Photoshop tutorial - Computer generated movement.

Computer generated movement.

Sometimes in photography, a photographer may want to capture the movement of a particular subject which he wishes to do, However cannot do for whatever reason, be it the subject moves to fast, or the subject moving is harder to find. This is where computer generated movement comes in, we take a still image of the subject then make it look like it’s moving in photoshop.

1. Take a still image of your desired subject
2. Put that image inside of photoshop
3. Select the subject you want to be blurred
4. Inverse the selection
5. Filters > Blur > Motion blur
6. Select 90 Degrees
7. Ensure preview is ticked
8. Adjust the blur distance slider as appropriate

Photoshop tutorial - Text Gradient

It's often often handy to be able to have a gradient covering a text field in photoshop, especially when your wanting to design some text for print products or even web design. 

I'll show you how. 

Step 1 - Type the text you want to add a gradient using the text tool 

Select the gradient tool from the Photoshop toolbar

Create a new layer (CMD/CTRL + SHIFT + N)

Select your two colours - I always prefer to have the darker colour on the bottom

On you new layer - draw a gradient over the text 

On the gradient layer right click and select "Create clipping mask"

Once ouve done that you should have a gradient covering your text, as shown below! 

How can I make money with photography?

So you've just gotten the hang of photography, and you've decided you want to start makinga bit of extra cash from it. Well here are a few ideas to get you thinking.

Full Time options:

1. Wedding Photography.

Brides will pay a lot of money for the perfect photographer for them, so make sure you get a decent port folio together, and then start promoting your new business.

2. Photography Jobs

Many employers looking for photographers are not looking for qualifications, or in some cases even experience. If you think  you've got a strong enough portfolio, ring up and ask for an interview, eve if it's unpaid at first, you never know what that could lead to...

Part Time options.

1. Stock Photography

Search sell stock photos online

2. Studio shoots

Charge clients to come into your studio, and you supply them with a selection of prints.

3. Sell, Print & Sell.

Print some of your best work, frame them nicely and try to sell them at car boots, craft fairs, online, in the local paper or anywhere else you can think of.

4. Sell your photos to The Sun.

Many big name newspapers will pay big bucks for that shot of David Beckham picking his nose, maybe this is a route you'd like to take.

5. Teach.

Many people would love to learn photography, if your an expert why not teach one-to-one and charge per hour, or even run a class of up to 15 people.


Here are just a few ideas to get you going.

50 Free SnapFish Prints.

I have a few promo codes for 50 free prints at Snapfish UK.

All you need to do is follow this blog and email me at matt.cowlin09@gmail.com for a code.

First come first served.

Manfrotto Tripods. Are they worth the money?

It really depends on your needs, but as a rule of thumb. If you need a tripod, you need a Manfrotto tripod. (or something of similar quality)

You wouldn't buy a $5000 Television and hang it up on a $10 bracket.

A tripod is there to create a good, solid, sturdy base that you can trust your camera will be safe on.

If your in the market for a tripod, spend a few extra pennies and buy quality, you really don't want to skimp out when it comes to tripods.

5 Photography things it's NOT ok to buy cheaper

1. Tripod - You need these to be stable.
2. All other Filters
3. SD Cards
4. Lens'
5. Camera bags/Cases

5 Photography things it's ok to buy cheaper

1. Lens cleaning kit. (A lens cleaning kit is  lens cleaning kit)
2. USB Cables, hubs and other USB peripherals
3. Gorilla pod & Clones (The cheaper clones of these are fine)
4. Remote triggers
5. UV Filters (Only UV)

Photoshop CS5 - Skin smoothing - How to smooth a models skin.

In this tutorial I will show you how to achieve that magazine-finish skin every time, in a few simple steps.

Here is the picture I am working with

Step 1 is to crop the image to the correct size, as I've done below.

Step 2: Create a new layer and label it "Skin"

Step 3: Using your EyeDrop tool found in the colour palette, select a colour from the models skin

Once you've done this you'll need to draw on a very crude mask of the particular colour. I KNOW it looks dodgy at this stage, but bear with me. 

THE NEXT STEP:

Is add a Noise filter of about 12 radius, I don't have a screenshot but the filter can be found here. 

Filters > Noise > Add noise

No we need to blur our skin by going to Filter > Blur > Guassian Blur

Blur this from between 20 and 25 pixels.

Once you've done that all you need to do, is to bring the opacity of this layer down to around 20 %

Here's the before and after!!

All I did here was a basic crop, a basic skin smooth, and a few levels and curves tweaks!

Home studio - How to get good photographs

To build a home studio you will need a few things:

Camera - I used a Nikon D3000
Tripod - Any tripod will do
Lighting - this is very important, spend time on this. I used 2 PAR 56's stage lights on tripods
Backdrop of some description - I used poster roll on a T BAR stand

Spend a while adjusting your settings. Shutter speed and aperture for example, and make sure your white balance is set correctly. You can normally get away with using a higher ISO for studio shoots.

Optional extras

Fan
Props
Face paint

Here are 2 of the results

9 to 5 Blog | New time lapse

I will now be posting only Monday to Friday!! Make sure you all follow my blog :)