With the introduction of digital photography and image editing software, a floodgate of new possibilities have opened up for creative photographers. Today, photographers who aren’t using image editing software are simply limiting their creative possibilities and missing out on a wealth of option to get ahead in the highly competitive marketplace. Using software for image enhancement is as important as using a good camera and lens. One of the many excellent image editing programs is Adobe’s Photoshop. That’s the program I’m using and it’s the basis of this tutorial. Similar functions can be found in most other image editing programs.

Photoshop have become the modern day darkroom — but without the chemicals and long waiting times associated with the classical darkrooms. You can choose to do small image enhancements or to apply special effects that will alter the image completely, all in a matter of seconds. It is up to you how much you want to change, but being a photojournalist and documentary photographer myself, I feel it’s my duty to remain true to my photographic subjects. So what I mostly do is the small, but powerful enhancements with the methods mentioned here. For the beginner I’ll advice to use these effects sparingly. Don’t overdo it. Often, less is more. And always use a copy of the original camera file to work on. If you later regret your changes, it’s not always possible to undo them, so always keep your original photo separate.

With that out of the way, here’s the three Photoshop tools I use all the time:

Curves (On main menu, select Image > Adjustments > Curves)

Sets the contrast and tonal range of your image. While there are other, easier options for changing the contrast, this one is by far the most powerful option. It can be a little tricky to get the hang of in the beginning, but it’s worth the effort learning. Simply click anywhere on the curve and drag it up or down. You can set almost as many points as you like, but usually 1 to 3 points is enough. What it does is it makes the dark, midtones and highlights either darker or lighter. Usually you’ll want to make sure that the darkest part of your image is black and the lightest parts are white. This will make your image ‘pop out’ and appear ‘strong’, sharp and rich in colour. It is also useful for enhancing the tonal details. The more steep you make the curve, the richer details you’ll get. If your photo already fills out the tonal range from black to white, it’s not possible to enhance, say, the shadow details without pushing the lighter areas into complete white. This is typical for a photo taken in mid-day sunshine with harsh shadows. But if you have a more tonal flat photo, where there’s not big difference between the darkest and lightest areas, typical for the kind of photo you take on an overcast or even misty day, you can produce great tonal details across the photo.

Unsharpen Mask (On main menu, select Filter > Sharpen > Unsharpen Mask)

This simple little tool with the confusing name is a must for digital photography. It’s used to make the image appear sharp in the final process of your editing. It’s not a magic tool to make fuzzy pictures sharper than ever, just to give that final touch of sharpness. Some camera’s apply an unsharpen mask to the pictures automatically, before they leave the camera. This makes it easy, but for the best image quality try and turn it off on your camera, instead sharpening manually in Photoshop. Only use it in the very end of your editing process, especially after you have resized your image for putting it online or printing it out. There’s 3 settings in this tool, typically you’d want to use a Radius of 0.5 to 1 pixel, an Amount of 50 to 100% and a Threshold of 0. Use it as little as needed, since it has a side effect of adding a bit of noise to your image.

Saturation (On main menu, select Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation)

With the saturation slider, you can change the strength of your colours. A simple way to turn a colour photo into a black-and-white photo is to set the saturation to zero. There’s other and better ways to do that, that I will expand on in another article. To enhance the colour, bump it up to 120% or so. Again, don’t overdo it. Sometimes, more subdued colours can give a really nice, moody look to your photos. One of my favourite small tricks: Try combining de-saturated colours, say -70%, with an extremely strong contrast (set with curves). It gives a really nice, slightly metallic look. Try it out! In Photoshop, it’s most easily done with adjustment layers, since you can fine-tune your adjustments again and again until you have exactly the effect you want.

The difference between a wide angle lens and a telephoto lens is about more than just magnification. To get the most out of your lenses, you also need to understand how they affect depth of field and perspective.

You already know that the telephoto lens enlarges everything in the picture. But did you also know that when you zoom in, or attach your large telephoto lens, you also reduce the depth of field around the subject? This is a great method for eliminating a distracting background from your photo. The result is twofold: the narrow field of view minimizes how much of the background we can see, and the small depth of field ensures it will be completely out of focus.

So when photographing subjects like people and animals, using your telephoto lens (or zooming in with your zoom lens) is often the best approach. The result will be a very three dimensional effect, with the subject appearing to emerge sharp and clear from the blurry background.

On the other hand, your wide-angle lens does just the opposite. It certainly does a lot more than just make everything appear smaller. The wide angle lens takes in (as the name suggests) a much wider angle of view, and it has a much stronger depth of field than a standard or telephoto lens. That means that not only will you see a lot more of the background in your photo, but it will also be much more focused.

Consequently the wide-angle lens is not so good for portrait style photos, because the background is too distracting. On the other hand, it is excellent for landscape pictures, especially when you have objects both in the foreground and background that you need to keep in focus.

The other aspect of your choice of lens is perspective, which is a lot harder to explain without pictures, but I will give it a go.

Have you ever watched a cricket match on television? (If you are from the United States substitute baseball here). You will often see a close-up of the batsman, and notice that the wicket-keeper (shortstop) appears to be standing only a few feet behind him, and that the crowd in the grandstand seems only a short distance further away. When you see a side-on view, you may be surprised to see that the wicket-keeper is standing about ten meters behind the batsman, and of course we know that the grandstand is a good 60 meters or so further back. So what’s going on?

The answer is simple. The very large telephoto lens used for the close-up shot tends to make objects at different distances seem much closer to each other than they really are. In short, it compresses the natural perspective, making people separated by some distance appear to be quite close to each other.

This principle also applies to landscape photography. Imagine a scene with a tree in the foreground and a mountain range in the distance. By standing a long way from the tree and shooting it with a telephoto lens, you will also enlarge the mountains in the background. As a result, they will appear much closer to the tree than they really are.

Now imagine taking the same scene with a wide-angle lens. By standing a lot closer to the tree, you can photograph it in such a way that it takes up the same amount of space in the composition. However, by reducing the scene to fit the tree in the frame, you also reduce the background…making it appear much further away than it really is.

In this way, the wide-angle lens does the opposite of the telephoto lens. It exaggerates the perspective, making objects at different distances appear much further apart than they really are.

Put simply, the end result of these two approaches is this; the telephoto lens adds prominence to the background, which will appear relatively large in your photos (albeit with depth of field issues in some cases). The wide-angle lens adds prominence to the foreground, making the background appear much smaller and more distant.

Thus by simply changing your choice of lenses, you can dramatically alter the impact of your photos. Imagine the creative possibilities; you have the power to control how the viewer sees not only your subject, but how it relates to the surroundings at the same time.

This is a tough subject to explain without pictures, but hey – you have a digital camera. Why not step outside right now and try out a few of these ideas. Or if you are feeling lazy, sit down and watch some sport on telly. It may actually teach you something about photography.

With all the great photographers out there why wouldn’t dancers use photographs to show the dance world what they are up to? If a dancer or troupe is advertising a show or workshop and I can’t go, I usually look forward to photographs of the event. There is a statement that is made to each and every person looking at your website.  Photographs bring this statement right into a dancer’s home.  So this means it is so important to invest in a photographer for shows and events. As the years pass on you’ll have a wonderful archive of photographs and even videos of all your hard earned creative efforts.

Find a photographer that understands dance and can photograph motion or poses well. Also a photographer needs to be honest with you. If you choose a bad color for your costume or pose than he or she needs to tell you.  There are certain colors that photograph better out in direct sunlight versus colors in a lighted room.  There are certain times in a day that are better to be photographed in if you choose to shoot outdoors.  Make sure you are aware of the right kind of make up for outdoors. The bottom line is a good photographer will talk with you before the photo shoot and help you decide what is best for you.

Let’s talk about themes.  A few years ago my husband made a suggestion that I impersonate a famous person that I admire for my next photo shoot.   Well of course you know who came to mind, Cleopatra. There’s a little bit of her in all of us. The photographs were done by a photography business called Ten/100.  I had decided I wanted to be a modern day Cleopatra.   The end result was timeless. I could have been from Ancient Egypt or a sexy vixen of today.  Fortunately the photographer understood what I was trying to recreate and he also understood my personality. It is so important when you work with a photographer that you feel very comfortable with them.
 
The Cleopatra theme worked and was the beginning of my amazing journey in photography.  Since each year can be any theme that you want, make sure that you create a unique experience for each photo shoot.  So for my next adventure I decided to become King Tutankhamen’s wife, Ankhesenamun.  The movie “The Mummy” inspired this idea and an amazing photographer, Pat Berrett made my dream come alive.  I was body painted by Pam Trent exactly like Ankhesenamun was in the movie. Pam did an amazing job and by the time she was done I felt like a Queen.  We went out to a desert oasis thirty minutes out of town and Pat photographed me in that amazing late afternoon light just before dusk.  I stood upon these amazing sand dunes with this bronze body paint all over me and the details of Egyptian hieroglyphs.   Those are my most favorite photographs to date. Pat believes that each photo shoot is just like a performance.  Everything should be talked through days before including your costume, make up, poses and the elements if it is outdoors.  If this is done than your photo shoot will make you feel like you just received a standing ovation!

So let’s talk about posing versus non posing.  I think the one reason why more dancers don’t update their photographs isn’t just the money but they don’t know how to pose or what to do once they are in front of a camera.  It’s easy to freeze and even harder to figure out what to do with your arms and legs. So one thing that Pat Berrett does, is he usually will suggest music so that the dancer feels more in her element. 
If you want photographs that depict the theater or stage atmosphere, than arrange to be photographed during a performance.  This will be a good chance for the photographer to use the lighting that is already there.
These are my favorite photographs because I don’t have to worry about posing.  And these kinds of photographs usually will depict the spirit of the moment.  Besides that, you can’t beat being on stage!
Dancers can pose all they want in front of a mirror but I think what will create a wonderful pose is the interaction between the photographer and dancer.  The photograph you create will represent you to the dance world and your audience. So make sure it is as unique as possible, which means bring out the actress in you and work with your photographer to make your photographs timeless.

All of this brings one question to my mind. Why do dancers use photographs from 10 to 20 years ago?  Your photographs need to tell the truth about who you are. I feel sexier and better than ever.  So I don’t want to look younger than what I am.  And as you can imagine if I get work out of State or abroad, than I better look like my photograph.  As performers it is our job to stay in shape and look our best. There are many ways to photograph yourself to hide whatever you don’t want to show.  Find a photographer that understands your concerns and problem areas.  The one thing I love about Pat Berrett is that he makes me feel like I’m the best thing since sliced bread.  He understands that I am selling myself as a professional belly dancer. And that isn’t always easy.  So one important issue that a photographer must understand is that you are trying to define your own unique style. I am a very different dancer now than I was 20 years ago. My photographs from back then show my inexperience. I have a relaxed and secure look to me now.  When people look at my photographs I want them to see a professional dancer with years of experience under her belt.   Decide with your photographer what image you want people to see when they view your photographs. 

Your photographs are a story board that represents your career.  They are also a way of making money. They are intellectual property and you can use your own image to make you money.  I will have 4X6 photographs made and give them away to customers and fans at the restaurant that I dance at. Usually people will come up and ask me to autograph them. When I autograph my photos, people usually want my business card.  Not only do they have my card but a memory of me signing my own photograph. So when they are thinking of hiring a dancer down the line, they will remember me. You have to figure a way to build up your image.  What better way than with photographs.   

So let’s talk about costume colors and sizes for photographs.
Years ago I had a favorite costume that had a bra that could fit ten of my breasts in each bra cup. At the time I was a very small B.  So as you can imagine people would do a double take when I was on stage dancing with my stuffed bra and when I was walking out greeting everyone in my cocktail dress. Ok, it was dumb on my part but I really liked the costume.  The photographer who took my photos in that costume said nothing to me.  When you are deciding on a costume for your photos, make sure it fits you and is the right color for either indoors or outdoors. My costume was bright pink and looked terrible in outside light.  But get me on stage and it looked dynamite. So the few photos that I still have of that costume are of me on stage but with my bra cut down to fit my size. I realized shocking people wasn’t part of the image I wanted to portray. But I realized this only after seeing the awful photographs of me outside.
I learned a lot with that photographer.  The most important lesson was choosing the right costume for outdoors and secondly making sure my costume fit appropriately.  And just to let you know, with the amount of make up I had on…Frankenstein’s bride had nothing on me!
The unfortunate thing here is that the photographer didn’t communicate with me at all and I didn’t know enough at the time to talk with him in advance. Talk with your photographer and show him or her your costumes and props ahead of time. Decide together on how you will wear your make up for your themed idea.  It’s a lot of fun and the result can be pretty amazing.

Today I am able to create themes that I have been dreaming about for years and I can look the part with confidence. I know enough to be able to ask the right questions to make sure I get the best possible shots. But most importantly I work with a great photographer who takes the time to talk with me and we discuss together what we want to do. It’s a partnership that when it works is pure magic.

Cyanotypes were discovered in 1842 by English chemist, astronomer, and photographer Sir John Herschel. Herschel was the renowned scientist who told William Talbot and Louis Daguerre, founders of the negative/positive photographic process and daguerreotypes, of his discovery that hyposulphite of soda could be used as a photo fixing agent. British botanist Anna Atkins, however, is given credit to bringing the cyanotype process into photography. Anna is considered by many to be the first female photographer, as she was the first to publish a book exclusively with photographic illustrations.

The Cyanotype process is where potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate are mixed and applied to the surface, usually paper. The paper dries in darkness. An object or negative is then placed onto the paper and is exposed to the sun or other ultraviolet light. The amount of iron on the paper will reduce and the paper will turn a blueish grey. Depending on the amount of sunlight, this could take as little as a couple of minutes to hours. After exposure the unreacted iron is washed off with water. Please learn the full cyanotype process and how to use the chemicals properly before trying this on your own.

Cyanotypes are fairly long-lasting, as some of Sir John Herschel’s originals from the 1840s are still clear. More modern forms were developed in time using different mixes of chemicals, but the process remains basically the same. The cyanotype process was popularly used in copying architectural plans but was made obsolete (fairly recently) by computer printers and photocopying. Cyanotypes remain to this day one of the most beautiful and unique processes in early photographic history.

The explanation of how auto focusing works is actually tied to a concept that is getting more exposure in newer digital cameras: the histogram of pixel intensities for a given digital image. You can view this histogram on your LCD screen after you have captured an image. What it shows is a graphical display of the number of pixels that have recorded a given brightness value in the image.

Basically the graphical display is a series of thin vertical bars stacked side by side. On the leftmost side of the display is the bar showing the number of pixels that recorded a dark value (no light was captured by these pixels), while on the very right of the display is the bar showing the number of pixels that recorded the brightest possible value. As you move from left to right, the intensity associated with the pixels increases, and the height of the bar indicates the number of pixels which recorded that intensity.

So what use is viewing a histogram?

Well, if an image is excessively underexposed, virtually all the pixels will be dark and the vertical bars in the histogram will all be pushed to the left. Alternatively, a histogram with all the bars pushed to the right suggests that most of the pixels recorded a high light intensity and therefore the image is probably over exposed. Most properly-exposed images show a distribution of pixel light intensities that are crowded toward the middle of the histogram.

There are exceptions to this rule. For example, if you shoot a picture of a model silhouetted against a bright window, most of your pixels will either be on the underexposed model, or on the overexposed background provided by the window pane. The histogram will therefore show a sizable number of bars at both the left and right of the histogram, and nothing much in its center.

For regular photographic scenes, however, the histogram offers a great way to size up the overall exposure of the image in a non subjective way. Moreover, the histogram provides a quantified measure of image exposure that the brains of the digital camera can use to understand what it is that it is looking at.

This insight into the nature of light intensity histograms is the key to understanding how auto focusing works.

Some of the newest high-end digital SLR models feature over fifty separate auto focusing areas in the metered image. This means that most of the image can be metered before a final focusing length is selected for the shot. For purposes of this article we need only consider how one of these auto focusing, or AF, elements does its job.

The metered area of a single AF element might represent only one percent of the overall image, but it nonetheless represents a tiny digital image in itself and it has its own little histogram associated with it. So how might looking at a histogram tell us whether or not the image it represents is focused or not?

To make the explanation as simple as possible, let’s suppose the AF element contains a dark insect, a fly, hanging in the air far from the background elements behind it which have merged into a light blurred backdrop. When the fly is in focus, the contrast between the fly and its background is very distinct. There are dark pixels (the fly) and light pixels (the background). Sound familiar? The histogram would have peaks in the lower and upper parts of its intensity distribution, similar to the silhouetted model standing in front of the window pane.

Now consider what happens as the AF element containing the fly is defocused. The image grows increasingly less distinct as the fly blurs into a grey smear that now diffuses throughout the entire element. The corresponding histogram shifts from a bimodal distribution to a much more uniform one as the peaks spread out toward the center of the histogram.

This is how the camera can quantify the degree of sharpness, or contrast, in any given image element. Auto focusing works by optimizing the histogram for non uniformity in the distribution, which it assumes defines the best focusing.

In practice the method works fairly well. But there are situations in which the surveyed scene does not lend itself well to accurate auto focusing.

For example, poorly-lit scenes offer low contrast, and therefore make the point of sharp focus hard to define. Other times, if multiple AF elements are being used to select the best focus, the background might provide the most contrast in the image and the object you are hoping will be targeted for focusing is actually ignored because its contribution to the auto focusing argument is outweighed by the contributions due to the background.

If you were trying to focus on a hummingbird that hung a few feet in front of a tree you might be surprised when the bird blurred into a non distinct spot and the leaves of the tree rendered perfectly sharp – the precise opposite of what you had hoped would happen. In cases like this you need to switch off the multiply metered AF elements and use a single AF element to monitor just the object you are intending to focus upon. You might use just the center AF element in a case like this.

Auto focusing is an extremely useful element of modern photography, virtually indispensable to practitioners of sports and wildlife photography. But it also proves handy in a wide range of everyday photographic situations, since the world around us is rarely ever at rest. So learn to appreciate the auto focusing mechanism in your camera, understand its strengths and limitations, and in the long run this will help you to increase the quality of your photographic portfolio.

To help you select a suitable digital camera to get started with, I have put together an article for you about how to find the right Beginner Digital Camera.

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