Tag: links

November News

Jason3 Comments

Another month goes into the archives as we enter November for 2009.  Here at the CB/LDP headquarters though, that means it’s announcement time for a couple of things, not the least of which is the latest contest news, the October newsletter, and something new for blog readers only!  Let’s start with the contest news:

Fellow blogger, NAPP member, and active LDP participant, Karen Stansel was the winner of the October giveaway.  She walked away with a Pro license of Noise Ninja from the folks over at Picture Code.  Congrats to Karen (a.k.a. Mitzs), and thanks to Picture Code.  With that contest closed, we are now into the November Giveaway.  This month a pretty cool bundle is being offered up.  The winner this go around will go home with the following prizes (yes, that’s plural!):

  • A free copy of one of Matthew Bamberg’s books on photography (don’t know who he is, listen to the latest podcast! 🙂 )
  • A DVD from Photoshop User TV – the best of the 11th year!
  • A $25 gift card to B&H Photo (just in time for the holidays)

The theme for the November contest is:  Winter (surprise surprise, since Fall was last month!)  The usual spate of guidelines applies, but to be sure you are getting all the latest, stop by the Flickr thread and read the first post.  Then, get ready and shoot because there’s only about 3 weeks again for getting your shots in.  Good luck to all!

Next up, the latest news from the podcast and blog is the October newsletter.  Painstakingly assembled over the last month after some really useful feedback, it’s now ready for download by clicking on the image below:

ldp02
Learning Digital Photography, Issue #2

In one final bit of photo goodness, and in keeping with what many others are doing, I am happy to announce that CB/LDP is also joining the fray of photogs that shares their images in the form of a monthly desktop calendar!  Download the November Newsletter for the links to the images, or follow these links here (only temporarily linked here in the blog – going to become a newsletter-only feature starting with the December issue!  I am offering up 3 sizes based on the analytics of monthly traffic.  If your desktop dimensions are not featured, let me know either in the comments or via email and I can customize one for you…otherwise, here’s the 3 dimensions:

Another little nugget I just was reminded of (this is why participating in forums is a good thing):  Don’t forget to adjust your in-camera settings on the date/time for the change in daylight savings in U.S.  (unless of course you never changed it forward in the Spring…)!  Doing so will keep your EXIF data accurate!  (Thanks to Dave from the NAPP forums for the reminder!)

Last, but not least, I would be remiss if I didn’t drop a hint to read the latest issue of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine.  Not only is it free, but it’s just chock full of great and useful resources.  Also on the site is an active community forum of fellow photogs, full of great shots, creativity, and useful advice.  All of it is worth your time, so be sure to stop in there and see everything Dave and crew has to offer…(oh yeah, I wrote an article for the October issue too!)

Tomorrow, don’t forget to tune in for a combo hardware/software review, the likes of which you’ll never believe until you read it!  (Okay, nothing that fancy, but worth keeping in your feed reader, right? 🙂 )  Happy shooting all, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow for the latest!

The first ever Comment Contest!

Jason18 Comments

After a short (and unexpected) break from blogging yesterday, here’s a Friday Free-For-All for you!

Here’s where reader input is going to be what makes or breaks the content – that’s right, I am putting it all on the reading audience.  You can link to your own site in the comments, and the “Comment Luv” plugin will show the most recent post for fellow bloggers too.  Here’s what the content topics are to chose from (you can pick one, two, three, or all of the topics to address in your comment):

  1. What are your favorite iPhone/iTouch applications (for photography)?
  2. Who would you like to see guest-write here on the blog (you can include yourself too)?
  3. If Canon Blogger were to start a monthly newsletter, what would you like to see in said newsletter?
  4. If Canon Blogger were to start publishing eBooks for download, what topics would you like to see addressed?
  5. What one photo tip would you share with others above all else to help improve their photography (and “Take off the lenscap” is not allowed! LOL)

The best part of this?  Some lucky commenter will win a $25 gift card to B&H Photo from yours truly!  Yup, no sponsors, no tricks, no gimmicks, no nothin’ but free moolah to the best photo store on the planet!  All out of my pocket!  What am I looking for?  Useful content and ideas that will help me generate more resources to share with everyone.  So, get your thinking caps on and get to commenting.  If you post a comment and think of something later, feel free to add it – but your name can only be “entered” in the Comment Contest once!

When does it end?  Midnight Sunday!  (August 30, 2009 – so if you are reading through archives and this is like March 15th, 2035, sorry, the contest is over…)

And speaking of contests, you also only have three days left to get your shots into the Flickr thread for the “Win a Wacom” contest!  The contest pool of entries has increased a tad bit, but you can’t win if you don’t play, so get a shot or two in over the weekend – as they say at the Lotto – “Hey, ya never know!”

Finally, on this last Friday of August, I’d like to share yet again, an absolutely hysterical strip from What The Duck (I shared it earlier this week), but this  just floored me, so had to give another shout out for those that haven’t picked up WTD in your readers yet (and you should!).  So, have a laugh, then have some fun and share your thoughts – the sky is the limit.  Have a great weekend everyone and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

Friday Fab Five

Jason5 Comments

For something new here on the blog, I thought it might be fun to share some of my favorite keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop.  The idea here is that people will share their top five in the comments area and we can get an idea of many more keyboard shortcuts than we ever could have found out on our own (unless of course you are some Photoshop guru like The Photoshop Guys and the trainers/instructors of the world that do this for a living and already know all the shortcuts.)

So, anyway, here’s my Friday Fab Five Photoshop shortcuts and what they do:

  1. CMD/CTRL+J = duplicates your existing layer
  2. CRTL+ALT+SHIFT+E = Stamp Visible  This takes all your visible layers and merges them onto a new layer.  Increases file size, but very cool
  3. CMD/CTRL+’ = (yes, that’s apostrophe) – it activates the grid in your preferences.  Since my grid is set to every 33.33% and one subdivision, it basically shows a Rule of Thirds grid overlay on my images – very handy for compositional cropping
  4. Left and right brackets – decrease and increase your active brush, whether it’s for clone stamp, healing brush, eraser, history brush – whatever
  5. Alt+Eyedropper = you can drag the eyedropper outside of Photoshop to sample a color in another application (great for color matching)

So, those are my five for this friday – what are yours?  Sound off in the comments!  In the meantime, have a great weekend and happy shooting! I’ll leave you with my favorite What the Duck cartoon of the week:

wtd732

Grab the Feed

Say Cheese?

Jason4 Comments

Ever wonder why we’ve heard photographers say that when taking your picture?  Think about what happens when you do – your facial features open up, your mouth opens slightly, and you get a little upward curvature in the corners of your lips.  (Unless of course you concentrate on specifically not doing that.)  Whoever thought this up eons ago was well ahead of the curve, because knowing how to take good portraiture encompasses entire volumes of books on the subject.

Volumes exist on what lenses to use, how to light, depth of fieldand much much more, but perhaps the most valuable information on how to take great portraits comes not just from technical awareness, but from personal interactions, and how to get people to act natural yet emotive and to let that come through in your work.  While no blog post could entirely exhaust the subject, here are ten quick tips on taking better portraits:

  1. Establish a connection – portraiture is about connecting with someone through the image.  If you don’t connect with them through the camera, then there will be no connection in the print.  Make sure you connect with your subjects in some way.  Get to know about them, because that knowledge can transform your vision into really beautiful works of art.
  2. Relax the subject – Connecting with your subject means they feel comfortable around you – now the key is to get them to feel comfortable in front of the camera.  Many times this is much easier said than done, but when you do get them to relax, the poses will come more fluidly, and you’ll get better results.  One way I do this is to just start taking pictures of things around us as we talk and connect.  The whole idea of hearing the shutter can be scary to some people, so by hearing it almost to excess and know it’s not on them can mitigate the “scary” factor.
  3. Choose a background – if you are in a studio environment, this is fairly easy, but if you are on location, keep your eyes out for backgrounds that provide contrast to the subject.  Are they wearing light clothes?  Look for a dark background.  What about props to give a little more meaning.  Are they sports fans?  Have them hold a football, or stand by a basketball hoop.  Backgrounds can help give more definition to your subject.
  4. Have a purpose – try to think of reasons why you are taking the picture.  Is it to record an event, or is it for a model?  What about a head shot for a business executive?  If you think of why you are taking the picture in the first place, that can help give you ideas for how to compose it.  For the event, it’s about the moment, while the portrait it’s about just the person, so give some thought to how to enhance their best qualities and minimize flaws.
  5. Create separation – this is crucial to giving definition to your subject while minimizing distractions.  In the on-location areas, look out for things like power lines, nearby light sources and other objects that may detract from the subject.  Here it also helps to keep a wider aperture so that any distractions can be effectively blurred out of focus to minimize their impact.
  6. All about the angles – Some people have great profiles.  Striking features can be accented from certain angles and can give greater impact and meaning.  Shooting from below can suggest power and strength (for the business executive), while shooting from above can minimize a body style that is more robust.  Even profile shots can be stunning if done right (hint:  try shadows there).
  7. Lights, lights, lights – photography is all about painting with light, so portraiture is no exception.  Whether it be modifying existing light with reflectors, diffusers and shoot throughs, or creating your own light with strobes and flashes positioned off to the side or from above, lighting can create a wide variety of moods and bring images to life, especially in portraiture!
  8. Watch the eyes – for any subject, whether human or animals, we like to have the eyes in focus.  It’s just the nature of people to look at the eyes in a subject, so make sure the eyes of yours are tack sharp.  Seeing a persons eyes have often been said to be a mirror to their soul.  You can get playful eyes, soulful eyes, sad eyes, sparkling eyes, weepy eyes, tear-stained eyes, angry eyes, hungry eyes, passionate eyes… (you get the eye-dea!)
  9. Clean that skin tone – this means make sure that you are keeping the tones in check.  If the skin is too orange or too blue, add or remove some flash or ambient light.  Here the key is in white balancing your images.  Take along a grey card (even something as small as a 3×5 card can work) and you can set your white balance off that – your skin tones will be spot on if you do – and save you tons of post processing time.
  10. Less is not always more – let’s all just admit it, it’s a digital world.  Those pictures are really just data packets and with data being as cheap as it is, we can afford to take more shots.  This can help with blinkers, and if you want to try several poses or wardrobe changes, or lighting changes, or location changes, or group changes (think weddings). or weather changes (think sunlight versus rain, versus cloudy), or….I think the gist is clear again here.

So, there’s ten nuggets.  I tried to be brief yet have some detail, but you can never have enough time or space to really cover something with so much to talk about in a short blog post.  With that in mind, what about your thoughts on portraiture?  Add to the pool!  Got any ideas, DIY tricks or nuggets that work for you?  Share them in the comments or via email.

Before signing out for the day, I’d like to give some special thanks to a few people.  First to Derrick Story for the helpful link from his blog post today about the tethered shooting write-up.  It’s always nice to get what I like to call “a nod from the Gods”, but not only did he write a post about my write-up, he also submitted it to the Imaging Insider, who subsequently included the write up on their site.    Second up, I’d also like to throw some NAPP-Love back to Karen from “Pursuing Photoshop” (a.k.a. Mitzs in the blogosphere, also a member of NAPP) for her link back to the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom contest currently running here on the blog – thanks Mitzs!

Oh yeah, and finally, don’t forget the Photoshop Lightroom contest I announced in last week’s podcast – it’s running over in a thread on Flickr, and the images are starting to come in.  Some really nice ones so far, but there’s plenty of time left in May to enter!  Good luck to everyone!  Well, enough content for one day, so happy shooting and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.

When it rains, it pours!

Jason3 Comments

Well, yesterday I had a great conversation with Tom Hogarty, senior Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for inclusion in the upcoming podcast.  In my excitement to finish the post production side, I came downstairs at 3am to my man-cave, and found that Jason Moore had finished an article I sent him for possible inclusion in his “Workflow Friday” series, and posted that out there.  Egads!  Thanks to Jason for that outlet as well.

What’s kind of exciting about that article, is that not only did Jason find it interesting enough to include with the collection of folks that have been featured thus far on his blog, but the good folks (Hi Dave!) over at Photography BB have released their latest free online magazine, and the article was included in there as well!  (I must be doing something right!  *grin*)  Be sure to download that magazine as well, because there really are some talented writers and photographers sharing their perspectives.  I’m also honored that Dave has included the CB Learning Digital Photography podcast in his list of favorite online media sources for photography (we’re #1 in the audio section – woOt!).

When it rains, ir really does pour!  However, because of the interview with Mr. Hogarty, the podcast is thus delayed again, because the two themes of Listener Questions and Answers and Questions with Adobe seamed together pretty well.  I may have it compiled early enough to post before the weekend, but don’t expect any miracles there.  More likely that will be published next week Tuesday under the software heading of the new schedule (since it’s about Lightroom – there’s also some great links you’ll want in the show notes).

For today though, I do have a little maintenance announcement as well: for those of you picking up the blog via Feedburner, you will likely be getting a double dose of images, because as promised, I am also uploading the images from yesterday’s post to share on Flickr, so you will likely see some repetition there.  It’s also a little exciting to share that the feedburner subscription hit an all time high not once but twice this week of 691 listeners/readers.  So, thanks to everyone that has signed up – it really means a lot that so many have found the CB resource useful!

That’s about it for this first Friday in May – have a great weekend everyone!  Happy Shooting and we’ll catch you back here on Monday for the latest in the hardware reviews.  I’ll leave you with one of my favorite selections from this past week in the What the Duck series:

wtd398sun

Friday Frenzy

Jason6 Comments

Just a quick wrap up here for the week as the day is getting late, and I’ve got miles to go before I sleep.  Um…yeah, okay, that came from a poem somewhere but I forget who wrote it or the title, so no credit line on that.

As we all know by now (unless you are in a cave somewhere in the Congo), Canon has released the 5D Mark II and the specs were posted here a few days ago.  Forums and the blogosphere have poked and prodded at just about everything they can until the camera itself comes to stores in October.  So, for the time being we will likely see just more pontificating.  As for the content here at CB, I am probably gonna draw back a little and let others wax on about it.

In more current events, Adobe released the Camera Raw update for all your product needs.  It’s now at version 4.5, and is available for Mac and Windows download free here:  Camera Raw 4.5

What the Duck had a great week from the comedic standpoint, and I really can’t pick a favorite, so just go there and read through them all!  Great stuff!

Nominations are now open for the Podcast Awards for 2008.  They close at the end of the month, so be sure to stop in and let them know who you think is deserving of the awards for this year.  I’ve also got a link to them on the sidebar with a suggestion for CB (hint hint:  Education).  There’s 22 different categories so be sure you’ve got the URL’s for all your favorites handy to plug in the appropriate content areas.  Others that I would recommend for nominations include:

The list goes on and on, but there’s only one tech category and most of the blogs I visit fit that area.  Although there is a People’s Choice category too.  As for CB, I’ll stick with the educational theme.  So, if you think I’ve helped with education in photography and photoshop at all, then add a kudo in there.  Who knows – maybe I’ll actually make the top ten in that category! 🙂 (I doubt it though…but it never hurts to self promote, so there it is!)

Also, I’ve got a new poll up on the sidebar.  After posting the features about the 5D Mark II, I thought it might be interesting to see what features people would like to see in their camera gear.  You can pick any three, so let’s Rock the Vote (so to speak), and get those opinions in.  I wanna hear from YOU!

Finally, I thought I’d share a shot I did kind of by accident.  I was trying to do some night photography with HDR in mind.  Nothing came out all that well so I just started trying all sorts of things.  Came up with this:

3 of Me
3 of Me

Do you like it?  Too much?  Not enough?  Is it too processed?  I’m kind of biased, so rather than reveal my own thoughts on this, I’ll leave it to the readership to decide if this works at all.  Please share your thoughts in the comments!

Okay,  so much for a quickie!  I’ll just leave it at that, and wish you all an excellent weekend filled with productive and creative results.  Happy Shooting!

Funny April Fools posts

JasonLeave a comment

Today was a day of mirth and merriment on the blogosphere…with lots of fun stuff specific to photography too. Here’s a few I ran across in my daily perusal:

Happy Fools Day all….if you’ve got your own stories, photos, and pranks, by all means, share ’em! The double whammy of a root canal on Thursday, and a wisdom tooth extraction yesterday has left me a little worn out, so I’ll keep it short today.  As my parting thought for the day, I’d like to throw some props out to Jason D. Moore.  He’s got a great website, with some very cool tutorials, and a blogroll of the “Who’s Who” in photography.   Regular posts will resume tomorrow. Happy shooting and watch those apertures!