Faze One Studio » Tips

Anti Spam - Masking Your Email

Benjamin Doolittle — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:32:36 +0000

Here is a very valuable way to stop spam bots from raking your emails while allowing you to still have an active email link. I’ve had a lot of spam and its mostly because of unmasked links that are on my site a few months have passed since applying this to my site i have almost no spam…

This script needs to be embedded in your or where appropriate:

This is the html link:

ben[at]fazeonestudio.com

Sample: View Link

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

Photo Border Tutorial

Benjamin Doolittle — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:22:23 +0000

Since I’m pretty far behind on my tutorials, I thought id post an easy one to get the juices flowing. This as is a very quick and simple tutorial using layer select option.I will be working on a collection of these borders and well as a few other resources for photographers and designers. I did have a few sets of vector art for free and soon we will have some in the shop available for purchase, so look forward to some new samples from that and if you like you should buy!

Here is the border template, i have included three in the bottom of this post.

STEP 1: Load your border template.

STEP 2: Now load your selected image and place it under the border template
STEP 3: To cut away the edge, Press and hold Ctrl, then right click on the border template, This will make a selection of the template.
STEP 4: Go to Select and then Inverse, Cut the new inversed selection

You should now have a border effect, : )

Click image to Download full res.

A little Logo inspiration - 100 samples

Benjamin Doolittle — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:29:29 +0000

It’s so hard to come up with original, yet sleek and catchy logo, right? Here are 100 samples to give you bit of inspiration. I am constantly asked to design logos and this is a few that i have found that have some very interesting styles similar to what the clients wanted.

Here are a few good dozens of examples to give you inspiration…

Alpha HalfTone Cut-Away Effect

Benjamin Doolittle — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 04:36:50 +0000

Another effective tutorial showing us how to create this great effect using an alpha mask in the channels pallet. Nick at www.2gen.net was kind enough to show me this tip last night, so Thanks You! to him for the tip and now ill show you how its done.

1. Grab your image and create a new document, mine is 565px wide.

2. Select your Channels pallet and create a new layer it will become an alpha layer

3. Now select the Gradient Tool and pick White to transparent.

…and Drag your Gradient In this direction

4. Open Filter/Pixilate/Halftone and apply these setting. (depending on size increase the Radius with larger images)

5. Press and Hold Ctrl and click on the Alpha 1 Thumbnail, this will highlight the selection.

6. Now Select RGB and then Go to Layers Pallet and select the layer you would like to effect and Cut.

Final Image ~ Proceed to next steps to create additional effect

Optional Steps:

7. Merge all layers and then duplicate the layer, Go to Effects/Blur/Gaussian Blur to about 2.0 and then set mode to Darker Color.

Water Color Background Effect

Benjamin Doolittle — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:04:13 +0000

This is a very simple effect that can be done easy with only a few steps. This tutorial will show you how to create a waterpaint effect using a couple brushes i found online as well as the gradient tool.

Slap a few brushes onto separate layers no need to be neat, I used a few brush strokes and some splatters .

Then select the Gradient tool and add a few varying sizes and colors to a new layer.

Now set the mode of the Gradient layer to Soft Light and then Duplicate the layer twice with a total of three Gradient layers.

…and that’s it, Here are a few Close-Ups of the painting.

Normal

Inverted

Post-Lomography Effect

Benjamin Doolittle — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:49:16 +0000

Roll over Image to see effect.

Lomographic photos have a strong and noticeable dark blur as well as a greeny, redish tint. We’ll start off by adding a strong vignette to the photo.

1. Open a photo to edit.

2. Follow the steps below according to the version of Photoshop you’re using:

For Photoshop CS2:

3. Choose Filter> Distort> Lens Correction.
4. Inside the Lens Correction filter, adjust the settings in the Vignette section to create the vignette.

For Photoshop CS or older:

1. Create a new layer and select the new layer.
2. Use the Lasso tool and create an oval selection. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
3. Inverse the selection (Select> Inverse or Shift+Ctrl+I).
4. Press Shift+Backspace to open the Fill tool. In the Fill tool, set the contents to Black and click OK.
5. Deselect (Select> Deselect or Ctrl+D).
6. Open the Gaussian Blur filter tool (Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur). In the Gaussian Blur window, ensure that the Preview checkbox is checked and adjust the Radius to blur the edges so that a vignette is created.
7. Reduce the opacity a little. An opacity around 75% should produce good results.

5. Now we’ll change the colors to match those produced by lomo cameras. We won’t be using any color adjustment tools. Instead, we’ll be modifying individual channels.

6. Inside the Channels pallet (Window> Channels), select the red channel.

Adjusting the contrast of the red channel using the Brightness/Contrast tool.

7. With the red channel selected, use the Brightness/Contrast tool (Image> Adjustments> Brightness/Contrast) and increase the contrast. The higher you set the contrast, the stronger the color effect will be. I found that increasing the contrast by 50 produced the most realistic results.

Adjusting the contrast of the green channel using the Brightness/Contrast tool.

8. Now select the green channel and use the Brightness/Contrast tool (Image> Adjustments> Brightness/Contrast) to increase the contrast by the same amount you did in the previous step.
9. Select back the RGB channel (Ctrl+~) to view the results.

10. Now Duplicate layer and go to Filter/Blur/Guassian Blur set to 3 to 5 depending on the size of your image.

11. Use the Lasso tool and create an oval selection. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
12. Go to Select/Modify/Feather and set to 100px
13. Cut the Selection.

…and that’s all folks.

Tips for Effective Web Design

Benjamin Doolittle — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:59:36 +0000

Here are some essential web design tips that every web site should follow. Design your web site by following these tips and I guarantee that visitors will have a great first impression of your site.

Fast Loading web site designs - This is the number 1 tip that every web designer should follow. You might design a web site that looks fantastic but few people are going to see it if it takes a long time to load. Your designs should be optimized for the web and should not take more than 15 seconds to load. Remember, you might have a great design but very few people are going to see it if it takes a long time to load.

Clear Navigation - Once a visitor has come to your site you need to make them go through your site. To do this you need to have clear navigation. Make sure all your important links are at prominent places. Preferably right on top - that’s usually where a visitor first looks. Make use of menus on the right and the left. Try to link to as many pages of your site. Let your information be accessible from all parts of the site. You never know what a visitor may be interested in. Try to also use the footer for your important links.

All Resolutions - Today, there are computers with all kinds of resolution. They range from 640 x 480 to 1024 x 768 and go even higher. Your job is to design your site for all these resolutions. The best way to do this is to design your site in terms of percentage and not pixels.

Browser Compatibility - Make sure your site is browser compatible. Your web site should look good in Netscape as well as in Internet Explorer. Don’t stop designing your site as soon as you find that it looks great on IE. Usually Netscape gives some problems, especially when you try doing complicated HTML designs. But don’t give up too soon, usually with patience these problems can be easily fixed.

Readable and professional looking fonts - Don’t ask me how many times I’ve clicked out of a site just because the font is in Comic Sans and the color is a bright pink or green. Just by looking at the font you feel that the site is not a professional site. Don’t use Comic Sans and other fancy fonts that may not be available on most computers. If the font you use is not available in a visitors computer the web site will use the default font of your computer which is much worse. So try to keep to common and professional web fonts. The fonts that I always stick to are Arial and Verdana.

Minimize the use of images - I believe that sometimes simple designs are the most effective for the web. Keep your site simple but neat. Don’t clutter your page with big, bulky images that take ages to load. Instead use tables creatively and design eye - catching icons that will draw a visitor’s attention to a particular section of your site. Tip - Visitors are usually more interested in content than in design.

Use of white space - Try not to clutter up your page with too many images, backgrounds and colorful fonts. Again use the Keep It Simple principle by minimizing the use of graphics and using a lot of white space. White space gives a sense of spaciousness and overall neatness to a site. Notice the white space in our site.

Check for broken links - Always check for broken links within a site before uploading it to your web server. In Dreamweaver you can check for broken links by right clicking on any file in the Site Files Window and then clicking on Check links - Entire Site. If you don’t have this facility you need to upload your site and then check it using online tools like Net Mechanic.

Personal Projects & Creative Elevation

Benjamin Doolittle — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:50:42 +0000

I know personally I have learned a lot from the personal design projects I have done in the past. It seems to help keep design work fresh. When you are working regularly for a lot of the same clients you can find you are not stretching yourself. You use the same programs, same fonts (sticking with the corporate style you have set up) same sort of images and logos. By setting yourself personal projects you can safely (ie no-one else necessarily has to see it) learn new programs and experiment with different techniques.

More recently… some of you will know I have been trying to learn CSS and HTML and although my skills are still very basic, by adapting a wordpress template for my character designs (another personal project) I have managed to create myself a simple web site and at the same time learn more about CSS and HTML on the way. Blogging on this blog (another personal project ) has helped with this too, and I am not so afraid to get my hands dirty and tweak the HTML and CSS (although it doesn’t always go to plan).I know many designers take part in design competitions to stretch themselves and allow more creativity.

Personally I think it is vital to set yourself personal projects, it is so much easier to learn something when you have a project goal rather than just following a set tutorial.So whether its creating your new range of designer t-shirts, designing an image for a friends band, experimental product design/inventions, character design, or web design, set yourself a project you’ll be amazed how much you learn.What are your personal design related projects?

HTML Cheat Sheet

Benjamin Doolittle — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:50:25 +0000

This is a very handy tool for beginners while learning the lingo. Print it out and paste it up beside your computer, you’ll be glade you did. I’m still trying to memorize most of them. Familiarize yourself with them and embed them into your .

~Click here for full image ~

Short hand guide to Web Ranking

Benjamin Doolittle — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:07:31 +0000

Owning a website is a cool thing in itself, but it’s even greater if you’re able to welcome a lot of visitors to it. One of the most effective ways to accomplish this, is by making sure your site is easily found through search engines like Google.

In contrary to what the SPAM flooding our inbox is promising (”submit to 500 search engines!”, “Guaranteed Top Rankings!”, “Free beer included!”), there is no quick and dirty way to accomplish this. On the other hand, the secrecy and vague terminology used by dedicated Search Engine Optimization bureaus are mostly a means to mask there’s nothing secret or difficult about optimizing your website for search engines. Let’s give it a quick start…

About search engines

The two biggest search engines worldwide are Google (used by Google / AOL) and Overture (used by MSN / Yahoo). Google fills it’s database mainly by letting robots automatically crawl and index the web. The Overture database is mainly filled through affiliate programs. That will cost you, so let’s focus on Google for now. Google is the cooler one anyway…

A bot visit

You can request a Google robot visit at www.google.com/addurl. The robot will browse your site and index it’s contents. Expect to have to wait for a couple of weeks before this will happen. Also, always list your site at www.dmoz.org. This is Google’s web directory and, next to the google robot, an important source of the google search API.

Get your keywords

Your website is not ranked as a whole. Keywords are used to determine the relevancy of your website for particular subjects. So, before building your site, make sure you have a relevant set of keywords. Check competing websites for keywords / search terms and use the good ones for yourself. When can get an indication on the frequency people search for a certain keyword (and alternatives to it) . You can find synonyms for certain keywords at www.thesaurus.com.

Place your keywords

The most important elements to insert keywords into are the URL (domain name + path + filename) and title of your web page. Also, a low-level URL (www.mysite.com/page.htm) is considered more important than a higher level URL (www.mysite.com/subdir/anothersubdir/page.htm). Notice how every new site has it’s own title in the title bar and how every item’s html file is named after its title. These tricks make you score!

It’s also important to use your keywords in the body of your site, frequency (a lot) and proximity (close to each other) are important. The higher in a page, the more important a keyword is considered to be. Text in headline (h1 or h2), bold or caps is considered more important than regular text.

Check your keywords

Once you think you have found the right keywords and you’ve written your text so that these keywords appear all over the page, it’s time to check out how your site is doing. At googlerankings.com you can check your position in Google for the keywords you have chosen. Top of the ranks? Great! Not even close to it? Don’t worry, here are some tips to improve your rankings.

Tech and formatting tips

First, make sure your site, especially your homepage, is frequently updated. Google seems to like frequently changing websites, this might be why weblogs tend to score very well at Google.

Second, make sure to have a lot of incoming and outgoing links (especially to and from big, relevant, high-quality websites). If something can be a link, make it a link! By doing so, Google will rank you pages higher as others who are not that embedded. This link relevancy system is called Google Pagerank. You can check out your pagerank at pagerank.net. Pagerank works on a scale from 1 to 10. If you have a rank of 1 or 2, you’re likely to be way down the search results. If you have a higher rank, your site will appear at the top of the search results, even if there are a lot of competitors for your specific keywords or business.

Third, make sure your site is clean and correctly formatted, preferably in web standards / xhtml. Avoid certain technologies the Google robot doesn’t understand. Don’t use a frameset for your website. Robots may skip frames or only index the upper one (refering will be a mess anyway). Avoid javascript or Flash menus, only a.href links are followed by a robot. Additionally, all javascript and comments are skipped by search robots.

For the same reason, full-flash websites should be avoided if search accessibility is important (actually, if ANY accessibility is important). If you do feel the strong need to use Flash, all you can do is to make sure you have a keyword descriptive URL and page title.

Some last remarks

Google simply puts a 30 days block upon sites that use trivial keyword tricks (hidden text/div or text in the same color as a background), so don’t bother trying this kind of stuff. Detecting and catching a robot with javascript or IP cloacing or using linkfarms to boost your Pagerank are considered even more illegal. They could get you put out of the ranking for good.

Just remember that a robot will be optimized over and over to be able to judge web pages the way a human does. In the end, if you make sure your site is clean and accessible and your content is good and relevant, web surfers will find you and bytes will flow.

Of course this article only covers the rough basics of search engine optimization. If you feel like I have missed out on something, or you’ve got an excellent hint to share, please feel free to post them in the forum! The diagnostics guide from GoogleRankings.com is a great resource for more information.

Here is a sample of the meta tags, use a max of 255 words per meta tag. This is what the fuss is about so get to know it.

Faze One Studio

Parent Photography Strategies

Benjamin Doolittle — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:31:14 +0000

For parents who would want to capture the best moments of their children, professional photography lessons wouldn’t be that necessary, all they have to do is to learn about certain photography technicalities and observe the attitude and mood swings of their children.

Parents should bear in mind that when trying to photograph their children, they should be ready for occasional tantrums and crying. When this happens, let the child calm down by giving them something that would catch their attention like a toy.

Younger children like those tots under 5 years old are not very conscious or aware of the camera but this doesn’t mean that they are very interested in the ‘photo shoot’. To get their attention, make sure that you have something that will get their attention.

OTHER CHILD PHOTOGRAPHY STRATEGIES

Portraits—especially of children—never fail to evoke feelings to anyone. If you’re a budding professional child photographer, it would be better if you’ll have a brief background in child psychology and you better to create your own strategies by now.

Here are some strategies you can work on and try to reinvent over time:

Strategy no. 1: Prepare for the best and the worst.

Before the actual day of the shoot, make sure that you pay a visit to the house of the family to give you an idea what kind of child/ren you are going to deal with. It is also advisable to meet them personally and memorize their names to create familiarity.

You can also have a sort of ocular inspection around the area so you can picture the ideal background and set up mentally. Before leaving for the actual photo shoot, double check all the necessities and equipment you will need.

Strategy no. 2: Practice the power of smile.

Being friendly or possessing a friendly aura will draw children nearer to you. Smiling will also make them more comfortable dealing with you throughout the shoot.

Strategy no. 3: Impress them your “gears.”

Get children’s attention by impressing them with stuff they don’t know yet. Since they are generally inquisitive, you can get their attention by letting them touch and “play” with some of your simple photography equipment.

Strategy no. 4: Set the background.

Although a photo studio would give you all the comforts you need in doing your job, this wouldn’t ensure a good result for children photography. It would be best if you set a backdrop or location where children can roam around and express themselves freely.

Strategy no. 5: Back to basics with the natural approach.

Do not force a setting or set up where the child is not comfortable. It is best to photograph children in their best elements like riding their own bike or doing some art stuff. These natural settings would be more vivid in the coming years compared to those taken in a stiff and formal environment.

Strategy no. 6: Know the clothing basics.

Days before the shoot, tell the parents to show their kids what they will be wearing. This would ensure the comfort of the child during the shoot.

Strategy no. 7: Bring your best and the most appropriate photography equipment.

Make sure that you bring the best equipment to produce best results. Basics include digital or film SLR camera, variety of lenses, studio lights, flashgun, spare batteries, and compact flash or rolls of film.

Strategy no. 8: It’s all in the light.

Aside from having a good subject, make sure that you set up a good lighting because it will greatly affect the overall outcome of the photo.

Strategy no. 9: Be an “image capturer.”

Always be on guard to capture the best moments throughout the shoot. Always have your finger on the shutter button while your eyes are near the camera.

Strategy no. 10: Always focus on the “window of the soul.”

Needless to say, photographs where the eyes of subjects are tuned into camera produce the best photographs ever.

Rounded Corners Using CSS

Benjamin Doolittle — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:42:13 +0000

Rounded corners add a nice little design to any page – using rounded corners can be image heavy; So, this post I am going to show you how to make rounded corners using only CSS! This is such a neat little trick and can be very handy.

There are a lot of different methods to make rounded corners – you can use images, JavaScript, CSS or a combination of all three! I am going to make this simple and show you how to make the rounded corners using nothing but CSS. The rounded corners are made using a layering technique – you use (bold) tags and layer them on top of each other to create the rounded corner effect.

The HTML

content here

The CSS .b1, .b2, .b3, .b4 {font-size:1px; overflow:hidden; display:block;}
.b1 {height:1px; background:#000; margin:0 5px;}
.b2 {height:1px; background:#000; margin:0 3px;}
.b3 {height:1px; background:#000; margin:0 2px;}
.b4 {height:2px; background:#000; margin:0 1px;}
.content {background: #000;}
.content div {margin-left: 5px; color: #FFF;}

..and of course the speech bubble!

The HTML

content here

The CSS

.bubble {background: transparent; margin:1em;}

.bubble span.s1 {display:block; width:0; height:0; color:#999; overflow:hidden;
border-top:12px solid #000; border-left:12px dotted transparent; border-right:12px dotted
transparent; margin-left:50px;}

.bubble span.s2 {display:block; width:0; height:0; color:#000; overflow:hidden;
border-top:10px solid #999; border-left:10px dotted transparent; border-right:10px dotted
transparent; margin-left:52px; margin-top:-15px;}

.b1, .b2, .b3, .b4, .b5, .b6, .b7 {display:block; overflow:hidden; font-size:0;}
.b1, .b2, .b3, .b4, .b5, .b6 {height:1px;}
.b4, .b5, .b6, .b7 {background:#999; border-left:1px solid #000; border-right:1px solid #000;}

.b1 {margin:0 8px; background:#000;}
.b2 {margin:0 6px; background:#000;}
.b3 {margin:0 4px; background:#000;}
.b4 {margin:0 3px; background:#999; border-width:0 5px;}

.b5 {margin:0 2px; background:#999; border-width:0 4px;}
.b6 {margin:0 2px; background:#999; border-width:0 3px;}
.b7 {margin:0 1px; background:#999; border-width:0 3px; height:2px;}

.content {display:block; background:#999; border:3px solid #000; border-width:0 3px;
color: #FFF;}

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Summer To Winter - Setting the Scene - Part 2

Benjamin Doolittle — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:55:07 +0000

Its cold again after a short little bit of warm weather, I introduced this picture in a past post announcing the new Portfolio slash Gallery. We are going to turn a nice summer photo into a winter photo. This tutorial has a few steps that are covered in “Setting the scene - Part 1” but optional… We will be learning about basic brush functions creating the snow.

STEP 1 : Create a new layer and fill the ground with white using a paint brush with a hardness at around 90 %

STEP 2 : Go to Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur set blur to 2-3 px

STEP 3 : Add a bit of detail around the tire treads ( red for visual aid)

STEP 4 : Go to Filter/Blur Gaussian Blur set to 1.5 - 2 (Depending on the size of the image)

STEP 5 : Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool and crop the sky

STEP 5.5 : Add a white to transparent Gradient (see image)

STEP 6 : Open your brush palette and follow the examples below

Then apply the next brush settings…

Now with your new brush settings, Create a new layer and run your brush over in a swift motion across the image and then resize your brush to 5/10 px and brush over in a swift motion across the image, one more time but increase the brush size….

now adjust the opacity to your liking and mess around with the mode….Have Fun!

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Vector Silhouettes

Benjamin Doolittle — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:07:47 +0000

When i started making vector silhouettes i noticed how many pictures of a subject looked interesting to use but far from practical. When you make a silhouette you have to choose an image that has recognizable form, like the hand and feet distinguishable from the body and other object you are vectoring. Sometime when i have found a model with an awesome pose that has poor form I’ll include some clothing or create some other solution by experimenting with realigning some features.

Here is one i made to show what i mean…

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Grainy Magazine look

Benjamin Doolittle — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:04:01 +0000

You probably have seen this look many time in magazines and some ads on t.v.,This is a grainy and epic looking style that is easy to achieve with photoshop and a nice Image to work with. Below are 5 pictures from a very talented artist over at www.garylandphotography.com, This look is very impressive and only takes a few steps to complete. While picking a Photo to use remember that you want a bit of texture as well as color.

Here is the original image

…and the Final Result

A Closer Look…

Using this technique you will enhance the slightly faded out textures, also it adds a darker contrast to the image and background becomes less distracting as seen in the close up image above…

Let’s get Started.

STEP 1 : Set up your Document and go to Channels. Then Duplicate the blue channel by dragging it yo the create a new layer button.

STEP 2 : Now with the blue copy selected Go to Image/Adjustments/Levels Slightly Boost the highlights and do the same for the shadows but very lightly.

STEP 3 : Keep the blue copy layer selected and Go to Filter/Noise/Add Noise add a very small amount of noise just to see a light grain.

STEP 4 : Now Select your origional layer in your layers pallette and then Go to Image /Apply Image/Channel/Blue Copy

Final Result…

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Dealing with Distracting Backgrounds

Benjamin Doolittle — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 08:36:54 +0000

1. Check your Background Before Hitting the Shutter Release

Ok - this strategy isn’t Rocket Science in fact you’d think it almost goes without saying - but unfortunately it doesn’t and many of the mistakes that I see in photographs could have been avoided simply by checking the background before taking the shot and taking some sort of evasive action.

Always scan the background of your shots before taking a shot. Look for colors that don’t fit with the rest of the image, bright patches that might distract the eye, lines that clash, people that don’t belong etc.

2. Move Your Subject

This is once again a fairly simple technique but is probably the first thing you should consider. Quite often asking a portrait subject to take a step to the left or right will fix things either by putting the distraction behind them or by putting it out of frame.

Photo by alterednate

3. Change your Shooting Angle

If you have distracting elements in the background of a shot but can’t move your subject another strategy is to move yourself and shoot from a new angle. This might mean rotating around your subject but could also include getting down low to make the sky the background or even getting up high and shooting down onto your subject to make the background the ground.

4. Using Aperture to Blur Backgrounds

One of the post useful things to learn as a way to combat distractions in backgrounds (and foregrounds) is to use the power of your lens to throw the background out of focus using depth of field. What you’re trying to achieve with this technique is a nice blurred background where you can’t really make out what’s going on there.

The easiest way to do this is to use a wide aperture (the smaller the number the wider the aperture). The wider your aperture the more blurry your background should become.

The quickest way to see the impact of this strategy is to switch your camera into aperture priority mode and to take a number of shots at different apertures. Start with an aperture of f/20 and work your way down - one stop at a time. Once you get down to under f/4 you’ll start seeing the background in your shots getting blurrier and blurrier.

5. Using Focal Length to Blur Backgrounds

Another way to help get your backgrounds nice and blurry is to use a lens with a long focal length. Longer tele-photo do help a little to get narrower depth of field (although the amount is less than many think). In actual fact the impact is smaller than it seems and the main reason for the change is that with a longer focal length the subject actually takes up more space in the frame. Lots of arguments have been had over whether focal length impacts this - you can read more about it here and here - I’ll leave it to the experts to discuss the finer points but will say that using longer focal lengths does seem to have some impact and is worth experimenting with.

6. Place Subjects In front of Open Spaces

Placing your subject a long way in front of other objects will also help to make those objects more blurry. For example if you have the choice between shooting your subject standing right in front of a brick wall or standing in front of an open field - the open field shot will have a much more blurred background simply because the brick wall is just centimeters from your subject and inside the focal range whereas an open field stretches off into the distance where everything will be out of focus.

7. Fill your frame with your subject

One of the most effective ways of removing distractions from backgrounds is to remove the background altogether by totally filling the frame with your subject. Get up close and/or use your zoom lens to tightly frame the shot and you’ll not only remove distractions but could end up with a high impact shot as well.

Photo by Keith Morris

8. Make your Own Background

Sometimes there just isn’t any suitable background and so you might want to consider making your own. This could range from buying a purpose built studio background or simply buying some cloth to do the job for you.

I know of one keep photographer who goes out shooting photographic portraits and carries large colored board cards with him to put up on walls to act as a background.

The other thing to keep in mind is that in many instances you can move things around in the background of your shots (especially if you’re shooting indoors). .

9. Post Processing

There are numerous ways of editing a shot after you’ve taken it to get rid of distracting elements. These can include blurring techniques, actual removing of elements and replacing them and techniques such as selective coloring (i.e. making your subject stand out by making your background black and white (or at least sucking some of the color out of it).
Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts
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Faze One Studio » Tips

Anti Spam - Masking Your Email

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Photo Border Tutorial

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A little Logo inspiration - 100 samples

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