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Thursday, September 25, 2008

Tired of being confused by photoshop? No more!

By David Peters


Quite often, many basic editing tasks can be done in the camera itself after the picture is taken including some simple cropping, removing red eye from flash photos, and rotation from landscape to portrait and vice versa. For many people, this is about all that they require anyway before printing out their snapshots, and this keeps things very easy and simple. But to start to realize the potential that digital photography puts in the hands of the average person, a photo editing software program will be needed where you upload your photos from the camera to your computer and then open them in the program. You can then begin to perform all kinds of editing tasks including more advanced cropping, change the file size or format, adjust color saturation, contrast and brightness, and apply special effects.

You can learn to make amazing enhancements to any photograph using the tools and functions available in Photoshop. The following are just a few of the improvements you can make to people pictures. Whiten stained teeth, Remove unsightly scars, Smooth age wrinkles, Clear up acne, Remove blemishes, Double chin removal, Fill in bald spots by adding hair, Open closed eyes, Remove tattoos, Hide body piercings, and even Change eye color.

Remember your audience. If your photos are destined for Web pages, don't worry about minor flaws; get the dark-and-light balance right and make sure your pictures are mostly close-ups. If your photos are going to be printed at 8-inches by 10-inches or larger, take the time to smooth out the flaws. Make brutal crops, too. No one will know later that you took out the telephone pole alongside Billy's head. Distractions are just as annoying in photographs as they are in real life.

The display resolution of a digital television or computer display typically refers to the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. Some commentators also use this term to indicate a range of input formats that the display's input electronics will accept and often include formats greater than the screen's native grid size even though they have to be down-scaled to match the screen's parameters. An example of pixel shape affecting "resolution" or perceived sharpness is displaying more information in a smaller area using a higher resolution, which makes the image much clearer. However, newer LCD displays and such are fixed at a certain resolution; making the resolution lower on these kinds of screens will greatly decrease sharpness, as an interpolation process is used to "fix" the non-native resolution input into the displays native resolution output.

In one wedding photograph, the groom stood still at the bottom of stone steps to an historic dwelling, his hand extended towards his bride, who slowly moved down the steps toward her groom. My six deliberate 'clicks' of the shutter created an airy, surreal picture of the wedding couple. Depending on the speed of the moving subjects, the shutter can be held down in rapid fire mode or each exposure can be meticulously choreographed: 1) each subject deliberately positioned in the frame, 2) one 'click' of the shutter, and 3) repeat steps 1 and 2 to the total number of multiple exposures you set in your camera.

While you can easily enough create the effect of black and white what about things like drop shadows, watermarks, bluring the background adn even soft focus your pictures. Photoshop is the perfect tool to be able to do this. Drop Shadows: This is an excellent effect to use on text, logos, and graphic art. Watermark: It is easy with Photoshop to create a custom watermark on your photos. Soft Focus: Soft focus is a popular effect used by professional photographers for years to enhance portraiture. Blur the Background: Pictures of people and other objects will really stand out when the background is blurry. Photoshop allows you to only blur certain areas of the image while leaving other areas in perfect focus. Frame: There are unlimited ways you can put frames around your photos in Photoshop.

Some things you are going to have to do to start up a photography business are: you have to do is get all the equipment that you're going to need. This is going to vary depending on what kind of field you want to get into. For example, if you're planning to become a photographer who specializes in stock car racing, then you are going to need a lot of equipment for taking high speed photos. The good news is that you're not going to have to spend a lot of money on lighting since these photos will be taken outdoors. Conversely, if you're planning to photograph fashion models, lighting is going to be critical to your photos and your lighting equipment expense is going to be quite high.

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