Photography Tutorials

5 Places to Download Free and Cheap Images to Use on Your Blog

A little while back, we talked about the importance of using photos in every post when you’re blogging. Now that you’re convinced that images are an important part of each and every blog post, you might be wondering where you get photos and graphics for your posts. Of course, there are several places where you can find just about any image you might need. Unfortunately, stock photography can be expensive. The secret is knowing where to look to get the best deal, or even find free images... learn more

Photoshop Tutorial: Faking Darkroom Film Edges

So far in my photoshop tutorials, we’ve covered quite a bit on how to fake the look of an old toy camera, with the Holga, LOMO/X-Pro, and Light Leaks tutorials.  These are fun to do, but if you really want to go all the way and to make people think you’re shooting film, this is the last (and really most important) step. Digital cameras trim the edges of your shot (as do a good amount of enlargers) so that you don’t actually see any edges – the image goes all the way to the... learn more

Photoshop Tutorial: Light Leaks, pt. 2

One of the coolest things about older cameras and toy cameras (such as holgas, dianas, lubitels and other gems) is that they have an element of unpredictability to them. If you haven’t shot on a camera before, you have no idea if there are going to be holes (usually around the edge of the film) where your film is accidentally exposed to light when it shouldn’t be, causing little colored blurs or white streaks. I showed you how to get white-blur light leaks in the last photoshop tutorial,... learn more

25 Places to Find Awesome Stock Photos — Free and Cheap!

Whether you’re designing an artistic website or searching for images to post on your blog, sites that carry not only free but awesome stock photos may very well come in handy. Utilizing the correct set of photos for any project is key, especially if you’re designing an ad for a client, you should always put in your best effort as well as the best images you can find fit for the job. Many of the designers I’ve come across like to download most of their images from 2-3 of the largest... learn more

Web Monitors Uncover Top 100 Blogs and Platforms

Pingdom, a service that monitors Web sites and servers on the Internet, looked at the top 100 blogs on Technorati to find out which blogging platform is used most often. Pingdom distinguishes between blogs that are self-hosted and blogging-service hosted. The top two self-hosted platforms are WordPress (27 percent) and Moveable Type (12 percent). The top two platforms that sit on a service are Typepad (16 percent) and Blogsmith (14 percent). When hosted and self-hosted are combined, the top two blogging... learn more

Roundup: Even More Sites Where You can Find Images Free and Clear

I wrote about using Flickr a while ago as a good source of images that you can use free and with few or no copyright limitations. Lately, I’ve been organizing my database of  places to find free and unrestricted images. Keep in mind that “free” often requires your giving the source credit and a link back to the image provider’s site. No, this list does not include every site in the universe. If you have some favorites, please add them as a comment and I’ll add them... learn more

Use Flickr to Find Images Free and Easy

Photo by Sidelong Dozens of Web sites offer royalty- and copyright-free photographs and other images. I can’t imagine having to buy stock photos and art these days, although I have many times before. I use stock.xchng and Big Stock Photo often. The photos are generic, one-size-fits-all but they get the job done with no money up or down. Lately, I’ve been using photos posted on Flickr Creative Commons. There’s an astounding variety of photos to choose from–many of them are... learn more

Keeping Perspective

Remember the game where you had to spot the difference in two images? Take a look at the two images below. Can you spot the difference? Compare Images If you noticed a change in the number of windows on the 3rd floor to the left of the porch area, you are right! The critical factor in making such an edit to the image is…Keeping Perspective. That can sometimes become very difficult…unless we are familiar with the Vanishing Point Filter. learn more  Read More →

More Linking and Less Talking

Like most people, I need to practice more and preach less. For example, I need to verify that I’ve done all I can when I create internal and external links and spend more timing chasing inbound links to my sites. It’s hard for me to find the time. I have to visit my rich aunt every day at the nursing home to make sure she signs the will I drew up. She likes to talk a lot. Google reminded me not long ago that I should pay more attention to my links. The Big G ran on its Official Goggle... learn more

Resize It! Part 2 – Using an Action in a Batch Process

In the Part 1 of Using Photoshop Actions, we set up an Action to resize our images and add a stroke just inside the perimeter of an image. Below is an example of applying that action to an image: Image with Action Applied In this second part, we will apply this action in a batch process. The end result will be an entire folder of images are resized with a stroke just inside the perimeter of each image. learn more  Read More →

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