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Tracking Your Photos With A Reverse Search Engine

By Ray Davis
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A friend recently sent me a link to a site called TinEye which is a reverse image search engine. The idea is you upload an image or paste in the url of an image and TinEye searches for that same image across the web. Although it can’t access every website it is a handy tool for anyone interested to see how their photos are being used (especially if you’ve licensed some photos with a creative commons license and would like to see what people are doing with them). It could also be useful if you’re worried about your photos being used without your permission, although all TinEye can do is point you to where the photos are being used so you can choose whether or not to take any action.

I tried TinEye out with a couple of photos I have uploaded to both Flickr, iStockphoto,and various blogs, giving the search engine the Flickr urls and it found the photos in iStockphoto and the blogs as well. TinEye says it’s the first image search engine to use image identification technology rather than keywords or metadata so in theory it should be more accurate than other similar engines.

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A Beginners Guide to Photography Accessories

By Ray Davis
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If you’re new to photography or you mostly just point, shoot, and hope for the best then there’s probably a whole bunch of photo equipment whose names you recognize but whose function you’re not really sure of. Well, here at Photodoto we live to help you out so here’s a few of those gadgets explained.

Lens Hoods: I mentioned printable lens hoods recently, which are free, but a sturdy plastic version will set you back anywhere from $10 to $500 depending on the lens you want it to fit. What do they do? Put simply, they eliminate glare and lens flare caused stray light.  Sometimes lens flare can be desirable in a photo but more often than not you want to eliminate it. Lens hoods usually have a completely non-reflective inner surface (for example felt) which absorb that unwanted light and prevents the flares on your photo. They come in petal and round styles with petal styles usually being more effective. Another effect of lens hoods is a deeper saturation and therefore richer colours in photos. Who needs one? Anyone who’s photographing outside, especially in sunny conditions will find a lens hood useful but they are especially useful on telephoto lenses because the smaller field of vision means the hood can be longer without obscuring the viewing angle.

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iPhone/iPod Photo Apps

By Ray Davis
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So during my hours of train journeys last week I checked out a couple of photography apps on my iPod. I’ve given them a brief review below but I should also point out a couple of things. Firstly I randomly chose a few from the top rated free photography apps in the iTunes store. I also reviewed two from BigCanvas who gave me free copies of those two paid apps. Secondly most of these apps were really designed for the iPhone rather than the iPod so even though I don’t have an iPhone I kept that in mind while testing them. The main features that the iPod lack are a camera (you can still use all these apps but need to import photos from your computer) and an internet connection (which the iPod is capable of but only if Wifi is available) although not all these apps need internet access.

iSynth This is just fun to play with, if you like photosynth then this is the app for you. I passed the better part of an hour on a train viewing Obama’s inauguration and other exciting events from a huge variety of angles.

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A Very Basic Guide to Textures

By Ray Davis
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First off what do textures do? Well, things like this…

music-mountains
drive-in-liqour

yellowstone

Some are more subtle than others, obviously! So how do you add them to your photos? The easiest way is to use textures that other people have created. Some are free and some you need to pay for but either way this is what you need to do with them once you’ve downloaded them:

1. Open both the texture and the photo you want to edit in Photoshop. Click on the photo and check it’s dimensions.

2. Change the dimensions of the texture so that it’s as close to the same size as you can get it ( you can uncheck the constrain proportions box if you need to).

3. Still with the texture selected (rather than the photo) press Ctrl+A or Cmd+A (or go to file, select all) and little running lines should appear around the texture.

4. Press Ctrl+C or Cmd+C (or go edit, copy).

5. Select the photo and press Ctrl+V or Cmd+V (or go to edit, paste). The texture will be pasted over the photo so all you’ll see is the texture and not the photo underneath.

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Black and White with a Splash of Colour – iPod style

By Ray Davis
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redflowerOne of my most frequently commented on posts is the little tutorial Black and White with a Splash of Colour. Well, I’ve just discovered a new super easy way of achieving the technique for those of you with an iPod Touch or iPhone. A little, at the moment free, app called ColorCanvas which couldn’t make it any simpler to create black and white photos with a little colour. I’ve been playing with it on my iPod Touch and it works pretty well. You simply import a photo from your library (or take one if you have an iPhone) and ColorCanvas will convert it to black and white automatically. Then wherever you touch on the screen turns back to colour. It takes a bit of practice to be accurate with the edges but you can vary the brush size and zoom in on the photo to make it easier. There’s the option to vary the opacity too.

I’ve just downloaded a whole bunch of free photography apps for my iPod and I’ll be trying them out on the 8 hours of train journeys I have this weekend so I’ll let you know if any good ones turn up.

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Digital Black and White Photos

By Ray Davis
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Sometimes a photo just looks better in black and white. You know, from time to time you’ll be digitally rifling through a folder of photographs and there’ll be one or two that just don’t suit being in glorious technicolour. So what to do? Well here are a few tips:

1. Don’t write the photo off just because it doesn’t work in colour. It may look fantastic in black and white.

2. Don’t just convert to greyscale or desaturate. This will most likely look boring and low contrast. Most programs (including free ones like Picasa) have some kind of  “filtered black and white” option (in Photoshop this is the channel mixers). This allows you to select a colour filter (some programs will have more choices than others) which will let you keep much more of the detail in your photo. Play around with the different filters and see which ones work best for your photo.

3. Play with the photo in colour first. Before you convert to black and white do any corrections e.g. red eye removal,

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I Only Want One Job…

By Ray Davis
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I’m sure this is a sentiment many people can sympathise with at the moment. I came across this photo in Improperganda: Art of the Publicity Stunt which I’ve been enjoying flicking through very sporadically over the last few weeks. If you get the chance it’s worth a look through, the book is an investigation into some of the greatest PR stunts and scams of all time, with some great photographs. I’m not sure it’s actually worth buying but definitely worth a loan from the library.

sandwhichboard

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Lego Camera & Pinhole Cameras Your Kids Can Make at Home

By Ray Davis
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legocamera_1240492cIf your looking for a cool looking camera to get your kids enthusiastic about photography Lego may soon be able to help you. They recently announced that they’ve teamed up with Digital Blue to produce a range of children’s electronics, including a camera. Dad’s might be pleased to hear you don’t actually have to assemble the thing (it looks like traditional Lego blocks but doesn’t come apart and snap together), although personally I think that takes most of the fun out of it!

The Bionicle Camera (pictured right) is due to arrive in Toys R Us stores this autumn, in the meantime if you want a camera your kids can actually build check out these instructions for pinhole cameras made from a matchbox or a juice carton. Or for something truly unique find yourself and old Mac and check out the instructions for the happy little mac pinhole camera! If you make any of these at home let us know how it turns out in the comments.

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Picasa for Mac

By Ray Davis
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collagePicasa, Google’s free photo-editing software, recently became available for Mac users (running OS X 10.4.9 or above). It has a few nifty features that iPhoto (or iPhoto ’08 at least) doesn’t and is very easy to use. It’s got all the basic editing tools – crop, straighten, remove red eye, convert to black and white, convert to sepia, and so on that you’ll also find in iPhoto. The extras in Picasa include adding a a gauzy glow to your photos, adding a graduated tint (useful for sky portions of photos), and adding focal black and white (allowing you to keep one part of the photo in colour and covert the rest to black and white). Plus something simple I always wished iPhoto would do – allow you to add text to a photo. In Picasa there’s a button right there under “basic fixes” that says “add text” and that’s how easy it is!

You can also create collages (like the one at the top of this post), mosaics, contact sheets, & fun multiple exposure shots with the click of a few buttons (see below). It’s all very easy to use and I think would be a great fit for someone looking to do a bit of easy editing to family photos (you can upload them to Picasa Web Albums with the one click too).

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The Genius of Photography

By Ray Davis
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genius-bookPhotodoto thinks photography is genius and BBC Four agree with us! In late 2007 they aired a 6-part documentary entitled The Genius of Photography which spanned 170 years of photography’s history. What 2007? That’s old news I hear you cry! But for Christmas I received the accompanying book and it’s got me all excited about the series again. Plus one of my aims for 2009 (I don’t like the term “New Year’s resolutions” – too much pressure!) is to learn more about the history of the art I have such a passion for.

The Genious of Photography Book is a good place to start, it’s well written and contains suitably awesome photographs. If you’re in the UK it’s definitely worth the £19, for everyone else check out the website where you can see some of the famous photos used in the series (and read about the photographers) here. If you’re feeling adventurous you can even follow the instructions in this clip from the show and make a camera obscura.

(The book is available on Amazon.com in the USA but is an import and currently only available used.

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