If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you may want to consider taking a trip out into the wild, blocking out the stress from your mind and taking in nature in all its beautiful glory. Some might enjoy the sounds of nature, but seeing it with your own eyes is simply remarkable.

Then again, not everyone has the time or resources to spontaneously venture out into the woods, or climb a mountain, or trek through a suffocating jungle. If that’s the case for you, then you can do the next best thing – browse through some high quality galleries full of beautiful, awe-inspiring photos of nature in its splendor.

National Geographic

When you bring together “nature” and “photography,” there’s always one massive entity that snatches the number one spot – National Geographic. Compiling galleries full of nature photos is what they do, and they do it to near perfection. It’s hard to think of anyone else who can do the whole “photos of nature” endeavor better.

Head on over to their website and you’ll find thousands of photographs in dozens of galleries, ranging from animals and wildlife, to natural landscapes, to weathers and seasons, to underwater environments.

Stormgasm

This website has a name that borders on the inappropriate, but Stormgasm really lives up to the implications of that name. Their photo galleries may leave you wanting in terms of technical prowess and convenience, but the photos themselves are top tier.

Do you love tornadoes? They’ve got it covered. Hurricanes and tsunamis? They’ve got that, too. Have an interest in lightning bolts? Yup! And if that isn’t enough for you, they even have a video gallery full of cool storm-related clips.

Free Roaming Photography

If the landscape of the American Southwest is something that intrigues you, then you’ll love what this gallery has to offer.

Free Roaming Photography is a website run by Mike Cavaroc, and it features hundreds of photos (as well as a dozen or so videos) from Arizona, Utah, the Yellowstone area, and more.

The galleries are lacking in terms of spiffy web technology (they’re nothing more than simple image links), but the photos are astounding. Cavaroc has snapped plenty of beautiful pictures of both landscapes and wildlife.

Wildlife Pictures Online

If you’re dying to see some amazing photos of exotic wildlife, Wildlife Pictures Online is exactly where you want to be. A lot of their pictures are taken in Africa, but even so, they’ve got a large and diverse selection of animal shots to enjoy.

From elephants to rhinos, from birds to zebras, they’ve got almost every kind of African animal that you could want to see.

And for those of you who are photographers, many of the photos in the gallery have a caption indicating what sort of equipment (camera, film, etc.) was used. Just a little bonus for the curious.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Alright, so empty blackness littered with stars and planets may not exactly qualify as “nature” in the traditional sense, but outer space sure passes for a wonderful canvas. If you ever get sick of rolling green hills and high towering pines – how could anyone get sick of that? – then you may want to check out NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Every day, NASA updates the page with a new image related to astronomy. Below the image, they provide an explanation of what exactly it is that you’re looking at.

The best part is that they keep an archive of every single Picture of the Day that they’ve had, and it goes as far back as June 1995. Wow!

When it comes to viewing free nature galleries on the web, what are some of your favorite websites?

Image Credits: Shutterstock, National Geographic, Stormgasm, Free Roaming Photography, Wildlife Pictures Online, FORS, 8.2-meter VLT Antu, ESO

Below are five other cliché profile pictures that are currently on the market, and let’s keep in mind that I am mostly describing them all at an extreme level.

The Casual Model

We all know that girl – the one who believes that she is the stuff. Whenever a camera is nearby, she jumps on the opportunity by instantly posing wherever she’s at. It could be a gorgeous building, and she’d strike a pose. It could be in front of a trash dump site, and she’d go Vogue on that mug. Nuclear wasteland, poverty-stricken village, gun-pelted warzone, homeless tent city – BAM, it’s time to attempt to look sexy.

The world is her photo shoot, and regardless of how awkwardly she places her hand on her hip or how painfully non-seductive she actually looks whilst attempting to give booty more boom, this girl is going to try and score one more for Facebook. Unfortunately, it rarely works for her.

The Attention Battle

There are a few of folks online that happen to have friends in the real world, and while out on their partylicious escapades, they will occasionally take group or pair photographs. However, you’ll notice something about these particular pictures. Sure, they may appear to be merely taking a friendly pic, but in all truth, they are battling for the viewer’s attention.

Sometimes, one will hog the screen while pushing the other to the side. Others, all participants will make the most ridiculous faces possible. Usually, these images result in cropped profile photos with comments such as “Thanks for cutting me out lol” – the most hate-filled “lol” of all time.

The Drunken Night

Practically speaking, if I had any, I simply wouldn’t put my drunken pictures online. Sure, it might have been the best night of your life – playing checkers with shot glasses, zooming down the bar like it’s a slip-n-slide, and singing a pepped-up version of Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long” on stage – but consider the consequences.

Sometimes, there are future employers out there who aren’t going to want a raging party animal like yourself. However, I guess that’s just too bad for them (thankfully, MUO isn’t like that – our New Year’s Party was a hoot).

The Overdone Edit

While others don’t, I love color grading on photographs and video. However, there is such a thing as too much color grading on photographs and video, and often, this is either done with Windows’ built-in photo enhancer or more commonly, phone apps. These photos typically result in over-exposed images that feature a race of nose-less human beings with black, soulless eyes.

The cringe-factor increases with friends who comment on these photographs, saying, “OMG u r so talented lol” and “this is so beautiful”. Granted, I’m not one to critique someone’s work, but sometimes, it’s just nice to see what a person actually looks like.

The Friend’s Camera

The phenomenon of this profile picture style has both perplexed me and humored me. Occasionally, there are people who will take these dramatic shots of themselves looking in the distance or perhaps staring out a window as rain gently slides down the glass pane, symbolizing the slow progression of grief in this long journey called life. They want you to think that they are deep and philosophical, but heck no, they aren’t.

In reality, this person has extended their arm and taken this picture of themselves at least fifty times, trying to make it look just right. Their arm has likely been curved into an awkward U-shape just to avoid getting it into the frame. They will be going to the ER simply because they took this picture. There was no friend that captured this moment – it’s all a lie.

Conclusion

There are lots more of these cliché types of photographs, and I’d love to hear about a few more. Granted, I can’t say much for whether or not I would like to see them. However, faithful MUO readers, what I can say is this – moderation is everything.

What other types of cliché photos do you know of? Do you have any samples to share?

Image Credits: clarita, earl53, klk13, kconnors, mensatic, anitipatterson

The Places theme for slideshows works best if you have traveled several different places and if your travel photos have been labeled by location. The latest versions of the iPhone and some other contemporary cameras now include a geotagging feature that embeds location coordinates for each of the photos you take.

Pro image applications like Aperture will show you the geotag info, which consists latitude, longitude, etc.

But luckily iPhoto will translate that info into a recognizable name like Coney Island, London, or Islands of Adventure. But even if your travel photos are not tagged, you can manually label them using iPhoto’s Places feature.

Labeling Photos

When you select a photo and then click on the Info button in the iPhoto menu bar, the Places tool will show geotag info for that photo. If your photos are not geotagged, you can simply select a collection of travel photos and add the information yourself, similar to how you add keywords to your images.

As you type the location name, iPhoto will list possible locations to choose from. It may even list popular resorts or tourist spots. After all your travel photos are labeled, you can click on Places in the Albums panel, and you will get a map with red pens dropped on places you have taken photos.

Organizing Travel Photos

If you have organized your travel photos into regular or smart albums, all need to do is create a new album, name it the title you want your slideshow to be (such as “Where We’ve Been”) and add to it selections from your travel photos. Sort the collected photos by date so that they are kept together in the album.

Create Slideshow

Now with your travel album selected, click the Create button in the toolbar and select Slideshow. iPhoto will set up a separate folder of your selected photos. Next, click the Themes button and select the Places theme.

iPhoto will process your photos and create location titles for each set of your travel photos. A titles effect will appear on a moving map, with the first photo of each section representing the location.

If the titles are not to your liking, no problem, you can actually edit them, and be specific as you like about the location. As with other slideshow themes, you can also move photos around and delete the ones that don’t fit. You can also go back to your travel photo albums and add more images to the slideshow folder. If your images are dated correctly, iPhoto should place added photos in the appropriate section. If not, simply move them to where they’re supposed to be.

If you don’t like the default theme music for your slideshow, simply change it. You can adjust other settings for your slideshow. However, the Places theme does not show all your photos one at a time. This theme will present 1-4 photos at time. You don’t have much control over this, except for the order they appear.

The Presentation

When you click the Play button, iPhoto presents graphic travel effect that moves across the map to the places where you took photos. As with other slideshows, you can export your project to show it off on a website, your mobile device, or big screen TV.

Let us know what you think of this slideshow project, and similar ones you’ve used. For other ideas about iPhoto, check out our articles here.

Below is a selection of nine awesome blogs and photo sites that offer amazing, priceless images, each in its own way.

ffffound

I recently mentioned ffffound in a post about 10 websites that will help you feel better, but ffffound is much more than a quick pick-me-up. It is a website where a closed (invite-only) group of artistically inclined individuals share photos. Some can be disturbing, some contain nudity, but in a given page I can usually find at least a couple that make me think or feel something.

Ffffound is easy to navigate: Simply hit J to scroll to the next image, and K to scroll to the previous one. No text, no lengthy explanations. Just photos, photos, photos, as far as the eye can see.

Pictory Blog

Unlike ffffound, in Pictory Blog every photo has a story. Rather than a never-ending torrent of photos, it is more of a carefully curated drip. Just a few photos are published every day, and they come from all over the world. Photos are submitted by readers by themes, and the blog ties in tightly with Pictory magazine itself.

For example, check out this gorgeous long exposure scene, which was submitted as part of the “in deep” theme and links to all photos published from that theme. The blog and the magazine both make me feel like taking my Canon 600D and seeing what it can really do.

Boston Globe Big Picture

If there is one website I think of when I think “photo blog”, it’s the Boston Globe’s Big Picture. Every few days a new post goes online, showing a close-up of events from another part of the world. Each photo has an informative description.

The Big Picture is one of my favorite ways to keep up to date on important global events, and really look at them for myself rather than just read what others think about them.

In Focus

The guy who was originally behind The Big Picture, Alan Taylor, left the blog in January 2011. But he did not give up on telling stories using photos. Quite the contrary, he amped up his act and set up shop at In Focus, The Atlantic’s photo blog.

Alan is a pro Web developer, which may explain why In Focus looks so similar to The Big Picture, right down to the “j/k” shortcuts for flipping between photos and the black images that “may contain objectionable content” which you must click to view. If you like The Big Picture, you’ll love In Focus.

Chromasia

The Chromasia blog is a part of Chromasia, two companies run by David and Libby Nightingale. Simply put, the blog contains stunning photos. They are all by David, and can be purchased as prints or cards. The blog is very lean on text – you will have to guess (or make up) the story behind each picture yourself.

One very unique feature is the link that says “show the original” below each image – you can hover your mouse over it and see the non-Photoshopped version of the same photo. It’s as if David really lets you into his studio, and shares what parts the camera and the computer both took in the creation process. Lovely, and very open.

The Sartorialist

This one’s for the ladies: The Sartorialist contains mainly street photos of people, mostly from New York, going around town in spiffy, creative, and interesting wear. That is not all you would find on the blog, however, as can be seen by the photo from Morocco, above. If you like street photography and enjoy fashion, this is one blog to check out.

Pixelcandy

If I ever start a photography blog, I know what I want it to look like – Pixel Candy. This is the personal blog of German photographer Thomas Bonin, and it is absolutely gorgeous. I don’t mean just the photos, either. The format itself is compelling and artistic. It makes your monitor into a picture frame – there are no scroll bars, no comments, no words. Just a single image at any given time, taking up your undivided attention.

There is also an “archives” button that takes you to a long thumbnail view, but the highlight is definitely the single-image view. In a word – wow.

Flickr Blog

The Flickr Blog is interesting because it curates and shares the work of Flickr community members and amateur photographers alongside “official” photos from NASA (above) and other public bodies who join the Flickr Commons from time to time. Flickr is the 900lbs gorilla of the online photo-sharing world, but its blog feels fresh, fun, and not pretentious in any way.

Cute Overload

Cute Overload is right what it says on the tin – adorable pictures, usually of furry, fluffy animals. It may not be the most artistic photo blog on the planet, but it is certainly one of the cuddliest. From flying squirrels to kittens hugging puppies to ducks wearing sandals, Cute Overload has it all.

In Summary

This has been one challenging post. There is such an abundance of excellent photography blogs online sharing priceless images, picking just a handful was tough. But here they are.

Did you like them? Did I miss an important one? Sound off in the comments!

Apple has made the process fairly easy, in that you can simply back up your entire iPhoto library on a disc or external hard drive. But if you want to preserve your photos for your grandchildren and beyond, you should consider other options for archiving photos similar to how your parents or grandparents kept boxes and albums of paper photos before the digital revolution.

Tidy Up Your Library

Before archiving your iPhoto library, it might be a good idea to tidy up its content – deleting poorly shot photos and duplicates, tagging and rating photo files, and creating smart albums for each member of the family, and special events like birthdays, holidays, and vacations. The better organized your library is, the easier it might be for others beyond yourself to make use of it in the future.

Back Up the Library

Your iPhoto library should be located in the Photos folder of your Mac, unless you have already moved it to an external drive. When you select the library, it will show the its current size.

The quickest and easiest way to back up your iPhoto library is to copy it to an external hard drive. Those little flash drives can now hold up to 32GB of data, so why not just buy one or two and use them exclusively for archiving your library? Simply drag the entire library onto the flash drive and let the duplication begin. What’s great about using the drive is that you can update your archive every three, six, or twelve months.

With your iPhoto library backed up this way, anyone with an iPhoto application and of course a USB connection can simply launch your iPhoto library and view the contents just as you preserved them with titles, keywords, ratings, albums and such.

If your iPhoto library is too large to fit on one flash drive, consider creating more than one library – perhaps one library for just your family photos and one for non-family images. If possible, try to keep a copy of your duplicated library secure outside your home.

Burn DVDs

If your iPhoto library is under say 4GB, you might consider burning it to a CD or DVD. I personally don’t prefer this approach to archiving on a hard drive, but this method provides one more way to preserve your precious memories.

Method 1

If your library can fit on one disc, simply right- or Control-click on the library and select Burn to disc…. The pop-up window will tell how much space you need on your disc in order to burn it. If you have enough room, simply go through the burn process.

This method preserves the entire structure of your iPhoto library including the master photos, modified version files in folders, preview files, albums, etc. You don’t want to tamper with these folders at all. Burning your iPhoto library to a disc is like copying it to an external drive, and it means that your library can only be opened using an iPhoto application.

However, if you want to go a little further in archiving your images, you might also want to preserve the originals separately from iPhoto.

Method 2

To copy and preserve just your original photo files, right- or Control-click on the iPhoto library and select Show Package Contents. Select the Masters folder which is basically broken up into sub-folders organized by year.  Copy as many folders as will fit on a disc and label it accordingly.

Archive Favorites

One last method for preserving your photos is to archive your favorites and special events. Only die-hard photographers will probably take the time to scrupulously rate every single photo in their library, but I don’t have that much patience. My rating system is simple. I rate only the photos I like the most with 5 stars, the rest get a 3 rating, while the poorest don’t get rated at all. Out of over 4,000 photos in my iPhoto library, I only have a little over 200 rated as my top 5 favorites. I simply use a smart album to collect all my 5 starred images, and I export these photos to my Google Picasa account for mainly archiving purposes.

It’s also not a bad idea to send a disc of your favorites to family members for their own personal viewing, and also as a way to preserve your photos elsewhere.

Create A Book

These days most of us probably show off our photos using a digital device, like an iPhone or iPad, but it is also a good idea to also create single prints of your photos, as well as producing an actual paper photo album. iPhoto makes the process pretty simple. Not only do photo albums make great gifts, but they are just another way to preserve your precious memories.

For another way to share your photos, see my article on creating slideshows in iPhoto.

No doubt, Apple and iPhoto or some similar supporting application will be around for generations to come, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make the effort to back them for future future generation of family members who may or may not use iPhoto.

Let us know if you’re backing up your iPhoto images. What methods are you using and why?

This week, we’re giving away 25 copies of BatchPhoto Home. Find out how you can win one right after the review.

Adding Photos

The first step is appropriately titled Add Photos. This is where you pick the images you’d like to process. You can add an entire folder, pick images one by one, or even add images according to a filename wildcard, even if they’re in subfolders (something most applications won’t let you do):

Once you’ve added all the photos you wish to process, BatchPhoto Home shows them in a handy grid, letting you quickly review them and see if there’s anything you want to remove from the set you will be processing. Then, it’s time for step 2 of the wizard:

Adding Filters

Any effect BatchPhoto Home can apply is called a filter. Filters are divided into several categories:

The “All Filters” category may seem overwhelming, but individual categories are often easier to manage. For example, the Touch-Up category lets you quickly apply color and contrast fixes en masse:

Some filters have configuration options. For example, if you want to tilt all of your images at a certain angle, you’d want to use the Rotate filter. Its configuration dialog looks like this:

You also get an instant preview of any modifications you make. You’re not limited to applying just one filter at a time, either. Here I’m fixing the color levels and resizing all images in a folder:

Available Filters

As the filters are at the heart of BatchPhoto Home, let’s take another moment to look at the available effects:

As you can see, not all effects are as simple as resizing or rotating. You can also blur all images, emboss them, or make them resemble an oil painting. There are even four different kinds of annotations:

I won’t exhaust you by going over the whole list of filters; suffice it to say that BatchPhoto Home can do a lot. Moving on!

Setting Up

Before processing all images, there’s one last step:

The Setup step lets you set where you want the processed images to go, what output format to use, and whether or not you want to keep the original images. The Destination drop-down offers some interesting choices:

For example, you could watermark an entire folder of beautiful vacation shots with the words “Taken by (your name), © 2011” and then upload it to Facebook via BatchPhoto itself.

Processing

Once you’ve set all the options, It’s time to stand back and let the computer do its thing:

BatchPhoto Home estimated it would take 49 seconds to process my 26-image folder, and it felt about right. It resized all images and applied a gentle automatic color correction filter to make them look better. As you can see above, it used both CPU cores on my system, for faster execution.

How do I win a copy?

It’s simple, just follow the instructions.

Step 1: Fill in the giveaway form

Please fill in the form with your real name and email address so that we can get in touch if you are chosen as a winner. Click here if you can’t view the form.

The giveaway code required to activate the form is available from our Facebook page.

Step 2: Share!

You’re almost done. Now, all that’s left to do is to share the post. There are 2 options to choose from or you can do both!

You can also check out and like BatchPhoto on Facebook to stay updated.

This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, November 18th. The winners will be selected at random and informed via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

MakeUseOf would like to thank Bits&Coffee for their generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interested in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email.

This article is not about Instagram, but it’s about another interesting web app (and an iPhone photo sharing app too) that takes the idea of photo sharing, adds a dash of social contest to it, then wraps the whole thing in a social package.

Portrit is an iPhone and web app where you and your friends pick out the fantabulous photos from the run-of-the-mill ones. You and your friends are the judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to sorting the best from the rest.

Portrit and Fun – What’s It All About?

Any photo can be shared on Portrit. The idea is to compete with your photos and see who has clicked the best ones. Photos are opened up to other Portrit users and all of us get to vote, nominate, and thumb down the photos. There are 10 nomination categories like Hot, LOL, Artsy, Party Animal etc. you can choose from. The photos (and the photographers) that pass through the ‘friend filters’ end up winning a few virtual trophies.

The Fun and Usefulness of Portrit

Portrit is still in a fledgling state. But the potential I guess is being followed up in earnest as Portrit has made available all the tools you will need to go social with your photos. You have an iPhone app, a Facebook linked web app, plus Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox browser extensions. All with idea of making nominating photos easy. Here’s a screen grab of the iPhone app which makes it seem that it’s the most exciting one of all the options on Portrit.

Yes, it’s fun and easy. If Portrit really takes off with a large social base, it could help to bring out the photographer in you. Chasing those Portrit trophies and mass acknowledgement could make you more mindful of the right angles, light, mood, and tone while clicking impromptu photos. At the end of the day, you become a better photographer in a fun, casual way.

Let’s Go and Play On Portrit

I am trying out the web app here. There’s also an iPhone app which could be more fun when you are on the move and bored to your teeth. Logging in with your Facebook account takes you to the screen below which is your as yet empty active stream. You can scroll down and check out the current photos that are up for voting and leading the pack.

If your ego clamors for it, you can post a photo which you have clicked and put it out there for votes. Here’s the Post Photo screen where you can upload your own by drag n’ drop or by simple upload. I am going all gung ho with three scene captures.

Here’s what my nomination looks like with a little caption and a choice of the artsy category:

There! It’s in the community now open to everyone’s critical eye. While I am at it, I can jump into the community myself and vote for other public photos or those of my friends I made here. Of course, Portrit ensures that you can only vote once for a photo. That’s fair play.

Well, you have other photos to comb through. You can vote a photo up or down by clicking on the large green arrows. You cannot change your vote once clicked. Trophies are won as a photo goes from a nomination to maximum votes collected for a certain period. A nomination needs a positive vote count of 2 for it to be worthy for a trophy. At the end of the night, Portrit chooses the winners based on vote count and who you are following.

Try out Portrit. Let us know if it turns you towards some click and snap photography.

In this article I have compiled 10 crazy pictures discovered on Flickr. They range from funny and entertaining shots to puzzling and shocking images.

Tinker Bell

Levitation is “the process by which an object is suspended by a physical force against gravity, in a stable position without solid physical contact.” [Wikipedia]

Levitation has recently become a trend in photography and there are some really neat shots to be discovered on Flickr and around the web.

If you enjoy this shot, also have a look at these levitation series posted on Amusing Planet:

• Levitation by Franck Bohbot
• People in flight – Photography by Denisa Tarzaka

Floating

This is another great example of Levitation.

New York City, 1995

A swirl in the sky above New York City spotted by accident. No explanation what it is, but maybe you happen to know!? If you do, please leave a comment. If you don’t, feel free to speculate!

Deus Ex Machina

This is not a wild modern windmill, it’s just a sculpture. The title of the shot refers to “a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object.” [Wikipedia]

Salar de Uyuni

Salar de Uyuni is a salt flat located in southern Bolivia. It covers 10,582 square kilometers, making it the largest salt flat on Earth. Salar de Uyuni formed several thousand years ago, when the prehistoric lake Coipasa dried up. Despite its remote location, Salar de Uyuni is a tourist magnet and a great backdrop for countless stunning photos.

Infinite Flickr

This is a Flickr group and an ongoing project in which you are welcome to participate. The idea is to take a shot of yourself with a screen in the background, showing the previous picture uploaded to the group. The rules are posted on the group page and the image below is a good demonstration of this crazy picture project in action.

Horse Eye Reflection

This picture was created in response to the photographer being tagged to post a self portrait and share 10 things about herself. Great idea for a self portrait from an impressive woman. The 10 facts about her are worth reading. Every single word of it!

Bear Acrobatics

As the picture below nicely demonstrates, bears do climb trees. So next time you need to ponder an escape from a bear, forget about trees. Instead, take the time now to learn some bear negotiation tactics. This picture was taken in the zoo of Zürich, Switzerland.

Flying Cat

Wish your cat could fly like this? Lucky you! This crazy picture comes with a tutorial.

The shot above was created by Photo Extremist Evan Sharboneau.

Blade of Death

Some people have interesting hobbies. These guys build and launch rockets. And sometimes things go horribly wrong.

The photo above was taken from the Flickr group Things You Don’t See Every Day. It’s definitely worth a browse!

Interested in more Flickr magic? Here is a selection from our article pool:

• 10 Free & Fun Online Picture Games Based On Flickr
• 8 Simple Ways To Use Flickr For Your Wallpaper Downloads
• Create Embeddable Maps Of Your Flickr Photos With TripperMap

What are some amazing and crazy pictures you have discovered on Flickr? Please share!

It’s time for a step back. Let’s all reflect upon HDR, its overuse and what else is necessary to take a good photograph or become an accomplished photographer.

Examples

These two examples were both intentionally created to be bad but perfectly capture the essence of overdone HDR:

1. Learn How To Use Your Camera

So you’ve bought/inherited/won/found a decent camera. It’s a digital SLR, it shoots RAW, has changeable lenses and a lot of modes and settings to play with. Before googling the sweetest “how to HDR the crap out of your back yard” tutorial, it’s worth taking the time to master your camera.

Photography is an extremely accessible hobby these days, but also one that requires a bit of technical knowledge. This shouldn’t put newbies off. Basic concepts that will vastly improve understanding of photography and how your camera works include aperture, shutter speeds, ISO settings, your camera’s primary modes, metering and white balance (amongst others).

It might take you a week to get the basics right but months of practice are generally required before you’re at ease with every function. Don’t fret, it’s a rewarding process with results you can admire as your technique improves.

Download: MakeUseOf Guide – Essential Guide To Digital Photography
Read: How To Read Your Camera’s Histogram And Take Perfectly Balanced Images

2. Composition & Subject

Unfortunately, simply squeezing the shutter and firing off 3 bracketed shots is not enough to create an interesting image. What I’m saying here is Photomatix or Photoshop will not produce a particularly interesting photograph.

Composition is one of the most important considerations to make before taking a photograph. Sure, you can spruce up a dull photo in post but if the photo is dull in the first place it is likely that no amount of burning, dodging, masking or tonemapping will save it.

Learn about the rule of thirds. Hit up Amazon or head down to a good bookshop and pick up relevant guides on photography, other photographers work and do your research. When looking at a striking image ask yourself what it is about the image that makes it so powerful? For the most part subject and composition have far more value than darkroom or Photoshop tweaks.

Links: Digital Photography School – Composition Tips

3. Critique Or “You’re Doing It Wrong”

Flickr doesn’t count. Sorry, but I’ve seen plenty of badly overdone HDR shots on Flickr awarded all manner of dancing animated .GIF “Ur photo rox” awards – and it’s really not helping anyone. Getting proper critique will improve your technique as you learn from your mistakes. Flickr is not the way to go.

Message boards are usually the answer. There are a huge amount of dedicated photo communities out there that encourage proper criticism. I can’t help but feel endless lists of “this is amazing!” comments on uninteresting and gaudy tonemapped images are only fuelling the fire. Add to the fact that Flickr allows the deletion of comments….

Links: Photography Review – The Power of Photo Critique, Jim M. Goldstein – Top 10 Most Annoying Photography Critique Comments

4. Photoshop

All modern digital SLRs shoot RAW, which is an uncompressed image format that allows for some serious processing in Photoshop or other image editors. RAW files allow values such as white balance and exposure to be modified in order to save or enhance a photo. Learning how to tidy up non-HDR photos before diving into tonemapped HDRs bodes well.

There are also alternatives to HDR in some occasions, and it’s probably worth learning about those too. Masking and precise adjustments require more work than selecting 3 files and moving some sliders about, but generally produce more natural and refined images. Check out our Photoshop articles and guides for some great advice.

Download: MakeUseOf Guide – An Idiot’s Guide To Photoshop [Part 1] [Part 2]
Read: How To Edit RAW Photos In Adobe Camera RAW, 4 Great Tools For Editing RAW Photos In Linux

5. Using HDR Appropriately

I’m not saying all HDR is bad, and there is a time and a place for it. Graduated neutral density filters are great for exposing perfect skies for stunning landscapes, but unless your horizon is fairly straight you’ve got an issue. In these instances, sure – why not?

Try to resist the urge to jack everything up to 11. Consider your shot first. People generally look a bit alien in HDR, and if there are halos (glowing edges where exposures have been blended) appearing on the image then chances are you went a bit too far.

The best HDR shots I’ve seen were not obvious tonemapped images, and thus didn’t scream “HDR w00t!” upon first glance. Just saying…

Conclusion

HDR is a technique designed to create balanced, evenly exposed images. Unfortunately it’s been done to death, and much of the time is painful to look at. Of course this is my opinion, and we’d love to hear what you’ve got to say in the comments.

What do you think? Awesome neat-o technique or done to death? Do you use HDR?

Image Credits: densaer, Focal Intent, D700 + 24mm f1.4G by Fried Toast, The Rule of Thirds by fd, Rainbow Fuji (natural HDR) by Starfires

We have written about iPhoto before, but with each new version of the program, Apple has added features that make its premiere image management and enhancement application do everything you need with your photos. For example, you can actually create a photo slideshow in under ten minutes – and 20 minutes if you want it to look completely professional. Let’s walk through how you can use this software to create a slideshow.

Select Photos

You start off by selecting a group of photos and putting them in an album. It’s best to arrange the photos in the album in the order you want them to appear before you go into slideshow mode. As you will see, the iPhoto slideshow themes will typically display 1-4 photos at a time, so group them accordingly.

Once you’re in slideshow mode you can still re-arrange photos, but it’s easier to do so in the album itself.

You can also include and edit movie clips right inside iPhoto, and in slideshow mode.

Shoot and Show

Now if you really need to whip out a slideshow super fast, iPhoto is ready for you. Simply select an album of photos (or the Last Import collection); click the Slideshow button in the menu bar at the bottom of iPhoto—and presto you’re showing off your images.

Slideshow Themes

If you have the time to create a more professional looking slideshow, there are a few other features and steps you need to consider. This time, select your collection of photos, and choose Create >Slideshow button in the menu bar.

iPhoto presents you with 12 fancy slideshow themes to choose from. The one you choose (“Places” for travel photos, the “Holiday” theme, or “Scrapbook” for say birthday party photos) depends the the type of photos you’re presenting and the purpose of the presentation.

It’s not a problem to go back and change to another theme any time during the process of creating a slideshow.

Slideshow Settings

The slideshow settings is where you take the little extra effort and time to customize your slideshow. This where you decide to change slide duration of your presentation, as well choose the format you will present it in—on your computer, HDTV, iPad/TV, or iPhone.

You can also choose to show the title of each photo slide, and if you want the slide to automatically repeat. Under “This Slide,” you can change a photo to black and white, Sepia or Antique. But these options are limited.

Instead, you can simply double-click on a photo in slide show mode and make edits and enhancements as you normally would. The beauty of this feature is that you don’t have to exit your slideshow to make edits.

Background Music

iPhoto also includes an awesome selection of Theme Music for your shows, so you don’t have to hunt down royalty free music on the net. You can also of course choose a song from you own music library.

If your show is rather long, you might choose more than one song for your presentation, though unfortunately it’s difficult to accurately fit a particular song with a particular set of slides. If your presentation automatically repeats several times, as say a stand-alone presentation, then you probably will not want to use music, for it could be annoying to hear the same thing over and over again.

Title Slide

In this version of iPhoto, Apple also included a way to add titles to your show. The features works a little differently in each theme, but you can typically add titles slides or overlays wherever you want in your presentation.

Play and Export

Apple also made it easy to preview your presentations so you don’t have to play them full screen until you’re ready. If you are doing a formal presentation, of course always preview your slideshow a couple of times to make sure everything is in order. If you choose the Ken Burns theme, you definitely want to preview the results, for the various panning effects can chop the heads of people in a slide, and you will need to make adjustments.

Finally, Apple has made it super easy to export your slideshow out of iPhoto and into another format and device. When you select a size, you can click on the “i” to see get an estimate of the resulting file size. This is useful if you’re concerned about the file taking up too much storage space on say your iPhone or iPad, for example.

Depending upon the number slides in your presentation, the exporting process may take up 10 or more minutes.

iPhoto on your Mac is the one application that you should use often and maintain because you can pass it down like your parents or grandparents used to pass down paper photo albums.

Let us know how you use iPhoto the most. For other ideas about slideshows and using iPhoto, check out these articles: How To Edit Your Photos Easily With iPhoto and 5 Ways to Create Beautiful Slideshows of your Digital Pictures.