Design for Photographers: Part 2 – Color

May 15, 2012 by shawn.kent | Leave a comment
Figure 1 - Design for Photographers:Colory (Photo Credit: 'Colour Pencils-1' by David Blaikie 2007)

Figure 1 - Design for Photographers:Colory (Photo Credit: 'Colour Pencils-1' by David Blaikie 2007)

Introduction

This is the second part of our series of design tutorials for photographers. To read the first tutorial, about typography, please click here.

In this tutorial we will be discussing color as it relates to design. This is an important concept for the photographer to understand as it is critical to developing a strong foundation in visual arts. Walking around looking for images is a matter of training the eye to see those situations that present a bit of order in the otherwise chaotic world. A photographer often looks for compositional principles in a scene and tries to find a way to capture them. Understanding color schemes, relationships and color psychology allows the photographer to “see” more.
Again a disclaimer, this is an incomplete tutorial. I will but scrape the surface of this discipline, and hope that you will research more, experiment, and discover how design color theory can improve your imagery. At the very least this tutorial will at least provide you with the basics you need to properly decorate and paint your home.

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Design for Photographers: Part 1 – Typography

May 12, 2012 by shawn.kent | 1 Comment
Figure 1 - Design for Photographers: Typography

Figure 1 - Design for Photographers: Typography (Photo Credit: 'Blocks' by Jeremy Keith 2005)

This is the first tutorial in a series I will be doing on Graphic Design for photographers. As photographers we are at our core visual communicators. Producing effective visual communication is a multifaceted discipline that requires knowledge and tools from a variety of disciplines. The aim of this series of tutorials isn’t for you to supplant the designer in your process, but rather introduce you to the concepts and terminology of design. Just as a camera cannot replace us, keep in mind that owning Adobe Illustrator cannot replace a true graphic designer.

In this first tutorial we will discuss some basic concepts related to typography as well as some general tips for working with type. At some stage in our photographic life we will have to work with type. It is an inevitability. Either a client requests us to incorporate text in their product, we decide we can design our own business cards or we have to put together a poster to advertise our work. The intent of these tutorials are not to make you a qualified graphic designer, but they will hopefully help you in the development of your skill set and make you a better image maker.

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Focus Stacking Tutorial for Photoshop CS5

May 11, 2012 by shawn.kent | Leave a comment

Photoshop Focus Stacking Tutorial

This tutorial is available for download in PDF format with RAW sample images at the following location:

http://penzer.s3.amazonaws.com/PUBLIC/ShawnKent_Tutorials/ShawnKent-net_Focus_Stacking_Tutorial.zip

File Size: 216MB – File type: Zip Archive – Contains: PDF, Sample NEF files, Example PSD

This tutorial is also on youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lvmd_IMExs

Introduction

One of the greatest challenges in macro photography is dealing with depth of field issues. In my line of work I often have to provide technical photographs of circuitry. I typically use a top of the line macro lens like the Nikon AF-S Micro-NIKKOR 105mm, for these photographs. Even though this lens produces amazing images, I am forever striking a balance between elaborate lighting setups and limited depth of field (DOF). Presuming I even produce enough light to shoot at the maximum DOF of f32 for this lens, I still find at these extreme close-ups depth of field can be an issue.

Thankfully post processing techniques provide us with a tool that makes all of this a bit easier. Focus stacking is not that different than HDR. In essence we are taking several images with one variable adjusted (in this case focus) to create one image. The result is an image that gives a resultant image with greater depth of field than the source image.

This technique can be used in all sorts of macro photography, from nature photographs to microscopy. Thankfully the technique is made painfully simple with modern imaging tools. There are a number of tools that can achieve these results (CombineZM, Helicon Focus, Magnification, etc.) however we are going to use Photoshop CS5 for this tutorial.
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Composition Part 2: Fibonacci and phi Ratios

April 28, 2012 by shawn.kent | Leave a comment
Figure 4 - Sven Seiler "Blue World" 2007 CC by-nc-nd

Figure 1 - Sven Seiler "Blue World" 2007 CC by-nc-nd

In our last post we spoke about the foundational rule of composition, the Rule of thirds. The next compositional principle we will be talking about is the Fibonacci number sequence and the phi ratio. The Fibonacci number sequence and it’s close associate the phi ratio are known by a variety of names, usually denoting the remarkable properties of these mathematical principles. They have been called the divine ration, the god ratio, and others. This is due to the fact that these mathematical principles can be found everywhere, from the structures of atoms, to nautilus shells, to human anatomy, and even the arrangement of the constellations and galaxies.

From a psychological standpoint this makes these principles extremely powerful if used in visual communication. The human subconcious is comforted by familiarity. Seeing an image that conforms to geometric arrangements that are familiar has a psychological response that is positive and actually feeds dopamine to the brain which makes us happy.

Fibonnaci’s sequence is a remarkable series of numbers that correspond to a ratio we can use in composition. This article will introduce you to the theory and familiarize you with the concepts so you can begin using the ratio in your own work.
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Composition Part 1: The Rule of Thirds

April 28, 2012 by shawn.kent | 2 Comments
Shawn M. Kent "Solitude" (2001) CC by-nc-sa

Shawn M. Kent "Solitude" (2001) CC by-nc-sa

It is essential that developing photographers have a firm understanding on compositional principles. This is the first in a series of articles where we will be talking about the rules of composition. Starting with the very basics and working up to the more complex. This first tutorial will talk about the classic rule of thirds composition rule.

Now this is the part of the tutorial where we say the obligatory “there are no rules in photography”.

I hate that statement. Of course there are rules! Rules are broken all the time, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t valid rules, or that you should ignore them. They exist for a reason and this article will dissect those reasons.

As well this is not a tutorial written only for beginners. I meet many pro photographers who only know the very basic concepts of the rule of thirds. For that reason I have tried to go as in depth as possible to dissect the principle. Hopefully those of you that are at a professional level will read on and learn at least one thing you didn’t know before.

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