Archive for Photo editing

Digital Schizophrenia

One of the first things I started doing when I started shooting digital images, was thinking of ways of doing digital double exposures - adding one part of an image to another - for a greater impact of my digital shots. It turned out to be relatively simple, but carrying high impact. All it takes is suitable photos, a copy of Photoshop (or the Gimp, which is sort-of nearly as good as Photoshop, but free), and a bucket full of time... Have you made any cool images using this method? Post them somewhere on the internet - your blog, perhaps - and add a link to the comments, so we can admire the photos!

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Your photos, 300-style!

Movie audiences of the world are vastly and completely amazed by the beauty of the new movie 300. With its extremely distinctive style, quick-moving plot and -- like Sin City, another of my favourites -- relatively closely based on one of Frank Miller's graphical novels, it's got it goin' on. If you've seen the film, you can't have failed to notice the amazing quality of the artwork involved: The CGI is amazing, of course, but even the live-action bits of the film is nothing short of stunning. So, how, exactly, can you recreate the effects? We interviewed graphic artist Jason Niedle to find out more...

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Contrast in photos

If you are reading this, you have probably heard people moaning about lack of contrast in one of your pictures. I am sorry about that, but -- really -- it is one of the most annoying things in the world. The medium of photography allows you to enhance the way you see the world, so you have an option of showing what you would like to show better. When the option is there - why not use it? This is the picture we'll be working with for now. I know it isn't exactly the best picture in the world, but at least it is bland - it is nothing short of boring. Why? Well - mainly because nothing is the way it should be. I believe that, in photography, black should be black. White should be white. In most cases, there is no real excuse for having almost-white and almost-black as the darkest and lightest point of your photograph (unless it is part of a photographic effect, in which case this all doesn't apply.) It's worth noting that this article is aimed especially at beginners, who aren't that clued up on Photoshop. If this doesn't apply to you, you may just want to dive right into the adjustment layers instead!

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How to spot faked images

If you've ever worked with Adobe Photoshop - or indeed any image manipulation package, you'll know how easy it is to make small and big changes to a photograph. But do you know how you can spot if an image has been doctored or not? Do you know the difference between a doctored photograph and the genuine thing?

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