Gupta Amit - Photojojo!: insanely great photo projects and DIY Ideas

Copyright 2009 by Photojojo

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Potter Craft, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
wwww.pottercraft.com

POTTER CRAFT and colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gupta, Amit, 1979
Photojojo! : insanely great photo projects and DIY Ideas / Amit Gupta and Kelly Jensen; photographs by Kelly Jensen.
p. cm.
Includes index.
eISBN: 978-0-307-58693-3
1. PhotographyDigital techniques. 2. Handicraft. I. Jensen, Kelly, 1973 II. Title.
TR267.G965 2009
745.59dc22 2008049029

DESIGN BY KARA PLIKAITIS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KELLY JENSEN

FLIP PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHADCHEVERIER.COM ; ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
LINE ART BY KATE BINGAMAN-BURT
ILLUSTRATIONS BY LA TRICIA WATFORD
INSTANT BOOKS PROJECT 2008 ESTHER K. SMITH, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, USED BY PERMISSION OF ESTHER K. SMITH
SUBVERSIVE CROSS STITCH, , IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF JULIE JACKSON.

v3.1

To everyone who
taught us that you
can still be a kid,
even after youve
grown up.

Dear Reader,

If youre trying to decide whether you should buy this book Dont buy it. Naw, were joshing you. THIS BOOK IS TOTALLY AWESOME.

Our honest opinion: If you like taking pictures, you will love this book. Youll be inspired, and your friends will be amazed, not only by the beautiful photo projects all over your homeand there will be plenty of thosebut also by the marked improvement in your disposition and personal appearance.

Years later, whilst preparing an acceptance speech for a prestigious awards ceremony in a decadent European palace, youll trace all your success back to this one moment when you decided to embrace your creativity and buy the Photojojo! book. Yep, thats right, this book changed your life. (Youre welcome.) Someday, youll buy a copy for your kids, and the circle will continue. Their creativity will blossom, and theyll go on to create great works of art, cure catastrophic diseases, or create a foundation to clothe the lobsters. You dont owe it to yourself to buy this book, you owe it to humankind.

If youve already bought this book and are simply the type that reads from cover to cover Hello, new friend. Thanks for buying our book!

Photojojo! is the creation of Photojojo.com, a tiny little outfit where we publish a newsletter of the worlds best photography tips and projects, sell amazing photography doodads, and toil night and day to make photography fabulous. We started Photojojo because we saw our friends taking thousands of photos with their new digital cameras and then forgetting all about them. That seemed kinda sad, because there are a million-and-two things you can do with those photos to make them even more rad. Over the years, weve shown millions of people how to have more fun with photography by getting their digital photos off their computers and into the real world, and we decided to take our own advice and make a book.

We think photography is awesome. Its an art form anyone can practice, one in which you cant make mistakes. Photojojo is here to make it awesomer. This book is full of some of the most fun, most amazing, most eye-poppingly gorgeous photo projects, ideas, and tips ever told. We hope you enjoy reading it even more than we enjoyed writing it. Because that was a frenzied, heart-wrenching, brain-zapping affair, really. But we think it was worth it. (Write us and tell us what you think! E-mail .)

How to USE This Book

Photojojo is all about helping folks take better pictures and do more with them once theyve got em. So here are a couple of useful pointers, because we love you so. First, check out the sections on ). And dont forget to check out the special v2.0 project variations scattered throughout the book. Then get in there! Start making stuff in Part One, and start having more fun with your camera in Part Two.

HOW TO Improve THE PICTURES YOU ALREADY HAVE

Image-editing software is essential in the digital age. Even if you shoot film and scan your images, youll need software to help you crop, resize, and generally whip things into shape. Regardless of which software program you use, sit down with it and read the manual, do the tutorials, and learn everything you can about it . The more you know, the better. More important than software, however, are the concepts of color, exposure, resizing, and printing, so well let you in on the essentials right now.

Edit on a Separate Layer

Programs such as Photoshop allow you to create separate layers. (This means that you can stack images on top of each other in the same document.) Make full use of this feature if you have it. Copy the background as a new layer and edit on that layer. That way, if you make mistakes, you can throw out that layer and start fresh.

If you have a program such as iPhoto that doesnt allow changes on a separate layer, copy the photo to a backup folder before you start editing. Then, if you mess up the picture while editing, you can delete it and start over. Never discard an original photo unless youre certain you never want to use it again.

Correct Color

In photography, the rainbow has six colors: Magenta is the opposite of green, red is the opposite of cyan, and yellow is the opposite of blue. This means that to correct a green color-cast (caused by fluorescent lights), you must shift the color of the picture toward magenta.