For me, books of this type are often worth their weight in gold: not only do they remind you of the key essentials in digital photography, but they can often bring you back from the brink of pictorial disaster.

An example of the latter: I recall having trouble with an image that would not surrender to Photoshop’s winning ways — until the coin dropped! Using Levels I had adjusted the highlight and shadow points — but forgotten the grey point. If only Michael Freeman’s had been by my side, I would have woken up earlier. This imaging business can sometimes become so complex you forget the basics!

There are some terrific lessons in its 176 pages. Like: the reasons for shooting RAW; understanding and controlling the dynamic range in a shot;

…

Weekly Assignment

This week’s assignment was f/16. The goal was to create images with a very large depth of field and we saw some really good uses of it. Our winner this week was Cadira’s lampshade. The lampshade had a very abstract quality that we liked. The details are nice and crisp and it shows how well f/16 works with close up shots. Our first runner up was rt80639’s firework shot. A good firework shot is always impressive, and it’s very timely for this weekend! It provides a great example of how f/16 can work really well when shooting fireworks. And last, but not least was Keikyu’s Lily of the Nile. This shot had an almost x-ray quality to it, but it’s also …

This is just a quick reminder to readers that we’re currently running a competition where you can win a Lenovo W700ds Mobile Workstation (the biggest laptop I’ve ever seen).

Check out full details of the competition here but all you have to do to enter is be a subscriber to our weekly email newsletter which goes out on Thursdays with updates of new tips and tutorials here on DPS.

The competition ends this coming Thursday (the 9th July) so make sure you’re signed up and verified as a subscriber by then. To enter just check out this post where there’s a signup form to join the newsletter.

PS: Happy 4th July to our US readers. Don’t forget to check out our Photographing Fireworks tutorial for tonight!

You don’t own an external flash. You can’t afford one anytime soon. Are you held back in your photographic technique and unable to take dynamic studio style portraits?

Not hardly.

While external lighting is vital for professional portrait and wedding photographers, there is a way to fudge external lighting. When you need just a little bit of fill or dynamic range to make your portraits stand out, there’s a simple solution at your finger tips:

The LED

The LED [Light Emitting Device] can be purchased at literally any store which sells sporting goods. Found most commonly among camping gear, these LEDs range around $10-$25. Depending on cost, you can control how much light your LED transmits by 1-6 light streams or more.

Using an LED, you must think in terms of two concepts:

1. Output: How many strobes are you using on your LED? One light stream, or all six? Obviously, 1 light stream will be more gentle in it’s illumination and 6 could be quite harsh.

2. Distance: How close is your light to your subject? The closer your light is to your subject, the brighter your subject will be illuminated. Take a few steps back, the light power will decrease.

The forced perspective technique manipulates our human perception with the use of optical illusions to make objects appear larger, smaller, farther, or closer than they actually are. I once screamed like a little girl at a scary movie in a packed theater, only to find out later that the gigantic monster on the screen was only a little model. The movie makers had used forced perspective to turn a plastic toy into something frightening to the audience. The use of digital effects today still incorporates this popular way of portraying scenes or objects.

Little Push by Chaval Brasil

Photography also uses forced perspective a lot as well to give a certain feel to an image. That’s why I was surprised to only find a few thousand results when searching for ‘forced perspective’ on Flickr. Here are 15 selected examples of this technique, which includes images that show how much fun you can have with it.

For more examples, check out the forced perspective group on Flickr.

Maina by -Thanh