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[ltp]

Placing your name on your photos may be an underutilised yet useful and most important feature available to digital photographers. Putting your name in the EXIF file is an essential part of the photos to determine ownership.

This tip will show you how to place your name on your photos, using the EOS utility for Canon 400D.

1. Ensure that the CD containing the EOS utility is already installed in your PC. Attach your camera using the USB cable, turn on the camera. Start the EOS Utility Program. Once the EOS utility is open, on the main menu click the camera settings, then, click on the tools icon - the camera setup menu will popup.

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From DPS

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2. Enter your name in the owner’s info. Once you finish inputting your name, turn off the camera and exit from the program.




3. When you view the image taken by your camera it will display the information, e.g. your name and other metadata. Start Digital Photo Professional, choose an image, right click, and choose Info.

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From DPS

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[Muhammad Mahdi]

Selective Sharpening

A great way to selectively sharpen your images is achieved by doing the following.
1. Duplicate layer
2. Apply sharpen through filter (preferably smart sharpen)
3. Alt + Masking button (usually beneath the layers palette)
4. Select a soft brush and paint with white over the masked layer, areas that you would like to sharpen.

[bonnieg1]

The best tip I have is have fun! Play with your camera and take lots & lots of pictures. Try many different settings while photographing same subject and decide which ones "work". You'll be surpised at what you come up with. Just play and enjoy and you will learn a lot that way.

[TriggerHappyChappy]

Completely new to this, hope I am not repeating someone! I am currently travelling around the world in 6 months, I have always enjoyed photography but am very much still learning. I bought a Sony A-200 just prior to leaving NZ and have slowly been working things out over the past few months. 350 words starting now :P
After having never been out of NZ and seeing some of what I now have the best tip, and seemingly very fitting is Perspective. This is an incredibly diverse word in photography and so I will discuss my Perspective and interpretation as such. In any day where I have taken photos I try to take ones of the things I enjoy and then the things I dont know much about. Example, I like to rock climb, but the perspective could be from the eyes of the climber, or at the climber - looking from below or above, macro of the gear. All perspective. Imagine (my closest substitute in lieu of a photo) looking down along the line of a rope, the crisp detail of the thread and pattern, with a climber below, out of focus but lead into the shot by the rope. Then, find something you may want to learn about and do the same, change the settings from standard to macro, this is the best way to have the holistic view down to the very detailed - this kind of shooting makes a great series of photos. Example, beekeeping, A view of someone in beekeepers garb smoking the hives (wide angle), close up of the bees clinging to the honeycomb, the golden amber as it flows into jars (background blurred - small aperture again).
And so, in a day you have enjoyed yourself with your hobby (my rock climbing), you have watched and learnt something new (learning is one of the greatest things I get from my photography) and you hopefully have a great series of photos to depict the entire experiences, contrast and compliment, its all there with a little perspective! 350 words stop.

This has been a valuable approach for me as I observe the very different ways of life and allows me to record and later remember so many big and little things. Hope someone gets to read this and maybe looks at their photography a little differently (theres that P word again)

[trishylou]

Shoot the abnormal...not entirely sure how to explain this but through example.

Last week I was at a small concert...many people were shooting the artist and the band, patrons etc...I started shooting the "other things" the artists finger position on the neck of his guitar, his boots etc. I got some really interesting shots...that no one else has.

[photo_ole]

When your gravity-challenged brother-in-law destroys one of your folding bag chairs (you know the kind, made of cloth, folds up, stores in a canvas bag) do not despair. Give him the chair as a birthday present and give yourself a new tripod bag! These bag-chair bags make great carrying bags for tripods, monopods, and light stands. The shoulder strap makes them easy to carry.

www.olewinski.com

[Remiss63]

Learn to see abstractly by looking for geometrical forms and compelling compositions despite the “subject matter”. A good way to sidestep preconceived images is to consider a subject that’s commonly photographed, a well-known icon.

To learn to “see creatively” we should approach the subject in a more personal yet more detached manner as if you were a child experiencing it for the first time. This manner of “seeing” isn’t natural for many. We “know” what the Statue of Liberty, Washington Monument, and Gateway Arch “look like.” We need to reconsider these subjects “abstractly” as two-dimensional forms without reference to its well-known image.



Look for suggestive forms, shapes, and lines for creatively framing you image. The actual “subject” is secondary. Your task is creating a compelling photograph. Use ambiguity to achieve a meaningful level of abstraction. By abstraction, I don’t mean, “Something no one can possibly identify.” Rather I mean forms suggestive of other things eliciting emotional reactions.

Frame the subject from an unusual viewpoint or limit the image to a fragment of the subject. Work to perceive the two-dimensional forms displayed on your screen as an interesting composition on its own grounds.



The above view of the Gateway Arch was taken looking up one leg and then adjusting my view until the arch’s top touched the corner of the frame.

It takes a focused effort and intentional experimentation to find new ways of perceiving things you “already know.”



A DSLR’s LCD display is helpful. Use the framed forms in the display to test possible compositions. Look for shapes suggestive of other objects with multiple references like an ear, tongue, road, or other identifiable form.

A higher density of references enhances a photograph’s potential richness and power. Try shooting in series.. Become fully engaged visually and physically. Move around adjusting view, position, zoom, etc. Continue exploring alternative viewpoints until you feel perhaps you’ve accomplished a step in the right direction. Evaluate your images later on a monitor rather than trying to prejudge what is good or bad on site.

Andrew Raimist
http://remiss63.blogspot.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raimist

[Sime]

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