My husband, Chris, the other half of the FoodRepublik team, has been working hard to put together a set of mini photography tutorials in the hope that it will help any budding photographers out there. We are not professionals, but some of the things we learned when we first started might help some of you.
There are many easy ways to use stock photography websites to help you get started selling your photographs. Contrary to what you might think, you don't have to be a professional photographer to make money with stock photography. If you want to get started selling your photos online, here are some of the best stock photography websites I have found. They are all free to signup and easy to use. Is it just me or does anybody else find it very inconvenient that Windows XP does not have RAW thumbnail support? I have been using the photo viewer that comes with Picasa to sort through my RAW files before I edit them, but that doesn't let you view RAW files as thumbnails. So I did some googleing a while back and found a solution. Sorry I haven't shared it sooner :) We are in Japan right now and only have Camilla's computer with us, so I needed to set it up on her computer to edit some pictures. [caption id="attachment_1398" align="aligncenter" width="560" caption="RAW Thumbnails in Windows XP"] Anyway, here is what you do: Search for "Arcsoft Raw Thumbnail Viewer" and download and install it. (I downloaded it here) You have to "register" which means typing in an email address (it's free software, so no big deal...use you're spam email). Then you're done! It's that easy. I wish I had done this years ago. It's great. Maybe everybody else has had this working for years and I'm behind the times, but if not, I hope someone finds this useful! UPDATE: WINDOWS 7 Our 4.5 year old laptop is barely hanging on, so we finally decided to upgrade! We got a sweet deal on a refurbished Dell laptop. It has Windows 7, which I haven't used much yet, but I immediately noticed it doesn't have RAW support either! I can't believe Microsoft didn't make that standard in Windows7. Anyway, I have a Canon camera, so this is a Canon fix, sorry if you have something else. Go to Canon.com, find your camera. Click "Drivers & Software", choose Windows 7, then download and install the software labeled "Canon RAW Codec 1.7.0". It's as easy as that! I hope it works for you. I can't believe how difficult it is to find information on this subject! Modern cameras are amazing – anyone can take a nice picture with the camera set to automatic. But taking pictures that really shine might require a little more know-how. Flipping the camera dial off “automatic” can be a little intimidating, but the results will be well worth the effort. Before flipping the dial it’s important to understand some camera basics. One of the benefits of an SLR camera over a regular point-and-shoot is that an SLR gives photographers more manual control. This means photographers can adjust shutter speed and aperture as well as other controls to get the exact picture they want. Manipulating depth of field allows photographers to attract the viewers attention to a certain place in the photograph. Mode Dial Most digital SLRs have a dial on the top that gives the photographer various options for how to adjust the image outcome. The (M) or manual setting allows the photographer to adjust shutter speed and aperture manually. There is usually a little meter that shows + or - indicating whether the shot will turn out over or underexposed, but the photographer can choose to take the picture regardless. For new photographers it is probably better to start with one of the easier to use semi-automatic modes such as shutter priority or aperture priority. A photograph is said to be overexposed if it is too light and the bright parts (highlights) are washed out and have lost their detail. Underexposed means the photo did not get enough light and the dark parts are blending together. Exposure is regulated by changing shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Luckily modern cameras have automatic metering sytems which adjust camera settings to make a proper exposure. When talking about exposure, it is important to understand the concept of a stop. Changing the shutter speed by one stop means to either halve or double the amount of time the shutter is open. For instance if a particular shot was taken at 1/200 of a second, the same image at 1/100 of a second would receive twice as much light. HDR is all the rage these days, so I thought I'd give it a try. HDR stands for “High Dynamic Range.” I know this isn't directly related to food photography, but if you like taking pictures of food, chances are you like taking pictures of other things, too! There are so many fun filters and tools to play with when editing photos. I just found out about a filter called polar coordinates. Basically it turns a panoramic photo into a circle that makes a new little world.Sell Your Food Photos!
Food blogging has really taken off in the last few years, as have almost all things internet related. If you're spending so much time on capturing great photos of the food you make, why not try to sell those photos?RAW Thumbnails in Windows XP and Windows 7
[/caption]Photography Basics
Depth of Field
Camera Settings
Understanding Exposure
Understanding Stops
Fun with HDR
Miniature Food World
If you haven't yet played with photo-stitching (combining multiple photos into one panorama), you should do that first. There are many free software programs that will help you make a panorama. I'll discuss that in a future article.
