Monthly Archives: August 2012
Sunday, August 26th, 2012
Since those early days I’ve really worked to define what makes my work “hopefully” unique to me, and along the way one of the most important and time saving things I’ve learned is not what actions to use, but instead what actions not to use… and that’s most of them. Don’t get me wrong, I still fully embrace digital technology including actions in adding emphasis to my images as quickly as possible. I’ve simply worked to define my style and then pick and choose the actions that help empahsize that style.
Sorry about that little tangent. Anywho. One little trick that’s helped shave time off my workflow is color-coding my actions in Photoshop according to what function they perform. For example, I’ll group b&w actions with a color, utility actions (cropping, sharpning, formatting for blog, etc.) with another color, effect actions with another color, texture actions with yet another color, etc… Color coding helps me visually locate a set of actions and then a single action faster than if they were all the same color. And honestly, I’ve been a little sloppy in some of my color coding with some random outliers here and there, but it’s amazing after a while how quickly your mind memorizes where actions are based on blocks of color.
The following is a quick little tutorial in case you want to give this a try.
Step 1 - Click the actions palette options icon to access the option to toggle from Button Mode to step-by-step mode. Note if your actions are currently set to be viewed in non Button Mode, you can skip Step 1 & 2.
Step 2 - Click “Button Mode” in the actions palette options menu to toggle off Button Mode. You need to be in non-Button Mode where you can see each recorded step in your actions.
Step 3 - Double-click in the open area to the right of an action title. IMPORTANT: If you double-click to the right of a step in the action rather than the action title, Photoshop will run that step instead of opening the Action Options dialog box.
Step 4 - With the Action Options dialog box open, you can change the color assigned to an action in Button Mode. Unfortunately there’s still no way to select a group of actions and change their color all at once. I’ve been waiting for a while on that feature, but my feature request emails to Adobe have likely ended up in their Mailbox of Broken Dreams never to be seen or heard from again.
Bonus Points (optional) - With the Actions Options dialog box open you can also select a function key or combination of function + modifer keys (Shift & Command) to create a hot key(s) short cut to run an action. I do this for all of my most commonly used actions to save even more time in my workflow.
Step 5 - Repeat steps 1 & 2 to open up the actions palette options and click on “Button Mode” to toggle button mode back on. BTW, in case you were wondering, Button Mode allows you to run an action or set of actions recorded as one action with a single mouse click.
For some of you, this is old hat. Hopefully, though, this is helpful for a few of you out there. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I seem to run into a fair number of people out there that didn’t know abou tthis little gem. If that’s you, give it a try and see if - once you get used to it - you don’t find yourself shaving a little time off your workflow.
Sunday, August 26th, 2012
We were asked to photograph the new dress range for Aleena Abayas LTD to showcase on there International clothing website. I arrived at 12pm to start the shoot and was introduced to the tall and glamorous Saira Macleod our model for the afternoon. With 15 outfit changes to photograph, the two dress designers were happy to give a helping hand styling and accessorising the outfits.
I’m so impressed with the two girls that own the company. They have so much love and passion for there clothing range, driving there vision to the next level. The clothing range sales all over the world and orders are flooding in on there new season line. The girls hospitality never stopped, always offering me a nice cup of tea.
Thursday, August 23rd, 2012
This is a Finao two tone leather 12×12 album with the spine in opaline leather and the front and back in miami ink leather, it can come in a variety of colure and page sizes.
Thursday, August 23rd, 2012
This is a stunning Finao 10×10 album with a linen cover in white down, the album can come in a variaty of colure and page sizes, for more information have a look at my album design page.
Thursday, August 23rd, 2012
This is a 24×24 edge to edge print made up with 365 photos from your wedding day, you also have a choice of frame options from being 8 or 12 millimetres thick and the edge finish in wood or metal.
Tuesday, August 21st, 2012
When photographing a human face, your primary goal is to make your subject look good. Your job, in most cases, is to simply accentuate their positives and hide their flaws. Most portrait photographers know that a large, soft light source (like open shade, window light or a softbox) is a great way to create an appealing, flattering portrait light source. But that’s only part of the challenge. Where you position that light changes quite a bit in the end result.
For instance, a frontal light source—if it’s soft enough—can be an appealing way to minimize harsh shadows and textures, and generally creates a pleasant portrait light. If your subject is large, however, or has a particularly large face, such frontal illumination is going to accentuate that. Moving the light to 45 degrees—or even to the 90-degree position to create “split lighting”—is a great way to create a slimming effect by making a round face appear more narrow. Allowing that subject to emerge from a dark background is another technique for subtle thinning. A backlight, in that case, can serve to separate the subject from the background by creating a rimlight effect. This is a good way to keep the subject from blending into the background, but keep in mind that blend is what helps to create the slimming effect.
Tuesday, August 21st, 2012
In the good old days there wasn’t much to know about lens focal lengths. A 100mm lens was a 100mm lens; the only thing you needed to know was whether that lens was a telephoto (as it would be on a 35mm film camera), a normal lens (like on a medium-format camera) or a wide angle (as it would be on a 4×5 view camera). Most people quickly learned what the focal lengths represented for their particular camera format. But these days, with so many digital camera sensor sizes and other lens peculiarities, the millimeter measurement of a lens’ focal length tells only part of the story. Many other factors go into determining the effects a particular lens will produce—from magnification factor to zoom range and much more. What follows is a lens focal-length primer, with several key points that will help you understand focal lengths as they relate to your camera and to the pictures you use them to make.
1. The focal length of a lens is the measurement of the distance from the center of a lens to the point at which its image is focused. The longer the distance, the longer the lens. The longer the lens, the more telephoto it’s considered. The shorter that distance, the wider the angle of view. The most common measurement of lens focal lengths is in millimeters, although some old-school photographers still refer to large format lenses in inches. (If you’re interested, you roughly can convert inches to millimeters by using a 1:25 ratio. An eight-inch lens approximates a 200mm lens.)
2. A full-frame digital sensor is equivalent in size to a 35mm film frame, making this the standard focal length baseline that today’s lenses are measured against. Smaller formats often have shorter focal lengths (say, a 10mm wide angle that seems unbelievably short) but in “equivalent” terms they’re much more akin to more familiar focal lengths (say, a 17mm lens that is the equivalent to a 28mm lens in 35mm equivalent terms).
3. Lenses have various classifications based on focal length and the field of view they provide. A wide-angle lens provides a much greater field of view, and is generally considered to be any lens 40mm or shorter (again, in full frame equivalent terms). A normal lens—on a full frame DSLR—is the distinction given to any lens that ranges roughly from 40mm to 65mm or so. These lenses are “normal” because they provide an angle of view that approximates that of the human eye. Telephoto lenses on full-frame cameras usually are lenses longer than 70mm, and they range upwards of 300, 600 and even 1000mm. The longer the telephoto, the narrower the angle of view and the greater the magnifying power it provides. That’s why wildlife and sports photographers so often use 600mm and longer telephotos. Most amateur users, though, tend to top out around 300mm lenses for most uses.
4. The effect that a smaller sensor has on a lens of a given focal length is called a crop factor or magnification factor. This is because a smaller sensor produces a similar effect to cropping a larger sensor—effectively magnifying the image. Some photographers object to this narrowing of the angle of view because they’re used to a lens of a certain focal length producing a certain corresponding angle of view. Other photographers actually prefer a crop factor because it has the effect of making a long telephoto lens behave like an even longer telephoto lens. If you photograph sports or wildlife, a 400mm lens placed on a camera with a 1.5 magnification factor would behave more like a 600mm lens. That’s a heck of a telephoto bonus.
5. Some lenses are called prime lenses, which means they have a fixed focal length. Other lenses are zoom lenses, so they can be adjusted across a range of focal lengths. Some zooms fit within a particular classification, such as wide-angle zoom, normal zoom or telephoto zoom. Many lenses actually zoom from wide to normal, or normal to telephoto. Extreme zoom lenses actually encompass all these qualities in a single lens—say a wide-angle 30mm lens that can zoom all the way to a 300mm telephoto. These extreme zoom lenses are prized for their portability since they offer such a wide range of focal lengths in a single package. The downside is that some extreme zooms are more prone to vignetting and chromatic aberrations when used with wide apertures and zoomed to the extremes.
6. Photographers shopping for point-and-shoot or compact cameras often encounter zoom lens descriptors such as 2X, 3X or 10X. This isn’t actually a representation of the precise focal length of a lens, but rather the zoom range that lens covers. A 2X lens, for example, doubles its focal length from its widest to its longest setting—as in a 35-70mm lens. A 3X zoom triples the focal length (like 35-105), and a 10X zoom multiplies it by a whopping factor of ten (as in a 35-350mm lens). The bigger the X factor, the larger the range of focal lengths covered by a lens. Remember though, just because two lenses offer 2X zooms doesn’t mean the lenses have the same focal length. For that, you’ll have to compare actual millimeter measurements in 35mm equivalent terms.
7. The longer the focal length of a lens, the shallower the inherent depth of field that lens will produce. The shorter a lens, the greater the depth of field will be even at wide apertures. In practice that means you have to be more precise when focusing a telephoto lens, whereas wide- angle lenses have such depth of field they can be very forgiving of improper focus. Many photojournalists for years have utilized this “benefit” of wide-angle lenses in difficult shooting environments, not only because they take in more of the scene and provide context, but because they have so much depth of field to provide focus from near to far.
8. The longer the focal length of a lens, the more difficult that lens will be to handhold. This is true not only because longer lenses tend to be physically longer and heavier than wide-angle lenses, but also because subtle vibrations and camera shakes are amplified dramatically when using a telephoto lens. A good rule of thumb is to use a minimum shutter speed equivalent to the focal length—for example, when handholding a 500mm telephoto lens, be sure to set the shutter speed no slower than 1/500th of a second.
9. Some lens designations mean that even though the focal length may be the same, the lens won’t perform the same. A macro lens, for instance, can focus extremely close, allowing for great magnification of small objects and fine details. One 100mm lens may be designated macro, while another is not. You’re bound to pay a premium for the added capabilities, but if making big photos of little objects is important to you, it’s well worth the investment.
10. Many photographers utilize special devices to change the effective focal length, or at least the performance, of a lens. Teleconverters are popular among wildlife photographers and those who want to double or triple their lens’ focal length (with a 2X or 3X teleconverter) without carrying an additional, and often quite expensive, supertelephoto lens. Extension tubes are a similar device, but rather than changing the lens’ effective focal length they simply change the focusing range—making a lens focus much closer and behave more like a macro lens would. Like macro lenses, extension tubes are used to allow close focusing are ideal for flower photography and other close-up uses. The downside with both extension tubes and teleconverters is that each requires a sacrifice in available maximum aperture—often as much as two full stops that turn an ƒ/2 lens into an ƒ/5.6. Worth it, though, if you’re working at smaller apertures, with flash or if you simply need the close focusing or telephoto extension effect.
Saturday, August 18th, 2012
When Martin contacted me and asked if i would cover the surprise birthday party at the amazing Crazy Bear in Beaconsfield what could i say “yes please” put me down for that one, the rooms are so amazing i could cover that venue forever. After telling me his wife sarah will no nothing about it all day and martin has worked out a plan that went clockwork on the day.
Sarah will think she is going on a family photo shoot at Bernham Beaches locates near slough, then after part 1 of the plan martin would brake the news they are staying at the Crazy Bear for the night. When they arrived at the venue i would take some photos of Sarah in the amazing room befor slipping of and lingering around until part 3 of the plan was implemented.
The surprise party was a hit in every way when Sarah walked in to all her family and friends with the drinks flowing and the roulette wheel spinning for some fun casino time every one was having a blast, time for food and thanks to Sarah and martin i had the chance to indulge sample then the disco started with everyone having a turn on the flashing dance floor. The kids was all having fun and even finding time to do the Congo around the floor but they all looked so cute.
Thursday, August 9th, 2012
Are you shooting in Raw, but never really know what White Balance to set when converting your files in Photoshop? There is a way of getting it spot on, without simply guessing what you think looks correct to the eye.
When you convert a RAW file, you have the choice of what colour temperature you set, and apart from determining whether your colours are accurate or not, this makes a huge difference in how ‘warm’ or ‘cool’ your picture looks. For artistic shots, it really is up to you how you set your white balance, but a good starting point is the Daylight setting in the RAW converter for all outdoor shots, and the Incandescent (Tungsten) setting for all indoor pictures that don’t use flash.
From this general setting, you tweak the Temperature slider right to warm up the scene or left to cool it down, and move the Tint from right to left if the image looks a little too green or a little too magenta.
If this sounds far too ‘loose’ and you want to get a bit more scientific, then purchase a grey card, and place it in the shot for the first picture you take of a scene. Make sure it’s in typical lighting that represents the scene (eg - don’t put the card in the shade if your scene is bathed in sunlight). In your RAW conversion software, select the WB eyedropper (all good RAW converters will have this) and click directly on the grey card to get the correct WB for the scene. This technique is particularly useful if you want accurate skin tones in a portrait, or spot-on colours if you’re taking shots for a brochure or auction site.
You can purchase grey cards for around a tenner from most camera shops, and for £18, Lastolite make the Ezybalance – a handy 30cm grey card that’s white on the reverse and collapses down to next to nothing.
Using a grey card
1. Test Shot
When you’ve framed up your picture, place your grey card in the shot in lighting that’s consistent with the rest of the scene. Take a shot in RAW mode, and then remove the card from view and shoot normally. If you change anything, like your composition or location take another test shot.
2. Converting
From the file Browser or Bridge, open the test shot into Adobe Camera Raw and select the White Balance Eyedropper. Click on the grey card in your test shot to set the WB and after you’ve tweaked the other RAW settings to your liking, click Done and close it down.
3. Apply the settings
In the Browser or Bridge, select all the pics with the same set-up as the test shot (Ctrl+click to do this) and then right click on one file and select Develop Settings ‘ Previous Conversion from the list. This will give all the files the same RAW settings.
Thursday, August 9th, 2012
While most DSLRs can accurately calculate the amount of flash needed, there are times when the camera will get it wrong and either over-power or under-power the flash. To prevent this, use your camera’s flash exposure compensation function.
Your DSLR will either have a button or a menu option – both work pretty much the same as your camera’s exposure compensation. If you select minus numbers, the flash power will be reduced and you won’t lose highlight details. You can increase the flash power by dialling towards the plus side of the scale. This is useful when trying to light subjects that are a little further away, or when the light meter is being fooled by something bright in the frame.
While your camera’s pop-up flash can cope with some shots, if you’re planning on getting creative with flash you really need to think about investing in an external flashgun. These give you more power, extra control and features, and produce better results.
Flashguns produce strong directional light that can sometimes result in unflattering photos, especially when shooting portraits. Flash can be softened with diffuse material such as tissue paper. While not great in the rain, it’s certainly cheap and easy to use. It’ll produce softer, more flattering results for just a few pence.
