2018 « 360Photography

RSS

Posts Tagged ‘2018’

10 Ways to Become a Better Photographer in 2018

25 Jan

Let’s face it, it’s the new year. Your heart is full of hope and your head is bursting with ideas on what you want to do this year, be a better photographer, and how you will go about executing it. You have so much hope in your heart that you will achieve your all your 2018 goals, that you walk around with a goofy smile plastered on your face!

Am I right or am I right? Or have I just described how I have been feeling ever since that clock struck midnight and we ushered in 2018!?

Here is a bouquet of stunning florals to wish you a happy 2018!

It is 2018 and let’s start the year right with a few simple, easy yet powerful things you can do if one of your goals is to become a better photographer in the next 12 months.

1. Rock the gear you currently own without buying more

Do you feel limited by the gear you own? Are you telling yourself you really need to upgrade your camera, lens or both? Great! you are exactly where I need you to be.

Challenge yourself to use your existing gear consistently for a few weeks or months. Try to get creative with what you already have instead of hitting purchase on that gear that is sitting in your cart or Amazon checkout.

I had no telephoto lens on hand to get some close-ups of these birds…so instead, I used negative space and rule of thirds to take a creative approach to this image.

2. Photograph in every possible lighting situation

I really believe there is no such thing as bad light. Light is light – it is just different at different times of the day and night. One of the best ways to understand light is to photograph in different lighting situations and challenge yourself to create something unique and different that you are proud of.

Each lighting situation will demand different things from you and your gear. Harsh midday sun will have you rethinking shadows and light. Early morning light or golden hour will have you thinking of ways to create magical images that highlight that golden light. Blue hour may challenge you to bring out the external flash so you can get creative with colors.

Use this exercise to really understand and make the most out of each scenario.

10 tips to become a better photographer

3. Treat every subject as a rock star

Not every subject is going to be your ideal client. Until you are in a position to only attract your ideal clients, use every opportunity to work towards building your portfolio for your ideal clients. Each client deserves to be treated like they are rock stars. So it is your duty as a photographer to give them the best experience possible – be it in posing, editing, styling or general customer service.

My morning cup of tea and a simple kitchen towel was my subject matter as I practiced still life photography This image is one of the more popular ones on my social media – people really seem to gravitate to light and clean images at times.

4. Deliberately limit yourself

Today’s DSLR cameras are quite sophisticated pieces of equipment with multiple shutter clicks per second (continuous) and creative photographic modes (Program, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority) that do a lot of the work for you.

Instead of using those, I challenge you to limit yourself. Think like a film camera photographer and only use 24 or 36 frames to tell your story. Change to Manual mode and try to figure out how shutter speed, IS, and aperture really work to help you take more control of your photography.

I love photographing with a film camera on vacation. It really helps me maintain a good balance between having a vacation and taking pictures because I only have a limited amount of frames to use.

5. Take an art class

This has nothing to do with photography, yet at the same time, it has everything to do with it. Sometimes stepping away from the thing that we love the most or obsess about can be a really good thing. I have found art, particularly drawing and painting, to be very therapeutic and relaxing. It also gives me a chance to look at creativity with a new lens. As I analyze shapes, sizes and brush strokes – I look at color, patterns and composition in a new light.

6. Study your camera’s manual

I remember taking a technical writing class in graduate school where we had to create a user manual for a product. It was one of the hardest classes I have ever taken because we really had to think as a layman user to design, craft and write the manual. It made me realize that manuals, if done correctly, are incredibly powerful learning tools because they really break down every aspect of the product individually as well as collectively. So don’t be so quick to throw away the camera manual – it might be just the thing you need to really understand the workings of your camera.

7. Use a traditional film camera

Medium format camera love, one of only 16 frames per roll. I love the way medium format film renders colors and tones.

This ties in to point number four above. A film camera is a great way to learn the manual mode of photography because it really makes you think about light, exposure, ISO, and aperture to produce a good, clean image. Also, there is no chimping at the back of the camera screen so you really have to slow down and think of the photo you are trying to produce and then click the shutter.

You have a limited amount of frames per film role and have the additional cost of developing and scanning your pictures at the end of the day. All these factors make you a more intentional photographer as opposed to a “spray and pray” photographer (one who takes several pictures in automatic mode and hopes that at least one will work in his/her favor).

8. Study the work of other photographers

I am sure you have a lot of photographers that you really look up to for various reasons – how they compose, how they handle difficult lighting situations, how they interact with their subjects or even how they run successful photography businesses. Follow them, study how they do things, figure out what makes them tick and how they succeed, and use those ideas to reflect in your own road to improving your photography.

Last summer in Rome I really practiced using a lot of negative space in my cityscapes. Sometimes just a hint of a popular landmark is needed to give a sense of place.

9. Experiment with new techniques

Contrary to popular belief, I feel that photography is not something that you can study in a limited amount of time and then say you are an expert in this field. The field is constantly evolving and expanding and there is always something new to learn.

Become a student no matter what your level of experience and be open to learning new and exciting things in this art of form. It is sure to bring forth much progress in your craft overall.

Triple frame shot on medium format film during an editorial shoot to showcase busyness!

10. Evaluate your own work with a critical eye

Really think about what the work you are producing. Before asking for critiques, refer back to your work and figure out what you like and don’t like in your own work. Chances are you will find several things to add to that list.

Also don’t be quick to delete photos you may not like right now. Wait for a few days to look back and assess all your images. You are more likely to find some new favorites among photos that you previously thought were not correct or worthwhile.

Conclusion

I hope these 10 tips really helped shift your mindset a little bit towards your photography. Hold on tight to that feeling of being invincible that often comes with the new year and use it to the best of your abilities to better your skill and craft.

Tell us about your photography goals for this year in the comments below.

The post 10 Ways to Become a Better Photographer in 2018 by Karthika Gupta appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

This 2018 ‘ecosystem map’ captures the whole photo industry in one massive infographic

25 Jan

Photolemur, the makers of an AI-powered image editor, have put quite some time and effort into creating a comprehensive “Market Map of the Digital Photo Industry” that includes all sorts of brands, manufacturers, publications and other organizations that are involved in the industry in some shape or form.

“The aim of this initiative is to become the gate to the digital photo industry and to help photographers, new companies, VCs, entrepreneurs, journalists, and bloggers to understand who the major players in the world’s digital photo industry are,” writes Photolemur in the accompanying text. “Note that some companies work in more than one segment so we decided to link them only to their primary segment on the map.”

In the map you’ll find anything from camera and lens manufacturers, to Raw image processors, to providers of online education services, all neatly sorted and categorized. The company says it is planning to update the market map over time, adding more entries to existing categories as well as creating entirely new categories.

On the market map website you can contact Photolemur via an email link if you think they’ve missed out an important player in the industry. If you submit your name and email address, you can also download the map as an Excel file or high-resolution PDF.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

2018 Japan BCN camera rankings: Canon dominates DSLRs, tops Sony in mirrorless

18 Jan

Photo by Mario Calvo

The 2018 Japan BCN camera rankings are in, and they show that (surprise, surprise) Canon is still veritably dominating the DSLR space with 61.1% marketshare, only a slight drop from its previous 63.3% share. More impressive is Canon’s performance in the mirrorless category where Canon took the number 2 position, hitting 21.3% versus Sony’s 20.2%. Olympus beat both to take top slot in mirrorless at 27.7%, though, a small increase over its previous 26.8% marketshare.

According to BCN, Canon also topped the “digital camera with integrated lens” category, holding 27.9% of marketshare over Nikon’s 25.5% and Casio’s 17.2%. The BCN rankings also look at action cameras, which saw GoPro take top slot with 67.2% marketshare (not that this has helped the company’s outlook lately…), as well as digital video cameras, which has Panasonic on top with a 42% marketshare.

When looking at previous figures, the rankings show Nikon growing in DSLR sales while Canon and Ricoh both saw decreases. Olympus, Canon, and Sony all experienced growth in the mirrorless category, while Canon and Nikon both experienced growth in the integrated lens digital camera market.

Notably, Canon continues to show strong growth in Japan’s mirrorless market despite Sony’s recovery from the disruption caused by the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake.

That earthquake had impacted Sony’s nearby image sensors facility, which supplied sensors for both Nikon and Olympus, among others. In its early 2017 fiscal quarterly results, Olympus had noted that the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake had a negative impact on its Imaging Business sales. Likewise, Nikon had revealed its own Imaging Products Business impact during the same time, resulting in downwardly revised forecasts.

However, despite Sony’s facility restoring operations in the many months since the earthquake, Canon is still outpacing Sony in the mirrorless segment.

Though Nikon saw DSLR marketshare growth in 2017, whereas Canon saw a slight decrease, the latter company still trounces its closest competitor at 61.1% versus Nikon’s 34.4%. Whether Canon’s biggest competitors will see any significant 2018 gains on the company in their respective categories is anyone’s guess.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

16 Jan

Grunge. It’s a great look for gritty, edgy, photos, and you couldn’t have it simpler than doing it in Luminar 2018. In this article, you’ll see how to examine Presets and use elements from those Presets to create your own custom Grunge look. Presets are fantastic, but the best way to improve your processing is through your own creative process. So let’s get started.

Grunge look.

Find the right image for a grunge look

Open the photo you want to process. I have a winter woods scene here. It’s already moody, and you’ll find that using a photo that will benefit from a grunge look is a good place to start. No point starting with happy sunny day shots as it really doesn’t fit the style.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

Presets

As Luminar has a huge number of Presets, you should begin there. If you don’t see the Presets at the bottom, click the Presets panel icon, it’s the third one in from the right on the top toolbar. From the Categories, choose Dramatic. Two of these look appealing for a grunge look; Dramatic Grungy and Dramatic Look.

Dramatic Grungy opens a custom Workspace with three filters: Dramatic, Clarity and Structure.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

You’ll notice that Dramatic Look also uses three Filters. Dramatic is there, but the others are Raw Develop and Vignette.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

The Dramatic Filter is common to both presets, and there are other filters that are in one and not the other, so perhaps a good start is to combine the five filters from both presets into your own custom workspace.

Custom Workspace

You can reset the image by going to Filters panel, clicking on “Custom Workspace” and choosing “Clear Workspace”. This gives you a fresh start to create your own grunge workspace.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

Click Add Filters. You can find some of the filters immediately. Raw Develop, Structure and Vignette are in the Essentials section, Clarity is in Issue Fixers and Dramatic is in Creative. If you don’t see a filter immediately, just type a few letters in the Search box at the top of Filters Catalog to restrict the view to match.

You’ve probably noticed that there’s a Clarity slider in Raw Develop, so you could choose to leave out the Clarity filter. But you might want even more Clarity and this allows you to double up the effect, and mask it to only apply to certain parts of the image.

Finally, add one more filter to this set; Cross Processing. This will allow you to color tone the final look.

Raw Develop

The Raw Develop filter is where you use Luminar’s processing to bring out the most from your Raw file. This Raw file (as per most) is a bit flat to start, so needs some tweaking. Reducing Highlights and increasing Shadows will open up the photo a bit more, while decreasing Blacks and increasing Whites will add to the contrast of your photo. At some point, you may want to decrease the saturation of the photo, but for now, use Raw Develop to get the most out of your photo.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

The Photo is still a little cool toned so a bump in Temperature to 6000k will fix that and sit better with the tones in the photo.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

You can leave Clarity at zero here and come back later if you want to add more.

Structure

What makes a photo grungy? Think of the things and feelings grunge evokes; dark, moody, edgy, and gritty. The Structure filter can definitely do the Edgy bit. Your Amount slider can go from really soft at -100, to really nasty at +100. 60 seems to look good for this photo.

Softness changes your internal contrast in the photo. A setting of 30 keeps the skin from getting too blown out. Of course, if you want more of the effect in the background you could erase the effect a little on the subject using the masking tools.

The final slider is Boost, which does indeed boost the effect. 60 looks great here. We’re already well on the way to making a grungy photo.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

Vignette

Vignette darkens or lightens the corners of the photo via the Amount slider. To draw attention to the center of your photo, you should darken the edges. Your first step should do is click Place Center, then click on your subject. That will target the area for the middle of the vignette to keep lighter.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

To see your Vignette edge easier, set the Feather to 0, with Amount turned way down.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

Using Size and Place Center, get the best position and radius for your vignette. Use Roundness to get the best shape; to the left, it’s more rectangular, to the right it’s rounder.

Don’t worry if it looks too obvious, this is just for getting the placement and size right as it’s easier to see this way.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

Finally, set the Feather to soften the edge of the vignette, and set Amount to the final darkness you want.

Edge vignette applied.

Clarity

Contrast darkens shadows and lightens highlights. Clarity tends to work away from these areas and work more in the mid tones. It’s a grit filter, so add your grit here. 100 is way too much, and 40 looks better here.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

Dramatic

You’ve already gotten quite a bit of drama to the image, so only a hint of this contrast-based filter is needed. The Dramatic Filter is one to play with for this.

If you want to retain color, set Saturation up to full. Adding Contrast and Local Contrast will increase both the darker and lighter aspects of the photo, so Brightness is there to compensate for whichever is stronger. In this photo, you’ll find reducing it is necessary.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

Cross Processing

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

While this was originally a way of changing colors by processing film in the wrong chemicals, Cross Processing is now more associated with color toning a photo. Luminar uses city names to define their various toning options.

You should try each one with the Amount slider up high to find one you like. After looking at all the cities, I came back to Tokyo, which I’d found pleasing immediately. Then you can dial the effect back using the Amount slider until you find the look you want.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

Reprocess

The image is now suitably dark and gritty, but probably a little too dark. A quick trip back to Raw Develop to bump the Exposure slider will fix this.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

Saving Presets or Workspaces

Now is the time to save what you’ve set up. If you like your work, you should consider creating either a Preset to repeat the exact look you have here or set up a Workspace to have all the filters open for you to begin working from scratch (or both).

To save your Preset, click Save Filters Preset at the very bottom right corner of the screen. A dialog appears allowing you to name and create your new preset. This will allow you to apply all the same filters and settings to any image with one click. Of course, you can always adjust any of them to suit the image or dial it back using the amount slider on the preset.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

To save your new Workspace, go to the top of Filters, then click on Custom Workspace. From the drop-down menu and choose “Save as New Workspace”.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

Name the Workspace and create it.

How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018

The new Workspace will now appear in the Workspaces list and will be selected (check mark next to it). Now it is available for you to use with any image. Clicking it will open those same five filters but not apply any of the settings.

Other options

Here is the before and after to show the full grunge effect.

Before.

Grunge look.

With the look solidified, you could potentially add a texture to add even more grit to your photo. So, check out how to do this in our article How to Apply Creativity to Your Images with Texture Overlays Using Luminar.

As you’ve seen, Luminar 2018 has great tools that you can use to achieve your processing goals quickly and repeatedly. Now, go out and grunge!

Disclaimer: Macphun, soon to be Skylum, is a dPS advertising partner.

The post How to Create a Grunge Look with Luminar 2018 by Sean McCormack appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

Hasselblad reveals the winners of the 2018 Masters Awards

10 Jan

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_5419437314″,”galleryId”:”5419437314″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });

Eleven lucky photographers will be receiving a Hasselblad medium format kit after winning their categories in the Hasselblad Masters Awards 2018 competition. The company says the number of photographers that entered the contest increased by 175% this year, and a total of 31,500 images were submitted.

Ten categories were set with a generally open brief, with an additional section for photographers 21 years and younger. For the first time an aerial category was included, which was won by Jorge de la Torriente, a photographer from the USA. The USA produced three winners—the most from any one country—with other entries coming from Europe, Asia and Australia.

Entries were accepted taken on any brand of camera, with the only stipulation being that entrants should have been professional photographers for at least three years (other than for the under-21 category, of course).

For more information, and to see all the winning images, scroll through the gallery above, check out the video below, or visit the Hasselblad website.

Press Release

Hasselblad Announces Winners of the Masters Awards 2018

Hasselblad Masters is widely acclaimed as one of the world’s most prestigious professional photography competitions. The winners are chosen through a combination of a public vote and a professional Masters Jury – comprised of internationally renowned photographers and imaging experts.

Every Hasselblad Masters award winner will hold the title of ‘Hasselblad Master’ and be a brand ambassador for two years. In addition, they will receive a brand new Hasselblad medium format camera and be invited to shoot for a collaborative project with Hasselblad.

This project will be printed and released in the bi-annual Hasselblad Masters book.
Winners will receive their awards, medium format cameras, and trophies at a special Photokina 2018 ceremony in Cologne, Germany this September.

Bronius Rudnickas, Hasselblad Marketing Manager: “Over 30 000 images were submitted to this year’s competition and that was a record, we are glad to see the competition is growing every year.”

Masters Jury member and professional photographer Tom Oldham said: “It really struck me how progressive many of the entries were this year and how far the entrants were willing to push the brief. These were the photographers who caught my eye – the ballsy, out-there risk-takers who make compelling pictures that refuse to be ignored. I’m proud to have helped to get this great kit into their hands – their images deserve it.”

The Hasselblad Masters Awards 2018 winners are:

Aerial – Jorge de la Torriente – Miami, USA
Architecture – Kamilla Hanapova – St. Petersburg, Russia
Art – Maria Svarbova – Bratislava, Slovakia
Beauty & Fashion – Michal Baran – Trim, Ireland
Landscape – Benjamin Everett – Lopez Island, USA
Portrait – Tina Signesdottir Hult – Torvastad, Norway
Product – Marcin Gizycki – Warszawa, Poland
Project//21 – Nabil Rosman – Kota Bharu, Malaysia
Street / Urban – Ben Thomas – Kyneton, Australia
Wedding – Victor Hamke – Leipzig, Germany
Wildlife – Karim Iliya – Haiku, USA

The Hasselblad Masters Awards 2018 jury are:

Tom Oldham – Photographer
Ali Rajabi – Past Master
Martin Hausler – Photographer
Katrina Belkina – Past Master
Swee Oh – Past Master
Lars van de Goor – Past Master
Tim Flach – Photographer
Kevin Then – Photographer
Bara Prasilova – Past Master
Damien Demolder – Journalist
Blair Bunting – Photographer
Hans van Ommeren – Past Master
Mads Nissen – Photographer
Kevin Raber – Journalist

For more information and images, visit http://www.hasselblad.com/masters

Full Disclosure: Damien Demolder was one of the judges for this year’s Hasselblad Masters Awards.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Your Guide to Understanding the Luminar 2018 Dashboard

10 Jan

With Macphun (soon to be Skylum) keen to promote Luminar 2018 as a replacement for Lightroom, there’s no doubt that there are many photographers who are interested in trying it. Unfortunately, that’s where the confusion may start as the Luminar interface is completely different from both Lightroom and Photoshop.

If you’re new to Macphun software then it can take time to find your way around the new interface. But if you’ve already used some of their other programs you’ll find that Luminar is very familiar, as Macphun tends to use the same layout in most of its software.

Note: The screenshots in this article are taken from the Mac version of Luminar 2018.

Luminar Dashboard Layout

When you open a photo in the program for the first time, you see something like this.

Luminar dashboard

The photo you’re working on is displayed in the center. Presets are shown along the bottom (red). The side panel on the right is where you apply filters and create workspaces (green). There are more tools along the top (yellow). See the image below.

Luminar dashboard

Let’s take a look at each of these in more detail.

Luminar Presets

One of the benefits of using Luminar is that it comes with lots of presets that you can use. If you don’t like presets, that’s okay – presets are optional and you can ignore them, or hide the panel if you do not use them.

Luminar presets are intelligent and each one comes with an amount slider. If you like a preset but the effect is too strong you can reduce the intensity. That means Luminar presets are adaptable and you can use them in a subtle way if that’s what you prefer.

Click on any preset to apply it to your photo (marked below). In this example, I selected a preset called Center of Attention. Afterwards, you’ll see an amount slider which you can set anywhere on a scale from zero to 100. You can also click on the star icon to add the preset to your list of favorites so you can find the ones you like quickly.

Luminar dashboard

Click on the Categories button (marked below with the big red arrow) to reveal a list of preset categories available in your version of Luminar. Click on any of the categories to display the presets underneath.

Luminar displays Basic presets by default, but you can choose from categories such as Street, Dramatic and Portrait. You can also click on Favorites to show any presets you have marked as a favorite. Clicking on “Get More Presets” takes you to a page on the website where you can get additional sets of preset (some which are paid, and some that are free).

Luminar dashboard

Workspaces, Layers, and Filters

If you’re a Lightroom user then Luminar’s right-hand panel will look familiar as they are similar to the panels in Lightroom’s Develop module. There’s a histogram at the top, layers underneath that (yes, Luminar has layers!) and then filters below.

Luminar dashboard

This area might look a little bare at first, but that’s only because the workspace is clear. In Luminar, a workspace is a selection of filters displayed which are ready for you to use.

Filters are Luminar’s equivalent of the right-hand panels in Lightroom, or the various Layer adjustments available in Photoshop. The reason Luminar doesn’t display all the available filters is that there are so many of them (50 in total). Instead of showing all the filters, Luminar arranges them into workspaces. You can use one of Luminar’s built-in workspaces or you can create your own.

Click on the Clear workspace button (below) to choose one of Luminar’s built-in workspaces. Here, I chose the Portrait workspace. It has nine filters which, as you might expect, are useful for developing portraits.

Luminar dashboard

Click on the gray arrow (marked below) to open up a filter and reveal its settings and sliders. The screenshot below shows the Develop filter, which is similar to Lightroom’s Basic panel.

Note: When working with RAW files this filter is called RAW Develop, and when working with JPGs is simply called Develop.

Luminar dashboard

Another benefit of using workspaces is that you can customize them to display only the filters that you want to use. You can start by removing and adding filters to one of Luminar’s built-in workspaces.

To remove a filter click on the white arrow next to the filter name (marked below) and select Delete from the pull-down menu.

Luminar dashboard

To add a filter, click the Add filters button (marked below). Luminar opens the Filters Catalog to the left, and they are displayed in helpful categories as you can see below like; Issue Fixers, Creative, etc. Here, you can select a filter to add it to your workspace.

Luminar dashboard

When you hover over the name of a filter in the filters Catalog Luminar displays an information panel to tell you what the filter does.

Luminar dashboard

To save the workspace, click on Custom workspace (marked below) and select Save As New Workspace. Now, your new workspace will appear in the list and you can select it any time you want.

Luminar dashboard

The Luminar Toolbar

Finally, the Toolbar at the top of Luminar contains some extra commands and tools that you will find useful. Most of these are self-explanatory. When you hover the mouse over an icon Luminar displays a strip of text to explain what it does. In the screenshot below, you can see that the mouse pointer is over the Compare icon.

Luminar dashboard

As you can see, the Luminar interface is simple and easy to use. The biggest obstacle to using Luminar is understanding how presets, workspaces, and filters work. Once you understand how to use these tools then you can start exploring the potential of Luminar to create beautiful photos.

Disclaimer: Macphun, soon to be Skylum, is a dPS advertising partner.

The post Your Guide to Understanding the Luminar 2018 Dashboard by Andrew S. Gibson appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

Happy New Year 2018 – Recap of our Ultimate Guides to Photography

31 Dec

Wishing you the happiest new year from the dPS family.

As a bonus, here is a summary of some amazing ultimate guides we published in 2017. Each is available as a free PDF – just click on the ones you want to download below.

The Ultimate Guide to Street Photography
The dPS Ultimate Guide to Landscape Photography
The dPS Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners
The dPS Ultimate Guide to Photography for Beginners
The dPS Ultimate Guide to Photography Terms – a Glossary of Common Words and Phrases
The Ultimate Guide to Nature and Outdoor Photography
The dPS Ultimate Guide to Fine Art Photography

Enjoy and please share this page with your friends if you find these valuable!

The post Happy New Year 2018 – Recap of our Ultimate Guides to Photography by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

2018 Shoot & Share Photo Contest opens for entries on January 8th

30 Dec

Wanna pit your skills against tens of thousands of other photographers… for free? You’ll soon have your chance. The 2018 Photo Contest by Shoot & Share—which bills itself as the world’s only free & fair photo contest—will start accepting entries on January 8th.

What sets this particular contest apart is the voting process. No hoity-toity group of judges sifting through your entries, the whole system is democratic.

Every entrant is allowed to submit up to 50 photos in a total of 25 categories, and those photos are voted on by everyone else (including you). Photos are shown to you at random, and you vote for your favorites. As Shoot & Share explains it, “No one knows who took the photos, but everyone votes for the winners. The photos with the most votes win!”

Here’s a fun intro video Shoot & Share put together:

The democratic draw of this contest as summed up best, perhaps, by DPReview Editorial Manager Wenmei Hill:

“It’s huge, it’s free, and it’s a big ego boost (or destroyer, depending on how good a photographer you are) for tons of photographers.”

Prizes for the 2018 contest haven’t been revealed yet, but all 25 categories will have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, in addition to a Grand Prize Winner for the contest as a whole. According to the contest site, “Last year, there was over $ 1,200,000 in free memberships, software, credit, gifts, workshops, and more,” given away.

Not bad for a totally free and extremely democratic contest.

To learn more about the 2018 Photo Contest or see last year’s winners, head over to the contest website. And if you plan to participate, you have just over a week to curate your best shots for submission.

UPDATE: Several readers have expressed concern about some of Shoot & Share’s terms and conditions for this contest: specifically, the part that says you allow them to use your images with photo credit.

To clear up any misconceptions, we reached out to Heather Keys, the company’s head of Marketing and Business Development, to ask how contestants’ photos have been used in the past. Here’s what she said:

In the past, the photos from the contest have been used to promote various community activities as well as used to promote future contests (always with photo credit included).

At times, we have reached out to those photographers that submitted images during the contest to request to use certain submitted photos in promotion of some of the products we offer (PASS.us and Agree.com ). With that said, we’ve always requested permission and offered compensation if we ever used submitted photos for promotion of our software tools.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Confirmed: DxO says new Nik Collection to be released in 2018

27 Dec

Great news for fans of the Nik Collection of photo editing plugins: two months after DxO acquired the collection from Google, the company has publicly announced plans to release a brand new version of the Nik Collection in 2018.

The statement went out over Google Plus (go figure), where the DxO team welcomed the Nik community into the fold with the following announcement (emphasis added):

Dear Nik Collection users,

We at DxO are very pleased to welcome the Nik community! We wish you a very happy holiday season and a healthy and prosperous New Year: may you be inspired to take spectacular photos in 2018!

Like you, we are passionate about photography and image quality. That’s why we view this opportunity with Nik as a commitment to ensure that you — that all of us who enjoy taking photos — are guaranteed to have the very best solutions at our disposal.

You’ll be happy to know that our developers are enthusiastically working on a new version of the Nik Collection to be released in 2018!

The statement then goes on to entice Nik users to download DxO PhotoLab (formerly DxO OpticsPro), where they can once again take advantage of Nik’s ‘U Point technology’ to edit their RAW and JPEG files.

Of course, none of this should be new information for dedicated DPReview users. We already knew that U Point was coming to DxO’s own photo software, and DxO founder/CEO Jerome Meniere told us the company planned to develop a new “Nik Collection 2018” for mid-next year, but last week’s public announcement that development is under way has photographers online buzzing this week.

Now, if only they’d tell us when exactly the new version will come one… and how much it will cost.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

4 Tips for Creative HDR Styling with Aurora HDR 2018

27 Dec

Arguably the best software for making high dynamic range photos is Macphun’s (soon to be Skylum) Aurora HDR 2018. This image editor can be used as by itself or in conjunction with their popular Luminar photo editor (as well as a plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, and Elements). Within Aurora HDR are tons of photo editing tools including their popular presets (filters). But you don’t have to use Presets to creatively style your HDR photos.

Here are four tips beyond using presets for achieving creative images.

1. Make your images pop with subtle HDR enhancements

4 Tips for Creative HDR Styling with Aurora HDR

Before – the middle image of a 3-shot bracket.

Instead of going right for the Presets at the bottom of Aurora HDR, dive right into the HDR Basic panel on the right-hand side of the software. Start with the Contrast and HDR Enhance sliders to enhance textures and details in your photo. Then play with the Smart Tone to tame down the shadows that can be created by increasing the contrast.

Next, head to the Color panel right below HDR Basic and adjust the Vibrance and Saturation. Keep these color adjustments minimal if you’re going for a more subtle, realistic look. Based on the color edits that you make, you may also need to balance out the color temperature if your image appears too cool or too warm.

Add the HDR Basic and Color Filters.

4 Tips for Creative HDR Styling with Aurora HDR

2. Add a Polarizing and Graduated ND Filter Effect

Landscape photographers are well aware of the effects of the polarizing and graduated neutral density (ND) lens filters. If you aren’t familiar with them, here’s a quick rundown. A polarizing filter helps darken skies and minimize reflections and glares of light bouncing off of surfaces such as water or glass. Similarly, the graduated ND filter helps balance out exposures by darkening backgrounds that are much brighter than foregrounds. In essence, both of these filters are often needed to obtain the best landscape photos.

If you don’t have these filters or happen to forget them, Aurora HDR’s post-processing effects can produce very similar results. Simply click scroll to the Polarizing Filter panel and apply as much of the effect as you wish. In the example below, increasing the polarizer makes the blues really pop, especially in the sky.

Further down, you’ll find the graduated ND filter effect, known simply as Top & Bottom Tuning. This allows you to adjust the exposure, contrast, vibrance, and saturation of the top and bottom areas of your image separately. If you happen to have an untraditional horizon, click the Set Orientation button to fine tune the horizon’s rotation and make your graduated ND filter effect blend more realistically.

Polarizing Filter and Top & Bottom Tuning (ND filter)

3. Replace the sky

Before – the middle image of a 5-shot bracketed set.

If you’ve ever photographed a sunset and wished the sky had been more colorful, you can actually make this edit rather quickly with Aurora HDR. All you need is a clear photo of the ideal sunset that you want to swap into your bracketed image. You can pull that ideal sunset image from your own archives, or use a stock photo like the one that I’m using from Pexels in the example below.

Start by running your brackets through Aurora HDR and making any desired adjustments to the resulting photo. Below, I’ve applied a Warm Skylight filter. Next, go the Layers section in the right-hand panel and click on the plus sign. Select “Add Image Layer…” This is where you can select your ideal sunset photo and import it as an image layer.

Once your new image has loaded, you can apply any filters or adjustments as desired. Next, click on the paintbrush icon next to the image layer. A small drop-down menu will appear with four options: Brush, Radial Mask, Gradient Mask, and Lumosity.

4 Tips for Creative HDR Styling with Aurora HDR

If your image has a straight horizon with no big obstructions, the Gradient Mask will easily mask your ideal sunset into your bracketed shot. But in my case, I have a big building in the way, so the Brush is my best bet. After clicking on Brush, a thin bar of options will appear on the top panel. This is where you can control whether you’re painting over the image, or Erasing (backtracking on any mistakes). You can also control the size, softness, and opacity of the paintbrush.

When I’m done painting in my new sunset sky, I’ll press the blue Done button. Check out the before and after images below!

4 Tips for Creative HDR Styling with Aurora HDR

4. Add a texture overlay

Before – the middle image of a 3-shot bracketed set.

Using a similar technique to sky replacement, you can add textured overlay layers to your photos for a more creative effect. All you need is a textured photo, such as the weathered paper image below. Simply import that image as a new layer. You can then selectively mask it by using the Brush, Radial Mask or Gradient Mask tools (explained above). Or you can apply the texture equally to the whole image by adjusting the opacity. The resulting image had a moody, vintage look to it.

Skylum Aurora HDR Creative Styling Tips

Over to You

Have you used Aurora HDR 2018 to enhance your images? What tools have you found to be the most useful for achieving more creative photos? Let us know in the comments below!

Disclaimer: Macphun, soon to be Skylum, is a dPS advertising partner.

The post 4 Tips for Creative HDR Styling with Aurora HDR 2018 by Suzi Pratt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography