twcdm.blogspot.com

Tech Review: Viewsonic 24-Inch Widescreen LED 1080p HD Monitor

2012-01-17T10:26:00.000-08:00

I'd been saving my pennies for a big-screen TV for a long time when I started looking at HD monitors as an alternative. When I realized I could get a big, 1080 HD monitor and park it in front of my couch (on a coffee table) for a fraction of the cost it was an easy choice. My current PC monitor also needed an upgrade.

This LED monitor is thin and light-weight so it it easy to move it from my PC in my office to my living room to play games on my consoles. I also use this to watch Blu Ray movies while I'm exercising. Having a screen that I can move to whatever room in my house I need it has been so much more useful than one big screen mounted to a wall in front of my couch.

The picture on this monitor is amazing! Hooking up my PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 with an DVI to HDMI adapter was a breeze (this monitor has no HDMI inputs) and my games have never looked better. You can find the needed adapter on Amazon for a few bucks.

The speakers are nothing special but I use headphones so it's not an issue for me.

I did come accross some issues connecting this monitor to my game consoles. When I hooked up my Xbox 360 the monitor did not recognize it right away and it took some tinkering with the resolution settings on the Xbox 360 to get it working. When I did get it working I had flashing green pixels popping up from time to time. I tried a new HDMI cable and the problem went away. I had no problems connecting my PS3 but I had a similar problem and needed a different HDMI cable. Now I have two different cables that I switch back and forth. If I use my "Xbox cable" with my PS3 I have problems and vice versa. I have no idea what the issue is but it's really not a big deal just using two different cables. I've had no problems when the monitor is connected to my PC.

Pros:

Great picture
Inexpensive
Energy efficient
Thin screen
Light-weight
Sleek design

Cons:

No HDMI inputs
Speakers aren't great

The Viewsonic VX2450WM-LED is exactly what I needed. Big, beautiful 1080 HD picture, versatile for working, playing games & watching movies, and easy to move from room to room. All this and at a very affordable price.

You can buy this monitor at Amazon HERE and the DVI to HDMI adapter HERE

*Photo from Amazon

2012-01-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

New 128GB ScanDisk SD Memory Card Can Store 4,000 photos!

(16GB pictured)

SanDisk recently announced two new SanDisk SD Extreme models, a 64GB and 128GB that can hold up to approx 4,000 photos. That's a lot of photos! These cards are a little pricey at $200 and $400 but is it worth it to be able to fit all your photos and video on one card?

These cards are available now.

$400 too much for you? Here are some cheaper alternatives on Amazon.

Full story here: http://bit.ly/xe6kou
Photo from Amazon.com

A Little Update

2012-01-11T08:52:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update here to let everyone know I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.

I'm still taking photos daily (semi-daily) mostly family photos but lots of potentially good stock photos. Most of these will show up on my Facebook page (for now) and will eventually end up in my stock portfolios. I'm very active on Twitter and Facebook and that is the best way to see what I've been up to.

I've put editing and uploading stock photos on a temporary hold because I just don't have the time for it right now. I am so lucky I worked my butt off when I first got started because I can sit back and raise my two kids (with my wife) and still cash in a steady flow of royalty checks.

Thanks to anyone who is reading this and hopefully when the dust settles a little I can get back to work on m stock portfolios.

Tech Review: Awesome Wireless Headphones!

2011-06-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

Just under a year ago I was in the market for new headphones. My current wired headphones were being held together by duct-tape that ripped out my hair every time I took them off. They were falling apart because I was constantly tripping over them and the cord was always a tangled mess.

After a quick search on Amazon I found these remanufactured RS 110 Sennheiser wireless headphones. I read some reviews and came to the conclusion for $30 these were an awesome deal. I'm sure if I wanted to spend $300 I probably could have got something better but these were just what I needed.

Pros:

Great sound
Great wireless range
Good battery life
Comfortable
Great Price

Cons:

Ear covers are flat and don't fit tight to your head like better, more professional headphones.
Battery cover(ear pad)is a little loose and falls off sometimes.
Reception can be a little touchy sometimes and requires finding that sweet spot.

Conclusion:
You just cant beat $30 for a good set of wireless headphones. There are somethings that could be improved but these are perfect for casual use: listening to music, and playing games, etc.

You can also buy them new.

This version is rechargeable and doesn't require batteries.

Stock Photo: Chainsaw

2011-06-02T10:20:00.000-07:00

© Photographer: Travismanley | Agency: Dreamstime.com

About Me

2011-06-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

I am a professional photographer living in the Pacific Northwest. I have a degree in animation from the Art Institute of Seattle. I try approach every photo I take the same as I would if I was creating an illustration or a piece of art.

Is It Summer Yet?

2011-05-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

© Photographer: Travismanley | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Here is a shot of a camping trip from a couple years ago. Man, this makes me want to go camping!

How I quit my day job and started my photography business

2010-04-07T11:19:00.000-07:00

It's hard for me to believe I have been working from home for the last three years.

I think I knew I wanted to work for myself about five seconds after I started my first job at a Dairy Queen. Here I am standing behind the counter tugging at the too tight black slacks they gave me (that some how feel like they were made from cardboard) and a flaming red polo shirt. The first thing they had me do was practice making that little swirl at the top of the ice cream cones. The one that is supposed to look like the trademark DQ "D." I had to do this for about half an hour until I got it right. As much as I didn't want to work at the DQ it solidified for me that this is just the first stepping stone, I could only go up from here. I sometimes wonder if I had started out at some cushy job where I made good money doing little and wonder if I still would have had the drive to achieve something better for myself.

One thing I have learned it to set goals for yourself and strive to achieve them, but you also have to be willing to evaluate and adapt.I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, I just didn't want to work in fast food for the rest of my life.

It was about seven years later that I finally became self-employed and started working from home. The previous year I found an article about stock photography and, having just purchased my first DSLR camera, thought it couldn't hurt to submit some photos and see if they sold. Long story short they did sell, but my income from my photo sales alone after just a year wasn't enough for me to quit my day job.

I was working 40 hours a week at a store that sold paper and paper accessories. I spent every weekend shooting, editing, and uploading new photos to sell. I needed more time to work on my photos, so I started emailing the stock photo agency's I was selling at looking for work that I could do from home. I started working for one of these sites as a Image Inspector reviewing photos that other photographers uploaded.

Either job alone wasn't enough to support myself, but the two combined was. Working from home gave me the freedom to make my own schedule and work less hours. I also had more time to work on growing my photography business.

If you are interested in making money selling stock photos, please read through the articles on this blog. If you want to get started right now create an account by clicking on one of the links to the sites I sell at on the right side of this page.

New Isolated Photos

2010-04-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

I finally have my studio put back together after yet another remodel project. I had a whole shelf full of object that I had been setting aside to photograph. I wanted to attempt some isolated product photos that, when photographed, would appear that they were taken against a totally clean backdrop. Sure, you can isolate a photo in Photoshop, but that can take hours depending on the photo and sometimes results in edges that are too soft or look jagged.

I'm still perfecting this technique and I still ended up doing a little work in Photoshop, but I am happy with the results. Here are a few photos from my latest shoot.

Here are some of the tools I used:

New Photos

2009-11-24T11:30:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from my most recent shoot.

These were all shot using three off-camera flashes. Two on the model and one on the backdrop. I used Photoshop to isolate the image.

You can see more images in my Shuttterstock portfolio here

New Photos

2009-11-07T09:26:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted anything new in awhile so I thought I would share some of my new photos. The model is my sister in-law. We started out in the studio, then moved outside when the weather cleared up a little.

It was the first time I had the chance to play with using gels to change the background color. It worked great. I used one off-camera flash (w/gel) for the backdrop and one for my main light and a reflector for fill for the indoor shots. For the outdoor shots I used one off-camera flash and a reflector.

To see more photos check out my Shutterstock portfolio here

iStockphoto: Model Release Update

2009-08-26T07:02:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought uploading your photos to iStockphoto.com couldn't be any more tedious...

Microstock giant iStockphoto recently announced that they were stepping up their standards for model releases (those little permission slips for models). The change that is going to make the most difference for my fellow photographers (myself included) is iStockphoto now requires a model release for every session with a model. No more universal releases for the same model for different shoots.

I have a hard time keeping track of releases for the 5-10 models I work with. The one that is really going to give me a lot of trouble is my son. I take photos of him almost everyday, most of those photos are ones I will sell. I can only imagine how many model releases I will have to fill out for him before he turns eighteen...lets say 2 a week for the next 17 years = 1,768! Oh, shoot me now!

All jokes aside, iStockphoto is one of my top earning sites. I can stop uploading new photos anytime, I choose to keep uploading because they are a great site and represent my work well.

Read the article at iStockphoto.com here

Make Money with Google Ads!

2009-08-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

I recently added ads to my blog using Google's AdSence program. The thought of making less than a dollar (in most cases) for each click your ads receive might send you running to the hills, but it doesn't scare me. Being a microstock photographer, most of my sales are right around the one dollar mark. This might sound like chump change, but those small sales start to add up quick. I think Google ads are right up my alley.

If you are a microstock photographer like me you probably already have a website. Chances are even if you are a stay at home mom you probably have a website too. There are many ways to set up free websites and blogs. Blogger and Wordpress, to name a few. All you need to do is set up an AdSense account and you can start making money from your free website! If you have a Blogger page adding Google ads is as easy as a couple of right-clicks. Before you know it you will have ads that blend seamlessly into the background of your site.

Now hold on fella, I'm not telling you to run out and quit your day job just yet. Like I said earlier, you will probably only get around a dollar or so per person that clicks on one of your ads (generally). If your blog is truly awesome and you are seeing some serious traffic, you might be surprised how often those checks from Google start showing up in the mail.

Good luck and happy blogging!

Cutcaster Pricing Strategy Help

2009-08-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

Cutcaster.com is one of the few stock photo sites that allow the photographer to choose the price that they want their photos to be sold for. This is a great opportunity for contributors, but some might be uncertain about how to pick a price that will get their images sold.

Here are some tips from a Cutcaster contributor on the Cutcaster blog:

"From a Cutcaster contributor in an emai to our support-

How I price my images on high paying sites? At Cutcaster, we can price our own images. So how do I go about picking a price for my images out of mid-air?? I find the best way to price them is based off of the prices at other agencies (non-subscription – ppd).

Once I have gotten an average of the other agencies pay-per-download prices for my images size, I then undercut the price. I cut the price because Cutcaster pays 40% (non-exclusive) or 50% (exclusive) royalty, as opposed to 20%-35% that other agencies payout. So, not only am I giving a lower price to buyers, but I am also taking in a high income in most cases. I can even take a few of my extras and submit them exclusively to Cutcaster for 50%, which is great.

Since Cutcaster does not have a subscription, I do not have to worry about comparing the prices to other sites that do have subscriptions, as obviously, Cutcaster is not targeting subscription buyers.”

Test it out yourself and see how the strategy works. Let us know what other strategies you have been trying out for selling your images and stock photography. What’s your strategy for your portfolio and how you sell?"

Updates at Mostphotos.com

2009-08-20T13:13:00.001-07:00

Just got an email about some upcoming updates to Mostphotos.com that I thought I would pass along.

Announcement from Mostphotos:

"Hello everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that we are still on
schedule for a early September release of
Mostphotos 3.0. All the hard work we have put in
over the last year has really paid off and we are
really excited to show off the new site.

We have also decided to drop support for Internet
explorer 6 on the new version simply because IE6
lacks support of many of the new features that we
wanted to implement. So if you are still using
Internet explorer 6, please upgrade to a latest
version (IE8) or download a even better browser
like www.google.com/chrome, www.getfirefox.com,
www.apple.com/safari. This will greatly enhance
your browsing
experience.
You can read more about it here:
http://www.ie6nomore.com/

We will also have some downtime this Saturday
because of server upgrades. The site will be
down for at least a few hours. We will upgrade
all the servers so we would recommend you to
not use the FTP upload on Saturday to prevent
any canceled uploads.

Don't forget to check out the development blog
(http://devblog.mostphotos.com) if you want to
read about some of the new features in 3.0.
And follow us on http://www.facebook.com/mostphotos
or http://www.twitter.com/mostphotos for the latest
updates.

Best regards
Micke"

Dreamstime News

2009-08-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

Dreamstime.com News for 8-19-2009

Announcement from Dreamstime:

"Scheduled maintenance is to be performed in the following hours. Services may be interrupted temporarily. We're doing our best to minimize the downtime (if any). Please email/call support if you experience any issues."

New Photo Assignment and a chance to win $1,000!

Announcement from Dreamstime:

"If you have not taken your summer holiday yet, the new assignment is the perfect opportunity. We want to see tropical getaways, white sand beaches, palm trees and clear blue oceans or seas. Moreover, we want to see all the fun you have in such locations. Show us the perfect shores with people lazing in hammocks, sipping exotic cocktails or wading in the surf. Capture the tropical holiday fun: water sports, yachts sailing on calm waters, splashes with friends in the ocean, people playing beach volley, building sand castles or scuba diving. Catch the sunny days or the seaside sunset as you're warming with your partner under the blanket near the camp fire. Don't pack your bags as the holiday ends because your vacation may be prolonged. Prizes for this assignment are again sponsored by Payoneer, our online payment partner so keep your swimming suits on. The winners will be rewarded electronic money on their Dreamstime branded MasterCard cards to continue holiday. First place winner will receive $1,000, second place $400 and third place $200 which can be used for summer fun payments or cashed from the card. In addition, all three winners receive the Dreamstime designer T-shirt to wear during next sea, sun and fun escapade. To learn more about the Dreamstime Prepaid MasterCard payment option, click here Good luck and have fun!"

Shuttertweet

2009-08-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Stock photo site Shutterstock.com recently added a new feature that promotes your portfolio on Twitter.

Here is the announcement from Shutterstock:

"If you’re on Twitter, we just made it easier for you to tweet about all the cool work you’re showcasing on Shutterstock, and if you haven’t taken the plunge into the Twittersphere – we invite you to join us.

Shuttertweet gives you the ability to instantly send out tweets regarding new images added to your portfolio. Shuttertweet will also update the Twitter community with your download count each day.

Plus, we added your referral ID to the Twitter urls so if someone makes a purchase after clicking the link, you’ll make a referral commission!

Here’s how the tweets will look:

- I sold 10 images today through @shutterstock! My gallery is here:
http://www.shutterstock.com (link to your gallery will be provided in tweet)

- I just got 10 images accepted to @shutterstock! Check out my gallery
here: http://www.shutterstock.com (link to your gallery will be provided in tweet)

To sign up, login to the submit site and click the option under "Make Money" (or click here: https://submit.shutterstock.com/admin.mhtml#shuttertweet ) and then connect your Shutterstock account to your Twitter account, which will approve us to send the tweets on your behalf. You can deactivate Shuttertweet at any time.

We look forward to seeing you at: http://twitter.com/shutterstock

Tweet you later!
Your Friends @Shutterstock"

Im looking forward to seeing how this works.

Cutcaster Announces its "Betta than Vetta" collection of premium photos

2009-08-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

Here is the press release:

August 4, 2009 - San Francisco, California

From their new headquarters in foggy San Francisco, Cutcaster is proud to introduce its much-ballyhooed “Betta than Vetta” (BTV) photo and vector collection to creative professionals today. Take a sneak peak at ‘Betta than Vetta’ by going to www.cutcaster.com/Betta-Than-Vetta.

“Creative professionals deserve a better experience when searching for and purchasing content. What Cutcaster provides is better search, better results, better rights offering and all at better market prices,” Cutcaster founder John Griffin explained. “We introduced ‘Betta than Vetta,’ our first premium collection, to highlight the amazing quality of work in our marketplace and show buyers how easy the website is to use.”

The best of the best included in the BTV photo and vector collection were hand-picked by our highly-caffeinated reviewers and industry professionals for their uniqueness, execution and overall quality. The diverse collection will have graphic designers, creative professionals and photo buyers singing from the top of the closest mountain peaks.

‘Betta than Vetta’, Irish for “mountaintop,” gives creative professionals looking for exceptional imagery a new and untapped source of photos and illustrations priced by the free market. Inclusive of both exclusive and non-exclusive contributors, the BTV collection will expand over time. Contributors may also request a file be added to the collection but every file included must pass an intense inspection process and meet the collection’s strict acceptance criteria. "The Cutcaster flexible pricing model provides a unique and hard-data insight into the market value of stock photos,” Lee Torrens, a stock photography insider observed. “Betta than Vetta is a welcome opportunity for all stock photography and illustrators to see our higher value images lifted to another level."

Prices range from $1 for small sizes up to $35 USD for XXL. Sellers set the price for the BTV files. If a buyer wanted to name their price, they are always free to bid on any of the images if they have more time or are working with a smaller budget.

“We haven’t even come close to hitting our peak yet but I’m excited by the growth of sales, which have been doubling every month and also by the number of great photographers we are fortunate enough to be working with and trust us to represent their work. Our diverse collection is on the verge of breaking 400,000 royalty free images and illustrations and the ‘Betta than Vetta’ collection will be one more way we can promote our great library to buyers,” Griffin added.

In other news, Cutcaster announced that the increase in revenues has been re-invested into advertising and marketing and more customer service help, which continues to be an industry leader. The number of Corporate Accounts and buyer sign-ups has been growing faster over the last 6 months because buyers like the flexible payment options, easy to use search and invoicing capabilities. Cutcaster released figures that buyers bid on content around 6% of the time and on average bid 40% less than the listed price for the largest file size. The time it takes for a typical seller’s response to a proposed bid has averaged 81 minutes and buyers have accepted the final price 43% of the time.

In addition, Cutcaster released new features that include scaled pricing for different file sizes so buyers now have a choice over what image size they want. Also Cutcaster improved its search functionality and introduced a new suggestive search tool that shows buyers as they type in a keyword what other keyword options are available.

For more information on the Betta than Vetta collection see www.cutcaster.com/Betta-Than-Vetta or email info@cutcaster.com.

About Cutcaster
Cutcaster has tapped into a new and unique source of photo and vector illustrations that can be purchased for any kind of publishing, web design project, printing brochures, advertising, annual reports or electronic usage on websites and presentations. Cutcaster created the first model that adds structure to support licensing user-generated photography and vectors when you don't have the budget to create it yourself. Sellers can set their prices or those new to the world of licensing can use the Cutcaster Algorithm to find the fair market price.

Visit www.cutcaster.com for more information.

Here is a link to my photos at Cutcaster.com

New Photo Studio III: The Saga Concluded

2009-08-04T08:13:00.001-07:00

Well, if you are wondering what I have been up to lately I have been working my butt off getting this project finished. We started this project back in April and are just now wrapping it up four months later. As fun as it has been I'm really looking forward to being able to spend a couple weekends not worrying about the next phase of construction and maybe do a little camping and hiking with my family.In the first two blog posts in this set I talked about how we built a shed to store most of what used to be in the garage, in part two I talked about how we took down the garage door and framed in the opening. The final phase was a whopper and consisted of adding electrical outlets and lights, adding insulation, adding drywall, painting, staining the concrete floor and adding baseboard and trim. It makes me tired just writing this all down, luckily I had a lot of help from my family and friends.

There was only one light in the garage, a crummy looking exterior light fixture in the middle of the ceiling that wasn't powerful enough to light the space. There was also only two outlets, not really a great setup for what I was going to need. I did a lot of research and decided on can lights for lighting. I didn't want something that hung from the ceiling and might get in the way of me taking photos later.

Installing can lights

My father in-law helped me install the 12 lights and five new outlets. It was another really long day. It was great to actually get a good look at the room with the new lights, it wasn't looking so much like a cave anymore. We also added a couple of exterior lights to the front of the studio on either side of the french doors.

With that done it was insulation time. We had talked about trying to do it ourselves, but thought we might actually save a little money and get it done better/faster by hiring a company to come out and do it. Because a insulation company buys in bulk they can get a better deal on material. We had a couple insulators come out and give us quotes and it looked like it was going to be a little more to pay someone else to do it (about $100) but we thought it would save us some time and they would probably do a better job...Long story short I wish we would have just done it ourselves. The guys who came out to do the insulation made a bunch of mistakes and ended up holding up the drywall because we had to wait for them to finish.

Insulation going in

Lucky me my dad is a drywall master and was able to get all the drywall done over a weekend. After the drywall was done the guy he works for was nice enough to make a few trips out to spray two coats of primer and texture on the walls for free!

Drywall finished

With the walls ready to go we got started painting. I had a really hard time picking colors for the studio, I think I about drove my wife crazy obsessing about it. Here are a few things I found when researching what colors are good for a studio. White is good if you want your walls to bounce light back onto your subject. Black does the opposite and absorbs light. Bright colors aren't good because they can cast color onto your subject.

Primer and paint

If this studio was strictly going to be used for photography and nothing else I would have whitewashed floor to ceiling, however the room is also going to be an office for my wife and I so stark white would be a little too "clinical" for us. Other options would have been to use curtains in the area I'm going to be shooting.

I chose to go with white on the ceiling so I could bounce light off it if I wanted and 18% grey for the walls and painted one wall that I wont be shooting around a little darker grey. 18% grey is a great neutral color and pretty close to the color I had in mind for the studio in the first place.

The floor was another hard choice. We originally were going to go with a wood laminate but, decided to stain the concrete floor that was already there. We had been wanting to try concrete stain for awhile but didn't have a good spot for it. Concrete stain looks great and is much cheaper than laminate.

One problem we ran into was the concrete footings around the floor, they stuck out a few inches and got gradually deeper from the back of the room to the front. My father in-law came to the rescue again and made some custom baseboard that could fit over the top of this.

Two coats of concrete stain and sealer

Here is what the studio looks like pretty much finished. There is still some work to be done, but the bulk of it is finished. I plan on posting some new photos after a month or so once I'm settled in.

(little messy, sorry)

My assistant's (wife's) desk

My desk

Here is a rundown of some of the expenses for this part of the remodel. (approx)

Flooring (stain, sealer) = $200
Paint = $100
Insulation = $500
Drywall = $300

Originally we had estimated somewhere between $1,500-$2,000 for this project and it ended up costing around $3,000. Keep in mind $3,000 was pretty much just material, most of the labor was done by friends and family.

I strongly encourage all you photographers out there working in cramped little corners of your houses to build, or convert an existing room into a studio. Having a designated work space is very important to a efficient work-flow. Rather than spending twenty+ minutes setting up all my gear for every shoot everything is ready to go when I need it.

This is the third and final post about the process of converting my garage into a photo studio/office. Here are the links to the first two parts.

Part #1
Part #2

If you have any questions about this post
please email me at
travismanley@hotmail.com

New Blog Post at Dreamstime.com

2009-07-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

Just wrote a post over at my Dreamstime blog about reaching 3,000 photos in my
portfolio. If you would like to read it here is the link

Interested in buying or selling photos at Dreamstime.com?
Click here

Purple Fringing Quick Fixes

2009-06-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

Purple Fringing, AKA: Chromatic Aberrations (sounds like something you would hear on an episode of X-Files), AKA: Lens Fringing. Even with the best lenses you will occasionally find these little buggers lurking amongst the edges of your photos. Purple fringing usually shows up as purple halo's around objects in the edges of your photos. Luckily there are a few easy Photoshop fixes you can do to get rid of them.

Lens Correction - Fire up Photoshop and go to the Filter menu, Distort, Lens Correction. This will open your image in the Lens Correction editor. Under the Chromatic Aberrations slider there are two options, depending on what kind of fringing you have use the appropriate slider. Hit OK when your done and goodbye chromatic aberrations.

Hue/Saturation layer - Here is an easy one. Open your fringing image...snicker, snicker... in Photoshop and click the Add Adjustment Layer button, select the Hue/Saturation option and where is says "Edit Master" change it to the color you want to get rid of, magenta for example. Then with the eyedropper tool click on the area of fringe you want to get rid of then slide the saturation slider to the left to desaturate that area.

Sponge Tool - Here is an even easier but, not always the most efetive way of removing chromatic aberrations. With your image open in Photoshop select the Sponge tool from the tool bar (it is hiding in the Dodge/Burn button if your not familiar, just right-click and hold and you will see it pop up). With the Sponge tool simply paint over the areas of purple fringing you want to get rid of. I find this helpful in landscapes or areas of foliage.

While these tricks are fine and dandy the best way to fix purple fringing to is avoid it in the first place. You can prevent purple fringing by using high quality lenses, stopping down your lens (shooting at an aperature of f8-f22), and if you are using a zoom lens avoid using the maximum and minimum focal range. A lenses "sweet spot" is usually somewhere in the middle focal lengths.

Hope these tips help.

If you have any questions email me at
travismanley@hotmail.com

*photo from my Shutterstock portfolio

5 Simple Photoshop Fixes

2009-06-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

Here are a five simple Photoshop fixes you can to to most of your photos that will really make them shine.

1. Levels - Check your levels. There are a couple ways to do this here is one of them. Click on "Add new adjustment layer" in the layers window and find "Levels." Levels is a tool for moving and stretching the brightness in a histogram. There are three points you can adjust on a slider, on the left the black point, on the right the white and in the middle the midtones. Generally you want to grab the two point on either end of the slider and slide them toward the middle in order to reduce areas of absolute black and absolute white. Then you can adjust the midtone slider to adjust the brightness.

2. Level Horizons - Nothing screams SNAPSHOT like a crooked horizon line (unless it was done purposefully). Luckily crooked horizon lines are easy to fix. Open your photo in Photoshop, make a copy of your layer to work with (like one of my teachers told me about a million times "If you pervert the original that makes you a ...?" lol. Make sure you have guides turned on (View menu - Show - check "Guides") click on the ruler at the top of the widow and drag a guide to where the horizon line should be in your photo. If that horizon line isnt straight hit Ctrl+T and grab one of the corners and rotate it until its where you want it. Presto your done.

Also a quick note if your horizon line curves as a result of using a wide angle lens you can straighten it out by going to the Filter menu - Distort - Lens Correction and tweak the Remove Distortion.

3. Great Skies - Want great looking skies but, dont want to mess with Polarizing filters? Its easy, this works best on photos with a good chunk of sky with no trees, mountains, etc intruding into them. Open your photo in Photoshop and create a new layer, select the Gradient tool and set it to foreground to transparent, make sure your foreground is set to black and create a gradient in the sky. What...you dont want a black sky? Now head over to the layer option and select Soft Light this should give you a nice blue gradient in your sky. You can play with opacity settings and even duplicate the layer for a darker sky as well as trying other layer options.

4. Clone Stamp and Patch Tool - Both of these tools are a "must use" for us stock photographers. Whether its cloning out those pesky sensor spots in your skies, editing out logos or covering up unsightly blemishes etc. I use both these tools on a daily basis. To use the Clone Stamp tool select it from the tool bar and hold down Alt+left click to take a sample of an area to stamp over the area you want to cover up, with that done paint out the unwanted areas. You might have to do this a couple times sampling from different areas to get it right. To use the Patch tool select it from the tool bar and draw a line around the area you want to cover up, with that done click and drag the selection over a similar area to replace the selection. The Patch tool will then combine the two areas.

5. Contrast - Want to make those dull photos pop? Here is an easy one, open your image in Photoshop, duplicate the layer and select overlay as the layer mode then adjust the opacity to your liking.

Hope these quick tips help

Any questions hit me up at travismanley@hotmail.com

Thanks!

*Photo from my Shutterstock.com portfolio

New Studio: Quick Update

2009-06-11T06:49:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

Just a quick update to let you know what is going on. The studio is very close to being finished and we are starting to move equipment in there today. I have been so busy with getting the studio finished it hasnt left time for much else. There are just a few small finishing details to be completed but, it might be another week or two before I can get the help I need to do them. Once everything is done I will post photos of the finished studio and details about what was involved in getting it to that point.

I have also held off on any new POTD's until the studio is done because I just dont have the time but, there will be more again soon.

Thanks!

Here are links to part one and two of this project

http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-photo-studio.html
http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-photo-studio-ii-saga-continues.html

My Photos on Google Earth

2009-06-05T10:16:00.001-07:00

Hey all, just postn' to let you know next time your surfing Google Earth in the Sequim, WA area you might see some of my photos.

Here are a few of my photos that appear on Google Earth.

New Photo Studio II: The Saga Continues

2009-05-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

If you dont already know I am in the process of converting my garage into a photo studio/office. Here is a link to part #1 of this post http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-photo-studio.html

Here is the latest update.

In phase one we moved everything we could out of the garage and built a shed to store it in along with buying a canopy to park our car under.

Phase two was all about getting that garage door down and framing in the hole.

Here is the garage before we took the door down

I have pulled down all the trim around the door

Halfway done

A quick shot of the door, opener and rails off

The material for framing in the door and the new french doors

The opener and torsion spring

We got studs!

Speaking of studs, lol

My father in-law was a big help in getting this done

All done, just need paint

And were done!

Im really excited to have this part of the conversion done. So much of the work leading up to this point was just to get everything out of the garage and demo work. Its really nice to see the project coming together.

All this work was done by my father in-law and myself. I paid a professional to take down the torsion spring that helps open the door because I read it can be pretty dangerous. It took the guy about five minutes to release the tension in the spring and he said its really not too dangerous if you know what your doing. I figured $45 for the peace of mind of not having to stress out about ripping my hand off while taking it down myself was worth it.

I was surprised how easy it was to take the garage door down, It took my wife and I maybe twenty minutes.

Farming in the door opening, installing the french doors and putting up the siding was a pretty big project. It took most of the day to finish this project. My wife and I painted the day after.

We are going to install some exterior lights on either side of the french doors and eventually maybe a window on the left side of the doors.

This project has really been a great experience so far. It has been a lot of work, but it is very rewarding to sit back at the end of the day and think about how its all going to look when its finished.

If anyone out there is considering converting their garage into a studio, office, bedroom, bonus room, etc I highly recommend it. Remodeling your garage is probably one of the easiest most cost effective way of adding square feet to your home and increasing the value of your house.

I thought it might be interesting to keep a running total on the price of this project so far if anyone is curious.

8x8' Storage Shed = $650
10x20' Canopy for our car = $150
French doors = $400
Material for framing in the garage door and siding = $200
Torsion spring removal = $45

Total so far = $1,445

So the next few stages of this projects will be installing lights and electrical outlets, insulation, drywall, painting, staining the concrete floor, and baseboard and trim.

Keep checking in for updates.

Want to buy my old garage door?

http://olympic.craigslist.org/hsh/1167255341.html

Link to part #1 of this post http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-photo-studio.html
Link to part #3 of this post http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-photo-studio-iii-saga-concluded.html

POTD #22

2009-05-06T12:35:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

Took this shot at an equipment rental shop while on a walk with my family.

The Breakdown: This is another one of those shots where the light was really bright and contrasty. I got a few good stock shots with the sun at my back but, I thought it might be cool to flip around and put the sun right behind my subject for some backlighting and this is what I got.

After taking the photo I boosted the contrast and the blacks to get a good silhouette and then tweaked the color to get the sky the way I wanted.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5d
Exposure:		0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture:		f/20
Focal Length:		105 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		-1/3 EV

Here are links to some of the equipment I used to get this shot. If the equipment I used is no longer available I have listed either the newer version or a similar substitute. I no longer use some of the items on this list.

Photoshop CS4

Canon EOS 5d

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens

B + W 77mm UV (Ultra Violet) Haze Multi Coated (2C) Glass Filter #010

My Photography Workflow:

I shoot in raw,
organize and review shots in Adobe Bridge,
process raw files in Adobe Camera Raw
and export as .jpeg if im done,
if I need to do more work in Photoshop I export as .tiff,
make final touches in Photoshop,
I add titles, descriptions and keywords in Bridge when im done editing.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

Great Photography Podcast!

2009-05-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

Just finished listening to the first podcast at studiolighting.net, it is a few years old but there is still a lot of great info in there about setting up a home photo studio and also and interview with the great Paul Buff founder of White Lightning and Alien Bees lighting equipment.

The whole podcast is great, but if your not going to listen to the full hour I recommend fast forwarding to the last 20 minutes or so. Paul Buff goes into detail about what makes Alien Bees so awesome and some useful info about hot light (mainly how not useful they are).

Here is the link http://www.studiolighting.net/studio-photography-podcast-lightsource-episode-1/

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #21

2009-05-05T06:16:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

This is a shot of Mt Shuksan as seen from the Mt Baker Ski Lodge. This is the first shot after I got out of the car. My wife and I had planned on making the drive (a good three hours from where we were living north of Seattle) to do some hiking. It is a really nice drive out there, but it was a long one.

We had got an early start but by the time we were getting close to the trail head it was already noon. The road to get to the trail head was at the end of a road the split off from the main road. It was just a bumpy dirt road that followed the Nooksack River. We had to take it really slow because we were in my 2WD sedan and there was a lot of debris on the road from a storm from a few months before.

We drove for about half and hour (at least) only to come to a pile of fallen trees across the road. We could have parked, climbed over them and hiked to the trail head, but we were not sure how much further we had to go. We decided to turn back and drive to the Mt Baker ski lodge at the end of the main road and see if we found any promising trials.

We didnt find any trials and didnt do any hiking but, when we got to the end of the road I snapped this shot of Mt Shuksan. We walked around the ski lodge for a bit to strecth our legs and feeling a bit uncomfortable beeing the only people in the joint in jeans and hiking shoes. Talk about dirty looks!

We were bummed we didnt get to hike the trail we drove out to hike, but it was a really nice drive and I got this great photo.

The Breakdown: Nothing tricky here, just a standard landscape shot.

Camera:		Olympus E-500
Exposure:		0.013 sec (1/80)
Aperture:		f/20
Focal Length:		34 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

Here are links to some of the equipment I was using on Adorama.com (if the equipment I used is no longer available I have listed either the newer version or a similar substitute).

Olympus E-520 - Replacement for the E-500

Photoshop CS4

My Photography Workflow:

I shoot in raw,
organize and review shots in Adobe Bridge,
process raw files in Adobe Camera Raw and export as .jpeg if im done,
if I need to do more work in Photoshop I export as .tiff,
make final touches in Photoshop,
I add titles, descriptions and keywords in Bridge when im done editing.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #20

2009-04-29T09:14:00.001-07:00

Photo of the Day

Took this one overlooking the water near the Dungeness Spit in my hometown (Sequim, WA). I know sunsets are cliche and have been done a million times, but I havent done them a million times and I felt like it was something I wanted to play around with and see what my version of a great sunset looked like.

It was alot of fun actually. I did this sunset series last summer, I would check out what time the sun was supposed to set online and drive out to a location I either had a feeling would be a good spot or I had scouted earlier. Summer twilight has got to be my favorite time, when its just getting dark, but it is still nice and warm out.

The Breakdown: The two most important pieces of equipment when taking sunset photos are a sturdy tripod and a remote trigger or timer. Its all about keeping your camera steady for those long exposures.

As far as camera settings go most cameras have a sunset setting (if this doesnt tell you that sunsets are overdone I dont know what will). I used the Spot metering mode on my camera and set it to expose for the sky not the dark foreground. I was more interested in what was going on in the clouds and if I tried using an automatic metering mode it would have taken a longer exposure to properly expose the foreground and would have blown out the sky.

I was playing around with different f-stops to see what I liked best and f10 was giving me the best results. I dont think there is any one perfect aperature setting for sunsets/sunrises. I wanted a very sharp image and I wanted to stop down my lens to avaid Chromatic Abberations (purple fringing). I found the wider I set may apature the softer the image, the more I stopped it down the sharper and if I stopped it down too far the sky got really grainy.

This is one of the lasts shots I took with my cheapo Quantaray QSX 6601 tripod. It didnt occure to me to check the maximum weight load for this tripod when I upgraded to the Canon 5d and the extra couple pounds stripped out the plastic gears. I have upgraded to the Manfrotto 190XPROB with the 484RC2 ball head, awesome tripod! (review coming soon)

After taking the shot I really tweaked the white balance in Photoshop and boosted the blues and reds to get the look I was going for.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5d
Exposure:		0.25 sec (1/4)
Aperture:		f/10
Focal Length:		24 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

Photoshop CS4

Canon EOS 5d

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens

Sunpak 6601TM Tri-Monopod - This one is pretty close to what I was using at the time. Dont underestimate the importance of a tripod, even if you are using a cheap one it is the only way to guarantee tack sharp photos every time.

Manfrotto 190XPROB Black Tripod Kit with 484RC2 Mini Ball Head - This is the tripod I use now.

Canon Wireless Remote

New Photo Studio!

2009-04-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

I am excited to announce after months of trying to come up with a solution to my lack of studio space I have come up with an idea...drum roll please...I am converting my garage into my new office/photo studio!

My current office/studio is a little over 10x10' and my wife also has a desk and computer set up in there, needless to say its a little cramped. You try adding a model or two and it starts getting silly. I can waste half a day just taking out enough junk out of my office and setting up to take photos.

I know a big home studio is a luxury, but just think of how much easier it will be to do a shoot when everything is already set up and good to go. Our garage is also much bigger than we need (500+ sqft). This remodel adds a lot of squarfootage to our small house which is around 1,100sqft.

The first problem I ran into is where am I going to put everything that was in the garage? Luckily my wife and I have moved five times in the last five years so we didnt have too much junk collected.

Step one was building a shed to store what was in the garage. I found a shed kit at Home Depot and with the help of my brother and father was able to get most of it built in one day.

I thought it might be fun to post some photos of the process.

Here is the foundation

The walls going up

Moving on the the roof

Little help from dad and bro

Painting supervised by my wife and son

And done finally!

Now that we have a home for the little odds and ends, where to park the car? I looked around on Amazon.com and found a good deal on these canopy's. Its a bit of an eye sore, but it is mostly hidden by our garage and some trees. Its only temporary until we can build a new smaller garage next summer.

I really hope we dont get a bunch of snow this winter

Alright, now that we have a place for everything that was in the garage (most of it) time to start the remodel. Luckily our garage is in really good shape, no rotting, etc. There were some shelves I had to rip out and about a million random nails stuck in the walls.

The garage with everything in it before we built the shed and canopy

After getting most of the odds and ends and the car out

The view from the back door looking at the corner where my desk will be.

Looking in where the new front door will be

This is as far as I have got so far. The plan is to frame out the garage door in the next couple weeks, then electrical (adding outlets, lights, cable jacks, etc), insulation, drywall, painting then flooring. Hopefully the remodel will be done in the next month or two.

Check back in for updates.

Here is a link to part #2 of this post http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-photo-studio-ii-saga-continues.html

You can read the final post here http://twcdm.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-photo-studio-iii-saga-concluded.html

POTD #19

2009-04-28T08:38:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

"When he was born it looked like he had zombie hands and feet"

This is a shot of my wife and newborn son's hands. Took this maybe a week or two after he was born. We knew we were probably pushing our luck trying to get River to pose for us, and we were mostly right. We didnt go into the shoot with very much expectation other than to get some studio photos of him when he was really young.

Its probably not clear in this smaller version of the photo, but his hands (and feet) were really chapped and peeling because he was almost two weeks overdue. When he was born it looked like he had zombie hands and feet because they were really big, gray and wrinkled, his nails were also long and crazy looking.

Considering I only got peed on twice during this shoot I would say it went pretty well.

The Breakdown: I shot this on a black felt backdrop with two off-camera flashes (a Sunpak 383 and an Olympus FL-50) on light stands with umbrellas. For more info on off camera lighting check out strobist.blogspot.com it will change the way you look at lighting.

I ran a sync cable from my camera to the FL-50 and used two Adorama slave adapters one to the FL-50 because it doesnt have a port to plug the sync cable into and the Adorama adapter lets me do that, the other on the Sunpak 383 so it would act as a slave and fire when the FL-50 did.

I converted the image to black & white in Photoshop.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5d
Exposure:		0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture:		f/5.6
Focal Length:		95 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

Photoshop CS4

Canon EOS 5d

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens

Olympus FL-50R - Replacement for the FL-50

Vivitar DF283 - A good alternative to the discontinued Sunpak 383

Adorama Electronic Slave Unit - Attach one of these to your flash and it will fire when it detects another flash

Smith Victor RS8, 8' Raven Lightstand - Very sturdy and just the right height

Photoflex Shoe Mount Multiclamp with Umbrella Holder - Use one of these to attach your flash to a lightstand and you can also use an umbrella with it

Adorama 40" White Interior Umbrella with Removeable Black Cover - This is really a great deal. You can use this to shoot through or to bounce. The bigger the better.

Stock Photographers Camera Buying Guide

2009-04-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

A lot of photographers out there might be asking themselves, what kind of camera do I need to take stock photos?

Really the only requirement for camera's among most stock sites are that they are at least 3MP (MP not MB, MP = Megapixel MB = Megabyte) or approx 2000x1500, not much bigger than a 4x6 photo.

If your not sure if your photo is big enough all you need to do is multiply the length by the width of the photo and move the decimal point to the left six spaces.

Example: If your photos dimensions are 4368x2912 do the math and you will find that your photo is 12.7MP.

Here are the current MP requirements of a few stock photo sites.

iStockphoto.com requires at least 2MP
Dreamstime.com requires at least 3MP
Fotolia.com requires at least 4MP
Shutterstock.com now requires at least 4MP

Even 4MP is pretty small considering most point and shoot cameras are 8-10MP.

So the big question you need to think about is, what is in your budget? Another thing to consider is maybe leaving some money aside for accessories (camera bag, filters, extra batteries, lenses, etc).

Do your research, there are tons on excellent resources to help you find the right camera. An important thing to realize is there is no one perfect camera for everyone your job is determine what is the right camera for you.

Here are some great sites that can help you find a camera.

www.dcresource.com/buyersguide
www.bobatkins.com
www.dpreview.com

I find that reviews on Amazon.com are helpful too, but you have to take them with a grain of salt because not all reviews are written by people who know what they are talking about.

Camera brands aren't as important as the features they offer. Chances if you go with Canon or Nikon you are pretty safe, but Olympus, Sony and Pentax all make great cameras too. "Its the photographer not the camera." Trust me these are words of wisdom, a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III in the hands of someone who doesnt who how to use it isnt going to be any better than if they were using a cheap point & shoot** camera.

Some important features to look for when buying a camera:

Digital or Film: You can submit film photos to stock sites? Yes, break out those boxes of old Polaroids, dust them off and start scanning them. If this sounds like too much of a project there are companies out there who can scan them for you. www.jaincotech.com offers scanning services.

This might be a good option for some, but I wouldn't recommend it. Stock photo standards are very high and unless you have good film photos to start with, access to a good scanner and have software to fix any dust or scratches it might be more trouble than it is worth.

DSLR*** or Point & Shoot - This is probably the biggest most important decision you will have to make when buying a camera. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

If you are on a budget and might not be ready to invest $500 or more on a camera a Point & Shoot might be the way to go. The downside to Point & Shoots are that you cant change lenses, and the sensor size is very small so the quality of the photo isnt that great, they also dont handle high ISO setting very well.

I would say the two biggest advantages of a Point & Shoot over a DSLR are the price and being compact and light weight. You might be willing to take your Point & Shoot with you too a lot more places than you would a bulkier DSLR and be able to get that many more shots. "The best camera is the one you take everywhere."

DSLR's, however have quite a few advantages over Point & Shoots despite being more expensive and being bigger and heavier. DSLR's give you the opportunity to use different lenses (wide angle, fisheye, telephoto, macro, prime lenses, tilt-shift, Lensbaby's, etc) which allow you to be more creative and take control over your photos.

DSLR's have larger sensors (that's one of the reasons they are bigger than Point & Shoot's) which means the overall quality of your photo is better and DSLR's can typically handle high ISO's settings very well giving you more opportunities to get usable stock photos.

Other advantages of DSLR's are more manual controls. I cant stress the importance of having full manual control over your camera. Shooting in full automatic modes are kind of like turning on the cruise control in your car and taking a nap while driving on the highway, you just never know whats going to happen or why it happened, but hey you might get lucky sometimes.

Sensor Dust Removal - This is one that is probably more important than you would think. Even if you have a DSLR and never take the lens off you are still going to end up with dust on your sensor. Dont ask me how, just trust me. Sensor dust shows up as small dark spots in your photos, usually in the sky. You can use software to get rid of it, but the best way is to just have your camera cleaned which can be expensive and damaging to your camera if done incorrectly. Many new cameras have a dust removal function that vibrates the sensor in your camera and can eliminate some or most dust.

Megapixels - Remember not all megapixels are created equal, you can have a Point and Shoot Camera that can take billboard sized photos, but if the lens that is taking those photos through and the sensor that is recording the image are not of good quality than that is going to be one big ugly photo. I would take a 6MP DSLR over a 10+MP Point & Shoot any day.

Camera brand -Like I said before camera band isnt as important as the features of the camera. The big advantage to going with a big name camera like Canon or Nikon is for one they have been making cameras for awhile and know what they are doing. Also, because they are so common and popular its usually easier and more affordable to find compatible accessories. I am a Canon user, but I think Nikon's are great too. You have to look at your budget and see who has the best camera in your price range. Once you pick a brand its a good idea to stick with it because you can use a lot of the same lenses, batteries, etc when/if you upgrade later.

So one last thing to keep in mind. Don't quit your day job when you get that first payout from your stock sales. Invest the money your earn right back into camera equipment for as long as you can. As tempting as it might be to use that money to cut back on your hours at whatever job you might be working you should spend at least the first year putting all of your stock earning right back into equipment.

I also encourage you to get creative and build equipment. This is a great idea if you have a limited budget. There are thousands of DIY guides and tutorials out there for making lighting equipment, mini tripods, etc. Strobist.blogspot.com is an awesome resources for making your own equipment and creative small light techniques.

This is going to be the first part in an ongoing series of blog posts all having to do with different types of equipment. I will be writing about tripods, lenses, lights etc in the future. Please let me know if there ideas or suggestions for posts in this series.

*Camera photo from my Dreamstime.com portfolio. Its a film camera if you are wondering.

** Point & Shoot = Non-DSLR, not as many manual controls as a DSLR, generally considered "non-professional."

***DSLR = Digital Single-lens Reflex (the subject is viewed through the same lens as the picture is taken with)

POTD #18

2009-04-24T08:39:00.001-07:00

Photo of the Day

Took this shot at the beach down the street from my house of my sister in-law and her boyfriend. They wanted some photos for engagement announcements.

The Breakdown: The weather was pretty gloomy, but like I have said before its almost easier to shoot on days like this and work with what you have (great diffused light) rather than try and fill in hard shadows from the bright sun.

I didnt use any lights or reflectors for this shot, just the diffused light from the sun.

Camera:		Olympus E-500
Exposure:		0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture:		f/7.1
Focal Length:		57 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

Here are links to some of the equipment I was using on Adorama.com (if the equipment I used is no longer available I have listed either the newer version or a similar substitute).

Olympus E-520 - Replacement for the E-500

Photoshop CS4

My Photography Workflow:

I shoot in raw,
organize and review shots in Adobe Bridge,
process raw files in Adobe Camera Raw and export as .jpeg if im done,
if I need to do more work in Photoshop I export as .tiff,
make final touches in Photoshop,
I add titles, descriptions and keywords in Bridge when im done editing.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #17

2009-04-23T08:55:00.001-07:00

Photo of the Day

The Breakdown: I wanted to do a photo series of gems and all I had was this big faux diamond. I took the photo and in Photoshop added a hue/saturation layer, checked the colorize box and tweaked it until I got something that looked like and emerald. I added a layer mask and painted out the area I didnt want affected by the green layer.

I was having some trouble with my lights that day so rather than using two off camera flashes like I usually do I used one on my camera pointed at the ceiling so the bounced light would be softer and I used my second flash on a lightstand to my left triggered by a slave adapter. I also used a reflector to fill in the light in the foreground.

Camera:		Olympus E-500
Exposure:		0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture:		f/16
Focal Length:		43 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

Here are links to some of the equipment I was using on Adorama.com (if the equipment I used is no longer available I have listed either the newer version or a similar substitute).

Photoshop CS4

Olympus E-520 - Replacement for the E-500

Olympus FL-50R - Replacement for the FL-50

Vivitar DF283 - A good alternative to the discontinued Sunpak 383

Adorama Electronic Slave Unit - Attach one of these to your flash and it will fire when it detects another flash

Adorama 40" White Interior Umbrella with Removeable Black Cover - This is really a great deal. You can use this to shoot through or to bounce. The bigger the better.

Westcott Photo Basics 304 5-in-1 Reflector Kit - Reflectors are great substitutes for lights if you are on a budget or just need to bounce some light

Sunpak 6601TM Tri-Monopod - This one is pretty close to what I was using at the time. Dont underestimate the importance of a tripod, even if you are using a cheap one it is the only way to guarantee tack sharp photos every time.

Olympus RM-1, Wireless Remote Control - A good alternative to waiting for your camera timer if you dont want to worry about shaking your camera when you are taking a photo.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

Adorama.com

2009-04-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

If you are like me and have to buy all your camera equipment online because the nearest camera shop is a couple hours away you should really check out Adorama.com. Hey, even if you have a camera shop around the corner from your house chances are they dont have what you need or if they do it cost two times what it should.

I just added some ads for Adorama.com on the blog. I buy about 90% of my photography equipment from Adorama so I am glad I can get these ads up and drive some customers their way.

Adorama always ships out my orders super fast and the one time I needed to return something they were very helpful and replaced the product without any trouble. Shipping is always reasonable and they have lots of great "Adorama" versions of products that are very affordable and great products.

POTD #16

2009-04-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

Took this one off the pier in downtown Port Angeles, WA. I dont do a lot of architectural photography, but I did like how this shot came out.

The Breakdown: It was a gray day and because there was nothing really interesting going on with the color I converted it to black & white in Photoshop. I punched up on the contrast so the building would really pop and everything else would just fade into the background.

Camera:		Olympus E-500
Exposure:		0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture:		f/8
Focal Length:		96 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

Live Long and Tweet!

2009-04-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

Twitter has become my #1 tool for promoting my photography and following other artists that I am interested in.

Is Twitter just another Myspace, Facebook, etc. place to waste time? Twitter like Myspace and Facebook is whatever you make it to be. You can use it to let your friends know your brushing your teeth now, or you can use it as a professional resource for advertsing yourself.

I think what makes Twitter so great is its simplicity, the learning curve is about five minutes. There are no silly apps that let you send your friends "gifts" or constant polls and contests to enter. Another great thing about Twitter is you choose who's updates you want to follow. If one of your followers is annoying you with random updates about whats on TV you can chose to stop following them.

How do I use Twitter to promote myself? Simple. Maybe you just wrote an interesting blog post, hop on Twitter and let your followers know about it and if your lucky and they like it you might get a RT (Re-Tweet) and they will share it with their followrs and the next thing you know you have fifty new followers all waiting to see what you are going to Tweet next.

If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, Twitter is a very simple tool for sending and receiving status updates (140 characters or less) via web, email, or text message.

There are also quite a few add-ons that make Twitter even better. Firefox users can install Twitterfox adds a status bar to your screen so you can keep updated on "tweets" while your doing other things on the web. Power Twitter adds helpful tools and options.

Live long and Tweet!

Follow my updates on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/travismanley

POTD #15

2009-04-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

I am really happy with how this one turned out. This is exactly the look I was going for. I wanted to show in the photo what I saw standing there under this tree with the sun filtering in through the leaves and then take it a little further.

The breakdown: This was kind of a tricky shot to get, I took a few different versions playing with my cameras different metering modes ans selecting different parts of the images to expose from.

The problem with an image like this where you have hard sun and shadow is to get the whole image to be "properly exposed" without too much overexposed and underexposed areas. If I set my camera to expose for the bright leaves everything else would be really dark, if I set it to expose for the shadow area everything else would be really bright.

One option would have been to take multiple shots at different exposures and blend them together, but because the leaves were moving the images wouldnt match up and there would be some "ghosting" or "artifacts." (Google HDR if you are unfamiliar)

I chose to take a single exposure that was right in the middle and use Photoshop to lighten the dark areas and tone down the bright. I actually prefer this method over HDR when shooting nature photos because HDR can tend to make and image look flat and unnatural. I also tweaked the color to make it feel more warm and to give it that glowing loook.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5D
Exposure:		0.025 sec (1/40)
Aperture:		f/5.6
Focal Length:		28 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		-1 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #14

2009-04-17T08:14:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

"Who would have thought I could get an image that looked like it was taken right before sunset in the middle of the day?"

Took this shot last summer at one of our many trips to beautiful Lake Crescent.

The Breakdown: It was late afternoon and I was taking shots of people passing by in their boats not really getting anything I was too happy with, but I had just got my new camera (Canon 5d) and was just playing around having fun.

This photo really came to life in post-production. I was editing all the photos from that day in Photoshop (Raw) and I got to this photo. I was nothing special, it was back-lit (the sun was directly in front of me so the image was really contrasty) not really the look I was going for so I started playing around with it to see if it was salvageable.

Rather than try to "fix" it I thought I would just go with it. I boosted the blacks and the contrast and converted it to black & white. I liked the B&W version, but I wanted to take it a little further so I added some tone and adjusted it until I got it where I wanted it.

Who would have thought I could get an image that looks like it was taken right before sunset in the middle of the day? This is a technique im really looking forward to playing around with some more. I think this look could be achieved just about any time of day with your subjected lit from the back and exposeing for the background not the subject.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5D
Exposure:		0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture:		f/22
Focal Length:		93 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		-1 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #13

2009-04-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

Here is a nice sunny summer photo for you. I took this shot of a friend of mine's son at the beach.

The Breakdown: This is a pretty simple one no fancy lighting techniques or anything. Weston was running up and down the beach trying to keep his kite off the ground paying no attention to me. I got behind him and sat in the sand so I could get a nice low angle shot with both him and his kite in the frame.

Camera:		OLYMPUS E-500
Exposure:		0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture:		f/6.3
Focal Length:		17 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #12

2009-04-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

"I became very aware that all that separated us from the beast was five feet and some flimsy wire fence."

This is a shot I took at The Olympic Game Farm a couple of summers ago. I used to come here all the time when I was a kid, but hadn't been for a really long time so I thought it might be fun.

The Breakdown: No big secrets here, this shot was pretty straight forward. The way the Game Farm works is its like a zoo that you drive through. I had my wife drive and I sat in the back seat with my camera.

We pulled up to the bear enclosures and these huge animals came lumbering over to our car. I became very aware that all that separated us from the beast was five feet and some flimsy wire fence (I know I'm being dramatic here, I just wanted something interesting for the caption).

Many of the animals are retired from Disney films so they are used to performing. They plop down in front of you and start waving their arms and fake growling and snarling like this one is doing in my photo. It felt more like working with a model than a wild animal.

It was a lot of fun and I really liked this shot. I like that it doesnt look like your typical zoo shot of a bear through glass or a fence from half a mile away while it walks around in circles. Its more like a "when animals attack" shot. lol

Camera:		OLYMPUS E-500
Exposure:		0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture:		f/6.3
Focal Length:		96 mm
ISO Speed:		200
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #11

2009-04-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

This is a shot of my son River taken when he turned five months. My wife and I wanted some bright and fun photos of him and wanted to take advantage of him being able to sit up on his own. There is only so much you can do with a kid that can only lay on his back or stomach.

The shoot went great. We would take some photos then go over them while River napped. When he woke up Carra put him in a different outfit and we would take some more photos until he needed another nap. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The breakdown: I shot this on a blue backdrop with two off-camera flashes (a Sunpak 383 and an Olympus FL-50) on light stands with umbrellas. For more info on off camera lighting check out strobist.blogspot.com it will change the way you look at lighting.

I ran a sync cable from my camera to the FL-50 and used two Adorama slave adapters one to the FL-50 because it doesnt have a port to plug the sync cable into and the Adorama adapter lets me do that, the other on the Sunpak 383 so it would act as a slave and fire when the FL-50 did.

I also tried (unsuccessfully) using a 250watt Smith & Victor lamp to brighten up the background a little. It just didnt work the way I was hoping because the light from the lamp was really overpowered by the flashes and it was frustrating because I didnt have any way of changing the power from the lamp without putting in a more powerful bulb.

The lighting from this lamp was also ugly and yellow so I coulnt let it touch the model at all or else the color woulldnt jive with the light from my flashes.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5D
Exposure:		0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture:		f/7.1
Focal Length:		67 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

High Speed Flash Photography beyond 1/200 sec

2009-04-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

Found this great trick on how to get away with shooting faster than 1/200sec with a flash.

Most camera manuals say that the max sync speed when using a flash (the shortest shutter speed you can use and fully expose your cameras sensor) is around 1/200-1/250sec.

Have you ever actually tried shooting faster than 1/200sec with a flash? If you do chances are you will see this black area start to show up on the bottom of your cameras lcd screen (if you are shooting landscape orientation). The faster the shutter speed the more black area.

The trick is to keep this in mind when your shooting and incorporate that into the photo. Maybe you want to darken the foreground a little anyway, or if your really talented you can flip your camera upside down to get a dark gradient in the sky if your shooting outdoors.

Here is a link to the author of this video.
www.digitalprotalk.blogspot.com

Another great set of photography videos on YouTube.

2009-04-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

I found another great set of photography videos on YouTube by a guy named Bryan Peterson who is the author of Understanding Exposure, Understanding Close-up Photography, and more.

I almost wrote this guy off at first because he seemed a little crazy, but he really knows his stuff. Do yourself a favor and check out some of his videos.

Awesome Free Photo Recovery Program!

2009-04-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

I just deleted some important photos of my camera's memory card by accident and in about two seconds found this great free program that can recover them.

Its called PC Inspector Smart Recovery and you can find it here.

*Screenshot from www.snapfiles.com

The most important thing is that if you delete something by accident is dont take anymore photos! If you take more photos you might not be able to recover your deleted images.

POTD #10

2009-04-10T07:59:00.001-07:00

Photo of the Day

This is a shot of my wife and I when she was about eight months pregnant. Trying to capture those last days when it was just the two of us and no babies yet. Another example of those last shots of the shoot where everyone is getting tired and goofy that end up turning into one of my favorites.

The breakdown: I shot this on a black backdrop with two off-camera flashes (a Sunpak 383 and an Olympus FL-50) on light stands with umbrellas. For more info on off camera lighting check out strobist.blogspot.com it will change the way you look at lighting.

I ran a sync cable from my camera to the FL-50 and used two Adorama slave adapters one to the FL-50 because it doesnt have a port to plug the sync cable into and the Adorama adapter lets me do that, the other on the Sunpak 383 so it would act as a slave and fire when the FL-50 did.

After shooting the image I cut out the background in Photoshop.

I took this shot with the Canon 5d with the 24-105mm lens at 35mm, f8, 1/60 sec, ISO 100.

* Just a few quick notes here on the lighting and camera settings.

When shooting a photo that you plan to isolate later it is best to have a light or two pointed at your backdrop. The idea is to overexpose it a stop or two more than your subject, that way all you have to do is check the image in Photoshop and clean up any gray spots.

I didnt use any lights on the backdrop because I only had the two flashes at the time.

As for the camera settings. I recommend shooting at around f9-f11 for isolated photos to make sure you have clean edges and the faster the shutterspeed the better to make sure everything is nice and sharp.

The general rule of thumb on focal length for portraits is 70mm or greater for one person, 50mm or greater for groups. You can shoot wider if you want to distort your image and be creative.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

POTD #9

2009-04-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day
This is another example of what you can do with a DIY light tent and desk lamps.

The breakdown: This pineapple was a pain to work with. I had a really hard time getting it to stand up because it wasnt totally flat on the bottom. I tried supporting it with some fishing line, but ended up just using a roll of masking tape on its side as a base and that worked pretty good.

As for the lighting, I used the same light tent next to a window with some desk lamps just like most of my earlier isolated photos.

I boosted the color in Photoshop and cut out the background by using a combination of the magic wand tool and the eraser zoomed in to 200% feathering set to 95%.

I took this shot with the Olympus E-500.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

Found My Photo in a Magazine!

2009-04-08T10:32:00.001-07:00

I got a little shock when I sat down to flip through the latest edition of GD USA magazine and just a few pages in there was a two page spread with one of my photos! It was used in an ad for one of the stock photography websites I sell my images at Shutterstock.com.

My photo is one of several that were made into a "collage" and its pretty small on the page, but im still pretty excited. He is something I created in actual print, not just floating around on the web somewhere.

Here is the ad.

and a crop on my photo

Looks like they flipped it and added some smoke.

I have found a few of my photos in books too, but im not sure if I need permission to post photos of the book from the author. Im going to look into that and try to post them later.

POTD #8

2009-04-08T08:34:00.001-07:00

Photo of the Day

Another example of off-camera lighting and using the existing light.

The breakdown: I got this shot with a Canon Speedlite the 430EX and used it handheld off camera via a 3ft ETTL sync cable for a little extra light and so I could shoot at a faster shutterspeed without raising my ISO past 100. I used the diffused light from the sun (it was an overcast day) as my main light.

I took this shot with the Canon 5d with the 24-105mm lens at 105mm, f8 and 200/sec.

For the post production in Photoshop I toned down the bright yellow slide so it didnt overpower the model and punched up the saturation on his blue coat so it would stand out a little more.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

Great Photography Videos On Youtube.

2009-04-07T09:29:00.001-07:00

I found this great set of videos on youtube the other day and have been watching them like crazy. They are by a photo studio called prophotolife. The videos are very helpful for beginners, people who like making their own equipment and there is even stuff that more advanced photographers can learn from.

Here is one of the videos.

POTD #7

2009-04-07T08:03:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day
This shot is a great example of what you can get using a cheap DIY light tent and desk lamps.

The breakdown: I took this shot of my wife's hand holding a green apple in a small light tent I made out of a cardboard box and tracing paper. I placed this next to a window in my house and then used desk lamps to fill in the light on the shadow side. If you take a look at my one of my portfolios www.dreamstime.com/travismanley_info about 90% of my isolated photos of small objects were shot the same way.

I have better equipment now and dont use the old DIY light box, but for something that didnt cost me a dime to make it was probably one of my most valued pieces of equipment (aside from my camera) for a long time.

After I took the shot, I opened the image in Photoshop, boosted the hue/saturation a bit, added a black & white layer mask and painted out the apple and fingernails so they wouldnt be affected by the b&w layer.

I took this shot with the Olympus E-500 at 32mm, f14, 1/80 sec, ISO 100.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

POTD #6

2009-04-06T08:55:00.001-07:00

Photo of the Day

A lot of photographers are intimidated by working with kids, when really they can be great subjects to photograph. I think the secret is to go into the shoot with reasonable expectations. If you are expecting a toddler to give you pose after pose and not get distracted its just not going to happen. Try to let the model drive the shoot, just be there to capture the moments where they are happy and smiling or just playing with some toys.

This particular photo shoot when far better than I could have imagined. I shot for at least an hour and got a few hundred great shots and this was the last one I took. The model started getting fussy so we were done.

The breakdown: I shot this on a white backdrop with one off-camera flashes (a Sunpak 383) on a light stand. For more info on off camera lighting check out strobist.blogspot.com.

I Placed the light to my right and used a reflector on my left to bounce back some light from the flash and fill in the shadows.

I took this shot with the Olympus E-500 at 1500mm, f5.6, 1/600 sec, ISO 100.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

POTD# 5

2009-04-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

This is a good example of what you can do with one light and a reflector.

The breakdown: I shot this on a blue backdrop with one off-camera flashes (a Sunpak 383) on a light stand. For more info on off camera lighting check out strobist.blogspot.com.

I Placed the light directly behind the model facing the model. I triggered the light using a wireless radio trigger and used a big reflector in front of the model to bounce light back onto her face.

I took this shot with the Olympus E-500 at 60mm, f5.6, 1/600 sec, ISO 100.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

POTD #4

2009-04-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

This is a shot of my wife when she was eight months pregnant with our son. We really wanted to do some nice photos, but it was hard to know when to take them. We wanted to record what she looked like "really pregnant" but not wait too long and have her go into labor early. As it turns out we could have waited another month and nine days, although I dont think Carra would have been in the mood to pose for me at that point.

The breakdown: I shot this on a black backdrop with two off-camera flashes (a Sunpak 383 and an Olympus FL-50) on light stands with umbrellas. For more info on off camera lighting check out strobist.blogspot.com it will change the way you look at lighting.

I ran a sync cable from my camera to the FL-50 and used two Adorama slave adapters one to the FL-50 because it doesnt have a port to plug the sync cable into and the Adorama adapter lets me do that, the other on the Sunpak 383 so it would act as a slave and fire when the FL-50 did.

After shooting the image I converted the image to black and white in Photoshop.

I took this shot with the Canon 5d with the 24-105mm lens at 73mm, f6.3, 1/200 sec, ISO 100.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

POTD #3

2009-04-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

I had this idea for "light paintings" I would create "paintings" using different lights and get the image by using a long exposure and moving the light in front of my lens. The idea isnt totally original as I found out after looking around on the web, but I still wanted to give it a shot.

The breakdown: For this shot I turned off all the lights in my studio, stuck my camera on a tripod with a remote trigger, aimed the camera at a black backdrop and stood in front of it with a small flashlight and moved it around to get the design. I used the bulb shooting mode on my camera so I could keep the shutter open for as long as I wanted.

After shooting the image I changed the color in Photoshop.

I took this shot with the Canon 5d with the 24-105mm lens at 58mm, f9 ISO 100.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

POTD #2

2009-03-31T09:51:00.000-07:00

Photo of the Day

This is an example of how to use the existing light to get a good photo.

The breakdown: I took this shot on a bright sunny day because I was going for a summer yard work theme. Because it was so bright out I used a big 40" reflector on my left side (opposite the sun) to bounce some of that light back on the front of the mower.

I took this shot with the Canon 5d with the 24-105mm lens at 45mm, f5.6 and 160/sec ISO 100.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

POTD #1: Photo of the day

2009-03-30T14:47:00.000-07:00

Thought I would start something new on the blog, so here it is. Photo of the day, im going to do my best to get one of these up at least 5 days a week.

Here is POTD (Photo of the day) #1

This is a shot of my wife Carra and son River at a park near our house on a little photo shoot for his seven month birthday.

The breakdown: The weather was a little overcast as are many days out here in the lovely Pacific Northwest, but im starting to find this works really well for outdoor shoots. When its a little cloudy the sun works as a giant softbox and provides great diffused light. I brought along my new Speedlite the 430EX and used it handheld off camera via a 3ft ETTL sync cable for a little extra light and so I could shoot at a faster shutterspeed without raising my ISO past 100.

I took this shot with the Canon 5d with the 24-105mm lens at 105mm, f8 and 160/sec.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

Great Photography Blog!

2009-03-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

If you dont know who Chase Jarvis is your missing out. This guy is awesome, talk about taking it up a notch! Check him out here www.chasejarvis.com

Not only is Chase an excellent photographer his blog is a great resource for photographers. You can find it here blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/

This video in particular is very interesting.

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2008/11/chase-jarvis-current-making-web-work.html

Twitter

2009-03-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

Just signed up at twitter and have added it to my blog. Check it out on the right side of the page and down a little.

New Links

2009-03-26T10:50:00.001-07:00

I have just finished adding some links (found on the right side of the page and down a little) of all the places online where you can find my photos (that I know of).

Check it out

My Photo in Yaymicro.com blog

2009-03-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

Yaymicro.com used one of my photos (of my son River) in a blog about what kind of images they are looking for. You can read it here.

Photos That Don't Sell

2009-03-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I talked about what kind of photos you should upload and what sells, here is the flip side to that. Knowing what doesn't sell is just as important as knowing what does.

A lot of what is on this list is only on the list because there is so much of it out there already, not because they are low interest subjects.

*Disclaimer: I put this list together based on my own experience, just because something is on this list in no way means it wont sell.

Photos taken at the zoo - Taking photos at the zoo can be great practice, but unless you can make the shot look like it was taken in the wild these have low sales potential.

Flowers - Unless they are magazine quality with the name of the flower don't even bother.

Clouds - Everybody takes cloud photos. I actually take them to use later if I need to replace a dull gray sky in a landscape or something. Unless they are really good they are not worth the time to submit.

Sunsets/Sunrises - This is another one that there are nothing wrong with them, they just have to be really good to stand out against all the ones that are for sale already. Make sure those horizon lines are straight if you are going to submit them!

Snapshots - Snapshot is a broad term basically meaning unprofessional looking or unappealing. If it looks like a five year old could have taken it, its probably in this category.

Photos taken with on-camera flash - Using the flash that is built into your camera is probably the worst thing you can do to a photo. Do yourself a favor and get that flash off your camera! This should be required reading for all photographers www.strobist.blogspot.com

Photos with poor composition - Cropping or cutting off part of your subject. If your taking a portrait try to keep all of the models head in the frame. When someone buys your photo they can always crop it down, but they cant "uncrop" (think I just made up a word).

Under or overexposed photos - Try to avoid taking photos where there are blown out areas or the overall photo is too dark. Keep an eye on your light meter and histogram on your camera when shooting.

Copyright infringement - This can be really frustrating and I still have a hard time with it. Be careful of what you take photos of or what might be in the background of a photo you take. Don't take photos with visible logos or brand names, photos that you didn't take, photos with license plates or identifying marks on vehicles, photos with artwork in them that is not your own. The list goes on, and on, and on some more. iStockphoto.com has a useful wiki where you can get more info on things that are protected by copyright here.

Similar photos - Try not to submit too many similar photos. Giving buyers a variety is great, but try to make shots from a series different enough so it not just a model changing her expression slightly for 100+ photos (for example). Try to go for quality not quantity. Having 100 great unique photos in your portfolio is better than having 500 really similar not so great photos.

Photos with technical flaws - Blurriness, graininess, purple fringing etc. Be sure to check your photos at at least 100% before submitting.

Landscapes/nature photos - This is another one that if done right will most likely sell, but there are so many of this type of photo out there yours will have to be pretty awesome to get noticed.

As long as this list is I have only started to scratch the surface.

For the record I am guilty of submitting and selling photos of all these things. I'm not proud of it, but I have learned a lot by getting it wrong the first time. Also there are always exceptions to the rule. What I'm talking about here is really knowing what your doing and doing it wrong on purpose for artistic effect, not doing it wrong on accident.

Hope this helps!

As always

If you have any comments or questions please email me.
travismanley@hotmail.com

Dreamstime.com

2009-03-10T12:35:00.000-07:00

Dreamstime.com is the first stock photo site I started selling images at and are currently my second highest earner behind Shutterstock.com.

Dreamstime.com supports ftp uploads and submitting is fast and easy.

Photographers get 50-80% from each sale.

Need help keywording or just dont have the time? Dreamstime.com is one of the few stock photo sites that offer a keywording program for a small fee where you can submit your images or whole portfolio to the Keymasters and they will be professionally keyworded for you!

Sign up today!

Stock Photography: What sells? What Should You Upload?

2009-02-28T14:15:00.000-08:00

If you are just getting into stock photography or thinking about getting into it the question your probably asking yourself (or should be asking) is what should I submit?

Unfortunately it not an easy question to answer. Not all stock photo sites are looking for the same thing. Here is what Dreamstime.com is looking for straight from their site:

"We are looking for well defined commercial concepts, marketable good compositions with creative insight, high technical level in terms of color, definition, lighting. We encourage digital processing and creativity, as long as it gives the image more appeal, but keeping in mind the generic essence of stock imagery. This is true for the main theme of the image, too. The subject should be as generic as possible, while composition clear, without elements that can distract the viewer from the main theme. We value intellectual creative process which makes the difference between concept and point-and-shoot. One good way to get a better image of what's hot in stock, is to browse through our best selling images. This way you'll get a visual, thus more effective help in understanding and achieving success as a stock photographer on Dreamstime."

Every site is a little different and they best way to figure out what a site wants and doesn't want is to just start submitting. This can be a little frustrating at first. One site might accept every photo out of a batch you submit and you can turn around, submit that same batch to another site and get half (or more) rejected. The thing is if your photos are good chances are they are going to get accepted anywhere you submit them.Here are some pretty safe subjects to shoot that will most likely get accepted and sell (assuming they are quality images).

Photos of people - I think a lot of new photographers are intimidated by working with models, but this is what can quickly separate you from the newbies.
Isolated objects - AKA: Images with the background completely removed in Photoshop or otherwise. Isolated objects are very valuable to buyers. A buyer can take your isolated image and throw it on a website or composite it into an image with any background they want hassle free.
Business & Technology Themes - Images of business people and objects. There is already a lot of this out there, but as business and technology changes there will be lots of room for new creative photos.

Well I hope this is enough to get you started. With a little research its not hard to see what is selling and what you should be uploading. *Hint: If you have an idea for a photo hop on a stock site and do a search for that subject and see what sites have already. There is no point in taking the time and effort to shoot something they already have a million of. It might give you an idea of how to do it in a different more original way.

If you have any comments or questions please email me.
travismanley@hotmail.com

Photoshop: From Snapshot to Stock Photo pt. 2

2009-02-25T11:34:00.001-08:00

In part one I talked about taking the photo and isolating it. In part two im going to talk about getting the most out of your photos.

This photo took me hours so I want to make sure im going to get my moneys worth out of it. By changing the color of the body I can make this look like a totally different car. You never know what people are going to need so its good to give them options.

Here is what I did. In Photoshop I took my car layer and added a Hue/Saturation layer. I checked the Colorize box and bumped the saturation up too 75. From here all you have to do is move the Hue slider around until you get the color you want. The next step is painting out the areas I dont want to be Colorized. Add a layer mask (if you dont already have one) and start painting out those areas you dont want to be affected.

This little trick works for lots of things.

This photo was of three red cups.

You get the idea. Have fun.

If you have any questions about Photoshop or stock photography email me at
travismanley@hotmail.com

Photoshop: From Snapshot to Stock Photo

2009-02-19T13:03:00.000-08:00

Here is one of the latest photos I have been working on. I thought it might be interesting to post the before and after as an example of what I do in Photoshop my photos.

This is a lot more work than I typically do, but to be honest I have fun doing this meticulous stuff sometimes and I have a feeling that this has lots of sales potential.

So here is what I did.

I took this photo on a slightly foggy day so the light was nice and soft. I used a tripod to make sure the focus was sharp so when I went to isolated the photo I would have nice crisp edges to work with.

If I had a studio big enough and the right lights I would have taken this shot inside, but I dont. This is where Photoshop comes in. I converted the photo to black and white and painted out the areas I wanted to have color (the tires, lights, etc.) I also boosted the contrast a bit so the car looked newer and cleaner.

To reduce the amount of distracting reflections from my house and yard I tried to look at the car in three colors/shades, dark, medium and light. I took all the areas that were mostly dark and made them more solid by painting in the "spotty" areas. Then I did that to the mediums and lights.

I then used the pen tool to trace around the car and cut out the background.

That is the quick version of what took me roughly three hours of work.

Isolated photos are great for stock photography. A buyer can take this image and easily place it in an ad or on a website and add different backgrounds.

If you have any questions about Photoshop or stock photography email me at
travismanley@hotmail.com

Macro Photography on the cheap

2009-02-18T13:35:00.000-08:00

*Above photo from i-source-global.com

If you like shooting things up close you have to try out extension tubes.

Extension tubes are a great way to take great macro and extreme close up photos using the lenses you have already. They are also cheap because they have no glass in them, they are just hallow tubes.

I just found some generic no brand tubes for about $20 that work fine. The only downside is they are built pretty cheap and do not communicate with my camera so I have to do all the settings manually and there is a little guess work involved. For about $80 you can get a really nice one that is built a little more solid and will have some auto ability with your camera.

If you have any questions about extension tubes feel free to email me.
travismanley@hotmail.com

Make Lots of $$$ at Shutterstock.com!

2009-02-07T09:36:00.000-08:00

Have a digital camera or camcorder and want to make lots of money?

Looking for some great stock photos or video?

Sign up at Shutterstock.com!

Shutterstock is great. If you are at all serious about making money selling stock photos getting your images on Shutterstock should be #1 on your list of sites to check out!

Great Photography Show!

2009-02-06T11:23:00.000-08:00

I found out about this great show about nature/wildlife/travel photography called "Travels to the Edge with Art Wolfe."

You can get more info here http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/travels/season1.jsp

The host (Art Wolfe) is an awesome photographer from Seattle and does a great job hosting the show. The show is almost more of a nature/travel show with a little bit of photography thrown in, but if you go to the Canon page (http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/travels/season1.jsp) you can watch some more "in-depth" clips from each episode where Art gets really specific about what he is doing and what equipment he is using.

Check it out!

Get $500 for 500 pictures on Pixmac!

2009-02-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

Cool new site I just heard about has this great promotion going on right now.

twcdm.com Blog!

2009-02-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

The twcdm.com blog is finally online!

Im not much of a blogger, but its time to take a crack at it. I have been working like crazy to give the site (twcdm.com) a much needed face lift and and some cool new features.

The new and improved twcdm.com now includes free stock photos from BigStockPhoto.com, information about the stock sites that I sell my photos on, a page where you can search for stock photos from different sites, and a page where I will be writing Tips, Tricks & Tutorials all having to do with photography and Photoshop.

Hope you enjoy!

Travis