Printing Black And White Pictures On Canvas For Family Portraits With Style
October 15, 2009
Black and white photos have a certain timeless style that can turn a picture from a nice snapshot into a work of art. Without the distraction of color, the shapes become more important, the way the light falls on a cheek and the sparkle in an eye stand out more. A series of black and white canvas prints of your children hanging on the wall of your home will bring a certain classic stylishness to your décor as well as being a perfect way to display your family photos, so consider black and white when you’re next printing pictures on canvas.
When you are thinking of having pictures of your children and family printed on canvas to hang on the wall, check out how they look in black and white before ordering them. Not all pictures work well in black and white and some photos that aren’t successful in color work brilliantly in black and white. It helps if you have photo viewing or imaging software that allows you to see your pictures in black and white at a click of a mouse. Look through the photos you want to print and get a feel of which ones look great in black and white. Usually portrait shots do look good, especially ones that have nice soft light. Your canvas printing service can always work on your photo to improve the contrast and give it more depth.
Think about the cropping on your photos too. Some pictures work well cropped as a square, especially if you want to have a set of portraits of the whole family printed to hang together in a group. Order them to be printed with the gallery wrap option so that they don’t need frames, for a very modern but classic feel and hang them in a tight group on the wall to create a stunning effect.
Black and white canvas prints work well whether your décor is old world tradition or modern minimalist. They are versatile too and have the advantage that they will never clash with your color schemes if you redecorate, which is just as well, as good quality canvas prints are likely to outlast you and become family heirlooms. If you get canvas prints made you may even be creating a new set of family portraits to smile down from the walls at your grandchildren many years from now.
Mum and Photographer
Start a Family Holiday Tradition With Unique Personalized Photo Ornaments As Gifts
October 13, 2009
Having a new baby transforms Christmas forever. Suddenly you are no longer just a couple, joining up with your parents for the Christmas celebration, but you are a new family unit of your own. Now is the time to start up your own Christmas traditions that your child will grow up with and love. You can start your own collection of special Christmas tree ornaments that you build on every year and that will become precious to your children as they bring them out year after year to hang on the tree. A beautiful tree ornament personalized with a photo of your baby makes a great gift for your partner to start off this family Christmas tradition. Give one each year and your tree will one day become a shimmering treasury of family memories.
Photoworks has a great selection of elegant Christmas tree ornaments that are perfect to build up your own unique collection of photo tree ornaments. A tiny portrait of your baby could hang within a shining silver heart, or his face could smile out from the centre of a traditional porcelain ball ornament. There is even a dangling beaded ornament that takes two photos, which is great if you have two children.
When it comes to taking a photo of your kids for one of these tree ornaments, keep it simple. A portrait shot is best as the photos will be quite small, so aim for a head and shoulders close up shot with a plain background, so there is no distraction from your child’s smiling face.
If you want to photograph two kids in one photo, get them to huddle close together so there is no space between their heads. Remember that the photo will usually be cropped as a circle for these ornaments, so you can’t have a long line of faces. For three or more kids get them in a close group with the older ones looking over the shoulders of their younger siblings.
Think of the colors they are wearing too. If for example you have a strict red and silver decoration scheme for your tree then dress your kids in clothes that tone in with the theme color, so that there are no clashing or jarring notes.
Start taking pictures of your kids now for these special Christmas gifts, so that you have plenty of time to select the perfect photos and order your ornament in time for Christmas. This year could well be the start of a whole new Christmas tradition which your children will treasure, even once they start their own families many years from now.
Mum and Photographer
Take The Work Out Of Holiday Shopping With Personalized Picture Frame Gifts.
October 12, 2009
Last year as a very new mom I barely got my Christmas shopping done, with too much of it occurring when the countdown was measured in hours instead of days, so this year I am getting a slight jump on things. Everyone gets a personalized picture of my son in a frame as one of their gifts, but lately I’ve come across so many photo gift websites that make me want to take that special gift and bump it up to interesting or extraordinary.
I have already gifted many people with what has become the standard in photo gifts, like
mouse pads and picture purses, but the available items just keep getting more elegant and
desirable. For instance Grandma and Grandpa’s stockings used to be stuffed with 2X3 photos to update their wallets, now you can have the pictures printed right on the leather of the wallet, no opening required to display those precious faces.
Everyone’s favorite, jewelry, has also really stepped up a notch. Loading a precious memory onto a unique piece of jewelry results in a beautiful and elegant gift, the look of costume jewelry that used to be the result is a thing of the past. Even better is the selection available for men, like dog tags, cuff links and watches. They can now print anything from color to black and white right onto precious metals like sterling silver, making me not so subtly hint to my husband about the rings.
As I complete my Christmas shopping I find my own wish list getting longer with the new things I’ve been coming across. My absolute favorite is the photos etched on stone. Pictures on stone have been available for a while with a rather high price tag, but now they are both much more reasonable and loaded with impressive detail that is begging to be displayed.
And if you want to stick with your framed photo, but maybe spice it up just a hint, you can get a framed photo light. It is based on a porcelain engraving art form called lithopane, but it is essentially your photo carved into porcelain and backlit to illuminate your memory with stunning detail. When the lights are out and you are fondly admiring your decorated tree, wouldn’t you want to see a beautiful photo lit on your mantel beside it?
Why not give beautiful, meaningful gifts to the people you love? Especially when you don’t even need to leave the house to do it. Parents of toddlers know the true value of shopping from home, take advantage of a naptime and get your holiday shopping done before Thanksgiving. Sleep off your turkey without having to anxiously await fighting the Black Friday crowds for rain checks. The really beautiful stuff takes a few weeks to create and ship, so shop today.
Christy Higby
How to Get Great Quality Digital Pictures For Putting On To Canvas
October 8, 2009
Digital cameras are great. You can snap away on an automatic setting and just concentrate on capturing the special moments in your child’s life, without worrying about all the technical stuff. Overall they deliver good quality even on totally auto mode and the great thing is that you can see the results on the screen immediately, so you know what you are getting. When it comes to enlarging our best photos though, sometimes we might be disappointed in the results. That cute picture of our toddler blowing bubbles may have looked perfectly sharp in a small image, but starts looking blurry and disintegrating when you blow it up large enough to print on to canvas. How can you make sure that your digital pictures will be good enough quality for putting on to canvas, when you finally do capture that perfect picture?
If you want great quality pictures to print large, you should get to know your camera a little beyond the auto settings it comes with. Most digital cameras come with options that you can set for quality and size of image. If you get into the habit of taking all your photographs on the best quality settings, you will always have the option of printing large.
So get out your manual or fiddle with your camera menu until you find these settings or variations of them:
1. Picture Quality You may have a choice of Normal, Fine and Superfine. Always set it at Superfine for a really sharp image.
2. Picture Size This is often shown as the number of pixels e.g. 2048×1538 or might just show as Large, Medium or Small. Set your camera permanently to the largest size available. You can always reduce the size on your computer afterwards, but you can never make the image bigger.
3. ISO This is the equivalent of the old film speeds and helps you take pictures in low light. An ISO of 50 gives you the best quality, while ISO 400 helps shoot in dim lighting conditions, but will not give you such a sharp image. Set it to ISO50 unless you need more light and don’t expect a picture taken at ISO400 to enlarge well.
Different brands of digital cameras may have slightly different versions of these settings (mine are from a Canon Powershot) but these are the main variables to look out for. Once you have set these to the finest quality settings, you will know your photos are the highest quality possible for your camera.
The only drawback to shooting at the finest settings all the time is that you use up space on your memory card more quickly, as each photo takes up more space. Solve this problem by buying yourself a spare memory card, so that you always have back up when you are out and about. Like having a spare film in your camera bag, it makes sure that you never miss a great photo opportunity. Transfer all your images from both memory cards onto your computer regularly, back them up and then delete them from your camera, so that you always have plenty of space available on your camera for new pictures.
Now you have the security of knowing that any time you catch a gorgeous picture of your baby looking too cute for words, you will be able to make a beautiful canvas print of it without worrying about the picture quality.
Mum and Photographer
Lens For the Canon Rebel Camera Series
October 7, 2009
With over 60 lenses for the Canon Rebel Camera series, it is difficult to know where to start. Canon currently offers 27 lenses with Optical Imaging stabilization. The Canon EOS digital SLR cameras do not provide Image Stabilization in the camera itself. Optical Imaging stabilization is a prominent feature in preventing what is commonly known as camera shakes. While Canon does provide professional Image Stabilization lenses ranging in thousands of dollars, rest assured that there is quality IS lenses that are affordable to the general public. The lenses in this article are just a few of the Image Stabilizing lenses that Canon offers. The Image Stabilizing lenses are designed to work with Canon EOS series.
EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS Lens
The EF-S 55-250mm lens is an affordable, lightweight lens that is an excellent choice as your first or second lens for the amateur or beginning photographer. This telephoto lens is an excellent everyday lens which allows you to take pictures from a distance. This lens offers the ability to take portraits from a standard distance or for sports and wildlife with the zoom. For the retail price of around $200, this lens has beaten the expectation around the photography world.
EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens
The EF-S 18-135mm lens is one of the newest lenses to the Canon line up. This lens has a retail release date of September 2009. The lens is a wide-angle zoom lens with telephoto abilities. Depending on the subject of your picture, you can use this lens for a wide-angle landscape, daytime sports, and everyday pictures. Light enough to carry around every day, it weighs about one pound. The suggested retail price of this lens is $500.
EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM Lens
The EF-S 17-85mm lens is another easy walk around everyday use lens. Canon has a suggested retail price for the lens of $600. This wide-angle lens offers a 5x zoom range making it ideal as an everyday walk around camera. The lens covers most of the focal lengths that are used in general photography without having to change the lenses. If you choose to hold your camera, rather than setting up a tripod this lens is worth further investigation.
All the lenses included in this article all are considered everyday walk around lens. The lenses have price points for the general consumer. These lenses are priced to be obtainable, so amateurs or beginning photographers can take their picture taking ability to the next level.
Canon Rebel XSi Digital SLR Camera
October 6, 2009
The Canon Rebel XSi digital SLR Camera was introduced in the USA in 2008. Canon has introduced features, usually found in high end cameras, which amateur or beginning photographers will enjoy. The 12.2 megapixel camera is certainly a step in the right direction to continue competing in an ever changing market. The Canon Rebel XSi has a kit offer that includes a lens which is a great investment.
The EF-S 18—55mm Lens
If you buy the Canon Rebel XSi kit, the EF-S 18-55 lens is the lens that is included. This lens offers optical image stabilization technology which helps compensate since it in not a feature, in the camera itself. One feature of optical image stabilizing is that it helps the photographer take clearer pictures in low light. In low light your shutter is open longer which can cause blurry pictures from the camera moving even slightly. This is commonly called camera shake. The EF-S 18-55 lens is a fantastic everyday or travel lens. The marvellous thing about the XSi is that it is compatible with Canon’s over 60 EF and EF-S lenses.
Features
The Canon XSi has increased the size of its LCD screen to a large 3 inches. The Live View Function is viewed on the LCD screen. The XSi has a sensor so that the LCD display will turn off when brought up to your face. When looking through the viewfinder, the complete picture taking information can be viewed. There is no need to move the camera from the eye to make you setting changes. This is also made easier since most of the controls are now on the left side of the camera. A nine point auto focus system makes it easier to line up the picture you want. The Canon XSi uses SD and SDHC memory cards instead of the compact flash used in the previous model, The Canon XTi. Canon has improved upon its Integrated Cleaning System. The cleaning is done automatically when powering down the XSi or can be set to manual. The dust is removed from the sensor by an ultrasonic vibration. If the dust is not removed, you can remove it from your picture using the software included with the camera. Take a picture of a white piece of paper, the camera then process it and memorizes where those particles are. The software can eliminate the dust spots from your photo.
Unfortunately, I could go on a lot longer about the Canon XSi and all the features I have not even begun to cover. I do believe that as much as I enjoy reading about a camera’s features there’s nothing like playing around with it myself.
Enter A Cute Baby Photo Contest For Fun To Improve Your Photography Skills
October 6, 2009
Now summer is definitely over and the leaves are turning, our kids are back at school and there seem to be fewer opportunities for taking photographs of our children. All the vacation snaps are a distant memory; we’ve shared them with our family, perhaps had a few prints made. But fall shouldn’t mean putting our cameras away until the holiday season gears us up again. Babies and children grow so quickly that a couple of months can make a big gap in our photo albums. To give you a motivation to keep photographing your kids, why not commit to entering a cute baby photo contest every month.
Cute baby and kid photo contests are usually free to enter and offer all sorts of prizes and opportunities. The biggest ones are used by talent scouts to find new child models for advertising campaigns and movies. But you don’t need to have an ambition for your child to be the next Dakota Fanning to enter a photo contest. Enter just for fun, as a reason to take plenty of photos of your baby and improve your photography skills.
When you start looking at the winning entries from past months you will start to get a feel of the elements of a successful child portrait. Of course the cuteness of the child does play a part, but the difference between a winning photo and an also ran will usually lie in the photography rather than the model. Look at how the light falls on the child’s face; is it harsh sunlight that makes the child screw their eyes up? Probably not; winning photos usually have soft reflected light that makes the child’s skin look luminous but doesn’t cast dark shadows.
See if you can recreate those lighting conditions yourself. If your children are willing models, get them to move around; position them, one at a time in different places around your home and garden. Try photographing them with their back to the sunlight; take photos on a rainy day; stand them side on to a white wall that reflects light back on them; photograph them inside, standing beside a big window that lets in lots of indirect light. Take several pictures in each different place and note down where you took each set of pictures and at which time of day. Then look at them all on your computer. Maybe you will have caught a brilliant picture already, but if you haven’t, look at each photo and see which places have the best light.
Next time you and your child feel like a photo session, return to those places and take loads more photos until you have caught a winning expression on your child’s face in gorgeous, soft light, which may well get you into the finals of a cute kid photo contest.
Mum and Photographer
Expand Your Family When You Learn To Share Pictures Online
October 5, 2009
The bigger the family the more essential it is to share pictures online. My aunt is now in the process of planning the king of all family reunions. We were all aware of the majority of our relatives in the United States and Germany, but my grandparents left Germany fifty years ago so almost all of the extended relatives have fallen out of touch.
After chasing our ancestry back a few hundred years she began to contact the widespread branches of our family. With a little organization of a photo sharing website we are able to see the others as they loaded up photos and tales of their families. At first I participated to help out my aunt on her project, but as it grew it became very interesting to see which family traits ran in the others.
When we are all together the family resemblance is more than obvious, but I was shocked to discover my second cousin’s two year old was nearly identical to my own son. And I have a great uncle that could easily be confused with Kenny Rogers. At first I had no interest in the giant gathering of people that may share a bit of DNA with me, but as more and more people became involved in the website the more I was interested in meeting them.
This past weekend I went to stay at my brother’s house while he celebrated his birthday and while we hung out I showed him how to load up photos of his family. I even leant him my gorillapod when he went hiking which resulted in two great shots of both him and his son atop Panther Mountain in the Adirondacks where they had gone hiking.
I was even able to use photo stitching with the other mountaintop pictures that he took to put them in the center of a vast cloudy panorama. Sometimes it is the easiest photo edits that result in the most gorgeous pictures. Posting that picture to the family website got many comments, a few even requiring a translation.
It just goes to show how much the internet is bringing people together. Just a few years ago many of us would never have heard of the others, unless it was my grandmother recounting the nameless, faceless grandchildren of her siblings. Now we are a bigger family than ever and soon lots of us will meet for the first time, all due to a little photo networking.
Christy Higby
Photographing Children And Their Pets
October 3, 2009
A New Puppy!!!
Our family has always loved Golden Retriever dogs as pets. When Troy (Troy has been the subject of my past two weekend blogs) came to stay with us almost every day for nearly ten years, we had a golden named “Sherlock” whom our kids had named for Sherlock Hemlock of Sesame Street.
A Boy And His Dog
Sherlock lived nearly 17 years; a long time for a large dog. But his last years were not without difficulties. When he was 12 years old, he had to undergo an emergency operation to the little flapper in his throat which opens to breath and closes for food to pass by. After that, Sherlock was unable to make a barking sound. When he was 15 years old, he broke his front paw, and had to have a metal pin put in it to heal.
Sherlock walked every day with us in order to keep his hips moving so that they would not give out on him (hip disease is a weakness among Golden Retrievers). Sometimes, we would get to the end of the long driveway, and he would collapse; so there would be no walk tonight, and then we would get the wheel barrow and put him in it to take him back to the house.
Other times in the winter, his paws would get so cold from the snow that he would stop and hold the coldest paw up. Then my husband would carefully warm up his cold paw with his hands. However, Sherlock was not a quitter. When it was walk time he could take 20 minutes or so to get up.
We would encourage him: “C’ommon Sherlock, you can do it! C’ommon Sherley Locks, Get Up Boy!” After a while, out of his dog house he would come and we would be on our way. Golden’s love everybody, and Sherlock was no exception. Troy fell in love with him, and played with him for five years. When Sherlock got cancer and had to be put down, Troy missed him a lot. After that, his Uncle John promised him a puppy in a couple of years.
A Golden Retriever Puppy
Troy never doubted that this promise would be kept; he waited patiently those two years, and then in the spring a litter of golden retriever puppies was born on March 31. Three weeks later, we took Troy to see the puppies and to pick the one that he wanted. He watched as his puppy “Shadow” was weighed in at 3 lbs 12 oz.
Troy made one more visit to see Shadow at five weeks of age, and by then he was getting impatient to take him home, but Shadow had two more weeks before he would be weaned from his mother and eating puppy food. So, at seven weeks of age, Shadow came home with Troy! That first night, they both slept together, and became fast friends. Troy taught Shadow to play soccer, and Shadow was a “goalie” like no other dog had ever been!
From that time on, the boy and his dog “Shadow” grew up together! Every little boy should have a dog to love, and Troy will never forget his dog that truly was well named, because everywhere Troy went, his “Shadow” was there too! And so were I, documenting with many pictures the love of a boy for his dog, and the love of a dog for his boy!
Golden Retriever And Troy Boy
Betty Muscott, Child Photographer
Keep Your Family Close with Online Picture Sharing
October 1, 2009
Photography has changed so much with the advent of digital photography and has become easily accessible to all of us. The brilliant thing about digital photography is that so much of it is free. No more paying for film to be processed, paying for re-prints to send to grandparents, buying new films. Now once you’ve bought your camera, you can take as many pictures of your kids and family as you like without having to pay another cent. You can share your photos for free too; with online picture sharing you can post all your best photos at a free picture sharing site, where your parents and family can look at pictures of your kids as often as you get around to posting them. It’s a great way of keeping families close, even if you live far away from each other, like my family with my Mum in the UK and my brother in Australia!
What you need to look for in an online picture sharing site, is one that is simple to use and secure. Older members of your family may not be comfortable around computers even nowadays, so a user-friendly interface is important, if you want Grandma to get to see your kids’ pictures regularly. Another worry some people mention is security; they don’t want strangers being able to view their pictures. Online picture sharing allows you to decide who will be able to view your pictures, either with a password, a designated e-mail address, or a specific e-mail invitation with an easy link for them click on, so is perfectly secure.
There are a multitude of ways of sharing photos online. You can just use Facebook and create albums there for your family and friends to view, which works well if they are all on Facebook too. Just remember to tick the ‘just friends’ box when you are asked who can view your pictures, otherwise they will be available to friends of friends as well.
But perhaps you have a huge number of Facebook friends, who aren’t all close family friends and you’d prefer to share your more intimate pictures just with your family. In this case joining a free online photo sharing service makes sense. You can choose exactly who you invite to view your photos. Online photo sharing is usually linked to more extended photographic services too, such as printing and photo gifts, so it has the additional advantage that if your parents want prints of their grandchildren they can easily order them at the same time as viewing the photos online. There are also plenty of options for creating photo albums with your favorite pictures, to remember special times in your family life. So when you are choosing an online photo sharing service look for one that offers a top quality printing service too.
It makes so much difference to families who live far away from each other, to be able to see photos of the kids as they grow; photos of special occasions and ordinary days just playing, keep grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters feeling close, even if they live on the other side of the world. So keep taking loads of pictures of your kids at least every week and upload them onto a photo sharing site, so that the family ties are kept alive.
Mum and Photographer
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