What Do You Do On A Raining Day With Photoshop Lightroom?

I run into a lot (okay, some) people who are doing what's known as a 365 Project.  You can find many examples of such tasks on Flickr or some of the other social photography sites.  The trick is to take at least one photo every day for an entire year.  It is a good idea to live someplace that has beautiful clouds or sunsets every day, but most people don't live in Shangri-La or other Edenistic locales,  Most of us live in the real world.  Today's image gives those of us in not so pristine climates a chance to keep the momentum going.  It's simple to do and comes up with unique images.  I say unique because no two images are ever the same.  To learn what this "secret" technique might be, hit the "Read More".

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One More Way To Deal With Distracting Backgrounds In Photoshop Or Lightroom

Okay, in today's image you can see that "the background" isn't exactly a big distraction.  In fact, it isn't.  It isn't anything.  It was never there.  Adobe Photoshop (PS)  really had nothing to do with what you're looking at.  Just about everyone knows the bane of a photographers existence is a bald sky.  That is usually the case.  But, in today's image it works to our advantage.  The local Garden Conservancy had an "open garden" this past weekend.  Naturally we rallied the troops and got some friends out shooting in the garden.  It's a beautiful, private garden that is only opened once a year.  Proceeds go to the Garden Conservancy, so the few bucks to get in is well spent.  To find out "the secret" to today's image, hit the "Read More".

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Using Photoshop To Get Rid Of A Background

This will be the second post in a row dealing with getting rid of distracting backgrounds.  If you haven't seen the other post I'd suggest you might want to check it out.  Today's image goes in the direct opposite direction.  Instead of doing all sorts of tricks to hide the background, today's image just plain eliminates "most" of  it.  The only piece of the background left is the shadow.  (Sort of like the Cheshire Cat.)  It would have been nice if I'd had the chance to shoot this fellow on a seamless white background and be done with it.  Unfortunately, he was in the middle of a dance circle with other dancers and people milling around in the background.  It made for an okay snapshot, but nothing to make it "an image".  For a couple of ideas about how to get rid of a difficult background, hit the "Read More".
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Photoshop Tools For Eliminating Distracting Backgrounds

Any time you're at any kind of festival, what's behind your subject of interest becomes important.  If your objective is getting a head shot you probably don't have too much to worry about (if you have a long enough lens).  Set your F-stop as low as it will go, focus on the eyes and let the background be totally out of focus.  If the plan is to get a full length shot (as in today's image) your problems multiply.  Even the fastest glass can only do so much.  The things that are conspiring against you are your minimum F-stop number (largest aperture), the distance between you and the subject and the distance between the subject and the background.  If you look back a couple of posts you'll see a head shot of a friend.  He was about half the distance of today's image away, but the background was about two hundred feet behind him.  Therefore, the background was fully out of focus.  In what started out as today's image, the fellow was probably sixty feet from me, but the people standing in the background were about sixty feet further back.  They were definitely not "in focus", but what they were was still recognizable.  That gives a good starting point for a montage.  To find out about a few of Adobe Photoshop's (PS) extraction tools, hit the "Read More".

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