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