Backgrounds and props as well as the people’s attitudes and expressions should be appropriate for the picture. As the photographer, it is up to you to arrange these things so that you can capture the best possible portrait. It will be up to you how the outcome will be so you have to be extra careful in thinking about and applying these factors.

What’s that behind you?

The backgrounds that you will use should not take the attention away from the person or people you are shooting. It should be something that will create an aura or mood without changing the atmosphere of your portraits.

Before the onset of digital photography, muslin was the most common backdrop material. This is especially true for school pictures such as yearbooks. Muslin limits creativity though. The dull colors and design attract the eyes of viewers into the subject but it does not give you much of a choice. And, the problem with muslin is, if the subject is wearing the same color as the backdrop! That would spell disaster.

Here are some tips you have to consider:

• The background color should be not too bright. It would be really disastrous to have neon colors and complicated designs that make you dizzy like an optical illusion!

• Know what objects in the background should be or not be included. An antique, intricate statue studded with gems will take the attention away from subjects and ruin that once in a lifetime family reunion.

• Choose the right background for the occasion. It would be very inappropriate to have beach background if you are having a birthday party, right? Of course, use your better judgment. Wedding photos can have backgrounds embracing romantic places and sunset settings. It is up to you and your subjects.

There are more tips in the category photo manipulation on this site.

As technology advanced, the world of photography has been greatly improved as well. The possibilities of digital photography are boundless when it comes to backgrounds.  You can shoot your subjects in a plain white background then add the setting afterwards. With a great variety of backgrounds to choose from, you can take them around the world or better still, rent them.

Accents and Props – Added Touches

The use of props has started since the early days of photography. You might see flowers and fruits as props in old photos. Then it evolved into something that depicts a certain place or event. Pastoral photography has been a trend in the early times and the use of shepherds clothing and crooks and even live sheep had been utilized to make the scenery look real.

For today’s photography, there are some points that I would like to suggest to you when using props.

1. Appropriate props should be used for the right atmosphere. Be selective and think about it.

2. The colors should not be contrasting with the background although there are some situations that might use a splash of color. Enough to accent the portrait without attracting too much attention away from the subject.

3. Seasonal props will greatly add to the atmosphere of the holiday such as Santa hats and Easter eggs.

4. Use age appropriate props. Do not use cartoon characters since these become outdated through time.

Props used in family portraits are part of the background such as a fence or gazebo. When you admire a good shot, you do not only see the smiles but the added touches as well.

So, I hope these tips are of assistance to you when capturing those moments that are special and memorable. If you’re determined to make good in this area then my friend Scott has been determined to master this for some time and shares many of his rare tips and techniques here for you to gather up and use to your own advantage.  His mastery and guidance videos are perhaps the best I know. Check it here.

…enjoy,

Roy Barker

Photoshop has added a new feature, “merge to HDR” which lets photographers combine a series of exposures into a single shot that takes the best tonal detail of all of them.  Learning to use this new feature in Photoshop can help photographers, both professional and hobby, make the most of each shot taken with tricky lighting.  The only downside to the merge to HDR function is that it sometimes causes decreases in contrast, so part of the learning curve will be balancing that trade-off.

Why is it needed?

Digital cameras have become increasingly more complex, with higher resolutions and smaller pixels, over the last ten years. Dynamic range is the one area that has not been improved by this, and cameras around eight megapixels are quite susceptible to noisy shadow detail and blown highlights.  There are some lighting situations that can’t be captured well by digital cameras at all. However, these same cameras can capture a large dynamic range- just not in one single picture. Just by varying the shutter speed, it varies the amount of light let in, and allows the Photoshop HDR photography to create good images put together by multiple exposures.

When to use Photoshop HDR Photography

Of course, many photographs can be successfully taken using a (GND) graduated neutral density filter that extends dynamic range and maintains contrast. GND is especially well suited to landscapes and the dark blend of land and the bright sky.  There are other times when GND filters really can’t help too much, and these images can be enhanced with Photoshop HDR photography.  Tonal mapping is the name of the technique involved, and it can best be related to our eyes adjusting to what we see, even when there are several different tones and shadows involved in a setting.  HDR photography can mimic this for us in our photographs.

Though the inner workings of an HDR file are rather complex, the actual process of learning to use the technique is much simpler.  It creates a 32-bit HDR file format that allows for much greater dynamic range.  The extra bits allow for an almost infinite brightness range via the use of tonal mapping.

Taking the Shots

A sturdy tripod is imperative to getting an adequate series of identically-positioned exposures to use in creating an HDR image.  There is a feature in Photoshop that will attempt to line the images up when the camera moved slightly between shots, but the best results will be gained when this is not depended upon.

Take at least three to five exposures so that you have enough to merge for best results.  The Photoshop HDR photography works best when the HDR program has more exposures so that it can tell how your camera captures the light.  Be sure that the darkest one doesn’t have any blown highlights, and that the brightest also shows the darker areas so that they are visible. Separating each exposure by one or two stops, set by changing the shutter speed; this will either double (adding 1 stop) or cut in half (subtracting 1 stop) the light that your camera captures in each image.   Also, keep in mind that the subject must be static; ocean waves or waving tree branches probably will not work, as those things will have moved considerably between exposures.

Photoshop HDR photography is very new in the field of digital photography.  The existing HDR tools will likely improve a lot over time, but there isn’t an automated process to convert images into those which look best. Currently, getting the best HDR conversions takes a lot of work and trial and error to find the most pleasing images.  Be careful also not to overdo it.  Over-editing with HDR can make the image lose its realism. To learn more about HDR images check out this article. If you want to learn some advanced Photoshop techniques, try this on.

Special Note: Good results with digital backdrops, backgrounds and image editing are often more easily achieved with step by step video tuition rather than trying to absorb a five hundred page book or guide. Why? Because you can actually see what needs to be done and how to do it.

If this takes your interest and you want to try it, this link provides the first of a string of free tuition videos straight after registering your interest. All you have to do is register your email address. Then, after confirming your receipt of a test email, we send the backdrop (background) and image editing videos to your inbox. It all takes a few seconds surprisingly. Later, you will be given an option to join the club but that’s up to you. You will also be informed if the club is closed for new members.

If you liked this article, please bookmark it below. That way, you can find it again and so can others. Simply hover your mouse over the icons (below) and choose your favourite bookmark.

Photographic cropping

There are many rules in the world, and it is just plain frustrating to know that even our most creative endeavors, such as photography, will also have some standard rules as well.

Consider the “rule of thirds” which is a compositional tool that asks the photographer to divide their scene into a grid of three squares by three squares and to place a subject at one of the four points where the lines intersect or simply along one full line instead. This is considered to be the natural way that most eyes and minds will function and can actually become an intuitive approach to creating balanced images.

Okay, that is pretty easy to follow, but problems might appear in a completed photograph if the photographer failed to follow such a rule, or if they didn’t notice an area of weakness in the image as they were composing and taking it. Is such a photo beyond rescue? No, because a photographer can very easily apply a range of cropping actions to make a much stronger or appealing final image.

How do you begin the photographic cropping process?

Basically you must assess the image to understand what must be removed in order to improve the picture. Additionally, you may want to consider such things as tilting an image back into the upright or even into the vertical if that can give it a necessary element, such as motion or action.

Let’s consider a single example of the proverbial “less is more” rule, and take a nicely done landscape of a green valley behind which a snow covered mountain peak stands. The day was one with a cloudless blue sky and the entire scene was nicely captured in the final photograph. The problem is that the four side edges of the image offer too much scenery – at the top is too much blue sky and the remaining three edges seem to diminish the enormity of the distant mountain with their abundance of verdant growth. This is the perfect time to apply an effective crop that will reduce the overall image and allow the mountain the respect it deserves.

For such a moment the old rule of thirds should still apply with the top of the mountain falling along the upper line and the dark edges of the tree line hitting the lower line. This is a very basic way to improve a photograph through a photographic cropping procedure, and most photo editing programs offer an enormous number of other options that can be put to good work during the process as well.

A contribution by Amy Renfrey

Kiwi Mouse Photo by hongkiat.com

Many amateur and professional photographers have discovered the almost limitless potential of Photoshop software – they can change textures, apply all kinds of artful filters, make additions or corrections to photographs, and even combine unlikely images into a single image. One area where Photoshop becomes an incredibly useful tool is in portrait photography.

For example, most professional photographers are now capturing all of their images in the RAW format because of its functionality in the Photoshop program. The larger file size captures a broader range of color and makes for a much better, less “noisier” print. The traditional JPG format that most people use for their photographs asks for certain camera settings and may eliminate a great deal of the control that photographers want when taking professional and portrait images.

If you are unsure about RAW, think of it as a digital photo that has the original image information as it comes off the sensor before the camera processes it so you can do extra processing afterwards on your computer with Photoshop or other digital editing applications.

To be more precise in this definition, each tiny pixel that makes up your digital photo only captures one color in a conservative sensor. This information is about 10 or 12 bits per pixel, with 12 bits per pixel is really the most common in average digital cameras. This information is easily stored as a RAW file.

Dp review states “Even though the TIFF file only retains 8 bits/channel of information, it will take up twice the storage space because it has three 8 bit color channels versus one 12 bit RAW channel. JPEG addresses this issue by compression, at the cost of image quality. So RAW offers the best of both worlds as it preserves the original color bit depth and image quality and saves storage space compared to TIFF. Some cameras offer nearly lossless compressed RAW.”

Photoshop errors - photo by cybernet

Back to our portraits….Even though the portrait photographer generally has control over the environment or placement of their subject there are still many times that corrections or enhancements will be needed on an image. For example, a well staged group photo may still present a case of red eye if a flash was used. Photoshop software has built in tools especially designed to recognize and eliminate this unsightly issue wherever it appears. You can learn how to use it here.

Additionally, the old darkroom technique of “airbrushing” away flaws is a much easier task in Photoshop. For example, wrinkles and fine lines on the face can be masked away, teeth and eyes can be whitened and brightened, and even scars or pimples can be eliminated with a few simple procedures.

Photoshop also presents some incredibly creative options for portrait photographers as well. For example, recreating vintage “pin up” photos has become an incredibly popular way of using the Photoshop tool palette. Some photographers can take a detailed black and white image, convert it to a sepia photo and use the tools in the Photoshop program to add “makeup” or coloration and deliver an end result that is strikingly similar to an old-fashioned “hand colored” photograph.

The software can also make corrections to issues that were not recognized in the studio, such as photographs that were somehow under or over exposed, color saturation that leaves the image incorrectly hued and almost any other issue imaginable.

Millions of professional photographers rely on Photoshop to correct and improve portrait photographs as well as to make both aesthetic and creative alterations. These are the main reasons the program is so incredibly popular and why most photographers are encouraged to learn how to use it for their own work.
By Amy Renfrey

How often do you think you have that great shot of your dogs running along a beach? You take a look at it on your screen and you are excited it looks great. But, when you download the image it does not have the depth of feel you saw when you took it. A digital image cannot capture the full range of light of the subject. You usually get something less than you expect. But this is true of any camera. It is difficult to catch the minute detail in one shot. The only way to create HDR images is to merge several exposures of the original photograph into one to replicate the depth and quality of reality.

Light is full of life, it constantly moves and changes the illusion of what you see momentarily. Especially through a camera lens. This is where HDR imaging comes to the rescue. It is essentially a manipulation technique where you can use HDR imaging on all parts of photography editing, storing, taking and end result.

Editing HDR Images

The three things you must consider when editing HDR images are brightness levels, the graphics user interface for HDR editing and the size of the image. Five or more exposures are recommended. The more exposures the more the lens will capture the smallest spectrums of light so the HDR process improves blending the tonal details.

Photoshop is software that has a process for creating HDR images and creates separate files that record all the details for each image (ISO, shutter speed, aperture) to assess the light levels in them. It then creates a HDR file using 32 bits, instead of 8 or 16 bits, to determine color channels.

While HDR produces great results, overdoing the merging process can distort the subject. The better the light and tone of the original photography the better the end result.

Storing HDR Images

JPEG and GIF formats only have 8 bit per channel of storage so they can not be used for HDR images. Formats like PNG and RAW have 16 bits per channel and are suitable for storing HDR images.

Taking HDR Images

Well, contrary to the hype you can not actually take an HDR image. They are manipulated. How you achieve that is to take several photos with different exposures of the same subject. You then merge them into one dynamic image using digital software to manipulate your images.

Remember, we pay a price for everything we do in life and photography. The possible downside of HDR imaging reduces contrast between the tones. Be aware of this and use your editing technology to strike a balance. If you want to learn some advanced Photoshop techniques check this guide (see the list there).

Special Note: Good results with digital backdrops, backgrounds and image editing are often more easily achieved with step by step video tuition rather than trying to absorb a five hundred page book or guide. Why? Because you can actually see what needs to be done and how to do it.

If this takes your interest and you want to try it, this link provides the first of a string of free tuition videos straight after registering your interest. All you have to do is register your email address. Then, after confirming your receipt of a test email, we send the backdrop (background) and image editing videos to your inbox. It all takes a few seconds surprisingly. Later, you will be given an option to join the club but that’s up to you. You will also be informed if the club is closed for new members.

The Gimp – If you ask for an alternative to Photoshop, this is most commonly the answer you’ll get. This is misleading, because the Gimp was never intended to compete with Photoshop, and in fact the development team frankly says on their home page that they’re sick and tired of being compared to Photoshop. “Gimp” stands for “GNU Image Manipulation Program” and it is a general-purpose graphics software package. Being a member of the GNU software application family, it is licensed to the general public and is not only free to download, but free to modify and redistribute as well. In capable hands, Gimp is an exceptional tool; a master user can match everything Photoshop can do down to the last pixel and do more besides. But its interface is very different from Photoshop, and its plugins do similar things under different names and methods. In short, do not come to the Gimp expecting a Photoshop clone, because you will be disappointed and deservedly so. That would be like if you moved to China and expected them to speak English, watch football, and eat hamburgers. There is a huge degree of animosity between Adobe and GNU over this, perhaps the biggest rift in all of computing, so tread lightly when discussing it online. It is so popular now that you can even find extremely helpful guides to show you how to use it expertly in a short period. This affiliate link takes you to a special Gimp guide  I like (see the exhaustive list of subject matter there).

CinePaint – You’ll be surprised to learn that Hollywood movie studios do not use Photoshop – at all! They instead use CinePaint. CinePaint is a free open-source program which is not only used by movie production studios, but is partly developed by them as well. The tool is of course very sophisticated, and started out as a fork from the Gimp project, but has since gone its own way. The interface on it will seem quite outdated, however. This program takes a learning curve.

Corel Photo-Paint - Corel was once the leader in graphics editing software, before Adobe even came along. Photo-Paint, as its name suggests, is indeed intended to be a competitor to Photoshop. It sees much use in the freelance artist field and small businesses. It is also substantially cheaper that Photoshop. It can even use Photoshop plug-ins. Its interface is also different from Photoshop’s, but many users find it easier to learn.

Pixel – The Pixel image editor is a small commercial package which is produced by a lone Slovakian programmer. It is amazingly cheap, and is the commercial program most closely compared to Photoshop. The developer may be a prodigy, because this program is portable to virtually any platform and runs very light on resources, yet accomplishes most of the same effects. however, it reflects the singular vision of a lone producer, and so there isn’t a lot of room for expansion. For a freelance or home user, it might be just the perfect fit.

Picasa – Acquired recently by our friends at Google, Picasa is a commercial freeware application which is more of an album manager with some image-editing capabilities. However, for basic tasks it is very smooth to learn and use, and is free to download and use and runs almost anywhere. It does have some filter effects and simple functions for image manipulation. This is largely targeted at the non-professional home user.

Paint.NET – This is an open-source drop-in replacement for Microsoft Windows Paint. However, it has capabilities above and beyond standard platform image software. It is actually more comparable to the Gimp that anything else, but its interface is a little easier to learn and use. Paint.NET has a large feature set and is powerful enough for daily photography use, but has not seen a great deal of uptake amongst the professional sector just yet.

Copyright Photography

Special Note: Good results with digital backdrops, backgrounds and image editing are often more easily achieved with step by step video tuition rather than trying to absorb a five hundred page book or guide. Why? Because you can actually see what needs to be done and how to do it.

If this takes your interest and you want to try it, this link provides the first of a string of free tuition videos straight after registering your interest. All you have to do is register your email address. Then, after confirming your receipt of a test email, we send the backdrop (background) and image editing videos to your inbox. It all takes a few seconds surprisingly. Later, you will be given an option to join the club but that’s up to you. You will also be informed if the club is closed for new members.

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