Thanks to our partner, Rocky Nook, for this chapter on leading lines from "The Enthusiast's Guide to Composition". This title and many and more books for photographers are right here. Contrast is instinctive If you have ever watched a newborn baby closely, you may have noticed how intensely their eyes are drawn to contrast. Even before their vision is fully developed, they gravitate toward high-contrast scenes and objects. Tones and colors You can compose scenes that contrast all kinds of things, including tones (highlights vs. shadows) and … [Read more...] about The Enthusiast’s Guide to Composition: Make your photos pop with contrast
Enthusiast's Guide
The Enthusiast’s Guide to Composition: Leading lines
Thanks to our partner, Rocky Nook, for this chapter on leading lines from "The Enthusiast's Guide to Composition". This title and many and more books for photographers are right here. Leading lines As the name implies, “leading lines” guide the viewer’s eyes around the image. The “lines” can be literal (like the double yellow stripes down the middle of a road) or a loose interpretation (tall grass swaying to one side in the breeze). Like repeating patterns, once you know what to look for, you’ll find leading lines everywhere in both nature … [Read more...] about The Enthusiast’s Guide to Composition: Leading lines
The Enthusiast’s Guide to Composition: Repeat, repeat, repeat
Thanks to our partner, Rocky Nook, for this chapter on composition. The Enthusiast's Guides and more books for photographers are right here. Few things are as tantalizing to the human brain as patterns. We’re hard-wired to seek them out, which makes them an especially appealing element to add to your photographic compositions. When you start looking for patterns, you quickly realize that you can find them everywhere (especially if peering through a macro lens). Nature and architecture provide endless opportunities to practice using repetition … [Read more...] about The Enthusiast’s Guide to Composition: Repeat, repeat, repeat
The Enthusiast’s Guide to Composition: Consider the rule of thirds
Thanks to our partner Rocky Nook for this chapter on composition. The rule of thirds is easily the most well-known concept pertaining to composition. In fact, even if you’ve never knowingly bumped into it before, chances are it’s long been quietly nudging you toward better photos—from right inside your camera. It isn’t a random quirk of your camera’s manufacturer; it’s your camera’s way of helping you improve your compositions by dividing the frame into thirds, both vertically and horizontally. Many cameras overlay this grid onto your … [Read more...] about The Enthusiast’s Guide to Composition: Consider the rule of thirds
The Enthusiast’s Guide to Composition: Fill the frame
(Editor's note: Rocky Nook publishes books on photography. Their books are written by photographers for photographers. Photofocus is publishing select chapters from the Rocky Nook Enthusiast's Guide series each week. First up: The Enthusiast's Guide to Composition) Fill the frame The concept is simple — when looking through the camera at the scene in front of you, do whatever you need to do to capture the scene without erroneous content on the periphery. Similar to the way that maintaining a healthy diet means regularly filling up on fruits … [Read more...] about The Enthusiast’s Guide to Composition: Fill the frame
Enthusiast’s Guide: Creating a time-lapse from still images in Photoshop
Photofocus features a series on multi-shot photography excerpted from Rocky Nook’s “The Enthusiast’s Guide to Multi-Shot Techniques” by Alan Hess If you decide to create a time-lapse movie yourself — either because your camera can’t do it automatically or because you want to have all the individual image files for some other use —you can do it pretty easily in Photoshop. To make life easier, I suggest putting all the files that you will use to create the time-lapse into a unique folder. This way you can easily navigate to the folder when … [Read more...] about Enthusiast’s Guide: Creating a time-lapse from still images in Photoshop
Enthusiast’s Guide: Camera settings for time-lapse photography
Photofocus features a series on multi-shot photography excerpted from Rocky Nook’s “The Enthusiast’s Guide to Multi-Shot Techniques” by Alan Hess Camera settings for time-lapse photography As with any other type of photography, before you shoot images for a time-lapse, you need to determine which exposure, focus, and file type settings to use. You’ll need to know what you want to focus on and how to make sure the focus doesn’t change during the series of exposures. Selecting a file type is more a matter of choice, but you need to know the … [Read more...] about Enthusiast’s Guide: Camera settings for time-lapse photography
Enthusiast’s Guide: Doing the numbers for time-lapse photography
Photofocus features a series on multi-shot photography excerpted from Rocky Nook's "The Enthusiast's Guide to Multi-Shot Techniques" by Alan Hess Time-lapse and the needed numbers There is some math involved in creating time-lapse videos, but don’t let that scare you off—it isn’t very complicated. The basic concept is to decide how long you want your final time-lapse video to be, and then determine how many individual frames you will need. Then you can work out the amount of time between each frame based on the number of frames and the … [Read more...] about Enthusiast’s Guide: Doing the numbers for time-lapse photography
Enthusiast’s Guide: Time-lapse basics
(Editor's note: Over the next several weeks, Photofocus features a series on multi-shot photography from Rocky Nook's "The Enthusiast's Guide to Multi-Shot Techniques" by Alan Hess.) For a time-lapse series of photographs to work properly and be worth watching, the camera needs to be held stable, you need to be able to take multiple images over time, and the final movie needs to compress the time in a way that keeps the viewers interested. A time-lapse in which nothing seems to be happening or changing can be quite boring. On the flip side, a … [Read more...] about Enthusiast’s Guide: Time-lapse basics
Enthusiast’s Guide: Image stacking for astrophotography
(Editor's note: Photofocus is proud to add Rocky Nook as a vibrant contributor for our readers. Rocky Nook is a small — seven-person independent publishing company. Their commitment is producing high-quality books written by pros for photographers who want to learn more about their craft. Over the next several weeks, Photofocus features a series on multi-shot photography excerpted from "The Enthusiast's Guide to Multi-Shot Techniques" by Alan Hess.) Image stacking in Photoshop is commonly used in the field of astrophotography, which involves … [Read more...] about Enthusiast’s Guide: Image stacking for astrophotography
Enthusiast’s Guide: How to use Photoshop’s image stacks to remove people from a scene
(Editor's note: Photofocus is proud to add Rocky Nook as a vibrant contributor for our readers. Rocky Nook is a small — seven-person independent publishing company. Their commitment is producing high-quality books written by pros for photographers who want to learn more about their craft. Over the next several weeks, Photofocus features a series on multi-shot photography excerpted from "The Enthusiast's Guide to Multi-Shot Techniques" by Alan Hess.) Once you have a set of images loaded as a stack in Photoshop you can apply some of the other … [Read more...] about Enthusiast’s Guide: How to use Photoshop’s image stacks to remove people from a scene
Enthusiast’s Guide: Use image stack in Photoshop to reduce noise
(Editor's note: Photofocus is proud to add Rocky Nook as a vibrant contributor for our readers. Rocky Nook is a small — seven-person independent publishing company. Their commitment is producing high-quality books written by pros for photographers who want to learn more about their craft. Over the next several weeks, Photofocus features a series on multi-shot photography from "The Enthusiast's Guide to Multi-Shot Techniques" by Alan Hess.) Photoshop's image stacks A lesser-known feature in Photoshop is image stacking. One of the best uses for … [Read more...] about Enthusiast’s Guide: Use image stack in Photoshop to reduce noise
Enthusiast’s Guide: Using a flash to create double exposures
(Editor's note: Photofocus is proud to add Rocky Nook as a vibrant contributor for our readers. Rocky Nook is a small — seven-person independent publishing company. Their commitment is producing high-quality books written by pros for photographers who want to learn more about their craft. Over the next eight weeks, Photofocus features a series on multi-shot photography from "The Enthusiast's Guide to Multi-Shot Techniques" by Alan Hess.) Using a flash to create double exposures A great method for creating a double exposure look involves using … [Read more...] about Enthusiast’s Guide: Using a flash to create double exposures
