Wanna add some photo-geekery to your Christmas tree this year? Try making custom Christmas ornaments out of strips of film or printed photographs! twinklecat has written up a film ornament tutorial over at Lomography, and Shelley Haganman has an easy-to-follow photo ornament tutorial over at scrappergirl.
Buying an illuminated white background for high-key lighting (or to use as a giant softbox) can set you back hundreds of dollars. Fortunately, you can create something similar on the cheap using simple white bedsheets, some PVC pipes, and some lights. Assemble the PVC pipes into a square frame, stretch the bedsheet over the frame, and illuminate the bedsheet from behind. You’ll want to blow out the white area on the street for evenly white lighting. Check out the full build tutorial over on DIYPhotography.
A Light Wall Of Light From Bed Sheets And PVC [DIYPhotography]
P.S. You can also try sticking a bedsheet over a window or doorway to get a sunlit softbox. Thanks Jeremiah!.
Image credit: Photograph by David Dicarlo
Here’s an educational time-lapse tutorial by Los Angeles-based architectural photographer Mike Kelley in which he walks through how he goes about photographing buildings. His technique might be described “manual HDR” — after shooting the building over a longish period of time to capture different lightings, he then enters the scene and lights different areas of the building using two Canon 430EX Speedlites. Afterward, he loads the stills into Photoshop and selects different portions of the scene from different photos depending on the lighting he wants. The finished composite photo ends up looking as if it were lit by a large number of Speedlites.
One of the things you’ve likely seen when looking at product or review pages for lenses is an MTF chart, used by manufacturers to give consumers an idea of how sharp a particular lens is. If you’ve never gotten around to learning how to interpret these charts, here’s a helpful 10-minute video tutorial on the subject. Luminous Landscape and Cambridge in Colour have great tutorials on this as well if you’re more comfortable with text-based tutorials.
Photographer Jamie Beck has done quite a bit lately to popularize the “cinemagraph“: Harry Potter-esque photos that are given an extra dimension by adding a dash of animation. If you want to learn how to make your own, Photojojo recently published a great tutorial on how to make them using Photoshop. Photographers Fernando Baez and Christopher Mathew Burt have also published tutorials and some helpful tips.
Image credit: Photograph by Jamie Beck
Here’s a crash course on getting started with using Photoshop Layers and Masks by Sean Armenta of Fstoppers. If you’ve been making edits on your photographs directly without creating new layers, watch this video to have your eyes opened to the power of layers.
Here’s an awesome post-processing tutorial by photographer Sean Armenta teaching how to clean up skin in a portrait using three Photoshop tools: the Healing Brush, Patch Tool, and Clone Stamp.
(via f stoppers)
Here’s yet another awesome Photoshop tutorial by Sean Armenta showing how to use the uber-useful Clone Stamp Tool in Photoshop. He covers not just the basics of the tool, but also various tips and tricks you can use to maximize its usefulness.
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out his Pen Tool and Healing Brush/Patch Tool tutorials as well.
(via f stoppers)
Okay, so you have a memory card full of timelapse photos taken over a long-ish period of time using a DSLR camera and intervalometer. Now what? In the above video, filmmaker Philip Bloom shows how you can easily combine them into a timelapse video using Quicktime Pro.
(via Photoxels)
Here’s an easy to follow video tutorial by photographer Lucas Ridley teaching you how to create custom bokeh shapes using a construction paper cap placed over your lens. Ridley’s design is flexible, allowing you to swap shapes easily by sliding them in and out of the cap.
