With 2014 nearly behind us and the list of this year's summer blockbusters almost forgotten, we have a treat from the incredibly talented team at Industrial Light & Magic that takes us back in the form of this behind-the-scenes video of the CG that went into "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." What never gets old about these badass behind-the-scenes videos are how they blo
This video reminds me of my college days– spending time working with a friend while having next to no budget, but coming up with a fun idea for a short video that would allow us to flex some creative muscle.
We all have those pivotal moments in our lives where a single decision changes everything. When I picked up a camera about five years ago I quickly became obsessed with composites. In the beginning, I honestly had no idea where to even begin learning how to create these marvelous hybrids of photography and digital art. I had to learn how to create composite images!
We've posted about commercial photographer Eric Doggett on here before. You may recall his popular post about how he put together his family's Back to the Future Christmas card. He goes out of his way to create some of the most creative holiday cards I've ever seen.
A great portion of my business is spent on architectural photography. My technique involves using a mixture of ambient light, flash, and tungsten hot lights blended and masked together in post to create well lit images that are time consuming to shoot and often frustrating to edit.
"Mayokero" may be the best music video that came out in 2014, yet you probably never heard of it before. In the video, famous vinyl album covers come to life and they all lip-sync to Roy Kafri's singing. Michael Jackson, Abba, Madonna, The Beatles, Elton John and Bob Dylan are only few of the "collaborators" in the video.
San Francisco-based commercial photographer, Erik Almas, is known for his flawless composite work as well as shooting campaigns for many major companies such as American Airlines, Toyota, Microsoft, and Nike, just to name a few. In January he is offering a workshop where he will take you through his entire workflow, from shooting the background plate and model, to editing.
It has happened to all of us. We spend countless hours planning, scheduling, and coordinating for a beautiful golden hour photo shoot only to have our parade rained on by weather or other mishaps out of our control. Perhaps you didn't plan for those mountains in the background that's cutting your shoot 30 minutes shorter than anticipated.
Almost four years ago I began a new journey in my photography career.
Through Premiumbeat.com's Vimeo channel and blog, motion graphic designer Kevin Gater did the world a huge favor by recently providing a tutorial on creating realistic, falling snow with RED Giant's After Effects plug-in.
This is a really unique article for me to post. I was talking with my friends at New York City based Phase One dealer, Digital Transitions, and they were interested in sharing the story of how industry's leading RAW processing and tethering software, Capture One, evolved into what it is today.
The Smithsonian recently joined forces with the White House to make an exact 3D model of President Barack Obama, the most accurate visual-and-physical replica of any head of state to date.
As I start to get more campaign work via Instagram for product photography, I've found that I need to use every bit of my creative mindset to get the shot I want. All the while I must also play to some of the iPhone's limitations.
Last year Fstoppers threw its very first live photography workshop in the Bahamas and world class food and drink photographer Rob Grimm was one of the instructors. I was able to sit in on a bit of Rob's class and I learned a ton about photographing drinks. We just got our new order of FlashDiscs in and I decided to try a shot of my own using the new modifiers.
If you follow any of my work, you know I am a sucker for anything Back To The Future. I even recreated my own BTTF image using a real DeLorean awhile back, so I HAD to share this video.
You might have heard of Stu Maschwitz before, possibly from his work on these Red Giant video projects, or perhaps the Plastic Bullet app he made a few years ago. His latest creation is a custom set of presets that integrate with Lightroom, and gives the user a set of vintage photo looks to choose from.
Though there are other programs out there that say they can quickly cutout objects from the background via masks and leave you with a clean end result, I've tried a few of those programs and they just don't seem to cut it. The process to create these masks also seem very awkward.
This photographer not only creates situations that are unique and comical -- but sends you to a surreal universe in just a glance. John Wilhelm lives in Switzerland with the subjects of many of his works --his girlfriend and three daughters, he's also an IT director in the university there. His hobby is art.
If you are into fantasy or photo-illustration style photographs, you are likely well aware of compositing, or shooting key elements separately and blending them in Photoshop. While compositing is made easier thanks to software solutions like Photoshop, have you ever considered how they are done without it?
The guys from Film Riot catch ‘Guy Ritchie Disease’ and in the process teach you how to create the "Guy Ritchie" freeze frame effect. Whether you need an awesome intro title for your film or even a great effect for your own behind the scenes photography vlog, this Film riot video shows you how to create it in Adobe After Effects.
Last year we teamed up with Mike Kelley to produce the 7+ hour tutorial: How To Photograph Real Estate, Architecture and Interiors. We were fearful that Mike's fancy equipment would be discouraging to new photographers so we asked Mike if he could create a signature image with much cheaper gear.
I ran across the incredibly imaginative portfolio of John Flury a few weeks ago. When I viewed his image "Provincial Uprising" where a womans dress was made of human hands I couldn't figure out how it was made. When I first saw this picture I assumed that the hands had been shot separately and then copied over and over again in Photoshop.
In this brilliant tutorial from Phlearn, Aaron Nace shows you how to create an artistic, composite image to replicate the double exposure effect. Despite being a little complex, the instruction is easy to follow.
The ever talented team at Scanline VFX have posted their most recent BTS video of the popular wight fight scene from the Game of Thrones Season 4 Finale. In this run down you can see the incredible detail and heavy visual effects work that goes into each and every scene from that fight. This one sequence has been remored to be one of the most expensive scenes created for the show.
Slow motion is, certainly, one of the most beautiful cinematic inventions of all time. It can show us so many things that are not normally visible and can make any "normal" scene look magical and unique.
Have you ever considered creating an accurate and detailed 3D model from 2D photos? Probably not, it's incredibly difficult. Now, if you try to do it on a truly massive scale and have a huge castle as your subject, it makes it almost impossible to do by hand.
The combination of two visually striking methods resulted in this surreal video by Vincent Brady. After checking the video, read on for some more information on the rig Vincent used to shoot with, and some insight on the programs he used to painstakingly stitch his images together for the final timelapse video.
I've had some pretty amazing experiences in my life. Fstoppers.com has given me incredible opportunities like meeting Bon Jovi, or riding in the first Lamborghini Aventador in America. Our international workshop last week took a year of planning and insane amounts of stress. On top of it all, I had the flu during the entire week.
Earlier this year Lukas Renlund, a 30-year old professional photographer from Scandinavia, sat down and tried to imagine what the photography industry might look like in 5 or 10 years. That imagination-session lead him to quickly start a new photography/media company named 'Not So Fast | Media'.
In celebration of Earth Day, NASA asked people, “Where are you on Earth Right Now?” and had them respond through social media outlets: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and Flickr with a photo tagged "#globalselfie". One-hundred-thirteen countries/regions and thousands of photo submissions (approximately 50,000), gave NASA all that it needed to create a “Global Selfie”.
Photography-related groups on Facebook are growing exponentially along with the exploding industry. As with many things in life, there are pros and cons when participating in these groups. One can experience valuable feedback, expertise and positive reinforcement from peers, while also experiencing nitpickers and people who pull you down.
Wired's Design FX has given us a great behind the scenes video of everything that was involved in the updated Helicarrier crash scene for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The sheer scale of the project is astounding as FXGuide.com's Mike Seymour and ILM's Digital Models Supervisor Bruce Holcomb take us through the design of the crash and its scale to the actors on the green screen.
I’m a bit of a dreamer. I’m also a huge aviation geek, and I often catch myself browsing the web at 2am looking up articles on aviation and aviation history. So when I found Anthony Toth and learned more about his life’s work, I knew that I had my next personal photography project in mind.
Brandon Cawood, from Dalton GA, has taken appreciating first responders to the next level. What began as a personal project to photograph local EMS personnel, soon blew up and went viral. Cawood captures priceless moments in the daily lives of firefighters, police and other public safety personnel. He has a movie poster style and pulls it off in a flawless manner.
A little bit over a week ago, I went to Los Angeles International Airport to make a photo. It was a clear day, and I didn't want to waste it sitting inside. Being an aviation fan myself, as well as an occasional pilot and aerial photographer, watching planes, to me, is hardly the worst way to pass the time.
Aaron Nace recently made a video showing you a quick and easy way to make lens flare (in a blank layer) right in Photoshop.
As a photographer, I'm always looking to capture something in a unique way. This is the craziest landscape photoshoot I have ever done. By taping a tiny Nikon Flash to my DJI Phantom II Drone, I was able to fly my remote helicopter up the side of a lighthouse and light the entire thing with flash.
Software company Red Giant has been making the plugins that video editors have been using to sweeten their edits since the days of MiniDV. Fan favorite Magic Bullet Looks has long offered stylized, preset looks for its users. It has just been announced that Red Giant will be updating Magic Bullet to version 2.5, along with updates to PluralEyes and BulletProof.
Mike Kelley is an amazing architectural photographer and guest contributor at Fstoppers. Recently, Mike published an article on B&H's Explora blog about the science and magic that went into the featured image above. In his article, Mike takes you behind the scenes in a rare look at the process behind his photographs.
In today's post, I'm going to walk you through how I build an architectural photograph from square one. We'll discuss composition, lighting, staging, styling, and posing models in an architectural interior in order to create the image that the client has in mind.
Red Giant, the plugin supergroup that is responsible for filter packs like Magic Bullet Looks, Trapcode, and PluralEyes, has recently announced a new plugin model, Universe, where new and updated filters will be provided to members at low to no cost.
The first time I saw a levitation shot, I stared at it for 15 minutes in astonishment. I could not conceive how the image was captured; I was captivated by the story it conveyed, it was surreal, magical and awe-inspiring. Conceptualizing the image and executing it can prove to be rather difficult and meticulous.
I recently visited the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas with Lee and Patrick to scout out locations for my upcoming architectural photography workshop and we were pretty much given unfettered access by the Atlantis marketing department to shoot whatever we wanted. First on the list? The $15,000 per night penthouse suite.
Matt Kloskowski, Director of education for Kelbyone, provides a taste of what attendees can look forward to at the 2014 Photoshop World Conference and Expo in this exclusive tutorial. This year's Photoshop World Conference and Expo will be held in Atlanta, Georgia between April 8-10th.
Few months back we featured the incredible and unique rock climbing photos of Seattle-based photographer Kiliii Fish. This week Kiliii finished his newest photo series he worked on for a long time - this time survival was the theme. The results? Nothing short of epic. In this interview he explains the whole process and reveals how he shot and edited it all.
Last summer we flew Mike Kelley, one of my favorite architecture photographers, to Charleston for 3 weeks to film the 8 hour tutorial How To Photograph Real Estate, Architecture and Interiors . Mike's technique of light painting and compositing is so polished and time consuming that I assumed no Realtor would actually want to pay for it. I was wrong.
The concept of doing a Robocop photoshoot has always been on my wish list, but have not been able to find someone with the proper original costume... until now. You see, my friends and I have always obsessed over the original Robocop film since it first came out (don't mention the sequels). I am just thankful that my photography career has allowed me to recreate the daydreams I had as a kid.
Sometimes tattoos can add a lot to the character and the general feeling of your images. The problem is most models you'll work with wont have any tattoos, or won't have the type of tattoo you would like to have in the image. In this 15 minute video tutorial you can learn how to add any tattoo to your subject in Photoshop, and make it look real.
The Academy Awards nominations were recently released and it's no surprise that "The Wolf of Wall Street" received nominations in the "Best Picture" and "Best Actor" categories, but what about visual effects? The visual effects for the movie while extremely subtle are outstanding to say the least. The company behind the special effects for the movie is Brainstorm Digital.
Few months back we featured a great video showing how Joe Fellows creates his stunning parallax videos. After posting the article, many of you had follow-up questions on his techniques and methods, so he decided to release a 'part 2' video explaining some of the cool tricks he uses to transform a 2D photo into a 2.5D video.