I remember getting my photo taken at a studio as a child. I would sit in the chair wondering, when will it all be over. The bright lights and the strange white or silvery umbrellas were what I remembered most. I also noticed the painstakingly painted backgrounds that were placed behind me. This was the way photographers could shoot in a studio, but have their subjects placed in all sorts of silly scenes. Sometimes the effect was complete, but mostly, it seemed artificial.

Photographers could get a more realistic effect by projecting slides of various scenic photographs on a screen behind the subject. Because of the labor involved in painting backgrounds, this was a cheaper alternative. Naturally, since the photographic slide was more realistic, the effect was more complete. Green and blue screen backgrounds, combined with advanced darkroom techniques, were also employed in the past. Fortunately, today we have digital cameras and image editing software.

Chroma key is a great technique to use for both amateur and professional photographers. You can expect quality results if you put effort into setting up the green or blue background with the fewest imperfections, adjust the lighting on the subject to properly match the intended background image, and take the time to use the image editing software correctly. Sloppy setup of this system will result in an image that looks like your used scissors to cut out the subject and glue it on a background, which would be much less time consuming.

To make digital chroma key images, you will need at a minimum; a camera to record the image, a solid colored background, and image editing software to composite the subject with the background image. While this is the absolute minimum, better tools will create better results. A digital camera with a zoom lens is recommended. A film camera can be used but there are the added steps of processing film and scanning. The solid colored background is the most important ingredient to creating perfect results. Green and blue are the best colors to use for this technique, especially for using people as subjects. Image editing software exists in all forms from free web-based applications to full-powered production suites that only business can afford.

Chroma key is often referred to as “green screen” because solid green is the best background to use for chroma key. Green is best because it’s the color that is furthermost from the human skin color. Blue is equally as distant but is also a very popular color and often times, the subject is wearing something blue, like blue jeans for example. If you are not shooting a human subject, you may use different colored backgrounds. Just be sure that the color you use is opposite of your subject color for easier removal with your image editing software later. Green is the most popular color used, and will be referenced for now on.

The background material used, should be as least reflective as possible, and have a consistent color across the whole surface. Most photographers use a felt type cloth. Cloth is portable and convenient, can store away easily, has a very low reflectivity, but it can get wrinkles. Wrinkles cause shadows. Shadows in your background make the digital removal process much more difficult. Paper is very smooth and stores away easily but is somewhat more reflective. Paper has a slight sheen to it and therefore, is more difficult to adjust lighting to remove the sheen. You can paint a board or wall a nice flat matte green color. A painted wall is very permanent but cannot get wrinkles. Care in lighting should be taken to avoid any reflective sheen. The background must be lit well. If the background isn’t lit, then it’s a dark-green background and will not be easy to remove later. Lighting should be consistent across the whole surface. Use diffused lighting to get the most even coverage.

When lighting the subject, keep in mind that you will be inserting another image background using digital manipulation later on. Know what the lighting is like in your intended image background, and light the subject accordingly. In general, you want to have your subject slightly brighter than the background. Keep the subject a good distance in front of the green screen to avoid shadows cast by the subject onto the screen. The green screen can cast a greenish hue on the back of a subject if it’s too close to the screen. Using a portrait type lens can help keep the subject in focus while having the background blurry, this technique will assist in the removal process later. A perfect way to get quality and consistent lighting is to move outdoors. Shoot your subject in front of a green screen in direct sunlight. Then you will have many potential outdoor scenic images to use as a background. Shoot your subject outdoors on a cloudy day, and you will have a diffusely lit subject that can be placed in many indoor scenic images.

There are many different image editing programs available to remove a colored background from your subject. Below are general tips for image editing, not application specific methods. See the link at the end of this article for a tutorial using Adobe Photoshop. Use a color selective tool in the software that allows real time adjustment to the hue selection. Never permanently destroy the green background, use masks instead of deleting. If you delete, you will most likely notice that you have removed something that was apart of the subject. You will have to undo and repeat the process. Masks can add and subtract image information very easily allowing you to fine tune the removal process. Once the background has been completely selected, add a one or two pixel feather or fuzziness to the selected area before masking or deleting. The feather will keep your subject from having a jagged edge that may be noticeable when placing onto your image background. After your subject is completely separated from the green background, you may notice a slight green hue around the perimeter of your subject. This is due to some color bleed through hair or light reflected from the green screen and highlighting your subject. Use a color correction tool to desaturate the residual green hue left over from this effect.

Using chroma key techniques can open the door to creativity. Artists can use these new tools to create realistic images once only seen in his or her own mind’s eye. Professional photo studios can offer their clients a greater selection of products. There is no need to keep several backdrops on hand. All a photographer needs is a nice single colored background, and with the digital chroma key process, has access to literally millions of background choices. You can photograph your own backgrounds, use 3d rendering programs, and even purchase ready made digital backgrounds from specialist artists and photographers.

Brooks Summerlin is a photographer, artist, engineer, and craftsman. If you would like to see a graphic tutorial of the Chroma Key Techniques, please visit: http://artalyst.com/perfect-chroma-key-techniques-for-digital-photography

Brooks Summerlin is also the creator and maintainer for the artist community, Artalyst http://www.artalyst.com

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Photographing a waterfall on Oahu for stock

Yesterday I decided to find and shoot a waterfall for an image I want to create. The image I have in mind is a concept stock photo of a man going over a waterfall in a barrel. I photographed the man in the barrel, in my studio, a couple of months ago. However, I don’t have a suitable waterfall image.

So here I am in Oahu, a seemingly great place to shoot a waterfall. Not so fast. It seems that finding a good waterfall to photograph here is actually rather difficult. I did a Google search and didn’t come up with much. The only one that seemed it might do for me is called Manoa falls. The various articles I encountered on the internet indicated it is a relatively easy hike of about one mile in each direction, through lush jungle foliage including a bamboo forest. The falls are 100 to 150 feet in height (depending on which article you read). Sounds pretty good!

Somewhere between a trickle and a vapor

Well, there was some jungle foliage, though the bamboo forest was barely twenty yards long. I have certainly encountered “jungle foliage” that was much more lush, and bamboo forests that were much more impressive, on other Hawaiian islands. The falls themselves fell somewhere between a trickle and vapor. Not exactly what I need for my stock photo.

A magnificent vista

It was good, though, to get some exercise; and I am sure that at some point in the future some of the foliage shots I got will come in handy. One scene in particular did get my adrenalin going. Near the start of the hike there is an open expanse just before the trail starts heading uphill. Thirty yards up the trail, when I turned and looked back, the scene looked like something out of Jurassic Park. It was really a magnificent vista and there is no doubt in my mind that I will find a use for it someday.

A service to others

Even though the falls were not adequate for my waterfall needs, I was glad I did the hike. The hike also led me to something that perhaps is more important than photographing falls. As I reviewed the hike in my mind I realized that I could write an article about my experience and illustrate the article with the pictures I had taken. I am sure I could put together this review of my experience that would very helpful to others in my situation and that are considering photographing waterfalls in Oahu. I could write the article that I wanted to find. My hike could end up being of service to others. These others, in turn, would be brought to my site where they might find a photograph to license, a product to purchase or even click on an ad. I could take that whole experience and turn it into a service to others that would in turn drive traffic to my site.

It further dawned on me that this is a strategy that I can apply to many of my shoots. I can write about the shoots and end-up with more viewers for the images I create, more traffic for my site, and a very satisfying lifestyle.

Stock Pictures of Animals, People, Lifestyles, Environmental, and more Funny Pictures Dogs Cats

Wide variety of high quality high resolution stock pictures and video clips: Spa Pictures luxury

Ethnic, People, Situations, Concepts Lifestyle and other stock photography: Spa Photos Luxury Resort

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The Poodle Is Truly a Wonderful Dog Breed with Outstanding Qualities.

Taking pictures of many types of dog breeds in my work as a stock photographer has provided me an opportunity to work with both large and small dog breeds and a number of poodle breeds. I’ve worked with teacup poodles, miniature poodles, standard poodles, etc.

Miniature poodles

One of the very first dog breeds that I photographed for my Animal Antics series was a miniature poodle. We shot him for the cheer leading poodles image. You could tell he was smart…and certainly was a bit of a trickster. He would race around the studio checking on what everyone was doing…until it came time to shoot him. Each time we started to shoot he would suddenly come up with a limp and could hardly walk. As soon as we would finish our session off he would race with no sign of difficulty!

The poodle is truly a wonderful dog breed with some outstanding qualities. The breed is generally recognized as coming in three sizes, standard, miniature and toy…though teacup poodles are also available. They have hair rather than fur…so they are, in effect, hypoallergenic and don’t shed.

Poodles are very intelligent.

Poodles are extremely intelligent and take well to training. They learn quickly…but because they also forget slowly an owner must be consistent or risk resentment. Poodles are a sturdy breed and live between 10 and 18 years and in some cases up to 21 years. They are, however, susceptible to a number of genetic health problems. Like most large dog breeds, Standard poodles need a good amount of exercise but are comfortable in pretty much any size of home. Of the three sizes, standard, miniature and toy, standards are considered the most adaptable.

The “Poodle Clip” was originated to help reduce resistance in the water.

The breed is an ancient one…there are likeness of Poodle-like dogs on Roman coins and Egyptian carvings. There are references to Poodles as far back as the fifteenth century in France, Holland and Italy. The first reference to Poodles being good swimmers was in 1642 (the Poodle was originally bread as a water retriever). The “Poodle Clip” was originated to help reduce resistance in the water. The patches of hair left covering the vital organs and joints were left to help protect those areas. In France the Poodle is the national breed and is used for truffle hunting as well as the more expected duck hunting.

The standard poodle.

The standard poodle is a truly a versatile breed and in addition to being excellent water retrievers they have served as guide dogs, in law enforcement…and even competed in the Alaskan Iditarod Sled dog race! Miniature poodles are sometimes thought of as “one person” dogs, but are obedient, can be a child’s best friend and make good trial dogs. They do tend to think they are bigger than they really are and one has to be careful of their protective tendency…particularly around other dogs. Toy poodles make great companions and are especially good when quarters are tight.

Pet Poodles.

Poodles are too intelligent to be “part time” pets…but need to be a regular and consistent part of their owner’s lives. Poodle’s coats need to be kept well groomed or their coats could become unpleasant to be around, and in extreme cases it can be a health hazard. Poodles have a great disposition…are cheerful and confident and can make a truly great companion.

Stock Pictures of Animals, People, Lifestyles, Environmental, and more Senior Couple Smiling Surfboards

Wide variety of high quality high resolution stock pictures and video clips: Young Boy Waxing Surfboard

Ethnic, People, Situations, Concepts Lifestyle and other stock photography: Mother Son Sitting Beach

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You may have old pictures of family vacations or events that you either put in albums or possibly boxes.  Over time, you forget all about the pictures – therefore, the memories are lost as well.  Then one day you stumble across the pictures and see how much damage the pictures are in.  You may get excited and want to show some friends or family that may live out of state, and then you find yourself wondering how you can send pictures to them.  A thought pops into your mind that your should digitize photos to CD or DVD by doing it yourself or take it to a PHOTO SCANNING SERVICE that would help you put your pictures on a CD.

When you want to scan or digitize photos into your computer by yourself, you will have to plan ahead.  If you don’t have a scanner, the first order of business is pretty obvious – buy a scanner.  Which one though?  Well, there are two types of scanners.  One is a flatbed scanner that scans pictures and documents.  This is for most people.  The second kind is film scanners.  These are usually for a person that wants to scan either negatives or slides – and they are more expensive.

The assumption here is that your are going to be scanning family pictures – or at least any kind of prints.  A flatbed scanner will do as mentioned previously.  Before you start scanning, you will have to go through all your pictures, one by one, and make sure there isn’t dirt or finger smudges on them.  Have a lint-free cloth on hand and wipe off anything you see, but not to hard – you don’t want to damage the photo.  Also, make sure you handle the pictures by the corners.

Now it is time to fire up your scanner.  Make sure the glass is clean and if it isn’t – wipe them with the lint-free cloth as well.  Now place your picture face down on the scanner.  If you want to scan more than one picture, put them side by side and make sure they all fit properly within the glass of the scanner.

Now start scanning.  Depending what dpi (dots per inch) you chose, it will scan at different speeds.  For an example, if you chose 300 dpi, you’ll get a lower quality of picture but it will scan faster.  However, at 600 dpi, a higher quality picture but will scan slower.  All in all though, if you are just doing it for your friends and family to see, 300 dpi would be just fine.

When you scan them in, the software should give you a choice to view the scanned pictures to see if you like it or not.  If not, you can edit the scan by resizing the image or adjusting the resolution among other editing actions.  Once that is done, you can allow the final scan to be digitized into your computer system.

Even after the photo is digitized and saved as a file onto your hard drive, you can use an editing tool to adjust the brightness and alter the color of your pictures.  You can utilize Photoshop which is probably the best editing software on the market today, but that will cost you around $600.  If you don’t want to spend that much money, you could put out $100 for Photoshop Element that can do the basics of photo editing.  GIMP is another editing software that can help you out and it is totally free.

Once you are done editing, you can then put your scanned pictures into different folders and back them up onto a flash drive or CD.  Always make sure you backup right away.  You never know when your hard-drive will crash or your computer will get attacked by a virus.  Now you are officially done with “self-scanning”.

The flip side of the coin is to send your pictures to a PHOTO SCANNING SERVICE.  There are many companies out there, but one is really breaking away from the rest of the pack.  They are Digital Memories Online and it is a photo, slide, and negative scanning company based in Grove City, Ohio.  The prices are competitive and their work is top of the line.  

No matter what company you go with, they all should have a website that allows you to download an order form and fill out how many photos you want scanned.  Before you ship them, make sure you have the pictures organized.  For an example, let’s say you want pictures from three different vacations scanned.  You don’t want them mixed up, because the scanning company will scan these in the order they get them in.  So be sure to separate all your pictures in the group you want them to be in.

The prices vary – usually though, they cost around 39 cents to digitize the photos to images that is placed on CD or DVD.  To digitize larger pictures – it will cost a little more, and to repair old photos, it will be pretty expensive.  Again, prices will vary.

All you need to do next is ship your pictures to the scanning company and just sit back and wait for them to be shipped back.  You can probably put in a “rush order” if you need your pictures back by a certain date, but if you are not in a big hurry, it will probably take a week or two to get them done.

If you ask me what I would do personally, whether to scan the photos myself or send them to a Photo Scanning Service, it would depend on how many pictures I have.  If I just have a few, I might as well scan them myself.  However, if I have a hundreds and have extra money to spend, I would ship it to a scanning service.

My name is Mark Shrigley and I am a supervisor at a major auto manufacture. I work in the IT field. My experience is scanning old photos into my computer system.

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You wouldn’t call John a professional photographer by any means. But he did like to take photographs because he had been bitten by the ‘travel bug’ and wanted lots of photos that he could use to show his friends and family. It was some kind of way of ‘proving’ that you had actually been there I suppose. Oh … and the memories would be nice too!

So John made a list of essential features he would require in a camera fit for a traveller. He didn’t want one of those big bulky things which, although it can make you look like a tourist, was not really his thing. It had to be small and compact – something he could easily fit into a shirt or coat pocket and conveniently produce at a moments notice. Something about the size of your average credit card or slightly larger, would be ideal.

But John was also fussy about picture quality. He needed a camera with at least 4 megapixel resolution and some kind of advanced red eye reduction capability was a ‘must’. John was not only a traveller, but at home he had a social life as well. He liked to take those ‘perfect moment’ shots of friends and family and was tired of using so-called red eye reduction cameras that left his people-shots looking like vampires.

John also wanted a camera with an LCD screen, so that he could see what his photos would look like before he hit the shutter button. And then there was at least a moderate capacity for zoom lens on his list of requirements. It had to have a rechargeable battery and also the ability to take movies of at least a moderate length. Oh … and then there was the storage capacity – a memory card was a must. The camera that would meet John’s needs had to be light, nice looking (metal body, not plastic) and be auto-sensitive to light and shade.

One final matter was high on John’s list. Taking good photographs was one thing, but the technology to easily and effortlessly upload the digital files to his laptop computer was top priority. John liked to post his photos on social networking sites and email selected items to his friends. If possible, he didn’t want to be fussing around with cables and computer connections, so if he could find something with a good Wi-Fi capability, that would be just perfect.

So John went shopping …

It wasn’t long before he discovered the perfect fit in the Nikon Coolpix P2 digital camera. It had all the features he was looking for, with an attractive price tag to boot. He even found that, after taking images, he could correct the exposure levels in the camera itself. This was due to the incorporation of three unique Nikon features, called the D-lighting function.

So now John can often be seen travelling around or socialising, with his Nikon Coolpix P2 digital camera in his shirt pocket, snapping those special moments, recording the memories of his life and thanks to the wonders of modern technology, sharing them with the world.

Before you buy a Nikon Coolpix camera, think about what features you want. The Nikon Coolpix P2 digital camera is a light, compact sturdy model you can take anywhere.

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How to burn your photos into DVD to share with your family, friends, classmates and others? Some  Multimedia digital photograph softwares can help you achieve your dream. You can burn your photos into DVD disc.I like to  use a photo DVD maker named DVD Photo Slideshow.If you want to burn photos into DVD, there are just 3 steps to do it.

Before burning photo to DVD,you need to download and install the trial version of photo DVD maker at first for free.

Step 1.Organize photos and create albums:
When you run DVD Photo Slideshow, it automatically opens the new project and lets you start creating a slideshow. A new project always uses DVD Photo Slideshow’s default project settings. To see and modify these settings based on your Options.

Then click the Organize Photos button to create at least one photo album and select photos from a folder on your hard drive and add them to a particular album. After creating a photo album, you can customize the photo album by adding, deleting photos, arranging the order of photos during slideshow playback, adding captions for photos, selecting transition effects.

If you are not satisfied with your selection, you can click the thumbnail of the photo album from the Photo Album area (the left-down panel) to select an album you want to remove from the slideshow, but do not worry, when you delete a photo album, all photos inside the album will be removed, but the original photos will not be deleted physically from your hard drive.
When clicking the Music & Transition Effects tab, you may add background music and select your desired transition effects from more than 260 amazing special transition effects.
You may also apply Pan & Zoom effect to your creative works. The Preview window gives you ideas of how your slides will show on TV with DVD player.
Then you can preview what you have selected by clicking the Preview tab and can also stop playing by clicking Stop button.

Step 2. Design your disc menu:
Once you have all your photo albums ready, it’s time to build a DVD-style menu system. Click the Choose Menus button to select a template of disc menu which decides how the photo album will be shown on your photo CD or DVD drive. You can edit the disc menu by adding your favorite background music in WAV or MP3 format and background image in JPEG, JPG, TIF, GIF, BMP format to the selected disc menu. You may select the pull-down menu in the right column to check out the predefined disc menu templates that come with the software.

In this Choose Menus window, you may preview your photo albums: Click the Preview tab, you’ll get a preview of your slide show with DVD remote-control testing. With the simulation of a TV and a DVD player remote control, you can view your photo album exactly as what you will watch on TV with DVD or VCD player.

Step 3. Burn photo albums to CD or DVD drive:
Click the Burn DVD button to burn your photo albums to a blank DVD + R / RW or DVD-R/RW disc.Before burning, some parameters must be set.After you set the above parameters, you may click the Burn Now button and you creative slideshow will be burned to a disc.

Once your CD or DVD disc is recorded, you may play it into your DVD player and the photo slide show will show on your TV .

I am a girl from China.I want to make friends all over the world.
I like using the Photo DVD&Video;tool to make photo slideshow DVD or video to share my photographs with friends

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/digital-photography-articles/how-to-burn-your-photos-to-dvd-and-play-on-tv–1463329.html