Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Portrait Lighting Techniques That Will Help You Capture the Best Look of Your Subject

Every person wants to look best in his portraits and this is the reason why you are always hard-pressed to make your subject look great. Although professional portrait photography seems to be very simple, getting those perfect looks require some knowledge, preparation, and confidence. Here are some simple techniques that can vastly improve the quality of your portraits.
  • Direct harsh light creates sharp unflattering shadows and this is the reason why you must use photography lighting equipment that diffuses the light beam and soften the shadows. Instead of positioning your lighting equipments directly towards your model, bounce it from any reflector or diffuser such as an umbrella reflector or a softbox.

  • Use a three-point lighting system to give a flattering look to your model. Place your main light directly in front of the subject so that you can successfully hide the scars and other marks that the subject has on his/her face. The other two must be placed at two opposite angles from the camera. You can always replace one fill light with a reflector and use a backlight if required.

  • Even the finest photographers prefer continuous studio lighting for shooting portraits. This is because; this form of lighting can give you an idea about the final results that you will be getting. Flash photography however, doesn't give you this flexibility and is therefore, usually not recommended for shooting portraits.

  • Position your light modifier as close to your subject as possible without including it in your frame. This is because; the closer it is the better will be the illumination.

  • To give a life to your subject's hairs, elevate your photography lighting equipment that you will be using at the back. This light is very often referred as hair lights.

  • Plan your background carefully depending on the theme of your picture. If you are portraying a newlywed, a marble-colored backdrop would certainly look elegant but if you are portraying a man with a big tattoo, this backdrop will take away the beauty of the tattoo. For this, you should use a black backdrop.

  • If you are shooting fashion photographs, never position your subject's head opposite to that of his/her body. This will give a flattering look to your subject.

  • Since the face of your subject should be the main focus, try various continuous studio lighting techniques to give them sharp looks. For example; if your subject has a big nose, make him raise his chin slightly and point his nose directly towards the camera.

  • Lighting is the essence of photography. Play with it creatively to click breathtaking portraits.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

How to Make Your Own Action in Photoshop

How to Create a Photoshop Action

If like me, and many other photographers out there, you find yourself repeating things on Photoshop (often carrying out the same set of functions on numerous photos) then you really should learn how to create your own actions. Put it this way, my go to "action" is a very simple one, I now no longer have to spend time with saving my work to a specific folder as I have set up an action where I hit one key to save my work in my chosen folder (I may need to move things from here but it shortens the process no end).

Actions are in simple terms a pre-programmed set of steps that you can implement with a single key stroke or mouse click. They can be as simple as a resizing process or the save action I mentioned or as complicated as you like really, there are loads of free actions out there that others have created that let you do many things on Photoshop with ease, but here is the low down on how to create your own.

The First Steps

When you want to create a Photoshop action, it is important to know the steps you wish the action to take. By this I mean if you want to create a save action you will need to know how to go from where you are to have saved the photo, once you have
these steps ready in your head, you can begin to start creating your action.

Creating the Action

Creating an action is very simple, what you are doing is recording the steps you wish to form the full action. To achieve this select Window > Action from the menu bar and a new window will appear from here either select record action from the drop down menu or hit the "new" icon at the bottom of this window.

A new window will now appear, this is where you can set things like, Name, Set (this is where you can choose to add the action to a group of other actions), Function Key (used to set a specific F key for one key access to your action), and Colour (again a grouping tool). Select the name etc. you wish and you are ready to start recording the action.

Now click record. Then is the time to go through your pre-determined set of steps, which you wish to use for your Photoshop action. Once all steps are complete click stop and your action is complete and ready to use.

Using Your Action

When you have made your action you have a number of ways in which you can use it, the easiest (if you have set one) is to use the function key that you set. The other alternative is through the actions menu clicking on the chosen action, then the play button this will then run through.

Batch

You can simplify your workload even more by using your action on a whole batch of photographs at the same time. To do this got to File > Automate > Batch. Then select the chosen Action through the dropdown menu.

Hopefully this will now enable you to create your own stunning Photoshop Actions, if you do be sure to let us know as we are always happy to see great new actions.