Which of course makes it tricky to adjust it’s color – you always end up needing to mask back your subject’s skin because skin contains a lot of yellow.

So when you want to adjust your grass color, you will be working with the yellows.  Here are my two favorite tricks for making grass look lush:

1) Do a hue saturation layer and select yellows from the drop down. Move the hue slider slightly to the right, essentially adding more blue.

2) Do a selective color layer and select yellows from the dropdown.  Bring the magenta slider down – a lot. I find that blah grass tends to have a lot of magenta in it, probably the deadish and dry grass is redish.  You can even do the same in the neutrals dropdown for a more dramatic effect.

Here is a before and after of a small adjustment to bring down the magenta in the yellows:

before

after

It’s a subtle but nice difference – the after definitely has a more “lush” look.

One thing to keep in mind is that bright/overly saturated grass can go nuclear really fast and actually be out of gamut, which means that your lab can’t print that crazy psychedelic green! That’s where soft proofing with your lab’s profiles can be  really important so you know exactly what you’ll be getting.

It’s called the Photographer’s Wall Display Guide and it’s a photoshop template system that uses clipping masks and images of real room interiors to help you create amazing examples of wall displays for your clients:

I was inspired to create this guide when my friend Sara commissioned me to take images of her daughter for her retail store. She wanted to order several images for the store walls, but had no idea how many or what size so she asked me for help.

And you know what? I had no idea either until I sat down and cropped and arranged the photos and saw with my own eyes exactly what photos worked together in what grouping and at what size.  Which got me to thinking..

If WE as photographer’s don’t know without seeing it, how can we possibly expect our clients to have the imagination to see the possibilities on THIER walls?

How can they know unless we SHOW them that an 8×10 over their fireplace mantle will be practically invisible:

but that a 30×40 will look this fabulous?:

or that this three piece grouping would look amazing over their couch?

or in their hallway?

There are several other wall display guides on the market, but there are none (that I know of) that use real room interiors – most are ambiguous sketches that leave me scratching my head.. I think maybe I lack the imagination that those illustrations require and I  bet your clients do too!

There are some guides that are incredibly pricey and others are just flattened jpgs so don’t offer the ease of use of these templates which use clipping masks to make placing and resizing your images a snap.  And, even better I’ve made these incredibly affordable..

There are so many possible uses for these templates, here are just a few:

• Create a visually stunning framed or canvas grouping to add to the end of your client galleries to encourage large size print sales
• Create a page on your website about canvas displays using your own images as an example for your clients
• Create a page on your website or blog showing the difference in impact between an 8×10 and a 30×40 in a REAL ROOM!
• Use to prepare for or during in person client ordering sessions to nail down the perfect scale and arrangement of an image grouping or even a single image
• Show the difference in terms of ratio and cropping that an 8×10 vs an 11×14 has on the same image.

Read about more of the product features or watch a behind the scenes tour of the templates here!

If you don’t know how to use clipping masks, don’t worry because in true Becoming-mom style I have created a video tutorial to explain it all. Even if you are not a professional photographer and have no interest in these templates, you will definitely get something out of learning how to use clipping masks :)

I have priced these at $50 each for the couch, the chair or the fireplace template, but for a limited time am offering an introductory price of $40 each or $85 for all three.

Even better, I’m offering becoming-mom readers 15% off! Use code “jasper” (without the quotation marks!) at checkout.

Also, please consider “liking” the  Photographer’s Wall Display Guide facebook page for news of more discounts, giveaways and new releases.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the product in the comments, I’m really excited about it, perhaps so excited that I haven’t explained it well at all :)

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!!

We got to the shoot location and the SECOND they set her down she was off running and didn’t stop the whole session! Literally RUNNING away from me!  She wanted nothing to do with even being held for a shot with mom or dad, and certainly didn’t want to stand still or look at me. That is, until I brought out the pez bunny!

For those of you who don’t know, Pez dispensers fit into the hot shoe of your camera.  As is, they fit with the character facing you (obviously not very useful) but you can trim the edges a tiny bit with a strong scissors and they will slide in with the character facing your subject too.

I had only pulled the bunny (and my kazoo!) out in desperation, not really sure if she’d show any interest, but she IMMEDIATELY wanted to pet the bunny.  I told her that the bunny was shy and that if she got too close he’d want to run away (and then I’d take a few steps back to demonstrate.)   Then in a stroke of desperation inspiration I held the Pez bunny up to my ear as if he were talking to me and said “The bunny said you should go sit with mommy and daddy and give them a hug!”  At which point she would run over to mom and dad and sit for maybe half a second (and I’d snap snap snap) and then get up and run over to me again for bunny’s next instruction.

All I can say is THANK GOD for bunny!  I honestly don’t think I’d have been able to get a full gallery’s worth of images if he hadn’t been in my bag.   So, thanks to bunny, we got a few good shots Saturday:

All images shot with my canon Canon 5D Mark II and the magic lens (Canon 70-200L 2.8 IS II) at around f 3.2, and SS around 320 or so depending on the light.

So, if you are a photographer or just a hobbyist or a mom with a stubborn toddler, you may want to try having imaginary conversations with Pez dispensers. Cause, you know, we don’t act crazy enough already trying to get our kids to look at the camera!! ;)

That’s how I felt when I found THIS spot which is now my favorite place to shoot:

I did a family shoot there this past weekend that I will post about tomorrow, but for now I want to know what your favorite spot to shoot is and how did you find it?? Do you have any location scouting tips to share?

I’m kind of shy (ok a lot shy!) and am not the type of person to jump out of the car, knock on a door and ask permission to shoot on someone’s property.. though I imagine if something was breathtaking enough I’d get over it :)

I ordered a 16×20 as a sample and I WISH I’d gone larger :(   Doesn’t 16×20 sound huge? Well, it isn’t.. and it won’t make much of a statement unless grouped with other canvases (stay tuned for more on that concept later with examples!)  But, at least you can see the quality of these beautiful pieces..

I ordered mine from Pixel2Canvas, and I also signed up with Simply Canvas, who offer great deals on Samples. Will try them next!

Here are some snapshots of the canvas, my lack of product photography skills does NOT do it justice..

You can see in that last one how the image actually wraps AROUND all four sides. That’s one of the thing that makes gallery wraps so special.  But it also means it’s not for every picture.. you can imagine how a close crop would be really problematic- obviously you don’t want part of a person’s head/face wrapping around the sides!  If you don’t have enough image to wrap, you can also choose to have any solid color on the four sides, but I prefer to use the image itself if at all possible (this is where my “stretching the canvas” tutorial comes in handy!) which is one of the reasons I have cured myself of the bad habit of doing close in camera crops – that extra room can be invaluable when cropping to certain aspect ratios or in creating products like canvases or press printed cards.

Another studio sample I got in recently were my accordion minis. These are itty bitty 3×3 albums that pack alot of punch in terms of the number of images you can fit in them and their ability to tell a little story of a shoot.  Because they are so small and require a bit of design time, I don’t offer them as an ala carte option, they are only included with my two top collections.

I really love mine though – I find them a little like candy. As soon as you finish one you want to make another!

Have a great weekend everyone!

He definitely made me work for it.. I was there for 5 hours and he slept for maybe a total of 30 minutes? And when we tried to pose him he just did not want to be moved. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes, you get a few good shots and that’s all the little guys want to give you. Nothing you can do about that! At least, at very least I we got this pose that I had in my mind pretty much as soon as I found out they were pregnant:

I had planned on a few variations of that pose, but Bodhi had other ideas and started crying about half a second later!

You can see how much he was fighting the sleep here in this one- *Yawn!*

More, bigger and better on my photography website..

Right from the shoot, I went to Jasper’s friend Peyton’s birthday party and was going to meet Jeff and Jasper there.. I pulled up to the house and noticed the lack of cars and had the distinct feeling that I had gotten the days confused.. turns out I had, sort of.   Actually, Peyton’s mom Ami had changed the date from Saturday to Sunday and forgot to copy us on the email changing the dates., but it turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise when our impromptu playdate turned into a huge celebration when their lost cat returned 5 minutes after we arrived! Plus, instead of sharing birthday girl Peyton with all of her partygoing admirers on Sunday we got to have her for a private celebration:

Jasper was happy too, he even let Peyton get a good smooch in:

He usually plays hard to get, but I guess he made an exception for her birthday!

In other news, Jasper is crying much less at bedtime, but still lets out a few heartbreaking wails and is still sleeping on the floor.  I no longer think it’s just a case of that he’s sleepy so he wears himself out and collapses on the floor, he actually PREFERS the floor!  And I know this because I say “Jasper, let’s lie down and cuddle in your “big boy” or “cowboy” bed as we call it (in his favorite book the Brave Cowboy the cowboy has a big boy bed so I started calling it the cowboy bed in hopes that he’d want to emulate his little hero) and he says “No, Floor” and and lays down on the blanket on the floor next to his bed.

So I think the new plan will be to bring the futon from our guest room into his room and use that for the time being.. the dilemma is what to do with his bed? We can’t take it down unless we never want to use it again because of the stripped screws holding the mattress support. I don’t know if he’ll ALWAYS want to sleep on the floor!  Plus, it looks soooo cute right now because in a last ditch effort to make his “cowboy” bed more appealing we put his old crib bumpers up around the edges to make it so cute and cozy.

So that’s my weekend recap.. I have some canvases arriving today – can’t WAIT to share and review them with you all!

I used my (rented) dream lens the 70-200m 2.8 IS II and I really don’t think I’ll be able to part with it come Thursday when I have to send it back. I was worried that I would have to keep backing up too far but the minimum focus distance on this lens has been shortened since the I version so the only reason I had to back up was so that I could use it towards the dreamy 200mm end and get creamy bokeh like this:

The new location I found was PERFECT, though the cliffs made the sun set too early for backlighting which I was hoping for. Still, the clover dotted field with the forest behind really frames this gorgeous family well:

All images shot with my Canon 5D Mark II and rented Canon 70-200mm 2.8 IS II at 2.8, around 800SS and 32o ISO.

I shot the whole shoot wide open at 2.8 and I think I missed maybe 1 shot due to focus?  I guess that image stabilization really helps, and the AF is quick!

See bigger and better on my photography website.  Hope you all had a great weekend!

Aside from wanting to evaluate the image quality, I wanted to see if I really found the 70-200 range preferable to the 24-70 (or would it be too long for toddlers?) and more importantly if I could manage to handle the sheer weight of this giant lens!

The answer on all accounts is Yes and Yes (though my wrist does ache a little bit!).. this lens is pure magic. I don’t know how I’m going to part with it when my week is up.. true, it is a beast but it’s a zoom lens that has the sharpness of a prime. Seriously, I don’t see any difference in sharpness between this and my 85 1.8 which is SHARP.

I haven’t had a chance to use it yet in a great location at the optimal time of day, but even my crappy test shots like the first one below look pretty decent with the mojo of this lens behind them.. the crispness of the details combined with the creamy bokeh that only a telephoto can provide = photographic bliss!

That last shot was taken at Gymboree- yes, even the brightest and busiest background can turn into something smooth and beautiful with this lens.

I am hooked. The only question now is if the new stabilized Sigma 70-200 2.8 that is schedule to be released in June can come close to the cannon.  At $1600 the Sigma costs almost $1000 more than the previous Sigma version (which shocked a lot of people!) but they’ve packed a ton of improvements in there, not the least of which is stabilization,  and it is $1000 less than the Canon II version, but the same price as the Canon I version.

When the II version canon came out, I thought to myself that I’d never want/need the II, the I version would be good enough for me.. but then I realized that the image quality (IQ) of the version I was seriously lacking compared to even the Sigma and the Tamron versions.. the only benefit to the Canon version being the stabilization and the autofocusing speed. But, the version II has unquestionably taken care of any IQ issues, this lens is SHARP, see the comparisons here between the version I and II.

The complaint with the Sigma was that the focus sometimes missed, was slow and there was no stabilization, so we’ll see how the new Sigma stacks up.  I’m going to wait to make my final decision until hearing any reviews of the new Sigma once it’s released in a few weeks.. but I have to say it will be a LONG couple of weeks because now I’m completely in love with the 70-200 focal range.

In the meantime, I am dreading this Thursday when I have to pack up the giganto white lens in it’s little pelican case and send it on it’s way back to Lensprotogo. It’s a bit like if the day after Christmas you had to rewrap all your presents and give them back to Santa..

I realized after recording this that I left a couple of important things out.. you can not use content aware scale on an image that is your locked background layer. You have to have the image you are trying to stretch be a layer on TOP of your background layer.  The easiest way to achieve this is if you create a PSD file that is the size that you want to stretch the canvas to and then copy or duplicate the image into that document as a separate layer. Then you are good to go to scale that image to the size of your canvas!

Otherwise if you are just starting from your image as a jpg or RAW file you can go to canvas size and make your canvas larger. Then, go to your background layer and use the marquis tool to select the original size of your image (i.e. leaving off the white or black fill that is now around it) and then copy and paste that into a new photoshop layer before you scale it.

Let me know if you have any questions!

We’ve never delved into channels before here (except for channels adjustment layer tweaks) and truth be told I’d forgotten what a useful tool channels are to have in your photoshop arsenal until recently!

Here we cover how to make adjustments to spot areas that lack detail and also how you can use the information from one channel to spruce up your black and white conversions.

Let me know if you have any questions!