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Overview of Photo Studio Ultimate 2018 for Windows by ACDSee

01 Sep

ACDSee has released Photo Studio Ultimate 2018 for Windows and is the new update for their photo editing software. They have given it a new name, introduced new features, and made improvements to others. With so many people looking for other software packages that you don’t have to pay a monthly subscription for, this makes it a very attractive program for people to use.

Overview of Photo Studio Ultimate 2018 for Windows by ACDSee

What part of Photo Studio Ultimate 2018 looks like when you open it up.

I recently wrote an article, Photo Editing Alternative – An Overview of ACDSee Ultimate 10, that will guide you through the different modes and what they do. If you are new to this software, it would be best if you read that first. This review goes into more detail about Edit mode and what is possible. It will also look at some of the features that are now available in this new release.

First Impressions

It would be easy to expect it to look like Photoshop when you first open it up. However, there are many similarities that can help make it more familiar to use. You can work in layers for your images, which enables you to go back and make adjustments to particular ones or delete them if you no longer want them. Many of the adjustments and tools have similar names which make it easier for you to learn. You can use the History function to go back to see what you have done. You can work nondestructively so your original images are always protected.

Edit Mode, working on an image.

There are also many differences. Some of the tools may have the same name, but to get the same results you have to use them in a different way. When you click on one of the tools and adjustments in the Edit mode menu, located on the left side of the workspace, you are taken to a different screen to make the changes. When you are done, you click either Done or Cancel, and you are taken back to the main Edit mode window.

New and Improved

As you start using Photo Studio Ultimate, you will find many new tools and adjustments to help you work on your images. The latest release features many new tools that work really well and will be mentioned soon. It also includes older tools, which have been developed over decades, yet still, stand up to today’s demand. The software is becoming very sophisticated and should suit the needs of most.

Working on an image in Edit Mode.

There are so many improvements, it would be hard to do them all in one article. So, this overview is focused on the ones that ACDSee is the most excited about and those that I really like.

Pixel Targeting

There is a new feature in the software that gives you more opportunities to be creative with your work. You can select a specific color to apply adjustments to, for example, you may want to make the reds brighter, or tone them down. You may want to sharpen only the greens. Or you can decide to change all the yellow tones to purple. With Pixel Targeting, you can do so as you please. You can also apply masks to specific colors or brightness ranges.

Using Pixel Targeting to give the yellows and oranges more saturation.

One application that a lot of people may use this feature for is to convert an image to black and white and have just one color coming through. By selecting your image and then going to Select to choose Pixel Targeting, you can decide which color you want to select. Once you click OK, you will see your selection and when you add the Black and White adjustment layer, the selection is turned into the mask. You will have your image in monochrome, except for the one chosen color.

Using the tool to select which color you will target with Pixel Targeting.

It is easy to use, although, you may have to play around with it a little. Remember that all colors are made of other colors. You may also need to do more work on the mask to get the look you really want. Overall, it does a decent job of the task, and there will be many people who will like this function.

Once you have done the selection and created the mask, then inverted it, you are left with color only for the tulips.

Smart Erase Tool

Along the top of the toolbar in Edit mode you will find the Smart Erase tool. This tool allows you to remove objects in your image that you don’t like, or don’t want. You often find unwanted subjects in your images, and being able to remove them is important. This has always been one of the best things about digital photography.

The tool is easy to use; you simply click on the image and start painting over what you want to be removed. You can set it to show up as a red overlay so that you can see what you’re doing.

When you find an unwanted person in an image you can use the Smart Erase to remove them. The Red shows where it is being applied and then the final result.

The Smart Erase tool seems to work best on small areas and on images with a plain background. Think about what you want to remove and look at the size of it, and the background. If you don’t get the results you’re looking for, you can always run the Smart Erase command again and again until you get a natural look. Play around and see what you can achieve.

The Smart Erase did a good job of removing the woman from just inside the door.

Liquify

The Liquify tool is what they use in the fashion industry to make models thinner. It is easy to use, however, should always be done with caution and used subtly. This tool allows you to move the pixels around to where you want them.

You can use Liquify to move pixels around and to make someone look slimmer.

You can turn objects in your images into funny shapes with the Liquify tool. However, common sense and what works best for the image always must be the first consideration.

Inside the tool, there is a Restore setting, which allows you to brush or push the moved pixels back into place without losing image quality. Even after you press Done in the Liquify tool, you can still undo while still in Edit mode. That said, since the Liquify tool is not a non-destructive adjustment layer, you cannot exit out of Edit mode and then later undo what you did.

Why would you use it? It is usually used to change parts of people, to remove a double chin, or a bit of overhanging skin. You can make people thinner, as previously noted. You can pull the waist in, or make legs that look a little less chunky, or make clothes fit better. Every time you use it, remember you are moving all the pixels in the area, and that includes the background.

The Liquify tool is great to play around with to familiarize yourself with what it does. Try out the different settings within the tool to see which one will suits your needs.

You can just play with it to see what else you can do. This flower now looks crazy, but great effect.

Frequency Separation

This is a technique used by many portrait photographers. It allows you to soften the skin, but keep detail around the eyes, nose, and mouth. When doing close-ups of people, you often find the skin looks dry, or you may see the pores. By using Frequency Separation, you can add some blur to the skin, but leave the detail at the same time.

What a normal face looks like just after you have taken the photo.

In other programs, you need to do the layers yourself and work it all out. But with Photo Studio Ultimate, you just click the Frequency Separation button and it works like an action, separating the high-frequency and low-frequency layers for you. It will provide the low-frequency layer for blurring and then the high-frequency layer that holds the detail. You are all set to go.

You can use Frequency Separation to give their skin a much softer appearance.

This is a great tool and anyone doing portraits will find it useful. It doesn’t require a lot of research to figure out how to use it and anyone could start playing with it. You could try and use it with other types of photography as well. I’ve tried it on images of macro flowers and have found it really good. There are possibly other ways of using it as well.

Frequency Separation was used on the flower to soften parts and give more detail to the edges.

Lens Correction and Perspective Correction

It’s always good to use lens correction wherever possible. It helps fix up any distortions that your particular lens will give an image.

You can also use the Perspective Correction, which will allow you to change the perspective. If you have an image that looks strange because all the buildings are pointing in towards the center, you can correct them. You can click on the corners and move them so you get what you remember seeing, buildings with straight lines.

Using the Lens Correction and Perspective Correction together to make buildings straighter.

In some ways, the Perspective Correction is far more useful than Lens Correction. It is not something that Photoshop seems to offer. You can do it, but have to do it in a completely different way. This works really well and I use it a lot.

Chromatic Aberration

These are colored lines that appear around objects in your images. They seem to appear around buildings a lot but can happen anywhere. Chromatic aberration is caused by your lens, and there is nothing you can do to stop it, but you can work on this in post-production.

Photo Studio Ultimate has a special adjustment for correcting chromatic aberration. You will find it under the Repair section in the column on the left. Click it and you will get a new window where you find five sliders. Zoom into 100% on the image so you can see the edges and the aberrations. Move the sliders around and see what happens. Each image is going to be different, so you might have to try different adjustments.

Using the Chromatic Aberration adjustment to remove the color fringes around objects caused by your lens.

Once you are happy, press Done and it will take you back to the normal workspace.

Split Tone

A new split tone adjustment layer has been added so that you can nondestructively tint highlights and shadows in Edit Mode. As an adjustment layer, you have the advantage of being able to apply split toning any time in your processing, and on several layers. You can also easily delete the layer if you decide you don’t like it.

A before and after with the Split Toning.

Clone Tool Pressure Slider

If you go to the Edit mode menu and look under Repair, you will see the Repair Tool. When you click on it, you are taken to the work area for the tool and from there, you can see the options, Heal or Clone. If you click Clone, a new slider will appear called Pressure under the Nib Width and Feathering sliders. This allows you to control the strength of the cloning.

At the default setting, it will do a straight copy. However, as you reduce it, the strength is also decreased. This is especially useful when you want to want to clone something out, but you don’t want to lose all the detail. A perfect example is when you want to reduce the darkness under someone’s eyes. You want to reduce the dark color, but you may want to keep the lines that are there as well but soften them at the same time.

Adjusting the Pressure slide for the Clone tool you can use to it remove the bags under the eyes, without taking away too much of the detail.

A Couple More Options to Mention

A Grain tool has been added to Edit Mode. You can add grain to your images to give it texture and create a vintage effect.

A new tool has been added to the toolkit; the Polygon Selection Tool. This selection tool and allows you to select an object in your image by pressing on the outside of it and doing like a dot to dot to get the selection you want.

Working in a Different Way

If you are used to using a program, like Photoshop, you will find that some functions don’t work the same. That is to be expected, it is different software. However, it doesn’t take you long to get your head around how you can do certain processes. In many ways, you do have to think outside the box, and so far I’ve managed to find many ways to do what I would do in Photoshop by using different tools.

I do a lot of processing in Photoshop and I wanted to see if I could achieve a similar look on one of my images, this is the final result. It’s good.

Overall

It is good to see other software that makes it possible to do just about anything you want to your image. While Photo Studio Ultimate may not be as big as Photoshop, there is no doubt that it will enable you to do just about everything you want to your images. The new release will offer users more tools and adjustments to help them get the look they want. It is a great program and one of the best alternatives I’ve seen. You can download and have a free trial for 30 days. Just remember that you will have to work differently, but it is worth it.

The post Overview of Photo Studio Ultimate 2018 for Windows by ACDSee by Leanne Cole appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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How to Make Your Own DIY Light Box with Tape, Paper and a Window

01 Sep

Photographers are pretty savvy when it comes to saving money. This DIY light box is a surprisingly simple method for photographing small, translucent objects like flower petals.

Remember holding sheets of paper against a window to trace out a design? This process is similar in technique. The sheet of baking paper will act as a diffuser, spreading light evenly through a translucent object so it can be photographed in detail. Using a well-lit sheet of paper also isolates the subject from the background with a nice, even, white backdrop. Plus, you get to take great photos without leaving the comfort of your own home. So really, it’s win-win!

Make Your Own DIY Light Box

Supplies you will need

Camera
Tripod
Macro lens or extension tubes
A well-lit glass window or door
Butcher’s paper
Clear sticky tape
Glass cleaner or rubbing alcohol
Eucalyptus oil (for removing any remaining sticky tape from the glass surface once you have finished shooting)
Small transparent objects to photograph (I like using flowers)

Picking a location

Before you start, you’ll need to locate a light source. While the butcher’s paper will serve as a background for your image, you’ll need a strong, even amount of light to illuminate the subject.

Depending on the time of day, you might have to try different windows around your house. The position of the sun will dictate the strength of the light penetrating the butcher’s paper. Choose a window that is unimpeded by exterior blinds or trees if possible.

Capturing the intricate detail of organic materials like leaves is made much easier with the glow of light coming through the subject from behind.

Setting up

Once you’ve settled on a well-lit window, you’ll need to prepare the glass. Wipe a small amount of rubbing alcohol or glass cleaner over the window and pat down with a cloth. This will minimize any particles that may impede light from coming through. It will also allow the sticky tape to adhere to the glass more effectively. Make sure that the glass surface is completely dry, however, or the tape and butcher’s paper will become soggy and unusable.

Take your piece of butcher’s paper and hold it against the window. The reason I use butcher’s paper is because I’ve found that run-of-the-mill copy-paper disperses light in mottled and uneven patches, which looks poor in photographs. Butcher’s paper diffuses light more evenly and makes for a uniformly white background. You can use a piece as large as you like, just make sure there is enough paper to fill the viewfinder in your camera.

Not all paper is created equal. This is an example of the uneven, mottled light caused by a sheet of standard A4 copy paper.

Fix your piece of butcher’s paper to the glass. I recommend using clear sticky tape rather than blue-tack or colored tape because it may show up in your photographs and can wrinkle the paper. Once you have fixed the paper flush with the glass, you can begin adding your subjects.

Carefully stick your objects to the butcher’s paper with small amounts of clear sticky tape. This can be tricky on a vertical surface, so having lightweight, translucent subject matter like flowers work best. I also like to sit on a chair for this part, to avoid a backache.

Fix your subject matter to the butcher’s paper with bits of clear sticky tape.

Taking the shot

Once your subjects have been adequately adhered to your butcher’s paper, it’s time to get the camera out. Mount your camera on a tripod and position it so that the subject and the butcher’s paper fill your viewfinder. To capture the detail in your subject, a macro lens is ideal. I used my Kenko extension tubes to get a nice detailed shot. Of course, you could also arrange larger subjects or patterns on the butcher’s paper, focusing on pattern and light rather than macro detail.

Set your camera to Aperture priority mode (Av on Canon and A on Nikon) and adjust the aperture to allow for the desired depth of field. Remember, to maintain focus throughout the whole image, use a smaller aperture like f/22. However, this may be limited depending on the lens you use.

For the sharpest detail, using a low ISO count is also a good idea. Although this will cause your camera to automatically increase the shutter speed, your tripod will minimize camera shake, especially if you view your composition using with the LCD screen and Live View rather than the viewfinder.

Make Your Own DIY Light Box

Conclusion

Once you start photographing, you’ll notice the diffused light enveloping and illuminating your subjects. With the abundance of the soft light, you’ll discover that detail is much easier to capture and view. Using this butcher’s paper method eliminates pesky shadows, allowing the subject to lift off the background with striking contrast and intricacy.

Try photographing all sorts of flowers, fruits, leaves and other transparent materials and see your subjects in a whole new light!

Make Your Own DIY Light Box

The post How to Make Your Own DIY Light Box with Tape, Paper and a Window by Megan Kennedy appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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How to Understand the Difference Between TTL Versus Manual Flash Modes

01 Sep

It is no secret that the popup flash which comes built-in to your digital camera simply isn’t enough in most situations. For a variety of reasons, shooting using just the popup flash is not a feasible option. That is why you will find photographers everywhere you look, going for an external flash and using it increasingly during their shoots.

External flash, also known by the term “speedlight” provides many benefits and advantages to photographers, even while shooting in extremely low light conditions. They allow us to have a far superior control over the lighting of an image. Flashes are available in the market from a variety of manufacturers including camera makers like Canon and Nikon, or third-party companies like Godox, Yongnuo, Nissin, etc.

How to Understanding Your Flash Settings: TTL Versus Manual Mode

If you step out in the market to buy your first flash, you will come across two variants, a fully manual flash, and a TTL (Through The Lens) flash. You may end up getting confused over which flash will suit you the best and which one you should invest your money in. Both the Manual and TTL flash have their own plus and minus points which appeal to photographers. What is important is to properly understand their systems, functionalities, advantages, and disadvantages.

Understanding Manual Flash

On a fully Manual flash, there is no control (d either by the camera or the flash) over the intensity or duration of the light emitted from the flash. Instead, it is the photographer who controls the output of the flash by adjusting the settings, either in-camera or on the flash itself.

While using a manual flash, there are four controls you can use to set your flash output manually as per your requirements:

Adjust the ISO on the camera.
Raise or lower the level of output from oyur flash (½, ¼, 1/8th power, etc.)
Alter the distance between the subject and the flash (light source).
Adjust the aperture value on the camera.

How to Understanding Your Flash Settings: TTL Versus Manual Mode

Manual mode – check the user manual for your flash to see how to set it.

Not all flashes are equal

An important point to remember and consider is that the majority of flashes can shoot in manual mode, but not every flash can shoot in TTL mode. A manual flash also gives you specific control over the light and exposure, and allows you to set it exactly to your requirements. You do not have to use exposure compensation while using a manual flash as your composition, frame, etc., does not have any affect on the overall exposure and lighting of the scene.

Pros and cons of manual flash

In situations where the distance between the flash and the subject is constant and fixed, you can opt to use manual flash settings. A manual flash is extremely useful in situations where you have to fire away a series of shots of the subject repeatedly, under similar exposure conditions. E.g., in food photography, product shoots, and more this is the case. The power level is fixed, and it remains the same, which ensures that the exposure does not vary from shot to shot.

Manual flash works best when the subject is not moving like this setup, posed shot.

One of the main drawbacks of using a flash in manual mode is that you still need to figure out the optimal power output needed to obtain the correct exposure, which can be a time consuming process. And thus, a manual flash can mainly be used while shooting portraits, headshots, and fine art. In other words, in situations where you can take time to setup the scene.

Many also believe that manual mode is the best to use to learn about external flash photography. You choose the output, click the picture and then review it. If it does not come out the way you were expecting and wanted it to, then you can tweak the settings and try again. So you end up learning more in the process.

Understanding Automatic or TTL Flash

When the flash output is directly controlled by your camera, it is called Through-the-Lens metering or TTL. In the case of an Automatic or TTL enabled flash, the flash output is directly controlled by the flash or by the camera’s exposure metering system. Thus, using a flash in TTL mode will give you varied flash output.

Flash in TTL or Automatic mode.

The only method to control a TTL enabled flash is to use the flash exposure compensation function on the flash or through your camera settings. Also, while using a TTL flash, your chosen Aperture and ISO levels do not affect the flash output because the camera tells the flash to emit a particular output based on the camera’s readings. If the settings change, so will the output to compensate automatically.

When you half-press our shutter release button on your camera to focus, your camera not only focuses, but it also takes a metering of the scene and its exposure. It measures the amount of ambient light which is being returned “Through the Lens” to the sensor.

How to Understanding Your Flash Settings: TTL Versus Manual Mode

How it works

A TTL enabled flash fires a “pre-flash” before the actual shot is taken. The camera then measures the pre-flash with the ambient light level to calculate the power needed from the actual flash to make a correct exposure. This pre flash happens really quickly, only micro-seconds before the main flash, and thus cannot be seen by the human eye. Based on the model of your flash, this pre-flash can be an actual white light flash or an infrared one.

Using a TTL enabled flash is extremely helpful in situations when you are moving around a lot, shooting in different or changing lighting settings, etc., and do not have the time to fire a series of test shots before the shoot.

How to Understanding Your Flash Settings: TTL Versus Manual Mode

One of the drawbacks which accompany the use of a TTL flash is less control and less precision over the lighting. If you get an incorrect exposure while using a flash in TTL mode, it is really difficult for you to know the power setting which was used for that shot.

Conclusion

If you have recently purchased your first digital camera and plan to buy an external flash, then you have two options.

Either go for a manual flash, as it will urge you to learn more about how to control and adjust the lighting in various situations. But if you want to take up professional assignments and cannot afford to experiment with a manual flash, then go for a TTL enabled flash.

Which do you use? Do you have a flash that does both? Which do you prefer for different situations? Please tell us in the comments below.

The post How to Understand the Difference Between TTL Versus Manual Flash Modes by Kunal Malhotra appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

31 Aug

No photographer wants to get into the photography business with the aim of becoming a marketing expert. But the reality is that if you don’t focus on the marketing and business end of photography, your business will not be able to survive long enough to do the fun stuff. It stinks, but this is the truth.

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Luckily, the learning curve at the beginning is the toughest part, and as you get used to the business side, everything will come much more naturally to you. Eventually, you might even learn to enjoy it, or at least appreciate the work, after you see how powerful it can be in getting you where you want to go.

So here are 10 of the most important strategies you can start right away to make sure your photography business succeeds.

1. Use Your Personal Network

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Nobody wants to be that annoying marketer that always pushes their business on their friends and acquaintances. However, this fear can push photographers way too far in the opposite direction, never working with the people that have grown to trust them the most. Your personal network is your strongest asset and even more so at the beginning of your photography business. These are the people who will give you your first jobs and introduce you to your first clients.

Photography is unique in that no matter what genre you are involved in, people in your network will most likely need your services at some point, whether it’s wedding or event photography, business portraiture, family portraiture, or print selling. So let your network know what you do and how you can help them.

Create a mailing list and send out an announcement to your network. Show your best work, talk about your photography business, and make sure to explain how you can help people. How can your business benefit them? They will not know unless you tell them. In addition, make sure to ask for referrals.

2. Take Advantage of Local Marketing

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Whenever you say the word marketing these days, for some reason everyone immediately starts talking about social media. That is funny, because as important as social media is, it should be one of the last steps to think about for any marketing plan.

Your first step should be working within your local community. Similar to the last point, these are people who know you. You are just down the street from them. There are businesses of all types in your community that can probably use your work, so create a plan for how to get in front of them.

Make a good impression

Keep in mind that you only get one first impression, so be smart about how you reach out. First and foremost, figure out how you can benefit them. If you are going to reach out to someone, you need to know how their business or life will be better with your services and explain how you can help. Always be kind and courteous with their time, and if possible see if you can get an introduction before contacting someone cold. Does anyone in your personal network know the person you want to contact? That’s always a great first step, but if not, just reach out yourself.

The more you are seen, the more people in your community will notice you and start to think about working with you. Whether it’s local events, business events, fundraisers, you name it, you should make the point to be there, particularly at first. This is the way to create new relationships and to spread your reach.

Similarly, reach out to the other photographers in your area. Many photographers will assist others when they need help and vice versus, and this will help strengthen everyone as a whole. It can be easy for photographers to feel competitive with each other but avoid this. The ones that work together and refer each other will do much better in the long-run than the ones who try to do it all on their own.

3. Create a Mailing List

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Use a mailing list provider such as MailChimp or Aweber to keep up with your clients, personal network, and fans. Email lists have the highest engagement of any form of marketing, and it is the way for you to stay on people’s minds.

Ask people if you can add them to your list, and always have them opt into the subscription. Put signup forms or popups on your website that encourage people to join. Consider giving away something to encourage them to do so, such as free computer wallpapers of your photography.

When sending out emails, create content that your list will enjoy. Do not sell too often with it. The more benefit and interest that you provide for the people on your list, the more they will enjoy it and the more they will like you. Then when you sell, they will be primed to purchase your services or product. When it’s time to sell, sell.

4. Create a Personal Project

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

This image is part of a personal project I’ve been working on involving talking to and making portraits of people in my community.

Personal projects will not bring new clients to you right away, and they will take away time from building your business and making a living. This is the tougher side of doing projects, but they are immensely important for the long term growth of your business and for growing your voice as a photographer. A project can be done slowly over a long period of time, so you can build it into your weekly schedule.

Think of an idea that will resonate with both you and your community. This is a way of keeping your passion for photography alive. It will also help to set you apart from the other photographers in your community. It will show people that you are an interesting person. They will be more interested in working with you, even if the paid work you do is a completely different genre. It will be a way for you to gain press coverage and something for you to talk about to engage people. All in all, a personal project will make marketing yourself so much easier, and it will feel much more natural.

5. Respond Quickly

There is no point in building your photography business or marketing your work if you are not going to respond quickly to inquiries. Respond quickly at every step of the process throughout a job as well. Responding quickly does not have to mean within the hour, although sometimes that can help when getting a new inquiry. It can mean responding within 12 hours or a day, as long as you are consistent and prompt.

Fortunately for you, a lot of photographers are terrible at this, so this will quickly set you apart. It will show people that you are a responsible person, and it will make them more comfortable working with you.

6. Build Your Connections (Both Local and Online)

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Building your network is a lifetime process. As you go further and further in your career, you will begin to create connections with people who can do more and more for you (and who are tougher to get in contact with).

Whichever point in your career you are at, and whatever level your skill level as a photographer, start at that point and build connections there. Then over time, work your way up the ladder. Be patient, be smart, and don’t try to push too hard at first, particularly with people who don’t know you. First impressions are impossible to get back. Grow your network carefully and consistently.

7. Keep Your Existing Clients Coming Back

It can help to create a client management system. You can start off with an excel document at first and eventually grow to a more robust system, such as Sprout Studio. Keep in contact with your best clients, and even consider sending them holiday cards or a small gift to stay on their minds. A small gesture can go a long way, and it is much easier to get an existing client to come back than it is to reach a new one.

8. Makes Sure Your Website Sells

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Think about your website as your number one selling tool. Whatever your primary service is, your site should be developed for the specific purpose of leading people to hire you for that service or for purchasing one of your products.

Study the basics of copywriting, create specific sales pages for your offerings, and even consider creating sales funnels that lead people to an end goal. These can be very powerful ways of priming people to want to work with you.

9. Take Advantage of SEO

SEO, or ranking highly in search engines, is a long term strategy that takes some studying to understand how to do (beyond what we will be able to cover completely here). My belief is that you should always focus on local networking first, as that has the ability to get you very quick gains, whereas an SEO campaign can take years to truly get you where you want to be.

But that being said, SEO should not be ignored, because most people will use Google to find the right photographer for them. Always remember, the goal of Google is to serve up the most relevant websites for the query topic. If you want to rank for a specific term, make sure to create the best possible page that will answer that query. Without this, an SEO strategy will not work.

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Listen to Google

Google runs on links, so you need to figure out how to get other related websites to link to yours. It’s interesting because while it may seem annoying to gain these links, Google is actually forcing you to do things you should be doing in the first place.

Network with websites that you would like to be featured on, and figure out how you can provide that site with some value before you contact them. You will get nowhere if you just ask for something, but if you contact them willing to help them out, it will help immensely. As you grow with your abilities and your marketing, your opportunities for getting covered will grow as well. Internet marketing gets much easier over time.

This is another area where a personal project can help grow your business. People want to share interesting topics, so even if you are not generating income from the project directly, you can use the project to get covered on websites and to make people more aware of you, which will ultimately help improve SEO and grow your network and mailing list.

10. Create a Daily Plan

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

All of this is way too much to do in a feverish month of working. Similarly, your marketing skills will grow gradually, so take your time and be strategic about how you work through your marketing plan. You do not want to spend a whole month contacting everyone you can only to burn out soon after.

Set aside a daily block of time to build your business. Contact a few people every day or every few days. Use the feedback from those to tweak your next pitch. Over time, you will figure out what works and what does not work. A small amount of work each day will eventually snowball into much bigger things.

Conclusion

The main theme throughout this article is that you need to put yourself out there. The work will not just come to you. Create an organized plan, stick to it, and go for it. Be both careful and relentless. That is what is needed.

It may seem like there is a huge wall in front of you that is impossible to cross. But if you chip away at it a little bit each day, within a few years you will find that you have opened up many paths through it.

For even more business help – join the Focus Summit 2017 Online Business and Marketing Conference for Photographers on Sept 26-28th 2017. We will cover marketing, business development, law, SEO, branding, blogging, and much more. Use the code “DPS” for a $ 50 discount.

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Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations – What Would You Do?

29 Aug

Recently on a road trip to Newfoundland, and a visit to Sable Island in Novia Scotia, I ran into a handful of tricky photography situations. Like you, I’m typically pretty well prepared. I know my gear and I have a good idea of how I want my final images to look. In some of these cases though, I was a little out of my depth. Have you ever felt that way? You thought you knew what you were doing but then when you were actually doing it, things didn’t go as planned?

Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations - What Would You Do? - in Newfoundland

Bridge on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland. Canon 5DIII with 24-105mm lens at 60mm, 1/125th, f/16, ISO 800, hand held, processed in Lightroom.

I’m going to tell you a little bit about four situations, my goals, my gear choices, and my oh-no-this-isn’t-going-the-way-I-thought-it-would moments. Then I’ll own up, show you some images and tell you if think I made the right choices or not. Of course, then I want YOU to share what you would have done in these same situations.

This was my gear list for the trip:

Canon 5D Mark III (full frame)
Canon 7D Mark II (crop sensor)
70-200mm L f/2.8 lens II
100-400mm L f/4.5-5.6 lens Mark II
Canon 1.4x Teleconverter Mark III
Canon 24-105mm L f/4 Mark I lens
Polarizing filter

Situation #1 – Overcast day and a boat

On my first full day in Newfoundland, I scheduled a boat tour out of Bay Bulls to photograph Atlantic Puffins in the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, with a sidecar of Humpback and Minke whales as we ferried to and from the reserve. The boat was about 50 feet long and 22 feet wide, making it relatively stable for photography though with about 100 people on board, it was a bit crowded.

What would you do - overcast day - Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations - What Would You Do?

The morning of the boat tour was overcast and foggy. Canon 5DIII with 24-105mm lens at 32mm, 1/180th, f/16, ISO 800, hand held, processed in Lightroom CC.

Skies were overcast so I pulled out my full frame body Canon 5DIII with 100-400mm lens. I didn’t worry about the 5DIII’s somewhat laggy shutter speed since I’m not the best at photographing birds in flight. I didn’t even plan to try it from a moving boat. Instead, I hoped to photograph some nice puffin behaviors in their nesting grounds as well as whales, if they cooperated by breaching or showing us their tails. At the last minute, I tucked the 1.4x teleconverter into my bag.

Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations - What Would You Do? - humpback whale

Canon 5DIII with 100-400mm lens plus 1.4x converter at 560mm, 1/6000th, f/8, ISO 2000, hand held, processed in Lightroom CC.

I can tell you the first huge mistake I made right off the bat. I didn’t take a motion sickness pill that morning. So, I spent most of the boat trip feeling rather green and taking deep meditative breaths while trying to shoot. Mistake number two, deep-breathing near a bird rookery. (I think you know what I mean).

Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations - What Would You Do? - bird rookery

The wise choice around all these birds is to hold your breath or breathe through your mouth. Canon 5DIII with 100-400mm lens 1.4x converter at 140mm, 1/1500th, f/9.5, ISO 2000, hand held, processed in Lightroom CC.

The third mistake I made was leaving on my polarizing filter. Blown out spectral highlights are hard to fix in post-production so I almost always use a polarizer when shooting on or near water. However, the 1-stop loss of light was too much on the rocking boat. I removed the filter and shoved it in my pocket immediately.

Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations What Would You Do - humpback whale tail

Canon 5DIII with 100-400mm lens 1.4x converter at 560mm, 1/6000th, f/8, ISO 2000, hand held, processed in Lightroom CC.

The fourth mistake I made was underestimating how far away we’d be from both the whales and birds. Barely 15 minutes into the trip I was digging out my teleconverter, and hunkering down to protect my gear while I connected the teleconverter between the lens and camera body. Thank goodness it was in my bag.

Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations What would you do - puffins

Puffins are comical little birds! Canon 5DIII with 100-400mm 1.4x converter @ 560mm, 1/750th, f/9.5, ISO 2000, hand held, processed in Lightroom CC.

In the end, I recovered from my motion sickness (and I didn’t vomit from the odiferous bird smell). A common murre (bird) did have the temerity to hit me in the head as it flew off the rookery but it didn’t poop on me (much, anyway). Ultimately, I was only moderately happy with my images – mostly because of the super flat light.

Have you photographed from boats before? Would you have made the same choices? Do you have any suggestions for anyone that will be shooting in a similar situation?

Situation #2 – Adjusting exposure for fog

In Cape Saint Mary’s, Newfoundland, there is a renowned ecological reserve for seabirds, many of them Northern Gannets, which are white. The reserve is supposed to be stunningly beautiful. I can’t actually confirm if it was beautiful or not. Both times I visited, the fog was so thick that the visibility was terrible.

Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations -St Mary's fog

The famous “spire” is almost completely obscured by fog. Canon 5DIII with 24-105mm at 24mm, 1/350th, f/13, ISO 640, hand held, processed in Lightroom CC.

Photographing in heavy fog is a problem because your camera’s exposure meter reads the white fog as grayer than it is in reality. To get a properly exposed image, you need to systematically check your histogram as you shoot. Pushing your histogram to the right, towards the white end of the histogram’s range, can give you a more realistic exposure.

In this histogram, you can see that the recorded data for the image falls short of the white point (right side). It also falls short of the black point (left side) but that can easily be adjusted in post-production. Whites aren’t so easy to adjust because when you brighten an image, you also add noise.

However, if you push your exposure too far to the right, you can blow out the highlights, creating patches of white with no recoverable detail recorded in the file. I increased my exposure compensation in 1/3-stop increments until it was almost 2-stops above my camera’s recommended exposure.

Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations - blown highlights

Here you can see that the histogram climbs up the right edge indicating blown-out (unrecoverable) whites and highlights.

At 1 and 2/3rds-stops above the recommended exposure, the histogram still didn’t touch the right side, meaning no true whites were being recorded in the image. At two full stops above, the histogram crawled up the right side – indicating blown highlights. I decided that shooting at 1.66 stops above was the better choice.

Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations - target histogram

It’s a subtle difference but the histogram I was looking for would have looked like this – just touching the right side but not crawling up it.

I said I’d own up to my mistakes, right? That choice was probably the wrong one. All the RAW files from that shoot look very flat and I only salvaged a few in post-production. I wish I’d experimented more with lowering my ISO to evaluate how that affected the exposure. If I’d lowered my ISO, I could possibly have increased my exposure compensation by two full stops without blowing out the highlights.

Later in my trip, completely frustrated by fog and exposure, I played with ISO values and – oddly – it did seem to help. With a lower ISO, I could increase my exposure compensation while limiting the number of blown highlights.

The moral of the story here is to think outside of the box. Don’t get stuck on what you think are the right settings. In situations like fog, change all your settings frequently to produce multiple files that are both under- and over-exposed and give yourself a better chance of having a RAW file that will give you the final images you were looking for.

Here’s a straight out of camera RAW file so that you can see exactly what I mean by “flat.” Canon 7DII with 100-400mm at 400mm, 1/800th, f/10, ISO 640, exposure compensation +1 2/3rd stops, hand held.

Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations - processed gannets

Here’s the same image processed in Lightroom CC. You can see I had a little fun with it to give it some oomph. Lavender birds are way more fun than pea soup fog birds!

Note that the RAW file could have been pushed far more but personally, I felt that produced unattractive results. With extreme increases of Clarity, Contrast, and Dehaze, the birds did become crisper but it was still obvious that the image was captured on a very foggy day. The heavy processing didn’t make the image look anything like an image taken on a clear day.

Have you photographed birds or wildlife in pea soup fog? Would you have made the same choice? Any other suggestions for the dPS community?

Situation #3 – Photographing in the rain

One lucky evening the fog didn’t blanket Sable Island like it usually did. The ship was anchored just a kilometer away, so I jumped into the waiting Zodiac to cruise around the island’s shoreline. In the best of circumstances, as you cruise you can see wild horses running along the beach, colonies of seals happily snoozing and seals cavorting around you in the ocean.

Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations - Zodiac

While this was taken earlier in the day, it gives you an idea of the logistics of shooting from a Zodiac boat. Many people never even pulled out their gear while on the water.

While there was no fog on that evening, it was still overcast. The wind and swell were also high. Salty sea spray was a significant gear hazard. Even though my camera was protected with a rain cover, I was nervous. It wouldn’t be easy shooting but there were three shots I wanted to capture:

Seals playing in the water around the boat.
Sleeping seals piled en-mass on the beach.
Wild horses on the beach, with the dunes as a backdrop behind them.

Twenty minutes into our shoreline cruise, the skies darkened and it started to rain. We continued to cruise but I tucked my camera away in the dry sack and just enjoyed the curious seals popping up around the boat. Before putting the camera away, I hadn’t checked off any of the three images I wanted but my gear stayed safe and I really enjoyed watching the seals.

Before I put my gear away, this was the sort of image I was getting. Canon 7DII with 100-400 II plus 1.4x III @ 560mm, 1/1250th, f/8, ISO 1250, hand held (in a small rocking boat), processed in Lightroom CC.

Ultimately, I captured two of three of the shots I wanted on another day but I’m curious, what would you have done? Have you ever photographed wildlife from a Zodiac? Would you have put your camera away once it started to rain? Or just kept shooting during this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

Situation #4 – Photographing far away wildlife

On one of my last hikes on Sable Island, I assembled what I call my “long combination” of the Canon 7D Mark II and 100-400mm with the 1.4x teleconverter. As much as I wanted to use my full frame Canon 5D Mark III, I just wasn’t able to get close enough to the horses on this trip. I needed the maximum focal length I could garner.

Here’s the focal length math:

Multiply your focal length by the 1.4x teleconverter. For example, 400mm multiplied by 1.4 x equals and effective focal length of 560mm.
Multiplied again by the 1.6 crop factor of the 7DII, the effective focal length increases to 896mm.

Troubleshooting 4 Tricky Photography Situations - Sable Island Stallion

The lone horse I saw after hours of hiking. Canon 7D II with 100-400mm II plus 1.4x III @ 560mm, 1/500th, f/9, ISO 500, hand held, processed in Lightroom CC.

Ultimately, did I make the right decision with my gear? After hours of hiking, I only saw one wild horse. Considering that, I was darn glad not to be carrying two camera bodies with multiple heavy lenses.

Tenacity pays off! Even though it wasn’t the animal I was looking to photograph that day, I’m delighted with this seal portrait. Canon 7D II with 100-400mm II plus 1.4x III @ 368mm, 1/250th, f/8, ISO 400, hand held, processed in Lightroom CC.

On the way back to the Zodiac pick-up point at the beach though, I sighted a huge colony of seals. A ridge of sand actually obscured the hundreds of seals that were nearest to me until I was on the brink of being too close to them. I dropped to my knees and photographed them like a mad woman. The light was bright enough, if not soft and golden. And those shots of seals I wanted to get from the Zodiac cruise earlier in the trip? I captured them during this hike instead.

Canon 7D II with 100-400mm II plus 1.4x III @ 560mm, 1/640th, f/8, ISO 400, hand held, processed in Lightroom CC.

Conclusion

What would you have done? Take a look at my gear list (top of article). Would you have chosen the same gear? Or carried multiple cameras and lenses? Would you have headed back after hours of hiking and seeing only one horse? Or just kept hiking in hopes of seeing more?

Thanks for playing along today. Please take a minute to post a comment about a tricky photography situation you’ve encountered so that we can all learn from each other’s mistakes – and successes!

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10 Things You Can Learn from the Pros to Help You Take Better Photos

28 Aug

As a photographer, there are so many things that you learn and do on a regular basis. Creating habits in your craft is a good approach to making it become second nature. Here are a few things that most professionals do that you can incorporate into your workflow to help you take better photos.

10 Things You Can Learn from Professional Photographers to Help You Take Better Photos

1. Blink Blink

Pros use the highlight overexposure alert. If you have this turned on in your camera, you will no doubt understand one of its more common name, “blinkies”. When this feature is turned on, it gives a preview of your image with blown out highlights slowly blinking black and white, as a warning.

Blinkies (or blown out highlights) are not always wrong, but if it is in an area you want to show detail, then this information will be useful. You can then correct the exposure as necessary and review the image again.

10 Things You Can Learn from the Pros to Help You Take Better Photos

The highlight alert (circled) blinks to show an overexposed/blown out sky.

2. Focus Focus

Knowing how to quickly move your focus point where you want it is a definite plus. On the opposite side of that is locking focus, which is another great skill to have. Both tell your camera exactly where you want to focus. Moving your focus point helps you place it exactly where you want while locking your focus enables you to grab your focus point, lock it in and recompose your image.

Knowing when to use both of these can also help you get more creative, so practice.

3. Know when to use spot metering

The in-camera light meter helps you determine how to adjust your exposure settings by measuring the brightness of the scene. The default metering mode in your camera is most likely set to Matrix mode (also called Evaluative or Pattern metering).

Evaluative metering works well in most situations but pros know that there are times when they need to switch. Spot metering evaluates only the light around your focal point and calculates exposure based on just that area. Some examples of when a pro would use spot metering include; photographing the moon, someone on a stage, or any scene with a lot of contrast.

Evaluative Metering versus Spot Metering.

A good way to learn when Spot metering is the right choice is by switching to it from time to time and looking at your results.

4. Use Live View to set White Balance

A handy little trick is using the LCD monitor at the back of the camera to set your White Balance (WB). This way you get a real time preview of what your final shot will look like comparatively. This is especially handy if you are shooting jpeg and don’t have the luxury of changing the White Balance after the fact.

5. Good Memory

Simple enough is to walk with extra memory cards. A trick that you can only get from experience though is not cramming too much on any one card. If you are shooting for any paying client, split your shots into several cards because believe it or not, cards can fail on you. If your shots are spread out, you may still have enough images to salvage a shoot.

Bonus memory card tip: Invest in good card recovery software. If you take your card out and for some reason are not seeing the images on your computer, do not put it back in and shoot. Good recovery software has saved many a pro.

6. Bracket

Bracketing in short, is taking several shots of a subject using different exposure levels. It is one of the easier ways to produce images with a high dynamic range. Pros also use bracketing when they unsure about exposure or dealing with tricky lighting.

Bracket images to reveal more dynamic range.

7. Sharpness – Check

By now you may have realized that everything looks sharp on a 3” screen – only to open it up on your computer and see that it is blurry. You could save yourself some heartache by zooming in and checking the image sharpness while you’re still in the field as the pros do.

8. Extra Batteries

When packing your gear, always make room for extra camera batteries. This seems obvious enough, but of note is that if you are shooting in cold weather you may even need to supplement that. Batteries are the one part of your camera that is affected the most by cold weather. A drop in temperature causes your battery to deplete faster and thus not last as long. Keep this in mind the next time you are outdoors targeting golden hour into twilight time.

Pack extra batteries when shooting in the cold.

9. Use a lens hood

The main reason to use a lens hood is to prevent side light from hitting the front of the lens. A lens hood thus reduces or eliminates lens flare that can occur when shooting outdoors during daylight hours.

But, most pros keep their lens hood on even when shooting indoors for more than just blocking light. They use it as protection against scratches, cracks, fingerprints and even some impact. It’s a good habit to use a lens hood.

10. Beep Beep Beep

Backup your images. Pros will tell you that this is at the top of their list. One recommended backup strategy is twice before formatting your memory cards – once to your computer and make a secondary copy to an external drive. If you are even more paranoid, it does not hurt to back up while out in the field. There are a number of portable drives available where you can copy your cards over without a computer.

Backup your images to save yourself some heartache.

Conclusion

Those were just a few of the many things you can keep in mind and add to your own routine. What are some of the things that you would suggest to help newbies take better photos? Share in the comments section below.

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How to Get Great Photos with an Old Camera

28 Aug

In this article, I will give some tips for you on how to get great photos from your old camera or an outdated model you’re still using.

The rapidly advancing technology issue

Camera technology has advanced so rapidly in recent years. Which makes it easy to think that the brand-new DSLR you got last year and love using so much is already outdated and incapable of taking good pictures. Comparing apples to apples, or in this case cameras to cameras, is enough to give one a healthy dose of humility when you discover that the six-frame-per-second camera you were so excited to buy has now been outclassed by its newer seven fps counterpart.

How to Get Great Photos with an Old Camera

This and all the images in this article were taken with either a Nikon D200 or Canon Rebel XTi. Both were made in 2006 or, as I like to call it, the stone age of digital photography.

Looking at charts and diagrams of how high ISO performance in the latest models run circles around your old dusty camera can give anyone a healthy dose of GAS, or Gear Acquisition Syndrome. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else. I have long since relegated my outdated gear to the upper storage shelves in my closet in favor of newer, fancier, more expensive cameras that hold a much closer place in my heart.

However, there’s no rule that says you can’t take beautiful pictures with old cameras and just because something new and shiny comes along doesn’t mean your old gear is suddenly destined for the dustbin.

Dig out the old camera

As a way of experiencing this firsthand, I recently got out my old Nikon D200 camera, the first DSLR I ever owned, and put it through its paces to see if I could still get some good pictures from its aging body. Of course, anyone who has shot with older gear already knows the answer is, absolutely!

A good camera from 2007 is still a good camera in 2017. The beautiful pictures you took in days gone by aren’t suddenly going to transform into ugly monstrosities just because another model of camera has come down the pike. However, what I was really interested in investigating was whether outdated cameras are still worth using in spite of the many advances in modern imaging technology.

My trusty old Nikon D200

For example, here are the specs of the old Nikon model with which I shot several photos for this article:

Old cameras might not have all the bells and whistles of their modern brethren, but don’t discount them entirely.

10 megapixels
A maximum ISO of 1600
Heavy as a brick
It has no Live View
There is no touch screen
There is video capability
11 Autofocus points
One very slow Compact Flash card slot

Any serious photographer would scoff at these specs, right? Well, not exactly. Old cameras like this may not hold a candle to modern models with every latest innovation packed into a much smaller space. But if you’re willing to put up with a few tradeoffs you may be surprised at what you can still do with them.

The real question isn’t whether or not an old camera can still take good pictures because if it could take good photos in 2006 it can still do so today. Nothing about a newer camera inherently makes the older camera any worse, unless by way of comparison. There are a couple of things you can do to get better photos if you do have, or are thinking about buying, an older camera that can help you get the most out of your images.

Work within the camera’s limitations

One of the best things you can do if you want to get good pictures with old gear is to know the strengths and limitations of the equipment you are using. Then take pictures that work around those characteristics.

How to Get Great Photos with an Old Camera

ISO limits

For example, one trait that is almost universal among older gear is miserable high ISO performance. Modern cameras can often shoot at ISO 3200 or 6400 without breaking a sweat. But be prepared to adjust your expectations quite a bit if you pick up a model from 10 years ago.

Solving the problem isn’t all that difficult, it just takes a bit of creativity and adjustment on your part. When I took my D200 (which I don’t dare shoot past ISO 800, and even that is pushing it) out to experiment as I wrote this article, I kept the ISO performance in mind. I aimed for pictures where light was not a scarce commodity (in other words, avoid low light situations). The result was pictures I like quite a bit and would hold up against anything I could take with my modern Nikon D750.

Megapixel limits

Old cameras are also generally low on the megapixel front. That doesn’t mean a whole lot unless you’re doing a great deal of heavy cropping to your images and even then you can still get good results if you crop carefully. It is something to keep in mind though, and it’s important to shoot your pictures knowing the limitations like this. Get closer to your subjects instead of cropping, or find a lens that has a little more reach to it compared to the lenses you are used to using.

How to Get Great Photos with an Old Camera

Other limits of older cameras

In addition to more megapixels, modern cameras often have large image buffers, burst rates, and more reliable autofocus systems than their older counterparts. Keep this in mind if you go to a sporting event or head out to capture wildlife photography with an older camera, and change things up a bit to get the images you are looking for.

Plan your shots carefully so you don’t fill up the image buffer, or shoot with a smaller aperture to give yourself more leeway in terms of depth of field. If you’re used to relying on a modern autofocus system to lock on and track your subjects, then try experimenting with center-point autofocus and learning to be a little more nimble when composing. Also, try learning new techniques like back button focus to improve your skills so you don’t have to rely on the camera doing all the heavy lifting for you.

Limitations can be a good thing

Ironically, sometimes the limitations of older cameras can actually help you get better pictures because you have to improve your photography skills in order to compensate for the camera’s shortcomings.

How to Get Great Photos with an Old Camera

For example, using the ultra-fast burst mode on a modern camera can actually impede your ability to get good shots. Using an older camera without that feature can force you to plan your shots, think about things like composition, and how you want your subject framed within the elements of the picture, and ultimately get better pictures as a result.

My point is that if you find yourself using an old camera, whether a basic DSLR or one that used to be the cream of the crop in its heyday, you should know what you’re getting in to beforehand. Plan around its limitations so you’re not frustrated or confused when you are trying to take pictures.

How to Get Great Photos with an Old Camera

In-camera focus stacking, flip-out LCD screens, and hundreds of autofocus points are nice and can certainly help you get better shots. But often the key to getting better shots is to simply study the fundamentals and hone your basic skills.

Work on understanding exposure, lighting, and composition. Know how to control the camera you have in order to get the shots you want regardless of whether the camera is brand new or well past its prime.

Know your camera’s capabilities

One thing that consistently surprises me when shooting with older cameras is just how much they can actually do. While they might not have touchscreens and built-in GPS, it’s not uncommon to find highly advanced tools such as a plethora of metering modes, Auto-ISO controls, customizable bracketing options, and a variety of autofocus options.

How to Get Great Photos with an Old Camera

A top-of-the-line camera from 2005 may not compete with the cream of the crop today, but when it was released it had to appeal to demanding professionals and advanced amateurs which required a certain set of features and capabilities. Even basic models like the early Canon Digital Rebels, which were aimed at consumers and hobbyists, had all sorts of features that may surprise you if you’re used to modern models.

If you shoot with older gear, either an old camera you’ve had for a while or something you picked up online or in a thrift store, take some time to get to know it. Go to the manufacturer’s website, download the manual, and really get to know what it can do. Dig through the menus and experiment with the various options. Find a willing helper and test out its various modes and features. You may just be surprised at how capable and useful these older cameras can really be.

How to Get Great Photos with an Old Camera

Conclusion

I often get asked for camera recommendations and I like to suggest that people take a serious look at used cameras and lenses. Check reputable online websites that sell these sorts of things for significantly less than shiny new cameras you will find on store shelves. Just because a camera has been put out pasture doesn’t mean it’s not worth using. In fact, the money saved by buying older gear could be put to good use in other ways. An investment in better lenses, a tripod, or even educational materials that can advance your skills in much more significant ways than simply buying a new camera.

What about you? Do you shoot with an older camera or are you considering buying one? What tips and tricks do you have for getting the most out of these types of cameras? Please leave your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.

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10 Quick Tips for Travel Photography

27 Aug

Here is a really quick video for you from the gang over at COOPH (Cooperative of Photography) with 10 tips for travel photography.

Enjoy, and check out the links to stuff mentioned in the video below it.

Links to things mentioned in the video

For more a more detailed tutorial on how to remove tourists check out: How to Remove People from Your Photos Using Photoshop

For sharing prints with people when you travel you might want to consider a Fuji Instax printer. Portable enough to take with you, prints photos from your Smartphone or tablet.

For backing up your images on the road, read the following:

How to Backup and Manage Your Photos When Traveling Without a Computer
Step by Step Plan for Backing Up Your Images While Traveling

Then grab one of the G-Technology drives shown in the video (the tough black and blue ones)

Shoot at sunrise: 4 Reasons Shooting at Sunrise and Sunset Will Help You Take Better Photos

Lastly, more on using framing in your compositions: Tips for Using Natural Framing to Improve Your Composition

Your turn

Do you have any other good quick tips for travel photography you want to share with us? Please do so in the comments below.

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Weekly Photography Challenge – Travel Photos

27 Aug

Going anywhere exciting soon? Or have you recently gotten back from a trip? Now is your chance to share your travel photos!

Weekly Photography Challenge – Travel Photos

Credit: Photo by Tomo Nogi on Unsplash

Share your images below:

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. Sometimes it takes a while for an image to appear so be patient and try not to post the same image twice.

Share in the dPS Facebook Group

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

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Four Ways to Use Snapshots in Lightroom

27 Aug

What’s Lightroom’s most underrated feature? If you ask five different photographers you’ll probably get at least six answers. But for me, it’s Snapshots.

Lightroom snapshots

Unused and unloved – that was the fate of Snapshots in my Lightroom workflow for many years. It’s taken me a long time to appreciate how useful they are. For most of that time, I used Virtual Copies when I needed to create different versions of the same photo. But now I use Snapshots, and it’s made life a lot easier.

Why use Snapshots in Lightroom?

Let’s look at why you would use Snapshots or Virtual Copies.

One of the benefits of a Raw file is that you can interpret the file in many different ways in Lightroom. The most obvious example is that you could create both a color version of an image and a black and white one.

Two versions of the same photo created in Lightroom from the same Raw file.

There are so many different ways of developing a photo in Lightroom that’s easy to make multiple versions of the same image. Sometimes it’s difficult to know when to stop! Especially if you have a large collection of Develop Presets.

Snapshots are the easiest way to keep track of all the different versions you make of a photo.

What is a Snapshot?

A Snapshot captures all the work you have done on a photo at a particular point in a time.

Snapshots are related to the entries in the History panel. You can turn any entry in the History panel into a Snapshot by right-clicking and choosing, Create Snapshot. Snapshots save you time because you don’t have to go searching through the History panel for the point you’d like to revert to.

Some of the History panel entries for a photo I developed in Lightroom. It’s nearly impossible to pick the correct entry if you want you to go back to an earlier version of the photo.

How to create a Snapshot

There are two ways to create a Snapshot.

1. Go to Develop > New Snapshot (or use the Cmd-N [Mac] / Ctrl-N [PC] keyboard shortcut.)

Lightroom creates a Snapshot from the current Develop module settings. You can give it a name or use the default (current date and time).

Lightroom Snapshots

2. Right-click on an entry in the History panel and choose, Create Snapshot. Lightroom creates a Snapshot from the settings applied to the photo at that point in the development history.

Lightroom Snapshots

Reasons to use Snapshots

Now you know how to create a Snapshot, let’s look at some ways you can use them.

1. To record where you are in the Develop module

When you’re developing photos in Lightroom you may find yourself arriving a point where you are about to go off in a different direction. For example, let’s say you want to make both a color and a black and white version of the same image. You might start off by developing it in color. When you are finished, you make a Snapshot.

Then, you can convert it to black and white. When you’re done, make another Snapshot. You can then switch between the two versions by clicking on the appropriate Snapshot. See what that might look like below.

Lightroom Snapshots

2. To test out Develop Presets

Let’s say you would like to apply some Develop Presets to your photo, but you are not sure which ones are best. For example, I often develop my portraits using my Vintage Portrait Presets for Lightroom. There are 30 presets in the pack, and I don’t know in advance which ones will work best.

Using Snapshots, you can go through the entire set. When you find a preset that you like, you can create a Snapshot quickly using the keyboard shortcut Cmd-N [Mac] / Ctrl-N [PC].

At the end, you will have several Snapshots. You can then click on them one by one to see which preset you prefer. For example, I applied five different Vintage Portrait Presets to this portrait and saved each as a Snapshot. In the end, I decided the Vintage 19 preset was my favorite.

Lightroom Snapshots

Tip: Rename the Snapshot you decide is the one you like best to something like “Preset name [final]” so you can remember which one it is. You can also delete the other Snapshots by right-clicking and choosing, Delete.

3. To make comparisons

There’s an easy way to compare two Snapshots to see which version you like best.

Start by right-clicking on the first Snapshot and selecting Copy Snapshot Settings to Before. Then click on the second Snapshot to apply it to the photo you are developing. Use the backslash (\) keyboard shortcut to switch between the before and current settings to make the comparison.

You can also cycle between the Before/After views by clicking the icon marked below in the Toolbar (use the T keyboard shortcut to display the Toolbar if you can’t see it).

Using the Before/After comparison to compare two Snapshots.

4. To take the place of Virtual Copies

At the beginning of the article, I mentioned that I use Snapshots instead of Virtual Copies. The main reason is that Virtual Copies are difficult to keep track of.

For example, let’s say you create four Virtual Copies of a photo, each one developed a different way. To start with, they are probably all in the same Collection. As time goes by you may create more Virtual Copies of the same photo. This is quite common – many photographers change the way they develop photos as their style evolves and Adobe adds new tools to Lightroom.

A problem arises when those new Virtual Copies are in different Collections to the originals. Suddenly you have a situation where Virtual Copies are scattered across your Catalog. That makes it nearly impossible to see how many Virtual Copies of a photo you have created.

Snapshots solve that problem. With Snapshots, there is only ever one version of your photo in the Catalog. You never have to go hunting for missing Virtual Copies. All you need to do to see the different versions of your photo is click on the Snapshot name.

This photo has 9 Snapshots. If they were Virtual Copies instead it would be much harder to keep track of them.

Tip: What happens if you make a Snapshot and then update the settings? The Snapshot doesn’t change as it’s intended to record the state of a photo at the point in time you made it. But it’s easy to update the Snapshot. Just right-click on the Snapshot’s name and choose, Update with Current Settings.

Conclusion

Hopefully, now you can see why Snapshots are both useful and under-appreciated. If you have a problem with too many Virtual Copies in your Catalog then try using Snapshots instead to see if they solve your problem.

And of course, if you have any questions about using Snapshots in Lightroom then please let me know in the comments below.

If you’d like to learn more about Lightroom, including great tips like the one in this article, then please check out my popular Mastering Lightroom ebooks. You’ll be making the most of Lightroom in no time.

The post Four Ways to Use Snapshots in Lightroom by Andrew S. Gibson appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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