ArchivesQ&As

October 2022 Q&A

In this session we covered:

  • How to edit the eyes of senior dogs when they’re cloudy?
  • How to train the “wolf stalk” trick?
  • Is it worth upgrading my camera?
  • Questions about noise/ISO/low light conditions, and also about detail on close up vs. further away photos.
  • How to create a silhouette photo in front of car headlights? 

Did I forget something? Let me know in the comments.

September 2022 Q&A

In this session we cover:

  • working with white dogs in PS
  • white balance in interesting lighting conditions with white dogs
  • eye pieces for your view-finder
  • camera settings, when to expose for highlights, how to quickly choose camera settings when you don’t want your model sitting around, full manual mode vs. aperture priority mode
  • contracts and legal obligations when setting up a photography business

Did I forget something? Please let me know! [email protected]

May 2022 Q&A

For some reason, I didn’t write down what we covered in this Q&A session, so if you’re watching it, feel free to put the questions in the comments & I’ll add them to the lesson description so people can find it easier

April 2022 Q&A

In this Q&A We discussed:

  • how to fix the crop in an image with lots of straight lines that weren’t lining up (read my notes below)
  • camera and lens recommendations for beginners and to make sure you’re ready for the future
  • favourite places to do landscape photos
  • when to do panoramas/adding extra space above or to the side in landscapes
  • creating a fake sun with radial gradients in Photoshop
  • removing a hazy piece of grass from in front of a dog in Lightroom/ACR and Photoshop
  • what to do with flat/grey skies in landscapes

A note about the perspective/crop problem:
It wasn’t until after the session, when I could gather my thoughts a bit, that Ana and I went into Photoshop and solved the straight lines issue. It was all a matter of perspective. 
In the end, in Photoshop, I went to Edit > Perspective Warp, and pulled two of the corners. You can achieve  similar effect in Lightroom and scrolling to the “Transform” section, but in my opinion, the Perspective Warp tool is much more effective.

January Q&A

Chat transcript:

19:42:56 From jforbes : Hello Everyone!
19:43:07 From Teresa : hey Jamie!
19:45:46 From jforbes : Hmm, ok, very interesting. Thank you
19:46:05 From jforbes : Hi Teresa!
19:54:26 From jforbes : Back to the printing subject, to prepare your photo, do you just add a brightness /contrast layer and adjust as needed?
19:55:06 From Teresa : I had this problem with my old canon before setting up the backbutton focus
19:56:07 From Alessia Monaco : can be the tracking sensitivity setting?
19:57:51 From Teresa : yeah it was a focus problem
20:00:35 From jforbes : I export from PS and don’t take my photos back into LR. Ok that is helpful. Ahhh… that sounded very complicated…LOL
20:00:45 From jforbes : yes
20:00:54 From jforbes : I work in LR
20:01:22 From Alessia Monaco : i do the same
20:01:33 From jforbes : I don’t feel like my process is very refined and need to work on my flow.
20:02:14 From Teresa : I also used to export from PS but Lightroom is sooo much faster and way less annoying haha
20:02:30 From jforbes : That’s what I learned first prior to joining the community and have just stuck with it
20:02:49 From jforbes : Yes, hard to change
20:04:04 From Teresa : you can do it Jamie 💪
20:04:13 From Teresa : gonna save you sooo much time
20:04:17 From Alessia Monaco : do you use soft proofing to simulate the paper result or you prefer have a sample printed in front of you and use it to understand how to modify contrast/color on the other photos?
20:05:08 From Teresa : https://inspawrationphotography.com/courses/lightroom-basics/lessons/colour-casts/
20:05:13 From Alessia Monaco : I’m not sure i’m understandable 😅 the question is in my mind and I can’t expose it 😅
20:05:30 From Teresa : https://inspawrationphotography.com/courses/photoshop-course/lessons/remove-colour-cast/
20:05:36 From jforbes : Ahaha! Teresa, I was sooo overwhelmed in the beginning, even just getting a photo to PS was difficult. I am past that now, so maybe my mind is open to more learning….maybe!
20:06:03 From Teresa : https://inspawrationphotography.com/courses/photoshop-course/lessons/adjusting-colour/topic/colour-balance/
20:07:45 From Teresa : oh yeah I know the feeling Jamie, but after all it’s all a learning process,right? 😊
20:08:47 From Alessia Monaco : thanks ☺️
20:08:51 From Eva-Maria Koberger : I have a question about composition. Not sure if it fits in here. If you take photos of two or more dogs would you recommend the same things like for taking a photo of one dog or are the more things to think about? Like how would you put them in the Scene (landscape kind of pic)? In line in the middle or on one side of the frame?
20:13:07 From Teresa To Emily Abrahams(privately) : the boyband photos!
20:15:06 From Eva-Maria Koberger : Yes it helped a lot
20:16:03 From Teresa : if you have a small and a big dog it’s also possible to kinda frame the small one with the big dog – if that makes sense
20:16:51 From Teresa : sooooooo cute 😍😍😍
20:17:08 From Eva-Maria Koberger : Haven’t thought about size problems yet. @Teresa yes it makes sense thanks!!
20:18:20 From Alessia Monaco : It’s ok back to basics ☺️
20:19:15 From Eva-Maria Koberger : mine has struggles with low light, low shutter Don’t know why
20:19:43 From Teresa To Emily Abrahams(privately) : naaaw no he’s looking for you cos he heard his name 😭❤️
20:22:01 From jforbes : My challenge right now is WB.
20:22:27 From Alessia Monaco : January is too cold to take pictures 🥲
20:22:55 From jforbes : Yes!!! That muscle is very atrophied right now
20:23:29 From jforbes : no
20:23:35 From Eva-Maria Koberger : No
20:23:36 From Alessia Monaco : not yet
20:23:37 From Emily Abrahams : https://www.xrite.com/hue-test
20:24:05 From Teresa : yes it’s in english
20:24:11 From Teresa : 😂😂😂
20:24:21 From Teresa : cos you need to learn german 🤷‍♀️
20:24:35 From Alessia Monaco : omg amazing
20:26:08 From Alessia Monaco : zero!
20:27:31 From Eva-Maria Koberger : mine is 10
20:27:31 From Katarina Frankova : zero 🙂
20:27:47 From Teresa : 0!!
20:27:52 From jforbes : 6
20:29:03 From jforbes : I was working on one of those backlight photos of Oakley. Put two phots together and did some close stamping and realized it was sooo cool! I really sometimes don’t realized until I get further in the edit
20:29:37 From jforbes : Yea, but then I have to start over! LOL
20:30:09 From jforbes : Well after putting two photos together on flat layers
20:31:43 From jforbes : Yea, it was after clone stamping
20:32:06 From Alessia Monaco : I have to go, thank you so much ☺️
20:35:11 From jforbes : Ok, I will have to play with it. Thank you!
20:36:50 From Teresa : maybe someone is frantically typing 😂🤷‍♀️
20:38:44 From jforbes : Thank you, bye everyone
20:38:45 From Eva-Maria Koberger : Thank you!! Have a nice evening!

December Q&A: Editing People & Pets

For this Q&A, since I’d had no questions submitted and someone mentioned on Inspawration Connect wanting to see how to edit people, I did a tutorial, working through my process of editing one of my recent clients and her old boy Dusty.

In this edit I also do a head-swap to change Dusty’s head.

Everyone was pretty quiet on the chat so there weren’t a lot of questions. Feel free to ask more in the comments below.