OK, so I am going to cheat a little with this tutorial.  I did not take this photo for the purposes of writing something up about it.  Yet, the more that I think about it, the more it makes sense to use such a photo.  How many times have you put something before a client that you really thought out and they passed right over, yet they rave about something you took in passing?  So this tutorial covers some basic and quick steps you can take to give a quick portrait a little more pop. Read more »

After reading through Maciek Lesniak’s Flickr stream I found it to be overflowing with helpful diagrams and setup shots.  You see, if you are a photo geek like myself, you enjoy the setup shot almost as much as the shot itself.  It is great seeing what someone came up with, how they positioned their equipment, and what settings they used to produce the final image. In several setup shots I saw a DIY beauty dish for Nikon Speedlights and became intrigued, which led to a trip to the store, and obviously to this post. Read more »

For you Nikon shooters out there that have not yet had the opportunity to experiment with the Creative Lighting System (CLS), you are missing out.  While at first it takes some adjustments, it is really quite fun.  And while not the solution for every shoot, it certainly has it’s place within the photographer’s toolbox. Read more »

I recently ordered an ABR800 and found another reason to love Alien Bees…  their boxes make for great DIY lightboxes!  I was reading a recent blog on how to create your own macro studio and thought, why not actually try it?  So I did. Read more »

I am a little hesitant about labeling this as a tutorial as there are other sites that cover this method.  It would perhaps be more appropriate to describe this as following me along my creative processing of an image.  Basically, after processing several images from a recent model shoot and getting the usual images out the door, I then moved to do something a little bit different with some of the other images.

With this image, the model Zan J has an awesome serious look, but an even better smile.  I want to play on that and bring in some vivid colors and show some movement and dynamics with the imagery.  To follow along, you will need Adobe Photoshop, Nik Color Efex 3.0, and a free account with SXC. Read more »

Adobe Photoshop CS3 offers a nice array of improvements.  I cannot remember the exact upgrade (I want to say from v6 to v7) but there have been times when upgrading to the newest version just didn’t seem worth the time or money.  CS3 is different, and the panoramic merge improvements are just one of many examples.

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A lot of the photos and tutorials, and to some extent the resources, have a serious tone to them.  Last night I decided to have a bit of fun and what better way than to create a project which enables you to laugh at yourself? Creative self-portraits are fun, but can be a little tricky.  Resources are important, however, a plan is even more critical to your success. Read more »

Recently I had my first photo stroll with some really great people: South Atlanta Flickr.  The group’s admin, Julie Harnage, and a few others continued after I had to leave. But I managed to walk away with a really cool photo that I processed.  I just wish I had taken the image.  Still, it begged to be brought into Photoshop and processed. Read more »

You surely have seen those who have found an old family photograph and paid to have it “restored” to appear newer, repair scratches, rips, and tears, and to even convert a black & white photograph into something with more color.  How about the reverse process, taking something new and making it appear aged and worn?  Taking a bright and vivid photo, we will use some basic techniques in Adobe Photoshop to do just that. Read more »