awesome shot. the quality is fantastic.

Pretty flower!
<333

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You are as sweet as a warm cookie, on a Sunday afternoon!

tanks...

tanks...

welcome

tanks...

nice photo for this camera....

....tanks

Here's a couple of Photoshopping tips, hope you find something you can use

1) Make it fit!
Always resize your picture so that it fits the screen. Even though you do lose a little details in a smaller version, it's worth it; you don't want the viewer to go scrolling around your picture to get an idea of how it looks like, but rather let the whole picture hit the viewer at first glance!

2) Capture those eyes!
If you have ever seen two of same photos, one with more contrast and one with lesser contrast, placed right next to eachother, you ALWAYS look at the one with the most contrast. Having said that, too much contrast can ruin the picture too, so it's basically a 'walking-on-the-edge-of-a-knife'-subject. If you turn up the contrast too much, you lose all the midtones - which definitely isn't good - and if you turn down the contrast too much, you have all too many midtones - which basically makes the photo dull to look at. So, basically, most photos that come out of the camera needs a nudge of contrast to get it just right, but not too much (we don't wanna do a roundhouse-kick to the face of the viewer, now do we?) Oh yeah, and one last thing: when uppening the contrast, pay attention to the lighting, since either you have to turn it up (in most cases, really) or down, to get the photo to look just right.


3) All the colours of the rainbow!
Colours will probably change if you add some more contrast (since contrast boosts colours too), but the original colours always look a little boring to my eyes. Ever tried messing around with the colour-curves in Photoshop? You can use them to produce really cool colour-effects, or simply boost the colours that you have already - along with the Saturation-tool (however, be careful when using that, since the more saturation you give it, the poorer the image-quality becomes. A little won't hurt, though). You could also trying making it black/white, with a tone - like sepia or something cool!

4) Clean-up!
Pay close attention to details, the little things in the picture that could distract eyes of the viewer - unwanted colour-differences, noise, dirt on the lense, light or dark spots, or simply things in the photo that could steal the view. A good example is one of my pictures, where I had a father and child standing on the street, looking at snow falling - but at their feet, there was a bright, yellow sodacan. That distracted my look, so I removed it. This can be done using the Healing Tool in Photoshop, or the Clone Stamp Tool (Healing Tool preferably, since the Clone Stamp leaves clear marks where it has been in use). In case you don't know how to use it, here's a few tips: If the thing is in an area that is kinda similar (like on a road, a one-coloured wall, or the like), hold ALT and click next to the thing you want healed out. This is where it will sample the background from. Next, click on the thing you want healed out, and simply 'paint' over it. When you release the mousebutton, Photoshop will automatically take a look around the area you painted over, and create an invisble 'patch' over it, making the object dissappear. If the thing is between light and dark areas (i.e. something sticking out of a dark jacket, when the background is light) it's a bit more tricky though: then, you have to make a selection of one of the areas to avoid the healing tool making strange gray-ish tones across the dark and light objects!

5.1) Dodge and burn!
When you crank up the contrast, you're almost certain to get some light and dark areas, that just seem TOO light and dark, and will steal the view (note: the eyes of the viewer are (in most cases) drawn to the brightest parts of you picture. This isn't the case 100% of the time, so just keep it in the back of your head ). To avoid areas getting too light, you can use the Burn Tool in Photoshop. If you know how to use it, just ignore the following couple of lines, but if you don't, here's a couple of guidelines: set the Exposure to only a couple of percent (5-10%), cause if you don't, the effect is gonna be all too clear. When your exposure is set, take the brush, and give it a couple of sweeps across the light area (remember to copy your Background Layer and do it on that, or else it won't do anything!). The area should be a bit darker then. The same can be used on areas that are too dark: just use the Dodge Tool instead (basically same guidelines as Burn Tool).

5.2) Show us those Curves!
The Dodge- and Burn-tools are quite effective, but can leave distincted marks, as I have recently found out the hard way... There is an alternative though; masks. For instance, if you're working with a photo where you can see a clear line between the sky and ground, try marking the sky with a selection - i.e. with the Polygon-tool (zoom in close and make precise markings, instead of just making a big square box - simply click each time you want another "point" added, and keep doing it till you're all the way around the thing you wanted to select, i. e. the sky, or an object) and then apply curves to that. REMEMBER to set the Feather to 1-3 (in the top menu) to avoid getting razor-sharp markings between your selections - without it, even having just a few pixels on the wrong side of the selection could end up looking really bad. Then do the same thing with the ground. That should allow you to make different contrasts between the two, resulting in a non-burned out sky and a non-black ground. Also, if you have something going in between the two (i.e. a person), try masking them out (select the curve-layer and click the Mask-button. Then use a black or white brush (with a low opacity or the likes, to get it smoother) and paint over the part where you do not want the Curve-layer to be part of the image).
I don't know if I explained it correctly here, since I don't have access to Photoshop right at this moment (my laptop recently died on me), but if you have any questions about it, just note me!

6) Sharp as a butcher's knife!
A picture has to be sharp (unless the point of the picture is NOT to be sharp). Not much to say about this, except too much sharpness is NOT good. Rather have your picture a little blurry, than over-sharp, since it (pardon my french) makes the quality of the photo look like effing crap!
You can sharpen it two ways; Unsharp Mask, or just Sharpen. I prefer to use Sharpen, but most people would probably disagree with me! If you DO use sharpen, and it looks a little TOO sharp, do as follows: Copy your background layer, use Sharpen, and turn down the Opacity until you think it's sharp, but doesn't get any messed up lines because of over-sharpening.

7) Eyecontact!
To give your photos a more 'punching' look, try adding a little vignetting (making the corners darker to guide the eyes of the viewer into your photo). If you already know how to, just ignore the following couple of lines. If not, here's a quick little walkthrough: Copy your Background Layer by dragging it onto the Create New Layer button >> drag an Elliptical Marquee Tool from the top left corner to the bottom right corner >> Hold ALT and click the Add Mask button >> Click on the Blending Mode (usually set to Normal - placed right above your layers) and set it to Multiply >> Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and set how blurry you want the edges to be (let it be somewhere around 100, or your edges will be too visible) >> Adjust the opacity of the copied background layer, to set how visible you want the vignetting to be.

8) Angle it!
Try a different angle. Maybe shoot from a lower angle, and aim higher, or shoot from a higher angle and aim lower. The usual angle may look boring, since it is something that everyone who knows the place have seen before. One of my teachers once said, that the job of a photographer is to shoot what people have already seen before; only in a way they have never seen - or even thought about seeing it.

9) Personalize!
Try putting a person in your photos. If you take a picture of a landspace, fine, it's a landscape. But if you put a person in it, it's not just landscape; it's a feeling. You can relate to it, you can imagine the dimensions. You can feel it. An actual person is - of course - not neccesary, but if your photos contains a mere hint of it - being a footprint, a situation containing human elements or something like that - it still gets a more personal feeling to it.

10) You be the judge.
Always remember, that the only person you have to answer to is yourself. If someone doesn't like a photo that you like, don't let them change your opinion. All of these things that I have just pointed out are only things that I think would make the picture look better - not neccesarily an official guideline. Forget about the rules of thirds, forget about classic looks: this is your picture, and no-one else's, and if you don't feel like following the rules, it's as simply as this: don't. Rules are a good thing to have in the back of your head, but never EVER let them control your freedom of photography.
Ever.


And ehm... yeah, that seems about it. Hope my little collection of tips here is a help to you.

I know it all seems pretty damn confusing, so remember, if you have any questions or the like, don't hesitate to note me - and you'll have an answer in a matter of hours (unless I'm having a hangover or something like that!)

- Lasse

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[link] - My Gallery
[link] - My .PSD-files