Instruction

Digital Photography School – Everything from photo tips, to camera equipment to post production techniques.

Amateur Snapper – Photography tips, tricks, and tutorials.

Project Ideas

PhotoJojo – Quoted, “the most kick-ass photo tips, projects, and more…”

DIY Photography – Do-It-Yourself lighting and studio solutions!

Photo Connection – More photo tutorials and fun ideas.

The Photographic Dictionary – Get ideas for an alphabetical photo hunt!

Storage Sites

Flickr – Also home of the GVSU Photo Club group! It’s free to join!

SeeHere Photo Sharing – A place to upload store, and print your photos on different products.

SmugMug – This one costs some money, but has many more features.

Stock Photos

Morgue File – Find resource photos to use in your own image manipulations.

InterfaceLIFT – A great site for photographic desktop backgrounds.

FocalPop – Also great just for project ideas, but if you upload your own stock photos to the person requesting, you could get paid!!

Editing

Mac AppStorm: The Ultimate Setup for Photographers – 50 great free and paid apps for your Mac for post processing and editing photos.

PresetsHeaven – Do you use Adobe Lightroom? Here is a great site for downloading preset photo effects!

X-Equals – More Photoshop and Lightroom presets. All free!

GIMP – A free photo editing software you can download and keep. Often said to be a simpler version of Photoshop.

Picnik – A free in-browser photo editing site. No downloads necessary!

Aviary – A new free in-browser photo editing site.

Pixlr – Another free in-browser editor! Looks very similar to Photoshop.

Printing

Zazzle – Print your photo on anything!

Moo – Create MiniCards, Business Cards, Notecards, Postcards, etc. all with an individual image on each! Easy uploader from flickr, facebook, Etsy, or direct upload. Super customizable and a personal fave of mine. (See photo of MiniCards, right.)

Mpix – Beautiful high quality prints on all types of products. Used for the Photo Club’s Fall ‘09 prints!

Color Inc. Lab – A Grand Rapids area printing company! If you like local, these are your guys. Lovely high quality prints.

ArtsCow – Photo gifts for everyone!

Miscellaneous

DPreview – Digital Photography review. The most in-depth camera reviews and comparisons I’ve ever found. Great for researching a new upgrade.

The Photographer’s Right – Know your photo rights! A lawyer’s website with a PDF detailing where you have a right to shoot as a photographer and when you can an can’t be stopped.

Photo Copyrights – Information about copyrights for your photos in print, on the web, in camera, wherever they are.

DPChallenge – Photography contest site.

Pure Michigan Photo Club – A club contest for Michigan photographers. Prizes!

Lens Pro to Go – Shooting a wedding and want to use that 50mm f/1.2 L lens? Rent it here! Look up any Canon or Nikon lens for rental anywhere in the US.

There is a simple premise behind the 365 projects that run on flickr; that you take a photo every day and you upload it to the flickr group you’re a member of, of which there are many. For the most part, taking the photo every day is not too onerous, and is really the reason you did the project in the first place so if you’re feeling like its a burden go poke yourself in the eye with the woe is me stick. What does sometimes become troublesome is maintaining a cadence whereby you shoot, upload, and move on to the next day. Or on to the things you really should be doing instead. Like the ironing.

Most 365 groups on flickr are quite relaxed about uploading your shots on the day they were actually taken, as they realise its quite unrealistic to set big rules AND get good community involvement, so, in general, as long as you’ve tagged the upload with the day it was taken, or its obvious from your naming convention which photo in the series it is, they normally allow you to run a few days behind and have your shot from the 17th appear on the 20th. Which is fine. As long as its the same month.

In early November, I was struggling to post photos from late September, and catching up with a lapsed 365 project can be really quite difficult, depending on what your workflow is like. You can possibly get away with posting a batch from the last 5 days if your workflow involves standing in front of the bedroom mirror with your iphone, taking a picture of your hair, writing a short description of, like, ZOMG, how sick you are and how you’re going to drop Art History because its, like, really crap yeah, and then using your iphone flickr batch upload app to fly-tip and, like, run to H&M. That’s not to devalue those kind of photos. They are every bit as meaningful in a 365 project community group as the photos that took 17 remote strobes to light, a creative assistant to run through the post-process mangle, and an SEO specialist to maximise the magic donkey. They’re more meaningful, probably, but it depends on what you do with your own 365 project and how you choose to mix up the documentary, photography, creative and technical elements. Suffice to say, if you’re an iphone shoot-and-go type, it doesn’t take long to catch up. If you’re a dslr-wielding anorak of post-processing, then it takes a bit longer. Oh dear.

It has taken 6 weeks to get to the point whereby I’m now only about 5 days late with my uploads. I don’t yet know whether I’ll be able to shoot, process and upload number 365/365 on December 31st, thereby causing some kind of apocalyptic distortion in space and time or something, or whether that even matters. Nobody is really checking. The thing is, the 3 of us taking part in the flickr component of the exhibition will need to have all 365 photos printed, mounted, framed, and stuck on the wall of Norwich Arts Centre by January 7th, so being 5 days late on December 31st isn’t much of an option. Unless I just photocopy the last few and pin them to the bar. Maybe I could just do that with all of them.

Tim

After I posted Monday’s pictures of my daughter’s nail polish, I noticed a definite yellow cast when I viewed the pictures from another computer. Some of my printed pictures look similar – a bit on the yellow side, a little dark. So I decided it was time I bought a screen calibration kit.

The Spyder3 Express was recommended by several photogs on 2Peas, and it wasn’t too expensive (I think I paid $80, which included shipping). It showed my original screen to be on the bright and blue side, which made sense. I am hopeful this will improve the quality of my photos.

The color of light is measured by it’s color temperature. Outdoors, ambient light changes color temperature throughout the day. It is warmer (yellower) before sunset and just after sunrise. In the open shade of mid-day it is cooler (bluish).

Our eyes compensate pretty quickly for different color temperatures. A piece of white paper will appear white to us when viewed in either warm or cool lighting conditions. However, the sensor in our cameras, left on its own,  is not so lucky. A picture of a piece of white paper taken in open shade will render quite bluish; while another picture of the same piece of white paper, taken near sunset, will be rendered yellowish.

White Balance (WB) is the tool that we use to tell the camera what the color temperature is of the light hitting our subject. If we have warm light hitting our subject, that piece of white paper will be rendered as white if we set the camera’s white balance to warm light. So if the camera’s WB setting matches the color temperature of the light hitting the subject; white, and all other colors, will be rendered correctly. However; if the white balance setting does not match the color temperature of the light hitting our subject, our photo will have distinct a color cast.

If we take a picture in mid-day sun light with the camera’s white balance set to Tungsten the resulting image will have a blue color cast. That is because the tungsten WB is telling the camera that yellow light is falling on our subject. And the camera will compensate by making the image more blue to override the yellow in the ambient light.

Likewise, we can emulate the use of a warming filter with film by using a white balance setting of cloudy. The cloudy WB tell the camera that blue light is hitting the subject so the camera adds yellow to compensate. The resulting image will have a warm color cast.

The top image was taken with the WB set to Auto and renders the color temperature pretty close to the way it was on this winter afternoon just before the sun set. The bottom picture is the same image taken with the WB set to tungsten.  Note the distinctive blue color cast the image has. Even though these two images were made at the same time and the camera was not moved between exposures, the emotional content of these two images are quite different.

In summary, we photographers can use white balance to accurately represent colors or we can use it to cause our images to be rendered with a color cast. So which is correct? We’ll discuss that next time.

For those interested, here is the shooting metadata. It is the same for both images except that, as explained above, the top images was shot with WB set to Auto and the lower image was shot with the WB set Tungsten:

Fuji S2 w/ 12mm
1/20sec @ f/11, ISO 100
Matrix, Aperture Priority, Comp +1/2

There is another website I love to visit. Kay from the Netherlands is actually a food blogger and she has incredible recipes. Everything I’ve tried so far was delicious! My favourite recipes so far are Haddock and Potatoe soup, Ghanaian Peanut Soup and Potage Parmentier. Can you tell, I am crazy for soups?

What strucks me most about her blog is her fantastic photography. I am not the only who likes her style, obviously, because of popular demand she is giving away her tricks and also creates actions. Her motto is less is more and so her editing is simple but powerful. Every trick makes the pictures look stunning, without over processing it. It looks natural, but has a little kick. Love it.

Her latest photoshop trick is about creating haze. Check it out here.

Esta vez, para fotografiar la luna he utilizado un trípode.

Al no estar todavía en fase de luna llena, se ve un tanto achatada por el lado izquierdo (desde el punto de vista del espectador, estamos en fase de luna creciente).

Para hacer la exposición, nuevamente, prescindí del medidor incorporado en la cámara y traté de obtener la medición manualmente, basándome en la Sunny f/16 rule. Es decir, partiendo de la base de que una exposición correcta en un día soleado se obtiene con una apertura de f/16 y una velocidad de obturador igual al número de la sensibilidad ISO utilizada, una correcta exposición de la luna llena utilizaría estos mismos parámetros (puesto que está reflejando la luz del sol). Con estas premisas calculé que, al no estar todavía la luna llena, debía compensar la exposición en +1  paso. Esto resultó en los siguientes parámetros: ISO 100, f/16 y velocidad de disparador 1/50.

Además del trípode, he contado esta vez con la ayuda adicional de un teleconvertidor. Este complemento se utiliza para incrementar la longitud focal. Gracias a él, he obtenido una fotografía de la luna de mayor tamaño (haz click sobre la foto para verla en tamaño completo, algunos de los cráteres se pueden observar con gran cantidad de detalle):

Click para tamaño completo

A pesar de haber revisado las distintas tomas en el visor LCD de la cámara, al importarlas al PC he visto que la exposición no era convincente. Había algunas zonas sobreexpuestas en las que se perdía detalle.

Una de las ventajas de utilizar el formato RAW es que se pueden corregir las  posibles deficiencias de la foto tal como se disparó (hasta cierto punto al menos). Utilizando un software que permite trabajar sobre RAW, infraexpuse  2/3 de paso hata que obtuve un resultado de mi agrado. Si hacemos los cálculos, vemos que mi medición inicial fué demasiado pesimista, y que debería haber sobreexpuesto 1/3 de paso -en lugar de 1 paso entero- para obtener la exposición correcta. Esto tiene su lógica, ya que la luna estaba bastante cerca de la fase de luna llena, con lo cual reflejaba casi tanta luz del sol como cuando está llena del todo.

Equivocarse está bien porque ayuda a aprender; y si además nos equivocamos en RAW… a menudo podemos corregir los errores (o al menos, recuperar hasta cierto punto las fotografías).

Notas:

• El uso de un teleconvertidor conlleva una serie de inconvenientes. Por ejemplo, pérdida de nitidez, pérdida de capacidad de abertura de la lente, o pérdida de la función de autoenfoque de la cámara (esto es cierto para algunas combinaciones de lente+cámara). Por lo que respecta a la nitidez, el resultado de esta foto no está nada mal. Por lo que respecta a la abertura, en este caso me daba lo mismo puesto que quería utilizar de todos modos un valor de f/16; con el trípode puedo permitirme la menor velocidad de disparador que esto implica. Por lo que respecta a la pérdida de AF, también en este caso me daba igual, puesto que utilicé LiveView aumentado x10 y enfoque manual.
• El trípode utilizado para la foto me lo ha prestado un amiguete, y la verdad es que el pobre no puede con la 100-400. Me resultó muy difícil dejar estático el objetivo con la orientación deseada y que no se balanceara. Tuve que utilizar el disparador con el timer a 10 segundos, y aún así me salieron movidas 2 tomas de las 4 que eché. Para el futuro queda agenciarse un trípode más sólido, y un disparador remoto.

Review, Accolades, and a Bug

Disclaimer: This review is based solely upon my curiosity and thirst for knowledge. No bribes, coercion, reward, discount, or product has been offered. I claim no connection to Adobe and Lightroom other than the use of their products and have no personal connection to any individuals mentioned in this review. I refrained from reading any other reviews to maintain objectivity and freedom from outside influences.

As a new convert to Lightroom 2 (LR2), for post-processing images, I learned to use the product through trial and error along with instruction on the Adobe Lightroom 2 Learning Center, tips and tricks found through Twitter postings, and working through The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers (Paperback), by Scott Kelby.

Excited to learn what Lightroom 3 BETA (LR3), has to offer, I read the list of upgraded features, based on user requests,  posted by Victoria Brampton, aka The Lightroom Queen, a member of the Lightroom Team at Adobe.  I played my way down this list gaining a feel for the features found missing, wanted, or needed in LR2. Knowing you are not interested in a play-by-play commentary, I  listed the features I favored, the one bug I encountered, and conclude with my overall impression of the product.

v  Image Quality

• Improved

v  Performance

• Clear previews in thumbnail grid

v  Program opening

• Backup window moved to program exit

v  Import

• New easy to use page with panels
• Visible selections
• Right-click folder selections

v  Library

• Publish and Sync to Flickr and hard drive

v  Develop

• Noise reduction improvements
• New Edge Detail slider
• Sharpening visible at less than 1:1
• New Effects panel
• Crop choices

v  Print

• Custom layouts
• Drag and drop
• Background color

v  Watermarking

• Allowed in all functions

BUG:

While testing different export features, a few original (test) files were lost. Poof! Vanished! Completely disappeared! I did not change the folder name, move it, or touch anything else. I finished with my post-processing and saved changes to original images. Then, I attempted to export images back to the original folder….the window popped up saying it could not find the originals and I selected OK. Closed LR3, re-opened…… Cannot find Originals! What?  I hunted, searched, scoured the computer, every folder, gone.. Previews still show up and I cannot do anything with them. Cannot save new jpeg’s, edit, or print.

So, of course, since this is testing; I repeated the experiment with new test images…nothing bad happened. Images were all there… I more than likely failed to click on the use new names instead of overwrite however, tried this both ways here and in LR2. No loss….. a fluke? I don’t know. I searched the Lightroom forum, one other person had asked the same thing about LR2. That got my attention however, only found answers about having moved the folder or some other action. Nope that is not what happened. Folder is still in the same place with the same name, it’s just empty!

Conclusion:

Overall, I am impressed with previously unknown, missing and needed upgrades, and look forward to the future release of Lightroom 3. This was an exceptional learning experience and I commend Adobe for actively listening to the users and transforming the input into simple, friendly, and powerful features.

If any of you can solve the missing images issue, or enlighten me on how to save something usable from previews, in case this happens again, I would appreciate your advice.

Please feel free to comment.

Signing off,

Go2Grl

This was one of the many request that I have gotten, to edit and publish their wedding photos and stories. I was at first taken aback as I had never actually thought of processing  jpeg photos taken by others. Then I thought what the heck, might as well try it then.

 So this is the first time where an orginally photo taken in a normal point and click cameras to be post processes and of the course , the love story began…

The bride is Gomathi hails from Kuala Kubu Bharu met her Prince Charming, Sasidaran on October 2005 in Rawang. This is what we called ” love at first sight” – the groom actually fell for her when she was getting on the Public Transportation Bus. So those of you not married yet looking for the ONE, please use the Public Transportation.

From there on, deeply smitten, the groom went to find out  who was this pretty maiden.

Lady Luck was by his side , the bride’s brother-in-law was a close firend of his. As rest we can imagine how it went… The lovely couple got registered on December 2005, that was 2 months after the love at first sight incident.

Their wedding was held one year latter, as the groom had to travel a lot. Why? He is Malaysia’s Profesional Golfer (Touring Pro). They tied the knot in Bukit Beruntung Golf Resort. The bride claims that the venue was beautiful , holding 1,200 guests and ample of parking. The wedding theme was gold (the wedding car, the deco and etc…) you get the idea!

The happy couple went on to live happily ever after…and yes they have been blessed with a beautiful baby girl, Tamilchelvi on 2008. May they be happy forever.

I would be interested to post other loves stories and photos in my blog. Please email at mchis@tm.net.my your stories, details of the event (preferabley names,tel no) and photos.

Belly up to the bar my friends. Actually, a few years ago when we stopped, you could still do that, albeit carefully (check out the photos at the end of this posting from 2007 here). All the cool old retro stools, rugs, counters, etc have been stripped by idiots taking a lot more than photos. If you’re traveling on 395 between Olancha and Lone Pine, check it out before it’s gone completely.

This is an HDR photo, finished off with a little Lucis filter for added punch.

A photo taken with a Nikon D40x at ISO 1600. Before noise reduction:

… after:

… I think it shows the difference, though wordpress DID process the images some.

I was never a photography buff until I was in my early 20s. Never understood it in my early childhood when my mom was always clicking away at us, never understood it when a close friend was killing time at the school’s photography club trying to save enough pocket money to buy a used MINOLTA SRT Super. Well, not to say that I totally never took photos before but it never struck me that one day I would be serious about photography.

History aside, what did the digital era of photography granted me?

This:

Post processing done in Lightroom 2

from

This:

Weeds Growing, Nikon D70s 50mm f1.8 @f2

Tweaking of photos to our liking, the flexibility of post processing from dull to vibrance. From nothing to something (at least), from not usable to at the verge of not usable. I am not saying that we can just forget the basics of photography like composition, proper exposure, proper DOF and all those guidelines, but thats just it its just a guideline and digital post processing gives me the freedom to tweak a photo to how I like and present it to  an audience for their comments and critiques and explore further my creativity to presenting digital still image artistry to people.

Welcome back to another week of everything to do with landscape photography. As falls slips into winter most photographers take this time to focus on other things, such as family and other things that we shouldn’t have ignored but photography has a way of doing this to us. We know family is the most important thing but one excuse and another and before you know you are so wrapped up in getting out that we put everything else on the back burner. Anyways, it is important to find a balance between family and photography. I know I am guilty often of tunnel vision and think only of getting that shot or getting back home and getting online with all the photo forums that there is to explore. I must admit many of my hours spent at home are on the computer either post processing images, checking out other images, or conversing online with other photographers. Trying to take me away from this can be almost impossible and if I am not doing this I am obsessed with what I am missing. I guess it has got to the point I feel guilty if I am watching TV, I am thinking of how I could be spending this time more productively with photography. It has got to the point I now need to force myself to get away from the computer no matter what it is that I am doing. I need to realize that the computer will still be there when I get back. As many of you this is hard to do as the world of digital photography online moves so fast it is hard not to think what I might be missing out.

So this month I am doing everything in my power to get away a little from photography. This means like anything it is time to find a new hobby. So this is the time to try new things and one of those things for me is working out again. This was something I used to love before I found photography so maybe there is hope for me still.
I encourage others who might be going through some of the same concerns to do the same things. Anyways, if you have any suggestions how I can put photography into perspective I would love the suggestions before I lose my mind and not the least my family.

Now onto something photography related. One the most important concepts in photography is consistency and when we are discussing photography this means workflow. I am going to break down a series of workflow patterns in the next couple of blogs that I believe work for me. Repetition and consistency make up habits that lead to a predictable workflow that increase productivity in photography. The importance of a consistent workflow is vital to the success of your photography. When does the workflow start, where does it end, and how important is this to experiment. This are some of the things I am going to try to discuss.

Workflow transcends throughout photography and begins the moment you pick up a camera. Basics are important to photography, but continuing to follow a plan that works for you is how you are going to take your photography to the next level. A simple but effective and consistent plan involves pre visualizing the scene before it happens. Check the internet for the area you are shooting at. Are there better times then others, is it a sunrise or sunset shot, where is the sun going to rise and where will the best light be. I am not condoning you go out and copy other people’s images but look for how others might have photographed the area before. Take some of those ideas and improve upon that. For example, could there a better composition, better perspective, or even a better time to photograph the scene. A great place to start with this is a google search or even better go to the photo site Flickr and type the area that you are interested in. Once at this point you have three choices for an advanced search which includes relevant, recent, and interesting. I always choose interesting as this gets me straight to the great photos and also the images others seem to also like. From this point I have a good idea of what, how, and where I am going to go when I get to the scene. Obviously, this can change as light means everything when it comes to landscape photography. But this technique gives me a good head start so when I get there I have a good idea of what I am looking for. This is part of my workflow that never changes and is always done beforehand. The other half of this process includes arriving early enough at a scene to explore all options and really finding out what moves you about each scene.

The night before I always check my bags, charge my batteries, and clean my camera for those pesky dust bunnies. One thing that many people forget to do in this process is to clean your tripod legs and make sure they are lubricated so they move effortlessly. Many times then I would like to remember I get out where I need to be and the tripod legs will not work because I had taken them out to the beach previously and sand, dirt, or grime got in parts and locked everything up. So make sure to give it a good rinse so when the time comes you are not fussing around trying to get the legs to move. Another part of my workflow is to make sure I have erased all my memory cards from the previous shoot but make sure that you have it copied, backed up, and backed up again before you erase. If you wait to you get out the next time shooting you can double check to see you have the images backed up. So always check your memory cards are backed up and then erase and format your memory cards.

The last thing to do before going out to shoot is check the internet for weather, and times when the sun rises, and sets. I am always on the lookout for partly cloudy forecasts, and weather that indicates that a storm is moving out. These are ideal situations when it comes to favorable weather conditions. When it comes to sites to search for when it comes to weather they are many that do a good job but the one I go to when I need the most reliable forecast is NOAA which can be accessed here at noaa.com. In my past experiences not only has this provided the most complete forecast but more then often has given me the most up to date forecast.

All of these habits make up my preparation every time I go out and shoot. This is the beginning of my workflow and something I do every time. If you do this consistently the habits will be ingrained and will become second nature. Although the habits seem minimalistic they make up a more important workflow that leads to patterns that will go a long ways to improving your overall goal of photography.

Thanks for the emails on the previous post. Sherry-Ann of SAJ Beauty is definitely talented. I’ll reply to those who asked with her Model Mayhem # as soon as I get it from her. To answer the main question: NOPE…didn’t do much in the way of post processing. Christine has nice skin to start with and when you combine with good makeup work 90% of the shooter’s work is done right in camera. The only thing I had to worry about was lighting and composition. That was easy enough…I shot wider than usual (for me) and cropped in to where I wanted it.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Booyaaahhh

Finish

As mentioned in the prior post, I shot with a 50mm lens and 580EXII speedlite in full E-TTL mode. In most cases I bounced the light up and behind me. Camera was set between F/4 and f/8 at ISO 400 which kept my shutter speed somewhere around 1/125th depending on the shot. I like to shoot a bit faster at 1/250th for human subjects to keep things sharp but I didn’t want too much noise in the final images and didn’t want to sacrifice the nice ambient light streaming in from the windows and balcony door. The walls of the space are white so no color drift. Somtimes less is more.

http://www.dynamicgraphics.com/dgm/Article/28597/

There are so many photography enthusiasts these days than film photography days. Thanks for the technology advancement which drive the digital camera price down, and many people can effort to buy one. Nowadays, many people just point-and-shoot, download to the PC/Mac and upload to the Internet for sharing.

In digital photography, post editing is almost as important as the photo shoot itself. Here are 12 popular post processing technique tutorials to help you achieve the kind of results you’re really looking to get out of your pictures, from photo enhancing to adding dynamic light into a dull image.

It is worth to spend a few minutes to make your photo become a masterpiece.

Read five articles on interpolation techniques and you’ll probably get five different recommendations … read the claims from software developers and you’ll find three or four are the ‘very best’. So, despite having ‘up-sized’ hundreds of images you might still be wondering … “have I done this the best possible way?” … “is there a way to get better results?”

Let’s look at the do’s and dont’s and compare the results of the most frequent recommendations, and hopefully put this to bed once and for all (or until the next ‘amazing’ piece of software hits the streets).

Quality
I’m assuming that the objective is a ‘professional’ image (fit for printing in large sizes) rather than something for a screen saver … for instance; Alamy require submissions of 48Mb jpeg files, so if you’re using anything less than an 18 megapixel camera you have to interpolate images – which must then get past Alamy’s pixel-peeping quality control. So, the givens will include that you’re working from a native RAW file, the original is decently sharp and exposed and that there’s a minimum of ‘corrective’ processing required on the image.

Sharpening should always be the last step in the workflow – so interpolate before sharpening. Excessive processing (in sharpening, softening, exposure and noise reduction) can cause ‘banding’ and blocky artifacts to appear after interpolation.

[sample images have no sharpening, in-camera or during processing]

[artifacts caused by any number of 'excessive' adjustments]

8 bit or 16 bit
Pretty much a no-brainer really. You’re after the best quality so start out with the most data in the image. 16 bit images will result in better interpolation.

A=original, 100% crop of colour gradient
B=15% increase of 16bit image
C=15% increase of 8 bit image – showing start of artifacts/blockiness
[within limitations of web image]

Genuine Fractals or Photoshop’s Bicubic
A seemingly never ending debate as is evident on many forums. So let’s look at some results.

A=original colour gradient, 100% crop
B=35% increase using Genuine Fractals
C=35% increase using Photoshop Bicubic Smoother

A=original with sharp detail, 100% crop
B=25% increase using Genuine Fractals
C=25% increase using Photoshop Bicubic Smoother

You might find one is preferable, but nothing in it to get your knickers in a twist.

PS Bicubic Smoother or PS Bicubic Sharper
Some photographers recommend using the Bicubic Sharper option for up-sizing images, suggesting the results are ’sharper’. (Despite that PS describes the two methods as ‘best for enlargement’ and ‘best for reduction’).

A=original, 100% crop
B=25% increase using Photoshop Bicubic Smoother
C=25% increase using Photoshop Bicubic Sharper

Comparing these images, it would appear the Bicubic Sharper option results in a better ‘clarity’ than the Bicubic Smoother method.

Bear in mind however that Bicubic Sharper obviously includes some sharpening of the image (as the name suggests). Obviously therefore, you would want to compare the results of Bicubic Smoother plus sharpening to the results of Bicubic Sharper.

However, as stated earlier, sharpening should be the very last step in the workflow and, if you are supplying the image to a stock agency, sharpening should be left to the buyer – who’s the only one who can decide how much sharpening is required for the printing process to be used.

So, Bicubic Sharper is not recommended for stock images.

One step or Stair interpolation
There was a time when many recommended increasing the size of the image in multiple small steps rather than in a large single step. I have not compared results (as I suspect it may have been necessary because of the capabilities of interpolation software at the time). It now seems to be generally accepted that stair interpolation will not produce better results.

Interpolation and Printing
Finally, in deciding which process to use for interpolation, you must consider the printing method to be used.

Evidently, the use of a stochastic raster (‘fractal’ or ’shape’ – as used in Genuine Fractals, S-Pline, etc) in the interpolation process is fine for inkjet printing and for photographic prints but a disaster for litho printing. So, if your image is destined for print, and you don’t know which print process, the safer option is Bicubic Smoother.

Conclusion
Certainly in terms of images for stock agencies, simply using the Bicubic Smoother in Photoshop for interpolation is as good as it gets … with the added benefit of saving all the cost of 3rd party plug-ins (which is not inconsiderable).

What’s this, a picture of a person? I think this may be the first portrait I’ve posted on this blog.

I shot this with my aformentioned S70, at one of the best little restaurants in Vancouver, Seb’s Market Cafe. The photo started in colour, fairly underexposed. I post-processed it into this. Which leads me to a topic. Many people like to talk about the sterility of digital photography, how many images are too perfect with none of the little idiosycrosies that they (romantically) associate with images shot on film. And indeed many shots on film do have a more organic look to them, at times even ethereal. Likewise, many digital shots do look sterile and robotic.

I would argue though, that the potential to make these digital shots look something other than sterile and robotic lies nearly entirely in the hand of the photographer now. I also think the tools to manipulate ones images are easier to learn, understand and access than they were in the “film age”.

When I take a digital photograph I approach the capture as the method to get the raw materials I need. The cameras sensor gets me a recording of light and it’s up to me to mold it into my vision. I can’t complain if what the sensor produces is too “sterile” or not vibrant enough or whatever, as it is up to me to work with the camera then to take what it gives me and work with that.

As far as manipulation goes, in the film age it would be difficult to achieve many of the things we achieve now at low cost. The above shot is evidence of such. The images out of camera was nice, but it was only a starting point. From it, I drew an image with warmth and texture and nuance.

I know there are digital photographers out there who see post shot manipulation as cheating somehow. There is a common conception that photography should portray “reality”, as if there was a common and shared total reality, as if every photographer sees everything the same way. What should be kept in mind though, is that by shooting jpegs and eschewing post processing you simply let the camera colour reality for you. The people who developed the camera’s jpeg algorithm are post processing that shot for you. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s something to think about.

PS- I just picked up a classic SMC Pentax 55/1.8. On an apc crop sensor dslr this is right around the classic portrait focal length of 85mm. So watch for more portraiture here and on my flickr

La regla de los tercios es una ‘receta’ para hacer composiciones en artes visuales. Ya era utilizada hace siglos por los pintores clásicos, y se ha extendido también su uso en la fotografía.

A grandes rasgos, se trata de imaginar el encuadre dividido en tercios, tanto horizontal como verticalmente, mediante líneas. Esas líneas -y especialmente los puntos en que se cortan- indican las zonas de mayor interés para el observador. El resultado es la obtención de encuadres en los que la simetría resulta más agradable.

Así, para fotografiar un paisaje con un bonito horizonte, posiblemente obtendremos los mejores resultados alineando el horizonte con una de estas líneas imaginarias.

O, como en la siguiente foto, encuadrar de tal modo que el sujeto quede en una de las zonas de intersección de las líneas.

La cabeza de este pájaro está situada en el punto de corte de las 2 líneas imaginarias que limitan los tercios superior e izquierdo. Esta fotografía es de una tonalidad muy simple, y no hay apenas elementos en el encuadre aparte del ave que se quiso fotografiar. Al haberla encuadrado como se ha hecho, la simetría del conjunto es más agradable.

A pesar de su simpleza, la regla de los tercios puede dar bastante de sí y ayudar a mejorar algunas fotografías que no nos gusta cómo han quedado. Por ejemplo, se pueden hacer recortes de fotografías de tal modo que se aplique la regla de los tercios de un modo distinto a como lo habíamos previsto. Del mismo modo, si fotografiamos un sujeto que avanza -u observa- hacia un lado, lo encuadraremos de tal modo que se alinee con la linea divisoria en el otro lado del encuadre, ya que sino podría dar la impresión de que está ‘huyendo’ del encuadre.

This is one of the pictures from my trip to Gameti. My wife loves fall colours, the reds, yellows and oranges mix well with the surrounding evergreens, she got to pick the blog picture this week. As a side note, nothing has been added or removed from the original photograph. Just white balance processing of the RAW file. No cheating here, lol.

Are you a cheater? I might be, deal with it!!

I wonder how many Photographers shoot in RAW format and how many shoot in JPEG. I shoot in both and store the RAW files on my computer for processing and the JPEGs are stored on the family computer. The reason I wonder about the format people use is because I would like to know how much editing everyone does with their photographs.

While I was away last week, I processed all the pictures I had taken on the trip. As stated earlier I store my RAW files on my computer for processing. The fact that they are in RAW format means I will have to adjust the white balance at minimum, so some processing is required. What is interesting is that while I was processing my pictures someone was watching. That person said I was cheating because, in addition to white balance I removed some unwanted things from some of the pictures. So, is it cheating? I truly believe that photographs are a representation of what the photographer wants to show from the subject or scene he or she was capturing when the shutter button was pressed. I don’t believe the photograph has to look like what you would see if you were at the same location as the photographer. The photograph needs to speak to viewer and relay what the photographer is trying to say or show, no more or less.

Everyone believes that programs like Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture have allowed us to edit pictures from our digital cameras and because we use a computer we cheat. Are you kidding me? To me those programs have replaced the darkroom used to process film. So if a darkroom was used, did the film photographer cheat? You never hear anyone making that statement. As long as the photographer lets people know that there was editing involved I am not sure if there is a problem and depending on the amount of editing, I am not sure if the editing even needs to be mentioned. For example, on the new stuff page this week are pictures taken during the rain. On several pictures rain drops had fallen on the lens and I removed the drops later during processing. The picture with the canoe had rain drops and two pieces of cloth on the ground next to the canoe. I removed both the drops and the cloth. I don’t think I cheated. I just didn’t need old rags taking attention away from what I wanted you to see or what the scene looked like in my little brain.

So, if you think this processing thing makes us cheaters, I can deal with it. As wrong as you may be, I can deal with it. I am going to continue to process the same as I did before. It is really better than letting the photo lab in the camera do the work. At least I do it myself. Take that photo lab cheaters, take that, lol.