Gallery Software

I searched the Internet for so long to find how to create the perfect photography website. It is generally a hard process, you want the photos to be displayed with quality that will help the viewer want to buy them. However the images themselves must not take to long to load as this will prevent the users from staying and looking in the first place.

The Internet is a great place to find code and Google now even has is own code search which could help you to find out how to do it. Thumbnails with a java roll over or click function will do the job very nicely, but is a little fiddly. Plus the fact that if you are not so used to a computer programming you want to be spending your time selling and taking photographs not learning strange computer languages.

I finally came across a neat solution which cost a few pounds but helped no end. Its a Flash pluggin called Slideshow Pro. Once you have installed it there are a vast amount of options which help you create a gallery which suits your needs and website. For example it has the ability to change all of the colours to whatever you want them to be. All the options are placed in a simple to use menu which is point and click.

The photos themselves are fed to the gallery via an XML file, however this is nothing to be scared of a simple to follow manual is provided with the software and a new gallery can be set up in minutes of purchase.

One of my efforts can be seen here. I really recommend this product its easy to use and gives great results. You probably could do this yourself but to be honest why bother, its all there for you.

Anthony

Good Old Jack

Photoshop Tip #2

Photos always look great as a mono shot, however with most D-SLR cameras there is no mono mode. So here are 3 great ways to change colour photographs to moody mono.

1. Grayscale
Simple and Easy goto the following menu. Image -> Mode -> Grayscale

2. Desaturate
This can be done in two ways
A. The shortcut = ctrl+shift+U
B. The Menu = Image -> Adustments -> Desaturate

3. The 3rd and best way if you have Photoshop CS is to use the Channel Mixer.
The Video below shows how this can be done, it gives you control on all the colours and how much each colour will change. Image -> Adustments -> Channel Mixer. Then tick the monochrome box. Then use the sliders on each of the colours.

Earth from Above

I was recently brought a great book called the Earth from Above by the photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. http://www.yannarthusbertrand.com/v2/yab_us.htm. You may have seen some of his work but not known it was by him. I am sure that it has been on display in many public areas including outside the Natural History Museum in London, England. The book shows off his work of the world taken from a helicopter. He manages to capture many places that many of us would not be able to reach and in doing so creates a feeling of insignificance compared to the world.

The book is divided into areas of the world and each photograph has its own small synopsis of where it was taken and how the final image was taken. Its available in pretty much all bookshops I would imagine, and would make a great present to anyone that is interested in the world, photography or both.

Anthony

Has the world forgotten about winter?

Its November and I was walking around as if it were a sunny autum day, there was not a cloud in the sky. The colors were simply magnificent, bright blue skies and lovely oranges and reds.

Anthony

How to make thumbnails for web sites.

I Have been using a simple piece of software for some time now. Its made by a company called fookes and can be found at the following address: http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/ . This will enable you to resize images both in terms of megabytes to kilobytes and in terms of mesurement. This will reduce the loading time of your website and increase the chance that your visitors stay.

Another good reason for not placeing the original image on your website is so that people can not use your perfect image and enlarge them. The smaller image will simply lose its quality when used for anything else than being viewed on your website.

Its freeware so you can use it right now, give it and see what you think.

Anthony

For Forks Sake

Photoshop Tip #1

Thought that I would go for something quick an easy for the first Photoshop tip. This will allow a very quick way to boost the colour in your images and the also add a little saturation as well.

1. Open the image in Photoshop.
2. In the layers panel drag the background layer down to the new layer icon. This will give you a duplicate background layer.


3. Make sure that the new layer is selected and choose the following option. Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur.
4. When the window pops up give a value of somewhere between 2 and 4. You can play with this yourself for best results.


5. Back in the layers window where the drop down box currently displays "Normal" change this to say "Color".


6. Now click on the black and white circle and the bottom of the layers window. Choose a Hue/Saturation layer. Now you can slide the saturation handle to the desired position. If you have the preview tick box selected you will be able to display the changes as they happen.
   

Hope you enjoy playing with this one.

Anthony

Welcome to Anthony Lewis Photography

Welcome to Anthony Lewis Photography!

Hopefully this will become a diary of events that have happened to me, and my website www.anthonylewisphotography.co.uk. I have been an ameture photographer now for 5 years and during that time have learnt many techniques and skills with both a 35mm and now a digital SLR. Both of which have there own advantages and disadvantages.

And that poses the first question that i would like to address. Which one do people prefere and why. My own opinon is that I have learnt more during my time with the D-SLR, the ability to see what you are producing at the time of capture is a great asset. This then allows you to change an f-stop up or down or the expoure time to create the perfect image.

However the more traditional 35mm camera gives you a better quality final image than the D-SLR my own D-SLR is a 6.1 mp camera which although gives a sharp image I am sure some enlargements lose some of this quality. Also the contrast using film is by far superior I know this can be changed with software such as Photoshop but is this real to the tradition of photography.

Software such as Photoshop is a art form of its own, its advanced techniques are for the more computer minded however once they are learnt they can produce some exquiset images which may for example on a cloudy day be simply wasted time and money with a 35mm.

The pros and cons are there for all to discuss, I think the argument will reign on for a long time. D-SLR's are growing popularity as time goes by and therefore the price will drop. What are your views on this.

Anthony