Posts by Author: John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Make your own 3D printed speedlight grids
Apr 1, 2016
John Aldred
As somebody who owns what some would describe as a ludicrous amount of speedlights (although, nowhere near as bad as Joe McNally), and regularly grids some of…
How to turn toy action figures into life sized super heroes with compositing
Apr 1, 2016
John Aldred
We’ve all been there, playing with our action figures as kids as if they were real. For me it was He-Man. For photographer Ari Mahardhika,…
How to make the world’s cheapest flash diffuser for only $0.02
Mar 31, 2016
John Aldred
The humble popup flash. Let’s face it, we hate it. You might be able to use it for a little fill now and again, but as…
How to install Photoshop keyboard shortcuts in GIMP
Mar 31, 2016
John Aldred
With Adobe’s long standing global domination and the current buzz around Affinity’s recent announcement of impending Windows versions of their software, it’s easy to forget…
Hack a 50 year old Russian film camera and repurpose its lens for modern DSLRs
Mar 31, 2016
John Aldred
When it comes to ridiculously cheap but very useful lenses, you’d be hard pushed to beat 40+ year old Russian technology, and this suggestion from Mathieu Stern is no…
Create big light from small flashes with a Chinese Lantern paper lamp shade
Mar 29, 2016
John Aldred
Speedlights often go hand in hand with shooting portraits on the street, especially at night, but small flashes have one big issue. Due to their…
It’s amazing what you can do with cutlery, a glass ball and a perforated metal sheet
Mar 28, 2016
John Aldred
Howard Ashton-Jones has often spoken about the importance of personal work outside of his main work as the official photographer for Scottish Gymnastics. Personal work allows us…
Save Photoshop files up to 20x faster with just a couple of clicks
Mar 25, 2016
John Aldred
PSB files are Adobe’s answer to the 2GB file size limit of PSD files, the standard Photoshop Document, and something which most photographers will likely never have…
Photographing Kenya’s rich and powerful glamorous grannies
Mar 16, 2016
John Aldred
This is the story of Kenya’s League Of Extravagant Grannies, who were once corporate and government leaders in the 1970s. They now live the retired high life…
Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer coming soon to Windows
Mar 15, 2016
John Aldred
Mac owners have had the opportunity to make use of applications Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer for almost a year now, but that the software has only been available for…