Review Digital Camera World 09-06-2013

Digital Camera World

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Breaking bad habits: how to add variety to your landscape photography portfolio Sep 5th 2013, 23:01, by crutter Do you enjoy taking landscape images but find you mostly use similar settings for all of my shots? In our latest Professional Photographer to the Rescue post our technique editor and professional photographer, Chris Rutter, meets our apprentice Jenny Wade to help her experiment with long shutter speeds and shallow depth of field and create images that add variety to here landscape photography portfolio, which she admits is getting a little samey. Jenny says she has struggled to use these settings and get correctly exposed results. Chris will show her how to do all of this and more with her Sony A700? Breaking bad habits Using the same 'middle of the road' aperture setting such as f/11 or f/16 for landscape shots is an easy habit to fall into. But this can mean you end up with simple record shots, rather than interesting photos. Using wider apertures, and shallow depth of field is more commonly associated with portraits rather than landscapes, but choosing a wide aperture and a longer focal length can be effective when shooting strong foreground subjects, such as rocks or water. The other option for adding blur to your landscape is to use long shutter speeds. This is easy enough if you shoot in low light at sunrise or sunset. For brighter conditions though, there is too much light to get correctly exposed results and use long shutter speeds, without reducing the light reaching the camera's sensor. Technique assessment Like many people, Jenny struggles to find the time to get out to shoot landscapes at sunset, let alone sunrise, but still wants to experiment with different shutter speeds and apertures to add a creative element to her shots. By her own admission, Jenny doesn't use her tripod very often, which has meant that the range of subjects, apertures and shutter speeds she uses is limited by her ability to hold the camera steady. This is obvious in some of her shots taken in darker lighting conditions, which aren't sharp due to camera shake. Shooting during the middle of the day has also limited Jenny's options, as the bright conditions mean that she has had to use fast shutter speeds, even at the smallest aperture, to get correctly exposed results. I meet up with Jenny close to Bristol, armed with some neutral density filters, to help her to experiment with different apertures and shutter speeds to add interest to her landscape images.   Jenny's previous attempts The majority of Jenny's landscapes have been shot during the middle of the day. This inevitably means that she hasn't been able to experiment with using different shutter speeds to add blur and movement to her shots, so they are rather static and lacking in creativity. PAGE 1: Breaking bad landscape photography habits PAGE 2: Getting the right exposure PAGE 3: Exploring shallow depth of field PAGE 4: Experiment with shoot long exposures PAGE 5: Three filters for shooting at slower shutter speeds PAGE 6: Shot of the Day READ MORE 10 common landscape photography mistakes every photographer makes (and how to fix them) The 10 Commandments of Landscape Photography (and how to break them) 14 photo editing tips and tricks every landscape photographer must know How to photograph anything: best camera settings for landscape photography Adobe cuts Photoshop CC price tag for Creative Suite users Sep 5th 2013, 10:54, by jmeyer Adobe has offered an olive branch to photographers and reduced the Photoshop CC price tag. Adobe unveiled its new Photoshop Photography Program special offer at the Photoshop World conference in Las Vegas, which is open to photographers who own Photoshop CS3 or higher. This new subscription plan was designed to be more affordable following a wave of complaints from photographers who said that a full membership subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud was too expensive. The Photoshop Photography Program special membership offer is priced at £8.78 / $9.99 per month and includes the following -          Photoshop CC -          Lightroom 5 -          20 GB of online storage -          Behance ProSite -          Access to Creative Cloud Learn’s training resources -          Ongoing upgrades and updates What’s what in the Photoshop family? See our cheat sheet to understanding the Adobe family tree However, this membership offer is only valid at the new rate until 31 December 2013. An Adobe spokesperson says: “To be clear, £8.78 is not an introductory price. It is the price for those of you who sign up by December 31, 2013. This offer will be available at the same time we introduce the new version of Lightroom 5.2 in a couple weeks.” For photographers with CS3 or later versions who are paying the original £27.34 / $20 monthly subscription plan, you will be automatically switched to the new cheaper rate. READ MORE Photoshop CC: the 10 most important features in Adobe’s new software Adobe Lightroom: what every photographer needs to know about the ‘alternative Photoshop’ 34 Photoshop effects every photographer must try once 101 Photoshop tips you really have to know Best Photo Editing Software? 6 budget alternatives to Photoshop tested and rate Photoshop reflection effect: how to add water to your landscapes Sep 5th 2013, 10:00, by jmeyer In this tutorial we’ll show you how to create a reflection in Photoshop by using transformation tools and filters to add water to landscapes. Reflections can add a pleasing symmetry to scenic shots, but they can be tricky to produce in-camera – a strong wind may create too many ripples for a clean mirror image. Here, we'll show you how to add computer-generated reflections and control the strength of the ripples, before tweaking the colour and tone. How to add a reflection in Photoshop 01 FLIP THE TREE Download our start image and follow along! Use the Rectangular Marquee tool to select the tree, then press Cmd/Ctrl+J to copy the selection and paste it onto a new layer. Grab the Move tool, then tick Show Transform Control. Drag the central pivot point to the bottom of the bounding box. Right-click inside the box and click Flip Vertical. Hit Enter.   02 CREATE A REFLECTION MAP Create a new transparent layer, then go to Edit>Fill. Set Contents to Use: White and click OK. Next, go to Filter>Filter Gallery. Navigate to the Sketch folder and choose Halftone Pattern. Set Pattern Type to Line, Size to 12 and Contrast to 5. Click OK. Go to File>Save As and save the layered file as ReflectionMap.psd.   03 DISPLACE THE REFLECTION Click the eye icon by the filtered layer (Layer 2) to hide it, then right-click on the flipped tree layer (Layer 1) and choose Convert to Smart Object. Go to Filter>Distort>Displace, then set the Horizontal Scale to 5 and the Vertical Scale to 3 before hitting OK. Browse to select ReflectionMap.psd and click Open.   04 TINT THE REFLECTION Click on the Create New Adjustment Layer icon and select Solid Colour. Choose a dark blue from the Colour Picker and click OK. Choose Layer>Create Clipping Mask, then change the Colour Fill layer's Blend Mode to Colour. Reduce the Opacity to 14%. Add a Levels Adjustment Layer, then go to Layer>Create Clipping Mask.   05 FLATTEN THE CONTRAST Go to the Levels Adjustment Layer's Properties panel and drag the Output Levels shadow slider to 29 and the Highlights slider to 200. To break up the water's surface, create a new transparent layer and go to Filter> Render>Clouds. Choose Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, set Radius to 80 and click OK.   06 TRANSFORM PERSPECTIVE Go to Layer>Create Clipping Mask and press Cmd/Ctrl+T. Hold down the Cmd or Ctrl key and drag the cloud layer's top two corner handles down to the water line. Drag the bottom corner handles horizontally outwards to add perspective. Hit Enter. Change the Blend Mode to Soft Light and reduce Opacity to 53%. Watch our Photoshop reflection video tutorial To see how our Photoshop reflection technique performed in action, watch our video tutorial below! READ MORE How to replace a sky: Photoshop effects to make your landscapes more attractive Rim lighting: simple Photoshop effects to enhance your landscapes 14 photo editing tricks and tips every landscape photographer must know Best photo editing tips for beginners: 18 quick fixes to common image problems

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