Inhaltsverzeichnis für January 2019 in Practical Photography: Lite

PHOTOGRAPHY’S relationship with the world of fine art has been long, complex and often divisive. Once the medium established itself as a practical application for capturing images of the world, many commentators declared that art was now ‘dead’. Where was the need, it was argued, for an artist to spend days, weeks and months painting a portrait that at best would be an approximate interpretation of the subject when a photographer could make a perfect, life-like image in a matter of moments? The struggle for recognition But far from killing off fine art, photography’s great gift to the art world was freedom. Now that art and artists were no longer constrained by having to represent the ‘real’, they could indulge in the many flights of fancy that led to the…

STILL LIFE DRAWING IS one of the foundations of classical art, and its history can be traced back to the very earliest days of fine art. It has endured through all of the upheavals in the art world, changing in style and mode as the artistic landscape shifted. But if there was one period in which the still life was king, it was Baroque, a highly-ornate and extravagant movement that flourished in Europe from the early 17th to the mid-18th century. Light and symbolism The Baroque movement in art coincided with a Catholic revival in Europe and, as such, it’s a style that echoes some of the religious iconography from antiquity. But Baroque also revels in an earthy, romantic look, full of warm tones, deep shadows and clever symbolism. Still…

MODERN ART IS properly ascribed to any movement from the end of the 19th century to the current day, but if you took a quick vox pop from the public, chances are they’d point to the work of artists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol and Wassily Kandinsky. Modern art most commonly elicits visions of huge canvasses full of blocks of colour, hung in warehouse-like white gallery spaces. There’s also a chance that some observers might opine that ‘I could do that myself’. And while we would never encourage such views of the art establishment, with a little bit of in-camera trickery, you really can produce something quite contemporary. All about the movement Intentional camera movement, known as ICM, has become a popular technique among landscape photographers. With a…

1 Convert to mono To add to the fine art appeal of your shots, apply a mono conversion in Photoshop by hitting Ctrl+Shift+U. This adds a graphic element that will help to tie the three images together. This step isn’t compulsory, and many triptychs work really well in colour, especially if there’s one strong tone that runs across all of the images. 2 Make your first crop It would be an odd selfie if the shot didn’t include a face, so our first crop is of the head. Grab the Crop Tool from the Toolbox and draw a crop over the part you want to go ahead with. Position the nose using the rule-of-thirds and hit return to apply the crop. Now go to File>Save As and save your image…

MINIMALISM BEGAN as an art movement after the end of the Second World War, and really gained traction in the early 1960s. But this clean, stripped-down aesthetic has permeated so much of modern life – as anyone who has ever bought Swedish flat-pack furniture will attest – that it has become one of the most instantly recognisable styles of art. Photographers have fallen in love with minimalism in their droves; it’s a style that lends itself perfectly to a medium that is concerned with framing life through a lens and editing out the distracting elements. But you don’t have to trek out to epic seascapes or invest in expensive ND filters to get the minimalist look – everything you need can be found in your kitchen. Clean lines, simple concept…

POP ART HAS BEEN LIVENING up galleries since the 1950s, when artists took a rebellious turn away from the traditional views on what art should be. Pop artists, such as Roy Lichtenstein, painstakingly hand-painted the individual dots to create their pieces, but the good news is we can achieve a similar effect with a much faster process using Photoshop. Here, and on the accompanying video lesson, we’ll look at how you can turn an image into your own comic-style pop art masterpiece. Along the way you’ll learn how to use layers and Blending Modes to build up the effect, and implement various Filters to create the different elements needed to pull off this eye-catching style digitally. All you need to do is dig out an image you want to work…

1 Kerning This is the spacing between two characters and changing it will allow you to push the letters apart or pull them closer to each other. 2 Leading You’ll want to tweak the leading if you need your rows of text to be spaced closer or further apart, like in the example image below. 3 Tracking Unlike kerning, tracking adjusts the spacing between all of the letters in a word in one action, so both can be used together for great effect. 4 5 Scaling The two text scaling options we’ve selected in the Character panel can be used to scale (enlarge or shrink) the text vertically and horizontally.…

1 BE EXPERIMENTAL First, learn the basics and get to know your camera. Then, go out and take photos from different angles and experiment with your settings. Take thousands of shots and then try different edits on the same image at home to develop your own instantly recognisable style. 2 EMBRACE ADVENTURE It’s great to plan your adventure, but it’s also good to allow yourself to be flexible and be ready for plans to change at any moment. Just embrace whatever comes and accept you might not bring home the photos you initially imagined you’d get. 3 JOIN A NETWORK For a long time, I didn’t really feel a need to meet other photographers. But, in the last two years, this has changed. Connect online with artists that inspire you…

I BECAME INTERESTED IN PHOTOGRAPHY when my dad gave me my first camera at the age of six. I was always fascinated with watching the way he worked in his homemade studio, taking portraits and creating unique projects. When he sadly passed away, he left me a box filled with his old photos and a camera with a note that simply said, ‘for Ian’. Ever since then I haven’t put that camera down. I’ve used it for years, including during my work on ‘Private’, a project that explores my inner conflict between being a student and a soldier. Photography has really pushed me out of my comfort zone. It’s also given me the ability to prove myself and to show people the world through my eyes. It’s made me realise…

“There’s no such thing as bad weather in landscape photography. In fact, these conditions can be perfect for creating dramatic images full of atmosphere. Rain can really make colours pop; they become richer, deeper and more saturated. Misty mornings are fantastic for creating moody, ethereal images. Some cameras and lenses are weather-resistant and will stand a light shower, but it helps to protect your gear by using the lens hood and a plastic bag or rain sleeve. If you can tilt the camera down it will keep raindrops off the lens. Use a chamois to clear the lens and wipe your camera down, especially if you’re by the sea. So, the next time it rains don’t put your camera away, you might just be pleasantly surprised with your pictures.” •…

The Practical Photography team brave the wind and rain as they present a trio of alfresco tutorials packed with advice and insight... • Louise heads to the Lake District to shoot an adventure editorial for Trail magazine that includes candids, landscapes and low light. • Richard shows you how to see and think in glorious black & white. Switch to mono mode and focus on texture, tone and contrast. • Dan joins Skye specialist Jakub Bors for a look at different ways of shooting landscapes, from the traditional to the rule-breaking.…

AS THE DAYS SHORTEN AND THE COLOURS of autumn fade away, the first frosts of winter roll in like a bell tolling the bitter season to come. The contrast can be almost as severe as the conditions, utterly bleak one day and totally magical the next. When it’s dull, it’s dark, but the light quality on a clear winter’s day is stunning. For the wildlife photographer, this can be a season of plenty, as natural food dwindles and wary creatures adapt in order to survive. Mammals are seen more regularly, as they forage new areas closer to man-made habitats. Raptors such as buzzards and red kites will scavenge roadkill or search field edges for earthworms. Songbirds, or passerines, are a common sight during the colder months in gardens, parks and…

There are so many photographers associated with the fine art movement that it would be impossible to profile all of them here. A quick run through some of the most important names in the medium’s history should provide a framework and stepping-off point for more in-depth research. One of the earliest pioneers of fine art photography was Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), who worked in the latter half of the 19th century, producing portraits of the celebrities of the time as well as fantasy images that took inspiration from Arthurian legends and other epic themes. Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), who was married to the painter Georgia O’Keefe probably did more than anyone else to get photography recognised as an artform, while Man Ray (1890-1976) was one of the first to blur the…

1 Source the ingredients A Baroque still life requires plenty of elements to work really well. A large supermarket should be able to provide some interesting and colourful fruit and vegetables. Look for textures and a range of tones across your ingredients. 2 Take control of the light Lighting is a key part of this look, with deep shadows and pooling light defining the Baroque style. We used a household lamp and kitchen paper to soften the light – make sure the bulb isn’t too bright as there could be a fire risk. 3 Check your focusing Shooting a scene that contains a lot of dark elements and deep shadows might cause your autofocus to hunt. If you decide to switch to manual, zoom in using Live View (above) to…

• This is such a quick and easy technique to try out so it’s worth playing around with the various elements that make up your final image and seeing what you can create. • Vary the background colour and try other objects on your canvas. Use some different shutter speeds and alter the amount – and direction – in which you move the camera to produce some very different effects. • Your camera settings will have a big effect on how your picture turns out. You can shoot in shutter-priority or full manual. Start with a shutter speed around 1 second, and then try shortening and lengthening it. Aperture and ISO is unimportant, so either let the camera set them or adjust as required.…

While you can choose to shoot a specific image for your triptych, there’s also some creative fun to be had with images from your own collection of photos. We chose this simple coastal scene and opted to use the same image three times, adding primary and secondary colour variations to the shot to produce three different versions. You could opt to use three different photos, but remember that triptychs need to have a common theme running through them, so make sure to choose three images that have a thematic connection. Once you have your three pictures, it’s simple to put them together……

1 Control the shadows Window light is a fantastic source of free illumination but you may want to ensure that you soften any shadows. Use a piece of white card as a reflector, placed opposite the window, to throw some light back at the subject. 2 Set up a tripod Even if you have enough light falling on your subject for a fast enough shutter speed to handhold the camera, a tripod offers better stability. It also lets you lock your composition and frees up your hands when taking still life shots. 3 Use manual focus Some still life setups, such as this white-on-white composition, can be a problem for autofocus systems, and cause them to hunt. Switch over to manual, but be careful to check your focus before each…

AS PHOTOGRAPHERS, THERE’S NO greater feeling than giving our work a purpose and getting it out there to be seen by others. With these free templates you can create a bespoke 2019 calendar using a group of 12 images – we’ve opted for a common theme, but it could be as simple as selecting and using your 12 favourite shots of the year; it’s a nice touch to use each image in the month it was taken. The calendar will help you keep track of the year ahead as well as being a great excuse to proudly hang your work up on the wall. You can print your calendar on some high quality photo paper and have it comb-bound at your local print shop for a professional finish. They make…

SUMMER AND WINTER MAY seem like night and day, but a large part of that difference is simply colour. We have grown to associate different palettes with the seasons – warm yellows are summer, where as cool blues represent winter. With this in mind, making the jump between the seasons needn’t be dictated by Father Time or Mother Nature. In fact, with nothing more than a copy of Photoshop CC and a few Adjustment Layers, you can take even the most quintessentially summer shot, and turn the chill factor up to 11. So grab your favourite summertime image, such as our example here shot in early September, and get cracking. 1 Cool your shot with a Photo Filter After opening the scene you want to give a wintry look in…

Now you know how to add text to your images like a Photoshop pro, here are some quick tips: • When you’ve drawn a text box, double-click on the ‘T’ in your Toolbox to quickly select the text and edit it. • If you’d prefer your text to run down rather than across, you can use the Vertical Type Tool from the Toolbox to make your writing go vertically downwards. • The Vertical Type Mask and Horizontal Type Mask Tools are quite specialist, but turn any text you write into a selection, which can be turned into a layer mask.…

Technique 1 Turn photos into line art Open your shot into Photoshop or Elements and hit Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer, leaving the original image unaffected by edits. Hit D to set the foreground colour to black and the background colour to white. In the Filter>Filter Gallery expand the Stylise folder and click on Glowing Edges. Set the Edge Width to 1, Edge Brightness to 20 and Smoothness to 8 and then hit OK to apply it. Hit Ctrl+Shift+U to desaturate the image. You now have a predominantly black image with a white pen line effect, but if you hit Ctrl+I, that will invert and leave a black pen on white paper effect. Finally, hit Ctrl+L to bring up the Levels panel and adjust the sliders in the panel until…

EVERY TIME YOU PRESS THE shutter button, a photo is saved onto your camera’s memory card. However, the file format that it’s recorded in will impact on its quality. You can select a variety of different file formats in your camera’s image quality menu, where you’ll most likely find options for RAW and JPEG. While we usually recommend that photographers shoot in RAW, we’re going to explore how capturing JPEG files can give beginners free reign to explore and experiment with their camera. What is a JPEG? JPEGs are the most popular image file format and have been in use since 1992. They’re the standard format for nearly all cameras and they can be used by a wide variety of applications. They’re easily hosted on web pages and have a…

Shoot instant black & white With your camera’s picture controls you can create black & white images without Photoshop. Simply select Monochrome from the Picture Control (Nikon) or Picture Style (Canon) menu, and your shots will be saved as black & white photos. This is great if you’re certain the final image will be mono, but remember that you can’t convert to colour afterwards if you change your mind. Improve your portraits When shooting portraits they can often benefit from a little bit of retouching to create a more flattering final look. You can save yourself this time and effort by simply switching your camera’s picture control to Portrait. This will optimise the applied JPEG processing to create beautiful portraits by adding a lower amount of sharpening for smoother skin…

POLAROID I-TYPE FILM FROM £15 Working with the Polaroid OneStep+, and other i-Type Polaroid cameras, this film comes in a cassette and contains eight exposures. While that isn’t much for £15, it’s the undeniable charm, magic and tangibility of this film that makes it all worthwhile. Using it to capture those precious one-off family memories will leave you wanting more, as well as giving you a unique keepsake. polaroidoriginals.com FUJIFILM QUICKSNAP DISPOSABLE CAMERA £8 Yes, you can still buy disposable film cameras, and yes, they’re just as fun as when you were a child. This point-and-shoot comes complete with a built-in flash and 27 shots of Fujicolor 400. Once you’ve finished the roll, take it down to your local high-street developer and wait with baited breath for the results. fujifilm.com…

HUAWEI P20 PRO £799 A cutting-edge computational camera phone, the P20 Pro boasts a 5x Hybrid Zoom tri-Leica camera design. The lenses house 40MP f/1.8 and 8MP f/2.5 colour sensors, as well as a 20MP f/1.6 black & white sensor, which work together to return JPEGs, and even DNGs in the Pro mode. It also has a very impressive low-light Night mode and Light Painting feature, both of which merge multiple photos for stunning results. All this, and it even makes phone calls! huawei.com FUJIFILM SHARE SP-3 £164 Love taking snaps on your phone, but don’t know what to do with them? Instead of letting them languish in your gallery, grab this handy printer from Fujifilm. Taking the square-format instax film (£9 for ten sheets), you can transfer your best…

OLYMPUS 60MM F2.8 MACRO M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED £349 A must-have for Micro Four Thirds macro enthusiasts, this lightweight lens houses an equivalent 120mm focal length and fast f/2.8 aperture. The true-to-life 1:1 magnification is ideal for close-ups of small subjects. The construction, which is described as dust and splash-proof, comprises two HR elements and one E-HR (Extra-High Refractive) element to reduce ghosting and flare. olympus.co.uk SIGMA 105MM F/2.8 EX DG OS HSM MACRO £359 Sigma’s reasonably priced telephoto macro lens offers a great package for those who are looking to start macro photography. With a 1:1 magnification ratio, it also boasts image stabilisation, Super Multi-Layer Coating to reduce glare, and a nippy, near-silent HSM autofocus motor. It’s available in Canon and Nikon mounts, and includes a handy focus limiting switch…

Camera Buying Guide Unsure about which camera is best for your needs? Our ebook includes reviews, spec and prices for every camera available right now. The latest additions include Nikon’s D3500 entry-level DSLR. Textures & calendars Pick and mix from 25 exclusive royalty-free texture files, and create a personalised 2019 year planner with 26 bespoke templates. Photoshop video lessons Make simple colour and contrast changes for a stylish winter look, shoot and edit a ‘split RAW’, and make the most of your 2019 calendar templates.…

Olympus O-MD E-M1X We previously reported that Olympus would announce its latest high-end Micro Four Thirds post Photokina. We’ve now heard that the new camera, supposedly named EM-1X, will feature a new sensor design. No news on features, though we expect it to aim high with 30fps blackout-free capture, 4k 60fps video and class-leading image stabilisation. olympus.co.uk Sony drone The rumour mill announced something very interesting recently, when a supposed patent for a Sony drone camera leaked. The drone is slated to fold in on itself for easy transport, and come with a touchscreen tablet for full control. There’s speculation that this new tech may feature a Sony E mount, which could allow you to use some of the company’s smaller lenses. We’ll update when we learn more. sony.co.uk Canon…

FILLED WITH HOPE, ANTICIPATION AND trepidation, I entered my first landscape photography competition in 2014. My photographic career had started in earnest some five years before and I had been on something of a journey ever since. Back at the beginning of the decade, Flickr was the place to be for aspiring photographers, and on the odd occasion I bagged a spot in their daily ‘Explore’ list of images, it felt a little like I’d won the photographic lottery. However, it never seemed to be an image that resonated as a personal favourite, especially as my style evolved. I spent years honing my skills, shooting at locations around the world, following the work of photographers I admired, until I felt that I was ready to submit the best of my…

It’s not always practical to be outdoors during the winter months, when temperatures plummet and daylight hours are at a premium. So we thought it was a great opportunity to stay in the warm and have some fun creating inspirational fine art projects that anyone can achieve on a domestic table-top. We armed ourselves with an entry-level DSLR and kit lens combo, with the only additional accessory being a tripod – no specialist or expensive kit needed here. We used natural light and a simple household lamp for illumination, and everything we photographed can be found around the home or purchased easily and with very little financial outlay. GEAR A CAMERA, LENS & TRIPOD You won’t need any fancy kit to shoot our budget-friendly projects – just a camera and…

• A still life shoot is a perfect opportunity to use your camera in full manual mode, as you can review each shot and try different settings. We used a medium aperture (around f/8), a low ISO and then dialled in the required shutter speed from the camera’s spot metering. • Taking full control of the lighting is key to getting the right look. Create a blacked-out room or wait until after dark to shoot. Use a handheld lamp, with its light softened by kitchen paper. • With just a single bulb as a light source, and a desire to keep the quality high by using a low ISO setting, you will need to shoot at a shutter speed that’s too low to handhold your camera. A tripod is a…

1 Resize your images Once you have chosen your three images, or edited them as we have done, open them all in Photoshop. In each file choose Image>Image Size. Select a size that’s a nice round number – we made all of our images 2000 pixels wide. Now you need to create a canvas for your images to sit on. Go to Image>Canvas Size to select the size, shape and colour of your background canvas for your images . 2 Set your canvas size Your canvas needs to be wide and tall enough to accommodate three images. If you want a border around the images and a gap between them you need to take this into account too. Each of our images was 3000 pixels tall and 2000 wide, so…

• Minimalism is an ideal medium for a home still life shoot as it requires very few elements. We shot in full manual, and used a medium aperture (f/8) as it’s generally the ‘sweet spot’ for most lenses. We kept the ISO low for top quality and then adjusted the shutter speed from the spot metering. • Set up near a window for illumination. If you have a room with a north-facing window it makes a perfect home studio. If the light is too intense it can be softened and diffused by hanging some thin gauze in front of the window. • To minimise the shadows, introduce a reflector to the setup. A simple piece of white card, positioned opposite the source of illumination, will throw some light back onto…

There really is nothing worse than lining up the perfect shot, going to press the shutter button and then realising that your buffer is full. That initial stab of frustration will only intensify with each second that goes by when you can’t take a photo. While it’s not exactly the most thrilling piece of kit, your memory card is vitally important. You want your card to be both fast and robust. As we’re recommending you shoot in RAW, you won’t want anything smaller than 16GB, as otherwise the card will fill up too quickly and you’ll have to swap it out. To avoid long waits for the buffer to clear, you’ll also want a fast write speed. We recommend the SanDisk Extreme range, as this has a write speed of…

THERE’S NO BETTER feeling than seeing your images printed out in all their glory and proudly hanging them on your wall. The great news is that you can achieve good quality home printing with affordable equipment. Lightroom Classic CC has a dedicated Print module that we’ll be delving into to show you how to get set for perfect prints, at the size you want them to be and showing accurate colours. Computer screens are backlit and use red, green and blue pixels to display images, while a printed photo comprises minute dots of ink to create the end result, so not everything you see on screen will be automatically replicated in print. To achieve results as true as possible, we’ll show you how to soft proof your photos in Lightroom…

Find out how to shoot and edit a ‘split RAW’ to create extraordinary depth in your pictures. Dan Mold reveals all. WHEN WE TALK about the dynamic range of a digital camera, we mean how well it can capture the spectrum of deep shadows to bright highlights present in every scene. Cameras are getting better at this all the time, but they still can’t match the vast tonal range we see with our eyes. This is where the RAW files, which all serious cameras produce, can help us out and make the captured scene look more like the reality. RAW takes its name from the raw data recorded straight out of the camera. RAWs aren’t compressed like JPEGs, so they’re a much larger file size, roughly 2.5x larger on our…

The calendar templates we’re providing are grey by default and, although they’re functional and will suit any picture you put in, you may wish to liven them up by adding a splash of colour. To do this you can sample a colour from the picture you’ve placed in the calendar, such as the green in our squirrel image, and then apply it as a wash of colour to the text and calendar grid below. When you’ve sampled a colour, you can apply it to every grid in the calendar or make subtle tweaks to each month. Try to pick a colour that complements your image as it shouldn’t fight for attention as the main focus. Be careful with lighter shades and yellows, which have the potential to make the calendar…

PHOTOSHOP MAKES IT A breeze to add text to images, so whether you want to create a film poster, graphic artwork or even your own business cards you can do it with the Horizontal and Vertical Type Tools. Photoshop has many options on offer, with dedicated Character and Paragraph panels that give you extra functionality and we’ll delve into those over the page, but to get started we’ll be showing you the basics of adding text in both Photoshop and Elements. NEXT ISSUE NEW TOOLS IN PHOTOSHOP CC 2019 Photoshop CC 2019 has been released and existing users can upgrade to the latest version now. Next month we’ll be looking at its new features including the Frame Tool and live Blending Modes.…

DIGITAL CAMERAS CAN CAPTURE stunning detail and texture which results in an extraordinary amount of depth. A great way to further boost this depth is to overlay a texture image onto your photo and blend it in. This will give your pictures a wonderful fine art feel. To help you get started, we’re supplying you with 25 unique royalty-free textures, though of course you can add your own textures to ours to build up a library collection. We’ve converted them all to mono so that only the texture affects your shot, not the colour, and we have also resized them to A4 to make them easier to handle. All that’s left is to open up the textures and read the tutorial below to see how you can easily apply them…

• JPEG The name is an acronym of the ‘Joint Photographic Experts Group’ who created the standard, and the file extension is displayed as either .jpg or .jpeg. It’s the most common file format for images and is the default setting for nearly every camera. • RAW A RAW file is often thought of as a ‘digital negative’, as it hasn’t undergone any in-camera processing and is simply uncompressed sensor data. As such, the file sizes are much larger and the images will need to be edited and converted before use. RAW files often have the extension .NEF, .CRW or .DNG. • TIFF TIFF stands for ‘Tagged Image File Format’ and is much less popular than JPEG or RAW but some cameras do let you record TIFFs. It’s usually not…

PUT YOUR SKILLS TO THE TEST WITH THESE three techniques that rely on you taking control of your camera’s file formats for creative results. It’s a great way to discover how this often overlooked function can pep up your photography – and you don’t need any special kit. 1 SET A CUSTOM PICTURE CONTROL Whether you’re shooting landscapes, portraits, wildlife or indeed any kind of subject, you can customise how your camera renders JPEGs to benefit each shot and reduce the need for any computer-based editing. Simply open the picture control menu and begin by choosing the preset most suited to your subject. Then press the right arrow on the D-pad to access the controls for adjusting the JPEG processing. From here you can control the amount of sharpening, clarity,…

There’s never been a better time to get into photography, and these entry-level marvels are the perfect presents NIFTY FIFTY FROM £89 All brands have them, and they’re often the first prime lens you’ll buy. Their wider aperture allows you to create blurred backgrounds, while the handy focal length is well suited to everything from portraits to travel. It also helps that this trusty essential is very reasonably priced, often coming in around the £100 mark, which makes it an absolute bargain for any budget. OLYMPUS OM-D E-M10 MARK III KIT £629 This compact Micro Four Thirds camera is the ideal travel partner. At 410g it may be small in size, but it still packs a wallop in the performance stakes. Featuring a 16MP sensor, 5-stop in-body image stabilisation and…

WHITEWALL ULTRAHD PHOTO PRINT FROM £3.90 Using Fuji Crystal Professional Archive Maxima paper, Whitewall says the visual density is increased by 10%. It also lists 21% more colour space volume for vivid colour reproduction, as well as improved light resistance for longer-lasting prints. Prints are available in a range of sizes from 10x10cm to 180x120cm and custom sizes – your work will look amazing. whitewall.com FOTOSPEED PLATINUM COTTON 305 A4 FROM £28 Developed in conjunction with renowned landscape photographer Joe Cornish, this paper is 100% cotton, with a smooth white surface. It’s acid and OBA free, and has the company’s latest coating technology to render a stunningly wide colour gamut and pin-sharp detail. It starts with A4, though can be bought in sheet sizes up to A2, or 17in to…

WE’VE ALL PULLED OUT our phone to take a quick snap of our friend as they pose next to a tourist attraction, or with a freshly poured glass of wine. Next time, try using your phone’s camera for something a little more artistic! With Instagram influencers making thousands of pounds from accounts filled with portraits taken on their phones, it’s very clear that the quality of the gear isn’t an issue. To take your phoneography to the next level, activate and use your camera’s in-built grid to capture picture-perfect portraits. The rule-of-thirds is the golden compositional guideline that can be found across every genre of photography, but it’s not limited to the kit you’re using. Whether you’re handling an instant camera, a smartphone or a pro DSLR, incorporating the rule-of-thirds…

If you’re looking for a total editing suite located in the comfort of your own phone, Snapseed is a fantastic bit of kit. With a wide range of features, it’s a one-stop shop for all your editing needs. This handy little app is available for both iOS and Android. The Healing Tool is essentially a phone version of Photoshop’s Spot Healing Tool, so while admittedly less powerful than Adobe’s offering, it’s perfect for quickly editing out blemishes, distractions and untidy areas when you don’t have access to your computer. When editing skin, you may want to check out the Portrait menu. This useful part of the app allows you to apply skin smoothing filters, as well as being able to automatically detect where the face is and place an artificial…