Tips for Capturing Those Amazing Family Moments
We all want to do it, right? I am talking about capturing those amazing family moments. You know the ones that we will put on our Christmas cards. Or have framed in the house....
I love digital photography. I could take pictures of my children all day. For the most part, they love being my subjects.They have their favorite poses. Their favorite outfits. And thei favorite props.
Capturing your kids' personalities in photos is easy when you play to their interests! Your son, the sporty one, will love action shots playing his favorite sport or posing with his team gear. If he's more into bugs (with your supervision of course!), a nature walk with photos of cool insects he finds is a win. Your middle child will shine in photos with her American Girl doll, whether having a tea party or taking it on an imaginative adventure. And your youngest will blossom in photos nurturing her baby dolls, “feeding” them or singing them lullabies.
While my kids rule the photo scene most of the time (sports for my son, dolls for the middle child, and baby dolls for the youngest!), I do sneak in some personal photography projects. Here are my tips for editing and creating beautiful digital photo projects, whether it's capturing my kids' special moments or my own photographic interests!
1. This is my absolute best tip: ALWAYS KEEP A CAMERA HANDY. ALWAYS!
I own five cameras. One really nice DSLR and several digital cameras plus my camera phone. I keep the cameras all over the house, one in the car and I basically NEVER am without a camera.
You never know when there will a moment that you will want to capture and always being ‘camera ready' will insure that you get these moments. I have gotten some amazing pictures from living by this philosophy.
2. Don't always center your photograph. This works really well with the editing process.
I recently took a digital photography class and the one thing that the teacher kept saying was “DON'T BE AFRAID TO NOT CENTER YOUR SUBEJCTS.” She must have said it 50 times. Once I finally learned that it was okay not to center, a whole new world opened up for me.
3. Experiment with color. Try a sepia tone for rich, brown or tan looking photographs. I absolutely loves sepia prints and they can definitely make anyone look better. In my opinion, sepia really evens out skin tone and creates a beautiful looking picture.
4. Take away the color. Black and white adds a whole new dimension to a photograph.Black and white can change the entire look of a picture.
If you want, you can even color in certain elements. I have colored in a hair bow that my child is wearing. Once I colored in the red cheeks of my son. This definitely added a whole new element to my picture and made it look amazing.
5. Try several different looks for one photograph. The second that my photos hit the editorial phase, I start experimenting with all sorts of looks. I make it black and white, sepia, I blur portions. I love to make all sorts of changes to see how good I can make the picture look. There are times when I print several different options of one photo because I love the different looks so much. Creating & Editing Beautiful Digital Photo Projects
About Adobe Photoshop Elements:
Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 empowers you to take your photos to the next level. Its user-friendly editing tools make creating stunning images a breeze. Preserve Memories in Style: Turn your treasured moments into personalized keepsakes with beautiful prints and online albums. Effortless Organization: Elements 9 simplifies your life by providing a central hub to manage all your photos and video clips, keeping your memories organized and readily accessible.
More info: http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/explore/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AdobeElements
I’m new to photo editing. I use paint shop pro and it’s similar to Photoshop. How do you blur portions? What command do you use for that?
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Thanks for these great tips! I’m still struggling with how to produce excellent pictures so this really helped!
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Nice tips! I just bought a DSLR a few months ago and I love it, but I think I only not how to work half of the camera..LOL!
I have a digital camera and although I have used photoshop, I am more familiar with paint shop pro. I also like changing thigs to black & white and coloring in- it adds a whole new look to things. Last uear a friend got married & I had snapped a few pics- one was of her in her gown and I turned it to B&W, used a few filters/plugins and colored her boquet back in- she loves that pic.
I need to get back in the habit of snapping pics, my camera is older so the pixels arent great- maybe that will be my next upgrade!