The moon is something so familiar to us, and yet so strange that it’s mesmerizing. It’s at once commonplace and extraordinary. As photographers, we are drawn to it in an attempt to convey the intrigue we feel when we look at it.

Tilt-shift photography is commonly misconstrued solely as producing miniature effects in your images. But tilt-shift photography is much more than producing toy towns. In this tutorial we show you six vastly different effects you can produce with the same tilt-shift lens.

In our latest Shoot Like A Pro series we take an in-depth look at some of the most common problems that plague new photographers and explain some simple methods and jargon-free beginner photography tips for avoiding them. This week we turn our attention to exposure and colour, and investigate some of the reasons why your pictures might not look the way you want them to.

Nothing can bring your landscape photography to life more than a sharp, stunning water reflection. In this tutorial we explain how to photograph a reflection and suggest several key techniques and tips for finding suitable subjects.

We all lose our photographic mojo once in a while or maybe find that we are effectively taking the same images over and over again. In their latest guest blog post, our friends at the photo management blog Photoventure compiled 6 tried and tested techniques to help you break out of this photographic rut and start taking more creative images.

If you’ve bought yourself a DSLR and, after unpacking it from the box, you are intimidated by the number of buttons and dials, and by the thickness of the manual, it can be very tempting to put the manual down, flick it onto ‘Auto’ and start shooting.  Whilst that is fine for some, it may not be long until you crave the creative control that inspired you to purchase a DSLR in the first place, but where do you begin? 

In our latest Professional Photographer to the Rescue series post our pro shares his best macro nature photography tips to help our apprentice learn how to take pin-sharp pictures of wildflowers, lichen, butterflies and much more.

There’s nothing new about panoramic photography: it’s just that it’s now easier than ever before. In this tutorial we’ll run through the basics of panoramic photography, offer some tips on how to shoot your scene and then show you an easy way to stitch them together.

As well as being one of the most expensive hobbies around, photography is also one of the more technical pastimes you can pursue. But it doesn’t have to be confusing!

We’ve spoken to numerous experts over the years, as well as photographers like you, who may either be just starting out or have been taking pictures for a while but keep encountering the same nagging problem. From all our conversations, we’ve noticed some common photography problems that seem to plague snappers of all ages and abilities.

Below, we’ve put together 99 of the most common photography problems and offered solutions to get round them, so you never have to be in doubt ever again! We’ve offered a mix of camera tips, explanations, definitions and more to help answer your questions. And we’ve also provided links, where appropriate, to some of our photography tutorials covering these problems in more depth.

Our collection of top digital camera tips and essential photography help will have you improving your photography in no time. Culled from experts and photographers who have been taking pictures for quite some time, they all agree that these 44 camera tips are essential knowledge for honing your craft.

High Image Quality

Get the most details and least artifacts from your raw photos thanks to modern and traditional demosaicing algorithms: AMaZE, DCB, fast, AHD, EAHD, HPHD & VNG4.
Advanced color handling from white balance to HSV (Hue-Saturation-Value) curves and color management.
Enhanced exposure and tonality tools: tone and Lab curves, highlights and shadows tools, etc.
Multiple denoising methods: luminance, chrominance, impulse (for salt and pepper noise) noise reduction.
Several tools to enhance details: unsharp mask, RL deconvolution, contrast by detail levels.

Efficiency

Multi-threaded algorithms for high performance (RawTherapee can utilize modern processor features).
Quick thumbnails load lightning fast and are replaced later with live thumbnails
Batch processing: convert all the developed images at once without not loading the processor while you work.
Basic tools immediately at your hands.
Parallel editing of multiple images.
An optional secondary display can be used.

Versatility

Wide variety of supported cameras: almost all DSLRs and even some medium format bodies are supported.
Advanced control over the algorithms with many fine-tuning parameters.
Command line usage besides the normal graphical interface.
Various layouts: multiple tabs, single tab with filmstrip, vertical tab with filmstrip.

Freedom for Free

RawTherapee is free and open source software, meaning you can use it free of charge, wherever you like on whatever hardware you like, as long as you abide by the copyleft GPLv3 license. Download the source code, modify it, feel free to do what comes to mind. We believe in open software.
RT is cross-platform: Linux, Mac, or Windows, be it 32-bit or 64-bit - you pick, we provide.
International: it is available in 25 languages!

darktable is an open source photography workflow application and RAW developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.

The Unidentified Flying Raw (UFRaw) is a utility to read and manipulate raw images from digital cameras. It can be used on its own or as a Gimp plug-in. It reads raw images using Dave Coffin's raw conversion utility - DCRaw. UFRaw supports color management workflow based on Little CMS, allowing the user to apply ICC color profiles. For Nikon users UFRaw has the advantage that it can read the camera's tone curves. Even if you don't own a Nikon, you can still apply a Nikon curve to your images.

My guiding concept in the development of UFRaw is to give all the essential (and some non-essential) information and control over the raw conversion, with the hope that one could resolve all the exposure and white balance issues during the raw conversion. The obvious advantage is that one can make full use of the raw data. The provisional advantage is that this way we circumvent the current 8-bit limitation of the Gimp, as UFRaw does all manipulations in 16-bits.

There are some important features which are still missing in UFRaw:

Sharpening.
Embed EXIF data - UFRaw can save the EXIF data to JPEG output for a few supported formats. These formats include Canon (CRW, CR2), Nikon (NEF), Pentax (PEF), Samsung (PEF), Sony (SR2, ARW), Fuji (RAF) and Adobe's DNG. For information on how to save EXIF data for other formats you should use ExifTool by Phil Harvey as is explained here.

UFRaw was originally based on Dave Coffin's plug-in and Pawel Jochym's plug-in with live preview. Joseph Heled's RougePhoto is another Gimp plug-in with some interesting features.

UFRaw is licensed under the GNU General Public License. This means that it is free both as in free speech and as in free beer.

You are welcome to participate in UFRaw's Open Discussion Forum, browse and update the wiki page, file bug reports, or request new features (you should read UFRaw's MANIFEST before requesting new features). If you want to know when the next version of UFRaw will be released, you should subscribe to the ufraw-announce mailing list (very low volume). Release annoncements are also made at FreshMeat. And if you wish to experiment with UFRaw's latest source you can check it out from the CVS.

UFRaw is covered in Klaus Gölker's book GIMP 2 for Photographers: Image Editing with Open Source Software (or in the German version Fotobearbeitung und Bildgestaltung mit dem GIMP 2).

French speakers might want to check out the book Développer ses fichiers RAW by Volker Gilbert. The book has a chapter on the different raw processing software and UFRaw gets its own section.

There is also a French version of UFRaw's user manual here.

Spanish speakers might be interested in this UFRaw tutorial in Spanish, a tutorial on getting better results from Ufraw and Gimp or this comperhensive book.

For Chinese speaker there is also a user guide.

I would like to thank all the UFRaw users that contributed to its development by sending patches, finding bugs and making insightful suggestions. Special thanks go to Vlado Potisk for many valuable suggestions, Shawn Freeman for adding support for Nikon curves and the curve editor and Niels Kristian for active participation in the development. Thanks also go to all the translators.

Sprzedaż zdjęć w Internecie, temu zagadnieniu poświęcimy kilka następnych akapitów. Jeśli nie miałeś wcześniej styczności z bibliotekami zdjęć i chciałbyś sprawdzić czy będziesz w stanie sprzedawać zdjęcia w serwisach microstock, to zapraszam Cię do lektury naszego poradnika.
Czym są banki zdjęć? Jak sprzedać swoje zdjęcia przez Internet?

Macro photography is close-up photography, usually of very small subjects. Classically a macro photograph is one in which the size of the subject on the negative is greater than life size. However in modern use it refers to a finished photograph of a subject at greater than life size. In this post I collected a huge list of amazing macro photographs for the inspiration of photographers.

As a fan of photography and excited photographer I love in my free time when I don’t design to take my car and go to a peaceful place, where nobody hear me, nobody need me, a place where I can stay and listen the nature and take a good healthy breath. A place, far away from city where I take pictures of all alive creatures and flowers around me.

I love macro photography because it gives you the option to see the creatures or any other flowers details that you don’t normally see with your eyes. In photography you can reflect your feelings; any feeling that you have when you make a photo, it’s reflected in it. In macro photography these feelings are emphasized and have a bigger impact to the persons that are looking on the photo. You can catch a lot of details in a macro photography, details that will amaze you. An example would be a leaf after a rain; if you make a photo to it you will see the water drops, prolonging over it.

In the silent moments when the sun goes down and sky gradually turns dark Night Photography often got its own attraction. Night photography is one of the most attractive and challenging kinds of Photography, as photographing in low light requires special equipment like SLR cameras, tripods, cable releases and flashguns as well as creativity and talent.

Here’s a collection of 40 Examples of Beautiful Night Shots, taken by professional Photographers who came into action when the sun sets.

Macro photography is close-up photography. The classical definition is that the image projected on the "film plane" is close to the same size as the Lenses designed for macro are usually at their sharpest at macro focus distances and are not quite as sharp at other focus distances. Today in this article I collected some of the eye catching macro photographs for the inspiration of fellow photographers. So go ahead see these pictures and get inspired to click more beautiful pictures like these. Enjoy!

Macro photography is Close-up photography provides exclusive opportunities to generate creative and dramatic photographs. This type of photography also referred to as Macro Photography. With macro photography, small and complex features that are impossible to tell apart from a distance are displayed with vivid detail.

Today, we presenting a stunning collection of macro photography and pictures taken by various artists in which all pictures are linked to the author’s pages. You may want to explore further works of the photographers we’ve featured below and leave them a comment!

Black and white photography maintained its leading position among all other photography. It has the power of attracting people silently. There are a lot of obstacles in our day to day life; like social issues, economic problems. To get rid off these for sometime black and white photography is the better way. Once we come across the black and white photos, it will remains for a long time and takes us to a mysterious world. It’s a portrait of one of the beautiful variety of photography.

It creates question mark on our face! if you want to feel this magical world here some “Mind blowing black and photography”, which took you to a mysterious world.