The Digital Photo Guy

Adding Catchlights to Eyes

When we left off last week, Tylor’s pupils had been darkened and the iris lightened with color restored. But, as anyone can see (below), there’s still something missing. That “something” is catchlights, those sparkles in the eyes that add life to otherwise dull photos.

In this video, we’ll add not one but two catchlights in each eye. When you see how this works, you’ll agree that it’s much better than a single catchlight.

Sadly, Tylor, my favorite pin-up model, has moved to Washington DC to live with her Dad so I won’t have anymore opportunities to work with her. Best wishes to you, Tylor. I know you’ll do well wherever you are and whatever you do.

Anyone wanting to contact her for paid modeling work, shoot me an e-mail. Click to read more

The Eyes Are the Windows to the Soul

Today, we’ll post Part 1 of 2 posts about retouching eyes to add intensity and “pop” to any portrait including those where the photographer messed up! Here’s a photo of my favorite model, Tylor. I made this photo at the beach on one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong. Tylor’s eyes were lost in the shadows and her smile seemed lifeless (below left). After bit of Photoshop Elements magic, I brought back her eyes and the photo is almost acceptable. I think you’ll agree the retouched photo is better because Tylor’s eyes are alive with sparkle.

My technique is a distillation of several classes and workshops. Some were overly convoluted while others were too simplified. I’ve tried to walk a line between complexity and finesse so the end result is convincing but achievable.

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Questioning Conventional Wisdom

We all know that for maximum post-processing flexibility, we should shoot in RAW. Unfortunately, there are circumstances that force us to shoot in JPEG. For example, a Canon T2i is limited to 6 RAW files in Continuous Mode before the buffer is full and the camera stops to digest the data. At 3.7 fps, that’s just 1.6 seconds of action. If you’re trying to capture lots of action, the camera may not be ready for the next burst. In this situation, it might be better to use JPEG.

Conventional wisdom says, with JPEG, the trick is to nail white balance in-camera because it’s messier to make corrections once the in-camera processor has mucked with the data. Besides, who wants to adjust WB for dozens of photos.

This week, I tested conventional wisdom by scrounging around for some old jpegs with bad WB. I used 3 different techniques for adjusting WB and I think you might be surprised at the results.

Compositing Photos

As always, whenever I post an article I receive a flurry of e-mails asking, “How’d you do that?” This week, it was about replacing the dull Parisian sky with a bright blue SoCal sky. This is a pretty simple task so I prepared a short 3 minute video.

How Your Camera’s AutoFocus Works

(and why you should care)

I posted this as a question on a site I visit from time-to-time and no one either knew the answer or cared. Therefore, I decided my readers were a better audience for something a bit more technical but, nonetheless, important to getting the most out of your camera gear.
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Tips About This Website

Hover your cursor over the home page slideshow until the cursor turns into a double-headed, slanted arrow and click the mouse to maximize the photo. The image won’t be as sharp because they’re compressed and resized to smaller dimensions. You can also go forward or backward by clicking the cursor near the  left or right edges.

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Cloud Photos

I stepped outside the other day and was amazed at the clouds above the house. I don’t often see clouds in San Diego and I especially don’t see unusual or interesting cloud formations.

All these were taken within moments of each other but because I faced different directions, the light shifted, causing the colors to be different in each.

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