I seem to spend much of my blog-perusing drooling over the obvious talent of the many photographers posting gorgeous pics on their blogs. My photos seem to be so flat and lifeless in comparison, although I freely admit have next-to-no natural ability.
My question is that - aside from the photographer's ability to compose a beautiful shot - how much of the depth and richness of the resulting blog-photo is dependant on the technical abilities of the camera (e.g. number of pixels, macro lens etc) and how much is on Photoshop editing to sharpen/deepen/lighten etc the resulting straight-out-of-camera shot?
**Edited to add:
I should have mentioned that I am considering buying Photoshop (or more likely, the less expensive Photoshop Elements), more for editing portraits of my girls than for blogging, but of course I would use it for blog-photos too. (I just use a very basic editor at the moment to remove red-eye and crop photos). I'd love to upgrade my camera to a DSLR but can't justify the expense, so I was wondering if just Photoshop-ing my shots would make much of a difference. Thanks for all your thoughts and comments so far, lots of food for thought :-)
27 comments:
Hey your photos are fine!I like straight out of the camera,not fiddled with photos best,they seem more real to me.I guess that wasnt much help,but I hope it makes you feel better,you are doing a great job and I enjoy reading your blog very much,Ive been lurking for awhile !!so Hi :) hope you are having a great weekend.
Hi Julie, I upload my photos to Flickr and then use then from there. If you click on the picture you want to use then click on all sizes, choose medium and then copy and paste the html code to the html version of your blog. I have found this gives a much better picture on my blog. If someone clicks on the photo on your blog it takes them through to your Flickr photos.
That is probably as clear as mud but give it a go. There is an option on Flickr to click on "blog this" but then you heva to write the post on Flickr and it publishes from there, I didn't find that very satisfactory.
Good luck
Jenny
I meant to say I have a camera with only 5 megapixels and I don't have photoshop but I do occasionally correct the exposure and crop my photos using the Picnic link on Flickr.
The quality of the equipment does make a difference, but so does just learning how to make the most of what you've got. My Mum went to a photography course run by a camera club (it's really cheap, run by volunteers from the club) and found it really helpful. I know a few other people who've done the same course (Rosanna Photography Club for Melbournians!) so it might be worth finding out if there is a club near you offering the same sort of thing. Failing that, taking lots and lots of photos, reading the instruction booklet that came with the camera, and paying attention to the differences between all the settings will get you a fair way.
I upload mine straight from the camera, without 'photoshopping' them. I have a digital SLR and have found that I get a nice soft look by using natural light instead of using a flash.
Hi Julie...I know exactly how you feel. i often drool over others photos and wish i could take ones that good.
I only just got a new camera a week ago as my other one was dropped and broke literally the day before i was going to start my blog.
I was AMAZED at how much easier it was to take OK photos with the new one rather than the other which was only a year or so old. So for point and click people i think it has alot to do with the camera...
My photos are pretty average...I'm not one to much around with photos (as i seem to just make them worse) but i do think thoughtful cropping can make all the difference. Cheers, Tricia
I've been reading your blog for awhile now and I was always impressed with your photos. But I do know what you mean, I go on some blogs and I am in awe of the beautiful photography, mine never seem to look that good and I USED to consider myself a decent amateur photographer....sigh.
I'm going to keep looking back on this one to see if someone lets us in on their 'secret'.
First I want to say that after reviewing the pix on your blog, you take great pix! I love the way you compose your shots, the colors and such. I also love the layout of your blog, you have a good eye! :) (not sure about the other one though... grin)
Now with that being said, I do Photoshop my pix, I crop the images, sometimes I add a border and if needed I adjust what needs to be adjusted, sometimes I don't like something in the shot and I remove it, or I want the viewer to focus on a specific thing, so I might blur things in the background especially if the image is too busy like inside pix of my cabin.
On rare occasions, I mess with other things like the color, contrast and such.
But you do have to be careful not to over do it, it's like adding seasonings to a dish, it's all too easy to over season, if a dish/pic is good, it may need just a bit of editing/seasoning, but no amount of seasoning/editing will help a bad dish/pic.
The last thing I do is to edit the dimensions of the final image and I shrink the "weight" down so the image takes up less room on the server and loads up faster.
I'm no expert with Photoshop, but I wouldn't want to be without it either.
Do you have Photoshop or something like it?
Wretha
Hi Julie. i think the difference between 'life' shots like you do and the 'drool' ones you talk about is not so much pixels and lens, they do help, but composition. it difficult to do 'life' ones if you want to get lots into your shot. one of the rules in photography is the 3/4 shot; fill up your frame with subject (3/4) and ensure a monochromatic background(picture board) so you dont get 'noise' in the shot. but hey, horses for courses, you do great; your style makes your blog. check out vegan yum yums post on the subject. its realy good.
oh yeah. picnic (flickr) is useful for easy editing of exposure and colour saturation- makes food shots look 100% more delicious.
Hi everyone,
Thank you all so much for your tips, it's very much appreciated :-) I am going to go away and digest all that information now! And check out Picnik.
Cheers, Julie
Agree with what Kel said. A good photographer once told me the secret of good photography, is to get close, and then get closer. And BTW, your blog is nice and interesting to read. I am looking on as you make your own shampoo, while I still buy mine...
Almost all of my photos are "as is". The only things I usually do is reduce the size to 800 x 600 pixels, to reduce blog-loading time, and imbed my blog name. But I often take lots, and then go through them and pick the best one to post.
Hi Julie, I'm another lurker coming out of hiding to say I love your blog and check it out regularly to feel inspired (and envious of your food producing garden - we have no ripe tomatoes yet in our Melbourne garden). I think an SLR makes an enormous difference but I highly recommend you check out picnik before shelling out money for photoshop, just be careful not to go overboard with the effects - your photos are great and the trueness of the colour etc makes the subject all the more impressive.
Here are some of the things we did to improve our photos:
- use of tripod
- "light box" ie two clip-on-lights onto coffee table, with white cardboard as background
- learnt to use a grey card
- use photoshop to fix adjustments, crop and optimise for the web.
- we take about 5-20 shots to get one good one in correct focus
Actually I really like your shots and compositions. The ones in the garden are great.
Hi Julie, first off I think your photos are just fine and beautifully composed!
Having an artist's background, I can't help but futz with my photos a bit when I think they need a little zazing. I don't use Photoshop (though I have it & create my challenge logos that way), I just use my free photo editing software (iPhoto). That's enough to make an indoor photo look less orange, or an outdoor photo look less blue, or sharpen things up a bit.
I also use an SLR camera with a nice lens, but with the shots I take on an everyday basis, I'm not sure that makes a whole lot of difference. Except for the manual focus - that DOES make a difference, for sure. And I can change the shudder speeds if I want to shoot indoors without the flash. I do that occasionally for a more natural look.
All this said, I believe it's the writing that really keeps people reading your blog!
Another lurker coming out to say I love your blog too and your pictures. And I agree, it's the writing that keeps me coming back, again and again.
Can't help you. I take my photos and upload them warts and all. Soemtimes I might take several of the same thing and delete the obvioulsy really bad ones. I like authenticity so even if I don't get the best photos, at least they are truthful. I love my little Lumix TZ1 camera - can't afford to upgrade to a DSLR and have no real reason to as I'm happy. I much prefer to see someone's real shots than doctored ones.
I've thought your photos look nice. I have both an old point-and-shoot and a new SLR. The nicer camera with a good lens does add quality, but some of my best pictures came from the small, cheap camera. The most important thing with a small camera is to use a lot of natural light.
I don't use Photoshop, but I do use iPhoto for cropping and lightening the exposure.
I also take quite a few at a time, choosing my favorites, and deleting the rest.
Hi. I'm new to following your blog so I hope you don't mind me jumping straight in with a comment.
The best advice I followed with my little compact digital was to never use Auto. Find your camera's Manual setting and as mentioned above in another comment, study the manual and practice the different Manual settings. Once I did this I was able to maximise the camera's potential in different light and circumstances.
I use Picture It for my editing which has many basic features and a few artsy ones and came onboard with my previous computer.
Hi Julie,
As a professional photographer I would have to say that I have been impressed and at times inspired with the images on your blog. I assume if you don't have a digital SLR that you must be shooting with a compact digital camera.
Don't be so hard on yourself or your images. The comment I would make about buying photoshop or elements or even buying a digital SLR Julie is the time. I don't know where you get the time now to do all that you do on your blog.
Do you have the extra time to be working on your images?
If you are still keen to do so, here is a little tip. I have a range of save actions created as a droplet on my desktop. This enables me to drop images on this droplet (like a little icon) and it automatically changes the images for me.
I have droplets for turning an image into BW, making them web size, contrast changes etc etc.
You are able to do this in Photoshop and I would say you would probably be able to do something very similar in elements.
If you are interested in knowing more Julie, just shoot me an email (which you can find on my web site www.sarhn.com). Didn't want to add the email address on this comment due to spam crawlers.
Good luck Julie and I really did mean what I said about your images.
Sarhn
You could always try Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/) as an open source alternative to Photoshop. I rarely edit my photos, just some basic cropping occasionally. I really enjoy your pics, and follow your blog daily!
Hi everyone,
Thank you all so much for your positive and constructive comments! I have a lot of further reading and research to do now :-)
Cheers, Julie
Why not try Picasa 3 first - it's free!! It's part of the Google suite which usually means easy to use.
It's great for collages too. :)
Download from www.picasa.com
www.gimpshop.com is an open-source (a.k.a. FREE!) program similar to photoshop.
Wow, Sarhn, that is awesome!! I'm going to look into that! Hmm, maybe I should be doing my editing in Photoshop afterall.
Julie, she does make a good point. I find sometimes that futzing with the right photos can take twice as long as writing the post itself.
But if you're inspired to do more photo editing, you should try it. I just say that because your instincts are good. : ) I love what you've done with the blog - the new look is great!
I use iPhoto but my husband uses this online photo editor (and I've played with it and it's FANTASTIC.) I don't love photoshop, I find it overly complicated for my amateur purposes. I can fluke a good shot now and then, but I'm no photographer.
http://www.picnik.com/
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