Archive for December, 2008

As we all know, the main source for photography is light and wherever there is light there is a little chance for shadows.

To eliminate shadows you can use soft light, but soft light lacks right impact in your photography.

If you know how to use these shadows of light appropriately, you can become successful in taking good pictures.

Here are few tips to use shadows in your photography.

1. Use them to illustrate dimension and depth

As the pictures taken by cameras are limited to 2 dimensional, you can use shadows to illustrate dimension and depth in portrait photographs. Portrait photographs often look lifeless and flat. That’s the reason why most of the portrait photographers include shadow effect in their photography.

2. Use long shadows when taking pictures outdoors

Get up early in the morning or stay up late afternoon when you are shooting outdoors. This can help you to use long shadows produced by less angled sunlight.

3. Make it as your main subject

Instead of eliminating them or if you are not able to avoid them, make shadows as your main subject of photography. Instead of trying to run away from it, try to embrace them and make use of it entirely.

Are you planning to take pictures of your pet dog?

Most of the pet lovers love to take pictures of their pets and why not, dogs and cats are so lovable that everyone loves to take pictures of them.

However, because of lack of proper skill and experience, some of you might fail in taking good dog images.

Here are few tips for all those who love to take good images of their pet dogs.

Take close-up shots

Close up pictures are usually more beautiful when compared with distance shots. To capture good close-up shots of your dog, first of all get close to your dog.

Getting close to your dog is very essential when you really want to take good close up pictures of your pet dog.

Include your family members in pictures

This is one of the great ideas to take good pictures of your dog. So, you can try few poses with your dog and other people from your family.

Lie down to your dog’s level

If you take pictures at your pet’s perceptive it helps you to take amazing pictures of your pet.

Take pictures with enough light

Do you know every one of you can produce top notch photographs? All that you need is right approach and few easy techniques to take better pictures.

If you really want to excel in your photography skill, just follow these easy digital photography tips.

1. Choose perfect digital camera for you

With lot of advancement and marvelous features of digital cameras, don’t get hooked on selecting a digital camera that is more than your capability or requirement. Try to keep yourself focused on what features you require and also price range which is very important when choosing a digital camera.

2. Ensure you have all accessories you need

Be sure to have all tools that are essential for your photography like rechargeable batteries, extra memory cards, tripods, etc, always with you. This saves lot of tension and nervousness for you.

3. Dare to explore your creativity

Don’t feel tensed to explore your creativity in taking good pictures. Let your imagination flow freely when you are taking digital pictures.

4. Take too many shots

Continue taking multiple shots until you get your desired picture. Initially you may go crazy to take too many pictures, later you’ll definitely see the effort in your pictures.

Finally, one more important thing, don’t forget to make a backup disk of your digital pictures.

Every one knows that sun light is terrible at noon, particularly on a sunny day and most of you feel that mid day is not appropriate and also terrible to take pictures.

But, in reality, instead of giving up taking picture in mid day, you can actually turn the situation to your advantage. Wondering how? Just follow these steps.

Seek shade

Most of you think shade will be much darker when compared with sunlight, but even shade will be quite bright on a sunny day. So, try to make use of it while taking pictures in mid day.

Use good filters

Filters can enhance your photographs in much better way. Polarizing filter helps to increase the contrast between white clouds and blue sky. Additionally, it can take away the reflections from leaves and produces more saturated colors.

Use studio diffuser

Diffuse the excess lighting using studio diffuser, sheet stretched on a frame, which improves the color and softens the hard shadow along the edges of the photograph.

Increase the aperture

It would be much better to under expose your photo rather than over expose. So, switch your camera to manual mode and bump up the aperture to overcome extreme light.

Being a professional at photography, one should know how to organizing photography studio.

Most of you would think that organizing your studio is most difficult and boring task to complete. To help you out in your work, here are few tips.

Make your studio both attractive and functional

Making your studio both attractive and functional boosts your interest in work; it also keeps your mind fresh always and helps in exploring creativity in your photography. So, ensure that you always keep your photography studio attractive and functional.

Throw unwanted things out

For some or the other reasons, many photographers have fear of throwing things like paperwork and photographs away. However, there will be certain things that you just don’t have any necessity to keep it in your studio. So, throw that entire gutter out from your studio.

Organize your files well

Attach a piece of paper using glue or gum naming all your folders and files with their respective file or folder names. If your folders have any sub folders, list them too.

Make use of your PC

All digital images need sharpening because the capture process softens the images and the digital pixels makes the edges of the images appear less sharp and jaded.

Most of the digital cameras offer no control or even less control over the image sharpening process. However, cameras with sophisticated technology can allow you to alter the sharpness of the images.

What is Unsharp mask image sharpening?

Unsharp masking is most common image sharpening routine. However, don’t confuse with simple sharpening filter and unsharp mask image sharpening routine.

Basically, sharpening filters enhance the contrast between adjacent pixels and highlights stray pixels.

Unsharp masking compensates the phenomenon of simple sharpening filter by combining sharpening and smoothing operations.

How much sharpness is essential?

Actually, the sharpness required for a digital image mainly depends on the type of image and may vary from one image to another.

If you apply over sharpness to an image, it may seem that the objects in the digital image are outlined with a pencil. So, you can use different levels of settings available in the image processor to sharpen the digital image.

When you are shopping for a digital camera, it is very essential for you to decide how many megapixels do you need?

Even though it can be difficult for most of you to decide, it is very important if you really want to take quality pictures with your digital camera.

Here are few tips for you to decide how many megapixels you need for your digital camera.

2 megapixels: If you are looking for less expensive digital cameras, you can go with 2 megapixels or even less. But, it will be quite tough task for you to take good pictures. In addition, cameras with 2 megapixel lens are not recommended for taking family portraits.

3 megapixels: This would be a good compromise between price and quality of pictures. You can take good 4×6 or even 5×7 images with 3 megapixel cameras and the cost of the camera will be within your budget.

4 megapixels: You can take comparatively nice images with 4 megapixel camera. You can get photo lab quality pictures with 4 megapixels camera.

You’ve probably seen the effect of splash of color in black and white image.

But, do you know how to add color to highlight the subject in black and white image? To get this effect, you can use Photoshop techniques. So, here is the technique that can help you to get desired effect in black and white images.

Magnetic lasso technique

First of all, make a copy of original file and use it for making necessary changes.

The magnetic lasso is the most powerful tool of Photoshop and also suitable for selecting objects with high contrast backgrounds. It is visible with group of two other tools in tool design box.

Now, click the edge point on the targeted area of your image, which creates an anchor point. Next trace the outline of the targeted area.

Always remember to trace out the outline closely and accurately to get desired effect. While you are tracing the outline of the image, magnetic lasso tool will create anchor points through out your selected area.

Now, zoom the image to ensure that your selection is accurate and double click the mouse to end the selection process. Within the selected area of your image, you can make necessary changes by using image attribute tools.

Do you want to maximize sharpness in your photography? First of all, to improve or maximize sharpness in taking pictures, you should understand that sharpness and resolution are different and doesn’t mean the same.

Actually sharpness includes resolution and also edges, contrast, at times even visual illusion. However, here are few tips for you to maximize sharpness, focus and also potential to improve your photography.

Use slow ISO film

If you use slow ISO film that has better color saturation and finer grain in your cameras, it will help you greatly to maximize sharpness in photographs. However, if you are taking pictures of moving objects slow ISO films are not recommended.

Prefer smaller lens

When you are focusing closely at a view, wide angle lens [Camera Lens] can cause distorted horizontal lines in your photographs.

So, try to go for smaller lens that can increase the depth of the field and also gives you an illusion of sharpness in your photographs.

Include high contrast elements

Do you know that high contrast photographs look sharper? If so, it is not necessary for you to say incorporate high contrast elements.