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Create Light Beams in GIMP that Glow Without Any Plug-ins

01 Apr

The post Create Light Beams in GIMP that Glow Without Any Plug-ins appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ana Mireles.

Do you want to create light beams with GIMP? While previous versions of GIMP used a process called Alpha to Logo, it’s not available in the latest version. Not to worry, you don’t have to download any plug-in or script-fu, as I’ll show you a step-by-step example to do them manually.

GIMP’s open-source nature can be the most attractive thing for some people and the most off-putting for others. Create light beams used to be a one-click operation, but the script-fu was removed since version 2.10.4. There’s a way to get it back and install it separately, but you can also create them using GIMP’s basic functions.

How to Create Light Beams in GIMP

1. Design the shape

Open the image or canvas where you want to create light beams.

Now create a new layer, I strongly recommend you to name them as you go because you will need a few of them.

Do this in the designated space on the top. Then choose Fill With Transparency and click OK.

In this new layer, draw the shape of your light beam using the Path Tool. Make sure the Edit Mode is set to Design and start drawing.

If you want to create curves, just hold the mouse button and drag the anchor point.

Once you have the shape you want, choose the color by clicking in the patches you find on the left panel.

Then right-click in any anchor point of your shape and choose Edit > Stroke Path from the menu.

This will open a pop-up window.

Select Paintbrush and Emulate Paintbrush.

This will apply the effect using the settings you have in your Paintbrush tool as if you had painted the shape.

2. Create the beam

Now, the stroke needs to start looking like a light beam. For this, you need to draw a lighter outline to it. The easiest way is to right-click on the layer and choose Alpha to Selection.

Go back to the color swatches and choose a lighter hue, or even white.

Create another transparency layer, then go to Edit > Stroke Selection. In the pop-up window choose Stroke Line and set the value that will determine how thick you want it.

Create light beams outlines — Here I disabled the visibility of the first stroke. You don’t have to do this, it was only to show you how the second stroke does an outline.

Deselect everything and click on the Layer Mask button.

Set it to black (full transparency). This will cover the entire outline you created before, but that’s OK, you’ll make it visible in the next step.

Pick the Paint Brush tool and set the color to white.

Then lower the opacity of the brush and paint over your light beam to slowly make the outline visible. After that, with full opacity, paint over some parts to create highlights.

add some highlights — I used full opacity only in the curves because that’s where I want the highlights to be.

3. Make it glow

Duplicate this layer and delete the mask. Lower its opacity and then go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur. The value is up to you, I started with 22. Repeat this process a second time, this time changing the values in the Opacity and the Blur filter.

This is how you can create light beams that appear to glow. If you feel like adding a neon effect, keep on reading to learn how.

4. Add some color for a neon effect

With the top layer selected, add a new transparency layer.

Then set the color you want in the swatches.

Since you’re going for a neon effect, I recommend you choose something ‘electric’.

Use the Paint Brush tool to add some colored splats on your design.

Change this layer to Soft Light blending mode at the top of the Layers panel.

Then create another one and do the same with another color. Change this one to HSL Color.

That’s it! Your neon glowing light beam is ready.

Feel free to skip any step or add some more to make it your own.

Remember, the good thing about doing them manually is that you have full control over the outcome.

Extra tip:

If you want it to swirl around something, like mine, just erase or cover with a layer mask the parts that should go behind the subject.

Incorporate light beams in your photography

Conclusion

Scripts and plug-ins can save some time, but they aren’t necessarily available or easy to install. Granted, you don’t always know the individual commands that were automated and that makes it difficult.

This process, however, is meant as a starting point to make it less daunting and allow you to get creative. I hope you liked this technique to create light beams in GIMP without any plug-ins.

Want to learn more GIMP Tutorials? You may like:

A Brief introduction to GIMP Software
Creative Uses for the GIMP Jigsaw Pattern
How to Use Gimp for Basic Photo Re-Touching
Make your Photos Sparkle with GIMP
5 Top Tips for Working with Gimp

The post Create Light Beams in GIMP that Glow Without Any Plug-ins appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ana Mireles.

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How to Create a Budget Tabletop Photography Setup for Shooting Food and Products

31 Mar

The post How to Create a Budget Tabletop Photography Setup for Shooting Food and Products appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jackie Lamas.

It can feel like photography is a money vortex and unless you have an unlimited amount, many types and styles of photography may seem out of reach. We’re here to tell you that you can create your own tabletop photography setup on a budget and still create some amazing food and product photography.

All you need is a trip to your local dollar store and craft store, and you’ll have a set up ready to go that won’t break the bank. It will also let you create the images your clients will love.

What is a tabletop photography setup?

A tabletop photography setup is generally used to photograph products and food for commercial or marketing services.

In recent years, tabletop photography setups have moved away from the Lightbox and toward more authentic setups thanks to social media.

The basic tabletop photography setup is a table, backgrounds, tabletop backgrounds, and nice light source that you can use to light your products and food.

What you need for a basic setup

A tabletop photography setup doesn’t have to be complex or involve a lot of materials. You can have a simple setup that offers you a variety of backgrounds, looks, and setups all in the same spot, at the same table.

tabletop photography setups — There is a big window to camera left and here we can see the basic setup with kraft paper and white paper taped to the wall.

You’ll need:

a table or any stable surface to place items onto of
a few backgrounds like a white paper, kraft paper, black paper, foam boards, different types of fabric and textures
depending on your products/food you’ll need some stands, dishes, and plates, or other styling items
tape
a large window for window light
clips or clamps to hold things down
a tripod for max aperture and depth of field to avoid camera shake.

This basic setup will help you to create your tabletop photography setup without the need to be in a big space or rent a studio. It will also keep costs down.

Get creative with backgrounds

While a table, solid plain wall and a good light source are the basic set up, it can often get boring. As you get more clients, you’ll want to have different setups to help you get more interesting photos.

A quick trip to the dollar store can help keep costs down. You can get items that can give your tabletop the right look and style for the product that you’re photographing.

How to Create a Budget Tabletop Photography Setup for Shooting Food and Products — 1/15 sec; f/11; ISO 400 using a 50mm lens. You can see the window in the reflection of the watch.

Choose different patterns for backgrounds, like this shower curtain I used to give the tabletop photography setup more of a marble texture and style. The watch stands out against the colors and pattern and creates a more interesting effect.

Different placemats work really well as backgrounds and tabletops for food photography as well as product photography. Letting you change the tabletop photography setup without having to directly paint or change your table.

Posterboard can be really useful in creating a faux cyclorama wall for products giving the illusion of a seamless background. Taping fabric to the wall also works to help keep the backgrounds in place and creates seamless backgrounds.

Placemats of various textures and prints can also be perfect for food photography and work in many different settings for products as well.

Kitchen towels can also serve as props for your food styling as well as backgrounds.

Find the light

The biggest concern is getting enough light and that is what a big window is for.

If you don’t get lots of light in your home, go outside! Take your tabletop setup out onto your patio or yard. Find some good indirect shaded light to work in.

The idea is to create an evenly-lit tabletop setup so that you’re able to set your camera to the correct settings and get the look you want.

Having enough light to work with, lets you take away light with flags or create shadows with different items. You’re also able to get different exposures to your products or food.

Different times of day can give different types of lighting for your tabletop photography setup too. Take advantage of the lighting changes and experiment to see what light is best for the items you’re photographing.

Using available ambient light can really help keep costs down while doing tabletop photography and can offer lots of different types of lighting.

Don’t limit yourself to a table

With a lifestyle component, you can take your tabletop photography setup on the go. Take your backgrounds, fabrics, and styling items to different locations to get different types of photographs.

You can photograph in a park, trail, cafe, or in front of an interesting wall in your neighborhood.

Using your creative eye, you can photograph food and product photography just about anywhere that will save you money, while also giving you amazing results.

In conclusion

As you can see, creating a tabletop photography setup doesn’t have to mean spending loads on lighting, space, styling equipment or backgrounds. With a trip to your local dollar store and craft store, you can create stunning product and food photography for a fraction of the price.

Your clients will love their photos and you will have a setup that you can use anywhere!

Do you have any other tips for creating a tabletop photography setup? Share with us in the comments section.

The post How to Create a Budget Tabletop Photography Setup for Shooting Food and Products appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jackie Lamas.

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Frozen soap bubbles create scenes from a fantasy world

25 Mar

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In a recent episode of DPReview TV, new host (and mad scientist) Don Komarechka introduced us to the magical world of frozen soap bubbles. Take a look at some of the fantastical images he captured.

View the frozen soap bubble sample gallery

This was a really fun video, so if you missed it you’ll want to give it a watch. You can see it below or watch it on YouTube.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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File Management Tips to Create a More Efficient Photography Workflow

22 Mar

The post File Management Tips to Create a More Efficient Photography Workflow appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jackie Lamas.

As you gain more clients, this also means that you’ll have to start implementing a more efficient workflow so that you can work quickly and get your images to your clients. In this article, we’re going to explain some file management tips to help you stay organized session to session.

What is a photography workflow?

A workflow is a process in which a photographer has a file management system in place that helps them to get images edited and processed faster and more efficiently.

Basically, it’s a way to organize your images so that you can get them to your clients much faster. The way that a photographer manages their workflow can be different from person to person depending on what they photograph, their workloads, and what the end goal for their clients is.

In time, you’ll be able to implement these file management tips so that your workflow is quick, and you’re able to deliver the images to your clients faster. You’ll also access the images on your hard drives quicker when you need them because they’ll be nice and organized.

Uploading the images

The first of the file management tips regards uploading your photos to your computer. Some like to go straight into Lightroom or the editing program and upload the images directly.

However, I recommend that you first upload your images onto your actual hard drive. This can be directly onto your computer’s hard drive, an external hard drive, or both. Uploading to both is the best option since sometimes computers can shut down or stop working and you wouldn’t want to lose your photos!

Make sure to copy the images from the memory card rather than moving them. Doing this means if the upload didn’t go smoothly, you still have all of the images safe on the memory card.

Here are the steps to organize the Upload of your images onto your computer or external hard drive:

Create a folder with the year 2020
You can now create separate folders for the types of sessions you do. However, this is not required and it depends on how you want to manage your files.
Create a folder and name it according to the shoot date, last name of your client, a dash, then the location or something specific. For example 2020.03.06 Burns Family – Secrets Resort Puerto Vallarta

File Management Tips to Create a More Efficient Photography Workflow

The location is optional, but it does help keep the information to the session together. It’s also good for searching later on when you want to find a location photo to post on social media or otherwise.

Renaming the images

Renaming images can seem like an added step, however, keeping the naming simple with numerical sequence, adds more organization in the end.

It’s tough when looking for an image by the original image name of IMG_ when it would be much quicker to remember the name and then look for an image that way.

Rename with the last name, a dash, then the sequence number, for example, Burns-0001. Use more than three zeros so that you can safely number the images when you have more than one hundred images.

If you have more than a thousand, use another zero. This can keep all of your images organized and you won’t get jumping numbers from 01 and 11.

When you import the images into your editing program, the renaming stays and will get saved the same when you’re finished editing. This is really helpful especially when the family wants a particular photo to order. They can simply use the sequence number and you can quickly find the image in the edited folder.

Importing into Lightroom

Now that you’ve organized the session into the yearly folder, session folder, and have renamed the files you’re ready to import into Lightroom.

Some photographers like to import the images straight from the memory card into Lightroom but creating the folders seems easier in Finder than in Lightroom. However, with time, you can choose how you want to import the photos that help your workflow work for you.

There are two different options to choose from when importing. You can simply add the photos, which is the simplest choice seeing that we’ve already backed them up onto your hard drive in the desired folders. Or the COPY option, which will create a duplicate of your image into a specific folder on your desktop. This usually creates a copy in another place and can take up unnecessary storage on your computer.

We’ll go with the ADD option today since we have put the originals in the specific folder we made earlier.

Check the Collection option and put them into a Collection with the date and name – just like we did in the source folder.

This will make it easier to find the folders in the left sidebar while editing without making multiple duplicates or without getting lost in the Import or Folders section.

Now we’re ready for editing!

Organized editing

In Lightroom, editing can seem like a lot of work. However, you’ll want to go through this process so that your workflow is quicker and editing time is minimized.

Use the color tags to choose your favorites. This is how I personally tag the photos using the number keys:

Number 9 is Blue for chosen images
Number 8 is green for additional editing – usually when I have to swap out ahead or do some major editing.

After you’ve used the color of your choice for the chosen photos, at the bottom of the screen is a Filter option. Choose the blue square (or the colors you’ve chosen), so that all you see are the photos tagged Blue.

The great thing about using the filter and colors is that if you missed a photo somewhere, you can turn off the filter and go back and choose more photos to edit or tag.

Alternatively, you can untag a photo and it will hide it from view. Then you can just edit the blue-tagged photos without additional clutter.

Using the color tags in the toggle on/off filter modes keeps your photos organized, in the same folder, and easy to edit.

Exporting your final images

The final of the file management tips is exporting your final images.

After you’ve edited your photos it’s now time to keep them organized so that you can find the final edited photos with ease.

Go into the Library window, with the color tag filter ON, choose all of the images you’ve edited with the Select All option, and click Export.

Choose the same folder your images are in, but create a subfolder with the words EDIT (or you can choose whichever name is best for you). This will create a folder within the original source folder on your hard drive.

This keeps all of the images from that session in the same location, which makes it easier to find later on.

file management tips for better workflow — As you can see, the edit folder appears in the family session folder with the RAW files. The final jpeg images are named the same for easier referencing.

In conclusion

These file management tips will help you categorize and catalog your sessions so that you have a more efficient photography workflow from start to finish.

Do you have any other file management tips to better organize your workflow? Share with us in the comments.

The post File Management Tips to Create a More Efficient Photography Workflow appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jackie Lamas.

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How to Use Radial Composition in Photography to Create Awesome Images!

29 Feb

The post How to Use Radial Composition in Photography to Create Awesome Images! appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

Radial composition (also known as radial balance) is a tool used to influence balance and impact within a photograph. In this article, we’ll look at some of the in’s and out’s of radial composition in photography.

f/2.8 1/1000 ISO 500

What is radial composition?

The term radius refers to the distance between the center of a circle and its outer edge. Therefore, radial composition means imagery that radiates outward from a particular point.

One common example of this is the wheel, with spokes radiating away from the central hub.

Another example would be flowers, with petals fanning out from the flower head.

radial composition diagram radius

By using radially orientated lines, shapes and forms, the eye is attracted to a central point within an image, creating emphasis. In this way, radial composition can appeal to our sense of momentum, generating visual movement. Some radial compositions even trick the eye into perceiving actual movement within in a fixed image.

In addition, lines that diverge into a central point also cultivate a greater sense of depth within a photograph. However, keep in mind that not all radial compositions need to be constructed of circles!

In the right context, you can use rectangles, triangles, waves, lines, spirals, or other forms to cultivate radial composition.

radial composition diagram

The history of radial composition

Because of its visual energy, radial compositions have been an enduring presence in visual art and culture. For example, ancient petroglyphs carved into rocks depict spirals and labyrinths as well as lines radiating out from a central focal point.

Rich with symbolism and sacred meaning, the mandala features in numerous religions and beliefs. In Greek mythology, the Sun god Helios was often depicted with a crown of radiating lines. These lines were understood to indicate radiant light, signifying the rays of the sun.

During the Renaissance, radial composition was used to emphasize important figures within a scene. In Assumption of the Virgin by Titian, subjects are seen to radiate away from the main figure (Mary) and a circle of radiant light frames her upper body. In Raphael’s School of Athens, famous philosophers are emphasized by the radial properties of the surrounding architecture.

f/4.0 1/640 ISO 320

Modern art

Inevitably, radial composition has been a strong compositional feature in modern visual art. A famous example is Kandinsky’s circle paintings that radiate pulses of color. Dada artist Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel also takes advantage of the radial structure of the wheel to evoke both a sense of motion and stasis.

In photography, there are countless variations on the use of radial composition. Taken in 1920, Edward Steichen’s Isadora Duncan at the Portal of the Parthenon makes use of radial composition to emphasize the subject within the ancient Parthenon. In Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Children Playing in Ruins, the child subjects are framed by a hole in a wall within the ruins of a city.

How to Use Radial Composition in Photography to Create Awesome Images!

How to cultivate radial compositions

Radial composition relates to visual elements that expand from or center around a central point in an image. Eyes, flowers, snail shells, doorways, fireworks, tree rings…there is an abundance of opportunities to capture radial subject matter.

Fluid radial elements create a harmonious flow throughout the image, whereas sharp, erratic lines generate a scene of energetic movement.

Archways, staircases, reflections, plants…you can find radial features in all genres of photography. You can even create radial imagery through camera movement or abstraction.

radial composition camera tossing 2 seconds f/4.0 ISO 100

You can also use radial composition as a tool to emphasize a given subject. Framing an aircraft aligned with the halo of the sun’s rays, or photographing a portrait with the sitter positioned within a window or door frame can seem easy enough. However, incorporating simple radial elements into your composition can add much more depth and impact to your image.

f/6.3 1/400 ISO 100

Conclusion

From landscapes to architecture and everything in between, radial composition can add impact and depth to your photography.

Keeping an eye out for radial compositional opportunities can lead to engaging material that guides the viewer’s eye around the image more effectively.

Do you make use of radial composition? Share your images in the comments below!

The post How to Use Radial Composition in Photography to Create Awesome Images! appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

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DIY: How to Create a Coffee-Stained Texture for Aging Images in Photoshop

21 Feb

The post DIY: How to Create a Coffee-Stained Texture for Aging Images in Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

As a kid, I remember coffee-staining scrap paper to create ancient maps that marked out treasure in the backyard. Nowadays, I’ve discovered that the same process can be great for photography projects too. With help from Photoshop, experimenting with textural layers is a great way to introduce an aged look to your images. But sometimes it can be hard to get a hold of quality textures on the internet. That’s where a bit of DIY comes in. By making your own coffee-stained texture, you can create seemingly aged canvases, which can then be applied to your images.

coffee granules

What you’ll need:

1/4 cup of instant coffee granules
1 teaspoon
a damp cloth, sponge or paper towel
a few pieces of white paper (I use plain old sheets of A4 copy paper. While copy paper does pucker when water is introduced to it, I think it adds to the overall aged effect. Plus, it’s less expensive than good art paper!)

How to coffee-stain paper

First, lay out your sheets of paper on a wipeable surface. I prefer to work on the kitchen bench.
Sprinkle some instant coffee on your sheets of paper – about a teaspoon per sheet.
With a damp cloth, sponge or paper towel, begin to press the instant coffee granules into the paper. As the coffee moistens, you can start to spread the granules around the paper with broader strokes. The more varied the strokes, the rougher the effect will be.
You can add more coffee and a little water if you need it. The more coffee you add, the darker the coffee-stained paper will turn out. You can even leave some partially-dissolved coffee granules on the page.
Once you coat the paper, place the sheets somewhere safe and leave them to dry for a few hours.
Sometimes the drying process can lighten the stained effect somewhat. If this happens, add more coffee and water to darken the paper further.

Here’s my result:

coffee stained texture paper

How to apply coffee-stained textures in Photoshop

Once your coffee-stained paper is dry, scan or photograph the page/s and save the files somewhere handy on your computer.

Next, open an image in Photoshop. This will be the image we’ll apply the coffee-stained texture to. I went with the image below:

1/100 of a second f/4.5 ISO 100

With your chosen image open, add a Black & White Adjustment Layer by clicking the Black & White icon in the Adjustments panel (the names of the icons appear when you rest your mouse on them).

If you can’t see the Adjustments panel, select Window from the top toolbar and then click on Adjustments. The Black & White Adjustment Layer will non-destructively convert your image to black and white.

black and white

black and white adjustments

Toggle the Black & White Adjustment Layer settings until you are satisfied with your image.

Next, with the Black & White Adjustment Layer selected in the Layers panel, click File from the top toolbar. Then select Place… and locate and select the coffee-stained image file.

The coffee-stained texture layer will be imported over your original image.

placing coffee-stained texture

If needed, adjust the dimensions of the coffee-stained image by dragging its corners to completely cover the entirety of the canvas.

With the coffee-stained texture selected in the Layers panel, click on the Blending Modes drop-down menu located within the layers panel. Set the Blending Mode to either Overlay or Soft Light. Overlay is a bit harsher in contrast than Soft Light, so test out both options before settling on one.

blending modes panel

coffee stained texture overlay blending mode

Next, select the coffee-stained texture layer and click on the Curves icon in the Adjustment Layers panel. Adjust the Curves settings until you are happy with the overall contrast of your image.

coffee-stained texture curves adjustment

At this point, you can refine the Black & White Adjustment Layer further or even add additional coffee-stained layers to increase the intensity of the aged effect.

This is my finished result…

coffee-textures overlay final result

Here are two more images I’ve attempted to age a little with the same method…

coffee-stained textures travel landscape

coffee-stained texture aircraft stearman

What do you think? Up for a cuppa? If you’ve given the coffee-stained texture method a try, be sure to share your results in the comments!

The post DIY: How to Create a Coffee-Stained Texture for Aging Images in Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

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Interview: How the brother duo at Abstract Aerial Art create masterpieces from above

21 Feb

Interview: How brothers at Abstract Aerial Art creates masterpieces from above

Photoshop wasn’t involved here. This image of a real-life puzzle piece was captured with a drone in the Netherlands.

JP and Mike Andrews, brothers from the United Kingdom, have gained international recognition for their compelling images taken from an aerial perspective. There’s a good chance you may have already encountered their work in some capacity; they’ve been featured in major publications including The Guardian and National Geographic.

The duo, who refer to themselves professionally as Abstract Aerial Art, had an epiphany back in 2016. While they didn’t have a concrete plan, one thing was clear: they were fed up with their day-to-day lives and needed to change their circumstances. Without a concrete plan in place, they embarked on a journey through the Australian outback, with the intention of taking a hiatus, and unexpectedly found their true calling.

All the images in this slideshow, and on their popular Instagram feed, are taken from real, un-staged locations around the world. Besides slight color and contrast enhancements, the images are not manipulated. ‘The point is not to work out what it is, but to show how weird and wonderful the world can look from above.’ What really sets their work apart is the composition, something the duo has mastered. That last component has transformed their images from mere photographs to works of art.

How do they do it? I’m lucky to call these two friends and they were gracious enough to answer my questions about their background, initial attraction to the drone world and how they monetize their work so they can continue to live the type of adventurous life that most photographers wish they had. All images in this article are published with permission from Abstract Aerial Art.

The Congregation

What is your background?

Mike had been working as a commercial photographer, predominately focused on the product side of things. The technical knowledge he built up over the years was certainly a contributing factor in our decision to buy a drone in the first place. JP was working as a music producer and sound designer and had absolutely no experience in photography.

In early 2016, heartbroken and fed up with day-to-day life in the UK, we made the joint decision to leave everything we knew back home, purchase a one-way ticket to Australia and, with no plan whatsoever, fly to the other side of the world. It was during this life-changing adventure around the Australian continent that we were inspired to get into aerial photography.

The Vault

What was your initial attraction to the drone world?

The idea first came about during the year we spent traveling around Australia, specifically the time we spent in the outback. With the intention of filming some of the incredible sights we had seen whilst we were out there, we decided to purchase a drone after an evening in the pub… we will let you draw your own conclusions from that! At the time, we knew nothing about drones. We had never even seen one, let alone flown one.

Heading back out into the Australian wilderness, we started to take some shots of the landscapes surrounding us. Looking back at the images we had captured, we realized we had a number of extremely unusual photographs that loosely reminded us of abstract artworks. As a result, Abstract Aerial Art was born.

The Zipper

What gear and accessories are you currently using?

We have two drones, a DJI Phantom 4 Pro and a DJI Mavic 2 Pro. The Phantom 4 Pro is the drone responsible for the majority of our work and in our opinion, the best drone currently available for a balance between quality and practicality. We initially brought the Mavic 2 Pro as a backup drone to the Phantom 4 Pro. However, we have found ourselves using it more and more in recent times, primarily for its practicality.

Each has their benefits but they are both capable of shooting extremely high-quality stills and videos. We also carry a Canon 5D MK4 and a GoPro Hero 7 for ground-based shots and behind-the-scenes video stuff.

Accessory-wise, we have very little other than the PolarPro Cinema Series filters for both drones. We consider them a must-have for anyone serious about shooting quality content from a drone (disclaimer: they are brand ambassadors).

Aqua Phone

Some of your shots are incredibly unique, whether they’re close up or display an entire landscape. How do you find these places?

We dedicate a huge amount of our time to meticulously researching the planet for things that interest us. Almost every single image we have ever taken has been found during these research sessions. Only on very few occasions have we stumbled across something by accident out in the field.

When we say research, what we are referring to is using satellite applications to search for things that we want to photograph. We then screenshot these finds and save the coordinates of the location with the intention of shooting it for real at some point in the future. The process can be frustrating, even mind-numbing at times, but, in our opinion, it is absolutely essential to finding interesting places to photograph.

Thanks to apps such as Google Earth, the whole world is visible from an aerial perspective. As a drone photographer, you can imagine how useful that is! Using this method to find unique places to photograph is something that we cannot recommend highly enough if you are interested in getting into aerial photography. We have written a blog post on our website that includes some photo examples of how we go about this research process if you’d like to find out some more information.

Riding Solo

From what I’ve noticed, you’re always traveling around the world for your art. How do you monetize your work so you can keep shooting in new locations?

Whilst we are always exploring new avenues for potential income from our work, we currently have two main sources of income. Both are online.

Print sales – We have an online shop on our website where prints of our images can be purchased on different materials at a variety of price points.
Image licensing – We sell licensed, digital content to brands and businesses for commercial usage. Our images have been purchased by customers for a wide range of purposes including advertising, printed media, and website design.

Burnout

Your work has a distinct style. When and why did you decide to focus on abstract art?

As we touched on earlier, the initial shots that we took in Australia loosely reminded us of abstract artworks and it was purely that which inspired us to explore how bizarre the world could look from an aerial perspective. To this day, we are blown away how surreal even the most mundane objects, structures, and landscapes can look from above.

All we have ever wanted to do since taking those first shots is focus on trying to shoot something different. As beautiful as the more well-known locations are, there is still a whole world out there still waiting to be discovered and the more we find, the more we realize we are yet to scratch the surface.

Skyline

What image or series are you the proudest of?

The image we are most proud of is entitled ‘Skyline.’ The planning behind the shot took over 6 months. It all started on a completely unrelated shoot during which we had seen the shadows cast by these enormous ships under the right conditions. On our return home, we immediately set about working out how, when, and where we could best perfect the shot we had in mind.

There were so many variables that all had to be exactly right for it to work. These included sun positioning, tidal depths, wind speeds, and extremely precise angles. After a huge amount of research, we set off from the UK and drove into Europe arriving at our destination just before sunrise. Waiting until the ship we had chosen was in the correct position and the morning sun had risen high enough to cast the defining shadows, we sent out the drone to start taking pictures. After all the previous months’ planning, the actual shot was done within 15 minutes.

Fire and Fury

What is the craziest situation you’ve been in while shooting?

Whilst driving through the Australian outback during one of the many wet season storms, we encountered a bolt of lightning strike the bushland surrounding us and set it alight. In an instant, we found ourselves at the centre of a raging wildfire. With very little consideration to the incredible danger we were in, we couldn’t resist the chance to jump out and capture Mother Nature at her ferocious best. Setting up the camera in what must be the quickest amount of time we ever have managed to achieve, we began photographing the scene.

Five terrifying minutes later, we had a shot of the wildfire and a lightning bolt in the same frame. We managed to get out of there just before our car was completely engulfed by flames. In hindsight, it was probably the most stupid thing we have ever done. That being said, it was a unique opportunity to capture something that few people will ever witness and despite the very obvious dangers, at the time, we thought it was well worth the risk.

Another Planet

I’m not going to use the clichéd phrase ‘bucket list,’ but I’m curious to know where you have not been yet or what you consider a dream shoot?

We would love to photograph volcanic activity, especially lava. It has always been something we have just wanted to see, let alone have the opportunity to photograph. We are currently in the process of working out what we could do creatively with it, and how and where we are going to do it. There are obviously many challenges involved but these challenges are one of the many reasons we enjoy what we do so much.

The Maze

What advice would you give to aspiring photographers, whether it’s aerial or ground-based?

The best piece of advice we can give any budding photographer is simply ‘love what you do.’ With the modern-day pressures of social media recognition, it’s very easy to forget those four simple words. We cannot express how grateful we are for the continued love and support we receive on social media and truthfully, it’s unlikely we’d even be in the position we are today without it.

That being said, from day one, we have never let that dictate what we wanted to shoot. That will never change. We photograph the things we do because we love it. Expressing yourself through any creative process is meant to be fun. Never let what you think others might find popular take your work in a direction that does not reflect you and your happiness.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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How to Create Beautiful, Artistic Photos Using a Book

11 Feb

The post How to Create Beautiful, Artistic Photos Using a Book appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ramakant Sharda.

Photography is an art, and every photographer is an artist who uses his or her imagination to create a beautiful work of art. A real artist can take anything and convert it into breathtaking artwork. In this tutorial, we are going to do the same thing. We’ll create beautiful, artistic photos using a book and an LED light.

how-to-create-beautiful-artistic-photos-using-a-book

What you need to create beautiful, artistic photos using a book:

To create beautiful, artistic photos using a book, you need a camera. Any camera, including your mobile camera, will work. A tripod is a “must” to hold the camera. A shutter release cable is also required. You’ll also need an LED torch. Again, the LED light of your mobile will work perfectly for this shoot. You may also use a torch, a bulb, or any other light source – even flash.

Of course, you also need a book. It should be big and have thick, glossy pages so that it will reflect the light well. I used Guinness World Records; if you have this book, you can do the same.

You need a dark room, so it’s better to do this shoot at nighttime.

Setup:

This shoot doesn’t require a complicated setup. Simply open your book from the center and fold over 10 pages, like in the following picture.

How to Create Beautiful, Artistic Photos Using a Book

To find the center, divide the total number of pages by 2; whatever figure comes up, open to that page number.

Now place the book at the edge of a table. Put a light behind the book at a lower angle so that it won’t show in the photo.

You can put a black glass below the book to show the book’s reflection.

Camera settings:

To create beautiful, artistic photos using a book, set your camera on Aperture Priority mode. Set your ISO to 100 and aperture to f/11 or f/16. With these settings and a mobile LED light, you’ll get a shutter speed of between one and two seconds. Because our subject is still, you won’t have any problems.

Fix your camera on the tripod. Set the frame, focus manually, and leave it. Your aperture is too narrow, so you’ll get a deeper depth of field, and the entire book will be in focus.

Don’t forget to switch your camera to manual focus mode.

Workflow:

Now you need to throw light from the back and take the shot.

Play with different angles of light to get different shots, but remember that the light will always be at a lower angle.

Once you get enough shots, change the camera position. Set it a bit lower or higher to get different results.

How to Create Beautiful, Artistic Photos Using a Book

Method two

We have created pictures using LED light. Now we are going to create some different kinds of shots.

For this, you need a big monitor or TV and some abstract images. This method is quite simple. Display abstract images on your monitor or TV and place the book in front of it. There should be some distance between the book and the abstract images so that the abstract images become blurred in the picture.

You’ll need to widen the aperture, so set it to f/4 or f/5.6.

how-to-create-beautiful-artistic-photos-using-a-book

Method three – multicolor book

This method is a little hard and requires some post-processing work, but it’ll give you wonderful results. You should have a basic knowledge of Photoshop and an idea about layer masks.

It requires the same LED light setup.

You are going to take a series of pictures with different-colored lights and merge them in post-processing. You’ll need to use gels or colored gelatin paper to get colorful light.

Take five shots with different-colored lights like white, orange, red, blue, and green. Make sure that you don’t move your camera in between the shot.

Now you’ll use these photos to create a multicolor picture.

how-to-create-beautiful-artistic-photos-using-a-book

Putting it together in Photoshop

Open all five photos in Photoshop and stack them into layers.
Now select one layer.
Press ‘Alt’ and add a layer mask. This will add a black layer mask and hide everything. Do the same with all five layers.
Now take a soft brush and make sure that the foreground color is white. Set both brush opacity and flow to 50%.
Paint on the layer masks randomly. Change the brush size randomly. Increase and decrease the brush opacity randomly. You can also use special-effect brushes to get different results.

After some time and practice, you’ll get a photo like this.

how-to-create-beautiful-artistic-photos-using-a-book

So, postpone all the programs for tonight and create these artistic photos using a book to get some masterpieces. Then, share them here. If you have any problems, just comment on this post, and I’ll help you solve them.

The post How to Create Beautiful, Artistic Photos Using a Book appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ramakant Sharda.

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How to Create a Portfolio Template in Photoshop and Profit from Layer Types

10 Feb

The post How to Create a Portfolio Template in Photoshop and Profit from Layer Types appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ana Mireles.

Your portfolio is your presentation card. It should always be current with your latest works, coherent with your style and accessible to your clients. Perhaps there’s one on your website, another one printed, and one for pitch presentations. All of them need to be up to date. So, how do you keep up with that? Create a portfolio template that is easy to update that you can scale to different formats.

Keep reading to learn how to create a portfolio template in Photoshop.

Create a Portfolio template examples

While Photoshop is a fantastic photo editing software, it does have some tools that are useful for graphics work too. This will relieve you of the task of having to learn another program like Illustrator. One of the best things for creating a portfolio template is profiting from the characteristics that each type of layer can offer. You can use Vector Layers for your design and logos, Text Layers for all the information, and Smart Objects for your images.

Let’s go through it step by step.

The fundamentals

First of all, what is a Layer?

When you open a new project, whether this is a blank canvas or a photograph, it opens as an image layer by default. This is the base that you build upon. You can then add as many layers as you need.

Imagine that the Layers are paper sheets that you can stack. Each one will then modify, add or block the content of the ones below. The properties of each layer depend on the type of layer it is.

Photoshop Layers in Perspective

Layers are one of the most versatile and useful tools in Photoshop.

There are many types of layers, some are stand-alone layers like images or vectors. Others work only in combination, as Adjustment Layers.

The important thing to understand is that each one has different characteristics that can be used to simplify your life. Here I’ll discuss the ones I find most useful to create a portfolio template.

The template

Designing your template

The first thing you’ll need is to draw the design of the template. Here, you can decide the elements and colors you want to use. Because this is a template, it should be able to fit most images and situations. So, you might want to keep it simple, but this is up to you.

In any case, every element that you design is best drawn with the Shape tool. Doing this creates a vector layer by default. To make sure of this, check that the menu in the options bar is set to Shape.

Create a Portfolio Template with Shapes

This is important because, unlike images, vectors are independent of resolution. This gives you the advantage of modifying the elements without losing quality, as you would do with pixels. This is why most graphic programs, like Illustrator, work with vectors. Shapes and vector layers are also great for creating your logo.

Adding a logo

If your logo consists of many shapes, select all of them and turn them into a Smart Object by right-clicking on top and then choosing Convert to Smart Object from the menu.

This is a different type of layer, not only can you scale it as many times as you want – just like the vectors – but you also retain the source data so that you can work non-destructively.

Because of this, every time you open your Smart Object, you’ll still find all the original shape layers to work on them independently.

Create a portfolio template with smart objects

Another cool feature from smart objects is the possibility to link one or more copies.

This means that every time you modify your logo, it will automatically apply the changes to all the copies. This is useful if your design includes more than one logo. To do this, create a copy of the layer by dragging it to the Duplicate Layer button at the bottom of the panel.

Create a logo with smart objects

If you want to keep your copies working independently from each other, you can create a copy of the smart object that it’s not linked. Do this by using New Smart Object via Copy. You can find it in the menu that pops up when you right-click on the layer.

Create a portfolio template with logo

Adding text

This is as straightforward as it sounds. When you use the Text tool, it creates a Text Layer. Keep in mind that because it’s a different kind of layer, not all the tools are available for use. For example, you can’t use the filters.

If you want to use them, you will get a prompt asking you to “rasterize the layer.” This will turn it into an image (a pixel layer). You shouldn’t do this if you want to be able to edit the text in the future. If you do want to rasterize your layer, make a copy of it first and turn off the original by clicking on the “eye” next to the layer in the Layers panel.

Create a Portfolio Template Rasterize Layers

Another useful tip when designing your template is to confine the space for your text, so it doesn’t ruin your design if you change or add content later.

Instead of just clicking and typing, click and drag a rectangle text box where you want the text to be. That way, whatever you type adjusts to that space. I usually put one next to the image to add all the information like title, technique, and project. Then I can update it for every image.

Create a portfolio template

Adding images

The photos are the stars of your project, so you want to make sure to work non-destructively on them. The best choice for this is the Smart Object.

To add your photo as a Smart Object layer, you have to go to Menu->File->Place. Because in my design, I added a rectangle to serve as a frame for my images, I can now add a Layer Mask to fit it inside without losing any information.

create a portfolio template for your photography

You can do this by placing the smart object directly on top of the rectangle shape designed at the beginning. Now create a Clipping Mask by pressing Cmd+Alt+g (Ctrl+Alt+g on PC). The Mask will reveal the image through the frame without cutting it or changing any of it.

Create a portfolio template

To update the images, you can open the Smart Object and place the new one there so that you don’t change the Layers or Masks of the template.

Save and close

Because you used Vectors, Texts, and Smart Objects, you can change the resolution from web to printing as many times as you want while keeping the quality of it. Just be sure to save each page of the portfolio separately, so you don’t overwrite your template.

Conclusion

I hope that you have found How to Create a Portfolio Template in Photoshop and Profit from Layer Types useful for creating your own portfolio templates.

Remember, save each template as a PSD file so that you can go back and utilize them again when you want to update your photos or text. Saving as a PSD file retains all of your layers so that you can access them and change them easily. If you save it as a JPG or another lossy format that flattens the layers, you will no longer have the ability to edit them.

If you have any other tips for creating a portfolio template, please share them with us in the comments below.

The post How to Create a Portfolio Template in Photoshop and Profit from Layer Types appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ana Mireles.

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Video: How to create a custom keyboard shortcut in Adobe Photoshop CC

03 Feb

Adobe’s latest video in its ongoing ‘Photoshop Magic Minute’ series shows it’s possible to create a custom keyboard shortcut within Photoshop CC.

In the 60-second clip, Photoshop Product Manager Meredith Stotzner shows how, with just a few steps within Photoshop’s dedicated Keyboard Shortcuts sub-menu, you can create your own macro.

It’s a fairly basic trick, but for Photoshop newbies and those diving into the world of further customization, it’s a good, quick tip that can save a great deal of time and hundreds of keystrokes in the long-run.

You can find more 60-second Photoshop tips in Adobe’s ‘Photoshop Magic Minute’ playlist on Youtube.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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