photography Archives | Page 7 of 8 | Kate's Point of View

Category: photography Page 7 of 8

Alpacas are cute

On July 18, 2011

My mom loves alpacas. Years ago for mother’s day Wonder Boy and I found the perfect gift for her – an opportunity to help on an alpaca farm during shearing day. It was really fun and we learned a lot.

This past weekend I visited Una Luna Alpaca Farm with my mom. It was crazy. The place had somewhere around 80 alpacas on their land – they were everywhere! What’s great is that one of the pastures is really the farm’s front yard. And I can assure you, their grass did not need cutting.

All of the alpacas had recently been sheared. The end results made for some funny hairdos. My favorite was this chappie who looked like a stoned surfer dude.

Another looked like he had an afro – check out the reddish-brown one in the back.

And then, of course, there were the babies. How do you not like baby alpacas?!?

One of the highlights of our visit for the alpacas was when the owners turned on the sprinkler, knowing it would get all of the animals to come nearer and get their photos taken. Apparently being an alpaca in the summer is hot business so several took turns either sitting directly on or standing right over the sprinkler head.

Photoshop Lesson #1 – Your Toolbar

By Kate

On July 13, 2011

In photography, technology, work

I mentioned earlier that I’m teaching an upcoming Photoshop course at work. I’m not an expert but I can make my way around the tool. I’m going to start sharing my class in pieces. I’ve been doing research throughout my planning to make sure I’m calling things by their proper names (most of the time) and not telling any bold-faced lies.

One basic element of Photoshop is the toolbar. I’ve been using Photoshop for more than 10 years now and, despite updates in newer versions, the toolbar retains the same basic elements in each version. While looking up the name of each item to make sure what I called it was legit (healing brush tool versus Band-Aid tool), I made an important discovery that seems so obvious now.

When you scroll over the items in your toolbar, their name pops up. It’s a great way to double check that what you are selecting is indeed the thing you were going for. What also pops up is a letter in parentheses. This letter is the shortcut for selecting the tool. All you need to do is select the letter (as long as you’re not using the Type Tool) and voila! your tool is selected.

I am in love with keyboard shortcuts so this has sort of blown my mind.

Below is a screenshot of my toolbar (from CS5) along with labels and explanations.

For each of the items that has a small black triangle next to it, you can click on the triangle to find other variations of that tool. For the tools above, their functions are as follows:

Rectangular Marquee Tool – Select part of your image, in the shape of a rectangle
Lasso Tool – A free form selection tool that allows you to select parts of your image in whatever shape
Crop Tool – Crop your image to your desired size and shape
Healing Brush Tool – Similar to the Clone Stamp, the Healing Brush allows you to copy pixels from one part of your image and smartly repair other parts
Clone Stamp Tool – Copy parts of your image over the top of others
Eraser Tool – Erase parts of your image
Smudge Tool – Smudge the pixels on part of your image to blur out imperfections or lines
Pen Tool – Use your mouse to draw or write on your image as with a pen
Path Selection Tool – I don’t use this nor do I have any idea what it really does so no explanation … sorry
Object Rotate Tool – This is only for 3D images, which I don’t touch so no explanation … sorry
Hand Tool – Manually move your image so you can work on different areas
Set Foreground Color – Select a color to be working with for type of the paintbrush; the foreground color is the active color
Move Tool – Move your image or parts of your image
Magic Wand Tool – A selection tool that lets you choose parts of your image based on color
Eyedropper Tool – Select the exact color from an image by clicking on it with the eyedropper
Brush Tool – “Paint” on or add color to your image
History Brush Tool – Works similarly to the Undo option in many programs such as Microsoft WordWord
Gradient Tool – Create a gradient of two colors (foreground and background colors) across your canvas
Dodge Tool – Lighten an area on your image
Horizontal Type Tool – Add text to your image
Rounded Rectangle Tool – Draw shapes on your image
Camera Rotate Tool – This is only for 3D images, which I don’t touch so no explanation … sorry
Zoom Tool – Enlarge your view of your image
Set Background Color –The background color won’t be used as frequently but, for instance, if you expand your canvas size, the background color will be the background color of your canvas

See something you disagree with or think is just plain wrong? Tell me! Seriously – I want to know.

Introducing Photoshop to Newbies

By Kate

On July 11, 2011

In photography, technology, work

I’m working on an introduction to Photoshop class I’ll be teaching later this summer for several of my co-workers. I am by no means an expert at Photoshop. Maybe an advanced novice? I used to sit next to several graphic designers at my last job and those ladies could fly through the Adobe Suite, using it to wield all sorts of power. I define my skill set as more of the putting-your-friend’s-head-on-someone-else’s-body variety. An import skill to have though, right?

The people with whom I will be working want a basic summary. I am trying to simplify this complex tool as much as I can without, I hope, dumbing it down too much. The topics I am going to cover in my class are:

Basics
Pictures for print versus web
Cropping and Resizing images
Balancing color
Using the Clone Tool
Color Match
Copy pieces from one image to another
Applying aftereffects

As I get each section ready I plan to post it here. If you have comments about what I share or suggestions of things that have helped you learn Photoshop more easily, I’d love to hear them. Also, if there was one thing you wish you could do with Photoshop, what would it be?

Scary Cats

By Kate

On July 7, 2011

In animals, classes, photography

At my photography class on Wednesday I sat next to a woman who saw me scrolling through pictures on my camera. There were photos I took at the animal rescue / clinic at which I volunteer so all images of cats. She asked me how many cats I had. I explained that not all of the cats in the photos were mine and that I had two (The Notorious B.I.G. and Addy). I then went to show her the funniest picture I took.

I am not making this up. She completely freaked out and covered her eyes saying she was scared of cats. Then she got up and moved her seat to the other side of the room. There were like 8 students in class so it was pretty noticeable. Cat hater.

I understand that cats can look creepy sometimes.

But those same cats can also be super cute.

Even Mr. Tongue has his handsome moments.

And a lot of cats are so much more scared of people than we can ever be of them. I was able to snap some good pictures of Wesley only because I poked my camera behind a shelf and luck struck.

Photography

By Kate

On July 6, 2011

In 100 List, classes, photography

I am loving my photography classes and very proud that my 100 List helped motivate me to take them. Each session we focus on something new and I always learn some new fact or skill. Last class we focused on metering. The teacher said this is a powerful tool. I think I need to play with it some more because in my hands it was a useless tool.

This week we learned about depth of field. I loved this because it’s something I play with anyway. I love taking pictures as up close as I can get. My zoom lens helps sometimes but mainly I just get all up some peoples’ and animals’ business. That’s what makes flowers so easy. They just sit there cooperatively.

I also continued my ironic streak of bug photos but it’s not quite as good as the others. The point of focus is about ½ and inch to the right of the critter. But now, thanks to my class, I can articulate what could be improved on the image.

My teacher would say that this spider photo is très boring because I have him centered. I get his point (now, thanks to the classes) but still like the picture.