How to blog
Passing the torch, of sorts, I was showing my brother how to use his UT webspace to post pictures to his in-the-works blog. (A preview: While I write mainly about mainly me, with some politics peppered on lightly, Grady's going to take a slightly different tack. He plans to feature blog entries of two basic types: "Pictures of stuff I ate," i.e., the homemade jalapeño poppers we cooked in his Fry Daddy; and "Rap lyrics I wrote," i.e., "My name is Grady, and I'm da king of da South. I eat more pussy than that homeboy Alf." I can't wait.) As an example, I uploaded this picture he took with his Optio (the smaller, sleeker S4) and an LED light during a blackout.
I explained to Grady that Photoshop is basically the Blarney Stone of digital photography, able to turn almost any old bland photo into something interesting. Here's how.
Cropping and brightness/contrast adjustments are your basic tools. I demonstrated those techniques a couple posts ago with the pink flower.
One of the main advantages of the Optio's five megapixels is that it allows you to get workable images from very small portions of the entire frame. Here's a pretty gross example from when we were leaving the Draft/Draught House/Horse. Check the filename on that link before you click it. I don't want to offend anyone's delicate sensibilities.
The other obvious way to make a boring image interesting is unadulterated manipulation. Now, this may seem like a cop out, but it's actually been used by professionals since photography's invention. Many photographers combine negatives to form final prints, not like a double exposure, but by borrowing specific sections from other photos to compensate for defficiencies in the original. One small touch in the right place can make a huge difference. In Photoshop, you use the stamp tool. It is invaluable.
As always, this is easier with examples. Below is the original image of a building on 15th St., complete with annoying, distracting street light in the corner:
But borrowing the texture from an adjacent window...
If all else fails, adjust the color balance, saturation, brightness, or contrast in the extreme, which can quickly turn ordinary into some kind of pop art.
For instance, this picture:
Which originally looked like this:
Which, going back to our earlier techniques, came from this:
Photography, like writing, is about simplification. If you're emphasizing one photographic technique — reptition of shape in the office building for instance — you want to eliminate anything that doesn't contribute to that end. Great pictures often take many things, which are usually involved in complex interactions, and make them simple. Such as this oldy but goody:
That's really all there is to it. If you can crop, clone, and colorize, you can be a photoblogger.
---
Completely unrelated and only semi-non-serious question: Why do rich people always wear sunglasses? I saw this Beemer come around the corner today with three young people in it, and all of them were wearing large, attention-craving pairs of sunglasses.
Passing the torch, of sorts, I was showing my brother how to use his UT webspace to post pictures to his in-the-works blog. (A preview: While I write mainly about mainly me, with some politics peppered on lightly, Grady's going to take a slightly different tack. He plans to feature blog entries of two basic types: "Pictures of stuff I ate," i.e., the homemade jalapeño poppers we cooked in his Fry Daddy; and "Rap lyrics I wrote," i.e., "My name is Grady, and I'm da king of da South. I eat more pussy than that homeboy Alf." I can't wait.) As an example, I uploaded this picture he took with his Optio (the smaller, sleeker S4) and an LED light during a blackout.
I explained to Grady that Photoshop is basically the Blarney Stone of digital photography, able to turn almost any old bland photo into something interesting. Here's how.
Cropping and brightness/contrast adjustments are your basic tools. I demonstrated those techniques a couple posts ago with the pink flower.
One of the main advantages of the Optio's five megapixels is that it allows you to get workable images from very small portions of the entire frame. Here's a pretty gross example from when we were leaving the Draft/Draught House/Horse. Check the filename on that link before you click it. I don't want to offend anyone's delicate sensibilities.
The other obvious way to make a boring image interesting is unadulterated manipulation. Now, this may seem like a cop out, but it's actually been used by professionals since photography's invention. Many photographers combine negatives to form final prints, not like a double exposure, but by borrowing specific sections from other photos to compensate for defficiencies in the original. One small touch in the right place can make a huge difference. In Photoshop, you use the stamp tool. It is invaluable.
As always, this is easier with examples. Below is the original image of a building on 15th St., complete with annoying, distracting street light in the corner:
But borrowing the texture from an adjacent window...
If all else fails, adjust the color balance, saturation, brightness, or contrast in the extreme, which can quickly turn ordinary into some kind of pop art.
For instance, this picture:
Which originally looked like this:
Which, going back to our earlier techniques, came from this:
Photography, like writing, is about simplification. If you're emphasizing one photographic technique — reptition of shape in the office building for instance — you want to eliminate anything that doesn't contribute to that end. Great pictures often take many things, which are usually involved in complex interactions, and make them simple. Such as this oldy but goody:
That's really all there is to it. If you can crop, clone, and colorize, you can be a photoblogger.
---
Completely unrelated and only semi-non-serious question: Why do rich people always wear sunglasses? I saw this Beemer come around the corner today with three young people in it, and all of them were wearing large, attention-craving pairs of sunglasses.
posted by Matt at 4:37 PM
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