Answers to your Photography Questions

-

 

Subscribe to ShootingOutside by Email

Free Photo Questions Answered Today





If you have a photography question, you can ask me here in the Comments Section below. I'll do my best at answering them  within a day, but I will limit the time this is available, and there may be times when I'll send you to a link where I've located your answer if I am really busy.

And don't fear asking tough questions. The basis for most tough photography techniques is grounded in simple science, even if the image comes out looking artsy. So fire away on subjects ranging from Photoshop, shooting mechanics, lens and camera use and settings, white balance, portrait, macro, memory card, hard disc drives, computer set up for photography use, RAID storage and backup etc.

But be quick as time runs out at midnight, tonight.


Subscribe to ShootingOutside by Email











Comments

Anonymous said…
Is it too late to ask you a question?
November 2, 2013 at 1:05 PM
Outsideshooter said…
No of course not, its never too late. But as I said I'll answer as my schedule allows. Thanks
November 4, 2013 at 4:14 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From Dull to Dramatic Photography

-
Image
While this may not be dramatic in a bright happy colorful sense it is so, if in a dark and foreboding way. With this subject I will admit it was easier than if I had chosen an image which was bright and colorful with lots of sunlight, still even then one can cause an ordinary image to appear near HDR without all the added work and in many cases the use of software to produce the tonal mapping needed. Take this original image of a door within an abandoned barn, with the use of flash. From Drop Box As you can see the amount of light hitting this well defines all of the aspects of the term abandoned, the failing paint, the rust on the handle, the cobweb within the latch opening and generally the decadent condition overall. This much light reflects really more than I want in this photo, so rather than lowering the exposure and losing too much information (btw this works well in most well-lit sunjects, i.e. lowering exposure, I am not the best at flash adjustments, so I use PP or post
Read more

The Service this Art Site Offers is the Very Best for Art Buyers

-
Image
 Buying Wall Art is Finally Easy ..... Let's take a short walk down the path of finding the art you are looking for, while making it easier than you're used to. Then, if you wish adding a matte, and a frame. In fact, let's make it so easy, as if to find it a pleasurable and accommodating experience to you, as it should be, different than any other. In addition, you'll find so many other art types, from prints on any media from Canvas  prints to wood, and T-shirts to Beach Towels. Your long and arduous searches will be a task of the past. Once there, the learning how to use the choices you'll have, will be intuitive, and fun to play with when selecting from the number of choices you are presented with. You'll be able to add and remove, pick and change with a tap of a drop down or button. Nothing to it. For the first time, your selecting and adding art to your cart, won't end in frustration, and it won't cost you your emergency savings. Here's an examp
Read more

Shooting Christmas Can be Fun.......or........

-
Image
Shooting can be a lot of fun. Formal shots seem to take a lot of prep work if one wants to get everything perfect, like making sure nothing in the background conflicts with the subject which is your critical Aunt saying she doesn't like it that Bernie's coat is so ugly hanging on the wall behind me. Or just the usual clutter which can easily invade a nice grouping of the family. It pays to take the time to pick out a bare wall or large window so long as the flash will not bounce back at you. In the other hand if you are going for the candid approach, and want to avoid the background clutter which is unavoidable in most cases, try placing a lens of portrait class, say a Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM Lens for Canon SLR Cameras which when opened wide you'll produce enough bokeh, or background blur to avoid most of the stuff and leave you with a wonderful clear shot of your Aunt who won't be able to critique your photo without using a compliment. What I hear most often from re
Read more

Soft Proofing in Photoshop

-
Image
Soft Proofing an image is the most accurate way to achieve the look of how the print will appear on paper. Ever noticed that your print doesn't come out quite as vibrant as it looked in Photoshop? Surely there are a host of reasons outside the scope of this article, but I'll make the assumption you already are familiar with image preparation and color profiling, paper selection and the how of printing basics. Once you have these down the next step is to get your image to the very closest that your camera's image sensor captured. Open your file in Photoshop. Next choose View, Proof Setup, Custom. The window reads Customize Proof Condition. Select Device to Simulate, then proceed to choose the paper profile you will be printing on. There will come associated with the imbedded profiles Photoshop and your printer software has already configured. You may also have added a few for certain papers or profiles from your print shop.  Select the one you wish to print to, for exa
Read more

Do you ever shoot for free?

-
Give your opinion in the Comments section below after signing up. Our readers want to know how you feel. For those of you who'd rather not sign up answer the poll in the column to the right. I've created a typical scenario which I've discussed with many photographers over time who've shared their talent alongside starving artist status. The discussion is almost always the same, ENP (Every New Photographer) seems to feel the need to give freely of their skills in order to gain business. After all how do you get business without giving a little? The discussion usually goes something like this. RCPhotos: So when does one start charging for your photography skills? Do you? ENP: Oh I'm new at this so when a friend asked if I'd take a few shots of their new baby I said sure, no problem. My idea was that they'd see some really good results and maybe pass my name around. RCphotos: How did it go? ENP: Well they said they'd tell everyone they knew but af
Read more

Happy Mother's Day Mom

-
Image
Happy Mother's Day. This is in honor of my Mother, whom most of her friends call Dot. I caught her in the midst of preparing the kitchen for dinner.     I should say that Mom, Dot, is much more than a Mom to me, she is an Angel. She has been my inspiration for positive thinking for a lifetime and continues to inspire me. Why? I can recall when I was very young and was tied to the farm, milking cows, slopping hogs, feeding horses and chickens, gathering eggs, all of this twice a day, that I used to complain about not having enough time to spend with my friends who were all free of these (work duties - ahem) activities, and she'd say, "Well what would the animals do without you?" How could I argue with that? Or when I'd come in with near frozen fingers from winter's chill and she'd have a warm steaming wash towel for my hands. "Here", she'd say, "this will warm you in no time". Why else? She has spent many, many years helping
Read more

The Fix for Copy & Paste Issues between Apple Devices

-
 Yes I know this has nothing to do with my Photography Unless I am trying to post a photo within this blog from my Mac But it has been a problem, with those using Apple devices, for a while now and I wanted to offer an article I ran across to help those with this issue. Once I got used to the ability to copy from one device to another, Apple device, iPhone to Mac, Mac to iPhone, or iPad it was really annoying when this stopped working.  And once I found this article, I only used the first 6 steps before trying, and it solved the problem. I can now again C&P back and forth as it was meant to use right out of the box. So you might try just resetting the Clipboard, and if that is not the fix then start at the top and work your way through the steps until it is working again.  The article I consider to be a very well written set of instructions at least for me. And I have posted this article to the Apple Community, in hopes it will help anyone else experiencing these issues Here is the
Read more

Two very special prints at Fort Vancouver NHS a National Park

-
Image
I wanted to profile my 2 latest works at Imagekind. These both are within my Gallery called Fort Vancouver, and are titled 'Oregon White Oak' and 'Icy Fort'. I am building a collection of images from Fort Vancouver but slowly and partly becasue I am very fussy about the images I rate 5 stars, and even fussier about how I process the RAW files once converted to TIF format. Oregon White Oak by Rich Collins This image Oregon White Oak is very special not only to myself, but to the entire Clark County community. And that's partly why I have it for sale in 8x10" matted, at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site Visitor Center in Vancouver, WA. But soon, perhaps within another week or 2 at most, I'll have it for sale and on display, along with Icy Fort, in 20x30" matted size at the Visitor Center. These are such special prints to me and the community that I have built a unique frame for them. Once the frame is finished I'll add a photo of it to t
Read more

New Years: A time to Defrag your Hard Disk Drive

-
Image
Prior to doing this make sure you have all of your work backed up, preferably on another HDD (Hard Disk Drive)or on DVD. Only then will you feel like soaring. As 2008 runs out of steam, and 2009 is about to emerge, we are faced with some of the same challenges as well as some added ones. In considering these I always look at what I have done to my PC in adding tons of image files. If I had to consider only these images I should be Analyzing & Defragging our HDD's every 30 days. But there is so much more to consider when it comes to how well our PC's work. Consider that every upload, every download, every file added or deleted, every profile change on your pc, every screensaver added or changed or deleted, every email written, received, read & trashed, then dumped, in short, every action a PC takes has potential for losing bits of data, albeit small amounts, but these add up. Now let's add what we do to our images; my workflow includes ingesting the files into my ima
Read more