PHOTOSHOP: Photo manipulation at its best

IT'S amazing what people can do with photography software such as Photoshop. I remember doing a crash course at varsity whereby we were given a photograph of a newspaper lying on a desk. The task was to create a glass sphere on top of the paper from scratch. The final orb magnified the print behind it, cast a realistic shadow and had a beam of light shining through it.

The photoshop workshop only took 45 minutes, but I couldn't even begin to recreate something like that if held at gunpoint. Fortunately others can and always impress with their photo manipulation skills. Check out these peculiar works.

Photo Manipulation

Bumble Dog

Clown explosion

Bonzai

Iron Man

Smoke on the water

Egg Heads

Rising ink

Shattered arms

Falling letters

Water painting

Vertical Turn

Soccer peas

Torn

Zebrafrog

Pencil Muncher

Chicken Dog

Nosey Pete

Face punch

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PHOTOGRAPHY: Stunning photos from around the world

THE following photographic treat came to me in an e-mail. It made no mention who the brilliant photographers were that took these photographs, but wow! Below is a collection of stunning seasonal photographs, nature photographs and good old Mother Nature captured on camera.

A photographic treat!

Niagara Falls at night.

Dandelion covered in dew.

Wintery sidewalk.

Sleeping Leopard.

Reflections.

Winter in the Smokies.

Road to Witch Mountain.

Rainbow Bird.

Low clouds over volcano.

Birded Buck.

Golden Oldie.

Autumn stream.

An icey world.

The grand Grand Canyon (I think).

Purple sunset over water.

Is that a racoon up your trousers?

Fish pecked turtle.

A little eerie.

Lost for words.

Simply stunning.

What a photographic treat! Any particular favourites?

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SEO TRICKS: Using image searches to your blogs benefit

CHECKING your site's statistics on a regular (if not daily) basis is extremely useful for determining just how people are arriving at your website via searches. I have been surprised to find that a lot of my traffic arrives via Google image searches. So how do we make the most of this?

If you wish to use an existing image on the web, the first trick is to download and re-size the image. By simply opening the image in Photoshop, you can save the image as a larger file (jpeg) than what it previously was. The result is that if someone does a relevant image search and clicks on the “large” option, your version of the pic is more likely to show up first in searches, and may result in a click-through.

The second step is to tag your images cleverly and ensure that these match with the context of your post and/or post headline. For example, in a post titled How to Photoshop your photos, the accompanying image (below) has been both re-sized and renamed to "Photoshop Before and After." The keyword "photoshop" has also been used within the alternative text and description of the image.

Photoshop Before and After

Photoshop tends to judge, so touch up your human subjects

It is also useful to provide a sub-heading and caption with your images - each containing the same keyword(s). Ideally the same tags should appear in your post headline as well.

Picture Posts

It seems to be very difficult to get picture posts publicity on the web due to their text-free nature. However, by applying the same methods above, your picture posts are far more likely to be found via Google image searches. As an extra insurance, provide a short splurb with each each image - over and above the sub headings and captions - and fuel these with relevant search tags.

That's all for now. Next time we'll look at promoting your posts via social media.

Related SEO Post: Copy Compass: Best WordPress plugin

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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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PHOTOGRAPHY: New age photo albums with digital photo frames

IT'S amazing what human beings will collect over the years. The one thing I’m sure we are all guilty of accumulating are copious amounts of photographs. If you are well disciplined you may have set aside a good few days of your life to frame your favourite photos or arrange these into albums for the coffee table. Either that or you have folder after folder of digitally stored photos on your PC.

There is something satisfying about whipping out an ordered photo album when guests are around, or having your favourite ones on permanent display. But this is the year 2011! Enter the digital photo frame.

This piece of technology doesn’t need much explanation – it is what it’s called: a photo frame that stores digital photographs. It has an LCD screen which can display a series of photographs in a slideshow format and a USB port from which to load new photos.

One is also able to choose how long each photo will display itself for and choose what transitions will take place between photos. These digitised frames can also be connected to the internet to download new content and can, of course, be connected to digital cameras.

The best digital photo frames have their own internal memory cards so they can operate independently of your camera’s memory card. Roughly speaking, a two Gigabyte SD card should store up to 1000 images.

It’s also a good idea to get a digital photo frame with a decent battery life. What’s useful is that most digital frames have an internal clock that can be set to switch the device on and off during different times of the day.

One would expect such a modern-sounding piece of technology to be expensive, but entry-level digital photo frames start from around R400.

The more advanced digital frames are obviously pricier but are able to do a lot more. Some can play videos, MP3s and display text. Others come with Wi-fi, have touch screens and light sensors and can connect to the web remotely and stream online galleries from sites such as Flickr.

Imagine a digital photo frame dedicated to your wedding day. It could begin with a worded introduction to set the scene, saying something like “Mr and Mrs Right were married in Perfect Park on a Friday, April 13”. This could be followed by a short video of the ceremony and lead into a slideshow with the wedding couple’s favourite song playing in the background. I smell a money-making opportunity! And that idea is absolutely free. I’m all about sharing.

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