I’ve made a lot of changes to the site lately and I think I need to stop before it implodes upon itself. I’ve had so many errors today that I haven’t had any time to work on an actual post. Instead I’m going to share some awesome links and photos with you to make up for the fact that I skipped the last two Friday Finds.
Photo Credit: ToniVC
The photos used throughout this post are taken by others and licensed under Creative Commons. The theme is low angle shots. For more low angle shots I collected, check out my Low Angle Shots Gallery on Flickr!
Photo Credit: Michael @ NW Lens
Photo Credit: ewilfong
Photo Credit: AlwaysBreaking
Photo Credit: osecours
Photo Credit: Yogendra174
Photo Credit: Laura Mary
Photo Credit: Joffley
Photography Articles
- Simplicity’s Summer Photography Class 2010 – Photographer Faith Raider is offering a 4 week summer eClass for $20! I’ve been scoping out photography workshops and this is a steal! There will be two assignments a week, focusing on different aspects. Week 1: Light / People. Week 2: Focus / Flowers. Week 3: Crop / Objects. Week 4: Perspective / Close-Up. Registration ends June 27 and class starts July 5!
- The Grammie Diaries » Close Up Photography ~ Minus the Macro Lens – This is truly an awesome suggestion. Add a set of filters to your camera to take some macro-like photographs! I only have the 50mm lens at the moment and I really miss macro photography. This seems like a cheap alternative ($25!) to hold me over until I can afford another lens.
- Ask Deb! Get Answers to Your Most Pressing Photography Questions – A nice post about starting up a photography business and building a portfolio
- 7 Tips for Shooting with Normal Primes – Very helpful tips for shooting with prime lenses
- Your Camera Hates You – I’m not sure about the title of this article, but this is a simple explanation of how to shoot manually or in priority mode.
- It’s About Light – Lighting is critical to a good photograph. Unfortunately, natural light is also fickle and fleeting! I’d love to play around with light like the examples in this article.
- Finding the Light: More Tips for Natural Lighting – Another great natural lighting article.
- Slow Shutter Shoot Out: 3 Slow Shutter Speed Techniques – Time to break out the tripod.
- How to Choose the Correct ISO for your Shot – This article contains a quick cheat sheet too. I usually use 800-1600 when I’m inside because I HATE on-camera flash. I’m so forgetful when I go outside to turn that down, though! It makes a heap of difference.
Photo Editing Articles
- cfisherphotography: The Art of Photo Editing – This is a wonderful, quick tutorial on making the most out of the cheap Photoshop alternative, Piknic. I’ve used Picnik premium before and it truly is a very powerful tool! I had no idea it could do textures! I might just have to look into another month of premium!
- What They’re Not Telling You About HDR Images – I do like the look of HDR Images and I’d love to do one. My camera doesn’t do true bracketing though as far as I can tell, so I’d actually have to press the shutter, adjust the exposure, press the shutter, etc. I tried to do this once without a tripod and the results were dismal. Anyway, the technique is what makes and HDR image cool. It does not necessarily make someone a better photographer, even though the public may enjoy their photos more.
- Paint the Moon: Actions and Textures: First Class Freebies – I downloaded all of these the other day and have tried most of them. I really like her actions! The layers are labeled well and you can do a lot of customization. One strange thing her actions did was duplicate the original document into a new document, which destroys the history. (You guys know how much I love the history palette, right?) I can make no sense of doing something like that… ever. Lots of CoffeeShop’s actions do that too (though not all of them). I simply unchecked the Stop from the action though and all is well. Other than that, I really love them and might consider buying some of her sets in the future. Right now, I don’t think I need to buy anymore actions though.
- Photoshop Secret Shortcuts – I was watching a video over at MCP Actions’ site and noticed she was adjusting her brush size without using the toolbar menu. When I googled how to do it, I found this article which is rich with other nifty time-savers.
Photo Credit: Pascal \o/
Site Notes
The following changes were made to the site this week. Please let me know if anything isn’t working right!
- I made a Facebook fan page for digitalwoe.com. If you like my site and you’re on Facebook, I’ll be eternally grateful if you click “Like”! I had a Facebook page for digitalwoe.com scrapbook, but like an idiot I put “scrapbook” in the page name and there was no way to get rid of it. Then I created an application for this site because I was using a Facebook integration plugin that required it. I’m no longer using the plugin though and I hate having an application for what should be a fan page. So I scrapped all of that and I’m starting over. As you can see, my list of fans is a bit pathetic.
- I changed the blog’s URL from the /photos/ directory to the top level domain. Everything seems to be auto-redirecting without problem.
- I added about a bazillion memes to the Be Inspired page. I hoped to participate in a few this week, but have just been too busy.
- I added a category drop-down on the main index page on the top right hand corner.
Hi!!
I just wanted to thank you for the review, and add a little hopefully helpful information. Most of my sets created just for Photoshop will not start out by creating the duplicate document to run on (the freebies are created for both Photoshop and Elements, and PSE unfortunately doesn’t have the history palette). Many beginner users in Elements feel they like having the “reassurance” of that duplicate image to run the action on since they don’t have a history palette within PSE to go back to. However, any of my actions for Photoshop (almost all unless they are the freebies or specifically named for PSE), will simply create a snapshot of the image before running the action – which will be handily stored in your history palette – and will run on the original document.
Hope this helps! And, yes, just unchecking the box to the left of the Create Duplicate Image box within the action will turn that step off for you. 
Here’s a little information I just added to my site as well (includes my newest release, Summer Breeze):
All Paint the Moon action sets from here on out will include two versions of the action sets. One will have the actions leave you with many layers so you can tweak them to your heart’s content … the other set will leave you with only a few layers to keep things simpler for those who wish to have less to work with. Actions will also now run on the same document instead of creating a duplicate image … and for those who like the duplicate image opened first, I’m including a set of three helper actions that you can run prior to the main action (these will do things such as Create Duplicate Image, Flatten, etc). I’m trying to accommodate everyone’s desires in how you want your actions to operate!
Twitter: @PhotoLynda
Hi Annie,
The comment was definitely helpful. How wonderful that you go that extra mile to make sure your product is so high quality!
Thank you so very much for mentioning me in this post
You’re awesome.
Wow all these links!! They’re awesome!
I LOVE your Facebook widgit. How did you get it? My badge is LAME.
I LOVE my macro filter – it’s the bomb!
I think you should totally give the class a shot. The schedule is really laid back and will require ZERO editing. Yes! The Creativity Boot Camp was very demanding – since there was a new challenge every day. I had a hard time keeping up, but I enjoyed the participation.
Twitter: @PhotoLynda
Facebook makes it hard to find. I’m not sure why. When you’re on your page, on the left hand side click on “Edit Page”. On the right hand side in the middle, you’ll see “Promote your Page” and a link to “Promote with a Like Box”. Here there are TONS of options to add different Facebook features and customize them. You should also be able to get there through this link:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box
wow i really like these shots you’ve done…doing lots of macro flowers i’m often down low…but you know i don’t do it for much else…you’ve inspired me…thanks for stopping by.
Twitter: @PhotoLynda
Thanks Shelle, but these are not my shots (I wish!) – just ones I’ve found that I like.