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How to Conserve your DSLR Battery When You are Running Low on Power

18 Feb

The post How to Conserve your DSLR Battery When You are Running Low on Power appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

Cameras are amazing tools. However, without battery power, they aren’t particularly useful for image making. If you find yourself low on power, there are a number of ways to conserve your DSLR battery. In this article, we’ll look at a few options for stretching out the battery life of your camera when you are running low on juice.

1/15 sec, f/8, ISO 800

Lower LCD brightness

If you’re worried about trying to conserve your DSLR battery, the first thing to do is to turn down the brightness on the camera’s LCD screen. Although dimming the LCD screen can make it more difficult to review images, cutting down on LCD brightness can make a big difference in terms of battery life.

Turn off image preview

Image preview is a quick way to make sure your photographs are turning out. However, Image Preview also consumes a lot of battery power. When you need to conserve your DSLR battery, you can turn the Image Preview function off altogether. Of course, this means that Live View mode is a no-go on a low battery too.

Turn off your camera

Conserve your DSLR Battery on off switch

1/60th of a second at f/1.8, ISO 1600

One of the most obvious ways to conserve your DSLR battery is to switch the camera off altogether! This won’t be of much use if you are in the midst of a shoot, but if you have a few minutes between subjects, turning your camera off can save a lot of battery.

Don’t delete photos on the fly

Going through and deleting images in-camera can put a significant strain on battery life. Deleting images in-camera can even increase the chances of corrupting the data on your memory card. Rather than trawling through and deleting your photographs to free up space, invest in a few extra memory cards instead.

Switch off sensor cleaning

sensor cleaning

Sensor cleaning is a mechanism that cleans the sensor whenever the camera is turned on or off. When activated, the camera uses ultrasonic vibrations to try and shake loose any pesky traces of dust on the sensor. While useful, sensor cleaning uses up a considerable amount of battery life each time it enters cleaning mode. So, if you are low on battery, turn this function off via the settings menu in your camera.

Avoid cold conditions

Batteries in cooler environments tend to drain quicker than those in warmer conditions. If you can’t avoid shooting in a chilly environment, many photographers make use of hand warmers and the like to maintain battery life.

Turn off image stabilization

conserve your DSLR battery image stabilization switch

1/250th of a second, f 3.2 ISO 800

Image stabilization (or IS) is a mechanism that is used to stabilize an image when hand-holding a camera. By counteracting camera movement, IS reduces the likelihood of unwanted blur in your photographs.

However…(you guessed it), image stabilization soaks up a lot of power.

Sometimes IS is crucial, but in circumstances where the camera is mounted on a tripod or a steady surface, or you are shooting at a fast shutter speed, make sure you switch the IS function off to conserve your DSLR battery.

Check up on battery health

Camera batteries have a limited life, meaning that they do eventually need to be replaced. Keep track of battery health by consulting the battery info in-camera. Keeping an eye on trends in a batteries’ life can help you determine in advance when it might be time for a new battery.

Consider getting a battery grip

A battery grip is an accessory that attaches to the base of a camera. It provides room for an extra battery, doubling your time between charges. Battery grips also provide an additional grip for portrait-orientated shooting and can ease the strain of hand-holding longer lenses.

A battery grip aids in hand-holding the camera in a portrait orientation. 1/200 f/6.3 ISO 100

If you are finding that you are constantly pressured by a lack of battery power, or you want to ensure you won’t be caught short, you may want to invest in a battery grip.

Conclusion

Camera batteries are a key ingredient in DSLR photography. By lowering LCD brightness and switching off image preview, sensor cleaning and IS or turning off your camera between subjects, it can be a little easier to conserve your DSLR battery in a pinch.

Refraining from deleting photos on the fly, avoiding cold conditions and keeping an eye on battery health can also help to stretch the longevity of a batteries’ life between charges.

Do you have a great tip for conserving battery life in a pinch? Go ahead and post in the comments!

The post How to Conserve your DSLR Battery When You are Running Low on Power appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

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How to Photograph Beautiful Winter Snowdrops (or Other Flowers)

18 Feb

The post How to Photograph Beautiful Winter Snowdrops (or Other Flowers) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

Every year the forests and parks gain a touch of magic as the winter snowdrops emerge. For just a fleeting few weeks, their delicate flowers form beautiful white carpets that seem to flow in the weak winter sun. But sometimes, when we go out to photograph them, the results can be a little lackluster.

It seems like it shouldn’t be hard to take a great snowdrop photo, and yet many photographers really struggle to capture their beauty. Here are some of my top tips when it comes to the art of photographing these tiny flowers. Don’t forget your macro lens or close-up filters to get the best shots.

Get down low

When the flower you’re photographing doesn’t stand taller than the top of your boots, you’re going to have to get yourself and your camera down close to the floor for a worm’s eye view. For this reason, I always keep a couple of carrier bags in my camera gear. The alternative is wet knees and elbows, so I recommend you do the same!

ISO100, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f2.8, 1/550th sec

You can either rest the camera on the floor or use a very small tripod. Alternatively, some full-size tripods can invert, allowing you to get the camera down close to the ground.

Once you’ve got your camera down low, you can either use the screen to compose or the camera’s phone app (if it has one). I’d also suggest using manual focus for these kinds of shots; otherwise, you might find that your camera’s auto-focus locks on to errant blades of grass rather than the winter snowdrops themselves.

Choose interesting light

It’s hard to guarantee interesting light if you’re going out on location, but there are a few things that you can do to help swing the odds in your favor.

Heading out to your preferred winter snowdrops patch either first thing in the morning or during sunset can give you a better chance of having more interesting light. In the morning, you will also get the beautiful dew that makes specular highlights in the out of focus areas, adding extra magic to your photos (but you could also add “dew” with a spray bottle – I won’t tell anyone).

Left: ISO100, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f2.8, 1/320th sec. Right: ISO200, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f2.8, 1/4000th sec

Look for an opportunity to backlight the flowers with the sun. The light coming from behind can really highlight the thin white petals. You might want to add a small reflector or a pop of fill-flash to the front of the flower if you try this approach.

Of course, if you plan ahead, you could also grow winter snowdrops in a pot at home. That way, you can take them indoors when they start to bloom and spend as long as you like experimenting with different kinds of lighting!

Think about the depth of field

Your aperture choice can really make or break your snowdrop photo. Because it sets how much of your image is in focus, it’s the camera setting that requires the most thought for flower photos.

Deciding if you want a wide depth of field, or to focus on just one small part of the scene, is the choice that is going to make the biggest visual statement. It’s also one that you can’t reverse after the shot.

Both approaches have merit, and if you’re in any doubt, try shooting at a variety of aperture settings and choosing later.

My favorite way to shoot small flowers is with a shallow depth of field. This helps the viewer focus on just the subject without the background becoming distracting.

The image on the left was shot at f2, while the image on the right was shot at f8. Both were shot at ISO200, on a 35mm (50mm equiv.), lens.

A shallow depth of field also allows a single snowdrop to stand in isolation in your photograph, showing off its beauty. This approach can be especially good if the snowdrop is an unusual variety – some types of snowdrops can cost a huge amount per plant!

But if you’re trying to capture the vastness of a white carpet of snowdrops, then a larger depth of field can be more effective. That way, you can show the beauty of the mass of flowers without them all blending into one.

Post-process creatively

Many photographers shoot winter snowdrops every year, and a lot of images make it online. It’s easy to get lost amongst the crowd when it comes to photographs of snowdrops. Post-processing your images creatively can be both a good way to learn more about your software, as well as a chance to produce something truly unique.

ISO100, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f1.4, 1/1250th sec

You could go for post-processing that is as simple as a basic color grading. Emulating one of the different kinds of old film stocks might be a good place to start. Don’t forget to consider photographing with a black and white conversion in mind too – the white flowers really pop off a green grass background when you go black and white!

If you’re feeling adventurous, you could try adding textures to the image, or even following my method for layering multiple photographs in Adobe Photoshop.

There are no rules in flower photography, so let your imagination run wild when it comes to creative post-processing.

Try something abstract

These perfect clumps of little white flowers give you a great opportunity to try out something a little more experimental and off-beat. If you’ve not tried shooting abstract images before, just remember to approach the process with an open mind and try not to get hung up on what other people might think.

You could start off by trying an unconventional angle or using a tine depth of field to focus on just one part of the flower. Use the colors of the petals and the lines of the stems to create strong compositions where the subject itself is of secondary importance.

Both: ISO100, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f16, 1/4th sec

Alternatively, how about trying out some ICM – intentional camera movement?

Set a long shutter speed (I usually start around 1/4 sec) and give the camera a wiggle while the shutter is open. You may find that you need to use a very small aperture or add a neutral density filter to your lens to allow for the long shutter speed without overexposing the image.

The technique is gaining popularity amongst many abstract photographers, and everyone has their preferred wiggle method!

When it comes to this kind of image-making, the key is to approach it with no expectations and not to be disappointed if you don’t get amazing results the first time.

As always, practice does make perfect, and it takes more than one attempt to create a masterpiece!

Take your camera for a walk and shoot

As always, the most important thing is to get shooting and start somewhere. You’ve only got a limited window of opportunity to photograph the snowdrops, so make the most of it while they’re in full bloom.

ISO100, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f2.5, 1/480th sec

The easiest way to find displays of snowdrops will be to follow the social media pages of country houses or landscaped gardens near you. They often use their social media pages to notify subscribers of whatever seasonal flowers are at their best.

You could also ask on local photography groups if anyone has an idea for other hotspots to find snowdrops – they often crop up in woodlands and parks that have been around a long time.

Don’t forget that these ideas can apply to plenty of other kinds of flowers too. But you might find that none are quite such showstoppers as the delicate little winter snowdrops.

So, go out and shoot some winter snowdrops and share them with us in the comments below!

The post How to Photograph Beautiful Winter Snowdrops (or Other Flowers) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

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The Canon Rebel T8i/850D Revealed With 7 FPS Shooting and 4K Video

18 Feb

The post The Canon Rebel T8i/850D Revealed With 7 FPS Shooting and 4K Video appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

Canon hasn’t given up on its DSLRs yet.

While we’ve seen the imaging giant shift its resources to mirrorless tech in recent years, it seems that Canon still plans to keep its DSLR lineup going.

At least for a little while.

Because the Canon Rebel T8i, also known as the Canon EOS 850D, was announced just days ago, along with specifications that give us a good idea of what the camera will offer and who it’s for.

If you’re an entry-level Canon DSLR shooter or a vlogger, then the T8i looks to be a fine (though not thrilling) option. You get an APS-C, 24.1-megapixel sensor with the potential to shoot up to ISO 25600 (ISO 51200 when expanded). You also get a DIGIC 8 processor, 7 frames-per-second continuous shooting, a 45-point AF system, and 4K/24p video.

Those familiar with the T7i/EOS 800D will undoubtedly notice the lack of major differences between the T8i and the T7i, because it seems that Canon went for a minor set of changes rather than a moderate upgrade.

That said, three key differences are:

7 frames-per-second shooting (7.5 fps in Live View) versus 6 frames-per-second shooting in the T7i
A new processor (DIGIC 8 versus the T7i’s DIGIC 7). This is responsible for the improved continuous shooting speed.
4k video

Probably the biggest among these changes is the added 4K video, as many reviewers lamented its lack of inclusion in the T7i. But the T8i’s 4K video comes with a big qualification: Canon’s fantastic Dual Pixel autofocus, which performs extraordinarily well in Live View, won’t work. Instead, you must shoot at 1080p for access to Dual Pixel AF; otherwise, you’re stuck with contrast-detection AF, a system that’s historically much slower than its Dual Pixel counterpart.

In terms of image quality, we can expect something very similar to the T7i, which performed well but hardly managed to astonish. And while the 24-megapixel count is enough for most enthusiasts, I can’t help but wish Canon had pushed the T8i a bit further. We know that they can, having seen the 32.5 MP resolution capabilities produced by the APS-C Canon 90D.

As for speed, the extra frame per second probably won’t matter much to the average user of this camera. Either you’re doing more serious action work, in which case a frame-per-second more can be the difference between a failed shot and a nailed shot, or you’re an entry-level consumer or enthusiast in this camera’s target market, in which case the minor speed upgrade doesn’t matter much.

While the Canon Rebel T8i doesn’t yet have a release date, the camera should drop for $ 900 (including an 18-55mm kit lens), or $ 750 USD (body only).

So what do you think of the new Canon Rebel T8i/850D? Are you satisfied? Were you hoping for something more? Or do you want Canon to focus entirely on mirrorless? Share your thoughts in the comments!

The post The Canon Rebel T8i/850D Revealed With 7 FPS Shooting and 4K Video appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

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Flat Lay Photography – How to Make Yours Stand Out from the Rest

18 Feb

The post Flat Lay Photography – How to Make Yours Stand Out from the Rest appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Lily Sawyer.

If you’re on social media, you may have come across flat lay photographs. They have become very popular over recent years and can be successful scroll-stoppers on sites such as Instagram when done properly.

What is flat lay photography?

Simply defined, flay lay photography means a photograph where the subject/s are arranged on a flat surface and photographed from above. It is also sometimes called the bird’s eye view.

The surface and the lens are positioned parallel to each other from a vertical distance apart, and therefore, no angles are visible. The surface is flat, and the image shows a singular dimension taken from a parallel position above the surface.

However, this does not mean that your image should look flat. This article will discuss factors that contribute to achieving interesting flat lay photographs without the image looking necessarily flat, especially if that is not your intention.

dps-how-to-do-flatlay-photography-successfully

f/2.8 ISO 1000 SS 1/125

What can you shoot in the flat lay style?

Because flat lay photography is a style or a format, you can shoot just about anything! The only consideration is the size of the subject.

If you had a drone camera, for example, then you can shoot landscapes and mansions in a flat lay fashion, much like aerial photography.

However, drone photography is not only limited to aerial photography. You can use a drone to capture normal objects in flat lay format. What is generally available to us are mobile phones and digital cameras, which are small. So they can limit the size of what we can shoot given the vertical distance requirements.

People

You can photograph people lying down on the grass or on the bed from above, and that would be considered flat lay.

Newborns are easier to photograph from this angle because they are small. You can capture their entire bodies plus a background from a short distance, such as the newborn images below.

f/4 ISO 1000 SS 1/125 Off-camera flash in a strip softbox to the side and a reflector on the opposite side

Objects

You can photograph just about any object in the flat lay style. Smaller objects grouped into a space together is the simplest way of doing this.

The photo below required very little styling, and I photographed it in a bright and evenly-lit space; hence there are no dominant shadows in the photo.

f/1.8 ISO 400 SS 1/160

Food

One of the most common subjects photographed in this style is food. A plateful of food is small enough to snap a picture of so quickly. It often requires minimum styling, especially if you are dining in a restaurant, as often the food is already presented well on the plates.

Instagram is peppered with food photos, both styled and unstyled, and flat lay can add the wow factor without much effort.

The photos below are unstyled and are quick snaps of the food served at a reception. I photographed these indoors with directional on-camera flash as the rooms had little light.

f/4 ISO 2000 SS 1/125

Flowers

I love photographing flowers. They are packed with texture and color and offer limitless styling possibilities. The top photo below, I shot on the floor in a hotel room. I wanted to capture the invitations styled with the flowers and needed more distance, so I used a wide-angle lens 24-70 at around 35mm.

Below is a photo of two bouquets taken from the bird’s eye view. These bouquets are fairly big, so I had to stand up and take the shot with the bouquets on the floor.

When taking flat lay photos using a DSLR and a heavy lens, it is quite difficult to keep all the gear steady while shooting straight down without a tripod. This is the reason why I rarely go below 1/125 sec shutter speed when doing so.

f/2.8 ISO 1000 SS 1/160

Jewelry

Another one of my favorite subjects to use when photographing flat lay style is jewelry. I love juxtaposing jewels and metallic textures next to soft fabrics of various kinds. The layering of textures injects lots of interest in an image.

This brings us to some tips on how to enhance flat lay images, so they don’t look boring and too flat.

f/2.8 ISO 400 SS 1/160

Tips

In my opinion, the handiest and easiest equipment to use when doing flay lay photography is your mobile phone. It’s light, has a versatile lens (which also has a fairly wide-angle), and you don’t even have to set the settings yourself! It’s super easy.

However, some phone cameras are better than others, so you can’t guarantee how good your photos turn out – especially when available light is fairly low.

Lighting

Whatever camera you use, the first, and in my opinion, the most important consideration to take is lighting. Make sure there is ample light, so your subject is well lit. You can opt for a bright and airy look with hardly any shadows, or choose a moodier look using shadows.

I like having directional light that casts some shadows because I feel they add another dimension to an image. The easiest way to check where your dominant light is coming from is to look at where the shadows fall.

On the baby photo below, the room was bright and airy. I positioned the baby on the bed, away from the window. However, the main light comes from a huge window on the left. As you can see, the shadows fall on the right. However, because it is quite a large light source, the shadows are subtle.

f/4 ISO 800 SS 1/160

I snapped the photos below using natural light coming from a window, but a smaller window this time to achieve a dark moody look.

f/2.8 ISO 400 SS 1/160

If you want to eliminate shadows altogether, you can use a reflector opposite the main light to counteract the shadows. Alternatively, use a lightbox to light the space evenly.

Layers

The photo below is a social media advert for a brand. I shot it with a mobile phone that has a mediocre camera. While I have applied a filter to it, both resulted in rather grainy photos. However, they were clear enough for the brand to be happy with them.

In terms of lighting, ample light came from a side window and a velux window above. However, I wanted more of an impact, so I created layers of color and objects.

There’s the dark blue background as the first bottom layer, the fairy lights and decorations on the table as the second layer, the product as the third layer, and finally, hands as the fourth and top layer.

Layering increases the dynamic in a photo and makes it more interesting.

mobile phone photo

Another way of creating layers is to use a very shallow depth of field. This creates an illusion of infinity for the background.

The below photo is of a rose on a vase with centrally-positioned rings to be the topmost layer of the image. However, you can’t see the surface where the vase sits because of the shallow depth of field and the use of a macro lens. In this case, I used the 60mm and shot at close range, which when using a macro lens, produces background compression and bokeh.

f/7.1 ISO 1000 SS/ 1/125

Composition

Composition is of utmost importance as it can make or break a photo.

Every photo has a certain type of composition used in them, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Well-executed composition elevates the level of success of a photo because composition plays a significant role in engaging and connecting with the viewer.

The photo below uses the rule of thirds – one of the simplest yet strongest compositional structures there is. Alternatively, the photo below it shows a centered composition.

f/1.8 ISO 400 SS 1/200

It is easier to play around with composition when you have a variety of objects to use. Take the photos below where the labels and invitations were used along with the flowers to create different compositions.

f/2.8 ISO 200 SS 1/250

Color and contrast

The key to creating successful visual images when you are limited to a flat lay dimension is color and contrast.

A darker background creates a strong contrast against lighter or brighter objects, thereby allowing enough separation to give an illusion of multi-dimensionality, as shown in the photos below.

f/4 ISO 1000 SS 1/200

Where color might be too subtle to create a bold pop, utilize contrast with a variety of textures instead.

As shown in the photos below, delicate flowers lay against a weathered wood grain and pastel-colored invites against rough concrete.

f/2.8 ISO 200 SS 1/200

Style

There are a plethora of styles you can use when photographing flat lay. Illustrated in the photos below are two opposite styles: elegant and minimalist (top two photos) and homely and maximalist (bottom photo).

f/5.6 ISO 800 SS 1/200

f/ 5.6 ISO 2000 SS 1/160

For website purposes, I shot the photos below as a clean branding style against a seamless white background.

f/5.6 ISO 400 SS 1/125 using off camera flashes

Conclusion

I hope this article has given you ideas on the different ways you can capture an image using the flat lay photography style. Flay lay photography is a super-creative medium – the possibilities are endless. You can achieve some high impact photos if done successfully.

Do you have any other flat lay photography tips you’d like to share? Alternatively, do you have some flat lay photographs you’d like to share? If so, please share them with us in the comments section.

The post Flat Lay Photography – How to Make Yours Stand Out from the Rest appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Lily Sawyer.

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Tips for Retouching Skin in Photoshop That You Need to Know

16 Feb

The post Tips for Retouching Skin in Photoshop That You Need to Know appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

When it comes to retouching skin in Photoshop, there are a lot of tools and techniques available to you. Some of these are fairly easy and self-explanatory, like the Healing Brush. Others, like frequency separation, are complicated multi-step processes. They involve such obscure features of Photoshop that you would never be able to figure it out on your own. Many of the skin retouching techniques are useful and work well when used together with one another.

This article will provide you a set of tips to get the most out of some of the most common and most useful (read: my opinion) of these techniques. It assumes you have a basic understanding of how to use them. If you don’t, there are a myriad of good quality tutorials available.

Tips for retouching skin in Photoshop.

Tutorials

Here’s a short list of tutorials for all of the techniques listed in this article:

Healing Brush
Patch Tool
Clone Stamp
Frequency Separation
Dodging and Burning

Healing Brush

The Healing Brush is probably going to be the first thing you reach for when you are retouching skin in Photoshop. It’s a somewhat intuitive tool, that doesn’t take that long to figure out and it is very effective at what it does.

To get the very best results from using the healing brush:

1. Work on a new layer

When working with the healing brush, be sure to work on a new blank layer. That way, you can be sure that you are not altering your original image. This also allows you to make changes later.

To do this, press the New Layer button on the Layers palette or press Ctrl+Shift+n (Cmd+Shift+n Mac). With the new layer set up, be sure that the drop-down box for the Healing Brush labeled “sample” is set to Current and Below.

Using the healing brush for retouching skin in Photoshop.

Working on a blank layer will ensure you can undo any changes you make should you decide to later.

2. Use as small of a brush as possible

You can quickly change your brush size with the bracket keys ( { and } ). Try to keep the brush just big enough to cover only the blemish that you are trying to remove.

Image: For the best results, use a brush size that is just bigger than the blemish you are trying to...

For the best results, use a brush size that is just bigger than the blemish you are trying to remove. This ensures that you don’t make too many alterations to the natural pattern of the skin.

3. Sample often

Don’t make a sample selection just once – do it often. Do it between every blemish if you can. This may seem like a lot of effort, but with practice, it’s really not. Your images will be better for it too.

4. Zoom in

To make sure that you are only trying to heal blemishes, and not the area of skin around them, zoom in as far as you need to.

I understand some photographer’s reticence to zoom in to 400% to 500% for the sake of retouching, but doing so will make sure that you only affect the areas of your subject’s skin that need it.

This tip (and the next one) doesn’t just apply to the Healing Brush. Do this with every skin retouching technique listed here.

Image: Zooming in allows you to be more precise with your adjustments and leads to more natural-look...

Zooming in allows you to be more precise with your adjustments and leads to more natural-looking results.

5. Zoom back out

When you are very zoomed in on your subject, you can get lost in all of the details that you can now see. Make it a point to zoom back out frequently so you can make sure that the changes you are making are actually affecting what you can see on the image at 100%. This can save you hours.

6. Don’t paint

Instead of painting with the Healing Brush, just press once (or click with a mouse) over the blemish you are trying to remove. This will limit the alterations to the surrounding skin.

Using the healing brush for skin retouching in Photoshop.

Painting with the healing brush leads to weird artifacts. To avoid these, simply click on the blemish you want to remove and nothing more.

Patch tool

The patch tool is a powerful utility that allows you to select an area that you want to retouch with a lasso and then drag that over to a sample area that you want to use to fill that first area in. It’s fairly easy to use, but it can be tricky at first.

1. Work on a new layer

You can use a copy of your background layer.

If you’ve already created and worked on a few layers at this stage, you can press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E (Cmd+Alt+Shift+E – Mac) to create a new layer with all of those adjustments merged into it.

This will allow you to reduce the opacity of what you’ve done with the patch tool in case you go too far. It will also make it easy to delete the layer and start from scratch if need be.

Image: The patch tool can’t be used with an empty layer. Instead, duplicate your background la...

The patch tool can’t be used with an empty layer. Instead, duplicate your background layer and work on the copy. If you’re later on in your workflow, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+e (Cmd+Alt+Shift+e) to stamp all existing layers into a new one above the rest.

2. Avoid the content-aware fill

In terms of skin, the Content-Aware Patch Tool never seems to perform very well. Instead, leave the mode set to normal and use the Patch Tool that way. For things like backgrounds, by all means, use content-aware; just avoid it for skin retouching.

Image: Content-aware fill, as it works with the Patch Tool, is great for many things, but skin is no...

Content-aware fill, as it works with the Patch Tool, is great for many things, but skin is not one of them. Although this was sampled from a very similar part of his face, content-aware has made a mess of it.

3. Patch small areas

It’s tempting to just select a large area of skin and try to work that way. However, this will only serve to create a bunch of artifacts on your subject’s skin. Keeping your selections small allows you more control over the end result and will result in fewer problems down the line.

4. Use similar tonal areas

When possible, use a sample area that’s similar in tone to your selection area. This will reduce the chances of creating problematic artifacts and blur.

Using the patch tool for skin retouching in Photoshop.

Here, you can see the various areas of similar tonality circled in red. When using the Patch Tool, try to sample from similar areas of tonality.

5. Reduce opacity

Once you’ve done the work that you want to with the patch tool, feel free to reduce the opacity of the layer that you are working on. This can help to hide a heavy handed approach and help to give more natural looking results. This tip applies to pretty much every other skin retouching technique as well.

Clone stamp

When you are retouching skin in Photoshop, the clone stamp tool will probably be one of your least used tools. It’s tricky to use and it’s often easier and faster to get similar results with other techniques. The one notable exception is when you are using frequency separation (covered below).

1. Use a soft brush

This may be a preference, but the Clone Stamp is a heavy-handed tool that makes drastic changes with a single click. By using a soft-edged brush, you will reduce the impact of the area of skin around the blemish you are removing.

To get to your brush menu, just right-click.

Image: This may be preference, but for the most part, you will want to use the softest brush possibl...

This may be preference, but for the most part, you will want to use the softest brush possible when using the Clone Stamp. The Clone Stamp is a very aggressive tool that can affect skin patterns in an undesirable way if used without care.

2. Do not paint

As with the Healing Brush, do your best not to paint an area of skin with the Clone Stamp. Try to keep the affected area limited to an individual blemish, pore or other marks.

Using the clone stamp for retouching skin in Photoshop.

Even though the sampled area was identical in tone, you can see the results of painting with the clone stamp tool in one large stroke.

3. Use sparingly

Again this may be personal preference talking, but try to resort to the Clone Stamp when it’s the only tool left for the job, at least in terms of skin retouching. The problems this tool can create with odd aberrations in skin texture patterns are hardly worth the risk.

Frequency Separation

Frequency Separation is one of those techniques that appears as overcomplicated sorcery at first glance. Once you’ve learned the fundamentals of the technique and how to set it up, it’s actually quite easy. It’s also a very powerful technique that can transform your skin retouching workflow. It is; however, very easy to go overboard with this technique and a heavy hand will result in less than ideal results. Once you’ve got the implementation and the basics of frequency separation down, there are a few tips to help you get the best results.

1. Gaussian Blur settings

When setting up your frequency separation layers, keep the Gaussian Blur settings to the lowest possible number while it is still obscuring all of the detail in your subject’s skin.

“4” is a good number to start with, but it might vary depending on the resolution you’re working with and how much of the frame your subject’s face fills.

Image: When setting up your Low-Frequency layer, use just enough blur to remove all of the skin text...

When setting up your Low-Frequency layer, use just enough blur to remove all of the skin texture in that layer. Here, Gaussian Blur was set to 2.

2. Blur

When applying Gaussian Blur to your Low-Frequency layer, keep the amount of blur to either equal or less than the amount that you used when setting up the layer in the first place.

3. Blur – Tones

Only blur areas of skin that are a similar tone. Blurring midtones and highlights (or shadows and midtones, or any other combination) can result in muddied tones that often don’t look good. Keep your selections to areas of similar tonality to avoid these muddied tones.

Using frequency separation for skin retouching in Photoshop.

When applying blur to sections of your Low-Frequency layer, try to make your selections in areas of similar tones. This will still help to smooth the tonal transitions without muddying them.

4. Zoom in

Ensure that you are zooming in to at least 100% on your images to watch for any hard edges that may appear while applying blur.

This can happen as you get close to hard edges within your frames, such as lips and eyes. If they do start appearing, you can reduce the amount of blur you are using, or you can make a new selection farther away from the areas causing you trouble.

5. Clone Stamp

For the High-Frequency layer, you just need to be careful with how you use the Clone Stamp. As above, the Clone Stamp is best used on very small areas with a single click. Sample often and don’t paint with it and you should be fine.

Dodging and Burning

Probably the most powerful and versatile of the techniques listed in this article, Dodging and Burning might as well be considered an essential tool for anyone that expects to be doing a lot of skin retouching. There are a lot of ways to do dodging and burning, but for the sake of these tips, I am going to refer to the method that involves using a 50% gray layer set to Overlay that you then paint on with the brush tool with white to lighten the tones and with black to darken them.

1. Keep the brush flow at 1%

Like all skin retouching techniques, subtlety is the key, and with the brushes flow at 1%, you can slowly build up any alterations that you are making.

Dodging and burning for skin retouching in Photoshop.

When dodging and burning on a grey layer, set the flow of your brush to 1%. This will allow you to build strokes slowly for more natural results.

Using dodging and burning for skin retouching in Photoshop

Circled at the top: The flow for the brush was set to 10%. Circled at the bottom: The flow here was 1% You can see the drastic difference just 9% makes on the flow settings.

2. Try to avoid broad strokes

Instead of trying to alter large aspects of your image at one time (for example, lightening an entire forehead in one go), zoom in on the area you want to work on and work on areas of a similar tone. By working with smaller areas, you will get more natural results.

3. Use multiple layers

If you are using broad strokes and working on finer detail with dodging and burning in the same image, do both of these on separate layers. Dedicate one to each layer.

With the large brush strokes, you will likely be more concentrated on overall contrast. You will often want to use a Gaussian blur on your brush strokes to even them out too.

This is not the case with fine detail where your brushstrokes should only deal with tiny, precise areas.

For very fine control over your image, use a different layer for dodging and burning all of the sections of your image. This will allow you to alter, or get rid of any changes you might change your mind about later on without undoing all of your work elsewhere.

4. Use a small brush

Skin has a lot of fine detail in which the light in your scene passes over and creates contrast. It’s this contrast on the skin that creates the appearance of blemishes in your photos.

Because these blemishes are often small, you want to try and use a brush that is at least as small as the area you are working to lighten and darken with dodging and burning. This will ensure that you are lowering the contrast – therefore lowering the visibility of the blemishes – rather than adding it where you don’t want to.

5. Use Ctrl+z (Cmd+z) often

When you’re using a technique like dodging and burning for retouching skin in Photoshop, you are using a lot of little adjustments, maybe even thousands of them, to build up to a finished result. You will get some of these wrong. Don’t be afraid to undo anything you’ve done if it isn’t right.

6. Reduce the Layer Opacity

Once you’ve done any adjustments that you are going to make with dodging and burning, try reducing the opacity of the layer(s) to see if you can get a better result with less of an effect.

With a time-consuming technique like this, it is easy to get lost in it and go overboard. Sometimes reducing the effect at the end is just what is needed for a more natural result.

When you’re finished with your dodging and burning, you can always turn the opacity of the layer down to see if you might have gone too far. It’s a good idea to always at least look, even if you don’t decide to lower the opacity in the end.

7. Zoom way in

Unless your image will never be printed and only viewed in a small resolution, zoom as far into your images as you dare while retouching skin in Photoshop (this applies to all of the techniques here) to achieve the absolute best results.

Sometimes, you will find that you need to be zoomed in at 300-500% to see all of the detail that you need to work with. Sure, working this way takes a lot longer and is intimidating to think about, but putting that amount of effort in will help you to achieve better results.

The end

There are, of course, many other techniques available for retouching skin in Photoshop, but these are the ones that I use the most often.

If you’re new to these techniques, you now (hopefully) have a few tips to help you figure out how to make the very most out of them.

Of course, with techniques like these, there are always more ways to do things. If you have any tips of your own on retouching skin in Photoshop, please feel free to share them below.

The post Tips for Retouching Skin in Photoshop That You Need to Know appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

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Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool – What it is and How to Use it

16 Feb

The post Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool – What it is and How to Use it appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mat Coker.

You’ve likely faced that frustrating moment when you can’t get kids or families to smile for a portrait. Maybe it’s even worse and you make people grumpier when you try to take their picture. If you look through your photos and wish there were more smiles, the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool can help with that.

You can retouch facial expressions and not have to be intimidated by the process anymore. Photoshop Elements 2020 (a simplified version of Photoshop) allows you to put a smile on faces using a simple slider tool.

Let’s look at how this tool works and the best situations to use it.

Photoshop Elements claims that the Smile Tool can turn a frown upside down. Let’s see if it really works that well.

What is the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool?

Photoshop Elements is a simplified version of Photoshop. Adobe has introduced many automations that make Photoshop’s essential tools easier to use. Photoshop Elements gives you the power of Photoshop without the overwhelming number of complicated features found in the full Photoshop program.

The Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool allows you to easily put a smile on your subjects face using a slider rather than the usual complicated tools.

So, if you’ve made a mess of faces with the liquify tool, this will give you better results!

Before and after editing portrait facial features

It took less than 10 seconds to enhance his smile.

Who is the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool for?

The Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool is for you if you want the power of Photoshop to retouch smiles without the learning curve of Photoshop’s many tools.

If you’re hoping that you won’t have to make people smile anymore because you can “just fix it in post,” this tool isn’t for you.

Think of this tool as an insurance policy. If you fail to make your subject smile for real, there is hope that this tool can help. But you should try your best to get a good smile in the first place.

How does the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool work?

This tool is very simple to use.

Open your photo in Photoshop Elements 2020.
Go to the Enhance dropdown menu.
Then go to Adjust Facial Features.

Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool

Photoshop Elements will auto-detect your subject’s face.

The Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool is now available as a slider on the right-hand panel.

You’re ready to adjust the overall smile and even make fine detail improvements to the lips, eyes, nose, and face shape.

But before you get too excited, you should keep your adjustments as small and subtle as possible. You can too easily distort a face.

photoshop elements smile tool auto detect

The tool has no problem detecting a face that takes up a significant portion of the frame. But it does have trouble detecting small faces, especially in a group photo.

How well does the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool work?

Adobe claims that you can transform frowns into smiles. Will it really work that well for you?

Let me give you a spoiler. No, the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool won’t transform a frown into a smile. At least I couldn’t figure out how to do it.

I brought up the corners of his lips, which produced only a hint of positivity in his mouth. His eyes have also been enlarged. But how do you remove the furrowed brow? You can’t. It’s too late to fix this smile in post-production. The right moment to fix this smile was the moment the photo was being taken.

Again, even after extensive use of the tool, there is very little difference between these two photos. It takes more than upturning the mouth to make a frowny face look happy.

What if you start with a neutral face?

You can not fix a frown with the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool. But when you begin with neutral emotion the results are more impressive.

The first photo looks more serious, while the second has a small smile. Moving the slider too far seemed to produce a very fake-looking smile.

Before and after editing a head and shoulders portrait

Again, the tool works well when beginning with neutral emotion and adding a subtle smile.

Sometimes it won’t detect a face

While experimenting with different photos, I discovered that Photoshop Elements will often fail to detect all the faces in group photos. But I found that when I cropped in closer and the faces became more prominent, they could then be detected.

I had to rotate a newborn photo so that Photoshop Elements would detect the face.

Perhaps the program can only detect a face when a person is sitting upright.

Rotating the photo allowed the program to detect the face.

But upturning the lips and enlarging the eyes only produced an awkward expression.

Begin with a photo that has potential

The Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool will not turn a frown or awkward expression into a smile. You need to begin with a neutral expression or a small smile if you want the tool to works it’s best.

The human face is too complex and meaningful to transform a deep expression with a simple slider. When it comes to scowls and frowns, the entire face is involved.

Perhaps someday the tool will be able to detect the unique contours and subtleties of the emotions written on our face. But for now, you’ll need to use other magical powers to manipulate the human face.

Yes, you can manipulate the human face without needing Photoshop or any other post-processing software.

How to make people smile for real

Your goal is a portrait of smiling people. You need a plan in order to make that happen.

For most photographers, the plan is to just tell their subject to smile. That’s an okay place to start, but that doesn’t always work.

You may have to confront the fact that you don’t always know how to make people smile or bring out the best in them. Perhaps you even upset people when you’re trying to make them smile.

Here are three ways to help people smile for their photo without simply commanding them (or using Photoshop later on):

Energy
Comedy
Praise

The amount of positive energy that you bring to the session will be reflected back at you. Negative energy will always come back worse, positive energy will always come back better. Do not bring harsh tones and negative energy to your photo sessions.

Comedy makes people laugh. Notice that comedians don’t tell people to laugh, they just say funny things and (most) people laugh spontaneously. Be funny for the people you’re photographing and they will smile.

People normally have a nice smile in real life but a fake smile for the camera. They need to be praised and told whenever they are showing a good natural smile. That way they know how it feels when they have a natural smile and can produce it for the camera. Also, praise will make them smile even more. Eventually, they’ll smile just because you tell them they have a nice smile.

I’ve learned all this the hard way. As a family photographer, I could make other people’s kids smile but not my own. I made my kids miserable by becoming a dictator when I wanted a photo. Very few people smile when being bossed around by a dictator.

I realized they will smile naturally if I stop barking orders and turn the photo session into a comedy routine. I got far better results as an engaging person.

Dealing with grumpy kids during photo sessions

The result of commanding them to smile.

The result of being a comedian.

Use it sparingly

The Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool will help put a smile on your subject’s face, but it won’t help you to become a better photographer or the sort of person that makes others happy.

This tool is not for you if you consistently miss smiles and hope to fix them in post-production. I think the solution for all of us is to learn to engage other people and bring out the best in them.

Be thankful for the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool, but plan to use it in case of emergency. You’ll feel really good letting people know that you don’t have to “Photoshop” the smiles in your photos.

Have you used the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool? What are your thoughts? Share them with us in the comments.

The post Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool – What it is and How to Use it appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mat Coker.

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5 Tips For Mastering Contrast In Your Landscape Photos (video)

15 Feb

The post 5 Tips For Mastering Contrast In Your Landscape Photos (video) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

Okay. So you’ve taken your landscape photos and you are back at the computer with your RAW files, ready to start editing in Lightroom. Before you do, you may want to watch this video by Mark Denney, so you can learn 5 handy tips for mastering contrast in your landscape photos.

You can achieve varying levels of contrast in a number of ways. See which sliders make the most impact and how they work to boost and drop contrast levels to different degrees. In some scenarios, you may want to enhance contrast, when light is flat, for example. At other times, such as when there are already severe contrasting light levels, where you may need to pare it back.

So check out the video, see how you can use the various sliders in Lightroom and try them out on your images. Then, feel free to share your results with us in the comments section.

You may also find the following interesting:

The dPS Top Landscape Photography Tips of 2019
11 Surefire Landscape Photography Tips
How to Plan the Perfect Landscape Photo
How to Embrace MINIMALISM for IMPROVED Landscape Photos (video)
6 Important Compositional Elements to Consider When Shooting Landscapes
Which Landscape Photography Camera Should You Buy?(video)
6 Ways to Easily Improve Your Landscape Photography
Living Landscapes
Loving Landscapes

The post 5 Tips For Mastering Contrast In Your Landscape Photos (video) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

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Weekly Photography Challenge – Pink

15 Feb

The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Pink appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

This week’s photography challenge topic is the color PINK!

Image: Photo by dPS writer, Megan Kennedy © Megan Kennedy

This is a fun challenge. You can capture the color pink in so many ways. You can use minimalist photography, macro, flowers, landscapes (think pink sunsets, or wildflowers), cityscapes, abstracts or people wearing pink clothing. The pink can be a major part of the composition or be more subtle, like in the portrait below by dPS writer, Matt Murray. There are so many options!

So, check out these pics to give you some ideas, have fun, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Check out some of the articles below that give you tips on this week’s challenge.

Tips for Shooting the color PINK

Mastering Color Series – The Psychology and Evolution of the Color PINK and its use in Photography

How to Use Color in Your Photography to Give Your Photos the Wow Factor

How to Use Vibrant Colors in Photography with Great Success

How to use Monochromatic Color to Convey more Emotion in your Photography

Understanding the Basics of Color

Tips for Doing More Spectacular Sunset Photography

Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer, upload them to your favorite photo-sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your best images in this week’s challenge.

Share in the dPS Facebook Group

You can also share your images in the dPS Facebook group as the challenge is posted there each week as well.

If you tag your photos on Flickr, Instagram, Twitter or other sites – tag them as #DPSpink to help others find them. Linking back to this page might also help others know what you’re doing so that they can share in the fun.

The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Pink appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

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Tips for Cyber-Scouting Photo Locations So You Can Get the Best Shots

14 Feb

The post Tips for Cyber-Scouting Photo Locations So You Can Get the Best Shots appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

You’ve saved money to go to that great photo spot, marked your calendar, put in for vacation time, and are already thinking about the photos you want to make. The trouble is, you’ve never been there. Your time will be limited. You want to be able to use it to make pictures, not scouting to find where to go and when to be there for best locations and light. How can you “know before you go?” Welcome to the “Twenty-Twenties,” a time when cyber-scouting photo locations can be the next best thing to being there.

Where is this? You tell me. Cyber-scouting photo locations will teach you how to see before you go, log GPS coordinates, and then get to the specific spot once you’re near. 1/100 – f/11 – ISO 200. Now, plug these coordinates into your browser and tell me where this is – 42°4’55.464″N 113°43’31.974″W

Cyber-scouting?

I thought I’d coined a new term, but a quick Google search proved otherwise.

Many people who are planning trips now “cyber-scout” the internet to pre-plan their journey. Hunters, backpackers, vacation travelers – all kinds of folks have discovered the usefulness of these online tools.

It only makes sense that we, as photographers, tap into the ability to see photos and survey sites we’re planning to visit before we even get there.

My photo buddy Dan and I made a dream-trip a few years ago, photographing New England in the autumn. Living 2,600 miles away in Idaho, it wasn’t like we had much familiarity with the area. As we’d only be there less than a week, scouting once we had “boots on the ground” wasn’t going to be possible.

Wasting time getting lost wasn’t an option either.

Avalanche Falls, Flume Gorge, New Hampshire

Had I not done some cyber-scouting for photo locations before my New England Trip, I’d never have known about Avalanche Falls in the Flume Gorge of New Hampshire. Moreover, I would have never been able to make this shot. 5 seconds, f/20, ISO 200

Dan prefers not to see too many photos of a spot before he goes, concerned it will overly influence what he shoots. He’d rather see it with “new eyes” and create unique compositions.

I can appreciate that viewpoint, but I’m different.

Planning a trip, pre-visualizing the locations, seeing the spots, and anticipating being there is like getting two trips in one. It’s a virtual-reality vacation, plus a real-reality trip where, once I’m there, I already have some familiarity. Different strokes, I guess.

It worked though – I became the planner/navigator, and he just made great shots on the trip. (He’s a much better photographer than I, but that’s another story for another day.)

Pre-Planning a photo trip with Google MyMaps

Once I located locations we might want to go, I plotted everything out using my GPS coordinates and Google MyMaps.

Where to be and when to be there

When asked the secret to his great photos, a famous New York spot-news photographer is thought to have originated this photography quote –

“f/8 and be there.” – Arthur “Weegee” Fellig

The idea is that being at the right location at the right time is more important to make a great photo than all the technical equipment and technique combined. So, when you are planning to photograph somewhere you’ve never been, how do you know what are good locations, and what are good times to be there?

That is precisely the reason for cyber-scouting photo locations.

A GPS primer

Locations can be referred to in many ways. The simplest is the place name. Photographer friends we told about going to New England said a not-to-miss spot was Acadia National Park. Good general information, but how about specific spots?

Okay, “be sure to get to the Bass Harbor Lighthouse,” they said. Traditionally, we might have found the spot with a paper map, written directions, and perhaps some coaching from the locals.

Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse in Google Earth

A search for the Bass Harbor Lighthouse on Google Earth and there you are.

These days we have GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) navigation equipment, in our cars, on our phones, and in many other devices. Any spot on Earth with an unobstructed line-of-sight view to four or more GPS satellites can be precisely defined.

The Bass Harbor Lighthouse is at 44°13’19.27N, 68°20’14.79W.

The first set of numbers is how far north of the equator the place is, the second how far west of the Prime Meridian – unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere.

Places south of the equator and east of the Prime Meridian have GPS coordinates like this: 33°51’23.68S, 151°12’53.49E. These are coordinates for the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

Copy and paste those coordinates into your web browser, and you’ll bring up a map of those precise spots.

Sydney Opera House GPS coordinates in Google Earth

In the southern hemisphere, the GPS coordinates are slightly different. The Sydney Opera House in Australia is “down under” with coordinates south and east of the Prime Meridian.

We’ll come back to why you want to know this in a bit. In the meantime, stick a pin in that spot while we explore other ways to develop a list of locations you want to visit on your photo trip.

Books

You remember books, right? Those paper things we read before we had computers, tablets, phones, and other devices?

If the spot for your trip is well-known, the chances are good that someone will have written a book about it. For our trip, we picked up “Photographing Acadia National Park,” by Colleen Minuk-Sperry. It turned out to be a great resource.

We later took a workshop with Dave Long of Blue Hour Photo Ventures. Dave has written numerous e-books on great New England photo locations and has included the GPS coordinates of each spot, making cyber-scouting them online and later getting there a breeze.

Find out if there are good books written about your intended photo location.

Location Websites

Do you think there’s a spot no one has written about on a website?

Guess again.

Say your boss decides to send you on a business trip to Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland. (If he does, he might be telling you something). Should you take your camera?

Where is it, and what’s there?

Google “Top Photo Spots in Ittoqqortoormiit” and yup, you’ll find photos. You’ll find companies giving photo tours. You’ll find photos on 500px by others who have been there.

Even though it is one of the most remote places in the world, you can still cyber-scout it and know what you’ll see before you go. (Or I can view the photos a friend of mine in our photo club took when he visited Greenland with noted landscape photographer Art Wolfe. Unbelievable!)

Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland with Google Earth

Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland is listed as one of the most remote populated places on earth, yet cyber-scouting photo locations with Google Earth makes it easy to take a “virtual tour.”

My point is, it’s unlikely you’ll find a place anywhere in the world not discussed and pictured on the web. Plugin the GPS coordinates (70.4849752,-21.9729592) for Ittoqqortoormiit (don’t worry if you can’t pronounce it), and off you go, no sled dogs required.

Photo websites

I couldn’t even begin to name all the online sites where photographers post their photos. Cyber-scouting photo locations on such sites can be a virtual tour of the area you plan to visit.

See a spot you like? Make a note of the place name and then search for it. 500px is a favorite place of mine. For our Acadia National Park trip, I found over 7,000 photos. Heck, even for Ittoqqortoormiit, there were 81 photos the night I checked.

Flickr alone had over 6,000 posted photos of the Bass Harbor Lighthouse when I checked. I think there might have been half of those photographers there the day we visited! Iconic spots have become even more known since the internet.

Another good photo location to check is Flickr. (They had over 1,500 photos of Ittoqqortoomiit when I looked.)

Many of the photos posted there have the GPS coordinates recorded, and with a few clicks, you’re off on your virtual tour.

Come fly with me

What if you could send your “virtual drone” off on a mission cyber-scouting photo locations? That’s pretty much what you have with Google Earth.

“Fly” to a location, see it from different angles, zoom in, look for place names, see photos others have taken there, and get the GPS coordinates.

It’s a great way to scout a spot before going.

Bass Harbor Lighthouse Summer Sunset - Google Earth

Use the emulation mode of Google Earth to enter the date and time, turn on the sun, move the slider and see when and where the sunset will be. On 8/18/20 it will be straight up the shoreline from the lighthouse and set at 7:31 p.m. EDT.

Let’s fly over the Bass Harbor Lighthouse. Which would be the better angle – shoot toward the east or west? What if I want to get the sunset?

If I’m there on a particular date, where will the sun set, and at what time? How will it all line-up? Google Earth can emulate all of that.

Fly to the spot, activate the sunlight slider, enter the time and date you plan to be there, and move the slider to watch how the light moves across the landscape. Cool huh?

The wildcard is what the weather will be when you’re there.

You can anticipate the weather a couple of days out with weather apps. You can decide if you should go or maybe seek an alternate spot.

Another reason for cyber-scouting photo locations is to have a “Plan-B” should the weather not cooperate.

There are also a bunch of good weather apps useful for photographers. Even with all my best scouting, the evening we went to the Bass Harbor Lighthouse, the sunset was a bust with heavy cloud cover. Some things still can’t be totally planned. Still, I thought I made a decent shot, regardless.

Cyber-Scouting Photo Locations - Bass Harbor Lighthouse on a cloudy day

It’s hard to make a unique shot of this location, especially with a few dozen other photographers all standing a few feet apart hoping for a nice sunset. All my cyber-scouting still couldn’t conjure better light. You do what you can. 6 seconds – f/11 – ISO 200

Make your shot different

One problem with going to an iconic photo location is that so many other photographers have probably been there already (you’re likely to find a pack there when you go), and made thousands of shots.

Take advantage of the ability of Google Earth’s fly-over capabilities to look for different compositions. Check the landforms, angles, the way the light falls at certain times of the day, and how you can create different and interesting images.

When you find a spot, “drop a pin.” Note the GPS coordinates, and then you’ll be able to find that unique spot once you’re onsite.

If you ride a tour bus and get off at Vista Point, you can make this shot. It’s not bad, but it’s sure not unique. Thousands of tourists get essentially the same shot every day.

Let’s use an example.

If you go to San Francisco, you’re probably going to want to photograph the Golden Gate Bridge. If you ride a tourist bus and do what a jillion other people have done, they’ll stop at Vista Point on the north side of the bridge. Line up with a thousand other photographers (and even more “happy snappers”), and take the same basic shot everyone gets.

Yawn.

Instead, use Google Earth for cyber-scouting the location.

You might learn if you went to Marshall’s Beach over the southwest side of the bridge, you could get a much less-photographed vantage point. With some creativity, good light, and a dose of photographer’s luck, your shot won’t be like the one the folks on the tourist bus will take thousands of times each day.

Cyber-scouting for photo locations - Golden Gate Bridge from Marshalls Beach - Google Earth

Send up your “virtual drone” with Google Earth, “fly” around and you might spot this much more interesting and less photographed vantage point of the Golden Gate Bridge from Marshall’s Beach.

Back on the ground with the Peg Man

Another way for cyber-scouting photo locations is to make friends with the Google Maps “Peg Man.” That’s what some call the little character you can move to a spot and get a virtual POV (Point-of-View) look at the area, much as if you were really there.

Let’s head back to Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland.

Open Google Maps and search for the place (if you can spell it). If not, perhaps you saved the GPS coordinates – 70.4844397,-21.9701898?

Click on the map that appears in your browser to open Google Maps. Now look for the Peg Man, he’s that little guy at the bottom right of the screen.

Click on him.

If the streets on your map turn blue, you can then click, hold, drag, and drop him on a spot. You will be whisked away to a POV street view of the spot.

You can now “walk” the streets by clicking in the direction you want to go. Have a look around by clicking, holding, and dragging your mouse left and right. Roll the center mouse wheel to zoom in and out.

It’s almost like being there without having to wear a parka.

A virtual walk on the streets of Ittoqqortoormiit with Google Maps

Take a virtual walk on the streets of Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland by dropping the “Peg Man” in Google Maps. It seems kinda quiet, but then there are only about 450 people who live here in one of the most remote places on earth.

Maybe a more picturesque spot? Let’s go to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.

Type that into Google Maps. It’s bit more populated there, right?

Click the Peg Man over this map, and you will not only see the blue-colored streets, but you will also see blue “Photo Spheres.” Click on one of these, and you’ll have a 360-degree panorama where you can really get a look around.

Yeah, it’s a little more crowded than Ittoqqortoormiit, but as you can “tour” the entire city this way, maybe you can find a unique vantage point for a photo not currently done a million times.

Paris is a bit more populated than Ittoqqortoormiit. Enter Eiffel Tower in Google Maps and get this map. From here, drop the Peg Man to roam the streets or click a “Photo Sphere” to see a 360-degree panorama from that spot.

Cyber-scouting photo locations - A Pigeon in my panorama

There’s a pigeon in my panorama! Cyber-scouting photo locations could help you discover when and where to be for this shot. With a long exposure or some skill with the cloning tool, you could also vanish the people. Just watch out for pigeons.

When to be there

I mentioned the two essentials in planning for a great photo:

Knowing where to go, and
Knowing when to be there.

I’ve covered a few of the tools and techniques for cyber-scouting photo locations – the “where” part of that equation.

There are other tools that will help you know “when.”

Photographers know that great light and the specific spot are keys to making an image that goes above and beyond average. Some online tools and apps can help with that too.

Rather than get into all of those here, let me direct you to another DPS article by author Pete DeMarco, “6 of the Best Smartphone Apps for Travel and Landscape Photography.” In it he discusses:

PhotoPills
The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE)
Sun Surveyor
Tide Charts Near Me
Maps.me
Wunderground

About those GPS coordinates

You remember I said to note GPS coordinates? This is a great way to keep track of, map, and use GPS devices to get you to those spots once you are on location.

You may be able to import a .kmz file or can at least manually input your list of location GPS data into your portable dashtop GPS device. Bring it with you on your trip, and you’ll be set to navigate to all your spots.

These articles were written a few years ago, just before my epic New England trip. What proved most useful was transferring my GPS data into my Garmin Navigator dashtop GPS device.

I used transferred the .kmz file, but also learned that it was easy enough to type the GPS coordinates into the device and save them as locations.

I took the Garmin in my suitcase, set it up in the rental car once in Boston, clicked the location we wanted to go to, and bingo…off we went.

The beauty of the Garmin is it worked completely off the satellite, no internet connection required.

I was surprised how often we didn’t have internet availability, even in what seemed only “hills” by a westerners’ perspective.

The lesson learned – don’t count on your phone, tablet, or other internet-required devices for navigation. A stand-alone GPS navigation device (Garmin, Magellan, Tom Tom, etc.), which requires only a satellite connection, is a much more reliable option.

Analog backup

Cyber-scouting photo locations before your trip is a fun way to “see” and know-before-you-go the spots you’d like to photograph.

Electronic GPS devices can be a great way to get to the spots you’ve planned on visiting. But should it all go south, the connections don’t connect, and the power fails, an old-fashioned paper map and a compass is a good “Plan B” to have in your pack.

Just sayin’.

Of course, don’t overlook talking to the locals, or even better, local photographers who know the great spots. Also, hiring a guide can be well worth it, especially if you are in a foreign place.

For now, though, do some cyber-scouting, and get excited about your upcoming photo trip.

When you get back with some awesome images, post a few in the comments section below and tell us about your adventure.

Happy trails.

The post Tips for Cyber-Scouting Photo Locations So You Can Get the Best Shots appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

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News: When to Expect Sigma’s Full-Frame Foveon Camera

14 Feb

The post News: When to Expect Sigma’s Full-Frame Foveon Camera appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

Back in 2018, Sigma announced it would be creating a new kind of camera: an L-mount, full-frame mirrorless body with a Foveon sensor.

In 2019, Sigma gave an update, indicating that the Foveon full-frame body would debut in 2020.

And then, just days ago, Sigma announced that the full-frame Foveon wasn’t even close to production-ready:

As a result of careful and rigorous testing based on the latest development information, however, it has become clear that the launch of such a camera would be infeasible within this year. Still at this point, we cannot say for certain when the full-frame Foveon X3 sensor will be put into mass production.

Unfortunately, it looks like we won’t be seeing the Foveon sensor in a full-frame camera for quite a while, though it’s encouraging that Sigma hasn’t scrapped the project entirely. Of course, only time will tell whether the company meets its end goal of a full-frame Foveon option.

Sigma has created a number of cameras with Foveon technology in the past, including two recent mirrorless bodies that separately feature APS-C and APS-H size sensors (note that APS-H sensors sit between the smaller APS-C and the larger full-frame, 35mm sensors). But Sigma’s only current full-frame digital camera, and only current Sigma full-frame camera to use an L-mount, uses a standard imagining sensor, not the Foveon tech that gets consumers excited.

What is it about the Foveon sensor that’s so special?

To understand this you should also be familiar with standard (Bayer) sensors, which dedicate a single RGB color to each pixel/photosite. Light hits the Bayer sensor, and is filtered into the corresponding photosites: red light enters into red photosites, blue light enters into blue photosites, and green light enters into green photosites.

Then, through a process called demosaicing, the full-sized color image is determined based on the already-existing color data.

Foveon sensors, on the other hand, toss this out the window. Instead of dedicating a single photosite to each color, Foveon sensors capture data for three colors per photosite, resulting in more information captured per pixel and better sharpness overall.

Note that the full-frame Foveon is planned to incorporate the L-mount, and will, therefore, handle L-mount lenses that are produced by Panasonic and Leica, in addition to Sigma’s own L-mount glass.

For now, I recommend keeping an eye out for news regarding Sigma’s new camera. And, if we’re lucky, we’ll have some information before the year is out.

Are you excited about this camera technology? Will you be buying this camera when it is finally released? Share with us in the comments section.

The post News: When to Expect Sigma’s Full-Frame Foveon Camera appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

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