I’m experimenting more with portrait lighting, trying to dial in something that doesn’t look like a department store. One look I keep coming back to uses a single strip light. Some of the commercial versions are very expensive, and the DIY versions seem to have some inherent flaws that make them less flexible or sturdy than I’d like.
This version is my first attempt at addressing as many of these problems as I can. Total cost is about $20US, and roughly 30 minutes of time.
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Recently, I got bored and broke out a backdrop and light stand just to see what I could learn about shooting self-portraits. This is mostly because I don’t have many willing subjects. Also, the majority of my photo projects feature some kind of problem-solving aspect (that’s how I learn), and are typically seat-of-the-pants affairs – I don’t have any real idea of what I want. Inflicting my mental ramblings on a person in real time is not likely to be pleasant for either of us, so I tend towards inanimate objects that don’t complain when I constantly fiddle with lights, camera position, angles, etc.
However, I have LOTS of project ideas for people rolling around in my head. So I figured I should step in front of the camera and do some experimenting.
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Wow! I have seriously neglected this blog. That’s probably not a good thing, considering I’m trying to promote myself and my new book. So it might seem odd that I’m now posting about taking some down time. But wait – there’s more!!
Read more ...I did some bargain hunting for my trip to PhotoshopWorld in Las Vegas this September. The car was cheap, I stayed in a time share, and got seriously lucky for low-price air fare. I even stocked the fridge with cereal, milk, and water to save on breakfast and keeping hydrated. So I felt OK looking around for stuff I normally wouldn’t buy on impulse. That turned out to be an excellent strategy, because I ended with a Spider Pro Holster.
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You can turn Wacom pressure options on and off right up in the Options bar. When you have a tool that supports pressure sensitivity selected, click the pen icon over a transparency to control the Opacity and choose the pen icon over a bulls-eye to control the brush size. (via planetphotoshop.com)
Are simple tasks taking longer in CS5 than CS4? Check out this tip fromMac Performance Guide: Edit your Preferences and adjust your Cache Tile Size to optimize your setup for the kinds of images you work on. MPG suggests just cranking it to 1024 and forgetting it. What works for you?
Have you explored the blend modes available in Photoshop? If so, you can get to most of your favorites by using a shortcut: Shift + Option/Alt + (first letter of blend mode). For example, Shift+opt/Alt+M changes the current mode to Multiply. The shortcut list isn’t complete, but you can round out and update the shortcuts by changing them in Photoshop’s preferences dialog.
