beginner photography tips
Crop, Crop and Crop
I see alot of raw photographs as I sift through literally hundreds and hundreds of family beach pictures every day. A big misconception is that because you are being photographed by a professional photographer, that the photos come out of the camera and are ready to hand to the customer. Nothing could be farther from the truth. What the photographer strives for is to get excellent exposure, natural posing and to bring the best background possible out of a shoot. Then comes the task of editing. The best pictures are the ones that don’t have to be dramatically edited. That is just a fact. Many of our clients come in and want the sky color changed, the face of their kid taken off of one photo and put on their chosen photo, all the wrinkles removed from faces, all the windblown hair put perfectly back into place. All of this, while it makes the studio tons of money, it harms the natural look of the photo. No matter how good a graphic artist is, it still plays with the integrity of the original shot. So, what I tell my photographers is to bring in photos that only need a slight levels(we will discuss levels in a follow up article)tweaking and some basic cropping. Most all digital photos need this done. It is truly amazing how a single photo can be transformed with simple cropping. Cropping can most of the time eliminate unwanted and unavoidable background clutter as well as zooming in on a subject so to be able to catch that very personal expression or action. So, in closing, even your most basic photo editing software comes with a crop tool. Don’t be afraid to use it. Get in there and play with different crops and see how your photo will transform. One thing to remember, the larger the digital file, the better quality the final cropped image will be. Remember to set your camera to take the largest file possible.
Isn’t Digital Photography Cheaper Than Film? Why Doesn’t the Photographer Charge Me Less?
ANSWER: NO! The idea that digital photography on the professional level is cheaper than conventional film and paper is a total myth. According to all of the stats published, doing a professional shoot digitally costs as much as one-third more than traditional methods. But, digital photography does have it’s advantages over film. The photographer is able to catch mistakes on the spot and make corrections early in the shoot by simply checking the camera screen,which makes adjustments and retouching post shoot easier. Also, the ability to create color and black and white images from the same shot cuts down on having to take multiple shots with color and b/w film.
Reasons for Increased Cost:
(1) FASTER TURNAROUND EXPECTATIONS:
Because clients know how quickly digital turnarounds can happen, they often expect the photographer to process and deliver much faster than with film. The marketplace has upped the ante on deadlines as well. So these added pressures also push up the costs.
(2) CONSTANTLY CHANGING HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE:
Today, digital equipment–cameras, computers, hardware, and software– is often obsolete in a few months, and rarely makes it to two or three years. Professional photographers and studios are constantly upgrading equipment and software programs which is an ongoing cost to stay competitive.
(3) THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S TIME:
When a photographer shoots digitally, the post-production work required after the shoot–including downloading, naming files, color corrections, various batch actions, backing up on external hard drives, burning CDs or DVDs, etc.– is infinitely more time consuming for the photographer, and sometimes most often takes longer than the shoot itself. Before all these resources were available, simple lab drop and pickup that was billed to the client. Today, it is the photographer or studio who is working at the computer perfecting and presenting your images, which is reflected in your bill.
In closing, the digital revolution is a wonderful thing and can be a real benefit to the professional and client. It is very important to realize that things are not always as they seem and that your professional photographer is doing lots of work behind the scene to make your portraits beautiful for you.
Enhance Your Family Photos Without The Expense Of Photoshop
My studio has been using Adobe Photoshop for years. I am about to date myself but I remember learning Photoshop on my first Mac computer. It was a Macintosh Performa and it didn’t even have a CD drive,only a floppy drive. As if you can save a Photoshop file onto a floppy disk. Well photo editing has come along way since then. If you can afford Photoshop, I highly recommend the software. It does amazing things. As many of you have realized, even the best digital photos files need some adjustments. If you don’t want to mortgage your home to purchase a professional photo editing program, give Gimp a try. I came across this photo editor while searching the internet trying to find a fix for some photos that I was assigned to correct. The Gimp program seems to have most of the tools that any beginner would need to simply edit photo files. It has layers, cropping, levels, color balance, mode and almost all the features that Photoshop has and the best part, it is free. Just go to http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
and download. Just so you know, I have no affiliation with this company and I am not receiving any compensation for mentioning the product. Give it a try and let us know what you think.
Shooting in Artificial Light-Do your family pictures come out yellow when shooting indoors?
Artificial lighting is not always as fun and easy as sunlight, but you can use it to create some wonderful photographs once you know how.
Indoor lighting is often fluorescent and tungsten bulbs. Tungsten bulbs are used by professional photographers, as “hot lights” because of the high temperature they produce. In photography it is important to understand the temperature scale in relation to the colors they will produce. A hot light will produce more red and reduce the blue. Firelight and candle light though not artificial can be used in doors to create shadows and depth.
When using indoor lights, specifically artificial light you will need to understand exposure. When you have less light it will take longer to expose the film to capture a photograph. First in a darker room where you have direct light on the object you will not want to use the flash. The flash will bounce the light back at the picture. The next step is to get as close to the subject or object as possible. The third consideration is the angle. Taking the picture head on of the object will bounce the light and shadows about. You will need to angle the camera to the side or up from the ground to attain the photograph. Shooting any subject head on is likely to create shadows and take away from the print. The best angle for shooting portraits is often up into the face.
When shooting faces or other objects you usually want a three dimensional contrast. You will need to search for the planes and contours of the subject, especially in portrait photography. The planes and contours will help you determine the angle you will shoot the subject from. The shadows will often provide the three dimensional contrast if you find the correct planes and angle to shoot from. This helps with pictures that you want to stand-alone.
Artificial lighting needs to be movable. Just turning on your home lights will not give you the desired affect. Instead it can wash out the subject, place the light at the wrong angle, or create too much shadow in one area. You need to have lights set up on tripods to change the angle to suit your needs. Rooms are small which is one reason over head lights can either be too powerful or not direct enough. Following lighting tips will increase your photography skills. Most amateur photographers find taking a class on lighting and having a few books on the subject will help them learn proper lighting techniques.
As for that yellow or pink cast that you sometimes get when shooting indoors, white balance, white balance, white balance. There is a setting on your camera that probably says WB. That is the white balance setting. Most people never touch this setting unless you are a professional photographer. The white balance set on auto can produce a yellow cast to your pictures. This is easily remedied by taking a custom white balance before you start shooting. All you really need is a white peice of paper. Read your manual and this can solve most of those indoor problems.
Artificial lighting has advantages over outdoor or natural lighting, but sometimes the picture turns out better with natural light. It might be a matter of preference or the desire of a subject for that matter. You never have artificial lighting outside for the most part; you usually rely on your camera flash to help with the picture quality. When you choose your lighting, look for the best lighting situation to enhance your subject and make your picture as natural as possible.
#1 Complaint ” Why can’t I have a high-resolution CD of my pictures if I paid you to take them?
As a photography studio owner, our number on concern is why can’t I own my pictures if I paid you to take them:
What most people don’t understand is that producing a quality photograph is not as simple as putting batteries in a camera, pointing the camera and clicking. Most photographers have camera equipment that runs in the thousands of dollars. Education, experience and other factors that took years to acquire went into that final photograph. That aside, let me take you through what goes into your photo-shoot.
Once a session has been booked, your photographer meets you at a designated location. In about 30-40 minutes, that photographer takes over 100 images. Your images are then brought back to the studio where someone painstakingly goes through each image to decide which photos can be presented to the client. This could take up to an hour. From there, the chosen images are then adjusted for printing. This process is long and arduous. If you are having a session on the beach, many times, there are people walking behind you, there is wind so hair is out of place, there is trash or trash cans in the shot. All of these things have to be fixed in order to create the family portrait that you finally choose. This takes many hours on the production end of things that the photographer has to do himself or the studio has to pay an expert to do. Now lets take those 100 photographs that we previously mentioned. Imagine having to correct every photograph so that the print will come out the way the client expects.
There are only two options here, one is to sell the images as is which would give the client for the most part, unusable images or correct every image which could take as much as 20 or more hours. Corrections are going to range from cropping every image, color correction, removing unwanted background clutter, fixing hair, eyeglass glare etc. Lastly, every printer and every monitor is calibrated to the individual photographers and their camera. Even the corrected photos will not print the same as they print on the photographers equipment. This opens up a whole new can of worms. The photographs the studio printed for you look completely different than the ones you had printed at the pharmacy or Walmart. It is impossible for a photographer to give you a quality CD that is worthy of their work.
Now, ask yourself, how much would you expect to pay for a finished product CD knowing all of the work that went into it. So as you can imagine, taking the professional equipment, the photographers professional experience, the post shoot work that goes into each photograph and the problems that can arise in printing, you can hopefully understand that so much more goes into your professional portrait than just copying the images out of the camera and burning them onto a CD. We love photographing your families and we love giving you the family portrait that you have always wanted. Just keep in mind, nothing is ever as easy as it seems.
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