Long long ago, Black-and-White ruled the Earth.

Frosty white highlights frolicked with rich black shadows in the Meadows of Grayscale, and it was good.

Then came Digital, whose dingy whites and muddy grays nearly drove Black-and-White to extinction.

But now, like wild-eyed scientists cloning a mammoth, we’ve found the best ways to convert digital color photos into the REAL honest-to-goodness-that-looks-like-Ansel-Adams-took-it Black-and-White. NOT the pale washwater grays and off-white whites you get with “Convert to grayscale”. And we’re going to show you how.

Converting Digital Color Photos to Glorious Black-and-White

Extra photos for bloggers: 1, 2

Survival scenario #117:
You’re trapped in a grocery store. Zombies are closing in from all sides. You have a crucial photo that could end the carnage, if only you had some way to develop the film.

What do you do?

You grab some instant coffee and vitamin C, you develop the film, and you vanquish the zombies.

What, you don’t think we’re serious?
First of all, zombies are an inevitable part of life.
And secondly, you really can develop film using vitamin C and coffee. For reals.

Read on, and we’ll show you everything you need to know. Quick, before the zombies regroup!

How to Develop Film with Coffee and Vitamin C
via Found Photography

Depth perception: wonder of evolution, miracle of sensory perception, and envy of the cyclops.

It’s one of those things you wouldn’t miss until it’s gone, like toes, toothpaste, and trees. That’s why 3D photos amaze us: they remind us about this incredible superpower we had totally forgotten we had.

But it gets even better! 3D photography is surprisingly easy to do on your own and doesn’t even require special glasses. We’ll show you how to make your own 3D camera for less than $15 and enter the fabulous world of the 3rd Dimension.

Make Your Own 3D Camera for $15 or Less

p.s. Put yourself on an Obama poster (just in time for the Inauguration)!

First, the good news:

If you have a point & shoot or a film camera, keep it clean and dust specks will never plague you.

And now the bad news: digital SLR sensors are magnets for dust.

Cleaning a digital sensor is nerve-wracking and risky, with enough methods, products, and gimmicks on the market to flummox a rocket scientist.

And that, dear friends, is why you have Photojojo.

We’re breaking it down right now: what works, what doesn’t, and whether the annoyance of having dust spots is worth the trouble of cleaning them. Let’s roll.

Sensor Dust Is Evil And Here’s How to Banish It.

Photo credit: sgoralnick.

We love Josh Poehlein’s photography portfolios, “Unstill Lives,” and “Ghosts” because they don’t show us everything.

Wait, what? Sure, photography’s all about revelation. But sometimes the best photographs are of the things you can’t see.

Poehlein takes this one step further by taking one step back. Let us explain: he scratches off the emulsion from his prints in order to add another image, often of what you’d imagine would be in the photo but isn’t. A stream of water from a dry showerhead, birds in an empty nest, a giant boat in the distance of a still lake.

The results are even more awesome if you can draw. Which we can’t. Still, we had fun making our own scratch-n-see works of art. And they turned out pretty great, if a little amateur next to Poehlein’s genius. (That’s our monster on Coit Tower, in case you couldn’t tell by the, ahem, difference in skill.)

Scratch-N-See: Vandalize Your Photos in the Name of Art!

(via Taylor McKnight)

Extra photos for bloggers: 1, 2

We’ve always been jealous of Superman’s x-ray vision, and we’ve finally decided to do something about it.

It doesn’t involve Kryptonite, nor an alliance with Lex Luther, but rather a bit of old-fashioned x-ray photography.

Sure, x-rays are dangerous, but they don’t call us PhotoDANGERjojo for nothing. Read on for a couple ways we’ve found to reveal the secrets of high-heeled shoes (nails and steel rods), hairdryers (frighteningly complex systems of wires, coils, and plastic) and more!

(BTW, don’t think you’ll be able to detect the color of your sweetheart’s undies like Superman once did. X-rays don’t pick up color, buddy.)

Photojojo’s X-Ray Photography at Home

See also: Nick Veasey’s x-ray photography. His bulldozer x-ray above combines over 500 individual x-ray images, and his portfolio is stunning.

Remember the first time you flew in a plane and looked down to discover people had become ants, cars had become toys, and swimming pools, mere puddles?

We still love the view from up high, so it’s no wonder we’re smitten with Kite Aerial Photography (”KAP”, for those in the know).

The concept is simple: rig a camera to a kite, wait for some wind, let ‘er rip. The results — like DIY satellite photography. Check out the tops of tall buildings, spy on your neighbor’s backyard, or capture the abstract beauty of a lake from above.

Scott Haefner’s KAP site is something of a bible for the sport, chock-full of how-to instructions and sample photos.

Check out some of the pics (more here), and panoramas, then hit up Scott’s site to get started!

Scott Haefner’s Kite Photography
See also: tilt-shift photography

Extra photos for bloggers: 1, 2

It’s guest time here at Photojojo!

Please give a rousing Photojojo welcome to… all the way from Rochester, New York… our buddies from Kodak!

Photojojo: Hi Kodak, welcome to the show. And what do you have for us today?

Kodak: Well Photojojo, we’ve got a DIY bookmark you can make from your photos! When it’s done, it looks like you’ve got a person sticking out of your book.

Photojojo: Wow, okay, that sounds cool.

Kodak: Also, it has magnets.

Photojojo: AWESOME! We are so in!

So, without further ado, let’s…

Make A Magnetic Photo Bookmark

p.s. Wanna help out with the Photojojo Book? Send us your picture by July 18th and we might put you in the book! Click here to see what kinds of pictures we need.

Until recently, if someone said the word “sharpening” to us, we’d whimper and hide under the table.

We mean, what the #$% is a threshold anyway?

Well, we finally got fed up with it, so we did some research. And you know what? Sharpening’s actually not that bad, and it makes a HUGE difference on digital images.*

Here’s our no-nonsense, jargon-free guide to sharpening your photos using Unsharp Mask. It’ll change your life. We promise.

*If you’re printing directly from film, feel free to be smug at this time. You don’t need to sharpen a darn thing.

Photojojo’s No-Nonsense, Jargon-Free Guide to Sharpening with Unsharp Mask

p.s. Hey San Francisco! Wanna help us out with the Photojojo Book? We need people to photograph and places to photograph them in. Check out our wishlist! We’ll make ya book-famous, baby!

We’ve seen our fair share of Photoshop tutorials, but when we came across this series of videos titled “You Suck at Photoshop”, we knew we were in for something different.

Join Donnie as he clone stamps self-deprecating snark while his wife airbrushes away his self-esteem. This spoof is worthy of SNL.

And be warned, though the intent is to amuse, you’re likely to pick up a Photoshop tip or two along the way.

(A real) ** Warning ** Some parts of Donnie’s tutorials may offend those with more refined sensibilities. If that could include you, please, don’t click through.

UPDATE: Now includes Donnie’s 11th episode!