I got a call the other day from my friend Dan asking how to take some better photos of his house that he has decorated for the Holidays. Well, Unfortunately he has an older camera that doesn't have much in the way of any manual control. But I worked with him - I stated the obvious (Tripod, Use the Night Mode etc. etc..) Well I have to admit for the camera and the first time trying to shoot these photos himself I have to say he did a FANTASTIC job. Below is one of the photos that he had sent to me showing what he ended up with.

Some additional links to taking better Holiday Photos are: 5 Minute Video Called Take Great Holiday Lights Photos & New York School of Photography and Holiday Light Photography 

Technorati Tags: Holiday, Light, Christmas, Home, Homes, House, Tree, Twinkle, Bulb, bulbs, Christmas+Lights, Photography, Night, Nighttime, Time, Exposure, Long, Timed,

Today topic I will show you a few pages that can help turn your regular drab standard photos into a photo that says more then just WOW!

The first lesson will show you how to use your new Wacom Tablet (Or Your Trusty Mouse in case you have not bought a Tablet just yet - But as They State and I whole Heartily Agree using a Wacom Tablet can speed up and take your Photo Retouching up a notch and as Emeril Would Say "BAM" plus it makes it much easier ) The tutorial is at EyesOnTutorials.com and it is Called Photo Retouching Photo Effects.

Before and After Photo Retouching

The next tutorial is a video I found on MetaCafe that demonstrated how to use a wacom tablet to perform some basic Dodge and Burn Techniques to again enhance your photos and turn them into a masterpiece to print and hang on your wall to proudly display for all to see.  As the Author/Teacher in this Video States "We'll use the pressure sensitivity of the Wacom Pen Tablet to create a dodge and burn effect with a lot of control and flexibility"

Using a Wacom Table to Dodge and Burn 

 Now if you are interested in purchasing a nice Wacom Tablet be sure to check them out on Amazon: Wacom Tablets on Amazon

Technorati Tags: wacom, tablet, Photoshop, Wacom+Tablet, Wacom, Intous, Graphire, Bamboo, Photo+Retouch, Photo+Retouching, Retouch, Retouching

Today I would like to touch on a subject that can be used to help your photographs tell a story and get the people to view and "Focus" on what you want them to see. All photos will use depth of field to so extent - either it being no depth of field (Used in Landscape Photography) to minimal depth of field (Used in portrait photography)

First what is Depth Of Field (DOF)  - Depth of field is where one plane is in focus and the focus gradually falls off in front and behind what is is focus. (See Examples Below)

Depth of field is controlled by the F-Stop of F-Number: The Higher the F-stop such as f/32 the larger the plane of focus. The Smaller f/1.4 the narrower the plane of focus will be.

Examples of Depth of Field 

Small Depth of field Examples (Using Smaller f-stops)

As you can see from the above two examples not everything is in focus - but this is good as it will give the eye something to focus on - What ever is in focus becomes the center of attention and the rest will give just add to the scene giving the photo context.

I suggest playing around with your cameras settings and if available on your camera use the aperture adjustment as this will give you the depth of field you want to use and let the camera adjust the shutter speed to what you need for the photo.

Remember it is usually safe to say the lower the number the faster the shutter speed will be as you are allowing in more light on the lower f-stops. This is particually useful when taking a portrait under low light situations and don't have a tripod to use. Have you ever taken a photo at a birthday party using just the candles and the face is in focus but the cake is out of focus. This is Depth of Field at work.

Now I would like to share a video I found on YouTube talking about Depth of field.

Sit back and enjoy the tutorial.

Technorati Tags: DIY, Photography, depth+of+Field, DOF, Aperture, Fstop, F+Stop, Focusing, Digital+Camera+Guide, Technique, Blurry

The Photography Gadget of the day is the Gorillapod by JOBY - This has to be one of the best things to just buy and keep in your photo bag. How many times have you wished you could be in the photo and didn't have your tripod with you. Well, This Gorillapod allows you to attach your camera and then set it up like a tripod or wrap it's legs around a pole, tree, bench leg, the places are endless where you can use it. The Gorllapod is compact, bendable, portable, grippable and kinda cool. 

The GorillaPod comes in three varieties: Compact, SLR, SLR+Zoom - The biggest differences are the ammound of weight that each can handle.

Compact or Original can hold a compact camera up to 9.75 ozs - Perfect of all the wonderful portable Digital cameras out there.

The SLR Version can handle a little larger load: up to 1.75 lbs - This will be for most of the regular slr camera and larger digital cameras

and The SLR Pro can handle the largest of the loads: up to 6.6 lbs - This will handle even different tripod heads as well and will handle the SLR with zoom lens.

I found that Amazon has some good choices of this product. 

Technorati Tags: gorillapod, tripod, digitalcamera, Digital+Camera, SLR, fuzzy, out+of+focus, Group

Now that you have your digital camera you want to start playing around shooting some black and white photos. Well, I have one suggestion today - Don't shoot in Black and White. Still shoot in color and then use the computer to convert to Black and White afterwards. There are several way to do this. If you are using Photoshop I recommend using the channels and individually selecting the color levels to get the best Black and white image that you can.

If you are interested in performing this check out Galvin Photography and his technique. It give a basic run down on how to use the channels to convert from color to black and white.

Some additional resources to help you learn about Color to Black and White Conversion are listed here:

Adobe PDF Guide to Black and White Conversion.

DesignByFire has some Wonderful Examples and Great Method to Accomplish this.

Keep Shooting and Share your work.

Technorati Tags: Photo,, Black,, White,, BW,, Conversion,, Photoshop,, Technique,, DIY,, Hack