Automotive photography is such a wide and varied field with a whole lot of options. There are so many different styles and techniques for photographing cars that there’s always something new or different to try. In this video, Bahraini photographer, Moe Zainal shows us one of his techniques which involves painting different areas of the car with flash in different photos, and then compositing in post.
How to photograph glass perfume bottles with one light for compositing
Photography Dustin Dolby is a great source of information for creating small product photography. Especially with minimal kit. He often uses just one or two speedlights to create multiple lighting setups, and then composites them in post. In this video, Dustin goes into a lot more detail about the actual shooting process and how he uses the light to build shape and form.
How to make it snow in your photos and videos using Adobe After Effects
Well, ’tis the season. Although some of us might be living in a winter wonderland, that’s not all of us. So, perhaps our videos need a little artificial assistance to give them some of that “Christmas spirit”. Well, this short video from Adobe shows us how we can add foreground and background snow to our scenes in just over a minute using Adobe After Effects.
Photographers create magical scenes, bringing Christmas spirit to sick children across Australia
Last year, The Christmas Wish Project put a smile on faces of sick children in Monash Children’s Hospital in Australia. This year, Karen Alsop and her team did it for children across Australia. With the help of photography, Photoshop and of course, Santa Claus, The heART Project made the holidays happier for children from 56 families.
This year, the project is bigger, and it involved a week of traveling across the country, along with hours of shooting and post-processing. Karen has shared the photos and more details with DIYP, and I’m happy to announce that the project will grow even bigger next year – it goes global!
Use Photoshop’s Lighten blend mode to shoot high end product composites
Shooting product photography is a whole lot of fun. Often, though, it can require a surprisingly high number of lights and modifiers to get the job done in a single shot. But what if you don’t have a ton of gear? What if you just want to give it a go without having to spend on a bunch of new flashes? Compositing is the answer.
In this video, Dustin Dolby from Workphlo uses just a single speedlight to show one process for creating composited product photographs. It’s a great technique for creating product composites with a perfectly clean white background with whatever subject light you need. As well as the basic shooting process, Dustin also goes over his entire post workflow.
How to create an alternate reality mirror in After Effects
This is one of those classic movie effects, especially in horror movies. There’s your soon-to-be victim, looking at themselves in the mirror. They finish what they’re doing, turn to walk away, and the reflection stays there, with a stupid evil grin on its face. It’s a cool effect and one that’s very easy to do in After Effects or Premiere as this video from Ian Sansavera of Learn How To Edit Stuff shows.
I make miniatures out of cardboard and create stories around them
I’m a creative minded person and feel very frustrated when the creativity strikes and I have nothing to photograph. This was the main reason I started making these cardboard models.
I thought of all the everyday home items that could be used for creating figures. I found the boxes we used when we moved into our home are still in our garage. They had also “nice” package symbols on them which gave me a couple of ideas of the story that could be created around them and also ended up using them concretely on two of my pictures.
It took months to make this image tell its story just the way I wanted
Layers on layers on layers on layers …. I’ve been working on this image for far too long, just long enough, but also not nearly as much as I’d like to? Needless to say, I put a lot of time and love into this edit and really really enjoyed the process of adding in the countless tiny details.
To be honest, it took some major restraint on my part to finally call it “done” and move onto the next project. Seriously though, people – I feel like I could continue to zoom way in and refine/add more details for-EVAH. Which is exactly what I’d like to talk about today: taking your time and adding more details!
How I made this image using my favourite compositing technique
I love creating images with plenty of story and I need to use certain techniques to get the light the way I want. On location I use limited gear, usually two Einchrom ELB400 which I use to create interesting light to my subjects and the environment.
My most used composite image technique is where I combine multiple exposures into one seamless image. Camera is fixed on a tripod, I have selected the composition and framing of the image, fixed the focus and selected the aperture to use. When these elements have been fixed I cannot change them anymore when I start shooting.
How focus stacking can help you to get super sharp landscapes
Focus stacking is a popular technique for macro photographers. But did it ever occur to you to try it with landscapes? No? Nor me. But it makes a lot of sense, depending on the look you’re after. Although landscapes are often shot with ultra wide angle lenses, they can also be made at much longer focal lengths. I like to do this myself with a 70-200 f/2.8, but that means you start to see the effects of depth of field.
This video from photographer Mark Denney shows us how to use focus stacking techniques to get infinite depth of field for landscapes with any lens. Mark also goes over some shooting tips to help you get the best source material to work with, regardless of whether you use manual or auto focus.
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