Kevin created a simple PSD file for Photoshop users that can create a quick visual diagram of your lighting setup. He must have spent a ton of hours putting this together, offering nearly every choice on the planet to show your setup.

The photo above is a small sample size of the different choices you have. Everything is seperated into folders. You just click the folder, choose the layer you want to be shown in the setup, then choose the “Move Tool” to move it around and turn it.

The file is free too [Click Here For The File]. Kevin just asks users to keep his personal info with the grid layout when sharing. I hope you enjoy.

Loved the color of the leaves and focused on it - Now my wallpaper

The fun in photography isn’t always in the capture of the image, but when you can manipulate them to look far more impressive.

As an exercise, I spent a week playing around with a few old photos in Photoshop. The exercise was simple, only using Layer Blending modes. I didn’t use any masking options. I also only made an adjustment to one layer in each of my photos, turning it to black & white. I used a total of 2 to 3 layers and had fun playing around with the layer’s order and blending option.

A simple trail shot on a rainy day

Although the photos have some similarities in the final results, I learned that you cannot use the same Layer Blending options to get the same effect. I was surprised to see which ones were more popular with Flickr users too. I’m a fan of Photoshop over Lightroom, so I’m trying to learn different things with it.

Below are a few more personal photos I played around with. If you want the full resolution to any of these photos, visit my Flickr “Random” set.

First one edited - My favorite for style

I glazed over the photo and loved the fog

Not popular on Flickr, but I like the "old film" style

The most popular on Flickr by user views

For those of you that are owners of a Sony D-SLR, interested in learning the gear needed to do wireless strobist duties, I recommend revisiting this website to learn everything you’ll need gear wise to do just that. Once I get some experience under my belt, I’ll share those experiences too.

Atm, I’m armed with two flashes and 3 Pocket Wizard Plus II radio transceivers. The only 3 things I’m missing are the adapters for the flashes with PC connections [which are in the mail], a Sekonic light meter and narrowing down what light modifiers I want to start playing around with.

I did just receive the adapters as I was writing this post, which is pictured below. They are adapters from FlashZebra.com, and they cost $28.50 US each. I tested them and they work flawlessly with the Pocket Wizards Plus II [$169 US each].

Attach to the bottom of your Sony/Minolta Flash, cable to Pocket Wizard

For the setup to work, you’ll have to hook up your Pocket Wizard to your camera. To do this you’ll need the Sony FAHS1AM adapter [SonyStyle's Description] on your camera’s hotshoe. The Pocket Wizard will then sit on the adapter.

Sony FAHS1AM Adapter for Pocket Wizard Plus II

A rookie mistake that you will probably make, as I did once, was forgetting to turn on the adapter! You’re busy setting up your flashes and Pocket Wizards, turning them on and setting the adjustments, that you forget the tiny thing sitting between your Pocket Wizard and your camera.

As for the rest of the setup, I’m still waiting on the rest of the stuff, along with one more flash and Pocket Wizard.

I had 3 cheap light stands sitting around, so I picked up a couple of Photoflex Shoe Mount Multi-Clamps for my wireless flashes. They work amazing and they were around $25 each.

If anyone can fork out $500, I would gladly accept your donation so I can purchase my Sekonic light meter pictured below.

Sekonic L758DR - A Must for Flash Photography

]]> http://www.gr8tfate.com/wp/?feed=rss2&p=2099 http://www.gr8tfate.com/wp/?p=2087 http://www.gr8tfate.com/wp/?p=2087#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:55:41 +0000 Andrew Perreault http://www.gr8tfate.com/wp/?p=2087 I’ve been non existent on the web lately, focusing on learning Adobe Photoshop and I currently have nothing to show for it at the moment. I did however find an excellent website for textures, CGTextures.com. CGTextures is a hub for professionals needing textures for their 3d imaging for digital art or for video games. To get an idea of what these artists can do with these textures, checkout their showcase of amazing stuff! My favorite example is pictured below.

Textures are great to play around with in Photoshop too, which is what drew me to the site. Their selection is amazing and well organized! CGTextures doesn’t mess around, their logo is an actual texture, without their name, and they let their product speak for itself.

Their menu located on the left of the website is simple to navigate. Textures are separated into categories and sub-categories.

When you click on the categories, you will see what you have to choose from. They can range from a single texture or a set of the same style texture either containing normal size textures, or huge image sizes. You have to be a paid member to download the “Huge” files.

If you choose to use the website for free, you can only download 15mb a day and you cannot download any of the “Huge” files. If you’re a professional in need of these textures, the yearly membership is around $65 US.

So if you’d like to look for textures beyond DeviantArt.com, then I would recommend CGTextures.com. If you know of other great websites that offer an excellent selection of textures, please let me know in comments.

Well it is, and it involves key employees at Yahoo/Flickr.Yahoo/Flickr have now joined the ranks of Apple, where they delete forums, groups and discussions that are negative to their company.

For the last 6 months I’ve been reading and following stories on Flickr on the topic of banned users and deleted user accounts [I wished I saved all the links]. Some were shocking, where a user lost his acct for months that he had paid for and did nothing wrong. With the community behind this particular user, they were able to finally convince Flickr to restore that user’s account, after telling the community that the acct has been completely deleted. I was shocked by the strength of the rally cry that was created from the Flickr community to fight for what was right.

Firas Alkhateeb - Creater of the Obama/Joker Portrait

In August 2009, in a TechCrunch article “Flickr v. Free Speech. Where Is Their Courage?“, the technology world was questioning Yahoo/Flickr on their censorship. You must read the article, it was well written by Michael Arrington. The story hit the US when a user uploaded a picture of Obama looking like the Joker in Batman. Because President Obama has a Flickr account with White House photos, Yahoo/Flickr decided to quickly take down the photo to support the President. In doing so, they did it with the explanation of “Copyright Infringement”. Well that reasoning was false due to the “Fair Use and Parody” defenses [scroll down to read the Copyright Issues Section]. Legally that photo should have never been taken down. To this day, blood is boiling in many Americans on this specific topic.

Another great article on the subject by the NYTimes,  “Obama Joker artist unmasked: A fellow Chicagoan“.

Now Flickr is deleting actual groups that have thousands of Flickr/Yahoo users part of that group, for negatively discussing the faults of Flickr/Yahoo. Users of the “DMU - Delete Me Uncensored” group have moved their discussions off of Flickr because of their ban.

Right now Flickr/Yahoo have major egg on their face for the poor choices they’ve made that affect their users. I’m curious to see what Flickr/Yahoo will do to change and adapt to the laws of the internet and Free Speech. My guess is that it will get worse, but at least it will make news more entertaining. All I can say is POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

How it works

As a viewer when you see the rating system below a photo on Flickr, you simply choose the number you want to rate the photo. From there, PhotoRater asks you for permission to allow them access to your Flickr account. Once you allow them, they will take you to PhotoRater to see the photo you just rated. From there you can see the ratings breakdown from all the ratings. If you want to view the comments that were posted on the photo on Flickr, the PhotoRater API imports the comments so you can view them without having to go back to Flickr.

If you want your photos to be rated, you have 2 different ways of doing which shows in the photo above. Notice the graphical difference between both scales. My personal choice would be to use the first one, where you paste the code into the photo’s description. It doesn’t stand out and it’s placed directly below the photo.

The Good and the Bad

I love the idea of using PhotoRater for the great photos you’ve taken, but you wouldn’t want to use it on all your photos, because it’s time consuming.

The biggest disappointment on PhotoRater is clicking on the “Top Rated” link at the top of the page on the website and getting photos that would not normally show up on Flickr if you have your settings set to “Safe Search”. The photo will show on the website, but when you click on the photo to view it on Flickr in “Safe Search” mode,  it won’t show. On Flickr, you’re given the option to see the photo by “Allowing” it to show or to leave the photo.

Although the “Top Rated” issue is there, the application is still worth using for its’ functionality. If you want to keep your high standards in your reputation with your viewers, than I wouldn’t recommend using the program until it fixes the “Top Rated” issue. The idea is great and would be a great option for Flickr to add it to their website.

It’s currently slated for a January 22, 2010 release date. It has some names that you know too. Dennis Quaid, Paul Bettany, Charles Dutton, Tyrese Gibson and the beautiful Adrianne Palicki star in this dark film.

Plot Summary:
After a terrifying biblical apocalypse descends upon the world, a group of strangers stranded in a remote truck stop diner in the Southwest unwittingly become humanity’s last line of defense when they discover the diner’s young waitress is pregnant with the messiah.

Below is the official movie poster and stills from the movie.

Now my disturbed choices of words to describe someone who is the headliner in this article could be a little out there, I still think I’m representing him in the right light. If he isn’t like I describe, I’m sure if I took him to Mexico for several shots of Ta-kill-ya and several headshakes from the waiter, he would end up like I described.

Dustin Diaz is an engineer for Twitter by day and a professional photographer by night. How he finds all the time to do all that is beyond me, but I’m sure the beverages at Twitter may contain caffeine.

What caught my eye of Dustin’s work on Flickr is his dedication to post so many [11,280] great photos. They range from excellent strobist photography to everyday photos of people at Google playing kickball.

Dustin doesn’t post every single day, but the photos do add up to around the 257 a year figure, close enough for me. What makes him popular on Flickr is his entertainment appeal with each photo, especially if you’re a photographer. He loves to share the info of how he provided the shot, along with another photo providing all the strobist info. There are only a few select people on Flickr that can draw people back to their photostream because of their content and the quality they attach to it. Dustin Diaz is one of those guys.

Day 238 - by Dustin Diaz

#200 - I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way ~ Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

I can go on for days and talk about Dustin’s work, but when I write about artists on this website, I still want you to have that raw feeling of checking out someone’s work for the first time. It’s like a movie, if your friends build it up too much, you may not like it because of your higher expectations.

Checkout Dustin’s work on Flickr. If you live in the San Fransisco market, and would like to hire him, you can email him at dustin@dustindiaz.com. You can also check out Dustin’s personal website.

Below is a slideshow of Dustin’s photostream [top] and one of his sets called “Project 365″

Are you looking to become a professional photographer? Are you already a pro and don’t know how to truly protect your work legally? Well for $35, you can easily copyright thousands of your photos.

The scary part of the photography business is protecting your work and the fact that so many photographers don’t do it. A simple visit to the US Copyright Office website is all it takes. You have a fully online option, or online/US Mail option [my personal choice, I'll tell you why later].

When you visit the eCO [electronic Copyright Office], you can quickly navigate through the website by creating an account and logging in. You have several ways of sending your VA [Visual Arts] works you created through photography.

Below is a .PDF file visually showing how the process works that is supplied by eCO for download, or you can download my copy so you have a permanent copy you can refer back to in the future. In the PDF, it shows you step by step on how to submit your work.

In the old days, to submit your work for copyright, you would fill out a paper form, burn a CD/DVD with all your photos and mail both with a check to the Copyright Office for $45. The CD/DVD didn’t require the original size of the file, so you could make all the images 2 megapixels to save space on the disc to store more photos.

Today, for $10 cheaper, you can setup the process completely online and upload your photos or choose to mail the disc with the mailer form provided at the end of the process. If you want to register thousands of photos, you better choose to mail the disc. eCO doesn’t have a bulk image uploader on the website, so it would be time consuming and a waste of time to upload them individually. Also, with today’s technology, you can save thousands of your photos on a Dual-Layer Writable Disc [8.4 gigabytes].

So follow the process in the PDF below, and copyright your photos you want to protect. Hopefully you find this article helpful. If you have any other questions, please leave a comment.

Copyright Your Professional Photos

Photo by NickWheelerOz

I wanted to add another category within Photography called “Strobist Spotlight”, which is a lighting technique for on and off camera flash photography. This is a major area of my photography that I will be sharing next year, so I wanted to get this party started early, sharing other great photographer’s work. Of course to create such a category, I wanted the first article to be amazing [in content, not in my writing]!

Flickr may be an enormous website, but I can still find a needle in a haystack. Today Flickr user NickWheelerOz is that needle and the first person discussed in “Strobist Spotlight”.

Before I tell you the most amazing part of Nick’s work, I wanted to go over the basics of why I love Nick’s photos. Nick has a great eye with his photography and knows how to prepare for the shot. His photography also looks to need very little post production work. Nick shares his photos in high resolution and shows his range in studio/portrait photography and studio/macro photography.

The coolest part about Nick is his ability to share how he accomplishes the final photo. Besides sharing a photo of his physical layout of the equipment, he also writes about the process in great detail. When you visit his studio setup work on Flickr, Nick also adds “Notes” to areas of the photo to also help viewers pinpoint what the items actually are and the true strobist info of each flash.

An example below shows the process of how Nick created the final photo of the female at the beginning of this article. First is a photo of his studio setup. Next is the written description, describing the process.

Studio Setup of the first photo in the article

Strobist Information:

With Keoula’s MBFF show coming up in a few days, she wanted some pictures of her new range taking. With all the dresses based on a spring flower theme, a fresh white background seemed perfect and as we had been playing around with the Zack Arias setup for the hen pictures we decided to go with it again.

For the shoot we asked Elspeth and Ashleigh to model for us. Keoula had been put in touch with a couple of new guys, Tim and Loclan for hair and make up. They had not met before but they worked absolutely brilliantly together and did a fantastic job!

For the shoot, we worked through the range of dresses that have been completed so far and I worked a few portrait shots in along the way. I will post more of the dress shots later, but for now it is all portraits.

When the dress shots were all finished Ashleigh and her Mum kindly agreed to stay on for a little while longer and I played around with the conference room head shot setup but with slightly more glamorous lighting! I have posted these portraits with a separate setup shot.

Nick [his Flickr photostream] is also an amazing macro photographer which is a skill that can attract companies to photograph their products, or for ads to market themselves.

Macro shot with a special effect - by NickWheelerOz

Although the photo above isn’t a perfect macro photograph because of the backer paper having shadows, it’s still a great shot because of the process needed to create it. Besides, I’m sure Nick didn’t publish the perfect shot because he may want to sell it in the future.

Macro Setup for Glasses - by NickWheelerOZ

In the photo above, Nick shows the elaborate setup needed to create the final shot of the glasses.

Strobist Information:

For this picture I had to turn the world upside down to defy gravity. I placed the three glasses on a sheet of glass and then placed another sheet of glass on top of these. The top sheet would become the floor when I flipped the picture in Paint Shop Pro.

I supported the whole thing on two chairs so that I could put a box underneath with a flash head in it. I also used two SB-28’s on either side fired through translucent umbrellas.

For the final shot, I filled the glasses to the brim with water, sucked up three colours of food colouring in three straws and while my better half put a quick squirt in each glass I replaced the top sheet of glass and fired off a couple of shots.

It took four attempts to get the wining shot as it was really hard to get everything in place before the food colouring hit the bottom of the glass.

You gotta love the setup with so much expensive equipment! A cardboard box to add light with a “barn-door” effect. Folding chairs used as a professional product stand. Setups like this make photographers love the strobist lighting idea. It’s inexpensive and it expands your options for macro photography. Try sticking a softbox powered by a 250watt flash unit under those glasses!

Ninja Geisha - by NickWheelerOz

I wanted to share one more shot that Nick took that I liked, mainly because I really like the idea of a Ninja Geisha. Below is a photo of the setup and strobist info. I didn’t add all the other photos that he talked about in the setup, but it was good that he shared the stuff he didn’t like and his frustration doing it.

Ninja Geisha setup - by NickWheelerOz

Strobist Information:

This set of pictures came about after a trip to the local Sunday market. While having a wander round perusing the assorted collection of junk and rusty old tools, I came across a stall selling all sorts of replica swords and daggers. A couple of swords in particular caught my eye, the ones you see in these pictures. They are both samurai style swords, one a simple single bladed affair and the other an unusual double bladed version. The scabbard splits in two with the bottom part housing a short sword and the top part housing a longer sword that slips into a second slot in the bottom part.

After sending my partner in to do a spot of negotiating, they were both picked up for a very reasonable price with the express intention of pairing them up with a couple of costumes worn by my partner and her friend Ly to a fancy dress wedding (don’t ask)! So was born the Geisha Ninja Zombie Killers (and with a title like that, you’ve just got to have a look)!

So, this afternoon, we broke out the lights, the girls got dressed up and we had a some photography fun. Each of the pictures used a different light setup and I was shuffling the lights round like a mad man so I don’t really have detailed setup shots for every picture. I have included the ones I did take in the comments along with a few out takes that either didn’t make the cut or were just plain funny!

Oh, and by the way, top quality models like Keoula and Ly don’t come cheap! It’s the start Laos and Thai New Year this weekend so their price for an afternoons sword play was a contribution to the food stalls of the Thai temple. Not a bad deal all told, I got some delicious Thai food as well as some mean looking zombie slashing action!

If you’re a fan of strobist and want to learn more from someone, then I recommend checking out Nick’s Flickr photostream. It’s great to checkout all his photos and he’s very popular on Flickr too.