POTD #15

Photo of the Day

I am really happy with how this one turned out. This is exactly the look I was going for. I wanted to show in the photo what I saw standing there under this tree with the sun filtering in through the leaves and then take it a little further.

The breakdown: This was kind of a tricky shot to get, I took a few different versions playing with my cameras different metering modes ans selecting different parts of the images to expose from.

The problem with an image like this where you have hard sun and shadow is to get the whole image to be "properly exposed" without too much overexposed and underexposed areas. If I set my camera to expose for the bright leaves everything else would be really dark, if I set it to expose for the shadow area everything else would be really bright.

One option would have been to take multiple shots at different exposures and blend them together, but because the leaves were moving the images wouldnt match up and there would be some "ghosting" or "artifacts." (Google HDR if you are unfamiliar)

I chose to take a single exposure that was right in the middle and use Photoshop to lighten the dark areas and tone down the bright. I actually prefer this method over HDR when shooting nature photos because HDR can tend to make and image look flat and unnatural. I also tweaked the color to make it feel more warm and to give it that glowing loook.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5D
Exposure:		0.025 sec (1/40)
Aperture:		f/5.6
Focal Length:		28 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		-1 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #7

Photo of the Day
This shot is a great example of what you can get using a cheap DIY light tent and desk lamps.

The breakdown: I took this shot of my wife's hand holding a green apple in a small light tent I made out of a cardboard box and tracing paper. I placed this next to a window in my house and then used desk lamps to fill in the light on the shadow side. If you take a look at my one of my portfolios www.dreamstime.com/travismanley_info about 90% of my isolated photos of small objects were shot the same way.

I have better equipment now and dont use the old DIY light box, but for something that didnt cost me a dime to make it was probably one of my most valued pieces of equipment (aside from my camera) for a long time.

After I took the shot, I opened the image in Photoshop, boosted the hue/saturation a bit, added a black & white layer mask and painted out the apple and fingernails so they wouldnt be affected by the b&w layer.

I took this shot with the Olympus E-500 at 32mm, f14, 1/80 sec, ISO 100.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

Photoshop: From Snapshot to Stock Photo pt. 2

In part one I talked about taking the photo and isolating it. In part two im going to talk about getting the most out of your photos.

This photo took me hours so I want to make sure im going to get my moneys worth out of it. By changing the color of the body I can make this look like a totally different car. You never know what people are going to need so its good to give them options.

Here is what I did. In Photoshop I took my car layer and added a Hue/Saturation layer. I checked the Colorize box and bumped the saturation up too 75. From here all you have to do is move the Hue slider around until you get the color you want. The next step is painting out the areas I dont want to be Colorized. Add a layer mask (if you dont already have one) and start painting out those areas you dont want to be affected.

This little trick works for lots of things.

This photo was of three red cups.

You get the idea. Have fun.

If you have any questions about Photoshop or stock photography email me at
travismanley@hotmail.com