Adding a "Copyright" logo to an image is pretty straight forward. Here's how it's done.
With your image open in Photoshop click on the Text tool and a new text layer opens above the original image. Hold down Alt and type on the numerical pad at the righthand end of your keyboard the numbers 0169 which brings up the copyright symbol ©.
Now type part of your name or logo in front and the rest after, click on the Tick in the top toolbar to accept your text and you have the basics of an original copyright logo.
Click on the FX symbol in your layers palette and choose Drop Shadow, push the top and bottom slider across to the right just a little, then tick the Bevel box.
By taking the Fill of this text layer down to zero and the Opacity down to 40 - 60% you will only see the drop shadow and a very slight distortion of the image below due to the Bevel effect. To resize, move, or rotate your new logo, hold down Control and press T to bring up the Transform box around the text. Now you can stretch the logo and distort it in all sorts of ways, plus lower or raise the Opacity to suit each image before clicking Save As and save it as a PSD.
To use this same logo on another image open both images and with the logo image highlighted click on the text layer with the Move tool and drag it over to the new image and only that layer will transfer to a new layer with your new picture. Move this new layer to the top of the layer stack, if it's not there already, and alter the size, opacity etc to suit. Again, the Transform tool can rotate, resize and reposition, plus the Opacity control is right there in the Layers palette.
Did you know that when saving as a Jpeg there is no need to flatten the image first? All the layers automatically merge into one. you complete your Save As and save it as a Jpeg. Then, once it's saved, all the layers seperate again so you can do more work on the image before saving it as another Jpeg. Very useful for building AV's where an image needs to progressively change. There's an example of this type of AV here. This AV is zipped so it won't be carrying any viruses. You'll have to download and Save As, then it can be scanned with antivirus software before unzipping it. Okay, so it takes a minute or so but the biggest benefit is that these AV's can be viewed full screen, full res, unlike its YouTube competitor. If you want a bit of fun there's another AV here.
This portrait of me was taken by my good friend Trevor Kirk. I'm holding a Vivitar 285HV at arm's length in my left hand and a 24" inch Lastolite white reflector in my right-hand about 12 inches away. The background was bright sunlight but reduced by taking the shutter speed up to 1/250th of a second- the aperture was f8 and the flash on 1/16th power - ISO 100.

A short lighting stand for about £3. Not everyone has a set of pipe-benders but there's not many plumbers who would refuse to knock this little gadget up for you for the price of a pint.
About one metre of 15mm copper pipe is all you need. The straight brass union is so I can add a much longer piece instead of that six inch stump making a normal hieght lighting stand for less than £5.
The swivel head costs £14 from Hong Kong.

A camera radio remote trigger for £14. What!!!
Okay, so it started life as a mere flash trigger from Hong Kong. I took a 'Cheapo' PT-04 TM flash trigger and soldered a mini-jack socket onto the side of the receiver. Steady now, this does effect any warranty!
Drilling a hole in the side involved being careful not to harm the interior circuits, same too with the soldering iron - don't leave it too long in contact with the board connections while tacking on the two extra wires linking new mini-jack socket to the original pair of wires going to the hotshoe.
There was a length of cable with a mini-jack plug on one end in a box of junk under the stairs amounting to about 5 metres long, pity it wasn't longer, but hey it was free! The reason I wanted it fairly long was that I can also use this same gadget as a hand operated remote via an ancient slide projector handset, (see last photo). This too needed the addition of a mini-jack socket.
With a small iron I soldered a second mini-jack, from Maplins, to the bare end of the cable and plugged it into the remote socket on the side of my Canon 400D. I have to admit that the very first time I did this with fingers crossed.
Now, with the wireless trigger receiver and camera linked, I can fire my shutter from around fifty metres. First press focuses the lens and second press fires the shutter. Exactly the same happens with the altered projector handset, focus, fire.
The second image here shows a polycarbonate base into which I screwed a 1/4" inch UNC (tripod thread). This gadget is not shown in it's best role which is as an ultra short free-standing hotshoe flashgun support.
Price of these gadgets:- polycarbonate from a glazing merchant costs £1, tripod head from Jessops at £12, mini-jack socket £3, cable freeby, Radio trigger £14 plus postage at another £6.

Making and using a DIY colour balance card is not as hard as you might think.
These is no reason why you cannot use a colour balance card you've made yourself in Photoshop. Come to think of it why not use this one? Simply copy, paste and then print.
I wanted two products in one, a quick and positive custom white balance checker, plus an exposure indicator. It was because of the later that I went for 50% grey instead of the traditional 18% grey.
Dividing the image into four I filled each rectangle with black @ 0, the shiney white @ 255, the matt white @ 225, and the grey @ 126.
Let's deal with the exposure side of things first. Take a photo of the balance card, bring up the image along with a histogram and see whether you have one peak on the left, the black - two peaks on the right, the two whites - and one peak in the centre, the grey. If all the peaks are off centre towards the left it's under exposed, if they're off to the right it's over exposed.
Okay, so you have an image which appears well exposed. Now go to the menu on your camera and find the Custom White Balance setting, press Okay, (or Set on some cameras), and the last image you took, the colour balance card, should come up on the screen.
Chances are this image will be looking a little off colour like this yellowish one above, which is the result of using a daylight setting under tungsten lights.
At this point my Canon 400D displays a 'Custom' icon in the top left-hand corner of the screen with the word 'Set' beside it. Press the Set button and an orange warning notice will flash up saying 'Set WB to Custom'.
Now press either the Menu button or half press the shutter button before changing the 'AWB' to 'Custom White Balance'. If you're like me you'll now take another picture of the balance card so you can double check the results, which should resemble the next correctly balanced image below.
Even if you turn off or change the camera battery this custom setting will remain valid, but only for as long as the lighting remains unchanged.
If the sun goes in, or the hour gets late and it's well into sunset, or you move from open shade to an area where overhanging trees create a different coloured shade, then you'll need to set up the custom colour balance all over again, although it doesn't take any more than a couple of minutes.
In an effort to keep my camera bag tidy I've printed off the last image here and cut the print into strips of two, just to keep them clean.
This idea has kept me on the straight and narrow for over a year now, all I have to do is remember it's in my bag, and that I need to set the white balance onto Custom after I put my card away.
Happy button pressing from Keith.

A flash bounce card for nothing!! A full on flash gives harsh shadows which to say the least appears unflattering in any portrait. This is where a flash bounce card can come in handy and if you can make up one for nothing then there's something left over for a graduated filter, or better still, a second flash, or maybe a faster memory card.
Most milk cartons are translucent plastic and you'll loss a fair bit of reflected light, but a Cravendale milk carton is virtually a solid, photographic, white and won't upset your daylight colour balance. Okay, so you're probably still on auto white balance, we'll discover how to control that in an upcoming post.
The part of a recycled 4 litre milk carton opposite the handle makes a superb reflector, is easy to fold, retains is shape and tucks neatly into a camera bag while still attached to the flash head with a rubber band. In use it wraps the flash around a plant giving an amazing backlighting effect. A typical exposure would be around f11 at 1/16th flash power, plus 1/200th of a second to make the background really dark, or as low as 1/30th yet still not need a tripod. In the photo you can see the stability benefits of those slivers of wood glued to my Vivitar 258hv. Just discovered this link where these fantastic gun are still available and although the quality did drop for a while they are now much more reliable. Another gun worth looking at is the LP120 from the same suppliers.
Did you know that 'For Sale' signs are made of Corex board? These are extremely useful to us strobists as flash lighting modifier grids. When you want only a small part of the scene to be lit by your hotshoe flashgun you could use a snoot. An early DIY snoot for me consisted of a piece of white mountboard folded into a retangular tube which restricted the output to a small pool of light. The trouble was this twelve inch monster took up a lot of room in my camera bag.
A month later I discovered an alternative, a grid! Creating my first grid took an hour of cutting out strips of Corex board about three inches by half an inch and sticking them together with double sided tap, then trimming the whole thing until it slots into the reccess of my Vivitar flash window.
What happens now is the light has to travel down lots of tiny square tunnels, okay, so these tunnels are only half an inch long, but they do tend to do a very similar job to a twelve inch snoot without the space consuming size.
I didn't really go around cutting bits off the edge of 'For Sale' signs, mine came from a local recycle center for the princely sum of 10 pence, which was for enough to make fifty grids!
Flash photography needn't be expensive. This little second gun setup cost just £30 plus a bit of imagination. The old flashgun was registering 84 volts, far too high for my digital camera which should only be handling 6 volts and under.
Radio triggers are also vulnerable, although the voltage limits are slightly higher, hence I'm still use a tiny slave unit from the 1970's costing £5 new on my second gun. A modern slave is not much more expensive now, according to this website, so I'll be treating myself someday soon.
The short sync lead at just 30 pence consists of a mini-jack plug soldered to an oldfashioned pc sync connector and even this DIY adaption harks back to the 1980's.
The plastic mechanism of three of my old Photax lighting stands are now held together courtesy of pieces cut from a wire coathanger holding the legs in place, these robust old stands cost all of £19 each 25 years ago but were worth it, although without the wire repairs they would probably have been scrapped a fair while ago.
£1 for a DIY plastic flash bracket complete with swivel and a brolly shaft hole was a bargain and has served me well since 1976. However, the modern equivalent, a Lastilite Tilthead Adaptor costs £16 plus postage from Warehouse Express and is far superior.

Why are there bits of wood glued to my Vivitar flashgun?
And what's with the elastic band? I wanted to fit a DIY reflector to my 285hv, but it kept falling off due the flashhead design. Three slivers of wood, a tube of Araldite Rapid and the area which supports any sort of reflector is increased.



Take a piece of white mount board and cut out your reflector with a pair of scissors, then fold it as per the image here. I have tried sticky tape to attach it to my gun but it soon became messy, hence the elastic-band plus a small blob of BlueTac between the base of my home made bouncer and the rearmost strip of wood reduces any movement.

The softening of my flash photos came out so well that I made a much stronger reflector out of a ten litre emulsion paint bucket lid. But, as this over engineered item refuses to fold into my camera bag comfortably I keep it for studio use and I now use a far more flexible portion of white milk carton for on location shoots. A section cut from a four litre Cravendale seems to be a good size and folds neatlyinside my camera bag while still attached to the flashgun.

There is something else glued to my Vivitar flash head, a small block of plastic which is sort of hotshoe shaped. A flash used together with a radio trigger receiver means the flash tube is positioned about 200mm above the stem of a shoot-through brolly - result - poor coverage.
The plastic plate fits beautifully into the hotshoe lighting adapter I bought from Hong Kong for £16. When the box arrived it also included a free 450mm diameter shoot-through brolly. Of course with such a small brolly the flash head peeped over the edge once the trigger was attached.
The last image here shows a temporary strip of Velcro holding the brolly stem in close to the flash tube, it was the only way I could use the flexible adapter without a more permanent solution.
After this experiment I made the flash shoe plate and glued it on to the top of my Vivitar. Now I can use the flexible adapter with its brolly shaft hole and keep the flash head really close so I get full coverage of the brolly, yet still retain the radio trigger function. Must get round to Aralditing hotshoe plates to all my other guns at somepoint.
This hotshoe to lighting stand adapter will fit most lighting stands, or a tripod screw thread, or it'll fit onto a piece of 15mm copper pipe bent to form a really short lighting stand, (ideal for illuminating backgrounds). The hole for a brolly shaft, (in pink), is set at a slight angle enabling the flash to reach maximum coverage of the reflective material.
There's also a thumb-turn flexible joint so your flash brolly can be altered to a wide variety of angles. The £14 radio trigger receiver is indicated in blue and the swivel joint of this superb hotshoe flash to lighting stand adapter is indicated in yellow.

Make a reflector from a Walkers crisp packet.
A small reflector which fits most camera bags can be modified from a Walkers crisp packet. Turn it inside out and simply put your hand inside to bounce light back into the face for a portrait shot like this one taken by my friend Dave Thomas. Dave is new to strobists methods but he's keen to learn and emailed me these two shots taken during a field trip with MidSomerset camera club.
My crisp packet has the lid of a margarine container inside to stiffen it. Okay, so it could be larger, like for instance using a family sized crisp packet, but I just happened to have the smaller one in my pocket.
Holding a flashgun at arms length is pretty standard for me and is something I've done for 30 years, even before I took up cave photography. Look on it as being similar to using a fog light to increase the 3D effect and give more texture. It probably stems from not having a hotshoe on one of my cameras as a youngster. Yes, I've been involved with photography since 1964!
I'm holding a Vivitar 285HV in these shots which is set on 1/16th flash power resulting in an aperture of f11.
To make the sky appear darker than it actually was Dave increased the shutter speed to 1/200th of a second and kept the ISO at 100. He could have used a speed of 1/30th and still got an acceptable shot and although the sky would then be a lot lighter it would still result in a good picture with my face being expose exactly like is is at 1/200th.
Some club members are finding it difficult to grasp the techniques involved with using a flashgun when there is also available light present, whether it's daylight or tungsten floodlighting. The main thing to remember is that your shutter speed controls the available light - while the aperture controls the flash intensity.
In all other lighting situations if you lower the shutter speed it is necessary to increase the aperture - as if the two controls are holding hands. However, bring a flash into the equation, along with a secondary source of illumination, and the two are free to lead completely separate lives, leaving you in total control!!
Aperture = flash control.
Shutter speed = daylight control.
And don't forget that although manual settings over-rule these two obvious settings, do make sure your camera hasn't accidentally gne into Auto ISO settings, which will spoil everything you're trying to achieve.