Monthly Archives: November 2012

Light Blue future

Its a Light Blue Future

It’s a Light Blue Future and it’s about to get even better thanks to their hard work. Light Blue is a photographers dream taking over the day to day running of your appointments, diary and invoicing. Yes its a photo management software and in my opinion the best in the market.

A sneak peak at the new Light Blue

We were all invited along to the Apple Store on Regent Street London for their big announcement of the all new Light Blue that has been completely revamped for a more clean look and feel. Well it was a sell out with not a free seat in the store so for the next hour Hamish would give us all a demo and by the look on everyones face we were all sold on the upgrade. The new version will be available the beginning of January 2013 with exsisting customers getting a reduction on the price to upgrade but even at full price no photographer should run his or her business without it.

Screencast

Apple don’t allow recording in their stores, the lads down at Light Blue have put together a screencast of there talk so you too can see just how exciting this new version is.

Drinks on Light Blue

After the launch of the new software it was time to head over to the local for some free time to chat and mingle. We spent the next hour having a nice glass or two of wine “thanks” and getting to know the developers. So if your a photographer needing help organise your workflow and days, this is for you, and I suggest you take a look at the Light Blue website for a free trial “it’s that good”

Aluminium Print 15×10 in Satin Finish

Every time i order the aluminium prints I’m blown away with the quality and finish that Loxley Colour creates, this is the 15×10 with the satin finish and what i feel is the perfect size for displaying your portrait wedding photo.

With there unique hanging system the print hangs 12mm away from the wall to give a floating effect.

Top 5 Flash Tips

Use a manual or TTL triggering system like the pocket wizard FlexTT5 and the Mini TT1 to use any flash that has a manual or TTL capability control, this can save you thousands in expensive studio lighting and will greatly increase accuracy and control of light!

The trick is learning how to nail the right exposure with your flash within “one or two” clicks which can be learned with the right instructions.

5 Great Tips for off camera flash

• Place the flash as close as possible to your subject will greatly reduce the flash power and improve the quality of light.
• Use a shoot thru umbrella for studio quality light and a fast set up.
• when outdoors in bright light gang more than one flash together to achieve proper exposures and rich colours.
• Keep shooter speeds below 1/200 if using a Cannon of 1/250 if using a Nikon for other cameras look at your manual.
• To use lower Fstops in bright light use a ND filter to keep your shutter speed below your cameras flash sync speed.

The most accurate and most popular triggers amongst photographers are the Pocket Wizards and EL Skyport Speed

Awesome Content Aware Fill

We all have those situations where we need to use content-aware fill (introduced in CS5) but the fill keeps pulling color/selection from a person, or a piece of the photo that we don’t want it to use. Well, it’s as simple as using a quick layer mask to tell content-aware fill what not to touch.

Conclusion

Watch this video for 3 minutes and you’ll save hours and hours down the road with quick fixes, whether it’s removing some garbage on the road or an overzealous church lady during a ceremony. This will help.

Creating Vignette with Photoshop CS6

Vignetting can give your photos an artistic look and focus the viewer’s attention around a center of interest. In this tutorial we will explain how to add a non-destructive vignetting effect to your photos using marquee tool and curves adjustment masks in Photoshop CS6. You can also make this in to a Photoshop action to make your workflow faster on other images you wish to apply this to.

Why this method

If you place a vignette effect on your image in Photoshop or Lightroom the traditional way you will be limited by its affect only around the edge of the frame with the centre always being your focus point. Adopting this new approach you will be able to pick a focus point in the photo, let’s say a couple in the bottom right corner then we can put the vignette around them and making that part of the photo the centre of attention for the viewer.

Let’s get started

Beth and Keith E Shoot

Beth and Keith’s engagement shoot was located in the grounds at South Hill Park Bracknell Berkshire, where we would spend the next hour having a nice relaxed walk around capturing some fun shots along the way. South Hill Park has some stunning locations but I wanted to reserve some for their wedding day as this is also the venue where their wedding will take place in December.

Well i’m not sure if Beth’s choice of heels were the right choice of footwear for the day but I still dragged them both in to the heart of the woods to get them shots. We were laughing all the way gingerly treading on all the branches as not to fall over, but just incase the camera was at the ready.

Beth and Keith are an amazing couple so relaxed and up for anything (within reason) so it won’t be a surprise that I’m looking forward to covering their winter wonderland wedding with some of the ideas we have for their photos on the day.