Sabtu, 31 Mei 2008

The Eye School

You can snap a PERFECT photo without ever touching your mouse to make it better!

How to do that? With The Eye School.

This lesson makes it easier for you (as a professional photographer) to JUDGE, ANALYZE, and DECIDE perfect lighting match for your model, whether you work as with bikini models, exotic cars, expensive getaways, or just your pet sleeping on a couch at your home.

This may be THE MOST IMPORTANT CONCEPT in photography!

Light.

Lights on and off.

Yin and Yang.

Black and White.

Yes, light. The most basic ingredient in every photo in the world. Various light size, quantity and quality are the most important element to successful photograph.

There are two areas that light creates when it's hitting an object:
1. Illuminated area.
2. Shadow area.

Simple enough, illuminated area is the area where the object received the light.
Shadow area is the area where the object doesn't receive a single light.

So remember, these are the most important thing in photography! LIGHT.


Stay tuned. We're gonna talk about Apparent Light Size in the next post.

Rabu, 28 Mei 2008

Digital Art Photography 101: Mastering Five Steps to Gallery-ready Art Print Success!

Ready to turn your photos into CASH?

These are the steps:

1. Defining Game
First, define yourself. What interests you? Bugs, exotic cars, or girls? This is the product.
Second, define your subject matter. What makes the photo interesting?
Third, define your audience. Are they artsy people, or they have no idea about photography? Don't miss your target audience. These are your market.

2. Master your skills
Photography, like any art form, is based on some basic rules. Rules of composition, use of geometry, color, cropping, etc. The more you can create and manipulate in-camera, the less you have to do in your image editor and when printing.

3. Processing it
Capturing a photograph is only the beginning. Digital art photography requires the following steps before you can print and frame your final image, including:
- Getting the image into your computer. By transferring the files from your digital camera to your computer, or by scanning a film print, positive, or negative into the computer.
- Digitally manipulating the image. You can crop an image, apply filters to it, resample, use layers, etc.
- Saving your image. JPEG, TIFF and RAW files are the most popular file type for printing.

4. Print images
After you complete step 3, just press Print, and you're good to go. Well, not quite.
We'll discuss printing process later.

5. Frame your masterpiece
When you have printed images in hand, you're almost to the finish line. These are the choices for framing your digital photo:
- Take your photos to your local framer and have frames made.
- Make your own frames.
- Buy it from a wholesaler or your local discount frame store.

Kamis, 22 Mei 2008

Digital Art Photography 101: So Long Film Photography!

Film photography is dead. Well, you can say that it's dying. It's because technology is getting sophisticated each day, making it easier and easier to manipulate digital photograph (images) without printing (or developing) it first.

What's digital images?
It's any artwork stored electronically, whether from a digital camera (pocket or SLR), scanned from (analog) film or print, stills (photo) from a camcoder, or some images from the Web.

What's the advantages having digital images?
Once you have a digital image resides in the hard drive of your computer, the chip of your cellphone, or the memory inside your digital camera, you can:

- Manipulate it with a mouse.
You can change your image's color, size, make it look like painting, etc.
It's advisable to have a computer (whether it's a PC or Mac) though.
- Keep it indefinitely without deterioration.
Digital images don't bend or crumble. And it dont' pick up stains from fingerprints or coffee.

So, digital is more superior than film, right?
Well, YES! That's why you read this article from the start, right?

To help you understand the difference between digital and film, take a moment to look at this table below.

Digital:
- Cost
Pros: No film cost
Cons: Equipment is expensive
- Ease of use
Pros: More controls in LCD panel to bring your creativity to life.
Cons: Frequent change of batteries or battery removal and recharging is required for camera to work.
- Image quality:
Pros: Clear and vivid. Edges are crisp.
Cons: Depending to model and price. Higher price usually have better quality.
- Output tools:
Pros: Prints can be made at home with ink cartridge printers.
Cons: -

Film:
- Cost
Pros: -
Cons: Film and developing cost. It's higher cost than digital nowadays.
- Ease of use
Pros: Fewer control and no LCD make camera less confusing.
Cons: Only higher level of photography education are required to use the camera.
- Image quality:
Pros: More natural looking images when light hits film, and can be kept as hard copy for decades.
Cons: No color temperature control.
- Output tools
Pros: -
Cons: Prints have to be sent out for processing unless you have complicated developing materials at home along with a darkroom.

So, why the heck people are still using film anyway?
1. Because it is more satisfying if you have good photo with film, because it is harder to capture the same moment twice (no no, you can't look at the LCD like digital camera).
2. Because film has more sensitivities than digital. Most film has 5 stops, but digital has only 4 stops. You'll move from artistic images to screwed images more easily in digital. We'll discuss about histogram and stops later.
3. Because film usually has longer life than digital. CDs and hard disk can be easily damaged by scratches and virus.