Tutorials - SicanStudios

5 easy ways to increase traffic to your website

Alex C. — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:58:00 +0000

In this tutorial I’m going to share with you my personal experience of how I managed to go from an average of 94 visitors per day to an average of 630 visitors per day and still growing. I divided the tutorial in 5 easy ways for you to follow.

Due to the lack of free time I had, and still have, I did the bare minimum to increase my website’s exposure. Such methods like advertising your website, guest posting, performing surveys and studies, link trading and many other didn’t apply to me. By applying the Pareto principle I managed to get the most done by doing as little as possible. In this tutorial, I’m explaining the minimum actions that I did.

In the table above you can see a screenshot of my website’s stats since January 2009. It may have taken me 10 months to increase my visitors by a factor of 6,7 but one thing that every successful online guru will tell you is that you need to be patient and consistent when you’re building your online presence.

There’s no overnight success, especially if you’re no one and you’re starting from zero.

1. Start a blog

Nowadays, starting a blog is a great way to connect with your readers, increase your website visitors and get your name out in the blogosphere. That’s why many companies have started a blog and they regularly post on it.

With time, search engines will index your blog content. As a result, more and more visitors will be approach your website after searching about topics that you’ve covered in your blog.

When you’ve finally decided that you want to start a blog, next step is to decide your niche. This is very important as it will help you create a name for yourself and be seen as an expert in that niche. For example Darren Rowse is known as a successful blogger blogging on Problogger.

Make sure that your blog is well designed, easy to use and navigate (add a search function), accessible (validate your site) and that you post frequently on it.

And last, don’t start a blog just for the sake of it! People will notice! Write passionately and post great content!

What is a Blog?
Create a Blog for Free in 4 Easy Steps
How to Create a Blog
Blogging Tips for Beginners
18 Lessons I’ve Learned about Blogging
How to get traffic for your blog
How to Make Money From Your Blog
10 Big Benefits Of A Busy Business Blog
10 Great Strategic Benefits of Blogging
14 Types of Stories You Can Tell On Your Blog

2. Content is king, or is it?

Deliver high quality content on your blog. Make your content easy to understand and minimize grammatical or spelling errors. By writing high quality posts, people and bloggers will link to your story, resulting in your post and blog to be read by even more people. Based on my experience, it usually creates a “snowball” effect where people read my post and if it’s an interesting one, they go and talk about it. Other people listen and now then they come to my blog to read the post and after, they go and talk about it and so on.

But still, there are tons of great blogs with awesome content but they don’t get the deserved attention and nobody reads them.

That’s because you have to make sure that your content has solid foundations where to sit on. Things like attractive web design, valid and accessible code, involving social media, fast website loading times, good SEO (explained later on), big readership (created over time) matter and can help your content market itself easier.

Mack Collier writes great about this topic here.

Ten Tips for writing a blog post
How to design your posts to guarantee they get read
How to Write a Blog Post That’s Stickier than Velcro
How To Get Past The Blank Page By Creating Urgency
9 Things to Do To Make Sure Your Next Blog Post is Read by More than Your Mom
How to Write a Successful Blog
Content is King, but Linking is Queen

3. SEO

If you don’t know what it is, read here. Although many disagree, for me this is one of the best methods I managed to increase my visitors. How? By improving my search engine rankings. As you can see from the table below (click to view full size), more than 46% of my visitors come from search engines. That’s a lot of traffic!

So, how do you improve your search engine rankings?

Make sure you have relevant page titles on all your pages. First insert the most important keyword and then other details.

Example:
BEFORE: “MySite.com | Web Design" AFTER: “Web Design | MySite.com”

Ensure that you have included a meta description, unique for each page.

~~Also ensure that you have inserted meta keywords, unique for each page again. Choose your keywords wisely!~~

UPDATE: Yahoo! stopped supporting meta keywords as well. It’s a fact, meta keywords no longer affect ranking on any search engine (Google, Yahoo!, Bing). Thanks to Frederik for noticing my mistake.

Add alt and title attributes to images.

Write your posts using headings (h1,h2,h3). It helps search engine spiders better understand the content of the blog.

Last but not least, include a sitemap for your website. Sitemaps inform search engine crawlers that their pages are available for crawling.

The Meta Description Tag
5 Ways to Get Your Blog Indexed by Google in 24 Hours
Add Alt and Title Attributes to Images
Drupal SEO is Easy
Expert Google SEO Tips & Advice
SEO , Wordpress and Keywords in URL
SEO Primer: Improve Your Business Website’s Ranking
Improve SEO Through Blogs & Feeds
Website Grader
SEO Tools

4. Freebies!

Everyone loves free stuff! So, give it to them! It can be anything: icons, wallpapers, games, software, subscriptions, entertainment, advice, demos and tryouts or even useful information. This is a very powerful way of attracting people. Many companies offer demos of their product to try out. After testing, you decide that like the product but in order to enable the full features, you have to purchase it. So you do. It’s that simple.

Many game companies proceed in the same way, they offer demo releases of their game for you to try and experience the new features and then, after you are convinced of the quality, you purchase their game.

Even on a blog, you come and read meaningful, quality posts, and then you come again or subscribe, if you enjoyed the blog. Where’s your gain? Well apart from the personal satisfaction of having a voice and being heard, if you have an advertisement section you can also earn some income. Many bloggers have quit their job and became full time bloggers.

On this website, I’m offering free tutorials and information on a variety of topics (photography, web design and development, photoshop, 3D and many more), free desktop and iPhone/iPod Touch wallpapers and services (web design and development, retouching etc).

So, start giving something for free today! You’ll see the difference!

SEO: How to Promote Your Web Site with Freebies
How I Make Money Blogging

5. Post loads of images

Compare the hits I’m getting from Google Images (which is my nr. 1 link provider) to the hits I’m getting from Google:

I’m ranking nr. 1 in Google Image search on many keywords such as java t-shirt, iphone wallpaper earth, iphone autumn wallpaper, guide to nd grads, london city photography, birmingham photography, and many many many more!

Adding images is a great way to earn extra traffic! Remember to optimise your alt tag and title tag and don’t overfill them with keywords. Search engines are clever; they match the keywords to the text associated with the image and discard the irrelevant images.

Using Post Images to Increase Traffic to Your Site
3 Ways To Increase Traffic With Better Food Photos
Google Image Search Increase Blog Traffic
Using images to increase traffic
Increase Traffic by Choosing the Right Images for your Post

Conclusion

There are certainly a lot more ways to increase your website traffic, but for me, these are the ones that worked best! Here’s a list with some useful resources and more ways to increase traffic, in case you want to do some more reading:

Effective Techniques Increase Website Traffic
20 Easy Ways to Increase Website Traffic
3 Proven Free Methods to Increase Your Website Traffic
How to Go from 1 to 1,000,000 Users (or Readers)
101 Ways to Build Link Popularity
101 Web Marketing Ideas and Tips
8 Reasons Why Lists are Good for Getting Traffic to your Blog
3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic
How to get traffic for your blog
The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging
Link Building Blog
The 9 Free Things Every Site (or Lens!) Should Do
Is Commenting on Blogs a Smart Traffic Strategy?
Why You Can’t Make Money Blogging
How to Be Interesting
How to Increase Your Blog Subscription Rate by 254%

I hope you enjoyed this article! If so, share it and don’t forget to subscribe to this blog!

Any questions, add them below in the comments section!

Source Files are unavailable for this tutorial! No Source Files

Windows 7 Nvidia 8400M graphics card driver problem resolved

Alex C. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:07:00 +0000

Over the weekend I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit on my laptop (Vaio VGN-FZ11S) and came across some problems with my graphics card (8400M GT) driver support. After numerous searches and scanning through forums, I finally managed to overcome the problem, which I’ll show you how in this tutorial. If you’re not a Windows 7 user, I advise you that you switch now! Why? Here’s why.

Windows 7 does a great job supporting the majority of drivers, recognising devices easily, without needing to install the drivers yourself manually after the installation (although recommended).

But as a Sony user, they still haven’t released (as of 26/10) drivers for Windows 7 (at least for my model) so I had to work only with what Windows 7 provided me. The results were astonishing. All devices work perfectly, the incorporated video camera, microphone, speakers, incorporated media player buttons, USB devices, wireless and bluetooth, touchpad, keyboard, CD/DVD-ROM and many others.

The single problem was with the graphics card. Although graphics were decent, even allowed me to select my resolution (1280×800), the Aero feature was disabled and many other sleek Windows effects. So I wanted everything to work and after some time I found the solution.

Step 1

Download the driver for Windows 7 64bit and save it on your hard disk.

Note: This driver for the 64bit version of Windows only. If you want drivers for a different Windows version, go here and select the one you’re interested in.

Step 2

Download the modified INF file and save it on your hard disk. This INF supports a 213 Nvidia card models. For a complete list of supporting models, check the list here.

Step 3

Extract the driver (by double-clicking on the executable) to a folder of your desire (preferably create a new folder). Copy and paste the INF file that you downloaded from Step 2, inside the folder where you extracted the driver. It will ask you if you want to replace the old INF with the new one. Select to replace it. Go inside the folder, and locate the setup.exe file and run it. Follow the instructions on screen.

Step 4

If you have successfully installed the driver and the Aero feature is enabled and works, then you can skip this step. If not, read on.

If the Aero feature still doesn’t work, go here and download one Windows 7 theme (don’t save it, but open it with the default program that the browser selects). After it has downloaded, the theme should install itself and the Aero feature should be re-enabled. You can delete the theme that you installed if you want.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, please subscribe and if you have any questions add them in the comments section below!

Source Files are unavailable for this tutorial! No Source Files

How to remove .php, .html, .htm extensions with .htaccess

Alex C. — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:17:00 +0000

I recently updated part of my website and made it dynamic (transited from html to php). I stumbled over the problem how to remove the .php extension from a php page. In this tutorial I’ll show you how to do it easily and quickly.

What is an .htaccess file

An .htaccess file is a simple ASCII file that you would create with a text editor like Notepad. It provides a way to make configuration changes on a per-directory basis.

Note that .htaccess is the file’s extension. It isn’t file.htaccess, it is simply .htaccess.

.htaccess files affect the directory they are placed in and all sub-directories, that is an .htaccess file located in your root directory (yoursite.com) would affect yoursite.com/content, yoursite.com/content/contents, etc. It is important to note that this can be prevented (if, for example, you did not want certain htaccess commands to affect a specific directory) by placing a new htaccess file within the directory you don’t want affected with certain changes, and removing the specific command(s) from the new htaccess file that you do not want affecting this directory.

Features

With an .htaccess file you can:

Redirect user to different page
Password protect a specific directory
Block users by IP
Preventing hot linking of your images
Rewrite URI’s
Specify your own Error Documents

In this tutorial we’ll only be focusing on rewriting URI’s.

Removing Extensions

To remove the .php extension from a php file for example yoursite.com/wallpaper.php to yoursite.com/wallpaper you have to add the following code inside the .htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymLinks
Options +Indexes
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.php [NC,L]

If you want to remove the .html extension from a html file for example yoursite.com/wallpaper.html to yoursite.com/wallpaper you simply have to alter the code above to match the filename:

RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L]

That’s it! You can now link pages without needing to add the extension of the page. For example:

wallpaper

Conclusion

For those who are not so experienced with .htaccess files there is an online tool for creating .htaccess files. It is pretty good for novice users and very easy to use. Visit the website.

If you have any questions, you can add them in the comments section below.

References:

.htaccess (Wikipedia)

.htaccess files (Apache.org)

Comprehensive guide to .htaccess (javascriptkit.com)

Source Files are unavailable for this tutorial! No Source Files

How to Convert RAW files to DNG

Alex C. — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:16:00 +0000

Following last week’s article why to shoot in RAW, is a simple tutorial how to convert your RAW files to Adobe DNG. The benefits are explained in the previous article.

Step 1

To install Adobe’s DNG converter, head over to http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/ and select your Operating System from the right sidebar. Filesize is about 40MB. After you’ve downloaded it, double click on the file and install it. Once finished, locate the installation folder and open up DNG Converter. You should have screen similar to the one below.

The converter is designed as an automated batch converter. Click on the button “Select Folder” to select the folder in which you have the RAW files ready for conversion. Note that you can select the “parent” folder and include subfolders as well.

Step 2

Select a destination folder for the converted DNG files. You can select to save them in the same folder or in a different one. You can also create subfolders in the destination folder that match the source’s subfolders.

Step 3

Select a name for the converted DNG files. You have a plethora of options such as Document Name (RAW_file_name.dng), 1 Digit Serial Number (1.dng), Serial Letter (a.dng), mmddyy (122109.dng) and many more. Note that you can combine these options as well. You can also select a lowercase or uppercase file extension name (dng or DNG).

Step 4

When you click on “Preferences” you should have a screen similar to the one below. Inside, you can select compatibility issues, readable by the latest version of Camera Raw or not, Preview JPEG Quality and you can also Embed the Original RAW File. Note that this will create a larger DNG file.

Step 5

When you tick that you want to “Embed Original RAW File” you can then later open up DNG Converter and click on “Extract” and the Converter extracts your original RAW files from the converted DNG files. You can select a source folder where you have the DNG’s with the RAW embedded and destination folder to extract the RAW files.

When you have finished with the preferences, just click on “Convert” and let the software do its magic!

Source Files are unavailable for this tutorial! No Source Files

Why shoot in RAW mode

Alex C. — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 22:09:00 +0000

There’s been much misinformation and disinformation regarding what RAW image files are and why one should shoot in RAW mode or avoid doing so. Let’s investigate!

What is RAW?

A RAW image format contains the complete (lossless) data from your camera’s sensor. It contains the image as captured by the camera with little processing made to display it as a colour image. It is a proprietary format, so to view and edit this type of format you will require special software, usually supplied by the camera’s manufacturer. Nowadays, software like Adobe Photoshop can also process RAW image formats.

Reasons to shoot in RAW

There are several reasons why you should shoot in RAW:

Image Quality:

RAW files contain the exact information that your camera’s sensor captured. That means that the photographer is able to extract the maximum possible image quality without any loss of information.
White Balance:

Little processing was applied to the image which means that if you selected an incorrect WB setting, you can simply go in your RAW file converter and change it to the correct setting. If you’d done the same thing with a JPEG file you’d have to alter it manually, which is time-consuming.
Exposure Latitude:

The data in each pixel inside a RAW file is usually stored using 12 or 14 digital bits. If the camera stores the pixels in 12 bits (2^12) then each pixel allow the file to record 4,096 possible brightness levels. If the camera stores in 14 bits (2^14) then it can record 16,384 different brightness levels. The JPEG file stores each colour using only 8 bits. That means that it can record only 256 different brightness levels! That becomes a problem if you want to rescue an underexposed/overexposed image. Making changes, you’ll quickly find out that JPEG file hasn’t stored enough detail in each pixel.
Processing Power:

The internal processing power of a camera is limited in how fast it can convert a picture into a JPEG file and store it in the camera. With the power of a PC processor the conversion algorithms (File linearization and colour filter array) can be more sophisticated; resulting in a higher quality JPEG file that the JPEG file converted within the camera.

Pitfalls of RAW files

Enough people avoid shooting in RAW due to some pitfalls of RAW files. Here are some:

Large file sizes:

RAW files occupy much more space that JPEG files due to the amount of detail they have stored in each pixel, therefore less RAW files will fit on a card. Large file size means that RAW files will also require a high amount of bandwidth and will make it difficult to transmit online.
Post-Processing Required:

RAW files are not as sharp as JPEG files. RAW files also look more washed-out, having a lower contrast than JPEG files. This requires for some post-processing to bring RAW files back to life. Post-Processing requires time and skill which many photographers may not have.
Proprietary Format:

Although they’re generically referred to as RAW files, there’s no single format. Each camera stores its RAW files differently with different extensions as well. Canon’s RAW files have an extension of .CRW, Nikon of .NEF, Olympus of .ORF, Pentax of .PEF and Fuji of .RAF. Depending on the support the manufacturers provide the public, your photos may become unreadable if the manufacturer drops support for their RAW files. You can overcome this problem and convert the RAW files into Adobe’s DNG Format. This format still preserves the “rawness” of your files but it converts the data to a consistent RAW format, with an openly published specification.

There’s no denying that RAW is less convenient that JPEG but the benefits you gain from using RAW files are worth the inconvenience. Share your thoughts on this issue below. I’d be very interested to hear your opinion on whether you prefer RAW files or JPEG files.

NEXT POST: How to convert your RAW files into DNG instantly.

References:
“Understanding RAW files” by Michael Reichmann
"Working in the RAW” by Helen Bradley “RAW vs JPEG” by Darren Rowse
“Mastering File Formats” from the book The Ultimate Guide to Digital Photography.

Source Files are unavailable for this tutorial! No Source Files

iPod Classic 6th Gen 80GB for sale (SOLD)

Alex C. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:34:00 +0000

iPod Classic 6th Gen 80GB for sale. Free Worldwide Shipping!

***UPDATE: iPod SOLD***

Technical Specs

Capacity: 80GB
Colour: Silver
Battery Life: 36Hr*
Production Year: 2007
Condition: Almost New

The iPod is almost new, with some shallow scratches on the back of it.

Included in Package

1 iPod Classic 80GB
1 Set of New 2nd Generation Headphones
USB Cable
Instructions Manual
Original Box

Photo Gallery

Price: 100 EUR (~88 GBP, ~145 USD)
Availability: 0
Shipping cost: FREE Worldwide Shipping!
Ships within 24hours

If you are interested, click here to purchase. (PayPal Service)

*Battery Test: Full charge and then repeated Metallica playlist (155 songs). Backlight off. Sound Volume 80%.

Source Files are unavailable for this tutorial! No Source Files

No related posts.

This is madness!

Alex C. — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:19:00 +0000

It really is! Read on, to see why!

This website is accumulating about 15-20 spam emails per day, despite my unsuccessful efforts to block IPs and keywords.

This website has become a place for infected bots blasting its webmaster with stupid links such as “viagra” or “xanax”. Does it look to you that I am in need of Viagra? :p

This is madness!

I’ve been missing for a month and Alexa, the Web Information Company, bomb-dropped this website 400.000 websites below! What goes up must come down, eh?

This is madness!

TweetMe button still not counting the tweets although contacting them and reporting the problem!

This is madness!

It was about time to bring this website back to life!

During my vacation I designed and developed a new website, and a MySpace design for my band, Inferno. MySpace was a killer, by still using tables, it made customization one of the 12 Labours of Hercules! Be sure to check out the designs!

Second, the wallpaper gallery was updated with new material. More to come, don’

The photography gallery was updated with new photos from this vacation. Loads more to come in the following days!

Fourth, I filmed and edited a very short video (10sec) with me, for practice purposes and for fun! The shot was tracked in Mocha for AE and then imported in AE. Inspired by the movie District 9.

<\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt="">

With so much to do, I guess that the massive design update of this website will have to wait! Transition from .htm (?) to .php, wider design, new blog design, transition from exclusive “tutorial” section to “blog” section, advertisement section and link sharing feature are just a few changes of this website!

Oh, and new tutorials still to come! Stay tuneeeed!

Source Files are unavailable for this tutorial! No Source Files

Thanks for the support!

Thanks for the support!

Alex C. — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:58:00 +0000

Greetings!

I am starting this post with an apology to you, fellow subscriber, for being away and inactive for such long period. There are various reasons for that.

I am currently drowned in web design / web development work currently with 5 active projects and 3 others waiting in line (maybe I should get an assistant), video editing and animations, live performances and rehearsals with my band, photoshootings and many more! What’s worse is that I completely neglected photography though I really wanted to catch up during summer… Well maybe I can at least find the money to buy that Canon 5D MKII I’m dreaming of since last September!

This has to be the busiest summer ever!

Being involved in so many activities, resulted in not being able to write new tutorials for almost 3 weeks now. So, I decided to call it a season, and come back fresh and revitalised, with lots of new and useful material for you guys in September.

Another reason for calling it a day, is that I’ll be taking off soon (end of July), with a trip to Germany kicking off my summer holidays. Then on to Romania, Cyprus and maybe Italy; coming back 1st of September.

So, with this post I wanted to thank you all for your support, wish you happy holidays and hope to see you back in September with some new and awesome material.

P.S. 1 The sections will still be active and I’ll continue responding to comments and questions! Occasionally I may be updating my photo gallery or my digital art section, but I don’t promise anything!

P.S. 2 Feel free to follow me on Twitter where I’ll be frequently posting useful links and thoughts even though I’m on holidays!

Source Files are unavailable for this tutorial! No Source Files

This is madness!

How to create dramatic landscapes in 5min

Alex C. — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:06:00 +0000

In this tutorial I’ll be showing you how to create a dramatic landscape from a rather dull photo I took when I was visiting Mount Athos in less than 5 minutes. The concepts you’ll learn in this tutorial apply to any image you want to manipulate. You can also experiment with the numbers yourself, to get a different result.

Step 1

Here is the dull photo I took that we’ll be using:

Download it here

Step 2

Open up the image with Adobe Photoshop. The image needs to be straightened out. To do so, first go to Layer > Duplicate Layer.

Step 3

Next, with the new layer selected which contains the image, go to Edit > Free Transform (Ctrl+T).

Step 4

Inside the rotation field, type in 1.3. You can also experiment with the rotation value and increase it or decrease it in order to rotate the image, more or less. Positive values rotate the image clockwise whereas negative values rotate the image anti-clockwise.

Step 5

Inside the Layers Window (F7), hide the background layer by clicking on the eye icon next to the layer. Next, select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and make a selection of the image, excluding the empty stripes created from the rotation of the image.

Step 6

Select the Dodge Tool (O), change the brush size to 298 and make sure it’s a soft brush (Hardness is at 0%). Change the Range to Highlights and the Exposure to 6%. Then brush (holding the left mouse button), in this case, on the castle and on the water, around the center area of the image. The trick with using the Dodge Tool and Burn Tool effectively is to brush an area, then release the mouse button and brush again over the same area to enhance the effect.

You should end up with an image similar to this one:

Step 7

Next is the Burn Tool. Select the Burn Tool (O), change the brush size to 570 and make sure it’s a soft brush (Hardness is at 0%). Change the Range to Midtones and the Exposure to 20%. Then brush (holding the left mouse button) around the same area where you used the Dodge Tool. Again, the technique is the same, as with the Dodge Tool.

You should end up with an image similar to this one:

Step 8

The hardest part of this tutorial is finished. You should’ve spent around 3 minutes to complete Steps 1-8. Next, some colour correction to be made and the sky to be added. Go to Image > Adjustments > Curves (Ctrl+M) and in the RGB Channel create an “S” like curve. View the image for reference. This will enhance the contrast, boosting up the highlights and darkening the dark parts of the image.

Step 9

The water is a bit too muddy and needs its blue colour back. So, go to Layer > New > Layer (Shift+Ctrl+N), select the Brush Tool (B), make sure it’s a soft brush (Hardness is at 0%) and change the size to 370. Then click on the Foreground Color and set a blue colour (#0069c2). Brush over the water until it is fully coloured.

Step 10

With the layer that you coloured the water being selected, from within the Layers Window (F7), change the Blending Mode to Soft Light and reduce the Opacity to 60%.

Step 11

Go to Image > Image Size (Alt+Ctrl+I) and change the width of the image to 2000px.

Step 12

Now go to Layer > Merge Visible (Shift+Ctrl+E) to merge the visible layers.

Step 13

The image we’ll be using for the sky is from http://www.sxc.hu called “Stock Photo: .|Sailing|.” and you can download it here. Go ahead and open the image with Photoshop. Then Select the image (Ctrl+A), Copy the image (Ctrl+C)and Paste (Ctrl+V) it inside the project, on top of all the other layers.

Step 14

With the sky image layer selected, from within the Layers Window (F7) change the blending mode to Multiply.

Step 15

Next, go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All and select the Brush Tool (B). With a soft brush and a black colour, brush inside the lower part of the image, erasing thus the sky layer that overlaps the castle.

You should end up with an image similar to this one:

Step 16

Now, the light that falls on the castle comes from the left and the sky’s light is located on the right making the scene not so believable. Select the sky layer. To do so, click on the Layer Thumbnail from within the Layers Window (F7). Then go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal to change the direction of the sky’s light to match the direction of the castle’s light.

Step 17

Go to Image > Adjustments > Curves (Ctrl+M) and inside the RGB Channel draw a curve just like the one showed in the image below. The idea is to darken the dark parts of the image while maintaining the highlights as they are.

Step 18

Next, overall colour correction. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation and inside the Master Channel increase the Saturation by +10. Next, go to the Reds Channel and increase the Saturation by +20.

Step 19

Create a new layer, Layer > New > Layer (Shift+Ctrl+N), select the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and fill the layer with a light orange-yellow colour (#eeae00). Next, with the layer selected, change the Blending Mode to Color Burn and the Opacity to 35% from within the Layers Window (F7).

Step 20

Now go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels and decrease the center and left slider. Change the center slider’s value from 1.00 to 0.90 and the left slider’s value from 255 to 240.

Step 21

Now, let’s create a vignette. Create a New Layer, Layer > New > Layer (Shift +Ctrl+N). With this layer selected, choose the Eliptical Marquee Tool (M) and make a selection around the castle. Go to Select > Inverse (Shift+Ctrl+I) to select the outer part of the selection. Take the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and with a black colour, fill in the outer part of the image.

Step 22

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and enter the value 250. Click OK.

Step 23

Here is the final image. P.S. the castle is not really a castle, it’s a monastery.

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! Make sure you subscribe to this tutorial-blog and you’ll receive each tutorial right the moment it’s posted! You can also subscribe by email!

Download the source file used in this tutorial: DOWNLOAD SOURCE FILES

A guide to ND Grads Filters and how to install them

Alex C. — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:05:00 +0000

Neutral Density graduated filters (ND Grads) are a necessary accessory for scenery photographers (landscapes, waterscapes etc). These filters help managing the contrast in high contrast scenes. The filter reduces the amount of light coming in from a bright sky for example, bringing back detail and the lost colour. Here is a photo I took earlier, to show you how the sky is displayed with and without the ND Grad.

http://tinyurl.com/kqxuqc

These filters are made of glass or plastic and they come in a rectangular shape. The bottom half is completely transparent, gradually transcending to a dark grey colour at the top of the filter. The idea is to place the dark grey part over the overexposed area of your scene (over the sky for example), bringing back the lost detail and evening the contrast.

Grad Types

There are different types of grads on the market. Grads are separated by two factors, their strength (known as density) and their transition type (soft or hard).

Density is measured in stops, with 1, 2 and 3-stop filters being the most common. Different brands refer to density in different ways like 0.3ND, 0.6ND and 0.9ND or ND2, ND4 and ND8. The transition refers to the length of the light-to-dark gradient. With hard grads the transition is sudden with a noticeable edge whereas with soft grads, the transition is smooth.

Usually when the horizon in a scene is invisible or broken you would use a soft grad and if the horizon of a scene is well defined, you would use a hard grad.

Brands

There are two main brands manufacturing the best grads, Lee and Cokin.

Lee filters are hand-made to a superior quality and their large size makes them ideal for wide-angle lenses. http://www.leefilters.com/camera/products/finder/ref:C475674155E58E/

Cokin filters on the other hand, are separated into four ranges. The A and P series are appropriate for small digitals and SLRs and the Z-Pro and X-Pro series are appropriate for large format cameras. http://www.cokin.co.uk/pages/main.htm

Once you’ve decided which filter is best suited for your needs, you also need to buy a filter holder and an adapter ring (explained below). Many websites offer filter kits, which is a complete package of one or more grad filters, with a filter holder and an adapter ring and an affordable price.

Filter kits: Cokin and LEE

Installing the filters

To successfully take photos with filters, you need to get hold on a filter, and adapter ring and a filter holder. With Cokin filters, filter holders come in various sizes depending on the series of your filters.

Adapter Rings

Adapter rings come in various sizes to perfectly fit your lens. To choose a correct adapter ring for your lens, you need the diameter of your lens. To find out the diameter, check on the front of your lens; there should be a symbol like this one Ø and some numbers (Ø58 for example). You should then purchase and adapter ring that fits lens with Ø58 mm.

Fitting the Adapter Ring

To fit an adapter ring on to your lens, you have to screw the ring in, rotating it clockwise until it stops rotating. View the images below.

Installing the Filter Holder

To install a filter holder, it usually slots in over the adapter ring (Cokin filter holders). You hold the filter holder backwards and slide it in over the adapter ring. See the image below.

Now you should have your camera ready to accept the filters with the adapter ring and the filter holder already mounted on it.

Installing the filter

To install a filter, you need to slide it in through a narrow slot on each side of the filter holder. From there you can adjust where the dark grey part starts and ends by sliding the filter up or down. To take a correct decision, analyse the changes by viewing through your viewfinder.

The ND grad filter is now correctly installed and ready to be used! You can also rotate the filter clockwise or anti-clockwise, by rotating the filter holder, to match your scene.

To remove the filter holder, find the small bump on the back of your filter holder and simply push it forward lightly to release itself from the adapter ring.

Tutorials - SicanStudios

5 easy ways to increase traffic to your website

1. Start a blog

2. Content is king, or is it?

3. SEO

4. Freebies!

5. Post loads of images

Conclusion

Windows 7 Nvidia 8400M graphics card driver problem resolved

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

How to remove .php, .html, .htm extensions with .htaccess

What is an .htaccess file

Features

Removing Extensions

Conclusion

How to Convert RAW files to DNG

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Why shoot in RAW mode

What is RAW?

Reasons to shoot in RAW

Image Quality:

White Balance:

Exposure Latitude:

Processing Power:

Pitfalls of RAW files

Large file sizes:

Post-Processing Required:

Proprietary Format:

iPod Classic 6th Gen 80GB for sale (SOLD)

Technical Specs

Included in Package

Photo Gallery

This is madness!

Thanks for the support!

How to create dramatic landscapes in 5min

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10

Step 11

Step 12

Step 13

Step 14

Step 15

Step 16

Step 17

Step 18

Step 19

Step 20

Step 21

Step 22

Step 23

A guide to ND Grads Filters and how to install them

Grad Types

Brands

Installing the filters

Adapter Rings

Fitting the Adapter Ring

Installing the Filter Holder

Installing the filter