Wedding photography in Los Angeles is an awesome rewarding occupation. Part of all great photography is the ability to edit photos in Lightroom or Photoshop.
My friend a fellow Wedding Photographer and I were talking about solutions to the mixed lighting situations that happen during a wedding and how time constraints constitute the fix it in Photoshop mentality. What I am saying is the flow of a wedding makes it necessary to be able to keep a camera setting that will produce an in focus shot but, the finished photo needs to be adjusted in Lightroom or Photoshop prior to a customer viewing their images.
I have developed certain tricks of the trade and I am sharing these tricks with my colleagues so they too can concentrate on photos and not worry about results. I hope you enjoy the video and the tutorial.
Thank you Marie Asbury of Finished Vision Photography 513-485-8543 for the use of your photo.
Michael Knapp
Photon Writer
Senior Photography Video Production.
Hello my name is Michael Knapp,, take 5 minutes and enjoy this session, with us.
Senior Photography has a unique style. My style has developed, and matured, into a beautiful blend of images, place, and emotion. Senior grads like my easy going style, fast paced photo sessions and my ability to tell a story with my photos.
I like to use our shoot time to get images, the more images the better, so being organized and knowing the location is a big advantage for us, I also like to use the natural light when I can and these images where all shot with available light and on camera fill flash. By shooting with light gear we can get to all of the location in the video in a 90 minute session.
So sit back and enjoy. Senior photography session with Nikki and Kyle, class of 2012.
Photography Los Angeles, takes more than just a camera, it takes knowing how to shoot and how to maximize your shot. I use Photoshop to maximize my final photo.
This is a short video on using Photoshop and how to do a photo manipulation.
I welcome you to the Photon Writer, my name is Michael Knapp.
Los Angeles Photography
Photography Los Angeles
Photoshop tutorial
creative photography, senior photography, family photography
Blog 8
Today we are working on a Photoshop tutorial that teaches about removing unwanted items in a photograph. Creative photography, both amateur photography, and professional photography, all require some Photoshop. An important distinction to know is that if this was a final edit for a photo a customer bought, it would have other post processing done at the same time. I have broken this down into bite size pieces so it is easier to understand. I have not done the complete PP (post processing).
So let’s begin.
Step one:
Open image, make a copy of the background layer, (ctrl J), second step is to make selection around the bra strap, use the lasso tool. The reason we want to select the area is because the healing brush tool will use areas of the dress and make the patch blurred with white because the healing brush tool samples areas around the brush stroke made with the tool. This is the same reason we will also use the clone tool to fix the area on top by her hair. Notice the dark shadow; as the bra strap goes up towards her shoulder, that shadow will contaminate the fix with dark pixels.
So the creative photographer in you should be asking me why use the healing brush tool and not just clone the whole fix out. You can, but when you learn how to use the healing brush and the trick I am going to teach you, you will be amazed at how quickly you can just paint over the strap. You will paint with the healing brush up to where the stray hair goes over the strap. If you zoom in super tight, and make your brush smaller and smaller, you could do almost the entire fix with the healing brush. Remember the healing brush will sample adjacent pixels and if those pixels have a large shift in darkness to lightness or opposites in color it will contaminate the fix. If we can use a bulldozer instead of using a hand shovel then we will save time. That is the answer; this is going to make PP for creative photography easy and fun!
Step Two:
Now I want you to save your work, ctrl S, and then open a new file ctrl N. Make it 4 x 4 at 72 dpi. Go to Edit fill and choose 50 % gray and fill, then go to Edit, Define pattern and save this gray image as a pattern. I called mine middle gray. Close this image, you do not need to save it. It is now in your patterns and this is a real life saving pattern. We can do so, so, so much with this, just wait and see how much we will use it as you learn my tips and tricks!!!!
Now go back to your image. You are working on a copy of the original file. Choose healing brush tool (it is the seventh tool down on the tool bar), mouse over and click the small black triangle to see all the tools in that tool box. (Also by holding down the shift key and hitting the short cut key for that tool, (in this case it is the letter J) and each time you hit J the tools change as you rotate through them. Pick the healing brush tool and set it to pattern, not clone. Go into the pattern box on the tool bar and find the middle gray pattern you just made (see this is where we add creative to the creative photography). Chose that pattern, now make a brush tip as big as the bra strap. The short cut to change the brush size is ctrl bracket. Left bracket and the brush tip becomes smaller. Right bracket and the tip becomes bigger. Paint up to the hair with the brush tip about a quarter inch from the stray hair. You will know if you go too far because it will go from a perfect fix to a goofy looking blotch if you get the hair pixels information along with her skin. Remember for most of you this is your first time you have done this or used this tool so it may seem strange to you, and it may seem awkward at first, but after a few times you will never ever go back to cloning if the healing brush can and should be used. Remember also that CS5 users have the advantage of “content aware”, which means you have super human strength and agility. You are a legend in the making!!!
We will use the clone tool to finish off the bra strap, and heal any rough areas that were kind of blotchy. This whole step took less than three minutes to do, maybe five if you need to make the pattern.
How to do yellow teeth:
Open a saturation layer, change from Master to the yellow color, take that saturation handle, drag completely to the left, fill the layer mask with black, go to mask and select the invert button, brush tool 100% opacity and set to the color white paint over Moms teeth. Ctrl S to save your work. You must be in the layer mask on the saturation layer; a white picture frame appears around the mask if the layer mask icon is selected.
Step Three:
Create an empty layer use the eyedropper tool (I short cut key) and sample some of the reddest part off moms hair, I choose camera right below her glasses, set your brush blending mode, and your layer blending mode to color, then pick a soft brush, paint over any gray hairs, drop the layer opacity to about 25 – 30 %, then select filter blur, Gaussian and blur this layer slightly 10 – 15%, Ctrl S (get in the habit of this, wait until Photoshop crashes on a 2 or three hour lesson or project and you didn’t save as you go!!!!) you will never forget again. Use the eraser tool (E short cut key) and remove any color that slipped into her face or back ground. Ctrl S to save.
Use the Ctrl, Alt, Shift (hold all three down) and hit the letter E, this makes a composite of all the open layers, and now Ctrl S, pick your dodge tool set to midtones and about 20 % strength, select a small tip from the dodge tool bar and go over each eye, to add a little pop and brightness, Ctrl S and you just did a major retouch in minutes, while the clone tool Photoshop user is still cloning!!!
We will see you soon as we all look for the light, to see the light and become better amateur or professional photographers in our quest to become better creative photographers.
Michael Knapp
Photon Writer
Photoshop tutorial one.
This is pretty easy if you know Photoshop, if you are a beginner stay tuned to the Photon Writer because we will get you up to the speed of light very quickly. Again use the contact for to request detailed information or how to do specific skills, I am always looking for things to write about so those who ask will get the information they need. I am what most would term a Photoshop advanced user, or expert, no brag here just stating my skill level that does not mean I know everything and I sometimes forget just how confusing Photoshop or Elements can be to the casual user. So please ask questions and let me know if I am speaking or teaching in a way that is fun, interesting and educational. Most importantly that this is worth your time!!! OK?
Step one:
Open broken window image, double click background layer to convert to a normal layer, change the blending mode to lighten.
Step two:
Open the girl image, and use the move tool to drag it into the window frame image, or use the place command in Bridge to place the girl image into the layer stack. Either way click on the girl layer and move below the window frame layer.
Step three:
Select the girl layer and either double click that layer or use ctrl A to make a selection, now while holding down the ctrl key use your mouse curser to add a new layer, the add layer button is circled in red.
Step four:
Go to edit and select add canvas command or hold the ctrl and alt key down and hit the letter C on the keyboard to open the add canvas window, add two inches to height and width, click OK.
Step five:
Open the stucco image and drag below the girl layer, or use the place command in Bridge. The nice thing about the Place command it automatically opens free transform and all you need to do is use the handles to enlarge or reduce your image, to just the right size. In this example you need to drag the corners wider to fill the empty canvas.
Step six:
Go to each layer and use the transform tool or ctrl T to open the transform tool adjust each image as necessary to make it the way you want it.
Step seven:
Actually this should be done through out your work after each step and that is to use the ctrl S to save each step.
Tada you just finished.
Stay tuned as we build off of this image and others to create that urban grunge look.
Thank you for tuning into the Photon Writer, where we work together to see the light, record the light and make beautiful creative photography whether you are a amature photographer or a professional photographer we are all writing with light.
Michael Knapp
Irresistible Images
Photon Writer
Well here we are again, back at the Photon Writers blog and today we are changing thing up a little from the boring basics of photography. I felt you needed a break, and since we just had our first “Photo walk with Michael” which was a great success, I want to thank all the photographers who signed up and showed up for making such a fun day.
With out a doubt the day was fun, we had all different skill levels and camera types, the amateur photographer and the professional photographers all got along real well and everyone contributed to a special day of creative photography.
What we were shooting is the abandoned homesteads of the high desert, looking for environmental shots, and urban grunge textures and backgrounds to spice up a photo and add the word creative to the term creative photography..
This is a quick tutorial on how to use these shots to make a great shot even more interesting. I have included the photo of the girl with her eyes blocked out because she has signed a model release for me to use as promotional work for my Studio, but not for commercial work.
Please feel free to use these shots, but don’t Photoshop her eyes back in for the image I have included for you to use. The ideal outcome would be for you to use you own image and follow along. So you have an image that you can share, however this shot works very well for this tutorial and you can use it to achieve the same look.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind, you can access the images one of two ways, either way you need to use the contact form that is included on each page of my site or use the one on the blog page fill in the required information and in the comment section ask for the images to be e-mailed or request a guest pass to my Photo Bucket site and I will send you a guest pass for these textures and backgrounds, either way you need to e-mail me using the contacts form on my site.
Michael Knapp
Irresistible Images
Photon Writer
So here we are again talking about all these terms, aperture, f stops, shutter speed, ISO, ASA, and you are probably snoring by now, but you ask why do I need to know this?
Well if you want to be a full automatic shooter, and take enough photos that by sheer numbers you get a few great shots, and you do not care to explain how you did it, because you don’t know how you did it, except for the sheer number of shots well then just keep on keeping on. There really is nothing wrong with relying on technology; it helps a well practice amateur photographer, or professional photographer look great.
You are what is known as a GWC, (guy or girl with a camera), you know Aunt Mary who comes to every get together and makes everyone smile, and takes two hours to round everyone up, because everyone takes off running because here comes Aunt Mary with her camera, and has to take 45 shots just to be sure she got the shot, never mind she has everyone facing the sun squinting and sweating, feet cramping up because you don’t want to get grass stains on your pants so you try and do a lunge for 20 minutes until you say “Just take the picture!!!” Then you get 45 shots that are so lovely!!! “Don’t you think?”
Well since we love Aunt Mary we say oh yes. Then she says, “Well good, because I had it blown up and framed just for you” as she pinches your cheek and says she is so happy!!! It is amazing to Aunt Mary just how dust free the frame is, but you and your wife know that it is such a special picture that over 360 days of the year it is in a special place, just to make sure it doesn’t get damaged, and you just bring it out for those special moments that comes but a few times a year!!!
So it is not important if you do not care, but if you just want to get somewhat better, or really, really good then it is extremely important. Creative photography begins with knowing the rules, then how to break those rules to make a creative piece of art.
As you might guess we are keeping it light today, and the reason is that I get paid to get images to clients, they keep the lights on, and to do that there is a ton of work that goes into a photo shoot, then post production (the digital equivalent of developing your film), them putting those into a artistic presentation, such as a slide show, or a wedding book…
Then there is the time to write a great, hopefully great blog post that means something and teaches something which I have not been able to do so hence we talked about Aunt Mary. :-D
Keep looking for the light, so when you see the light you will know it.
Michael Knapp
Photon Writer and blog educator.
Irresistible Images
06-06-2011
I also want to thank all of the men women and children that gave their lives 66 years ago today when the Allied invasion force invaded Nazi held France. I also want to thank all of the men and women who have given their own life, or were willing to, so that we all may be free. “Thank you!”
The next part of exposure deals with the films (ASA) or sensors (ISO), before digital we shot with film and film was being developed all over the world. Without a system to standardize the films sensitivity to light each manufacturer had their own films sensitivity and to be truthful ASA is a general term, just a starting place, the difficulty is everyone uses different equipment, and techniques to shoot and develop their film.
Because so many variables are involved with chemicals and solution strength and time in the solution, how much agitation to infinity and beyond a films speed is really just a starting place to being able to determine a correct exposure.
Likewise ISO is pretty much as arbitrary as its films counterpart. But it is a starting place. This blog deals with correct exposure in the digital age. Therefore I am not going to go into great detail about ASA which stands for American Standards Association. What it does is gives a standard for a films sensitivity to light, and the lower the number the slower the film is and the amount of exposure to light it requires, deemed slow film, vs a higher number ASA of 400 the less exposure to light to duplicate the same image density.
ISO, which stands for International Organization Standardization, hey wait a minute shouldn’t it be called IOS? Well to be sure understanding correct exposure and the quality of light, is not simple, as our eyes make it, but it does sink in once we start shooting, doing post production processing, reviewing our own images being critiqued by teachers, clients, families, or friends.
To be sure the more you practice and review your settings vs results and make detailed notes. If you are a right brained like me, taking notes is torture, it is trial by fire, after all I was drawn to photography because of the art. A great many of the worlds best photographers are left brained that are drawn to photography because of the mathematical symmetry, and then the best of both worlds dual brained people who excel in their learning curve, it is a huge advantage to be able to understand the science and express your visual interpretation of the moment all at once. These are the people I hate!! Just kidding, well maybe not! Jealous, hmmmmmmmmmm, maybe?
Amateur photographers, professional photographers alike must learn their own equipment, and how their camera and lens sees the light, to be a creative photographer.
Given two identical cameras and lenses made off the same assembly line there would be a difference. No two sensors are exactly the same, no two post production processes are the same because no two computer monitors are the same there are just to many variables involved, the difference is slight and to most not definable, however it is something to understand as you become a photon writer,
To finish this addition we will finish off with the lower your ISO setting is the less sensitive the sensor is to light, so if there is plenty of light to shoot with, the lower ISO provides a smoother reading of the photon stream being beamed through the shutter which came through the lens aperture, and therefore gives a good artistic or realistic rendering of the moment if it is correct if not it is either dark or bright. To dark and we lose data, called clipping the shadows, to bright we clip the brightest photons or clipping your highlights.
Today’s camera sensors are so advanced that we have super high ISO speeds which gives smooth recording of the light spectrum giving a amateur photographer, or professional photographer the ability to be creative photographers in extremely low light situations without a lot of noise and aberrations appearing up on your image, as we did just a few years ago with high ISO numbers.
So pick up that camera and start looking at light and shadows, the transition between the two, the direction and the angle of light and see the light!!! We just take it for granite without seeing we just take the scene in, it is similar to hearing but not listening.
Well this ends today’s addition of the Photon writer, Creative photography comes through practice, not purchase.
Michael Knapp
Irresistible Images
06-04-2011
Shutter speed controls how fast the shutter opens and closes. Dah! Right? But no matter how basic that sounds it is a third of the recipe in creative photography. Aperture is the size of the opening you have your lens open to, f stop, shutter speed is how much time the lens opening lets in light through that lens opening.
Let me analogize this with something we use everyday and that is a faucet. We will use the kitchen faucet for this example. The pipe that carries the water to the faucet is the lens, in this house we have different sized pipes that we can use to hook our faucet up to. The faucet is the shutter and the pipe diameter would be the same as an f stop in our camera lens.
The faucet is the shutter. Never mind about film speed ASA, or sensor sensitivity ISO at this point. So if we had the biggest diameter pipe hooked up to our faucet there is more water traveling to the faucet, if we could move at super human fast speeds and open and close the faucet as quick as we can a shutter in a camera, then if we held the faucet (shutter) open for a second we would get some water from the pipe (aperture. Remember we said the widest pipe, so this lens would be say f4.0), lets say a cup of water is allowed through, then two seconds we would get two cups, a half of a second and we would have ½ a cup per this example.
Now if I haven’t lost you yet, let us say we now connect our faucet to a smaller diameter pipe, meaning there is less water allowed to flow to the faucet. So aperture is the roundness (size) or diameter of the opening, it has an inverse relationship to the number. We all would rather have a hundred dollars than one dollar so intuitively a beginner is going to think a f22 would be gigantic and a f4 would be super small, however it is inverse to that form of thinking, a f22 aperture is smaller opening than a f4 aperture.
So if we go back to the faucet we can get a gallon of water from either opening. Right? It is a matter of time. This is how an exposure is determined also. We can let in the same amount of light in, we have many options.
These options are called exposure equivalents. That is the science of creative photography, how you dial up your exposure will do different things to your image, this is the artistic side of photography.
So your first question you would ask is “what exposure should I use Michael?” The answer I give everyone is “the correct one!!!”
Aperture controls what area is in sharp focus, which we call depth of field, the larger the aperture the more area of the lens is collecting photons, tons of photons lets in light off the outer part of the lens, these random photons are what causes the blurry affect we call bokeh. The narrower we concentrate the photon beam the more concentrated the beam becomes and lets in fewer of the random photons and the sharper the image becomes. We use this to draw the viewer’s eye to the subject and for artistic interpretation. Human eyes are naturally drawn to the in focus area of the image.
Shutter speed is used to freeze action, or convey movement. A fast shutter speed can stop the motion of a bullet, where as a slow shutter speed the bullet is invisible. As a professional photographer, or an amateur photographer we use the combination of aperture and shutter speed to convey our creative photography interpretation of that moment we click the shutter button.
We will stop here with this thought. Again it sounds confusing because at first it is confusing. Practice makes for a better photographer, not the camera or the cost of the equipment.
Enjoy your journey as we all become better at seeing the light and becoming better photon writers.
Michael Knapp
Irresistible Images
Photon writer. (photographer: English for the Greek words)
06-03-2011
Well we talked briefly about aperture in the basics of photography; to be sure I have just scraped the surface on aperture, what it does and how it is used.
Personally I believe in all my years of learning how to use a camera and teaching others what I know and always learning from everyone, that what makes CORREECT EXPOSURE so difficult to get our mind around is our eyes do in an instant what we have to tell the camera to do. That is why so many photographers never take their camera off of auto or one of the preprogrammed settings.
It just is not something we have to do, our brain just does it and we never stop to think about the light.
Seeing the light is a saying that all serious photographers spend a major portion of their learning curve on that it is a slogan, a mantra if you will. Seeing the contrast between shadows and brightness becomes second nature to an experienced photographer. We get a jolt of excitement when we see beautiful light, and the absence of light that we do stupid things trying to capture this most exquisite and elusive of things that others just take for granite.
Trust me you will too when you learn to see the light!!!
There are two kinds of light, natural and artificial. Both types of light take a certain understanding of, to be able to use either or both to generate a great photo. A huge misconception is a Professional photographer just goes click and the shoot is done. “It’s a wrap!!!” Thinking that a pro should be able to get the job done quickly and efficiently and wham it is done! ”WRONG!” Out of necessity yes we can click off a couple of shots and nail it, but the cost to do the shoot, the clients need for just the right photo means we can shoot a 1,000 or more shots a day just to turn in 50.
While we are on it another misconception is that photography is glamorous job, and “boy you sure are lucky to be able to take photos all day….. Blah, blah, blah.” There are times when this is true, but what others don’t see is the countless hours of travel, set up, break down, sales calls, portfolio reviews, settling our nerves to walk into the roar, remembering we are hired to be calm, cool and collected on the outside but there is always that inner voice saying “boy don’t let me screw this up and let down my client!”
In some cases the whole crew, makeup artists, hair stylists, or how about a wedding where there is no re-shoot? Not to mention the 10,000 hour of practice. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t switch my occupation for nothing, but it is hard, breaking rocks in the hot sun work too.
So now that I have said this we are going to help you to quickly learn and skip the whole process of, burn while you learn photography lessons or how to learn photography through the college of hard knocks and get the basics of basics, the fundamentals of photography, to build our skills on. There are no short cuts, a short cut is the long way around the barn just to get to the same spot, so lets get the basics correct and then build on those ideas and become more and more confident when we pick up a camera, to use a manual setting because we know exactly what we are looking for in a exposure or photograph that we can not rely on some auto program to possibly blow the shot.
Wedding photography, glamour photography, creative photography uses light to record an image; different types of professional photography require different types of light modifiers, lenses and cameras to get that Professional look.
We will look into all of these things as we travel down the road of photon writing together.
Michael Knapp
06-02-2011