Being Inspired By All Of You!

When we look for photography inspiration, the internet is one of the first places we turn to. We’ve found that there is no shortage of photographers, websites and photostreams to be inspired by!

Did you know that one of these places of inspiration is one that was created by all of you? That’s right…one place that we go to all the time for inspiration is the I ♥ Faces Network! We are constantly amazed at the incredible photographs that are uploaded to our network for us all to learn from and be inspired by. Here are just a few from our Network Photostream that have caught our eye recently:

Melissa Jordan

Hana

Sandra Arduini

Janis

Moments Captured By Amy

Jenty

Laura Pritchett

While you are spending time in our Network, be sure to take a moment to add us as your Network friends. We love being able to get to know you all better that way!

Add Angie as a Network Friend

Add Amy as a Network Friend

"Just For Fun" Challenge:

Now here's our "Just For Fun" challenge to you: Go to our list of Network Members and randomly send requests to 10 other members to be your network friend. Who knows...you might just meet your next photography friend who will help inspire you as you continue in your photography journey! :)

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Constructive Feedback Friday

Tomorrow we are planning to have our next Constructive Feedback Friday rather than our typical Fix-It Friday. This is your opportunity to enter a photo that you really like, but you know it has problems with it and you aren’t sure how to fix them. Or you could enter a photo that you really thought was an awesome capture, but then you saw it on your computer and it really didn’t turn out all that wonderful at all.

Enter your photo into our special Mr. Linky tomorrow and then member of our community and the contributors will stop by to give you some Constructive Feedback on how your photo could be improved through editing or how it could have been improved while you were taking it.

This special Mr. Linky will only be open for the first 40 participants so be sure to get your photo and link ready now to be entered tomorrow morning.

If you’d like to participate in this special feature, we ask that you please read this information from our last Constructive Feedback Friday first. Entries that don’t follow the guidelines specified in that post will be deleted to make room for other entries.

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A Helpful Camera Hint

Written by: Rachel from American Mum

Did you know that there is a way to spruce up your JPEGs in most cameras?

I'm not sure about point and shoots, but most DSLRs will allow you to change a few aspects about how your RAW file is converted into a JPEG. You can play around with your sharpness, contrast, saturation and color tone.

Here's how it goes down on my Canon 5D. This should be the same for most Canons and similar for Nikons.

Go to Menu - Picture Style, and down to User Def. 1. You can set your own style! Yay!

Now hit jump, and you can change the sharpness, contrast, saturation, and color tone. If you want to know my personal recipe, I've set the sharpness up all the way, the contrast up two notches above zero, saturation two notches above zero, and color tone at zero. My pictures come out so ridiculously sharp, even magic sharp (one of my favorite sharpening actions) is almost too much. I end up having to use it at about 30-40%. And sharp is my thing.

I've had so much success with these settings that with perfect exposure, I don't even touch 'em. And THAT saves time! Of course in certain situations, you might not want as much contrast - maybe a portrait or something. But most of the time, these are right on.

Keep in mind that if you shoot in RAW, these settings won't apply. These are settings applied to the JPEG.

So go play around and find the recipe that's right for you. I'd love to hear what works well for you!

Rachel is a self-taught blogger-turned-photographer and mother of two. Once the "bad picture taker" of the family, she opened up her own photography business within a year of buying her first DSLR. She is located in Eastern North Carolina and can be found at Savor Photography and her blog, The Adventures of an American Mum.