April 2018 – Get it Right in the Camera, Blend Modes, Add Rainbow, Blur Background, Lightroom Tips

We hear this a lot.  “I can fix that in post.”  White balance, composition, exposure: with our current software we have marvelous capabilities to correct the things we messed up while taking the picture.  But why?  Some of us spend a lot of time on our images, editing them to create the art we see in our minds.  Why waste time fixing stuff when you could have Got It Right In Camera.  Here’s a good article from Mike Watson, posted on Picture Correct titled, “Getting It Right In The Camera”.

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/getting-it-right-in-the-camera/

One of the often-overlooked features of Photoshop is the blending modes.  You can apply the various blending modes to your adjustment layers to change the way the adjustments appear on your image.  Here’s my favorite French photographer, Serge Ramelli, with a video explaining the various blend modes.  It appeared on Shutterbug in an article by Ron Leach titled “Photoshop Tips” Blend Modes Made Simple”.  The video is at the bottom of the article.

https://www.shutterbug.com/content/photoshop-tips-blend-modes-made-simple-video

Alright, summer is coming and we’re going to be outside a lot taking pictures.  Sometimes though, nature doesn’t cooperate, and something is missing from the scene we have in front of us.  Think of all the images that could be improved if you had a rainbow in your picture.  One of the more interesting images I’ve seen was a picture of a portapotty.   Now what could make a picture of a portapotty interesting you say.  Well, this portapotty was sitting right at the end of a beautiful rainbow.  It made a boring picture interesting.  Here’s an article on Scottkelby.com by David Williams titled: “Add a Cheeky Little Rainbow With Photoshop”.  Now I just need to find a portapotty.

https://scottkelby.com/add-a-cheeky-little-rainbow-with-photoshop/

One way we add separation of the subject in our pictures is to shoot so the background is blurred.  We do this by using a low number f-stop.  Sometimes you need more blur or sometimes you thought you wanted everything sharp while you were taking the picture but decided in post that parts of the image needed to attract less attention.  Here’s an article on Digital Trends by Hillary Grigonis titled: Bokeh for beginners: How to blur a background in Photoshop in mere minutes.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/how-to-blur-a-background-in-photoshop/

Richard Smith has just taken us through two months of Lightroom in the February and March Boot Camps.  This next article should supplement his training.   Lightroom is one of my favorite programs and I can’t imagine working without it.  One of my favorite Scott Kelby quotes is “There are two types of photographers, those who use Lightroom and those who should”.  Here’s an article on Picture Correct by Andrew Gibson titled “The 6 Most Important Things You Need To Know In Lightroom”.  I might cross out the word Most, but they are important.

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/the-6-most-important-things-you-need-to-know-in-lightroom/