Dave Johnson - Author - PC World Australia

Stories by Dave Johnson

Article | 22/08/2008 Detecting digital photo fakery

We used to say that seeing is believing. These days, when almost anything can be made to look photorealistic, that quaint expression lacks the sinceri...

Article | 19/08/2008 Beautify your photos with blur

Razor-sharp focus is not always the right prescription for a perfect photo. Adding subtle blur effects can impart a surreal or a romantic tone to your...

Article | 11/08/2008 Sharpen up your photos

In a perfect world, all the photos we take would emerge from the camera perfectly formed, sharp as a tack, and ready for framing at the Louvre.

Article | 23/07/2008 10 efficiency tips for digital photographers

For some people, "efficiency" brings to mind a hotel room with a kitchenette. When other folks hear the word, they think about ways to work faster and...

Article | 17/07/2008 Freeze water in flight

It's ironic that I am so preoccupied with photographing motion, essentially capturing the essence of speed and dynamics in what is by its definition a...

Article | 14/07/2008 Easy ways to give your photos an antique look

Many old photographs--especially those made in the 1800s--were colored with a brown pigment known as sepia during the development process. Not all ant...

Article | 14/07/2008 Take command of your photo's color intensity

A million factors can affect the intensity of the colors that you see in your photos.

Article | 2/07/2008 How to photograph fireworks

Summertime evokes timeless images of fire hydrants spraying water into the air, ice cream trucks rumbling down neighbourhood streets...and Fourth of J...

Article | 17/06/2008 Be a more efficient digital photographer

Maybe you love working with images on your PC-- but if so, you're probably an exception rather than the rule. Most people I know would rather be takin...

Article | 13/06/2008 Make artistic mosaics with your photos

No matter what the subject matter or image resolution, every digital photo is really composed of a bunch of differently colored pixels. Zoom into a hi...

Article | 5/06/2008 Make the world's cheapest tripod

Recently, a friend of mine was going whale watching on a small boat in Puget Sound and asked how to get the sharpest possible photos while confined to...

Article | 3/06/2008 How to change the background in any photo

Sometimes you want your digital camera to slavishly record exactly what you see through its viewfinder. But there's no reason to be satisfied with ord...

Article | 29/05/2008 Make the best of difficult lighting

A backlit scene -- one in which the main light source is behind the subject so you're shooting into the light -- is to photography what a 7/10 split i...

Article | 14/05/2008 Correct your exposure with curves

The Curves tool allows you to correct the exposure of your photo by tweaking the brightness and contrast. It's kind of like using Levels or the Histog...

Article | 6/05/2008 Fake your photos' depth of field

Thumb through any magazine and you'll find that, no matter the style of the photo, all portraits have one thing in common: The background is gently bu...