FUN PHOTOGRAPHY: Depending on how you look at it ...

That classic "your-ass-is-in-my-face" expression

Now that's what I call a baby shower!

Don't date this clown

Coochy coo

Dog Man

It's all a matter of perspective

Fingers of God

Double dog

Classically weird

World's tallest man

Kick in the butt

Statue listening in

Related posts: • Yearbook Yourself 2009 • Photo Fun • Photofunia

Best Happy Friday post yet: If historic people had Facebook :D

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PHOTOSHOP 101: How to touch up your photography

FOR most photos there should be some kind of visual clue that indicates whether a pic is skewed or not – such as a horizon in the background or something lying horizontally flat in the photo. Use a line guide to find the horizon and rotate the image until it’s straight. Go to “image” then “rotation” and play around until things are straightened out.

If your image was rotated it may have left behind ugly looking black triangles in the corners. There is often also a lot of excess background in photographs which can all be cropped off using the most popular Photoshop tool – the Crop tool. Crop closely around your subject(s) using the tool and hit enter to perform a crop. Holding down ctrl+shift while cropping will keep things square.

The Clone Stamp tool is probably one of the most contested Photoshop tools as it can be used to change an image quite drastically. If there are a lot of similar looking objects or shapes that you want more of, simply clone them in. With the Clone tool selected, press alt+click over the object you want to clone. Alternatively, the Clone tool can be used to remove unwanted elements. Cloning the sky over storm clouds is a common example.

Photoshop Before and After pic

Photoshop tends to judge, so touch-up your human subjects

Photoshop 101: Heal your handiwork

If your image consists of close-up of a face, put your morals aside and get rid of any spots or blemishes using the spot healing tool. Zoom in close to achieve the best results and simply click on the spotty areas with this Spot Healing Brush selected. You can also use this tool to blend the edges of an altered subject to better fit with the rest of the background. It may appear as if you’re erasing the background, but worry not.

Using the line or paint tools to fill in details is not recommended as things can get messy pretty quickly. Trying to draw freehand using a mouse rather than your own trusty digits is a whole different story. However, if you do decide to add in a little detail be sure to use the Blur tool afterwards to soften the edges. This will also replicate the look of the original photo.

Photoshop takes a lot of practice to master as there are literally hundreds of things you can do to your photos. But if you are a little pressed for time or bewildered by all the tools there is a very quick touch-up method. Open your pic(s), go to “image”, “adjustments” and select “auto levels” (ctrl+shift+L). Viola!

- Article adapted from the December issue of Stuff magazine

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PROUDLY SOUTH AFRICA: A collection of "only in Africa" pictures

THERE are some things in this world that you will only see in Africa. There’s even that common catch-phrase people often use: “only in Africa!” Innovation and ingenuity are the two proudly positive things that comes to the fore when living in poverty, and here in Africa, we have it like no other.

These pics have been doing their rounds on the e-mail circuit for a while now, so they may be familiar to you. But if you want to see something really special and uplifting, watch this video: Proudly South African. You'll love it!

Cheerio

Related post: When you shouldn't hyphenate your name

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PHUN PHOTOGRAPHY: Yearbook yourself is a free-to-use, flash-animated website that allows you to create your own, stylish high school yearbook

THE popularity of the American high school yearbook never really took off in South Africa, at least not for my generation. We were simply squashed together according to grade by an overly-enthusiastic photographer with hairy nostrils, who had the habit of always taking the picture as you blinked or were caught looking slightly to the left.

The class photos in my collection are so small that you can’t even make out your classmates’ individual quirks, such as Cindy’s pimples or the naughty glint in Jason’s eye. Some of the pre-pubescent faces in my earlier class photos are so difficult to make out that I’m not even sure if they were my friends, or if I knew them at all. I certainly wouldn’t recognise them in the streets today.

If you feel that you missed out on an opportunity for yourself to be pasted in your fellow matriculants’ yearbooks and be remembered forever, you can now do it online. With a little imagination and creativity, you could digitally create an entire yearbook of all your former classmates, whether you matriculated in the ’50s or the ’90s. Here's a little taste of what you can create with Yearbook Yourself:

Yearbook Yourself 2008 Gallery

www.yearbookyourself.com is a free-to-use, flash-animated website that allows you to do just that. The site has pre-created portrait photographs in the style and taste of each particular decade. There is even a catchy tune that plays in the background of each era. All you have to do is paste your own face (or those of your ex-classmates) into the models provided!

You also have the choice of creating a female yearbook yourself – with the most popular women’s styles and clothing representative of each decade of white, middle-class American popular culture.

Yearbookyourself re-launched this year with new "Student Life" and "Student photos" sections. So it's finally time to get stuck back in and get creative with our photographs. Yearbook Yourself really is a great resource for creating birthday cards, fun posters and cool Facebook profile pictures.

That's www.yearbookyourself.com