IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 |
(music playing)
| | 00:04 |
Hi, I'm Megan Andersen-Reed.
I'm a professional craft blogger,
| | 00:07 |
instructor, writer and photographer.
I've always loved taking photographs, but
| | 00:11 |
when I decided to make a living off my
first love, crafting, I knew I needed to
| | 00:14 |
step up my photography in a big way.
Making things by hand takes an awful lot
| | 00:20 |
of skill, care, time and practice, but
without a good photograph of your
| | 00:23 |
handiwork to convey all that, prospective
buyers will quickly move on to the next
| | 00:27 |
big thing.
One of the special things about handmade
| | 00:31 |
crafts is the feeling they give you.
Not necessarily the tactile experience of
| | 00:35 |
the fibers against your skin, but the
feeling you get when you look at a
| | 00:38 |
handcrafted hat, a bowl, a candle,
etcetera.
| | 00:42 |
And you immediately understand where it
was made, why, and how.
| | 00:46 |
There's a story behind every project.
And with several photographic techniques
| | 00:50 |
and best practices, like how to read and
understand light, finding the ideal
| | 00:54 |
backdrop, or adding the element of
motion.
| | 00:57 |
You can provide that all-important,
in-person feeling through a still image.
| | 01:02 |
In these lessons, I'll take you step by
step through the advanced techniques of
| | 01:05 |
craft photography.
We'll dive deep into camera settings,
| | 01:09 |
composition and staging.
We'll talk about color and light, and how
| | 01:13 |
to work around some very common
frustrations like greenish yellow hues
| | 01:16 |
from fluorescent lighting and distracting
reflections on shiny surfaces.
| | 01:22 |
In fact, I'll share some great tips for
staging crafts of all different textures.
| | 01:27 |
We'll talk about different lens options
and effects, animate some still images,
| | 01:30 |
working low light, movie light, and I'll
even show you some of my favorite image
| | 01:34 |
editing tips and techniques.
We'll even discuss shooting photos for
| | 01:40 |
clients and creating portfolios.
Most the images I use in these lessons
| | 01:43 |
are included in the project files folder
so you can follow along and practice the
| | 01:47 |
techniques we'll learn.
Whether you are trying to improve the
| | 01:51 |
quality of your craft photos to sell or
blog about, or looking for ways to really
| | 01:54 |
take your craft photography to the next
level.
| | 01:57 |
I hope that after watching these lessons,
you'll be excited to try out and practice
| | 02:00 |
the techniques I've covered here.
I've really enjoyed creating these video
| | 02:05 |
tutorials and I hope you find them
informative and interesting.
| | 02:09 |
Thanks.
| | 02:09 |
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|
|
1. Beyond the Basic Camera SettingsFoundations of composition and staging| 00:01 |
Understanding the foundations of
composition and how to really use staging
| | 00:06 |
to your advantage are going to be things
that really help you bring out the
| | 00:10 |
personality and the care that you've put
into your handmade crafts.
| | 00:17 |
So In this movie, we're just going to
briefly cover some of the composition
| | 00:21 |
techniques that are taught in depth
within the beginning craft photography course.
| | 00:28 |
So, if any of these terms and techniques
are either unfamiliar to you or if you
| | 00:32 |
are looking for a refresher course, then
I would check out maybe the beginning
| | 00:36 |
craft photography class that I have also
recorded.
| | 00:41 |
That said, if you're not looking for a
refresher, I'm just going to quickly go
| | 00:44 |
over a couple of the foundations of
composition that I like to use just to
| | 00:48 |
really highlight my crafts.
And the first one I want to discuss is framing.
| | 00:55 |
And so, in this photograph on your screen
right now, I have an image of a pumpkin
| | 00:59 |
puzzle I created, and I frame this image
in such a way that it's almost completely
| | 01:03 |
out of the frame when you look through
the viewfinder.
| | 01:10 |
Now, I wanted to do that because I liked
the bright vibrant colors of the craft.
| | 01:15 |
But I also wanted to shoot it at this
angle.
| | 01:17 |
So that you could see it's got a little
bit of dimension and depth.
| | 01:21 |
And you'll notice, too, that there's a
piece missing.
| | 01:23 |
So you can see that it's a layered craft
piece.
| | 01:26 |
You can also see some little detail over
here.
| | 01:28 |
So you get a sense for how it's made.
But after taking several photographs of
| | 01:34 |
this individual craft, this flat craft.
Framing became a very important component
| | 01:40 |
when it came to finding the perfect
composition to highlight this particular craft.
| | 01:47 |
Now for another craft I have here, this
Valentine's Day pop-up card, this has a
| | 01:50 |
little bit of dimension to it and since
it's a lighter craft I shot it against a
| | 01:53 |
very dark background; I wanted to show
that it was in the process of popping up.
| | 02:00 |
And as I did that, I created this really
interesting negative space.
| | 02:05 |
And negative space is another foundation
of composition that's really going to
| | 02:09 |
help you set off your craft if you know
how to use it.
| | 02:14 |
In my opinion it's underutilized, but I
think that using negative space when it's
| | 02:18 |
appropriate is a really cool way to
offset and highlight some of the features
| | 02:21 |
of your individual crafts.
Now, while framing has a lot to do with
| | 02:27 |
how you hold the camera, and creating
negative space has a lot to do with the
| | 02:31 |
contrast of light and the background you
choose.
| | 02:36 |
When you create lines with your craft,
you're physically staging them in a way
| | 02:40 |
that when you look through the
viewfinder, your viewer's eye is going to
| | 02:44 |
travel through the composition of your
image.
| | 02:49 |
And I've got an example of that on screen
right now.
| | 02:51 |
I've made these little snail shell
candles.
| | 02:54 |
And I wanted to set them up just to kind
of bring the viewer's eye all the way
| | 02:57 |
through the composition.
I also really like using lines in order
| | 03:01 |
to show off, or highlight, a collection
of crafts that I've made, so if I have
| | 03:05 |
more than one or two, I'll often just
line them up so that I can show off how
| | 03:09 |
many there are.
So creating lines is actually something
| | 03:14 |
that you physically need to do.
It's physically staged when you are
| | 03:18 |
setting up the shot.
And sometimes that can really bring an
| | 03:22 |
extra component of artistic quality to
the photograph.
| | 03:27 |
Because you are an active participant.
You 're deciding where each individual
| | 03:32 |
craft needs to go.
So by creating lines, you are, you're
| | 03:36 |
participating even more within your craft
photography.
| | 03:40 |
Finally, by using the rule of thirds.
You can create a really harmonious and
| | 03:46 |
balanced composition of your crafts.
And it does a very, very powerful job
| | 03:52 |
leading the viewer's eye right to the
focal point.
| | 03:57 |
Right to the, the focus of your craft.
And that can be a very powerful thing.
| | 04:02 |
It's very easy to spot and to use once
you understand it.
| | 04:05 |
So that's just one of the many
composition techniques that you can use
| | 04:09 |
to improve your craft photography.
And again, if any of these terms are
| | 04:14 |
slightly unfamiliar, or you could use a
refresher course and really go in depth
| | 04:18 |
with each of these items, then I would
encourage you to check out the beginning
| | 04:21 |
course on craft photography.
| | 04:25 |
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| Foundations of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed| 00:00 |
By understanding the foundations of
Aperture, ISO, and Shutter Speed, you'll
| | 00:04 |
be prepared for any and every
photographic challenge.
| | 00:08 |
In this video, I'm going to review these
three topics.
| | 00:11 |
Now, if you feel like you need a more in
depth look at Aperture, Shutter Speed and
| | 00:15 |
ISO, or if you feel like you need a
refresher course perhaps.
| | 00:20 |
I would suggest checking out the
Beginning Craft Photography course that I
| | 00:24 |
recorded, as well as this one.
Now, if you think that you've got a good
| | 00:29 |
grasp, then that's terrific.
I'm just going to move on and just very
| | 00:33 |
briefly cover each of these three items
that makes up the exposure triangle, and
| | 00:37 |
how it reflects on your craft
photography.
| | 00:41 |
The first example we're looking at right
now is an image of some felted heart pins
| | 00:45 |
that I created.
And the reason I've got this photo up
| | 00:49 |
right now is because it's a great example
of a photograph with really, really deep
| | 00:52 |
depth of field.
Now, if we wanted to see a photograph of
| | 00:57 |
the exact same scenario with a very
shallow depth of field, we would look at this.
| | 01:03 |
Now, of course, to achieve this very
shallow depth of field, the only thing we
| | 01:06 |
did was really change the Aperture
Setting on our camera.
| | 01:11 |
Everything else stayed the same.
The Shutter Speed, the ISO, those were constant.
| | 01:15 |
But by changing the Aperture, we were
able to get this nice shallow depth of
| | 01:18 |
field where the foreground is out of
focus, as well as the background.
| | 01:22 |
And really, the focus of the image is
just the craft itself.
| | 01:26 |
And while knowing how to adjust your
Aperture can change your depth of field,
| | 01:29 |
knowing how to change your ISO can really
give you great results in low lighting.
| | 01:35 |
For example, this pair of high heels was
shot in a room with very, very limited light.
| | 01:40 |
There was really only one light source.
And by kicking up the ISO, we were able
| | 01:45 |
to get a really nice detailed shot of the
craft.
| | 01:49 |
So, understanding how your ISO works can
really help you achieve those nice,
| | 01:53 |
finished craft photographs regardless of
the lighting situation.
| | 01:58 |
But there are a few things to think
about when you're using high ISO.
| | 02:02 |
And if you don't feel super comfortable
changing your ISO, you might want to
| | 02:05 |
check out the beginner course.
But for everybody else, if you feel
| | 02:10 |
comfortable using your ISO, you know
which situations you need to change it in.
| | 02:15 |
And what you want to look out for when
you're using it, then we'll move right
| | 02:18 |
along to the third factor in getting
great exposure, which is Shutter Speed.
| | 02:23 |
And of course, Shutter Speed does control
time.
| | 02:26 |
So, with a good understanding of how to
use Shutter Speed, you can show the
| | 02:30 |
movement of a craft.
And that's always a great thing if you're
| | 02:34 |
selling or just blogging about a craft
that does have moving parts.
| | 02:38 |
Showing off those moving parts is a
really cool technique, and using Shutter
| | 02:42 |
Speed to your full advantage is really
going to get you some exciting shots.
| | 02:47 |
So, these are the foundations of getting
really good exposure, understanding ISO,
| | 02:51 |
Aperture and Shutter Speed.
And how you would use each one in
| | 02:54 |
different situations to get the most out
of your craft photography.
| | 02:58 |
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| Camera Raw: What? when? why?| 00:01 |
I recently shot a craft.
I was doing an article for a magazine,
| | 00:05 |
and the theme was birthday crafts.
So, the craft that I had set up was this
| | 00:09 |
really cool banner.
We figured out a way to make these two
| | 00:13 |
posts, stick it in the ground.
And the whole point was to thave this big
| | 00:17 |
birthday banner so that the birthday boy
could run through it, break through it.
| | 00:21 |
And just have a very exciting way to
enter his birthday party.
| | 00:25 |
It was really cool.
But since we had to stick the banner in
| | 00:28 |
the ground and keep it in a static
position, we were kind of at the mercy of
| | 00:32 |
all the light around us.
So, as we were taking pictures, we
| | 00:37 |
noticed that this huge shadow started
moving over the banner.
| | 00:41 |
And it got very, very bright behind where
the birthday boy was going to be.
| | 00:47 |
In that situation, you really have to
think about various exposure options but
| | 00:52 |
one great solution for kind of tricky
lighting is shooting in raw.
| | 00:57 |
So, most, or actually all digital SLRs
have the capability of shooting in raw.
| | 01:03 |
And what that is, it's basically a way
for your camera to receive all of the
| | 01:08 |
light information into its digital sensor
and give you that exact same raw data.
| | 01:15 |
When we normally shoot crafts, we shoot
in JPEG.
| | 01:18 |
And JPEG is great.
But it does a lot of compression in your camera.
| | 01:23 |
The camera itself is shooting in raw.
But when you flip the switch and choose
| | 01:26 |
to shoot in JPEG, your camera is deciding
to make all of these various compression changes.
| | 01:32 |
It's accounting white balance, it's
accounting for color saturation.
| | 01:36 |
There's a lot of things going on behind
the scenes to give you your JPG.
| | 01:40 |
And what's great about that is that you
can shoot a ton of pictures on one
| | 01:43 |
individual card.
But when you're shooting in raw, you're
| | 01:47 |
getting exactly what the camera saw.
And you have this huge file with so much data.
| | 01:55 |
But it's up to you to figure out how to
process it.
| | 01:57 |
So, in the case of the birthday banner,
since the lighting was so tricky, we
| | 02:02 |
decided to shoot with raw so we could
capture as much of that data as possible.
| | 02:08 |
Now, the thing with shooting in raw is
that you can't just plug your camera into
| | 02:12 |
your computer and print that photo.
A raw image is kind of like an image.
| | 02:17 |
Well, it's kind of like a photographic
negative, if you remember shooting in film.
| | 02:23 |
That information is there, but it's up to
you to develop it in your perfect
| | 02:27 |
aesthetic way.
And the cool thing about raw also is that
| | 02:31 |
when you are editing it in your software
afterwards, the raw file actually isn't compromised.
| | 02:38 |
You can take one raw file and manipulate
it in several different ways, and all
| | 02:42 |
that original data stays intact.
You do actually need to have a special
| | 02:48 |
application to process a raw image.
You can't just pop it into iPhoto or
| | 02:54 |
Photoshop Elements, I'm not sure.
But the, the Adobe Photoshop CS5 and
| | 03:00 |
higher does have a raw converter built
in.
| | 03:04 |
If you don't have Photoshop at all or if
you have a lower version of Photoshop,
| | 03:07 |
then you might want to look online.
There are bunch of different plugins and
| | 03:11 |
different applications that you can buy
to, to process your raw file.
| | 03:15 |
I'm going to take a shot over here,
though.
| | 03:17 |
Because while I don't have a craft in
front of me, I do, I am getting some
| | 03:20 |
interesting different shades of grey.
And the light is hitting the the bark of
| | 03:26 |
this tree in an interesting way.
So, I'm going to take a couple of shots.
| | 03:30 |
And then, have fun processing those
later.
| | 03:32 |
It's not a craft, but it's just a fun way
to show you the capabilities of shooting
| | 03:35 |
in raw.
So, let's zoom in here and see what we
| | 03:38 |
can get.
Now, I'm shooting and my image is just a
| | 03:43 |
little bit darker than I'd like.
So, I'm just going to change my setting a
| | 03:48 |
little bit.
But the great thing about raw is that all
| | 03:52 |
of the data that is being captured, right
here, I can manipulate later.
| | 03:57 |
I can change, I can boost the contrast.
I can make the colors really pop, and
| | 04:02 |
it's all because everything is in my
file.
| | 04:05 |
So, the last thing I'm going to tell you
is that when you're shooting in raw, if
| | 04:09 |
you are not really sure you want to have
that huge file because you don't know if
| | 04:13 |
it's worth it or not.
You don't know if that raw file is really
| | 04:19 |
robust enough for you to decide to make
the decision to just go from JPEG to raw.
| | 04:25 |
There is an option on your, on your
camera to shoot in raw and JPEG.
| | 04:30 |
So, what's cool about that is that you
can shoot in raw, but that it also gives
| | 04:33 |
you a JPEG file in addition so you can
play with both of those independently.
| | 04:37 |
It's up to you.
You can just switch it to raw and just
| | 04:40 |
shoot in raw, you can stay in JPEG.
Or if you want to try it out, you can
| | 04:44 |
have that other option to shoot both and
then see the difference for yourself.
| | 04:49 |
It makes a really challenging craft photo
setting a little bit easier to manage,
| | 04:52 |
and it's a pretty cool tool.
Camera Raw.
| | 05:06 |
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| How bracketing can save your exposure| 00:00 |
Bracketing is a technique that
photographers will use to ensure that
| | 00:04 |
they're getting a good exposure in their
photography.
| | 00:08 |
And in our case, craft photography.
So, I have an image here on the screen
| | 00:13 |
that I took several photographs of before
I found my perfect exposure.
| | 00:18 |
And I know that I have a great exposure
because if I open up the Curve palette, I
| | 00:22 |
can see that it's got distribution
between dark and light.
| | 00:27 |
And if I open up my levels, I can also
see here that in this histogram, there's
| | 00:31 |
a nice distribution between the darks and
the lights in this image.
| | 00:35 |
But how did I achieve this?
It took me awhile to figure out exactly
| | 00:39 |
what exposure I wanted to get when I was
shooting these rings.
| | 00:43 |
Because I was in a very dark wooded area,
and there was dappled light.
| | 00:48 |
So, when you're in a situation with
tricky lighting, bracketing is a
| | 00:51 |
technique that can help you find your
perfect exposure with just a few simple steps.
| | 00:57 |
Now, the first image I took of these
rings is obviously way too dark.
| | 01:02 |
It's basically unusable.
But there's some interesting information
| | 01:07 |
here, and that helps me find out where I
am in my exposure spectrum, and what I
| | 01:12 |
need to change.
By paying attention to my F-Stop, my ISO,
| | 01:17 |
and my Shutter Speed, I can figure out
exactly which way I want to go to get a
| | 01:21 |
lighter brighter image.
So, I was shooting on a tripod.
| | 01:26 |
Because again, it was a very dark area.
And I had my F-Stop fixed at 5.0.
| | 01:32 |
I wanted a nice wide Aperture so I could
get a good depth of field.
| | 01:36 |
I kept my ISO at 100 just because I
wanted to keep that constant as well, and
| | 01:40 |
I only wanted to focus on changing the
Shutter Speed.
| | 01:44 |
So, my first image had a relatively quick
Shutter Speed, and this was my result.
| | 01:49 |
So I had a decision to make, too dark,
what do I do?
| | 01:52 |
Well, I wanted to slow down my Shutter
Speed a little bit.
| | 01:56 |
And it's okay to do this because I was
shooting on a tripod.
| | 01:59 |
So, it wasn't going to get terribly
shaky.
| | 02:02 |
So, the next image that I took is a
little bit brighter.
| | 02:05 |
And that's because I just slowed down my
Shutter Speed just a little bit.
| | 02:09 |
You can see now I'm shooting at a Shutter
Speed of 100 and 25th of a second.
| | 02:14 |
So, just a little bit slower but a
considerable amount of brightness has
| | 02:18 |
increased here.
So, it's okay but not great, so we need
| | 02:21 |
to slow down the Shutter Speed even more.
Now, I mean business.
| | 02:27 |
I didn't want to waste any more time just
going down increment by increment, just
| | 02:30 |
slowly changing my Shutter Speed.
So, I thought I'd really give it a good
| | 02:34 |
crank and see what I got.
So, this is a much slower Shutter Speed
| | 02:38 |
I'm shooting at a 40th of a second, and I
really like what I'm seeing.
| | 02:42 |
I'm just going to do a little bit more
bracketing to see if I can get an even
| | 02:45 |
better exposure.
But from where I'm sitting now, I like
| | 02:48 |
the way it looks, and I feel like I've
got a very good balance of dark darks and
| | 02:51 |
light lights.
But I'm just going to take another shot
| | 02:54 |
and see if I even like it better.
And I could push the Shutter Speed even
| | 02:58 |
slower and get into an extremely over
exposed bracketing if I wanted to show
| | 03:02 |
the full, full range.
From very, very over exposed to very,
| | 03:07 |
very under exposed and vice versa.
But for the sake of this movie, we'll
| | 03:11 |
just try one more setting and see if
that's going to do the trick for us.
| | 03:17 |
Now, in my opinion it does.
I've slowed down the Shutter Speed just a
| | 03:21 |
little bit more, and here I am at 1 32nd
Shutter Speed, and I really like what I'm
| | 03:24 |
seeing here.
It's got a nice exposure.
| | 03:28 |
I see a lot of dark darks, I see some
nice light lights, but I'm not losing any
| | 03:31 |
information, I'm not losing any data.
Now, I'm keeping these settings on screen
| | 03:35 |
just for the purpose of illustrating how
we were changing the settings while we
| | 03:39 |
were shooting.
But this certainly is not something that
| | 03:42 |
you should just live by.
You know, you shouldn't just say oh,
| | 03:46 |
well, I'm shooting in the forest, so of
course, I need to have F-5, ISO 100, and
| | 03:50 |
1 32nd Shutter Speed.
That's not, that's not always going to be
| | 03:55 |
the case.
And in fact, while I was shooting this
| | 03:58 |
series, the sun was changing, dappled
light was, was a factor.
| | 04:02 |
Areas of shade would pass through the
frame.
| | 04:05 |
Areas of light would pass through the
frame.
| | 04:06 |
So, while I think that this image looks
better than it did at a 40th of a second,
| | 04:11 |
1 40th of a second also looked a little
bit too bright for me.
| | 04:17 |
So, that could have been because things
were changing, maybe it was brighter when
| | 04:22 |
I snapped that shot in that instant.
That's the thing with bracketing your
| | 04:27 |
elements are always going to change.
Your light is always going to be a
| | 04:31 |
variable and the only thing that you have
to have as a constant is your F-Stop and
| | 04:35 |
your ISO.
You just change your Shutter Speed, then
| | 04:39 |
that's going to help you take in
different amount of light and really try
| | 04:42 |
and find a happy medium.
Where you're getting what you think is a
| | 04:46 |
good exposure.
Also, you might not think that the image
| | 04:50 |
that you've just taken on your camera is
the perfect image until you get back and
| | 04:54 |
download it to your computer.
It might look much better on screen than
| | 04:59 |
you thought it did in your View Finder or
vice versa.
| | 05:02 |
So definitely, when you're shooting when
you're looking for your perfect exposure,
| | 05:07 |
do try bracketing.
It's an invaluable way to just find your
| | 05:11 |
perfect exposure.
And just remember that when you go out
| | 05:14 |
and you're in a situation where your
lighting is uncertain, or things are changing.
| | 05:19 |
If you take your first photograph and
it's extremely over exposed or underexposed.
| | 05:24 |
There's no need to panic.
It happens to all of us.
| | 05:26 |
Just change your Shutter Speed one way or
the other to see what kind of new results
| | 05:29 |
you're going to get.
It's called Bracketing, and everybody
| | 05:33 |
does it.
And it's a really helpful tool.
| | 05:35 |
So hopefully, bracketing will help you
find your perfect exposure when you're in
| | 05:39 |
situations with less than perfect light
or with light that's changing.
| | 05:44 |
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| Understanding key tones| 00:02 |
Using key photography, referring to high
key and low key, is a way to get really
| | 00:06 |
cool results out of your craft
photography.
| | 00:10 |
Now, on screen right now, we have an
example of low key photography.
| | 00:15 |
And all that really means is that all the
midtones.
| | 00:20 |
All the middle grays, all the middle
tones in your photo are pushed down
| | 00:24 |
towards a darker range.
And that can happen in a couple of ways.
| | 00:31 |
You can either make this happen within
your camera or you work on your image in
| | 00:36 |
post production in some image editing
software after you've taken your photographs.
| | 00:43 |
It's much easier to achieve a nice high
key or low key image as you're taking it,
| | 00:47 |
but in this movie I'm going to show you
how I've achieved a high key and low key
| | 00:52 |
image both in the camera and on the
computer.
| | 00:58 |
Now, the image I have onscreen is one
that I took by adjusting my camera settings.
| | 01:05 |
I wanted to get a very low key picture,
meaning I didn't want a lot of mid tones.
| | 01:09 |
I wanted a very dark frame around the
image and to achieve that, I set my
| | 01:13 |
camera to a few different settings, and
made sure that my lighting and background
| | 01:18 |
were appropriate to get these results.
So here are the settings I used to get
| | 01:25 |
this nice, dark background, with these
very low key tones.
| | 01:31 |
I was shooting at f 1.8, so I had a nice
wide aperture, and my shutter speed was
| | 01:36 |
set to 1 200th of a second.
Now, since I was inside, I wanted to use
| | 01:42 |
a little bit of a higher ISO, just to
increase my light sensitivity, so that
| | 01:46 |
was at 400, and I was shooting with my 50
millimeter lens the lighting I was using
| | 01:50 |
was natural and diffused light.
And most importantly, I was shooting on a
| | 01:57 |
black background.
Now let me just talk about the lighting
| | 02:00 |
that was going on in the kitchen that I
was shooting in.
| | 02:05 |
I set up my little portable studio in my
kitchen.
| | 02:08 |
And I had a black matte background.
But because there was so much light in
| | 02:14 |
the room, the background was being lit in
addition to the craft itself.
| | 02:20 |
So, that black background was really
popping out in the photograph.
| | 02:25 |
Right away, I could see that my black
background was looking really nice.
| | 02:30 |
Now, if I were lighting this scene with
an actual lighting setup, I would have
| | 02:34 |
one key light.
And that would be set to illuminate my
| | 02:38 |
backdrop so that the black really did
stand out.
| | 02:41 |
But I would want to keep my craft a few
feet away from it at least.
| | 02:45 |
Just so not a lot of light is reflecting
off the background and hitting my craft.
| | 02:50 |
Again, I wasn't using a lighting set up.
I was just using the light from the kitchen.
| | 02:54 |
It was nice and bright but I had my
tripod out.
| | 02:58 |
I had everything I needed as far as the
aperture setting and the shutter speed.
| | 03:03 |
And these were the results I got.
Now, this isn't exactly what I got
| | 03:06 |
straight out of the camera.
I did do a tiny bit of post production.
| | 03:10 |
So I'm going to show you what the
original photograph looked like.
| | 03:14 |
And when I switch to it, you can see it's
not that dramatically different.
| | 03:19 |
There is a little shadow being cast from,
the natural light, but overall you get a
| | 03:23 |
sense of where the background is.
The craft is in focus, and, the only
| | 03:28 |
contrast really apparent, is that of the
craft itself.
| | 03:35 |
And the dark, black background.
Not a lot of mid-tones going on.
| | 03:39 |
Although, you can very clearly see the
definition of the outline of the craft.
| | 03:43 |
So that's important.
Again, this is the original image.
| | 03:47 |
And this is just the image that I bumped
the contrast a little bit more with my
| | 03:52 |
curves level.
So The post production that I did on this
| | 03:57 |
image was very, very minimal.
All I really did was just drag my Curves
| | 04:01 |
tool over to the right just a tiny bit to
increase the black and give it a more
| | 04:06 |
dramatic look.
But you can create a key tone using
| | 04:11 |
Photoshop, or using your favorite image
editing software.
| | 04:16 |
But I have to warn you, it's not that
easy.
| | 04:19 |
I would much rather just set my
apperture, set my shutter speed, and Set
| | 04:23 |
up an appropriate lighting setting so
that I can get a really nice high or low
| | 04:27 |
key tone in the camera.
And so, I took another photograph of this
| | 04:32 |
fish with a white background and I'm
going to show you that as well.
| | 04:37 |
First, I'm going to start out with just
the raw capture that I got, just the.
| | 04:41 |
The image of my craft, my little needle
felted fishy in a jar aquarium shot on a
| | 04:46 |
white background.
Now when I look at this I don't think
| | 04:51 |
high key.
When I think of high key photography it's
| | 04:55 |
all white, very clean, crisp background.
It's not over exposed but it's very
| | 05:01 |
etheral looking, and just very crisp, and
clear.
| | 05:05 |
Now you can tell this has a bit of blue
cast to it.
| | 05:09 |
And it's just not quite as bright as I
would like.
| | 05:12 |
If I really wanted to have a nice high
key tone with this image, I probably
| | 05:16 |
should have lit it a lot better, instead
of just relying on natural light.
| | 05:21 |
So that's the drawback of shooting with
natural light.
| | 05:24 |
Now, I'm just going to show you really
quickly a couple of things that I did to
| | 05:28 |
get this image.
So this is my high key fish image.
| | 05:34 |
And this actually took a great deal of
time with me just fiddling with settings,
| | 05:38 |
with saturation, with curves.
I really spent a lot of time masking out
| | 05:44 |
certain areas because I wanted to get a
nice, clean, crisp White image with a
| | 05:48 |
nice defined line around the jar but
without all that blue haze.
| | 05:55 |
So it did take a while in post
production.
| | 05:58 |
In fact, I'm not going to show you every
single step because this would end up
| | 06:02 |
being quite a long video but I will show
you using my original Capture of the fish
| | 06:07 |
on the white background, a few steps, a
few little tricks to making your already
| | 06:11 |
light photograph a high key photograph.
And again, I just want to say that I
| | 06:19 |
would rather be taking this photograph in
my camera, with the proper settings, but
| | 06:23 |
if you've taken an image and it's got a
very bright tone, you can in some cases
| | 06:26 |
Where you've got this nice clean
background.
| | 06:31 |
Really bump up those midtones, those key
tones to get a nice high key craft photo.
| | 06:39 |
So let's take a look at a couple of those
tips right now.
| | 06:43 |
So here's my original capture and there
were a couple of things that I wanted to
| | 06:46 |
do to make this a very nice high key
image.
| | 06:50 |
I rotated my image and I wanted to adjust
the saturation.
| | 06:54 |
So, I went Image, Adjustments > Hue >
Saturation.
| | 06:58 |
And when that little panel pops up, you
can adjust the saturation by this middle
| | 07:02 |
slider, just sliding it one way or
another, almost to the point where there
| | 07:05 |
is absolutely no color in it at all.
So it's up to you to decide how saturated
| | 07:13 |
or unsatruated your image is, but I ended
up going with something around this area.
| | 07:19 |
Now, my next step was to adjust the
curves within the Adjustment layer, and I
| | 07:23 |
wanted to work within the Adjustment
layer or the Adjustment palette so that I
| | 07:27 |
could keep these background images pure
and not actually degrade the content that
| | 07:32 |
came straight out of my camera.
So you can see that I just pushed my
| | 07:39 |
mid-tones straight up.
I brought in some brightness here.
| | 07:43 |
And I'm going to turn on this layer and
show you how much brighter this image got.
| | 07:47 |
Now that's really bright.
But when that happens, I'm noticing that
| | 07:51 |
my color is now off.
And I know that I desaturated my image
| | 07:55 |
but I don't want it to look unfinished.
I'm trying to go for a high key image.
| | 08:00 |
And if my color is off then this whole
thing is just going to look wrong.
| | 08:05 |
So the last thing I did was balanced out
my color by using this middle eye tone
| | 08:09 |
eyedropper and making a selection of the
background or an area that was middle
| | 08:14 |
grey and when I did that I got a much
warmer look.
| | 08:19 |
I got a warmer feeling.
This I was much happier with.
| | 08:24 |
I can still see the definition here
around my jar.
| | 08:27 |
And my fishy still looks nice.
And overall it's got a very etherial.
| | 08:32 |
Very white bright background.
But the only area that's really missing
| | 08:36 |
any data.
It's this one.
| | 08:38 |
The little area of reflection.
And frankly I think that, that was yup.
| | 08:41 |
That was there when I first took my
image, so I'm okay with this, and I'm
| | 08:45 |
just going to go ahead and give this a
crop so that we can get our little
| | 08:48 |
rotated boo boo out of the way.
And that is all I needed to do.
| | 08:58 |
Now there are a few other tricks if this
doesn't give you the result you want.
| | 09:02 |
I would also suggest that you play around
with Masking, you could try masking out
| | 09:06 |
certain areas and brightening up your
image that way.
| | 09:11 |
You can of course come to the Adjustments
panel, and just scroll through here, see
| | 09:14 |
if you want to change the exposure.
Sometimes overexposing your image by one
| | 09:19 |
or two steps will give you a nicer high
key image, you just want to be careful
| | 09:23 |
that you're not getting a lot of
clipping.
| | 09:28 |
You don't want to lose a lot of data.
So, it might seem like there's a whole
| | 09:32 |
combination of things to try and
experiment with if you're going for a
| | 09:35 |
high key image in post production, and
that's true.
| | 09:39 |
So that's again why I would say
definitely try to achieve your high and
| | 09:43 |
low key photography, just by using an
appropriate background and the correct
| | 09:47 |
exposure to get the look that you're
going for.
| | 09:52 |
It is a lot of work to try to fix up your
image in Photoshop afterwards, but you
| | 09:55 |
still end up with pretty great results.
So again, I'm just going to show you
| | 10:00 |
really quickly, this is our high-key
goldfish.
| | 10:05 |
Meaning that there aren't a lot of
mid-tones.
| | 10:07 |
It's a bright and very white image.
The center of focus is completely
| | 10:12 |
surrounded by white.
And there's not a whole lot of contrast
| | 10:15 |
in the image.
And then an example of low key
| | 10:17 |
photography, would be our same needle
felted fishy in his little glass aquarium.
| | 10:24 |
Shot on a black background that was
back-lit with only natural lighting and
| | 10:29 |
at a very wide aperture with a shutter
speed of 200 on a tripod and an ISO of 400.
| | 10:38 |
So these are just a couple of ways that
you can try to achieve high and low key
| | 10:40 |
tones in your photography.
They both give very different looks.
| | 10:44 |
High key photography is often seen in a
lot of wedding photography, and low key
| | 10:49 |
photography I've actually seen quite a
bit of with regards to pregnancy photography.
| | 10:56 |
Because it really does extenuate the
curve of a shape or a belly, or a craft.
| | 11:02 |
So either way you can experiment with
both techniques and see which one you
| | 11:05 |
like the best when you are shooting your
crafts.
| | 11:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| What is dynamic range?| 00:02 |
You've probably heard the term dynamic
range with regards to digital photography.
| | 00:07 |
And in this movie, I just want to briefly
talk about what dynamic range is, what
| | 00:11 |
scenarios that it presents itself in, and
then a couple of solutions for evening
| | 00:15 |
things out a little bit.
So, dynamic range simply refers to the
| | 00:22 |
minimum and maximum amount of measurable
light intensity.
| | 00:27 |
So, that's basically a long way of saying
the most dark darks, and the light lights
| | 00:32 |
and then the range in between it.
A very dynamic range of luminancy.
| | 00:40 |
So, this would occur when you're either
shooting in dappled sun, like I am here,
| | 00:45 |
or if you're shooting in a place where a
large shadow is being cast, and part of
| | 00:51 |
your composition is shaded, and another
part is in direct, bright sunlight.
| | 01:00 |
And you've probably seen photographs like
that, where half of the photo is just
| | 01:03 |
completely washed out and the other half
is pretty dark.
| | 01:07 |
So dappled shade is a good example of, of
dynamic range on a smaller scale.
| | 01:12 |
But again, you've probably seen those
photographs where you just, you've taken
| | 01:16 |
a shot, you didn't realize there was a
huge shadow in your way, and now you have
| | 01:19 |
this really wonky, strange exposure.
So that is what dynamic range is.
| | 01:25 |
Now, how do we get around it?
What are some solutions for working with
| | 01:30 |
a scenario like that?
Well, there are a couple of things that
| | 01:33 |
you can do just with your exposure.
When you're shooting photographs and you
| | 01:37 |
notice that your light is uneven like
that, you can take your camera off of
| | 01:41 |
Automatic and try putting it on Manual
Program Automatic or Shutter Priority,
| | 01:46 |
and just try to do some bracketing, and
see if you can change your exposure by
| | 01:50 |
half a stop or a whole stop in either
direction to see if that's going to help.
| | 01:59 |
And if that doesn't solve your initial
problem, put your camera on a tripod, if
| | 02:03 |
you don't already have it on a tripod,
and use bracketing to get several
| | 02:07 |
exposures that you can later stitch
together.
| | 02:11 |
That's actually called HDR photography,
or High Dynamic Range, where photographs
| | 02:16 |
of multiple exposures are put together
using third party software applications.
| | 02:23 |
You can look online and find a few of
those.
| | 02:25 |
Or you can try to do it yourself, but
it's easier with some of the third party applications.
| | 02:30 |
And the results are really cool.
They're very color saturated.
| | 02:33 |
There's a lot of different highs and lows
with regards to light.
| | 02:36 |
Those are pretty interesting.
But if you just want to get a nice even
| | 02:39 |
shot and you're having some problems with
the sun and shade and, and the dappled
| | 02:42 |
light and the dynamic range is driving
you crazy, then you can do a couple of things.
| | 02:47 |
You can either use a reflector just
underneath your craft, so in the
| | 02:52 |
foreground adding some light.
You could use a fill flash, which would
| | 02:57 |
be the same principle as the reflector,
really, because you just want to even out
| | 03:00 |
the tone.
Or, of course, you could just take your
| | 03:03 |
craft inside, or find a light box, and
shoot it in another spot where there is
| | 03:07 |
even light.
That's the nice thing about craft
| | 03:10 |
photography is that you're usually going
to be shooting something small and portable.
| | 03:15 |
And so if you find yourself without
access to a good flash that's going to
| | 03:18 |
give you a nice soft light, if it's too
harsh and it's not working out for you,
| | 03:22 |
or if you don't have your reflector
handy, you can move your craft to another
| | 03:25 |
location where there is a nice even
light.
| | 03:31 |
Now, one quick thing I want to say about
HDR photography and stitching your
| | 03:35 |
photographs together.
I think that that's a really cool effect.
| | 03:39 |
I think it looks really awesome.
But in my opinion, and this is just my
| | 03:42 |
opinion, I can find it distracting
sometimes too, because things look so
| | 03:46 |
candy-colored and bright, and it can kind
of take away from your craft if you're
| | 03:50 |
not careful with it.
It's, again, it's one of those tools like
| | 03:55 |
a few of the Photoshop tools that are so
alluring.
| | 03:58 |
They're so seductive that you want to use
them.
| | 04:01 |
But you need to show a little restraint.
So if you do decide to shoot your crafts
| | 04:05 |
in HDR, just use caution.
Don't go overboard to the point where
| | 04:08 |
it's distracting from the integrity of
your craft, and so that it's not
| | 04:12 |
distracting from your overall photo.
If you want to get some cool art shots,
| | 04:17 |
and go just for the really neat aesthetic
of it, then by all means.
| | 04:21 |
But if you're using HDR for a product
shot, I would really say to kind of reign
| | 04:25 |
it in a little bit.
So, that's what dynamic range is, just
| | 04:28 |
the range between the darkest darks and
the lightest lights.
| | 04:32 |
And the scenarios that that would occur
would be in dappled shade, or where
| | 04:35 |
there's a huge shadow being cast across
your craft.
| | 04:39 |
And unfortunately, these things happen.
It's just the way it is when you're
| | 04:42 |
shooting outside.
So try to evenly light your craft with a
| | 04:45 |
fill flash or with a gold or silver
reflector, and you're going to get much
| | 04:49 |
better results.
And of course, if you don't have those
| | 04:53 |
items, take it inside.
| | 04:55 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reading and understanding histograms| 00:02 |
One of the most convenient and helpful
tools that you can find to measure your
| | 00:07 |
overall tuning range and color range
within your crow photography is the histogram.
| | 00:15 |
And the histogram is basically just a
graph.
| | 00:19 |
And this graph is so helpful and so
useful.
| | 00:22 |
That there's one in Photoshop, Photoshop
Elements Lightroom, Camera Raw plugins.
| | 00:28 |
There's even histograms on your camera,
on your digital SLR and most compact
| | 00:33 |
cameras as well.
So, when and why should you use a histogram?
| | 00:40 |
What does it do?
Well on our camera while we're taking a
| | 00:42 |
photograph, while we're taking an
exposure.
| | 00:45 |
We can use a histogram to gauge whether
or not we have a proper exposure because
| | 00:49 |
it's going to give us the full tonal
range.
| | 00:53 |
Meaning the darkest darks and the
lightest lights and everything in between.
| | 00:57 |
And in Photoshop or any of the other
image editing software applications, the
| | 01:01 |
histogram works in the same way.
So I have a few images open here.
| | 01:06 |
And I just want to show you, the
differences in the tonal range with these
| | 01:10 |
photographs that I've already taken.
So, on your screen right now, you see a
| | 01:15 |
photograph of three little elves that I
made out of marzipan.
| | 01:20 |
Which is an edible almond paste, and
quite delicious, by the way.
| | 01:24 |
But these were little candies that I made
for the holidays.
| | 01:27 |
And so I wanted to take some photographs
of them.
| | 01:30 |
Now, I shot this picture in a very bright
light box, on a very white plate.
| | 01:38 |
So, you'll notice that in the histogram,
there's a lot of information to the far right.
| | 01:44 |
Meaning lots of bright, white values.
And not a whole lot in the darker region.
| | 01:51 |
So if I come on over here I can also drop
down and look at the luminancy.
| | 01:55 |
And again it's the same principle,
there's a lot of bright values and not so
| | 02:00 |
many dark values over here.
So, If I come over to my next example.
| | 02:09 |
This is sort of a flat image, and I know
that just by looking at it, there are
| | 02:12 |
only a few little shadows that are giving
this paper orchid any definition.
| | 02:17 |
But it's just paper on paper, really.
Not a lot of brights, not a lot of darks, so.
| | 02:22 |
The histogram is reflecting that.
Both in luminancy and in colors.
| | 02:27 |
There's not a huge range.
So this tells me, yeah, if I want this to
| | 02:31 |
be a really compelling image.
I'm going to need to do some tweaking,
| | 02:36 |
maybe within curves or levels, just to
give myself a greater range of values.
| | 02:44 |
Now, as you can probably guess, when
you've got an image that's very white.
| | 02:48 |
You're going to have a lot of values to
the far right of your histogram.
| | 02:51 |
And when you have, kind of, a flat image,
you're going to have a lot of values
| | 02:54 |
right in the middle.
Well, this is a little workshop I did
| | 02:57 |
with a few friends of mine while we were
out camping in a ghost town.
| | 03:01 |
And we set the camera on long exposure
and used our little glow-in-the-dark
| | 03:06 |
bracelets to write out the word,
Spoooooky because it was very spooky.
| | 03:12 |
But what we ended up with was a very cool
long exposure photograph that has
| | 03:18 |
virtually all dark values.
There are very few midtones or very few
| | 03:25 |
light, light, bright values.
So within this capture there really are
| | 03:31 |
only dark values to work with.
Now the next example is actually kind of
| | 03:36 |
a happy medium.
This is another photograph that I took.
| | 03:40 |
Where I'd staged a New Year's Eve party
and wanted to break some confetti eggs on
| | 03:44 |
a plate.
And while I wanted it to have a nice dark
| | 03:48 |
background, I wanted to have my little
broken eggs on a white plate.
| | 03:51 |
So you can see that there's a nice range
here of both Luminancy and colors.
| | 03:55 |
And so, with the historgram we can tell
if we have a nice wide swath of values
| | 04:01 |
within our tonal range.
But we can also see if clipping is
| | 04:07 |
occuring, where we've got data that's
actually disappearing because we have so
| | 04:12 |
much black, or so much white in our
image, that we're losing data.
| | 04:18 |
Which is the case with both the elf
photograph, and the spooky night writing
| | 04:22 |
photograph as well.
So clipping is one thing to look out for,
| | 04:27 |
but also just to verify that your overall
composition has a nice balance of color
| | 04:31 |
and luminancy.
So when you're taking photographs, check
| | 04:36 |
your camera, look for your histogram.
In some cases, you'll have a histogram
| | 04:41 |
option that can pop up while you're
taking the photograph.
| | 04:44 |
In other cases you'll have a histogram
that can display on your LCD screen after
| | 04:48 |
you've taken the photograph.
And if you don't think about making that
| | 04:52 |
option available to you while you're
taking the photo.
| | 04:57 |
You can of course come back and then open
up your image within any number of image
| | 05:02 |
editing software options to really get an
idea for what kind of exposure you've taken.
| | 05:09 |
And whether or not you need to do some
additional image editing just to make it
| | 05:13 |
a more balanced photo.
I just want to mention that within the
| | 05:19 |
histogram, you can also drop down to see
individual colors within your image.
| | 05:25 |
And there is also, in case you haven't
seen this before, there are also a few
| | 05:29 |
other graphs that are going to help you
see the overall range of your photograph.
| | 05:36 |
And those are the Curves pallet.
As well as Levels.
| | 05:42 |
So with these two other options, you have
the ability to both see your overall
| | 05:46 |
distribution of luminancy.
And also alter it.
| | 05:51 |
So those are a few things to look out for
when you're taking photos.
| | 05:54 |
And when you're looking to get a good
idea of what your tonal range is within
| | 05:58 |
your craft photography.
| | 06:00 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating striking images with contrast| 00:01 |
Using contrasting colors in your craft
photography is a great way to really
| | 00:04 |
offset what you've made.
Pay attention to the backgrounds that you
| | 00:08 |
can find.
And think about what color your craft is.
| | 00:11 |
In this case, I've got a little blue
elephant, and I really want to make him
| | 00:14 |
pop off my page.
So I was walking around the garden
| | 00:18 |
looking for something that would make him
just stand out a little bit more, and I
| | 00:21 |
found this great yellow bush.
The hue of it is quite a bit li, lighter
| | 00:26 |
than the elephant itself, but, right next
to it is this red plant.
| | 00:31 |
So, while the red bush is the same tone
as the elephant, it's actually, you know,
| | 00:34 |
quite a different color and the contrast
is so nice.
| | 00:37 |
So, I'm just going to nestle my elephant
right between the red and the yellow.
| | 00:42 |
And it's really making the blue pop out.
It's actually also bringing out, kind of,
| | 00:46 |
the blue in his eyes and his cute little
eyelashes, so I'm really happy with this setting.
| | 00:51 |
I'm going to take a couple of pictures
and see how it looks.
| | 00:54 |
Let's get in here nice and closeSOUND
andSOUND, yeah, that's great.
| | 01:05 |
(audio playing)
Now, when I'm looking for backgrounds,
| | 01:06 |
every craft is going to be different.
So you're going to have to find the right
| | 01:10 |
background that fits your craft.
Maybe meets its personality.
| | 01:15 |
It kind of makes sense in context.
If not, that's fine, too.
| | 01:17 |
Having a contrast in backgrounds is great
as well.
| | 01:20 |
Finding light contrast is, is great as
well.
| | 01:22 |
It kind of creates a, an interesting
dimension.
| | 01:25 |
Sometimes if you get really dramatic with
contrasting light, then that can set a mood.
| | 01:30 |
But contrasting color is just a great way
to really offset your craft, and make it
| | 01:33 |
pop off the page.
So, I encourage you to look around, pay
| | 01:36 |
attention to your surroundings, pay
attention to your craft and just try a
| | 01:39 |
few out.
Get creative with color, I think you're
| | 01:42 |
going to like the results.
| | 01:43 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shooting crafts in black and white| 00:01 |
When people are looking to buy crafts
online, color is a major factor.
| | 00:05 |
accessories, clothes, jewelry, it's
usually about what is this item going to match?
| | 00:11 |
But I love shooting in black and white
when it comes to craft photography and
| | 00:16 |
I'll tell you why.
(audio playing) I've got this knitted bag.
| | 00:20 |
I made it out of jute fibers, and it's a
natural plant based fiber.
| | 00:25 |
So it's got this really great texture on
it and it's perfect for black and white.
| | 00:31 |
So, here we are.
We're by this abandoned house.
| | 00:35 |
There's a lot of rock that's falling
apart, there's some old brick, exposed
| | 00:39 |
wood that's full of termites.
It's not a great place to live in, but
| | 00:44 |
it's a fantastic place to shoot because
the textural quality is so interesting.
| | 00:49 |
And that's something that black and white
far surpasses when you're comparing color
| | 00:53 |
and black and white with craft
photography.
| | 00:56 |
Another thing that black and white
photography can do for crafts is that it really.
| | 01:01 |
In addition to the detail of the fibers,
it also expresses the graphical nature of
| | 01:06 |
the image.
And it also gives you like an especially
| | 01:10 |
good pattern that maybe would fade away
in color.
| | 01:13 |
So, I walked around this abandoned house
a few times.
| | 01:16 |
Trying to figure out what the best angle
was.
| | 01:18 |
And I ended up here.
A couple of things I really liked about
| | 01:21 |
this spot.
One there was already a nail in the beam.
| | 01:24 |
So we threw the hook over the, over the
nail.
| | 01:27 |
And we were able to hang it up.
But what was perfect about it, is that
| | 01:30 |
there's a nice shadow.
That's being cast from the wood beam.
| | 01:34 |
So, this bag is kind of a light fiber,
and having a dark background behind it
| | 01:38 |
really offsets it.
So that's, that's step one.
| | 01:43 |
Step two is because this bag is pretty
light, we walked around and filled it
| | 01:47 |
with rocks.
That's just another little staging tip.
| | 01:50 |
This is kind of how a bag would look if
somebody was wearing it.
| | 01:53 |
So presenting it in its natural form is a
pretty good deal.
| | 01:58 |
So here we are, and we're going to get
ready to take some pictures.
| | 02:02 |
Now I'm using a Canon today, but a lot of
cameras, even point and shoot cameras
| | 02:06 |
have a black and white function.
If you don't see today how to turn your
| | 02:11 |
own camera in black and white.
Just check your user's manual, I promise
| | 02:15 |
you, it's probably in there.
So, to take our cannon from color to
| | 02:19 |
black and white, we're simply going to
come down to this little icon.
| | 02:25 |
It kind of looks like a ceiling fan to
me, but when you press it, it takes you
| | 02:29 |
to the Picture Style panel.
It's currently set to standard, so we're
| | 02:34 |
just going to scroll on over to
Monochrome, hit Set.
| | 02:37 |
And we're ready to go with black and
white.
| | 02:39 |
So I'm going to take a step back, get a
feel for the composition, and start shooting.
| | 02:46 |
And I'm pressing down halfway on my
shutter button just to get a good
| | 02:50 |
exposure setting.
I'm taking into consideration the shape
| | 02:55 |
of the roof.
There's a line being drawn by these beams
| | 02:58 |
over here and it's creating a nice line
right to the back, and so that's really great.
| | 03:02 |
It's pointing at exactly what we're
shooting.
| | 03:04 |
(audio playing) And like always, we're going to
take a bunch of photos and see which one
| | 03:08 |
we like the best.
(audio playing) So, we're going to get in really
| | 03:13 |
tight, take some of those good fiber
shots.
| | 03:17 |
And kind of step away from it, just to
see what we can get.
| | 03:24 |
All different angles.
Looking interesting in black and white.
| | 03:31 |
(audio playing) So before you discount black and
white craft photography, try it out for yourself.
| | 03:36 |
Find a great textural background, find a
nice color contrast, and just start shooting.
| | 03:41 |
You'll be amazed at the texture that pops
out, the detail that pops out.
| | 03:46 |
I think you're going to be really
pleased.
| | 03:48 |
it could be exactly what prospective
buyers are looking for, or just fascinate
| | 03:51 |
your interested freinds.
So, get to shooting.
| | 03:56 |
You're going to find something great in
black and white craft photography.
| | 03:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Metering light to get it right| 00:00 |
One of the ways to achieve proper
exposure within your craft photography is
| | 00:04 |
by metering light.
Now, you can meter light with an external
| | 00:09 |
handheld light meter, or one that
connects to your camera with a a cord.
| | 00:15 |
Or, you can just simply use the light
meter that is built into your camera.
| | 00:21 |
Every camera has a light meter built in,
and that is what helps you find the
| | 00:25 |
proper exposure.
So, the photograph that we're looking at
| | 00:29 |
on screen right now is underexposed.
It's too dark.
| | 00:33 |
So, what happened when I took this
photograph is that I was metering in
| | 00:37 |
these very bright light sky areas.
And my camera was trying to compensate
| | 00:42 |
for all that really bright information,
so it resulted in a very dark photograph.
| | 00:49 |
Now, in this next example, I was taking
samples in the tree branch in much darker
| | 00:54 |
areas and to try to find that balance of
light, I ended up with a very
| | 00:58 |
overexposed, way way too bright and very
blown out in certain areas image.
| | 01:06 |
And this is also unusable.
So, what I needed to do was take a
| | 01:11 |
metering of my photograph, right on the
focus of the owl.
| | 01:15 |
Now, this was a little tricky, because
you can see, there are patches of light
| | 01:19 |
and dark.
The craft is situated in a dappled area,
| | 01:23 |
so the light was changing, and I did need
to continue metering throughout my entire
| | 01:27 |
photo shoot.
But as I did that, I could find my way.
| | 01:34 |
I could find out what the best lighting
conditions were, just by taking samples
| | 01:38 |
through my camera.
And you can take samples of the light.
| | 01:43 |
You can meter the light by just locking
down your exposure and then pressing your
| | 01:46 |
shutter button halfway down, just to kind
of take samples within the frame, and
| | 01:50 |
tilt your camera in various directions,
just so that you can get an overall feel
| | 01:54 |
for what it's like to sample light in
different areas.
| | 02:00 |
And then you can see, when you take the
exposure, that you're going to end up
| | 02:03 |
with very different results.
So by practicing metering, by taking
| | 02:07 |
samples in various areas of your image,
you're going to end up with really good results.
| | 02:14 |
Now, if you wanted to be sure that you
got a proper exposure, you could place a
| | 02:18 |
gray card in your image and meter on
that.
| | 02:22 |
And your camera would see those midtones,
and it would have a perfect exposure.
| | 02:27 |
But lots of times, I will go out and
shoot photos and I don't have a gray card
| | 02:31 |
with me.
So if you can try to find some middle
| | 02:34 |
range to meter on, then that will work
just as well.
| | 02:39 |
And of course, if you are unsure if
you've gotten a proper exposure as you've
| | 02:43 |
metered light, then just keep your camera
in the same place if it's on a tripod, or
| | 02:46 |
just hold still.
And then, just bracket your exposures.
| | 02:51 |
Take several different exposures by
changing the stop, either by one or a
| | 02:55 |
half stop difference in either direction,
just to be sure that you're getting the
| | 02:58 |
best image that you can.
Metering light should help you find your
| | 03:04 |
way, and get a really great exposure when
you're out shooting crafts.
| | 03:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Minimizing and maximizing shadows| 00:01 |
When you're shooting pictures of your
crafts, light is going to be involved.
| | 00:04 |
And your craft is going to cast a shadow.
It's up to you to decide whether you
| | 00:08 |
want to minimize that shadow, or
maximize.
| | 00:11 |
Right now I'm going to show you how, and
why you might want to do both.
| | 00:14 |
So, we've got this little set set up over
here.
| | 00:18 |
And my craft is this paper mache deer
head.
| | 00:21 |
I really like the way that taxidermy
looks but I don't really like dead animals.
| | 00:25 |
So I wanted to make one out of paper
mache.
| | 00:27 |
And I've staged this little set up with
my leather chair and my little bowl of nuts.
| | 00:33 |
So I think it looks like a nice
appropriate place to take a photograph of
| | 00:36 |
my craft.
And I've got a spot over here.
| | 00:40 |
And a giant diffuser.
Of course if you're shooting crafts at
| | 00:43 |
home, you're probably not going to have a
gigantic spot and a diffuser, but if you
| | 00:47 |
are in a situation where you were
shooting outside and the light was
| | 00:50 |
getting low, long shadows are being cast,
or perhaps you're shooting inside and you
| | 00:54 |
only have one light on.
And again, a long shadow is being cast,
| | 01:00 |
you can cut that down with this diffuser.
This is just a store-bought model.
| | 01:05 |
But you can use all kinds of materials to
cut down light.
| | 01:09 |
Fabric plastic, frosted glass, things
like that.
| | 01:13 |
this is really just taking that light and
then pushing it out, so that the, the
| | 01:16 |
light is nice and soft.
I'm going to take a picture and see how
| | 01:20 |
it looks.
I mean, it looks pretty good from here,
| | 01:22 |
but I'm just going to take a quick shot.
(NOISE) And it looks okay.
| | 01:27 |
It's nothing special but it looks all
right.
| | 01:30 |
So, what I want to do now, is try to get
a little experimental, be brave with hard light.
| | 01:35 |
So I'm going to get rid of this diffuser,
and see what happens when we have a
| | 01:39 |
really strong shadow that's being cast.
So now you can see I've got one light,
| | 01:46 |
and it's just pushing this shadow of the
deer across the wall.
| | 01:50 |
And a few things are happening.
First of all, it's kind of changed the
| | 01:54 |
mood in this room.
It's got, like, a, a moody mystery
| | 01:57 |
feeling to it, like some tension is being
built.
| | 02:02 |
some really nice negative space has shown
up, because we've, we've created these
| | 02:06 |
very interesting lines.
And there's just a whole new dynamic
| | 02:10 |
within our stage here.
So I'm just going to take a photo here
| | 02:14 |
and see what I get, and, ooh, I like
that.
| | 02:18 |
I'm going to keep I'm framing the entire
image so that I've got my deer in, in the
| | 02:22 |
shot, but I've also got the entire shadow
because I'm really liking the line that's
| | 02:27 |
being created.
It's pushing the viewers eye all around
| | 02:32 |
the image but it's also creating a
tremendous amount of negative space so
| | 02:36 |
this picture is way more dynamic.
There is all kinds of tension going on
| | 02:40 |
and it's really leading the viewer's eye
to the craft which is cool.
| | 02:45 |
So, if you want to be brave and try some
new techniques with hard shadows.
| | 02:51 |
I'd say don't be afraid of them.
Don't always have the knee jerk reaction
| | 02:55 |
to diffuse them.
Think about how they relate to your image
| | 02:59 |
and give it a nice graphic feeling.
It really does add another element.
| | 03:03 |
And you can achieve these hard shadows
inside with one light or outside in late
| | 03:08 |
afternoon sun.
Whenever there is one light source, just
| | 03:12 |
go for that, and put up your craft, and
it's, you know, it's going to give you
| | 03:15 |
some interesting results.
So, try it out for yourself and see if
| | 03:19 |
you like it.
| | 03:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Getting awesome shots in low-light settings| 00:01 |
We've all been there.
We've just finished our craft.
| | 00:03 |
It's after midnight and the available
light is terrible.
| | 00:06 |
But we still want to get a good
photograph of what we, what we just made.
| | 00:09 |
Before we either give it away or box it
up to sell it.
| | 00:13 |
Fortunately we can take really great
shots with low lighting.
| | 00:17 |
And I'm going to show you how to do that
right now.
| | 00:19 |
So I've got these two shoes that I've
drawn on.
| | 00:22 |
And while the composition doesn't look so
great from this angle, I've set it up in
| | 00:26 |
my camera to make it look really nice
from this angle.
| | 00:30 |
So and I've got some notes, because we're
here in the studio right now shooting
| | 00:33 |
this, and all the lights are down.
the only light that we're actually using
| | 00:37 |
is just from one window.
And it's very low lighting, and so
| | 00:41 |
this'd, this would be something that you
could re-create if you were shooting at
| | 00:44 |
your own home, late, late at night.
Or even an outside in the evening with
| | 00:48 |
just available light from stars, the
moon, whatever.
| | 00:52 |
Even when it's really, really dark,
there's still going to be some light.
| | 00:55 |
So I'm going to show you how to handle
this situation right now.
| | 00:59 |
I've got my notes, and let's come on over
here.
| | 01:01 |
So, the equipment that we're going to
need for this particular project, is a tripod.
| | 01:08 |
Absolutely, can, not, shoot in low light
without a tripod, unless you are made of stone.
| | 01:13 |
Also, I really like using my shutter
release in this case.
| | 01:18 |
It's not a super long cord so I wouldn't
use this for a self portrait.
| | 01:21 |
But I like using it for low light because
if I touch my shutter when it's all set
| | 01:25 |
up, there's a chance I could shake it and
then potentially ruin my shot.
| | 01:32 |
I also have my notebook because before we
started rolling I wanted to get a good exposure.
| | 01:37 |
So I was doing a little bit of
bracketing, just changing the shutter
| | 01:41 |
speed and playing with the, the proper
exposure.
| | 01:45 |
And even now I see the light is changing,
so it might not be exactly what I had
| | 01:48 |
written down.
But at least I have a good place to start from.
| | 01:52 |
And that's probably the biggest key and
the biggest thing that I can say to you
| | 01:54 |
about shooting in low light, is that
you're going to have to keep playing with it.
| | 01:58 |
It's okay to bracket, it's okay to change
your exposure.
| | 02:02 |
You might not get it right on the first
time.
| | 02:04 |
You might have a viewfinder that's
completely black.
| | 02:07 |
But just keep working with it until you
get the right shot.
| | 02:09 |
So, when you're ready to take your
photograph think about composition too.
| | 02:15 |
Since you don't have a lot of available
light, you really want to focus on how
| | 02:18 |
great you can make this photograph work
just by using either the shape of your
| | 02:22 |
craft or the available colors.
I've got some gray high heels here, so
| | 02:27 |
I've got this gray background.
But then, the focal point of my, of my
| | 02:31 |
image has some red in it, so I've chosen
this red background.
| | 02:35 |
Just because I want to give a little bit
more excitement to it, since the light
| | 02:38 |
isn't optimal.
So, I'm going to turn on my camera here.
| | 02:43 |
So the first setting that I'm starting
in, is shutter priority.
| | 02:46 |
I just want to change my shutter and see
what I need to get a good exposure.
| | 02:50 |
And I've taken my notes here, so I
started at 0.8 to get a good exposure.
| | 02:56 |
And my ISO was only at 100.
It's not, not super sensitive, so I
| | 03:01 |
want to see what's going to happen.
But since I've got kind of a long exposure.
| | 03:05 |
And let's see here.
Okay, I'm happy with those results, but I
| | 03:09 |
want to show you what happens when I bump
up the ISO.
| | 03:14 |
That was kind of a long exposure, even on
a tripod, so there's a chance that
| | 03:18 |
something could happen, if some wind
comes and this is a flimsy tripod.
| | 03:23 |
There's a chance that I could get a
little bit of, of shake and I don't
| | 03:26 |
want to do that, so I want to experiment.
And so I'm going to just change my ISO here.
| | 03:32 |
And I'm going to crank it almost,
actually, all the way up on my camera
| | 03:36 |
here to 6400.
And so, that means I'm going to need to
| | 03:41 |
change my shutter speed to a 50th of a
second.
| | 03:47 |
And these are not, these are not
guidelines that you can necessarily apply
| | 03:51 |
exactly to your photographs.
But again, this was something that I was
| | 03:56 |
experimenting with, writing my own notes
just to keep, keep measure of what's
| | 03:59 |
going on.
So, okay, I'm all set up here.
| | 04:03 |
And I'm going to take another shot.
Okay.
| | 04:06 |
I like this exposure, but there is
actually, there's an open window behind me.
| | 04:10 |
And it's, I'm getting one bright light
right here, and not a whole lot of light
| | 04:13 |
on the back shoe.
So I've got my handy reflector.
| | 04:17 |
And this is just something that you can
use to just direct whatever available
| | 04:20 |
light you have.
And since the light is coming in from
| | 04:24 |
over my left shoulder.
I need, this is nice and sturdy and
| | 04:28 |
strong, so I need to just change the
light by bouncing it off.
| | 04:32 |
Bouncing it right over here and I want to
hit it onto this part of the shoe.
| | 04:37 |
So the light is coming in over my
shoulder and I'm going to diffuse and
| | 04:40 |
reflect up to just get a little bit here.
To just fill in that part of the photograph.
| | 04:47 |
I'm going to come back and see what kind
of difference that makes.
| | 04:50 |
(audio playing) And now I'm just going to review,
and see if I like that.
| | 04:56 |
And I do.
It's quite a difference and the key to
| | 04:59 |
low lighting is really just taking notes,
paying attention to your surroundings.
| | 05:05 |
Certainly paying attention to your
composition, and using the right gear,
| | 05:07 |
like a tripod, and a shutter release.
And also if you need to add a little bit
| | 05:12 |
more light, adding a reflector, even if
it's just a piece of foam core.
| | 05:16 |
With those things, stay calm, just keep
practicing, and you're bound to get a
| | 05:20 |
good shot.
It's worth it.
| | 05:22 |
So, when you're crafting late, late at
night please don't just like put your
| | 05:26 |
craft away and ship it off.
I really would encourage you to take a
| | 05:30 |
photograph for yourself, for your
friends, and potentially for your store.
| | 05:34 |
You can get really nice shots that look
good, good enough online to use as
| | 05:37 |
product shots.
So, good luck with that.
| | 05:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Crafting moods with light| 00:02 |
Creating moods with lighting can give you
very different and dramatic effects.
| | 00:06 |
Whether you're trying to silhouette an
image to show off an unusual shape, and
| | 00:10 |
casting long shadows to hint at drama.
If you pay attention to the warmth, and
| | 00:15 |
direction, and amount of available light,
you can create a variety of emotions and moods.
| | 00:21 |
Now, on the screen right now we have an
image of just a row of little pinwheels
| | 00:26 |
that I made out of book pages.
I have it set up in bright sunlight, and
| | 00:33 |
the overall tone of this photograph is
very cheery, it's shot outdoors, it's
| | 00:37 |
shot in a lovely setting.
But if we took this same craft and shot
| | 00:42 |
it in a different location with very
different lighting situations, the
| | 00:46 |
overall tone and mood of the image would
change dramatically.
| | 00:52 |
Now, while we've also created this image
as a black and white, the overall feeling
| | 00:58 |
of the image is much more solemn, much
more lonely.
| | 01:04 |
And that's becasue of the lighting.
Now I shot this craft inside in the low
| | 01:10 |
light studio.
I did create this image as a black and
| | 01:15 |
white because I didn't want the color of
this particular background to compete too
| | 01:19 |
much with the heavy pattern of the text
on this pinwheel.
| | 01:25 |
But by shooting this in a lower light
situation, regardless of whether or not
| | 01:29 |
it was in color or black and white, the
overall feeling of this image is much
| | 01:33 |
more solemn than the outdoor bright and
sunny craft photo of the exact same craft.
| | 01:41 |
So with the use of lighting we were able
to establish a whole new tone to this
| | 01:45 |
particular craft.
So in this example I have a photograph of
| | 01:51 |
my face with this drying facial mask that
I made.
| | 01:55 |
And I wanted to really show off the
texture of this facial mask so I took
| | 01:59 |
this photo with some side lighting so
that you can really get a feel for the
| | 02:03 |
texture of the mask, but It's such a dark
and contrasty photograph, that it really
| | 02:08 |
gives you a sense of something else going
on.
| | 02:15 |
There's more emotion to this photograph,
just based on the lighting alone.
| | 02:19 |
Now, this next photograph was taken just
minutes later, at the point when you can
| | 02:24 |
stretch out your face.
And really break up the mask that was
| | 02:29 |
really tight on your face.
When you stretch it out you can break it
| | 02:32 |
up a little bit, and I wanted this shot
to sort of reflect that, like, joyful
| | 02:36 |
moment when you're able to break out of
your tight, painful facial mask.
| | 02:42 |
So, this is actually shot with a lot more
indirect light.
| | 02:45 |
There's no direct light, and while you
can still see some of the texture of the
| | 02:49 |
facial mask, it's not nearly as
noticeable.
| | 02:52 |
It's more about the action, the
expression and just the very soft light
| | 02:56 |
of it.
So I wanted to create this different
| | 02:59 |
feeling just by using different lighting.
And that technique can be used when
| | 03:04 |
shooting a variety of different crafts.
The more you play with lighting, the more
| | 03:09 |
you can really establish a sense of joy,
drama, sorrow, loss.
| | 03:14 |
The entire range of emotions can really
come through if you pay attention to your
| | 03:19 |
light source, and the type of light, and
how your craft responds to those things.
| | 03:25 |
So, when you're shooting your craft
photography, do consider the emotional
| | 03:30 |
qualities of light, and play with as many
different lighting options as possible,
| | 03:34 |
to get some really cool emotional and
moody affects.
| | 03:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Advanced Composition and Staging TechniquesUnderstanding the golden section: ratio, triangles, and spirals| 00:02 |
If you're not sure whether your craft
photography is achieving a nice balance
| | 00:05 |
and symmetry.
One of the things that I sometimes do is
| | 00:09 |
overlay geometric shapes that make up the
Golden Ratio.
| | 00:12 |
Now, you're probably familiar with the
Rule of Thirds, but there are a few other
| | 00:17 |
shapes that can help you achieve perfect
symmetry and balance.
| | 00:22 |
And while this movie is not going to be
about all the math that goes on behind
| | 00:26 |
these shapes.
It is going to demonstrate how these
| | 00:30 |
shapes, when overlayed on your craft, can
really display the perfect sense of
| | 00:33 |
harmony and balance within your craft
photography.
| | 00:37 |
So, I have my little needle felted
elephant here.
| | 00:40 |
And well, he looks pretty good.
He looks like he's got a nice balance.
| | 00:45 |
I just want to double check, and so I'm
going to use what's called the Golden Rectangle.
| | 00:51 |
So here, I've overlaid the golden
rectangle, and it's kind of impossible to
| | 00:54 |
see what our balance of our composition
is below.
| | 00:58 |
So, I'm just going to lower the Opacity
on this and verify that my elephant
| | 01:02 |
picture is, in fact, symmetrical and
balanced.
| | 01:07 |
So, when I bring down the opacity to 50%,
I can see that yes, in fact, my elephant
| | 01:11 |
portrait is balanced.
This is another way besides using the
| | 01:16 |
Rule of Thirds, which is very easy to
identify.
| | 01:19 |
It's basically just a rectangle broken up
into equal parts, two parallel lines
| | 01:25 |
horizontally, and two parallel lines
vertically.
| | 01:30 |
Now, the Golden Rectangle is basically
just a rectangle with a square cut out of
| | 01:34 |
it that has equal sides.
And the remaining part, when duplicated,
| | 01:38 |
would make up a perfect square as well.
And while that's interesting, that is
| | 01:44 |
certainly not the only geometric overlay
that we can do.
| | 01:48 |
So, I've got an image here that has a lot
of nice motion and distance here, and
| | 01:51 |
there's a vanishing point way off in the
distance of this photograph.
| | 01:57 |
And it's leading my eye in this direction
and it's reminding me of another Golden
| | 02:01 |
Rule, and that is the Golden Triangle.
Now again, I'm not really going to go
| | 02:08 |
into all the math behind this Golden
Triangle.
| | 02:11 |
But in an effort to make my dad and my
geometry teacher proud, I will say that
| | 02:15 |
the Golden Triangle is made up of an
isosceles triangle that's bisected by
| | 02:19 |
another triangle.
And that the angles of the triangle add
| | 02:25 |
up to 180 degrees.
Of course, I'm not going to think about
| | 02:29 |
this when I'm taking a photo.
But it is interesting to overlay it after
| | 02:34 |
the fact.
And just kind of verify that I do have a
| | 02:37 |
nice strong sense of balance within my
craft photo.
| | 02:41 |
So, there's one more I want to talk about
and that is the last image that you see
| | 02:45 |
on screen here.
Now, if you did watch the intro craft
| | 02:49 |
photography class, you may have seen that
this was the bunny that I used when
| | 02:53 |
shooting the Rule of Thirds.
But I was thinking about the last
| | 02:57 |
geometric shape that I wanted to mention
in this course, and that is FibonaccI's
| | 03:02 |
Golden Spiral.
So, when I overlay the golden spiral onto
| | 03:07 |
my bunny, it's not exactly the same
layout that the Rule of Thirds was.
| | 03:13 |
But when this image is just cropped
slightly, you can see that there's still
| | 03:17 |
the focus right on the center of the
craft.
| | 03:21 |
But also, I can see that the golden
rectangle is also making an appearance
| | 03:25 |
within the Golden Spiral.
So, whether or not you choose to overlay
| | 03:30 |
these geometric shapes onto your craft
photography is completely up to you.
| | 03:36 |
But I do find it interesting just to see
that these fairly complex mathematical
| | 03:40 |
equations and geometric shapes show up so
frequently.
| | 03:45 |
And so fluidly in various aspects of
nature, and within our craft photography
| | 03:50 |
so readily.
So, as a fun exercise, you might be
| | 03:53 |
interested in just pulling out some of
these shapes and overlaying them onto
| | 03:57 |
your craft photography just to get a
sense of your preferred balance and
| | 04:01 |
symmetry within your craft photography.
| | 04:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using vanishing points in craft photography| 00:01 |
I'm here in the country, walking around,
enjoying the view, and I happen to find
| | 00:04 |
this awesome dirt road.
What I like about it, is that it goes off
| | 00:09 |
into the forest, and it's super beautiful
over there.
| | 00:12 |
But what else, is that it's a great
example of a vanishing point.
| | 00:16 |
These two individual dirt paths are
parallel, all the way down the road.
| | 00:22 |
But way off in the distance, way out,
over by the tree line, the path kind of
| | 00:27 |
winds and winds.
But if you follow it, those two lines
| | 00:31 |
come together into a single dot.
A single point, a vanishing point.
| | 00:38 |
It's a great way to lead your eye off
into the distance to create a sense of motion.
| | 00:44 |
And it's perfect for showing off crafts
in craft photography.
| | 00:49 |
What we've got here, are two parallel
lines of little paper pinwheels.
| | 00:54 |
It happens to be kind of a windy day, so
you might see some of them blowing.
| | 00:59 |
But we have these lined up to mimic the,
the same path that the vanishing point creates.
| | 01:07 |
Over in those forested areas.
So, we're going to take this shot down on
| | 01:10 |
the ground here and get a nice
perspective, get a low angle so maybe you
| | 01:14 |
can see some of the path in the
background.
| | 01:18 |
But the reason we are doing it is to lead
the viewers eye, and to get that sense of
| | 01:23 |
motion, and also to recreate a vanishing
point.
| | 01:29 |
So, let's try that right now.
(audio playing) Great.
| | 01:32 |
So to get a great photo of a vanishing
point you really do want to have a low
| | 01:36 |
vantage point, so that you can see the
two parallel rows of crafts converge at
| | 01:40 |
one single point.
Now, if you want to see the entire rows
| | 01:45 |
of your crafts, you're going to need to
have a nice wide aperture.
| | 01:50 |
I'm shooting at F22 right now.
It's really bright out here, but it's
| | 01:54 |
keeping everything in focus.
My lens is also zoomed all the way out.
| | 01:59 |
I'm shooting with a 17 to 40 millimeter,
and right now it's at 17, so, down low.
| | 02:07 |
it just looks so good.
We've got the vanishing point of the
| | 02:10 |
actual dirt road behind us with our two
lines of crafts, in front of us.
| | 02:14 |
This is a great way to shoot a collection
of crafts, and keep the viewer's eye
| | 02:18 |
traveling all around the composition.
And again, it's a great way to just give
| | 02:23 |
that little hint of motion.
Which is kind of perfect if you have a
| | 02:27 |
craft that really does have a, an aspect
of motion in it.
| | 02:34 |
I hope you'll give vanishing points in
your craft photography a try.
| | 02:38 |
(audio playing)
| | 02:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Establishing the temperature of an image| 00:02 |
Some crafts, just by their very nature,
will lend themselves well to a specific
| | 00:05 |
color temperature when you photograph
them.
| | 00:09 |
For instance, the example on screen is of
a card that I made that is painted to
| | 00:13 |
look like a night sky.
And when you pull this tab down, it
| | 00:18 |
reveals this halo around the moon.
Now, while the halo around the moon is
| | 00:24 |
yellow, the rest of the card is very dark
midnight blue.
| | 00:29 |
And it makes sense to me to have an
overall blue cast in this photograph,
| | 00:33 |
simply because it is a night sky scene
when it's being photographed.
| | 00:40 |
Likewise, these bunny-shaped needle
felted Easter candies that I made to look
| | 00:45 |
like a very popular and well-known
marshmallow candy that comes out around
| | 00:49 |
the holidays has an overall yellow soft
warm color temperature to it.
| | 00:56 |
And again, that's just based on the very
nature of the craft.
| | 01:00 |
I made these little needle felted yellow
bunnies to look like the original candy.
| | 01:05 |
And when they're all placed together,
it's got a very warm feeling just by the
| | 01:09 |
very nature of the craft itself.
But what happens when you have a craft
| | 01:15 |
that has kind of a neutral tone, a
neutral background.
| | 01:19 |
And you want to proactively alter the
temperature of that individual craft.
| | 01:24 |
I want to show you a couple of pictures I
just took of some wooden necklaces I made
| | 01:28 |
and I shot them in the forest.
I hung them on the branches of the trees
| | 01:34 |
since all of the pendants are made out of
different kinds of wood.
| | 01:39 |
And I just shot a few snaps.
Now, I was in the woods, there was very
| | 01:43 |
low light.
I was shooting on a tripod, and my first
| | 01:46 |
few shots had this overall cool feeling.
And while I thought it was interesting, I
| | 01:51 |
really wanted to see if I could change
the overall temperature of this craft
| | 01:55 |
photo even though I was in a cool, dark
area.
| | 02:01 |
So, instead of hopping a plane to a more
tropical location with lots of sun
| | 02:05 |
bathing down on my craft, which would be
nice but is terribly impractical.
| | 02:10 |
I pulled out my gold leaf reflector out
of my 5-in-1 reflector case, and the gold
| | 02:15 |
reflector was positioned over off on the
right-hand side of the frame.
| | 02:23 |
And you can see just a little bit of a
golden light, it's kind of bathing over
| | 02:26 |
the background branches.
But it really has lightened up the entire
| | 02:31 |
composition, and made it feel much, much
warmer.
| | 02:35 |
So, if you intentionally want to change
the color temperature of your craft while
| | 02:40 |
you're shooting it, then would recommend
bringing a 5-in-1 diffuser.
| | 02:46 |
Trying out the silver foil reflector, and
then trying out the gold foil reflector
| | 02:51 |
just to see the difference between the
two light reflectors.
| | 02:56 |
I'm going to show you the original
photograph once again.
| | 03:00 |
And now, I'll just do a quick
side-by-side comparison so that you can
| | 03:03 |
see how much variation there is between
the temperature of these two photographs.
| | 03:08 |
Simply by bringing our trusty 5-in-1
reflector with us.
| | 03:12 |
So, when these two images are
side-by-side, it's pretty easy to see
| | 03:15 |
that the one on the right does have a
much warmer overall color temperature
| | 03:18 |
than the one on the left.
The only change that was made during the
| | 03:23 |
photographic process was the addition of
the gold reflector.
| | 03:28 |
Of course, you can change the color
temperature of your craft photo in an
| | 03:32 |
image editing application.
But this is a really great way just to do
| | 03:35 |
it while you're out in the field.
And it doesn't end up needing a lot of
| | 03:39 |
post production editing.
| | 03:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Angling for the wow factor| 00:01 |
One of the most common composition
techniques is using the Rule of Thirds.
| | 00:04 |
And once you know what you're looking
for, you're going to see it everywhere.
| | 00:07 |
Basically, when you look through your
view finder, you're going to, you're
| | 00:10 |
going to want to imagine your image being
broken up into a grid of thirds.
| | 00:15 |
Both horizontally and vertically.
So, if you can imagine a grid with nine
| | 00:19 |
individual squares, just put your image,
your center of focus right on one of the
| | 00:23 |
intersections of the grid and make that
your focal point.
| | 00:28 |
Everything else is less important, and
that's the Rule of Thirds.
| | 00:31 |
It might sound tricky, but once you take
a look at a composition using the Rule of
| | 00:35 |
Thirds, I guarantee you're going to see
it everywhere.
| | 00:38 |
And if you're having a hard time
imagining what it might look like, most
| | 00:41 |
cameras even these little compacts, have
a great little grid that makes it very easy.
| | 00:46 |
So, you just hold it right up.
Place your subject on the intersection,
| | 00:50 |
and snap away.
And you get a great composition.
| | 00:53 |
And why do people like the Rule of
Thirds?
| | 00:55 |
Just because it brings such a natural
balance to your image.
| | 00:58 |
Instead of putting something right in the
center, and it seems so symmetrical, your
| | 01:02 |
eye doesn't like looking at something
like that.
| | 01:06 |
It wants to travel around and figure out
the image.
| | 01:08 |
And by putting something in the lower
third, the upper third, moving it around
| | 01:11 |
a little bit, it's really a more
interesting composition.
| | 01:15 |
So, let's take a look at an example here.
We've got our little bunny craft, up in
| | 01:19 |
the tree where bunnies like to live.
And we've got a beautiful blue sky behind
| | 01:24 |
us and a nice green fore, foreground
underneath him.
| | 01:28 |
And so, I'm just going to take a shot.
I'm metering on his face, and then I'm
| | 01:33 |
just turning my camera slightly so that
he's out of the center of the focus.
| | 01:38 |
And (audio playing) taking a shot.
It looks great.
| | 01:40 |
What's happening is that the green, the
green of the shrub is creating a nice
| | 01:45 |
horizontal access point.
And the, the image of the rabbit is just
| | 01:49 |
coming up just off of center and it's
making him my target.
| | 01:54 |
That's where all the emphasis is going.
So, when you want to use the Rule of
| | 01:57 |
Thirds on your own, you just have to
think about what's the subject of your photo.
| | 02:01 |
And then, where do you want to place it
in your view finder.
| | 02:04 |
Once you have that figured out, you're
using the Rule of Thirds, and you're
| | 02:07 |
guaranteed a great well-balanced photo.
| | 02:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Handy tools for staging| 00:01 |
Oftentimes when you are crafting, you
will make things that are not meant to be
| | 00:04 |
just set on a table.
They have some dimension to them, they
| | 00:09 |
would actually look better maybe
photographed in a more challenging position.
| | 00:14 |
Maybe they don't stand upright.
That's when you need to think about your
| | 00:16 |
staging tools.
I've got a couple of crafts over here, I
| | 00:19 |
made these little snails, and, they
actually do look fine when they're just
| | 00:22 |
scooting along on the ground.
But they look really cool in a photo when
| | 00:26 |
they're stuck to a tree.
So what I used was this earthquake putty.
| | 00:31 |
This is a really cool tool for crafters.
It's reusable, it's movable, and then you
| | 00:36 |
can put your crafts just about anywhere
you want to get a great shot.
| | 00:44 |
It's actually one of my favorite staging
tools.
| | 00:47 |
I've got a little bag of, of treats I'm
going to show with you today, share with
| | 00:49 |
you today.
That is the earthquake putty.
| | 00:52 |
Like I said, it's great for anything that
is tilted, anything that is even on a
| | 00:56 |
vertical axis.
It's really helpful keeping your crafts
| | 01:00 |
in place.
And because it's kind of a sticky, tacky texture.
| | 01:05 |
You don't want to put it in fibrous
crafts necessarily.
| | 01:08 |
It's going to get stuck inside just like
gum in your hair.
| | 01:11 |
But anything that's got a smooth clean
surface, it's perfect for.
| | 01:14 |
So we'll put that in there.
And my snails usually crawl around on the
| | 01:19 |
ground, so we probably would not be using
fishing line to stage them.
| | 01:24 |
But if I had crafted a bird, or something
that would be hanging from the sky, like
| | 01:28 |
snowflakes, or whatever just regular
fishing line is a great option, because
| | 01:32 |
it's very easy to edit out in your image
editing software after the shoot.
| | 01:38 |
It's almost undetectable, really.
And speaking of fishing line, you're
| | 01:43 |
going to need to attach your fishing line
somewhere or somehow.
| | 01:47 |
You could just tie it in a knot, but I
love these little clamps.
| | 01:50 |
They're perfect for staging.
They're small enough that you can just
| | 01:52 |
throw them in your bag, in your purse,
whatever.
| | 01:55 |
And speaking of bags, the bag that we're
using today Makes for a great light diffuser.
| | 02:04 |
So, this is just a plastic trash bag, you
would might, maybe find at the market or
| | 02:08 |
any, any cheap shop.
And right now we're in kind of a shady
| | 02:13 |
situation, so, I am not going to be able
to give great example of this but I do
| | 02:17 |
see a shadow being cast and, if I were to
come over here, I could just diffuse the
| | 02:21 |
sunlight and get a really nice soft shot
if it were just coming down and casting
| | 02:25 |
hard shadows.
Just a regular trash bag.
| | 02:33 |
Clear would, would be perfect and the way
that I would photograph that is that I
| | 02:37 |
would come over here to my camera and I
would turn it on.
| | 02:42 |
And then I would set it to, I would go
into drive mode, and I would set it to
| | 02:46 |
self timer or remote control.
So I'm just going to set it to two
| | 02:51 |
seconds, because I'm right here, and
depress the shutter.
| | 02:55 |
And let's see.
Perfectly diffused light.
| | 03:08 |
That's fantastic, and it's just a trash
bag.
| | 03:10 |
And I did see one more goody while I was
in here I didn't mention.
| | 03:13 |
This is just, it's actually jewelry wire,
but I use it for propping things up that
| | 03:18 |
maybe are a little flimsy, a little
floppy.
| | 03:22 |
This is great because you can really
manipulate it.
| | 03:24 |
So this is another staging tool that is
fantastic.
| | 03:27 |
But while we're talking about light,
we've got two more things with us here.
| | 03:33 |
Just about every crafter I know has a
stockpile of foam core.
| | 03:39 |
It's a great crafting tool, but it's also
a great photography tool because it can
| | 03:43 |
add more light to a shady situation.
So, we are here in this forest where
| | 03:48 |
there's not a ton of light.
And I can kind of reflect some light up
| | 03:52 |
and give that a boost, and I can also do
the same thing with this white tea towel,
| | 03:56 |
just from my kitchen, nothing special.
I'm going to show you how that works with
| | 04:01 |
this foam core.
So, turn on my camera, and I'm going to
| | 04:04 |
put it on self timer yet again.
Get into position here.
| | 04:12 |
And add some light.
Now let's see how it looks with no light
| | 04:20 |
on it.
Just so that I can get a good comparison.
| | 04:28 |
Yep, with the light, it's much, much
brighter, without it, it's very, very
| | 04:31 |
dark and almost hard to see the snails.
So, we can use trash bag or tea towel to
| | 04:37 |
kind of diffuse the light.
We can also use tea towel from below.
| | 04:44 |
Or foam core, to reflect the light.
And then we have all of our handy staging
| | 04:49 |
tools here.
We've got our earthquake putty, our
| | 04:54 |
fishing line, and our handy-dandy wire,
and our handy-dandy hook.
| | 05:01 |
And with these tools.
You should be able to get a really
| | 05:03 |
interesting perspective and a really
interesting staging for all of your
| | 05:07 |
crafts when you're doing your photography
| | 05:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Hinting at motion in a static image| 00:01 |
When you've made a craft that has moving
parts, it's usually a good idea to show
| | 00:04 |
that it has moving parts to prospective
buyers who might be interested.
| | 00:08 |
The way that we control motion, is
actually through shutter speed.
| | 00:12 |
Our good old friend.
One of the three main components to
| | 00:15 |
getting great exposure.
So we've got these paper pinwheels here.
| | 00:19 |
And I want to take a couple of shots.
That show off how the range of motion in
| | 00:23 |
the pinwheel works.
And so I have a little setup here,
| | 00:26 |
going to put this one away.
And we've got our trusty fan in the
| | 00:30 |
background that's going to provide some
wind, so we don't have to pass out
| | 00:33 |
blowing on our pinwheels while we're
taking a shot.
| | 00:36 |
And I've got my tripod because I want to
be sure that everything else in the frame
| | 00:39 |
is perfectly still.
That way it doesn't look like the
| | 00:43 |
pinwheels are moving just because of an
accident or because I had a little camera
| | 00:46 |
shake, I was feeling wobbly.
The tripod's a great tool for showing
| | 00:50 |
motion with shutter speed.
So, I'm going to grab my fan and take
| | 00:53 |
some test shots and see what we come up
with.
| | 00:56 |
(audio playing) Turn it up to turbo speed.
And one of the staging tips that we've
| | 01:04 |
had, or staging tricks we've had to use
in this particular craft, is that while
| | 01:09 |
we're taking our photograph I want to
just have the, the paper pinwheels spinning.
| | 01:17 |
I don't want to have anything else
moving.
| | 01:18 |
And when I was taking some test shots
earlier, the toothpick was wobbling.
| | 01:22 |
It wasn't, well sticking em into this
knitted cap just wasn't enough so we had
| | 01:26 |
to get resourceful, look around.
Couldn't find my earthquake putty but I
| | 01:31 |
could find a banana.
So whatever you need to use in order to
| | 01:34 |
keep your craft steady is really going to
make the difference in the scene.
| | 01:38 |
So, I mean using fruit to keep your craft
in place might be a little bit
| | 01:41 |
unconventional but it's working for what
we've got here, so we're just going to go
| | 01:45 |
with that.
We wanted to have a little bit of a
| | 01:49 |
visual landscape, so.
That still looks pretty nice.
| | 01:54 |
The pinwheels are moving.
The fan is blowing, and we are about to
| | 01:57 |
slow down our shutter speed so that the
only thing that's moving in our image is
| | 02:02 |
the pinwheels.
So, camera on.
| | 02:06 |
I'm in shutter priority mode.
I've already checked my exposure.
| | 02:11 |
So that looks good.
And when I take a shot, since I've got a
| | 02:13 |
slower shutter speed right now,
everything is perfectly clear.
| | 02:17 |
I've already focused in on the little,
the center pin, and so the paper is just moving.
| | 02:21 |
It looks really nice and swirly.
And that's going to let prospective
| | 02:25 |
buyers know that, yes, this is a
functional pinwheel, it doesn't, it's not
| | 02:28 |
just for show.
So that's good.
| | 02:31 |
let's see, what else.
If I wanted to just hint at motion with
| | 02:34 |
these, I could really, really slow it
down and maybe adjust the ISO, kick it up
| | 02:37 |
a little bit since it's kind of dark in
here.
| | 02:40 |
And it would just look like a perfectly
blurred halo around a crystal clear point.
| | 02:46 |
But I don't want it to be so blurry that
you can't tell what it is.
| | 02:49 |
So just a hint of motion, just find that
balance, that sweet spot when you're
| | 02:53 |
looking through your shutter speed.
Keep an eye on your exposure but, really
| | 02:58 |
test out a whole range of, of motion
blurs.
| | 03:01 |
Everything else should be perfectly
crystal clear, but just keep the moving
| | 03:05 |
part moving, and if you can achieve that
then you should end up with a great
| | 03:08 |
photograph that has your moving parts in
place.
| | 03:13 |
Your craft looks good and then your
buyers and your craft photo viewers will
| | 03:16 |
know what they're looking at.
| | 03:19 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating simple animations with still images| 00:01 |
In this movie, we're going to take a
series of still images that we can
| | 00:03 |
animate to make a really simple movie.
And the reason we would want to do this
| | 00:07 |
is just to show the motion that would
complement our individual craft.
| | 00:12 |
And I don't mean show motion by just
slowing down shutter speed for one single image.
| | 00:17 |
I mean taking a series of single images
that we can put together, and make kind
| | 00:20 |
of a flip-book style movie.
So I've got this craft here, this little
| | 00:25 |
needle felted octopus that I made.
And I wanted to really give him a little
| | 00:30 |
home, not just create a habitat shop.
But really put it all together and give
| | 00:34 |
this whole project some fun, dynamic
elements and also just get a little crafty.
| | 00:40 |
So what I've done here is, first of all,
crafted a light box.
| | 00:45 |
And I did this because I don't always
have the optimal lighting situation at my
| | 00:51 |
home or studio.
So, this is just a simple project.
| | 00:55 |
It's basically just taking a cardboard
box, cutting out a side here, a side
| | 00:59 |
here, an open area here.
And for, the purposes of this animation,
| | 01:04 |
when we're going to be moving our craft,
I've left it, open on top.
| | 01:08 |
But if you wanted to just have it as a
functional light box, you would probably
| | 01:11 |
just cut a single fold here, and cover.
Cover the hole with a plastic bag just to
| | 01:16 |
diffuse the light.
We also have a background in this box and
| | 01:20 |
it's a thick heavy stock piece of art
paper.
| | 01:25 |
Now, inside the box we have a few things
going on.
| | 01:29 |
using some of our staging techniques and
our staging tools, I've made this seascape.
| | 01:36 |
And there's a lot going on underneath it.
It might just look like a cute little
| | 01:40 |
seascape up front, and that's what I hope
it looks like.
| | 01:43 |
But below I'm using all kinds of little
tricks like clips on raw wools makes seaweed.
| | 01:49 |
And I've got a stack of books under here
just to kind of raise the height of this
| | 01:53 |
drop cloth.
And give, give the entire scene kind of
| | 01:57 |
like a little bit of a visual landscape,
more interesting visual landscape when I
| | 02:01 |
look through my viewfinder on my camera.
And we're also using wire that I have put
| | 02:08 |
through the head of my octopus,
unfortunately.
| | 02:11 |
But I need to have something that I can
control him as I'm moving him through the
| | 02:15 |
scene, so wire is work, worked well for
me.
| | 02:19 |
You can also use fishing line.
Both of these tools are really easy to
| | 02:23 |
edit out in your image editing software
before you animate.
| | 02:28 |
So I just like using something thin and
something non obstructive or non intrusive.
| | 02:33 |
also in front of our drop cloth I've got
some of these little sea rocks and these
| | 02:38 |
are just used in aquariums.
You can find them at pet stores or in
| | 02:44 |
garden shops I'm using a rubber band to
keep the octopuses tentacles together.
| | 02:50 |
When he starts out in his animation.
And then I'm going to slowly release them.
| | 02:55 |
And that's pretty much what's going on
within the stage.
| | 02:59 |
Now to actually take the series of
photographs.
| | 03:04 |
I have a couple of tools that I'm using.
First I have my Shutter Release button.
| | 03:08 |
And this is important just because, I am
going to check and see what the
| | 03:12 |
composition looks like.
But it's going to be hard for me to keep
| | 03:16 |
running back and forth as I moving my
octopus through the scene.
| | 03:20 |
So, I want to be able to hold him take a
shot, reposition him, take another shot
| | 03:25 |
And so on and so forth.
Until I have a nice sequential series of
| | 03:30 |
photographs that's going to look great
once I animate them.
| | 03:33 |
So right now I'm just going to check out
the scene, see how much of this light box
| | 03:37 |
is visible, because I don't really
want to have these green walls in the shot.
| | 03:43 |
That would be really distracting.
So ideally I would only have this area to
| | 03:46 |
this area just, the plain background and
the nice drop cloth.
| | 03:51 |
So I'm going to give that a look see what
I've got here.
| | 03:54 |
And zoom in just a little bit because I
see some of the corners of my seascape
| | 04:00 |
and I don't like that very much.
And now I'm going to place my octopus and
| | 04:06 |
right now I just want him to be slightly
visible, so he's just peeking out.
| | 04:12 |
And I'm going to check one more time and
make sure I'm focused on him, that is
| | 04:16 |
going to be important.
Yes, okay.
| | 04:20 |
So, now that I know my camera setup, I
feel secure about that.
| | 04:25 |
I like my backdrop.
I like my lightbox.
| | 04:28 |
I've also got some lighting up here
because while my light box in the studio
| | 04:32 |
is pretty useful.
We've also got these studio lights going
| | 04:36 |
on while we're filming.
So there's some shadows being cast, and I
| | 04:40 |
needed an added light above my light box
just to shine down.
| | 04:45 |
And prevent any other distracting
shadows.
| | 04:47 |
So we're looking good.
And I'm going to start moving my guy.
| | 04:51 |
So I just took one shot, but I'm going to
take another one.
| | 04:54 |
And then I'm going to lift him up, so
that he looks like he's in the process of
| | 04:59 |
swimming through the scene.
Take another one.
| | 05:06 |
Release some more of his tentacles.
Take another one.
| | 05:10 |
While you're also taking these shots,
it's wise to think about where you want
| | 05:14 |
your craft to end up.
This is going to become a movie, so if
| | 05:18 |
you want a starting point and an ending
point, that's going to make for a much
| | 05:21 |
more cohesive.
flip book style movie.
| | 05:26 |
And then we'll give him a landing point.
And I'm just going to quickly check
| | 05:30 |
through here and see how those look.
Clicking through.
| | 05:34 |
Oh, it looks great.
I'm really excited about that.
| | 05:37 |
So, now I have my content and what I
would do next is download these photographs.
| | 05:42 |
I would mask out my wire.
And then, I would use iMovie which is
| | 05:46 |
really easy just to import all the movies
and then, you can animate them straight away.
| | 05:52 |
Or I would maybe make an animated gift
with Photoshop.
| | 05:55 |
There's all kinds of options for
animating your still images.
| | 05:58 |
So you can look online and see there is
some free application.
| | 06:02 |
But I use iMovie and make animated just
some photoshop all the times.
| | 06:06 |
So either one of those options is
going to give you really results for
| | 06:09 |
animating your still images into a core
movie.
| | 06:13 |
And one more thing you can really boost
the coolness of this craft.
| | 06:18 |
By just changing slightly, as you're
moving your octopus, or whatever it is
| | 06:22 |
you're special craft.
You can move the elements within your
| | 06:26 |
stage just slightly as you take each
photograph.
| | 06:28 |
I've done this project, this exact
project, where I've had a school of fish,
| | 06:31 |
on a white piece of paper.
And I just moved it, took a picture,
| | 06:35 |
moved it, took a picture.
And as I was moving my octopus, as I was
| | 06:38 |
moving the sea grass, I was also moving
the fish.
| | 06:41 |
It just gives the whole thing a more
natural feeling.
| | 06:44 |
It's a little bit more work when you're
staging it, and you kind of wish you had
| | 06:47 |
more hands.
But the end result is super cool.
| | 06:51 |
So I totally recommend that you try
making a movie out of animated stills.
| | 06:57 |
And maybe start with the basic one, but
see how creative you can get with it.
| | 07:01 |
Make all kinds of different changes.
As you go along, and I think you're
| | 07:04 |
going to be really pleased with the
results.
| | 07:05 |
(MUSICMUSIC)
| | 07:32 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Lenses: Choosing the right one for the job| 00:01 |
Like every craft project, there are
different tools that you need to get the
| | 00:04 |
job done.
Same thing goes with photography.
| | 00:09 |
This is not a movie about how to make a
needle felted owl.
| | 00:13 |
This is a movie about how to shoot a
needle felted owl.
| | 00:17 |
There are different tools for every
project, there are different lenses for
| | 00:20 |
every project.
I'm going to talk about three that I use
| | 00:22 |
all the time.
They're really versatile, and they're
| | 00:25 |
really different too.
So, this first lens is something that I love.
| | 00:31 |
I've, I've used it ever since I got my
digital SLR's, actually a 17 to 40
| | 00:34 |
millimeter focal length, and it's a zoom
lens so that's really great for me
| | 00:38 |
because I can get a nice versatile shot.
I use this anytime I'm shooting a craft.
| | 00:46 |
And I'm in a position where it's not a
fixed location.
| | 00:50 |
I can move around, or I can stay in one
spot.
| | 00:53 |
There could be action happening.
In fact, I use this all week when I was
| | 00:56 |
shooting little pictures of my owl here.
I could with the zoom lens I could really
| | 01:01 |
get in close, or pull back.
Kind of take into consideration the
| | 01:05 |
different frames.
And that's one of the nice things about this.
| | 01:09 |
It's also it's for me it was kind of an
expensive lens.
| | 01:14 |
I do shoot on a budget.
I craft on a budget.
| | 01:18 |
But it is worth it sometimes to invest in
something that's just a little bit more
| | 01:21 |
high end.
This is one of the red line L series.
| | 01:26 |
Canon lenses and it's so crisp, it's so
clear, and like I said, it's really versatile.
| | 01:31 |
The downside to this is that it's a bit
heavy.
| | 01:33 |
So if you're going to be shooting all day
long just remember to put your camera
| | 01:37 |
down or have a nice comfortable bag that
you can wear over your shoulders when
| | 01:40 |
you're carrying it.
Because that is one of the things about
| | 01:44 |
these bigger lenses and the zoom lenses,
there's a lot more glass in there to
| | 01:48 |
accommodate for the changes in focal
length.
| | 01:51 |
So it's much, much heavier.
But my second favorite lens of all time
| | 01:56 |
is the 50 millimeter lens.
And this is a fixed lens, meaning you
| | 02:00 |
can't zoom in or out.
You need to move around if you want to
| | 02:04 |
get a different if you want to get a
different composition.
| | 02:08 |
And the, the fixed lenses are typically
much faster.
| | 02:12 |
They have a wider aperture.
So it's great for getting depth of field shots.
| | 02:16 |
In fact, if I wanted to take some really
nice shots of these different snail shell
| | 02:20 |
candles, I could line them up.
And I would probably use my 50 millimeter
| | 02:24 |
lens, just because I can get a really
great sense of depth just by using this lens.
| | 02:30 |
This is also something that whenever I"m
shooting a specific product shot, or one
| | 02:35 |
specific craft, I will, I will use my
little light box set up.
| | 02:41 |
And just when things are static, when
things are set in one place, I will use
| | 02:45 |
just my fixed lense because.
This isn't changing.
| | 02:51 |
This is a constant.
And so I can be creative with my angles.
| | 02:54 |
And I can move around.
But my lens is going to stay the same.
| | 02:57 |
And I always get great shots.
I love this lens so much.
| | 03:01 |
The last lens that I is actually pretty
new to me, is the wide angle lens.
| | 03:05 |
It's a 24 millimeter.
What it does that is, is different from
| | 03:09 |
the 50 millimeter, is that because it's a
wider angle lens, you can get, kind of
| | 03:12 |
get creative with your composition.
You can, sort of be more playful with
| | 03:17 |
your images almost, because, you have
more to work with in the frame.
| | 03:22 |
So, whereas this, the drawback is that,
you always have to move around to get a
| | 03:26 |
different, you know, shot through your
viewfinder This is neat even though it's
| | 03:29 |
fixed and doesn't zoom, it's just got
more in the frame.
| | 03:34 |
So, it's kind of like a whole new
perspective, and if you do go with a 24,
| | 03:38 |
or a 50 millimeter lens just to try
things out.
| | 03:42 |
I recommend just stick one of these
lenses on your camera and then just shoot
| | 03:46 |
for like a week solid because, your eye
is going to start to train itself in
| | 03:50 |
finding really neat compositions, and
understanding how you need to work as a
| | 03:54 |
photographer with a fixed lens.
It, it is a little bit of a discipline
| | 04:00 |
that you need to learn.
But it's so worth it, because the results
| | 04:03 |
are really interesting, and, while it can
be frustrating if you're shooting with
| | 04:07 |
one of these lenses and you really
want to zoom in and you just can't, I
| | 04:10 |
really, really, really love how crystal
clear these images are, and the great
| | 04:13 |
versatility with depth of field.
Of course that said, if I want to go
| | 04:19 |
versatility, I do stick with my zoom
lens.
| | 04:23 |
So, for different examples of when I
would use these, the zoom lens I use,
| | 04:27 |
again, when I'm shooting and I'm all over
the place.
| | 04:31 |
I'm looking for different locations, I
want to get in and out and, and, you
| | 04:35 |
know, just try different things.
For these, if I just want to get a nice,
| | 04:39 |
quick shot with an open aperture, then I
would go with a fixed lens, specifically
| | 04:43 |
the 50 millimeter, just because it has
such a really nice framing and it's, it's
| | 04:48 |
very similar to how your eye sees things.
And then for the wide angle, I would
| | 04:55 |
probably use this, either again in a, a
probably a larger light box situation
| | 04:58 |
than this since it has more to, more to
see in the view finder.
| | 05:04 |
But maybe if I were outside, you know,
shooting a craft.
| | 05:07 |
One individual craft within a field, and
you kind of had to like look around at
| | 05:10 |
the composition, get your eye moving to
find that individual craft, you would,
| | 05:14 |
you would use something like this just
because there is more to work with.
| | 05:19 |
So, different options, and obviously
there are, thousands of lenses.
| | 05:25 |
You could spend so much money buying
different camera lenses, and that's fine
| | 05:28 |
if you can.
I am on a budget, so I only have a few
| | 05:31 |
lenses that I really want to get to know
before I add more to my collection.
| | 05:37 |
But you know, you can also rent lenses
from a lot of different photography
| | 05:41 |
stores and studios, so check your local
photo stores just to see what's available.
| | 05:47 |
You might be able to just rent a lens and
check, and just try it out for awhile
| | 05:49 |
before you make the commitment.
But yeah.
| | 05:53 |
Those are about, these are the lenses
that I use and why I use them, and when I
| | 05:56 |
use them.
So as you're buying lenses, think about
| | 06:00 |
what you're interested in.
If it's just versatility, or if it's just
| | 06:03 |
product shots.
And you can make the call yourself.
| | 06:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Project: Shooting a highly reflective handmade craft| 00:00 |
(audio playing)
| | 00:02 |
So I'm just here in the garden taking
some photographs of a craft I've made.
| | 00:06 |
And it's really, really sunny out.
The craft I've made has some glass around it.
| | 00:12 |
And it's actually sitting on a pond.
So there's a lot of reflection going on.
| | 00:17 |
Now, reflection can be used in ways to
enhance a photograph as well as distract
| | 00:21 |
from it.
So it's up to you to decide if you like
| | 00:24 |
the, the reflection you're getting, or if
you think it's too much.
| | 00:29 |
Actually, if you start looking around in
catalogs and advertisements, you're
| | 00:32 |
probably going to see a lot more
reflections than you ever noticed before.
| | 00:36 |
I'm a total sucker for photographs of
vases and mirrors.
| | 00:40 |
Things like that I see in catalogs I'm
always looking for the reflection.
| | 00:44 |
Can I see part of the stage that's.
That's supposed to be off camera.
| | 00:48 |
Can I see the photographer?
I find that it's really interesting.
| | 00:51 |
But if you think it's distracting, we can
diffuse light.
| | 00:54 |
Like we have in some previous movies.
For this movie, however, I'm getting a
| | 00:59 |
reflection of the goldfish in the water
of the pond.
| | 01:03 |
And it's making a really cool mirrored
effect.
| | 01:06 |
And because the pond is black down below,
it's really enhancing the mirrored effect.
| | 01:10 |
And it's making the composition look
really cool.
| | 01:12 |
It's like the fish is looking down at
itself.
| | 01:14 |
So I'm going to take a few shots, but.
Something that I'm using to help me out
| | 01:19 |
is that I've got this little filter on
the end of my lens.
| | 01:24 |
And it's just a UV filter but it's
cutting back on a little bit of glare.
| | 01:27 |
These are great.
You can pick these up anywhere.
| | 01:30 |
And if you don't have the money to buy
one, or if you're not that interested in it.
| | 01:35 |
You can also try shooting a craft through
a pair of sunglasses.
| | 01:38 |
And that's also going to cut back on the
reflection that you're getting off the
| | 01:41 |
water and make for a nice photograph.
But for this photograph, because we've
| | 01:45 |
got a dark surface underneath the
reflective light surface, we're getting a
| | 01:48 |
really cool image.
So it's just up to you to decide whether
| | 01:52 |
the reflections you get in your crafts
are beneficial or distracting from the image.
| | 01:58 |
And then, plan accordingly.
In this case I like it so I'm just
| | 02:01 |
going to keep on shooting.
| | 02:03 |
(audio playing)
| | 02:15 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Project: Shooting an extremely fibrous handmade craft| 00:01 |
When you're shooting a really fibrous
craft, something soft and fuzzy like this
| | 00:04 |
knitted baby cap, you have a couple of
options as far as how you want to shoot it.
| | 00:08 |
And right now, I'm going to show you a
quick tip to really bring out the fibers
| | 00:13 |
and show off the texture of the hat.
And one way to do that is by lighting it
| | 00:18 |
from the side.
You can also light it from the top.
| | 00:20 |
The same thing is going to happen.
But as we do that, you can see that
| | 00:23 |
within this ribbed hat, every single
ribbing, every single knit stitch I've
| | 00:27 |
got here is casting its own individual
shadow.
| | 00:32 |
And that's going to really pop out on my
camera.
| | 00:34 |
In fact, I'm going to take a picture of
this and just make sureSOUND I like it.
| | 00:40 |
I do.
You know, one other thing about bringing
| | 00:43 |
out the the fibers here.
This craft is orange, it's got some white
| | 00:47 |
in it, some light colors, so I opted to
shoot it on a black background.
| | 00:51 |
And if I wanted to get in really close
and get a nice detail shot of this, I
| | 00:54 |
would be able to see all those fibers in
perfect detail against the nice, black background.
| | 01:01 |
So having some contrast with your craft
is a really great way to bring out the
| | 01:04 |
fibers of it.
Now, if I wanted to shoot this craft in
| | 01:08 |
the opposite way, if I wanted to, kind
of, not wash it out but just soften it up
| | 01:13 |
a little bit, all I would do is move my
light straight to the front.
| | 01:20 |
And that's just going to soften
everything up.
| | 01:22 |
It's going to kind of get rid of the hard
lines.
| | 01:24 |
And it's going to give us a different
effect.
| | 01:26 |
So I'm going to move my light and show
you what I mean by that.
| | 01:28 |
Okay.
All right.
| | 01:40 |
So now I'm, I've got my craft lit
straight on.
| | 01:42 |
I'm going to take a quick shot and see if
I like this.
| | 01:48 |
And already the effect is really
different.
| | 01:50 |
So, this is just a really quick way to
take a look at two different options as
| | 01:54 |
far as shooting your fibrous craft, but
one other thing that I would want to
| | 01:58 |
mention is this craft is overall soft.
There are no hard parts, no little
| | 02:04 |
plastic bits or googly eyes or anything
like that.
| | 02:07 |
If I was shooting a craft that was, say,
a stuffed animal, or a toy that had
| | 02:11 |
little bright eyes, I would consider
shooting with a very shallow depth of
| | 02:15 |
field so that the focus is on the eyes,
and then the rest of the craft is nice
| | 02:19 |
and soft.
That actually brings out the eye, but it
| | 02:24 |
makes the rest of the craft kind of
soften up even more, so that's another option.
| | 02:29 |
You can just, you can focus on one point
within your craft and then everything
| | 02:32 |
else falls away, that's the way depth of
field works, but it works really well
| | 02:35 |
when you've got a nice soft craft.
And if I were shooting something that
| | 02:40 |
were super, super light, like something
white or yellow, I would probably want to
| | 02:43 |
put that on a light background if I was
going for a shallow depth of field.
| | 02:48 |
So, you have a couple of options.
You can shoot from the side or from above
| | 02:51 |
and get that nice hard shadow, which is
going to give you the really nice, fine
| | 02:54 |
texture of the individual craft.
Or you can swing your light around and
| | 03:00 |
shoot it from the front.
It's just going to soften everything up
| | 03:03 |
and give you a completely different
texture.
| | 03:05 |
Right now, I'm using the black background
on the light craft, so you could go for
| | 03:09 |
that, or you could also go light on
light, play with depth of field, focus on
| | 03:12 |
one little area, one eyeball.
And you're going to have all kinds of
| | 03:17 |
options for shooting your really soft and
fluffy crafts.
| | 03:21 |
Either way you're going to get great
results, so practice, play around with
| | 03:23 |
it, see what you like, but either way, I
think you're going to enjoy, and I think
| | 03:26 |
you're going to be happy with what you
get.
| | 03:29 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Image Editing in Photoshop and LightroomRemoving skin imperfections| 00:02 |
In this movie, we're going to look at a
couple of ways to correct imperfections
| | 00:05 |
in the skin.
And imperfections in the skin are
| | 00:09 |
completely natural.
I'm talking about wrinkles, blemishes,
| | 00:13 |
moles, freckles, whatever.
And so we're looking at a photograph here
| | 00:17 |
of me.
And I am wearing these three little
| | 00:20 |
button earrings, and well, it's not a
super-detailed product shot.
| | 00:25 |
It's just kind of putting in context this
craft, if you were a person who had
| | 00:29 |
multiple piercings in their ear, which I
have.
| | 00:34 |
So, here it is, and it's just kind of
showing the craft not in super detail,
| | 00:37 |
but just how it would look on a person.
And I have identified a couple of areas
| | 00:43 |
that I am sensitive about.
Normally, I'm not super crazy about
| | 00:49 |
removing a lot of wrinkles or moles.
The textures of our skin, you know, it
| | 00:54 |
makes us who we are, and we're who we
are.
| | 00:58 |
We're human.
We don't all have like perfect baby skin.
| | 01:02 |
But I remember not so long ago, I was
making a necklace and I was really proud
| | 01:06 |
of it.
I was really excited to show it to a
| | 01:09 |
certain friend of mine.
So, as soon as I was done, I put it on, I
| | 01:12 |
took a photo, and I sent it to him via
email and I asked him what he thought.
| | 01:17 |
And right away he responded with hey,
that necklace is cool.
| | 01:21 |
But wow, you sure have a lot of wrinkles
in your neck.
| | 01:25 |
And I thought, wow, you are so mean.
But I also thought, wow, what an
| | 01:30 |
ineffective photograph to sell a
necklace.
| | 01:34 |
You know, it was just a snapshot.
But if there are wrinkles in my neck
| | 01:37 |
that are distracting the viewer from the
actual craft, that's not a good thing.
| | 01:42 |
So, it's, it's a good (LAUGH) idea to
have a couple of handy tools in your back
| | 01:46 |
pocket for just cleaning up skin
imperfections.
| | 01:50 |
Wrinkles, just the normal things that
make us all human, if they're distracting
| | 01:54 |
from the craft.
So, within this photograph, it's
| | 01:58 |
basically a head shot, but I happened to
be wearing a very small craft.
| | 02:03 |
So, your eyes could wander around and
sort of, you know, maybe critique parts
| | 02:08 |
of my skin.
And that's fine.
| | 02:11 |
But I just am going to Zoom In, and show
you a couple of things that I am going to
| | 02:14 |
teach you how to get rid of today.
And one of them is, removing wrinkles and
| | 02:20 |
blemishes and little things like that.
And then another one is removing little
| | 02:25 |
trouble areas that you might be sensitive
about, like my little baby double chin here.
| | 02:30 |
So, first of all, before we get started,
I am going to Duplicate my Background
| | 02:35 |
layer, and I'm doing that just as a mode
of insurance.
| | 02:40 |
If I make some critical error that I'm
really not happy with, I can always go
| | 02:44 |
back and have my original data within my
Background layer.
| | 02:49 |
So, I've duplicated it by Right-clicking
on this blue highlighted background, and
| | 02:54 |
selecting Duplicate Layer.
Now I'm going to Save this image as let's
| | 03:01 |
see, let's call it Double Chin Touch Up,
because that is where I'd like to start.
| | 03:12 |
So, the way that you can just gently
modify parts of your body, or a model's
| | 03:18 |
body that you're not super happy with.
Or by going up here to your toolbox and
| | 03:24 |
Selecting the Marquee tool.
Now, I am just going to Draw a little box
| | 03:29 |
around the area that bothers me.
Something to note is that, you really
| | 03:35 |
don't want to go crazy with this
technique.
| | 03:39 |
While it's a super-cool thing to know how
to do.
| | 03:43 |
Changing the shape of your body, or your
model's body, in a photograph really,
| | 03:48 |
really dramatically could lead to
unrealistic looking or just awkward
| | 03:54 |
looking final product.
So, you know, while it might be tempting
| | 04:00 |
to make you look three or four dress
sizes smaller, I'd really caution you to
| | 04:04 |
just kind of use this tool in moderation.
So, anyway, that's my little disclaimer,
| | 04:11 |
and now that we have this Marquee Box
drawn around my chin, I'm going to click
| | 04:15 |
Cmd+T on a Mac, Ctrl+T on a PC.
Or I could also Right-click it and hit
| | 04:22 |
Re-Transform, but I'm just going to go
ahead and click Cmd+T.
| | 04:27 |
And now, you can see that I've got this
Transform box with my little arrows that
| | 04:32 |
show up.
And so, I could stretch this out, I could
| | 04:35 |
shrink this area, I could rotate the
selection, but I don't want to do any of that.
| | 04:40 |
I want to Right-click and Select the Warp
function.
| | 04:45 |
Now, when I Hit Warp, this grid appears,
and this is so cool.
| | 04:50 |
Because all you have to do is just gently
Click and Push your skin, Push the body
| | 04:55 |
in the direction that you would like it
to go.
| | 04:59 |
And this is where I have to (LAUGH)
hesitate and just say, really do use caution.
| | 05:04 |
Because if you change the shape of your
skin so much, obviously that looks kind
| | 05:09 |
of crazy and totally unnatural, and
actually a bit scary.
| | 05:13 |
So I'm just going to to Pull it back down
to a point where I'm happy with it, and
| | 05:18 |
I'm going to Double-click, or Hit Return
and let that process.
| | 05:24 |
And then I'm going to Deselect by hitting
Cmd or Ctrl+D, and I think that that
| | 05:28 |
already looks better.
That's just me, maybe being really vain.
| | 05:34 |
But when I Deselect the Double Chin layer
so that only the background is showing,
| | 05:39 |
and then Click to View the touched up
Double Chin layer.
| | 05:45 |
I'm already much happier with this.
Now, it's a little bit pointy over here,
| | 05:49 |
I'm almost getting a little bit of a
witch chin.
| | 05:52 |
So I'm going to Zoom in there, and I'm
going to do the same thing.
| | 05:56 |
I'm going to to just create a really
quick Marquee tool and Right-click> Hit
| | 06:01 |
Free Transform.
Right-click again for Warp, and I'm just
| | 06:06 |
going to Push that little witch chin in
place and it's subtle, but yeah.
| | 06:13 |
I just want it to look natural.
So I'm going to Deselect.
| | 06:16 |
And you know, while I'm in here, I'm just
going to grab the Clone Stamp tool.
| | 06:21 |
Check my opacity.
Lower my brush, my brush size a little bit.
| | 06:27 |
And really just do some minor, minor
touch up work, just so that it really
| | 06:31 |
does look natural, because that is the
most important thing.
| | 06:36 |
I know it might seem vain that I'm
changing the shape of my chin.
| | 06:40 |
But first and foremost, I don't want
anybody else to be distracted when they
| | 06:44 |
look at this photograph and frankly, that
includes me.
| | 06:47 |
If I am taking a craft photograph of
myself as the model, and there's
| | 06:50 |
something that I absolutely hate within
the photograph.
| | 06:54 |
And it's just one of those personal
things, we all have them, that we're
| | 06:58 |
uncomfortable with about ourselves.
I don't mind changing it, but I just
| | 07:02 |
don't want to change it to the point
where I don't even look either like
| | 07:05 |
myself or human (LAUGH)
So that said, I feel okay about the
| | 07:09 |
change I've made here with my chin.
And now I'm going to go ahead and attack
| | 07:13 |
these wrinkles that are apparently
distracting a friend of mine.
| | 07:19 |
So the way we're going to do that is
actually duplicate this double chin layer.
| | 07:23 |
So I'm going to right-click this again,
and select Duplicate Layer.
| | 07:28 |
And now I'm going to call this one
Wrinkle free.
| | 07:36 |
Hit OK.
And now you can see that with the blue
| | 07:38 |
layer highlighted, I have a new layer to
work with, and I won't be damaging my
| | 07:42 |
double chin touch up or my Background
layer.
| | 07:46 |
So, I've Zoomed way in, and I just
want to take a look here.
| | 07:53 |
This area by my ear where all my little
wrinkles are.
| | 07:58 |
And the deep neck wrinkle that was so
distracting.
| | 08:03 |
So, I'm going to go ahead and get rid of
that one first.
| | 08:06 |
And the way I'm going to do that, is by
using, the Healing brush.
| | 08:11 |
And this brush is so cool.
It kind of reminds me of the Clone Stamp
| | 08:16 |
tool, in that the Healing Brush also
matches texture, light, and shade.
| | 08:22 |
But it just paints over surfaces by
sampling pixels of surrounding areas.
| | 08:26 |
So right now my brush size is way, way
too big and I'm going to just Drop down
| | 08:29 |
this menu here.
And change the size of my Brush by coming
| | 08:34 |
down here, that looks about good.
I want to have a nice soft brush, I don't
| | 08:40 |
want a super hard brush, and spacing is
probably fine right around there.
| | 08:46 |
Now my pen pressure, I can either Select
it to have Off or Stylus Wheel, or just
| | 08:49 |
keep it on Pen Pressure.
I'm just going to keep the size on Pen
| | 08:55 |
Pressure, and go right ahead.
And what I'm going to do, is with my
| | 08:59 |
Healing Brush selected, I'm just going to
Click>Option on a Mac, Alt on a PC, and
| | 09:04 |
select an area of skin that has a similar
skin tone but happens to be wrinkle free.
| | 09:12 |
And now I'm just painting over this
wrinkle.
| | 09:16 |
And it really is kind of painting away
my, my crease, my little imperfection in
| | 09:21 |
my skin.
So, you want to continue to take
| | 09:25 |
selections, take samples of the skin,
because that is going to give you a more
| | 09:30 |
natural and even tone.
But I am seeing some things happening
| | 09:36 |
that I don't like.
And it's similar to the Clone Stamp tool
| | 09:40 |
because you can almost see a pattern
developing in certain areas.
| | 09:44 |
So I'm going to go back and do a little
bit more touch up work after I'm done
| | 09:49 |
painting away some of these little darker
patches here.
| | 09:54 |
Now, I don't want to harp on this too
much.
| | 09:57 |
But it really, I don't think it's a good
idea to change the way you look too much.
| | 10:04 |
So I'm not going to get rid of this
entire line of wrinkles, because that's
| | 10:08 |
just the way my ear looks.
So I'm okay with that.
| | 10:12 |
And the only reason I'm really painting
away any of these ear wrinkles is because
| | 10:17 |
this craft does focus on the earrings.
And even though it's not a super close up
| | 10:23 |
product shot.
If somebody looked at this, I would just
| | 10:26 |
want them to notice the earrings and not
be thinking about whether or not I have
| | 10:30 |
super wrinkly ears, or not.
That's totally not what I'm going for.
| | 10:36 |
So hopefully with these two tools, you
will feel confident and comfortable just
| | 10:40 |
slightly altering the imperfections in
your skin, or in your model's skin, to
| | 10:44 |
the point where you're really happy with
the ultimate craft photo.
| | 10:50 |
So, let's just Deselect this wrinkle free
layer and see what it looked like before
| | 10:54 |
the Wrinkle Touch-up.
And we'll Deselect the double chin
| | 10:57 |
before that one, and now we'll, we'll,
just select those two layers again, just
| | 11:01 |
so you can see the before and after.
Here is the original, here it is with
| | 11:05 |
some chin touch ups.
Here it is with wrinkle touch ups.
| | 11:08 |
I like it.
I feel good about putting it online and
| | 11:11 |
showing off my button earrings.
So hopefully with these two tools, the
| | 11:16 |
Warp tool and the Healing Brush, you will
be able to correct a whole variety of
| | 11:20 |
skin imperfections and feel really good
about your craft photos that use live models.
| | 11:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using layer masks to improve backgrounds| 00:02 |
In this movie, I'm going to talk about
using layer masks to improve the
| | 00:05 |
backgrounds of your craft photography and
I have to make a confession here.
| | 00:11 |
I showed up pretty late to the party when
it came to layer masks.
| | 00:15 |
I don't know why.
At first when I heard about them, they
| | 00:17 |
sounded kind of intimidating, off
putting.
| | 00:20 |
There was just something about them that
made me feel like it wasn't something
| | 00:24 |
that I could do easily.
And I have to tell you, that could not be
| | 00:29 |
further from the truth.
And now that I understand how layer masks
| | 00:33 |
work, I use them all the time.
They're fantastic for removing clutter,
| | 00:38 |
or little accidents in the backgrounds of
photographs, just cleaning up, tidying up
| | 00:43 |
the composition.
Fixing a sky that's slightly underexposed.
| | 00:49 |
Or, combining two images and using the
background from one, and using it in the
| | 00:53 |
other photograph.
And that's what I'm going to show you
| | 00:56 |
right now.
So, I have this photograph, of a little
| | 01:00 |
needle felted butterfly that I made.
And you can see that I shot him out in
| | 01:05 |
the backyard.
I've got a shallow depth of field, but
| | 01:07 |
I've got a very grassy background.
And there's also a little needle felting
| | 01:12 |
needle just jutting out of his wing here,
that was actually my staging tool, to
| | 01:16 |
hold him up so that I could just dance
him around the back yard and take some photographs.
| | 01:22 |
So I'm going to get rid of this and I'm
going to replace the entire background
| | 01:26 |
with a nice blue sky, because I just
think that my butterfly would be happier
| | 01:30 |
flying in front of a blue sky instead of
a green background.
| | 01:35 |
So I need to do is find a photograph that
has a suitable blue, blue sky background
| | 01:39 |
that I can use and I think I have a good
one in mind.
| | 01:44 |
So I'm going to go ahead and open that up
now.
| | 01:47 |
Better sky masking, yep that's what I'd
like.
| | 01:50 |
Now this is a photo I've used in a
different course, but I wanted to pick
| | 01:54 |
this one just because the foreground, the
craft, is not what's in focus here.
| | 01:59 |
I'm only interested in this sky area.
So, I'm just going to crop that out.
| | 02:04 |
And what I'm going to do is just select
it using my Marquis tool, copy with
| | 02:08 |
Command or Control+C.
And I'm going to come on over here, and
| | 02:14 |
just paste that layer right on in.
Now, it's right over the top of my butterfly.
| | 02:20 |
But that's fine with me, because what I'm
going to do, is hit Command or Control+t.
| | 02:25 |
And now I can see that I've got a
bounding box all around this layer.
| | 02:30 |
And I'm going to just stretch it all the
way down.
| | 02:34 |
So I realize that I have distorted my
blue sky because I did not proportionally
| | 02:40 |
stretch it.
But again, because it's a sky you can't
| | 02:46 |
really tell whether or not it is a
proportional or perfect stretch.
| | 02:52 |
I can just kind of stretch it any way I
see fit.
| | 02:55 |
I just want to get as much of that blue
sky in my frame as possible.
| | 02:59 |
So that looks pretty darn good to me.
And we'll still give a little peek
| | 03:03 |
underneath here and we've got our
butterfly.
| | 03:06 |
So I'm going to go ahead and name this
layer, Blue Sky.
| | 03:12 |
And I'm also going to duplicate my
background layer, by just right-clicking,
| | 03:17 |
and call this, melted butterfly.
Whoopsie.
| | 03:23 |
If I could spell, that'd be nice.
Okay, so now I have a duplicate layer of
| | 03:27 |
my background.
And that's just in case I make some error
| | 03:30 |
or make some mistake that I'm not happy
with.
| | 03:33 |
I have the original data down here.
So, I'm going to go ahead and click on my
| | 03:37 |
Blue Sky layer.
And I'm going to go layer > layer mask >
| | 03:42 |
hide all.
Now, you'll notice that when I clicked
| | 03:47 |
hide all, this little black box appeared
over here, and my blue sky completely disappeared.
| | 03:56 |
All I can see now is my butterfly.
And that's exactly what we want, so we're
| | 04:01 |
going to come on over to the toolbox and
grab a paintbrush.
| | 04:05 |
This brush size looks like it's a little
bit small for what we want to do, so that
| | 04:09 |
looks better.
And with our white paint selected and
| | 04:16 |
using our paintbrush, we're just going to
start painting right over that green, and
| | 04:20 |
you'll notice that the blue sky begins
peeking out from under the green grass.
| | 04:26 |
Now, we're painting away the mask, so
that we can expose the image underneath.
| | 04:31 |
So, I'm just going to grab my paintbrush
again, and I'm not going to do a super
| | 04:35 |
neat job with this, because I'm going to
zoom in, and show you what I can do, in
| | 04:38 |
just a second.
So, very quickly, I'm just painting
| | 04:43 |
around the butterfly.
Now I'm just going to zoom in, hitting
| | 04:49 |
Cmd + Plus, and now I'm going to make my
brush a little bit smaller.
| | 04:56 |
And I'm going to switch the colors that
I'm painting.
| | 05:00 |
So instead of painting white, I'm now
going to paint black.
| | 05:05 |
And by doing that, I can bring back some
of the data that I accidentally painted
| | 05:09 |
over on my butterfly.
So, this is how a layer mask works.
| | 05:15 |
It's really a cool thing.
You can push and pull pixels in any direction.
| | 05:21 |
And since it's a mask, you're not really
harming anything.
| | 05:25 |
You're not losing any data.
So what that means is that you can just
| | 05:29 |
rework a layer mask over and over again
until you're really happy with the way it looks.
| | 05:34 |
So, okay, so that looks pretty good, but
there's still a little halo of green.
| | 05:39 |
So I'm just going to come back, switch my
paint to white again, and then get back
| | 05:43 |
in here and really continue to paint in
all the little fine details.
| | 05:49 |
And that is how a layer mask works.
Now, when we created this layer mask, we
| | 05:54 |
could have come up here and instead of
hiding all, we could have revealed all,
| | 05:59 |
and it basically would have been the same
principle.
| | 06:04 |
Except that instead of revealing the
background as we painted, we would have
| | 06:10 |
been revealing the foreground.
So, I am just going to finish this up
| | 06:16 |
really quickly.
And you know, this tool is actually so
| | 06:20 |
useful that you can do all kinds of
thing.
| | 06:23 |
If you don't want to combine photographs.
You can just simply improve the exposure
| | 06:29 |
or the contrast of your background.
And use a layer mask to really blend that
| | 06:34 |
in to your image seamlessly.
So there are all kinds of ways that you
| | 06:39 |
can use layer masks to improve the
backgrounds of your craft photos.
| | 06:43 |
But hopefully by combining backgrounds,
and really improving the overall look of
| | 06:48 |
your image, you'll be happy with the
final outcome.
| | 06:53 |
So now, I have my finished butterfly and
he looks very cute.
| | 06:58 |
It's not a perfect job, I could still go
back and finish in some detail and kind
| | 07:00 |
of change the color bounds so it looks
like he's, he's actually flying.
| | 07:05 |
I might even consider putting in a little
vector graphic here so that it looks like
| | 07:08 |
he's got a little trail of motion behind
him.
| | 07:11 |
But that's the basic principle, I went
from having just a plain butterfly, with
| | 07:16 |
my little staging tool sticking out of
him, straight into a nice, crisp blue sky
| | 07:21 |
that I took from another photograph
entirely.
| | 07:27 |
Hopefully, you've picked up a couple of
tips using layer masks, and you will be
| | 07:32 |
encouraged to try it in your own craft
photography, for improving or combining
| | 07:37 |
backgrounds of photographs.
| | 07:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding watermarks and copyright info| 00:02 |
As crafters taking photographs of our
creations and projects.
| | 00:05 |
It's almost inevitable that we're going
to start seeing photographs that we took
| | 00:09 |
for our blog or our store, show up in
different places that maybe we didn't
| | 00:13 |
intend on them showing up.
So a good idea is to add a watermark and
| | 00:19 |
some copyright information to your
images.
| | 00:23 |
This is really just a way of protecting
your intellectual property.
| | 00:26 |
But also, just really labeling your name
with that particular image so that, if a
| | 00:31 |
friend of yours wants to use an image
that you've created for a certain blog
| | 00:35 |
post on their site.
And then somebody else picks it up on
| | 00:40 |
another site, and another site, and
another site, there's always a chain that
| | 00:44 |
leads back to you.
First of all, we're just going to add
| | 00:49 |
very basic watermark information to this
image.
| | 00:53 |
So in order for us to be able to take
that watermark information and easily and
| | 00:56 |
quickly apply it to the rest of the
photographs within this bento box series,
| | 01:00 |
we need to create what's called an
action.
| | 01:04 |
So I'm going to come up here to Window >
Action.
| | 01:07 |
And when I do that, this this little
palette pops up.
| | 01:12 |
So I'm going to Zoom out on my image, so
that you can see the entire thing.
| | 01:16 |
But here within actions, I'm going to
come on down here to new page and just
| | 01:20 |
create a new action.
So I need to name this, Radmegan Watermark.
| | 01:31 |
Okay.
So, once I hit Record, everything that I
| | 01:35 |
do to apply any kind of style or text.
Or any kind of alteration I make to my
| | 01:41 |
image, is going to be recorded here in
the action palette, and then applied
| | 01:46 |
later to the rest of the images in my
folder.
| | 01:51 |
So, I'm hitting Record, and now
everything that I do is becoming a part
| | 01:55 |
of that particular action that will
become how we make our Batch process later.
| | 02:01 |
So I want to start off with just a simple
watermark.
| | 02:04 |
So I'm going to take my Text tool or my
Type tool and come on over here, and
| | 02:08 |
first I want to just start off with a
basic copyright logo.
| | 02:12 |
So on a Mac, you would click Option+G.
And if you're using a PC, you would type
| | 02:17 |
Alt 0169 on your numeric keypad.
And then just go ahead and type out
| | 02:23 |
whatever it is you would like your
watermark to say.
| | 02:27 |
Mine's just going to be pretty
straightforward.
| | 02:29 |
I just want it to say Radmegan.
But I want to make a couple quick little
| | 02:33 |
changes to the font, just so that I'm
happy with it and it reflects the logo on
| | 02:37 |
my blog.
And hitting Cmd+T, or Ctrl+T, I'm just
| | 02:41 |
going to make this a little bit larger.
And the reason I'm doing this, the size
| | 02:46 |
of your watermark is completely and
entirely up to you.
| | 02:50 |
I'm just making mine a little bit bigger,
because unfortunately some times people
| | 02:55 |
steal images from the web.
It's not, it's not super common but it
| | 03:00 |
does happen.
So if I'm going to go through the trouble
| | 03:03 |
of making a watermark image and Batch
processing it onto all of my images.
| | 03:09 |
And if somebody really wants this
photograph, and they're going to steal it
| | 03:12 |
and claim it as their own, perhaps on
their own blog.
| | 03:16 |
I want to make it hard for them to try to
remove my watermark.
| | 03:20 |
Now, again, I'm not saying that it's
inevitable that your images will be
| | 03:24 |
stolen and claimed as somebody else's,
but unfortunately I have seen it happen.
| | 03:30 |
So, yeah, so I like putting my watermark
kind of over a pattern or a little bit larger.
| | 03:36 |
I used to make my watermarks very small
and kind of unobtrusive.
| | 03:39 |
But just for the sake of saving your
image, I think most people are used to
| | 03:43 |
seeing watermarks now so, you know,
they're not going to be too upset.
| | 03:48 |
As long as it's not making it impossible
for you to see what the craft is, then I
| | 03:52 |
recommend making it a little bit bigger.
So, that's just how we create the
| | 03:58 |
physical watermark that you see.
Now, if you want to actually embed the
| | 04:03 |
watermark image within the data of your
photograph.
| | 04:07 |
You would come up to File, and then drop
down to File Info, and this huge palette
| | 04:12 |
opens up.
So, there's all kinds of tabs in here
| | 04:16 |
that have places for you to enter in as
much information as you would like.
| | 04:21 |
You can also see the data of the image
that you photographed.
| | 04:26 |
But just come on in here, click your,
your name.
| | 04:29 |
You can put as much information as you
want, your website, your, any of your
| | 04:33 |
information, and then have Copyright
selected.
| | 04:36 |
And then just go ahead and click OK.
And so if I had typed in www.radmegan.com
| | 04:42 |
or radmegan.blogspot,com, then all of
this information would now be embedded
| | 04:47 |
with in this photograph.
So I didn't go ahead and do that, but I
| | 04:52 |
showed you how, in case you want to just
click through and practice and really get
| | 04:56 |
to know all the panels in there.
There is a lot of information and it
| | 05:01 |
varies based on the version of Photoshop
you're using.
| | 05:04 |
So, just look around in yours and then
add only as much as you're comfortable with.
| | 05:08 |
So, I'm good right now.
The data information could be put in here.
| | 05:13 |
I've got the text overlayed on my,
photograph.
| | 05:18 |
And the last thing I'm going to do is
actually just merge these two layers together.
| | 05:23 |
And the reason I want to do that, is
because when I apply this action later on
| | 05:27 |
to my file of other bento box
photographs, the whole process that I
| | 05:31 |
went through.
I don't want to have to save each
| | 05:36 |
photograph as a layered PSD, a layered
Photoshop document.
| | 05:41 |
Maybe I'm lazy, but if I'm going through
the process or going through all the work
| | 05:45 |
of creating an action to kick off an
entire Batch process.
| | 05:50 |
I want the computer to as much work for
me as possible.
| | 05:53 |
So, I'm just going to come over here and
click either Merge Visible or Merge Down
| | 05:57 |
or Flatten Image.
Any of these are going to give you one,
| | 06:01 |
one cohesive photograph, one layer, and
now I think I'm done.
| | 06:06 |
So I'm just going to double check that
this looks good, it's spelled correctly,
| | 06:09 |
and it's in a place where I'm happy with
it.
| | 06:13 |
And if it is, I'm just going to go ahead
and stop my action recording.
| | 06:16 |
And now I have this Radmegan watermark
that's good to go, it's all done.
| | 06:21 |
So, now what?
So now I have an action.
| | 06:24 |
Well, that's cool.
But I need to come up here to File and
| | 06:27 |
click Automate Batch.
Now when click Automate Batch, this
| | 06:33 |
window appears, and there are three
things we need to take a look at.
| | 06:38 |
First of all Play.
So, automatically my action is selected
| | 06:42 |
to the action I created, Redmegan
Watermark.
| | 06:45 |
But there are all kinds of other actions
in here, and so just make sure that the
| | 06:49 |
one you've created and named, is the one
that you're using.
| | 06:54 |
Now, also my destination, I can choose
None.
| | 06:58 |
And what would happen there is that my
logo, my little watermark would be
| | 07:02 |
applied to every single photograph that I
choose, but then nothing else will happen.
| | 07:09 |
It wouldn't be saved and it wouldn't be
closed and it wouldn't organized in a
| | 07:12 |
nice, neat manner.
And again, like I said if I am going
| | 07:15 |
through the trouble of creating an
action, I want this computer to do as
| | 07:18 |
much work for me as possible.
So I could do the same thing with Save
| | 07:22 |
and Close, but I'm actually just going to
choose a specific folder, because I want
| | 07:26 |
this to go somewhere else.
I wanted make sure that my original
| | 07:30 |
images are untouched and unchanged, so I
need to choose Destination Folder and
| | 07:35 |
then choose the folder that I want.
So I want to find my desktop.
| | 07:42 |
I want to choose the folder where all of
my images are going to be saved.
| | 07:48 |
So, I'm just going to go ahead and click
here, adding water, adding copy watermark.
| | 07:53 |
That is the movie that we are working in.
And I'm going to create a new folder
| | 07:56 |
within here, because these are all the
original images that I have.
| | 08:01 |
But I want to create a special place for
them to go.
| | 08:04 |
So, these are just going to be the
processed images.
| | 08:07 |
So, I'll say Create and then, I'm
going to hit Choose.
| | 08:10 |
Now I'm going to leave my document name,
plus extension, and now I'm going to
| | 08:13 |
choose my original folder where all of
the information is going to come from.
| | 08:18 |
And here we are in the Bento box series,
needing watermarks.
| | 08:22 |
So, I'm going to say, Choose, and hit OK.
So every single image is going to ask me
| | 08:28 |
if this is okay.
And they all look good, so I am just
| | 08:31 |
going to go ahead and click OK.
And you can see what's happening right
| | 08:37 |
now is that my, my watermark is being
applied to every image within my batch of
| | 08:42 |
Bento box process shot.
So, it's cool to see that this is all happening.
| | 08:50 |
I'm really happy with it.
And all I have to do is just click, with
| | 08:53 |
one click of the button, just say OK, and
everything will be applied.
| | 08:59 |
So it's really cutting back on the amount
of work I have to do.
| | 09:03 |
And now really there's no excuse for you
not to use watermarks in your craft
| | 09:08 |
photography, because it's just so easy
with an action.
| | 09:14 |
So now, if I go back and open up the
folder that all of my images were just
| | 09:19 |
saved to, I can open one up and take a
look and I can see my nifty watermark.
| | 09:27 |
So I'm just going to open up another one,
and make sure they all look really good.
| | 09:33 |
And they all have my watermark.
So, I'm excited about this.
| | 09:36 |
So, that's how you would add that your
watermark in a batch operation to a
| | 09:40 |
series of photographs.
And if you don't have a series, you can
| | 09:44 |
just do it to one or two.
But hopefully that helps you get an
| | 09:47 |
entire group of images completed with
your watermark information for your craft photography.
| | 09:54 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Next StepsShooting for a client| 00:00 |
Let's assume that you've been hired to
shoot photography for somebody else's craft.
| | 00:05 |
It's a huge compliment, but it's also a
huge responsibility.
| | 00:07 |
You're being paid now, so there are a few
things that you need to consider before
| | 00:10 |
and after you accept the job.
First of all, now that you're shooting
| | 00:14 |
somebody else's crafts, what you want to
do is really take into consider, into
| | 00:18 |
consideration who your client is.
Before you go and meet with them.
| | 00:23 |
figure out who they are.
What they do.
| | 00:26 |
If you already know them then that's
fine.
| | 00:28 |
But really get familiar with what their
style of crafting is.
| | 00:31 |
And what, what kind of things they make.
What kinds of photographs they like.
| | 00:36 |
And then when you show up to talk to them
about the shoot.
| | 00:39 |
A lot of times people really have a hard
time articulating exactly what it is they
| | 00:42 |
want from you.
So if you can show up with some good.
| | 00:46 |
Examples.
Visual examples, like do you like this
| | 00:48 |
style of photography.
Do you like that style of photography?
| | 00:51 |
That really helps clients kind of clarify
what they're looking for.
| | 00:56 |
And sort of crystalise that image in
their mind.
| | 00:58 |
Before you go off and shoot, and then
come back and they say, nah not really
| | 01:01 |
what I was looking for.
So get to know your client before you
| | 01:04 |
start shooting for them.
And then when you got out on your shoot,
| | 01:08 |
really show up prepared.
So, the client that I'm shooting for
| | 01:12 |
makes these little silver rings, but they
kind of have like a nature motif about them.
| | 01:17 |
So, they wanted something that reflected
that.
| | 01:20 |
So before I came out to this park today,
I was sure to bring everything I would
| | 01:24 |
need, and more.
That's the other thing you need to take
| | 01:28 |
into consideration when you're shooting
for a client, always be prepared.
| | 01:31 |
So I've got my case here.
It has all of my camera equipment in it.
| | 01:35 |
I'm just going to open it up.
And I just really want to be prepared
| | 01:39 |
today, just in case the weather changes,
in case there's something going on that I
| | 01:44 |
haven't anticipated.
I have some different lenses, I've got a flash.
| | 01:51 |
I'm not sure if I'm going to use it in
this shoot.
| | 01:53 |
I'm really working with natural light
right now, but.
| | 01:55 |
If things changed, I would want to be
prepared.
| | 01:59 |
And I wouldn't want to have to ever go
back to the client and say, hey I didn't
| | 02:01 |
get the shot, sorry.
That does not fly.
| | 02:04 |
Actually, I'm going to need my camera.
Let me grab this.
| | 02:10 |
I also have my tripod with me.
Trusty tripod for when it does get dark, and.
| | 02:17 |
Any lighting equipment you can bring
would be terrific.
| | 02:19 |
If you're low on lighting equipment
because maybe this is your first time
| | 02:23 |
shooting for a client or just because
you're on a budget, these five in one
| | 02:26 |
reflectors are a great thing.
We've got several different ways that we
| | 02:32 |
can add light and it kind of adds
credibility to you.
| | 02:36 |
You don't really want to show up to a
professional shoot with.
| | 02:40 |
a homemade concoction.
It's okay for your own crafts.
| | 02:44 |
But when other people are involved, you,
you want to look professional.
| | 02:48 |
You want to represent.
So I've got this here.
| | 02:50 |
I could use this to diffuse the light.
I've got a couple of different options
| | 02:55 |
for adding light.
The bottom line is that I am prepared for
| | 02:58 |
any scenario.
And that is one of the most important
| | 03:01 |
things when you're shooting for somebody
else.
| | 03:03 |
You really need to take care.
Treat their craft with respect, but treat
| | 03:07 |
yourself and them with respect too.
This is a job, you're being paid for it,
| | 03:11 |
it's not a favor so take it seriously.
The last tip for shooting for a client.
| | 03:18 |
Take so many pictures.
Take as many angles, take as many
| | 03:22 |
settings, give them as many options as
possible.
| | 03:25 |
Well, first give yourself as many options
as possible, and then you go ahead and
| | 03:29 |
choose the best photos and bring those
back to the client.
| | 03:33 |
They're going to be astounded with what
you've come up with, impressed by your
| | 03:36 |
professionalism, your good attitude, and
they'll probably recommend you to all
| | 03:39 |
their friends.
So it's a great way to get some more
| | 03:43 |
business off of this first craft job.
So, I actually have to get to work, so
| | 03:53 |
I'm going to take a few shots and see
what I come up with.
| | 04:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Caring for your gear| 00:01 |
I want to take a second to talk about the
gear that we take on a photoshoot.
| | 00:05 |
The equipment that we take to actually
get the photo, get the nice image and
| | 00:07 |
then also, the equipment that we're
bringing to take a photo of.
| | 00:11 |
So, in front of me here, I have several
different pieces that are going to help
| | 00:15 |
us both take photos, and protect the
images and protect all of our equipment.
| | 00:20 |
And right here I've got this hard pelican
case.
| | 00:23 |
These are really great because (audio playing) as
you can hear, its got a hard case.
| | 00:27 |
So it would be protected from wind,
weather, elements, water.
| | 00:32 |
But also, in case it gets dropped a
little bit, it's going to be nice and sturdy.
| | 00:36 |
if you have a structured padded bag,
that's great too, but you just want
| | 00:39 |
something that's going to separate all of
your lenses, you camera, your flash.
| | 00:44 |
And just have some nice compartments so
that everything is nice and snug.
| | 00:47 |
This one happens to be a hard case like I
said, but the soft structured cases are
| | 00:51 |
just fine as well.
So, in this case we've got our camera,
| | 00:55 |
and (COUGH) I shoot quite often with my
17 to 40 millimeter lens just because
| | 00:59 |
it's so versatile, and gets some good
shots, nice and close.
| | 01:05 |
It's got a really sharp lens which I like
but, I also, rarely leave home without my
| | 01:10 |
50 millimeter lens.
And this is because it takes wonderful
| | 01:15 |
portrait shots.
Really great product shots.
| | 01:18 |
It kind of mimics the way your eyes sees.
It's very accurate as far as what you
| | 01:21 |
see, but it's a fixed lens.
So that means you need to move around to
| | 01:25 |
get a good shot.
You can't zoom in and out with it.
| | 01:27 |
Um,COUGH I take this with me so
frequently that I've invested in this
| | 01:32 |
little suede bag.
I usually just wrap this around my belt
| | 01:35 |
if I'm not taking this entire case with
me.
| | 01:38 |
This might be something that I'm taking
if I'm going to be in one location for a
| | 01:41 |
while to shoot, but if I'm just going off
to.
| | 01:45 |
Go for a hike or shoot one thing out
somewhere else, I'll take my 17 to 40
| | 01:48 |
millimeter, and I'll throw my 50
millimeter in this protected case and
| | 01:52 |
throw it around my belt loop.
I don't want to put this lens in my purse
| | 01:58 |
or my backpack to rattle around, that's
just way too scary for me, so.
| | 02:02 |
Keep it protected, keep it safe.
I've also got a lens in here, I've got, a
| | 02:07 |
cloth that is specific for cleaning
lenses.
| | 02:10 |
I know that some people clean their
lenses on tissues, or your shirt, but you
| | 02:14 |
really can scratch your lens when you do
that, so be mindful of what you're
| | 02:18 |
cleaning your camera with, because.
It can affect the way you're taking photos.
| | 02:25 |
I've got a light meter for tricky
lighting situations, a telephoto lens.
| | 02:30 |
I also rarely leave home without Ziploc
baggies, twist ties, things like that In
| | 02:34 |
case it gets a little damp outside.
And I want to create a hood for my camera.
| | 02:39 |
If I have a great shot set up.
And I don't want to abort the mission.
| | 02:44 |
Then I'll just kind of get this little
rain slicker if you will.
| | 02:48 |
And cover my camera.
Make sure my lens is protected to get the shot.
| | 02:52 |
Also for low light situations, you've
gotta have a tripod.
| | 02:56 |
There's no way around it.
If you really want a long exposure, a
| | 02:58 |
tripod's the only way to go.
It's just a fantastic tool.
| | 03:01 |
And this one's really large and heavy,
but they also have portable tripods that
| | 03:06 |
have like bendy legs, and those can fit
anywhere, in your pocket, in your camera case.
| | 03:13 |
Even in your purse or twist it around the
strap of your camera.
| | 03:17 |
They're really versatile so, these are my
photographic tools that we, I don't leave
| | 03:21 |
home without when I'm on a shoot.
But there's more to show you and more
| | 03:26 |
that's going to help us get a great shot.
So, I'm going to put these down and show
| | 03:30 |
you something else I've got here.
So, I also like to have a variety of
| | 03:35 |
backgrounds with me.
Right now these are just wrapped up in
| | 03:40 |
paper, but normally I like to store a
whole variety of these backgrounds in a
| | 03:44 |
poster tube.
I've got my black, my white, my middle grey.
| | 03:48 |
I just like to keep them all safe because
paper's expensive too, and I don't want
| | 03:52 |
to have to keep rebuying nice expensive
paper and pretty backgrounds every time I
| | 03:56 |
go on a shoot.
If you have a flat file at home, store
| | 04:00 |
that paper in there, but if you don't
have that kind of space, a poster tube
| | 04:03 |
that you can get for mailing things is
just as effective.
| | 04:08 |
So keep your paper safe, keep it dry.
Keep it out of the way.
| | 04:11 |
Oh, keep it dry?
Yeah, your camera equipment, by the way,
| | 04:14 |
when you're not using your lenses, or any
of your camera equipment, please be
| | 04:17 |
mindful of where you're storing it.
Not, keep out of excessive heat, out of
| | 04:22 |
excessive cold.
And for crying out loud, don't store your
| | 04:25 |
camera equipment in a damp area.
That can really affect your lens.
| | 04:29 |
So be careful of moisture with paper and
your sensitive electronics.
| | 04:35 |
Now, the crafts.
I'm not shooting at my house today.
| | 04:39 |
In fact, I traveled quite a distance to
get here.
| | 04:41 |
And I wanted to bring some crafts with
me.
| | 04:43 |
So.
I had to get pretty resourceful with how
| | 04:46 |
I was bringing them.
I've got a few different crafts here.
| | 04:50 |
I have a very delicate ceramic vase, and
I have some very delicate paper products
| | 04:55 |
and then, I also have an extremely
fibrous craft and they all were packed.
| | 05:02 |
In different ways.
This one is so soft and flimsy that I was
| | 05:05 |
worried about maybe my little owl coming
apart in transit.
| | 05:10 |
So it's always a good idea to bring back
up equipment.
| | 05:13 |
I've got my little felting needles and
I've got some felting fluff here so in
| | 05:17 |
case little owly fell off of his tree I
could do a little patch job on the scene.
| | 05:23 |
And when I'm not using him.
I've got my um,SOUND my fun whatever
| | 05:28 |
these are called hm, popping papers.
I can't think of the name right now, and.
| | 05:37 |
And at least he's protected.
With these, there's so many of them, I
| | 05:40 |
wanted to keep them safe, and not get
them squished in transit, so, I just
| | 05:44 |
recycled some old plastic container I had
around the house.
| | 05:48 |
This doesn't have to apply for every
craft but, because it was so delicate I
| | 05:51 |
just didn't want them to get squished in
some other, you know, against some other
| | 05:54 |
heavier craft in the box.
So giving them their own container keeps
| | 05:59 |
them safe.
But finally, this was my most stressful
| | 06:03 |
craft to ship.
It's a one of a kind, it's ceramic, and I
| | 06:06 |
was really afraid it was going to break.
In fact, I've shipped quite a few glass
| | 06:11 |
globes, jars, things like that.
It's kind of stressful shipping stuff
| | 06:15 |
like that.
But here's the secret.
| | 06:17 |
Pack it full of tissue, packing material,
packing peanuts, whatever.
| | 06:22 |
And then put in it in a box that's also
packed up really nicely.
| | 06:27 |
Seal this box, and then put it in another
box, filled with packing material.
| | 06:31 |
That's the only way to ship really
delicate, fragile items.
| | 06:36 |
And for my money, that's the only way to
go.
| | 06:40 |
I've tried other ways where the craft is
in the box, and then there's just like
| | 06:43 |
zillions and zillions of packing peanuts.
There's no guarantee that that is going
| | 06:47 |
to stay safe.
But if it's in one box and another, it's
| | 06:50 |
going to arrive safe.
So that's how we protect the gear that
| | 06:54 |
we're using, how we protect the gear that
we are photographing and, how we just
| | 06:58 |
make sure that we're having a safe, and
responsible, and fun craft photo shoot
| | 07:02 |
wherever we are.
Whether it's at home or across the country.
| | 07:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Forecasting challenges| 00:01 |
When you're shooting the field, there are
always different factors and challenges
| | 00:04 |
you want to think about.
Whether it's weather, or your particular
| | 00:08 |
location where you're setting up your
craft.
| | 00:10 |
There's always going to be that element
of the unexpected when you're out in the field.
| | 00:15 |
So, today when we came here on our shoot,
we actually asked the land owner where
| | 00:19 |
the sun rises and where the sun sets.
And that was just to make ourselves as
| | 00:24 |
prepared as possible to try to break up
our day into a nice, workable chunk.
| | 00:28 |
But there's no guarantee it's going to
work out the way you plan it, but when
| | 00:32 |
you show up to a craft shoot, having a
plan is always a good start.
| | 00:38 |
So now that the sun is setting, it's
becoming more of a challenge for us to
| | 00:40 |
take some photos.
You know, we have to kind of chase the sun.
| | 00:43 |
Shadows are moving.
You need to keep changing your exposure.
| | 00:46 |
And finding a nice place.
But that's nothing.
| | 00:50 |
I mean, it's a gorgeous day today.
When you're out shooting in the field
| | 00:54 |
anything could happen.
You could have rain, snow, a whole host
| | 00:57 |
of mother nature's finest choices.
And when you bring your crafts out into
| | 01:02 |
the field, they're vulnerable.
So if you've got paper crafts, things
| | 01:06 |
that are delicate, just be mindful of
what the weather's like and where you're
| | 01:09 |
setting them.
You don't want to put this beautiful
| | 01:12 |
thing that you've made in a puddle and
ruin it, or, you know, get it dirty by
| | 01:15 |
placing it somewhere you haven't really
thought out.
| | 01:19 |
And while we're talking about how you're
placing your crafts, I personally have
| | 01:23 |
had plenty of experiences where I set up
a craft, it looks good, I'm about to take
| | 01:27 |
the photo, and a big gust of wind comes
through and knocks it over.
| | 01:33 |
Sometimes, it even breaks, and that is
heartbreaking in itself, but, if you show
| | 01:37 |
up with proper staging tools, and good
photo equipment, and just try to really
| | 01:41 |
think about how the environment is
impacting your craft, you'll be more
| | 01:45 |
successful in your craft shoot.
let's see.Aas far as weather goes.
| | 01:53 |
Yeah.
Oh, your gear.
| | 01:54 |
Think about your camera.
If it starts raining.
| | 01:57 |
Maybe you shove a couple of plastic
baggies in your craft, or in your camera bag.
| | 02:03 |
Also you should have a camera bag.
If you're working with lenses, you don't
| | 02:06 |
want to just have them like rattling
around in your purse or in your backpack.
| | 02:09 |
Really protect the gear that you've got.
It's an investment, and it's going to
| | 02:12 |
last a lot longer the better you take
care of it.
| | 02:16 |
Same goes with the craft photograph that
you are setting up.
| | 02:19 |
Look for smudges in the background
anything that needs to be cleared away.
| | 02:23 |
That's just going to save you editing
time later on.
| | 02:25 |
If you really show up prepared with
yourself, your camera, think about your
| | 02:28 |
environment, and then think about your
shoot when you're setting it up.
| | 02:33 |
You're going to have a more successful
craft photo day.
| | 02:35 |
And with that I need to go chase the sun,
so I'm going to go get a couple more
| | 02:39 |
photos before we're out of here, but, be
safe, be prepared, and good luck.
| | 02:44 |
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| Respecting spaces| 00:00 |
26, 1, 1.
(audio playing) So, I'm here in this garden today
| | 00:05 |
with this great video crew.
And we're shooting this video on Craft Photography.
| | 00:09 |
But there's a couple things to think
about when you're shooting in somebody
| | 00:12 |
else's space.
This isn't my garden, this isn't my video
| | 00:15 |
crew's garden.
It's a friend of ours.
| | 00:17 |
But still, it's a good idea to ask about
where you might be shooting when you're
| | 00:21 |
in somebody else's home.
Think about what they've got in their yard.
| | 00:25 |
Obviously, we're in front of this
beautiful pond and there's, they've taken
| | 00:28 |
care to plant some nice plants, have
little trinkets set up.
| | 00:32 |
If you're going to be shooting down low,
you don't want to crush any flowers.
| | 00:36 |
You don't want to hurt their property in
any way.
| | 00:38 |
So, if you're going to be laying down,
maybe bring a blanket.
| | 00:41 |
Think about putting something down to
protect the area that you're working in,
| | 00:45 |
and just be a good guest.
You know, if you see a good shot off in
| | 00:48 |
the distance but it's not in this area,
it's just on the other side of the fence,
| | 00:51 |
maybe just give a quick ask.
You know, find the person who owns that
| | 00:56 |
property or owns that house, and ask if
it's cool if you take a couple shots.
| | 01:00 |
The worst that can happen is they say no
and you find a new location.
| | 01:04 |
The other thing that you might want to
think about when you're taking craft
| | 01:07 |
photos, it's not an extreme sports, so
don't put yourself in danger.
| | 01:11 |
You don't need to be leaning way over
rails, or jumping into something
| | 01:14 |
dangerous to take a photograph of your
craft.
| | 01:17 |
You can always find another wonderful
perfect setting.
| | 01:20 |
There isn't just one rule about it.
So, think about your environment, where
| | 01:25 |
you're shooting.
If you're at somebody else's house, if
| | 01:28 |
you're in front of somebody else's
property, just respect their space.
| | 01:34 |
Be a good guest, and please be safe when
you're shooting.
| | 01:37 |
(LAUGH) That's it, take care.
And happy crafting, and happy shooting.
| | 01:41 |
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| Keeping it simple| 00:02 |
It may feel like there's a lot to
remember when you're staging, shooting
| | 00:04 |
and editing images of the crafts that
you've made.
| | 00:07 |
But try to keep the process simple and
take photos of the crafts that you find
| | 00:11 |
most interesting.
Over time you'll develop a style that you like.
| | 00:16 |
So stick with that.
And the more you shoot your crafts, the
| | 00:19 |
more you'll develop your own recognizable
brand of craft photography the blog
| | 00:23 |
readers and customers will come to
recognize.
| | 00:27 |
Right now, we're looking at my radmegan
gallery on Craft Gawker, and Craft Gawker
| | 00:31 |
is a website that you can upload
photographs of the crafts that you've made.
| | 00:37 |
And share them with the community of
people who all have access to the website.
| | 00:41 |
Who all are crafters.
Who all appreciate handmade things.
| | 00:45 |
So I'm just scrolling through now.
And showing you a collection of some of
| | 00:49 |
the crafts that I've uploaded.
And they all lead back to specific posts
| | 00:54 |
on my blogspot blog, my radmegan.blogspot
blog.
| | 00:59 |
But whether you specialize in one area of
crafting, or, like me as seen here, enjoy
| | 01:04 |
trying every craft under the sun, you can
still begin to develop a style of
| | 01:08 |
photography that you can apply to many
different crafts and objects.
| | 01:14 |
As long as you enjoy what you're
shooting, and can keep a cool head when
| | 01:18 |
you are trying to find your proper
exposure or preferred composition, just
| | 01:22 |
relax and take as many photos as you
would like.
| | 01:27 |
That's the beauty of digital photography.
You can always delete the duds later.
| | 01:31 |
And trust me, we all have occasional
craft photo duds.
| | 01:35 |
So I just want to thank you for watching
these movies on shooting photographs of
| | 01:39 |
your handmade crafts.
And I hope that they've helped you learn
| | 01:43 |
a new trick or two, and maybe even
inspired you to try out some of the
| | 01:46 |
techniques that I've gone over here.
So, again, as you're shooting photographs
| | 01:52 |
of your own handmade items and objects,
and things that you've made with lots of
| | 01:56 |
love, take into consideration all of the
aspects of composition, of staging, of
| | 02:01 |
exposure but don't over think it.
Just feel free to experiment, feel free
| | 02:07 |
to try a variety of different staging
options, different techniques and go at
| | 02:11 |
your own pace, you know, it's not a race,
it's not a competition.
| | 02:16 |
Just enjoy the photography process and
really have fun with it.
| | 02:22 |
And the more you have fun with it, the
more it's going to be reflected in your
| | 02:25 |
craft photos.
So I wish you all so much luck and happy
| | 02:30 |
shooting, happy crafting.
And really, good luck to you all.
| | 02:36 |
I wish I could see all of your own craft
photos myself.
| | 02:39 |
So thanks again for watching, and hope
you enjoyed.
| | 02:43 |
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