Digital Life - Four fun Halloween photo effectsBy Suzanne Kantra, Techlicious.com
Between the kids’ costumes, jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating, there are a lot of photo moments to capture. To get great photos in these difficult lighting situations, though, you’ll have to do a little more than just point and shoot. So check out our tips for taking your photos up a notch. And we’ll give you ideas for special effects that will make an already spooky holiday even spookier.
Photographing jack-o-lanterns
Great jack-o-lantern shots capture both the glow coming from the pumpkin and the textures of the pumpkin’s skin and surrounding objects in low light.
Take this shot at twilight (about 20 minutes after the sun goes down) when the glow from your pumpkin will produce about the same amount of light as the sky. With the exposure for everything the same, your camera will easily capture details in the entire shot.
If you miss this window, put your camera in HDR mode (High Dynamic Range) mode (Cameras we recommend, like the $200 Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS have this). In HDR mode, the camera takes an overexposed shot to capture the pumpkin skin detail and an underexposed shot for the candle’s glow and then merges them together without your intervention. If your camera doesn’t have an HDR mode, you can merge photos of different exposures together using Adobe Photoshop Elements’ Photomerge Exposure editing mode.
Be sure you can’t see the flame of the candle when taking your shots. It will appear too bright as a spot in your picture. And use a tripod and set the camera’s self-timer to avoid the brief shake that inevitably occurs when you press down on the shutter button.
Take this shot at twilight (about 20 minutes after the sun goes down) when the glow from your pumpkin will produce about the same amount of light as the sky. With the exposure for everything the same, your camera will easily capture details in the entire shot.
If you miss this window, put your camera in HDR mode (High Dynamic Range) mode (Cameras we recommend, like the $200 Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS have this). In HDR mode, the camera takes an overexposed shot to capture the pumpkin skin detail and an underexposed shot for the candle’s glow and then merges them together without your intervention. If your camera doesn’t have an HDR mode, you can merge photos of different exposures together using Adobe Photoshop Elements’ Photomerge Exposure editing mode.
Be sure you can’t see the flame of the candle when taking your shots. It will appear too bright as a spot in your picture. And use a tripod and set the camera’s self-timer to avoid the brief shake that inevitably occurs when you press down on the shutter button.
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