Tangents

photography tutorials, reviews & workshops

tangents photography blog
learn : discuss : share

reducing the blue color cast in white clothing

15 Comments

reducing the blue color cast in white clothing

Often when working in the shade, or anywhere we need Cloudy or Shade white balance, we'll often see a blue tint in the white clothing.  I suspect this might be due to detergents being used which give a blue-ish tint to white clothing to make them appear cleaner.  Or perhaps this is from UV light when we're working in cloudy conditions or in the shade.  However it might be, we will often get that blue tone in white clothing, as in this photo below ...  Read more inside...

Digital noise reduction software: Neat Image

27 Comments

Digital noise reduction software: Neat Image

The best way to deal with digital noise in photographs is to start with having a correctly exposed photograph taken by a high-ISO capable camera. Then digital noise mostly isn't an issue unless you start pushing the upper limits of what the camera is capable of. But sometimes (hopefully only sometimes), you have to deal with an under-exposed photograph from an older camera ... and then the digital noise becomes apparent. Then we have to use software to clean the image up. For those times when I do have to deal with an image with  Read more inside...

Which white balance settings should I use?

34 Comments

Which white balance settings should I use?

That's a question that baffles photographers who are just starting out with digital photography. You have a few options in setting the WB on your camera: Shoot in auto white balance (AWB), trusting your camera nails it. Set your camera to one of the preset WB settings, such as Daylight, Cloudy or Incandescent. And then hope your camera's preset is close to the correct WB. Do custom white balance readings and save it as you encounter and work in new situations. These custom white balance readings can be done with all kinds of  Read more inside...

alive for 365 – week 4 – cute phone box

10 Comments

I am sure the designer of this phone box intended for it to have this distinctly cartoon-like face.   When I saw this, it instantly drew my attention.  It really looked to me like a constantly-surprised wide-eyed face.  Something out of Disney's animated movie, Beauty & The Beast.  This then is my choice then for this week's entry in the Alive for 365 project. The photograph had some Photoshop work done to it to give it much more snap than the straight-out-of-the-camera version.  Oh, and the lighting was bounce flash with available light ...  Read more inside...

Photoshop tips – avoiding moiré when resizing

15 Comments

Photoshop tips - avoiding moiré when resizing

When you resize an image with repetitive patterns, you stand the chance that the pattern itself will form another pattern.  This is called moiré.  When I resized this image for web display, I had to take care to make sure the blue window shutters didn't generate a moiré pattern. By going from the original 12 megapizel image (4288 pixels wide), directly down to 600 pixels in a single adjustment .. .. I get an image where the detail looks like this: You can see the moiré pattern there in the blue window blinds as a diagonal  Read more inside...

Photoshop tips – making your images pop (2) – Topaz Adjust

19 Comments

Photoshop tips – making your images pop - Topaz Adjust

I'd like to present another in the ongoing series on giving your images more 'snap' in Photoshop. This time, I'd like to specifically look at Topaz Adjust- a neat plug-in for Photoshop.   What I like about Topaz, is its simplicity of use - but if you want to, you can delve much deeper into it.  The possibilities are wide open.  (Also nice is that it is relatively inexpensive as software goes.) There are hundreds of ways you could use this program, because you can blend the different effects in different ways on a single  Read more inside...

Bounce flash technique – mimicking soft window light

55 Comments

Bounce flash photography technique - mimicking window light

The classic shot - a beautiful bride lit by soft window light. That's a yes on the beautiful bride - but it's a solid no on the window light. What you see there is on-camera flash.  (Which most likely won't be a surprise to regular readers of the Tangents blog.) This image is from a wedding this past weekend, and it makes a great example of how light, choice of lens, composition, angle and technique come together to make an image work. With a bit of post-processing added finally for that vintage  Read more inside...

Wedding photography – Retouching & style

40 Comments

Wedding photography - Retouching & style

My style in wedding photography veers towards the more straight-forward image - uncluttered and without much Photoshop work done. I really believe that the more you fudge with a photograph, the more likely it would not be as timeless as you might want it to be. Retouching styles become dated. So I tend towards the more straight-forward rendition of a photograph. That said, you can most definitely enhance the original photograph to make it really pop. Here is an example - a favorite image from a sequence taken during the romantic  Read more inside...

Photoshop tips – making your images pop – soft-light layer

23 Comments

Photoshop tips - making your images pop - soft-light layer

As much as I am a firm believer in getting it as close as possible in camera, by using proper exposure and proper camera settings, and good light .. most often an image can be enhanced in Photoshop with a few simple techniques. There is an entire industry built around software and plug-ins and add-ons and action sets for Photoshop to enhance and manipulate images in Photoshop.  However, I'd first like to go over some of the simpler ones that you can use in Photoshop without additional software. These Photoshop  Read more inside...