A really cool idea to spruce up your shots.

Ok I finally had a Sunday off last month and I was able to get to go out with Redeye, an organization for reaching out to different creative types like you and I.  Anyways, they had a white sheet set up as a wall and I dont know what they were going to use it for.  However, I had an idea that would make for a fun experience with the camera.

You can do this for very little money actually.  Buy any white sheet from somewhere and buy some PVC piping to make a wall.  Build the frame with the PVC pipe and stretch the sheet to make your wall.  Its really simple and cheap too.

It will end up looking like this which may or may not excite you all that much due to it not being all that fancy and pretty.

Ok, so after that, set up your strobe behind it with your wireless sync.  I was using my trust Cybersync system from paul c buff, attached to my trust Canon 430EX II.  Use the wall as a shoot through umbrella type setup.  This will allow you to get some really nice diffused light on your subjects.

Pretty nifty eh?  It gives you really nice broad light that isn't harsh and will cover a whole group of people.

Also whats fun, is using it as a silhouette wall, which turned out to be a big hit.  People will love getting in front to have their picture taken.

See what I mean?  

Then all you have to do is convert your image to black and white, do a crop and maybe a curves adjustment.  

Ok, so now you have a little something extra to maybe include in your next event shoot or maybe something to put into your studio.  This will definitely allow you to stick out more as a photographer and people are going to remember you much easier because you did something unique and fun.

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.