It's Saturday, I must be shooting...

I am about to walk out the door to shoot a wedding with my friend Stacey Kane.

This past May we traveled (again) to Long Beach Island (NJ) to photograph a wedding at Bonnet Island Estate.

What a nice place, wonderful couple, and a fun wedding to shoot.

That wedding was recently featured over at Cake & Pictures and you can check it out here.

More free photo editing software...

Sorry for the long delay between posts (I think the longest in the 4 year history of this blog), but sometimes life happens.

Here is installment 2 of free image editing software.

Today we bring you Photobie, an all free, no nags, no "pro" upgrade options, 100% free image/photo editing software.

I could bore you by rambling on and on about the features and the things I like about Photobie but your time would be waaaaaay better spent checking out the software for yourself.

Be sure to read their 43 page feature list (a downlaodable pdf) and you'll see that it's powerful, it's versatile, and it's worth your consideration.

Here is the Photobie tutorial page, their YouTube channel, and their download page.

Below is an "intro" video, it's 10 minutes long and nicely demonstrates the abilities of this powerful program.

(Subscribers know the routine, you'll need to return to the blog because videos don't push through with your subscription).

Free image editing software...

This week we are going to present you several options when it comes to (truly) free image editing software.

We are starting with Photoscape.

Other free image editing programs have similar features but Photoscape is the first one I have found has a clone stamp tool (see the video at the end of this post).

It also has a bunch of tools that I like - batch tools (edit, resize, rename), Face Search (it will search for similar faces on your computer and online), and a RAW converter.

Here are a few more key features:

♦ Viewer: View photos in your folder, create a slideshow

♦ Editor: resizing, brightness and color adjustment, white balance, backlight correction, frames, balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal, blooming, clone stamp

♦ Page: Merge multiple photos on the page frame to create one final photo

♦ Combine: Attach multiple photos vertically or horizontally to create one final photo

♦ Animated GIF: Use multiple photos to create a final animated photo

♦ Splitter: Slice a photo into several pieces

♦ Color Picker: Zoom in on images, search and pick a color

♦ Paper Print: Print lined, graph, music and calendar paper

You can learn more about Photoscape on their website, check out sscreen shots, and download it here.

This video is a very good demonstration of how well their clone stamp tool works. As usual, subscribers will need to return to the blog to watch it (as it doesn't push through with your subscription).

SOLE MATES

Unfortunately Viva’s love of outdoor weddings along with our love of designer shoes hasn’t always been a match made in heaven. Let’s face it, luscious grass covered ceremony sites, cocktail receptions on beautifully stained decks and tented dinners on perfectly laid cobble stones aren’t really a high heel’s best friend. Not willing to give up one or the other (outdoor weddings or high heels), Viva went on a hunt to see what we could do to help them get along.

High heels, meet SoleMates.

"At last the sole-ution to wearing high heels on grass, cobblestones, bricks, wooden decks and over subway grates! By increasing the surface area of the base of the heel, SoleMates reduce the pressure preventing them from sinking into the grass or falling into cracks."

Not only do these little babies make walking on grass a breeze, they also help to protect your heels and prevent damage to those oh so stylish Louboutins you splurged on for your wedding day. And don’t forget your bridesmaids. Now they can walk down the aisle with confidence too.

While located in the US, SoleMates does ship to Canada and offers a fantastic discount to brides!

One thousand DIY photo projects....

Okay, maybe it's not a thousand (it's more like 65), but listed here are plenty of low cost/no cost DIY projects that will keep you busy for quite some time.

If you have a DIY project not listed here please let us know so we can add it to this group as we are going to maintain a "DIY Project" list that our readers can refer to.

If you have (or when you do) complete a DIY project, share that with us too.

New, let the fun begin.


Adjustable Snoot

Backdrop Stand

Backdrop Stands & Green Screens

Beauty Dish

Beauty Dish for SB-800

Beauty Dish flash modifier

Beauty Dish (stainless steel)

Boom Arm Reflector Holder

Budget DIY Lighting System

Canvas Photography Backdrop

C-Stand

Cheapshott Collapsible Umbrella DIY

David Hobby Grid Hack

Digital White Balance Filter (like ExpoDisc)

Film Can Diffuser & Color Gel holder

Flash Diffuser (cigarette packet)

Flash Mini-Bouncer

Floor Light

Foldable Softbox

Free Printable Lens Hoods

Gary Fong Lightsphere

Gary Fong LightSphere II

Grids (and snoots)

Grid (gutter adapter & black straw)

Grid (Speedlite)

Gridspot

Large Softbox for Small Strobe

Light & Backdrop stand

Lighting Diagrams, Planning and Explaining

Light Tent

Light Tent

Macro Lighting

Macro Photo Studio (for $10)

Monopod (for $11)

Monopod (with ballhead)

Monopod (mini)

Monopod (telescoping)

Muslin backgrounds

Panoramic Tripod Head for $10

Pop-up flash diffuser

Pop-up flash diffuser (soft screen)

Ring Flash

Ring Flash

Ring Flash (disposable)

Ring Flash (square)

Shutter Release (Canon)

Softbox

Softbox (under $10)

Softbox - Flash Mounted

Softbox Grid (under $10.00)

Softbox (for perfect portraits)

Softbox (using umbrella)

Softbox from an umbrella

Spiderlight Strobe

Spiderlight Softbox

Strip Light

Strip Light (cheap)

Studio Backdrop Mount

Studio Lights (under $20)

Tinker Tubes

Umbrella Softbox (aka Brollybox)

Vagabond power pack

Wired Remote (Canon)

Casey proposes to Amy...

Back from vacation and (sadly) back to work, posting will be picking up from here. I have a a bunch of photography products to review as well as images to share.

Below is a video of Casey proposing to Amy.

The event took place in a local coffee shop, Casey had the waitress bring Amy box after box until.... well, you'll see.

(You subscribers will need to return to the blog to watch this little gem)

Intercourse... PA...

Yup, we went to Intercourse PA yesterday, once my girls saw the name of the town there was snickering and laughing all day long. It also didn't help that almost every darn business there named themselves after the town!

And of course at every gift shop we stopped the girls want to buy the "I Love Intercourse" shirt.

I don't think so!

They had a great deal of fun at my expense, it's not very often these teenage daughters get a chance to make their dad blush and they took full advantage of it.


Well, today we had off to Blue Ball and who knows, we may end up in Paradise... Pennsylvania that is.

;)

Sorry, I just could not help myself.