• If your model is balding, shoot from a lower angle to show less of their hair and don’t use a hair light at all.
• If your model has a larger nose then have them look straight at the camera and shoot from a lower angle so their nose will not be so prominent.
• If your model has big ears, then turn their head so only one is showing and then feather the light so that the other ear will fall into shadows and not be noticeable.
• If your model has lots of wrinkles, light them straight on so that the light will not produce shadows from the wrinkles.
• As mentioned a little earlier, if your model has a double chin then have them lift their head slightly so that it stretches out the neck area. Also you can try to light them more from above which creates a shadow under the jaw line and makes under the chin less noticeable.
• If your model has a round or fat face, have them turn their face to the left or right, giving you a three quarter view. Also using a split lighting set up helps by keeping one side of the face in shadow.
• Another tip for making your model look slimmer is to make sure that you leave some space between their arms and torso. You will be surprised how much bigger they look with their arms at their side.

If you’re sick of dropping your camera or worrying about the same … here’s a great DIY camera strap project to put your mind at ease.

Get all the DIY details here

The easiest way to mess up color in a photo is when using levels and curves improperly.  Levels to an extent, and curves to an even greater extent, affect both luminosity (brightness) and color when you adjust them.

Many photographers love the look of high contrast, high definition, and vivid color.  You can use levels and curves to get great color.  I will not be discussing that today.  What I will be addressing is how you can add contrast and punch to an image without shifting colors.  If your image has nice color but needs a lift, you may add an s-curve or play in curves or with sliders in levels.

Once you are done, if you see the skin and overall color is too warm/orange, just change your blending mode to luminosity.  Yep – that is all you need to do.  It tell that adjustment layer to only affect luminosity NOT color. Done!!! Wasn’t that easy?

Jim from ProPhotolife shows us a trick in the video below using two lenses that you might have in your camera bag already to achieve 1:1 magnification.

quick video 4, extreme macro photography trick from Jim Talkington on Vimeo.

If you’re interested in trying out this technique, you’ll also see in the video that Jim refers to a reversing ring which can purchased easily & inexpensively, that will allow you to use this technique without needing to manually hold the lenses together with your spare hand.

Have fun – and don’t forget to share your results in our comments section below.

The developer Lead at Microsoft, Todd Newman highlighted that “Pro Photo Shoot is a Microsoft Office Outlook add-in that is designed to help photographers keep track of the little stuff. When you’re first planning a photo shoot—perhaps while you’re on the phone with your customer—you can bring up a dialog with a list of the equipment you own and then check off what you want to bring with you. The list is stored in the body of the appointment so when you print the appointment record the list is right there with all the other details.”

Photographers can download the free add-in ProPhotoShoot from Microsoft via the link here. There are two versions of this free add in designed for Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 respectively. Both are compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista. Once you have downloaded and installed this free management tool, you need to customize it by adding in your photo equipments, e.g. lens, camera, battery, backdrop, etc. The program is pretty user friendly and useful for photographers.

Microsoft Pro Photo Shoot supports Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and
2007 running on Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Solution: checkout this helpful tip that I found.

1. You need to use Mozilla “Firefox” as your browser. If you are not currently using it, you can download it here for FREE!
2. Install it of course!
3. Once you are running Firefox as your browser, you then need to install the Greasemonkey script available here for FREE too!
4. Restart your Firefox browser by closing and opening again.
5. Install the Buddy Icon Reply script available here.
6. Open your Flickr account, go to your photo post, and see the comments made by your contacts.
   You’ll now see it has a new feature added added to each comment after word “contacts said:”

Simply click on “name reply” if you want to answer the comment with your contact’s name, or click “icon reply” if you want to respond with your contact’s icon.

Easy huh!

But first I hear you asking “what is high key“?

High Key is generally a picture that consists almost entirely of light tones with relatively few mid-tones or shadows. There are varying definitions for high key which can pretty much confuse most people. So to keep it simple, any image that has deliberate overexposed areas either in the subject or background is pretty much High Key (of course you can end up with high key by accident but here we are talking about deliberate).

The question was …

“Hi, Please I need help with this studio setup. I need to photograph children(between 6 and 11 years old).
The client wants the background completely white (high key), and the children well illuminated. They are little models of children’s clothes. “

And the response by Steve.Korn from Flickr.com ….

“Usually, a 4:1 ratio is what many will say, but with digital, there is an easier way to do it without frying the background.

Before the kids arrive, set up your background lights and do a few test shots. Shooting at your desired ISO and aperture, set the background light levels so that they are just hot enough to clip the right side of your histogram. This will ensure that the background is a pure white but not bionically bright.

Be sure your kids are not too close to the background or the background lights will spill or make a glowing halo around them. If you can get them 8-10 feet in front of it, you’ll have no problems. A little closer and you’ll be fine, but if you can err on the side of more distance it will ensure you are safe.

Next, turn off your background lights and meter just your key and fill lights.

When the kids arrive, turn everything on and you will be good to go.

Have fun and good luck with the shoot. “

A light intensity chart to help calculate the correct exposure for different lighting conditions and lots of other handy information & charts at http://fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm#Light%20Intensity%20Chart

Enjoy & learn!