Use contrast, exposure, highlights, etc. with intention. And learn the difference between an alpaca and a llama.
All photo editing programs have basic tools like contrast, brightness, exposure, etc. But if you’re like me, you don’t really know how to use them. You just move the levels sliders back and forth until the image looks good.
I wrote this post to finally teach myself (and you) how to edit with intention. To illustrate the differences in the before and after photos, I overadjusted the levels (using Photoshop and Lightroom).
I used pictures of alpacas and llamas to make the process fun. (As an added bonus, click on this link to learn how to tell the two apart.) …
Plan your shots with these compositional tools in mind, and watch your pics go from snapshots to photographs worthy of social media.
When I first started snapping pictures, I didn’t understand composition. Years later, I discovered that my photos could be vastly improved by using the rule of thirds, diagonal, triangle, golden ratio, and golden spiral grid guides in Photoshop’s crop tool (shown below). Other editing programs, and most cameras, have the grids too (check your manual).
(If you don’t know how to use Photoshop’s crop tool, click here.)
Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds, the most common compositional rule, divides an image into 9 equal sections made up of two vertical lines, two horizontal lines, and four intersection points.
To create a balanced composition, your photo’s focal point should be positioned along a horizontal or vertical line, or on a point where the lines intersect. Why? Because that’s the first place we look. …
When children wrote to author EB White asking if his stories were true, he said they were not, but that, “Real life is only one kind of life. There is also the life of the imagination.”
Sometimes the two commingle: a riverside estate is reimagined as a pirate ship, a common cowpath leads to a lovers’ lane, and an evanescent cat grins from the branch of a chestnut tree. Here are ten classic children’s books, set in places that exist not only in the writer’s imagination but in real life too:
Charlotte’s Web
On an autumn morning in 1949, EB White noticed something truly terrific in his barn: a large gray spider spinning a web. In October, the spider added an egg sac. White cut out the sac, put it in a candy box poked with air holes and took it to his home in New York. Within weeks the spiders hatched and spun webs of their own. This gave White an idea for a story about the life cycle of spiders and animals, barn animals in general, and pigs in particular. And in 1952 readers were introduced to the weaver of the original web: Charlotte. …
The Mackenzie Poltergeist is the most well-documented paranormal phenomenon in the world.
Hundreds of people have reported being attacked by ghosts at Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh, Scotland. The most sinister of these specters is Sir George MacKenzie, a 17th-century Scottish lawyer and legal writer. Sir George is also known as Bluidy Mackenzie, the Mackenzie Poltergeist, and the Persecutor of the Covenanters.
The covenanters supported a Presbyterian Church of Scotland free from the political and religious interference of the Stuart kings. …
Do you believe in ghosts? More than 4 in 10 Americans do. But what exactly is a ghost? They’re not all Casper, Slimer, or Moaning Myrtle. According to ghost experts, apparitions vary widely and can be classified into the following groups:
Residual Haunting Ghosts
A residual haunting ghost is an entity created by a psychic imprint. …
(De)compositions wants nonfiction published/unpublished stories about cemeteries, ghosts, the paranormal, supernatural, and all things spooky. No fiction or true crime stories involving people or animals, please. Think Halloween, the holiday, not Halloween the movie. Email us with a link to your story at decompositionspub@gmail.com.
Including the oldest existing photo of a living animal.
In 2015 there were about 6.5 billion cat pictures online. But cat photos are nothing new. We have been photographing our cats, dogs, chickens, and other animals since the introduction of the camera in 1839.
As any pet lover with a camera knows, animals don’t tolerate lengthy photo sessions. …
Hint: She eats tuna casserole from your plate without permission — or a fork.
You prefer to think of your cat as your somewhat aloof best friend. She seems to like (or, at least, tolerate) you, too. No need to sleep with one eye open. Right? Well, before you strap on your Garfield sleep mask, read these eight signs that your kitty-witty could be cwazy-wazy:
1. She can’t distinguish between right and wrong.
She eats tuna casserole from your plate without permission — or a fork.
If a flavor is disagreeable to her palate, she will leave the food on the floor for you to step in.
She doesn’t know the difference between a litter box and a pile of laundry; a scratching post and a sofa; or a feather and an entire parakeet. …
The U.S. has more than 144,000 graveyards — far too many for any tombstone tourist to explore in a lifetime. But here are 7 cemeteries that are of grave importance (sorry), and should definitely be on your bucket list:
1. Calvary Cemetery — Queens, New York
The first body laid to rest in Calvary Cemetery was that of 29-year-old Esther Ennis, who was said to have died of a broken heart. …
A frustrated troop leader’s motivational speech on the eve of yet another cookie season.
Girls, as you know last year the Badgertown Troop sold 537 boxes of cookies. We were only 3,643 boxes short of winning the trip to the Kenosha Cheese Kastle: Home of hard-to-find cheddar wheels and wedges, off Interstate 95, half a mile from the Sock Barn. Honestly, wouldn’t cheese curds be a better prize than the Tagalong Toilet Kit?
So what went wrong? Most of you wore your uniforms right side out. Remember, the badges go on the outside, Mackenzie. Our booth was tastefully glittered and blinged before we got hit with the — what did the meteorologist call them — snow squalls? …
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