Photocritic photography blog

So you’ve finally graduated from taking photos with a compact, and have your grubby little paws on a fantastic digital single-lens reflex. All good and well, but why don’t your pictures come out as fantastic as some of the ones you see on Flickr? Surely, they’re using the same camera as you - where are you going wrong?

That was essentially what Pieter asked me about this week. So, without further ado, 8 ways to make your photos jump off the screen. Read the rest of the article »

Movie audiences of the world are vastly and completely amazed by the beauty of the new movie 300. With its extremely distinctive style, quick-moving plot and — like Sin City, another of my favourites — relatively closely based on one of Frank Miller’s graphical novels, it’s got it goin’ on.

If you’ve seen the film, you can’t have failed to notice the amazing quality of the artwork involved: The CGI is amazing, of course, but even the live-action bits of the film is nothing short of stunning. So, how, exactly, can you recreate the effects? We interviewed graphic artist Jason Niedle to find out more… Read the rest of the article »

Photo editing falls into two categories: Adjustments, which affect the whole photograph (much like our introduction to contrast, using the levels tool, from yesterday), and spot editing, which affects a smaller part of an image. Any photo editing you do with brushes, selection tools etc would be a spot edit.

While spot editing can be useful, it’s adjustment editing which is the big advantage for most photographers. Exposure a little bit off? Fix it in Photoshop. White balance problem? Photoshop. Want your picture in black and white? Photos… you get the idea.

What most photographers don’t know, however, is that you can do a wide array of adjustment editing experiments without even touching the original photograph. You can do this by adding so-called adjustment layers. This is a layer added on a photo which affects all the layers underneath. The upside of using this technique is that you can turn adjustments layers on and off, you can change their order, and their parameters. The main effect is that it is much easier to experiment with your photos, in the hunt for finding a combination of adjustments that makes your photo perfect. Read the rest of the article »

Curves is one of the most powerful tools a photographer has in his or her arsenal. You can do a lot more with curves than you can do with the Levels tool. In fact, most photographers who embrace curves stop using the Levels tool altogether - although until you fully understand what Levels is, what it does, and how to use it, you’ll never be able to get the full potential out of the Curves tool either. Read the rest of the article »

According to a press release on the Adobe site, the company is about to release a Beta of Adobe Photoshop CS3… Read the rest of the article »

You can’t argue the fact that Photoshop is an incredibly important tool to photographers, so when I found more info about the upcoming Photoshop CS3, on Think Secret, I was incredibly excited. Sad, isn’t it? Read the rest of the article »

The Palette is your single most important point of contact with Adobe Photoshop. Your palette might look slightly different from the picture on the left, depending on your version of the software, but most of it will be very similar or the same.

Step 1 towards becoming a true Photoshop wizard is to master the tools - so here’s a rundown of all of them, what they do, and how they can help you. You’re welcome… Read the rest of the article »

So, you’re a fan of independent cinema, are you? How do you feel about turning your photos into what could have been still frames from an indie movie?

I found a tutorial that does just that over on Art World, but to be honest, I thought it wasn’t well enough thought through, and in addition, I immediately spotted a couple of possibilities for improvement… So here’s my take on the same subject! Read the rest of the article »

One of the first things I started doing when I started shooting digital images, was thinking of ways of doing digital double exposures - adding one part of an image to another - for a greater impact of my digital shots. It turned out to be relatively simple, but carrying high impact. All it takes is suitable photos, photoshop, and a bucket full of time…

Have you made any cool images using this method? Post them somewhere on the internet - your blog, perhaps - and add a link to the comments, so we can admire the photos! Read the rest of the article »

Adobe Photoshop is going to be your best buddy in the whole wide world, if you are working with photography to any degree.

In its simplest guise, Photoshop is great for doing simple things, such as correcting colours, cropping images, rotating them slightly, and adjusting contrast. From here on, you can do just about anything you can dream of with photos: Advanced image manipulation etc.

Because Photoshop is such an incredibly powerful package, it can also be downright scary, however… Read the rest of the article »