While I prefer to use a dedicated camera to capture images and a laptop to edit them, I know that many social media creators prefer using their smartphones for every step of creation and sharing. Smartphone-based platforms like Instagram and TikTok understand this and have allowed users to add animations and text to postings without exiting the app.
Today, it is common for a small company of 1-3 employees to design, create, and market a product without outsourcing any part of the process. Hiring someone from outside to market or sell the product is not an option for a small organization that must be conscious of how every penny is spent.
Adobe has unveiled a new feature inside its Adobe Firefly portal that gives users more control over the final look of images and art created using Generative AI. The feature is called Structure Reference and offers users control over an aspect of their output that has been unavailable previously.
As photographers, we choose where we take photographs. While it is undoubtedly a joy to take pictures in a climate-controlled photo studio, tethered to a laptop while your favorite tunes play through speakers, many romanticize taking photographs under challenging conditions. We dream of being assigned to document a war or cover the aftermath of an earthquake.
I have a love/hate relationship with family vacations. I enjoy going away for a few days with my wife and daughter, but it is not something I am super excited about and looking forward to each day in the months before the trip, the way most people do. Truth be told, I’m happier putting my money into buying a new lens rather than using it to book a plane ticket.
Adobe Max is a three-day conference in Los Angeles, CA attended by designers, illustrators, photographers, and social media content creators. Attendees can watch presentations by Adobe representatives and attend educational sessions given by independent creators. This year, Generative AI was mentioned in many presentations. This feature is implemented in unique ways across the programs that make up Adobe’s Creative Cloud, and it often feels to the user that they have more effective communication with programs that have AI enhancement.
At this year’s Adobe Max conference for creative and design professionals in Los Angeles, CA, the focus was on using AI technology to enhance creativity. As Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe Systems, stated, people are creating more than ever before, and it is Adobe’s intention to use AI to allow creators to become both more creative and more productive.
Photoshop's Generative Fill is possibly the single most talked about addition in the history of the program. This AI-powered feature allows users to add elements to a photograph not present in the original capture. Many creators love the feature. But that may be about to change due to a recently announced change in Adobe's pricing structure.
Back in my college days, when I first started taking photographs, I pursued magazine photography because I loved seeing my name printed in the magazine. Often, I wasn’t being paid for my services and the photo credit was payment enough for me. When I incorporated my business some 20+ years ago, I named my company "photo: John Ricard, LLC" because it resembled a photo credit.
There are some who believe creativity is a gift given to only a handful of people. Those of us who regularly engage in the practice of making art understand that we all have the ability to create something that has never existed before. It is common for us to struggle in our search for inspiration, and self-doubt can be a powerful enemy. A new organization may be of assistance to those who chose to engage in this struggle.
Each week it seems, a new camera is released. And with every new release is the lure of new features promising to make the already easy image-making process even easier. This raises the question, do the benefits of easily creating images outweigh the potential benefits we might gain from taking a more challenging approach?
As photographers, we often find ourselves at exciting places such as concerts, parties, and sporting events. Many photographers spend hours of their day working with other people. It is common to see photographers interacting with people and asking the people they are photographing to move a bit to the left or to position their hands differently. On the surface, it might seem that photographers are extroverts who love being out and about.
Tutorials on using a 1-light setup for portrait photography are commonplace, and rightly so. There are several ways that a single light source can be positioned to create flattering lighting on a subject. You might think that switching to a 2-light setup would be twice as complicated. This isn’t the case. There are several 2-light arrangements that are easy to understand and quick to set up. Using 2 lights can make it easy for you to transition between a clean headshot and a dramatic portrait.
It takes years of practice to become good at sports photography. Basketball, for example, is fast-paced, with frequent turnovers. When covering a game, you need to be attentive to all of the action happening on the court. But even if you photograph all of the crucial plays, something may be missing from your coverage. This article will help you understand the variety of potential shots at a basketball game and what you need to do to ensure that you capture them properly.
The term "boudoir photography" brings to mind scenes along the lines of a woman dressed in lingerie, standing near a window, adjusting her attire. Perhaps we imagine a woman who is partially nude lying on a bed. However, this interpretation of boudoir photography does not have to be the only way this genre is defined. If you are willing to step out of your comfort zone and expand your interpretation of what a boudoir session looks like, you may be able to dramatically increase your clientele and sales.
It is the dream of many amateur photographers to be hired for celebrity photo shoots and high-status advertising gigs. What could be more exciting than photographing a famous singer in a large photo studio with stylists, digital techs, and assistants at your beck and call? Imagine how great it would be to see your photographs published on a magazine or album cover. Best of all, commercial jobs can pay well over $10,000 for a single day of work. Surely this is better than just photographing ordinary folk, right? Maybe not.
A new year brings thoughts of new beginnings and new opportunities. Resolutions are common this time of year. You undoubtedly have plans to join a gym this year, but why not also make a goal of working on a new photo project? There are several projects you might consider undertaking in 2023, ranging from those that require you to create something original each day to those that will be successful with a less frequent contribution on your part.
There are several timeless photography debates that are fun to engage in but will probably never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. There’s film versus digital, zoom lenses versus primes, small compact minimalistic camera versus fully featured monster-sized pro camera, and of course, continuous lighting versus strobe lighting. This article will not seek to determine whether strobes or constant lights are better for portraiture, but we will take a deep dive into how one photographer used continuous lighting on a recent celebrity shoot.
For decades, color slide film was the industry standard for commercial and editorial work, and the speed of the film was typically 64 or 100. It was standard practice for a portrait photographer to use a high-powered strobe to illuminate the subject. Today, a digital camera can produce clean images at high ISO settings and allows the photographer to forgo strobes and instead illuminate the subject using lower-power continuous light units.
Each week, we are assaulted with an endless barrage of new photography-related products promising to make us better photographers. For a beginning shooter, this must be overwhelming. If someone asked you for a short list of essential items necessary for the specific genre of photography that you partake in, what would those items be?
