Monday, December 19, 2011

Self Portrait Assignment Over Break









You will shoot four different self-portraits over break. You need to pick four photo types from the following five categories.
1. A self-portrait where color is emphasized. Color may include wardrobe, location, props, or natural objects. Think of your picture as a one or two color concept picture.
2. A picture that emphasizes lighting and shadows. This will be a grayscale self-portrait.
3. A self-portrait that showcases your interests and hobbies. In this picture we learn what you like to do away from school. Think about what interests you and transfer that into a photo.
4. A fantasy self-portrait. Dress up and use costumes. In this self-portrait you can use Photoshop to enhance your picture in any way, shape, or form. Transfer yourself to Hawaii or become a Viking like you have always wanted.
5. The Supermodel self-portrait. Dress up like a GQ or Cosmopolitan magazine model. This can be a grayscale or color picture. You will use Photoshop to airbrush and enhance this photo.
 


More ideas
Even more ideas

Video tip:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvRtSh9rfpY&feature=related

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Editing Your Portraits: Photoshop "Vintage" actions

You will edit 16 of your Portrait photos. Please use at least 7 of the "vintage" style adjustments listed below. Please make sure you save your work using the "vintage" name at the end. On Tuesday the 20th please turn in a Portraits Adjusted CS along with your Best Picture (this pictures might NOT be the one in the display case).

Article: Why We Love Instagrams from Macworld

Photoshop Actions:

"Nashville" Instagram Tutorial

Instagram Video Tutorial 

Cross Processing

Cross Processing
Cross processed photographs are recognisable from the unusual colours and tones in the final shot. The effect was originally produced from developing the photographic film using the wrong mix of chemicals. Nowadays, a cross processed style can be simply achieved in just a few steps. Photoshop Support shows us how.

Street Photography

Street Photography
One of the most recognisable street photography shots is ‘Homeless Mike’ by Leroy Skalstad. The gritty, high contrast style of the image really emphasises the nature of street life. Recreate a similar image with this Dramatic Gritty Effect by Photoshop Frenzy.

Lomo Photography

Lomo Photography
The Russian made Lomo LC-A camera was manufactured a cheap alternative to the higher quality Japanese rivals. It was poorly made and the photographs it produced were just as bad, however as time passed popular culture brought the mis-coloured shots from the Lomo camera into a whole new light, which is now a very sought after effect. Not everyone has the opportunity of trying out the original camera model, but Digital Photography School has some great tips on mimicking the effect in Photoshop.

Vintage Photo Effect

Vintage Photo Effect
With limited technology the early colour photographs often had poor colour reproduction, with shots having an obvious colour casts and inaccurate tones. Today the effect can transform a photograph, instantly sending it back in time to give the impression of an aged effect. Veerle takes us through some techniques for producing a vintage style photo using a few simple Photoshop tweaks.

Tilt Shift Photography

Tilt Shift Photography
Tilt Shift is a photographic technique where the image plane is rotated, giving a very shallow depth of field but maintaining sharpness in a specific area of the shot. One of the popular post processing effects related to tilt shift photography is known as miniature faking, where the depth of field manually added to a shot gives the illusion of tiny model figures and sceneries. TiltShiftPhotography.net has this fantastic overview of creating the effect yourself.


The Velvia Effect

The Velivia Effect
Fujifilm Velvia film created highly saturated, largely contrasting and extremely sharp images, which made it particularly popular with nature and landscape photographers. PSHero takes a look at using modern day Photoshop techniques to recreate the Velvia effect.

Dark Grunge Photo Effect

Grunge Photo Effect
The term grunge has evolved from the music genre also known as Seattle Sound, characterized by stripped down sounds and heavily distorted guitars. The term grunge also made its way into photo post processing, where the key features are muted colours and large areas of texture and grain. PSHero has this excellent tutorial for creating your own dark grunge photo effect.

HDR Photography

HDR Photographyhttp://still-scripts.com/photoshop/faking-the-hdr-effect-using-only-one-photo-and-photoshop/
High Dynamic Range Imaging is a photography technique that produces an image with a much larger range of luminance between the darkest and lightest areas, making it much closer to the spectrum seen by the human eye. More recently the effect has been pushed to the max, with heavy tone mapping producing an abstract and highly stylised photo effect. The genuine effect is created with various RAW images and processing software, but the Nill Photoalbum has this great tutorial for producing a similar style directly in Photoshop.

Movie Photo Effect

Movie Photo Effect
Alongside post processing, the video filming of movies often involves a range of camera filters. Ebin has this fantastic tutorial for creating a polished movie-like effect complete with diffusion glow and temperature tweaks in Photoshop.

Thursday, December 01, 2011

Digital Photography: Portrait Assignment


You will shoot portraits over the next two weeks on Friday Dec. 9 and Wednesday Dec. 14. One day you will shoot at school using the lights in the studio and the other day you will shoot off-campus at a predetermined location. You will shoot AT LEAST 24 pictures of your subject each day (most of you will shoot between 50 and 75 pictures.
You can, and probably should, take pictures on the weekend as well.

1. Find two interesting human subjects. The people you choose should WANT to be in the picture and they should be willing to cooperate. It's OK to work with people in this class.
2. Talk to your subject. What type of portraits do you want to create? Use colors or lighting to create a concept for your portrait. Costumes or uniforms work great. Imaginary ideas are OK. Choose an interesting setting based on your concept.
3. Change angles between shots. Shoot at least 24 pictures of each subject.
4. Use props if they will help the audience learn something about the subject.
5. Vary the lighting. Use filters, flashlights, lamps, or multiple lights to enhance your picture. Use the different lighting techniques that you will read about in class (see above).
6. Encourage different emotional looks. Pretend you are Austin Powers taking pictures. Tell your subject they are "groovy".
7. Having your subjects "pose" in action is just fine.
8. Most importantly for this assignment don't forget your compostion rules. Use framing, leading lines, rule of thirds, color contrast etc. to enhance your photo. Fill the frame.

Portrait HintsPart 1
Portrait Hints Part 2

More Hints

Even more hints












Here is a list of the different types of portraits photos you will turn in:

  • A Vignette Photo
  • A Grayscale Method Photo
  • A One Item Kept in Color Photo
  • A selective Focus Photo
  • A minimally adjusted photo
  • One WHACKY anything goes portrait (change the colors, use the liquefy tool, and make this as unique and interesting as you can)

Finally, you will turn in your best picture as well.
Lighting!!!
http://mrstorydigiphoto.blogspot.com/2011/12/different-lighting-techniques.html