Gaffer Tape: Never Leave Home Without It

For those that don’t know, gaffer tape is in pretty much every working photographers bag. It’s to a photographer what duct tape is to a handy man. In fact, it’s so versatile, that I’ve used it to:

  • Mark spots for my floor remote
  • Keep my prefocused remote lens properly focused
  • Keep the eyepiece on my cameras (because the Canon eyepiece is 20 bucks!)
  • Temporarily mend a rip in my cargo pants (a big one)
  • Taped over my IS and other controls on larger lenses, it prevents me from accidentally switching on or off something
  • Keep my cameras LCD screen from being scratched while in my bag (just put a piece right over the LCD)

Gaffer isn’t perfect though. It’s not cheap, not compared to duct tape. At 20 to 30 dollars a roll, it can get pricey if you go through a lot of it. And worst yet, the big rolls are bulky and inconvenient to take with you. Some stores offer mini rolls of gaffer, that are great to pocket or toss in a bag, but those are 10 dollars or more a roll, and only about a couple of yards worth of tape. I can go through that in one outing. Wouldn’t it be great if we could make our own small roll from the larger roll, so that it’s both convenient and inexpensive?

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Tags: equipment by PShizzy
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I Heart Photoshop Actions

I have a pet peeve: I hate doing small tasks repetitively. I’ll spend an hour figuring out how to automate something rather than just sit down and do it, even if it would have only taken half an hour to do it the long way. Even knowing this, I’ll still spend the hour to figure out the most efficient way to do something. Why?

Because the very next time I have to do a similar task, I can automate it! We all do this, though in different aspects of our lives, and for different reasons. A good example of this is Bill Pay. We all have the same bills to pay each month, so rather than sit down once or twice a month to write out checks, and plan a visit to the post office, we automate it through our bank accounts, saving us time. So why not apply this thinking to Photoshop? [Read more →]

Tags: photoshop by PShizzy
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