Posts made in March, 2009

Although we post a lot of tutorials that teach you how to turn your ordinary photos into professional shots, many of us still get stuck and end up playing actions. It only takes seconds and the result is often very impressive.

With so many ideas and experience I have, I decided it would be a shame if I won’t release a set of actions to help the readers of PSwish.com and LoreleiWebDesign.com, so here is my first release, PSWISH 3 Action (pro). Please note that this action is for personal use one, and cannot be resold or redistributed on other websites.

Instruction:

• The action will work best with LIGHT photos. Any area that is slightly dark will turn black.
• The final result’s color scheme of the photo is determent by your Background and Foreground colors set before you played the action. Play with different variations to see what works best for you. If the results turn to be too dark or too reddish, set both foreground and background colors to lighter hues. Alternatively, hide the dark clouds layer when the action is finished playing (which makes the shot significantly lighter yet keeps the professional touch the action applied).

I use CS3 so I had no chance to test it on CS2 or lower, if anyone does, please drop a comment below so that other users will know if it’s suitable for other versions or not.

What you can do with this Photoshop Action?

This is idea for retouching photos with dull colors, or those that turned to be too light and as a result — uselessly boring. It will help you to turn any ordinary shot into a professional, “old school” photo with very strong contrast, slightly cold colors and grainy texture that is pulled from photo itself, and applied without using any additional grain effect. Like I said, if the result turns to be nearly black, this means your colors were too dark, because if you hide the clouds layer (should be one before last) — you will get good results but without this beautiful dramatic dark grain.

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Prajneet Singh.

The amount of detail that can be found in nature, no human creation can ever match. The beauty, the freshness, the colors of nature, it is all just so amazing; no wonder so many people take up nature photography as a hobby or maybe even a profession.

But with the kind of flora and fauna out there, you are left with a wide variety of subjects to choose from: beautiful landscapes and seascapes, to little flowers and insects, to big cats, to creatures of the air – birds. Bird watching has always been a popular hobby with nature lovers, and with the advent of digital photography, bird photography has turned into a sort of extension of birding. But the fact remains that like other wildlife, birds are a very difficult subject to photograph because: they are hard to spot, harder to get close to, and you have virtually no control over them. In this tutorial I will provide some basic tips for people getting into bird photography and hopefully try and make their birding experience more enjoyable.

Know your subject; Observe; Plan

I personally prefer to emphasize the bird aspect before the photography one because my experience tells me that the better you know your subject, the better your pictures, even if your equipment isn’t as fancy. Whatever birds you wish to shoot, spend some time reading about them, and studying them in the field if possible. This gives you a fairly good idea of where you can find them, how they react to human presence, and the like. Also, if you have a nature park or a zoo, go there for a walk. That will refresh your mind as well as give you an opportunity to know the birds around you. This done, you should plan your shoot according to the time of the day (and the year) when you’ll get a chance to capture the majestic creatures in all their glory.

The Equipment

Lets face it, getting within arm’s reach of ANY bird is close to impossible unless the bird belongs to a very friendly species or is a pet. So to get good pictures of birds, you need a lens that offers you a good zoom range. A 300mm or better would be ideal, but try and get at least a 200mm lens. Also, if you wish to capture birds in flight/taking off/landing, a fast lens with a wide aperture (f/4 or lower) would really help. A tripod is very essential here because you’ll be zooming in towards your subject which highly amplifies camera shake. If you have a camera/lens with Image Stabilization, that’s even better.

Approach Your Subject

Once you have the equipment in hand, and the subject in sight, you need to get close. As a rule of thumb, for any kind of photography, try and get as close to your subject as possible. Problem: You move towards a bird, it flies away. Solution: Be very slow, very cautious, and very patient. If you see the slightest hint of the bird moving away because of your presence, stop right there and let it get used to you. Make absolutely no sudden movements when near a bird. There have been times when after a lot of effort, I got pretty close to a bird and the bird flew off, not because of my being so close but because of the sudden movement of my camera strap falling down from my arm! So make sure that nothing is hanging loose. If the bird still seems uncomfortable, leave. Come back later. Always remember: the bird is more important than the photograph. The same goes for its habitat as well. Disturbing the creature or its environment to take a picture defeats the whole purpose of bird photography. The challenge lies in capturing the bird in its natural environment, and its own character.

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If you are shooting wide open, which is at the camera’s largest aperture, your depth of field will be correspondingly shallow.  That means your focus is going to be even more critical than otherwise.  Pick a point that needs to be sharp and really pay attention to keeping that point sharp.  Generally, if you are shooting people, the most important thing to keep sharp is the eyes.  When I am shooting people I focus on the eyes, shoot, re-focus and shoot again …and then do it all over again.  I can’t tell you how much I hate to be editing and find that I have a potentially great shot, but out of focus eyes ruin the picture.  I have found that if I am worried about an image not being sharp, I am usually right.  Pixels are cheap…shoot enough to make sure you have your shot!

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Shooting for stock, know your equipment, know your agency

If you are shooting with a stock agency in mind it is good to know just how high you can push your ISO before you reach the point where the agency is going to reject the image.  That means you have to know both your own equipment and the standards of the agency.  I was once shooting from the interior of a jeep on a mountain road in China.  The scene, road-building equipment clearing a landslide, was lit by the headlights of the cars waiting for the road to be cleared.  I shot the scene, hand held, but braced against the head-rest, at an ISO of 1600 with a Canon 1ds.  Man did I work on that image in post (processing the digital files)!  They accepted it too.  With the newer cameras I have no qualms about shooting at 400, I am comfortable shooting at 800 and don’t think 1600 would really be such a stretch.  But don’t take my word for it… do some testing!

Exposure and more

RAW (the file format native to the camera) has been talked to death,

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