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Practice

How to be brave and photograph people

How to be brave and photograph people

We're taught how to make our portrait subjects relax and act naturally in front of the camera, but how can photographers feel more confident when they're photographing people?

My favourite tools have disappeared from Snapseed! Help!

My favourite tools have disappeared from Snapseed! Help!

If you're missing the centre focus options from Snapseed's upgrade, fear not. This is how to recreate them using Snapseed 2.0's tools.

Resolution and pixels and image quality! Oh my! Saving images for the web

Resolution and pixels and image quality! Oh my! Saving images for the web

When you hear the term 'high-res' thrown about with such abandon when it comes to images for web use, have you ever stopped to think just how big or how high quality and image meant for the web needs to be?

How to photograph black cats (or any other black animal, as it happens)

How to photograph black cats (or any other black animal, as it happens)

Photographs of black animals can turn out as black blobs with eyes or fluffy grey clouds. Neither does them justice, but with a bit of forethought, you can have perfect portraits instead.

What do we mean by exposure compensation?

What do we mean by exposure compensation?

For all that our cameras are capable of rendering the world in glorious Technicolor, their light meters are remarkably simple: they can only 'see' in shades of grey. When a light meter attempts to judge the correct exposure for a scene, it does so under the assumption that the scene's average brightness is middle grey (18% grey), which is exactly half-way between absolute black and bright white.

My built-in flash is really harsh! Help!

My built-in flash is really harsh! Help!

New photographers are often admonished to disable their pop-up flashes and never engage them again. Sometimes, however, the light they provide is better than the alternative of no photo at all. If that's the case, how can you make the best of the situation?