The trend to add glowing lines and stars seized the web design scene already a few years ago, but not as much as it is popular now. Now we can recognize the “glow” effect in many ways — digital art, HDR photography,  and many other ways, including, of course, web design graphics. During our life, we take hundreds of shots, most of which are rather dull and unappealing, we are used to the fact that photos, by default, never turn to be truly amazing, if they are taken spontaneously with non-professional camera and even those of us who are equipped with a pro-camera, are not always able to capture a breathless moment. Therefore, each time we see an image with beautiful glow effects, juicy and vibrant colors, great contrast and incredible use of proportion, what do we say? “WOW!”. Today I gathered a few photos for your inspiration, which will make you say “wow” and inspire you to aspire for taking better, vivid photos yourself! Here are a few examples of wise, neat and beautiful use of Glow effects..

Mild Glow Practice In Photography

Waianapanapa Sands – Maui photography

Purple Euphoria photography

If at first you don’t succeed…

August 18th 2008 – Inspiration pt2 photography

Summer Night City… At Home

Exaggerated Glow Practice in (HDR) Photography

Unter den Linden photo

Nightfall photo

Rocky Driftwood Lighthouse

The Eye at Night photography

If the sun was to rise on the moon, this is what it might look like

Blue Neon Glow

Candy Glow (with Blacklight)

Glow Effects Practice in Digital Art and Web Design

Light of The World

NIMBOSRATUS CLOUDS

Precepts of the Lord

skybonsai

fluid mechanics

Towards the Mark

Moda México

Legion

Glowing Monster’s Eyes

Sleeping Sun

Fashion Label tag

Photos and article written by our guest poster 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.

To photograph a bird, you need to be like a bird. Birds react very quickly to any movements around them. So, when you’re in range, you need to be ready with your camera and react very quickly lest you should miss your shot. This is where a high speed dSLR with a fast lens will help. So, move slowly, and react quickly.

Aim for the Eye

A picture that is brilliantly framed, with a great subject and wonderful colors, but low sharpness is of no value. On the other hand, a photo that is nothing great in terms of subject, but has decent framing and is sharp, is much better. The key to a good picture is sharpness. When taking pictures of wildlife, especially birds, try and get the eye as sharp as possible, even if you end up getting the feathers slightly less sharp. This is because whenever you look at a photo of an animal, bird or even a person, your attention is automatically directed to the eyes as they display a lot of emotion.

To get the sharpness that you need, try and use a smaller aperture (a higher f number). Most lenses offer sharpest pictures in the range of f/8 – f/11. Also, since you’ll often be shooting in the middle of lots of trees and leaves, use manual focus wherever possible because the camera will find it hard to focus in these conditions. Also, if your camera has RAW support, use it. This way you’ll be able to get more detail in your picture, and make adjustments to white balance and exposure later during post processing.

Capture the Moment

When observing animals and birds, there come moments when you stand there looking, spellbound. The courtship displays of birds of paradise, the mating of Albatross, a Swift feeding its young in mid-air. These are once in a lifetime moments – endeavor to capture them. Of course there are other stunning shots that are easier to capture, like an eagle swooping down on its prey, a hummingbird hovering in mid-air to savor the sweet nectar of a flower. These are moments that make priceless pictures, and these are moments you should try your best to capture.

A couple of other things you should keep in mind when clicking birds are:

• Don’t try too hard to approach nests when there are eggs/young. There is a chance that the bird might abandon the nest.
• When capturing birds in flight, use high shutterspeeds and boost your ISO if needed. Try to take shots from above or eye level.
• Where the background is distracting, use a wider aperture to blur the background. This particularly lends a nice feel if there are leaves/grass in the background, giving it a soft green look.
• Know your camera well, so that you know what settings to use where.

That is it for this tutorial. This should give you a jump start with bird photography. Remember, you will not get instant results. So be patient, keep practicing, and eventually you’ll get there!

Focus is critical, pixels are cheap

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!

Get $90 off Your Purchase of PowerShot SD980 IS 12.1 Megapixel Digital Camera

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, but keep in mind that it is more akin to negative film than transparency film and I personally find that I can safely get another stop to a stop-and-a-half in post-shoot processing.  Shoot RAW, not jpeg! As far as exposure, keep your histogram as far to the right as possible without clipping (going off the edge).  If you loose your highlights (which are on the right hand side of the histogram) you probably can’t get them back.  I guess in that way a digital file is like transparency film.

I am not a big user of on-camera flash, but it can be a real life-saver.  I suggest a good starting point is to set your flash to under expose by two-thirds of a stop.  That can help bring out details without overpowering the image…and looking like you used on-camera flash!  If you do use on-camera flash it is generally a good idea to bounce it or at least put some sort of diffuser over it.

Use movement to your advantage

Another thing to keep in mind is that a little movement in your image isn’t necessarily an image killer. Sometimes you can make it work to your advantage. A year ago I was shooting in the train station in Mumbai, India.  The station is indoors and while it wasn’t exactly gloomy, it still qualifies as low light.  I put the camera over my head as high as I could hold it and fired off a half-dozen frames at an eighth of a second.  I only shot six frames because at that point a machine gun carrying police officer politely but firmly informed me that photography in the train station was forbidden.  That image, in which everything has movement, even the lamp posts, has already sold a number of times as a stock picture with Getty Images (1377).  Sometimes movement can make an image more dynamic and help it convey a mood or message.

Guest post by John Lund Stock

Dramatic Effect with False HDR – Photoshop Action

One thing I discovered during my experience with digital photography, is that digital photography is very well suited for the portrait photographer. So why are we the last to jump on the band wagon? Many commercial shooters have known about and mastered the use of digital in their business’s for far longer than the portrait photographer.

My guess is that we’re afraid. Afraid of the learning curve and afraid that the quality just isn’t there unless we spend an ungodly amount of our hard earned cash on some scary looking gigantic array of confusing and awkward, let alone “how am I going to learn how to use this stuff” equipment.

Truth is, you can easily get away with as little as a 3.5 megapixel camera. I know, I used my Canon D30 for the first eight months of my digital journey. That camera created more memories, more sales and more wall portraits that I ever thought imaginable.

Whoa, wait a minute you say, wall hangings? Can’t be!! When I put on my seminars I routinely display many large wall samples for all to see, with some of the older samples I created with the 3.5 megapixel camera; and the reaction I get is usually disbelief. The quality is there. I’ve proven it over and over and I know anyone can replicate the same results. Yes, even with a 3.5 megapixel camera.

You’ve just got be careful, that’s all. We have a collection of images at our studio, even large wall hangings captured with our dinky little D30, and they are “jaw-dropping” stunning. I know other photographers who have had amazing results as well. I know that it works and file size is secondary.

There are many reasons, but I’ll work with the main list. Here they are:

Quality.

The quality of images captured with a high quality lens, properly exposed and well posed is more than enough, even if you shoot JPEGS. Yes, JPEGS. Over 90% of the more than 30-40,000 exposures I put through my camera every year is shot in JPEG mode. Why? Why would anyone in their right mind shoot in such a “low quality” mode? The answer is simple: It works.

I like to compare JPEG’s to shooting with portrait film. It is slightly softer (although not even noticeable to the human eye) and muted, ideal for skin tones, right? Besides, we slap on “softar” filters in front of these outrageously expensive lenses and degrade the image even more. Don’t bother. Shoot with a good lens, in JPEG mode, expose properly, pose and create as usual, and it will all come together. Add any effects later. Look at what else portrait photographers have been doing to their finished images besides purposely degrading the image with “softars”. We retouch the surface of the print, sometimes extensively. We canvas mount. Add texture sprays.Oils. Linen laminates…on and on. My point is simple. Portrait photographers do not need to create the very sharpest, highest resolution images available. If they have in the past, they’ve always degraded the image through these other means. It’s kind of ironic don’t you think? You can still shoot in RAW mode if you wish, but it isn’t really needed.

If we needed the absolute highest quality image at capture we would have all been shooting with Kodachrome 64 or Velvia on a 4?x5 camera. But we don’t. JPEGs work. I have many 30? prints, and even a 70? print, that was captured in JPEG. And they look amazing. Your can too.

Control.

People want their photos fast. We live in a drive-through world and minutes count. In our studio we create a slide presentation for our sessions and we show them to the clients within 20 minutes of every shoot. Clients love it. They get to see the results instantly. If you fight this you’re fighting basic human nature. We want, want, want, and want to see it sooner than later. Sales go up, the client is already in the studio ready to see the images, and ready to spend. Their is ample evidence that when you show the images sooner, and you create large projected images, which is a cinch with digital, sales go up. Digital gives the portrait photographer more control over the sales process, and ultimately it means more profits. For instance, this photo was taken by digital camera :

Retouching.

Let’s face it, people want to look good. What used to take hours and whole lot of aggravation with spray booths, smelly and dangerous lacquers, is now possible with absolute ease. Even when I decided to farm out all my retouching because I had had enough, it still took weeks or months, and huge retouching bills.

Not to mention the loss of control I had over the retouching aspects. It was up to the subjective interpretation of the retouching artist to enhance the images the way I wanted them retouched. Now, with a few basic skills, and all those years of retouching experience all transferred over to the new darkroom, my computer, I can easily retouch to any degree I like. In mere minutes. With absolute astounding results. This ultimately translates to satisfying a basic need that needs to satisfied in our clients, their vanity. They want to look good, and they want it fast.

Innovation. I could go on for days when it comes to what new products, ideas, services, sales processes, packages, etc, etc…I have been able to create because of digital photography. Suffice it to say for now that I am excited and alive again with passion about my photography and about the possibilities. When you apply the power of digital, and get a handle on it in your workflow, you can create new and exciting products like never before.

I’ve seen it and experience it every week in our busy little small-city studio. The proof ultimately boils down to net profits, doesn’t it?

After all, we are in business first, and creative artists second, right? Right? Are you with me on this one? We are in business to make money and survive. We need new and exciting angles, ways to stay afloat, so we can pay our bills, keep the bankers happy and provide for our families. No one can predict will total accuracy how digital photography will ultimately evolve, but my betting dollar is with it all the way. I’m not taking any chances.

Anyone remember when colour film and paper was introduced as a mainstream commodity? I don’t, I was just a wee lad, but I heard stories about the many studio owners closing their doors and packing it in because they didn’t want to keep up with the demand and latest craze that colour film and colour paper had created. Dinosaurs. Every last one of them. Their loss, all because of a thick head and mis-guided egos. Don’t be a dinosaur.

My biggest discovery: Who the true expert is!

Ultimately the true expert in our business is not ourselves, or our peers. The real expert is the client. They open up their hearts and wallets and fork over hard earned cash for the memories we create for them. Do they care if it is shot on a JPEG? In RAW mode? Do they care if we use the biggest, best, strongest, fastest computers and software? Of course not. When you get into your clients head and listen to the conversation that goes on these things are totally irrelevant.

Far more important to her, and to us, is the fundamentals of good photography. In a whirlwind of technological advances nothing seems to ever stay the same. Truth is, the fundamentals of good photography will never change. That’s where is all starts. Master that and you have 99% of your digital photography challenges mastered.