[Photography] A Journey From Novice to Natural Light Portrait Photographer

I’m here to share my photography journey that started few years ago as a novice, to where I stand today. As am amateur or hobby photographer, you may relate.

The journey from novice to advanced photographer

About two years ago, I bought an entry level DSLR, to use it as an expensive point and shoot camera. The camera decided the fate of most of my pictures. On innumerable occasions, the pictures were blurry, under or overexposed, and were of poor quality.

The urge to work on my photography skills blossomed, when I was blessed with a little girl. An utmost desire to take only the best pictures of my angel, had taken roots in me. As you may also do, I started searching the internet fervently, for ways to capture the best shots.

This is the kind of natural light photography I do now, but that’s not where I started. Read on to find out how I got here, and you can too.

I realized, other than going through basic photography tutorials on YouTube, the thing that helped me the most was Flickr’s discussion groups. It has large community of knowledgeable professionals, and semi-professionals, who love to take a look at your picture and provide valuable feedback. Positive suggestions and encouragement I received on the forums, helped me to experiment further, and escape out of automatic mode. If you are in the same mode as I was two years ago, I strongly recommend getting feedback for your photos, through the online forums.

Moving out of auto mode and kit lens limitations

The very first step towards improvement for me, was shifting to Aperture Priority (Av/A) mode. Initially, pictures were blurry even in Av mode, but I could see that inside my home, my kit lens at f/4.5, ISO 6400, was still unable to shoot faster than 1/30th of a second. Such a slow shutter speed caused the motion blur. Shooting outdoors normally helped me to avoid blurry pictures, but I was not sure why my images didn’t have a blurry background like I saw online. Eventually, I understood the limitations of my kit lens, in not being able to shoot at a larger f-stop, to achieve shallower depth of field.

This image is very noisy, focus is on her dress rather eyes/face, the out of focus raised hand actually distracts the viewer a lot.

One thing I would realize after many months of shooting, is that the exposure triangle (aperture, shutter speed and ISO) is easy to comprehend theoretically, but really hard to apply in the field. I went out for a shoot almost every day, and started experimenting with aperture and shutter speed to get a more desired shot. On returning home, I always got an impression I should have used a different aperture or shutter speed for a better shot. The ability to learn through your mistakes is a major milestone in your journey.

Branching out

Once you are bit confident in your understanding of the basics, you start enjoying it – which is what I experienced. I started devoting time to reading topics such as composition, photography tips, and subscribed to sites like Digital Photography School. Another thing that helped me a lot, was connecting to local events and activity pages via Facebook. I started showing up at many local events and offering free photography to the organizers.

The experience of shooting events was quite chaotic and challenging, especially when there were far more people posing in front of the camera, and many arbitrary things happening – kids running around, or folks dancing to tunes of the festivities. Every such shoot gave me lot more insight into concepts of understanding concepts like plane of focus, controlling focus points, exposure compensation, tips to hand hold the camera firmly, etc.

One of my early event photos. The face and overall image is poorly lit, and the face looks orange. Overall, the image is noisy, and the eyes are not in focus. The person behind her is very distracting.

Upgrading gear

It’s very easy to get overwhelmed when reading about, or watching, the type of gear that pros are using in the field. My advice would be to start with minimum possible gear, and upgrade only when you clearly understand the limitations of your existing gear. Be it body, lens, tripod, or anything. After understanding that I couldn’t shoot with very low noise in ambient light during evenings, or achieve huge shallow DOF with my canon T3i and a kit lens, I moved up to a 6D after few months, and bought a prime lens. Though I love to shoot 100% natural light, I added a flash to my gearbox as well, to use as a fill light in some situations.

Here are few things I learned so far, that you can also apply in your photography. Then I will move on to what kind of work I produce these days, and some explanation about how the results are achieved.

Understand the basics:

Read a lot about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and other beginner tutorials. Apply them as much as you can. These concepts are simple but take a lot of hands-on practice to start making some sense.

Very noisy, Focus is on the shoulder, a very bright area in the background is a huge distraction, very messy environment.

Participate:

Do share your everyday shots and learning, to online discussion groups and forums, without worrying about the quality of your work. Google knows a lot. Give it a try by typing the question the way you would ask someone in person. Once you get some clue, make sure to try it out, to experiment and confirm your understanding. As I said earlier, do volunteer photography for local charity or non profit, etc., as that is a sure way to learn, and it is much more fun.

Avoid GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome):

Avoid the mindset that you cannot do good photography without expensive gear. In the beginning, your cheapest camera is enough to get you started. Photography is not 100% driven by expensive gear. There are way many areas to catch up like composition, understanding of light, angle of shooting, etc. Learn the basics and how to use the gear you have first.

Shoot, shoot and shoot:

There is no shortcut to get good at photography. You have to keep shooting to learn, and learn more to confirm your understanding and get better.

Understand Light:

Taken in the middle of the day, without caring about harsh shadows when sun was overhead. From a composition point of view, the image has a very busy background and viewer will be completely distracted by other elements of the image.

It doesn’t matter what genre of photography you shoot; you need a firm understanding of light. This is a key ingredient for a good picture. So, read about the direction and quality of light, and how it affects the shape, size, shadows, and contour of objects it falls upon.

Master your camera:

This tip is especially important if you aim to shoot events, happening at fast pace like kids photography, birds, action, sports, etc. You will really miss opportunities if you are unable to change settings quickly on the fly, without looking at the controls.

Go Manual:

This needs to be your ultimate destination in terms of shooting modes. It’s true that 80% or more time you may be happy with Av mode, but ideally you should have no hesitation in switching to the manual mode in a blink.

Depth of Field:

Technically, in simple terms, aperture controls the depth of field. However, this is the area that took me the longest time to get a good grip on. It’s very hard to stop the desire to shoot at f/1.2, if you own a lens capable of that. However, lenses are not the sharpest at so small f-numbers, plus the depth of field is so thin, that it could be unusable if you are not at the right distance from the subject.

Though there is a nice catch light, but looking closer, it has been shot with an f-stop that should have been higher. The face is not completely in focus, and the image does not appeal the viewer. The subject should have been moved a bit, to get rid of uneven shadows on his face.

Positioning the Subject:

Another key point I have seen even very mature photographers lacking, is realizing the importance of where you should ask the subject to stand. Key mistakes are: placing subject in front of a very busy background, having undesired points of interest in the frame, a brighter large light source behind the subject, etc.

I hope you find the above tips useful. In the final part, I would like to show some images, and a bit about my thoughts on post-processing. All the below images have been published in one or the other magazine.

85mm, f/1.6, 1/1600, ISO 800

Location: Milwaukee, WI. This was taken at golden hour, with the sun facing the subject. The trees with some fall colors, are very far behind her.

85mm, f/3.2, 1/400, ISO 400

Location: Redwood Shores, CA. This was taken at golden hour with sun facing her. The intensity of the light was low, as only partial light was passing through the tree. It was shot from above at about a 45-degree angle.

70mm, f/2.8, 1/320, ISO 800

Location: Los Angeles, CA. This was taken in the middle of the day, in an apartment, where model was facing window light.

135mm, f/2.8, 1/400, ISO 400

Location: Palace of fine arts, CA. Taken in the middle of the day, where plenty of ambient light was available. Behind the subject is a little darker area, due to trees and pillars. I positioned her at a spot where light was just right to avoid on her face which were too dark.

85mm, f/1.8, 1/6400, ISO 100

Location: Fremont, CA. Again taken during golden hour, with a bit of shade from the door structure.

85mm, f/2.8, 1/2000, ISO 800

Location: San Jose, CA. Taken in the middle of the day, using the shade from the ceiling above the model, and avoiding sunlight falling directly her.

Importance of Post-Production:

As a beginner you will surely hear or read a lot something similar to these statements, “I love straight out of camera pictures” or “I hate editing pictures”. However, I have found that you can delay getting into the post-processing of images, but cannot avoid it.

The extent you go to post-processing an image, is totally a different debate. Some do it to enhance the existing elements of an image, and others do it to make it into a totally different image. I am in the first category, and spend time doing things that improves the overall image appeal.

For beginners, I would advise that you stay away from it until you are comfortable with your gear and the basic concepts of photography. Always aim to get the image right in the camera.

The first step for post-processing, you can start with Adobe Lightroom, which is a great piece of software to enhance your images. Spend time in achieving mastery with Lightroom, and, once you understand its limitations, then start exploring Adobe Photoshop on a need only basis. In my typical workflow, all the images go through Lightroom, then for some final touches in Photoshop.

Your journey

So where are you in your photography journey? Did you just pick up a camera and can relate to my early experiences? Have you been practicing for a while? What is your experience, please share in the comments below.

Author Bio

Vik (Vivek) Kumar is a photographer and a software engineer. Hi started his photography a couple of years ago as an amateur landscape photographer. The hobby became serious portrait photography fun. His images are used by reputed hotel brands like Hyatt. He has been published numerous times in various fashion magazines like ICON, PUMP, Surreal Beauty Magazine, etc. See more of his work on his website or on his Instagram profile. His landscape photography work can be explored on 500px.

The post A Journey From Novice to Natural Light Portrait Photographer by Vik Kumar appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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[Photography] 3 Tips to Maximize Your Road Trip Photos

Road trips have been hailed as one of the greatest pastimes ever, and something that everyone should do at least once in their lifetime. It is a great way to experience a lot in a short span of time, and as a photographer, there will be many opportunities and moments awaiting your perspective. Sometimes preserving your creative spin in the midst of all the new discoveries, can become sensory overload and feel overwhelming.

Here are three tips that can help you make better photographs on your journey and maximize your road trip.

1. Plan, plan … plan?

Most successful photo sessions involve a level of planning, this is no different for road trips. The plan does not have to be detailed, it can start out with some basics, such as final destination and must-see places/events, then you determine what should happen daily. Research your routes, note interesting things along the way, and make a priority list. Keep in mind that when traveling you are subject to the unforeseen, such as inclement weather, or places inaccessible for one reason or another, so be ready to switch to Plan B.

As a light chaser, planning should include knowing when the most flattering light will hit your must-see locations or subjects (e.g. sunrise or sunset), and getting there on time. Thankfully there are now many smartphone apps that will help you plan for the golden hours, work out directions, as well as drive times (and distance) between destinations.

The last part of planning is building flexibility into your days. Sometimes even the best laid plans end up with hiccups and delays, and you still need to make the most of it. The main objective of any road trip is to have fun, so build in a little flexibility, and who knows, you could find something worth exploring, or maybe you will be forced to get creative when you least expect it.

2. Gearing up

So with your destination(s) planned, it’s time to figure out what gear you need. The last thing you want to do is lug around everything you own, in fact, quite the opposite – you will want to travel light. This is why knowing your destination is key to packing. Will you be driving through amazing scenery? If yes, then you may want to pack a wide-angle lens. If wildlife is your focus, you may decide on a telephoto zoom, which is also great for capturing portraits of people in their natural environment, without being too obtrusive.

Note: Good advice, when it comes to portraits, asking permission is a nice approach.

It all depends on what your end game is, and what lens (or two) you will be using the most. There will always be regrets over what you left behind, such as that one photo that would have been awesome if you had packed a fish-eye or macro lens – but think about the extra weight, and whether of not it’s justified for the duration of the trip.

If you really want to travel light, a mid-range zoom is a great compromise and a good broad spectrum lens to have during your journey, so research your surroundings and decide if this could work for you. A tripod is a safe bet if you plan to do any night photography, but use the same rule and take it only if you need it.

3. Road trip story

When you shoot with a story in mind, it can make your photos take on a life of their own. Are you documenting something specific along the way, such as small towns or diners, breath-taking landscapes, or the road itself?

There are many different ways to tell a story, and your objective and style will dictate the way you tell yours. If your destination includes places that are prone to lots of tourists – decide how this fits into your vision. Do you make them a part of the photo (i.e. use their presence for a sense of scale) or would you prefer the location desolate (which probably means rising early to beat the rush). What story are you trying to tell?

Conclusion

Road trips are fun, and are a great way to make memories with hundreds of photo opportunities. Planning goes a long way, and will help you determine which gear to travel with, and what photos will make up your story line. So whether you are journeying to a National Park or just venturing out to a new place – a journey that spans two weeks or just two hours – know before you go, have lots of fun, and make awesome photo memories.

What other important tips would you add for fellow photography road trippers?

The post 3 Tips to Maximize Your Road Trip Photos by Nisha Ramroop appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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[Photography] Tips to Help You Start a Successful Photo Blog

As you learn more about using your camera, and start taking beautiful pictures, you might also want a way to share them with the rest of the world. There are many social networking platforms that are ideal for this sort of thing like: Instagram, Flickr, Google Photos, Tumblr, and Facebook, along with hundreds more.

However, one of the most popular, and effective ways, to share your pictures is a simple, humble, tried-and-true blog. Even though blogs are sort of like grandpas in our modern internet age, there’s a reason they have stuck around for more than two decades: they’re intuitive, easy to set up, and they allow you to have full control over your content. Many photographers enjoy using blogs because of their flexibility and customizability, and if you want to spent a bit of money for a dedicated blog platform like Squarespace, or a self-hosted WordPress installation, you can get even more creative.

If you are thinking about pursuing this route there there are some things you need to consider before setting up your own photo blog.

There are many sites that let you build photo blogs, several of which are free.

Know why you are doing a blog

This first point seems kind of obvious, but a lot of photographers find their blogs stalling out, and gathering dust after a few months, because they did not define their purpose for doing the blog when they first began. Many people start blogs because they just want to share random pictures, but if you want a viable long-term blogging solution, you’re going to need something more.

Are you starting a photo blog to get your name out there, and generate sales leads (potential customers)? Do you want to make a mark in your community? Do you want to simply post photos you think are interesting? Whatever your reason for doing a photo blog, it’s important to make sure you at least have one, in the first place. If you have never done a photo blog, then it’s likely you are doing it for personal reasons, such as trying to learn and grow as a photographer. That is an outstanding goal, and one that has helped many other bloggers, become much better at photography as well.

Once you know precisely why you are doing your blog, it will serve as a guide for everything you post. Brandon Stanton started the well-known Humans of New York blog with a specific purpose: to photograph 10,000 people living in New York City. This helped him have a sense of purpose and direction when taking and posting photos, and doing the same thing can greatly benefit you as well. If you cannot explicitly state why you are doing a blog, it is much more likely to gather virtual dust after a short time, and any readers you do manage to pick up, will possibly stop investing their time in it as well.

One of the first pictures I ever posted to my blog. It’s not even an interesting photo, but I was just starting out, and can look back on this to see how much I have learned since then.

In 2008 the web analytics firm Technorati found that roughly 95% of the blogs it tracked, went more than 120 days without being updated. When your blog goes four months without anything new, it is more than likely a failure. So how can you keep your blog not only surviving, but thriving past 120 days, and well beyond? Here are few more tips that might help:

Clearly articulate the purpose of your photo blog to your viewers

Attention spans are short, and people today have a never-ending stream of tweets, news clips, soundbites, app updates, and cat videos coming their way, almost every waking moment. So,how on earth can you make your blog stand out, and get noticed amid all the other sites, apps, and feeds that people check on a daily basis?

New readers should be able to tell within five seconds, what your blog is about. The best option is to have a specific niche that your photo blog serves (e.g. wildlife, surfers, snowflakes, street pictures, etc.). But, even if it’s just pictures you like taking for no particular reason, you should at least make that clear to your readers upfront. You’re basically setting expectations right from the outset, and giving your audience a clear sense of what they will get out of reading your photo blog. Some people do this by having a descriptive name for their blogs, a brief tagline, or a set of pictures that instantly conveys a sense of purpose (e.g. flowers, cattle, cars, sunsets, etc.). Whatever the purpose of your photo blog is, if your readers can’t figure it out, they’re going to quickly move elsewhere.

My blog is specifically for photos I take with my 50mm lens, and I make that clear to my readers immediately when they visit the site. If you don’t let your readers know what your blog is about, they will probably not stick around very long.

Post new content regularly

Not every blog that is updated regularly is going to be a success, but every successful blog is updated regularly. I have seen too many photographers start blogs that are updated daily, then weekly, and before long, the rate at which new pictures are posted slows to a trickle. Soon it’s a photo every couple weeks, then one a month, and then a written apology by the blogger about how he or she has just been so busy lately, but they promise to start posting more photos soon. More often than not, soon becomes later, then later becomes never, and a once-promising photo blog becomes another statistic of failure rates.

The best way to combat this problem, is to not post pictures whenever you feel like it, but instead post them on a regular and predictable basis. This gives your readers something to expect, and also imparts upon you, the blogger, a sense of accountability, which helps keep your camera in your hands and out of your closet. My photo blog is titled “Weekly Fifty”, and because it requires me to post a picture every single week, I almost always carry my camera with me, and am constantly looking for photo opportunities. In almost three years I have never failed to post a photo each Wednesday morning, which has helped me build a nice following, with regular commenters as well.

A few years ago I ran out of ideas for pictures to post, but I knew I had to stick with my weekly schedule. So, I made this image, that turned out to be one of my more popular photos.

One trick I like to recommend for photo bloggers, is to schedule your posts in advance. This doesn’t work well for blogs about news or current events, but as a photo bloggers you do not have to be timely in the same manner. I currently have complete posts (each with a photo, written explanatory text, and an accompanying 4-minute audio commentary) scheduled for the next six weeks. I use WordPress, which allows me to schedule posts in advance, so each of these six posts will be automatically published on subsequent Wednesdays at 1:00 a.m. This gives me a bit of padding, if I ever find myself in a position with lots of things going on in my life, and my readers know that they will get a new picture each week, no matter what.

Of course the catch here, is that I can’t merely sit on my laurels in the meantime. I have to keep taking pictures, and producing new blog posts, so that six weeks from now I don’t run out of material. This type of accountability is enormously helpful for photo bloggers, and if you’re not sure where to start, I always recommend doing one picture each week. If that’s too much you can lower it, and if it’s not often enough you can increase it, but I have found that a weekly schedule is a sweet spot that gives you enough time to take pictures, and doesn’t overload your readers with so much new content that they start ignoring it.

Engage with your audience

Building a loyal audience is the holy grail of almost every blogger, but it’s not easy to do. Your readers have many obligations, alerts, people demanding their time, and often it’s difficult enough just to get them to visit your blog in the first place, much less comment on a photo, or offer some kind of reaction to it. Early in the life of your blog, visitors will usually not be invested in your pictures enough to leave comments. But, as you start to build traffic, and readership over time, you will likely have a few people who start to offer feedback on your images.

When you do get commenters it’s essential that you interact with them, in order to build a sense of community, respect, and mutual sharing. If someone likes one of your pictures, say “Thank you” and ask if you can see some of their photos too. If someone offers a bit of constructive criticism on a picture, try re-taking a similar photo using their suggestions. You can offer a Call to Action by posting a photo, and encouraging your readers to take, and share similar photos in the comments section. This type of audience engagement benefits all parties; by giving you even more reasons to continue your blog, giving your readers a reason to keep coming back, and giving new readers a sense that your photos are interesting and worthy of comments.

This chart shows my comment statistics for calendar year 2015. I ran my blog for almost a year and a half before getting any regular commenters, and now I get about 40 comments each month. It’s not huge, but it’s a number with which I am very happy.

If your blog grows to mammoth proportions, and you start getting hundreds of comments on each picture, it might not be reasonable to reply to every single one, but until that happens you need to take care to give each commenter a personal response. If people are taking time out of their day to leave comments on your pictures, knowing that you personally read and responded, will make them want to keep visiting your blog, and engaging with you as well as other readers.

On my blog I have a few loyal readers who comment on every single picture, and it’s well worth a few minutes of my time each week to respond to the things they write. This helps make my commenters feel valued, and builds a sense of community that would not exist otherwise.

Push content to your readers

People rarely go out of their way to visit a blog, so instead you need to find a way to push your new pictures to them. One of the most effective ways of doing this is to ask your readers to sign up for email updates, but you can also use social networks to get the word out about each new post.

Every Wednesday my email subscribers get that week’s photo in their email inbox, but I also publish a link to my blog on Facebook and Twitter, and put that week’s image in my Instagram feed as well. (With the last option people are not directed to my blog, but I still get to engage with them about my pictures.) If you would like to ultimately generate revenue from your blog you might want to focus on ways of pushing content to your readers that, as often as possible, will bring them directly to your site and not to somewhere else that also has your photos.

I woke up the morning this photo was published and found two comments had already been posted at about 2am. This type of engagement is possible because these people subscribed to email updates. If you don’t have a way of pushing content to your readers you will likely not get the same level of engagement as you would otherwise.

Define your success criteria

I teach a Project Management class at Oklahoma State University. One concept we talk about often is how to tell if a project is successful, and the same holds true for your photo blog. At what point will you know that your blog has succeeded in meeting your goals? Will you be happy if you have two comments, and 10 social media shares for each picture you post? Are you looking for a way to generate a specific amount of revenue from your blog? Or is your success criteria more esoteric, such as using your blog for a sense of personal growth and development?

Having a set of clearly-defined success criteria is not necessarily essential for a blog, but it will give you something to shoot for, and a way of knowing whether you have gotten there or not. Whatever your success criteria is, take care to not compare it to anyone else’s. For example one of your photos might get five comments and 10 social media shares, but then you talk to a friend who just had five thousand visitors to his blog. Whose blog is more successful? The answer is…they both are.

Success depends entirely on how you define it, and thankfully the internet is big enough for millions of photo blogs to coexist. Congratulate your friend, and ask to see the photo that was so popular. Don’t make your blog’s success a competition, because and as long as you are happy with how things are going, then that’s the only thing that matters.

This photo had a great deal of personal meaning to me, but it generated very little traffic, and almost no comments. If my success criteria was only quantifiable through numbers I would have been let down, but instead the sheer act of taking this photo, forced me out of my comfort zone, and made me try something new. Because of that I considered this one of my better images, even though raw numbers might say otherwise.

Ignore the numbers

Visitor statistics can be so exciting, but they can also lead you down the path to the blogging dark side. It can be fun to log in to your account dashboard, and see that a recent picture generated 200 visitors, but those numbers don’t mean anything, if they don’t translate to reader engagement. Imagine building a store and getting hundreds of people to come see your wares, but having every one of them leave without making a purchase. Not only would your store be a failure, but you would quite likely be disappointed on a deeply personal level.

As a photo blogger you need to strive for quality over quantity, and look for ways to build a loyal following, not just try to increase raw visitor statistics. You might get a nice feeling seeing one of your photos get hundreds or thousands of views, but what happens when a different (or far better) picture you post gets only a couple dozen views? Visitor traffic is a fickle mistress, and if you pin your blogging hopes and dreams on simply making the numbers go up, you could very well be setting yourself up for a painful failure.

February 2015 was a big month for my blog, but the numbers have gone down dramatically ever since. Since my success criteria is not measured in raw numbers this drop in traffic makes no difference to me, but if numbers are your goal then you could very well end up chasing a white whale that can never be captured.

I used to run a movie and TV review website, and wrote an article about the now-defunct show, “Man versus Food” on The Travel Channel. Somehow the host of the show found out about the article, tweeted it to his followers, and that single article generated more traffic than anything else we had ever posted. The problem was that those visitors did not stick around, and within a few weeks we were back to the same relatively low numbers we always had. At the time I figured blogging success meant getting sky-high traffic numbers, and when those numbers did not pan out I thought we had failed.

When I started my Weekly Fifty photo blog, I took an entirely different route and tried hard to ignore numbers about visitor statistics, and have been much happier as a result. I do my blog because it helps me learn and grow as a photographer, and I get a great deal of personal satisfaction out of it. I appreciate the continual challenge it offers. In short, I’m a happy and successful small-time photo blogger, because I don’t let numbers and statistics define what success means to me.

This is by far the worst photo I have ever posted on my blog and it’s almost painful to look at it now. But early on in my blog, I had no idea what I was doing, and it was only through taking lots of bad pictures that I learned how to make a good image. Though this picture is kind of embarrassing, it served a valuable purpose both on my blog, and for me as a photographer.

Do you have a photo blog, or are you thinking about starting one? I’d love to hear any tips you would like to share, and will try to answer any questions you might have as well. Leave your thoughts in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to engage with you, the dPS readers, so you feel valued and keep coming back to our site.

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[Photography] 2 Quick Ways to Add a Sunflare in Photoshop

Sunflares can make an otherwise dull image, look pretty dramatic. It’s very tricky to get good images of a sunflare in-camera, especially when using natural light only, as the contrast between the light and dark parts of the image is often too great that no amount of Active-D lighting can fix. Thankfully, we have Photoshop and many special effects like sunflares can be magically created, added, or enhanced, using this software’s mind-blowing functionality.

Why add a sunflare?

Special effects, such as a sunflare, ultimately boil down to the photographer’s personal taste. Here are a few reasons why sunflares may be added in post-processing.

• To exaggerate the sun’s rays.
• To enhance contrast and inject drama.
• To hide unwanted clutter.
• To achieve artistic effects, for example if you are aiming for a dreamy and romantic effect, or soft and hazy ambience, such as the image above right.

When not to add a sunflare?

When you discover the magic of Photoshop, you can easily get carried away by the excitement of adding special effects, and there’s the danger that you add it on all your images, even when completely out of context, out of place, or totally unnecessary. I suggest avoiding sunflares when:

• There is no sun at all or any large light source, in the shot.
• When it makes the image look completely fake, when you really mean for it to look natural.

How to add flare in Photoshop

As is the usual case in Photoshop, there are always several methods to do something. This tutorial focuses on two ways of adding a sunflare.

1. Method one: Using the LensFlare filter

Adding a bright sunflare to the image above won’t make much difference to an already washed out sky and part of the building. First of all you would need to create contrast by darkening the image. Copy the image on a new layer using CMD/CNTRL + J, and darken it using a Levels adjustment layer.

Merge the background copy layer with the levels layer, by selecting both layers and typing CMD/CNTRL + E to merge them. Now you have a new darkened layer. Make another copy of the new darkened layer, then work on this new layer with the sunflare.

When you add sunflare, it is automatically added on the layer as part of the image, and not on a new layer by itself. So to be safe, keep a copy of the darkened layer which you don’t touch. Always work on the new copy with the sunflare, so in case you make mistakes or need to reposition your sunflare, then you won’t need make a darkened layer all over again. You can just delete the layer you are working on, and duplicate your untouched dark layer, to start adding a new sunflare.

In Photoshop, bring up the Lens Flare from the top menu bar using the Filter>Render>LensFlare drop down menu.

You can experiment which type of lens flare you want to add, by clicking the circles next to the type of sunflare option, and adjusting the brightness intensity by moving the slider. Click OK when you’re happy with your choice, and the sunflare will be superimposed on your image on the same layer.

Once the sunflare is applied to the image, add a layer mask, and using a soft black brush, remove some of the sunflare from areas you want to protect such as faces (make sure to paint on the mask, not on the layer).

To finish, I added a photo filter on top, to warm up the image. Below is the image before and after the sunflare has been added. It is always a good practice to save the image with sunflare as a new JPG file, and always save your Photoshop file (PSD) with all the layers in tact, in case you need to revisit it again in the future.

2. Method two: Using overlays

The built-in sunflares in Photoshop have very limited choices, as you have seen above. There are far more interesting sunflares of all shapes and colours available, in the form of overlays.

Below is an example of an image with a faint sunflare added in Photoshop, using one of the built-in choices above. I don’t think this is dramatic enough. In this example, I am exaggerating the sunflare by adding a sunflare overlay.

First darken the image with Levels, as in the first method above, using a layer mask to protect areas you don’t want to be darkened. Then apply the overlay on the entire image, as shown below.

Change the layer blend mode to Screen, which makes all the dark areas of the overlay disappear, and you will only be left with the light areas superimposed on your image.

Below is the final JPG image with the new sunflare overlay, with the whole image darkened for more contrast.

Below is another image about to be treated with a sunflare overlay, but this time way more exaggerated than the example above.

The overlay is so strong, as you can see on Layer 1 below, I have applied a levels layer to brighten it a little, and a layer mask to gradually remove some of the overlay from areas I wanted to protect.

Below is the final image with an exaggerated sunflare overlay, that looks like it has been photographed through a warm filter over the lens.

A few things to note when applying special effects

• Be subtle and experiment with the opacity to achieve the desired effect.
• Darken surrounding areas to emphasize flare, especially on a very bright image.
• Mask off special effects from faces, and areas that clearly do not need it. The built-in sunflares in Photoshop have circular flares that appear too perfect and hard-edged. You can always mask some of this away to take the edge off, and soften the flare effect.

I hope you have enjoyed this little tutorial in adding a sunflare special effect in Photoshop. Do you have other tips and ways to add sunflares in post-processing? Please share them in the comments below.

The post 2 Quick Ways to Add a Sunflare in Photoshop by Lily Sawyer appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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