Loading ...How To Create Physiogram Long Exposure Photographs
A physiogram is a single long exposure of a flashlight spinning around on a string that is tied to a ceiling. You heard me, simply find a way to attach your flashlight to a string or shoelace or something, then put your camera on the ground with the widest angle you can get (after getting the light in focus, then switching the focus off), turn out the light, turn on the flashlight, give it a good push, then take a long exposure of the physiogram. You can also achieve different kinds of effects by zooming in and out, or focusing in and out while the exposure is taking place. You can also use different colored lights, and blend them later in Photoshop. When you take the photo, I recommend using a 30 second (the maximum shutter time on most DSLR cameras, unfortunately) exposure, or, if you have a BULB mode on your camera, you can use that.
Examples of Physiography:
This last image was manipulated later on a computer.
You could theoretically create a physiogram with a sparkler too. Yep, a firework SPARKLER. How awesome would that be? I haven't done it before, however the idea would be to put your camera on the ground facing upwards underneath some protective glass. Tie the sparkler to a tree branch, weight it down somehow, and take the shot the same way you would take a regular physiogram.
You could also use a tripod pointing down at a mirror, with the light source above the mirror. This way you would capture the reflection, and you would be able to see through your viewfinder. I like using a wide angle lens and just putting my camera on the ground and taking the shot, however.
If your in a highschool photography class, this will totally flip people out. Most, if not everyone, will not know how you did it. At least that's how it was when I did it in highschool.
The Maglight Solitaire Flashlight 
Photoshop Flesh, Skin, and Body Parts Onto Eachother Using Photo Manipulation
One thing that I have recently been getting into is using photo manipulation to glue human body parts onto one another. I've done two pieces so far, (one is a picture of several body parts including arms, mouths, eyes, faces and flesh thrown together, and the other one is handsome hands).
Photoshop Time lapse of "Handsome Hands", 40 minutes boild down into 1:
I would like to do an online art collaboration with several people, each adding their own body parts into a massive piece of jumbled up flesh. Leave a comment if you are up to it 
Tips for this type of photo manipulation:
Use the same amount of light, white balance, exposure, and F Stop in all shots to make all the photographs the same color; use layer masks with big, soft brushes to gradually blend the arm into the finger. Another thing I did was I shot this on a white background to make it easier.
Long Exposure Effects for the Experimental Photographer
Because long exposure photography is such a large topic, I am going to give only a few examples of effects that it can achieve. I will post more detailed tutorials later specifying each topic. If I missed anything, please leave a comment and let me know so I can add it to this article. Thanks!
Drawing with light (aka Light Painting)
Drawing with light is extremely easy and fun. Simply wait until night time, put your camera on a tripod, and set your exposure for long periods of time (these are usually 5 seconds-5minutes), your aperture, and ISO. I usually use f4 at iso 200 or 400, but these settings need to be determined differently according to each situation. Then, DRAW! There are many different light toys that create different effects. Things that have been used before include sparklers, glow sticks, flashlights, fire/torches, Christmas lights, illuminated cell phones, iPods, laser pens, and of course the widely used standard battery operated LED.
Scribble with laser pen. In this example the laser pen was stroked up and down the models face. 1 sec. / f 3.5 / ISO 200
City lights from a far away distance. The camera slightly moved while the focus ring moved along with it so the light gradually becomes out of focus. 1.3 sec. / f 6.3 / iso20
30 second exposure of tiny LED finger ring lights. I was holding them the entire time, but because I was not illuminated, you can't see me in this picture.
7 second exposure / f22 / ISO 200. This is just a standard long exposure of a SPARKLER in motion. Also keep in mind that if you use a flash, the person holding the sparkler will show up in the photograph. Regular sparks from fires can also make amazing shots, especially if you go in and out of focus during the exposure.
Keep in mind that you can trace objects with sparklers (or LEDs or any kind of lightsource). This was a car traced with a sparkler. 7 minutes long, ISO 100, F/18,
You can also use flashlights (or strobes/flashes) to illuminate your scene. Simply turn on your flashlight and start drawing/painting/spraying light onto the scene to illuminate it in the dark. If you have an extremely powerful flashlight, it is very well possible to illuminate entire landscapes in the dark as well!
If you have a tripod on you, and your in an amusement park or some type of fair grounds, long exposures of rides look very good when taken in long exposure mode. Ferris wheels also work very well.
You can also make silhouettes of people by taking a long exposure while you move some sort of light behind them. Blue glow sticks were used in this example.
This was a long exposure of Christmas tree lights. It was a one second exposure. The reason why the lines look so straight is because the camera was jerked in a fast motion.
These are called physiograms. Simply attach an LED to a string and let it hand from the ceiling, turn off all the lights, take a long exposure, and give the LED a little tap, and this will be the outcome!
Again, LEDs are just great. You can trace objects with them, just like you can with sparklers! (Although, of course, use sparklers outside!)
You can also make flash stencils! Just put cardboard in front of your flash with a design cut out in it, and your ready to go.
Long Exposures During Day
You can also create long exposures of landscapes during they DAY by using an extremely dark filter that attaches to the front of your lens. The filter you can use is a B+W filter, an ND400 filter (I'd recommend this one), or even an Infrared filter. Taking long exposures during the day is useful for creating foggy/ghostly seascapes, blurring clouds, blurring water and waterfalls, and removing people from a scene.
Long exposures are excellent for moving ocean waters splashing against rocks. The longer exposure = the more misty the water will looks A lot of people use an ND400 Filter for long exposures during the day. It allows 30 second+ exposure times.
Long exposures of waterfalls create that smooth/soothing effect. Silver Falls, Oregon. This looks blue and white because it was taken with an Infrared Filter attached to my camera lens.
Manual blend of 2 exposures. 20 seconds for the water and 5 seconds for the sky. The long exposure is made possible by the use of a ND400 filter.
Star Trails
These are a great challenge, and the best part is, you don't know what the photograph will look like until after you've taken it.
20 minute exposure at F 3.5. ISO 200 or 400.
Other fun long exposures:
These eyes were constantly moving while the camera took a 1.5 second exposure. No Photoshop
This was a one second exposure. Half of the exposure the eye was open, then after .5 seconds, the eye was shut. What you see is the eye both open and closed at the same time.
This is a long exposure at night time of snow falling! The snow was illuminated with a light, and a tree is in the background. 3 seconds.
This is an example of Solargraphy. Solargraphy is the process of taking long exposures with pinhole cameras that last several MONTHS to record the light of the sun. This is a 6 month exposure taken by solarigrafia on Flickr.
There are also other things you can do with long exposure photography. Long exposures during the day allow water and clouds to blur, leafs on a tree will also blur (if there is wind). In addition, you can also take a long exposure in a very crowded city where lots of people are walking, and completely make the crowd invisible by taking a long exposure during that day.
You can also use a long exposure and then fire multiple flashes to light your subject in different ways, and/or to multiply them in number. You can also spin your camera to take perfect straight blurred out lines, or you can zoom in and out with your lens while the exposure is taking place.
Long exposures also come in handy during lightning, simply take a long exposure and wait for the lightning to show up.
The challenge: create a long exposure that has all of the above. Light painting, light spraying, star trails, and lightning; all in one photograph. (Okay, I realize it would be hard to get lightning, but try to include them all if you can
And now.... here is a list of light toys and things that glow in the dark that could potentially used for light painting... (This list will be updated when I find new cool things, if you have any suggestions, PLEASE TELL ME)
42 Reasons Why Nikon Sucks
I recently purchased a new Nikon D300s, and I am not satisfied with it. In fact, I'm disgusted with it! I paid $1800 for this camera, and it can't do any of these basic functions, most of which are just software/firmware things that could be added without any hardware tweaking. Although this list specifically applies to the D300s (because I own it and know what it can/cannot do), a lot of the things can also apply to lots of other digital SLR cameras that are produced by Canon, Sony, Fuji.... (specifically the ones with a video mode):
- There is no sound detection shutter triggering.
- There is no motion detection shutter triggering.
- There is no headphone output.
- There is no sound metering/VU/Volume/Peak meter in camera.
- You can't record audio files.
- The only image recording options available are JPG, TIFF, or NEF. The only video formats available are .AVI.
- Nikon has limited the frames per second. The camera is capable taking 8fps without an external battery pack, but in order to enable 8fps properly, the camera has to detect that there is a battery grip attached. The only reason why they did this was to make you buy their $200 MD-D10 battery grip.
- You can't write your own programs for the camera because the firmware is not open source. The majority of these problems would be solvable if it was.
- You cannot view non-Nikon content in camera on the LCD screen. All images and videos must be taken by a Nikon camera in order to be played back in camera.
- It can't meter beyond 30 seconds.
- It can't blend multiple exposures in certain, useful ways.
- It only can do whole number fps integers (4fps, 5fps, etc) and is unable to use more flexible values, such as 4.2 fps or4.3fps, for example.
- It can't do 2 fps and then 3 fps, and then loop that pattern.
- You cannot bracket images with user customized integers/values.
- The exposure bracketing only allows up to a maximum of 9 stops.
- The self-timer only has 2, 5, 10, or 20 seconds available for customization. What if I wanted 8.5 seconds? What if I wanted 40 seconds, or 8.2 hours?
- The exposure delay mode can only be set to 1 second.
- You cannot properly set the white balance in camera for infrared photography. This feature was available in some older models.
- The file naming system is very limited. It allows only three characters, an underscore, and then the numbers 0001-9999. What if I wanted the file name to have an unlimited amount of characters at the beginning, and then the file number (say 12095356342 (as you can see, it can go past 9999 without being reset to 0001 or no reason)) and then another set of characters, and then the date (a custom variable)? Nope, sorry.
- The Active folder function is limited. Yet again, it only allows three numbers to be inserted into the folder name, and then a "D300S" is stuck at the end of the folder name. What if I wanted an unlimited amount of customizable numbers AND letters?
- There is no live histogram.
- The live horizon only meters the x axis, not the y axis.
- The BULB mode is limited. It lets the photographer take an exposure while their finger is pressed on the shutter, but if they wanted to push the shutter once to activate the exposure, and then once again to stop the exposure, they wouldn't be able to do that without buying a cable release or remote.
- EV, Exp, and ISO is adjustable only in 1/3 or 1/2 increments.
- Accurate exposure times are limited. For example, you cannot set it to 23 seconds. It's either 20 or 25.
- It only can write files to be in horizontal orientation. It can write in the EXIF data that it needs rotating, but if you wanted to write the actual file dimensions in vertical orientation, its is impossible.
- It's incapable of auto-focus bracketing.
- The AF Assist lamp doesn't always turn on when it's dark, and furthermore, there is no option to turn on the AF Assist lamp at your desire. It is a waste considering how bright and useful the lamp is.
- The Interval Time Shooting mode is limited. The shortest interval time is one second.
- There is no way to tell how large the file size is for any of the pictures in camera.
- There is no option to view the pictures in whatever orientation your camera is in. It's either "ROTATE TALL" or a not.
- You cannot install different sized crystals inside of the camera body that are in front of the sensor to bend light in certain artistic ways (this one is a joke)
- You cannot auto-focus the lens from Focus Point A to Focus Point B while it is taking an exposure.
- The exposure compensation only goes up or down to maximum of five stops.
- You cannot easily select groups of images to be deleted simultaneously.
- You cannot quickly create a playlist of certain images/videos you want to play while in sideshow mode.
- You cannot resize images to smaller sizes. This feature was available in older models.
- The repeating flash mode is limited to 1HZ to 50HZ. It's very easily possible to program the camera to be .5HZ.
- There is an option that allows you to trim movie clips from the beginning, and another option to trim movie clips from the end, however if you wanted to do both at the same time, there is no option available. You have to trim the beginning, which makes a new copy of the file, then trim the end of that copy, which makes another copy. In the end you have 3 copies.
- You cannot create a movie file of a long exposure being recorded in real time.
- You cannot set the shutter speed for movies.
- There is a hissing sound when using an external microphone. Why can't they just make the thing work normally? normal = functional.
A lot of the things listed above are already capable of being enabled in the camera, however Nikon decided to just disable them for the hell of it.
The solution? The Frankencamera. The Frankencamera will allow users to write their own programs for the camera and use it as they please, however the image quality will not be up to par with expensive D-SLR cameras with their fancy-shmancy image sensors.
The Nikon D300s' competitor, the Canon 7D, fixes some of the problems... but I don't own one so I can't tell you which problems it fixes and which ones it doesn't. I'm assuming that it only can fix a few. Based on a video review I saw of it, the only things better than the Nikon is it can take longer video footage, it's 18 megapixels compared to 12, and it can meter the y axis horizon (big deal)
Is there anything you would like me to add to the list? If there is, write a comment below, please 
Here is a video I made on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muzhKaX7Of4
How To Enhance Your Landscape Photographs To Be More Colorful In Adobe Camera RAW
Taking very vibrant, saturated, lush landscapes has never been easier when taking images in the RAW format. You can easily get perfect looking images in post processing when using Adobe Camera RAW, which is included with Photoshop.
When I say lush, I mean full and rich with colors. I'll show you a before and after example and then tell you the recipe:
The first picture is the original RAW, the 2nd is after post processing in A.C.R.
As you can see in the first photo, the sky was hazy, and what should be green is a desaturated stupid yellow color. It's really easy to fix this up
-
HSL/Grayscale tab. Hue subtab.
When you open your RAW in Adobe Camera Raw, click on the fourth tab labeled HSL/Grayscale and the default subtab of that should be set to Hue. Simply slide the Yellow slider to the right. This will turn the yellows into greens. Problem solved. In this particular example, however, there were yellow flowers as well. In order to not make those greens, I slid the green slider to the right. This simply made the greens greener and the yellows just green enough. If all you have in your photo is just a bunch of ugly dead yellow grass, then by all means, bump the yellow slider all the way up to +100.
- If you want to make the skies darker, click the Luminance tab and slide the Blues and Aquas sliders to the left. Sometimes I like to bring one out to the left and the other one to the right, but in this particular example, I moved the blue to -64
- To make things more colorful, click the middle tab that says Saturation. I bumped up the Greens to +67 and the yellows to +15, but all the values I've been mentioning must be applied to the specific photo you are editing.
- To finish things off, I went back to the first called Basic and bumped the Saturation and Vibrance up to +10!
This method is better than using Photomatix to create High Dynamic Range (HDR) images, in my opinion (although the effect is different in nature to begin with, they are a but similar). I tried to make an HDR composite of this same image and it looked like crap compared to the one I made in A.C.R.
Here is a video tutorial I made on the subject as well:
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYGxvWEA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="1024" height="798" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
How to clone yourself using multiplicty photos
In this article I'll explain how you can easily clone yourself with a camera and Photoshop. People call these "multiplicity photographs"
"Imagination" - I had my mom take these, everytime I got into a new position I told her to take a new shot. It went by quick and easy. I replaced the sky with a more dramtic one and added birds. I also did some dodging and burning on the play structure.
OKAY. So, here is how you do it. Put your camera on a tripod and tighten it so it won't move. Focus your scene and then switch to Manual focus so that your camera won't constantly be trying to re-focus the scene. You can shoot in any mode you want to, but I would advise against Shutter Priority mode and just take the photos in full Manual mode. Having everything set to Manual insures that each frame will have a consistent exposure. After everything is in focus and you have your shutter speed and aperture set, take a picture of the scene with the model to the left of the frame. Then, take another picture of the model closer to the right of the frame. Keep taking pictures with your body in different areas of the frame.
You can get a friend to help you take each picture, use a remote, or use the self timer feature on your camera. If your friend is pushing down the shutter button on the camera, make sure they are careful on keeping the camera perfectly in place and not to accidentally bump into it.
This image was very easy to create because none of the people were overlapping each other. This made it very easy to mask the model without tediously going into fine detail
Now once you have all your photos taken, you need to import them into Photoshop. Click File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack.... Then just select your images and wait a minute for them to compile.
Once it's done you should see all your pictures in the Layers window. Select the top layer and click New Layer Mask (it's located at the bottom of the layers window) Next, take a black brush and brush over the person in that frame. The person will be erased! To un-erase it, hit CTRL+I, (cmd+I if you are on a Mac). You can now see the person in the first frame, and the one in the second frame! Make a layer mask like that for all the frames and then your done!
You can also do this with objects and animals.
Distort Faces in CS4 by using Content Aware Scale
You can easily use photo manipulation to make very trippy, surreal, drugged out, distorted faces. All you have to do is open your image up and select the face using the standard Rectangle Marquee tool. Then, go to Edit > Content-Aware Scale. Grab one of the points on the edge the selection and move it around. I like to shrink the face together rather than expand it, but feel free to experiment. The higher the resolution your original image is, the better quality it will be.
If you want to protect certain areas of your image (areas that will not be scaled) simply go to the Channels tab and create a new channel (Alpha 1). Then use a white brush to fill in the areas you want to protect. After you've done that, select your image using the Rectangle Marquee tool and then click Edit > Content Aware Scale in the menu.
Now, Below the main menu at the top there will be a toolbar, at the right of the toolbar there is a drop down box that is labeled "Protect:". Select Alpha 1, and then scale your image like normal. Keep in mind that none of the images on here were scaled using the Protect function.
Another awesome way to make weird faces is to scan your face!
Scanner Art: How to Melt your face by Scanning it With A Scanner
You can easily make surreal face art just like these using your scanner. You can also use hands, pencils, and other various objects. Simply push the scan button and move your face along with the scanner light line. When you move your head along with the line, it will become stretched.
Pretty gruesome huh? The more you practice, the more you'll be making faces look completely mutated. These images came straight out of my scanner and have not been photoshopped in any way. You can see that the black background isn't 100% black. You can fix this in Photoshop by clicking on Image > Adjustments > Selective Color, once there, select Blacks as your color, and then move the slider to the right. This will darken your background substantially. If it isn't looking 100% black to you, click Image > Auto Contrast, and then try doing it again. It should work after Auto Contrast.
Have fun! Another way to make scary faces is to manipulate your face in CS4 using Content Aware Scaling.
How To Make A Photorealistic Pixelated Animated GIF in Photoshop
These animations are great for avatars and ID's for websites.
Ok, so here is how you make these things.
- Open up your image in photoshop.
- Resize the image (Image > Image Size) to something similar to the examples. Animated GIFs aren't supposed to be huge. I'd say no more than 500x500 pixels.
- Crop the image if necessary.
- Sharpen the image if you want to (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen)
- Here is the fun part. In order to get the pixelated look, go up to Image > Mode > Indexed Color. Select Local (Adaptive) for the pallet. 3 for the Colors. Then set your Dither setting and the dither amount:
- Now, change the color back to RGB mode. Image > Mode > RGB Color
- If you want to make the image have a transparent background, erase the background to be completely white. Then Select the Magic Wand Tool, set the Tolerance to 0, and untick Anti-Aliasing and Contagious. Click on the background and hit the DELETE key.
- If you want the dissolving animation look, go up to Window > Animation. Duplicate your frame by clicking the little page icon on the bottom right of the Animation window.
- Select the FIRST FRAME, make it invisible by unticking the little eye icon by the layer in the Layers window.
- Now select just the SECOND FRAME, and make sure the eye icon is activated.
- Now, select both frames by holding down the CTRL key while clicking on both of them. They should both be highlighted.
- Next, click the Tween button
on the bottom of the animation window. - Depending on how long you want the dissolve effect to last, a short number amount of frames (like 10) will dissolve the image quickly. A larger number (like 30) will make the dissolving effect last longer. Set the frame rate by selecting all the frames and then there is a button in the lower right.
- Select the second frame, then, while holding down the SHIFT key, select your last frame (this will select all your frames except the 1st one)
- In the layers window, set the blending mode to Dissolve.
- You're pretty much done! You can add other things as well, like multiple frames.
- To save the animation properly, click File > Save For Web... Make sure "GIF" is selected in the second drop down box in the top right.
- Save it.
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- How To Enhance Your Landscape Photographs To Be More Colorful In Adobe Camera RAW
- How to clone yourself using multiplicty photos
- Distort Faces in CS4 by using Content Aware Scale
- Scanner Art: How to Melt your face by Scanning it With A Scanner
- How To Make A Photorealistic Pixelated Animated GIF in Photoshop
- Make Symmetric Symmetric Faces in Photoshop: Cat
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