Hi!
I hope you've had a wonderful week - and, as always, that you've had a chance to take some photos or learn some new techniques!
If you need a bit of encouragement or inspiration, today's newsletter should help. We've got a new bi-weekly challenge for you, as well as some photo-editing tips, a new critique, and a couple of resources to help you capture stunning firework photos!
So let's get to it:
From Sime:
Last week we went with composition and asked you to try TWO images, one portrait and one landscape of the same scene - some great results! Well done! (Missed it? You can still try it!)
We're going to go down the same path with this challenge, two images, but as you've likely spotted in the title, this time it's about light - camera flash! On camera, off camera... But we also realise that not everyone has a flash, some people use phones, some use older cameras, newer cameras and they might not have flash SO what we're asking for is that you simply LIGHT one photo and also submit the SAME photo without LIGHT... You can use ambient light in both photographs, but you MUST use light (Flash or LED or a desk lamp or a torch) in one of the photographs.
Remember to tag your post with #dpsweeklychallenge and #dPSWithLight on our weekly challenge page or on social media! You can also share your images in the dPS Facebook group as the challenge is posted there each week as well.
5 quick photo-editing tips
I know that a lot of you are interested in improving your photo-editing skills, but that you struggle to know how to get better.
Today, therefore, I wanted to share with you a handful of quick tips for improving your editing skills. They're in response to common mistakes I see photographers frequently make, and they're quick and easy to apply. The key is to remember their importance and use them when needed!
(By the way, for those of you who are interested in mastering photo editing from start to finish, we do have our Create Stunning Photos in Lightroom course, which is taught by the incredible Jim Hamel and will make such a difference to your photography!)
- Straighten your horizons!
It's easy to take crooked photos, especially when you're shooting handheld. Fortunately, it's also easy to straighten crooked images in most post-processing programs - but it's something that we photographers often forget to do. If it's not already a key part of your editing workflow, I encourage you to write it down and make it one!
- Crop out distractions - but don't go too far.
When you're in the midst of photographing an interesting subject, you might overlook distractions around the edge of the frame (e.g., leaves or branches poking in, people walking through the shot, colorful street signs, etc.). To viewers, however, these elements will draw the eye - which is exactly what you don't want! So make it a priority to crop out edge distractions at the start of your editing workflow.
On the other hand, don't crop too heavily. I often come across images that are overcropped in order to avoid distractions or simply to emphasize the main subject. Even with high-megapixel cameras, image quality can degrade fast, so you have to be careful not to go too far.
- Recover detail, but leave some contrast.
An image with significant clipping (i.e., large swathes of pure white or pure black) generally has an exposure problem. Fortunately, if you shoot in RAW, you can often recover a lot of this clipped detail, especially in the shadows (and in the highlights, too, within reason).
It's often a good idea to bring back clipped detail in the shadows and the highlights, and you can do this with broad exposure adjustments or by using more targeted tonal sliders (i.e., lifting the Shadows slider or dropping the Highlights slider).
But take care not to push these exposure adjustments too far. Not only will this look unnatural, but it'll also cause post-processing artifacts such as banding and haloing. It's okay to let your shadows stay relatively dark and your highlights stay relatively light; in fact, some photographers advocate always bringing out the full tonal spectrum, from pure black to pure white, in every single image!
- Make colors pop, but keep it natural.
This complements the above tip! If you shoot in RAW, the image colors often come out looking a little bland - and a bit of a saturation or vibrance boost can help them come alive. Depending on your aesthetic preferences, it can even make sense to enhance the colors a bit, so they're even stronger than they appeared in real life.
On the other hand, it's easy to push the saturation too far, resulting in rather unnatural, garish colors. As with many things, moderation is important! I like to pay careful attention to my colors as I edit, and I'll often use a before-after preview button to ensure I haven't gone overboard.
- Subtle vignettes are often great!
A vignette - that is, a slight darkening effect around the edge of the frame - can be amazingly powerful. They do a wonderful job of pushing the viewer's eye toward the main subject and/or enhancing the sense of depth in the image. If you don't currently use vignettes in your editing, I highly recommend trying them out.
But - and if you've made it this far, you're probably sensing a theme - don't overdo it! Heavy, highly noticeable vignettes are rarely advisable and often work against your image by catching the viewer's eye. I once read that vignettes should be felt but not seen, and in general, that's good advice; once a vignette becomes visually obvious, you've probably gone too far!
Anyway, there's a lot more to be said about photo editing, but these tips will take you far, whether you're a beginner or a more experienced editor. Post-processing can be a tricky business, and I myself often make a conscious effort to remember the guidelines I've listed above!
How to capture amazing firework photos
With many of you celebrating Independence Day next week, you'll have the opportunity to capture some breathtaking images of fireworks.
Firework photography can be technically challenging, but our comprehensive guide should help you out: 23 Powerful Tips for Successful Fireworks Photography.
We also have an in-depth article on editing your fireworks shots so that once the celebrations are over, you can make your photos look even better! Read it here: How to Edit Fireworks Photos Creatively.
Critiquing your photos
This week, I have another critique to share - and as always, thanks so much to everyone who sent in photos!
(Of course, for anyone who would like to submit images for critique in a future newsletter, just hit Reply to this message and send along a file or two! But make sure you mention that the images are indeed for critique in the email body or subject line, and please make sure the files are JPEGs and at least 1000 pixels on the long end!)
Today's image is an eye-catching flower photo from DB:
What I like:
- I'm a big fan of the shallow depth of field approach to macro photography, and I think you've done a very nice job here, DB!
- The background bokeh is particularly stunning and something that a lot of macro photographers struggle to achieve. Thanks to close focusing, a relatively wide aperture, and a good distance between your point of focus (the foremost tulip) and the background elements, the background was turned into a pleasing blur. But the icing on the cake comes from the combination of backlight and the sun reflecting in water droplets all throughout the background - that's what resulted in those amazing bokeh sparkles throughout!
- I like your choice to focus on the rightmost tulip, while allowing the three other tulips (well, two tulips plus a stem) remain visible but heavily blurred. Often, I talk about the value of removing distractions from the background in order to isolate the main subject, but this is one of those examples where the background elements nicely echo the main subject and improve the shot, rather than detract from it.
- I'm also loving the colors; you've maintained a simple color palette dominated by various greens, with the tulips themselves adding pops of white.
Ideas for improvement:
- I'm noticing that the in-focus tulip has areas of heavy overexposure; those pure white areas lack detail, and they also clash with the darker tones in the background. I would encourage you to try to recover at least some of those highlights in post-processing! If you were to rephotograph this scene, you might consider deliberately exposing for the main tulip; this would result in background underexposure, but you could selectively bring up the shadows in post-processing to help balance out the scene. (Another option would be to photograph the tulip when the sun was lower in the sky or the tulip was a bit more shaded, though I certainly wouldn't want you to lose that amazing bokeh!)
- I'm also noticing that the in-focus tulip overlaps slightly with the background tulips, and I would love a bit more separation there! If you were to move slightly to the left while swinging your camera to the right, you might be able to get that subtle separation. Alternatively, if you like the overlap, I would recommend composing (or cropping) more tightly around the tulips; you might even just crop off a little of the frame on the left so it matches the distance between the tulip and the frame on the right.
- There's some purple fringing along the edge of the main tulip's petals, though you can quickly handle that using a chromatic aberration removal tool (e.g., Lightroom has a "Remove Chromatic Aberration" checkbox in the Lens Corrections panel.)
That's all for today, but I hope you have a wonderful start to July - and, for those who celebrate, a great Independence Day!
Talk to you next Saturday,
Jaymes Dempsey (and the dPS team)
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