May 2016 – Tips: Photography, Photoshop, and Lightroom

Trying to become better photographers is a never ending job.  There’s always something else we can learn to help us take better pictures.  Light Stalking posted this article on Free Online photography courses from top universities.  Stanford, Harvard and MIT are on the list.  Here’s the link:  http://www.lightstalking.com/become-a-better-photographer-in-your-spare-time-with-these-5-free-online-courses/

A couple of weeks ago we had a great workshop with Steve Gustafson on composition.  While it can’t replace the discussions we had or the benefits of the live image critiques, here’s an article from Picture Correct titled Composition:  10 Photography Tips for Amazing Results.

http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/composition-10-photography-tips-for-amazing-results/

Here’s a quick little example of a good technique to help with composition.  It’s referred to as A Frame Within a Frame.  It’s the technique of using some element in your photograph, like a window, door frame, or a tree to frame the real subject of your photograph.  Here’s an article from Picture Correct with some great examples to give you a little inspiration so you can look for possibilities when you’re out shooting.

http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/a-frame-within-a-frame-ideas-for-better-photo-composition/

In keeping what seems to have evolved into a composition theme this month, (probably because it’s something I constantly struggle with).  Here’s an article from the Digital Photography School titled 4 Steps to Creating Images With More Meaningful Composition.

http://digital-photography-school.com/4-steps-to-creating-images-with-more-meaningful-composition/

And just so we don’t completely ignore post processing this month, here’s a little tip from world renowned Photoshop educator, Scott Kelby.  Scott’s article is titled “Betcha Didn’t Know This Was In Photoshop”.  Well, I had no clue.  I have always relied on plug in for this.  It’s a built-in filter for adding frames around an image.  Apparently it’s been hiding there since 2014 and adobe didn’t tell anyone about it. 

http://scottkelby.com/betcha-didnt-know-photoshop/

And for all you Lightroom users, Here’s a series of 10 articles from Light Stalking titled How to Make Your Existing Photos Shine in Post Production in The Next 20 Minutes.  This link gets you to the lead page where the give a brief description of and a link to each article.

 http://www.lightstalking.com/post-production-lightroom-tutorials/