Digital Day - The results

Saturday just gone was a great day where I was running the digital day at Wantage Camera Club. It was great for a number of reasons. First I got to meet many readers of this blog, some of whom travelled a long way to be there. Second I was able to do something that I’m really passionate about; sharing my knowledge about photography and Photoshop.

For me the day just got better and better. The highlight of the day, for me, was the part that I called “Live & Unplanned” because that’s exactly what it was. Normally I carefully plan out my lectures but this was something very much out of my comfort zone and I’m so glad I did it.

I did a mini photo challenge with three excellent photographers. They immediately got the idea of what I was asking them to do and despite the rain doing it’s best to stop us, we all managed to get all get some great images in the bag.

With the help of the audience, I spent 20 minutes skimming through the memory cards and applying a few Photoshop tricks. Below are a few of the best shots. Click to enlarge them.

The two pictures above are by Ian Bateman. Check out his excellent website (and amazing AV's) here

Photos By John Long

Photos By Alec Finch

Photos By Gavin Hoey

All the above photos were taken in a five minute period in and around the lecture hall. The cameras were all second hand compact cameras bought from ebay for less the £20 and my three fellow photographers had no time to learn how they worked. It just goes to show what can be done if you focus your mind on seeing photos.

Creative Flower Photos - Quick Shots 04

This weeks question was sent in by Alex R who asked:

Question:: Hi Gavin, I'm really into flower photography, and was just wondering what is some cool ways to improve and edit them inside of photoshop. E.g blending, borders, colours...etc

The final image can be view on my Flickr photostream

If you fancy having a go yourself then you're welcome to use the same images I showed in the video.

Usual rules apply: Images are copyright Gavin Hoey and are for personal use only. They may not be sold, passed on or used for any advertising without my permission.

Shoot wide for more options

By and large it’s a good idea to get your images as perfect as possible in camera. Relying on Photoshop to bail you out of a hole is always second best. But when it comes to cropping, getting it right in camera isn’t always the best way to work.

This is something I learned as a wedding photographer taking group shots. When I first started I’d compose the shot in camera ensuring that the people on the ends of line up were just inside the image. That works fine until someone orders an 8”x10” print and you have to crop off the ends or grow more photo at the top and bottom. Neither was a good way to work.

The answer is simply to leave more space around the subject and get the perfect the crop in Photoshop. Take a look at this image to see what I mean.

Here I’ve left space around the door panel so I choose how to crop the final shot later.

This is the same image as before, but this time I've cropped in in Photoshop. Had I cropped in camera and only taken the above shot (the one I knew I wanted) then I would have had to do some serious Photoshop work to make the following image.

This image was taken on today’s photo training session. Many thanks to Melanie and Michael for placing and pruning the ivy.

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5 Minute Photo Challenge - Dress Rehearsal

The clock is now ticking until my all day talk this Saturday. If you’re around the Oxford area on the 27th March 2010 then there’s still time to book your place. Details are here.

I’ve been working hard to find ways of adding some audience participation in to the day. One of the things I’m planning to do is recruit 2 or 3 delegates to take part in a mini photo challenge with me.

The idea is pretty simple. I’m going to give them a basic point and shoot compact camera and a list of three photos they need to take. They’ll then have 10 minutes to take the best photograph they can to fulfil each brief. Later I’ll process the images live in front of the audience taking suggestions from the floor.

Now, as I’ve never attempted this before I though it would be wise to test the idea first. Below is the result from the pictures taken by myself and my wife Sam in our 5 minute mini photo challenge. As always, click a photo to enlarge

I'm really pleased at how well this worked. Five minutes isn't long, so I'll be increasing it to 10 minutes on the day. Best of all, I had no idea what images I was going to get from Sam until she handed me the memory card. If it works half as well on Saturday I'll be very pleased.

By the way the camera's are all second hand EBay bargains. Not one cost more the £15 inc delivery. To quote Chase Jarvis... The best camera is the one you have with you.

Shadows & Borders in Photoshop - Quick Shots 03

This weeks Quick Shot question is...

How to add a border and a drop shadow onto an image.

If you have a question you’d like to see answered in a Quick Shot video then head over to the Gavtrain home page and send it over.

I can’t believe how many of you have taken the time to send me your Quick Shot questions. There’s some really great answers coming up. I received a surprising number photography related questions, which is great. If the fine weather holds, I plan to get some photography tutorials filmed next week.

Portrait Professional 9 - My new best friend

The debate about “photoshoped” or “airbrushed” images of models being used in magazines and advertising is one that’s been rolling on for sometime. But whatever your opinions on the subject the reality is almost everyone wants to look 10 years younger in there studio portraits.

For me that usually means hours on Photoshop reducing wrinkles, smoothing skin and deleting spots. I’ve always viewed it as just another part of the job, but all that has changed thanks to a clever piece of software called Portrait Professional 9 from Anthropics Technology. For the record, I’m in no way connected, employed or getting any kind of kick backs to promote their product, I just love it.

This picture is the final product of about 40 minutes at the computer. Without Portrait Professional that would have been more like 90 minutes. Although the makeup effect was added in Photoshop, the underlying skin tones were smoothed in Portrait Professional.

I could go into great detail about the benefits of the software, but to really understand what a game changer Portrait Professional is I made this short video review.

For a clearer look at the difference, click the image above for a before / after view.

And so the question you really want to know is… What the price of this software ? Unusually for a software company, Anthropics Technology is asking a very fair price of £50.00. Better still for a limited time you can get 10% discount if you use the promo code dp4010 when you buy Portrait Professional online. They also offer a free trial of the software so you can make up your own mind.

Share & Back Up your Photoshop Custom Brushes - Quick Shots 02

This week the question is...

"How can I share my custom brushes with my friends?"

The answer is pretty simple so as well as answering the question I'm going to show you how you make a custom brush and them save a modified version of that brush.