Wedding Photos

Brown Wedding

Save the Date

Super cute save the date ideas!

Found on Pinterest HERE

Found on Pinterest HERE

Found on Pinterest HERE

Wedding Photos

Brown Wedding

Nelson Wedding

Wedding Planner

Planning your own wedding can be very stressful, so I have put together a few sites for you that will help you get organized and hopefully get rid of some of that stress!

On line wedding planner:
This site is really cool! It will help you organize your thoughts, time, and money all while letting you put all of your ideas and inspirations in one place. Check it out HERE.

Wedding Checklists:
Free printable wedding checklist
Checklist organized by time
Budget Worksheet
Guest list Worksheet
Wedding Party Contact Sheet
Wedding Vendor Contact Sheet

Tips on how to save money:
30 Ways to Save


DIY Wedding:
Martha Stewart DIY Favors
DIY Network - Lots of tutorials
DIY Wedding projects
DIY Wedding Tips and Instructions

Tutorial HERE

Wedding Photos

Nelson Wedding

Reducing Noise in Photoshop

When shooting a wedding we are often forced to shoot in low lighting conditions which means having to increase the ISO, lower the shutter speed, and lower the aperture settings in order to compensate for the low lighting. However, this can cause quite a lot of noise in your photos. Fortunately, noise is fairly easy to correct in photoshop.
Here are a few good video tutorials on how to decrease noise in Photoshop and PSE. However, the results are much better for photoshop users than PSE users! (Sad PSE user here!) :(

Photoshop

CS2

PSE9

My only problem with this one is on some of my photos the "median" step and the "surface blur" step made my photo look like it was a painting. :(

You have to play around with some of the settings to see what is best for your photo. Also, what I like to use in addition to or sometimes instead of these steps is use the "Reduce Noise" option in the filter tab under "noise" and also the "Despeckle" option in the filter tab under "niose". I like to use "Reduce Noise" because it has an option to "Reduce JPEG Artifact" and a "Reduce Color Noise" option as well. Which was mentioned in the CS2 video above.

Here is an example using ONLY the steps from the PSE9 video

Before

After

Here is an after shot 

Using only "Despeckle" and "Reduce Noise"

This was shot in RAW then converted to JPEG with no additional edits.

 

Wedding Photos

Brown Wedding

June Weddings

June is a very popular month for weddings with its mildly warm days, cool nights, and a beautiful blanket of summer green draped over every inch of ground. Well, at least that is what June looks like in Arkansas!

With that said, I have decided to make June "Wedding Month"!

For the entire month of June I will be posting tips and tricks for photographing weddings, quick and easy editing options, and also some great links to make planning a wedding a little easier. (Well, as easy as planning a wedding can be.)

To kick-start this month off, here are a few tips on photographing an indoor wedding in low light without a flash:

• Shoot in RAW if your camera allows.
• Use a high ISO. 
• Use the lowest aperture that your lens will allow.
• f/2.8 or lower is recommended.
• You could also shoot in aperture priority mode.
• Use a slower shutter speed. 
• If shooting by hand, do NOT set your shutter speed lower than the shortest focal length of your lens. ex: My lens is 18-55mm, so I use a shutter speed of 1/20 of a second because the next lowest number on my camera is 1/15 of a second. This will help reduce camera shake.  
• Use a tripod if able.  

Here are a few websites that go into more detail that will help you better understand each of these points:

RAW vs. JPEG

ISO explained

Aperture explained

Aperture and Shutter Speed explained

Snapsort's Low Light Photography Infographic

Picture "Perfect"

I see so many gorgeous, perfectly focused, sharp photos out there, and I wonder how in the world do they get such "perfect" shots? I often struggle with getting my subject as sharp as I want. The absolute worst thing is when you get that "perfect" shot with the lighting just right and the perfect facial expression, and you pull it up on your computer only to find that the subject's face is out of focus!! Oh, I just get such a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see those could've been perfect shots.
I found some REALLY good tips on this blog about how to have less of those sick feeling moments. And to my surprise, they really weren't hard to do, however I did have to dig out the good old camera manual because my camera is quite a bit different than his. I am looking forward to trying it out in my next shoot, and will let you know how it turns out. :)
Get these simple yet really useful tips HERE!

Bethel Church Podcast - FIERCE = UNTAMED + BRAVE

This is such an amazing message from Danny Silk about shame!
Listen HERE because it will truly change your life!