But when you transfer them to your computer, you’re dismayed to find that it’s a wonder that the boats didn’t all slide to the left. The sea horizon is canted over by at least 15 degrees.

Of course you can straighten it up in Photoshop or GIMP afterward, but that takes time. Worse, it might also ruin your composition, when your foreground detail gets cropped off to straighten the picture. And by the time you’ve cropped it back into a rectangle, you’ve cut the number of pixels, substantially. I took pictures taken with my own camera, rotated them, and cropped back to a straight rectangle. The uncropped photograph had 10.4 Mpixels. When it was rotated by five degrees, then cropped, I was left with 8.33 Mpixels. A ten degree rotation and crop left me with 7.25 Mpixels. And a fifteen degree rotation with 4.99 Mpixels.

Clearly, this is going to reduce the resolution of fine details.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to get the horizon straight inside the camera? (Unless of course you want it tilted, which doesn’t happen often.)

Some people get their horizons straight without really thinking about it. But others do this constantly. It looks straight when they take the photograph. The frustration happens later. What’s going wrong?

Here’s the secret: DON’T try to get the horizon straight when you take the photo. It’s already straight. At that point, what you need to do is to make sure that the frame of the viewfinder is parallel to the horizon. (And consider putting it a third of the way from the top or bottom of the frame.)

I know this is terribly obvious to some people, but believe me, someone somewhere is reading this and smacking their forehead. It’s one of those things that’s obvious with hindsight.

Once you know this secret, it’s very easy to get the horizon straight every time.

Let me help you to take great landscape photographs. To read more tips and tricks, click here.

I have always used strong colours in my images too good effect allowing the image to speak to the viewer. We think and feel in colour which makes it obvious that well utilised colour will draw the eye of the viewer. Here are some keys to understanding and using colour more effectively in your photos.

1. Dominant colour

At one stage I thought that filling the frame with lots of bold colours would make a dramatic image. Not so. Colours that clash cause confusion to the eye and results in a poor image. Too many clashing colours is like multiple focal points causing the eye to dart around the image not sure what to look at first or focus on. Rather choose one dominant colour which becomes the focal point of the image and draws the eye of the viewer to it immediately. The greater the intensity of the colour the more it’s going to dominate so be careful that your subject in an image has the dominant colour, otherwise a secondary subject could overshadow it because it has a dominating colour.

2. Colour isolation

It’s very important to isolate colours when trying to create a dramatic image. Using a telephoto or zoom lens will allow you to isolate a particular part of a scene that has a striking colour or combination of colours. Another technique is to use your feet and change the angle of view so that the colour is isolated from its surroundings. Getting in closer helps and allows you to combine colours that are more interesting and work well together, e.g. contrasting or complimentary colours.

3. Advancing colours

This was an interesting concept the first time I read about it. Colours at the warm end of the colour spectrum stand out and demand more of our attention. They are said to be advancing colours. Take red for example, it is strong and bold and when viewed in an image tends to dominate through its boldness and rich colour. You’ll notice how strong it is when you have a scene that has only a little red, like a postbox, and yet it still has a dominating effect on the overall image. Yellows and oranges have a similar effect although they aren’t as strong as red. So be aware of advancing colours so that they work for you and don’t upset an image. Another example would be a bridal scene where a red object is part of the image. It will take the attention off the bride so be aware of this.

4. Receding colours

This concept is opposite to advancing colours. They take a background role and are more like supporting actors in a film cast. They like the background and add to the scene creating beautiful images. This is why blues and greens, the more cooler colours, work so well as backgrounds. They recede into the distance and help other colours stand out. Large areas of blue sky do this together with rolling green hills. Use them effectively and you will have great photos.

If you are prepared to take these techniques and incorporate them into your photography on a regular basis as you learn digital photography more effectively and the resulting images will improve dramatically. Happy shooting!

Do you want to learn more about photography in a digital world? I’ve just completed a brand new e-course delivered by e-mail. Download it here for free by clicking here: http://www.21steps2perfectphotos.com/ To learn how you can take your photography from ordinary to outstanding click here - http://www.21steps2perfectphotos.com/21steps.htm

Wayne Turner has been teaching photography for 25 years and has written three books on photography.

- Constantly be mindful of the experience.

Anyone do not need to discover trees and shrubs growing out of individuals brain or a moving automobile to draw interest from your issue. Occasionally moving your issue simply a few steps to possibly aspect can produce all the differentiation.

-Utilize obtainable light source.

If your Sony digital camera offers an solution to change the flash off and it is light source sufficient outdoors to look over a guide, after that utilize the obtainable light source, and change the flash off. In basic digital camera flashes are usually also severe for human body and create all of people seem light. In the house, wherever there is not sufficient daylight, position your issue by a windowpane and utilize your fill flash attribute.

-Target your photographic camera somewhat decrease at the individual’s skin.

Additionally do not take simply face on to the individual, attempt a tiny to the aspect, a three quarter view, so that you view extra of their face. Keep in mind digital camera greater looking down and a three quarter view, it will probably sleek your issue.

-Keep in mind your target.

Have more detailed to your issue. Fill up the body with your issue and there can be no uncertainty as to what the photo is saying.

-By no means place your issue dead middle.

Put your simply somewhat off middle; not a lot simply a little. Any time you are capturing groupings of persons, discover the imaginary center line of your group and place that line simply a bit off center within your view through your zoom lens or display.

Using these ideas will not change you in to an award-successful digital photographer nowadays, however you will be on your method to greater, more strong photos that others will remark on for decades to come along.

Want to find out more about Sony Digital Camera, then visit Severica Vintila’s site on how to choose the best Photography for your needs.

And here I am not necessarily talking about products displayed in a catalogue of an e-commerce shop. Yes, these images need to be clear, sharp and to work to sell the product. You need different angles and view. They need to be in focus and ideally they all need to be along the same theme. Taken the same way around (portrait or landscape), you then should make sure that they all have the same background, or at least the same theme of background. It looks absolutely horribly messy when the photos are a mixture of greyish white backgrounds because the flash is not strong enough. But I realise that for many small shops the time, effort and expense of getting the product lines photographed is too much. So here, just put a bit of thought into the photographs and maybe ask your suppliers if they can assist.

What I do insist are taken properly, where possible, are the pictures that abound the home page and the banners of the website. If a banner is being created for the entire site then it is something that every visitor will see. If that banner uses a photograph that is badly framed, out of focus and poorly lit, it will reflect on the entire website and could ultimately lose you vital visitors.

I always use professional stock photography whenever I create a website sample, along with the offer that once the website goes live, I can buy the license for those photographs as part of the agreed price, or the customer can select their own choice from the same website that I buy from.

This usually works fine, but sometimes the customer insists that their favourite snap will work just as well and provides that. This is fine if they are good at photography, but all too often the quality of the photograph supplied is below the quality of the photograph originally in that place on the website. And who is going to be first to point that out? Me, or the customer?

The thing is, professional stock photography can be incredibly cheap and fun to source. There may be millions of photographs per site, but once you start searching on a theme it is quite straight forward. If you need Moscow photography, just search for that in your preferred library.

By going to a library and paying a couple of pounds or dollars per photograph you are protected from accidentally using copyrighted material, which could later catch up on you. The library will also have checked carefully each photograph for quality, so you know you are getting the best.

Do not cut corners. Buy the best!

If you want to know more about website design, stock photographs or marketing, please call into our marketing blog. Or feel free to come along to ask us a question.

Keith Lunt owns Janric webdesign, who provide a reliable Merseyside Website Design and marketing service.

Black picture frames can be used as a picture frame. Black, silver and ivory are some of the best colours of a frame. These frames enhance the beauty of the picture inside the frame and give it a distinctive look. Black frames come in different sizes such as for wallet-sized pictures or it can be big enough for a full wall-sized picture to fit into. These frames are also available in different finishes; you can find a shiny black finish or a dull finish. You can choose a finish that matches the picture and your surroundings. The pictures can be put into these frames and hung on the walls or kept on the mantelpiece, on pianos or on tables.

Black picture frames can make your house look more stylish. You can put a picture into this type of frame and decorate it in your hallway with a light above it. Alternatively, you can make a contrast between the black frame and the colour of your wall. These frames can give a fresh look to your bathroom or give your dining room an artistic look. They can also make your living room look spacious. To make it look classier you can group all your family photos together and put them in the frame.

Bring out your old pictures and relive your old, fond memories. Put them in the black frames and decorate your entire house with these frames to keep your memories fresh. You can frame any memory that you want, pictures of your graduation, family reunion pictures, wedding pictures or your old sports pictures. Black frames give an antique appeal and add to the nostalgia.

Thus you can use a black picture frame in many ways. Take time and move around your house to find suitable spaces on the walls or anywhere in your house. The bedrooms can be a nice place for the black picture frames. These picture frames found in various finishes are great for enhancing the beauty of your home.

Lee Ka Hoong

Here are 10 easy to follow tips to help you achieve sun burst defined “star-like” style sun flare.

1. Start with clear day. A few clouds can be around, but the sun itself works best against a vibrant blue sky.
2. Shoot in Manual Mode! You need control.
3. 1st set your speed, likely to be ISO 100 but if near sunset may be ISO 200-400. Then set your aperture between f16-f22. Sun flare can be achieved when opened up more but the more “wide open” your lens, the less definition you will get. If you shoot with wider apertures, you may get Lens Flare and that hazy look, but not the crisp star burst effect.
4. Lastly set your shutter speed. You will need to vary this setting quite a bit depending what you want to preserve (sky or subject). I often split the difference and try to retain some blue sky (light) while not completely underexposing my subject. The exposure I can then adjust in Lightroom or Photoshop.
5. If you are having trouble getting the sky and subject exposed properly, you can either use fill flash or reflector if the subject is close. If the “subject” is a building or anything else and is far away, you likely will want to take two exposures back to back. Take one exposing for the sky and one exposing for your subject. Then merge in post processing.
6. Though the sun can be just about anywhere as you can see from these shots, the lower in the sky, the better. This is especially true if you want to get people in the shot. You can see in shots where it was high in the sky, it would be hard to include people in the shot.
7. One really great way to get sun flare is to use a building or tree - let the light play off the edge.
8. Shooting into the sun like this makes seeing your screen difficult. I strongly advise you not to look directly at the sun through your viewfinder. Ouch! After taking a few shots, turn the other way and check your images so you can see them better. See what needs to be altered with your settings.
9. Use your lens hood. Using one will help cut down on haze (unless of course that is the look you are going for).
10. Be creative and have fun. I personally love this look with architecture and environment. It works for portraits as well, but try not to overuse it. You can have too much of a good thing.

This article was written by Jodi Friedman of MCP Actions. MCP Actions offers original Photoshop Actions and Workshops to customers internationally, which enable photographers, at the click of a button, to enhance and enrich their photos in a fast and efficient way. Check out our website at: http://www.mcpactions.com and our blog at: http://www.mcpactions.com/blog

Both dance and gymnastics often have certain photographic challenges: low light, fast movement, and inability to move to ideal locations to shoot the photograph.

My daughter recently performed at her studio’s recreation holiday show. It was fairly dark and there were not many spots for me to go capture images. Here are 12 tips for how I handled this situation and how you can too.

1. Shoot at a high ISO - shoot at the highest acceptable ISO for your camera. I was at ISO 3200-6400 on my Canon 5D MKII for these shots.
2. Use a fast focusing lens - I used my 50 1.2.
3. Shoot at a fairly wide open aperture. I shot most pictures at f 2.2-2.8 so I let more light in.
4. Use a fast shutter speed - gymnasts move fast. I varied speed, but primarily was at 1/500.
5. Use a flash to help stop action and light the subject. I used my 580ex (ceilings were too high so I aimed the flash directly at her versus bouncing)
6. Consider black and white if the color are harsh from the lighting and spotlights.
7. Consider staying with color when it sets the mood.
8. Embrace grain and noise. You cannot get noise-free image at this high an ISO, so use the noise to convey a feel to the images.
9. Try and capture feeling and emotion with the light.
10. Be flexible. Sometimes you may not get he angle you want or there may be a barrier (such as a person) blocking you. Do the best you can.
11. Be creative. Look for environment to enhance the image (for example the mirror showing a reflection).
12. Take a silhouette shot.

This article was written by Jodi Friedman of MCP Actions. MCP Actions offers original Photoshop Actions and Workshops to customers internationally, which enable photographers, at the click of a button, to enhance and enrich their photos in a fast and efficient way. Check out our website at: http://www.mcpactions.com and our blog at: http://www.mcpactions.com/blog

Think about how much it costs you in terms of time as well as money to acquire a new client. As it becomes more challenging to acquire new clients (especially in this current economic climate) it is far easier to go back to former clients and ask for new business.

Unfortunately many photographers tend to be on the side of the fence where they are constantly prospecting and searching for new clients. Nothing wrong with it, but it can be an awful time consuming process. If find yourself in this situation one way to break free of it is to ask yourself, “how can I serve my existing clients or former clients in new ways?”

In this article I am going to give you three suggestions you can use to keep your calendar full with additional work from existing clients while resurrecting relationships from former clients for new work. The key is to position yourself as your clients “in house” photographer.

1. Ask - I know it sound simple, but you’d be surprised how many photographers fail to ask for additional work while they are working with existing accounts. There several ways to do this with finesse for example; you can have your new clients fill out a questionnaire at the start of the job. The questions should relate to the job you’ve been hired to do.

Let’s say for example you are an architecture photographer then you could ask if they need printing work done like annual reports and other collateral materials. You could inquire about photographing other buildings or residential properties they have in their portfolio (including interiors).

2. Court former clients - you can do this by dropping notes about your interest in working with them again via hand written note cards, handwritten works better because it shows that you took the time to contact them and not just send a form letter. Handwritten letters are often referred to as a warm letters. Think of it like the holiday letter that your aunt writes to update everyone of the families previous years accomplishments and activities.

In addition if you’ve won any awards, received any significant press coverage or been acknowledged in any way there is nothing wrong with dropping a note about your achievements or perhaps even a tear sheet.

3. Offer to schedule a lunch or coffee date - nothing gets your prospects attention faster than a face-to-face meeting. As a matter of fact when you send your warm letters you can place a pre-addressed stamped card to inquire if the recipient would be in interested in scheduling such a date. This is great way to follow up with your notes and/or warm letter.

The key to becoming your clients “in house photographer” is to present yourself as well as you possibly can in your chosen specialty, then once you’re “in” with the client, continue to probe and uncover how you can be of further service. Finally, do the work, deliver, rinse and repeat.

Are you an entrepreneurial minded photographer? Would you like to learn how to Attract More Clients & GROW your business in the next 12 months? Guaranteed!

To find out how I’d like to offer you my Client Attraction Starter Kit that includes: a 5-part mini audio course, “5 Secrets To Attract More Clients & Grow Your Photography Business!” Plus a complimentary subscription to my bi-weekly ezine “Eye On Marketing”. You can claim your FREE Client Attraction Starter Kit by visiting: Photo Marketing Mentor.

Here are 10 Reasons You Need to Use Adjustment Layers in Photoshop

1. Duplicating the background doubles file size. Using an adjustment layer does not. This makes for smaller files and uses less computer memory.

2. When you duplicate the background layer, you create pixels that can cover other layers. When you use an adjustment layer, it works like adding a piece of glass. Adjustment layers play well with other layers as they are transparent. They do not hide layers underneath.

3. Once you edit a duplicate layer your changes are permanent. Sure you can adjust opacity or add a mask. But you cannot reopen and adjust the actual adjustment (such as curves, hue/saturation, etc). You can with an AL.

4. They come with built in masks. This saves you a few extra clicks.

5. You can make presets for your favorite ALs. You can use these on image after image.

6. Adobe thought they were so important, they dedicated their own panel to them in CS4.

7. You can make Solid Color, Gradient, and Pattern Layers as adjustments.

8. You can adjust Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Curves, Exposure, Vibrance, Hue/Saturation, Color Balance, Black & Whites, Photo Filters, and Channel Mixers with these special layers.

9. You can do an Invert, Posterize, Threshold, Gradient Map and even selective color as an adjustment layer.

10. Many Photoshop actions are built with ALs and built in masks.

So what is stopping you?

* There are times when you need pixel information for retouching and extracting. At this time you may need to use a duplicate layer. My rule is only duplicate a layer when you absolutely have to.

This article was written by Jodi Friedman of MCP Actions. MCP Actions offers original Photoshop Actions and Workshops to customers internationally, which enable photographers, at the click of a button, to enhance and enrich their photos in a fast and efficient way. Check out our website at: http://www.mcpactions.com and our blog at: http://www.mcpactions.com/blog

To a certain extent, that may be a reasonable determination. However, there are some settings we need to know about in order to minimize the disappointments of the deficient photo. These pointers are not meant to be Digital Photography 101. In fact, all the experts seem to have a different opinion. The intent is to help you help yourself to become a better digital image taker through a little knowledge.

We buy digital cameras of whatever mega pixels and we are ready to burn up the world of photography. We are excited, energized, confident and capture wonderful moment after wonderful moment. Then we try to enlarge those new digital images that look so perfect on our computer but when we do, the image gets jagged or pixelated (a resolution issue) and/or has horrible splotches of color and ghosting, aka noise (an image quality issue). Alas, these special never-to-get-again captures are good only for emailing to others or viewing on our computer. Disappointing.

A digital camera is an information gatherer. When the picture is taken, the camera records information regarding colors, image, everything. This information in the digital image is made up of pixels which are tiny dots arranged horizontally and vertically in the image. The more pixels in an image, the crisper the detail in the image. The number of pixels horizontally and vertically of a particular image multiplied together gives you the pixel count (in millions) that is referred to as . For example, a 10 Mega Pixel camera typically takes an image that is 3888 x 2592.

Pixels make up the image and resolution is the number of pixels in the image captured by the camera. A low resolution image has relatively few pixels captured resulting in the image lacking detail and will likely appear jagged when enlarged. The higher the resolution of the image, the greater the number of pixels have been captured and the image will maintain its integrity when enlarged for printing.

You must read your manual for resolution settings then find the setting in your camera menu. They may designate it as a Large, Medium or Small picture (or file) that may be accompanied by dimensions (width x height) or just the dimensions themselves. Highest would be Large and/or the largest dimension. Yes, this highest setting will reduce the number of pictures you can take before downloading and that is a decision you will have to make. But the good news is that data storage is cheap and you can always delete photos off the camera you don’t want.

The other important setting is image quality. Again, look in your manual for this setting, maybe shown as compression quality or as normal, fine, superfine. Image quality relates to the amount of compression to the image which directly effects color. You want whatever your camera designates as the least compression, perhaps shown as superfine or best. You can always reduce the file size or compression for emailing later but you cannot restore the information that is never collected in the first place

There are many digital camera owners these days who are finding themselves to be pretty good photographers and quite clever in finding unique and interesting shots. And more and more people are experiencing the distinct pleasure of having their photos printed on canvas. They send in their favorite photo only to find the image cannot be used or, at best, will result in a low quality canvas. It is very disappointing but can be avoided by setting the camera properly. The quality of the source photo is directly related to the quality of your canvas.

Most of us take pictures for fun and personal history. We want to pull out our camera, snap the photo and have it be good enough for whatever we want to do with it. Those special, incredible shots present themselves without notice and if our camera is not correctly set, we may lose out on having options for enlarging and printing that once-in-a-lifetime shot. It’s up to you how to set your camera, but, if you set it to its highest resolution and best image quality, you can’t go wrong.

Hopefully, these tips have shed some light on your digital camera setting needs that will allow your digital camera to be the best it can be so your photos can be the best that they can be. Having your camera set properly will give you more satisfaction from your photography efforts.

In summary, read your manual, set your camera and keep focused!

Let Pixels on Canvas http://www.pixelsoncanvas.com bring you into the wonderful world of printing photos on canvas and transform your favorite photos into canvas art, with you as the artist, for yourself or to share with others. The professional team at Pixels on Canvas will evaluate your photo and do all they can to make it the best it can be for a successful transfer to canvas. They make it fun. They make it affordable. They make it as easy as 1,2,3.