Tips for creating decorators by yourself (Concept 2: Make it re-born)

It has been for a while since I posted the first blog about "Tips for creating decorators for shooting." 
In the last two days in Thailand, I got a fever, and it took me forever to get fully recovered. Now, it's getting better...So here, I am so ready for writing about the second tip for creating decorators for shooting, Concept 2: 'Make it re-born.'

So let's see them. 

In the last post, I was talking about keeping them alive. If when you try flowers stay alive, but they are already dried or died, make them re-born. 

So during the winter or spring, I see a bunch of twigs at the balcony. I picked them up and tied them up by a wire. Sometimes, put a small accessory (like a ring works out. ) with the wiring. 

It's just twigs, but if you add the golden-lushed wire (you can buy at Daiso) and add your cute little ring, get them re-born as a home decor like a photo below. 
 

Notably, this twig home decor is good for the fall and winter seasons. :)  Moreover, if you paint them by the gold color, it could be additional shiny, and the perfect decoration for the Christmas table setting.  

But of course, you can use it for your snapshot anytime. Adding it to your teacup, food, or your new accessories you want to present, the twig works out to make it 3D and composition of the depth on the photo. 

I leave an example photo I created. Please take the idea and keep your shooting fun :) 

Thank you so much for reading, and stay tuned for the final tip blog post! 

Tips for creating decorators by yourself

Someone asked me that where I take product photos and where I buy those little accessories for the decorators. 

So, I was wondering how I do that? (thank you for your challenging questions!)

Here are the answers and would like to provide a small tip for your creating process of decoration goods. 

First of all, 
1. I don't have the studio, unfortunately. Take product photos at home with natural lights. 
2. I don't buy accessories or small goods for the decoration of photos. But I make them by myself. 

Today, I am going to talk about #2. (I have some ideas of instructing how to take photos at home for your food or any objects you would like to take. It will be covered sometime if there is a request for it.)

Let's get started. 

So, I would say that my creating process of decorations comes from those three concepts. 

Concept 1: 'Keep them alive.'

Concept 2: 'Make it re-born.'

Concept 3: 'De-Construct and construct.'

Too subjective? Let me make the concepts objective. 

Concept 1: 'Keep them alive.'

I've been a big fan of flowers and plants at such a young age. So I buy flowers, but also I have them in planters. If they are blooming 110%, I take them out and leave them under the AC and make it dried flowers. So then, I keep them in a jar or a box. Or sometimes I pick them up on the street. (I seriously do.) and take them home. 
Yes, that simple.... so not sure if this could be a tip. But what I want to roll out here is that all small goods you can buy at a rustic antique shop or boutiques can be created merely by your self without efforts. 
Because of its disposition of natures, they die if they live 120%. So before it happens, keep them alive as dried flowers. 
 

However, if you have a voice in your mind now, "well, can I just buy a bunch of flowers from the store? " Yes, you can. If your flowers nicely dressed up by a florist, keep it in shape and make it dried flowers as the same process above.  You can use it as the home decorator. 
 

Those dried flowers are going to be antique rusty colors when you shoot. It is going to be perfectly matching with the trendy object or something lively appearance. 
As I wrote in the previous post, those decoration goods drastically change your photo look and give essence to the scene right away. 

Please try them out for your next shooting! 
 

In the next post, I will cover the concept 2: 'Make it re-born.'
Thank you so much for reading, and if you have any questions, please email me.  : ) 
 

How to edit a portrait photo like vintage style

This post is about Portrait. But beside of portrait photo techniques, I'd like to cover 'how to edit a portrait photo like vintage style.' This editing works out mainly in the scene along with flowers or the forest. 
(*The technical side of shooting the portrait, please give me time, and I will post about the topic. )

Here, the photo above is my sister, and we had this shooting at the grandma's house last month. 
I like her smiling, but also her eyes look at the lens with the look "I know how you do." It was just naturally collaborated with my sister. Love it. 

After posting the original photo on Instagram, maybe this photo could be right in the vintage style. 

So here how I did. (Please click the right side of the photo below to see other adjustment tools)

Used VSCO

1. Contrast
I usually like high variations, but this time skipped contrast. It's because the original photo has the strong color differences in its antithesis, and this photo would want to go with the low-tone vintage look.  So I got them even -2.0 to make her and black tops look softer. 

2. Sharpen/Clarity
Those are important in a portrait shot. I like high sharpen and low clarity personally. But again, because of the original photo had a good resolution in it, so just left Sharpen +4.0 and clarity is as usual, between +2.5 and +3.5. 

3. Saturation/White Balance
Those are easy. Make sure that you always control those two elements for colder or warmer look. Again, if you could adjust 'Saturation' and 'White balance' for cooler/warmer looking, you can make any types of photo styles. 
This time is about vintage look, so saturation is -1.0 (did not go over beyond since the filter and contrast gave enough greyish tone. ) 
In White Balance, green was a little bit went beyond that I usually do, and it's also connected to the next step. 

4. Skin Tone
After editing so much to make the photo look greyish, greenish, and low-tone, we cannot just leave without adjusting the face color of the person. 
So when you adjust Saturation/White Balance, remember that changing Skin-Tone comes as a combo set. 

5. Fade/Grain
Finally, Fade (!).  Fade dramatically works out the portrait vintage look photo. The tools provided a photo softness and polished in the way of "polled off." 
I actually (well, at least for me) challenged to +5.0. Adding Fade is my nervous point in editing. It's because it could ruin colors, contrast, or even the feeling of the object's character. But sometimes have to try this out drastically to break our comfortable zone. And I don't think I perfectly got this done. But I am happy that I could try to go beyond my comfort area. 

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Lastly, let's go review.  
1. Contrast could be the negative number if a model outfit is too dark or the original photo has the strong color sense. 
2. High Sharpen is a key to define the face, but Clarity could kill the softness of the portrait face. 
3. Control Saturation and White Balance and keep your eyes on the balance between the filter strength and those adjustments. 
4. Use Skin Tone always after Saturation and White Balance to modify a model's skin color. (It's ultimate priority to make her/him look in a certain way.) 
5. Level of Fade is under your preference. Use Fade for the portrait that gives the sense of the softness in the end. 

Thank you so much for reading. Hope you got learnt something from reviewing the photo with me. 

See you in the next post :) 

How to edit a photo taken by your phone (clear light look)

Hi there, again! 

As I promised in the last post, I would like to guide you 'how to edit a photo taken by your phone with a bright/clear light look. 
This mainly works out for the nature scene or food at the cafe. 

For a bright/clear look, I usually use 1) Photoshop mobile app. 
The app works out pretty well on enhance and make a picture clearer. 
So it's not focused on for Instagrammed looks or vintage style. 
It's for the situation that you took a photo where no light and only the natural light is available. 
In the situation, you still can make your photo at least the decent level to share with someone. 

So let's get started. 

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I took the photo here last week when we had lunch at a Japanese restaurant. It was a beautiful atmosphere around the old traditional house. I sneakily took a picture of outside garden below from the room I was eating. 

This looks very ordinary photo taken by a mobile phone. For the nature photo including a building is actually an excellent component to define light and contrast on a picture. 
To add lights on greens, contrast, and white balance can be done on Photoshop. 

before editing demonstration, let me give you a tip on an angle. 

Angle
When you want to take a photo of a part of natures, include a pillar of a part of the building on the bottom or the left side of a photo frame, but do not make them focused in the structure. It just an optional object to pull out the bright green side/blue side of the primary purpose, which is natures. 

Although the photo above is from the corner, I personally like the edge from the bottom and look up at the trees because it gives a picture has the feeling that audiences are inside the forest. 

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Edit
Let's edit the original photo. 
Here is the process of editing on Photoshop Express. Please take a look. 

Shadow: -50
Black: -70
White: -104
Tint: -27
Exposure: 8
Clarity: 45
 

Tip1: Enhance
First of all, Photoshop has the tool of Enhance. I set up that it automatically applies to an uploaded photo onto the app. This time, I did not use the device because Enhance actually deleted the colors of different colors of greens. 

Tip2: Filter
Next, choose your favorite filter. I usually use 'Koi.' It gives automatically adjusted contrast, shadow/light, and white balance.
But here is a warning part. Filter level is auto adjustment setting, so you need to adjust by yourself if it's too bright or too dark to make your photo your style. 

This photo below was done by the automatic setting.  As compared with the #1 photos of the editing process, you can see the automatic setting filter is too blight and kills the greens by lights, and also a whole definition of the photo is broad. 

The right side: Self-adjusted
The left side: Automatic adjustment

Tip 3: Crop
An advice here is that 'Crop.'  As mentioned above, having a pillar or additional object with a snapshot nature scene provides a picture of the sense that you sneak peak the moment, and audiences feel they are in that. 

When the photo includes a pillar or something objects, I'd recommend to add them on the bottom or the left side of the frame. 

In the original photo, I had the winder frame and pillars from the left side through the right side. The perspective, which the image is getting open to the right, is psychologically useful since the movement of human or objects from left to right means from the past to the future. 

However, I cropped them off and left the bottom side and a little bit the left side. It's because the primary purpose here is the traditional green garden outside, and pull out the beautiful lights and colors. So I left only the limited parts of the pillars and the window frame. 

Tip4: Exposure
Exposure is a handy tool in a nature photo, particularly in a lot of greenish pictures. It's because greens are the opposite color of the sunshine orange color. So this creates a sharp contrast, and lights give greens shiny in their way. 

However, Exposure does not work out well in a content of no contrast or definition in the original photo. Let's say that the bright sunlight with the beach sands. It becomes just a "bright" photo. No playful space on that. 

This time, I added Exposure because greens are the primary object and the sunlight perfectly looked from the behind leaves. So basically, I pulled the sunshine light out to stand them out. 
 

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Lastly, let's go review... 
1. Include an additional object on the left side or the bottom to feel inside the scene.
2. Use Enhance to polish your photo first. BUT not necessary in case it brews the colors off. 
3. Don't trust a Filter 100% and always your eyes are the last key.
4. Crop a photo in the perspective of getting open from the left side to the right side. 
5. Have Exposure (bright light) onto the whole picture to lighten up the primary object's color. And only use it for a photo already has contrasts. 
 

If you have any questions, suggestions, or photo style you want to learn, please email me. 

Thank you so much for reading. : ) See you in the next post! 

How to edit a photo taken by your phone (Classic Moody Look)

Let's talk about editing. 

Have you ever had the moment, "if I had a camera with me, it could have been a great snapshot.." or you are in a rush and "Okay, let's take a photo of the moment without thinking about lights or focus." 

When you are not with a camera, as we know, we always can take photos with your mobile phone and edit later. Today, I would like to introduce some app and how to use them making pictures look good and add your photos a little bit of the sense of the next level. 

(*Please note that this blog is not only about 'photography.' I want to provide tips for snapshots people take every day for their fun and use. When it comes to photography, ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed do matter, and we do not want to take a shot by thinking we can edit later.)

Since I use an iPhone, I'd like to focus on how to edit photos taken by iPhone and editing tool/app we can use to make them look like Instagrammed or pro-angle look. 

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Shoot
I usually take snapshots for food, table setting, and a part of natures. I shot photos above at home. I typically make a picture from the top and see the whole space with food and other table decorators. 

It's just because, in the view of editing, that angle gives you a simple process to crop the photo if there is any additional object are on, which could ruin your photo look. 
Also, in color/white balance wise, you can see the whole balance of the primary object and other additional decorators. 
Moreover, the angle gives an object itself more standing out and provides the audience feel it. 

Of course, you also can take a photo from different angles like the photo in the middle.  
When you take a photo from the angle, make sure the background. You do not want to spend time on editing it with Photoshop. So usually, I put the object in the dark color background and decorators that matches with the primary purpose. 

For example, if an object is sweets, then put some dried flowers, candles, a flower pot,  a folk, a mug cup...something relates to the images of the object. The additional objects should come from a tool you want if you are served it at the restaurant. Something makes you feel good for no reason.  

*A little tip is that a candle always works out with almost any objects. That's a magic tool to boost your photo image to the next level. 

After shooting, let's go to editing. 

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App
I've been using different apps and came to the point where stick with 2 - 3 apps along with a purpose/ image of a photo. 

My favorite photo editing apps are 1) Photoshop 2) VSCO 3) edit.lab
Photoshop can be used almost for every photo, and it's easy to edit on an iPhone. I use it to make a picture polished first with 'Enhance' on Photoshop. Let me talk about how to edit on an iPhone by Photoshop next time, and show it in more detail. 

Today, I mainly focus on 'how to make photos look classic moody look.' For that, I am going to focus on the app, 2) VSCO. 

This app carries much variety of filters and editing tools, and it is the best app to provide classy moody look on the picture. I only receive benefits from them for the free zone, which is limited filters available. But trust me, it's enough just for fun shooting and snapshots. 

Before the details of editing, let me give you my definition/thoughts on the classy-moody look. 
To me, classy-moody is containing the colors of blue, green, grey, and brownish and the vintage style, but the photo does not look old. Objects still match with 2018. It's a mixed texture of trendy objects and classic tools.  
 

The process below is how I edit for the classy moody look pictures. Here is each action for the final edited version I took on VSCO. Please take a look at each number of adjustment tools. *Click the bottom '<>' to see next photo. 

The process is how I edit for the classy moody look pictures.

My tip is that do not use the 'Exposure' fist. Adjust 'Contrast.' 
And after 'Contrast,' if necessary, adjust 'Exposure' to darker. It's my personal opinion, but 'Exposure' is just a supplement tool to add a strong sense of lights to a picture, and you do not want to have an intense fire in the classy moody look. 

Moreover, if you could adjust 'Saturation' and 'White balance' for cooler/warmer looking. I think that those two tools are the most important for the classy moody looking beside the filter. 
In other words, as long as you handle those two, you can create the best snapshot in the classy moody style. 

The last tip is that use 'Grain' and 'Fade' to make more the vintage look. Recently 'Grain' is my favorite tool for editing. I don't prefer to use the 'Fade' tool in general, but 'Fade' definitely works out for more portrait snapshots, instead of food and natures, 

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Lastly, let's go review. 

1. use the angle from the top
2. have additional decorators/goods provides the feeling of the object. *a candle is a magic tool
3. do not adjust 'Exposure' first. Always 'Contrast' first
4. handle 'Saturation' and 'White balance' for cooler/warmer looking
5. use 'Grain' for the vintage look

I hope these tips help your first step of photo editing on your phone. 
Please let me know if you have more suggestions or questions that you want me to cover in the next post. 

Thank you so much for reading and hope you enjoy your snapshots more!