While the fainthearted may see grey skies and feel trapped inside, the rest of us need not be stopped by wet weather. Taking pictures in mist and rain can be very satisfying, especially when the rain is light and feet stay dry. Often, grey skies intensify certain colors, while changing others.

I really noticed this last week when I went outside to get my morning paper and saw the pumpkin stand across the street from my house. The pumpkins practically glowed. Luckily, I was only steps from my camera and managed to capture the rich orange.

The last few days have been damp and grey where I live. While friends and neighbors bemoan the lack of sun, I happily take advantage of the overcast skies and wet surfaces. I put on my waterproof shoes, grab my slicker, and out I go.

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There seems to be various ways of taking an image from a picture using Photoshop. Sometimes I like to use the extraction tool located in the filter section in Photoshop 7.0. This extraction tool allows you to carefully highlight the outline of the image, then the computer will calculate what is needed to extract it and place it in another file. When highlighting the image, you must take care to have equal highlighting on both sides of the image borderline. You then use the "fill" tool to fill the image with a bright color so you can see if you have highlighted the correct areas. Then when satisfied it is correct click "OK"and the image will be transferred. This is one of various ways to extract an image.

Dave Black has a wonderful website. One of his monthly features is called Workshop at the Ranch. There he gives insightful tips on how to use off-camera flash in creative ways. Although anyone using wireless flash units can benefit from Dave’s experience, his series is of particular interest to Nikon shooters using SB-800s and the Nikon Creative Lighting System.

I make it a point to check back each month to learn more from this master of Nikon flash. I particularly like his method of using warm gels with SB-800 Speedlights to create warm subject lighting and a cool blue background. I think it works particularly well for sports portraits, but I’ve used it for a variety of subjects.

This is an example using Dave’s technique for a Senior Portrait.

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Your Ideas Wanted!   Your freaky photos were, in some cases, truly disturbing. Now we’re looking for your best Fall photo ideas and projects. Be creative, and include a photo if you like — you might see it in an upcoming newsletter!

We’re not big fans of following the rules, and we have a hunch you’re not, either.

But we know a good thing when we see it, and this list of 12 photography suggestions from our friends at Popular Photography came up on our phodar* more than once over the past couple weeks.

Photography’s as much a science as it is an art, so consider this a brush-up of your fundamentals. Of course, we know you know that we know that you know how fast a shutter speed you need to freeze a person running across your frame versus running at a 45-degree angle to you, or how to expose a sunset so it looks like it’s a half hour later than it is.

But a little review never hurt.

12 Essential Photo Rules from Popular Photography

* Yeah, it’s like radar, but for photography. It’s strong with us.

Link to this | Filed under Tips.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably got a shoebox (or maybe even a slightly more elaborate storage system) full of old negatives from your film days. I’ve been casually thinking about scanning some of my old negatives and especially the negatives from my wedding to preserve them. Negatives can be stored for decades but I don’t store mine in anything near ideal conditions. In theory, digital images can be stored forever (assuming you’ve got a good backup process in place… you do backup your files, don’t you?)

The trouble with scanning negatives is that it’s cumbersome and, if you care about the quality, the equipment can be quite expensive. Your average consumer-grade desktop scanner with negative scanning unit will do in a pinch but it won’t match anything near the quality or speed of a dedicated negative scanning machine. And you’ve still got to deal with dust and scratches on the negatives which must be cleaned and inspected and… well, you get the idea. It’s a pain.

So I was pleased to hear about a service called ScanDigital.com (www.scandigital.com) which aims to takes all of the hassle and pain out negative scanning.

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Recently in the forum… Scapbooking ideas wanted Post your… Fall Photos Post your… Halloween/Spooky Photos

The first time we saw seam carving in action, we thought it was an optical illusion. It isn’t.

For those of you who saw the demonstration video and academic paper (see links below) a month back, you know why we were so amazed. Alas, it was but a proof of concept at the time. But now you can finally use seam carving on your own images!

First, a quick summary of the technique: Typically, when you resize a photo, you just make everything in it smaller. Simple, right? Well seam carving is like a smarter version of resizing. Your computer analyzes the photo and figures out what’s important and what isn’t, then it eliminates the less important areas first as you shrink the image.

That means you can resize a photo to be half as wide without shrinking everyone in it, or even make a photo wider without making it look stretched. You can even pick areas you definitely want to leave alone, or areas you definitely want to lose, making it a super easy way to remove an ex or a stranger from a otherwise lovely photo.

Well, we’ve said enough. You need to give it a try for yourself. (Or watch the amazing demo video!)

Rsizr — Free seam-carving image resizing on the web

See also…
Picutel Smart Resize
$95 Seam Carving Photoshop plugin (PC-only)

Liquid Resize for GIMP
Free Seam Carving plugin for GIMP

Actionscript sourcecode and examples
For you Flash cowboys and cowgirls who want to build this yourself.

Seam Carving academic paper (PDF)
Dr. Ariel Shamir and Dr. Shai Avidan describe their technique in detail. (Fun fact, Dr. Avidan was hired by Adobe shortly after this hit the web… look for seam carving to pop up in a future version of Photoshop!)

Link to this | Filed under Websites.