9 Useful Tutorials on Black and White Portraiture

Everyone loves the traditional charm of a classic black and white portrait. Black and white can add depth, drama and glamour to your shot and so, here are some great basic (and not so basic) black and white portrait tips and tricks to get you on your way.

photo © 2009 Alan Strakey | more info (via: Wylio)

5 black and white tips – to start with, Digital Photography School gives 5 great tips for black and white photography that are general in nature, but have direct application to portraits and are worth knowing. The basics of shooting a decent image technically are covered. Following these tips will ensure you get the best from your black and white portraits.

Basic Photoshop Portrait Tutorial – this straightforward photoshop tutorial on Squidoo (I know, right!?) will allow you to turn that average colour shot into a more interesting black and white portrait. Be sure to follow the links to the associated photoshop tutorials that go into a little more detail on specific areas of the photoshop process.

photo © 2010 stavros karabinas | more info (via: Wylio)

Black and white portrait – often, simply desaturating your colour photo in photoshop can negatively impact the shot’s contrast. This tutorial will ensure your portrait remains sharp and maintains enough contrast to remain interesting.

Create a Classic Black and White Portrait (Video) – this video takes you through a photoshop grey-scale conversion including adding a film grain layer to achieve a classic look. This one is great if you learn better by seeing things done rather than reading about it.

photo © 2010 syam | more info (via: Wylio)

Black and White Portrait Styling from Film’s Golden Age (Video) – achieve that 1940s style soft glamour via this video tutorial using layer masks and gausian blur. This one is a fun experiment to try on some of your existing portraits too.

Metallic Black and White Portrait Toning (Video) – if that soft Hollywood glamour shot is not for you, this photoshop tutorial shows you how to create a dramatic, high contrast image. We’d also strongly recommend that you check out some of the other great videos by the guy who made this one.

Black and White Studio Portraits – this tutorial shows you techniques that help you create dramatic black and white studio portraits using studio lighting. They are using their own kit which you can buy (as a kit), but you can also get the equipment at any photography retailer or even on Ebay. The tutorial is great for seeing the effects of different studio lighting setups.

photo © 2007 Edwin Dalorzo | more info (via: Wylio)

Black and White Portrait Photography: Made Easy – some interesting equipment tips for black and white film photography

12 Unmissable Tutorials on High Key Photography – and don’t forget, Lightstalking already featured some awesome tutorials on high key photography. Your black and white portraits with pop with these tutorials on this dramatic effect.

Have you seen any great black and white portrait tutorials that you think we missed? Have you written one yourself? Share them in the comments!

Tags: black and white, portaits

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12 Unmissable Tutorials on High Key Photography

High key photography is a technique that can produce some stunning images, but it may not be self evident to many people how to get similar results. The trouble is, where do you start? If you are interested in creating beautiful high key shots, here are 12 unmissable tutorials to get you started and a few shots for inspiration.

photo © 2006 Jan Kr?mer | more info (via: Wylio)

High Key Studio Lighting for Small Spaces – Not everyone has a huge space to take their portraits. With this tutorial, learn how you can create the perfect lighting for high key portraits in a limited space.

Momology High Key Photography Tutorial – Momolgy is a fun blog of a mother and photographer. Follow this tutorial for a few basic tips on high key photography in everyday life.

photo © 2009 Menno Hordijk | more info (via: Wylio)

Black and White High Key in Photoshop – If you have a great image already that you’d like to convert to a high key black and white, this tutorial will show just how to do it.

How to Edit High Key Photos – Post processing workflow for high key images. This particular lesson is a video tutorial using Adobe Lightroom.

photo © 2009 Kristaps B. | more info (via: Wylio)

Stunning High Key Portrait Tutorial – Many times high key photography washes out the detail and gorgeous texture of an image. Learn how to preserve or add them in here.

How to Master High Key Photography for Fashion Photos – High key photos are perfect for fashion photography and are used very often even by large companies. Learn how to master this technique for your fashion shoots.

photo © 2009 Arden | more info (via: Wylio)

High Key Photography – Setup and Lighting for the Perfect Shoot – This is a quick video tutorial detailing the equipment, setup, and lighting for a basic DIY high key studio.

High Key Photography Anywhere (Video) – How to create a studio photograph no matter where you happen to be. Very useful for those photos “ruined” by the background!

Create High key photos in Adobe Lightroom – Turn a decent image into a professional-quality high key photo very easily. This is another tutorial in Lightroom.

photo © 2007 Jos van Zetten | more info (via: Wylio)

Setting up Lightroom Presets for High Key – Yet another Lightroom tutorial. This time, learn how to make the high key post process workflow easier by setting high key presets.

Color to High Key Black and White – This is a basic and fun lesson detailing how to take almost any color photo and turn it into a black and white high key photo in Adobe Photoshop.

High Key Camera Techniques – How to create high key photos the easy way – by starting with you camera. Learn some basic techniques to get great base images before worrying about post processing.

These tutorials will give you a great starting place for creating the perfect high key images in almost any situation. If you think we have missed any good tutorials on high key photography, then feel free to post a link to them below.

Tags: high key

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12 Video Tutorials for Improving Your Photoshop Skills

Photoshop can really be a photographer’s best friend or worst nightmare. It all depends on how comfortable you feel in the program and whether you know the simple tips and tricks to creating photo magic. Here are 12 video tutorials for improving your Photoshop skills quickly.

Essential Resize and Color Photoshop Skills - A quick and dirty overview of how to resize and fix the colors of an image before printing or adding it to the web. This is the first step in improving your Photoshop skills and only takes minutes to master.

Cleaning Up a Photo’s Background – Learn how to clean up the background or stray elements of an otherwise beautiful shot. The tutorial is done on a model shot, but this method works very well for all types of photography.

Fixing Lighting Issues - In this tutorial you will learn how to fix common lighting problems caused by over and under exposure. Don’t let a simple thing like exposure ruin your shot!

Sharpening and Unsharpening – Discover how to bring up the details you want and fade out the ones that you don’t in this easy to follow tutorial. Once you’ve mastered the basics of this method, have fun applying it to the different levels of an image for interesting effects.

Adding and Removing Tattoos – Sometimes is becomes necessary for a tattoo to be removed from a photo (usually by the subject’s request). Learn how to do this quickly in this tutorial, as well as a fun way to add tattoos to models.

Removing Red Eye From People and Animals – Find out how to remove that infamous red eye or even “pet eye” without detracting from the overall picture. Now you will have no worries when photographing wildlife!

Create Glowing Skin – Add that glamour-shot soft glow to any model’s skin with just a few steps and this simple tutorial. This is also a great way to improve skin tone and texture at once.

Change a Color Photo to a Black and White One – You can make a color image into a black and white one pretty easily, but don’t stop there! Make these new black and white photos rich in contrast and value to add that professional stroke.

Coloring Specific Photo Elements – This is a fun technique which if used correctly can add interest and an artistic flair to black and white image. It is also known as selective coloring.

Using the Photoshop Curves Tool – The curves feature is one of the most powerful and misunderstood tools in Photoshop. Use it to improve lighting, values, hues, and more in an image.

Using the Photoshop Curves Tool Part 2 – Part two of the comprehensive Photoshop curves tutorial mentioned above. How to bring it all together for the perfect final image.

Combining Images – This is a creative way to take two or more hum-drum images and combine them to create one marvelous one. Go beyond simple makeovers and coloring to create works of art.

Each of these videos offers different tricks and techniques. Pick and choose the kind which work best for your photography style to get started. Improving your Photoshop skills is very easy, and can help you in post work for every type of photography!

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8 Photography Tutorials for Thanksgiving

Image by Darwin Bell

Happy Thanksgivig to the many thousands of our US readers celebrating that holiday today!

As today’s one of those days when cameras come out a lot to photograph gatherings, the food being eaten and to capture the memories of the day – I thought I’d put together a few tutorials that might be helpful. Enjoy!

Lastly – thanks to all of you as readers of dPS. We value your participation, support and encouragement – Happy Thanksgiving!

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14 Essential Landscape Photography Tutorials

The theme of landscape photography repeatedly shows up in the most popular posts on Light Stalking and if the proliferation of websites and magazines specifically about landscape is anything to go by, then it is very popular among the wider photography community too. Getting started in landscape need not be a huge exercise – there are literally hundreds of fantastic tutorials available for free online. We have taken the liberty of collecting some of our favorites.

photo © 2010 Steve Berardi | more info (via: Wylio)

General Tutorials

Landscape Photography for the Serious Amateur – This remains one of the all time most popular posts on Light Stalking and is a fantastic introduction to the art from landscape photographer, Chris Gin.

11 Surefire Landscape Photography Tips – A general article from a great website.

Three Elements of a Great Landscape – the Photo Naturalist (who took the image above) is a great resource for any outdoor photographers, and this is a typically solid guide from that site. Check out their other landscape articles too.

Situational Tutorials

Not all landscape is the same. You are going to have a hugely differing set of conditions between shooting a coastal landscape and shooting in the desert. These tutorials are a good start if you already know where you’re planning to shoot.

Digital in the Desert - shooting in the desert has a lot of unique challenges. This is a thorough review of some of the issues you will come up against.

13 Steps for Creative Coastline Photography – a tutorial by Simon Bray for the fantastic Tutsplus network – this one is worth checking out for the examples alone.

5 Quick Tips for Coastal Photography – another cool list of tips from Digital Photography School with some fine examples too.

A Guide to Capturing Autumn Mist – a seasonal guide for landscape photographers who are looking to get good captures of mist in their work.

photo © 2010 Mike Tungate | more info (via: Wylio)

photo © 2009 Jessy Celeste Eykendorp | more info (via: Wylio)

Exposure Blending and Landscape Photography

Our own Christopher O’Donnell has written some excellent advice on his landscape photography blog about getting the right exposure in your photographs with the art of exposure blending. We strongly suggest you check out these three fantastic articles and as with everything that Christopher writes, they are thorough and well-illustrated with examples and screen shots.

Unique Approaches to Landscape Photography

Landscape photography and the approaches that photographers take to it is as diverse as any art form. These tutorials will get you started in approaching landscape photography from a less traditional point of view.

HDR Landscape Photography Tutorial – A thorough sequence of tutorials from Naturescapes (fantastic website) about the HDR technique.

HDR Vertorama Mini Tutorial – A slight deviation from HDR in a short and easy tutorial. Jason Smith likes experimemnting with his own versions of HDR techniques so check out some of the other images on his site as they are quite unique.

Long Lens Landscapes – While it’s not uncommon, using a longer lens is not as common as using wide angle for landscape shots. This is a good introduction to going with the longer option.

Tilt Shift Lenses for Perspective Control – the tutorial is a good wrap up of using til shift lenses, but has a solid section dealing with using them for panoramas – something a lot of landscape photographers love to experiment with.

photo © 2006 Derek Purdy | more info (via: Wylio)

Hopefully this selection of cool tutorials should get you started with taking your own awesome landscapes. Once you’re addicted to landscape, there’s no turning back.

Tags: landscape

View the original article here

14 Essential Landscape Photography Tutorials

The theme of landscape photography repeatedly shows up in the most popular posts on Light Stalking and if the proliferation of websites and magazines specifically about landscape is anything to go by, then it is very popular among the wider photography community too. Getting started in landscape need not be a huge exercise – there are literally hundreds of fantastic tutorials available for free online. We have taken the liberty of collecting some of our favorites.

photo © 2010 Steve Berardi | more info (via: Wylio)

General Tutorials

Landscape Photography for the Serious Amateur – This remains one of the all time most popular posts on Light Stalking and is a fantastic introduction to the art from landscape photographer, Chris Gin.

11 Surefire Landscape Photography Tips – A general article from a great website.

Three Elements of a Great Landscape – the Photo Naturalist (who took the image above) is a great resource for any outdoor photographers, and this is a typically solid guide from that site. Check out their other landscape articles too.

Situational Tutorials

Not all landscape is the same. You are going to have a hugely differing set of conditions between shooting a coastal landscape and shooting in the desert. These tutorials are a good start if you already know where you’re planning to shoot.

Digital in the Desert - shooting in the desert has a lot of unique challenges. This is a thorough review of some of the issues you will come up against.

13 Steps for Creative Coastline Photography – a tutorial by Simon Bray for the fantastic Tutsplus network – this one is worth checking out for the examples alone.

5 Quick Tips for Coastal Photography – another cool list of tips from Digital Photography School with some fine examples too.

A Guide to Capturing Autumn Mist – a seasonal guide for landscape photographers who are looking to get good captures of mist in their work.

photo © 2010 Mike Tungate | more info (via: Wylio)

photo © 2009 Jessy Celeste Eykendorp | more info (via: Wylio)

Exposure Blending and Landscape Photography

Our own Christopher O’Donnell has written some excellent advice on his landscape photography blog about getting the right exposure in your photographs with the art of exposure blending. We strongly suggest you check out these three fantastic articles and as with everything that Christopher writes, they are thorough and well-illustrated with examples and screen shots.

Unique Approaches to Landscape Photography

Landscape photography and the approaches that photographers take to it is as diverse as any art form. These tutorials will get you started in approaching landscape photography from a less traditional point of view.

HDR Landscape Photography Tutorial – A thorough sequence of tutorials from Naturescapes (fantastic website) about the HDR technique.

HDR Vertorama Mini Tutorial – A slight deviation from HDR in a short and easy tutorial. Jason Smith likes experimemnting with his own versions of HDR techniques so check out some of the other images on his site as they are quite unique.

Long Lens Landscapes – While it’s not uncommon, using a longer lens is not as common as using wide angle for landscape shots. This is a good introduction to going with the longer option.

Tilt Shift Lenses for Perspective Control – the tutorial is a good wrap up of using til shift lenses, but has a solid section dealing with using them for panoramas – something a lot of landscape photographers love to experiment with.

photo © 2006 Derek Purdy | more info (via: Wylio)

Hopefully this selection of cool tutorials should get you started with taking your own awesome landscapes. Once you’re addicted to landscape, there’s no turning back.

Tags: landscape

View the original article here