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The post Your Vacation Photography Packing List appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Bond. It’s summer, and for most people, that means a vacation somewhere nice and sunny! Now, of course, it’s nice to bring those holiday memories back home. That is why people bring nice cameras with them, and perhaps purchase new lenses to get the very best images. You’ve chosen an amazing exotic location, so this is a chance to photograph something that’s not from your regular day. The big question pre-trip is what to pack! Having read this article for your vacation photography, you’ll make the trip knowing you have the right equipment for your needs. Going alone, or with family?Depending on your age and life circumstances, you will either be going alone or with a group. The equipment you bring for either of those situations will be different. If you’re with family, you won’t be able to spend the whole day out photographing somewhere, so the amount of equipment you’ll need is going to be less. This article is going to assume you are traveling with the family since if you’re traveling alone, that’s a different packing list more aimed at a travel photographer. That’s not to say you won’t get great travel photos on your trip. With the right equipment, you’ll hold your own against someone who perhaps has more time. Landscape and portrait photos?Landscapes and portraits are the two main areas that every photographer will focus on during a trip. There should be a balance of both of these photos. Then you’ll get a better sense of place from your album. To get the best results, you’re going to need the following equipment. This is a broad list which will be referenced when you think about your final packing list. The camera body and cleaning equipment are a given, so here you’ll see the other equipment needed.
Vacation photography of friends and familyYou’re going to spend the vast majority of your time on this trip with your family. They know you’re the photographer in the family, so the expectations are that you’ll take the family photos. The equipment you’ll need here is dependent on the photography type.
Special eventsIf you’re lucky, or better still you’ve planned it, a special event may coincide with your trip. This is a great chance to make your vacation photos stand out even more. This is likely to be something like a street carnival like Carnevale in Venice, or a street performance like the Chinese opera. To best capture these type of events during the day, you’ll want a super zoom lens, one that covers the focal range of 28-300mm. If the festival is at night, different lenses will be needed. At night look to bring a fast prime lens, so your 50mm f1.8 will work well. Non-photography equipmentMuch of the following are sensible items that you should travel with, whether you’re photographing or not. You may not even have to pack them. In some cases, you’ll be wearing these items. So bring these items for your vacation photography. The list here could be very long, so items such as clothing, passports, and toiletries, I will assume are packed.
The final packing list for vacation photographyAs you’ll have noted, there is lots of potential for great photography on your vacation. You can’t pack absolutely everything, so here is a suggested packing list to make the best of your vacation photography.
ConclusionYou’re now all set to nail your vacation photography, with a camera bag that will suit your needs. Do you agree with everything on this list? Is there anything you’d remove, or anything you’d add to this list? What camera equipment do you take with you on a trip with your family? At digital photography school, we’d love to see examples of the photos you’ve taken on your family trips. So please share any thoughts or photos in the comments section of this article. The post Your Vacation Photography Packing List appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Bond. Photography via Digital Photography School http://bit.ly/29wB9CX June 25, 2019 at 02:17PM
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The post Understanding the Basics of Color appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Herb Paynter. You will never realize your full potential as a photographer…until you understand the basic elements of color and luminosity (tonality). I know this sounds scary, a bit geeky and just plain over-the-top – but hear me out. How is it that some photographers seem to consistently produce great pictures?Most likely because they understand how to control the primary element in photography – light! You can certainly take great pictures without knowing color theory, and you can get good results by learning to operate your camera, but if you wish to consistently produce powerful and visually-moving images, you’ll need to get a handle on the basic issues of color and light. Capturing light, like capturing anything else in the wild, requires an understanding of habits and behavior. Pictures versus photographsThere is a difference between documenting an occurrence (shooting a picture) and capturing the emotion of a scene (taking a photograph). Shooting a picture requires little more than pushing a button on a camera, but taking a photograph involves a working knowledge of how light behaves and how illumination builds emotion. Your camera doesn’t take pictures; it merely captures light. You, the photographer, take the pictures.There are a variety of unique psychological emotions that can be triggered in the viewer’s mind by learning to master how to use light correctly. The issues of color, light intensity, angle of view, depth of field, internal contrast, highlight, shadow, and mid-tone placement all empower photographers to control emotions and portray stories with great impact. This is why one good picture can be more powerful than a thousand words. The color wheel is the most elementary form of color science and demonstrates the basis for all color correction. When a photograph displays a color cast, that cast can be removed by adding an additional amount of the color located directly across the color wheel. The additive primary colors that our eyes and cameras see are all based on red, green, and blue (RGB) light. The three colors directly opposite these RGB colors on the wheel are called subtractive primaries and form the basis for all printed pictures. These colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY). In today’s world, we are so immersed in saturated colors that we sometimes forget the important part that light plays in the process. Dull color is not colorful at all. Color without the proper balance of light has no life…it just lays there on the page. There are three basic components of color – hue, saturation, and brightness (HSB). The brightness element is the life and sparkle element of good color. In essence, good color is all about the quality of the light. Poorly lit subjects don’t hold the viewer’s interest. This doesn’t mean that all pictures must be bright and cheery, but all pictures must be purposely illuminated to deliver the desired reaction. Moods are set by shaping lightIt’s hard to convey good color in poor or insufficient light. Low-key lighting is ideal for creating somber moods just as high-key lighting tends to convey positive and uplifting thoughts. Learn to capture scenes that deliver a specific emotional message. Make it a point to walk around your subject and observe the light striking it from different angles, especially when shooting nature. Make it your purpose to set the tenor (or meaning) with each photo, not to simply take a pretty picture. Look at each scene for a theme or message that will address or elicit a human response. Colors appeal to each of us not only because they are pretty or because they blend, but because each color has a subtle psychological overtone that affects how we perceive the scene. Bright, cheery colors convey lighthearted and positive thoughts, while darker hues can evoke melancholy and even sad thoughts. “Shooting” is a process that involves aiming a weapon at a target while creating a photograph involves conveying a thought and expressing a purpose. Every time you pick up your camera, you have a choice; you can either document an event or convey an emotion. Chrominance and LuminanceThe two elemental building blocks of color photography involve the hue, or color value and the saturation, or purity of that color. These two aspects are the chrominance portion of an image. The third building block of a photographic image is luminance, or tonality, which is perhaps the most critical aspect of all. This is because it is the very structural framework on which the colors (chroma) are built. Hue and saturation offer no form whatsoever. Only luminance provides the framework or form to a photograph. Balancing these three aspects of HSL (hue, saturation, and luminance) is absolutely essential to achieving success in color photography. The Visible SpectrumThe visible spectrum is the color portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that human eyes can see. It is visual energy. The light receivers in our eyes (rods and cones) can only observe a limited subset of this energy. These same lightwaves are captured by your digital camera’s image sensor. The colors of the visible spectrum cascade in a particular order, and for a logical reason. ROYGBIV is the acronym given to this order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. All visible colors of light are perceptible because they travel through space at unique frequencies. All colors are basically vibrations or wavelengths of energy; the only energy visible with human eyesight. The highest (or fastest) frequencies of these colors are “observed” as warm colors while the lowest (or slowest) wavelengths are cool colors. These colors are in this order because of the decreasing frequency of the light waves they represent. The Electromagnetic SpectrumThe electromagnetic spectrum is the known span of energy that exists in the world as we know it. It includes all energy measurements on both sides of the visible spectrum. These same colors appear in every rainbow and refracted white light. Occasionally you’ll see a beveled glass edge in a window or table that catches a strong beam of white light, reflecting it onto another flat surface. That beveled glass acts as a prism that splits the white light into its component parts; always in the same order of ROYGBIV. When all these component colors are viewed at full strength, you see pure white light. As you must realize, all color is just individual expressions of white light. Without color, there is no light, and without light, there is no color. All colors have their origin in pure white light. Red is the bookend on one end of the visible spectrum just inside the infrared frequency. Violet is the other, located just inside the ultraviolet frequency. Both infrared and ultraviolet are frequencies just beyond and outside the visible portion of the energy spectrum. Both of these wavelengths can be read by instruments but are beyond the scope of the human eye. The warmer side of the spectrum (reds, oranges, and yellows) contains the longest wavelengths in the spectrum and present a particular challenge to photography when the balance between saturation and luminance is not carefully monitored. Warm colors are easy to oversaturate, and when oversaturated, the luminance values are seriously challenged. This is a critical issue because it is the luminance aspect that delivers the detail in a photo. The cooler colors (blue, indigo {purplish}, and violet {toward magenta}), are much easier to control in both saturation and tonality. These shorter wavelength “denser” colors can handle the rigors of color editing more robustly than the warmer colors. Color balanceWhen you think of color balance, you must get beyond the elementary issue of white/gray balance; the neutralizing of colors to eliminate any tints or color shifts. Color balance embraces a much wider issue that is largely governed by tonality or luminance. Balancing color is as easy as using the eyedropper tool in editing software to identify neutral gray. Tonality shapes the entire framework of the photo and clarifies detail throughout the entire range between highlights and shadows. It is quite possible to produce a technically-correct, temperature-balanced picture that loses detail in the shadow areas and softens the snap in the highlights. Tonality and chroma are equally critical in the accurate reproduction of color photos. ConclusionA clear understanding of the basics of color will open up a world of expression for you. Yeah, color science is a little geeky, but it certainly delivers results. If you want to show your uniqueness as a photographer, invest a little time with color science. Anybody with a camera can publish their pictures across the planet in an instant, but if you want your pictures (and your reputation) to outlast your friends and likes on Facebook…grow your knowledge of color as much as you grow your camera and editing skills! The post Understanding the Basics of Color appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Herb Paynter. Photography via Digital Photography School http://bit.ly/29wB9CX June 25, 2019 at 09:12AM
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The post 6 Important Compositional Elements to Consider When Shooting Landscapes appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jeremy Flint. There are many pleasures associated with photographing landscapes; from being in the great outdoors, to breathing in the fresh air and taking in the attractive views whilst capturing nature’s beauty all around you. Taking good landscape photos is more challenging than you may think. People often tell me when they return home from capturing landscapes that they are often disappointed with their results. Part of this may be due to the subject, the weather, the photographer, or most likely the composition. To help you improve your composition, here are 6 fundamental elements worth considering when you next venture out with your camera to shoot landscapes. 1. Diagonal linesFirstly, it is worth considering the term ‘composition’. Composition refers to “the nature of something’s ingredients or constituents” such as the formation and contents that make-up an image. When it comes to photography, there are many theories and factors that constitute what makes a good composition. One major component worth acknowledging is diagonal lines. Diagonal lines can be a useful tool to use in your images. Carefully consider how you might use diagonal lines in your images. One proven way is to lead a viewer’s eye through the frame along a diagonal. These can go from left to right or right to left. They can be slightly horizontal or vertical and can be individual or repeated throughout the image. Leading diagonal lines can be a great way to naturally point towards an interesting part of your landscape, such as rows of flowers navigating towards a tree or a building. 2. Geometric shapesWhen it comes to shapes and patterns, there are no hard and fast rules as to what works well together. Whilst seeing the landscape as a whole, be conscious of what geometric shapes you want to include in the frame. You may look for shapes that complement each other or that are opposite to one another. Consider their relationship and how they may be used together to bring balance to the image. 3. The rule of thirdsHave you ever produced pictures of landscapes that you were not pleased with and wondered why this could be? Well, one reason could be to do with the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is an essential technique that can be applied to improve the composition and harmony of your landscape images. In essence, it involves dividing your image by thirds using 2 horizontal and 2 vertical lines. The idea is that you then place the important elements of your scene along those lines or at the point where they intersect. In your landscape shots, try placing the horizon on the lower third and top third of the image and see which makes a more pleasing composition. You can also include an interesting object such as a tree where the lines meet. This gives a natural focal point for the scene. 4. Framing imagesHow you frame your images of nature can make the difference between a good and a great photograph. When framing your shots, create a visually effective image that communicates with the viewer in the way you envisaged. Overhanging leaves or branches can be used to form a natural frame to shape your picture. This helps to emphasize the subject and mask unwanted elements in the scene. 5. Foreground elementsForeground elements can add more dynamism to your landscape images. Placing features in the foreground can give a sense of receding distance. For example, a rock, flowers, or snow are individual components that can be used to provide scale. Find an interesting subject to show in the lower part of your frame and see how this changes the composition of your landscape images. 6. Break the rulesDon’t feel you have to stick to the rules of composition outlined above. As with all rules, they don’t always give the best result and you can break them. Sometimes positioning the horizon along the center of the frame can produce a much more eye-catching photo. In addition, you can even place your main subject in the center of your frame. Don’t be afraid to try out different compositions and experiment to see which looks best. ConclusionWhile you can break the rules, it is worth learning the rules of composition effectively before you try to break them. They were introduced to benefit your photos in the first place, so remember to put them to good use. Diagonal lines, the rule of thirds, foreground details, and framing your images can all be used to enhance your landscape photos. Now it’s over to you to put these tips into practice! Share the images you take and any comments with us below. The post 6 Important Compositional Elements to Consider When Shooting Landscapes appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jeremy Flint. Photography via Digital Photography School http://bit.ly/29wB9CX June 24, 2019 at 02:15PM Mastering Color Series The Psychology and Evolution of the Color PINK and its use in Photography6/24/2019
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The post Mastering Color Series – The Psychology and Evolution of the Color PINK and its use in Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy. From the Renaissance to contemporary art, pink has endured as a color of emotional versatility. In this edition of the Mastering Color Series, let’s take a look into the color pink and its role within the history of visual arts. The psychology of pinkThe English word pink derives its name from flowers of the Dianthus genus. A combination of red and white, pink can be raucous and racy, or delicate and subtle. Buoyant light pinks describe playfulness, youth, kindness and affection. Darker shades of pink denote passion, love, energy, eroticism and confidence. However, too much pink can be a bad thing, influencing anxiety and claustrophobia. Sweet foods like fairy floss, bubblegum, ice cream and lollies all embody tasty shades of pink. Associated with the smell of roses and the softness of flower petals, pink conjures ideas of tenderness and sensitivity. Evoking images of cherry blossoms, pink evokes impressions of spring, renewal and life. As a warm color, pink is drawn to the foreground of an image, cultivating intimacy and directing attention. In the early 20th century, pink was designated the color for young boy’s clothing. The logic was that pink was a strong color and suited to boys. Blue was viewed as a lighter shade and was, therefore, more appropriate for girls. From the 1940s, however, pink came to be seen as a color for females. Products marketed at women and girls rapidly became pinker. As a result, pink has often been categorized as a color of femininity. In China, pink is considered to be a shade of red, and comes with many of the same connotations. Indian culture sees pink as a color of youthful charm, celebration and nurture. Korean’s view pink as a sign of trust and security. In Germany, pink is considered bright and soft – a color of peace and harmlessness. In Thailand, pink is associated with Tuesday on the Thai solar calendar. Evolution of the color pinkAncient pinksAlthough relatively rare in nature, pink may be the world’s oldest color. Compared to red, however, pink had tentative beginnings in art history. There is little evidence of a dedicated pink pigment being used in prehistoric artworks. Made by mixing whites derived from gypsum and reds made of ochres or realgar, the ancient Egyptians regarded pink as a secondary color, ranked alongside brown, grey and orange. Despite it’s scant early use as a pigment, pink manifested in other mediums. Pink sandstone proved ideal for constructing magnificent edifices. Carved in the first century AD, AL-Khazneh is one of the most elaborate temples in the ancient Arab Nabatean Kingdom city of Petra. Furthermore, in China, the Tang Dynasty Leshan Giant Buddha, carved into a cliff face of pinkish sandstone, is the largest stone-carved Buddha in the world. According to “Precious Colours” in Ancient Greek Polychromy and Painting, pink had a significant presence in the art of ancient Greece. Pink hues were found on fragments of the Mycenaean palace at Pylos and an examination of the Pitsa painted panels revealed pinks used in the painting of men’s skin. Pink is also seen in “small scale figures from the symposium scene on the tomb of Aghios Athanassios, where cinnabar is mixed with calcium carbonate whites and kaolinite to produce a subtle tone of pink” Later, pink (from manganese) was used by the Romans to color glass for glassware, mosaics and decorative panels in walls and furniture. Medieval and renaissance pigmentsDuring the medieval period, pink pigments are thought to have consisted of a mixture of lead white or calcite and madder and cochineal. Cinnabar, a sulfide mineral, was also crushed and mixed into shades of white. During the renaissance, Italian writer and painter Cennino Cennini described a light pink he called cinabrese. It was made by blending sinopia (sourced from hematite) with lime white (composed of calcium hydroxide, and calcium carbonate). As suggested by Cennini, cinabrese was used for filling out fleshy tones. However, in The Book of the Art of Cennino Cennini, Christina J. Herringham observes that “what pigment was used to produce the lovely pinks and crimsons of the early Italian painters is not really known with exactness”. Contenders include “madder…kermes…[the] bodies of the Coccus illicis gum lac…and Brazil-wood or verzino“. Vermilion and carmine may also have been mixed with whites to produce pinks. Fuchsine, magenta and quinacridoneIn 1856, whilst trying to synthesize quinine, British man William Henry Perkin accidentally discovered mauvine, the first synthetic dye. The discovery prompted a surge in the industry and in 1858 German August Wilhelm von Hofmann produced a reddish-purple dye, made by combining aniline and carbon tetrachloride. Meanwhile, in the same year, Frenchman François-Emmanuel Verguin discovered the same substance independent of Hofmann and patented it. Named fuchsine by its original manufacturer Renard frères et Franc, production of Verguin’s dye commenced in 1859. In the meantime, two British chemists, Chambers Nicolson and George Maule produced another aniline dye with a similar red-purple color. They began to manufacture the dye in 1860 under the name roseine, later changing the name to magenta in honor of the Battle of Magenta. In 1935 quinacridone dyes were developed. A family of synthetic pigments, quinacridones are typically deep-red to violet in color. With exceptional vibrancy and lightfastness, quinacridones are often used for creating varying tones of magentas and pinks in artist’s paints. Shocking pinkDue to the invention of color-fast chemical dyes, pinks quickly grew in application and impact during the 20th century. During 1931, a radical shade of pink was created by Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. The pink, dubbed shocking pink was made by adding a small amount of white to magenta. Schiaparelli’s designs, made in conjunction with surrealist artists like Jean Cocteau, displayed her new shade of pink prominently. PINKIn February of 2016, Anish Kapoor secured an exclusive contract for the use of Vantablack in his art. In retaliation, artist Stuart Semple created a fluorescent pink pigment he dubbed PINK. Declaring it to be the world’s pinkest pink, Semple released PINK for sale, but with one caveat – any artist looking to purchase PINK are obliged to agree to a legal declaration which states: “you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information, and belief this paint will not make its way into that hands of Anish Kapoor.” Despite the ban, Kapoor did get his hands on PINK. He posted a picture of his middle finger dipped in the dry pigment to his Instagram account in December 2016. Nevertheless, Semple continues to sell PINK, anti-Kapoor declaration intact. Pink in visual artsRenaissance to pre-raphaelitePink truly came to life from the 14th century. During the early renaissance, infant incarnations of Jesus and angels were sometimes depicted dressed in pink, as in Cimabue’s the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Two Angels. Lorenzo da Sanseverino’s Virgin and Child, with Saints Anthony Abbott, Mark, Severino, and Sebastian depicts the child Jesus in a pink robe, matching the garb of one of the surrounding saints. Later, Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks depicts the infant Jesus and the Virgin Mary with pink carnations, a slight anachronism – the flower is said to have first appeared at Jesus’crucifixion. Baroque artists used pink hues to convey a broad range of subjects. The heavens and its holy occupants are grazed in soft pinks in Paolo de Matteis’s Triumph of the Immaculate. And Willem van Aelst and Rachel Ruysch used pink in arresting still life paintings. But it was during the rococo movement that pink saw a perceptible rise to fame in western art. Characterized by indulgent paintings featuring splendid pink costumes, rosy nudes and fine pink detailing, the color graduated from a secondary hue to a commanding presence in art. Jose Ferraz de Almeida Junior’s Nha Chica and Batismo de Jesus are two examples of pink’s application in academic art. Realist painter Jean-Francois Millet’s Gleaners depicts three peasant women, one with distinctive pink sleeves, linking to the pinks hues in the overcast sky. And pre-raphaelite artists like Dante Gabriel Rossetti used intricate pinks to emphasize symbolic paraphernalia. Impressionism to cubismWith an emphasis on the depiction of light, impressionists applied pink in a variety of contexts. Claude Monet used combinations of pink in his water lilies series. Manet painted the Plum with soft pinks verging on purple and Edgar Degas’ famous the Pink Dancers portrays figures dressed in flourishing pink ballet dresses. Paul Gauguin added depth to his paintings by filling them out with saturated fields of pink. And Vincent van Gogh painted post-impressionist pinks in his depictions of flowers, carefully detailing the blossoms of Almond Blossom. Fauvism saw everyday settings painted in radical color. Les toits de Collioure by Henri Matisse charges a landscape with bright pink hues. In Charing Cross Bridge, Andre Derain contrasts a green and blue city skyline with a richly pink sky. As one of at least four renderings of the same landscape, Georges Braque crams a vista with active pinks in The Olive Tree Near l’Estaque. Unfortunately, the painting caught the eye of a thief, who stole it from the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in May 2010. Street, Dresden by expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner is a haunting portrayal of modern public space underscored by glowering pink. Considered one of the earliest examples of cubism, The Young Ladies of Avignon by Pablo Picasso portrays five nude female prostitutes, their flesh padded out in varying degrees of pink. And abstract artists such as Robert Delaunay (Circular Forms) and Agnes Martin used color pink to convey meaning, doing away with the figurative altogether. Pink in contemporary artLoaded with meaning, pink is a common theme in contemporary art. Embracing ephemerality and visual abundance, Tanya Schultz works as Pip & Pop to create intricate installations and artworks from materials including sugar, glitter, found objects and craft effects. Sculpted not from icy rose-hued water but from solid glass, Roni Horn’s Two Pink Tons are deceptively evanescent in appearance. And Daniel Arsham’s Lunar Garden reflects his fascination with the familiar and the surreal, re-imagining a traditional zen garden in solid pink hues. Known for her grotesquely intriguing representations of the human body, Mithu Sen aimed to stretch the limits of artistic language through her sculpture made of false teeth and pink dental polymer. Yue Minjun’s self-portraits depict him as bright pink-skinned characters in the throws of maniacal laughter. Anne Lindberg’s Drawn Pink culminated in an immersive gesture of movement and color and Karla Black’s weightless sculptures appear to keep themselves afloat in wispy pinks, blues and greens, exploring the nature of physical experience. Lori B. Goodman investigates the tenuous nature of the color in her installation Pink writing, “it is said that pink is initially a calming color but that too much exposure creates anxiety.” And Anish Kapoor’s Gossamer, an elegantly carved piece of onyx, slumbers in quiet pink within gallery confines. Pink in photographyEven before the inception of color photography, pink has had a presence in the photographic landscape. Popular in the mid-to-late 19th century, hand-colored photographs depicting pastel pink cheeks and clothing added a level of realism to the photography of the time. Pink is now abundant and accessible. As a result, many modern photographers turn their attention to pink. One striking example of pink’s application in photography is manifested in Richard Mosse’s Infra series captured in Aerochrome. Invented for reconnaissance during the Second World War, Aerochrome registers infrared light (normally invisible to the naked eye), transforming green shades into rich pinks in the process. As a result, Mosse’s documentary of war-torn Congo is dominated by pink hues, evoking an otherworldly beauty juxtaposed with war. Photographers like Kate Ballis and Zoe Sim also use in-camera infrared conversions and filters to capture illusive pinks. Documenting the color preferences of children, JeongMee Yoon explores the socialization of gender and identity through her Pink & Blue Project. Smothering participants in luxurious pink materials, Loreal Prystaj’s series Pretty in Pink marries portraiture and materiality. Andria Darius Pancrazi photographs architecture in a format he describes as “softserve pinkcore mulhollandwave” and Martine Perret’s series Sel Rose captures abstract aerial shots of the pink waters of Western Australia. Manit Sriwanichpoom inserts Pink Man into photographic scenes in various ways to channel his feelings towards Thai society. Singaporean Nguan documents his home city with restrained pinks and Xavier Portela documents the pink and purple hues of cities at night. ConclusionPink was a latecomer to the artist’s pallet. Nevertheless, as an extremely versatile color, pink has seen extensive use in art movements over time. Sometimes underestimated, pink can be lighthearted and subtle or raucous and bold. Associated with love, kindness, tenderness, affection, intensity, playfulness and sensitivity, pink denotes emotional abundance. Palpable in depth and weight, pink is a color of visual buoyancy, conveying meaning through sensual and emotive experience. We’d love for you to share your images with the color pink in the comments below! See the other colors in the Mastering Color Series here.
The post Mastering Color Series – The Psychology and Evolution of the Color PINK and its use in Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy. Photography via Digital Photography School http://bit.ly/29wB9CX June 24, 2019 at 09:13AM Canons EOS-1D X Mark II equivalent mirrorless is coming sooner than originally thought [CR1]6/24/2019
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We have been told that Canon has “accelerated” development of the “pro” level EOS R camera, and we’re not talking about the high-resolution model that we expect to see in late 2019 or early 2020. This new camera will be along the lines of a mirrorless version of the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II (or III). The source also mentioned that it is possible this camera could be announced alongside the EOS-1D X Mark III in the first or second quarter of 2020. Though the date of the announcement is a long way from being decided. Announcing these two cameras together would be a unique move for Canon, and while I think it’s possible, I suspect we’ll see a development announcement for the EOS-1R X (as I feel like calling it) well before the actual camera ships. An EOS R professional body with some new RF super-telephoto lenses at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics next July could be a great time for the launch of pro-level EOS R and RF mount gear. Photography via Canon Rumors http://bit.ly/2CsmGDw June 24, 2019 at 08:03AM
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Remember when HDR images all pretty much looked like this? I had to go download a trial copy of Photomatix Pro 6 to get this classic look (ahem), that we saw so often at the birth of HDR photography. Oh wait, I forgot the heavy Vignette. Today, HDR (processed in Lightroom) looks like this (below): Even Photomatix Pro 6 now has a bunch of presets that look more realistic and normal (though sadly they did keep some presets like the one you see up top, and worse, so -5 points on them. Just remember; just because the is there, doesn’t mean you have to cllick it). The Damage Has Been DoneAs a presenter teaching live seminars, when I say the word “HDR” in front of a crowd of photographers, the image at the top of this post is what instantly pops up in photographer’s minds, and you can literally see people in the crowd making faces like they’re smelling the inside of a wooden leg. That’s because they’re picturing that overly vibrant, Harry-Potter- look so many found an affront to good taste, honest living, and all we hold sacred as photographers. In our minds, that is HDR. But HDR has changed.Now it’s back to what I think it was first intended to be, which is a way for us to have our cameras capture and record a wider tonal range than today’s sensor’s can manage. It’s the shot of a cathedral where the stained glass windows are no longer blown out to solid white, but have their full color, depth, and dimension. Landscapes, interiors, architecture, and many more genres will have us doing heavy lifting to make the image we see on screen looks like the image our eyes saw in person. If we manage to make the scene look even better, then even better. How Do We Change That Initial Reaction?I’d love to see us get to a place where when we mention HDR it doesn’t automatically elicit a negative response from photographers. I know that today, every time someone does one of those over-the-top HDR images, God kills a kitten, but that’s not enough. I’m hoping that the more people try Lightroom’s built-in HDR, the more they’ll realize the benefits of that expanded tonal range (like we talked about here last Friday), and that at some point we’ll get past the past. I’d love to see us see HDR as an awesome tool that makes our photos more realistic, with a wider range of editing available to us without adding noise and damaging the image. So, what I guess I’m asking is; the next time you hear the term HDR, and you immediately conjure up something like this HDR image… …instead, try to mentally replace it with this HDR image (below): Stepping off my soapbox now. Here’s wishing you at least a semi-realistic day! -Scott P.S. Ready to go to Vegas? If you missed out on Photoshop World in Orlando, you don’t have to miss out again. August 21-23 at the Mirage — we’re bringing the big show!! Plus, on the Lightroom track you’ve got me, Rob, Serge Ramelli, Matt Kloskowski, Terry White, Kristy Sherk and the best of the best. Sign up today and save a bundle! PhotoshopWorld.com The post HDR Doesn’t Suck Anymore. (Well, it Doesn’t Have to, Anyway). appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips. Photography via Lightroom Killer Tips http://bit.ly/2sh0aZ8 June 24, 2019 at 03:30AM
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The post The Best Photographers Make Time To Practice appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss. The 10,000-hour rule is often quoted as the magic number of hours that you need to practice in order to master an activity. Now, I’m not saying that after 10,000 hours of practice you’ll definitely have mastered photography. But I do think it’s true that the more you practice, the better you will get! The secret of practicing to improve your skills is to have a plan. You need to know what you’re practicing, you need to set goals, and you need to find a way to somehow measure your improvement. Recently, I spent the day practicing with a new lens at Silverstone motor racing circuit. I just wanted to improve my panning to show speed and learn more about my equipment. I was reminded at the time that many photographers can find real joy in just practicing their craft and trying to improve. So with that in mind, here’s my guide on how to make a plan to make your practicing more productive! Decide what to improveIt sounds obvious, but you need to start with something in mind that you’d like to improve. Wanting to improve your photography is too general. Try and narrow it down more. I wanted to improve my automotive photography and identified that shooting moving objects was a real weak spot in my technique. Once you’ve narrowed it to something specific you can begin to research. Start here on Digital Photography School. There’s a handy search bar on every page to help you find articles that might be useful. Read those articles and make some notes on things to keep in mind when you’re next shooting. Start building your own instruction manual in your own words to take with you. Plan your practiceWhen you’ve decided the things you want to improve, you need to start planning a subject, time, and a place to shoot. This could be as simple as photographing food in your kitchen, or as complicated as a week-long road trip. Put your plans in your diary and make a note of how long you’ve got to prepare. If you get organized, you’ll be far more likely to stick to your plan. Make sure what you plan is something you find interesting too. Don’t plan for a day of photography (or even a few hours) that you’ll find boring and won’t enjoy. It’ll only put you off photography in the future. Source the right equipmentIf you need a piece of equipment that you don’t currently own, now is the time to decide how you’re going to get it. Hiring lenses can be a cheap way to try new options before buying (but borrowing from friends is even cheaper). Sometimes a piece of new equipment can be just what you need to kickstart your photography, but you need to practice and learn how to use it. For some pieces of equipment, there are even DIY solutions. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try things out. It doesn’t matter if your shots aren’t perfect; this is an exercise in practicing, not perfection! Take your notes with youWhen you go out shooting to practice, make sure you take your notes with you. It doesn’t matter if they’re in a notebook or on your phone, but make sure you’ve got that research that you did while you were planning. If you’re trying something new, then you may well have questions as you practice. Even if you’re an old hand at photography, it’s still good to refresh your knowledge before you start taking pictures. Practice as much as you can, for as long as you canThe costs of film and developing don’t limit you in this digital age. This means you have the opportunity to shoot lots of images when you practice. Make the most of your time out practicing photography and shoot as much as you can. You never know which image you’ve taken will teach you something new. It could be the first, or it could be the last! I like to make a day of it when I go out practicing, stubbornly shooting images long past everyone else has left, and my friends have got fed up. It feels like the more I practice, the more I learn, so I try to make the most of the opportunities I get to practice. Don’t worry about perfectionThe aim of practicing isn’t to get images for your portfolio or to take pictures to publish on social media or show your non-photographer friends. The aim is to improve your technique or your creativity. You should be taking the opportunity to try new things and be experimental. Don’t just write off an idea that you’ve had because it won’t work – take the pictures and prove to yourself that it won’t work! You never know what you’ll learn from a failed experiment until you’ve got back home and reviewed the pictures. Review your shotsSometimes your practice will be over when you finish shooting. You’ll have learned enough about the technique that you don’t need to review the images. However, while the experience is fresh in your mind, it’s worth sitting down at a piece of software such as Adobe Lightroom and reviewing the images in conjunction with the EXIF data to try and work out exactly what worked and why (and what didn’t work and why). The Library module in Adobe Lightroom has the ability to view all the data from your images including shutter speed, ISO, aperture, and focal length. Start pulling up your images one by one, marking the ones that you like, and then reviewing the EXIF data for them. Make some notesIdeally, with the research notes that you made before you went shooting, make some notes on how your practice went. Look for patterns in the EXIF data to tell you what was successful and what wasn’t. Write down how you feel about the images, and perhaps make a note for other related techniques that you’d like to work on in the future. Research how to correct your mistakesIf you consistently made the same mistake over and over while you were practicing, then you’ll want to work out how to fix that for next time. Read some more articles or even try and find a mentor. Ask questions to your friends who seem to already have the technique nailed (or see if you can go shooting with them for some practice). Make notes on how to improve for next time using everything you’ve learned so far. If you try and keep it all in your head, then I promise you’ll forget most of it before you get your camera out again! Plan more practicePractice makes perfect, after all. And you don’t learn everything on your first attempt. Using the notes and research that you’ve gathered plan another time to practice. Perhaps this time you’ll work on something related that you’ve identified as a weak spot in your technique. Perhaps you could try the same technique but in a different setting (I’m planning a day out shooting moving wildlife next having now practiced on cars at a racing circuit). Whatever you plan next, don’t stop practicing. Not even after you’ve reached over ten-thousand hours of practice because there’s always something new to learn.
The post The Best Photographers Make Time To Practice appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss. Photography via Digital Photography School http://bit.ly/29wB9CX June 23, 2019 at 02:16PM
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The post Photoshoot with 30-Year-Old HELIOS 44M-4 58mm f/2 Lens appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kunal Malhotra. Helios 44M-4 58mm f/2 lens is probably one of the most mass-produced camera lenses in the world. I was lucky enough to find the M42 screw-mount version of this Helios lens in a nearby camera store. Using an ‘M42 to EF’ adapter I was able to use this 58mm f/2 lens on my Canon APS-C camera body. After using this manual lens for more than 3 months now, I envy its build quality. The Helios 58mm f/2 lens is built like a tank and you can literally smash an onion with it. But that is not the reason I bought this lens. Its swirly bokeh effect is the only reason I have been scouting this lens for the past few months. This lens has always been famous for the swirly bokeh effect that it produces as you move towards the edges of the image. So if you position your subject at the center, the lens produces what is also known as a ‘Cat Eye’ Bokeh effect. I hope the photos shown will help you understand this better. Optical PerformanceThis is not one of those sharp lenses you would get nowadays, but it is not that bad either. Being an f/2 manual lens and at 58mm on an APS-C sensor, means that you will have to be patient while focusing. The depth of field is narrow, but once you have the subject in focus, you get magical photos. The swirly bokeh if used properly, can completely transform the look of your images. The highlights are a bit on a higher side, but again it has its own charm if it suits your taste of photography. I had to boost the contrast and saturation during the editing process to suit my style of photos. However, if you are buying this lens, it has to be for its swirly bokeh superpower and not to achieve the sharpest or punchy images. Thanks to Photoshop and Lightroom, we can later adjust the sliders as per the need. Thanks to mirrorless camera technology, using the ‘focus assist’ feature, I can easily focus on a manual focus lens. Trust me – it saves a lot of time. And if you are short tempered, then you must make use of this feature if possible. The photos that you see in this article are all clicked using a Canon M50 mirrorless camera. Thank god, someone invented this technology. Aperture RingAs you must be aware that the aperture value of the manual focus lenses is adjusted using the physical ring on the lens. One of the few issues I had with this lens was the ring being too smooth. The slightest touch on the ring can make it rotate to a different aperture value. During this shoot, I was unaware of the fact that my aperture value had moved from f/2 to f/4, and I shot around 20 images until I realized. ConclusionAs a digital photographer, being able to capture such dreamy images with a $30 lens is in itself unbelievable. The Helios 58mm f/2 lens was ideally mass produced for Zenit cameras, but the fact that you can still use it on a modern digital camera is amazing. I am very impressed with the results and the bokeh effect this lens allowed me to capture at f/2. Though this lens is not easily available online, you can check a few websites to find one in used mint condition. The post Photoshoot with 30-Year-Old HELIOS 44M-4 58mm f/2 Lens appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kunal Malhotra. Photography via Digital Photography School http://bit.ly/29wB9CX June 23, 2019 at 09:12AM
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The post Is Unsplash Really an Issue for Photographers? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring. Unsplash is killing photography! I am sure you will have read this somewhere? After all, photography blogs have been full of articles like this. You may agree – you may hate Unsplash. You may want to educate every photographer you meet on why they should not upload their photos to the platform. However, despite photographers and websites rallying against it, the platform continues to thrive. But is Unsplash really wrecking the photography industry? A little historyUnsplash started back in 2013 by Mikael Cho. Cho was the founder of the company Crew – a company designed as a marketplace for freelancers. Cho needed images for the home page of his business website but was unable to find the type of images he wanted online and within his price range. To get the images he wanted, he hired a photographer to create the imagery for the brand. After the shoot, there were several leftover images. So Cho decided to post them on his Tumblr, allowing others to download them for free and use as they wished. Cho uploaded ten free images every ten days. The blog (which also directed people to Crew) was launched on Hacker News and instantly became the top story. It took off. Soon millions of people were searching for the images, and thousands were redirected to Crew. Unsplash launched in May 2013, and by September it had hit one million downloads. In the first 12 months, it reached ten million downloads. This is when Unsplash moved away from Tumblr and launched an independent website. Since then, it has continued to grow at an alarming rate. I checked the latest Unsplash stats whilst preparing for this article and the numbers are mind-blowing. 21 photos are downloaded from the platform every second! Unsplash has a community of over 121,000 photographers whose photos have been downloaded heading for one billion times. A partnership with Squarespace allows users to place Unsplash images into their site directly from one of the most popular website builders. Like it or not, Unsplash has changed the photography industry. How is Unsplash affecting photographers?It is pretty easy to see how Unsplash is affecting the world of commercial photography. The Squarespace/Unsplash partnership is the perfect example of this. As the screenshot below shows, I can go into Unsplash, search for anything and usually find an image. Not just an image, though – a really good quality image. It is easy to see why photographers might be upset about this. Why pay for a photographer, when I can get something similar to what I want? Want a photo of a beautiful shoreline for an article on the World’s best beaches? Unsplash has the answer. Want a magazine cover for an issue about coffee? They have that too. It is simple to get photographs of pretty much anything – on demand, and for free. Perfect for an editor, but not so much for a photographer. The issue with Unsplash is that it devalues photography. High-quality photography is now literally free. You do not need to budget for it, which is great for small companies who cannot afford bespoke photography. It also means, in the age of good enough is good enough, the bigger companies who can afford great photography, simply don’t see the need. For every blogger out there who makes no money from their blogs, but wants to be ethical and use images legally, there is also a large media company who simply want to maximize profits. This problem isn’t new though. In case you have forgotten, the disruption started with the introduction of microstock. MicrostockRemember when microstock burst onto the scene? There was an uproar by so many photographers about how it destroyed the stock industry. When researching this article, I found several rants on websites about how microstock was destroying the photography industry. I found stories of people who made a good living in stock photography having their livelihood ruined by the likes of sites like iStock photo. As one photographer wrote about microstock in 2009 “they came in like a drunk bull in a china shop with careless regard for the devastation of the existing market”. The rise of microstock and the rise of affordable, high-quality digital cameras are easily linked. Technology changed the game – especially the stock photography game – and many didn’t adapt. The industry changed, rapidly, and many got left behind. When we look at Unsplash, it is hard not to look at microstock. As many photographers use Adobe products, I looked at Adobe stock to see what was happening in the microstock world. In terms of quality, there is some great stuff on Adobe stock. But whilst it is not free, the pricing structure is hardly enough to make a business out of it. Looking on their site now, Adobe can purchase 10 images a month for £19.99 (roughly £2.00 per image) or 40 for £47.99 (roughly £1.20 per image). In the UK, the minimum wage is £8.21 per hour meaning that even if the photographer got 100% of the £1.20 per image, they would need to sell roughly 260 images per week to make the UK minimum wage. I know that if you want to use the image commercially to sell products, the license fee is larger. But still, it is not enough to live off without selling a huge volume. Yet when was the last time we saw the major photo websites writing hate-filled articles about Adobe ruining photography? Okay, I stand corrected. It all kicked off when it looked like they would increase the photography subscription fee. But seriously, almost all photographers use Adobe. Even though you can make a little pocket money, Adobe has a business that is strikingly similar to Unsplash, yet nobody mentions it. The question is though, do we not mention it because we agree with this model, or do we see it as normal now? I think it is because we see it as normal. The outrage, the rallying cry of photographers, was drowned out by market forces. This is what is happening with Unsplash. One billion downloads prove that despite the passionate reasoning, arguing, and pleading, once again the market has spoken. They don’t care about your business model; they care about their bottom line. It appears that the main market that will be affected by Unsplash is microstock. As I said before, microstock was not a way to make a living before Unsplash, so effectively nothing has changed. Are photographers hypocrites?This is the point that tends to make hypocrites of photographers (and the websites) rallying against Unsplash. Many photographers do the exact same thing. How many photography videos do you see with free-use music in them? Who has used Fiverr for a logo rather than pay a professional designer? Why do we use templates for web design rather than pay a professional web designer to create a bespoke site for us? Photographers do this with other services frequently. What is the difference between free photographs and free music? Unfortunately, the answer lies in ourselves. We only tend to see the impact of changing business models affecting our own industry. We happily use free music (or the microstock equivalent) without thinking about it, because that’s how it is. Unsplash is now how it is for us. As I said earlier, we adapt, or we die. My favorite example of hypocrisy was when one of the biggest photography blogs wrote an article about the damage Unsplash is doing to photography. However, in the same article, they admitted that their site had used images from Unsplash for their articles. If that isn’t the perfect description of irony, I don’t know what is. Education (or ranting at people who couldn’t care less)I have heard many terms like, ‘we need to educate people about this,’ ‘people need to stop being so stupid,’ ‘how can people let their photography be exploited?’ Whilst this is a noble cause, there are huge issues here. The biggest is the fact that rather than educate, people tend to rant and belittle. Calling people stupid does not help educate them. The fact is, many of them are educated on the facts and choose to do it regardless. They don’t need your approval and trying to tell them they are wrong will achieve nothing but make an enemy of them. Many people do not want photography careers. Many love the fact that people appreciate their imagery, and that is enough for them. Photography for many is a passion and an art. Charging for their work takes away their reasons for doing it. Uploading to Unsplash, Pexels or to Flickr with a Creative Commons zero license is a way to get more peoples eyes on their work. And the feedback and likes are their rewards. This is not wrong. Some people have to accept that others live their lives by different rules, with their own set of morals and they can do whatever they want with their photos. You might not agree, but that is life. Finally, even if you are right (in your opinion), you cannot educate everybody. It is the equivalent of trying to push water uphill. Many will admire your determination, but unfortunately, in the end, it is futile. Should I upload to Unsplash?Rather than give a yes or no answer to this (I will leave that to you guys in the comments), I thought the best way to conclude this article was to look at what you need to be aware of when uploading to Unsplash. Things that you might not know that could help you make informed choices. Exposure doesn’t pay the billsLots of photographers will have heard some variation of the following phrase: “We can’t afford to pay you, but it will be great exposure.” The problem is, exposure doesn’t pay the bills. I can’t pay for my electricity with a photo credit. And, I can’t pay for my food with exposure either. However, I have done work for exposure, to get in with the right people, that has lead to paid work. I wrote about this in a previous blog post. There is no doubt that Unsplash provides photographers with great exposure. Unsplash is used by influential people every day. Being on the platform is a great way to get your work seen by these people. There are stories of people out there who, through their work on Unsplash, have been offered high-paid jobs with major clients. However, this is not the norm. Unsplash, will more than likely not make you any money. Microstock may make you a small amount of money, but without a huge library, this is not an income you can use to start saving for a Ferrari. In fact, you will probably struggle to buy a toy Ferrari. It is important to go into this with this in mind. You will not get the respect you deservePeople who use your images will generally not bother to credit you. Most of them will not even care about you. You may end up on the cover of a high-end magazine and never even know about it. For better or worse, this is how Unsplash works. Your photos are free, and they will be treated as such. Your work (and by extension you) will generally be given zero respect. Zack Arias summed this up best in one of his videos on the subject of Unsplash. He tells the story of a woman whose photo was used on a gift guide for a major UK bridal publication. The photographer was not informed about this or offered a copy of the magazine for her portfolio. Instead, she simply happened to stumble across it when browsing magazines in a coffee shop. This magazine’s full-page ad rate is £10,000, and she did not even get a photo credit or an email to thank her. This shows you the value placed on your work. The thrill of getting featured can lose a little shine when you look at it like this. The people problemThis is the educational part. The Unsplash license does not cover the use of an identifiable person in a commercial setting. You, as the photographer, are liable. If a photo ends up being used commercially via Unsplash and you do not have a model release, then you had better have deep pockets (and a good legal team), because if the subject in the photo objects, you are in big trouble. A model release should be completed by anyone whose photo you plan to upload to Unsplash, even family members or partners. A partner can soon become an angry ex-partner with a grudge. If a photo of them you uploaded to Unsplash gets used commercially, you may end up in a world of pain. A simple Google search will help you find an appropriate model release. There are also many model release apps. This allows you to digitally store the release and allow the model to sign it on your phone. Simply put, there is no excuse for not using a model release; you need to protect yourself. This should be something you always do when photographing models, Unsplash or not. Is Unsplash really ruining photography?Is Unsplash ruining photography? No. It’s changing it. Photography, like many industries, is in constant flux. It is disrupting traditional income models, but I think microstock was much more disruptive. Is Unsplash taking advantage of people? Again, it depends on your point of view. The people who upload to Unsplash know what they are doing. Some may be naive in thinking this is the easy way to photography stardom. However, I bet that for some of them, it will be the start of a great career. Just because it is different, doesn’t always make it wrong. What do you think? Share with us in the comments below.
The post Is Unsplash Really an Issue for Photographers? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring. Photography via Digital Photography School http://bit.ly/29wB9CX June 22, 2019 at 02:15PM
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The post How to Realistically Enhance Light Beams in Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Adam Welch. As a general nod to creative decency, in my work, I tend to steer clear of the “influencer” types of photographs. You know the ones I mean. The photos of people standing at the edge of some gorgeous vista, smiling, but, of course, seldom looking at the camera. They usually have some brand name product conspicuously visible in the frame. It’s not that those kinds of images are wrong, neither in execution or intent, but rather slightly tired and overdone. With that said, there is one type of photo that I find myself producing again and again, that I admit would fall into the category I attempt to keep myself away from most of the time. I love making photos at night time with light beams shining off into the dark of space. The problem is, that without an enormously powerful light source, achieving highly pronounced light beams is fairly difficult to achieve. In short, your average consumer flashlight or headlamp likely won’t pack enough luminous punch. This is where a super simple piece of Photoshop magic can make these types of photographs truly stand out. In this tutorial, I’m going to show you an easy way to enhance the light beams in your images using Photoshop. Before we beginAs with most any type of photography, your finished results are directly dependent on the quality of the starting material. You should always strive to get as much right in-camera as possible before you move to post-processing. This means correct exposure relative to the elements of your images, accurate focus, and appropriate ISO settings. While this technique can enhance light beams in any photo, the outcome will vary enormously in terms of both quality and realism depending on the solidity of the original digital file. Alright, now let’s have some fun! Process firstIt’s a good practice to save the enhancing of the light beams in your photos until the very end of your post-processing. This means that you should process all other aspects of the image as you would like them to appear in the finished photo before you apply the steps we’re about to discuss. Here is the RAW file of our example image before any post-processing. Here is that photo after I have finished the global and local adjustments. In short, aside from the somewhat lackluster beam emitted from the headlamp, the image shown here looks exactly the way I like. I have completed all exposure, contrast, color adjustments, sharpening and noise reduction. Regardless of what software you use to complete your post-processing, you will need to bring the image into Photoshop to finish your work. Since I use Lightroom Classic CC, I choose ‘Edit in Photoshop.’ How to enhance the light beamAfter you’ve kicked your image into Photoshop, it’s time to begin the incredibly easy process of enhancing that beam of light. We’ll do the entire operation with some super simple layer masking. To get started, select the polygonal lasso tool (keyboard shortcut ‘L’). We’re going to imagine that we are drawing a shape which corresponds to how the light will naturally diverge from the source. In this case, the headlamp. So, beginning at the base of the light beam we’ll create our shape. Simply click and let go, then draw the first line. I recommend extending this first line past the canvas of the image. I’ll explain why in a moment. Connect the dotsNow it’s just a matter of drawing more lines and connecting them. Click each point to anchor the lines together until you reach back to the beginning point. This will complete the shape automatically. At this point, the shape will also appear to be moving with the so-called “marching ants.” It will essentially look somewhat like a triangle. It’s this shape from which we will create our first mask. Believe me, this is all about to make perfect sense! Add a Brightness Adjustment LayerClick on the Brightness Adjustment Layer icon to add a brightness and contrast adjustment layer. Photoshop automatically creates the mask for this layer based on the shape we’ve just drawn. This is where the magic happens. Increase the brightness slider. Boom. Isn’t that cool?! All that has happened is that the brightness increase only affected the shape we created with the polygonal lasso tool. Feather the maskThere’s still a light problem, though. Look how unnatural the beam emitted from the headlamp now looks. We can fix this by adjusting the feathering of our mask. Click on the mask icon within the adjustment mask window. Increasing the feathering of the mask makes the edges softer and appear as if they are naturally diverging from a finite point of origin. Doesn’t that look so much better already? Create multiple masksAt this point, we could be completely finished, or we could repeat the steps we’ve already learned to “stack” additional layer masks based on shapes we’ve drawn using the polygonal lasso tool. In this particular image, I’m going to create another more intense beam inside the one we’ve already made. Then it’s just a matter of adding another brightness adjustment layer just as we did before. Then adjust the brightness and mask feathering. Don’t think that your masks are limited to brightness adjustments. You can add any adjustment that you choose. In this case, I want to cool down the beam to better match the original color of the headlamp light. To do this, I’ll draw another shape with the polygonal lasso tool, but this time, I’ll select the ‘photo filter’ adjustment and add a cooling filter. And remember when I said there was a reason we extended the mask past the actual border of the image canvas? We’re going to learn why in the next section. It all comes down to realism. Fine adjustmentsWhen it comes to this type of adjustment, it’s always crucial you understand the mechanics of the effect you are either simulating or enhancing. In this case, we are enhancing the way light travels from a given source. As you probably are aware, light diverges as it travels, hence the widening of our light beam. Not only that, but the further it perceivably travels, the less bright it becomes to our eyes. The light essentially disappears into space. To mimic this natural principle, we will “dim” the light beam as it extends further towards the edge of the frame using the brush tool. We’ll select each layer, and selectively adjust the masks so that the light appears to dissipate softly. Make sure you set your brush to black. This is where you will need to exercise your own judgment based on your particular image. Experiment with different opacity and flow rates. If you remove too much, just switch the brush to white and paint the effect back in as needed. Isn’t Photoshop great? And that’s it! Here is our final photo with the enhanced light beam. Considering this is what we started with… …the overall creative power of this cool edit is obvious. Let’s recapWhen it comes to enhancing (and even simulating) light beams in your images, you’ll want to remember a few key guidelines:
At its core, enhancing light beams in Photoshop is an extremely easy way to add some immediate power to your images. Even though we’ve used the example shown here, you can apply this technique to any scene with point sources of light such as car headlights, street lights or in any scenario where you might want to creatively pump up the luminosity of light beams. Try it out, experiment and, as always, be sure to share your results with us!
The post How to Realistically Enhance Light Beams in Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Adam Welch. Photography via Digital Photography School http://bit.ly/29wB9CX June 22, 2019 at 09:12AM |
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