Wacom Inkling...

Quick post on quite possibly one of the coolest gadgets i've come across in some time thanks too @GarthLee. The new Wacom Inkling appears to be truly amazing, by simply attaching the device at the top of your page and drawing with the Wacom stylus, everything is recorded and it simply downloads to your mac. Also allows you to work in layers, allowing for tweaking and manipulating in Photoshop. Not sure about you guys, but I'm definitely getting one some time in the future, it looks awesome...

500px...

http://500px.com/benbrownphoto

As some of you may know I've used flickr for a long time, especially with the 365 project I undertook last year, but I think I may have now found a replacement. I've herd a lot of people going on about this new '500px' site, and how it's better than flickr. At first I didn't take much notice, but now I must agree. With a far more professional look and feel about it I much prefer the entire interface of this new 500px. So headed over and set my account up yesterday. The images come across so much cleaner and more vibrant than I previously experienced at flickr. Head over there and take a look, you may agree...

Site now available on iPad and iPhone...

Livebooks offers you the chance to generate a mobile specific site, to make easy navigation upon iPhone's, instead of having to use all the small button located within the site. The coolest aspect of all is that finger gestures work within the site and images become full bleed, allowing for seamless viewing of the portfolio. Now all aspects of Ben Brown Photo are mobile. If you've got an iPad or iPhone head on over and take a look at www.benbrownphoto.com, it's pretty awesome...

Aaron Browne...

This latest shoot was a collaboration with a trials bike rider Aaron Browne. Only met the guy a week ago, but knew he would make for some pretty insane images. The images are part of a test shoot for a future project I'm a part hoping to be a part of. I needed to generate an idea of what the future images would look like and came up with these. Spent the day in Doncaster, England shooting images in several different awesome locations. After 5 hours of shooting and almost losing some of my kit due to the rugrats of Doncaster (Have camera insurance if you shoot there in the future), we came up with these images...

Richard Walch...

I've been struggling to come around to all these photographers I've aspired to become turning their hand over to this new dslr video world, but the work of Richard Walch is beginning to win me over. Creating promotional work for the Canon 5D mk II immediately caught my attention. Utilising many of the aspects learnt through his photography helps him to generate moving images of which really have still image characteristics about them. It's nice to see a photographer not just leaving his still image skills behind and adhering to traditional video styles and trying to discover something new and exciting. Take a look at the video to understand what I mean...

New Place...

Not really been active online the last month, and this is the reason. Moved into a new place and it's taken ages to get back online. The emails have built up and stress levels kept on rising, felt liked I'd changed my career to a handy man, but it's all totally worth it. Taken us about a month to get the house looking good, so now it's all done thought i'd show you what all the fuss has been for, just for those of you interested...

Hallway

Office

Lounge

Kitchen

Bedroom

Garden

There's a few other bedrooms and load of bathrooms, but didn't think you'd be interested in seeing them. Still got a few bits and pieces to sort out and really need to get some artwork on the walls, but it'll all be done in time. Now I'm back to work and got a new space to work daily blog posts will be a regular, so keep checking back for whatever I find time to blog about...

Editing...

Had a few people on flickr asking about simple editing techniques on my shots, so thought I'd do a really quick run through. When it comes to my post production I don't do to much. Simple manipulation if i want to remove something then a little contrast and colour tweaking.

"The Original"

The original image had a few bits and pieces I didn't like and wanted to take out. After 2 minutes of cloning and using a little "content aware", I'd managed to get rid of the telephone line in the right of the image and a few other bits and pieces. 

The image is exposed perfectly, but is very flat in terms of colour and contrast. I find contrast to be very important in terms of the intent of the image. For example, high contrast doesn't work if you want a natural soft image. There is plenty of different ways to control separate aspects of your images in photoshop. I simply tweak the contrast and colours through channel mixer, selective colour and curves. Make sure your doing all these tweaks in separate layers. This allows you to use layer masks and implement the effects to specific areas of the image.

When the image is looking about right after these tweaks, all thats left is to prepare the image for print or web. I always like to sharpen my images very slightly. I do this with a little high pass filter changed to overlay. Then play with the opacity until you get the right look.

The image below shows all my filter and whether they include layer masks...

"In Post"

Key points...

Using layer masks is key to producing a well controlled image. Many traditional photographers believe it to be cheating, but it's all tricks you can do in the dark room.

Do all your tweaks and adjustments on separate layers. You don't want to at a later date find you've done something wrong then be unable to change it.

Don't fall into the trap of, "Oh I can fix that in Photoshop". You'll never improve your photography that way.

It's easy to go to far with tweaking. Theres nothing worse than an image over processed.

"Final Image"

Check out more of my work at www.benbrownphoto.com