With the cameras on our smartphones getting better and better, many people choose to use their iPhone cameras over DSLRs just for the ease of use.  I do use my iPhone for blog/instagram pictures sometimes but I also shoot with my DSLR plenty plus when I shoot with Deeana that is with her super nice camera.  Either way, I like to edit the photos that go on my Instagram in the same way to achieve a very cohesive, aesthetically pleasing feed.  Some people don’t care about this at all and that’s totally fine if not! But I used to always use VSCO to edit my photos in the same filter and style, and then I sort of got away from it as I was experimenting with what I liked (which I recommend, it’s the best way to figure it out and learn!) and now I am back to using my normal VSCO filters.

Favorite Photo Editing Apps

So that brings me to my first, and probably my favorite, photo editing app.

VSCO

I love VSCO because like I mentioned earlier, I am a big fan of my photos flowing together cohesively on my feed. If you scroll back through my page I think you can see where I would change the vibe of the feed up every now and then (one follower once told me that you could feel the seasons change on my posts, which I thought was funny but probably accurate.)  For now, with the rebrand to Bess Harrington Carter from The Fit Fave, I am sticking to using the same filter on all of my photos because it feels more like me and true to me.   If you scroll back far enough on my page (roughly back to winter of 2016) you’ll see the vibe is very similar to what it is now.  VSCO has so many filters you can chose from and then you can tweak all of those to suit your taste.  If you are looking for inspiration, you should search Pinterest for “VSCO filters” and it’ll give you a bunch of pictures with the filter and details used so you can find something you like.

Just an FYI, VSCO can be kind of confusing to get the hang of at first, but just play around with it and you’ll get used to it. I promise it’s worth it!

Lightroom Mobile App

I believe you need to have Lightroom on your desktop/laptop in order to get the mobile app, but I’m not sure.  I could be wrong so check it out in the app store to be sure.  But I specifically love the Lightroom app for making sure the colors in my picture are what I want them to be, whether that be to brighten the whites or adjust the shadows.  VSCO can do this but I think Lightroom does it better.  You can also adjust the other colors in your photo whether you want it to be the change the hues, saturation, and luminance of any color.  This is a fun feature I think, for example, when I went to the beach I adjusted the sky to be a really cool teal blue because I liked how that went in with my feed at the time.

PicTapGo

I don’t use this one as much but it is a great option for people that want to be able to compare a bunch of filters at once and pic your favorite. It is a less manual process I think even though you can adjust the amount of the filter on each photo, when I use PicTapGo I really just want a specific filter at it’s fullest and I move on.  I use it the least but for sure if you’re short on time, just go with this option.

PicMonkey

Okay so PicMonkey is web-based but I do really like it. If you ever want to put text over your images or anything this is my favorite tool to use because it’s just really easy and user-friendly.  It has some filters and such too if you’d like to do it all in one place.

So there you have it. Those are my go-to’s.

What are some of your favorite photo-editing apps?

xo,

Bess

The post Photography Tip Tuesday: Favorite Photo Editing Apps appeared first on Bess Harrington Carter.

We talked about last week importing our photos into Lightroom and getting them ready and organized to be edit in Lightroom, so now we are ready to start editing! Now, I’m going to start off by saying there is no right or wrong way to edit. Everyone has a different style and different type of look that they are going for. I’m just going to go over some basic features of Lightroom to help enhance your photos!

First make sure you are in the develop module (when you import the picture you will be in the library module) then the first thing I always do is bump up the exposure just a tad, I personally like a more bright picture and never want my subject to be underexposed, so that’s always my first step. I then typically bring the the black and shadows down a little bit (so I move the slider backwards to the left), I suggest playing with all these sliders by moving them up and down to figure out the look you like the best, there is never any harm in testing what they do. If you make an edit you completely hate all that you have to do is click edit in your toolbar and undo and it will undo the last edit you did. By clicking reset which is right above the pictures on the right hand side you will bring the photo back to its original pre-edit state! I then typically bring the contrast up to about +10 and the Clarity up anywhere from +5 to +15 it just kind of depends on the image. See screenshot below to find where exposure, contrast, highlights, whites, blacks, and clarity is located!

The other thing I always make sure to do to every picture is sharpen it. Use the side bar to scroll down until you see detail on the right hand side where you are editing. You then will see Sharpening I usually pull the slider until it say around +45 then bring the detail slider to about 30, this will just make your photo a little more crisp.

Now, one of the best features about editing in Lightroom is this next step. After you get the picture edited just how you want it you can then click and highlight that edited photo, hit shift on your keyboard and hold it while you select however many pictures you want to copy that same edit to. After you have all the images selected that you want to have that same edit then all you have to do is hit the sync option right next to reset and it will sync all those photos to look like the first one you edited! I do want to throw out a disclaimer, you do not want to copy the same edit to a picture that was taken in a completely different light because most likely it will not look right.

Now after you are finished editing all your pictures all you have to do is highlight all the pictures and go to the top next to the develop and click “library:. Once you are on the Library screen, instead of hitting import like we did last time we are going to hit Export so we can export all the edited images out of Lightroom.

That covers the basics of Lightroom and what you can do with it! Again, I suggest playing with all the sliders and seeing for yourself which is does and how it makes your picture look!  Leave any questions in the comments!!

xo,

Deeana & Bess

The post Photography Tip Tuesday: Editing in Lightroom Part 2 appeared first on Bess Harrington Carter.

The first step of course is going to be getting your pictures onto the computer. When going about this it really depends what type of computer you have, and what type of memory cards. Some computer have ports for an SD memory card and if your camera uses SD cards then you’ve got it made, all you have to do it slide that little card into your computer! Sometimes though, you may have to purchase a card reader that plugs into your computer and has different ports for different memory cards (that’s what I use). Lastly with some cameras there’s an option of plugging the actual camera into the computer.

After you have your memory card or camera plugged in you are going to open Lightroom and import them by simply clicking the important option in the bottom left had corner!

When importing it’s important to first select the destination your are saving these pictures (the folder they will be stored in) You click the arrow that I have circled in the screen shot below and then you either select the folder in which you want to save the pictures to, or create a new folder!

After you select the destination and click import at the bottom right hand corner your pictures will begin to load into Lightroom. It will take a little while for them to load but you can start the editing/picking process while this is going on. The first thing I do is go through the pictures and “pick” the ones that I actually want to edit – you don’t want to waste your time editing those photos where your eyes are closed or the picture isn’t in focus. To “pick” a photo all you have to do is click that photo in the viewing bar on the bottom and hit “P” then a little flag will appear on the picture! see Example below what the flag on the picture will look like.

After you have picked all your pictures you now just want to pull those pictures up to make the actual editing process easier. To do that go to wear it says filters off in the bottom right hand corner and you are going to click the arrow next to that and select flagged see screenshot below where the arrow is pointing.

Thanks so much for reading and we will come back next week with the basics of editing those pictures!

xo,

Deeana & Bess

PS Don’t forget to check out the other Photography Tips here!

The post Photography Tip Tuesday: Editing in Lightroom Part 1 appeared first on Bess Harrington Carter.

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Happy Tuesday friends! Last week we talked about being able to achieve that perfect blurry background and we briefly touched base on how it’s important to focus on the eyes. Today, we are going to talk a little more about focusing and how exactly to focus so that what you want is in focus. When you have your settings set at a wide open aperture (smaller F stop) that does help obtain your perfect blurry background, but it also leaves more room for error and making your subject blurry too, so it’s very important you really pay attention to exactly what you are focusing on. If you notice every picture your take what you want is out of focus, you may what to first look and make sure your auto focus is on (on most canons there is a button on the back on your camera that says AF-ON hit that). There is other ways to focus but we’ll discuss that at a later time as it is a little more complicated. If you do not see this button as an option on the back of your camera then simply google “how to turn on auto focus on _______ (type the camera model you have)”. The second thing you want to make sure you are doing is actually choosing the right thing to focus on. Here is an example of the display screen you are looking at (will vary slightly depending on you camera model) you want to select the options circled below.

Then you should see this…

Now you are going to look through your view finder and turn the wheel on the top of your camera until the highlighted square is on what you want in focus. Again if your subject is a person focus on the eyes, if your subject is a plant focus right in the middle of the plant, if you are shooting details such as a purse make sure the center of the purse is in focus. It’s so easy to accidentally focus on the wrong thing in your view, so take your time – sometimes it takes a few shots until it’s perfectly to your liking. Here are a few examples of what happens if you focus on something right next to your subject.

As you can see the picture on the left is completely out of focus and the picture on the right the green grass to the left of her is in focus.

And here is one more example where the picture on the left the whole thing is out of focus as where the picture on the right the wall to the left of her is in focus rather than her.

So, don’t get discouraged, it happens to all of us. Take a deep breath, make sure your auto focus is on, and manually select your focal point!

Leave us any questions you have below!!

xo,

Deeana & Bess

The post Photography Tip Tuesday: Focal Point appeared first on Bess Harrington Carter.

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Hi guys – today we’re going to talk about controlling your aperture and getting a shallow depth of field. I’m sure you all have seen that tack sharp image of a subject and the background has a really pretty blur (that blur is called bokeh if you want to get techy) and you were wondering to yourself “How can I do that?” Well, I’m here to help – it’s actually pretty simple!

A basic definition of of depth of field is: the zone of acceptable sharpness within a photo that will appear in focus. In every picture there is a certain area of your imagine in front of, and behind the subject that will appear in focus. Your depth of field is controlled by changing your aperture, which is that f – number that we touched based on in the our post last week you can find that here. The lower the f – number the more shallow your depth of field is (creates a greater blur in the background) and the higher the f – number the more sharp the entire image will be (less blur in the background). Another thing that will effect how much blur you can create in the back ground is the distance the subject is from the camera. The closer the subject is to the camera the shallower the depth of field becomes, meaning you’ll be able to create more of a blur in the background. Moving further away from the subject will deepen your depth of field, which means your subject will stand out less and the blur will not be as great, but you will have an entire image that will be sharp. Below is an example of you how the depth of field changes depending on where the subject is in relation to the camera. In the example below the settings are exactly the same with the same f – number.

Now, there is one downfall when changing your f – number (your aperture) to a really low number – the lower that number is, the more room for error when focusing. You must make sure your hand is steady and you are always focusing on your subjects eyes, always be sure your subjects eyes are in focus! The picture on the left if you look closely her face is not entirely in focus, her eyes are not sharp, but the picture on the right if you look closely her eyes are perfectly in focus.

Ok, so now lets recap what we know. A shallow depth of field (Dof) creates a picture that has a subject that stands out in focus with a blurry background. Changing your aperture is how you create a shallow depth of field – and your aperture is that little f – number on the back of your camera – the lower the f – number the more shallow your depth of field is! Lastly, every time you change that f – number don’t forget about the exposure triangle, that we learned about last week and if you change your f – number to a lower number you will need to make your shutter speed a higher number. If you missed last weeks lesson on the exposure triangle read it here.  (FYI- for the pictures above the f-stop is 1.8)
Go pick up that camera, find a model (a dog, a cat, a husband, a diet coke, anything will work!) and start playing with those numbers and see how many different looks you can get by simply changing your aperture and changing your distance between you and your subject. Be sure to leave us any questions below!

xo,

Deeana & Bess

The post Photography Tip Tuesday: Depth of Field aka That Blurry Background appeared first on Bess Harrington Carter.

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So, you’ve been blogging for awhile and you have a nice little point and shoot camera. You know the quality of your pictures can be a huge selling point, and you want that crisp, clear picture where the subject is in focus and the background is a nice a blur, right? That means you are ready to upgrade to a D-SLR camera!

When upgrading from a point and shoot camera to a D-SLR it can be a bit over whelming with all the different options. There are 2 major camera companies people gravitate towards – Canon and Nikon (these are not your only options, just the most popular). Lets look at Canon cameras first – The Canon Rebel T5 is a great option for someone who is looking to have full control of what they are shooting without breaking the bank. This is a great option for someone just starting out in photography or for a hobbyist. The Rebel T5 body comes in at roughly $369 (price varies). If you are wanting to get just a little fancier you can look at the Canon Rebel T5i which is essentially the same as the T5 but you have a few more feature on the body of the camera. You can tilt the LCD screen so you have more control of where you are taking your picture and the LCD screen is touch.  Now, if you are wanting to go with a Nikon body, a comparable body is the Nikon D3200 with similar features as the Canon T5 but has a slightly higher mega pixel and is a little pricier.

Now that you have selected your D-SLR body you need to select a lens – because really the lens is what makes the biggest difference! Both Canon and Nikon offer a 50mm f/1.8 lens (Canon’s costs about $125 and Nikon’s costs about $215). I’m sure you are wondering what exactly that means. Well, 50mm is a fixed lens, meaning it does not zoom basically your feet will be how you will zoom, and in short mm is your focal length which is measured in millimeters. When you see f/1.8 this is how low the aperture for the lens will go. Your aperture is the pretty bokeh (blur) that you see in high quality photos – the lower the number the more “blur” you can get in the background of your pictures. This lens is by far the best bang for your buck and a must have – it will take your pictures to the next level!

Learning how to use this new fancy camera is also pretty important in being able to produce quality photos. The exposure triangle is how we are going to associate the 3 variables that determine the exposure of your picture – aperture, iso, and shutter speed. All 3 of these variables effect one another to make a properly exposed photograph. We briefly touched on aperture, which is how we make that pretty blur – when you hear someone say the aperture is wide that means you are letting in more light through the lens (the wider the aperture, the small the f number will be). When an aperture is narrow you are letting in less light and your f number will be higher. Now we need to look at the shutter speed, this is how long the shutter remains open to allow more light in – the lower the number for your shutter speed the longer the shutter is open and the higher the number of the shutter speed the faster the shutter is opening and closing. When you have a really low shutter speed since the shutter is opening and closing slowly you have to be more still. Lastly is your ISO the control of the light sensitivity of the sensor – raising your iso will essentially allow you to work with less light – so when you are in a situation where it is darker, that is when you raise this number. Raising your iso will result in more noise (which is the graininess of a picture) and less detail.

Below is your exposure triangle to help you determine how you will set all your numbers to obtain a correctly exposed photo.

We will touch base further on each variable in another post! Now get out there and start playing with your fancy new camera!  Let us know if you have specific questions about this or other photography tips you want covered!!

xo,

Deeana & Bess

PS- I (Bess) use a Canon Rebel T5 with a 50mm lens and love it.  It has been a great camera to start out with and really helps achieve that blurry background and crisp images.

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