1. Learn to use your camera

This may sound like 101 for every photographer, but it’s not (I can honestly say I don’t know all of the features on my camera yet). Digital Cameras are very complex these days and there are tons of features. Features you don’t need, features you might not need, features you don’t think you need, features you should be using but aren’t, etc.
The point here is that it’s vital for all photographers to know the camera – what it can as well as what it can’t do – not only for the end result but also for your confidence. When the difficult situation appears (and it will!) I can assure you that you’ll feel twice as confident if you know your camera.

2. Stop using ‘the green mode’

Yes. You can get great photos using the auto mode on you camera. The cameras are really smart these days and the auto features work really well. But if you want to grow as a photographer and if you want to have control over the photo situations, the ‘green mode’ is no option. YOU should be the one to decide how the picture will turn out, not the camera.

3. Get the most out of the autofocus

Most digital cameras has the automatic autofocus – i.e. the camera chooses where the focus will be on your photo. This is another one of those features that work well these days. But if you want to be creative with the camera, you should work on learning how to use the focus points manually. Because – once again – YOU should be the one in charge, not the camera.

4. Think before you press the button

Take an extra moment (or a couple) to think about light, background and other things that might interfere with the picture you have in mind, before you press the button. It’ll save you a lot of head ache and hours of post-processing.

5. Take lots pictures

Once you’ve bought the camera and lenses, digital photography is cheap. Taking 5 or 50 picture won’t make any noticeable difference to your wallet. But taking 50 pictures instead of 5 will most definitely increase your chances of getting the perfect photo. So after thinking the location/light/picture through, I say go nuts with the shutter button.

6. Join a Forum (and accept critique)

There are hundreds of awesome photo forums online. Places where people are helping each other out to learn more about photography. And most of the forums have sections where you can upload pictures and other people can give comments on them. This is a great way to learn more if you’re new to photography, because you’ll get critique from experienced photographers. You will, however, need to accept the fact that people won’t always love your photos. But instead of getting grumpy about it, listen to them and hear what they have to say. You will most definitely learn a thing or two.

7. Learn post-processing

Photographers are often saying that they want everything to be perfect when they shoot, so that they won’t need to “photoshop” the picture.
Well, I agree. Get the picture as perfect as possible can in-camera. But don’t think that you won’t need to do post-processing. Adjusting the picture after the actual exposure has been done forever, and with Photoshop it’s no different. Apart from the fact that you can do so much more these days, than you could back in the darkroom days.

So why not take advantage of it? Learn how to use Photoshop properly and you can take your photos to the next level. (There are cheaper softwares as well, but I can’t really give any tips there since Photoshop is what I use.)

8. Shoot in RAW

Almost every digital SLR has the possibility to shoot in RAW-format these days. If you don’t know what RAW is, I suggest you google it right away. The only downside of RAW compared to JPEG is that the files are larger. But since hard-drives are inexpensive nowadays, there’s really no excuse for not shooting RAW. Once you learn the benefits and the possibilities of the RAW format, there’s no turning back. I think I’ve shot JPEG’s once or twice the last two years, and that’s only when I had no time for post-processing. Otherwise, always RAW. Always.

9. Start photoblogging

Having a photoblog is great not only for showing off your work, but also for the pressure you put on yourself. Who’s going to check a blog that is updated once a month? I know I wouldn’t. You need to blog at least once or twice a week, which means you’ll have to take pictures at least that often. And taking more pictures makes you more experienced, which makes you a better photographer. As simple as that.

10. Go for education over gear

Once you have a camera and a good lens (like the inexpensive 50mm f/1,8) you have everything you need for good photos. So instead of buying more lenses in the beliefe of becoming a better photographer, spend your money on books or maybe take a photo course. Your photography will definitely benefit more from the knowledge you gain, than from that extra $500 lens in your camera bag.

That’s it. My very personal 10 tips. And because a post is better with a picture, here’s one of my niece Judith from Christmas Eve.

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The Nikon 50mm f/1,4 and the Nikon 85mm f/1,8.

Both of these are great for what I’m mostly shooting – people. Both of them are also great in low light situations if you – like me – strive to avoid the flash. The 50mm f/1,4 is especially good because of the low f-stop. (There is a 85mm f/1,4 as well. I’d love to get my hands on it).

These two are prime lenses, that is: no zoom. They are 50 and 85 mm and that’s it, which means you have to use your feet for zooming. This did bother me a bit when I first started using them since I was used to zooms, but as I saw the results and got used to moving around instead of zooming, I was sold. Will never go back. The pictures are that much better.

Another advantage with these two lenses is the size – they’re small. Put a zoom lens on your camera and it’s usually huge and heavy. With these prime lenses it’s not.

The 50mm f/1,4 is definitely my favourite lens right now. I could easily shoot a whole wedding with that lens alone. It’s around $500-600 (somewhere around 4000 SEK or 400 EUR) and is very much worth the money. There’s also a 50mm f/1,8 that’s less than half the price and also great for portraits and low light situations.

Additionally I have a Sigma 20mm f/1,8, a Nikon 70-300mm f/4,5-5,6, and a Tamron 90mm f/2,8 Macro. They are all good lenses for different purposes and I use them every once in a while, but for people photography the 50mm and the 85mm are my most frequently used ones.

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PS. If there’s anything you’d like me to write about (photography wise), please let me know and I’ll fire up another FAQ post!

1. Light

Light is without a doubt my number one factor for good pictures. You got a nice coloured wall for a portrait shot, but the light is no good? Move. A beautiful view, but the light is much better ten steps to the left? Move. Make light the number one thing you think about, and then choose the location. Not the other way around. I promise you’ll get much better pictures. This is especially important if you – like me – like to work with natural light mostly.

2. Sharpness

Sure – an unsharp picture can be great. But in 99 out of a 100 cases I prefer sharp and crisp portrait pictures. That’s why I keep my shutter speed high, use low f-stops and why I’m not afraid to push the ISO up high. Maybe that’s not for everyone (or at least not for every situation), but I strive for this in most cases.

3. Background

Keep. The. Background. Clean. Almost every portrait is better with an uncluttered background. Don’t only consider the subject you’re shooting, but be sure to check out what’s behind him/her. Look out for signs, other people, cars etc. Sure, you can use the healing brush or the clone stamp in Photoshop afterwards, but a little observation when photographing will save you hours of Photoshopping, trying to remove that huge red STOP-sign.

4. Depth of field

This has been said many times before, but it’s definitely worth saying again. Using large apertures (low f-numbers) makes a huge difference for portraits. It can also be related to the previous factor (clean backgrounds) since you’ll get the subject in focus and the background out of focus, meaning that you can get a good portrait even with a bad or cluttered background. Since I mainly use prime lenses, I’m almost always shooting at f/1,4 or f/1,8.

5. Delete in-camera

This isn’t really a photography tip, but still a thing that I do on location. It’s much more fun to return with 100 photos that are good or at least decent, than coming home with 300, of which two out of three are useless. Deleting the bad shots in camera also increases ones self-esteem, since you’ve already forgotten about the bad shots when you look through your photos at home.

That’s it. My top five factors for reducing the bad pictures. And once you’ve nailed the shot, here are a few suggestions on how to continue in Photoshop.

(Bear in mind that these are my very personal opinions. Others may think very differently.)

Well, first of all let me make one thing clear: I love Photoshop. And as far as post processing goes, I usually spend quite a lot of time with a picture in Photoshop. However, I do strive for a perfect picture already in-camera, but – just like people back in dark room days – for me post processing is a must do, to get the results I want.

The answer to the post processing question is quite complex though, since it varies a lot depending on the image and what kind of feeling I want it to communicate. That being said, there are some basic adjustments that can be applied to most pictures. Basically I work a lot with focus – I want the eye to focus on the right parts of the picture, making it easier to look at. I do that already when photographing, as I almost always shoot wide open (low f-stop), but also in the processing phase by working with light. Light is a good way to ‘steer’ the eye to some parts of a picture, thus making the subject you want to be in focus ‘pop out’.

Let me exemplify to make it clearer. I’ve made this a three step mini-tutorial, with the three basic adjustments that I use a lot. I work in Adobe Photoshop only (after the basic RAW adjustments in Adobe Lightroom) but these adjustments can probably be done in a variety of image processing softwares.

Step 1: Contrast by S-curve

First of all, I almost always add some contrast to the pictures. Since I shoot in RAW-format only, this is done already in the RAW-processing. But I still usually add an S-curve in Photoshop as well. The S-curve (in-depth explanation here) is the ‘traditional’ way of adding contrast to a picture in digital post processing – making the dark parts darker, and the bright parts brighter to get the subject to ‘pop out’ of the image.
Here’s what a photo looks like before the S-curve and after the S-curve.

Step 2: Dodge and Burn

This is probably my favourite Photoshop feature. I love Dodge and Burn. Love. Use it almost always on all kinds of picutres, to darken some parts of a picture and lighten others. And to make that so popular vignette effect. There are many other ways to make vignettes, but the burn tool has replaced all of those techniques for me.
Here’s what the picture looks like before I’ve dodged and burnt, and afterwards:

Step 3: Sharpen

This is the final step that I do on almost every single image. Sometimes I sharpen parts of the picture more than others, but usually an overall sharpening is enough. But before sharpening, always (alway, always, always) resize the image to the size you want it to be. Whether it’s a 600×600 pixel image for online viewing or a 20×30 cm picture for print. If done the other way around (sharpening first, then resizing) the sharpening won’t be as effective, since resizing deletes pixels in a digital image.

There are tons of ways to sharpen a picture in Photoshop. The most common methods are perhaps unsharp mask and smart sharpening, both good techniques. I don’t use these, but instead a method a wee more complicated (the numbers below is for picture viewed on a screen, up to about 1000 px wide):
First, merge all layers so you get a new layer on top of the others (shortcut Cmd+Alt+Shift+E on a Mac, Ctrl+Alt+Schift+E on a PC). Then add the High Pass effect (radius: 0,3) to the layer and set it’s layer style to Linear light. This sharpens the image quite a lot, so I usually lower the layer opacity to about 50-70 %.
Here’s the before and after:

That’s it. Three quite simple yet effective techniques to improve a picture. You can get this effect in a variety of ways, and I’m not saying this is how it’s done. But it’s the way I do it.
Here’s once again the full before and after:

I probably would have worked some more on this picture to get it perfect, but this was a rough edit to show you some of the techniques I use.

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Since this blog is still quite the baby (about 3 moths old now), I haven’t really found the perfect recipe for it yet. That’s why it’d be great with some feedback from you. Is this something you’d like me to write more about? Post processing techniques. Or is there anything else you’d like me to cover, photography or Photoshop wise? If so, please let me know in the comments, or send me an e-mail. I’d appreciate it.

I blog in WordPress and the theme is called ProPhoto. Some may think it’s a little pricy – do-it-yourself package for $179 or handheld installation package for $259 – but if the option is a making one yourself or hire someone to do it, well I’d say it’s worth every penny. It’s very easy to use and you can customize about anything. I’m a big fan.

The people behind it at Netrivet were also kind enough to give me discount code. So if anyone wants to buy it, here’s a code that’ll give you $10 off: JAKGRA895

This is where you get it.

Happy Thursday!