Tools, Tips and Techniques

How to Photograph Art With Professional Relults

Al Sanowskis shares his tips for photographing art with a point-and-shoot camera.

How to Prepare Your Images For The Club Website

Ron Buskirk shares his steps for sizing your images and inserting IPTC data for proper display on this website.

How to Make a © Symbol on a Laptop

Allen Beyer shares his method for inserting a © symbol using a laptop computer.

You can easily and accurately straighten the horizon within an image in Photoshop with just a few clicks. Drag a line along your unlevel horizon with the "Ruler" tool (found under the Eye-Dropper tool button in the Tools Palette), then go to the "Image" drop-down menu and select "Rotate Image" and "Arbitrary". Photoshop will rotate your image so that your horizon line is level. This also works for rotating an image to a vertical element within the image.

Al's Photo Tip #1

What is the difference between a $300 telephoto and a $1800 telephoto?

I went to the McIntosh Festival last Saturday. For those that ask "What is the difference between a $300 telephoto and a $1800 telephoto, here is the answer. 70-200 Nikon VR f2.8 at 200mm(wide open) This lens wide open has extremely narrow depth of field. This is a GOOD thing because you can isolate your subject from the background. The subject pops out. If you shot the same with a tele lens that had a f5.6 maximum aperture (like the 18-200VR $600) you could easily make out detail in the background. Of course you could fix that in Photoshop by isolating the subject and doing a gaussian blur on the background but...(more - with photos!)

Al's Photo Tip #2

Macro Studio Photography

Earlier today I was doing some studio shots of my latest photographic electronics project -- the RBPS II, short for Rechargeable Battery Power Supply. I designed this 450v power supply to replace the two $90 each 225V B batteries that power my favorite flash units from the 1960's, Stroboflash IV! I am doing up the instruction sheet and photos for the web site -- Stroboflash.Com. There is a little jumper on the printed circuit board that I need to instruct the user about. I discovered that in order to show it clearly in the instruction manual I had to do an extreme closeup since it is only a third of an inch wide. So I pulled out my trusty Nikon 70-200 VR zoom lens to do the shot. (more - with photos!)

Al's Photo Tip #3

Well, kind of...

As the "official" photographer of Marion Cultural Alliance I was once
again enlisted to shoot the opening reception of their current art
exhibit -- The Next Generation. This is an exhibit of regional college
level art, art from several colleges in north central Florida. Over 130
works in all. Anyway...the show is great. It will be there for two weeks (first two weeks of November 2008) and you all should go see it.

Now the tip:

I got a little bored with the standard issue Nikon SB-600 --- smile and
shoot flash so I took it to another level. Click on the link and READ
the text first. Let me know what you think of the concept.

http://www.stroboflash.com/NextGen