The Art of Photography – an approach to personal expression

The Art of Photography – an approach to personal expression, whose author is Bruce Barnbaum, can be regarded as the readable, understandable, and complete textbook on photography. This isn't a book about rules and exposure. It's a brilliant book that finally explains everything that goes into making a serious photograph.

This book composes many important chapters, such as composition, visualization, light, color and much other technical knowledge. On the other side, Bruce did not forget to teach us to think more creativity. Illustrated with over 100 beautiful photos, The Art of Photography presents a wonderful world of photography to the public.

Photography is a form of non-verbal communication, as he said. At its best, a photograph conveys a thought from one person, the photographer, to another, the viewer. In this respect, photography is similar to other forms of artistic such as painting, sculpture and music, which are equally communicative. If you want, follow the guidance of this book and enable your photo to communicate with others.

For photography enthusiasts, there are many ways to improve their photography. But even for professional photographer, this book contains some concepts and knowledge that you might appreciate. If you want to invest the time and effort required to create brilliant photographs, this book is your best choice. It is suitable for everyone.

Eddie Adams：A Pulitzer Prize-winning American Photographer and Photojournalist

Eddie Adams (June 12, 1933 – September 18, 2004) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American photographer and photojournalist noted for portraits of celebrities and politicians and his coverage of 13 wars.

Adams served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War as a combat photographer. One of his assignments was to photograph the entire Demilitarized Zone from end to end immediately following the war. This took him over a month to complete.

While covering the Vietnam War for the Associated Press, he took his best-known photograph – the picture of police chief General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Vietcong prisoner, Nguyễn Văn Lém, on a Saigon street, on February 1, 1968, during the opening stages of the Tet Offensive, which won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography and a World Press Photo award for the photograph.

Along with the Pulitzer, Adams received over 500 awards, including the George Polk Award for News Photography in 1968, 1977 and 1978, and numerous awards from World Press Photo, NPPA, Sigma Delta Chi, Overseas Press Club, and many other organizations.

Adams died in New York City from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Adams's legacy is continued through Barnstorm: The Eddie Adams Workshop, the photography workshop he started in 1988.

Abstract from Wikipedia

Image source: BBC News: Eddie Adams Photography

ArcSoft Accompany You to Enjoy the World in London

This summer, London must be crowded by millions of people.

Today, the 2012 Summer Olympic Games is going to hold its opening ceremony at 8:12 P.M. (UK time). This event will last to August 12^th with 204 nations participating. I believe everyone is eagerly waiting for the beginning of competition. When watching those fierce competitions, you can shoot the exciting moments and share with your friends. But don’t forget to use Portrait+ to retouch your photos, making them looks more stunning.

 If you are photograph enthusiast, you cannot miss this exhibition, The World in London. It is a celebration for Londoners who are taken photos by both English and international photographer. This exhibition will be held from July 27^th to August 12^th in Victoria Park, from July 27^th to August 30^th in Park House, 453 – 497 Oxford Street. All those photos are taken in form of portrait. A photo with a few words on the side composes an attractive story. If you have time, The World in London is a good choice. Of course, if you are interested in this exhibition, use Photo+ to pick out your best work and take part in this competition. Next time, you may become one of the masters in this exhibition.

Except watching games and exhibition, wandering down the block in London while enjoying beautiful scenery around is also full of happiness. Edinburgh Castle, the London Eye, the Tower of London, and York Minster and so on, hundreds of tourist spots are worth visiting. Capture some interesting photos will leave you a wonderful memory in the future. Come on, pick up your camera and enjoy photographing!

5 Tips for Taking an Excellent Photo

Compared with those professional photographers, you may be less skillful on photographing. Of course, they may use Portrait+ to retouch photos but taking an excellent photo is still difficult. Thus, there are five tips to help you take a better photo.

Tip 1: Carry your camera anytime and anywhere.

Photos are memories captured. Sometimes, you may encounter with a pretty cat, a charming person or amazing scenery. To capture them, you have to always take camera with you. Otherwise, regretful feeling may long strike you. And the more you practice, the better photographer you will be.

Tip 2: Be familiar with your camera.

The band of camera is the last thing that needs to consider. Any camera is unable to take excellent photos until you get familiar with its function. Read your camera manual and figure out the function of each button, switch and menu items. Set the highest resolution to take the best quality photos.

Tip 3: Simple background is preferred

A person is easy to stand out in a plain background. Before photographing, you should take aware of surroundings. Avoid any busy background like crowded street. When travelling, choose the best place with the least tourists rather than throng scenic spot, unless you want to make the same picture with others.



Tip 4: Try a different angle
Most of photos are taken vertically or horizontally but you can pick some different angles to make an interesting shoot. Incline your camera a little bit and try to place the subject at the best position in your camera. Shoot at lower angle for bald person while keep even with child’s eyes. Of course, you can get creative to make more amusing photos.

Tip 5: Take more photos if possible

Some moments chances to compose the best scenery. Take photos as many as possible and you will capture many wonderful moments. The best advantage of digital camera is to take hundreds of photos without paying a penny. When selecting photos, you can use Photo+ to sort through the best ones. But if you dislike your photos, just delete them. But before that, compare those photos and find out your weakness on shooting. With practice, you make a great progress.

Portrait+: Easy-operated Retoucher

Batch processing is the major advantage of Portrait+ which enables you to improve productivity. As a user-friendly software, Portrait+ is quite easy for you to operate. With only four steps, hundreds of photos can be retouched with desired effects. Now, please let me give you a demonstration.

Step One: Click "Select Photos" to import portrait photos.

Step Two: Follow the instructions on the right to adjust the key points for precise enhancement, adjust the key points for each individual face in a photo, and then switch to another photo in the photo bin.

Step Three: Click "Select Styles" to preview and apply the styles you like for selected photos.

Step Four: Click "Export Photos" to get multiple results of applied styles for selected photos. Click "Exported Photos" button to see all the results.

Free trial: http://www.arcsoft.com/portraitplus/

Now, please enjoy some photos.

 

Portrait+, auto retoucher for portraits.

Buried in the repetitive work of portraits retouching, have you ever wished to be saved from inefficiency and low productivity? Have you ever hoped to earn more money and expand your business? Hooray, photographers, here comes the rescue - ArcSoft Portrait+.

Portrait+ is a style-based auto retoucher for portrait photos. And it is especially designed for professional photo studios, portrait studios and photo labs to resolve the most time-consuming problem during the photo optimization.

This application supports JPG/TIFF formats. The maximum supported resolution is 8000*8000 and the minimum is 480*480. Its operation is quite easy. With only four steps, a portrait is automatically retouched. Neither training nor professional skill is required.

With a single click, a large amount of photos are quickly imported. You have no need to choose them one by one. After that, portraits can be retouched quickly and automatically with your desired effects. And at last all the photos can be batch exported in a minute. Due to the batch process function, it is possible for Portrait+ to deal with hundreds of photos at one time and save more time for you.

Based on world’s leading facial detection technology, Portrait+ puts simple but powerful tools at your fingertips. Therefore, it is able to detect up to 20 faces in one photo. Furthermore, it can precisely pinpoint your facial features including nose, mouth, ears, eyes and eyebrows. The whole process is completely automatic, which largely enhance your productivity. But if necessary, users can manually adjust those key feature points for optimization.

As a user-friendly software, Portrait+ is professional in simplifying the complicated process of retouching portrait photos. It provides up to 20 pre-set cleanse and makeup styles, such as Cleanse light, Cleanse & White Skin, Makeup – Breeze. All of these pre-set styles enable you to achieve natural-looking results with the stunning enhancement tool. At the same time, multiple results could be exported from a single photo with different styles for comparison.

If you want more information, please visit: http://www.arcsoft.com/portraitplus/

Welcome to the Image World

Welcome,

On July 13, 2012, our company ArcSoft released a new product, Portrait+. It is a style-based auto retoucher designed for professional photo studios, portrait studios and photo labs which enables them to batch-process dozens of photos in a minute with desired effects.

As is known to all, our company is an industry-leading software developer of imaging & multimedia technologies and applications, based in Bay Area, California. During 18 years innovation, ArcSoft has provided hundreds of cutting-edge solutions for worldwide customers. Furthermore, our company always gives top priority to the needs of customers. Therefore, we think it is high time to share information and communicate with the public.

In this blog, we’ll write about new features, tutorials, photographic skills and competitions, so as to help you get the most out of Portrait+. If you need more information, please visit: http://www.arcsoft.com/portraitplus/.

Thanks for reading, and please contact us if you need any help!

The Portrait+ team

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