DIY Green Screen

An interesting video teaching you how to make green screen!
 

21 sample poses to get you started

For those who run out of ideas on posing, here is a list of 21 sample poses. Click Here.:

How I shoot these flower photos

I hope you like these photos and the effect... They were taken on my Nikon D3. But most cameras should be able to take nice flower photos...

F-stop 2.8, Exposure 1/400s, ISO 200, Focal 70mm, no flash

The original photo show the complete orchid but I cropped it just to show the centre part. I used Lightroom to "blacken" the image slightly and then use the adjustment brush to increase the exposure of the centre centre part.

F 16, 1/250s, ISO 3200, 70mm, flash

This photo was taken during the morning at 10:00AM while it was raining slightly. I did not put a black curtain behind. I should have locked the ISO down to 200! But never mind, I got the effect I want.
How it was done:
Camera was on manual mode. Behind these flowers is a white wall. Therefore, if I shoot directly, the white wall will spoil the effect of the required black background as it will give me a white background.
So, I shifted myself and ensure that the nearest object in the background is some 20-30 feet away. On manual mode, I adjusted the aperture so that it showed at least 3 stops under expose. I was holding a white umbrella and pointed my flash up on the umbrella. I was squatting about 3 feet from the flower.
Release the shutter and I got a picture with a dark background! Then I used Lightroom to adjust "Black" and a perfect black background is obtained. If you want to ask more question, you can always attend my photography class or buy me a breakfast!

'To see all my photos on flower, please click here.

Photoshop Beauty Retouching

This article is perhaps quite useful:

The 15 Minute Makeover: Photoshop Beauty Retouching

First part is quite easy. The second part is a little complicated.

Whatever, the key things are:

1. When retouching, always work on 100% enlargement of the image
2. Always use different layers. I found this out already and the major advantage is that it is non destructive to the original image!

RAW Processing Workflow

Recommended RAW processing workflow using Lightroom:
1. Brightness/Exposure
2. Temperature/Tint
3. Recovery/Fill Light
4. Blacks/Contrast
5. Clarity
6. Vibrance/Saturation
7. Lens Corrections
8. Sharpening

Photography on-line

There are some really good on-line photography sites to visit:

Adorama TV Learning Centre
Snapfactory
Digital Photography School.
Learn  Reading a Photograph
Need a software to stitch a panorama photo. Try ICE from Microsoft. It is free!
Want to learn about Mask in Photoshop? Try this tutorial.
Sample Food photography and How to photograph food tutorial
Learn all about Sensor cleaning!
How to photograph shoes tutorial
Jim Kramer web site about photographing water!

KW Photography - Mobile studio

Having gone to all the site and read about it, there is nothing better than keep practising!

Selecting Hair in Photoshop ...

Perhaps the most important lesson I learnt in Photoshop... watch this video.
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