The cooler air, colorful leaves, and pumpkin-spiced latte photos?
Yup! That’s right.
This tutorial will show you how to turn your photographs into tasty candied treats in any flavor you like for Halloween or for general eating pleasure.
In under an hour, your images will taste as good as they look.
Now isn’t that sweet?!
How to Make Photo Lollipops
p.s. In the spirit of Halloween, we’re giving away a Light Paint Can today! Give us a Like on Facebook to see how to enter. (…) Read the rest of DIY: How to Make Photo Lollipops (132 words)
We’ve seen record temperatures this summer. Sometimes, it’s just too hot to be outside!
But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy scenic views from the comfort of your living room (and air conditioner).
Learn how to turn your photos into glowing photo spheres!
You’ve seen those plain paper lanterns at the store, and now you can convert them to show off your own bright and colorful photographs.
And when the temperature drops, you can take your photo spheres out on the porch. Your neighbors will appreciate the view.
Make Photo Lanterns that Light Up the Night
p.s. Now hiring: World’s Best Web Designer. Learn more.
Why it’s cool:
It doesn’t take much to transform ordinary paper lanterns into pieces that will make your room shine.
These photo spheres look great in the daylight, and even better at night!
You can bask in the glow of your very own photos. What could be better?
Ingredients:
Photos to print
Printer
11×17 copy paper
12″ Paper Lantern
Gel Medium
Sponge Brush
Tape
Xacto knife
Cutting Surface
Sphere template (optional)
STEP 1: Size It Up
Measure the surface you want to cover and determine how big you need to print your images.
We printed four 11×17′s to wrap around our 12″ diameter lantern.
We found a good price on lanterns at World Market, but you can find them at Target, Michael’s, and a variety of online vendors. The bulb kit is usually sold separately, so make sure to pick that up as well.
Step 2: Print It Out:
After sizing your images in Photoshop or another editing program, print them out.
We printed on regular copy paper. We found it to be easier to wrap around the sphere.
Photo paper will work, too. You might need a little extra glue. Keep in mind the thickness of the paper will affect the translucency of the sphere when lit. Photo paper will give off a more subdued light.
Step 3: Cut It Up
You’ll need to make vertical slits on your photo in order to get it onto the sphere. Here are your two options.
You can use the sphere template to cut an elliptical pattern. Size this template to fit your photos. Use photoshop to crop it to 11″x17″ before you print. This method will keep the overlapping paper parts to a minimum.
TIP: Make sure the length of your template covers the entire sphere before cutting. You also want to make sure not to cut all the way through. You want your center “equator” to stay in tact, and use the strips to be able to bend around the thinner parts of the sphere.
The other option is to cut straight lines vertically along your photo, again leaving the center in tact. This is the easier version, but will have more overlap at the top and bottom.
These overlapping sections are apparent in the final product, but can also produce cool effects.
Step 4: Stick it Down
Start by taping down the “equator” of your first section to hold it in place.
Coat the backside of the image with gel medium and press into place. Gel medium is a glue like paste available at any art supply store. It’s a lot like modge podge, but has a nice clean finish when it dries.
Tuck the corners over the inside edge of the lantern. You may want a little extra gel/glue here to secure them.
Step 5: Do it Again
Repeat the previous step for each section of the photo.
Overlap each strip slightly to create a continuous image. Tuck the edges, and keep going.
TIP: Work in sections vertically across your lantern, i.e. glue the top of the first strip, then the bottom of that same strip, before moving on to the next section.
Step 6: Seal it Up:
This step is optional, but can help give your lantern a nice, finished look.
After each section is in place, brush a thin layer of gel medium over the photo, sealing in any cracks and smoothing out areas on your sphere.
TIP: You can use your hand on the inside of the lantern to press out any parts that may have been crinkled in the process.
Step 7: Dry it out:
Let it dry completely before hanging it.
Depending on how much gel medium was used, this can take from one hour to several hours.
Step 8: Hang it up!
Follow the instructions that came with your lantern for connecting the bulb and socket.
Pick your favorite place and hang up your glowing photo creation.
Enjoy your photos in all of their glory!
Why Stop There?
Make a string of these beauties using paper lantern Christmas lights.
Make glowing portraits. Put a face on one orb, torso on another, legs and feet on a third.
Try printing photos on transparencies to make other worldly glowing orbs.
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Watching the Olympics is crazy-inspiring. Olympians train every single day of their life to claim their title as #1 in the world!
You can relate. You’ve spent hours in marathon photo-editing sessions. You finished your 365 without missing a day. You’ve even buffed up your arm from carrying your gear.
And just to keep you going, we’ve rounded up eight absolutely awesome photo projects that were inspired by the 2012 Olympics.
From portraits of lost tourists to photos of abandoned Olympic sites and incredible snaps of Olympians at home, you’ll get pumped to start bench-pressing your camera bag honing your own photo skills.
8 Great Olympics Themed Photo Projects
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Photo via REUTERS/Mike Blake
Portraits of Lost Olympics Tourists
SEE IT:You are Here
Photographer Caroll Taveras was commissioned by creative agency Mother London to find lost tourists and take them back to a pop-up photo studio.
There, they’re refueled with refreshments and then haves their portrait shot on 4×5 Polaroid film.
The portraits will then be mounted at Mother London as “an exhibition collage–a shrine, if you will, to their humanitarian outreach endeavor of saving tourists from themselves.” [via Fast Company]
BONUS:It’s a little scary at first. Let our our guide to photographing strangers inspire you to shoot your own portraits!
Photos of Long-Abandoned Olympic Sites
SEE IT: Borrow, Build, Abandon
Jamie McGregor Smith visited Athens last year to photograph the structures used during the 2004 Olympics.
The long-abandoned spaces are empty, vast and even overgrown. It’s a little melancholy to think these once glorious and crowd-filled places are now defunct.
But like other projects that focus on urban decay, they bring awareness to how we use our resources, and how we might conserve them better in the future.
Read more about the story at The New York Times.
BONUS:Get inspired by this Flickr set of an abandoned amusement park. If you do some urban exploration of your own, do it safely!
Olympians Through a 100-Year-Old Lens
SEE IT: Olympians + a 100-Year-Old Lens
Jay L. Clendenin traveled around Southern California photographing Olympic athletes, but he didn’t just bring along his DSLR.
He also brought along a 4×5 field camera with a Petzval lens that’s over 100 years old.
Each portrait was shot on black and white photo paper, and then taken into a darkroom (his bathroom converted into a darkroom) and scanned and inverted from there.
TAKEAWAY?Bring all your cameras! Or the coolest ones, at least. That’s what this skydiver did when he shot these 4×5 photos while jumping out of an airplane.
Multiple Exposures of Olympians
SEE IT: Reuters’ Multiple Exposures
Remember that army of robot cameras that Reuters set up especially for the Olympics? This series of multiple exposure shots are a peek into what photographers–Mike Blake and Brian Snyder–were able to do with these cameras.
Armed with the new Canon 1-DX, photographers are able to take advantage of the multiple-exposure feature. It’s a bit different from layering photos in Photoshop, in that it shoots multiple frames quickly at 14 frames per second, and then puts them all together for you in-camera!
It’s pretty amazing that we can capture movement in such detail considering Olympic athletes are breaking records with their speed. Muybridge would be proud!
BONUS: So you don’t have a 1-DX, but you do have a camera! Check out our guide to capturing movement in photos with multiple exposures.
Olympics Host Cities Seen from Space
SEE IT: A Satellite’s View of the Olympics
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center released a set of photos showing host cities during their respective Olympics.
Satellites are taking photos of Earth from above on a daily basis, so they gathered these up in celebration of this years’ games. We especially dig the ones shot at night!
BONUS: Getting to space isn’t easy, but the next closest thing is sending your $ 40 digital camera up into space on a weather balloon! See our guide to aerial balloon photography. Here’s another on using weather balloons.
Illegal Olympics
SEE IT: Photos of Illegal Use of “Olympics”
Apparently, it’s illegal to use the term “Olympics” and any Olympics branding without authorization. You can read more about that here.
So, photographer Craig Atkinson decided to start documenting illegal uses of the Olympics brand around London, and well, it’s oddly entertaining, endearing, and great.
BONUS:You can contribute your own photos (email him here) as Craig will be compiling a collection for a book.
Athlete’s Meals in Photographs
SEE IT: My Day on a Plate
Athletes have strict diets, so haven’t you wondered what they eat on a daily basis? Designer Sarah Parker and photographer Michael Bodiem re-imagined athlete’s meals based off meals that Olympian nutritionists recommend.
Each plate in the series shows what an Olympian would eat in a day, 15 to 25 portions of healthy eats amounting to over 2,000 calories. Pictured to the right is the diet recommended for a gymnast!
BONUS:Neatly organized food is the jam. (Ha! Get it?) Here’s more inspiration from Carl Kleiner’s beautifully arranged food that appeared in the Ikea cookbook.
Olympians at Home
SEE IT: Olympians at Home for Time
Renown photographer Martin Schoeller followed Gabby Douglas (gymnastics), Lolo Jones (track), and Ryan Lochte (swimming) while they practiced and possibly even more interesting, while they relaxed at home.
Martin says
“I’m not even a big sports person, but athletes’ bodies are mesmerizing. They’re constantly putting themselves in pose and doing something interesting with the physical expressions, and I love to photograph them because they’re natural performers at heart.”
BONUS: Dancers Among Us follows dancers around New York City. Elegant and talented folks galavanting about the city makes for some gorgeous shots.
Even More
Check out these spectacular time-lapses of the building of 4 structures in London for the Olympics.
What the Olympics looked like in 1908
Women in sports is controversial in the Arab world. Two sisters photographed this excellent portrait series of female Arab athletes to challenge the stigma they face.
Read all about Reuters’ robotic camera setup for the Olympics. Innovative stuff.
The funniest faces made at the Olympics
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www.silberstudios.tv Childhood photographer Lena Hyde is a respected expert in the field of children’s photography. In this video, she joins Marc Silber to talk about her approach to shooting photos of children and to share her tips on efficient lighting and equipment. Looking at her work, it is clear that she enjoys her work and truly engages her subjects, both young and old. Lena is a natural at interacting with children and babies, and always makes sure to create an experience that is fun and enjoyable for them. Children are more comfortable without the commotion of lighting equipment, so she only uses all natural light for her photos. Lena advises against carrying around heavy equipment, since you often have to run around to keep up with your active subjects. Join us for this informative video for anyone who wants to capture truly natural photographs of children that will be cherished for years to come. Check out Lena’s site. Our thanks to Francesco Spiezia for his footage of Lena in action! Click to subscribe to our videos to stay up to date!
FULL VIDEO: www.tutvid.com This video was somehow automatically shortened by Youtube in Feb. of 2009. Instead of taking it down I decided to simply include a link to the full video on tutvid.com. If you have done a lot of Photography you probably have accidentally left the timestamp feature of yours (or somebody else’s!) Camera on, or maybe didn’t realize it was on. Whatever the case the results are the same, that horrible, horrible timestamp that plasters itself across a corner of you image. By the end of this Tutorial you will know how to remove that using several of Photoshop’s Retouching tools. Enjoy! Please check out www.tutvid.com for more, free video tutorials as well as downloads! Video Rating: 4 / 5
Working with a photograph and being able to apply digital makeup without altering the original image is very important. In this tutorial you will learn Photoshop techniques of photo retouching by using layers, coloring modes, adjusting hues and saturation. Adding digital props into portrait photography and changing color of your background will finalize the look you want to achieve. Have fun!?
Working with a photograph and being able to apply digital makeup without altering the original image is very important. In this tutorial you will learn Photoshop techniques of photo retouching by using layers, coloring modes, adjusting hues and saturation. Adding digital props into portrait photography and changing color of your background will finalize the look you want to achieve. Have fun!? Video Rating: 4 / 5
Sigma UK has launched a ‘Spirit of the Games’ photographic competition, with the chance to win an SD1 Merrill SLR with 17-50mm F2.8 lens, or a DP2 Merrill large-sensor compact. Running from the start of the Olympic Games on the 28th July to the 31st August, photographers are invited to submit up to five of their images capturing the Spirit of the Games. The overall winner will be selected by Sigma’s own judges, while 20 runners-up will be entered into a publicly-judged Facebook competition to win the DP2 Merrill. Click through for a link on how to enter.
Facebook has updated the way photos are presented in the timeline section of users’ profiles – devoting more page space to the images and making it easier to give some images prominence. The result is an awful lot like the Google+ gallery view, and the Flickr interface for viewing contacts’ images but appears to crop all images to square format. The Facebook update gives the ability to ‘highlight’ specific images (making them four times larger) but doesn’t just present your own images – images with you tagged in them will be intermingled with your own shots, so it’s not an optimal way to showcase your photography, unless you ruthlessly de-tag yourself from other peoples’ photos.
Watch the full process of taking a 3D Lenticular photograph (like a hologram) with the Mitton LR1 linear rail system, of Monica Loughman, one of Irelands leading Ballet dancers. See the lenticular process from photo shoot, use of 3D software, lamination and printing. Video Rating: 5 / 5
It doesn’t take much to transform ordinary paper lanterns into pieces that will make your room shine. 
Measure the surface you want to cover and determine how big you need to print your images.
After sizing your images in Photoshop or another editing program, print them out.
You’ll need to make vertical slits on your photo in order to get it onto the sphere. Here are your two options.
Start by taping down the “equator” of your first section to hold it in place.
Repeat the previous step for each section of the photo.
This step is optional, but can help give your lantern a nice, finished look. 
Let it dry completely before hanging it. 
Follow the instructions that came with your lantern for connecting the bulb and socket.
You are Here
SEE IT: Borrow, Build, Abandon
SEE IT: Olympians + a 100-Year-Old Lens
SEE IT: Reuters’ Multiple Exposures
SEE IT: A Satellite’s View of the Olympics
SEE IT: Photos of Illegal Use of “Olympics”
SEE IT: My Day on a Plate
SEE IT: Olympians at Home for Time 
