Creating a Watermark in Aperture

A necessary item to have in your photograph when placing it anywhere, print or web, is a watermark.  It helps brand your photography as well as deter people from stealing your photograph to use for their own gain.

If you are using Apple Aperture, it can be a little confusing how to do such a task.  But its not all that difficult in the end.

Via Request, New Color Setting Tutorial

I shared a few pictures online that used a new color setting and I received some really good feedback, even a few requests.  With that said, Im going to share this new color setting.

I Heart Stereo Shoot with BTS

John and Brandi are an awesome duo that make up the band i Heart Stereo.  I did a shoot for them last summer and it was time for another shoot for their new website and for other promo purposes.  They are nominated for a Grammy so make sure you tune in and check that out as well.

The shots they wanted were simple, just plain white back ground and black and white.  Simple enough so we headed to the location.  We didnt want to rent out a studio so we just used white dry-wall for the backdrop.  I used two Yongnuo YN-560 flashes for my lighting setup through most of the shoot.

Live Where You Are Inspired

I just recently moved into a new place here in LA and I love it.  Its exactly what I was looking for.  First off, its cheap rent and I get my own room.  Second, the place gives me plenty of inspiration.
To me, this is important.  If your surroundings let your flourish creatively then everything you do will be creative, at least it should.  When your living surroundings are creative, you will be constantly making new ideas.  Growth, its awesome.

Here are a few places...

When Free is Bad.

Being a photographer or any artist is difficult, mostly due to the high availability of cheap equipment that anyone can afford.  It seems that any and everyone is a photographer these days.  

This is a discussion that is common among forum threads on photography websites.  It wasnt too long ago that photographers made really good money at their craft, that was until digital cameras showed up.

Usually in market places, the pro's would still do well because everyone knows good quality and thats what they want.  That is something that is quickly becoming untrue.  Clients will accept sub-par photos for the sake of meeting deadlines.

Another thing that has been true for decades is that doing free work when you start out helps boost your portfolio and gives you necessary skills which leads to great paying gigs in the future.  Skim through the creative gigs section in Craigslist and you will quickly see many potential clients looking for work but for free.  Usually its not simple work, its work that requires many hours at the computer to fit their high demands.  I know, because I have been there.

What does free work lead to these days?  More free work! YAY!!!!

However, free is not all that bad.  It has its place and its use in our society.  If it werent for free information then I wouldnt have been where I am today.  I have found that if you know how to find what you are looking for, then honestly why pay someone else to do it?  I am not a web-developer by any means, but I have built my own website from flash and HTML from just information I found on the internet.  I have pretty much learned everything I know about photography from various places and people on the internet (besides my own experimenting with the camera of course)

So is free all bad?  No I would say not at all.  In fact, I have had a change of heart and decided to start contributing and start helping people out that need it.  Your gut reaction is to ask for a fee to help someone with knowledge or experience that was forged in your own hard work.  However, when you get something for free, your usual reaction is to be more charitable, after all, freely you received so freely you should give right?  Yes, unless you are just a dick and dont want to share anything.

I have also discovered that the free exchange of ideas and speech propels our society like none other.  It creates a breeding ground for brilliant ideas to surface.

But what does that have to do with photography and doing free work?  Well, not much to be honest.  Its just the simple concept to help change your perspective perhaps.  Selfishness and greed will definitely not get you where you want to go, and you cant get where you are going all by yourself.

How to: Beautifying tips in Photoshop

Everywhere you go, you see the beautiful people filling the covers of magazines.  If you dont know by now, a lot of the work is done in Photoshop.  But what are some of the techniques used to make your model look perfect?

Here is a typical head-shot session.  Im going to skip the color correction and save that for another time.  But for now, lets focus on the retouching of the model.

Ok, before I do ANYTHING else, I always duplicate the beginning layer.  I use a Mac so its J

Really simple but very necessary incase things go bad, you always have it to revert to.  Its also good practice to continue doing this throughout the edit.

It isnt until you zoom into your subject do you start to see the flaws, dont worry, every single person has them.  Everybody has some form of acne or wrinkles so lets figure out how to get rid of them.

Above you can see that I have pointed to the Spot Healing Brush.  This is a tool I use constantly.  all you do is make the brush size to fit your need (not too big of course) and just start clicking away at acne or sunspots.  

Sometimes though, you cant fix it with the spot-healing brush.  This is where you have to use the actual Clone Stamp tool.  You can get it by just typing "s".  How it works is that you pick a spot to clone from by holding "alt/option" (on a mac that is) and then clicking your target area.  Make sure you click on an area that you want to clone and then start brushing over the "bad area"  I recommend using an opacity of about 30%, its just much easier that way to get finer details.  The clone stamp takes a lot of practice, but it always gets the job done.

Ok, after a lot of clicking to get rid of sunspots and other unwanted features, we can see that we actually did a lot to improve our picture.  Yet there is still more to do here.  We want to really smooth out the subject's face. 

This is where I show a really cool trick called the History Brush.  I never started using it until a couple of months ago, I never knew what it was and thought it was a worthless tool.  I was very wrong, its a very convenient tool and it comes in handy in situations like this.

Ok, how do we smooth out the face?

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.  When the window pops up, set it to about 10px.

Now your picture is blurry beyond recognition.  This is where the brush comes to life.

In your History box you will see the Gaussian Blur at the bottom.  Go ahead and click on the little box to the left of it and you will see a little icon take its place.

After this, make sure you backup a step, click on the last action to take place right before you did the Gaussian Blur.  Now you will notice that the picture is no longer blurry.

Now all you have to do is click on the History Brush icon or just press "Y".

Using a lower opacity and soft edge brush, about 30% or lower is best for opacity, you want to start brusing over places like the forehead and other areas that have a lot of detail.  What this is doing is smoothing out the face by applying the Gaussian Blur in small amounts.  Make sure to leave some of the areas alone, like the eyes of course.

So after you are happy with this, you might want to lighten up a few areas by using the Dodge or Burn brushes.  But if not, you ought to be done.  Go head and compare the finished result with the very beginning picture.  You will notice a huge difference.

Latest shoot - Jason Taylor

Recently a friend sent me a message saying he has a friend who needs a shoot last minute.  I said sure go ahead and send him my way.  The next day we met up and headed to the Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

Jason Taylor has just finished up his album and I got a sneak peak of it as we finished up the artwork.  The album is called love Revolution and will rock your socks off.

Here are a few shots from the photo-shoot.

Jaden Michaels Shoot. - how to shoot in direct sunlight.

Last Monday I went out to Venice Beach with an awesome friend to do a quick promo shoot for her up and coming album.  We ended up finding quick chemistry to get some really great shots.

I got to really see how my old 50mm 1.4 lens handled in the sun.  I also got to stretch my knowledge of lighting while over-powering the sun with a strobist kit.

I used my Canon 430 EX II speedlight synced with Cowboystudio's RF-604 sync system.  The whole kit was inexpensive to buy and I havent had too many quality issues with it.

The shots taken were with the sun in the background.  This usually causes a problem with dynamic range.  But using the strobist kit, I was able to fill in the shadows on her face.  There has to be a delicate balance in order for the shot to come out just right, otherwise the picture will look amateurish.

What you want to do is make sure that the background is a little underexposed, you have to meter the shots beforehand and then set it up using your manual (M) mode.  Here is where we come face to face with an obstacle.  The great thing about the 430 EX II flash is that you can do high sync speeds with it.  When shooting in direct sun you usually have to have a high shutter speed so its great to have this handy.

However, the Cowboystudio sync system only allows me to sync up to 1/250th of a second where I would want it to be over 1/2000th of a second.  In order to get a proper exposure on this day, I had to change my f-stop to about 18 which isnt a problem.  Not a big deal, just have to make sure you get a good balance.  With this I also had to have the flash on full power in order to get the balance.

This made for a fun learning experience and Im very happy with the pictures and how they came out.