Today for the blog, we’re here using a friendly reminder of why it really is ever so important to shoot your photos in RAW. Have a look at this photo that we captured through the Tomorrowland Terrace immediately in its RAW form.

In a word, yuck. Is the concept neat? Sure, I guess so. Not the most popular composition I’ve created, on the other hand do as it plenty. Though the exposure is terrible, the shades are awful, and everything just looks flat. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the camera’s meter saw and captured. Now, I know that the JPEG processing engines inside the cameras will edit the files some making the colors and exposure slightly better, yet it’s pretty reliable advice that it wouldn’t have been able to solve too much with this image. But since we at Disney Photography Blog shoot RAW, we are able to change all of that.

In Lightroom, one of the first things I did was adjust the White Balance, a thing that I feel is overlooked and very powerful. The OM-D i think sees things way too warm most of the time, so I employ this adjustment a great make the scene temperature match some tips i remember actually seeing. I then went ahead and did some exposure tweaks, added blacks and contrast as to what was a rather flat image, and then gave it a bit run through the Detail Extractor filter in Color Efex Pro, which was the result.

So. Much. Better. At least in my opinion it can be. Now we have some epic clouds which were barely visible before, dark blue skies, nice reflections and texture in the water. Overall, simply a large improvement. That is certainly all thanks to shooting RAW and being able to have access to everything detail the spectacular cameras we shoot with today possess.

It was shot with all the Olympus OM-D and the Rokinon 7.5mm Fisheye, as both versions are available on Amazon. Many thanks for reading!

Bad habits might not completely ruin your photos, but they can hold you back from allowing the best images possible. The worst part about the subject? We usually do not realize we also have the bad habit until it’s talked about!

Here are 6 improper habits that can keep you from being your most awesome photographer self.

1. Standing Still

Keeping your feet still when you’re shooting is often a surefire method to limit your creative potential. But it’s a simple habit to fall into, especially if you make use of a zoom lens. As opposed to shooting a scene from only one perspective, enter into the habit of travelling, moving closer and stepping back. Don’t depend on the zoom! Use your feet, to see how quickly you begin getting much more interesting perspectives.

Note: If you’re shooting a two min long exposure it is possible to completely ignore these suggestions. In that instance, standing is still a very good thing.

2. Chimping

Chimping is the act of having a photo, then looking at the result for the back of one’s screen while going “Ooooo!”. There’s nothing inherently wrong with checking out your photos on your own camera – it’s really a great way to learn, and connect any glaring mistakes. The issue exists when you do this, and in the procedure, stop paying focus on what’s going on prior to you and miss capturing a fantastic moment.

So utilize the back of the screen only once completely necessary (checking your exposure in tricky lighting, for example) and then maintain your eyes in this area, ready to obtain the shot.

3. Bringing Your camera Down To Change Settings

This holds along with chimping, but can be a different bad habit. And though I’ve been shooting professionally for six years now, I still do that all the time. I don’t know why! But basically, while i need to change my ISO, I bring the digital camera down, consider the screen, and change it. Through doing this, I take my eyes off of the scene, and miss important moments.

It’s going for a considerable mental effort to just make myself to regulate my settings and the camera around my eye. It takes memorizing where all of the buttons are, just make sure do keep it in check, it will really help you to keep a clear head, and keep careful watch on your subject. Don’t hold off until you’re actually during a shoot to practice this. Take time on your own to successfully can change all of the important settings without bringing the digital camera down. You can even do this while you’re just on the couch reading articles about bad photography habits.

4. Talking From Behind You got it

Have you ever been directing your subjects, and received a puzzled look along with a “Huh?”, then realized that you had your camera covering that person for every word? If you have this bad habit, it’s definitely an essential one to break! Furthermore clear communication help your subjects to wind down, and feel well informed in your abilities as their photographer, but showing your style (complete with a genuine smile) will certainly help put people comfortable. This is critical whether you’re shooting a paid client or even a stranger in another country.

5. Neglecting To Square Up

Careful composition is a hallmark of great photography, so sloppy habits here will surely hold you back. First, in case you have a horizon inside your image, ensure it is level. The human eye expects horizons to be level, so one that’s slightly tilted will probably be distracting. In case you have trouble with this bad habit, you are able to install a grid inside your viewfinder to help you out.

Note: Sometimes it can aid your image to have a tilted horizon (perhaps to create a sense of movement), however it should be a conscious decision, not just a careless mistake!

Then, when you’re shooting against a wall or even a building – a thing that has straight lines – make certain you are standing perfectly square to it. If you’re with a very slight angle, the lines won’t be straight, and it will again feel distracting. This rule can be broken at the same time, as long as you decide to do it!

6. Thinking You’ll “Fix It Later”

This habit can put on to everything from shooting with an incorrect exposure, neglecting to move a stray hair, or leaving a small piece of garbage in the frame. It’s simple to get caught up in thinking of getting the shot, and thinking you can easily fix this afterwards on your desktop. And you can. But it’s at the expense of enhancing your skills and as an efficient shooter.

It’s simple. Get as much right in camera as is possible. Don’t let digital processing certainly be a crutch that prevents you strengthening your technical skills!

And seriously, you’ll be cursing yourself if you should edit that stray hair out of dozens of photos, spening too much time on the computer, once you could have spent Around 10 secs to move it through the shoot. That’s an oversight that you’ll hopefully only make once!

Improper habits are easy to grab, and difficult to break. But if you keep working on adopting good habits, and achieving rid of the bad ones, you’re sure to visit your technique, as well as your photos, just keep getting better and better!

Remember the fable in regards to the grasshopper and the ant? The ant labored all summer to arrange for the winter, while the grasshopper played. Eventually, the grasshopper found himself with no food, and incapable of survive through the winter months. The ant refused to assist him out, telling the grasshopper which he should have prepared better.

The ant was obviously a bit of a jerk, but he previously a good point. Once you work in seasonal business, like wedding or portrait photography, you should make sure you’re prepared for the winter!

I understand I’m going to be smacked after only suggesting that the summer is planning to end. Nonetheless it will. And right this moment, things are probably crazy busy, and crazy profitable in your case. You’re shooting tons, you’ve had months of weddings to refill that banking account, and people are clamouring to reserve you for fall portraits.

It’s very easy to obtain a bit lazy at this stage about savings. It feels as though things are going great, you’ve got plenty of cash in the bank, and you’re just too busy to start planning months down the road.

But that’s a risky mindset, my friend. If you’re in your first year, you may not have experienced the load that happens as you reach mid-winter. If you’ve gone through it before, long can be really scary to view your accounts get low with months left to travel until the shooting season starts again. And although you’ve been there, and realize it sucks, you can still easily forget to get ready in the summer!

So, now’s the time to get ready. Let’s evaluate which you can do right now to make sure that you’re not that grasshopper, freaking out in the middle of winter simply because you don’t have any food!

Plan Taxes

One of several toughest aspects of the winter would be the fact taxes tend to be due at the end of it. Just once you think you might be ok before the spring, you receive hit which has a big goverment tax bill that wipes out much of your savings.

So take the time right now, and think of what your goverment tax bill was like this past year, and whether or not it will be around the same in 2010. Then reserve money now to cover that, and don’t touch it. It’s really un-fun to always set aside so much of your cash for something so boring, in case you do it now you’ll be ridiculously glad in college. You’ll probably even pat yourself the back to your smart planning. Go ahead and take the credit. I don’t mind.

Review your Monthly Expenses

While you’re advertising online, take some time to find out what you normally spend monthly. Add that up over all the months in which you won’t be making as much of an income when you are right now and set aside some dough to get you using too! This really is quite simple in principle, but I know, used, it’s a tough pill to swallow. I do believe it’s what like a “grown-up” is all about.

If you won’t be able to schedule that much money, now could be a good time to understand it! You can try to book some extra work now, or brainstorm ways to continue making some dough over the winter. You’ll have plenty of time to prepare if you figure it out now. Or perhaps you might find yourself panicking, and offering photo sessions on Craigslist for $20 or possibly a hot meal.

Trim Fat

When you’re looking over your monthly expenses you’ll manage to see if there are any locations you can make tighter your spending. That will help out tremendously in the winter months! Pay close attention to monthly subscription services and recurring charges. Those usually sneak by unnoticed, however , add up. Just how essential is it? Now is a good time to cancel those you aren’t using, so they don’t drain your winter stores.

Create A Business Refresh Budget

One fantastic thing to do over the winter is take time to refresh your organization. You finally incorporate some time to concentrate on it, and you’ll be able to get yourself able to have an amazing year ahead. A couple of things you can do are:

Learn new skills
Update your branding
Plan your marketing promotions on the year and acquire new materials
Update your website
Enhance your organization
All of these projects will require money, so set aside some cash now to help you make sure you are able to afford to refresh!

Change your Gear

By the end of the shooting season you might be finding that a few of your gear is on it’s last legs, and definately will need to be replaced. You’ll are thinking about creating a budget with this, but don’t buy everything now! Likelihood is it will sit and collect dust in the winter months.

If you’re able to hold off, delay until the spring to produce those new gear purchases. A lot of things will go down in price, or newer models can come out. But even if you won’t be making the purchase for a while, reserve the money now so you can afford to upgrade prior to the next season.

Create A crisis Fund

It’s really overwhelming to check out all the things you’ll want to save for, but the more you’ll be able to prepare, the less stress and anxiety you’ll feel. And, should things get rough, you’ll be better able to ride the tough times, and make sure your business survives!

For this reason, creating an urgent situation fund is usually a great idea. This can be a chunk of cash that you simply don’t touch, and for emergencies. Having which could one day mean the difference between your business succeeding and failing! It’s not necessarily easy to set aside this money right off the bat, when you can find clearly other things to be saving for. But even though you can just increase it, bit by bit, you’ll be better off than if you have nothing at all.

Carry on Vacation

We always did our travelling in the winter, when we actually had the time to go. It sure would be a big expense, since our trips were normally a month or longer. Nevertheless for us, it absolutely was completely worth it. A vacation would have been a time to refresh from your hectic shooting season, and why don’t we spend time shooting for ourselves. Most of our favourite images we’ve ever created were taken of these vacations. You will possibly not be able to perform a huge trip, but a good week or two to just get away from work could be enough to re-energize you for your year ahead!

Talk to Your Accountant

If there’s one tip you take from this, it’s to have yourself an accountant los angeles as soon as possible. This is something that we held off on, thinking we could do it ourselves, and that was a mistake. Accountants aren’t just proficient at keeping you organized. They’re also great at helping you save money. They do know all sorts of approaches to help you keep hold of more of your hard earned money, and can ensure you’re on the right track to satisfy your financial goals. So get yourself an accountant los angeles (ask other photographers in your area to see if they have any recommendations) and after that get them to allow you to figure out how to do all of this saving! That’s their job, in the end – to help you keep a greater portion of your money!

Finances and saving are certainly not the glamorous aspects of running a photography business, however the sooner you obtain on top of it, and prepare yourself for lean months, the greater fun you’ll have. Honestly. Nothing is worse than stressing for months, wondering if you’re want to a second job only to make it until shooting starts up again. Somewhat preparation means possibilities are more time working on improving your business, and which makes it stronger!

So before we looked at the 10 best things about being a wedding photographer, and they were certainly very rad. It’s an incredible day to access photograph, and being invited into this type of important section of your clients’ lives is an excellent honour!

But, like all profession, you can find pros and cons involved. It’s an arduous job, and not everyone is reduce for it. Today we’re gonna reveal our 10 toughest parts about like a wedding photographer, so let’s get down to business!

1. Starting

When you attempt to become a wedding photographer, you’ll find yourself faced with a bit of a conundrum. You’ll need experience shooting weddings to obtain hired, nevertheless, you can’t get experience unless you get hired. This is incredibly challenging, and difficult for any photographer to acquire around. A few will do second shooting with an established photographer to have that experience, among others will luck by helping cover their a friend or relative willing to take a risk on them. In either case, it takes hard work and perseverance to have that much needed experience below your belt.

Rather than only would it be tough just to get a job, but it’s an incredible investment of greenbacks to get every one of the gear necessary to do that wedding justice. These events require multiple lenses, flashes, backup gear, and armloads of batteries and memory cards, not forgetting enough hard disk drives to support the images properly! That’s lots of cash to fork out before you’ve even really got the organization running. Now, you’ll be able to rent gear to produce those initial few weddings less costly, but when you’re serious about stepping into the business, you’ll eventually must make a serious investment.

2. Business

This one could basically be numbers Two to five, because there are countless aspects of the business of photography that can be really difficult. First off is merely figuring out how to get it up and running. Then, as the owner, you quickly understand that you are in charge of all the working elements of your company. You are now the bookkeeper, the accountant, the marketing department, the artist, the customer service department, the secretary, and virtually any other title you can think of. It’s you. That’s not just a lot of responsibility, quite a few learning that has to go on to figure out how to make it all operate correctly!

Then there’s pricing. Oh pricing – one of the most challenging and scary areas of being any kind of photographer. Are you doing it right? Do you think you’re choosing prices which will make your business fail? It could get easier, and luckily there are resources out there to try and enable you to sort it out, but it’s still scary and overwhelming, along with the cause of many ulcers.

3. Mega Levels of Work

Once you realize how many pieces enter running a business, it’s no surprise that wedding photography is a LOT of work. In case you don’t believe me, take a look at our 50 step wedding photography workflow. Adding on every one of the actual business stuff, like marketing, branding, paperwork, pricing, bookkeeping, and you’ll begin to see why professional wedding photographers don’t get a a lot of open sleep. There’s a risky myth that floats around suggesting that they only have to work eventually of the week plus they make a lot of cash. But usually they generally work an ordinary 5 day week, have meetings and engagement shoots at night, and then shoot weddings on Saturdays. Yeah, mega numbers of work.

4. Balance

With all that work comes the process of balance. Weddings can effortlessly take over your entire life. Finding time to just be an individual, and not a wedding photographer, is really tough. Your relationships with friends and family also usually suffer, since you’re generally not free on Fridays or Saturdays during wedding season. It can be isolating, and downright exhausting to get so consumed by one thing. Burnout isn’t far behind. Without balance, it’s an easy task to lose the passion and love for the job which is necessary to produce good quality work.

5. Seasonal

In nearly all parts of the world weddings are seasonal. It either becomes too cold in the winter, or too hot in the summer, so during those months you’ll discover youself to be with almost no work. Hardly surprising that that means it is difficult to pay the bills! You can either come up with enough inside the wedding season to obtain yourself from the rest of the year, or find solutions to keep bringing in money once the weddings stop. It’s a large challenge.

6. Building a Good Living

Upright, no sugar coating, it is hard to make a good living as a wedding photographer. You need to be great at photography and efficient at business. You have to adapt to an ever-changing marketplace, and figure out how to stand out from the bunch. You need to solve the situation of seasonality, as well as set prices smartly to turn a profit. You’ll want to keep your costs low, however your customer experience world class. It’s easy enough to generate money at photography; there’s always someone ready to pay $1,000 to the shoot and files. But building a good living is an entirely different story.

7. Handling The load

Weddings don’t include do-overs or reshoots. You get only one possiblity to capture the walk around the aisle, the very first kiss, or even the bouquet toss. Happened only need to be technically skilled enough to be certain you can nail those critical shots, however, you also need to be capable of handling that kind of pressure, yet still think creatively! This certainly gets easier the more you shoot, in addition to lots of preparation, nevertheless, you should never lose that realizing that you’re shooting a once-in-a-lifetime event. It’s plenty of responsibility.

8. Mentally & Physically Exhausting Shoots

Weddings usually are at least 8 hours of shooting, commonly jump around 14, and can get crazy at 21 hours (that was our longest day ever). The period requires just about continual physical and mental effort, while following the wedding couple around, documenting their experiences. Scarfing granola bars and chugging energy drinks can help you get through the afternoon, but then there is a much discussed “wedding hangover” afterwards. Sunday is critical for just recovering! The long hours also perform a number face up and shoulders from carrying a lot gear around, if you aren’t careful you can easily get dehydrated. You can handle all this while having to stay positive and cheery at every moment!

9. Pleasing A Wide Range of People

Your closeness to the groom and bride during the whole day brings you into contact with all the important people (bridal party, parents, planners, officiants, etc.). A number of these are folks that you have to take photos of, so that you also have to direct them as well. Many of them have a vested interest in both how a day goes, and exactly how the photos end up. So you have the challenge of pleasing every one of them! It’s definitely possible, but takes a lot of effort, understanding, flexibility and many of all, patience. The bonus is that the better you c
an do that, the more likely you will get referrals coming from a wide range of people, not just the bride and groom!

10. Finding Your specific Style

We’ve already listed nine difficult things, and haven’t even really touched on actually shooting being married! While it’s an extremely diverse event, and needs a lot of different photographic skills, exactly what can be complicated of all is finding your individual unique style. The wedding industry can seem to be to become involved with a different trend yearly, and half the photographers and the vast majority of the blogs follow suit. Brides are influenced by all these sources, and search to get that trend for their own images. It appears easier to just get on the bandwagon and ride the popularity to success as opposed to pave your individual way. But trends are fickle creatures, as well as in another year it will likely be something completely different. My prediction is always that vintage gives strategy to ninjas. You heard it here first.

Jokes aside, basing your look on a trend is dangerous. When the winds change, you’re old news. However, you want your make an effort to have a unique style, to make it cohesive and attractive to the right kind of bride. And therein lies the task, because completing this task isn’t really something that you’re ever finished with. Your style will evolve because you evolve as an artist. The true secret to making it unique is always to ignore what all the other shooters are performing, and pay attention to your own personal voice. Look for inspiration anywhere besides the wedding industry. Have a look at what’s happening from the graphic design world, or visit museums on a regular basis. The more diverse you’re making your inputs, the more unique your style will become, the more you’ll stand out, and also the easier it will be to increase above and outlast the trends!

Now, I understand that reading dozens of difficult parts of being a wedding photographer can be scary. I don’t need to sugar coat the experience-it’s tough. But a few ton of wonderful reasons for the job also. The most important thing to look at away from this discussion is basically that you need to enter in the industry using a realistic expectation of the items it will take to reach your goals. If you’re deeply enthusiastic about the images you can create for your clients, you’ll possess the energy and dedication necessary to make a solid business from the.

After all, like a wedding photographer means you’re able to eat lots and lots of tasty cake, and that’s the manifestation of a really magical job!

“An incredibly valuable, but often overlooked, asset for any photography business is a client database. Early in your career you may find it easy to remember all the people you’ve worked with, but after a couple years the number grows and it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of everyone.

Creating a database is easy to do, and totally beneficial. Here are some ways it can help!

Improves Client Experience: Access to names of clients, their kids’ names, their likes/dislikes, their previous orders, etc. lets you have more personal and meaningful communications with them, showing that you really care.

Improves Efficiency: Contact info that you can find and use quickly means you’re more likely to keep in touch with your clients, and it won’t take you as long to do it!

Improves Marketing Efforts: The ability to target your marketing to specific groups of clients is extremely valuable. For example, all your clients with families might want to know about your Mother’s Day sessions, but wedding clients without little ones would prefer to know about your newest line of wedding albums.

Even if a database can just help you remember the names of your clients, it will be well worth the time spent creating one. Consider this lesson from my favourite book, How To Win Friends & Influence People:

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language” – Dale Carnegie

Creating Your Database

Now, there are a lot of fancy programs to help you do this: some free, and some that you have to pay for. But, as you may know, we like to keep things simple. Simple systems get used!

So here’s a simple way to create a client database that will help you rock your business!

STEP 1: ASSEMBLE ALL YOUR CLIENT CONTACT INFORMATION.

If you’re just starting your business, you’re in luck because you can implement a database from the beginning, and don’t need to play catch-up. But I’m guessing most of you have had a few clients already, so you’ll need to collect that information. It might be on contracts, or their client files. Wherever it is, get it all together so you can input everything at once.

STEP 2: DECIDE WHERE TO PUT THE DATABASE

This is the tricky one. You’ll have to think about how you want to use the database to figure out the best way to store it. In the interest of simplicity, we like using the Mac Address Book. It syncs across our computers and our iPhones, so we have our database even when we’re out and about.

There is also the option of using a cloud service like Google Contacts. It will tie in nicely if you using Gmail (which you totally should—here’s how to set Gmail up for yourself), and can be accessed from any computer or smartphone.

Now, if you will only ever use your database at your computer then something as simple as a spreadsheet will do the trick! But consider how useful it can be to have that information with you everywhere. The more you shoot, the more you start running into clients! Mobility is important.

STEP 3: FIGURE OUT BACKUP PLANS

If you’re going to put effort into making a client database, be sure to back it up. With Mac Address Book we can just put the database file in our nightly backups, and there’s nothing more to think about.

With Google Contacts you can back things up, but as far as I can tell you have to do it manually. That adds another step that could be forgotten. Something to think through before diving into creating your database!

STEP 4: DECIDE WHAT INFORMATION TO INCLUDE

Stuff like names and contact information are standard for a database, but you can get creative with what you include in yours to really improve the experience you provide!

If you shoot weddings, you could include their wedding date, and then at the start of each year schedule first anniversary cards to go out. You’ll have all that info at your fingertips, so that kind of project will be quick and easy!

For families you could enter the kids’ birthdays, or the last time the family had a session, so you can drop them a line in a year or two to suggest another shoot (like reminders from the dentist, but way more fun!).

You can include what products the clients have ordered, so you can check up and see how they’re liking them. Or details like favourite movies or bands, so that when you meet them for a new session you can know what to talk about. These files can easily be updated when you learn new things about your clients! It’s like an ongoing way to treat them well and show that you care about them. Sounds good right?

STEP 5: ENTER THE DATA

Now that you have all your info together, and know where it’s going, it’s time to sit down and plug it all into your database.

This part can be a bit boring, but what I like to do is include a photo for each client. The nice thing is that usually we’ve already taken a great shot of them, so it makes the database look fantastic. And including photos will help you with recognizing faces, so win-win!

STEP 6: PUT THE DATABASE INTO YOUR WORKFLOW

The final step is to make sure you include maintenance of the database in your workflow. The database will only be effective if you keep up with it! If you use a workflow chart, you can put in “Add Client Info to Database” right after they book. Then, at the end of your work with them, you could have “Update Client Info”, so you can add a nice photo, and any notes you may have!

A client database is an easy thing to create, and can make a massive difference in the experience you give your clients. Better experience leads to happier clients, and that means more repeat business and referrals.

If you want to check out some other systems for creating your client database, here are a few options. Note: we haven’t used most of these, but you may want to see if they would work better for you! Some offer lots of other features as well, like booking systems, and workflow tracking, etc.

Bento (Mac)
Studio Cloud (free)
Tave
ShootQ
Do you have a client database? How did you put it together? How do you use it to improve your business? Share with us in the comments now!”

“Learning to edit your photos is a very visual process! In order to produce better quality editing you need to be able to look at a variety of different photographic characteristics (like exposure, white balance, and contrast) and distinguish teeny tiny differences. At first it might seem impossible to figure out what looks good, and determine when you’ve done enough processing.

You may find yourself crying “Does it need a +0.10 bump in exposure, or is +0.25 better?!?” Well, don’t fear. There’s a little thing called perceptual learning, and we’re going to talk all about how it works, and how, with practice and patience, you will get better at editing!

Perceptual learning is defined by Wikipedia as:

The process of learning improved skills of perception.

Studies have been done involving learning things as straightforward as distinguishing pitch in music, to more complicated subjects like language, wine tasting, and even identification of tumours on X-rays! But we’re here to talk about photo editing, so let’s take a look at some aspects of perceptual learning, and how they relate to your images!

DISCOVERY EFFECTS

When learning something new people tend to focus on specific important information, while at the same time suppressing unimportant details. For example, if you’re learning how to white balance your photos you might be looking specifically at the color of the neutral tones in an image. These tones are the easiest to use to correct white balance! You’ll also probably focus a lot of attention on the warmth or coolness (yellow or blue color casts) of the image as opposed to other non important information (like the crop of the photo for instance).

FLUENCY EFFECTS

Tasks involving perception become easier with practice. At first you might find the task of white balancing images difficult. It will take a lot of attention and time for you to make corrections. But, with practice, it will eventually take you less time and less attention. Awesome, right??

Just like you’ve become fluent at the English language (you probably aren’t sounding out every word in this sentence!), you can become fluent at viewing a photograph and identifying necessary corrections. Returning to the white balance example, eventually you’ll find you don’t need to focus specifically on the neutral tones of an image. Instead, you can just look at the image as a whole and know if the white balance is off and what sort of correction might be necessary.

The biggest point to take away here is that when learning something new involving perception (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling) it may be difficult at first to make fine distinctions. But with experience you’ll be able to make more precise adjustments with less effort!

Now that we’ve looked a bit at what perceptual learning is all about, here are some tips that have been known to make the process of perceptual learning easier.

SLEEP

Sleep is a magical thing. It gives your brain a chance to strengthen the connections that you’ve made during your learning. And it does this while you’ll resting in bed!! A lack of sleep or fatigue also reduces performance. So if you’re feeling tired, save photo editing for the morning! And if you’ve learned a ton of new stuff, make sure to sleep on it, and let your brain solidify all those wonderful new neural connections.

COMPARISON, CONTRAST & FEEDBACK

Being able to identify important information and see relevant feedback is an important part of the perceptual learning process. And luckily Lightroom has a handy feature that can help with this! If you use the before/after view when you’re editing your photos (keyboard shortcut Y or , see below), it can really help you dial in different adjustments, and see if you’re improving the image!

In Lightroom’s Develop module you can activate and select from a few different before / after views (first red box). You can also update the before view (second red box). It can be difficult to see how small adjustments are effecting the image when you’re comparing with the original unedited version so updating the before view can really help you dial in your processing.

TASK DIFFICULTY

If you start off learning easy examples, it makes it easier for you to take the experience, and apply it to handling harder examples. That just makes sense! No one starts off reading Shakespeare. You cut your teeth with Hop On Pop, and work your way up! The same idea goes for editing your photos. Start off editing the easier shots first. If you come across an image that’s difficult to process, try saving it until later. The easy shots will get you warmed up, and you’ll get more experience editing that particular session, and then, after you’ve finished all those, the tough shots won’t seem so tough!

ACTIVE CLASSIFICATION AND ATTENTION

Perceptual learning takes effort and attention. You have to put in practice to see results! You can’t expect to improve your photo editing skills just by looking at photos. Nope, you’re going to have to fire up your editing program, and process thousands of photos if you want to get better!

When it comes to perceptual learning the big areas to focus on for photo editing are:

White balance
Brightness / Exposure
Contrast
Vibrance / Saturation
Crop
With practice, you’ll be able to identify the details in these different aspects of your images, and learn what needs to be done to each one to make improvements! So as you go through each photo in your editing, take a moment to consider each of those characteristics, and make a judgement call on whether they need adjusting.

We’ve just talked about photo editing, but many aspects of photography involve perceptual learning, like identifying the quality and direction of light, choosing strong compositions and perspectives, and capturing genuine expressions. These are critical photography skills that take tons of practice, and a healthy dose of perceptual learning. But now that you know the deal with perceptual learning, and some tips to make it easier, it doesn’t seem too hard, does it??

Have you heard about perceptual learning before? How will you approach your photography learning now to make things easier?”

I just returned from your week in Orlando for work but made time to photograph the parks for future Disney Photography Blog articles. Among the places I photographed the very first time was the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I had seen the show before on previous trips, but hadn’t bothered to accept time to properly photograph it. This trip I was on a much slower schedule, so I made sure to go to the theater early and got a spot at the start.

I came away with a amount of keepers but there were one in particular i was awaiting processing. It did not look exceptional on the screen with the camera, on the other hand could tell it would make an appealing photo after i was done processing. It had been one of those times that merely by exploring the preview image on the camera I needed already figured out how I wished to process the photo in Lightroom. This was the first photo I processed once i returned and posted it yesterday in my flickr account. I figured it would create a good article be subject to review the steps I popularized process this photo from the original image as to what was posted on flickr.

The main photo direct from you

Step One: Initial Adobe Lightroom Adjustments
I began by cropping the photo to remove all the extra room on the left and bottom. Then i adjusted the white balance (6299, -53) to fit the look I was going for. In this instance I did not want the white good balance to be the same manner I first viewed it in person, I instead wanted a specific look and effect.

I raise the Fill Light slider to 14 plus increased the Blacks slider to 13. I followed this by attempting to remove some of the color, since i have was going for a dark appearance in the end. To achieve this I lowered the Vibrance to -46 along with the Saturation to -19. None of such are concrete settings, meaning you will have to adjust and test different numbers unless you get the look you need with your photo – every photo will change.

I then applied a preset that I had made in the past to create some final adjustments easier. This included reducing the Highlights to -15 and in addition decreasing the Shadows to -23. Those two sliders are available in Lightroom under the Tone Curve tab.

The past tab I adjusted during this step was the end results which is used for that Vignetting. I have mentioned earlier on that I am hot for vingetting in certain situations. A lot of people like utilizing it on virtually every photo and others are against it completely. Like HDR, Personally i think it has a purpose with regards to the photo and processing style you are aiming for.

The settings We used for this particular photo from the vingetting tab are:

Amount: -64
Midpoint: 10
Roundness: -16
Feather: 89
Highlights: 0
Such as the other settings, these will be different according to your photo and also the effect you are looking to achieve. You will need to play around with different settings to find out what works good for you.

Step Two: Finishing processing in Adobe Lightroom
Given that I had the essential settings done in Lightroom and used my own, personal presets, I go back and optimize each setting and add any other effects that are required.

I ended up using two different tools to make final adjustments. The very first was to modify the color from the photo, to achieve this I used your camera Calibration tab and adjusted the Green and Blue sliders for saturation. The hole slider was increased to +31 as well as the blue was increased to +26. This allows me to alter the saturation from the photo but additionally gives me a chance to pick what exactly is adjusted, instead of the saturation slider from the Basic tab.

The final step I took was to decrease the saturation with the background. I must say i wanted the 2 characters to face out and “pop” off of the photo. I accomplished this by making the color about the characters jump out (from the previous adjustment) but by also reducing the color saturation in the background. To do this in Lightroom, I prefer the Adjustment Brush and hang the Saturation to -40. When i “paint” over the entire background but be sure to not paint on Indiana Jones or Marion (since i want their colors to remain vibrant). Anywhere I paint together with the adjustment brush could have the saturation decreased. This is a great tool that gives the option of picking specifically what gets edited.

Third step: Adobe Photoshop Adjustments
While i completed the adjustments in Adobe Lightroom, I brought the photo up to Adobe Photoshop for one final effect. I made a decision I wanted to really make the photo seem just as if it came away from the movie and a straightforward way of doing that is to add the black bars at the top and bottom.

When i opened the photo in Photoshop, I double clicked the setting layer then it would act as a regular layer. I then went to Image > Canvas Size and adjusted the peak by 400 pixels. By doing how the canvas now had a supplementary 200 pixels on top and bottom in the photo. Next, i created a new layer and filled your entire layer in black, when you are performing this it will cover your photo and all sorts of you will see is black. The last step is usually to move the new black layer so it will be behind the photo layer (which is why we double clicked the photo layer/background layer in the beginning or else we’re able to not move it). By putting the black filled layer behind the photo layer, we now have the black bars in the top and bottom.

I then save the photo and it will automatically get imported back in my Lightroom catalog.

The finished photo after processing in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop
In total, it took approximately ten minutes for me to do all of the processing on this photo. I am very happy with all the finished result and it’s also obvious studying the before & after that there is a difference.

Hopefully you learned a few recommendations today used on your own photos. If you have any questions about steps I took in processing, inform me in the comments and that i will do my favorite to answer them.

National Geographic this week unveiled a new Tumblr site devoted to showcasing many of the more obscure photos in the vast archive. The Tumblr, titled Found, was published in celebration of the magazine’s 125th anniversary, and although their initiative still young,National Geographic’s archivists have previously published some remarkably beautiful images.And in addition, the photos published on Found cover a broad breadth of cultures and eras. Some, like the below image of Budapest’s Gellert Bath House, give quotidien, slice-of-life snapshots from bygone times, and some stand out on purely aesthetic or compositional grounds. About the more bizarre end of the spectrum can be a 1903 photograph of Alexander Graham Bell kissing his wife Mabel within a “tetrahedral kite” (embedded above).

The initiative is led by William Bonner, who curates National Geographic’s extensive photo archive in Washington, DC. Although Bonner has spent years rummaging round the magazine’s basement, he states he constantly finds new and engaging images – several of which have been lost to history.”Many of the photos have not been published and are rarely seen through the public,” the publication explains on its Tumblr. “We aspire to bring new life about bat roosting images by sharing all of them with audiences throughout the globe. Their beauty the skin loses to the outside world for many years and many from the images are missing their original date or location.At enough time of this writing, National Geographic has posted just nine photos considering that the site went live the 2009 week, though the magazine says it intends to add more “voices, stories, and artifacts” in the future.