Guest DT Genie Smith: Using Vignettes & Actions in Photoshop

Hello all!  Genie again, and today we're going to explore Photoshop.

Just a few notes: I use a PC with Windows Vista and PhotoShop CS3; there are going to be differences between operating systems and PhotoShop versions!

One of my favorite techniques is a vignette.  A vignette is a subtle darkening or lightening of the edges of a photo.  It doesn't seem like much in writing, but it really draws the eye into a photo.  There are many ways to do everything in PhotoShop, but my fave to create a vignette is quite simple.  Choose the elliptical marquee tool and set the feathering to 150-250 px (I am usually working with photos sized roughly 8x10 and set my feathering to 200 px).  Draw your ellipse on the photo so that the edges of the marquee nearly touch the edges of the photo; you don't want to obscure anything important to the composition.

Invert your selection (in your upper menu, choose "Select" and then "Inverse"--keyboard shortcut is Shift + F7).  Next, we're going to adjust the levels of the selected area; go to "Image," "Adjustments" and "Levels."  In the bottom of the levels window, choose the slider on the right side of the bar and pull it left until the edges darken to your liking.

Voila!

Before

After

Experiment, too--you can use the Fill command to create a colored vignette (be sure to change the opacity of the fill, I use 40-60 percent opacity), or the Gaussian Blue filter to blur the edges.  If you'd like to create a lighter vignette, you would use the slider on the left side of the bar and drag it to the right.

I also LOVE to use actions on my photos!  There are so many actions available online, and many of them are free.  I find most of mine by doing a Google search for "Photoshop CS3 actions."
One of my absolute faves is called Aly's Vintage, by Alyson Comacho, and you can download it here, along with many other free actions.  Actions are easy to install; you need to find your Adobe folder on your hard drive (it should be in your Program Files folder), then your Photoshop folder, then the Presets folder.  In the Presets folder, there should be one called Actions, and you simply drag the .atn file into that folder.  In PhotoShop, open your Actions palette.  In the top right corner, there's a little menu icon; when you click it, you should get a menu and one of the options will be "Load actions..."  From there, simply navigate to where you just saved your action.  Then it's as easy as selecting the action in the palette and pressing the play command.

In this photo, I used Aly's Simply Vintage and added a dark vignette:

Experiment and have fun!

More of Genie's work can be seen here on her blog!

Guest DT Genie Smith: How to Make your Photos Look "Professional"

Hi Flamingo Followers!  Genie here for my very first post of the month; you would all laugh if you could see how nervous I am...and how many times I've rewritten this!!  I've spent the better part of the last 15 years as a professional portrait and wedding photographer.  I've photographed under many conditions, and I'd like to share some tips on how to make your photos look "professional" without ever having come near a studio.

The obvious choice is to photograph outdoors, on location.  Look for an outdoor area that gets plenty of shade, or choose a mildly overcast day.  If you have to work with sun, try to work first thing in the morning or later in the evening when the sun is lower.  It rarely works well to have your subject facing into the sun; it creates harsh shadows around the eyes and causes most people to squint.  Put the subject's back to the sun; use your flash or a large piece of bright white cardboard to fill in the shadows.

Use your surroundings.  Here, there were two large, beautifully planted beds with lots of  color and texture.  I placed my niece between them and chose an angle that used the roses in the foreground and the large leaves in the background.

With a small animal (or a baby, for that matter), cuddling is the key!  Put the heads close together and crop tightly.

For a larger group, try to keep heads at different levels.  The ideal shape is a triangle, with the "tallest" person in the center.  You can achieve this by using people's heights or by having some of your subjects sit or kneel.  Try some poses with people grouped closely together, and a few with the group spread apart a bit more.

Try an interesting angle!  In the photograph of my daughter on the beach, I tipped the camera and it gave the portrait motion.  In the photograph with the tree, cropping out the top of her head draws your eyes into the photo and spotlights my favorite feature, her pretty blue eyes and that spattering of freckles!

You can achieve studio-like portraits in your home, too!  I made these images of my new baby on my living room floor, using my Boppy covered with a towel or blanket and a piece of white matboard for a background.  I chose to use the floor near my sliding glass window because it gets indirect light on sunny days; the building casts a shadow on our deck so the light that comes in isn't direct sunlight.  Try to set your subject at a 45 degree angle to the light coming in; traditional portrait lighting illuminates one side of the face fully, with a triangle on the opposite cheek.  If it seems that the shadows are too dark, use another piece of white matboard to fill in the shadows.  Make it the third leg of an imaginary triangle, and move it around until you can see the difference.

Finally, I want to take a moment on the Rule of Thirds.  This is a compositional rule of thumb used throughout the visual arts that states that an image should be divided into nine equal parts by a grid of two vertical lines and two horizontal lines.  Important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or at intersections.  Doing this will create more energy, or visual tension, in your images; you can see this in my portraits.  Try an experiment; take a photo of a landscape.  First, put the horizon at dead center.  Next, put the horizon at the bottom third.  Try the same with a portrait; put the subject's head dead center, and then move it up to the top third.

The best advice I can ever give is SHOOT!  Keep shooting; try different angles, crop close, crop loose, change the location of the point of interest.  But most of all, have fun!

More of Genie's work can be seen here on her blog!