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Using Your Smartphone As a Post-Processing Playground

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Photo by Steve Berardi
Photo by Steve Berardi
Post-processing is one of the most important steps of creating a powerful image (as my dad wrote about in a previous post). Ansel Adams once said, “The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the print the performance.” In modern day digital photography, post-processing leads to the “performance” part that Adams refers to. A RAW file from your camera can go in so many different directions.

In the past year or so, I’ve been really trying to improve my post-processing skills (especially with landscape images), and I discovered that one of the best ways to practice is using your smartphone.

The great thing about the smartphone is that it’s a camera and a little computer built into one small device that’s always with you. There’s tons of excellent photo editing apps that have professional editing abilities—my personal favorite is Snapseed (available for iPhone and Android), but I’ll get more into specific apps in a future post. [Read more…] about Using Your Smartphone As a Post-Processing Playground

Benefits of Using a Flash Extender

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Flash ExtenderNote from the editor (Steve): This is a post by our newest writer: Robert Visconti. He primarily photographs wildlife (especially birds), and he’s got some really cool ideas for DIY projects and optimizing your camera gear. In this post, he talks about using flash extenders and how to make one work better.

A flash extender is just that: it extends the flash’s output to a much greater distance by using a Fresnel lens. A flash without the extender literally “floods” the entire subject area with light. The extender takes this conical shape of light and concentrates it into a beam, hence its name. [Read more…] about Benefits of Using a Flash Extender

Photographing a Subject for Multiple Uses

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Bluebell wildflowers blooming in the spring
Spring Bluebells / Photo by Jim Braswell

When photographing a subject, do you picture in your mind just how that photo will be used? Do you ever consider multiple uses? I got caught in the trap of shooting for a single use, early in my photographic endeavors.

When putting together a series of images for a nature calendar, I found some older images that would have been wonderful to include in the calendar. But these images were all shot as verticals (or, “portraits”) and were not able to be cropped to a suitable horizontal format. In some cases, you may be able to re-crop a vertical into a horizontal, but sometimes the result is not what you are looking for. In this post, I’ll share a few things I learned along the way and how I try to shoot all my nature subjects today. [Read more…] about Photographing a Subject for Multiple Uses

How To Prepare Your Images For the Web

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Photo by Steve Berardi
Photo by Steve Berardi
These days, most photographers share their images on the web (for many good reasons). But, before posting images online, there’s a few things you should do to prepare them:

#1 – Convert color space to sRGB

Color spaces are a complex topic, but to ensure the colors in your images look consistently across a wide range of screens, it’s important to convert your images to the sRGB color space before posting them online. This is the most compatible color space across all devices.

Your images may already be in the sRGB color space, but many cameras export images in Adobe RGB 1998 or some cameras have their own unique color space. Be sure to check! [Read more…] about How To Prepare Your Images For the Web

Free eBook on Landscape Photography From Anne McKinnell!

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Landscape photography is one of the most difficult types of nature photography. Since there’s so much going on in a landscape image, it’s hard to always be aware of everything and this leads to a lot of common mistakes.

Well, we’re in luck, because Anne McKinnell released an excellent eBook this week: 22 Landscape Photography Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them). It’s an extremely straight-forward guide to improving your landscape photos. And, best of all, it’s completely free!

Get the eBook here!

The eBook covers a bunch of common mistakes, such as crooked horizons, cluttered backgrounds, lack of depth, blown out highlights, and much more.

If you’re not already familiar with Anne McKinnell, she’s a great photographer, and an excellent writer and teacher. She’s written multiple books on photography, all with a ton of great reviews on Amazon. She writes in a very friendly tone that makes it easy and fun to learn. She also has a wonderful blog, where she shares more great photography tips. [Read more…] about Free eBook on Landscape Photography From Anne McKinnell!

Completing Your Vision in Post-Processing

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Red-tailed Hawk / Photo by Vic Berardi
Red-tailed Hawk / Photo by Vic Berardi
Note from the editor (Steve): After reading this great post by my Dad, please check out his new blog, where he’s writing about his travels, his passion for hawks, and other thoughts on life.

That term “vision”—what does it mean? For me it’s simple. When I get home from a day of shooting, I review all my photos. I intentionally look for the images that stood out when I first saw them through my viewfinder. However, I usually get confusingly disappointed when I realize the camera didn’t capture the scene exactly the way I “saw” it—or maybe the way I thought I saw it? [Read more…] about Completing Your Vision in Post-Processing