You Don’t Have to be a Pro to Take Spectacular Special Effects Images

As a photographer chances are you’ve tried your hand at a few special effects. If you’re like most, the creative concepts in your mind were much more impressive than the end result!

Instead of trying to figure it out yourself, what if you could learn the tricks of a true Photo Magician?

• You’ll immediately have a collection of photography tricks up your sleeve.
• Your creative ideas can be backed up by some new special effect photography skills.
• Magic will happen!  We guarantee it.

Photo Magic will step you though how to create unique (and amazing) special effect images of your own. The type of photos your friends and family just won’t believe you took!

Launch Special: Save 25%

To celebrate the launch of this new eBook you can download it immediately for just $15 (normal price will be $19.95). But don’t delay – before you know it the price will go up!

11 Photography Special Effects explained Step by Step.

In this eBook 11 specific special effects are broken down so you can re-create the scene yourself, then Neil will explore new options to kick start your photography creativity.

Zoom Effect

Add a dynamic zoom effect with a slow shutter speed, and learn a super charged variation using your flash.

360 Panorama

A spherical 360 degree panorama puts you there by showing the whole world from a particular viewpoint.

Aperture Masks

Create a romantic, magical or cool background for your night portraits with aperture masks.

Flour Hair Flick

Half a cup of flour, add three lights and flick hair vigorously for this dramatic action shot.

Light Painting Sparklers

Sparklers, a sci-fi schoolgirl and some really nifty colour and light tricks create this dynamic light painted photo.

Light Painting Steel Wool

Stars twinkling above and fire sparking below lights up the beach in a dramatic combination shot.

Little World

Starting with a panorama, create whole planets with this super distorted, super fun effect.

Mixing Ambient and Flash

Capture and freeze motion in the same shot for a striking effect by mixing flash and continuous light.

Multiple Exposures

If two are twice the fun, eleven clones are a party! This multiple exposure technique is a unique way to tell a story.

Star Trails

Capture the majesty of the night sky as it spins eternally overhead with this surprisingly accessible star trail technique.

Water Droplets

Natures little lenses create many images with this technique to get you started using water refraction in your photography.

What Sort of Camera and Gear will you Need?

If you own a DLSR then you’re covered.  The panorama effect does require a little bit of extra gear and the zoom effect needs a zoom lens – all of which is  detailed in the book.  Micro four third cameras will be equally well served by this book — you’ll be able to follow all effects.  Some of the shots can even be created with a compact, and there’s even a smart phone version of the panorama.  But I’d say you’re going to get the most from this book it your camera has a manual mode.

Meet our Magician – Neil Creek

If you’re a dPS regular then Neil probably needs little introduction.  The author of the incredibly popular dPS Photo Nuts Series, Neil is a photographer with ten years experience and a passion for teaching. He has helped tens of thousands of people improve their photography with his three ebooks, successful video training course, photography workshops and years of photography blogging.

Neil has a talent for taking difficult to understand concepts, and making them accessible. He also loves to experiment with creativity in photography, pushing the boundaries of what can be done with the camera, making him the perfect author to teach special effects photography.

Our Guarantee to you that this eBook will be a Great Investment

At dPS we believe in creating products that deliver on what they promise.  We’ve shared books with hundreds of thousands photographers at all levels and we stand behind the quality of our products.  If you’re not satisfied that Photo Magic has helped to improve your  photography within 60 days, just let us know, and we’ll refund your money in full – no questions asked.

That’s how confident we are that you’ll love this eBook.

Still not Sure if this is the eBook for You?

Then you might like to read this special note from Neil to help you decide.

Photography is a creative pursuit. Capturing an image as it appears to the eye is only one way, and possibly the less fun way to create photos. Like any other tools, the tools of photography can be used in limitless ways to push the boundaries of creativity, and some of the most striking images are made when those tools are used in ways their original inventors could never have imagined. Such is the way with special effects photography.

SFX photography is a huge and complex topic and there are many different ideas and many different ways to create them. Rather than try and be a comprehensive guide to every kind of SFX photography (an impossible task), this book focuses on 11 different shoots, each one providing a detailed look at one particular photo and how it was created.

The purpose of this is to give you an immediate example of a SFX shot and show you in detail how the effect was achieved. I will give you everything you need to know to re-create that shot yourself, and introduce you to the concepts with a real practical example.

Building on what is discussed in each photo shoot, I’ll then expand on the technique and show you other variations and images to get your creative juices flowing so that you can try the ideas yourself and take what you have learned and expand on it. Naturally, this isn’t the only or even the best way to create these effects, but using them as a starting point you can launch yourself into the world of SFX photography.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did putting if together for you.

Neil Creek.

Ready to create incredible images that will have your friends asking “How did you do that?!”? Pick up a copy today.  And don’t forget it’s 25% off for a limited time only!

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DigitalPhotographySchool/~3/fkKf8SYTs8I/trick-photography

Cape St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve is about a one hour drive south on Highway 100 from the Marine Atlantic ferry terminus of Argentia. The drive to the reserve itself is fascinating and provides many opportunities for images of the rugged maritime coastline, particularly around Ship Cove and Gooseberry Cove. Should your departure point be the international airport at St. John’s, the drive will take about three hours as you travel inland via Salmonier Line, and south across the Avalon Peninsula to St. Bride’s.  Should you want the most scenic drive from St. John’s, take the 350Km coastal drive along what is known locally as the “Irish Loop.”  Be forewarned, however, you will want to stop continuously and can easily spend a couple of days playing tourist before you arrive at the Placentia Bay community of St. Brides.

Once at the reserve your best vantage point will be mere metres from the large precipitous pinnacle known as Bird Rock, which is a 30-minute walk from the Visitation Centre. You will be welcomed to Bird Rock by a chorus originating from the third largest nesting colony of Northern gannets in North America. In addition there is a large rookery of common murre (known locally as turres), black-legged kittiwake, thick-billed murre, razorbill, black guillemont, double-crested and great cormorant as well as Northern fulmar all nesting at the site.  By far the most spectacular of these Pelagic species that nest here each summer is the golden headed avian dive bombing gannet.

You will also want to be vigilant as there is a strong possibility you will see the resident red fox scampering along the headlines in search of a poultry lunch.

Cape St. Mary’s is one of the best locations in eastern Canada to make portraits of the sleek Northern Gannet.

Images can be made here even during the harsh light of high-noon. For unique pictures mount your camera on a tripod and extend the legs as far as possible. You can safely lie on the cliff edge and then extend the tripod mounted camera out over the edge of the cliff face, and point the camera straight down yielding what will look like an aerial shot. You should be able to program your camera to take a series of images with a time lapse between frames and thereby increase the probability of getting a good frame.  When you think you have finished the sequence —I would recommend starting with a five image sequence— simply retrieve the camera back to terra firma and see if you have captured a “keeper.”  The nice thing about this location is that if you aren’t happy with your results the first time, try again – the birds and rocks aren’t going anywhere soon.

This is also a great location to practise panning technique. If you just sit and watch the birds for awhile, notice how the gannet when fishing dive bomb from great heights and plunge into the water at speed upwards of 100 km/h (60 mph).  The distance and the speed will probably make panning shots of a diving bird near impossible; however, if you observe the birds as they take off and land on Bird Rock you should notice several things: they will almost hover as they come in to land and they will usually always land facing into the wind (as do all birds).  It won’t take long until you learn the habits of the gannets, and why I think they are the most beautiful of all sea birds.

With 20,000 nesting pairs of gannets, Cape St. Mary’s is the second largest rookery in Canada.  Quebec’s Bonaventure Island is the largest with around 50,000 pair.

Most of your image making will be done facing a southerly direction with an unobstructed field of view to both the east and west.  Pre-dawn is my preferred time, which means leaving the Interpretation Centre about an hour before sunrise. Simply do a web search or check the St. John’s newspaper, the Evening Telegram, for sunrise times. You should also be aware that this area annually receives around 200 days of fog per year, so you will want to dress warmly with a rain shell.

Extreme caution must be exercised as this is a natural area with no retaining or safety fences to keep an errant foot from going over a cliff edge. An inattentive moment could result in a fall that would surely be fatal, as the drop to the ocean is about 100 metres.

Ensure you have lots of fresh batteries and more than enough media. I know from experience you are going to shoot like crazy at this most incredible seabird sanctuary.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DigitalPhotographySchool/~3/mR16vHw8ieE/canadian-travelogue-newfoundland-cape-st-marys

Creating a reflection using Photoshop is one of those things that at first glance looks really hard, but really isn’t, once you break down the steps (just light Light Painting which I covered in another two part series). In this article I’m going to demystify creating a reflection, a technique that works particularly well on images with open pavement, and HDR processed images which tend to make the pavement look wet already.

We’re going to learn how to go from this . . .

To this!

In less than 10 minutes!

I recently showed one my HDR classes how to do this, and they all followed along with me step by step.  Some of them were using Elements (which works just fine, but you may find the menus and choices look slightly different), and this technique can be done using that program too, so if you use Elements, not to worry. Many of my students were also self proclaimed “Photoshop novices” and when I asked them if they thought they’d be able to this when I showed the before and after images, most said “no”!  But they all did, and we were done in less than 10 minutes. **Note that also included me going super slow to ensure each of the 12 people in the class were on the same page with me. I’m going to guess this will take less than 5 – ready GO!

Here are the six easy steps to follow in Photoshop.  This is the super condensed version for those quick readers and skimmers.

1. copy a section of the image
2. paste it as a new layer
3. flip it
4. position it
5. change the layer blend mode
6. mask it

That’s it! You want a few more details?
Let’s dive in a little deeper into each step

STEP ONE – COPY

Using the marque tool (“M” is the keyboard shortcut) draw a box around an area of your image that will become the reflection (see Figure #1 below). Make sure you go edge to edge on the sides, and get enough of the image vertically. If you grab more than you need that’s fine we’ll be moving it around and masking later anyway.

Figure #1 make a selection

Copy the selection as a new layer. You can do that a few ways.

• right click on the image and from the menu that pops up choose “layer via copy” (see Figure #2 below)
• from the edit menu choose “copy” or using the keyboard shortcut “command/control+c”  (see Figure #3 below)

Figure #2 right clickLayer Via Copy

Figure #3 Copy from Edit menu

STEP TWO – PASTE AS NEW LAYER

If you chose the “layer via copy” method above you already have the selection pasted as a new layer. If you haven’t already done that go ahead and paste either from the EditPaste menu option of the keyboard shortcut “command/control+v”. You will end up with something that looks like this, Figure #4 below.

Figure #4 paste new layer

Doesn’t look much different right? Right! Because it’s basically on top of itself.  But look at your layers, it is there on a new layer and it only grabbed part of the image. Now the magic begins!

STEP THREE – FLIP IT

Next from your Edit menu choose “EditTransformFlip vertical” to flip this new layer upside down. You should end up with something funny looking like Figure #5 below.

Figure #5 flip vertically

STEP FOUR – POSITION IT

Figure #6 move tool

Next select your MOVE tool from your tool palette (see Figure #6 right – “v” is the keyboard shortcut) and grab the flipped layer and drag it down until the images start to line up where the reflection will begin. In my image I’m using the edge of the sidewalk in front of the diner. If it doesn’t line up perfectly don’t worry about it, you can mask any imperfect bits out later in step six.

Now you want to have something that looks like Figure #7 below. The reflection is in roughly the right position. Make sure you don’t move side to side, just down, otherwise you’ll have gaps on the edges of your reflection.

NOTE: once you’ve selected the Move Tool, you can also use the up and down arrows on your keyboard to move the layer up and down. This works great for smaller adjustments when you get it close to position.

Figure #7 position the layer

STEP FIVE – CHANGE THE BLEND MODE

Figure #8 Lighten blend modes

From your layers panel change the layer blend mode to one of the “lighten mode”.  You will find the layers blend modes near the top of your layers panel, next to “opacity”. By default the blend mode is “normal”.

The Lighten modes are the ones in the third section down (see Figure #8 right), they include: Lighten, Screen, Color Dodge, Linear Dodge, Lighter Color. Layer blend modes change how the selected layer interacts with the one below it (the original image). By selecting one of the options in this section it will only show areas of this layer that are lighter than the one below it, and any areas darker will not appear.  For reflections I usually choose Lighten or Screen, depends on the image. Try them all and choose the one that looks best for your image. For this example I’m using Screen mode.

Now I have something that looks a little closer to a real reflection  (see Figure #9 below).

Are you still with me!?  Do you have something reasonably similar?

Figure #9 change the layer blend mode

STEP SIX – MASK IT

Figure #10 add a layer mask

Okay we’re almost done and it’s looking pretty good. But in my image the neon sign in the reflection is too bright. It doesn’t look natural because reflections are usually darker than the original – so we’re going to tone it down using a mask and the gradient tool.

First, make a layer mask by clicking on the “add layer mask” icon at the bottom of your Layers Panel (Figure #10 right). You can also do it by going to the Layers menuLayer maskReveal all.

Figure #11 gradient tool

Figure #12 foreground/background colors

Next select the Gradient tool from your tools panel. Keyboard shortcut is “g”  but make sure you have the gradient tool and not the paint bucket.  See Figure #11 above. Hit the “d” key on your keyboard to set your foreground/background colors to default, then hit “x” to switch them. Make sure you see black as your foreground color and white as the background color (see Figure #12 right).

Once you have your colors set to black and white, and your gradient tool selected and ready for use – make sure you are on the layer mask not the layer. You can tell because whatever is active has corner brackets around it. If you layer thumbnail is selected, just click on the white layer mask thumbnail to make it active. We need to make sure we are doing this on the mask, NOT the layer.

How masks work is that anything in white on the mask reveals the contents of the layer.  Where ever there is black on the mask it hides that area of the layer. So we want to hide the outer edges of this layer so it fades out gradually towards the bottom of the image and looks more natural.

With the gradient tool, by default it paints from the foreground color, to the background – fading from one to the other depending on how we create the gradient. Sometimes it takes a little experimenting to get it just right but you can always “undo” using the handy “command/control+z” shortcut on your keyboard and it goes back one step or undoes what you just applied.

NOTE:  ”undo” is your best friend in Photoshop, if you learn no other keyboard shortcuts, memorize this one!

So, to apply it to our reflection start with the cross hairs for the tool in the middle of your image, near the bottom.  TIP: holding the SHIFT key down will keep the gradient from applying at an angle, it will just go straight up. Click and drag the tool up (you’ll see a line drawing the gradient spread) and let go when you get near the top of your reflection. If it’s not exactly how you want it you may have to start a little more away from the bottom edge, or drag it up higher, or other variations.

NOTE: with the gradient tool on a mask you don’t actually even need to “undo” if you just drag another one overtop it replaces the first one. But it’s still good to know how to undo!

Here’s the image with my gradient applied to the layer mask.  Notice on the mask it goes from black to white? So it’s hiding the bottom area of this layer which is what we want. See Figure #13 below.

Figure #13 gradient applied to the layer mask

OPTIONAL FINISHING TOUCHES

Now if you want to do any other masking to show or hide certain areas of the reflection just use your brush tool (“b” shortcut) at a lowered opacity (10-20%) and paint with black on the mask over areas you want to hide, and white on areas you want to show.  In this image I painted over the edges of the diner where I felt it was still a bit too bright. You can also change the opacity of your layer to adjust it that way too.

SeeFigure #14 below for my final version. Notice my mask where I painted a little up the sides to hide those areas just a little bit more.  You could also paint away a little in the middle of the reflection where the pavement is the darkest if you wanted. That’s the neat thing about photography – it’s all subjective!

It’s really easy to get upset or hurt feelings when someone else says something that we perceive as negative about one of our images, something we put blood, sweat and tears into, right!?   Well my personal opinion is that it is just their opinion, one person, and you don’t have to agree with them. If they have a valid, or constructive criticism YOU get to decide if you want to take it on board or, just agree to disagree and move on. Life is too short to worry about pleasing other people.

Do photography for you!  If other people like it, then great!

If not, oh well!  Move along and life goes on.

Figure #14

OKAY YOUR TURN!

So, think you can do this? Give it a try!

Here is my image to play with, in case you don’t have one that will work.  It’s 2000 pixels wide which is plenty big enough for this test.

Download diner image - just click on this link and save the image that opens in a new tab.

A few trivial things FYI about this image:

• it was taken in Rochester, NY, USA when I was in the area and visited Eastman Kodak House. If you’re ever there, do go, it’s worth the trip to see where photography took roots and grew
• it is a 5 image HDR, tone mapped in Photomatix and finished using LR4
• during the longest exposure of my bracketed series a kid on a skateboard, carrying a goldfish in a bag skated right through the parking lot in front of me. Why didn’t he show up? Because my exposure was 30 seconds long and if you aren’t there for more than 1/2 the time you will not appear.

Okay, off you go and let’s see your results! 

Cheers Darlene

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DigitalPhotographySchool/~3/LN1lYyJQh2E/how-to-create-a-reflection-in-photoshop-in-6-easy-steps

Canadian photojournalist – Ted Grant – is quoted as saying:

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!”

This quote often comes to mind when talking about portraiture and I thought it might make an interesting discussion starter.

Do Ted’s words resonate with you?

Read more from our Reader Questions Category

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DigitalPhotographySchool/~3/b4-QRtthX9Y/discuss-when-you-photograph-people-in-black-and-white-you-photograph-their-souls

A Guest Post by Lynsey Peterson.

Nothing freaks me out like props.  Every time I see a picture of flower girls holding an empty frame that is outlining a bride and groom kissing in the distance, I die a little inside.  

Whenever I am subjected to a photo that attempts to bring in a letter jacket and a football and a casual I’m-just-hanging-out-here-in-my-letter-jacket-holding-my-football expression, I try to remember that I am terrible at making coffee and therefore cannot give-up photography immediately and go get an application at Starbucks.  We have come to a place where portrait photography trends are natural and candid and while you would think that means we are leaving all props behind to die a formal, posed, and staged death, we just can’t help ourselves from wanting to put a little extra something in there.  

Something personal.  Or themed.  Or fun.  As a photographer, the logistics of getting something personal or themed or fun in an image and having it look natural are overwhelmingly complicated.  Often leading to overwhelmingly complicated images.  But if done right, a little extra something adds…….a little extra something.  Photographing people with props comes down to one basic thing: how can you make this interact with that?

Make it Natural

This shot doesn’t scream A PROP WAS USED HERE, though it was.  This bride did not provide me with a “must have” shot list, which of course makes her my favorite bride ever, but she had one simple request: one picture of her drinking a can of PBR in her wedding gown.  

Now admittedly when she told me that, I wanted to pass out from the biggest eye roll that has ever happened because……….how on earth was I going to pull that off?  The goal was a tongue-in-cheek stylish effort that didn’t come across as a classless snapshot.  

Had there been any posing or obvious mention of the can, it could have easily gone from sweet and funny to tasteless and tacky.  Instead it’s a near romantic take on a candid moment at a reception.  It’s rare that making a joke out of the prop or drawing obvious attention to it generates a beautiful and interesting portrait.  Since it’s already on the losing side of “one of these things is not like the other”, there is no need to point it out.

Make it Different

When it comes to props in portrait photography, chances are good that it’s been done before.  So do it different.  Photography is just storytelling and a prop is just another subject in your cast of characters; how many lines it gets is totally up to you.  High school seniors tend to be the group most interested in including a prop.  Which is often sports equipment and getting creative and unposed with things like sporting equipment is not an easy task.  Step out of the intended purpose and treat it like an object.  

A soccer ball doesn’t have to go at the feet, a letter jacket doesn’t have to be worn, a lacrosse stick doesn’t have to……do whatever it is that lacrosse sticks do.  The image is about a person—the viewer knows what the intended purpose is of a practical use prop.

Make it Simple

Including a prop adds another level for the eye to process, so clean up everything else as much as you can.  A tight frame, a clean background, and minimal distractions are all your friends.  Stick with them and they won’t do you wrong.

Make it Meaningful

As props go, the easiest of the bunch are the ones people want included because they are highly personal and mean a great deal.  Wedding rings, special stuffed animals, maybe their cat (tip: avoid this one if you can).  The interaction here will be easier, so the key is highlighting the connection between the person and their special prop.  

The book in this photo was written by their great-grandmother and has obvious family importance.  Before this shot I took dozens of them just holding the book, wanting badly to document the entire cover.  Finally it dawned on me that the the story here was about kids having something so significantly personal and historic still able to generate their interest.  Great images are never about the prop, but the people it connects to and why.  

Make it Timeless

Props have a way of dating a photograph.  Take a moment to consider what the image you are about to take will feel like in 10 years.  Or 20.  Or 50.  If there is anything that can be changed, deleted, or moved so that in a decade this image will have every bit as much relevance as it has today, do it.  

These kids had on screen print t-shirts featuring cartoon characters that most of us likely won’t know in a few years.  T-shirts, messy faces, lollipops, and two boys makes for a complicated snapshot.  Colorful props, interaction, and sweet expressions makes for a timeless portrait.  

Make it make Sense

In my opinion, there is no tougher prop than a costume.  And when these sweet girls showed up in tutus at a suburban park, I had no idea how PINK TUTUS and grass and dirt were going to mix together.  Seemed a little like onion flavored ice cream.  If you take it apart piece by piece, it’s easier to vision it as a whole.  

I knew I wanted to show off the tutus full glory so the girls had to be standing.  I wanted the relationship of the sisters to play a huge role.  And I wanted it to have a feeling of magic.  Much like how I feel when I go to the park in my own pink tutu.

With enough creativity, almost any prop can make an image fun, personal, and interesting.  Unless someone shows up with their cat and lacrosse stick.  Then you’re on your own.

Check out more of Lynsey Peterson’s work on her website.

Read more from our Portrait Photography Category

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DigitalPhotographySchool/~3/rSfnUj-lurI/props-are-evil-how-to-use-them-for-good

Today Joe Decker shares some tips on wide angle photography.

One of the first lens purchases aspiring landscape photographers typically made is a wide or super-wide lens, anything (in full-frame 35mm terms) from 24mm on down, and with good reason, wides offer photographers the ability to capture the sweeping vistas of the natural landscape. But they can also be a challenge to use effectively, it’s all to easy to end up with a wide-angle shot that lacks the power and grandeur we felt when we were shooting. In this article, I’ll explain why that’s so often the case, and provide a few tips for working around those challenges, showing you how to use wide-angle lenses to create dramatic, effective images.

Nordenskjöld Lake, Torres Del Paine National Park, Chile. Image Copyright Joe Decker

1. Get Close!

Because wide-angle lenses take in a bigger angle-of-view than other lenses, using a wide-angle lens at the same distance from your subject will render that subject smaller than it would otherwise. To compensate for this, you’ll have to move closer to your subject. Don’t be bashful about getting close, particularly with super-widesmash;it’s almost impossible to get “too close” to your subject with a 14mm lens. This emphasis in size that wide-angle lenses give nearby objects means that …

2. It’s All about the Foreground

Contrary to what you might expect, this means that the most important element of your wide-angle landscapes is the foreground. While wide-angle lenses do capture the wider landscape, they also (almost inevitably, because of their wide field-of-view) capture quite a bit of foreground as well, and this foreground is emphasized by the wide-angle perspective. As a result, if your foreground isn’t interesting, your photograph won’t be interesting. This leads us naturally to the Josef Muench idea of the near-far composition, an image which uses a wide-angle lens to not only show a broad vista, but also to show one detail of that landscape in an up-close, intimate way. When you’re photographing wide, be sure to spend some time looking for the most interesting foreground available to combine with your grand vista.  (If there isn’t an interesting foreground, you might want to consider using a longer lens to leave out that less interesting foreground.)

Fallen Redwoods, Stout Grove, Jedediah Smith State Park, California. Image Copyright Joe Decker

3. Watch those Verticals!

Wide-angle lenses tend to bend and distort verticals, as you can see in the tree trunks near the top of Fallen Redwoods. Now, you might decide you like that effect, or that you hate it, but it’s important to be aware of it and to make a conscious decision about it. For some images it’s fun to embrace, but more often I find myself having to work to avoid it or correct it later.  Avoiding it can be as simple a matter as composing so that there’s only a single obvious vertical (and that that’s vertical), alternatively, using shift movements with a tilt-shift lens can correct some of this distortion in-camera. Post-exposure, Photoshop’s “Lens Distort” filter can also save the day.

4. Leading Lines

Compositionally, lines (such as streams or railway tracks) leading from the bottom corners of an image towards the center often have a particular magic for guiding the viewers eye through the picture, making for strong images, and this is particularly the case for wide-angle images. Hot Stream is a great example of this, the viewers eye tends to wander from the corner  back through the image along the stream. As the stream moves back into the image, the stream gets smaller (in terms of inches on the printed page) quickly due the wide perspective. This quick fade (in width) into the distance creates a real sense of depth in the image.

Hot Stream, Húsavík, Iceland. Image Copyright Joe Decker

5. Filter Woes

Shooting wide creates two problems for those of us who use filters. Polarizers are a specific problem, the effect of a polarizer on a blue sky varies across the sky so greatly that wide-angle images including the sky are left horribly unnatural, so leave off the polarizer unless you know there’s no blue sky in your scene. Screw-in filters are a separate problem, it’s all too easy for the filter edges, particularly if you’re stacking more than one filter on the same lens. Filter systems, such Cokin’s P-series filters (with the wide-angle filter holder), can help you avoid these problems if you must use filters.

Dwarf Arctic Birch, C. Hofmann Peninusla, Greenland. Image Copyright Joe Decker

6. Focusing

One of the things I enjoy most about working with wide-angle lenses is the ease of focusing them. As you move to wider and wider focal lengths, the depth-of-field at a particular aperture gets deeper and deeper. This allows you to make great use of the concept of hyperfocal distance, that is, the nearest distance you can focus a particular lens at a particular aperture and get “good focus”. At 24mm, by focusing about six feet out from the camera you’ll capture everything from about three feet to infinity in focus—even at f/11. At 17mm, focusing at the right point at f/11 will get you everything from infinity down to 17 inches away. Find (using a web site like this or any of a number of other sites, software tools or printed tables) and write down the hyperfocal distance for a couple of your widest lenses at a couple of your favorite apertures, and you’ll have an easy way of bringing the entire scene of near-far compositions into critical focus.

Using wide-angle lenses can certainly be tricky, but I love them all the same. Used well they can allow the photographer to create images that immerse us in a world with both small, intimate details and bold, dramatic vistas.

Joe Decker is a professional nature photographer and writer for Photocrati’s Photography Blog He also offers nature photography workshops and coaching around the western United States.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DigitalPhotographySchool/~3/8Z8hBDQ1RQw/6-winning-ways-to-work-wide

A Guest Contribution by Anotherphotograpbynoob.com.

What this tutorial will show you
In short: how I made the photo on the right become the photo on the left.

In this tutorial, we will cover basic tools of the free photo editing software GIMP.
Here is a quick rundown of the features covered in this tutorial:

• Crop a photo in GIMP
• Increase contrast with the Levels panel
• Make the colors pop with the Hue Saturation panel
• Adjust colors with the Color Balance panel
• Add a color filter to boost the warm colors in your photo.

Sound hard? Don’t worry. I’ll guide you through the whole process, step by step.

Resources

First of all, you need to have GIMP installed. Click here to download GIMP, and then follow the instructions provided with the software.

If you want to follow along with me in this tutorial, the original photo can be downloaded here. I shot the photo myself last year. The sportscar is a racing green Volvo P1800, just like the one Roger Moore drove in The Saint – yep, my dad tells me the story every time we ride in that car.

You are free to use the photo for whatever you may want, as long as it isn’t illegal of course.

If you are interested in the specifications of my camera, it is:

• Nikon D3000
• Nikon DX AF-s NIKKOR 35mm 1.8G
• Shot at f/3.2, 1/200 seconds and ISO 100
• The exposure compensation was set to -2.7

Enough with the anecdotes; let’s start editing.

Start it all Up

After you have started up GIMP, open up the image you want to edit. If you have chosen to follow along and you haven’t changed too much in the standard layout in GIMP, it should look like this.

Fixing the Composition

The first thing I want to fix is how I composed the image. I don’t like the license plate showing in the original photo. Ideally, I would like to see no license plate and at the same time as much as possible of both the car and sky.

The easiest way would be just cropping off the right of the photo until the license plate is gone.

But…

I know my mother will most likely print this photo – just as with all the other photos I’ve sent her. In order to make the process of printing the images as smooth as possible, I need to keep the proportions of the image in tact (I don’t want the print service computer system to decide how the photo is cropped).

With that in mind, choose the Crop tool from the toolbox on the left (Shortcut Shift + C).

To make sure proportions are kept, check the box labeled Fixed. From the drop-down menu, you should select Aspect Ratio and the value should be set to current. Like this:

Now you can drag out the area you want to keep. You can adjust it by dragging the corners around the image. When you are satisfied, hit enter and your photo is cropped.

So far, so good. The image is still dull, I know. Let’s get moving.

Quick Tip – Duplicate the Background Layer

When you open up a photo in GIMP, a background layer will be created automatically. Don’t edit directly on that. Instead, you should make a copy of the layer by pressing Ctrl + Shift + D (Mac: Cmd + Shift + D).

Now you have the original background layer for reference while editing, and no matter the mess you make, you can easily start from scratch.

And now we must go back to the sports car!

Use Levels to Increase Contrast

The first thing I want to do is increase the contrast. This is mainly to darken the ugly details on the back of the car, in order to let the more shiny parts sparkle.

First, open op the Levels panel Color Levels:

I’ve made a simple move. I just increased the darks by 10 and kept the whites at 255. I kept the whites at 255 to ensure most details are preserved in the sky; we’ve now set the best base for boosting the color of the image.

Work the Colors

The first panel I use in this process is Adjust Hue/Lightness/Saturation.
Go to Colors Hue-Saturation:

I won’t be explaining every panel I use in detail. Instead, I’ll focus on the settings I needed for this tutorial. I’ve only adjusted the master channel in this panel.

Hue
I’ve increased the hue a little. Six steps up isn’t a lot, but you’ll easily notice the difference. Increasing the hue removes the slight magenta shade in the sky.

Lightness
Even though I adjusted the Levels before, I want an even more warm and dark feeling. Almost like a classical sunset-silhouette – just keeping the details in the photo.

By decreasing the Lightness, I darken the photo and turn up the colors even more in the sky. The Volvo P1800 even starts looking right with dark green colour (the actual name is British Racing Green – another dad anecdote).

Saturation
The final step in the Hue-Saturation panel is increasing Saturation – a lot! I’m putting the pedal to the metal now. All in on sunset.

The Color Needs more Attention

This is much better. But, I want to adjust it a little bit more. Next stop: the Color Balance panel.

Go to Color Color Balance:

Again, I’m not going into detail on all functions. Just the ones I altered. In this case, it’s the Color Levels of the Midtones.

Cyan Red

Everything got a little too blue when I boosted Saturation – especially the car. The first step is decreasing Cyan (by increasing Red). Now the car is getting warmer.

Magenta Green

One step down is not doing much, but I really think it helped. It needed some compensation after increasing Red and Yellow.

Yellow Blue

Let’s add even more color to the sky and some warmth to the chrome on the car.

Adding a Color Filter is the Last Thing

I still don’t like the blue shade on the chrome. The last step is to add a color filter. It’s really simple.

First, add a new transparent layer. Just go to Layer New Layer (Ctrl + Shift + N).
Name the layer “Warm Color Filter.” Choose a transparent layer and click Ok.

Now select the foreground color and set it to #F4B905. Actually, I just went for a warm orange and landed on this. Not freakishly important. Just go for a warm orange color.

Select the Bucket Fill Tool (Ctrl + B) and fill your new transparent layer with warm orange.

This should turn your entire image warm orange. Looking great, ay?

Ok. Now change the layer opacity to 10%, and set the blend mode to Dodge.

The result is a nice and warm feeling to the overall photo. And it also got us rid of that blue trouble in the chrome details. Nice.

Saving is now Exporting

As you may already know, GIMP does no longer save in JPEG. But don’t worry, the good people working with GIMP has just moved the function a bit and it is now called Export (Ctrl + E) and Export As (Shift + Ctrl + E), if you need to rename the file.

The Final Result

My mom actually ended up printing all the photos of my dad’s sports car. If you want to check out the rest of the sports car photos and even more GIMP tutorials, head over to my blog at http://anotherphotographynoob.com.

More specifically, the images of the sports car are here: http://anotherphotographynoob.com/sportscar/

And all my tutorials for GIMP are here: http://anotherphotographynoob.com/gimp-tutorial/

Anotherphotographynoob is a European blogger and photo enthusiast, blogging daily at Anotherphotograpbynoob.com. It all started as a simple blog posting a photo a day, but recently the blog has moved to a self-hosted solution and now tutorials are being written on a daily basis to help other photo nerds.

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