5 Ways to Hold Your Viewer's Attention

One of the most important things your photo should have is an ability to hold your viewers attention. There are a lot of techniques that can be used to help you compose your shot so that people will spend more than a second looking at it. Besides keeping your viewers focused on your photo, the techniques below can also help emphasis your main subject.

There are many ways to hold your viewer's attention. Here are five that you can easily start off with:

1. VIGNETTE

A vignette is a gradual loss of light and picture quality towards the edge of the photo due to poor lens construction. Although it is considered a lens aberration, a vignette is helpful in drawing the viewer's attention towards the center of the photo. It also adds character to a photo since it makes it look like it was taken with an old camera.

CC Photo by australian overanalyzer
To add a vignette to an existing photo with Adobe Photoshop, refer to our previous article found here.

2. SHOOT THROUGH A FRAME

This is probably one of the oldest tricks in the book. You simply choose an object you can shoot through that frames your main subject.


CC Photo by Jakeliefer
3. LEADING LINES

Lines can also help draw your viewer in since the tendency of the eye is to follow the direction of prominent lines that it sees.


CC Photo by mugley
4. FILL THE FRAME

Don't be afraid to get close. Sometimes a few steps forward is all it takes to make a good picture great. If the subject is interesting then show your viewers why by filling your frame with it.


CC photo by Sukanto Debnath

5. BREAK A PATTERN

The human eye is always drawn to patterns and whatever breaks a pattern will automatically stand out. Place your subject against a pattern and see how much the subject stands out and how the surrounding pattern holds everything together.


CC Photo by stephcarter

How to Create High-Contrast Black and White Images

In Photoshop CS3, making black and white photos is easier than ever. This tutorial is not limited to converting color photos to monochrome but how to make them pop by adding contrast and a vignette.

(Lisa's note: It's always best to shoot in color and convert to BW during post-processing. You tend to lose detail when shooting BW straight out of the camera, and the images most often end up looking soupy.)

Open your photo in Photoshop and press CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-B to enter the Black and White conversion window. You can also select Image from the main menu and go into Adjustments. Once the window opens, you are given 6 colors that will affect how your photo is converted. There is no fixed rule on what amounts you place in the different colors since it depends on your picture. For the photo that I used as an example, I selected 103% for Red to lighten the man’s face. I lessened the Yellows and Greens to darken the background to make the subject more prominent in the photo.




If you are not that familiar with black and white conversions, just move the color sliders left and right to see how each color affects your photo.

Next, we will apply Curves to the photo to increase contrast. This is a very important step for me since I find low contrast mono photos soupy. If you want your photo to have that dreamy effect then you can skip this step but for the most part, good black and white photos should have all the gradations from almost white to almost black. Press CTRL-M to bring out the Curves dialog box. For this photo I used the setting in the photo below.


Again, there is no hard rule in applying Curves since it will depend on the photo. Just make sure that you do not clip your highlights and lose detail on your shadow areas.

Next, we’re going to add a vignette to the photo to make the subject pop out more. Select the Rectangular Marquee tool by pressing M. Make a selection on your photo about 1 inch away from the edges. Right click on the photo and select Feather. For a 500x750 pixel photo, I select a value of 75 for Feather. This will make the edge of the vignette softer and more natural.



Right click on the photo again and pick Select Inverse from the pop-up menu. You will see that the selection will then highlight the borders of your photo. Right click again on the photo and select Layer via Copy. This will save the selection as another Layer. On the layer menu, change the blending mode to Multiply on your new layer. This will darken the edge of your photo completing the vignette effect. If the effect is too dark then you can lower the layers Opacity to lessen the effect. Click on Image on the main menu and select Flatten Image to merge your two layers.


Adding a vignette will sometimes darken the whole photo including the area that was not selected. If this happens, simply pull up the Curves dialog again by pressing CTRL-M and just pull up the midtones until the photo looks brighter.


The first photo below is the black and white conversion without the contrast adjustment and vignette. The second photo is the black and white conversion with both the contrast adjustment and the vignette. This is all, of course, subject to one's taste and aesthetics.

How to Fix Washed Out Skies in Landscape Photos

More often than not, the sky will always be brighter than the ground when you take landscape photos. Even if you adjust your camera's exposure compensation, the sky will almost always end up looking washed out.

The easiest way to avoid this problem is by purchasing a Graduated Neutral Density (GND) Filter. This filter has a dark tint at the top that slowly fades until the filter is clear at the bottom. This effectively darkens the sky while retaining the brightness of the objects in the lower half of your frame. But if you don't have a GND filter then you can use Photoshop to fix your washed out skies.

The photo below was taken just after 1PM. The light was so intense that it made the sky look lighter than it was. We can apply a gradient filter to this photo to bring back some of the darker hues in the sky.


Open your photo in Photoshop and press the letter D to make your foreground color Black. On the Layers Pallete, click on Create New Adjustment and select Gradient.


On the Gradient Fill window, click on the first drop down arrow and select the second type of gradient fill.


Still on the Gradient Fill window, make sure the the Reverse and Align with Layer are selected then click OK.


On the Layers Palette, select Overlay as the blend mode for the adjustment layer.


Go back to the Gradient Fill window by double-clicking on the gradient adjustment layer on the Layer Palette window. Once there, click inside the first box that is labeled Gradient to pull up the Gradient Editor. Inside this window, you can adjust how fast your gradient fill transitions between black and transparent by moving the white box left or right. The more the box is moved left, the faster the gradient fill turns from black to transparent affecting less of the picture. Using this slider lets you have more control so that only your sky is darkened by the fill. Once done, click on OK.


Below is the photo before and after adding the gradient fill.

How to Create Bokeh in Your Photos

Bokeh is a photographic term used to describe a lens effect wherein the background of the photo is out of focus. This effect is used to blur out distracting backgrounds and give emphasis to the the primary subject of the photo.

There are two ways to get bokeh when taking pictures. The first is by using a very large aperture to get a shallow depth of field. You can set your camera's aperture to f/5 or below. This will effectively throw everything behind your subject out of focus. The photo below was taken with an aperture setting of f/2.5.

You can also blur out the background of your photo by using a long telephoto lens. There is no hard rule on how long your lens should be but the longer its reach, the more pronounced the bokeh is going to be.

Below are two pictures wherein you can see the effect of using a telephoto lens. Both shots where taken with an aperture setting of f/22 so we can isolate the effect of the focal length on the photos' bokeh. The first shot was taken at 55mm and the second at 250mm. You can see that at 55mm, the background still retains a lot of detail while at 250mm the leaves in the background were completely blurred out.

Combining the two techniques of using a wide aperture setting and long focal length will give you a more intense bokeh effect.

There are many ways in which you can use Photoshop to blur out the background of your photos. Here's one way to do it using Layer Masks.

First, open your photo and right-click on the Background Layer in the Layers Pallete. Select Duplicate Layer from the pop-up menu and click on OK.Once you have a duplicate of your background layer, you need to click on Add Layer Mask at the bottom of the Layers Pallete.Still on the Layers Pallete, you need to click on the thumbnail of your photo in the Background Copy layer.After that, select Filter from the menu. Go to Blur then click on Gaussian Blur.The slide at the bottom of the Gaussian Blur menu controls the intensity of the blur you are applying to the photo. You will see that it will blur the entire photo including the main subject but this will be corrected this later. In the example, we selected a Radius of 1.9. Click on OK. You now need to select the mask from your Background Copy layer. You can do this by clicking on the white rectangle on the right of the Background Copy thumbnail in the Layers Pallete.Now select the Paint Bucket Tool from the tool bar. Press "X" on your keyboard to make the foreground color black and click on any part of your photo. You will see that the blur you added a while ago will disappear. You then need to select the Brush Tool from the tool bar and press "X" again on your keyboard to make the foreground color white.What you will now do is to paint on the parts of the photo you want blurred. You can adjust the size of the brush by pressing on "[" key to make it smaller or "]" key to make it bigger.Let me know how it works for you.

Weekly Linkies: Photography Must-Reads, Part II

Learn to Tag and Keyword Photos
This will save you a whole lot of trouble in the long run, believe me. If I had started out properly with the tagging and keywording, I wouldn't have to attempt to do it to thousands of photos all at the same time now. Sigh.

The Most Expensive Photographs Ever Sold
Interesting read. Includes the first photograph to sell for more than $3 million.

Photoshop Tip: Non-Destructive Cloning
From the page: "Cloning is destructive in nature, meaning that it changes pixels. When you change the pixels, you can’t get the original ones back. Destructive editing is worth avoiding because it takes away your ability to change your mind or adjust the edit at a later date."

Why are my photos of moving objects blurry?
A great read for beginners.


Related Posts:
How to Remove Color Casts in Jpegs
Weekly Linkies: Photography Must-Reads, Part I
Photo Manipulation and Editing on Photoshop

Weekly Linkies: Photography Must-Reads

Here are some excellent reads we've come across recently:

• 60 Sources of Inspiration for Photography
• Focusing on the Unfocused Photos
• Think You Can Quit Your Job and Be a Work-at-Home Photographer?
• High Dynamic Range Tutorial

• 10 Photoshop Tutorials to Take Your Photography from Good to Great
• 99 Remarkable Photographers' Portfolios
• Why Use a Neutral Density Filter?
• How to Build the Ultimate Photo Sharing Website
  

Related Posts:
Tips on How to Take Tack Sharp Photos
The Best Photoblogs
The Best Photoblogs, Part II

How to Create a Slideshow in Photoshop

Photoshop can be used not only to edit your photos but also to showcase your work to clients and unwitting relatives. The good thing about using Photoshop to present your work is that it displays your photos against a black backdrop and in full screen without any distracting menus.

Go under the File menu in Photoshop to open your photo. If you are opening multiple pictures then you can hold the Control key and click on all the photos you want to open. After you have selected your photos, click on Open.Your photos will now be stacked in the order in which you selected them. Hold the Shift key and click on the Full Screen Mode at the bottom of the toolbox. This will center all the open photos against a black background starting with the photo at the top of the stack.
Press the Tab key to hide the menu bar, tool box and pallets.
You should now be left with only your photo on the screen. To scroll to the next photo you selected, simply hold the Control key and press Tab.
Once you're finished with the slide show, press the Tab key to bring back the toolbox. Then hold the Shift key and click on the Standard Screen Mode at the bottom of the toolbox to return Photoshop to its regular state.

How to Straighten Crooked Photos

One of the most common errors that can happen when you handhold your shots is that you can get a crooked photo. In the example below you can see that the photo is tilting to the right. Here is the easiest way to correct this type of problem.
Open your photo in Photoshop. Click and hold the icon that shows an eyedropper and from the sub menu select the Measure tool.
Now you need to find an element in your photo that is supposed to be straight, like the table in the example. Click and drag the Measure tool along this edge from left to right. In the example, I dragged the Measure tool from point A to point B.
Go to the Image menu and under Rotate Canvas, choose Arbitrary. A window will come up and from there you will see that Photoshop has already calculated the exact angle of rotation needed to straighten your photo. Just click on OK.

Once your photo is straightened, you will need to crop it properly to remove the excess canvass that was revealed from the rotation.
Here is the corrected photo.

How to Remove Color Casts in JPEGs

Color casts are usually the result of selecting the wrong white balance when you take a photograph. Of course the easiest way to avoid this is to shoot in RAW so you can easily correct this during post-processing. In case, you shoot with a point-and-shoot that can't shoot in RAW, or if you just don't shoot in RAW, here's a way to remove color casts in JPEG files.

First, open your photograph in Photoshop. In the example below, you can see it has a yellow-orange tinge since the camera's white balance setting was left on flash when it should have been set to cloudy.Then go to Image on the menu bar and under Adjustments, select Match Color. (You may click on the photos below to enlarge.)

Click on the box beside NEUTRALIZE to remove the color cast. This tool, however, can be so powerful that it can leave your photo looking bland. You can adjust the Fade slider which controls how much of the color cast is removed and you can also adjust the Color Intensity slider which controls the photo's color saturation.

Here are the before and after photos.

Photo Manipulation and Editing

By Tina Vaziri of The Adventures of Tina and Mr. Bee

Editing photos is one of my favorite things to do. Photo manipulation can, if done well, correct a myriad of sins that you could not control during the photo shoot. My tool of choice is Photoshop, upgraded to the latest release, but previous versions (too be safe, I’ll say 7.0 and up) will work as well.

As an example I will use an unedited photograph of myself.

Not a horrendous photo, but my face has very unflattering shadows in this light among other things. Our main to do list: remove all blemishes and unsightly lines, lighten the under eye shadows, enlarge the eyes a little because mine were a bit squinty, brighten teeth, add rosy skin tones, and nudge the nose to have more symmetry. All this can be done fairly easily, using only a few layers, and only a handful of tools.

I have labeled them in order of most often used, and simplest to hardest.

The healing brush (number 1) is the most amazing (and easiest) tool for cleaning up skin, minor blemishes, and slight lines. Select this tool, in the brush properties I suggest going with 50% hardness or experimenting. Setting the hardness too low will create an unnaturally smooth look if overused.

On that note, do not go overboard with any of these tools and methods. Keep it natural, do not lose the original texture of the skin, and remember that less is more.

Okay, back to the healing brush. ALT+Click on a clear area of skin that is a similar color and tone to the area you want to clean up. Patiently brush away one blemish at a time, don’t be afraid to undo and redo until you have it perfect.

The healing brush has some limitations, it does not work well when you are trying to clear up an area that is butted up right next to a very dark or very light area. For this kind of problem you will use the clone stamp (number 2) in conjunction with the healing brush. Select the clone stamp, set the hardness to about 50% and set the opacity to around 50% as well. Feel free to zoom in if you need to. ALT+Click on a clean area very close to the problem area and gently brush over the problem area. Go back to the healing brush and blend in what the clone stamp left behind.

The smudge tool (number 3) is a very powerful tool that can be very hard to control. I suggest you practice with this tool often before getting too frustrated and expecting it to work for you right away. I use the smudge tool to move muscles and to reshape whole areas. Use this sparingly because it will destroy all natural underlying textures. Use it for small areas only. Select the tool, with 30% hardness, and 75% strength. Resize the brush to fit over the area you need to move or reshape, softly nudge the area to the shape you desire. Usually many CTRL+Zs are necessary.

Number 4 on our tool bar is the Burn tool which can also be switched over to the Dodge tool. Another very strong tool that you must use very lightly. The burn tool darkens and the dodge tool lightens. To use either of them, set the hardness to 50% and the exposure to 5%. Brush in areas you need to darken or lighten but do not linger too long as it gets darker or lighter the longer you hold the brush down. This tool also messes with the underlying colors in your shadows or highlights. So you usually have to go back and add adjustment layers with masks to correct them. If you are only going to use two adjustment layers I suggest you use Levels and Hue/Saturation. Adjustment layers are very easy to use, and so useful and necessary.

And the final transformation:


Tina Vaziri is an award winning illustrator and designer based out of Austin, Texas, working with clients all over the world. Her expertise include custom and commissioned illustration work in a colorful style that incorporates beauty, elegance, magic, and storytelling. A style perfect for products aimed at children, tweens, young adults, 20-somethings, and parents. (Thanks, Tina!)