Work on the same lightroom catalog on multiple computers using Google Drive. Step by step lightroom tutorial.
Archive | Learn Photography
Everyone can take nice travel photos. They just need to know where to point the camera.
Building a Photo Magazine Reaching Over A Million: Interview with Camerapixo Founders
The 411 Names: Artur Heller & Anetta Heller Occupation: Publisher, graphic designer, parent Location: Europe / Home for us is where we are Key Links: Camerapixo.com Artur on Google Plus Camerapixo on Google Plus Artur/camerapixo on Twitter Favorite Color: Artur: Orange Anetta: Green Describe yourself in three words: Artur: Restless and Creative Anetta: Friendly and [...]
Visual Photo Critique 11
Photo Critique is a series where I mercilessly critique your photos. These critiques give photography tips that help you know how to take better photos.
Visual Photo Critique 10
Visual Photo Critique is a series where I mercilessly critique and mark-up reader submitted photos. Aside from boosting my ego, hopefully these critiques also provide photo tips that help you know how to shoot and edit your own pictures better. Keep in mind that these photo tips are just my personal opinions based on my own personal biases. I encourage you all to find your own style.
Visual Photo Critique 9
Photo Critique is a series where I mercilessly critique your photos. These critiques give photography tips that help you know how to take better photos.
Visual Photo Critique 8
Photo Critique is a series where I mercilessly critique your photos. These critiques give photography tips that help you know how to take better photos.
Visual Photo Critique 7
Photo Critique is a series where I mercilessly critique your photos. These critiques give photography tips that help you know how to take better photos.
Visual Photo Critique: Name that Hue!
Photo Critique #1
(Photo by Jeremia Bostwick)
The first thing that grabs me about this photo is the rich color. Also, Jeremia wisely chose to center the subject and highlight its symmetry. The shot looks like it could’ve been tone mapped. If that’s the case, well done avoiding glowy earmarks so common in HDR processing. Already this has a lot working for it and I think this shot has the potential to be a portfolio piece with a few tweaks.
Photo Critique #2
(Photo by Christian Jog)
Immediately my mind goes to this photo by Elia Locardi. With a some Photoshop magic, this is a shot worth developing further. If you took bracketed exposures of this scene, I think this is a good candidate for tone mapping and HDR processing.
Super Secret Photoshop Technique: Non-Destructive High Pass Sharpening!
How the High Pass Filter Works
Picture the Earth as Al Gore does, with melted polar caps. All that’s left above water are the peaks of the highest mountains, and ridges of ranges like the Rockies appear like lines. To make a long-distance connection, the High Pass filter works exactly like this. In this example, if altitude were contrast ratios, then the ocean would be the High Pass filter. Think about it for a second… Yep, that was too confusing wasn’t it?
In general, a high pass filter blocks lower frequency contrasts while accentuating higher ones (hence the name). High Pass filters are used in a variety of fields other than photography such as audio engineering, electronics, and physics. With digital imaging, specifically in Photoshop, it adds saturation to high contrast areas give them more definition (sort of like the opposite of a Gaussian Blur filter). At smaller radii, the resulting image looks like a contour line drawing on a grey background of the original photo.
Still confused? No worries, though, you don’t actually need to know how the High Pass Filter works to use it effectively.
The High Pass filter as a Non-Destructive Sharpening Tool
Around the net, there are several other tutorials explaining how to sharpen images using the High Pass filter. Sadly, very few of them explain how to do so in a way to allows you to adjust the filter after the fact. All you hardcore Photoshop nerds out there already know where I’m headed, but don’t tune out yet as I have a few other tricks up my sleeve. Let’s jump into the tutorial.
Step 1)
Visual Photo Critique: Marking Up Europe, Natives, and Trucks
Woot! Finally another photo critique post! The HDR Life Cycle was a bundle of technical fun and all, but it was only a one way exchange. One rewarding part of photography that I’m hoping to foster in this blog is community. Getting and giving feedback is crucial to growing as a photographer. Although style is subjective, learning how to communicate and sharpening technical skills is important. With that in mind, don’t be shy, take me up on my offer to critique your work. Either upload lo res files or provide a URL to the shots themselves on the contact page. If you want, I’ll even link people to your web site too.
If you’re like, “naw man, submitting my work just ain’t for me,” be sure to plug yourself into a network of photographers whose work you respect and participate in feedback-centric convos with them.
Photo Critique #1
First up is this shot from Nathan over at As We Travel. Immediately my eye is drawn down the road, stops to investigate the orange building, then skips merrily through arch off to the left. Overall, I like the shot (it helps I’m a sucker for traditional looking European towns). The photo critique below has more a more specific precise analysis.
HDR Lifecycle: Photoshop Maturity
Oh, how the nanocycles seem to fly by. One minute you’re welcoming brand new RAW files onto your hard drive, and the next they’re finished with tone mapping, almost fully mature HDR photos. Isn’t it always the way? Nostalgic sighs become me… haaaaaahhhhhhh… (that’s how I sigh, leave me alone).
So this is it gang, the final piece in the HDR Lifecycle series. Before I dig in and put you to sleep with drivel about masking techniques or layer adjustments, I wanted to reinforce two points:
The HDR Life Cycle: Tone Mapping Puberty
This article, Tone Mapping Puberty, reveals how tone mapping works and explains how to use Photomatix to produce a crucial image in the development of any HDR photo.
HDR Tutorial: The Making of Breaker’s Inn HDR Panorama
This HDR tutorial covers step-by-step how I edited this HDR panorama to it’s completed state from bracketed source DNGs to final Photoshop edit. This is certainly not the only way to accomplish similar results. HDR panoramas are fickle beasts, but my methods work for me.
The HDR Life Cycle: RAW Infancy
It’s time to become a responsible post-processor. In this article we’ll discover how to properly handle and prepare your straight-out-of-camera infant RAW photos so they have the best possible chance of making it through the next stage in the HDR life cycle, the always awkward and often volatile “tone mapping puberty” stage.
The HDR Life Cycle: Conception
Unlike some bundles of joy, HDR photos don’t happen by accident.
Unless you know what you’re doing, most likely you’ll end up embarrassing yourself. With that in mind, I’m here to help. Explicit direction for capturing photos that are prime for development into a fully mature HDR photo.
Lesson Learned: Never Interrupt Mass for HDR
Still a fully functioning Catholic cathedral, I have one important piece of advice for successfully photographing the gorgeous interior of Notre Dame in Montreal: DON”T GO DURING SUNDAY MORNING MASS!