse. Unlike the Healing Brush or Patch tools, you don’t have to find a source point first. Remove “red-eye” in an instant. With older versions of Photoshop, removing red-eye and pet-eye was possible, but it wasn’t easy. Now, one click of the Red Eye removal tool can remove pet-eye and red-eye from your photographs, in less time than it takes your subject to say “cheese!”.

Graphicsoft.about.com: If you like free online tutorials, check out this site. All tutorial video clips are taught by Deke McClelland, who is also the trainer for several Adobe Photoshop CS2 training CDs. He’s offering a free sample of his lessons on this site - you won’t have everything you need, but the tutorials are enough to teach you some very important things and get you started. Included in the tutorial video clips are: learning about Vanishing Point, Camera Raw, Image Warp, Smart Sharpen Filter, Smart Objects, Adobe Bridge, Match Color and Shadow Highlight Filter. If you want to buy his tutorial videos, you’ll get an exclusive 20% discount if you use the promotion code. PhotoshopSecrets - CS2 for Digital Photographers: If you want to learn how to maximize your digital photos with the use of CS2, this video tutorial is for you. Learn how professional photographers produce better-looking photographs and use their tricks to turn your photos from blah to blast. This tutorial video is a CD-ROM format, has 43 lessons and runs approximately 3.5 hours.

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography, Photoshop

Flixya- Make Money, Share Videos, and Have The Blog Of Your Life

Flixya 2.0 is a popular social networking, online video sharing community which just re-launched. Version 2.0 is bigger and better. Their motto is simply “Share Everything”. They certainly live up to that as the latest version not only includes video sharing, but also incorporates blogs, and photo sharing into the model. Instead of the previous 50% revenue sharing, Flixya now gives 100% of the ad revenue generated to its users. (Note: You do need to sign up for your own adsense account for the revenue sharing).

Flixya billing itself as the only social-networking website that pays you back 100% of the advertising revenue generated on their site from the ads placed around the content that you add. You can creat your own blogs, upload your photos, and create blogs about your life.

Do I Have To Pay To Use Flixya?

To the contrary- Flixya pays YOU.

What is 100% Revenue Share?

With Flixya, the users receive 100% of the ad revenue generated from the ad impressions that are shown on the pages with their content (photos, videos, blogs etc.). Google’s Adsense(tm) powers the ad program at Flixya and does require you to sign up- to be able to collect the ad revenue, during registration. You can also do this on the ad settings page which is visible when you are logged into the site.

How Do I Collect This Ad Revenue?

It’s very easy to get paid. The money goes into your Adsense(tm) account whenever someone clicks on one of the advertisements displayed on your pages.

Sharing Videos, What Does That Mean?

Flixya let’s you share or upload your videos from many popular online video sharing sites such as YouTube, Google Video, Daily Motion and other movie file sharing sites. Recently Flixya released an addon for FireFox called “Flixya Video Publisher”. This is a great addon tool for transferring your videos from Google Video, MetaCafe, Revver, Livevideo, Bolt, Veoh, Daily Motion and Break. This tool can easily become highly addictive to use. You can also vote videos up or down and the popular ones as voted on by the Flixya community as a whole will appear on the Flixya’s homepage.

Share Your Photos For Free?

Flixya- as one of the best online photo sharing sites, will let you share your photos with your family, and friends, and also offers unlimited ebay auction image hosting.

Personal Profile

You can create your personal profile, link to it, and share your interests, photos, and favorite blog posts.

Do They Host Blogs?

Yes, you can create your own blog. A blog is short for “weblog”. A Blog is a type of online diary or chronological listing of what you are thinking. These are usually maintained daily by you and reflect your own personality. You are encouraged to create your own blog(s) and you can promote yourself and/or add other content. You get to collect 100% of the money that is derived from the content surrounding your blogs, as well.

Do They Have Social Bookmarking?

As you can see Flixya covers a lot of ground. Much more than I can write about here.

There is much more to do at Flixya than I can cover here.

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography

Digital Photography - How Many Mega pixels Do We Need?

Are you having megapixel envy each time you walk by the camera section of your favorite electronics store? So do I. But, do we really need more and more pixels? The answer depends on what we intend to do with the images. First, a quick definition of megapixel:

Megapixel is a fancy term for “million pixels”. A single pixel is the smallest unit of color that a camera’s sensor is able to capture. The more pixels the sensor can capture the sharper the image the camera can replicate. When comparing cameras, mega pixels can be abbreviated as “MP”.

So how exactly do we know how many pixels we need from our camera? The first step is to have in mind what your intent is for your images. This is important when the purpose for the images require a high resolution digital photo. Photos for only the computer screen need only a low resolution image, making any camera adequate if that is your only need from your photos. High resolution photos are most frequently needed for printing or developing pictures. Using this example, lets use the goal of printing photos to address our question about mega pixels.

The second task is to determine the largest print size we would like of our photo. Sure, it would look cool to have poster-size images all over the house of our sweetheart, but are we really going to go through that expense? I assume for most of us, poster size prints fall into the “rarely or never” category. Having ruled out extreme sizes, we have the three most common photo sizes to consider. According to online photo labs, the following minimum resolutions are sufficient to produce high quality prints:

4 x 6″: 640 x 480 pixels (0.3 megapixels) 5 x 7″: 1024 x 768 pixels (0.8 megapixels) 8 x 10″: 1536 x 1024 pixels (1.6 megapixels)

I know from personal experience that my 3 megapixel camera is as low as I want to go for an 8 x 10″ print; any less would start showing pixilation at close examination. Based on this experience, I suggest doubling the above megapixel recommendations when buying a camera. This exercise has taught us that if we only want 4 x 6″ prints, then 0.6 megapixels are sufficient. Most digital cameras start at 2 megapixels, which is sufficient to produce quality prints up to 5 x 7″.

Now that we know the minimum megapixel requirements for our needs, we are free to focus on other important features of the camera such as lens quality, color reproduction, optical zoom, body size, etc.

Tags: Cameras   Posted in Cameras