Author: rajasekh

Course No. 1 / Lesson No. 3 / All Sections

Lesson 3

Intro

Whew! Final lesson! You can do it! This lesson is going to be all about editing your photo, and how to reduce the amount of photoshopping in the first place. What are we waiting for? Let’s get started!

Section 1

Editing photos can be crazy and extremely untidy. Platforms like Snapseed give a great beginners editing platform, which takes all the overzealousness out of photoshopping and editing. But if you really want to get into the whole gist of photoshopping, you need professional software like Capture One and Adobe Photoshop. But most cameras have a tiny photoshopping software in-built, where you can control the less technical parts of your photograph, like tinting, or cropping. This tiny feature is really effective because it doesn’t always make everything look unrealistic, since the software has to focus on less aspects of your photograph. This is probably the most effective part of photoshopping, and probably also the best.

Pink Coneflower before and after photoshopping

Section 2

The first part of editing photos is tinting and cropping. Something about tinting is that you can get it to be more into your theme than the whole photograph itself. Say you photographed a picture of a giant field of Lupin. Then a possible tint to give it would be in a lighter pinkish zone. This would relate to the purplish colour of the Lupin and give your photo a warm and relating feel to it. Cropping, on the other hand, is useful when taking, say, portraits. If you have a picture of someone’s whole body, but you want to crop it to only their upper body, a great place to crop to would be the waistline. This technique usually won’t cut off right at any joints (elbows, knees, hips, etc.(which is a big no-no in photoshopping)) and gives your photograph a great base.

Section 3

The next part of photoshopping is the brightness and light fixtures. The brightness of your picture can make a big difference in what the photo looks like. Say a picture of a flower you just took is in super high lighting. Then, you should probably customize the brightness of the photograph should be lower, to balance out the way the photo looks. But lowering the brightness too much can deeply affect the contrast of the photograph, which can make a well-made picture look like a painting. If you took the picture in darker circumstances though, you should obviously raise the brightness a little bit higher. This is the more difficult part of editing brightness since too much light in the picture can white out most of your photo. Also, if you took a picture in complete blackness, then no amount of brightness can fix the picture, since there isn’t any light in the photo in the first place. But, you can skip all this work if you just get a good angle away from the sun in the first place or use a diffuser.

Conclusion

Congrats! You’ve finished this course on beginning photography! Remember to continue to Course 2, which will go a little bit more in depth to the fundamentals to photography.

Course No. 1 / Lesson No. 1 / Section 3 / Lesson No. 2 / All Sections

Lesson 1

Section 3

Say you’re outside watching the sunset, and you take out your camera and take a picture. But the sun now looks bare and has nothing surrounding it, so it looks like you took a meaningless picture of a big yellow blob. This is the effect that can come out of not having a good surrounding object. Say, you had a book. Just a book on a table standing up. Wouldn’t a picture of it look a ton better if you put a bunch of flowers around it? That’s what I’m talking about. If you’re lucky enough to live around some mountains or some other rising land formation, then there’s nearly no way you could encounter this mistake, especially with a picture of the sunset. But if you live around a bunch of flat ground, try taking a shot from behind some shrubbery, or maybe a tree. This way, if you keep the sun peaking out from the top, then this picture-ruining phenomenon is fixed just like that. Always keep something in the background and the front of your subject, unless you’re photographing a portrait. This is bound to keep everything tidy.

Conclusion

As we come to the end of this chapter, I hope you have learned some valuable tips and techniques for on photography basics. Remember, photography is an art form that requires both technical skills and creativity. With practice and dedication, you too can capture beautiful moments and memories that will last a lifetime. Keep experimenting and pushing yourself to try new things, and always remember to have fun with it. Now, let’s move on.

Lesson 2

Intro

Okay, we’re a lesson through this course. Great job so far! This lesson is going to be all about the basic technicalities of point-and-shoot along with digital photography. This is basically which button to push, where to set your aperture and all the basics of that kind of stuff. So, let’s dive in!

Section 1

This section is all about the aperture, what it is, and how to control it. Aperture is the amount of light you let in through your camera lens. Often in point-and-shoot and digital cameras, this is displayed as a f/stop. Say you had an aperture of f/2. This is letting in more light than, say, f/8.6. If you want to focus on a singular thing itself, then use a higher aperture, like f/10. But if you want to let in a good amount of light and focus on multiple things, use a lower aperture, like f/3.1. Say, for example, when creating a portrait, you’d want a higher aperture, so you can focus solely on your subject. But when photographing a flower field, you’d want a lower aperture, so you can capture the whole subject area.

Section 2

This section is going to be all about shutter speed. It’s a pretty vague topic, so buckle up! Shutter speed is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the speed your shutter goes at. If you want absolutely no vibrations, or maybe to catch something that’s going pretty fast, then use a faster shutter speed. If you want only a blur of something, say a bird, bee, car, etcetera, then use a slower shutter speed. Usually, when you’re using a slower shutter speed, people tend to use a tripod, because this gives you great stability and only blurs what needs to be out of focus. A fast shutter speed is more powerful than any vibration reduction or image stabilization technology. Most digital cameras can go up to a speed of 1/4000 of a second! Shutter speed is a key aspect of photography, and it’s something to remember.

Conclusion

As the day draws to a close, it’s time to pack up your gear and reflect on the beautiful moments you captured through your lens. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out, this course should create a great start to your photography career. So, take a deep breath, pat yourself on the back, and get ready to share your unique vision with the world. Wow! Another lesson done already! Just one more to go! You can do it!

Course No. 1 / Lesson No. 1 / Sections 1-2

Intro:

This lesson is all about the basics of photography. If you’re the type of person who’s always looking at stuff and thinking, “I should take a picture of that,” then this lesson is for you. How to get the lighting right, this, that, all that kind of stuff. So, let’s get started!

Section 1:

Take a flower, for example. Whenever you’re shooting flowers, remember to get closer to the flower and focus on your camera. Usually, an easy way to do this is by looking at the flower from the side, instead of straight from above. You can also take these kinds of pictures with a digital SLR camera if you have a macro or telephoto lens (lenses that let you get close-up). And remember to keep the flowers simple. Flowers with more depth and detail are more intricate and require skill to photograph. Stick to the basics:) If these tips still don’t get the flower in focus, try photoshopping the picture into black and white. The flower stands out here regardless of whether the background is blurred or not!

Section 2:

The last section was all about focusing and making your subject (in this case, a flower) stand out. This time around, I’ll discuss lighting. Lighting is a key aspect of professional photography. Say you were out on a photo shoot, and you saw a field of lavender and an oak tree that you could focus on. Maybe there’s a piece of the sun shining through the oak tree. If you position it right, you can get some gorgeous highlights and a silhouette (which we’ll discuss in Lesson 4). If this is not done, a great photo opportunity could be wasted by some untidy flowers and a messed-up oak tree. An easy way to keep lighting on your side is to use diffusers. A diffuser is a type of shade that reflects light in just the right way. Or you could always change your position so the light is right on the spot. In another scenario, say your subject is in a dark area, and your flash/speedlight produces awful shadows and brightness. So just use a white surface, reflect your flash upwards, and it should bounce off whatever’s above you and come back down as natural light. This is an easy and simple way to create a great imitation of natural light!! This technique is called amazing and it’s very effective at creating a softer, more wholesome look. Additionally, it can be used to fill in shadows and achieve a more balanced result. I’m not sure what this technique is referred to, but we’ll call it the ‘Miracle of the Flashy Skies’ because that sounds a ton cooler!