I just finished up reading the new e-book Real.Life.Photography by Rebecca Cooper published through Ella Publishing.
I'll just go straight ahead and say that I loved it! It's no big surprise since Rebecca was a frequent contributer to Simple Scrapbooks, as well as one of my team mates at Write.Click.Scrapbook, so we share very similar philosophies regarding scrapping and photography.
What I loved most about the book was Rebecca's practical approach to helping you capture photos of everyday life. Sure, she includes technical information as well, such as her camera settings for the photos in the book, but mostly she explained ways to capture real life as it happens. I am sure that we all have those moments we wished we were able to better capture, this book will definitely help you do that!
You'll get simple tips such as making sure your camera is not only handy, but also ready to fire, to more details like how to best use available light, and how to go about capturing relationships. Rebecca finishes up the book by covering how to use editing software to enhance your photos or correct slight imperfections. She covers simple editing techniques for correcting lighting and colour, and shows examples of photos enhanced with actions from Addy Lane.
The great thing about Real.Life.Photography is that you can start using the techniques right away. I wasn't even finished reading yet when I took these shots of Kieran.
I enhanced both shots using the Simple Fixes: Actions for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements which I bought bundled with Real.Life.Photography. These are the same actions that rebecca talks about in the book. Here's a look at those two photos straight out the camera.
I ran the Simply Boost action on both photos to make the colours more vibrant, as well as running the Simply Lighten action on the left photo as it was a little dark.
As we're heading off on vacation soon I am looking forward to using more of the tips in this book to capture lots of family photos!
If you want to get this book and the action set (which is available for both Photoshop AND Elements), Ella has a special ending today for 20% off your purchase when you buy both items and use the code PHOTOFIX. I highly recommend them!
