Well, first. Thanks for stopping by!
Pictoot was born out of the idea that finding new and creative things to do with photography was a constant cycle of searching blogs, digg, delicious, flickr etc etc looking for tips and techniques.
We scour the web looking for new and interesting tutorials and post links to them here.
Via Tip Nut: DIY Photography Link Roundup
DIY Lightbox for product photography
DIY Ghetto Gel Light
How To: DIY $10 Macro Photo Studio
DIY Foam Flash Bouncer
Photocritic DIY Archive
Studio Lighting - Really cheap homemade diy studio - no lighting needed
DIY eBay Photo Studio - $0
How to Make A Inexpensive Light Tent
DIY Photobooth
DIY Softbox
Muslin Photography Background
Use this guide to calibrate your monitor to ensure you are adjusting your photos correctly.
What is Screen Check?We want you to see images on your screen as what we see on our screen.There are two things to consider in screen check: tone and color.
Tara Mackay over on the Design Sessions blog has a great review of the book “Digital Photography in Available Light” by Mark Galer.
Overall, I was immediately taken by the sheer number of inspiring photographs from various photographers that appear throughout this book, including author Mark Galer. How-to books usually tend to go with a single writer/designer/photographer’s view on a topic, and here it’s fulfilling to get more perspectives.
So you think you want to become a wedding photographer? — the perfectly Pearl blog has some good questions you should be prepared to answer. Here is a sample, go to the site for comments on these questions.
Q: How many weddings has my photographer photographed in the past year? Month?
Q: Where did my photographer learn to shoot weddings?
Q: How many pictures will my photographer take on my wedding day and what is his/her philosophy regarding this number?
Things You Should Ask Wedding Photographers « Perfectly Pearl
Lifehacker has a great walkthrough of Picasa, the photo management software from Google.
Anyone with a digital camera knows it doesn’t take much to wind up with a hard drive littered with thousands of files named things like IMG_1892.jpg. In my quest to organize all the stuff that’s accumulated on my hard drive, I knew that sooner or later, my little digital photo problem would rear its ugly head. By “little”, I mean out of control, and by “problem”, I mean looming catastrophe. What’s a girl with literally thousands of pics to organize on her ‘puter to do? Enter Google’s free desktop software, Picasa, which is basically the Walker Texas Ranger of photo organization packages.
It’s useful to know a little about the inverse square law especially when using flash or studio lights. Basically all the inverse square law says is that an object that is twice the distance from a point source of light will receive a quarter of the illumination. So what it means to us photographers is that if you move your subject from 3 metres away to six metres away, you will need four times the amount of light for the same exposure. This can most easily be achieved by opening the lens aperture two f-stops (see aperture for an explanation) or using a flashgun that is four times as powerful.
Here is an AskMetafilter thread with some advice on how to instruct models to pose.
Where can I find some good resources about modelling and directing models, for photographers?I’m a self taught photographer, and have just landed myself a few shoots with a local street wear company, although I’ve realised one thing… I have no idea how to tell the models what I want, or actually I don’t even know what would be a good pose for them to do.
http://homepage.mac.com/clayenos/iMovieTheater.html
A quick little iMovie of street scenes in NYC — good portrait inspiration in here.
As any beginner in photography will contest to, learning how to use a manual camera can be downright frustrating and time consuming. Not only that, it can drain your pockets of your hard earned money, having to develop roll after roll of film, most of which turns out to be either under or over-exposed. Now, Shutter Bee is here to the rescue. Shutter Bee teaches you the fundamentals of how to use a manual camera. There’s no film to buy, no film to process, no hours to wait to see the final results. It’s instant and fun. Just read the basic instructions below, or skip the instructions and start taking pictures right away. The best method of learning is often by trial and error, which is what Shutter Bee is all about.
Once upon a time it seems just about everyone used a tripod. Certainly, if you were a serious photographer you wouldn’t be seen dead without a good tripod.
So what’s happened? My admittedly limited observations suggest use of the tripod has diminished considerably, at least amongst amateur photographers. Why? I don’t know, but suspect it has something to do with photography being so easy these days. Autofocus, auto exposure etc. have all made the production of acceptable pictures such a quick and easy event that I believe many are lulled into a false sense of photo-quality security
One very popular misconception is, “the lighter the camera you have, the lighter the tripod you need”. Whilst one would obviously not use a lightweight tripod designed only to support a 35mm camera for a 4×5 view camera, remember that a heavy tripod is inherently more stable due to its sheer weight alone, so any camera will tend to be more stable on a big, heavy tripod than a small, light one. Tripod design also plays a large part in overall stability, regardless of the weight of camera supported, within reason. I have seen many “heavier” tripods which were less stable than some “lighter” ones, even from the same maker. So, what do you look for when buying a tripod?
