Be where the action is: Östersunds Storsjöcupen

Every year in week 27 Östersund is flooded with football players in the ages of 12-17. Youths from all over the world come to Östersund to compete in one of the biggest youth football tournaments of its kind. 

Teams from Sweden, loads of teams from Norway and even teams from as far away as Mexico and Peru are taking part. 

When shooting sports, it's of the utmost importance to be where the action is. And when shooting a ball sport, try to include the ball in your image. And don't forget the spectators.

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A Primus start in product photography

A new Tuesday, a new challenge: today I tried my hand at product photography. 

For those of you wondering how I got going, here's my wrap-up of the shoot: I used several different 'products' or objects in my shoot. 

It all started with me finding a decent white background. You can of course also use other colours, but I preferred to start out using white as a background. With the object put on a white small chest, I put one of our smaller softboxes right next to it and I started shooting. 

As a starting point, I used a shutterspeed of around 1/125  and an aperture of around F11. 

The great thing about trying something new is to experiment to see what works best. Not relying on old habbits, not just going by what worked before should work well now too. Experimenting is great fun as you get to know your camera and the situation(s) even better! 

So after my first shots, I moved the lightsource a bit closer and to other positions to see the effect. This helps to understand how the light falls around the object.

After a couple of more shots, I uploaded the pictures into Lightroom. It immediately struck me that the images needed a second light to fill more shadows. So in the next few shots, I used a reflector to bounce the light back on the subject and the result was much more pleasing. Next time though, I'll be using 2 softboxes instead of one in my set-up to get better results straight away.   

Post processing was done with Lightroom and Photoshop. And I bet now you're pretty curious to see some of the results: 

These first two images are in the OK range, but it bugs me that I didn't have a whiter background. 

Another cool thing in experimenting is that you don't only get to experiment in shooting cool images, but you also get to improve your Photoshop skills. For example: with the help of 'Color Range' I made the bottle in the background green.

And this last image is my top image of the day. Not bad for a first attempt at product photography. I learned a lot today and one thing is for sure: we need more room to be able to make bigger set-ups. Have fun experimenting and see you in the next blog!

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Flying high

Sure, preparation is key. 

But every now and then you just get lucky with being in the right place at the right time. This weekend, we were in Trondheim and we happened to bump into the guys from bmxshow.no. They provided a spectacular BMX show, right in the city center! 

From having prepared for cityscapes, we quickly shifted to doing extreme sports shots! These guys barrel down the 'runway' at amazing speeds, so we used fast shutterspeed on an overcast day to catch the action. 

So hang tight, we will be posting on cityscapes later on. But we thought this too cool to not share with you today! 

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Tutorial / sports photography: Fjällmarathon Bydalsfjällen

There's so many incredibly cool sports events in this part of Scandinavia, that sometimes it's really difficult to choose. After an awesome, be it slightly overcast and chilly, day at the AXA Fjällmarathon in Trillevallen, we chose to go to its sister event in Bydalsfjällen today. The 50K runners started at 8AM and the 22K runners soon after that. 

Summer started here in Jämtland about a week ago, so the runners in today's fjällmarathon had a really hot day. With a clear blue sky, rather harsh light and about 24 degrees Celsius up on the fjäll, we also had an interesting set of conditions to work with. 

When shooting sports, I prefer to stay as low as possible. Shooting from a low position gives more impact to your shots. This picture I shot with my 24-70 mm 2.8 USM Canon lens.  

And sometimes you just have to be lucky. I mean, when a guy is half way running his 50K race and he can jump this high, you count yourself lucky you're there and ready with your camera! Settings where F4 and a shutterspeed of around 1000/ 1250 with an ISO of 100.

Good to have a change of venue, point of view, every once in a while when you're shooting to get different images. 

But let's face it: it's the athletes that really make the picture. Only a couple of quick adjustments in Lightroom where made to these pictures, no more than a couple of minutes per picture. 

Curious to see more? Check out our Photoshelter gallery for the rest of the pictures. 

Tutorial / Photoshop: layers and layer masks

Remember the last post, where we talked about changing colours in photoshop? Well, in that post we promissed we'd get back to you on layers and layer masks in Photoshop. It might sound difficult, it might look tricky but it actually isn't. Stick with us through this post and I bet you'll agree with us afterwards. 

So according to Adobe you should see a layer like a pancake. Only the top pancake is visible. Or actually, as Adobe puts it: Photoshop layers are like sheets of stacked acetate. You can see through transparent areas of a layer (a hole in the pancake) to the layers below.

When you open an image in Photoshop, it opens as a (background) layer. This is where the editing starts. Most of the time, you'll duplicate the first layer (CTRL J) and start editing on that particular layer. If in the unlikely case it goes terribly wrong, you just throw away the diplicate of the first layer. You'll still have the unedited picture you started out with. 

Keep in mind that we're talking a stack of pancakes here: all layers are put on top of the other in Photoshop. The first thing you see - how logical - is called the top layer. 

Let me show you an example: 
In this image, you see the picture with layers. The top layer is black and white and the layer underneath is in color. 

You can turn off the top layer by clicking on the little eye in front of the Layer 1 (right hand side of the screen). Voila! Now you get the coloured version of the picture.

With a basic understanding of layers, the next move is to talk about layer masks. With a mask you have the control over the transparency of that particular layer. 

When working with layer masks, keep in mind this utterly important rule: White Reveals, Black Conceals. So if you have two layers and you add a white mask to the top layer, it shows everything on that layer. 

Here's some visuals: starting out with a picture with 2 layers, a blue top layer and a red second layer. 

Adding a white mask to the (blue) top layer: use the Add Vector Mask icon. You can use the same icon in the layers panel by using the Alt (windows) or OPT (MAC) key. 

And now adding a black mask (white reveals, black conceals!) to the top layer: 

the blue is gone! Hidden by the black mask. 

So when you have this stack of pancakes. And you'd like to show not only the top pancake but also a bit of the underlying pancake, you should use the brush and paint in the opposite colour. When using a white mask, you can make the underlying layers visible by painting with a black brush and vice versa. 

And vice versa. 

Do take a look at the right hand side with all the layer and layer mask info: in both cases the mask changed. The black mask changed to white where you have painted (remember: white reveals, black conceals) 

So there you have it. A basic tutorial on layers and layer masks. In the beginning you might find working with layers confusing. You might mix up white and black layers. Another nifty trick to remember is CTRL I (i as invert) you can easily switch between white and black layers.

I find layer masks extremely helpful. For example to blend pictures together. Think of a sunset where you want a darker sky and nice silky water. In that case you take 3 pictures: 

- one for the sky (underexposed), 

- one for the silky water (over exposured) and 

- one right exposed image

Now you can blend them together in Photoshop using layers and layer masks. That gives you a great control over your creativity and result. I have always found the videos from Serge Ramelli really helpful, easy to understand and very instructive. He starts with some editing in Lightroom and then blends his pictures together in Photoshop.

Tutorial / Photoshop: changing colours

This post is dedicated to magic. How to do the magic to come from this first picture: 

To this: 

You might think involves a lot of work and is horrendously difficult. But let me tell you: it's pretty easy to change colours in Photoshop. 

It all starts with: 
1. Opening your image 
2. Next step is to create a new empty layer

So now you've got your background layer and an empty new layer.

3. Next: on the empty layer go to Select > Color Range

    A new popup window appears.

4. With the eyedropper you can pick the color you want to change. In this case I used sampled colors to select the color that I wanted to change. But you also can use the drop down menu: 

 

When you select 'Reds', Photoshop will select all the red pixels. But in most cases you can use the eyedropper and choose the colour you'd like to change.

With Fuzziness you can tell Photoshop what the tolerance is. The higher you set the fuzziness value, the more brightness will be included in your colour change. 

In the Selection Preview you have several options

Right, so you click on the colour you'd like to change. When you see in your preview that Photoshop selects too much or too little you can use the + or - eyedropper. And when all is done to your satisfaction, you click the OK button.

Photoshop now shows you the selected part of the picture. 

In this case I only wanted to change the shirt of the first cyclist. But you can see in this selection that also the shirt of the third rider is selected. That's something I want to change later, using the layer mask.

5. The next step is to create a Hue and Saturation adjustment layer. Click on the icon 'Create new fill or adjustment layer'

And choose Hue and Saturation

Now you get a new window

By dragging the Hue slider to left or right you can change the color to a color that you like. With the saturation slider, you can give it more or less saturation. Use the slides to your satisfaction and then close the properties screen. 

The result of all the aforementioned actions is this: a cyclist with a red shirt instead of a yellow shirt. 

It's a pretty cool result if you ask me, but it still annoys me that there are some additional parts in the picture that have been coloured red, look at the third cyclist for example. Because I was working on layer mask, it's easy to correct this. 

Remember when you are working with layer masks:  

White reveals, black conceals

With an black brush you can paint on the areas that you want to be yellow instead of red. Make sure that your mask is selected. In the picture above you can see all the white parts from the underneath layer.

So here's the final result:

This whole changing colours of the jersey was just for this tutorial. In real life of course this is very much not done. It was for this tutorial that this picture came in handy. Both for the changing colours part and bearing in mind the colours from the colour wheel (see our previous post) 

If you thought this a little confusing with us talking about layer masks, rest assured: the next post is actually about this very subject! 

Basics: know the rules well, so you can break them effectively

This is not a wisdom we can take credit for. It's the Dalai Lama who came up with these very wise words. And they even apply to photography. 

This post is about the 'rule of thirds'. There's a short explanation on this rule of thirds and we'll show you some examples. And we'll also shed some light on the rule 'always straighten your horizontal line'. 

Let's start with the 'rule of thirds'. 

The rule of thirds divides your image in 9 rectangles, using 2 horizonal and 2 vertical lines. The subject of your picture is placed along those lines. This is where it becomes (even more) interesting: 

1. Here's an example of placing the subject of your picture in the middle of the image. 

When you place the subject along the lines of the rule of thirds the image is stronger. 

Now let's take a look at the next picture: the idea being that an off-center composition is more pleasing to the eye and looks more natural than a picture where the subject is placed bam in the middle of the frame.

So here you have the same picture of the dog, but now he's no longer smack in the middle of the frame. Which one do you prefer? 

This rule of thirds is deemed most important for landscape pictures. Then again: rules are just rules. Know how they work, so you can figure out your best way to break them effectively. 

Then: the horizontal line in your images. When shooting and editing, don't forget to look at your horizontal line. When you talk about pleasing to the eye: it's most pleasing to have a straight horizontal line in your images. So how about when the horizontal line in your picture isn't entirely straight? It's very easy to correct this with Lightroom CC.

To straighten the horizontal line
1. Open the picture and go to the Develop module.
2. Choose Crop Overlay (R)

3. Click on the Straighten tool

4. Draw a line over the horizontal

5. Crop the picture

Et voila! The result is a picture - with the rule of thirds - with a perfectly straight horizontal line. 

Then again, when shooting sports it can work really well to not have a perfectly straight horizontal line. This can give your image more dynamics. Like the image I shot during the uphill race in Åre. 

So, think of this post. And the Dalai Lama. Know the rules so you can break them effectively!