Check out full details of the competition here but all you have to do to enter is be a subscriber to our weekly email newsletter which goes out on Thursdays with updates of new tips and tutorials here on DPS.

The competition ends this coming Thursday (the 9th July) so make sure you’re signed up and verified as a subscriber by then. To enter just check out this post where there’s a signup form to join the newsletter.

PS: Happy 4th July to our US readers. Don’t forget to check out our Photographing Fireworks tutorial for tonight!

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

5 Days Left to Win a Lenovo W700ds

Original post by Darren Rowse

Original post by Andrew Barrow

Not hardly.

While external lighting is vital for professional portrait and wedding photographers, there is a way to fudge external lighting. When you need just a little bit of fill or dynamic range to make your portraits stand out, there’s a simple solution at your finger tips:

The LED

The LED [Light Emitting Device] can be purchased at literally any store which sells sporting goods. Found most commonly among camping gear, these LEDs range around $10-$25. Depending on cost, you can control how much light your LED transmits by 1-6 light streams or more.

Using an LED, you must think in terms of two concepts:

1. Output: How many strobes are you using on your LED? One light stream, or all six? Obviously, 1 light stream will be more gentle in it’s illumination and 6 could be quite harsh.

2. Distance: How close is your light to your subject? The closer your light is to your subject, the brighter your subject will be illuminated. Take a few steps back, the light power will decrease.

Two LEDs will give you quite a bit of artistic ability. Whether you want to use the LED as mere fill light, or you want to create a type of studio shot like the one above, the LEDs can equip you with a number of fun options. They are light, they are durable, and the batteries generally last a while. The single down side of using LED lights is the fact that you may need an assistant to help if you use more than one.

For this shot, I really wanted to mimic a studio shot with some sweet lighting. I didn’t have my external flashes on hand but I did have two LEDs in my camera bag. In about 2 minutes, the above shot was created. Here’s how:

• The piano studio was very dim, lit by a single window on the right side. I pulled the curtain open ever so slightly [mostly to get a little more light on my subjects face].
• The main LED was directed with full light streams just off to the side of the camera, about six feet in front of my subject.
• The second LED acted as a slight fill on the far left with only half the light streams on, and spaced at a four foot angle above my subject.
• Camera was directly in front of my subject, balanced on the edge of the piano.

In post processing, I deepened the blacks and added a little additional fill for contrast.

LED portraits are casual, non threatening, and a blast. Wether you own a pair of external speed-lights or other kind of flashes, creating portraits with LEDs is a great way to go artistic and have some fun in the process.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Ghetto Style Portrait Lighting with LEDs

Original post by Christina Dickson

Original post by Andrew Barrow

In this image (click to enlarge), the statue has a very obvious blue edge to it and not even Lightroom could fix this. The solution is to open the image in Photoshop and to fix it there.

Step 1

Duplicate the background layer by choosing Layer > Duplicate Layer.

Step 2

For this image, because the problem area is so distinct and the edges are so crisp, the easiest solution is to make a selection of the portion of the image to fix and then apply a fix to it. Using the Quick Selection tool I made a selection of the sky. Save it as a selection using Select > Save Selection and give it a name.

Step 3

Now enlarge it so the selection covers the problem area. I used Select > Modify > Expand and added enough pixels to select over the problem area. How many pixels will be variable – on a high resolution image you’ll need a bigger value than on a low resolution image. I used 30 pixels on this large image.

Step 4

Now you need to subtract the first selection you made from this new selection so you end up with just the blue edges selected. To do this, choose Select > Load Selection and select the selection you just saved. Set the Subtract from Selection option and click Ok.

Step 5

You now have the blue area selected so click the Add layer mask icon at the foot of the layer palette to add a mask to this layer. This isolates the blue area in the image.

In this case the simplest way to the problem is to desaturate the top layer so the blue disappears. To do this select the top layer, choose Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and adjust the Saturation down until the blue goes – you can do this on the Master channel or just the Blue and Magenta channels or wherever you find the color problem is residing.

You could also fix the problem using a Curves adjustment and select the Blue channel and adjust it. The exact fix is going to depend a lot on what image data that is affected by the color halo – you need to remove or desaturate some of the blue but keep as much of the remaining image data intact and correctly colored as you can.

Step 6

If the edge of the fix is too harsh, you can blur the mask layer by selecting the mask thumbnail and choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

How to Fix Chromic Aberration in Photoshop

Original post by Helen Bradley

In this image (click to enlarge), the statue has a very obvious blue edge to it and not even Lightroom could fix this. The solution is to open the image in Photoshop and to fix it there.

Step 1

Duplicate the background layer by choosing Layer > Duplicate Layer.

Step 2

For this image, because the problem area is so distinct and the edges are so crisp, the easiest solution is to make a selection of the portion of the image to fix and then apply a fix to it. Using the Quick Selection tool I made a selection of the sky. Save it as a selection using Select > Save Selection and give it a name.

Step 3

Now enlarge it so the selection covers the problem area. I used Select > Modify > Expand and added enough pixels to select over the problem area. How many pixels will be variable – on a high resolution image you’ll need a bigger value than on a low resolution image. I used 30 pixels on this large image.

Step 4

Now you need to subtract the first selection you made from this new selection so you end up with just the blue edges selected. To do this, choose Select > Load Selection and select the selection you just saved. Set the Subtract from Selection option and click Ok.

Step 5

You now have the blue area selected so click the Add layer mask icon at the foot of the layer palette to add a mask to this layer. This isolates the blue area in the image.

In this case the simplest way to the problem is to desaturate the top layer so the blue disappears. To do this select the top layer, choose Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and adjust the Saturation down until the blue goes – you can do this on the Master channel or just the Blue and Magenta channels or wherever you find the color problem is residing.

You could also fix the problem using a Curves adjustment and select the Blue channel and adjust it. The exact fix is going to depend a lot on what image data that is affected by the color halo – you need to remove or desaturate some of the blue but keep as much of the remaining image data intact and correctly colored as you can.

Step 6

If the edge of the fix is too harsh, you can blur the mask layer by selecting the mask thumbnail and choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

How to Fix Chromatic Aberration in Photoshop

Original post by Helen Bradley

Little Push by Chaval Brasil

Photography also uses forced perspective a lot as well to give a certain feel to an image. That’s why I was surprised to only find a few thousand results when searching for ‘forced perspective’ on Flickr. Here are 15 selected examples of this technique, which includes images that show how much fun you can have with it.

For more examples, check out the forced perspective group on Flickr.

Maina by -Thanh

Dee blows off some steam by toastforbrekkie

Waterfall Trap by stuant63

Johan is incredibly tall by mrlerone

Tire Tracks by andrewyang

Gnome Alone by -RobW-

Hot Dog! by toastforbrekkie

Out for a Stroll by Kevin Eddy

The Tunnel of Typography by otherthings

Encroaching Evil by country boy shane

Perspective by M.V. Jantzen

Paragliding, Tod on Pule hill by purplemattfish

Warp by kitone

Perspective by twiga269

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

15 Forced Perspective Technique Examples

Original post by Nate Kay

Original post by Andrew Barrow

Original post by Andrew Barrow

Original post by site admin