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Weddings are too expensive and too special to let pass without quality photography recording the day. Because weather is so unpredictable, some prefer indoor pictures. Others choose the backdrop of nature or favorite surroundings setting the mood of the picture or depicting their interests.

Those choosing to get married in the Virginia Beach area could have no more beautiful backdrop against which to have their wonderful event photographed with nature. This area of eastern Virginia is replete with a wide variety of locations that would be ideal for such a special day.

People living in the Virginia Beach area have probably developed a love for its multitude of beaches. Located right on the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the area borders both the Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. This means miles of beaches, such as Baylake Beach, North Virginia Beach, and Sandbridge Beach provide plenty of places for a wedding party to get some classic shots against the ocean. Other backdrops might include piers and sand dunes.

Since Virginia Beach is on the ocean, it is no surprise that no less than twelve lighthouses don its horizon. Many of these make unique backdrops for wedding pictures. For example, the original Cape Henry Lighthouse was built in 1792 but in 1881 was replaced with an iron one. Both are still standing erect at the ocean’s edge where they guided ships to and from the ocean and bay.

Lynnhaven Bay and Lake Smith reservoir intersect the city, leaving miles of forested dead end roads and secluded waterfront homes. Some of these homeowners are glad to allow a couple to have their wedding pictures taken in their yard.

Virginia Beach also has a number of beautiful city parks. They are well kept and the natural setting may be just what a couple is looking for as a background. If your wedding is in the early spring, the dazzling beauty of the flowering fruit trees at Brookdale Farm, matching the chosen colors of the wedding might cause wedding magazines to come begging for copies of your pictures.

Those wanting to include the historicity of Virginia Beach with their wedding theme might consider places such as Lynnhaven House, built in 1725 by Francis Thelaball II. Today it looks much the same as when it was first made, and even has people posing in period costumes. On the beach, the Old Coast Guard Station, a 100 year-old building stands, also offering a unique flavor to the wedding pictures.

These ideas are only to get your imagination working; it is certainly not a complete list. Perhaps they encourage you to think beyond the safe weather locations indoors to include Virginia Beach itself in the record of your special day.

Step 1 - With the circular marquee tool, create a simple circle in any color. We will use red in this example.

Step 2. Give the circle an inner glow layer effect, just change the glow color to black and the blend mode to multiply. Why am I using the Inner glow instead of the inner shadow? Because inner glow doesn’t have an angular deflection, and thus is easily uniform.

Step 3 - Load the selection from the circular area. Drag the linear gradient (white to transparent) downward from the top making sure it is close but not completely at the bottom in a new layer.

Step 4 - Press Ctrl/Cmd T to change the white gradient. Drag the handles bringing them up going halfway through, and drag it just a bit inward from the top and sides. Now lets create a merge composite layer. To do this, hide the background, create a new blank layer on top and press Alt Ctrl Shift E or Option Cmd Shift E on Mac, creating a merged layer on top.

Step 5 - Taking this merged layer, make a circular selection above larger than the original circle. Use your judgment on what looks right and then copy the section and paste it into a new layer. Now the top segment of the orb is done. Place it again in the exact position.

Step 6. Now to go onto the base of the orb. In a new layer create an eleptical shape that fits into the lower half of the circle. Duplicate this layer and reduce the size a little, as shown in fig.6.

Step 7. Select the larger ellipse layer and load its selection by pressing Ctrl/Cmd and clicking on the layer thumbnail. Now select the cylindrical gradient tool and going with the grey-white-grey-white-grey color combo, drag across.

Step 8 - Again, duplicate this layer bringing the duplicate upward. Arrange the small white portion to above the actual gradiated layer. Link both of these layers while reducing their size some, to ensure that the outer gradiated ellipse is just within the red circle.

Step 9 - Choose the duplicated gradient layer, giving it a slightly different gradient of greys and whites. Bring the duplicated gradient layer down, positioning it under both of the other layers. Move it to where it is seen from both sides as it is the rim of the orb.

Step 10) Remove the areas of the orb that are not needed. Keep Ctrl/Cmd pressed and click on the layer thumbnails; first choose the big outer rim ellipse, having the gray gradient, and then Shift Ctrl/Cmd Click on the thumbnail of the upper top portion layer. Now the 2 ellipses will be selected, but we need to also select the bottom portion of the orb. Choosing the Rectangular marquee tool, hold down shift and drag over the bottom portion. Inverse the selection (Ctrl/Cmd Shift I) and delete the central part of the orb.

Step 11) Let’s create the glass portion. Make a circle of the same size of the orb in any color and place it behind the other layers.

Step 12. As with the initial outer orb, give it the same kind of innerglow effect, and now bring it forward so as to cover all but the red outer portions of the orb.

Step 13) Go to the layer palette and make the fill amount =0 to make the layer invisible, but keeps the layer effects visible.

Step 14. As you had done with the red circle, ie, creating a white gradient reflection, create the same in a new layer above the glass layer, so as to create a more realistic lighting effect. Adjust the settings as required to make it as realistic looking as possible.

Step 15. Now select the base layers, ie the grey metal gradient layers and the white elipse, and merge them together. After this press Cntrl U to adjust the hue of the layer. Since it’s grey, click on colorize, and adjust to a reddish colour in keeping with the colour of the orb itself.

Step 16 -Lastly, make a very small drop shadow to the upper piece of the red orb, in order to create more realism. The lower portion may seem off, so create a new layer above the red lower orb portion. Select the radial gradient tool in the white to nothing option and drag from a point over the red to just a bit inward. Erase parts that are not enclosed within the red portion.

Now you have a glass ball. Any items can be displayed inside the ball now, but make sure they have a good reflection effect added on. This effect will provide the base a shiny and realistic look.

Do you need some inspiration to take interesting photos? Are you under the impression that you have to travel to a faraway place in order to photograph something intriguing or beautiful? Well, you don’t even need to leave your house! Here are some tips for taking stunning photos anywhere.

1. Find where there is an interesting light and shadow interaction. Remember that photography means “light writing.” How does the light look coming into your house? Are there objects that create interesting shadows? What does the reflection of water in a glass look like on the table?

2. Try getting close to objects so you distort the content of your photo making it unrecognizable. You can zoom in, or try angling the camera one way or another. If you have access to different lenses, macro and fish eye lenses are particularly fun. The detail in fruit and flowers is amazing if you take the time to look.

3. Spend time looking for patterns. Patterns are everywhere, but we often overlook them. The monotony of pattern is not boring if the color or texture is interesting.

4. Get a different perspective. What do your surroundings look like when you are on the floor, or looking down from above?

5. Try different aperture and shutter speed settings. A small aperture will create a blurred background (shallow depth of field), and a big aperture will bring more of the background into focus (large depth of field). With a tripod, use slow shutter speeds in low lighting to create different effects. If you want to freeze motion, you will want to use a fast shutter speed.

6. Take self-portraits. What defines you? How do you want to be portrayed in a photograph? Do you necessarily have to be in the photo for it to be a self-portrait?

Now you should be inspired to photograph anything, anywhere. Our surroundings are fascinating. Look at the world around you with an open mind because it is so magnificent. Most of us take our surroundings for granted, but there is endless beauty.

Kodak, the company that took cameras out of the hands of professionals and put them into the hands of everyday consumers, is in financial trouble. Why? Because people — everyday people — are turning to digital cameras, leaving film-based cameras gathering dust in the closet. As the largest producer of film-based cameras, and photographic film, Kodak finds itself losing great gobs of money.

But a digital camera won’t save you any money if you don’t know how to use it. So here are some pointers on how to use your camera, and take advantage of your Mac, too.

You need a computer
While some types of cameras allow you to view your photos on a TV, in reality a digital camera is quite worthless without a computer. The best computer to have for digital photo editing is a Macintosh with a USB port, which generally covers everything Apple has made since the iMac.

It also helps if the camera you purchased comes with Macintosh-compatible software. Mac OS X 10.1, by the way, comes with software capable of downloading pictures directly from some cameras; you may not need to load a thing.

Learn the basics
Yes, you need to read the manual. Some of the cameras don’t even come with a printed manual; you’ll have to read an Acrobat file from the CD-ROM that came with the camera. Concentrate on finding all the controls and learning how to use them. Make sure you know how to load batteries, plug it into your computer, and turn it on and off.

Take particular note of buttons you don’t want to push. (I recently watched someone wonder aloud what one button did, so they pushed it — and watched their rechargeable battery fall into the Pacific Ocean.)

Generally speaking, the more expensive the camera, the harder it will be to operate. Low-cost digital cameras rarely support more than “point and shoot,” which means you simply aim it at the subject, push the button, and it takes a picture. The camera will try to auto-focus the image and adjust the exposure according to available light.

More expensive digital cameras allow you to manually adjust focus, focal length, lighting, and countless other settings to help you turn a good picture into a really bad picture — if you don’t read the manual.

Children are fun to photograph because they are rarely shy of the camera. Begin by thinking like a kid. Be awed by everything, and get inspired by simple things. These tips will help you take fantastic photos of kids.

1. Get on their level and bend down or lie on the ground. Sometimes when you photograph children from above you imply control and dominance over them. When you photograph them from below, you empower them and elevate them.

2. Photograph children with their friends and family. It’s always interesting to see how children interact with one another and how they interact with their parents and siblings. You will want children to get comfortable with you and the camera so you may want to begin by photographing them with their parents.

3. Remember to be patient. Don’t get too frustrated, photographing children is not easy. Kids will need breaks and refreshments. If you rush the sessions you may not be getting the photographs you want, so slow down and even photograph them when you don’t think they are doing anything at all.

4. Children’s eyes and expressions are priceless. Photograph how they react to the world around them. Ask them to make funny faces or happy faces. See if they will lean into the camera and look right at you.

5. Children will love it if you bring them to a new park or playground. Document them exploring their new environment and their resulting reactions. The best lighting is going to be before 10 a.m. and after 4 p.m.

6. Remember to relax. Children can sense if you are nervous, and that makes them uncomfortable. When you are having fun, they will start having fun. They will love it if you bring toys or games, and especially food.

Feel free to give children direction, but be open-minded, and just let kids be themselves and have fun. It’s exciting because you never know what they are going to do, and you must be prepared to capture fleeting moments. Take some posed photos, but remember that candid ones are usually best.

In this session, I want to take a brief look at the things we can do with opacity and blending modes in Photoshop and how, by using them, you can create different image effects. As there are 23 different blending modes we are not going to look at each of the blending modes but I want to give you more an overview of how they work.

When you combine layers you are, in effect, changing the way pixels on the various layers unite with each other. This process usually gives us some cool, and often unusual, results. If you are looking to compose multiple-image artwork, blending modes can be a great way to accomplish that.

I’m using a Photoshop file that has two layers. One layer contains an image of an old building with an orange coloured wall and the other layer contains a staircase on the outside of an apartment block. When you’re trying this out yourself, just use any Photoshop image with two different layers, with something on each layer.

I always like to start out with giving my layers a descriptive name. Don’t just leave each layer with the default name of Layer 1, Layer 2, Layer 3 and so on. When you’re dealing with large projects and possibly images with 20 layers it can become very tiresome when you’re trying to figure out what’s on each layer.

Step 1 To rename a layer, double-click the layer name in the Layers palette. A bounding box will appear around the words Layer 1 . Type a new name and Press Return or Enter .

Note: You want to make sure that you click directly on the layer name, otherwise you will open the Layer Style dialog box and you won’t be able to rename the layer.

Step 2 - Select your Layer Click on the eye icon on the newly-named Stairs layers. The image of stairs appears in the screen and the Yellow Wall is hidden.

Step 3 With the Field layer selected in the Layers palette, click on the arrow beside the opacity field and drag the slider to 40%. Notice that everything on this layer - the field becomes less opaque (more see-through).

Step 4 Lowering the opacity of a layer makes the artwork on that layer more translucent, so that the layers beneath it show through.

Step 5 Drag the opacity slider back to 100% so that you can see the Stairs normally.

Step 6 On the layers palette, click on the down arrow beside the field that says ” Normal”. By default, layer appear with a blending mode of Normal.

Step 7 From the drop down menu that appears, choose Hard Mix.

The image changes quite dramatically.

Take a few minutes to try out different blending modes and see how the image is affected.

One of the most used blending modes is the Multiply mode. This mode blends layers to produce a darker color, except where there are white pixels. The white pixels will disappear.

When you have found a blending mode that creates the effect you are looking for, select the Stairs palette. Click on the “Create a New Layer” button at the bottom of the Layers palette.

You should see that a new empty layer has appeared in the Layers palette, just above the Field layer, but nothing should have changed on the image in the document window. When you add a new layer, by default the layer is empty and transparent. We want to use this new layer to create a border around the image we’ve been working on. The advantage to drawing on this layer, as opposed to drawing on any of the other layers, is that it can be isolated on its own - turned on or off, transparency adjusted and other adjustments applied to the layer.

Again, make sure that the new empty layer is selected. Grab the Brush tool from the Toolbox (or hit B on the keyboard). On the tool options bar, click on the Brush Preset Picker and select a rough looking brush. (I picked a Dry Brush Light Flow) and set the master diameter to about 100 pixels. On the toolbox, set the foreground color to black by hitting “D” on the keyboard - this sets the foreground and background colors to their default - black and white. Start drawing around the edge of the image to create a rough border.

Rename the layer as “B order”. (Yes, I know I’m nagging about the naming of layers but it’s good practice!)

The main benefit to drawing on this new empty layer is if you don’t like your work you can turn it off without having it affect your entire image. You can also play with the opacity to see how that looks.

Take some time to try adding more layers to your image and play with the drawing tools. Select different brushes and colors and choose different blending modes.

I hope you enjoyed our intro to blending modes and opacity. Obviously the best way to find out how they all work is, of course, to play and check out all the different effects you can achieve.