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Lesson Info

Camera Settings and Editing

We want to really work are settings on whatever camera you have doesn't matter what it is, really work your settings to get the best photos and point out, this is a perfect example of rule of thirds, so compared that can contrasted to the last one it's also a photo that that I think has a really good point, that you don't have to get rid of the stuff in the background if you can work your settings, that make becomes less obvious and obviously there's a bunch of stuff in the background, but it is doesn't draw our eye as much as the boots they've kind of become a theme today. So the most important thing to keep in mind if you're using a dslr, is that your wider apertures, those smaller f numbers are going to help you to blur the background, and if there are lights in the background, you're then going to get that boca, those that round look, and that can provide a really interesting artsy element to your photos, and you can you can mimic this. Look in a couple of ways, if you have a point...

and shoot camera, you want to put it on your macro setting, and that macro setting is going teo teo, help you get some of that separation of the foreground from the background and blur. Uh, it's not going to get it exactly as if you had a dslr but it's going to get you close and if you have a an iphone or an android, any kind of phone that you're using there is an app called big winds and it allows you to pick the area that you want a blur after you've taken the photo so you can kind of create this effect. So then on the other side of your apertures with your lens, if you go to a large f stop like f twenty two now you're going to get a starlight effect and you're going to be able to use that creatively that flare in your photos on dh sometimes a flare can be really good. It could be really interesting and really change the way that your photo looks and that larger f number is also going to give you more and focus if you're taking a group shot than that really helps to get all the all the bodies and focus and then you know it's got to be said sometimes just have a blurry photo sometimes it's sometimes let the blur be the story, so I've been playing a lot lately with having a shutter speed that's too slow having letting, letting the movement, letting that really tell the story, and for this I think you can see it you can see the story in just how they're playing, you can still see her expression although it looks a little bit like she has four eyes, it adds something to it one of my favorite photographers david do sherman says I'm no longer asking are they sharp? I'm asking are they alive and I love that I love that you can see the life in the photo that's just really important to me then we've got to talk about it editing your photos how many of you edit your photos? All right, almost all of you what's your favorite at it what do you typically d'oh crop okay, so ukrop stuff out that you didn't want there in the first place or crop a different orientation both both okay, what about you always something up the exposure? I don't think of the exposure so frightening at a little bit, okay anyone else like either color pops or taking it black and white? Ok, so color pops so we increased the saturation a little bit or then or taking the color out entirely. So I like to edit most of my photos. I don't want to take a lot of time though I don't have time for that, so I want to stick to really quick process make it easy and this is for all of my photos what whatever a camera I might take them with so here is just an example of a cup of coffee and, you know, it's kind of interesting kind of, you know, its its there's their story there and we could leave it like this and it would be fine it would still help me remember the moment help me remember this particular cup of coffee that I didn't even drink I just wanted to try to create clouds in it that's all I was doing, I wanted a photo that correspondent the clouds in my coffee that was it, but it didn't really achieve what I was looking for and, you know, you go online and you see everyone's photos you're like, well, why did they get it? How did they get it? So then I just took it into editing software and now I have clouds in my coffee, which is what I wanted to do, so I did some of the very things that you said I cropped it, I changed the exposure a little bit, I give it give it a little pop of color and I did it with six steps and these are the same six steps I use with almost every photo that I take so we adjust the white balance and if you look at the top to the bottom, you'll notice that I warmed it up a little added a little bit more yellow to it then I adjusted the exposure so that I opened up the shadows a little bit, brightened it a little bit, then I adjusted the shadows some more, and then I increase the clarity and that clarity provides a more defined edge. So you want to be really careful that you don't increase the clarity too much on and you can do this in many, many programs will share a lift in the clarity is really the same across programs they use the same term, and then I cropped it to get a little bit tighter crop, and then I added the slight than yet just that little bit of black shadow around the edge and that's it. It took me less than five minutes t change it to a photo that I really then loved and achieved my clouds in my coffee goal, so for editing, you've got a few options I like on the computer side to use light room that's, that's, my go to photo photoshopped photo shop elements you khun dio all of those six things that we listed gimp is of on online editing option, as is pick monkey and photoshopped express editor and so those those are online and and I believe gimp and pick monkey or free so that that's always a nice option and then for phones after light is my absolute go to app for editing my my phone photos and all of those six steps again they're called the same thing you could go through the same steps in after light camera plus is more robust than after light and you can do the same things again plus a lot lot more big lens we mentioned for blurring the background and then pick tapped go is a really popular app to take the photo edited, be able to save your edits as a recipe and then posted or or save it and then pro can if you really are kind of app addicted and want to go all the way and have your phone work most like a dslr pro cam will give you that I'll give you lots of fun features and so there are lots of things that you can do just to change the look s o going from something that's just as I see it to something that is a little bit more aged a little bit more artistic and again just a personal preference just whatever you like to dio I think it's it's it's kind of a fun thing to be able to change it up some and then most importantly you've gotta let go of perfection. Yeah, I've taken a lot of photos and one day this just was not an inspired day the funny thing is this has turned out to be one of my favorite photos it is one of the few times I actually have photographed or captured my handwriting anywhere. I'm a digital scrapbook er so it's all in type, I rarely right on anything and anymore. I rarely right anywhere, you know, it's all of my phone or someplace else, so you don't even see my handwriting, so that captured it. So how do you let's let go of perfection when you think about your photos, when you think about how you handle your camera and how you go about editing, how do you avoid getting caught in that perfect trap? Uh, one day I was looking at my photos from five years ago, and all of these photos I have chosen not to scrap book because the kids weren't looking at the camera, right? There was a slight blur, the lighting wasn't right, just the list goes on and on and on, but what I noticed most five years later is that I loved these photos. I loved them, and I had never scrapped with them because they weren't perfect. And from that moment on, I never worried about it being perfect again, because I did not see the imperfection five years later. Absolutely, absolutely, I like to say that you need a cooling off period, and, in fact, I often tell people that's why they don't get their photos for two years, they have to cool off and I need to step away from the moment I took it and let that moment become special because if I if I if I print them right away, if I if I scrapbook them right away, then I see all the fault and I you know, whether that's the fault in the angle or the light or the subject or like you said, they're not looking in the right direction, really letting that go and that goes for just taking them a cz well, sometimes they're not going to look in the right direction. I was I was once at monterey, but they aquarium with my family and they have this display where little kids can use the scooper and they scoop the plankton that a whale would eat and the scooper is kind of supposed to be the whale. And there was this child is about to and he was so engrossed in scooping and you could just see it like every part of his little beings like scooping this plankton and the dad and it could've been mom, it could've been anybody was standing next to him saying, look at me, look at me, smile, smile look at me look at me and he was getting really frustrated that he just wouldn't turn and look and all I thought was you have missed this moment because you have this idea of the perfect photo which is the face looking into the camera smiling and that's not what it's about and if he had just captured that in three years, five years, ten years that would be a cherished photo and when that child's an adult that's going to be an awesome photo but he choose to make nothing absolutely nothing for that moment I actually took a picture I let it go way wa so I could get it so maybe some day we'll look for him we'll put out the plea on facebook so we can look at our photos and we can see lots of things wrong yeah like he plant in the dryer first of all, I sought tracy's face with three kids in the dryer though wow, that is crazy that is crazy and you know so we could look at it and how many things are wrong? Everything that I've talked about there's not good light it's not sharp there's a million things wrong but there are so many more that are right there absolutely so many more other right a bad photo than no photo absolutely absolutely so I want you to think about your bad photos I want you to think about your worst bad photo that is your best bad photo do you have one that comes to mind you did ideo I have won the first time my son after college uh, got his first shot from my oldest son and we're going to go visit him in washington, d c and I saw him across the platform and I took a picture of them because it just struck me how odd it was where he was now more like an equal he was his own adult, he was in his own adult world and the picture came out totally blurred because there was the best I could do there was no lighting and it's one of my favorite pictures I did scrapbook a page about it because even though it was very blurry, it just sort of added to the mood hey it's amazing anybody else having my daughter finally after a whole day of pictures going no that's a terrible picture it's so blurry and she was just not having any but it's you know it's one of those where you're like that's how she feels after and I've heard a lot of moms especially and I'm sure it goes from non moms as well say like you know my subject wouldn't cooperate and so I just deleted those photos and for me the photo that says this like that's the photo of the moment that is the story of right now and what a beautiful photo to scrapbook if that's the stage your child is in my child doesn't always look at the camera, I know it looks like he does, and he often does because I pay him, but not everyone is like that, and so we put that space. You let that time to let your photos simmer, let that happen and don't delete everything don't go through like a crazy woman taking getting rid of all of them right away, maybe don't print them all, maybe tagged them in a way so that you know where they are and you can go back, but don't don't get rid of them because there's really, really some beautiful stuff and and life is so amazingly precious and short that you don't know when that one photo that you talk is going to be the on ly photo my husband's aunt passed away last year, she had cancer came on very quickly. It was very shocking to all of us, she and she passed away very quickly and I was going through my photos, the ones that I hadn't deleted, and I have a lot that I haven't deleted. I take a lot of photos and I found her and it was the one photo of when she had visited us and she and my mother in law were just sitting and drinking margaritas at a restaurant, and they're looking at each other. And we know it's one of the last times that they were really together when she was healthy and it's it's not a great photo doesn't follow all of these things but it's an amazing moment and it's amazing story it's been good so anything, any other questions from you guys as it's been helpful to kind of see this because I know that we've mentioned that there's always a lot of photographers in our chat rooms a lot of people who take that very seriously but a lot of scrap bookers you know, maybe you don't focus as much on the quality of the photo so it has been helpful you guys well, I think it is that for me is I follow katrina's work so she's an often photographer but I don't try to compare myself to you my pictures are my pictures and they may get a couple that look as good as yours but it's not what I'm about it's about capturing my memories absolutely it's about capturing your daily life that's really the thing you don't have the same equipment you don't have the same life you don't have the same the subjects they're going or patient rents are sometimes you have a lot of fans in the chat room love your work and talking in great group group thing about how what you do in the way you put your stuff out and your inspirations and prompt so useful to them taking a lot of people here in iran done the chat room says that they're on day one hundred thirty nine of your three hundred sixty five photo project it's really amazing to have a picture every day this year yeah, and I think I know who that rhonda is. I'm guessing that maybe rhonda from el dorado hills on diff it is she is a perfect example of what everyday photography khun d'oh because she has just completely changed her photos into just artful, beautiful moments of her life on and that's for me that's what it's about it's about getting photos that you really love that really match your life, you know? And sometimes that means that you put yourself into the photo and I don't mean like the obnoxious selfie you all know what those are but really taking more time and thinking about how we present ourselves and and, you know, letting yourself be the subject, and in those one hundred thirty nine days many of the people who you're reading they've done that they're taking a challenge every month to put themselves in front of the camera and and we all know that's daunting it's terrifying to show ourselves, but I would love tohave those photos of my mother every day or every month from her life I'd love to have those photos of my grandmother, so I will take them for my son so he has them and he gets to see all me you know, that's okay came in now when you were talking about the picture that you know, it wasn't the best photo that you love this one just came in from jenny being and I want to share this they say have a picture of my six year old who was just done having his picture taken he's sitting on the couch facing away from me with his arms crossed I mean, a scrapbook page telling the story of how he went through this phase where he just did not want to ever have his picture taken on in that phase, she found her favorite picture of them thanks perfect and that that's the story that's absolutely the story that we're talking about isn't it lame? Thank you. I know everybody here is very grateful and I personally am extremely grateful because every time I hear you teach, I learn something new, it doesn't matter if I'm I'm tuning in for five minutes. We're reviewing one of the classes we've done together, but it just it just oozes out it just was there. So I want to thank you so much for that it's been wondering about thank you so it's a great hit teo here you talk about the stories in the photos because sometimes those stories the photo is enough. It will be. I've been talking a lot about story, and sometimes you don't need to add anything, mauritz told. And then sometimes you will want to tell the deeper story and it's, great to have all these options for you to be able to share your stories and in many different ways, because we can't scrapbook everything and the stronger photographers we are, the more that's going to support our storytelling. The stronger storytellers will be.