Tricks and Tips: Sunny 16

This photo was shot with the following:
f/16, ISO 400, shutter speed 400 on a 90mm macro lens

With summer droning on, I've been doing rather a lot of photos outdoors. The weather has been on-and-off between gorgeous and disastrously hot, with a heavy bias on the beautiful (especially in terms of skies). When the sun's out in full force, exposure can get tricky because of dark shadows and glare. But, there are ways around it! Because I've been shooting so much out doors compared to the rest of the year, it got me to thinking about my days in photography classes and the things I learned there.

Sitting in a small high school class room, surrounded by flip-top desks and gum smacking girls, I first learned about "Sunny Sixteen". Our instructor was a large man with a passion for the Wild West, buffalo riding and cameras. The room smelled like a mix of stop bath and cheap floral perfume that I will forever associate with the dark room, no matter how many times I enter a new one.

Digital Photography: Basic Dodge and Burn

A lot of lolitas have a bias against over-processing or editing their photos, but removing a blemish or two and enhancing your natural features for the sake of a nicer image can be done without a big production.

Every photographer has their personal techniques and preferences, in this series, I'll talk a little bit about my basic process for preparing and editing photos. These little tutorials are mostly for beginners, rather than Photoshop experts, but will become more advanced as they progress.

For this particular post, I will discuss a simple way to brighten your eyes and touch up your make up as well as hide wrinkles and creases.

Digital Photography: Simple Blemish Retouching

Removing basic blotches, blips, stray hairs and blemishes is a fast and easy process.

A lot of lolitas have a bias against over-processing or editing their photos, but removing a blemish or two for the sake of a nicer image can be done without a big production.

Every photographer has their personal techniques and preferences, in this series, I'll talk a little bit about my basic process for preparing and editing photos. These little tutorials are mostly for beginners, rather than Photoshop experts, but will become more advanced as they progress.

For this particular post, I will discuss a simple way to remove stray hairs that obscure the face as well as small blemishes, freckles and spots.

Digital Photography: Facing the Camera

Now and again, drama comes up in the lolita community about "over-shooping" or "over-processing" photos to look more appealing or visually pleasing. Everybody has a different tolerance level when it comes to digital retouching, and some people have incredibly strong opinions on the topic.

As a general rule, I like to avoid using Photoshop as much as possible. I prefer to cover any blemishes, even out skin tones and enhance other features through make-up rather than digital retouching. This is just my personal mode of operation, but I feel that it's a pretty sound one.

I have two reasons for this philosophy:

1. I can't control the photos that other people take of me, so I can't hide a shiny nose or zit from their lens unless it's under my make-up.
2. Editing photos is easier the closer to "perfect" the subject looks, which means concealing a blemish before the photos have been taken makes processing easier.

So, while I plan to talk a bit in the future about retouching photos to conceal unwanted elements, I thought it would be prudent to cover make-up in a general sense first.

Digital Photography: Watermarks

A watermark is a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light (or when viewed by reflected light, atop a dark background), caused by thickness or density variations in the paper.

- Wikipedia, Watermark

Though the original meaning of "watermark" has changed, its general purpose through time has remained the same. It a type of visual citation, which identifies the source of what you are looking at. In the case of paper, it tells you the mill the paper came from, and frequently tells you the type of paper and fiber content as well.

In the case of photography, watermarks work a little bit differently.

Because digital photography has grown in recent years in leaps and bounds, many photographers feel a need to protect their intellectual property by watermarking their images. These watermarks identify the image as having come from them, and prevents (to a degree) other people from using the images.