It's been awhile. BlotchyBaby, BabyFace, and Christmas card tips

I have been slaving away with holiday commitments, sick children, house-cleaning, and learning my new lens. Since the last time I posted, I have become comfortable with Back button focus, which I am really loving for photographing moving toddlers, I am also toggling my focus points like a mad woman. The 50 mm 1.8 lens is FANTASTIC, but it doesn't suffer fools. If you aren't great at focusing, it will obliterate you. This lens is great in low light, but if you are a strict "hold down the shutter and pray" kind of focuser, you will miss often. I have been toggling between my focus points and lining up the selected point right between the eyes.

I am taking some Christmas card pictures and I hope to post back what I have done on Thursday. The rule of thumb is 1 fstop for every person, but I am shooting much closer to wide-open to nail some bokeh. If you are worried about having some subjects out of focus(and you should be) focus on each subject a few times. If necessary you can face swap later.

I will be launching Babyface this week. It will be ridiculously cheap compared to action packs you have seen that accomplish the same thing. Mine will also come with tutorials. I will be working toward getting the shopping cart up and running. Once that is set, Babyface will be available for instant download.

Until next time, shoot a lot of Christmas images and share them with us!

Just ordered a new lens

I am cheap. And now that I stay home with the kids, I am super cheap (not when it comes to buying takeout and weekly toys for the kids--those are needs right?) --when it comes to buying something for myself. I finally just bit my lip and ordered myself a f1.8 lens. I NEEDED it.

A random person might ask, "Well Amanda, 'Need' is a strong word don't you think?"

To this I say "Nope." I just ponied out 600 bucks on a camera. I have two small children that move faster than the speed of light, and speaking of light, we are moving into the Winter months in the U/P. which means light is non-existent.

So to take a decent picture of my wiggly little munchkins in December, I need to use a very fast shutter-speed. Something like 1/125 will do in a pinch, but I prefer 1/250. If I use a shutter-speed like that indoors in natural light, my image will come out black--No joke black. There is not enough light to properly or even poorly expose the photograph. The reason this happens is that my kit lens will not open up to a wide enough aperture (3.5) to allow enough light in. So to get some decent images out of my camera, I NEED this lens. A much bigger aperture of 1.8 should give me just what I need. I will post some pictures soon.

Some of you clever, clever folks are thinking 'Wait a minute, there is another way to allow your images proper exposure at a higher shutter speed." Well my dear friends you are right, that would be the ISO setting. A higher ISO would help me get a more properly exposed image, BUT if you were paying attention earlier, you would remember that my SLR is cheap. That means less performance at High ISO's. This gives images a grainy appearance. In my camera's case, noise reduction software only takes you so far. It's not a bad camera, it's just not a $3,000 camera. I think we will get along just fine once I get the new lens.

You could also say, "Amanda, why not buy a speedlight?"

"HEEEEELLLLLOOO, I am cheap remember?"

To Summarize:
1.Amanda is cheap with a cheap camera ;)-Sorry I like using my name so much. Staying home with two kids means I don't hear it very often.
2. You need a faster shutter-speed when photographing children, but this means less light to properly expose your images.
3. You can compensate for your faster shutter speed by turning up your ISO or setting your aperture to a lower number (Lower number means bigger opening. Bigger opening means more light enters the lens). Ideally, you don't want to crank your ISO all the way up. Some combination of ISO increase and Aperture decrease is usually best.

I would love to see some of your images post them below!

What to talk about today....hmmmm. I guess I'll discuss warming.

It's November here in the U.P. of Michigan. That means it's somewhat cold. As a Yooper, I can't say that it's really cold or I will lose my resident card, but it's definitely not shorts weather.

When the air becomes crisp, my personality begins to change. I start to crave meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and apple crisp, and I revel in the delicious scents that fill my kitchen. I think it is human nature to want to feel warm and cozy as the mercury drops.

My approach to photo editing also changes during this time of year. I move away from the beautiful look of a cleanly-processed images to images with warm, rich colors. There are many approaches I use to warm up a photo. My favorite is a simple color layer set to low opacity. This doesn't work for all images, but luckily it's pretty easy so give it a try. If it doesn't work, trash the layer.

First, you should process your image as usual. This means start with exposure and white balance. Do your cloning and cover up your blemishes next. Then create yourself a new layer. Choose a buttery yellow color for your foreground color then hit 'ALT+Del' to fill the layer with color. Now you will have a yellow page. Just play with the layer opacity and blending options. For this fall pic I chose color burn for the blend mode with an opacity of 18%.

Excuse the quality of the image. I used to be a really sucky photographer. Now I am only a mildly sucky photographer. My new warm image is on left. Excuse my proofreading my 2-year-old is having yet another meltdown and I have to drag his grouchy butt to bed.

Help!MOM!Tutorial Using BlotchyBaby Action! FINALLY

I had to copy and paste a lot of Photos so I created a google doc for you to download. Let me know how it works and looks. Here is the link
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B80Xqc26VDMhYTcyMjYyMTItY2U1Yi00OGE1LWFhZWEtYmFkODA3N2E3ZDc1&hl=en&authkey=CMWhsc4N

Sorry the dowload is so big. I made a LOT of pictures so that you can see every step. I hope you learn a lot from this tutorial =)