Going through retouching related Facebook groups, it seems like the frequency separation trend is fading away. Some people even call the images edited with split frequency "filtered" as if it was as bad as using some kind of filter. Instead, many are learning to grow some appreciation for the art of dodging and burning. It’s said that with the latter, you won’t lose skin texture and it’s not destructive. But if it really is this great, how can some people still manage to have a plastic-like effect on their model’s skin? Let’s have a look at the most common mistake that may keep your images from that sought after natural look.
A few weeks ago Elinchrom announced their new adventure light, the ELB 1200. However, they didn’t release any pricing at the time, but they are now official. The Swiss flash manufacturer also recently added a few versatile light shapers to their already comprehensive range of products.
Instagram has evolved in many ways over the past few years, but the most significant change was probably the addition of stories. They are a unique way of sharing things that may not be worthy of your photo stream but still a part of your life or work that you want to share. Everyone has pretty much been using it like Snapchat even though it offers different features, such as uploading content just as if it had been taken with your phone. Jesse Driftwood shows us how he takes advantage of this opportunity to create unique content that drives engagement up.
Until yesterday, when someone asked for a memory card brand recommendation, most people would answer with either SanDisk or Lexar. However, this is all about to change with the decision of Micron Technology to discontinue its Lexar retail removable media storage business. The parent company has decided to concentrate its activities and efforts on opportunities in higher value markets and channels.
Makeup artists and hairstylists are as much artists as we are as photographers. However, when starting out, they often lack quality content to promote their work. Even later on when well established they sometimes require content to keep their social network feeds regularly updated. While working for free all the time for everyone isn’t sustainable, helping out people we work with may be beneficial for everyone. Here are two simple things you can do while on set to help your team out with their social presence and marketing. Best of all, it may even boost your social engagement and followers base as well as your work.
It’s already the fourth time Jessica Kobeissi got together with three other photographers to challenge themselves on a shoot. Each artist is given the opportunity to choose the outfit and location for one set, and then everyone has to come up with something in their own style. For this episode, the photographers were Joey L, Brandon Woelfel, Dani Diamond, and Jessica Kobeissi. Each having a very different photographic style, the video is quite entertaining.
The healing brush in Photoshop is a potent tool to clean things up. It can be used in numerous scenarios and works well most of the time. However, if there's one scenario where it doesn’t perform like we would like it to, it’s in the case of edges. For example, when you need to alter the edge of a face on a portrait or the border of a building when shooting architectural images, it tends to mess things up and create some sort of blurry areas instead of clean lines. In this tutorial, Joseph Parry shows us how to make the healing brush work the way we want it in those situations.
When it comes to background blur, or what we photographers like to call bokeh, it’s a well-known thing that smartphones aren’t the best. In the recent years, however, they have improved, thanks to the dual camera systems and pixel separation algorithms. They have improved so much that some may be tempted to say they are on par with some of the best professional cameras out there. Marques Brownlee decided to see for himself if that was the case and compared the current best smartphones on the market against the Hasselblad X1D.
Shooting with a gimbal is fantastic, it makes all of our footage incredibly smooth and vibration free. However, it’s not appropriate in every scenario and may even kill the mood of your video in some cases as Jakob Owens explained in a previous video. In a new one he posted on his YouTube channel, TheBuffNerds, he teaches now how to shoot handheld. So if you are tired of all the overly stabilized slow-mo footage found on the web nowadays and want to do something different, be sure to watch this tutorial.
Relying on your camera screen to nail exposure is a sure recipe for disaster. Depending on the lighting situation, the contrast of your display, how it’s back-lit, as well as other parameters, you’ll see the luminosity values differently. To make sure you get it perfect, there are tools available to you. In this 10-minute long video, Haapoja from TravelFeels will list most of them and explain which is best for what situation.
Shooting with an iPhone is an excellent alternative in places where a DSLR is overkill, but in its default configuration, it lacks quite a few features. The company Moment offers solutions to most of my issues, starting with their superb wide angle lens.
You have been dreaming of shooting underwater for a while, but waterproof housing is too expensive, none seem to fit your huge rig, or you can’t find one with which you can trigger your strobes. Then check out this trick.
Creating selections and masks in Photoshop is a crucial part of any advanced editing workflow. Learn all there is to know about it with this video by Stefan Kohler.
When it comes to graphic tablets, one brand name always come up: Wacom. However, the Japanese manufacturer is not alone, and the competition is getting better. Parblo is probably among the best alternatives out there for the entry level market with products such as the A610S.
Spiffy Gear has made a name for itself by creating unique lighting products such as Spekular and the Light Blaster. They are now adding a third exciting solution to their range of products with Lumee.
