Matt Greer Photography

How to Photograph Artwork

2008-06-01T15:58:00.016-03:00

How to Photograph Artwork, How to Photograph Art, Photographing Artwork, Photographing Art Hello.

The following tutorial is a relatively quick and simple how-to for photographing 2-D artwork such as paintings, textiles, glass-covered images, reproducing newsprint, and more. I will also cover how to correct and post process the photographed artwork.

I have found the easiest and most controllable way to photograph artwork is to use strobes or off-camera flash. If you are unfamiliar with off-camera lighting in general, I highly recommend you spend (a lot) of time reading and exploring www.strobist.com.

Let's go over some basic gear needed to shoot artwork:

A good lens, with no distortion or vignetting (see lens reviews at Photozone). Macro lenses are an obvious choice.
Strobes or off-camera flashes, preferable with a PC-Synch port.
Flash transmitters or receivers such as optical slaves, Cactus V2s, Pocket Wizards, or Nikon's CLS system. You can also use flash cords.
Light stands that can go to the full height of the work you are photographing.
Tripod to keep your camera steady, and to help keep the camera square to the artwork.
Grey card (not essential, but will simplify the entire process).
Camera! (Digital is preferred, so you can preview your work.)

For photographing wall-hung artwork, I have found that using two flashes, each on a lightstand and each reflected into an umbrella, the best setup. One light goes on each side of the artwork, at the same height as the artwork and at 45° to the artwork. Below is a setup image of a hooked rug I photographed recently. I've increased the contrast so you can more easily see how the light is falling on the art.

As you can see, the light is falling evenly on the hooked rug in the image as the overlapping fading lights balance out. Closer to the lights, however, the light falling on the wall is too strong, and if the artwork was within that range, it would result in bright spots at the edges.

How to set up your lights and your camera:

Set your camera's ISO to its lowest native setting (this will ensure optimal image quality).
Set your camera's highest synchable shutter speed (you'll want to eliminate as much ambient light as possible).
Set your camera's white balance manually (see paragraph below), or to cloudy, as that generally creates pleasing colours with flash.
Set your aperture to between f/5.6 and f/11 - you'll want good depth of field and sharpness, but have some flexibility for controlling the light getting to the sensor.
Set all your flash triggers so they are all on the same channel.
Start with your flashes at 1/2 power. Do some test shots, watch your camera's LCD and histogram, and vary your flash power and aperture to get the light level right. Try not to bring your flash power up to full (1/1) power, as this will eat through batteries faster, and cause slower recycling times.
Point your flashes into their respective umbrellas, and then the umbrellas at 45° angles toward the artwork. Start with the lights approximately 1 metre (3.23 feet) out from the wall, and 1 metre to each side of the artwork. Shift them around as needed.

Once the lighting has been set up, the next step (not entirely necessary, but this will make post processing far easier) is to take a white balance reading from a grey card. The easiest way is to take a manual white balance reading with your camera (check your manual for specific directions) while using the same lighting setup you'll use for photographing. Your other option is to shoot RAW, just photograph a grey card under the light being used, and use the grey card to set the white balance in post processing, with a program like Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). I personally find the first to be much easier.

Of the above-mentioned forms of artwork, I've found paintings to be the most difficult - oil on canvas in particular. That is because the reflective properties of the oil paint combined with the minute 3-D texture of the canvas make eliminating reflections very difficult. There is much you can do in post processing to tone down or eliminate these mini reflections or bright spots, but if you can get the shot right at the outset, your processes will be much faster and easier.

The image below is of a painting by Edmonton, Alberta painter Melissa Ryan that I photographed (for reproduction purposes) last week.

This particular piece was difficult because of the size (over a metre [3.28 feet] wide). While I was comfortable with small amounts of glare on the painting (small amounts would be just enough to show the texture of the canvas and the oil paint, but excessive glare would destroy detail and change the brightness of the painting to something the painter had not intended), my initial shots showed too much glare, especially near the edges. Below is an example of the initial poor shot (left), and the shot with the corrected lighting (right).

Much of getting lighting correct is trial-and-error (always double check your images on your camera's LCD), but there are some general rules that can be followed to avoid or easily correct your mistakes.

In the initial setup shot, the lights were at 45° angles to the artwork. Theoretically, this should mean that the light would leave the artwork also at 45°. The issue is that when reflecting light into an umbrella, the light ends up striking the subject at multiple angles. In this case, that's everything from about 10° to about 80°. This means that some light ends up reflecting straight back into the camera lens, showing up as a reflection on the painting.

As you can see in the sketch above, the stream of light drawn in red is streaming back toward the camera, and would show up as a bright reflection. To remedy this issue (if it occurs), reduce the angle between the light source and the wall (move the flash and umbrella closer to the wall) and keep the light source pointing straight at the artwork.

Textiles and glassed-in images follow the same rules, but I've found them to be easier to photograph than oil paintings. With glassed-in images, you'll really want to make sure your shutter speed is as high as possible, as this will help eliminate any background reflections on the glass (including your own reflection). With this said, radio triggers are best for glassed-in work (such as Pocket Wizards or Cactus V2s), because you won't be using your on-camera flash to trigger the strobes, so there will be no light source on your camera that can reflect in the glass.

This is a glassed-in photograph of the Eiffel Tower. Note that there is no glare or reflection in the glass.

This is a hooked rug, hooked with cotton and wool fibres. Glare and reflection aren't a significant issue with these materials, but even lighting is essential.

Photographing Newsprint and Other Small Artwork

For newsprint and other small, 2-dimensional artwork, a one-flash, one-umbrella setup works quickly and easily. Below is the setup, and shooting can easily be done with the artwork flat on the floor and shooting straight down on it.

As you can see, the light is very close to the artwork (in this case, a black and white 8x10 print on matte paper). There is just enough space for me to shoot down on the work without the umbrella getting in the way of the shot. There is no reflection and the light is even. Below is the resulting image.

And now below, is an image of a newspaper printed photo (of an image that I won a newspaper-based photo contest with).

Post Processing Artwork

Finally, we'll cover post processing artwork. There are a number of issues that have to be considered when professionally photographing artwork. First of all is perspective. When shooting artwork, every effort should be made to photograph the image perfectly square. It is not always possible to get it perfect, and with Photoshop, it is quite easy to correct perspective. I have already written an article on correcting perspective, covered here.

Another aspect you'll want to control is sharpening. Again, I've covered that in a previous article, here.

Finally, an issue we discussed earlier in the article is even lighting across the image. Every effort should be made to get this perfect while shooting, but not all lighting variations can be seen on a camera's LCD. If, after shooting artwork, you find that one side or corner of an image is lighter than it should be, it can be easily corrected in Photoshop.

With the image open in Photoshop, create a new layer (Layer > New > Layer... or Shift+Ctrl+N).
Change the Layer Blending Options (drop-down menu in the layers tab, Window > Layers or F7) to Soft Light.
Select the Brush Tool (B), choose a brush size that will be approximately half of the area you want to darken (use the [ and ] keys), and soften the brush edge all the way (use the Shift+[ keys).
Set the brush opacity to around 15% (simply pressing 1 + 5 on the top row of the keyboard will do this). A lower opacity and you won't see much change; a higher opacity and it will be difficult to blend the brightnesses together.
Paint the lighter area, one stroke at a time. If you need the area darker, click and paint again. If you need it lighter, Ctrl+Z to undo the change, reduce the opacity, and paint again.

If you have any questions or comments about this post, please Email me.

Finally, a thanks to Melissa Ryan and her beautiful paintings, and Brian Larter for getting us in touch with each other.

Matt

Sharpening with Unsharp Mask (USM)

2008-03-02T23:24:00.007-04:00

Hello,

After just finishing an article on the importance of image selection, I felt an article covering an essential method of making your images truly shine would be appropriate.

This article is all about sharpening your images, for whatever purpose (either printing or web view). I will describe some example values to use for different images, cover how to sharpen for specific sizes, how to avoid sharpening halos, how sharpening can be used for haze removal, and finally, how it can sometimes help save an out of focus image.

What is Sharpening? (And what is USM?)

Sharpening refers to an increase in the contrast of edge definitions. Increasing sharpness helps bring out fine detail and can increase local contrast. It is important to note that it does not work in the same way as general contrast or curves adjustment.

Simply, here's a quick example of an image before and after sharpening has been applied (I will get into the specifics of the values later):

We've now covered what sharpening is. So what is Unsharp Mask (USM)? At first glance at the name, it seems contradictory to our goal. But, as we learned in the tutorial on masking, a mask hides elements of a process done to an image. In this case, the mask is hiding the 'unsharp' elements. Essentially, USM creates a somewhat blurred copy of the image being sharpened, then subtracts that copy from the original. In doing so, the USM is able to detect any edges in the image and then increase the contrast along those edges. It sounds complicated, but fortunately, programs that utilize USM do all this work themselves. Your work lies in understanding what setting you can adjust in the USM tool, and how to apply different settings to different images.

Let's quickly go over some terms that are essential to understanding USM. Below is the window that will appear when you apply USM (the image in the window is mine - of course yours will be a crop of whatever image you are sharpening). You access this window in Photoshop through Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask...

There are three important fields in this window. They are:

Amount: This is shown in percent and is the degree of sharpening applied (which is then qualified by the next two variables).
Radius: This alters the edge size that is sharpened. A smaller radius alters smaller edges, and (hopefully obviously) a larger radius alters bigger edges.
Threshold: This tells the USM filter how different two tonal values have to be before USM affects them. For example, sharpening a tree and sky shot - you would want the branches sharpened but not noise in the sky. Typically, values between 0 and 5 are all you'll need to use (higher value means a greater difference in tonal values will need to exist before USM will affect them).

Finally, there are a few important notes before we get into specific sharpening techniques.

If you are working with multiple layers, make sure you have the base layer selected. If you sharpen a non-image layer, sharpening will do nothing (though you can use USM on layer masks if they have a blurred edge).
My preference is to duplicate the base layer, and apply USM to the new layer. That way I can alter the opacity, add a layer mask, or completely delete the sharpened layer later on.
It is best to apply sharpening as the very last step. Changes such as resizing, adjusting contrast, and other steps can affect what degree of sharpening needs to be applied to the final image.

Values for Different Detail Types

Here are a couple of examples of USM values to use for different detail types. Now, these images are quite small, and so I used values specific to their size. More on that in the next section.

Typically, fine detail requires a smaller radius with a greater amount, while coarse, blunt detail requires a larger radius with a lesser amount. When there is subtle detail in the image that you don't want sharpened (such as noise, skin texture, etc.), a greater threshold is required.

Here are a couple of examples.

Amount: 200
Radius: 0.3
Threshold: 4

Amount: 50
Radius: 0.6
Threshold: 2

In the first image, you can see that most of the detail is very fine, and there's a fair bit of blue sky. So for that image, I used a small radius and high amount. I also used a relatively high threshold to help avoid introducing noise into the sky (what little sky texture that exists is jpg compression).

In the second image, there is virtually no fine detail. There is texture in the concrete and there is a metal ladder. A larger radius and smaller amount were used to accent the blunt detail. A relatively small threshold was used as there was no fine detail that could have been over-enhanced.

Sharpening for Specific Sizes

Similar to using specific sharpening settings for different detail types, as we just covered, it is also important to use specific sharpening settings for different image sizes.

This can be thought of in a similar way to sharpening for different detail types. For instance, if you downsize an image for web viewing (between 500 and 800 pixels on the long edge), then most detail will be fairly fine on the screen. Conversely, if you upsize an image for printing (or even keep it at its native resolution), even fine detail will be fairly coarse compared to the web-sized image.

Let's take a look at the following example. Both images are from the same capture. The first is the entire image, downsized for web viewing. The second image is a crop from an image ready to be printed at 8"x10".

Amount: 200
Radius: 0.3
Threshold: 4

Amount: 140
Radius: 0.6
Threshold: 5

The first image has a high amount and a small radius, thus accenting the fine detail. The second image has a smaller amount and a larger radius, thus accenting the larger detail.

Avoiding Sharpening Halos

I don't know of any special tricks to eliminate sharpening halos, other than to be cautious not to over sharpen.

The best way to avoid halos is to do all of your sharpening while viewing the image at 100%. Now, not all images need to be sharpened to the max, but if you have an image you want very heavily sharpened, turn up the necessary values just until you start to see halos, then pull the sliders back down a bit. Scrutinize the image carefully, and you'll get better with time.

Below is an image with really bad halos, just so you can see what I'm talking about. The white edge between the black and grey is the halo.

Using USM to Remove Haze

Unsharp Mask can be used for more than just sharpening edges - it can also be used to reduce the appearance of haze.

When you stop and think about how amount and radius work together, you can probably figure out how this will work. You are wanting to add contrast to large areas, so a large radius will be necessary. Let's look at an example:

This image required a radius of 60, amount of 35, and I used a threshold of 4. The specific number that you will use will change with the image, but I've found that these are good general guidelines for haze removal.

Using USM to Refocus and Image

It should be noted that USM cannot actually make an out of focus (OOF)or blurry image perfect. It can, however, be used in rare cases to make an OOF or blurry image slightly more usable for small applications (4x6 prints or web images).

What is essentially needed is very strong sharpening - a combination of a relatively large radius (between 1.5 and 5, usually) along with relatively high amount (usually 100 or more).

One more note before I show an example - it is helpful to use layer masks when you use this technique, as you will not want to "re-focus" the truly OOF elements of the image.

Now, on to the example.

"Heavy USM" in this case was Amount = 100; Radius = 4.5; Threshold = 5

As you can see in this example, the original image is out of focus (I am referring only to the portions that are meant to be in focus). The next image was given approximately the same USM treatment as any other image I would downsize for web viewing. The third image has USM settings of amount = 110, radius - 4.5, threshold = 5.

The fourth image has a layer mask applied to it, masking the "re-focusing" from the elements meant to be OOF.

While this is certainly not a perfect image, it does make it slightly more usable. I have been able to use this process to change a friend's OOF 8 MP image into a usable 4x6 print.

I hope you have found this tutorial helpful. If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks,
Matt

Upcoming Articles

2008-02-18T22:08:00.002-04:00

Hello.

Just a quick post. I've started a side bar of what my upcoming posts will cover. As you can see, I have sharpening using unsharp mask, resizing for web, and resizing & sharpening for printing in the works.

If you have any suggestions or requests, please Email me.

Just to be colourful, here are a couple of my recent pictures.

Thanks,
Matt

Shot with Nikon D70s and Nikkor 60mm Micro. ISO 1600 processed in Capture NX and Photoshop (NX Noise Reduction & Noise Ninja applied).

Shot with Nikon D70s and 70-300VR, in Lake Louise, Alberta. See the fellow in Blue on top of the ice sheet? He's between the two right-most trees.

Importance of Image Selection

2008-02-02T18:30:00.000-04:00

Hello.

This article is about the importance of image selection. Image Selection refers to the images you (as a photographer) choose to capture (with your camera), edit and display. I feel it is an important issue, and this is an article that I've been wanting to write for a long time - almost as long as I've been working on this blog (since December 2006, if anybody's keep track).

I've defined what I consider image selection to be. But to be clear, I should define one more word. This blog (and digital photography itself) deals largely with editing images. For the rest of this post, I will refer to editing as the manipulation of images (either in camera, with software like Picasa [great, free program] or Photoshop, or whatever method you use).

Image selection seemed to me to be an innocuous topic when I began discussing it with others, but it has caused some heated debates as well as many excellent discussions.

The idea of image selection was first brought to my attention a couple of years ago by my good friend (and current MFA student at NSCAD in Halifax, NS) when I sent him an email with a half dozen images I had just shot and edited. There were really only two distinct images there, but several slightly different angles of the same two shots. I was not asking him for his opinion on which image was better and why - I was showing him those images to showcase my recent work.

It was then that my friend, whom I had just shown several nearly identical variations of two images, enlightened me. He told me that image selection is a critical part of photography, and is a large part of what defines us individually as photographers.

Educated Support

It's important to point out that this notion of image selection being important is not just an idea that my friend and I support. I had a quick flick through my photo literature and came up with these sources supporting this same principle.

First, from my favourite photographic author, Freeman Patterson (mental note: dedicate entire posts about him in the future). One of his many excellent books is Photography and the Art of Seeing: A Visual Perception Workshop for Film and Digital Photography (3rd edition, 2004, Key Porter Books Ltd.).

This entire book talks about design and visual expression, but in the summation, the author states: "You must... become sensitive to the essence of the subject matter.... Then you decide which themes are expressed through the situation or event..., and select the details that best express the theme you choose to illustrate." (p. 145).

Understanding your subject and how you want to express that understanding is essential to image selection. It is best, though not critical, to think about what you're shooting and why even before you put the camera to your eye. What is the subject; what guides your eye to the subject (and what leads your eye away); what is unique about the photo you will capture; what technical considerations must you make (DOF, focal length, detail, exposure...)? Are you capturing an image for the sake of capturing, or are you making the best photograph you (or anybody) can make? If you're taking the time to truly learn photography (and I hope that in reading this, you are), then I'm guessing you want to make the best image of whatever it is that you are photographing that you can.

Another great book (that I wish the author would re-issue) is Photojournalism: Content & Technique (Greg Lewis, 2nd edition, Wm. C. Brown Communications Inc., 1995).

In a section on photo editing and selecting photos for publication, the author states "photo editing is the entire process of selecting photos from the photographer's take, cropping them, determining, or at least influencing, their use on the printed page.... Photo editing begins when you press the [shutter]. You should be thinking about the needs of the story and the photos you can make that will tell the story best" (p. 210).

While the author is speaking specifically about printed photojournalism (the book was published in 1995), the theory is just as relevant today, whether your pictures end up in newspapers, magazines, websites, or sold or hung around your home.

The author goes on to state that "it is not unusual for a photographer to become subjectively involved with the photos and think an image says more than it really does" (p. 210). It is important to step back from your photos and try to take a more objective look at them. If you have several images you are trying to choose between, it is appropriate to share them with others to get feedback and perspective on them. I know this contradicts much of what I've said so far, but this sort of image sharing should be done with a more selective audience and is important to do occasionally to gain a fresh perspective on your own work.

Judging Your Photos

Judging your own photographs can be a difficult task. I get reminded of this any time I decide to enter a single image into a photo competition, choose an image to print for a friend, or pick just a half dozen images to put up on this blog to show the "best" of my work from the past several months. Leading up to these events, I often feel proud (or disgusted!) with many of my images, but when I have to choose a limited selection of images that represent my work, I find myself looking at my work much differently. It is often a good way to rethink my work, decide what I need to work on, and realize what, if any, progress I've made.

A good (though a little dry) book is Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images (Terry Barrett, 3rd edition, McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2000). This book deals largely with fine art photography and very in-depth photographic critiquing.

In the section of this book called Evaluating Photographs, the author says "a judgement is a what that demands a why. Judgements, like interpretations, depend on reasons. Judgements without reasons are not particularly beneficial. To declare something 'good' or 'bad', 'original' or 'remarkable,' without giving reasons as to why it is thought to be so is merely to offer a conclusion, and however well founded or thought out that conclusion might be, it is not very revealing or helpful if the reasons behind it are not offered in its support" (p. 117).

The author goes on to say that "like interpretations, judgements are neither definitively nor absolutely right or wrong. Rather, judgements, like interpretations, are more or less convincing, persuasive, and compelling, depending on how well or poorly they are argued" (p. 119).

From this statement comes a great point for practice - learn to justify your favourite pictures. Imagine explaining the merits of your photos (either individually, or a set of images you feel would represent your portfolio) to viewers. How would you tell someone who doesn't study photography why you didn't place the subject in the very centre of the image (or explaining to someone who recently learned the rule of thirds why you did put the subject dead centre!); if you were in a fine art photography class, how would describe your photo (try to come up with a full two minutes of intelligent discussion); if you were selling your work (or yourself - err, photographically speaking), how would you describe your knowledge/technique/vision?

Discussion forums on sites such as DPReview can be good or bad. If you ask specifically for some constructive criticism, it will often come to you (note: don't get your back up. Learn to intelligently defend yourself and/or learn from what people are sharing with you), but hold on to your ego. It is not uncommon for an undeserving (in my humble opinion) image to get dozens of gushing reviews. Listen to the negatives, store them away somewhere, and if you don't agree, teach others what you know, too. (Again, be calm and intelligent. Please - make photography a civilized community with sharing and compassion.)

Not every image has to be technically perfect, of a gorgeous model, or from some far-off corner of the earth. It's OK to have as a favourite image a picture of a grandmother holding her first grandchild even if it is underexposed, crooked and out of focus. Capturing the moment is often what photography is about. But from an image like that, we must learn for the next opportunity. What lens should we have had ready; what ISO would have made the light/sharpness/DOF more appropriate; what lighting would have made the image stronger; what angle could have helped; what coaching could have been done to improve the composition?

We have talked about a lot here, and I do hope it has been helpful to you. When I started thinking about my own photography more critically, it changed what I shot, how I shot, and what I shared. I started thinking about every image I shared as a reflection of what I saw, how I saw it, and how I was able to capture it. No more did I want dozens of images that all looked the same. I do have favourite themes, and do work similar subjects often, but I try harder now to see different angles, different subjects, and always practice different techniques to diversify and perfect my style.

If you have any questions, opinions or related stories, I would love to hear them. I leave you with a small selection of my favourite images from the past few months and another great piece from Freeman Patterson's Photography and the Art of Seeing: "An appreciation of natural design and a knowledge of the principles of visual design will play a major part in your selection of subject matter and the success and impact of the final image" (p. 145).

Thanks,
Matt

Shot with Nikon D70s and 70-300VR, near Johnston Canyon, Alberta. The repeating patterns in the fore/mid/background make me really love this shot. The warm reds and cool blues/whites play well off of each other, and there is great detail throughout.

My wife, Amy, shot with Nikon D70s, Sigma 10-20mm, and SB-600 triggered wirelessly (camera right). The lighting balance, feeling of expanse, and completion of story told (the trail should be a clue...) make this one of my favourites.

Shot with Nikon D70s and Sigma 10-20mm. The leaf is real, and the house is reflected in the roof of my car. I went out that day looking for expansive, generic fall shots and birds. I was thrilled when I saw this (natural!) composition - the yellows, blues, and strange image of a house upside down.

Shot with Nikon D70s and 70-300VR. This is a case of not seeing the possibilities as I shot. The original was 2 full stops lighter (hooray for RAW!), but by darkening the image, it strengthened the mood and brought out more of the texture in the image.

Shot with Nikon D70s and 60mm Micro. I've been working on my lighting (thank you Strobist) for close to a year now. This captured the excitement my wife had at seeing her new niece, and did so well (if I do say so myself). Flash through umbrella camera right, bare flash camera left, behind subjects, creating rim light.

Shot with Nikon D70s and Sigma 10-20mm. It didn't take me long to justify getting this lens - the huge expanse, the great detail, and the wonderful feeling (middle of a wheat field, miles from anything) this image has make me smile every time I see it.

Hyperfocal Distance

2007-10-28T23:34:00.001-03:00

Hello.

This has been a long time coming, but it's finally here! A tutorial on the whats, hows, and whys of hyperfocal photography.

What is Hyperfocal Photography?

First, let's cover what hyperfocal photography is. Simply put, hyperfocal photography is when you adjust the aperture and point of focus so that everything from a desired point (usually the foreground) to infinity is in focus. It takes work and an attention to detail, but mastering it and becoming efficient at it can certainly improve certain aspects of your photography.

How is Hyperfocal Photography Achieved?

Calculating hyperfocal distance can change depending on a number of factors, and different cameras and lenses have different ways of helping you figure out the hyperfocal distanc.

Factors affecting hyperfocal distance include focal length (wide angle lenses have a greater depth of field than telephoto lenses), distance to nearest subject (two distant objects will have a smaller hyperfocal distance than a near and far object together), and sensor size (the smaller the sensor, the greater the depth of field).

In order to calculate hyperfocal distance, there are a number of different things cameras and lenses have that can help you.

Hyperfocal Lens Markings

Some lenses (this seems be more the case with older lenses) have markings on them showing the hyperfocal distances for different apertures. An example of this is shown in the image below.

In the image below, you can see that the lens is focused to 8'. On the barrel, you can see two vertical markings on either side of the focus point line - two lines correspond with the number 11, and two with 16.

These lines tell you that when you have the lens focused at 8' and the aperture set at f/16, everything from 6' (on the right of the scale) to 12' (on the left of the scale) will be in focus.

Adjusting the focus ring on this lens will change the hyperfocal distance (the area that is in focus) for a given aperture. For instance, you can see that with this lens, setting the focus point to 12' would give you DOF from 8' to 20'.

Using DOF rules and your LCD

There is a simple Depth of Field (DOF) rule that will help make hyperfocal distance calculations easy - your DOF is always 1/3 in front of the focus point, and 2/3 behind it. What that means is that if you focus on something 10' away and your DOF (area in focus) is 3', everything from 9' to 12' will be in focus.

Using the above rule, you can resort to trial and error to achieve the desired hyperfocal distance. Set an aperture that will give you a large DOF (usually at least f/11, but you will need lots of light (or a tripod, which is a good idea anyway) to freeze action, or a static subject), set your focus 1/3 of the way past where you want your DOF to begin and where it will end. Shoot. Look on the LCD to see what was in focus. If not enough, you'll need a smaller aperture (larger f/ number); if too much, then you'll want a larger aperture (smaller f/ number).

Using Your DOF Preview Button

Many SLRs these days have a DOF preview button (read the user's manual for your camera). To use this, set the aperture you want to use and press the button. The viewfinder will become darker, but you will see how much of the image is in focus.

With the DOF preview button pressed, adjust the focus ring until the desired hypefocal distance is achieved.

If you cannot get the hyperfocal distance required with a particular aperture, close down the lens some more (increase the f/ number) and try again.

Use Specially Designed Cameras

Some cameras will use their software to get the settings right for a given hyperfocal distance (check your camera's user manual). You can set the front and back point to be in focus and the camera will set the aperture and proper focus point to get the entire range in focus.

I have only ever heard of this feature on Canon cameras (and not all of them), but it may be in other cameras too.

Another Helpful Rule

This rule can be used with the all of the methods above. Set your lens to focus at infinity, set your desired aperture, then check to see the closest point in focus (check the hyperfocal marks on the lens; take a picture and check the LCD; or press the DOF preview button).

Now, set the lens' focus to the closest focused distance noted in the previous point.

The area in focus will be from half to new focus point all the way to infinity (assuming the same aperture).

There is a lot to remember here, and it may seem confusing. It's important to practice this and truly understand hyperfocal distance. Try sitting at your computer with your camera and try the rules with objects you have around you. Read a rule, practice, ask questions!

These two sets of images show (from left to right): focusing only on foreground; focusing only background; focusing using hyperfocal distance calculations (discussed above).

Why is Hyperfocal Photography Important?

Hyperfocal photography is by no means the be all and end all of photography; many times you will actually want to have some or most of the image out of focus. However, mastering and achieving hyperfocal technique can really help your photography.

You may have a group of people, several bodies deep, that you need to photograph. You'll want to get them all in focus! If you do landscape photography with a wide angle lens, it is often important to have something in the foreground to draw the eye and give a sense of scale in the image - all the better if you can actually see detail in the foreground object without losing detail in the rest of the scene.

You can also use hyperfocal photography to keep elements of a scene out of focus! Knowing the rules and principles of hyperfocal distance can help you ensure you don't get too much of the scene in focus.

I leave you with a few of my images where I used hyperfocal technique.

A trail in Banff National Park called Eiffel Lake (near Moraine Lake). Shot with Nikon D70s, Sigma 10-20mm at 14mm, f/16.

Sibbald Lake trail in Kananaskis. Shot with Nikon D70s, Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm, f/16.

Wheat field on the highway south of Calgary, Alberta. Shot with Nikon D70s, Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm, f/18.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks.
Matt

New Images - April 29, 2007

2007-04-29T18:13:00.000-03:00

Hello.

The seasons are changing, and I'm trying to learn some new techniques, so I've been shooting a variety of different subjects lately, and hopefully many more to come.

In just a couple of weeks, I will be moving from Halifax to Calgary. There, I'll be working at a new job (hopefully), have a new home, finally be in the same city as my girlfriend (fiance, but I like the word girlfriend more), and have a whole new world to explore. It'll be a busy time, but I'm really looking forward to the many (photo) opportunities that lie ahead.

Please enjoy the following images. I am (perpetually, it seems) working on blog posts about night photography, and about digital pinhole photography. I'm trying to build up a respectable collection of images to go with each post, and having a blast taking them.

I have many more on my photo site, but here's a sampling of some of my favourite pieces.

Please enjoy, and email me any comments, or post them here.

My nephew Dawson. I quite like this image, and it has just (today!) won me a photo competition. The prize? A Canon A640.

A view just outside of Truro, NS.

A snow angel at sunset.

Me and my fiance, Amy, on Bell Island, NL. Fill light was an SB600 triggered wirelessly.

Mussel shells on a dock pulled out of water.

My friend Susie during a recent photo shoot. Shot in bright daylight with an SB600 triggered wirelessly - background underexposed and flash used to fill shadows and bring Susie forward.

DIY Lighting Equipment

2007-03-17T20:18:00.001-03:00

March 24, 2007 Update: Added examples for each of the three flash diffusers.

Hello.

This is a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) guide to making some really good lighting tools. I cannot take credit for all of these, but hope this will be a useful resource.

There are several Flash Diffusers that are cheap (anywhere from free to a couple of dollars) to make, a homemade double-sided Reflector, and an excellent Light Box.

I'm all for finding new DIY items, so if you have something to share, please Email me. Let's get to it!

Flash Diffusers

There are three (four, if you include both film canisters) flash diffusers here. A yogurt container (for a slave flash), film canisters (for on-board flash), and a foam diffuser (for slave flash). Let's cover them in the same order as listed here.

Yogurt Container Diffusers

This diffuser is easy and inexpensive. It will really soften the light of your slave flash and is ideal for any macro shooting. First of all, it will move the actual light source forward (because light will radiate out from all parts of the container, and the end extends a few inches past the end of the flash head itself) so shooting objects close to the front of the lens will not have a shadow created by the lens. It also makes the light source very large (the full area of the yogurt container).

One thing to be cautious of a slight colour tint. Even with all the red on the yogurt container pictured, the colour balance only warmed up slightly. I usually prefer a slightly warm colour balance, but it's something to be aware of.

To make this diffuser:

Simply trace out the shape of the front of the flash head onto the lid of the yogurt container.

Cut out that shape with an exacto knife (do be careful - this may sound patronizing, but it always pays to be aware of the risks).

See if the lid fits a good inch or so down over the flash head. If not, make the necessary adjustments.

Put the yogurt lid onto the container itself (make sure its empty and clean - I hope that part's obvious), put the flash on the camera, and shoot as per normal. Assuming your camera has TTL flash, it'll make any necessary power adjustments.

This diffuser is handy, because if you know you're going some place where they have extra yogurt containers (I've always got a couple in my cupboards), you only need to bring the lid with you. Handy stuff!

Example of what the yogurt container diffuser can do.

Film Canister Diffusers

These diffusers are great for on-board flash. You can use any near-clear film canisters you have lying around (or most photo stores are happy to let you have some of their stash).

Film canister diffusers don't diffuse as much as the yogurt container diffuser does on slave flashes, but they do still increase the light source area, and make a slight improvement for close-up shooting to (help to eliminate the shadow caused by the lens).

As you can see in the two images above, you can make the diffuser to fit over the on-board flash width-wise or length-wise. It's more a matter of what will fit on your camera.

To make these diffusers:

To make the tall-and-narrow diffuser, discard the lid and cut notches out of both sides of the canister with an exacto knife. Make the notches wide enough to fit over the flash, but narrow enough to make it a snug fit so it won't fall off.

To make the short-and-wide diffuser, remove the lid and cut a hole in the side of the canister the same approximate shape as the on-board flash. Try the canister on the flash for fit and adjust as necessary. Replace the canister lid to keep the diffuser snug.

These diffusers are small and useful. They'll fit in your pocket and soften the harsh shadows caused by flash, making it great for close-up work and portraits.

Example of what the canister diffuser can do.

Foam Diffusers

This diffuser is easy to make and makes an incredible difference to the look of the light. It increases the size of the light source, thus diffusing it. But it also allows you to bounce some of the light from the flash off the ceiling, because the flash head has to be pointed vertically for the diffuser to work properly.

There are several references to this sort of thing on the internet already, found here, here, and here. I'm about to outline the one I found easiest to make, and that gave consistently great results.

The list of needed supplies is short and quite inexpensive:

1 sheet of white craft foam (found at Walmart for $0.99 Canadian).

1 sheet of black craft foam (same place).

8" (20cm) of high-quality velcro (don't cheap on this - the good stuff really pays off).

A knife or scissors.

A stapler (with staples, of course).

I had found a template for this diffuser on the internet months ago, but it seems to have been removed. So, I've created my own. You can print it off, just use it as a guide, or make your own design (if you come up with something really creative, I'd love to hear about it). So, here's the template:

Click on image above to see full-size version.

To create this diffuser:

Cut the same shape out of both the white and the black foam sheet.

Staple both pieces together so they fit perfectly over each other (staple around the edges - 1 staple per inch (2.5cm)).

Cut the velcro into 2 - 1" (2.5cm) pieces, and 1 - 2" (5cm) piece.

Attach the hook (non-fuzzy) part of the velcro to the white side of the diffuser, as shown in the diagram by the red rectangles. Then staple them on for extra reinforcement.

Crease the diffuser as shown in the diagram, folding in towards the white side.

There. Pretty simple, huh? Now comes for the flash part. Remember the pieces of velcro you cut out? Remember the loop (fuzzy) side of the velcro pieces you haven't used yet? Well, those get stuck onto the flash head itself. Put the diffuser over the flash head before you attach the velcro so you can see where to place it. The diffuser should tilt forward slightly when attached to the flash.

To use the diffuser, point the flash head straight up, attach the diffuser, and shoot as per normal. This will lower the maximum power of the flash slightly, but TTL cameras will compensate automatically. Shadows will be softer, harsh highlights will be reduced, and image quality will greatly improve. This diffuser is just great for portraits.

Example of what the foam diffuser can do. Note the decreased highlights and more even lighting.

Double-Sided Reflector

This next tool was suggested to me by Lisa-Marie Noseworthy at my local camera shop, Carsand Mosher. It's simple, easy to make, and really quite ingenious.

This reflector measures approximately 22x28" (55x70cm), and has gold and white squares on one side, and silver and white squares on the other. It is made from bristle board - one sheet of white woven into a sheet with gold on one side, and silver on the other. Double-sided sheets are common in craft and stationery stores.

Making this reflector is quite easy:

Measure and cut the white sheet into 2" (5cm) wide strips - cutting the strips along the shorter length.

With the gold/silver sheet, measure 2" (5cm) wide strips along the longer length, but when you cut the strips, leave approximately 2" (5cm) at one end uncut. This will help give the reflector strength.

Weave the white strips into the gold/silver sheet. If the first strip goes over-under-over-under..., make the next one go under-over-under-over... - keep alternating them.

To keep the strips together, tape or staple them all around the edges.

I find this reflector to be particularly useful when shooting portraits outside on a sunny day. If you have an assistant (fancy name for a friend, sometimes) you can get them to hold up the reflector and bounce light back into the shadow areas. You can use the silver side if you just want to reflect a lot of light, and use the gold side to warm (make slightly yellower) up the reflected light. The strips of white are there to reflect more light, and to keep the reflection from being too yellow.

Home Made Light Box

This next creation I can take absolutely no credit for (not that I can take much for any of the others). A gentleman named Bill Huber designed this, and did up all of the plans for it. Really incredible. I'll guide you to his website to see all the step-by-step instructions on how to build one of these:

Get the instructions on how to build the above light box Here.

I will make a couple of notes about this lightbox:

Use the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Their low power consumption is only half the story - they don't get hot either! You can have them pressed up against the cotton, or close to the things you photograph in the box without fear of melting or fire.

If your camera has a manual white balance setting - use it! Even if you just get a reading off a clean, white sheet of paper. Accurate white balance is key!

A sturdy tripod is practically a must. Those lamps don't put out a whole lot of light, and you'll likely want to shoot at low ISO and with a small aperture to guarantee high quality. Using the timer (or better yet, Mirror Lock Up (MLU), if your camera has it) will be a big help, too. Be weary of even the slightest jiggles.

I didn't glue any of the joints of my light box together. That way I can easily disassemble it for storage or transportation, if needed. All the pieces fit together snugly on mine so far - if they loosen up, I'll try to figure out a solution for that.

And there you have it. Several handy, easy, inexpensive, DIY lighting tools. Hopefully these things will improve your photography and give you more reasons to get out (or stay in!) and shoot. If you get some good examples you'd like to share, feel free to Email me.

There's one more thing I must point out, and that is the website Strobist. This is the best website on lighting (including a lot of DIY projects) out there, in my opinion. Check it out regularly, because they have a lot to share, and update it frequently.

As always, if you have anything to add, suggest, correct, or just want to chat about, please Email me.

Thanks.
Matt

New Images - February 10, 2007

2007-02-10T23:48:00.000-04:00

Welcome!

Winter isn't the easiest time for me to shoot; it's cold, the days are short, and nature's colours are dull. This is no reason to pack up the camera gear, however. Sure, fewer opportunities means we have a little more time to shop for good deals on used gear, and make sure cameras, sensors, lenses, tripods, bags, flashes, batteries, chargers, accessories... are clean and in tip-top shape, but it's a great time to learn, too.

I set a goal for myself - 1,000 pictures a month over the winter. That's approximately 30 pictures a day. That means I have to go out every day and look for inspiration: new objects, new composition, new techniques. It hasn't been easy, but I think it's really been paying off. My hit rate isn't quite what it was in the summer or fall, but I'm getting some pictures I'm really happy with.

I have many more on my photo site, but here's a sampling of some of my favourite pieces.

Please enjoy, and email me any comments, or post them here.

Lip prints on a steamy window.

A screw under blue paint on a rainy day.

An old Toyota in the snow.

Sea smoke on Halifax Harbour.

Thanks for sharing.

Matthew Greer

Photo Posts

2007-02-10T23:09:00.000-04:00

Hello.

In an effort to both share my latest photos here and keep the sidebar links succinct, I've decided to create a post that lists and links my previous photo posts. I'll keep this page updated with the latest links, and the two most recent posts will also be in the sidebar under 'My Images'.

So take a look at what I've shot so far, and check back regularly (several times a month) for new photos. Don't forget the Photoshop and photography tutorials! And as always, I keep all my work on my Photo Site - this is just a sampling of my latest shots.

Here are my previous posts. The most recent posts are listed on top.

April 29, 2007

A variety of new images and techniques.

February 10, 2007

Wet and foggy images.

January 3, 2007

A year of images - My camera turns 1!.

December 17, 2006

Sunrises and Reversed-lens macros.

December 10, 2006

Frost, textures, and dimming light.

Please do check back often. And if you have images you want to share, I'd love to see them.

Thanks.
Matt

Black and White Conversions

2007-01-18T21:33:00.002-04:00

Hello.

Today we are going to cover black and white (B&W) conversions. Converting images to B&W is a powerful tool, and there are many different ways to do it, each with a different look. These processes are for Photoshop CS2.

There are endless options, but I will cover four major, flexible conversions in this tutorial. They are the Channel Mixer, LAB Conversion, and the Greg Gorman and Daniel Diaz b&w conversion methods.

After going through these steps, it would be a good idea to review my tutorial on Actions, as it will make your life easier to automate these conversions.

I will mention this again, but it's important to note that there is no one right conversion. I often try several different conversions on the one image, as it is not always clear what the image will look like until each is applied. And you can combine two different conversions into one, using Layer Masks. For now, let's focus on the conversions themselves.

One final note - I would recommend doing most of your editing on the image before converting it to black and white - cropping, curves, cloning, removing distortion, etc.

Channel Mixer

Using the Channel Mixer is probably the easiest way to do b&w conversions, and it's flexible, too. When trying different b&w methods on an image, I usually turn to this one first. You can easily see what its effect will be simply by looking in the Channels window (Window > Channels).

By clicking on the Red, Green and Blue (Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, and Ctrl+3, respectively) channels, you can see the effect each has on the image. It is the same as using a Red, Green or Blue filter on the front of a camera when shooting b&w.

Each channel blocks its own light, and accentuates its opposite. For example, a red filter will make red objects look white, and blue objects look black - excellent for making blue skies (or cloudy skies with patches of blue) really dark and contrasty.

So, we've looked at each channel in the Channels window. Here's how to add the channel mixer to your image. (First, make sure you select the RGB (Ctrl+~) channel, so you'll see the effect on the actual image.)

Open the Layers window (Window > Layers).

In the bottom of the Layers window, click the Add New Adjustment Layer icon (half-black/half-white circle), and select Channel Mixer.

In the bottom-left corner of the window, click on the 'Monochrome' tick-box.

Adjust the Red, Green, and Blue sliders to taste - try to keep the total at approximately 100%. If you preferred the blue channel from the Channels window, put the Blue slider at 100%, and the other two at 0%. Of course, any combination of the three is fine.

I prefer to lighten and darken the image by increasing or decreasing the Red, Green, and Blue sliders, (or with Curves after the fact) but you can adjust the Constant slider if desired.

Click 'OK'.

That's it!

Now, you can take this one step further - you can combine two channel mixers on the one image. This is useful if you want to have the effect of one channel on part of the image, and the effect of another channel on a different part of the image.

To do this, simply create two (or more) Channel Mixer layers, and adjust each the way you want it (I would recommend renaming each layer (by double-clicking on it) to either the part of the image it corresponds to, or to the channel is uses). Then Mask the part of each Channel Mixer layer you don't want to apply.

Note: Using masks with channel mixers may result in overlapping layers where colour shows through.

To avoid colour showing through, I would recommend (only after applying the channel mixers and then flattening the image) converting the image to greyscale (Image > Mode > Greyscale), then back to your colour space (eg: Image > Mode > RGB).

LAB Conversion

LAB b&w conversions result in lower-contrast images with smooth tonal transitions - I find them excellent for portraits in soft, even lighting (such as studio photographs, portraits shot on cloudy days, and daylight images with fill-flash). You may find many other uses for this conversion, but I usually turn to this one first for my portraits.

There aren't many steps in this, but you may find it easier to create an Action for this process.

Let's go through the steps. With an image open:

Convert Mode to LAB (Image > Mode > LAB Colour).

Go to the Channels window (Window > Channels).

Delete the 'a' channel (right-click and 'Delete Channel', or drag layer to garbage can in bottom-right corner of window).

Now delete the 'Alpha 2' channel.

Convert Mode to Greyscale (Image > Mode > Greyscale).

You're done! Now, if you want to adjust brightness or contrast, I would recommend using Curves.

Greg Gorman Conversion

This action was developed by Greg Gorman. You can find step-by-step of how to create the action on his website (look under 'Learn', then 'Download the B&W Conversion Tutorial') as a PDF. There are many steps, so I find it easier to just provide you with the action to download. ATNCentral hosts this action, and many more. (They are worth checking out.) I cover how to create, load, and save actions in my Actions tutorial.

Here's the link for the action: GormanBW.atn

This part of the tutorial will cover how to adjust the final look of the image once the action has been applied.

I find this b&w conversion makes fairly deep, dark, black and white images. I quite like the result. The action leaves the image unflattened, and you have a number of layers you can adjust to change the final look of the image. Let's review those now.

To make adjustment, please go the Layers window (Window > Layers).

Curves - The curves layer can be adjusted in same way as covered in my Curves tutorial. Quickly though, the left part of the curve corresponds to the darker parts of the image, and the right part to the brighter parts. Moving points on the curve upwards lightens that part of the image; lower points darkens the image. This is a good way to bring up shadows and to add controlled contrast to specific parts of the image.

Levels - I am yet to do a Levels tutorial (it's on my to-do list). Levels is essentially a brute-force contrast adjuster with some flexibility. Moving the left-most (shadows) slider to the right increases the black-point (where the shadows become pure black). Moving the right-most (highlights) slider to the left decreases the white-point (where the highlights become pure white). The middle slider affects brightness - left = brighter, right = darker (counter-intuitive to me).

The sliders can also be used to show you the white-point and black-point. Simply hold the Alt key while sliding the black-point or white-point sliders. You will see in the image where pixels become pure black or pure white. Handy to make sure you don't lose detail at either end.

Colour Fill - This tool will allow you to essentially make the image darker or lighter with a grey filter. Double-clicking this tool will bring up a 'Colour Picker' window (see below). Moving the middle (greys) slider up and down will make your overall image lighter or darker, respectively.

Layer 1 - This layer has a High Pass filter applied. High Pass is essentially a sharpening layer that also has some effect on contrast (which, actually, all sharpening does). The opacity of this layer is set to 20%. You can adjust this by changing the opacity slider in the top-right corner of the Layers window. Increasing opacity makes it sharper and more contrasty, decreasing opacity reduced sharpness and contrast.

Background - The background layer already has some changes made to it (converted to b&w with a LAB conversion). Adjustments can be made to it, if need be, but at this stage, hopefully the bulk of your other adjustments have been done.

Colour Fill adjustment - Grey Slider

That's it! If you want to save it as a jpg, click Layer > Flatten Image.

Daniel Diaz Conversion

This conversion was developed by Daniel Diaz. With his help (thanks again, Daniel!), I was able to make an action for his conversion that leaves the image with all the adjustment layers intact.

This is a process I just recently discovered. It outputs a contrasty, sharp image. I find it great for images where there is hard flash used as it helps bring down strong highlights. It has a very pleasing tone.

I will walk through his conversion step-by-step in a way that will output an image with no adjustment layers. However, if you want a pre-made action that outputs a file with adjustment layers that allow to make changes after the fact, you can download it here:

Download Daniel Diaz B&W conversion.

Now, let's go through the (many) steps involved with making this conversion.

With the image open in Photoshop:

Open Channel Mixer (Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer). Check the 'Monochrome' box in the bottom-left. Adjust the sliders to taste as we did above. Press 'OK'.

Open Selective Colour (Image > Adjustments > Selective Colour). From the drop-down menu, first select 'white', then adjust the black slider to taste (more black darkens whites, less lightens). Repeat with 'neutral' and 'black' from the drop-down menu. Press 'OK'.

Duplicate the background layer in the Layers window (Window > Layers). Right-click on the background layer and click duplicate layer. You may want to rename it 'High Pass'.

Run a High Pass filter (Filter > Other > High Pass). Adjust to taste. This will take some fiddling, as you won't see the final result for a couple more steps. Press 'OK'.

In the Layers window, change the Mode to 'Hard Light', then reduce the opacity to taste (I usually use the 35-50% range, but that's just me).

Flatten the image (Layer > Flatten Image).

Add an unusual form of sharpening. It is found in Filter > Other > Custom. There will be a grid of numbers there - just press 'OK'.

Now, to fade the sharpening, click Edit > Fade Custom, and fade it to taste. I usually put it in the 20-55% range, but again, that's just me.

You can now adjust the brightness and contrast with Curves (Image > Adjustments > Curves), Levels (Image > Adjustments > Levels), or Brightness/Contrast (Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast).

The action for this (downloadable above) outputs an image with all the adjustments in layers. This way you can go back and change each adjustment. I prefer using the action, but the above steps allow for quick, easy conversions.

There we have what I find to be the best b&w conversions. There are several more out there, but these are flexible, wide-ranging options that go beyond the simple Image > Mode > Greyscale conversions.

If you have any suggestions, comments, or corrections, please Email me. Also, if either of the two links above for downloading actions don't work, let me know and I will do my best to find alternatives. Or, I could email the actions to you directly.

Thanks!
Matt

Important Photography Links

2007-01-06T16:16:00.000-04:00

Hello.

I've compiled a list of sites that I have found useful, and that I believe have a lot to offer. This list is obviously far from exhaustive, but I hope this will be a helpful resource for you all.

If there is a site that has helped you immensely and want to share it, please Email it to me. I do want to keep this list as compact as possible, but want to make sure to share important information.

**Broad Photographic Resources**
DPReview	Perhaps the best place to not only begin, but to learn a lot about photography. Camera reviews are top-notch, and the forums cover everything photographic.
Radiant Vista	Learn much about Photoshop (see Photoshop Workbench) and about how to "see" images. Informative and easy to follow video tutorials.
Thom Hogan	While mostly geared towards Nikon equipment (his user guides are essential), he's a wealth of level-headed knowledge. Keep an eye out for him in the DPReview forums.
Luminous Landscape	A great resource with many tutorials and reviews - reviews go beyond just cameras to printers, software, tripods, scanners, etc.
Photozone	Just about any lens you can think of has been tested here. Lab and real-world tests - very reputable.

**Portrait Information**
Portrait Lighting	Some basic concepts for lighting and portraits.
Wedding Photos	A fabulous guide on how to take and light great wedding photos (with gorgeous examples included).
Eye Editing	Tutorial on improving eyes in Photoshop - really helps to make a portrait picture pop.

**Lighting**
Strobist	This, to me, is one of the best sites for lighting (flash) information. It goes beyond the how-to (and covers so much of that!), and really inspires. Truly is a must-see.
Light Box	Instructions on how to make your own, inexpensive light-box.
On-Camera Flash	How to effectively use on-camera flash.
Photoflex Lighting School	They cover lighting from the basics right up to studio lighting with complex kits - clear and well explained.
dg28.com	Dozens of specific lighting tutorials. Covers a lot of issues that come up when lighting a subject, and how to get around those issues.
Wedding Lighting	An excellent walk-through for wedding lighting. Written for Nikon Flashes.
Bouncecard 1 Bouncecard 2 Bouncecard 2	Three different do-it-yourself (DIY) flash bounce cards. They're all cheap and easy to make, and all do wonders!
Wireless Flash Compensation	In-depth Wireless Flash Compensation instructions for Nikon CLS flash systems.

**Sharpening**
Sharpening 101	Thom Hogan's Article on sharpening. Clearly covers the how's and why's of sharpening.
Advanced Sharpening	A tutorial with some solid, advanced sharpening techniques.
Un-Sharp Mask	How to apply un-sharp mask (USM), and just as importantly, the theory behind the task.
USM Values	Some USM values - useful as a rough guide until you get the hang of things.
Haze Removal	Using USM to remove haze from pictures - powerful tool, wha?

**Photoshop**
Action Central	This is the site that introduced me to Actions. Has many actions already built that you can load into Photoshop. Also has some great tutorials so you can build your own actions.
Photoshop Lab	This page has several Photoshop tutorials - many of which go beyond regular photo editing.
Russel Brown	This guy really knows his way around Photoshop. The links stretch long down the page, so make sure you take a good look.

**Colour Management**
Colour Management Basics	The basics of Colour Management, including aRGB and sRGB. Covers when to use each for JPG, RAW, printing, and the web.
Colour Management Discussion	A good discussion of the many pros and cons of using different colour spaces.

**Sources of Inspiration**
Matthew Hollett	My friend, Matthew Hollet's, website. He has a natural eye for photography, and a gift for writing. Check out his Oughtful section. When I read the words he puts with his pictures, it makes me wish I could shoot every second of every day.
Brian Larter	Brian's blog has some great images (he just began a photo-a-day project for this year!), and some inspiring Photo Projects. It's ideas like Brian's that keep me shooting when I feel I've run out of ideas. He's also involved with environmental movements - because without a world to take pictures of, we'd all be lost.
Photocritic.org	A fun, useful collection of photography links. They go beyond the usual (like the science behind people blinking in photos!). Check back often to see the constant additions.
Photoblogs.org	An always-changing collection of the best photo blogs. Technique and skill are covered with the many other links above, but sometimes inspiration is what you need. And with hundreds of blogs to pick from, there's no end to the inspiration you'll find here.

And there you have it. A long list of amazing internet photographic resources.

Please remember that the internet is not the be all and end all of resources. There are many many excellent books and magazines out there, not to mention other photographers at local camera clubs or at your local camera shop. And be sure to get out and shoot! There's no point in learning all the best techniques if you aren't out using them to take pictures. (In fact, pick up a camera right now and take a picture. Of yourself, your friend, the food in your fridge!)

Again, please Email me if you have any sites you want to share with me. We all have lots to learn!

Thanks.
Matt

Happy Birthday, Camera!

2007-01-03T20:55:00.000-04:00

Well, my camera turns 1 today. It's my Nikon D70s. What a year it's been! Just shy of 15,000 pictures; many techniques learned, with the camera, the lenses, flash systems, Photoshop; and many sights seen that would not have been explored without a camera at all.

It's also been a year since I last used film, except for the odd Polaroid for fun.

I've decided to celebrate with the sharing of some of my favourite images. All shot with the D70s. I've added any relevant information below each image. Enjoy the show!

My brother playing guitar - with 50mm 1.8, ISO 1600.

A farm in PEI. 18-200VR

A building in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Perspective Corrected. 18-200VR.

Rain out my apartment window. 80-400VR

A duck and its home reflected - Public Gardens, Halifax, Nova Scotia. 80-400VR.

A tree reflected in a burned out, smashed up tractor. 18-200VR.

Cormorants in PEI. 80-400VR.

A Grey Jay in St. Anthony, Newfoundland. 80-400VR

Swans in Bowring Park, St. John's, Newfoundland. 18-200VR.

Western Brook Trail, Gros Morne, Newfoundland. 18-200VR.

Bottle Cove, Newfoundland. 18-200VR.

Window Washers, Purdy's Wharf, Halifax, Nova Scotia. 18-200VR.

Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick. 18-200VR.

Cabin at Night. St. Anthony, Newfoundland. Sigma 20mm 1.8.

Beetle in Victoria Park, Truro, Nova Scotia. Sigma 20mm 1.8.

Slug eating Mushroom. Nikkor 60mm Micro.

Sunflower. Sigma 20mm 1.8.

Shot in the Rain. Nikkor 60mm Micro.

Shot with Nikkor 60mm Micro.

Fall colours in puddle. 80-400VR.

Amy, my fiancée, in Aylesford, Nova Scotia. 18-200VR.

My sister, Jenny, and her new born son, Dawson. Nikkor 28mm 2.8.

My Mom, far in front of a cave in Bottle Cove, Newfoundland. 80-400VR.

Thorny branch. Shot with Nikkor 28mm 2.8 reversed.

Lone Branch. Nikkor 60mm Micro.

A construction site in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 18-200VR.

Sunrise from Dartmouth Bridge, Nova Scotia. 18-200VR.

Halifax Harbour Sunrise, Nova Scotia. 18-200VR.

The moon and part of the bridge girder, Halifax, Nova Scotia. 18-200VR.

Frost melting off a leaf. Nikkor 60mm Micro.

Boat on the Horizon and Sunset. Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland. 18-200VR.

Kingsburg, Nova Scotia. 18-200VR.

My Dad stirring my tea at lunch, with reflection in tea pot. 18-200VR.

Funky houses on the horizon at sunrise. Kingsburg, Nova Scotia. 18-200VR.

Shed (lit remotely by SB-600) and sunset. 18-200VR and SB600 - triggered wirelessly.

Broken down shed in Kingsburg, Nova Scotia. Lit inside, and front outside, with two SB-600s, triggered wirelessly. 18-200VR, 2 SB-600s.

So, many many images, and even more fond memories. This camera has served me great, and will continue to for years, I'm sure. Now, back to shooting!

Happy Birthday, camera.

Thanks for sharing.
Matt

Correcting Image Distortion

2006-12-22T17:36:00.000-04:00

Hello.

In today's tutorial, we will cover how to correct image distorion. Photoshop CS2 has some excellent, powerful tools to help with these problems, and I will cover them in detail. We will learn how to straighten the horizon, correct Pincushion and Barrel distortion, a couple of ways to modify perspective (correcting the illusion of buildings leaning back from shooting up at them), and finally, removing Vignetting.

These tools, once learned, are quite easy to use. While they aren't as prominently featured in Photoshop as other features like Levels, Contrast, and Saturation, they can be just as essential in creating amazing images. Let's begin!

Straightening the Horizon

The horizon in this shot is obviously not level. The best solution to this would be to reshoot the image, this time with the horizon straight (some tripods come with levels; you can get bubble levels that fit on the hotshoe of cameras; and many Nikon cameras have on-demand grid lines in the viewfinder that help with achieving a level horizon).

Short of that, however, there's an easy fix in Photoshop. With the image open, select the Measure Tool from the Tools Pallet (Window > Tools), shown below. It is hidden under the eyedropper tool. You can also access the Measure Tool by pressing Shift + I repeatedly, cycling through the tools under that keyboard shortcut until the Measure tool is selected.

Now, with the Measure Tool selected, click one point on the horizon, then drag the line across to another point on the horizon - a line that should normally be perfectly horizontal.

For fine tuning, you may find it easier to zoom in on the image (Ctrl + Space + Left-Click - zooming out is Alt + Space + Left-Click).

If you made a mistake with your line, simply click Clear in the Options window at the top of the screen.

Now that the line is drawn, click Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary, and the correct value for straightening the horizon will already be calculated. Simply click OK, and the image will be rotated.

Now, you will notice that the corners of your image need to be cropped off because of the empty white spaces left by from the rotating. Simply select the crop tool (C), select the area you want to keep, and either press Enter or click the check-mark in the Options window.

As you can see, you lose a considerable amount of your image by doing this, which is why it is important to always pay attention to your horizon while you're shooting. Still, it is better to lose a little bit of your image than to not be able to use the image at all because it is crooked.

Correcting Pincushion and Barrel Distortion

Many lenses today have some level of distortion (see Photozone's lens reviews for more information), especially super-zooms. Much of the time, the distortion isn't noticeable. When you really see distortion is when there is a straight line running near one of the edges and it is bowing inward (pincushion) or outward (barrel). Much like using the Measure Tool mentioned above, correcting this type of distortion is usually fairly simple.

Note: if you have multiple Layers, be sure you have either flattened the image, or have the image layer selected. This tool does not alter the entire canvas - just the selected layer.

As you can see, the above image has some obvious pincushion distortion. (The blue lines were added as guides with the ruler tool (Ctrl + R) for reference.)

While this sort of distortion is fairly obtrusive, it is quite easy to fix. While in Photoshop, click Filter > Distort > Lens Correction and you will see the following window.

There are a few points to make note of in this window:

Make sure the Remove Distortion Tool (D while in this window) is selected from the upper left-hand corner of the window.

If you need to move the grid around, click the hand just below (or press M), then go back to the Remove Distortion Tool.

Change the grid size with the Grid Size slider on the bottom of the window.

Clicking the Preview button on and off helps give you an idea of the changes being made to the image

To actually remove the distortion:

Slide the Remove Distortion slider (top-right of window) Left to remove Barrel Distortion.

Slide the Remove Distortion slider Right to remove Pincushion Distortion.

If you are removing Barrel Distortion (and thus pulling the sides of the image inward), then you will have blank areas around the border of your image. You will then need to crop (C) those parts of the image off. Some corner information will thus be lost, but, depending on the image, better to lose the corners than the whole image because of unacceptable distortion.

Remember the above Lens Correction window, as we will use it again in this tutorial, for Removing Vignetting.

Modifying Perspective

As you can see in the first image above, the building looked to be leaning away from you. This kind of distortion is known as Perspective. The second image has it corrected (along with a Curves adjustment). This adjustment is done quite easily with the Crop tool (C).

With the Crop tool (C) selected, select the entire area of the image.

Click the Perspective button in the Options window, at the top of the screen.

With the image selected, click and drag the top-left crop-area corner so the left vertical line is parallel with a left line of the building. If you need to move the entire line in to make sure it lines up perfectly, do so with the middle crop-area drag point (half way between top and bottom of selection), make the adjustment, then drag the line back out.

Do the same adjustment with the right side.

Make sure the top and bottom crop-area lines line up the way they should. If you were not shooting the building (or whatever) straight on, then adjusting (lining up) these lines, can correct that perspective too, if you want it to. Just be conscious of the positions of these lines.

When finished lining everything up, click the check-mark (Accept Adjustment) button in the Options windows.

If the results aren't perfect, simply undo your actions (Ctrl + Z) and attempt it again.

Alternate Perspective Modification Method

Before we leave Perspective Modification, there is another way to do it. I prefer the above because it is quick and easy, and leaves you with an image ready for editing. Quickly, though, here's another way to do it.

Open the image that needs the perspective corrected on it

Make the canvas larger (Image > Canvas Size or Alt+Ctrl+C) by 30% in each direction (130% total, after choosing 'Percent' from the drop down menu), or more if radical changes are needed.

Add the ruler bar (Ctrl+R), and add a couple of horizontal and vertical reference lines by left-clicking in the ruler area around the edge of the image, and dragging in the reference lines.

With the rectangular marquee tool (M), select the image only.

Click Edit > Transform > Skew.

Now, just as with adjusting the corner control points with the crop tool, move these control points around the line up the vertical and horizontal lines in the image with the ruler reference lines. With this form of adjusting perspective, the image with adjust as you move the control points.

You can only adjust either the horizontal or vertical at a given time with this tool - to change the other, simply release the left mouse button and reclick to drag and adjust.

When completed, click on the check-mark (Accept Image Adjustments) button in the Options bar at the top of the screen.

You will now be left with a large, empty border around your image which you will need to crop (C) off.

Now, finally, to vignetting!

Correcting Vignetting

Vignetting (sometimes called light fall-off) is the darkened corners of images. So long as the vignetting is simply light fall-off caused by the mechanical properties of the lens (and not something actually blocking the light, such as too many filters or a misaligned lens hood, which could cause complete loss of detail in the corners), the image can be easily corrected. One easy way is with the Lens Correction tool used in the Pincushion and Barrel distortion correction section.

You can see the before and after results of removing vignetting above. The steps are quick and easy:

With the image open in Photoshop, click Filter > Distort > Lens Correction.

First, turn off the grid lines (check-box at the bottom of the window).

Note the two vignette sliders (Amount & Midpoint) on the right-hand side of the window. Slide the Amount slider to the right to lighten the corners.

I find for most images, keeping the Midpoint in the middle (at +50) works best.

At this stage, lightening is done by eyeballing. Be careful not to overdo it, as it will result in obviously light corners.

Click the preview button (bottom of the window) on and off as you go to see the results.

As a final check, you can check your brightness values with the Info window (F8). Assuming your image is supposed to have the same tonal values from the centre to the corners (you probably wouldn't notice vignetting otherwise), move the mouse over the image from center towards the corrected corners. The R, G & B values in the Info window should not increase as you approach the corners.

Note:I usually try to leave the corners still slightly darker - this makes sure I don't over do it, and it keeps the viewer's eyes from leaving the image.

Alternate Vignetting Removal Method

There is one other way to remove Vignetting, though it is less precise. I sometimes remove (or add, if need be) vignetting with a Soft Light Layer. Here's how to do it:

With the image open in Photoshop, open the Layers window (F7) and click the Create New Layer button in the bottom of the window (or press Shift+Ctrl+N).

In the drop-down menu in the Layers window (the Blend mode), select Soft Light.

Select the Brush tool (B), change the paint colour to white (D gives the default brush colours, X alternates between the Foreground and Background colour).

Make the brush large ([ makes the brush smaller, ] makes the brush larger), at least 1000px, and soften the edge (Shift+[ makes it softer, Shift+] makes it harder).

Turn down the opacity to 10-15% (pressing 1 will make it 10%, pressing 1+5 makes it 15% - you can figure out the rest), and paint the corners of the image lighter.

And that's it. You've just removed most of the common distortions from your image!

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about this tutorial, please Email me.

I'll be back with more soon.

Thanks.
Matt

Photoshop Adjustment Layers - Curves

2006-12-19T20:02:00.000-04:00

Hi there.

I've been looking forward to doing this tutorial since I started the blog. We will be covering Curves - including adjusting brightness and contrast with simple and complex curves, and adjusting colour balance using curves. Curves is a very powerful tool and is a big part of what (I believe) Photoshop and post processing is all about. There's much to cover, so let's begin.

Background Information

Let's cover a little history first. In a previous post, I talked about what my most common Adjustment Layers were, and how to quickly add them with Batch Processing. I will quickly cover adding a Curves adjustment layer here, but it would be a good refresher to go over those tutorials quickly.

I'd like to go over four quick point that I think will make using curves easier for you.

Pressing Alt + Left-Click in the curves window will switch back and forth between a small and a large grid. I prefer a small grid as it allows for more visual accuracy.

Clicking the icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the window will alternate between a big and small window. Again, I prefer a bigger window for better accuracy, so long as I don't need the screen space.

If you have added a point on the curve that you want to get rid of, simply click on it and drag it into an adjoining point - either the white-point or black-point on the curve, or another point you've already created.

If you have created a complicated curve that you want to reset, the easiest way to do so is hold down Alt and Left-Click on the Cancel button. Note that Cancel becomes Reset with the Alt button pressed.

We will start in Photoshop CS2. First open an image you want to adjust the brightness and/or contrast of. Now, you can either run an action to apply your adjustment layers, or you can click on Window > Layers, then click the New Adjustment Layer icon in the bottom of that window (half black - half white circle) and select Curves. For now, click OK on the layers window, because we are going to change the blending mode of the curve.

In the drop-down menu under the Layers tab (where it currently says 'Normal'), select Luminosity from the list. This will help prevent posterization from occurring between colour and tone transitions.

One last thing to do before we begin - the histogram. This is a chart that tells us how much information is in the black point and shadows (left part of chart), the midtones (middle of chart), and highlights and white point (right of chart). To bring up the histogram, click Windows > Histogram. Then in the drop-down menu histogram window, choose Luminosity as this will show your actual brightness values. RGB simply shows the combined values of the Red, Green, and Blue levels and is not an accurate guide to the brightness values of your image. Note that this window will stay open until you close it - though you will often need to change the mode back to Luminosity.

Not every histogram will look like the one above - it will change depending on the brightness values of your image, and will change as you make adjustments to your image.

When changing the brightness or contrast of the image, try to make sure no part of the histogram gets all the way to the left or the right - if it does, that means you have lost information to completely black shadows (left), or blown out hightlights (right).

Altering the Curve

Now, on to the editing of the image!

Back in your Layer window (Windows > Layers), double click on the half-black, half-white circle next to the Curves Layer. That will bring the Curves window back up.

I have highlighted the major points of the curve above. The leftmost point on the curve is the black-point (where detail in the image has no lightness whatsoever); the lower portion of the curve is the shadow detail; the middle portion is the mid tones; the top portion is the highlights; and the rightmost point is the white-point (where detail in the image is completely white, with no other detail). Clicking and dragging different parts of the curve will affect the brightness values that correspond to that part of the curve. Be aware that moving one part of the curve can change values throughout the curve - just like moving a point on a taut piece of string will affect other points on that string - though to a lesser degree.

You can see in the bottom of the curves window Input and Output values. These are brightness values.

0 is no brightness, or complete black.

255 is the highest value, or completely white.

When you click a point on the curve, the Input value is what the brightness was before you made any adjustments. Logically, the Output value is the brightness after the adjustments are made.

The idea behind adjusting brightness with curves is fairly straightforward:

To make a given brightness value brighter, click on that part of the curve and drag it upwards (increase the value).

To make a given brightness value darker, click on that part of the curve and drag it downwards (decrease the value).

Before we start to edit an image, I want to cover one more thing. Contrast. The slope of the curve changes the contrast. With just a bit of logic applied, it makes sense.

The steeper any given part of the curve is, the more contrast it has. That is because you are increasing the bright values and decreasing the dark values - thus making a bigger difference between the two.

The flatter any given part of the curve is, the less contrast it has. That is because you are decreasing the bright values and increasing the dark values - thus decreasing the difference between the two.

Adding Contrast

Now, here is a fairly straightforward image that I want to add contrast to.

Just by looking at the image, you can see that the brightness values are fairly neutral - nothing particularly close to white, nothing particularly close to black. To be sure, though, there is a way to check.

With the Curves layer window open, move the mouse cursor over the image. It will turn into an eyedropper automatically. Now, as you click and drag the mouse over the image, you will see or dot or circle move up and down the curve in the curves window. Wherever the dot is on the curve is the brightness value of that part of the image. If you want to brighten or darken a part of an image, this will tell you where to raise or lower the curve, respectively.

You can also increase the contrast of a certain tonal range by finding the brightest and darkest values in an area (click and drag the mouse around that part of the image - take note of the darkest point on the curve, as well as the brightest point).

To add contrast to the area, raise a point on the curve just to the right of the brightest point in that area, and lower a point on the curve just to the left of the darkest point in that area.

Conversely, to decrease the contrast in the areas, lower a point on the curve just to the right of the brightest point in that area, and raise a point on the curve just to the left of the darkest point in that area.

In the image of the stairs above, the brightest value in the image had a value between 215 and 220 (just over a cm (~1/2 inch) from the rightmost point on the curve), and the darkest value was between 30 and 35.

So to increase the contrast in this image, I created an S-Curve. This increased the highlight values, and decreased the shadow values, into a curve that looks like this:

The final image looks like this:

Shot with a Nikon D70s and Nikkor 18-200mm VR, 1/180s, f/6.7

You can see how the contrast was increased. Bright values became brighter, and dark values became darker. You can vary the effect by increasing or decreasing the points on the curve.

More Complex Curves

The above example was altered using a very simple curve, but not all images will be that easy to adjust (and to be honest, even that image could use some finer adjusting, but I feel it illustrated the power of simple S-Curves well). Some images may need curves that have several adjustment points. Take the following before-and-after example:

In that image I wanted to:

Add a little more contrast and brightness to the highlights (the flower petals).

Leave the contrast and brightness of the midtones (center of flowers) alone.

Darken and increase the contrast of the shadows (background).

Of course, backgrounds may not always be the darkest part of the image, and highlights may not always be the focal point, but they were in this situation.

In the above screenshot you can see the curve I applied to the image to help separate the flowers from their background.

The Black areas have increased the brightness values in those parts of the image - the points on the curve are higher (and thus are brighter) that on the standard linear curve.

The Red areas have increased contrast in those parts of the image. Remember that the steeper the curve, the higher the contrast. Brighter brights + darker darks = increased contrast.

The Blue area has the same brightness and contrast values that the original image had. All the points along that part of the curve are where they were in the original linear curve.

The Yellow area is darker than the original image (and, though darker, has less contrast because the curve is flatter - though it is hardly noticeable in this image) because the values on that part of the curve are lower than they were on the original linear curve.

This is just one of the infinite number of curves you can apply to images. There are a few more things you can do with curves once you've gone beyond the basics:

Add multiple layers to the one image. Sometimes this is easier than adding one very complicated curve. Note: watch out for posterization, or overdoing the brightness and contrast values. Check the image at 100% before you are finished.

Use Layer Masks on one layer, or multiple layers, to get the desired effect.

If there is a curve you want to apply to multiple images, you can copy that Curves Adjustment Layer from one image to another by pressing Alt + Left-Click and then dragging that layer to the other images. Or, you can create an Action to apply the adjustment to several images.

You can decrease the strength of your curves layer by decreasing the Opacity in the Layers window.

Adjusting Colour Balance with Curves

Finally, one of the amazing things curves can do is adjust the colour balance. With curves alone, you can make this adjustment:

To do this, create a Curves Adjustment Layer as per normal. In the Layers Window, (Window > Layers), select New Adjustment Layer > Curves. My preference is to select OK at this point, and rename the layer so I know it is for Colour Balance. Right-click on the layer, select Layer Properties, and change the name of the layer to 'Colour Balance'.

Note: Make sure you change the blending mode to Colour so your changes won't affect the the brightness or contrast of the colours.

Before you go back into the curves Colour Balance layer, you need to bring up the Info window. Click Window > Info. Now, when you move your mouse over the image, it will show you the per-pixel value for each of the Red, Green, and Blue channels. Try to put the mouse over a part of the image that should be a neutral colour (greys or whites). In the Info window, neutral values should have equal amounts in each channel.

If, as in the example above, the "before" values have high levels of red, and low levels of blue, then we know we need to decrease the red, and increase the blue. Simple!

Now, go back into the Curves layer (double-click on it) and, from the drop-down menu, select Red first.

If it is the highlights that need adjusting, change the values in that part of the curve (right-most area).

If it is the shadows that need adjusting, change the values in that part of the curve (left-most area).

If the entire image needs adjusting, I generally begin by adjusting the values in the middle of the curve. If further tweaking of the highlight or shadow areas is needed, I will add those adjustments.

This part of adjusting is largely a matter of alter-check-repeat. In this case, I would decrease the red values slightly, put my mouse back over the neutral part of the image, see if the red was closer to the norm, and test again. The "changed" values are shown after the "native" values, with a slash in between them.

The necessary adjustments would be made to the green and blue channel, if necessary. All channels can be adjusted with the one Curves layer - simply select the channel you need to alter from the drop-down menu, make the changes, then select the next channel you need to alter, and so on. Here are the screenshots of the altered curves for each channel (R, G & B) for the above image:

And this is the final image after the adjustments:

Shot with a Nikon D70s and Sigma 20mm f/1.8, 1/1250s, f/4

Addendum - White Balance with Eyedropper

I just posted a link to this tutorial on the DPReview forums, and Andrew from the UK posted some advice for me on achieving more accurate white balance using curves.

Andrew pointed out that the petals in my above Daisy photo still had a slight yellow cast, and were still underexposed. He suggested (and I feel he is absolutely correct in this) the following (and I added some small details along the way):

Create a new Curves Adjustment Layer; rename 'Colour Balance'; Blend Mode: Normal.

Select either the Black-point, Grey-point or White-point eyedropper from the Curves window (see image below).

Click on a part of the image that corresponds with the eyedropper chosen (in the case of the daisy photo, I used the White-point eyedropper and clicked on the brightest part of the petals).

If you do not quite have a white-point of black-point in your image, you can double-click on the corresponding eyedropper and choose the appropriate shade of grey from the colour pallet.

Tada! That's it! You've set an accurate White-point, thus correcting the colour balance, and you've corrected the exposure (assuming the point you clicked on was actually supposed to be white).

If you don't get the exact point correct with your first click, keep clicking around until you get the correct shade. Also, if the White-point you selected poorly affects the brightness and contrast of your image, you can still adjust the RGB (not individual channels) curve in the same window.

I do still feel the first lesson taught in this colour balance section is valid, as it can be used for fine tuning, and also helpful when pure whites, greys, or blacks are not in the image. But Andrew's method is clearly far more powerful.

So, thank you very much Andrew. You've been a big help. Now, let's see what his assistance did to the daisy image!

Again, thanks for the help Andrew!

We covered a lot in this tutorial. From standard S-Curves for adjusting brightness and contrast, to applying more Complex Curves to images that require them. Last, and certainly not least, we covered how to adjust Colour Balance using curves.

I will cover other colour-balance techniques in a future tutorial.

I do hope this tutorial was helpful. As always, please Email me with any questions, comments, corrections, or suggestions.

Thank you.
Matt

New Images, Dec. 17, 2006

2006-12-17T18:10:00.000-04:00

The days are still getting shorter, so with less light, it means more time to spend on the computer side of things. I've been busy getting Photoshop tutorials ready, and catching up on the last bit of my photo editing. I've just posted several new images on my website:
www.picasaweb.google.com/mgreerphoto
The new images are all in the 'New Images' folder. Quickly though, here are a few of my favourites.

The first three are from Halifax, Nova Scotia. I had always wanted to walk across the bridge to Dartmouth, so my friend Matthew Hollett and I got up early one morning in November to capture a beautiful sunrise. Minimal processing done to each image - just a matter of capturing the right light.

A view of Dartmouth with the ferry going by.

Warm early morning light painting the bridge yellow.

The moon shining high above the bridge's supports.

All of the above images shot with a Nikon D70s and Nikkor 18-200VR in RAW - processed with Adobe Photoshop CS2 and ACR.

The next image is the male end of an electrical plug - shot with a Nikkor 28mm 2.8 and a reversal ring. Getting the image sharp and steady was difficult, but I really enjoy the results!

Male electrical plug - beyond macro.

And finally, also shot with the Nikkor 28mm, this time mounted normally:

Two Honda motorcycles - both yellow - but not much else the same.

The EXIF info for all of these can be found in the album itself - click on More Info to the right of the image.

I plan to have my next tutorial cover Curves in Photoshop CS2 - both for editing exposure (brightness/contrast) and for adjust white balance. Check back in a couple of days!

Thanks,
Matt Greer

Image File Management

2006-12-14T21:29:00.000-04:00

Hello.

Today's tutorial covers image management on your computer. Proper image management begins with setting up an organized system, and includes having a clear, hierarchical folder system. This system has to extend from when you first transfer images to your hard drive, to managing your edited images. It is also important to be aware of proper backup storage techniques.

One of the best aspects of digital file storage is the ability to apply tags to your images with software such as Adobe Bridge, then finding your files based on key words or ratings that you've given them.

Image management is very important, and becomes even more so with every picture you shoot. Without proper management, your images could be lost or destroyed, and tracking existing images could be a cumbersome, onerous task. The good news is that image management can be easy and efficient, but you have to have a solid system in place first.

Why can't you just throw all your images into one folder, or even, say, just all your edited images? Well, if you're bored some afternoon, put 500+ images in one folder. Give your computer a minute to catalogue them all. Then reboot your computer and open the folder again. Your computer won't hold a cache for all those images, so it has to recatologue them. Imagine now that there are 20,000 images in there. How would you ever find what you wanted? How could you take the time for the computer to load the folder in the first place? Being organized isn't such a pain - set up a good system once and it will pay off forever!

The above image shows the properties of the folder containing all of my images - originals and edits. This is about 11 months worth of shooting, and though I may shoot a fair bit for an amateur, you get an idea of how this sort of thing can get out of hand. Close to 30GB, and more than 15,000 images. It's important to stay organized!

Setting up an Organized System

It is important to have a good system in place. Of course, it is easiest to start this from the beginning, but by the time you realize you need a better system, you probably already have a problem with your current one.

This is the method I use, and that I have found several other people use. It's efficient, pragmatic, and clear:

If you have the money, buy a second hard drive for your computer - one that is only for your photographs - no other files, no programs - just your photographs.

Create one folder each for every year of photographs you have - this will be your primary filing level.

In each 'year folder', create one folder each for every month - this will be your secondary filing level.

In each 'month folder', you will have one folder for every day of shooting you have done - this will be your tertiary (and final) filing level. I prefer to create mine as I shoot, as I do not create images every day, and I do not need excess, empty folders.

Be careful having too many subdirectories. You will want a simple, clean system. Also, as I will mention again, some burning programs only accept a maximum number of characters - going over will result in a truncated (and thus unclear) file name. This is a balance of clarity and brevity!

Naming Image Folders

As important as organizing your images is, you must be able to find your images later on. Be clear in your folder naming:

When creating folders for a given day, put the month and day in the title (ex: April 17).

For single-digit dates, be sure to put a zero (0) in front of the date number (ex: February 02), so that when the folders are sorted alphabetically, the 2s will not be in with the 20s, nor the threes in with the 30s, and so on.

It is a good idea to put a specific name with that folder as well to help remind you of its contents. Try to think of something specific, memorable, and brief. Then add it to the end of the folder name (ex: February 02 - Molly Portraits). It is often easier to remember an event than a particular date.

Try not to create folder names that are too long. Some burning programs only allow a certain number of characters, and you do not want to lose the end of a file name.

Transferring and Backing Up Images

Now that you have a good system set up for your images, it's time to organize the images themselves. Let's start from the beginning, when images are first transferred from your camera or digital memory to your computer.

Create a folder for the specific day the images were created (if there are several days of images on the folder, split them up into their respective days) as per the instructions above. Then put the folders of images in the corresponding 'month folders'.

Now that the images are on your hard drive, it's a very good idea to back them up to at least one other location before you empty your memory card. As mentioned above, I have an extra hard drive just for my photographs. For now, I use my C: drive (master hard drive) for backup. A better (though more expensive) system would be to have another dedicated hard drive (possible external) for backup.

If you don't have a second hard drive for backup, it's a good idea to back up the images on CD or DVD. Blank discs from reputable companies are so inexpensive these days (~$0.30 Canadian). The best thing to do is to make two (2) copies, keep one 'on site' (where your computer is), and bring the other somewhere out of the building - maybe to work, or to a friend's place whom you trust.

Now you're ready to erase (format) your camera's memory card. I prefer to do it in-camera for two reasons: first, this makes sure the camera formats the card with a system that the camera's software will understand; secondly, it ensures that you don't accidentally erase or format the wrong folder or drive on your computer - stranger things have happened!

Managing Edited Images

There is quite a bit you can do to keep your images organized in the editing process. I will cover Image Tags in the next section, just below.

First, when you have edited your photo and go to save it (no matter what file format you choose), I find it best to keep the original file name and file location, but add another name to the end.

Ex: DSC_1035 - Water Drops.jpg, or DSC_2846 - Edit.psd, etc.

If creating alternate versions, show that in the name somehow.

Ex: DSC_1035 - Water Drops.jpg and DSC_1035 - Water Drops B&W.jpg, DSC_1035 - Water Drops crop.jpg, DSC_1035 - Water Drops Resize 20x30.jpg, etc.

By keeping the original names and locations with the edited images, it is easier to find the originals for future editing. Also, if you remember the date or name of the event you shot, it will be easy to find all the associated images.

When finished editing a group of images, back them up!

How often you do this is up to you (depends on value - either personal or monetary). I do it once I have a full month shot and edited, but I always keep a backup on a second hard drive, and I am 'only' an amateur. If this was my living, I'd backup everything every day.

Back up onto secondary hard drive (remember, only the originals are backed up on there now!)

Back up onto DVD and bring them off site. When I back up my edits, I back them up with the originals again. It makes one more copy, and if my hard drive were to fail, it would be a quick and easy way to restore everything.

Another option to the endless DVDs is a portable hard drive. They are getting cheaper all the time, and it would be a quick, easy way to back up your photos and bring them to a secure, off site location.

I can't stress this enough - backing up is cheap! You can get reputable, 250GB, 7200 RPD, SATA hard drives for under $100 Canadian (forget the $200+ futureshop drives - check your local stores!), and DVDs and CDs can be found 100 for $30. Compare this to the film days when a roll of 24 was $5 for the film, and up to $20 for the developing and processing. You can put hundreds of thousands on a hard drive, or well over a thousand on a DVD!

Image Tags with Adobe Bridge

So, you have a beautiful file system set up. And you're always careful to name your folders and images in a way so that you'll know what they are and where they are. But what if you want to quickly find all of your images of 'Aunt Jane', or all your .psd files, or your macros, or.... Fortunately, there are programs out there that do this 'tagging' for you. One such program (and it comes with Photoshop CS2) is Adobe Bridge.

Not only is Bridge great for going through your folders and images (even previewing large-size RAW images if you have Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) installed), but you can add custom image tags, ratings, and labels to your images.

To do this, first open Adobe Bridge, either directly, or by clicking the Bridge Icon in Photoshop, just below the Menu Bar:

Once in Bridge, open the Keywords tab, or click View > Keywords Panel. Once there, you can create your own keyword groups, and keywords themselves.

To create a new group of tags, click the New Keyword Set icon, and to create a new keyword itself, click the New Keyword, both in the bottom of the Keyword window of Bridge.

I like to have tags for 'Edited', 'JPG', and 'PSD' (when I keep layered versions of my photographs), so I can always find specific files.

Note: I do not tag any of my unedited photos, but that is just my personal preference.

I also have specific tags for common photographs - specific people, scenes, or types (macro, clouds, reflections, B&W, etc.) of photographs that I do. It makes finding those images later on that much easier.

Now, to tag the images, simply select the images you want tagged in Bridge (use Ctrl + Left-Click to select multiple images), then simply click on the check box next to each tag in the Keywords Window.

Note: Images open in Photoshop can not be tagged!

There are two more options for 'tagging' images.

The first is to give them a rating. You can do this by selecting an image (or several images) in Bridge, then, putting the mouse just under the thumbnail of the image, select the number of stars you wish to give that image. Presumably this would be simply a ranking system - more stars meaning you like the image more, fewer stars meaning you like the image less. It is quick and simple, though I do prefer the keyword system myself. Of course, a combination of systems can be used.

The second alternative is what Bridge calls 'Labels', where you associate a colour with an image - assuming you will keep track of what colour means what. This option is access by selecting the desired image(s), then clicking Label > then selecting the label (colour) of your choice.

It's relatively quick and easy to tag your images, and when you want to find an image out of thousands, it's really worth the extra effort.

Searching Tagged Images with Adobe Bridge

Now that you have your images tagged, searching for them is relatively easy.

Go into Bridge, and click Edit > Find (Ctrl + F). This window will appear:

If you know what folder your images are in, choose it from the drop-down menu. Otherwise, choose an entire drive for a broad search.

I prefer to have 'Include Subfolders' selected, as this will look in the chosen folder and any within it.

Selecting 'Find All Files' will return all files - not what you are normally looking for.

In the next drop-down menu, make sure you select 'Keywords' from the list, if it is in fact Keywords that you are looking for. If you have an image named 'DSC-1111 - flower' and tagged as 'Macro', but only search for file name 'Macro', it will not find that image. However, you can search for filenames here (or by any of the search criteria), if you know them.

The next drop-down menu determines how specific you want the search to be - whether it simply 'contains' your search string, begins or ends with it, or exactly 'is' your search string.

In the last box of that row, enter what you want to look for.

Note: You can use multiple search criteria - simply click the plus (+) sign at the end of the search string.

You can then decide if you want the search to Match 'If Any Criteria are Met', or 'If All Criteria are Met'. This will decide if your search brings back images with 'any' of your keywords, or 'all' of them.

I prefer to 'Show Search Results in a New Browser Window', as I am sometimes working on something in the current window.

Finally, click OK and Bridge will begin searching through your files!

DVD Storage

When blank CDs came out, they were almost $2 a piece - still a great deal for what you could store on them. Then DVDs came out, about the same price - an even better deal! Then the prices dropped - there is no reason not to back up your images onto DVD if you have access to a burner. Buy one, borrow one, do something!

Once you have your images copied to CD or DVD, there are a couple more things you can do to secure the safety of your images.

First - and this may be over the top for lighter users - some people back up all their image twice, then on two different brands of DVD. That's four copies! They keep one copy of each brand where their base is, and keep another set somewhere secure (another building, safety deposit box, etc.). Then, once a year, check the files on each brand on DVD. If one brand looks be going corrupt, they have another safe set. Then they back up and replace all the DVDs of the 'corrupting' brand. If your pictures make you money, or mean the world to you, this is worth the effort.

Store DVDs in a cool place, away from direct light. If you have your 'home base' DVDs on your desk or a bookshelf, just make sure sun doesn't get to them. Maybe store them in a dresser drawer somewhere.

Keep DVDs in hard cases - not in spindles, and not in the soft cases or CD books.

Keep the DVDs upright. I don't know the reason for this or the last point, but apparently it makes a difference. Don't lie them down flat. Keep them vertical, like books on a shelf.

Try to use CDs and DVDs from reputable brands only. Just because some off-brand disc is on sale one week doesn't mean you should trust important files with it. Discs can go bad. Even good brand names can have a disc fail, but it's less likely. If you're not sure what's hot, and what's not, Google is always a good place to look.

One final note - Defrag your hard drive regularly. With so many large files moving around all the time, your hard drive can become disorganized and slow. The process is easy. Right click on your hard drive, and go to Properties. Then click on the Tools tab, then Defragment Now.... It may take a couple of hours, but do it regularly, and your system performance will be vastly improved!

We have covered a lot here, but being organized is a very important part of photography. You don't need to follow this all step-by-step, but hopefully you will find it to be a very useful guideline.

As always, please Email me will any comments, suggestions, or corrections you have.

Thanks. Matt

Custom Photoshop Paintbrush

2006-12-12T22:04:00.000-04:00

Hello again.

In this tutorial, we are going to create a custom paint brush. This technique has many uses - you can create a signature to apply to your images at any size or colour, or a particular pattern you want to be able to apply to your image. The best news - it's quick and easy to do once you know how.

Above is the corner crop from one of my images where I have applied a simple signature. I only had to type those letters out once, then created a paintbrush for it. Now every time I want to use that, I can make it any size I want and any colour I want. Then one click and it's applied!

I'd like to go over one thing first. There are several Keyboard Shortcuts that assist when using the paintbrush. Follow that link to view them.

First we are going to start with a new canvas in Photoshop (File > New > New Image or Ctrl + N). Be sure to make the background contents transparent, so the spaces in your paintbrush allow the background to show through.

Make the new image fairly big - it's better to have a big paintbrush that you can later make smaller, than to have a small paintbrush that you have to distort to make bigger. If you are creating a signature paintbrush, I would recommend a canvas at least 1,000 pixels across, and however high you need it to be. I believe your brush will max out at 999 x 999 pixels, so there is really no need to go beyond this max. We don't need to use the entire canvas either, though, so feel free to give yourself room.

You can now create any pattern or image on the canvas you want. You can even use part of an existing image, if you like. For me, my main use was creating a quick and easy signature brush.

I used the text tool, T, and with black and 100% opacity, wrote out what I wanted for my signature. Black is good to use the first time around as it is solid and clear - you can change the brush colour to anything you want once the brush itself is created.

Here's the step-by-step from here on in:

You do not want to flatten the image, as this will make the background white. Then every time you use your brush, it will have a while box around it.

Now, select the area of the image you want to use as your brush with the Rectangular Marquee tool (M). Make sure you are making the selection from the layer with detail on it - view layers in the Layer Window, Window > Layers.

Now click Edit > Define Brush Preset and name your brush whatever you want (I prefer specific names, because sometimes the brush icon isn't clear for large brushes).

That's it - you're done!

Now, to use your custom brush:

Select the brush tool (B).

Open the brush pallet (F5 or right-click on the image while using the brush tool).

Click on your custom brush to select it. To close the pallet, press F5 again or Esc.

Choose any colour you want from the colour pallet in the Tools window. You can adjust the opacity with the slider at the top of the screen, or by entering a value (pressing 1=10%, 2=20%, 3=30%, etc.).

You can adjust the brush size in the top toolbar as well, or by pressing [ to make it smaller, and ] to make it larger.

Quick. Simple. And you're no longer restricted to the brushes provided to you. I hope this has made your life a little bit easier!

Thanks.
Matt

Photoshop Layer Masks Tutorial

2006-12-10T15:45:00.000-04:00

Hi there.

This is going to be a long post - we have a lot to cover. I posted a tutorial earlier this week on Adjustment Layers and then had some requests for a tutorial on how to add layer masks. Layer Masks are amazing tools and there are several ways to use and apply them.

In this tutorial we will cover masking with Paintbrush, masking using the Colour Range selection tool, how to Move, Copy and Invert masks to other Adjustment Layers, how to adjust the Mask's Edge, and finally, using the Gradient Tool to mask.

Let's first start with some background. Layer masks are applied to specific layers and affect what part(s) of a layer (or Adjustment Layer) apply to the image, and to what degree. You can black-out entire parts of a layer, or reduce its effect by greying-out parts of the layer.

We discussed Adjustment Layers in another tutorial, but you are not limited to this kind of layer. One that comes to mind that I use frequently is copying the background layer. To do this, you first need to bring up the Layers window (Window > Layers, or press F7). Whether you only have one layer (your background layer) or several layers, simply right-click on the background layer and click Duplicate Layer...

Then a window will appear where you can rename that layer. (Note: Any layer can be duplicated - I'm just using the background as an example.) You can rename the duplicated layer anything you like - I chose 'Noise Ninja' for this one because I was about to run Noise Ninja on it.

Sorry for the diversion - I just felt it would be handy to cover that quickly. Now, on to layer masks. Some layers (most Adjustment Layers) will have masks attached to them when you add them. In the layers window, masks are the white boxes to the right of the layer itself. If you need to add a mask (and layers can have multiple masks), click on the Layer Mask button on the bottom of the window - it looks like a front-load washer.

Blank layer masks have no affect on the layers they are on, so don't worry about having the mask there if you have not utilized it. Now, let's get to the fun stuff!

Masking with Paintbrush

Let's cover this with an example. Let's say you apply a Curves layer or Levels Adjustment Layer, but once it is applied, you realize there is part of the image you do not want that layer to affect. What to do? Go to your layers window, click on the mask (white box) next to the layer you want to mask. Now, take your paintbrush, set the size and opacity (Keyboard Shortcuts) you need, and paint with the paintbrush over the part of the image you want to change.

A couple of things should be noted here.

Layer masks only use shades of grey. If you try to paint using a specific colour, it will convert it to an equivalent shade of grey.

I find greys are most easily accomplished and adjusted by using black and painting with a reduced opacity. If you need to lighten the mask you applied, you can paint over it with white, either at full or reduced opacity.

Painting with white on a blank mask has no affect.

Be very cautious of brush edges - too hard an edge and you can clearly see where the mask has been applied. I find it is best to use a brush with a soft edge - the hardness being dictated by the task. Adjust the brushed edge by pressing Shift + [ or Shift + ]

If you want to see exactly where in the image the mask is applied, press Alt + Left-Click. To hide the mask's effect, press Shift + Left-Click

In the above image, you can see the image with no adjustment (layer off), the adjustment on (mask off), and the adjustment made with a mask applied (mask on). The adjustment here was a quick-and-dirty Curves Adjustment Layer, but it made the corn too dark - so I masked out the Adjustment Layer in that area. Tada! Just the effect I wanted!

Masking with Colour Range Selection Tool

This is a great tool, but takes some messing around. I use it most often when working on an image with a great range of contrast (sometimes when creating HDR images). For instance, if I was working on a landscape image where the sky was considerably brighter than the foreground, there would be some adjustments I would want only applied to one or the other. Using the Colour Range Selection tool makes using Layer Masks in this situation very easy, because drawing a perfect line between light and dark with the paintbrush can be tedious.

As can be seen in the image sequence above (of Bottle Cove, Newfoundland), the first image has the sky properly exposed, the second has the foreground properly exposed, and the third has the two components combined. How did I do it?

First, I had two images, shot on a tripod, the first exposed for the sky, the second for the foreground. (Actually, I shot in RAW and did the adjustment later, but you can do the same like I described.)

Then I opened both images in Photoshop. I wanted the 'foreground' image as my background layer, so I clicked on the 'sky' image, selected the entire image (Ctrl + A), copied it (Ctrl + C), then clicked on the 'foreground' image, and pasted (Ctrl + V) the sky image on as a second layer. It will be useful to rename the sky layer now - right click on 'Layer 1' in the Layers window, click Layer Properties, rename the layer to 'Sky' (or whatever you want), and click OK.

For now, turn off the 'Sky' layer (clicking the eyeball next to it in the Layers window).

Select the background layer, simply by clicking on it in the Layers window.

Now for the fun! Click Select > Colour Range in the Menu Bar. This window will appear:

In this window, I prefer these settings starting off: in the 'Select' dropdown menu, select Sampled Colours; set the fuzziness to ~20 for now; from the two lower bullets, choose Selection; and in the 'Selection Preview' dropdown menu, choose none.

For the first part of the selection, choose the regular eyedropper (no symbol next to it), and click on part of the image (on the image itself - not in this window) you want to have masked (in this case, the brightest part of the sky).

Now, choose the eyedropper in the Colour Range window with the plus symbol next to it, and keep clicking parts of the image you want to mask. You will notice in the window that colour values similar to the ones you've selected have turned white. This is what you want to have happen.

If you click too much, reversing it is as simple as choosing the minus eyedropper, clicking on the part of the image you didn't mean to select, then return to the plus eyedropper and continue.

Once you have the main areas selected, slide the fuzziness slider back and forth to get as close as you can to getting all the desired areas selected.

Note: don't worry too much about getting large, open areas selected. You want to use this tool mostly for tricky borders. Also, don't worry if some of the selected sections are areas that you don't want masked - we'll cover that in the next step!

When you're finished, click OK in the colour selection window.

Now you'll see your image has some (or several!) selection line "zebras" on it.

As you can see in the image above, part of the sky is not selected, and part of the ocean is selected - not perfect yet! Now we'll do some final touching up of the selections.

Select either the Rectangular/Elliptical Marquee tool, or the Lasso. Then, just under the Menu bar you will see four buttons:

In this situation, we will choose Add to Selection first and select the top-left portion of the sky, making sure to select everything we need masked. Next, we'll take care of the ocean. Choose Subtract from Selection and draw an area around the part of the ocean that we do not want masked, but that is selected.

Hold in there - we're almost done!

Go to the Layers window and turn on the 'sky' layer (click the eyeball 'on' next to it).

Now, click on the Layer Mask icon in the bottom of the Layers window (looks like a front-load washer). Instantly a mask will be applied to the 'sky' layer except where the selection was!

If you find the edges are too jagged, there are a few options. You could redo the steps above, but increase the fuzziness in the colour range window. Or, you could touch up areas using the paintbrush. Or, finally, you could read on to the section dealing with altering the Mask Edge.

Phew! Practice a few times - you'll quickly get the hang of it.

Move / Copy / Invert Masks

Once you've gone through all the work of creating a mask for one layer, you may want to apply it to another layer, or copy its inverse to another layer. Good news - it's possible, and it's easy!

Move Mask: To move a mask from one layer to another, simply click on the mask in the Layers window and drag it to the layer you want it applied to. Note: the mask will no longer be on the layer you moved it from.

Copy Mask: To copy a mask from one layer to another, Alt + Left-click on the mask, then drag and release it to the new layer. Now both layers will have the identical copies of that mask! (Note, changing one mask will not alter the other one.)

Invert Mask: Inverting masks is handy. If you've carefully masked an Adjustment Layer from affecting part of an image, and want a different Adjustment layer to affect the opposite part of the same it, first Copy the mask as per the instructions above - then click on the mask you want inverted and click Image > Adjustments > Invert (or press Ctrl + I).

Adjusting Mask Edges

If a mask edge (say between foreground and sky, like in the example above) has a line that is too sharp, you can adjust it number of different ways.

Gaussian Blur: A quick, simple way to soften the edge of a mask is with Gaussian Blur. It is a good idea to zoom the image to 100% for this adjustment (Ctrl + Space + Left Click zooms in, Alt + Space + Left Click zooms out). To do this, click on the mask itself, then click Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Slide the 'radius' slider back and forth to get the desired effect.

Note: be careful not to overdo this - too much blur can create a halo-effect between light and dark areas. Try making small adjustments, a few tenths at a time.

Max Filter: If you need the white (non-masking) part of the mask to be slightly bigger, you can use this. Access it by clicking Filter > Other > Maximum. As with Gaussian blur, adjust the slider by small amounts at a time, and be sure to view the image at 100%

Min Filter: If you need the black (masking) part of the mask to be slightly bigger, you can use this. Access it by clicking Filter > Other > Minimum. As with Gaussian blur, adjust the slider by small amounts at a time, and be sure to view the image at 100%

Note: You can use these options together, say by using 'max' or 'min' first, then softening the edge with a 'Gaussian' blur.

Gradient Mask

One final note on masks - using the Gradient tool to create masks. I generally am not a fan of this tool, but it does have its uses. I mainly don't like it because it's often obvious when it's been used. That being said, some people with more skill than I have, use it will wonderful results.

Gradient tool is similar to using the Paintbrush for masking. It can be handy if you need a mask applied to a layer with a fading straight line - say a horizon that you need masked completely at the top of the sky, and only partially where it meets the land.

To create this mask, click on the Layer Mask you want to work on. Next, select the Gradient Tool (hidden under the Paint Bucket in the Tools Window - click and hold the paint bucket and more options will appear).

For this kind of masking, choose from the long drop-down menu the black-to-white checkered box (labelled 'Foreground to Transparent' when you mouse-over), and from the five mask patterns that follow, choose whichever one you want. I usually use the first - straight-lined - gradient.

Now, choose black from the paint pallet (press D for the default colours, and X if you need to change them. With black as the foreground colour, you will click and drag on your image - starting where you want the mask to be entirely black, and ending where you want to mask to be white (having no effect). The longer the mouse-drag, the more gradual the gradient.

It is handy to use Ctrl + Z as the undo function, and you try again and again (and again and again and...) to get the gradient the way you want it.

Remember again that you can still paint over this mask with the Paintbrush, or any other tool.

I hope this tutorial has been helpful. Please Email me if you have any questions, concerns, corrections or comments on this. I appreciate any help.

I've recently updated my website, and even made quick post of it here.

My next planned post is on image management - how to keep track of all the thousands of images on your computer - including naming them, saving them, and backing them up. There are lots of methods out there, but I'll be posting my method as a 'serious amateur'.

Thanks for you time.
Matt

New Images Posted!

2006-12-10T14:52:00.000-04:00

Hello.

It's been a while since I last updated my photo website. Well, I've finally added a few images. I'm behind on my photo editing, but finished up October's edits last night - images from home (Pasadena, Newfoundland). There are images of the first frost of the season and a trip to Western Brook Beach in Gross Morne National Park.

The images are currently in the 'New Images' folder of my website. Here's a small sampling of what I just posted.

Frost melting off leaf with sun's heat.

Frost on a wood fence with a warm background.

Ripples in the sand - Western Brook Beach, Newfoundland.

Fishing boat on horizon - with sunset.

The EXIF info for all of these can be found in the album itself - click on More Info to the right of the image. They were all shot with a Nikon D70S and one of three lenses: Nikkor 60mm Micro; Nikkor 18-200mm VR; or Nikkor 80-400mm VR. All editing done with Photoshop CS2 and reduced/uploaded with Picasa 2.

Take a look around www.picasaweb.google.com/mgreerphoto and let me know what you think. I usually update it a couple of times a week.

Now, back to work on the Layer Masks tutorial!

Matt

Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

2006-12-08T19:55:00.000-04:00

Hello.

I was beginning to write a tutorial on Layer Masks, and in the first few lines of my outline, I was wanting desperately to speak of the useful keyboard shortcuts like they were all know and old-hat to all. Well, they are hardly old-hat to me. I learn (or re-learn, as the case often is) new keyboard shortcuts daily, and find they greatly improve my image editing efficiency. So, here's a list of the major keyboard shortcuts that I use for Photoshop CS2. If there are others you feel are essential and useful for others, please email me. I'm happy to learn and share with everyone else!

Note: I just added a short section at the end here on Custom Keyboard Shortcuts. Thanks to all the people on DPReview forums who helped with this!

Many of the keyboard shortcuts can be found easily by putting your mouse over a tool in the Tools Window (accessed by clicking Window > Tools):

Many shortcuts can also be seen by clicking on something in the menu bar (File, Edit, Image, Layer, etc.) then seeing the keyboard shortcut (if it exists) to the right of the command.

Here are some shortcuts that I find very useful. Any letter or keyboard command shown in bold in this tutorial is meant as a keyboard shortcut - this will eliinmate me needing to say 'press on the keyboard....' Also, where you see shift + ... means press Shift and whichever key - not Shift key and Plus Key and named key.:

Brush Shortcuts

While in brush mode, B, you can switch the paint brush colours to their default (black and white) with D, and/or switch the foreground and background colours with X. This is handy if you're using two different colours; you can put one in the main pallet, X to switch, change the new main pallet colour, then switch them back and forth as you need to.

Still with brush B (it's good to practice - makes them second nature!), you can decrease the brush size with [ and increase it with ] and - left = smaller, right = bigger.

Similarly, you can soften the edge of the brush with Shift + [ and harden it with Shift + ].

You can change the brush's opacity with the number pad (top or side) simply by pressing a value. This has a quick-mode built in: press 2 and it becomes 20% opacity; 9 and it becomes 90%. If you need a mid-point value, like 23%, press2 + 3 quickly. If you need a sub-10 value, press 0 first (ex: 0 + 7 gets 7%). Finally, 1 + 0 + 0 is what's needed to return to 100%.

Also, you can change the brush flow by pressing Shift + 'value' on the top number pad with all the same rules as with with changing opacity, above.

Finally, you can use the colour sampling tool while using the paintbrush by pressing Alt and left-clicking with the mouse. The colour sample tool disappears as soon as you release Alt.

Common Tool Keyboard Shortcuts

V: Move tool - moves image or active layer around canvas.

C: Crop tool. Once an area is selected, Enter will confirm the crop.

J: Spot Healing tool (Shift + J cycles through spot healing, healing brush, patch tool, and red eye).

I:Eyedropper tool - colour selection.

H: Hand - similar to 'Space' below, but does not switch off when released. If you are zoomed into an image to the point were it takes up more area than the screen size, this will allow you to move the image around without affecting its position on the canvas.

Other Useful Keyboard Shortcuts

Tab hides/unhides all the non-image windows - very handy if working on a large image.

Space while using any tool will bring up the hand tool until you release the space bar - handy if you need to move a large image around the screen while doing other work.

Ctrl + Space + Click will zoom in on the image one click at a time.

Alt + Space + Click will zoom out on the image one click at a time.

Alt + Backspace will fill a Layer Mask with the foreground colour (only shades of grey).

Ctrl + Backspace will fill a Layer Mask with background colour (again, only shades of grey).

Ctrl + Shift + S is the Save-As command - be careful not to press just Ctrl + S as that will do a regular save, and overwrite the existing image.

Ctrl + F4 closed the active image only. This will work in most Windows programs that have windows-in-windows - it closes the active sub-window. Note that Alt + F4 closes the entire program.

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

The good people at DPReview pointed out this site, which has pdf's of all the Photoshop keyboard shortcuts. Well, I was excited to see this, because I always wanted to know what the shortcut was to Flatten the adjustment layers of an image. Well, one pdf said is was Ctrl + Shift + Alt + 0, but that this was a custom command. So I did a little bit of looking and found out how to add custom keyboard shortcuts. So if there is a command you access via the Menu Bar (File, Edit, Image, Layer, etc.) that does not have a keyboard shortcut, and you want to add one, here's how you go about it.

In Photoshop, click Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts... (or press Alt + Shift + Ctrl + K) and this window will appear:

Find the command you want by looking under the appropriate sections. For instance, I wanted to add a keyboard shortcut for flattening layers (normally under Layer > Flatten Image), so I clicked the 'expand' triangle next to Layers then scrolled down until I found Flatten Image. Click the bar that Flatten Image is in, and it gives you a field to enter a command.

Now, press the buttons on the keyboard exactly as you want to shortcut to work. Again, for mine, I pressed Ctrl + Shift + Alt + 0. If the one you choose is already in use, or just cannot be used, it will warn you at the bottom of the window.

When you've applied all the shortcuts you want to for now, click Accept, then OK. And you're finished!

I know Photoshop has hundreds of keyboard shortcuts. I find these the most common and most convenient. Like I said above, please email me if you have a suggestion for another popular one. I'd love to hear from you.

Please enjoy. I'll be posting more soon.
Matt

Batch Processing to Folder

2006-12-08T15:37:00.000-04:00

Welcome back!

In my last post, Actions and Batch Processing, I talked about how to add adjustment layers to a group of images using batch processing. In that tutorial, the images were neither saved nor outputted to a specific folder. I had a number of requests for instructions on how to batch process with Source > Folder and Destination > Folder. So, while this set of instructions is fairly wordy, it is meant as a sub-tutorial to my last one.

Let's start off with a bit of background. If there is a series of commands you apply to images on a regular basis, and you do it the same way every time, you can set up something called Actions. Some examples of this would be flattening layers in .psd images, changing the colour space, resizing them for web, and adding Unsharp Mask, or a black and white conversion method you like for portraits that has several steps. You can create actions for this that will run the commands on images automatically. Then, if you want to perform those commands on a specific group of images (either a group of images you have open, or all the images in one folder), you can do so with Batch Processing. That is what we will talk about now.

I am assuming now that you already have an action created. The first time you do this, it is a good idea to copy several images into a test folder so you can run through these steps without having to worry about doing something bad (and likely permanent!) to your original images.

With Photoshop CS (or CS2, which is what I based this tutorial off), click File > Automate > Batch. This window will appear:

Play box: Choose the set and action that you want applied to the group of photos.

Source box: Choose either Opened Files (Note: This will apply the action to all images open in Photoshop) or Folder.

If Folder is chosen, be sure to select Override Actions "Open" Commands if 'Open' is part of your chosen action.

Decide whether you want to include subfolders or not.

Choosing Suppress File Open Options Dialogs will cause Photoshop to steamroll through this step. ie: the File > Open options window will not appear for you. You decide if you want to select this option.
(Note: I don't have the Open command as part of any of my actions.)

Suppress Colour Profile Warnings may be a good one to leave unchecked as you could lose colour information (and thus image info), forcing the image from its native colour space into another.

Destination box:

None is what we covered in the Actions and Batch Processing tutorial. Use this if your action does not have Close as the final step, and if you want to keep working on the images after the action has run.
(Note: for actions that require further work after the action is applied, I like to omit the Save command. This is just my preference.

Save and Close will save the images back where they came from and overwrite the originals. I prefer to keep my originals as is.
(Note: if you have created layers, or your action adds layers, make sure to add Layers > Flatten Image as part of the action, or saving as a .jpg or .tif will not work.)

Folder is my preference. You can choose the same original folder, but with the steps below change its file name easily! Now, choose your output folder. I recommend changing the folder if the images are batch processed for a one-time use (ex: uploading to a website, then deleted from hard drive) or if you do not rename the images somehow. I always prefer to rename a newly saved image no matter where I put it (ex:img-sharpened.jpg, img-web.jpg, img-b&w.jpg, etc.).

If part of your action is to Save, then be sure to check Override Action "Save As" Commands or every picture will be given the same name as the file you saved when you first created the action. This "feature" is just one more reason not to save the new files in the same place as the originals. If you just did work on 30-odd images and were batch processing the same action on all of them as the last step, they could be lost as they'd all be saved to the same file name, and thus overwritten.

File Naming sub-box: You have some flexibility here, but for the sake of file management, here's what I do: keep the original name (titled Document Name) in the first drop-down menu, then in the second drop-down menu, add a space-hyphen-space then a word/phrase (ex: - web, or - sharpen). I like to keep out-of-camera file names attached so I can more easily find the originals later.

You can keep adding more options in the drop-down menus. And you don't need to keep the original file name, either. You could have 'Sunday Brunch' (just an example) as the beginning of the file name (and thus the common denominator in all the images about to be batch processed), then use a serial (1, 2, 3, 4 Digit Serial Number or Serial Letter) from the drop-down menu to consecutively number all the images. To completely rename the images, just type whatever name you want used in the first drop-down menu.

You can even add the date to the image, though if you do, I would definitely recommend adding a serial to it iff you had the whole series completely renamed (ie: if they all say "SundayBrunch061106", you'll need something to follow to differentiate them. Again, this is why I keep the "DSC_####" as the prefix on all my edited pics.)

Finally, choose Extension as the option in the last drop-down menu. This will automatically put the file extension on each image. (Don't worry that the example given says ".gif" - it will not make them gifs unless you tell it to. Saving a jpg will keep it a jpg.)

The Starting Serial tick-box only comes into play if you select Serial Number or Serial Letter from the drop-down menus. You can have your images start numbering from wherever you like.

Compatibility: I use a PC (with WinXP) so 'Windows' is selected by default for me. Checking the others makes sure the file names will be recognized on the other respective systems. I don't check the others, and have never had a problem. My primary concern is having my images work on my system, and follow the file-naming scheme I create for them.

Errors box: I prefer it to Stop for Errors, such as trying to save a jpg that has layers (can't be done!), because sometimes I rush and make a mistake. This will not catch all your errors (such as overwriting the same file, over and over again - remember Override Action "Save As" Commands from earlier?), but still helps. It hasn't caused me any problems (other than occasional self-doubt!).

When finished, click OK, and you're finished!

I do hope this was some help. If I was unclear or mistaken at any point, or if you want more information added, please Email me.

Thanks.
Matt

Actions and Batch Processing

2006-11-26T20:40:00.000-04:00

Update Jan 9 /07: I've added a section here on loading pre-made actions.

In the last post, I talked about adding layers to photographs. In future posts, I will talk about how to use these layers in editing photographs.

In this post, I will talk about how to add these layers to photographs using something called actions. Running Actions can be applied to just one photo, or you can add layers to all the pictures you have open (or all the pictures in one folder) using Batch Processing.

Creating Actions

In the last post, I talked about adding Adjustment Layers. If there is a task that has several steps, such as this, that you do frequently to images, creating an action can make this easier. An action is a series of tasks that you can program Photoshop to remember, and run all of them automatically at the press of a button.

To create an action, first open an image (any image) in Photoshop, then click Window > Actions. The window shown below will open.

Note: if you want to add several tabs to this one window (as in the above image, where Layers, Channels and Actions are together), simply open each window (clicking Window > "desired window"), then with all windows open, simply drag the tab of one window into another window until they are all consolidated.

Now, click the folder icon on the bottom of the Actions window (labeled "New Set") and name it "New Layers" (or whatever you want to call it). Then click on the turned up page icon (labelled "New Action") and name it "Standard Layers". This will begin the recording of the action automatically.

You can stop and start the action recording at any time by pressing the Stop and Record buttons, respectively.

I discuss the adding of layers in the previous post, Adding Layers. You can follow the steps in that post to create this particular action.

Once you have completed all the necessary steps in the action, simply click the Stop button.

Tada! You've just completed recording your first action in Photoshop!

Running/Playing Actions

Now the hard part is done. (Well, the composing, shooting, editing, publishing, etc. is the hard part, but you know what I'm getting at.) To run or "play" the action on a single image, have an image open and selected in Photoshop (you can have several images open for this scenario, but the action will only run on the image you have selected).

Open the Actions tab, or click Window > Actions. Open the "New Layers" folder and click on "Standard Layers". Click the button labeled "Play". In just a few seconds, Photoshop will add all the layers to your photo, with all the blending modes, just as you specified. In one click!

Now, to use the layers (as I will discuss in future posts), click on the Layers tab, or click Window > Layers to begin editing.

Batch Processing

Batch processing runs an Action on a group of images. You can specify the group two different ways: either all of the images currently open; or all of the images in a specified folder. I prefer to run actions just on open images, because I edit images 10-15 at a time, and a given folder (sorted by one-folder-per-day) can have hundreds of images.

Batch processing requires that you have an action set up already, as I discuss earlier in this post.

Note: The following instructions deal with running the above mentioned action specifically. If you create an action that requires the image to be saved as part of the action, then separate steps need to be taken.

Note #2: These actions cannot be run on RAW files!

Click File > Automate > Batch... and the following window will open:

In the part of the window labeled Play, select Set > New Actions and Action > Standard Layers (or whatever you've called your actions set). Then in the part of the window labeled Source, select either Open Files or Folder, whichever has the images you wanted "Actioned" in.

In the part of the window labeled Destination, select None, as you do not want anything else to happen to the images at this point.

Now click OK and the action will run on all the images.

Just as when you ran the action on one photo, you can go ahead and edit your photos with the layers you've added. Simply go to the Layers tab, or click Window > Layers.

Loading Actions

One great feature about actions is that you can save them and share them with others. Obviously, this means you can get saved actions from other people, too. One site with many great actions is Action Central. You can download actions from there and run them directly in Photoshop. Setting them up is straight forward.

If you get an Action from the web, it is usually in a Zip file. First you'll need to unzip the file (with a program like Winzip or with WinXPs extractor).

You can extract the action anywhere you like, but I would recommend making a folder in your Photoshop folder (C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\) called "Actions".

To load the action into Photoshop:

Open the Actions window (Window > Actions or Alt+F9).

Click on the triangle-in-circle in the top-right corner.

Find the action wherever you saved it on the hard drive (not the Zip file, the action itself - it is a .atn file).

Then click on the file and click Load.

Now, if you want, you can rename the action by double-clicking on it and renaming it. Similarly, you can rename the folder (set) the action is in the same way. Or, if you want to put the action in another folder (set), you can click and drag it to where you want it in the Action window.

You can also delete the action or folder by clicking and dragging it to the trash can in the lower-right corner of the Actions window.

Saving Actions

Finally, if you want to save an action (to either share with other people, or to back up somewhere in case your hard drive crashes), simply select the folder (set) of the action, click on the triangle-in-circle in the top-right corner of the Actions window and select "Save Actions...". You have to do it by entire set - not just one action at a time.

More specific editing techniques will follow in the weeks and posts ahead. In the mean time, feel free to check out my website: http://www.picasaweb.google.com/mgreerphoto. If there is any image you want to know the editing procedure to, let me know at nikonmatt@gmail.com. I may be able to make that the topic of a future editing post.

Thanks!

Matt

Standard Photoshop Adjustment Layers

2006-11-26T15:30:00.000-04:00

How to Add Standard Photoshop Adjustment Layers

As promised in my last post, here is a guide of the adjustment layers I use most frequently when editing photos in Photoshop CS2. The following posts will describe the adjustment layers I use, what blending mode I use for each adjustment layer, and how to efficiently add these adjustment layers to your photos while editing - using actions and batch processing.

Benefits of Editing with Adjustment Layers

Most of the editing I do with adjustment layers can be done without layers - that is to say that edits such as Curves and Hue/Saturation can be applied directly to the main image layer itself.

The benefit to using adjustment layers is that no edit is permanent until you flatten the image. You can even save the image with all of its adjustment layers as a Photoshop Document (.psd), and when you reopen it, all the changes you made to the adjustment layers will still be there for you to change back, remove, or alter.

If you were to, for example, edit curves without layers, then go on to change saturation, crop the image, then add vignetting, the only way to go back and change what you did to the curves would be to go back in the history, to when you changed the curve (thus losing all work done since), or start the image editing from scratch.

With adjustment layers, however, so long as that adjustment layer is still there, you can go back and alter the adjustment at any point in the editing process. It is a lossless editing process, and very handy. Sometimes one edit will affect the way another edit appears, so the first edit may need to be tweaked. This makes editing far more efficient and accurate!

Most Common Adjustment Layers

These are the adjustment layers that I use most often. I do sometimes use other layers, and often I don't use all of these. I tried to pare down the number of adjustment layers to something that would easily fit in the layers window, and still offer what I needed most. These are my selections, but YMMV. *Note: Blending Modes are shown in bold under each section.

Selective Colour (Canadian spelling - no 'u' in Photoshop)

Lighten/Darken specific colours
Add/Subtract sub-colour values (ex: decreasing the amount of cyan in the greens)
Mode: Normal

Hue/Saturation

Used for adjusting the hue and saturation of individual colours
Mode: Colour (prevents posterization of colours)

Curves

This curves layer used mostly for contrast and brightness adjustment. Colour balance can also be done with curves, but I prefer to add another curves layer for this.
I often use several curves adjustment layers as I find it easier than creating one very complicated curve. Multiple curves can be used in conjunction with each other, or applied to specific parts of images with masks (to be discussed in later posts).
Mode: Luminosity

Levels

Adjusts whitepoint and blackpoint (levels at which brightness values reach their extremes).
Sometimes used for brute-force brightness/contrast adjustment.
When holding Alt while moving the black or white sliders, preview will show which values have maxed out. Good way of checking to see if you've lost all detail on either end of brightness spectrum.
Mode: Luminosity

Soft Light Layer

Paintbrush strokes can be used as gentle marks, when used at low opacity.
Add vignetting with a large, soft, low-opacity paintbrush.
Lighten/Darken specific areas that would be too complicated to adjust with curves or other adjustments.
Add colour tint to specific areas, ie: whiten teeth, brighten eyes, add red to cheeks.
Mode: Soft Light

Adding Layers

First, you will need to have a photo open in Photoshop. Then, in the text command bar, click Window > Layers to bring up this:

To add a new adjustment layer, click on the split circle labeled Adjustment Layer, then choose the layer you want to add. To change the blending mode, choose the mode from the drop down menu just under the layers tab itself (titled soft light in the image above).

Note: There is one exception to this. To add the Soft Light Layer, you will need to click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers window. Be sure to change the Mode of this layer to Soft Light or any painting you do on that layer will be too harsh for general editing.

Once more, for easy reference, here are the adjustment layers I use most, and the blending mode following them. They show up in reverse order (newest on top), so if this matters to you, be conscious of it if making an action out of this sequence:

Layer Name	Blend Mode
Selective Colour	Normal
Hue/Saturation	Colour
Curves	Luminosity
Levels	Luminosity
New Layer	Soft Light

Finally, to save an image as a JPG or TIFF, you need to flatten the image. Otherwise, it will save as a Photoshop Document (.psd) and be very large (30+ Mb for an image from a 6MP camera). I do sometimes save images a .psd's if I want to go back in later to do work on individual layers, but when I'm done, I save them as .jpg files.

So, to flatten the layers, simply click Layer > Flatten Image. Then save the image however and wherever you like! Please enjoy!

Matt Greer

Photoshop Techniques

2006-11-24T23:23:00.000-04:00

I haven't been doing much actual shooting lately. Most of my "photography" has been concentrated on editing pictures (finally starting to catch up) and plan where I want my photography to go: including what, how and with what I will shoot; what I will do about my current website, including what is on it, how it is laid out, and if I will stay with google or get my own website; and what I want to do with this blog.

For now, my clearest plan is for the latter - my blog. I want the majority of this blog to be about photo editing with Photoshop CS2. I will discuss editing with specifics - beginning with a photo that I took straight out of the camera (either a .jpg or .nef (RAW) file), and all the steps taken to get it to how I wanted it to look. My hope is that by using carefully selected specific images, I will be able to cover a number of editing techniques and situations.

I have learned much about photo editing from others via the internet, and I want to create a resource for others to learn photo editing.

I will not get into any technical specifics in this post, but I will say how I will begin.

I do all of my editing as layers in Photoshop, and while I do use a number of editing techniques with layers, I have five layers that I use most frequently, and so I add these five layers with an action to every image.

My next post will discuss which layers I use, why, how I create them, which blending mode I use, and how I add them (quickly, too!) using actions in Photoshop. Stay tuned in the next day or two for more.

If you haven't in a while, please check out my photos. I update them regularly - usually several times a week. http://www.picasaweb.google.com/mgreerphoto

Matt Greer

Taking Photos in the Rain

2006-10-12T12:59:00.000-03:00

Several months ago (June of 2006, in fact) the light outside was perfect for macro work, but there was a problem: it was pouring rain! My camera is not even weatherproof, let alone waterproof, so I did not want to risk damaging it even for a couple of shots.

I was determined to get pictures, and was excited about the possibility of getting shots with waterdrops in them. The Weather Network for Halifax told me it would be raining for days, so I could think of only one solution - waterproof my camera! I equipped my Nikon D70s with a Nikkor 60mm Micro (with lens hood attached) and an SB-600 flash (for fill-light, if needed), then covered the entire camera in a large, clear, plastic bag.

The opening of the bag was at the bottom of the camera and I tied a knot in it there (right next to the tripod mount). I used blue mail elastics around the front of the lens hood, the front of the flash, the base of the flash, and around the viewfinder (with the eyepiece removed, there is enough of a lip there for the elastic to grab onto).

I then cut one hole for the front of the lens (I would keep the camera pointed down to keep the front lens element dry - the lens hood aided in this) and for the viewfinder. Elastics at both of these points are crucial to keep the rain out. I did not cut a hole for the flash, as the plastic would make little or no difference to the flash output or white balance.

Now, for camera settings. I was able to change camera settings though the plastic bag, but it was slow and tedious, so I tried to set what I could while both the camera and I were dry. First, I shoot in Aperture Priority - this way I can control the depth of field. Next (and this was the first time I'd done this), I shot in Auto ISO, telling the camera not to go below 1/125s. This would ensure I had enough (though sometimes just barely) shutter speed to eliminate handshake from the images.

I had the SB-600 for fill flash, and it worked excellently. I rarely used it, but it did save a number of shots that could have been ruined by high-ISO noise or slow shutter speed that ISO would not be able to compensate for. There was a lot of light, despite the heavy clouds and rain, so the odd time I used the flash, it was not the primary light source. It just bumped up the light enough to allow the shot to happen.

Here's an image from that day - shot with the setup described above, and no flash.

So, why was the light perfect for macro work? I find dark, heavy clouds diffuse sunlight very well, so that overly bright highlights and very dark shadows are eliminated. It is not so much so (as you can see in the image above) that texture and depth are sacrificed, however; on the contrary, more detail is able to be captured, light balance and colour balance are easier to control because they don't change as frequently as they do in sunlight (because of shadows, clouds, and reflections from other objects).

How did I keep myself dry? Well, good ole' Gore Tex. Three-ply XCR jacket and pants combo from Mountain Equipment Co-op did the job, and sandals on my feet.

So not only did I get the light I wanted, and the water drops I craved, but I had the park (Halifax Public Gardens) to myself. Everyone else stayed home that day because of the pouring rain. What more can a photographer ask for!?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. My main goal lately has been catching up on photo editing. I'm two months behind and quickly closing the gap. I hope to post more on here in the next couple of days.

Thanks.

Matt Greer

Photoblog Beginnings

2006-10-10T18:32:00.000-03:00

Hello. My name is Matthew Greer, and this is my photography blog. This is my first time blogging, and I am starting it for a number of reasons: first, I want to share my photography and learn from comments and suggestions of other people; I also want to share what I've learned and discovered about photography, including the art itself, the equipment I use, and the editing I've done; and finally, I want to use this to put down ideas and goals for my photography, in the hope that it will give me further direction.

I will keep it simple to begin - I shall share with you an image, and the address to my photo website where I have an expanding collection of my work so far.

First - an image. A little about the image - I shot it with my recently acquired Sigma 20mm f/1.8 on my Nikon D70s. I was nervous about getting this lens because I so often prefer telephoto, but it has great close-focusing capabilities, excellent sharpness, and beautiful bokeh (pronounced 'boquet', and refers to how the lens renders out of focus (OOF) elements).

I often shoot macros with my Nikon 60mm Micro (which goes to full 1:1 macro), but this lens is able to get close enough for larger objects (such as this flower), and has more depth of field naturally, because it is much wider. Read more on how focal length effects depth of field (DOF) here: Understanding Depth of Field

Finally - my website. www.picasaweb.google.com/mgreerphoto

I will be back to talk more about my work, techniques, the Picasa web albums, and more.

Thanks for taking the time.

Matt Greer