You’ve all seen these trick photos that make it look like your computer’s screen is transparent. It seems like the photographer took a picture, uploaded it to the computer, set it as the desktop background, positioned the computer (screen) carefully in the scene and photographed it all again. The truth is fortunately much simpler than that and this tutorial shows you just how to easily you can do your own transparent screen trick photo.

Here’s the final picture:

Transparent Screen MacBook Pro - Final Picture

The new Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 [QuickPrice Check] features a couple of new functions that make an upgrade well worth the money. Today I want to take a look at their Photomerge Exposure function that takes two or more pictures taken at different exposure settings and merge them into a single one with optimal exposure setting.

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Implying Motion While Zooming

I’ve just added the above picture to illustrate “Implying Motion While Zooming” in the Understanding “Understanding Exposure“ series on Photoxels on Facebook.

I used the Fujifilm FinePix HS10 super zoom digital camera set to 1/40 sec., F8.0, ISO 200, and zoomed (using its wonderful manual zoom ring) from 24mm to approx. 80mm [equiv.135]. It’s not as fancy as Bryan Peterson’s tree example but I believe it illustrates the principle behind the technique he describes.

I handheld the shot of my neighbor’s beautiful Dropmore Honeysuckle vine but if you want a tack sharp central subject, it’s best to use a tripod.

If you are not getting the zooming effect, you may be using a shutter speed that is too fast and/or zooming too late. It’s trial and error, and I found that I got best results when I pressed the shutter release button and zoomed right away. Zoom too early and you get a zoomed in flower; zoom too late and the picture is recorded before the zoom effect. I took about 10 shots and selected this one as the best one.

Send me yours and I’ll post them.

When we hand hold a camera and press the shutter release button to take a picture, we ever so slightly move the camera. This “camera shake” often results in a blurred picture. Image stabiliation (I.S.) is a technology that either moves a lens element (Optical I.S.) or the camera’s image sensor (Sensor-shift I.S.) to compensate for camera shake and reduce or eliminate the blurring.

But is one better than the other? You would think so by reading the discussions on some forum boards. There is a difference in how they work but there is no better I.S. Each has its own strength and weakness.

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Camera Shake is probably one of the main reasons for blurry photos. But just what is camera shake and, more importantly, how can one avoid it?

There are a number of reasons why a picture may come out blurry, but one of the main culprit is ‘camera shake.’ This is especially true if you are brand new to photography and are handling your very first camera. But some people have been taking pictures for a long time and still have not figured out how to avoid camera shake. In this article, we will look at some tried and proven techniques pros use to reduce — or even altogether eliminate — camera shake and avoid blurry pictures.

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Lots of you have upgraded from a point-and-shoot digicam to a DSLR lately — and probably still shooting in the Green Heart, Intelligent AUTO, and other Easy modes (we’ll just call them “AUTO” here). Basically, admit it, you’re hesitant to use your DSLR to its full potential — and advance your photography skills up one notch. Don’t worry, we’re all like that when we start out, so you’re in good company.

Fear not, today we will hold your hand and help you switch that Mode Dial to A, the Aperture-Priority AE mode, the mode probably used by most professional photographers.

We promise you won’t mess any settings up on your DSLR and, if you are not convinced by the end of this tutorial, we’ll let you revert back to your trusty AUTO mode. OK? So, if you’re ready, let’s go!

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Editor’s note: We published this tutorial last month but I believe many of you may have missed it, so here it is again.

Many beginner photographers consider their cameras to be good if the latter can produce very sharp pictures. But professional photographers appreciate a camera (or more precisely, a camera’s lens) that can take a sharp main subject and an out-of-focus background. By throwing the background out of focus (i.e. blurred), the main subject is isolated and seems to “pop out” of the picture for maximum impact.

How do we add background blur to our pictures? By using a large aperture on a standard or telephoto lens. On a 35mm camera lens, an aperture of f/4 is considered large enough to throw the background nicely out of focus. Unfortunately, on most compact digicams, the focal length of the lens is too small to be able to throw the background out of focus even when you use a relatively large aperture.

Bokeh is the out-of-focus areas -- I like this picture even though the background is distracting

This has been around for a while now, but I am always going back to find it for readers who ask. So, here it is again, a Do-It-Yourself lightbox for product shots using a cardboard box and some tracing paper. No need to get PVC tubes and what not.

We finally build our own:

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