HandyPhotography | Photoshop tutorials | Photography & More

Photoshop tutorial - Computer generated movement.

2011-04-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

Computer generated movement.

Sometimes in photography, a photographer may want to capture the movement of a particular subject which he wishes to do, However cannot do for whatever reason, be it the subject moves to fast, or the subject moving is harder to find. This is where computer generated movement comes in, we take a still image of the subject then make it look like it’s moving in photoshop.

Take a still image of your desired subject
Put that image inside of photoshop
Select the subject you want to be blurred
Inverse the selection
Filters > Blur > Motion blur
Select 90 Degrees
Ensure preview is ticked
Adjust the blur distance slider as appropriate

Photoshop tutorial - Text Gradient

2011-04-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

It's often often handy to be able to have a gradient covering a text field in photoshop, especially when your wanting to design some text for print products or even web design.

I'll show you how.

Step 1 - Type the text you want to add a gradient using the text tool

Select the gradient tool from the Photoshop toolbar

Create a new layer (CMD/CTRL + SHIFT + N)

Select your two colours - I always prefer to have the darker colour on the bottom

On you new layer - draw a gradient over the text

On the gradient layer right click and select "Create clipping mask"

Once ouve done that you should have a gradient covering your text, as shown below!

How can I make money with photography?

2011-04-10T06:40:00.000-07:00

So you've just gotten the hang of photography, and you've decided you want to start makinga bit of extra cash from it. Well here are a few ideas to get you thinking.

Full Time options:

1. Wedding Photography.

Brides will pay a lot of money for the perfect photographer for them, so make sure you get a decent port folio together, and then start promoting your new business.

2. Photography Jobs

Many employers looking for photographers are not looking for qualifications, or in some cases even experience. If you think you've got a strong enough portfolio, ring up and ask for an interview, eve if it's unpaid at first, you never know what that could lead to...

Part Time options.

1. Stock Photography

Search sell stock photos online

2. Studio shoots

Charge clients to come into your studio, and you supply them with a selection of prints.

3. Sell, Print & Sell.

Print some of your best work, frame them nicely and try to sell them at car boots, craft fairs, online, in the local paper or anywhere else you can think of.

4. Sell your photos to The Sun.

Many big name newspapers will pay big bucks for that shot of David Beckham picking his nose, maybe this is a route you'd like to take.

5. Teach.

Many people would love to learn photography, if your an expert why not teach one-to-one and charge per hour, or even run a class of up to 15 people.

Here are just a few ideas to get you going.

50 Free SnapFish Prints.

2011-04-09T16:41:00.000-07:00

I have a few promo codes for 50 free prints at Snapfish UK.

All you need to do is follow this blog and email me at matt.cowlin09@gmail.com for a code.

First come first served.

Manfrotto Tripods. Are they worth the money?

2011-04-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

It really depends on your needs, but as a rule of thumb. If you need a tripod, you need a Manfrotto tripod. (or something of similar quality)

You wouldn't buy a $5000 Television and hang it up on a $10 bracket.

A tripod is there to create a good, solid, sturdy base that you can trust your camera will be safe on.

If your in the market for a tripod, spend a few extra pennies and buy quality, you really don't want to skimp out when it comes to tripods.

5 Photography things it's NOT ok to buy cheaper

2011-04-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

1. Tripod - You need these to be stable.
2. All other Filters
3. SD Cards
4. Lens'
5. Camera bags/Cases

5 Photography things it's ok to buy cheaper

2011-04-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

1. Lens cleaning kit. (A lens cleaning kit is lens cleaning kit)
2. USB Cables, hubs and other USB peripherals
3. Gorilla pod & Clones (The cheaper clones of these are fine)
4. Remote triggers
5. UV Filters (Only UV)

Photoshop CS5 - Skin smoothing - How to smooth a models skin.

2011-04-05T16:15:00.000-07:00

In this tutorial I will show you how to achieve that magazine-finish skin every time, in a few simple steps.

Here is the picture I am working with

Step 1 is to crop the image to the correct size, as I've done below.

Step 2: Create a new layer and label it "Skin"

Step 3: Using your EyeDrop tool found in the colour palette, select a colour from the models skin

Once you've done this you'll need to draw on a very crude mask of the particular colour. I KNOW it looks dodgy at this stage, but bear with me.

THE NEXT STEP:

Is add a Noise filter of about 12 radius, I don't have a screenshot but the filter can be found here.

Filters > Noise > Add noise

No we need to blur our skin by going to Filter > Blur > Guassian Blur

Blur this from between 20 and 25 pixels.

Once you've done that all you need to do, is to bring the opacity of this layer down to around 20 %

Here's the before and after!!

All I did here was a basic crop, a basic skin smooth, and a few levels and curves tweaks!

Home studio - How to get good photographs

2011-03-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

To build a home studio you will need a few things:

Camera - I used a Nikon D3000
Tripod - Any tripod will do
Lighting - this is very important, spend time on this. I used 2 PAR 56's stage lights on tripods
Backdrop of some description - I used poster roll on a T BAR stand

Spend a while adjusting your settings. Shutter speed and aperture for example, and make sure your white balance is set correctly. You can normally get away with using a higher ISO for studio shoots.

Optional extras

Fan
Props
Face paint

Here are 2 of the results

9 to 5 Blog | New time lapse

2011-02-13T14:10:00.001-08:00

I will now be posting only Monday to Friday!! Make sure you all follow my blog :)

Whats in my camera bag?

2011-02-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

I've always been really interested in looking in other peoples camera bag, so I thought i'd share a annotated image of mine.

Photoshop tutorial | Photojoiner

2011-02-11T09:13:00.000-08:00

Photojoiner is a technique first performed by David Hockney.

Here's how I made the picture below.

1. Open your picture you want to use, and a new blank A4 document.

2. Select a random part of the picture and copy it

3. The paste this into your new document.

4. Repeat this step several times until you have the desired effect. Here's mine.

Top 10 must have accessories | Portrait photography

2011-02-10T16:37:00.000-08:00

Top 10 must have camera accessories for portrait/studio photographers

1. Tripod

2. External Flash

3. Light meter

4. Wireless flash trigger

5. Backdrop

6. Props/dress changes/make up

7. A stool

8. Stool

9. Reflector

10. Green Screen

Top ten must have accessories | Wildlife/landscape photography.

2011-02-10T16:32:00.000-08:00

Top 10 must have camera accessories for landscape/wildlife photographers

1. Tripod

2. Lens

3. UV Filter

4. Zoom lens

5. Spare batteries

6. Spare Memory cards

7. Binoculars

8. Stool/sheet to sit on

9. Bottle of water

10. Mobile phone

Studio photography - Headshot

2011-02-10T09:31:00.000-08:00

Today I worked on some photographs I had taken in the studio a while back, below you will see a before and after ad see how I achieved it.

1. I cropped the picture into a nice rectangle.
2. Used levels to brighten the picture correctly and used the select white tool to get rid of the background.

3. I then made the curves into a very slight "S" shape to improve the contrast.
4. Next I airbrushed the face a little by painting on a layer of her skin tone (used eye dropper) then added noise Filters > Noise > add noise, and blurred it appropriately Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur.
5. With this layer on top I reduced the opacity to about 40% - play around with this until it looks right. Turn the layer on and off to see the difference :)

6. The final two steps were a small adjustments to the levels again just to neaten up the airbrush layer.
7. Then I flattened the image.
8. Lastly, I added a vignette Filter > Lens correction > Custom > Vignette (The "midpoint" and "amount" sliders)

Before.

After.

Night time photography

2011-02-09T13:35:00.000-08:00

To achieve these effects I did the following simple steps.

- Placed camera on tripod and pointed at the moon.

- Set the shutter speed to 4 seconds with an aperture of F5.6

- Flash ON

- Took the photograph.

- Enhanced it in photoshop using only levels.

and here's the finished result!!

Time lapse - Clouds

2011-02-09T08:51:00.000-08:00

I did this time lapse in the same way i've done the rest, scroll down for a tutorial!

Photography tutorial - Multiple flash

2011-02-09T04:44:00.000-08:00

Multiple flash is a technique that ought to be done in the studio.

You will need.

Dark room with black backdrop
External flash
DSLR

Firstly, set the shutter speed on you camera to "Bulb" This means the shutter will stay open as long as you hold the shutter release down.

Next you'll need an assistant and a model.

With the lights turned off, open your shutter - keep it opened.

Have your model pose in the first position, and ask your assistant to fire the flash.

The have your model move into the next position and have your assistant fire the flash, do this as many times until you're happy with the photo, and then release the shutter release.

You'll end up with a photo like this.

Designing in Photoshop - How to add a bleed.

2011-02-08T09:25:00.000-08:00

If you are designing something to be sent off for professional print, it is essential you add a "Bleed" A bleed is an area of "No mans land" around the design that will be cut off during printing, if you fail to add a bleed some of your design will be cut off.

To add a bleed go to Image > Canvas size

Then you'll see the canvas size window that looks like this, you'll want to add about 6 or 7 pixels. I added 2mm

If you do this after you've finished designing you wont have to worry about it while you're making it. Remember to select and delete anything that is in the bleed area, though.

As you can see I've done here.

How to create flame photography with smoke - Photography Tutorial

2011-02-08T06:48:00.000-08:00

Smoke photography is something I love doing, today I took a different spin on it and using the simple set up you can see here created some amazing shots.

After opening the photographs in photoshop I cropped them appropriately and used levels to completely darken the background. Ensuring I used the red channel to lighten the flame.

I then lightened the blue channel slightly in curves, and improved the contrast overall as a photo.

Here's one of the original images.

And heres the results..

Photography tutorial - Macro photography

2011-02-07T15:50:00.000-08:00

Shooting in macro is a great way to achieve nice shots of things like flowers, insects and nature. However if like myself, you don't fancy shelling out £600 on a macro lens you can still shoot good macro photography.

There are two different types of macro photography:
- Macro photography
- Close up photography

Macro photography is where you are so close up to something, you can't tell what it is. All you see is an array of colours and textures.

Close up photography is where you can still see the whole of the subject, just in really nice detail, this is my favourite way to shoot macro.

Make sure your camera is on "Macro" setting (this is normally a picture of a flower)
Ensure there is enough light
Zoom about half way in
Get as close to the subject as you can while still being in focus and shoot

Thats it!

Photoshop for beginners: Drop Shadows

2011-02-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

When used correctly, the drop shadow tool in photoshop can create very professional images.

Looking at the image above, we can see that a more subtle shadow looks more professional, the version at the top is the standard set for photoshop.

To create a drop shadow on some text, start by double clicking the text layer to reveal this window:

Go ahead and tick the "Drop Shadow" option, then select it to reveal the controls.

It's often a good idea to set the "Size" value larger than the "Distance", to achieve the affect above, I used an angle of 90, distance of 1px, size of 2px and set the opacity to 41%:

you can use a variety of sizes, blend modes, colours, distances and contours to achieve different effects

Photoshop tutorial - Dramatic Skies.

2011-02-07T10:40:00.000-08:00

In a lot of my pictures I often edit my sky heavily, and leave the photograph body largely alone. Heres how to create dar dramatic skies, baring in mind the original sky was bright blue.

1st you'll want to open the photography in photoshop, and select the sky. You can use the various selection tools avaliable.

Next open your levels window (CMD/CTRL + L) and drag the ends to the end of the graph.

The open curves and drag the top diagonal top point until the sky is the effect you were after. Here's an example of mine.

email me if you get stuck matt.cowlin09@gmail.com

Photoshop Tutorial - Selective Colour.

2011-02-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

Selective colour is a really nice technique to be able to master. It gives the photograph the ability to have a main focal point, and you get to chose the focal point.

Step 1. Open the photograph you want to use in photoshop

Step 2. Select the object you want to remain in colour using the selection tools.

Step 3. Use Standard Mode (Q) to adjust the selection like you can see I have done here.

Step 4. Press Q again to get back to normal selection, now you'll want to feather this by about 5 pixels. Select > Modify > Feather

Step 5. Now invert your selection (CMD/CTRL + Shift + I).

Step 6. Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation

Step 7. Drag the saturation slider all the way down (Although I like to leave a tiny bit of colour in, so you can adjust this as you wish)

Press Enter and here is the finished product!!

Time lapse of a clock - Photography

2011-02-06T16:12:00.000-08:00

Following on from my time lapse tutorial i've decided to share one of my more recent ones. Take a look.