One of the sadder aspects about a software update is when it outstrips the machine you’re running it on and, in this case, that still matters even if the software is cloud-based.

Adobe announced, to the chagrin of many, that its next Creative Cloud update could leave some users in the dust, particularly those that are clinging to operating systems whose last major update was in 2016 for Windows and 2015 for Mac.

Fans of Adobe Creative Cloud who also use a Windows 10 Anniversary Update (v1607) or lower OS or Mac OS 10.11 (El Capitan) or lower could find themselves in the market for new hardware.

Image via Rawpixel.com from Pexels.com.

For its part Adobe says that users will still be able to use the apps as they stand today but will not be able to upgrade any further. To upgrade their apps they will need to upgrade their hardware, natch, and Adobe recommends this action so that users can take full advantage of new features as they are added to Creative Cloud applications.

A blog post on the Adobe website detailing the coming update says:

“If you’re running Windows 8.1, Windows 10 v1511 and v1607 or Mac OS 10.11 (El Capitan), you can continue to run and install current and previous versions of Creative Cloud applications. However, you will not be able to install or run the next major release of Creative Cloud unless you’re on a supported version of Windows or MacOS.

Creative Cloud Desktop, which manages application installs, will continue to be supported on Windows 7 or later and Mac OS X v10.9 or later.

Focusing our efforts on more modern versions of Windows and Mac operating systems allows us to concentrate on developing the features and functionality most requested by members, while ensuring peak performance that takes advantage of modern hardware. Visit this site for detailed information on current Creative Cloud app system requirements.”

It’s almost like the days before cloud software. The more things change the more they stay the same, eh?

Are you impacted by Adobe’s latest updates? Let us know in the comments.

Do you find it difficult to take photos which hold people’s attention? In our digital societies where image sharing is prolific, it is challenging to have people really take time to look at your prized photos. Image composition is key here.

So I want to give you eight tips on how to create pictures that will grab hold your viewer’s attention. People will want to stop and look rather than keep scrolling past your images.

A good composition should have a clear main subject. It might be as plain as a landscape or a person’s face, or it might be something very small in the frame. If the composition is good the main subject will stand out like a sore thumb.

We all have a unique view of the world. Each of us takes in the world around us in different ways. If you have ever been on a group photo walk and taken part in a shared image review afterward, you will know this. Each photographer will have walked the same street, and the number of photographers that participated, there will be that same variety of pictures.

1. Choose a subject you can relate to

What catches your eye? Why does it appeal to you? You should be asking yourself these things when you are taking pictures. If you choose subjects that you feel a connection with you will create more interesting photos. This is simply because you are interested in the subject yourself.

So your initial choice of subject should be something that you can connect with. My subject of the portrait below is a woman my wife and I chat with at the local market. We connect with her. I wrote about her and her late husband in a recent article.

Because I have this lovely friendship with her it is easier for me to make lovely pictures of her. I know she will happily pose for me. I also know I will get a more interesting photo of her when she is that bit more relaxed and not looking directly at me. In this photo, she was chatting with my wife who was standing beside me.

2. Isolate the subject

About the most obvious way to have your main subject stand out in your photos is to isolate it.

My favorite two ways to isolate my subject is to use a narrow depth of field or a dark background. By using either of these techniques your main subject will be unmistakable.

Choosing a wide enough aperture and having your subject far enough from the background will allow you to have your background blurred and your subject sharp. If you are using a camera with a small sensor or a smartphone with only one lens, this may not be possible.

When you have a dark background your subject will stand out, especially when there is more light on the subject than the background. To achieve this look find a spot where the background is in the shade and your subject has more light on it/them.

3. Choose your lens carefully

Your choice of lens can affect how you compose the image and how your main subject will be seen. Sometimes a wide-angle lens is better than a telephoto. Other times you will need a longer lens.

Getting close to your subject with a wide lens has a different effect than if you use a long lens and position yourself further away. If you are not sure about how this works the best way to learn is to experiment.

Try taking a series of photos of the same subject with various lenses or zoom settings and see in which photos your main subject looks the best.

4. Frame your subject

Set up your subject how you want to see them. Move around your subject and study them from different angles. Watch closely how the background changes in relation to what’s behind them. Find an angle where your subject looks best.

Limit what you include in your frame. Fill your frame only with what is relevant to the photo you are making. If you can see anything in the frame which does not balance with or enhance your subject keep making changes until you can no longer see those things.

5. Exploit the foreground

Make use of something in the foreground of your composition to draw the viewer’s eye to your subject. This technique will add depth to your composition.

Use an object which is in front of your main subject, either in focus or out of focus. This can help bring the viewer’s eye to concentrate more on your subject.

6. Use leading lines and diagonals

Composing your photo so there are strong lines leading to your main subject will enhance it. The viewer’s eye will be lead along the lines to rest on your chosen subject. This is a very simple, very effective technique.

Diagonal lines used well in a composition can also be used to draw the viewer’s eye to the main subject.

7. Time it well

Choosing the right time to take your photo can help to bring attention to your main subject. When you are photographing in a busy location good timing is imperative. Having someone walk in front or behind your main subject just as you take your photo would detract from your main subject.

Watch carefully. When I am in a busy place I usually have both eyes open, rather than closing one. This way I can see more of what is happening around me and my subject and it helps me time my photos better.

8. Crop imaginatively

Don’t always stick to the rules of composition. Stepping outside the box can help highlight your main subject in unusual ways.

In this photo of the gold elephant statue against the gold wall of the chedi, everything tended to blend together. The harsh light was not helpful. Cropping tight to the elephant and only including half of it draws your attention there. The negative space balances the composition.

Conclusion

Try these tips sometimes. Be mindful of your main subject and whatever else is in your frame. If there are distractions, use one or more of these techniques to draw attention to your main subject and have it tell the story you want.

Having your primary subject stand out will make your photo easy for people to look at and relate to. But more than just having your subject stand out, you need to frame it so that it lets viewers see the subject and scene how you see it.

Shutterstock Editor has tons of easy-to-use tools that will help you make a multi-page graphic for print materials like magazine spreads or double-sided flyers.

In this quick tutorial I’ll show you how to use the Pages feature in our online photo editor to create a multi-page design. It’s perfect for things like magazine spreads, brochure design, or flyers. I’ll also show you how to save your design as a PDF so that you can easily share, send, and print it.

Follow along with this quick four-step tutorial, then apply it to your own multi-page design needs.

Step 1: Set Design Dimensions

In Shutterstock Editor you can change the canvas size in just one click. Head over to the Preset Sizes (P) tab to choose from a few digital media presets.

Since we’re making a design for print, I’m going to customize the document dimensions instead of using the presets. To do this, navigate to the Canvas Size tab on the right sidebar and change the dimension to Inches – that’s the typical measurement for print materials. I’ll use the standard page size of 8.5 x 11 inches. Be sure to unlock the dimensions using the padlock icon to ensure they aren’t constrained to each other. Save this size as a preset so that you can easily access it later.

Since I’m creating a multi-page document, I need to add another page. Navigate to the Pages (G) button on the left sidebar and select Add new page. This will create another page in the same dimensions as the original. You can add a few pages on this panel, and sort them by dragging and dropping in the order you want.

Step 2: Add Your Content

Shutterstock Editor lets you browse a collection of millions of images to use in your design, but you can also upload your own content. Simply click on the My Content tab on the left sidebar to upload content from your desktop, or to select images you have previously uploaded.

Select the image you want and use the handles to place and/or resize it on the page. I used the Shape Crop tool to crop the image in, and then the Align Right function to justify the image on the right of the page. After I place the first image, I’ll add an orange background from my saved content. Resize it to fill the page, then click on Send Backward in the Layers panel to move it behind the first image.

To work on the second page in the spread, go to the Pages (G) panel and select the second page you made in Step 1. Select your images and follow the same image placement and background steps as above to create a cohesive look across your multi-page document.

Step 3: Add Text

Now that I have the layouts finished, it’s time to add the text. Add headlines and subheadlines to your design with the Text (A) tool. Use headlines for big text, and subheadlines for any details you want to include. Remember that larger text is read first, then smaller text follows.

I chose Vidaloka for the headline. Change the Fill color to No Fill and increase the Stroke size for a headline with a simple, sharp outline. Copy and paste the text box to the second page and modify it there for a varying look.

Step 4: Save and Download as a PDF

Once your design is finished, click on the Download button on the top right of your screen. In this panel, select the checkbox that says “Download all pages” to make sure that you get both pages in your design. Then hit License and Continue. On the next page you can select the file format and DPI. Choose PDF – this file format makes it easy to send and print your design. Select 300 DPI, which is the standard for printing. Then hit Download.

Now you have a multi-page design in PDF format, ready to send to the printer!

See what else you can make with our photo editor in these helpful how-to’s. . .

I’ve always had bad luck with portable hard drives. Over the years I have had failures with several brands and models, so nowadays I have almost everything in the cloud for more security. The last time this happened was a couple of months ago: one of my backup hard drives became corrupt, I took it to the tech and they gave me a very high quote that at the moment I could not afford to pay.

As a photographer I’m not a very good computer technician, I do not know much about recovery software but a friend who is quite geeky suggested that I run a program called Wondershare Data Recovery on my other backup discs to see if I could rescue some of those same files that they were previously stored there before being transferred to the disk that was damaged.

So, for several days, I ran the program on all my hard drives, memory cards, even on the hard drive of my laptop. Many files were recovered but I soon realized that unfortunately most of them would not work for me since they were glitched — a mistake of interpretation and representation of digital data quite common in videos, audio, and photographs.

I carefully checked the almost eight thousand raw files. They were messy, with mixed names. I noticed the presence of the typical glitch: intense colors of pink, orange, blue, green, very saturated and textures with lines and stripes, images combined with photos from other shoots.

I was very sad, at that moment my desire was to throw everything away. I still hoped to be able to rescue at least two or three photos of each photo session. Suddenly this image hit me.

It had the glitch but I saw it calmly and I thought it was not quite ugly. It had a strange aesthetic, it looked like the banner of a DJ or some electronic music party. I definitely liked it and decided to look calmly at the photos that had the same effect and separate the ones I liked the most in a separate folder. So I put together a little more than 400 photos.

I am mainly a portrait photographer, so the images that I liked the most were the faces of beautiful models with that strange random digital look. I liked the idea that in the same photo faces of two or even more models were combined that have nothing to do with each other, they don’t even know each other and were originally photographed on completely different dates, but in the end they look a bit similar in expression and intention.

I ended with approximately 100 images that, when viewed as a series, I find quite interesting, with an aesthetic very different from what I have always done as a photographer. In my work I always use desaturated colors and dark themes. These Glitch images propose much more vibrant and intense colors, and a kind of futuristic techno feel that is very fun and refreshing.

I really do not know if I have any merit in making a series like this, because the effects and the finish is the product of a poor process of digital recovery. But I can recognize myself not to have allowed the frustration and sadness of losing my files made me throw everything away, and be able to create an interesting series within all that chaos.

Finally, while most of the photos in the series are directly the result of the recovery, in some of them I made a collage or combined with others that were not as interesting. I am happy with the result and the models loved them! People have liked it and have even suggested that I make an exhibition with them narrating this experience. I imagine they will look amazing printed on metallic paper!

I feel fortunate and above all, I am encouraged to think that when problems like this occur, not everything is lost. The next time you mess up your hard drive, remember that there can be amazing photos with glitches in there!

About the author: Eduardo Gómez is a photographer based in Mexico City. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of his work on his website, Facebook, and Instagram.

Each week, members of the 500px team curate photography that showcases the breadth of our community’s talent and diverse tastes in Editors’ Choice. A few of the themes that caught our eye in this week’s Editors’ Choice photos were relaxed, off-center posing, geometric framing, and wide-open seas and sky. Spot these trends and more in this week’s roundup, and explore some of the best photography on 500px today.

Meet the 500px team that chose this week’s selections:
Karen Biilmann
Laura Stanley
Paul Friesen
Camila Gargantini

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