tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11181112505500642882024-03-18T15:29:56.284-04:00The Kayview GalleryA discussion of Photography, Photoshop, Techniques and ThoughtsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.comBlogger575125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-73910532003336106842015-12-17T07:59:00.000-05:002015-12-17T07:59:20.679-05:00Getting Depth And Dimension Using Lightroom's Adjustment Brush<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zR1fzhKeY_k/VnKlWM-aOMI/AAAAAAAACm8/ZlXvIkvbp6M/s1600/Burnt-knot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zR1fzhKeY_k/VnKlWM-aOMI/AAAAAAAACm8/ZlXvIkvbp6M/s400/Burnt-knot.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The first thing I'd like to do is thank Steve over at Photoshop: Senior Edition for picking up the posts here on the Gallery, giving proper credit and passing along the info. I got a kick out of the video he did exploring adding a Luminosity Adjustment Layer to images in order to fine tune the colors. Thanks Steve. Let's get together to discuss how we can add benefit to both blogs. BTW: <a href="http://photoshopsenior.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: orange;">Photoshop: Senior Edition</span></a> can be found by clicking this link.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Now, about today's image. Basically it's a shot of a knot in a piece of sawn barn board. It's a plain old flat chunk of wood. The depth from the high spot to the lowest spot is probably no more than a sixteenth of an inch, but notice how it appears to come forward in the image and drop off on a completely different plane. All images taken in a RAW space are pretty much flat. A little interest can be added using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom's (LR) Highlights, Shadows and Contrast sliders, but it is kind of limited. Back in the days of film and darkrooms people made print after print Dodging and Burning small areas to either bring the area forward of push it back in the print. We "should be" doing the same thing today, but we don't have to blow several sheets of expensive photographic paper to see our progress. To find out how to using LR's Adjustment Brush to Dodge and Burn, hit the "Read More"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The Adjustment Brush can be used as a hammer or as a feather. The former is great for changing the look of a sky, or darkening (or lightening) a large portion of an image. The latter for sculpting pieces of an image. If you flip back a few post you'll see images with very well defined shadows and highlights. I use the technique we're discussing today on things like clothing to emphasize the folds of the fabric a lot. In today's image the "folds of the clothes" relate to the texture of the wood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The big deal with getting depth and dimension is putting light next to a shadow. The lighter area appears to come forward and the shadow area seems to recede. In today's image the natural contours of the wood were followed. The darks were made darker and the lights made lighter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">In past posts I've talked about how to do this same thing using two Curves Adjustment Layers in Adobe Photoshop (PS). There you take a fine (I use about ten pixels), relatively hard (about 95%) Brush and draw in lines everywhere I need (or want) a shadow. First exaggerate the curves (bring up the right quarter of the lights and down the left quarter of the darks. Then you make the Adjustment Layer Mask Black and paint the lines with white. You won't get white, but will see a shade of the tone you lay down the line on. Darker areas will show up dark and lighter areas not as dark. Once you define all your lines you'd blur the Mask until the physical line disappears and become shades. (Usually between a ten and twenty pixel blur)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">But, unless you're doing (or have done) something more that required going to PS, why bother. The same effect can be achieved in LR. Make the Adjustment Brush a reasonable size for the areas you'll be working on. It doesn't have to be close or anything because LR will pickup on the color you put the cursor on and not bother the surrounding colors. I've used a Brush about ten times the size of the line I wanted to darken (or lighten) and LR has tracked only the line. Let the Brush have a reasonable feather (but this, again, can be changed afterwards) and "paint" away. You need to drop one Pin for the Highlights and one for the Shadows. In the dropdown for the Adjustment Brush, set one to Burn (darken) and one to Dodge. Adjust as needed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">So, add depth and dimension to your images to make the viewer's eye follow the path you want them to take through your image. Make them "read" your image they way you intended.</span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-21446970062062101792015-11-21T09:40:00.000-05:002015-11-21T09:40:04.520-05:00Adding Dramah With Photoshop Blend Modes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GDAUF4_tDZs/VlB5u5ozOcI/AAAAAAAACmk/N9jn8LZAzOM/s1600/Egg-Rock-Light.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GDAUF4_tDZs/VlB5u5ozOcI/AAAAAAAACmk/N9jn8LZAzOM/s400/Egg-Rock-Light.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">First, I know. Drama is misspelled in the title, but there's a reason. The shot is of Egg Rock Light in Frenchman's Bay Maine. And "Mainer's" from down east put an upward tick of "ah" on almost any word ending a sentence. That's my justification and I'm sticking to it. The "big question" posed by today's image is "how many shots does it take to make a dramatic image?" Well in this case the answer would be three and it might not be the three you might think. I'm kind of notorious for replacing uninteresting skies, but that "ain't" it. That's the sky that was there when we were there. It's not the lighthouse 'cause that's what I was taking a picture of. There's a saying about once you rule everything else out the answer must be what's left, no matter how improbable that might be. What's left, in this case, is the waves. To find out how they got there, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The waves come from not too far from the main image. A woman on the tour boat we were on would probably swear the water was a rough as it looks in today's image. She claimed to have gotten seasick on the tour. The boat was gently rocking so she must have had a very delicate stomach (or an extra glass of wine at lunch). On the other hand (you have five fingers) the surf was crashing a little better around the bend in slightly more open water. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Another aspect of moving the waves around the corner and a little to the east was the fact that the rocks the surf were "crashing" on were in shade. That rendered the rocks in reasonably sharp contrast to the white splash on the breakers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The first issue was "developing" the three images in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR). I was shooting in RAW. In doing that I was assured that any image being used had to be "developed". After that the images were selected (CTRL clicking on each image) and sent over to Adobe Photoshop (PS) (Photo/Edit In/Open as Layers in Photoshop).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Once in PS as Layers with the extra waves Layers above the base Layer (the lighthouse) it's a simple matter of switching the Blend Mode(s) to Lighten. That drops out everything that's <u>not</u> lighter than the surrounding area. In this case that's everything but the water. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There were a couple small spots where the clouds in the sky were lighter that the waves, so a Layer Mask was added and the offending spots removed. While I was at it there were a couple of water drops that looked a little unnatural (too high in the sky) so they were also removed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Something like today's image is a easy "trick" if you know how Blend Modes work. It's a good thing to play with the Blend Modes and see how they interact with your images.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-18366210205070557312015-11-02T11:32:00.000-05:002015-11-02T11:32:56.601-05:00Taming The Sun Using Lightroom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cbNO_5WRjxk/VjeGuEXl93I/AAAAAAAACmM/-wYsZ-fO5TM/s1600/Happy-Horseman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cbNO_5WRjxk/VjeGuEXl93I/AAAAAAAACmM/-wYsZ-fO5TM/s400/Happy-Horseman.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. (Hmmm, pretty catchy. Someone ought to use that as the opening line of a book or something.) Anyway, I was out shooting with some friends on Saturday. One of the group had arranged for us to go to a horse farm here in Connecticut. As far as the day goes (end of October) you couldn't ask for a better day to be outside in the fresh air. As far as shooting goes, yuck! Brilliant blue skies with the sun shining down mightily. The only way (for me) was to shoot for the shadows and bring the hot areas back in post processing. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">To find out what else went on, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Today's image is an example of using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR) to control brightness. Typically I shoot 2/3 of a stop to the light side. I just set the Exposure Value (EV) setting to </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">+.7. For those nerdy enough to care, that gives me a histogram that almost kisses the right hand edge of the graph. In LR that means the Whites Slider usually moves less than ten points before showing up as being blown out. In today's image it was about two points before hitting maximum. From there I bring the slider down ten to twenty points. In today's case that meant setting the White Point at minus eight. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Once the White Point was set it was moving the rest of the control sliders to taste. That still left several very hot (but not blown out) spots that needed to be addressed. The cowboy's left shoulder and hand, his hat and the trees in the background had to be treated independently.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The adjustments were all basically the same. Use the Adjustment Brush to isolate the specific area and reduce the Exposure Slider to match the area being treated. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The left shoulder to match the rest of his shirt. His left hand to become an area of bright skin. Same tone, just looking like it's out in the sunlight. His hat, toned down to the color of the hat. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In each case the Adjustment Brush was made as oversize compared to the area being worked on. Not completely covering the area, but large enough so the outer circle of the brush didn't fit totally in the area. The feathering of the brush was larger than normal so the flow of the modification didn't end suddenly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The trees were taken care of using the Radial Filter. The addition of the Brush attribute to the Radial Filter (and Gradient Filter) is a great boon in placing the effect you're using and controlling the edges. In today's image, the Radial Filter brought down the heat of the trees and the Brush (in the erase mode) removed any sign for what was going on behind the cowboy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Shooting in harsh shadows is always a pain in the butt, but it can be handled effectively in LR.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-68114309627080338522015-10-28T08:01:00.000-04:002015-10-28T08:01:20.060-04:00Using Photoshop Luminosity Blend Modes To Control Color<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WG_VtgP1xoo/VjClsxlTYJI/AAAAAAAACl0/tPxu0KC7Hb4/s1600/N_Tom-Peterson_Baxter-In-The-Fall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WG_VtgP1xoo/VjClsxlTYJI/AAAAAAAACl0/tPxu0KC7Hb4/s400/N_Tom-Peterson_Baxter-In-The-Fall.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Where have we been lately? There's been no posts in almost a month (give or take). Well, for most of that time I've just been lazy, but for ten days we were running around the great state of Maine. It helps to have friends. Doris has reconnected with someone we went to high school (a long time ago) with. She just happens to have a house in Maine, on the ocean, with a direct view of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. For the second year she's just tossed us the key to the front door and said "go have fun". We did. We spent seven days at her beautiful place. (Thanks J.) We've been going to Maine every October for at least the past ten years and before that we'd go at other times of the year. There's been two "bucket list" targets in Maine for a while now. One was shooting West Quoddy Head Lighthouse and the other checking out (and shooting) Baxter State Park. Got to do both this year and I'm guessing you can tell today's image is not from the lighthouse. To see how the colors were drawn out of today's image, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As usual, 90% of the development of today's image was done in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR). It just needed a touch more "sparkle" (??). I would say I could have taken it the rest of the way in LR, but saw a video on Youtube about using Adobe Photoshop (PS) Luminosity Blend Mode to have almost infinite control over the colors in an image.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The big three Blend Modes in PS are Multiply, Screen and Soft Light. But, there's about a dozen Blend Modes available and, for the most part, go unused. Whenever I see a new (to me) use for one of the more esoteric Blend Modes I have to try it out just to see how it works and put it in my quiver of arrows to be able to pull it out when needed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I "always" open images out of LR into PS as Smart Objects. Unless I need to open a set of images for panos or HDRs or as Layers (that's why the "always" was in quotes.) Once in PS as a Smart Object I made a copy of the Smart Object (not a duplicate, a copy) (Layer/Smart Objects/New Smart Object Via Copy). I then applied a Black & White Adjustment Layer (Layer/New Adjustment Layer/Black &White). That Adjustment Layer was then clipped to the Smart Object Copy. (Hold down the Alt Key and click between the Layer and the Adjustment Layer to "clip" the Adj Layer to the Layer below.) By "clipping" the Adj Layer to the Layer below, any changes made in the Adj Layer will only effect the information in the Layer it's "clipped" to. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Then I changed the Blend Mode to Luminosity. (The Blend Mode dropdown is located in the Layers Panel just above the word Lock.) The dialog box for the B&W Adj Layer has access to all the usual suspects as far as color goes. (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Aqua, Blue, Purple, and Magenta.) Moving the sliders for each color changes the strength of whatever's in the image with that color. i.e. Green leaves, trees, grass, bushes, etc. are made up of both Yellow and Green, so both sliders affect any of those objects. Most red "things" have a little Orange to them, so playing with those two sliders control (along with a little Yellow) the warm tones. In an image like today's the Purple and Magenta play (again) "almost" no role. A very slight increase in the vibrancy of the stream in the lower right corner was the only visible evidence of anything going on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So, just another method of controlling the colors of your images. Is it for every image? No, but it's another tool.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Fofs0zdYENA/VhQfYyYUnSI/AAAAAAAACk4/QQDfh-WTOzE/s1600/Indian-Dancer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Fofs0zdYENA/VhQfYyYUnSI/AAAAAAAACk4/QQDfh-WTOzE/s320/Indian-Dancer.jpg" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">I'm reasonably good at making Masks. I use Adobe Photoshop's (PS) Quick Selection Tool (W) and Topaz Labs' Remask and PS's Calculations. Whatever is the best tool for the task at hand. But, sometimes things slip through the cracks or are too much trouble to bother with. Take a look at today's image. There's a lot of fringe down at the bottom of the dancer's regalia. The background was a mess. People standing around, other dancers, banners, tents, evergreen boughs, speakers, and all sorts of other "stuff". The fringe wasn't a big problem to extract. The big deal was tiny tips of the feathers and pom-pom in the headdress. To find out what the solution was (at least the solution I used) to "getting" the detail, hit the "Read More".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Ever heard of a fellow by the name of Glyn Dewis? If not, maybe you'd want to Google him (or hit him up on YouTube). He's a good photographer and an excellent retoucher/crafter of images, from England. (He's from England, not necessarily his images.) He has a book out called "The Photoshop Workbook". One of the things he discusses is exactly what's going on in today's image. There'a a Brush (B) in PS that does magic to fixing fine details. The image he shows is a mouse. Rather than trying to get every hair on the mouse's back, he "builds" his own. Rather than buying his book (er, I mean in addition to buying his book) you can find <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n56T_TgY3ls">his YouTube video here</a> showing how he uses a standard PS Brush (brush # 112) to create/replace missing mouse hair.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Well, if you can use it for a mouse, then you can use it for the tips of a feathered headdress. Same principle. Pick the foreground and background colors that match up fairly well with what you're trying to fill in and have at it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Use the Brush Engine to spread out the Spacing and create some Jitter. Vary the size and be sure to match the angle you need the whatever (hair, fur, feather tips, etc.) to appear as and, using a Layer under (and another over), blend in the faux hair. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">If you were to do a persons hair and the hair was close cropped (by the barber), keep the replacement hair short. Using a large Brush would look unnatural. The big thing if you're trying to do something like this is to be gentle. If you go ape sh** it'll just look stupid.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Subtle, gentle, easy, delicate, whatever it takes to say treading lightly is the way to go using this sort of technique.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-81435408851150650542015-10-02T10:01:00.000-04:002015-10-02T10:02:40.769-04:00Scott Kelby's World Wide Photowalk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iz2rcX9W1qg/Vg6Hwu3t6pI/AAAAAAAACkU/TkUKlj0oDxk/s1600/TJP_9527-Edit-Edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iz2rcX9W1qg/Vg6Hwu3t6pI/AAAAAAAACkU/TkUKlj0oDxk/s400/TJP_9527-Edit-Edit.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Well, it's that time of the year again. Time for Scott Kelby's World Wide Photowalk. I've participated in each year's walk. Six as a walk leader (this will be the seventh) and last year we were attendees in two walks while we were in Maine. One in the morning in Acadia National Park and an evening walk around Boothbay Harbor. You can see the result of both places in one image if you look back through about a year's worth of posts. This year I'm back to leading a walk. A group that has been fairly faithful walkers asked me why I wasn't leading a walk last year and encouraged me to resume this year. They've traveled a fair distance to be walkers, but I guess this year I pushed it too far. Just in case you're curious and don't recognize the skyline in today's image, find out where our walk is this year by hitting the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">This year's walk will be at Great River Park in East Hartford Connecticut. It's a "great" little linear park on the east bank of the Connecticut River. The bridge in today's image is the central point in the park. Here we're to the south of the bridge and the photo opportunities range from about where this shot was taken to three or four soccer pitches (in distance) to the north of the bridge. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Hartford is known as "The Insurance City" because of the many insurance companies that are either located or started there. From just under the south side of the bridge you have a single shot that encompasses The Phoenix, Hartford Steam Boiler (an insurance company) and Traveler's Tower. Just about centered in today's image is the relatively new Connecticut Science Center and the Hartford Convention Center. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">About a quarter century ago Hartford started cleaning up it's river front. Like most cities it had become a blight on an otherwise nice city. Today, thanks to Riverfront Recapture it's kind of a showplace. In the shadow of the Founder's Bridge (the bridge in the image) is a concert area with a pavilion on the Hartford side. The sloping grass coming down from the street level makes an interesting foil to the glass, steel and brick of the cityscape.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">If anyone in the area reads this post, come and join us for the walk. It'll start at 8:00 AM at 101 East River Road in East Hartford Connecticut. The date is this Saturday, October 3rd, 2015. Hope to see you there.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-21529344275999917502015-09-24T22:08:00.000-04:002015-09-24T22:08:45.913-04:00What Do You Do On A Raining Day With Photoshop Lightroom?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cWWOKDIoejw/VgSj5aSh45I/AAAAAAAACkA/U4MbwLi4lAk/s1600/A_Tom-Peterson_Cosmic-River.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cWWOKDIoejw/VgSj5aSh45I/AAAAAAAACkA/U4MbwLi4lAk/s400/A_Tom-Peterson_Cosmic-River.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">I run into a lot (okay, some) people who are doing what's known as a 365 Project. You can find many examples of such tasks on Flickr or some of the other social photography sites. The trick is to take at least one photo every day for an entire year. It is a good idea to live someplace that has beautiful clouds or sunsets every day, but most people don't live in Shangri-La or other Edenistic locales, Most of us live in the real world. Today's image gives those of us in not so pristine climates a chance to keep the momentum going. It's simple to do and comes up with unique images. I say unique because no two images are ever the same. To learn what this "secret" technique might be, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Have you ever heard the expression "like oil and water"? Oil and water don't mix. A light oil (like olive oil) floats atop water. Grab a macro lens, or a closeup filter (a Canon 500D), or some extension tubes and shoot through an oil and water mix. Today's image is in a Pyrex baking dish sitting atop a cheap photo frame suspended above some colored paper. The "colored paper" can be almost anything. Scraps of paper, a colorful magazine cover, flowers, toys, a fancy shirt, anything. As long as it's colorful you've got a shot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Here's the setup for today's image. Two dining room chairs were placed about 16" apart. The cheap photo frame was placed between the chairs, resting on the lips of the seats. A Pyrex dish was put on the "glass" (actually acrylic plastic) of the photo frame and filled slightly with water. Olive oil was put in on top of the water and stirred around with a finger. Colored paper was put down on the floor in a scattered layered effect. A tripod was suspended above the setup. One trick was that the center post of the tripod was inverted and the quick connect for the camera was pointed down. The camera, with a Nikor Micro lens was mounted about four to six inches above the water level and focused on the water. The paper was lit using a cheap ($30.00) 160 bulb LED continuous light arranged so there was no light spill toward the camera. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">That's the whole setup. Swish the oil around and start shooting. Every shot will be different from the one before. The water and oil are moving, so no two image will ever be the same.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Once the images are brought into Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR) you can go a little crazy with the sliders. There is no right or wrong, so play, play, play.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Will every image be a piece of gold? No, some will look stupid. By taking enough shots you will wind up with a number (large or small) that are "keepers". Once you have a set of interesting images you can use them as is, or as backgrounds or blended Layers, or anything else you can think of. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Next time you have a rainy day (or a lazy day) try it. You'</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">ll be surprised how fast the time goes by.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com49tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-55642780925341400052015-09-15T17:46:00.001-04:002015-09-15T17:46:50.769-04:00One More Way To Deal With Distracting Backgrounds In Photoshop Or Lightroom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rq5ExHSOyxc/VfiFHFcdIeI/AAAAAAAACjs/GamH_04xVUU/s1600/Maywood%2BGardens%2B%252816%2Bof%2B16%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rq5ExHSOyxc/VfiFHFcdIeI/AAAAAAAACjs/GamH_04xVUU/s400/Maywood%2BGardens%2B%252816%2Bof%2B16%2529.jpg" width="381" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Okay, in today's image you can see that "the background" isn't exactly a big distraction. In fact, it isn't. It isn't anything. It was never there. Adobe Photoshop (PS) really had nothing to do with what you're looking at. Just about everyone knows the bane of a photographers existence is a bald sky. That is usually the case. But, in today's image it works to our advantage. The local Garden Conservancy had an "open garden" this past weekend. Naturally we rallied the troops and got some friends out shooting in the garden. It's a beautiful, private garden that is only opened once a year. Proceeds go to the Garden Conservancy, so the few bucks to get in is well spent. To find out "the secret" to today's image, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Today's image is 99% straight out of the camera. I may have put in a little Clarity in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR), hut other than that not much was done (yea, cropping). Doris tends to take at least as many shots using her cell phone (a Samsung S5) as she does with her Nikon. Trying to break her of the habit, I got an inexpensive LED ring light (thank you Cindy for the info) for her to use with her 85mm Nikon Micro. With it, out in the open shade she had enough light to shoot at about 1/160th of a second at F 11. That combo minimized camera movement and gave some good Depth of Field. With it she was off and running, getting a big kick out of making her Nikon take at least as good images as her cell phone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">It also reminded me that I've had a Nikon R1 Wireless Close-up Speedlight System for the past six years and haven't used it that much. Now, for comparison, the Chromo Macro LED Ring Light cost about $30.00 US from Amazon.com. The Nikon R1 Wireless Speedlight System goes for about $500.00 at B&H. The Chromo is a continuous light where as the Nikon R1 is a speedlight system.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Guess what? The results were just about the same. Hmmm, makes you sort of wonder why I had paid the extra $470.00. Probably because the LED ring lights weren't out six years ago.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">I did shoot at 1/200th of a second at F 16, but one stop of light and a little faster shutter wasn't worth the extra money (in my opinion). I could have added four additional Nikon SB200 speedlight for a truer ring light effect, but that would have also added $170.00 each.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">So, the big method of eliminating a distracting background for a shot like today's is to aim the camera at the bald sky and throw some light (either continuous or flash) at the subject and be done with it. No PS or LR magic today.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-44622891740108760562015-09-14T08:19:00.000-04:002015-09-14T08:19:12.662-04:00Using Photoshop To Get Rid Of A Background<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p8BqeoyK1bE/VfazRQWQxrI/AAAAAAAACjY/t9Kvwd-GpKc/s1600/indian%2Bpowwow%2B%25281%2Bof%2B1%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p8BqeoyK1bE/VfazRQWQxrI/AAAAAAAACjY/t9Kvwd-GpKc/s400/indian%2Bpowwow%2B%25281%2Bof%2B1%2529.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">This will be the second post in a row dealing with getting rid of distracting backgrounds. If you haven't seen the other post I'd suggest you might want to <a href="http://kayviewgallery.blogspot.com/2015/09/photoshop-tools-for-eliminating.html"><span style="color: orange;">check it out</span></a>. Today's image goes in the direct opposite direction. Instead of doing all sorts of tricks to hide the background, today's image just plain eliminates "most" of it. The only piece of the background left is the shadow. (Sort of like the Cheshire Cat.) It would have been nice if I'd had the chance to shoot this fellow on a seamless white background and be done with it. Unfortunately, he was in the middle of a dance circle with other dancers and people milling around in the background. It made for an okay snapshot, but nothing to make it "an image". For a couple of ideas about how to get rid of a difficult background, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The first thought is Adobe Photoshop's (PS) Quick Selection Tool (W). There are two primary ways I use this tool. One would be to make a loose selection around the subject using the Lasso Tool (L) and then using the Quick Selection Tool to define either the subject or the waste. I typically pick the one I think will be easier to mark out. The second method is to go straight to the Quick Selection Tool and try for the subject itself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Another way to attack the problem is using a plugin. Topaz Labs Remask comes to mind. The "trick" with Remask is that it has a checkbox in it's settings to either give just the cutout or the cutout with a mask. It seems, by default, Remask comes ready to only give the cutout. I highly recommend checking the box and taking the mask. Without it, once you've left Remask "you got what you got" and can't use mask tricks to adjust included or missing areas. Remask has as steep a learning curve as the Quick Selection Tool, but having both in your quiver (bad pun considering today's image) gives options. Always a good thing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">My "go to" method for tricky selections is typically using PS's Calculations (Edit/Calculations) dialog box. Because today's image had such a variety of shapes, sizes and colors in the background it just didn't work on today's image.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">I've made a series of images like the one you see today. I do believe they could sell as is or be the basis of images like the one in the last post. (link above) I might choose one (or two) to print at 24" x 36" to take with me next time I go to a pow wow. We'll see.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-24774812866996953272015-09-08T07:32:00.000-04:002015-09-08T07:32:10.073-04:00Photoshop Tools For Eliminating Distracting Backgrounds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v976Dgs3tMM/Vecfh8quvbI/AAAAAAAACjA/edILMQcH9OA/s1600/D_Tom-Peterson_The-Fire-Dancer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v976Dgs3tMM/Vecfh8quvbI/AAAAAAAACjA/edILMQcH9OA/s640/D_Tom-Peterson_The-Fire-Dancer.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Any time you're at any kind of festival, what's behind your subject of interest becomes important. If your objective is getting a head shot you probably don't have too much to worry about (if you have a long enough lens). Set your F-stop as low as it will go, focus on the eyes and let the background be totally out of focus. If the plan is to get a full length shot (as in today's image) your problems multiply. Even the fastest glass can only do so much. The things that are conspiring against you are your minimum F-stop number (largest aperture), the distance between you and the subject and the distance between the subject and the background. If you look back a couple of posts you'll see a head shot of a friend. He was about half the distance of today's image away, but the background was about two hundred feet behind him. Therefore, the background was fully out of focus. In what started out as today's image, the fellow was probably sixty feet from me, but the people standing in the background were about sixty feet further back. They were definitely not "in focus", but what they were was still recognizable. That gives a good starting point for a montage. To find out about a few of Adobe Photoshop's (PS) extraction tools, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The things I don't use are any of the Erase (E) tools. They're all destructive and if you make a mistake there's no going back. I also don't use the Pen (P) tools. There are more modern tools and, if necessary, any selection can be converted to a Path and the Pen tools used to adjust individual points along the Path. I find I can typically tell when someone has stopped learning PS by their dependence on the Pen tool.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On the newer side of things is the Quick Selection Tool (W). It's nested under the Magic Wand Tool (hence the W shortcut key). It's very useful for solid objects with well defined edges, It does tend to leave a slight halo around some cutouts. Using the Modify (Select/Modify) action to either Expand or Contract (depending on if it was easier to select the object or the background) the selection by one (maybe two but almost never three) pixel tightens up the edges and reduces any halos. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If the object being selected has a more textured edge the Refine Edge Tool is available using the Quick Selection Tool. It can be used to define irregular edges. It takes some trial and error at first, but working with it more gives better results. The idea is to learn what parameters work best with differing types of edges.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Color Range and Focus Range Tools (Select/Color Range or Focus Range) produce good results if there is enough of a difference between either colors (a red ball against a blue sky) or focus (the head shot mentioned above). The few tools in the dialog box help tighten selections.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If the object to be selected has a lot of internal detail (i.e. a tree against the sky) my go to selection device is the Calculations (Edit/Calculations) dialog box. The first step is to go to the Channels Panel and find the Channel with the most contrast. Use that as a basis for using Calculations. You can find many articles that say you have to make a copy of the Channel you're going to use. I find that a little silly. The output after using Calculations is going to be a new Alpha Channel, so the only thing that happens by making a copy of the original Channel is ending up with a extra copy of a Channel that you'll never use. Sort of like a circular argument.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the Calculations dialog box you can choose which Channels to use, run through all the Blend Modes and find the right combination to produce the best Alpha Channel to use for a Layer Mask. Good stuff.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The last thing to remember is that all Alpha Channels can be tightened up by using the Brush (B) Tool with the Brush Blend Mode (not the Layer Blend Mode) set to Overlay. Since the Alpha Channel is only black and white (no grays), the Brush will only effect total blacks or total whites. It fills in any questionable shades of gray.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-36875826604426519242015-08-31T18:15:00.000-04:002015-08-31T18:15:07.979-04:00Wanna Get Better Images? Stand In Front Of More Interesting Subjects<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F9oXW62CkEQ/VeTHlNaGStI/AAAAAAAACio/BynEs8L5iAc/s1600/Foxwoods%2BPow%2BWow%2B%25285%2Bof%2B8%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F9oXW62CkEQ/VeTHlNaGStI/AAAAAAAACio/BynEs8L5iAc/s400/Foxwoods%2BPow%2BWow%2B%25285%2Bof%2B8%2529.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Okay, it doesn't hurt to stand in front of a beautiful woman with flawless skin. Casual portraits can be had in almost any circumstance. Today's image is of a dancer at an Indian Pow Wow held over the weekend. She was just walking out of the tribal dance circle and was unaware of my taking her picture. (She was, as were all the dancers, aware that the "tourists" were snapping away, but none knew if a camera was pointed at them.) The current plan is to take several images shot over the weekend and make a composite depicting the ceremonial activities of the day. It'll be a fairly complex piece, so it'll take a while before it sees the light of day. There were a couple considerations when the original shots were taken and (so far) minimal post processing done to today's image. To find out what the thought process was, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">First, the day was going from harsh, open, bright sunlight to defuse cloud cover. Based on the lack of big time shadows and highlights I'd say today's image was one of the times the sun was behind a cloud. It sounds somewhat counterintuitive, but I raised the Exposure Value (EV) compensation by 2/3 of a stop. If I had the Highlight warning screen on there would have been "blinkies" all over the place. I've found that what shows up on the LCD screen of the camera isn't always what you'll be working with when shooting RAW. I try to bump the Histogram(s) up right next to the edge of the graph. In Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR) I'll slide the Whites Slider to the right and find an initial solid white point showing up (in many cases) at a value between three and ten. My typical approach is to have the maximum white in an image at about ten points below that first white highlight warning. That gives me detail in the max whites. It also means the max white point is often a negative number.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Shooting to the right of the histogram also insures the max blacks aren't going to start off being blocked up. Trying to pull detail out of a maxed out black is a sure way of introducing noise into the shadows of an image. Starting to the right allows you to introduce the amount of rich black you want in an image. Much better control.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So, to recap:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Stand in front of interesting subjects</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Shoot to the right of the histogram</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Set the white point slightly below stark white</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Set the black point slightly into the max black</span></li>
</ul>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-65007853462936146702015-08-24T12:04:00.000-04:002015-08-24T12:04:34.994-04:00Making Big Things Small With Photoshop Blur Galleries<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v9bL9w6YLaE/Vds5YZkqoxI/AAAAAAAACiQ/GT_Ph0KOknA/s1600/O_Tom-Peterson_Coming-Through-The-Esses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v9bL9w6YLaE/Vds5YZkqoxI/AAAAAAAACiQ/GT_Ph0KOknA/s400/O_Tom-Peterson_Coming-Through-The-Esses.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Every once in a while you'll look through the viewfinder of your camera and see something that really isn't there. That was the case with today's image. We were taking "a shortcut" (not really) home and were on a road that follows the Naugatuck River. It's one of my more favorite routes home. We heard a train whistle blow where there is no regular service, so I knew it had to be one of the New England Railroad Museum's tour trains. If you were to flip back a ways in these posts you'd find a couple shots for trains along this track. I had Doris pull up the museum's schedule (ain't the internet great for such things on the fly). The train had left the station about twenty minutes before, so it had to be on it's downward leg when we heard the whistle. The typical ride is a half hour pushing the cars down the track and pulling them back to the station. The "pulling" stretch is the one to shoot. Figuring a one hour round trip and where the train went under a bridge put the engine coming round the bend about ten minutes to three. As it worked out, it was about nine minutes of when it came into view. As I looked through the viewfinder a model railroad came to mind. To find out how a real train got to looking like a model training, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">First the water on the right needed work. It was up against being blown out, so Adobe Photoshop Lightroom's (LR) Adjustment Brush was used to reduce the exposure on the water. Another Pin was dropped to bring the gravel and rocks around the track down to a more normal level. Since the only green in the shot was foliage, the HSL Panel was opened and the green and yellow sliders moved to the left in the Liminance Panel. That darkened all the foliage at once, eliminating the need to do spot toning. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The train itself got some brightening in the reds of the engine and the greens of the cars received a Temperature shift toward Green with the Tint Slider of the Adjustment Brush. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">It was then over to Adobe Photoshop (PS) for miniaturization. Opened as a Smart Object (Photo/Edit In/Open as a Smart Object in Photoshop) a Tilt/Shift Blur (Filter/Blur/Blur Gallery/Tilt-Shift) was applied. The effect of this filter is to limit the Depth of Field (DoF) by increasing the blur effect in the foreground and background of an image. This leaves only the center strip of the image in sharp focus. The limited DoF is typical of shooting a model train setup. It's an interesting effect and something fun to play with. Give it a try.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-63892592564402488282015-08-17T08:05:00.000-04:002015-08-17T08:05:52.957-04:00Sometimes Photoshop Just Can't Do A Person Justice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nI6ZndxdGwk/VdHEvgJw9_I/AAAAAAAAChw/v4li1jFXT20/s1600/John-Bickle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nI6ZndxdGwk/VdHEvgJw9_I/AAAAAAAAChw/v4li1jFXT20/s400/John-Bickle.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The fellow in today's post is a friend. That's a word I don't take lightly. I have many acquaintances, some I like more than others. But, the term friend has special meaning to me. The guy in today's post is ninety five years old. He lives in the same "active over 55" village we do and is truly "active". His name is John. Early in what he calls another life he was a photographer for Kodak. Kodak doesn't hire bums as their official, shoot the world photographers. At least they didn't. Somewhere, in mid-life, he changed careers. He became what I know him as, a master woodworker. He's still at it. He's the monitor at the village wood shop on Sunday mornings. In the heat of the summer or the frigid air of winter the shop can get pretty lonely for most of the monitors, but not during John's shift. When he's in charge there's always people there to see what he's doing, to learn from him, to enjoy the treasure we have in our midst. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Here's a link to a 1982 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1982/02/21/nyregion/crafts-photographer-finds-wood-is-his-focus.html"><span style="background-color: white; color: orange;">article about John</span></a> from the New York Times. </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-8209672317006202012015-08-11T07:23:00.000-04:002015-08-11T07:23:03.428-04:00Using Photoshop Luminosity Masks When Dealing With Harsh Light<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OukMRqnn6x0/VcnQ0vuyxtI/AAAAAAAAChY/SsxVSLr0BXc/s1600/Civil%2BWar%2BCharacter%2B%252810%2Bof%2B18%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OukMRqnn6x0/VcnQ0vuyxtI/AAAAAAAAChY/SsxVSLr0BXc/s400/Civil%2BWar%2BCharacter%2B%252810%2Bof%2B18%2529.jpg" width="308" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Light doesn't get much harsher than a bright blue cloudless sky. That's what we were up against on Saturday. The next town over from us was hosting a Civil War Reenactment. The subject of today's image was one of the Confederate Volunteers. These folks (men, women and children) come out for the weekend to different locations around the country with the idea of "putting on a show" for the attendees and having a good time for themselves. Some are pretty straight laced. They tend to be the "officers". The "rabble", the "common ruck", the enlisted men and volunteers tend to be much scruffier. That's where the characters are. They're portraying the bone crushing weariness of having endured years of conflict and suffering. The fellow in today's image shows that weariness. But all wasn't peaches and cream as someone trying to get a decent photograph of these guys. With the bald sky and the beating down sun it was almost impossible not to get shots with extremes of highlight and shadow. One saving grace was that both the Union and the Rebel "armies" setup their encampments on the edges of the fields where there was a bit of shade. Today's image was taken as "the Rebel troops" lined up for inspection. Right out in the open sun. To find out what was done in camera and in post processing, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">One of the fortunate things about this fellow was the wide brim hat he was wearing. Basically he brought along his own "open shade". You can see on his hat that there are areas of extreme light. In this case the camera did 90% of the work. The camera software was able to "look" at the scene and figure out the math needed to get a good exposure. I've posted about this before. If you know what the camera will do, great. You make the decisions as to what you want the image to look like and let the computer (the camera) do the math to get you there. I don't see the sense to buying an expensive computer (again, the camera) and using it as you would a shoebox. Just a place to hold the images. I have a friend who shoots nothing but manual. She takes a shot, looks at the screen on the back of the camera, says "nope", plays with the settings and tries again. She might go through a half dozen iterations before she figures out the right exposure. That's not making decisions. That's guessing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Whatever, once the image gets into the computer is where the actual "battle" begins. With the extremes of light it's almost impossible for the camera to nail both ends of the spectrum. What I've been doing lately is shooting at a +.7 EV. By the time the image is in the computer (the actual computer) and in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR) the Histogram is as far to the right as can be made without blowing out the highlights. In LR's Basic Panel the Highlight slider might go to plus ten before the warnings start popping up. I always find the first highlight warning and back off about ten points to insure detail in the extreme highlights. The converse to that is the fact that the Black warnings don't begin to show up until the slider is well down in the negative. That's fine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Once the highlights are as good as they'll get in LR it's time to go over to Adobe Photoshop (PS). Once there one of the first steps is to go to the Channels Panel. Holding the CTRL key down while clicking on the RGB composite results in a Selection of just the highlights. That produces a Luminosity Selection that can be saved as an Alpha Channel and used to create a Highlight Mask when back in the Layers Panel. An Adjustment Layer can be used to tweak the highlights and produce a more subtle highlight area.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Going too far does produce unwanted grays, so a light touch is necessary when taming the highlights. Give it a shot. It helps.</span><br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-23966411236731962362015-08-03T15:48:00.001-04:002015-08-03T15:48:26.909-04:00How I Shoot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Z367rjlWTc/Vb-5q4eMajI/AAAAAAAACg8/NgnHvwScRU0/s1600/Milford-Dirt-Bike-Rider.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Z367rjlWTc/Vb-5q4eMajI/AAAAAAAACg8/NgnHvwScRU0/s400/Milford-Dirt-Bike-Rider.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Never guess from today's image what we did over the weekend would you? Okay, so maybe you would. We (I) heard about this small track in Milford Connecticut where a group of guys get together (apparently mostly informally) to play in the dirt. I took a look at their website and saw there was no entry fee for spectators unless a formal event was going on. Hey, free action shots? Why not. When we got there we found five guys sitting around taking a break. I asked if they were going to be riding any more or if the day was done. They said to give them five minutes and they'd do a few laps specifically for Doris and I. Not bad! I asked for spots where they thought the best angles were and they pointed out here, here and here. No problem. For my decision making process on that day, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">My thinking on how I'm going to shoot goes something like this:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The first consideration I have is how I'm going to use the shots.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Second, what are the limitations of my equipment</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Third, How do I best overcome those limitations</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Fourth, Who is my target audience.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">For the first one it comes down to "am I going to sell the shots?" If so, to whom. Things like todays image or a wedding or an event fall into a category of fast and dirty. I don't want to spend any more time on the computer than I have to. In this case I'll shoot JPG Fine as my choice of format. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">If I'm shooting for images to be hung on walls, or entered in to competitions I'll typically be shooting RAW. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">I'm shooting with a Nikon D7100. The biggest limitation I see in it is the small buffer size. When shooting RAW the buffer fills after just a couple of shots. The camera is rated for six frames per second, but if three shots fill the buffer and it grinds to a halt, the six frame rating doesn't mean much. So, to drive the continuous shutter as fast as possible I again shoot JPGs. In the case of today's image stalling out after three images just ain't gonna work. As I went through the first pass of selecting keepers versus rejects I saw that I would shoot through the series, typically tossing out the first (too far away) and last shots (probably partially out of the frame past me). About six shots in one second with the first and last trashed. If I can find four frames that I am willing to give a second look to, I'm a happy camper.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Somewhere in the last couple of paragraphs are the answers to the four points that made up my choices on that day, at that track, shooting that subject, for the purpose of going back and making a couple bucks. Too often I see photographers who are die hard RAW shooters. I'm a bit more pragmatic. I love shooting people wide open and landscapes closed down quite a bit. But I'm not a slave to either one. Sometimes you'll want the background to be in some shade of focus with people. An environmental portrait comes to mind. Sometimes, on a landscape or seascape, having the foreground tack sharp and letting the background fall off is an interesting choice. We make all sorts of choices when we pick up our cameras. The file format is just one more choice. I tend to pick the one that's right for the situation. </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-9433869324983625062015-07-27T11:32:00.000-04:002015-07-27T11:32:36.636-04:00PLaces You Can't Go Without Photoshop<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NgmVzoFhlEs/VbZEmvOjG3I/AAAAAAAACgc/dJU9CGzwU20/s1600/D_Tom-Peterson_Castle-In-The-Clouds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="132" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NgmVzoFhlEs/VbZEmvOjG3I/AAAAAAAACgc/dJU9CGzwU20/s400/D_Tom-Peterson_Castle-In-The-Clouds.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click on image to enlarge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Today's image definitely qualifies as a place you can't visit without, at least, some knowledge of Adobe Photoshop (PS). Why? Basically, it's because the earth doesn't curve that way. The horizon of an image can do many things. It can be tipped (a big no no). It can show the sweep of the land as in a arête along a mountainside with an apparent (but not real) slope to the surface. Using an extreme wide angle lens the horizon can be bowed either up or down, but it can't be bowed both up and down. In any case, today's image isn't what it seems. To find out how many shots were used in today's image, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">What a shock. I screwed around with multiple images to come up with what you see today. It goes back to the weekend before last when we were out and I was playing around with my nice, new fisheye lens. Something that happens with a fisheye lens is abnormal curvature if the lens is tipped off the centerline of your field of view. On the centerline the horizon appears to be "normal". The lens is a rectilinear fisheye when used with a cropped sensor camera such as a Nikon D7100. On a full frame camera you'd get the circular image common in many fisheye images. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Tipping the camera up gives a "curvature of the earth" sort of look. Tipping the camera down gives a "bowl" effect. Based on today's image, combining the two ends up as an "S" shaped horizon. Today's base image (the background) is the same shot taken with the camera tipped down in one frame and up in the next. If you look closely you can see the same lakes on both sides of center. The images were overlapped in PS and a Layer Mask applied. A soft black Brush (B) was used on the Mask to blend the edge at the overlap. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer was Clipped to the right side image to matchup the colors. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The house is a third image taken with the fish and laid over the right background image. The grassy area was a totally different color from the background, so another Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer was Clipped to the grounds of the house to bring it into the same color space. Once all the elements were placed (the two backgrounds and the house) the whole thing was brought back to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR) for finishing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">In LR the rocks around the coy pond and the façade of the house were lightened to make them the center of attention. The roof was made darker and richer and the flowers were brightened. The trees to the right of the house were lightened slightly to match them to the trees on the bowl side of the image. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Selective Sharpening was applied to various parts of the image to move the viewers eye through the image. Going places with PS provides an opportunity to explore the creative side of PS.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-14691299115610295982015-07-23T08:42:00.000-04:002015-07-23T08:42:49.218-04:00Five Ways To Makeover One Image With Photoshop<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKXHhREe-Do/VbDPUjv_agI/AAAAAAAACgE/i9xOcZY99AA/s1600/O_Tom-Peterson_Bowl-Of-Fruit-By-The-Window-On-A-Summer%2527s-Day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="335" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKXHhREe-Do/VbDPUjv_agI/AAAAAAAACgE/i9xOcZY99AA/s400/O_Tom-Peterson_Bowl-Of-Fruit-By-The-Window-On-A-Summer%2527s-Day.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click image to enlarge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">We were away for a couple days this past weekend (plus). First to a photography conference in Massachusetts and then up to <span style="color: black;">Lake Winnipesaukee</span> for a couple days. Today's image was taken on a visit to the "Castle In The Clouds" mansion. A New Hampshire preservation site. A nicely preserved mansion high on a mountain (hill) overlooking the area. The "original" image looked almost nothing like what you see. It was actually a couple horses in a field (just kidding). I've just gotten an 8mm fisheye lens and spent all day Monday using only the "fish" to see what it would (could) do. The image doesn't look much like it was taken with an extreme wide angle lens, but that's where the Adobe Photoshop (PS) "magic" comes in. To find out what the "five ways" the image has been changed, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Typically, pointing a fisheye lens down at such a steep angle results in a "curvature of the earth" sort of effect at the top of an image. This one was no different. The bowl and the fruit looked fine, but the window sill and mullions had the typical fan shape of a fisheye. The first thing I tried was using PS's Adaptive Wide Angle Filter to see about straightening things out. It has a "fisheye" option so I figured it was worth a shot. Nope! It kept trying to grab the entire top of the shot to flatten it out. Not what I was looking for. Next came PS's Puppet Warp routine. In it you place anchor points at the spots where you want to stop any movement in the image. Pins were dropped to prevent the fruit and wire basket from moving and the far ends of the sill were brought up even . There was a little bow in the center of which side, so the middle of each side of the sill was pushed back down. It's now reasonably straight with just a slight warp on the right side sill.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The view outside the window was totally blown out and was replaced with the shot taken on the overlook about halfway up the driveway up to the carriage house. Each pane of the window was added to a Layer Mask and the scene "looking out" over the lakes dropped in behind the primary image.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">One mistake I often see when people are doing reflections is that they'll just flip what they're trying to reflect and pull it down to appear to be the reverse of the main image. Too many times it winds up with an impossible reflection. The reflection on the right side of the image cannot be of the lakes seen out the window. The light would have to come through the window, make a right turn and show up in the reflection if that were the case. The refection has to be what would show up in a straight line through the window. That means it would be the sky, so that's what I put in. I also added a light gray Layer under the sky Layer and lowered the sky Layer's Opacity. The reflection would not be as bright as the scene directly out the window.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Once back over in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR) (all my images start out in LR) any color corrections were made, including making the colors of the fruit richer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">And number five, I used LR's Adjustment Brush (AB) to add shadows and highlights to the fruit and the napkin. To do this, make the AB small and soft. Use the dropdown presets to pick either Burn (make darker) or Dodge (make lighter). Put a highlight next to each shadow to build depth in the objects.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">I'm guessing that's it. How to take a purpose made lens (the fisheye) and make it look like a normal lens. One of the nicer things about the fish is that your Depth of Field (at almost any aperture) extents from the tip of your nose to infinity. The reason for getting the fisheye in the first place was to do astrophotography. As soon as it's a clear night, at a new moon, I'm in a dark place, and it's the middle of the night I'll post whatever I get. Stay tuned.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-82588721023264408052015-07-15T18:23:00.001-04:002015-07-15T18:23:08.236-04:00What Would Ansel Adams Do If He Had Lightroom?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6FCW58FTWcw/VabPvCruL0I/AAAAAAAACfs/VAokcqLuZNM/s1600/A_Water-Rights_Tom-Peterson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="152" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6FCW58FTWcw/VabPvCruL0I/AAAAAAAACfs/VAokcqLuZNM/s400/A_Water-Rights_Tom-Peterson.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click on image to enlarge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Ansel Adams is quoted as saying "<a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ansel_adams_2.html">you don't take a photograph, you make it</a>." I don't think he ever said you don't have to start with a method of recording the scene before you. I hear a lot of people say they want to "get it right in the camera". A couple of other quotes by Adams are "<span class="bqQuoteLink"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ansel_adams_2.html" id="qt_161832" title="view quote">Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.</a>" One more would be "<a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ansel_adams_2.html">the negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance</a>". What's all that got to do with today's image (or any image for that matter)? It's just that today's image straight out of the camera really doesn't look much like what you see. It's been "developed". The "out of camera" image is a RAW file and, as such, lacks tone, contrast, color and any sense of place. It's a blah lifeless digital negative. Ninety nine present of what was done to the image was done in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR), the "other" percent was done in Adobe Photoshop (PS). Both were the CC 2015 versions, but only the newest LR was needed. What was done in PS can be done in just about any version you have on your computer. To go through the image with me, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span class="bqQuoteLink">The most obvious change from the original is the crop. As usual I shot tight and the only crop was to get the frame down to more of a two to one aspect ratio. Side to side there's basically no crop. Top to bottom? Sure. There's nothing above or below what you see that adds to the image. If it "ain't" helping, get rid of it.</span><br />
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<span class="bqQuoteLink">The top of what was left was in bright sunlight. Rather than a Graduated Filter (in LR) I went to the HSL Panel (Hue Saturation Luminance). There I brought the Luminance of the Greens down bringing the green of the bank and the green cast of the water in line with the lower area that was mostly in shadow. Since the rest of the image didn't have a lot of green it was reasonably easy to balance the two.</span><br />
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<span class="bqQuoteLink">The one area that needed the green bumped up a bit was the reeds in the upper left of the image. They started out in shadow, so removing the green had a larger impact there than in the sun lit area. The Adjustment Brush, using both Tint and Exposure brought the reeds in line.</span><br />
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<span class="bqQuoteLink">Both of the animals were treated individually with the Adjustment Brush. Bringing up their Exposure, Contrast and Clarity. Clarity in this case increases the midrange contrast and serves to make the deer stand out. </span><br />
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<span class="bqQuoteLink">Tone, using the color picker in the Adjustment Brush turned the black mud under the right hand deer's feet to a more pleasing brown mud. The splash of water was brightened also.</span><br />
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<span class="bqQuoteLink">Today's image was kind of a 50/50 mix of Adjustment Brush work and Radial Filter work. The Radial Filter was used to create space between the animals and the ground beneath and around them, darkening the ground to put emphasis on the main subject(s). </span><br />
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<span class="bqQuoteLink">Anyone who tells you they take what they get straight from the camera must be (for one thing) shooting JPGs and letting the camera do the finishing. (Which is not a bad thing, depending on what your objective is. Shooting a family gathering, a school play, a wedding or similar "events" is a great place for shooting JPGs.) Shooting when you know you want/need maximum control over the finished image is the spot for shooting RAW. And that requires post processing.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-44055567091598936962015-07-10T06:47:00.000-04:002015-07-10T06:47:18.738-04:00Using Lightroom's Dehaze on Informal Portraits<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ADxWBdJ9fWE/VZ-ZHzblLYI/AAAAAAAACfQ/2-KhLpOJvL0/s1600/Brad-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ADxWBdJ9fWE/VZ-ZHzblLYI/AAAAAAAACfQ/2-KhLpOJvL0/s400/Brad-4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">We were at a family gathering last weekend and I told Doris that I wasn't going to bring a camera. It was time for family, not for photography. At the last moment I said I'd toss the camera in the car "just in case", The just in case wasn't so much if anyone asked me (or anyone cared) to get some shots as much as it was if the mood struck me. It wacked me up along side my head and I clicked the shutter more than five hundred times. The kid (he's 31 or 32) in today's image is a nephew. He's about 6'2", a body builder (more excellent shape rather than muscle bound), shy and better looking than he knows. As you can see, if anybody's looking for a male model, he'd be a good candidate. To find out "what's going on" in today's image, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;"></span><a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">It's just a grab shot. We were sitting around in the gazebo by the pool talking. Him, his brother, sister in law, his folks and the two of us. You can see that the image has an eight by ten crop, but other than that it's the maximum frame (no crop top to bottom). I was about eight feet away sitting on another chair, The lens (a Nikon 18 - 300) was racked out to about 270mm using a DX crop function in the camera. So, with some soft math the 35mm equivalent would be about a 525mm lens. He didn't pose and didn't know I was shooting him. It's just the natural structure of a young man listening to a conversation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Adobe's Lightroom (LR) CC 2015 has a new feature that I believe they've put in basically for landscape photographers. The Dehaze slider (found in the Effects Panel) can remove or reduce the distant haze typically found in large scale landscape images. I used it in a post (two down if you're on the blog site) where I pushed the slider in the opposite direction of removing haze. I added haze to a flower image giving it a soft focus (but still sharp) look. I'm sure Adobe knows once they release something the public will find interesting uses for new tools and features.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">In the case of today's image I played with the Dehaze Tool and went in the direction of removing haze. Actually I moved the slider both right and left just to see what it would do. There was no real haze in the image so going to the right tended to bring out the texture of his skin. I liked what I saw so I immediately grabbed a shot of a female and found that pushing the Dehaze slider to the left softened the skin without damaging the skin texture. Sort of a neat trick. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Males can take a rougher, scruffier look while females typically look better with a softer treatment. I'm pretty sure Adobe didn't bring out the Dehaze Tool as a portrait enhancement tool, but I think it works fairly well. You might want to give it a try.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-20992877363349127082015-07-08T07:00:00.000-04:002015-07-08T07:00:03.276-04:00Isolation Using Lightroom's Radial Filter And Brush<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZC8alQwl4HM/VZvMc9zVmqI/AAAAAAAACe0/CHHwM8rniGY/s1600/TJP_3477.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZC8alQwl4HM/VZvMc9zVmqI/AAAAAAAACe0/CHHwM8rniGY/s400/TJP_3477.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Today's image is another from a photowalk in the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). It was the end of the day (for us at least) and we were just hanging out by an artificial lily pond. I judge a fair number of photo competitions during a given year and one thing I typically harp on is changing your angle of view. Too many people enter images taken from their standing height. If I get one to comment on I'll suggest the person go back to the same place (or a similar situation) and move around. Stand on a chair, squat down, go up to the second floor if there is one, put the camera down on the ground, anything. Just don't stand there and shoot from five feet high. Well, at the NYBG I certainly took my own advice. I was laying flat on my belly, looking like the aftermath of a criminal assault or something. The friends I was with got a kick out of what I'd do to get a shot. Obviously today's image is not a full frame. It's wildly cropped to isolate and increase the "focus" on the flowers. It see how Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR) helped draw attention to the flowers, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The Radial Filter has been around for a while in LR, but until the latest iterations there's been no way to modify the oval/circular shape of what you could do with it. Now Adobe has added a Brush feature to a couple of the LR tools. The Radial Filter and the Graduated Filter come to mind. The options are now New, Edit and Brush. As in the last post the typical way to use the Brush is to add to what ever you're working on. With the Dehaze tool (see the last post) the "normal setting" is centered. Push the slider to the right and you decrease the haze in an image. Push to the left and you'll add haze. With the Radial Filter (or the Graduated Filter) you can hold down the ALT key and turn the Brush tool into a negative. This let's you take away from what you've just done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">In today's image there's probably fifteen Radial Filter Pins dropped in various spots. Each cluster of pedals got it's own pin. Each pedal in some cases got it's own pin. There were overall pins and detail pins. Without being able to hid the Pins (H) I wouldn't have been able to get to the level of detail I was interested in. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Since the pedals are pointed and the Filter is (at best) a narrow oval, the two shapes didn't match up. Now, with the Brush involved in the Radial Filter I could go in and sculpt each shape to closely match what was actually in the image by holding down the ALT key as I brushed away stray flares and overshoots. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Adobe is constantly adding new features to LR and the addition of the Brush feature in the tools is a big help.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-28595017606863239772015-07-06T00:00:00.000-04:002015-07-06T00:00:04.630-04:00Playing With Photoshop CC 2015 Dehaze<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BlxYxLJMpgQ/VZUcppS0qQI/AAAAAAAACeY/WNCkDpOQt0U/s1600/Pink-flower--with-CC-2015-Dehaze.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BlxYxLJMpgQ/VZUcppS0qQI/AAAAAAAACeY/WNCkDpOQt0U/s400/Pink-flower--with-CC-2015-Dehaze.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Since the recent release of Adobe Photoshop (PS) CC 2015/Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR) CC 2015 I've seen several articles about what's new. One of the more interesting (and creative) additions is the Dehaze tool. In LR it can be found in the Effects Panel and in PS it's found by going to or going through Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) (Filter/Camera Raw Filter). I'd highly recommend turning the Layer into a Smart Object (Filter/Convert For Smart Filters) so you can go back and forth from Layers to ACR at will. The primary use I've seen folks talk about with the Dehaze tool is in landscape photography. Crank the slider to the right and the haze over distant parts of the landscape become much cleaner and more contrasty. You may have noticed that that's not exactly what's going on in today's image. To get an idea of what's going on, hot the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">To get to where today's image is, if I had moved the Dehaze slider to the right, I would have had to shoot the flower in a dense fog or something. Instead, it's a "normal" shot, nicely exposed with good selective Depth of Field. The Dehaze tool has been moved slightly to the left. About 30 points. The result is an in focus, sharp, soft image. It's important to specify that the image is in focus and is sharp. If you look you can see that it is not a blown frame. It is a deliberate frame that's been tinkered with in post processing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">One use for such an image could be in a wedding album. Either as a repeated opening page defining sections of the album or perhaps a background for a page with multiple candid shots. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">A front flap of thank you cards might another use tying the card to the theme of the album. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Advertising might be another way to use the image. Any situation where a soft image behind text would add interest is a candidate for thing type of treatment. Imagination is the key to putting an image like this work.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-70777096668168905792015-07-01T16:50:00.000-04:002015-07-01T16:50:18.026-04:00The Myth About Depth of Field<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h2ziPyQ2L-k/VZQTVSdW74I/AAAAAAAACeE/dcJ6qwPC48k/s1600/Flower-Ball-for-DoF-post.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h2ziPyQ2L-k/VZQTVSdW74I/AAAAAAAACeE/dcJ6qwPC48k/s400/Flower-Ball-for-DoF-post.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click on image to enlarge.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Have you ever spoken to a fellow shooter about Depth of Field (DoF)? Have you ever been told you must have expensive, "fast glass" (a lens with a large maximum aperture - like F2.8 or F1.4) to get shallow DoF? Well, it all depends on what you're shooting and what your subject is. If you were to shoot someone's portrait using almost any lens and had enough empty space between the subject and the background you could shoot closed down to the minimum aperture (F 16 or F22) and get an acceptably out of focus background. (It might have to be miles away and your subject at the minimum focusing distance of the lens, but you could do it.) Take a look at today's image. Before reading on, take a shot (guess) at what aperture might have been used. Once you've made up your mind, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">If you know what you're looking at you should have seen the clues to let you know what's going on. There's not Adobe Photoshop (PS) trickery going on. The image was "developed" straight out of the camera adjusting only color aspects of the shot. Not purposely adding any blur to the background.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The first thing to notice is how big the flower is in relationship to the frame. (It was cropped down to an eight by ten aspect ratio, but no pixels came off the top or bottom of the frame.) So, it is an intentional shot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The second clue would be that the front and rear leaves are both in acceptable focus. That's a biggie. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Third is the fact that there is no doubt about the separation between the subject and the background. There's nothing to attract your eye in the background and cause you to loose attention from what you are supposed to be looking at.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Back to one. I was standing just outside the minimum focusing distance of a 70 - 300 mm lens, racked out at 300 mm.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Two: The DoF at that distance couldn't have been more than a couple inches.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Three: There was no need to worry about the distance to the background because I "scouted" the area around the flower (by eye, I didn't wander anywhere) until I visually cleared any obstructions from the composition. I have another shot where I wasn't so careful and got what looks like a pair of a certain "mouse ears" out of focus behind a different flower.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">So, what's the deal? It's F16 at 1/160th of a second with an ISO of 800. The flower was probably 4' away and the grass in the background was probably 20 - 25' further back. It wasn't shot with "fast glass". It didn't need to be. Since I was at F16, having a fast, expensive lens wouldn't have helped me "<em>in this situation"</em>. The place for fast glass is when you're shooting a two thirds shot of someone and you can't get enough distance between the person and the background.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">One of the reasons sports shooters us fast glass is because of the distances they're shooting at. Like half way across a football field or similar. Fast glass gives them the ability to throw the people in the stands out of focus when the main subject is sixty feet away. Every lens has it's place and what you're shooting makes a huge difference in how fast a lens you need to get where you're going.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-62418152297430668242015-06-24T06:36:00.001-04:002015-06-24T06:37:17.750-04:00More On Easy Ways To Get Better Images<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a43Gt0iALg4/VYp5GzRN3eI/AAAAAAAACds/QG2cOllvkwo/s1600/Friendly-Lady.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a43Gt0iALg4/VYp5GzRN3eI/AAAAAAAACds/QG2cOllvkwo/s400/Friendly-Lady.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The subject of today's image was at the same Renaissance Faire as the person in my last post. If you check them both out there's something you may notice that makes them similar. There's not a whole lot to look at other than the subject. That's today's key to getting better "starting points" to having a successful image. There's a fairly prolific photographer/writer out in the wild by the name of Rick Sammon. I've seen him speak a couple times and have come to the conclusion that Rick's biggest fan is --- Rick. There is, however, one phrase he uses that goes along with the way I've shot most of my career. His saying is "the name of the game is fill the frame". He's not the first guy (or the last) to espouse that philosophy. There's a guy out on YouTube who goes by the handle Fro Knows Foto. According to him, he doesn't crop. Says he shoots the frame he wants in the camera. Cropping is apparently against some bizarre cult rule he's set up for himself. My guess would be that he must not frame and hang a whole lot of prints. It almost impossible to find frames that fit the standard format of a camera's sensor. Today's image is 100% of what the camera saw when I clicked the shutter. To find out way that's both a good thing and a bad thing, hit the "Read More".</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">It's probably easier to start with why it would be a good thing to be able to use the full frame. You get the maximum number of pixels to play with. If you happen to have one of the new cameras that have fifty megapixel resolution you could probably produce a print that will fill your wall. I mean top to bottom, side to side. Doris used to make 16 x 20 prints from a four megapixel camera. If you read what "the experts" say, you can't make an print that big from a file that small. Actually, yes you can and have a perfectly acceptable print. The trick would be that the only cropping you can do in that case is to get to the 16 x 20 format. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">With today's high megapixel camera you can do quite a bit of cropping. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The downside of "filling the frame" as you shoot is that you don't have any "wiggle room". In today's image I can't really take anything off the top. The woman's bright red hair is sort of central to the image. Without the top of the dress at the bottom of the image you'd loose the context of the image. Any cropping from the sides would make the image a vertical panel. A somewhat weird format for a "people shot". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">I shoot tight. I always have. One of the "problems" with shooting tight is that you often blow the shot. Being off by just the smallest amount means something important to the image was lost. Listen to the top sports shooters. They advocate shooting loose. Leaving room around the subject of the shot to insure getting the optimum action in the frame. Tight but loose. Cropping to get the drama of the shot is not a problem to a sports photographer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The same thing goes for photojournalists. Bill Eppridge followed Bobby Kennedy around for two years. He took the famous shot of the busboy/waiter (whoever he was) cradling Kennedy's head while he was bleeding out on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. If you look at the image that was used in newspapers around the world you'd see that it's not a 35mm format. It was cropped. Bill had shot loose and the editors cropped to dramatic effect. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Back to today's image. Doris has a shot of the same woman. Her shot is full length. Behind the woman you see a building, some trash cans, people wandering through the frame. Not one of her better shots. Why? She didn't "fill the frame" with "enough" of the subject to make an interesting shot. I was shooting with an 18 - 300mm lens. She was shooting with an 18 - 135mm lens. We were both racked out as far as the lens would go. The solution, for Doris, would be to "zoom with your feet". Walk up closer to your subject. Doris will practically climb inside a flower to get a powerful image, but couldn't get herself to walk up to a stranger to get as powerful an image of the woman.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Sammon and Fro are "kind of" right, but you also need to emulate the sports and photojournalist's in giving yourself some "wiggle room". To improve your images, get as close as you think you need to be. Then take two steps closer. You'll see how much improved your images get. The big deal is to get out and shoot.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-70891962124839714962015-06-22T08:29:00.001-04:002015-06-22T08:29:48.672-04:00An Easy Way To Get Better Images.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zfiw-C6v4Ng/VYfw_Y1wlsI/AAAAAAAACdY/TcZC0SRrFXc/s1600/Lady-with-pet-dragon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zfiw-C6v4Ng/VYfw_Y1wlsI/AAAAAAAACdY/TcZC0SRrFXc/s400/Lady-with-pet-dragon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click on image to enlarge.</td></tr>
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There's an old axiom on how to get better pictures. It's "stand in front of more interesting things". You've got to admit, today's subject is "interesting". We were at a small, local Renaissance Faire on Saturday with some friends. Places like a Ren Faire or Pirates Den or Indian Powwow or Steam Punk Festival are always great stops for getting "character" shots. Just stand there and let the parade waltz on by. We had all manner of people walking past. A guy with big under turned bull horns. A woman with a cross between medieval and steam punk as a costume. A woman with the top of her back fully tattooed. When she turned around she was a very pretty woman (not the woman in today's image). A fellow with a large bulbous head he had "painted" (I'm sure it was some sort of theatrical makeup) white and then scribed it with veins. Again, an interesting character. A couple in full medieval dress renewing their wedding vows. Priests, orks, fairies, warriors, princes, and kings (lots of kings - might be an ego thing). There were somewhere between twenty and fifty characters I'd like to bring back to the studio and do some real portraits. But, on the right day you can get some reasonable faces to work with. To find the "trick" of getting better shots, hit the "Read More".<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
First lets stick to "in camera". If you're shooting JPGs, bring your exposure value (EV) down one third of a stop. This tells the camera that it's metered reading probably produces too bright an image. It'll result in a more color rich image. If you're shooting RAW images, bring your EV up two thirds of a stop. This will push your histogram further to the right, resulting in a brighter image. Just about all DSLRs have a button to push to see the current EV level. Turn one of the adjustment dials to change the value. If you use the Highlight Warning screen (the one that shows you "the blinkies") look at what's blinking. If it's something that's important in the image, you went too far. If it's something unimportant, you're fine. In fact, when shooting RAW, you can probably recover (in post processing) a thin line along the right edge of the preview histogram screen.<br />
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One further thing to consider "in camera". Today's camera can go to fairly high ISOs and not produce a lot of noise. In post processing it's easier to get rid of noise than it is to get rid of blur. Adobe Photoshop (PS) does have a camera shake removal tool (Filter/Sharpen/Shake Reduction), but it's better not to have camera shake (due to slow shutter speed) in the first place. So, crank up the ISO by several stops. A Nikon has a "normal" ISO of 200. I shot most of the day with the ISO set to either 1600 or 3200 (three or four stops higher than "normal) without "objectionable" noise. What noise there was was easily removed using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR).<br />
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So, what was done "in post"? The biggest thing was done in the HSL Panel in LR. Take another look at today's image. Do you see any green in the subject's face or on her costume? The answer for the face is (hopefully) no. People's skin (no matter which race) isn't supposed to have green in it. Green makes people look sickly. In her costume she has very little green. Makes it almost an ideal image for taking the green down. The background was the woods (forest if you like) behind the woman. Just taking the Green Luminance Slider all the way down darkens the entire background. Typically, to adjust greens you'd also play with the Yellow Slider. You need to be careful using that. Yellow will also effect the skin tones. Maybe a gentle negative nudge would work, but very gentle. The Saturation Slider in the HSL Panel was also brought down a little, making the greens somewhat duller.<br />
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Darkening down the (basically) monotone background makes the foreground "automatically" pop. In the case of today's image there's no masking involved. The background color is "different enough" from any of the foreground colors to make it a one slider improvement. Any of the other adjustments were just the normal tweaks you'd do to any image.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1118111250550064288.post-54272608145255803712015-06-02T07:58:00.001-04:002015-06-02T07:58:46.949-04:00Mixing Media In Photoshop<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KudadJda-GA/VW2OpV_5N3I/AAAAAAAACdA/fnenzT0KQ80/s1600/Farmstead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KudadJda-GA/VW2OpV_5N3I/AAAAAAAACdA/fnenzT0KQ80/s400/Farmstead.jpg" width="318" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">In the art world "mixed media" typically means</span> <span style="font-size: large;">two or more different (usually wildly different) sorts of "stuff" is used. An example might be oil paint and yarn (I've actually seen that one.) I was playing around yesterday and sort of came up with an Adobe Photoshop (PS) version of what mixed media might look like. Today's image is what resulted. I was just messing with the image, not intending to do anything with it or probably not even saving the final result. Once I was done playing I kind of liked what I saw and committed it to memory (the hard disk sort of memory). Somewhere in the middle of playing I decided I didn't like what the sky started looking like, so I switched it out. I tend to do that type of thing on more occasions than you might think. There's just something about an unnatural sky that bugs me. So, if I'm experimenting with HDR or a plugin like in today's image I'll drop out the sky and replace it with some version of the original. To get to today's image was about twenty minutes. If I were to redo it (for a video post) I could probably cut that down to about five minutes. (I know, basically, what I did and can probably replicate it fairly easily.) It'll undoubtedly take me longer to write about it than to do it. If you'd like to find out what I did, hit the "Read More".</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The first thing was to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR) to make a three shot HDR rendition of the scene. LRCC's newly added Merge to HDR feature works pretty good if you're looking for a realistic HDR image. I haven't tried it on the wild side of things yet, so I can't give an opinion on that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">I toned the resulting HDR image in LR. Did a little cropping to shape it up a little. Brought down the Highlights, brought up the Shadows and found the White and Black points. I didn't mess with the Clarity at that point.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Step two was bring the image over into Topaz Labs' Simplify 3 plugin. Used the Oil Painting preset as a start point and brought almost all the sliders down to make the effect reasonably simple. Once I was satisfied with the look it was back to LR.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Since the plugin had made a copy of the starting image I could flip back and forth to see what I had and what I got. I didn't like the sky in either case, so a short excursion over to PS was in order. Before going I found a version of the image where I did like the sky. With both the HDR/Simplified image and the natural image selection selected I brought them both into PS as Layers. (Photo/Edit In/Open As Layers in Photoshop)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">In PS I picked only the natural Layer (turned off the Visibility of the other Layer). I added a (temporary) Levels Adjustment Layer and cranked up the Whites and down the Blacks. That gave me a high contrast version of the natural image. I then went to Calculations (Image/Calculations) and changed the Blend Mode to Hard Mix. That knocked out 95% of the sky and made the remaining portion of the image black. After Saving it as a new Channel I painted anything related to what was on the ground Black and the one remaining piece of cloud White. Both with the Brush Blend Mode (not the Layer Blend Mode) in a Normal Mode. After that I changed the Brush Blend Mode to Overlay and did a quick sweep (once with White, once with Black) to sharpen up the edges.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">I switched the Channel back to RGB and went back to the Layers Panel. I turned the Visibility of the altered Layer back on and loaded the new Alpha Channel (Select/Load Selection/Alpha 1). With the Selection active a New Layer Mask was applied. As it happened, that gave me a natural scene with an altered sky. Yuck! CTRL I (eye) flipped the Mask and I had what I was looking for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">The image was returned to LR (File/Save, File Close [not Save As]) and any finishing touches added.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">That's it. Like I said, it took longer to explain it than to do it. Have a good day.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05658748154010258025noreply@blogger.com0