mikesdigitalimaging

A Photoshop Starter

2009-11-13T09:35:00.003Z

I think that my message that Photoshop is really quite simple has not got through. So.

I am going to repeat myself but to be sure that you get the most out of using Photoshop the first thing you need to know is how to open an image, the second is how to save an image and third how to use layers.

When the program has loaded you can either drag an image from a folder or go to "File" "Open".
If you make any alterations to the image you might want to save it for future use. It depends on what the use is going to be - but for example if you have changed an image but dont want to change the original saving as a photoshop ("psd") file is best. This fil;e is uncompressed and saves any layers you might have produced. Alternatively - if the image is for the web it is best to use "File" "Save for the web" where you have several options for saving in different web friendly formats. Most images can be saved as jpg files and you are given the option to change compression rates and given predicted loading times for various compressions. Bear in mind that the more an image is compressed the more that various compression problems occur. There is always a compromise position but you need to experiment to find it.
When you have open your image I would recommend that the first thing to do is to make a duplicate layer. With the "Layers" menu open on screen a PC user can right mouse click on the background layer and choose the option to make a duplicate background layer. You can also click on the "Layer" tab on the top menu bar and choose Duplicate Layer from there. This layer should be the one that you edit so that you always have the original image to go back to. This allows easy access for checking progress or even going back and starting again.

You can always go back a step by using the History panel, "Ctrl+z" on the keyboard or "Edit" "Undo".

When you have learnt how to start using layers you will see how important they become. It is often the best option to create a new layer to retouching in. For example, you might want to do some "Red Eye" reduction. Doing this in a separate layer allows many choices of how you combine the image with the retouching. I will go into this later - if I get any response to this blog.

ISO Settings

2008-12-23T09:16:00.006Z

In the Northern Hemisphere, at this time of year, it is difficult to get enough light to see by - let alone take photos. In the time of cameras that used film it was necessary to either light your subject or change to a faster film. If you went the fast film route you may have noticed that your images were very grainy making them slightly less appealing than the pictures taken with enough light to use a slower speed film.
A simliar problem exists with digital technology. I will admit that film emulsions have improved over the years and are now much less "noisy" speed for speed than say 10 -15 years ago. This also applies to the digital format as new and improved methods of manufacture appear.
So why the increase in noise with speed? Simply, in order to attain higher sensitivity, you have to have a larger light collector. With film this is simply larger light-sensitive crystals and with digital images this achieved by grouping adjacent image-forming sensors together. In both cases this has the effect of amplifying the light received at the image plane - thus increasing the effective speed. You can see then that this means a marked reduction in resolution and an increase in noise.
This picture was taken recently and illustrates the grainy character of higher ISO settings. The effect is more noticable in the darker tones. (Notice also that there are no maximum blacks and very little shadow detail.)
This picture was taken with a Sony Erricsson Mobile Phone and I had no control over the chosen speed setting. This is the price you pay for taking the control away from the user. If I had a say in the matter I would have opted for a longer exposure time at a less sensitive setting. This phone, however, doesnt even tell you what the settings are, but, from experience, I can tell that the equivalent ISO setting would be around 800. If you look at the settings that can be adjusted on your camera you will see what the range is. The best - low noise - setting is always the lowest numerical value. Usually 100 iso sometimes less sometimes more but the lowest is the best. The latest Canon 5d mk2 boasts a low setting of 50 iso. In film terms this is the equivalent of Kodak's Kodachrome film (which was always regarded as the ulimate in image quality). If getting any image is the more important then the answer is to set your ISO seting to "auto" and let the camera work it out for you. I prefer to be in control (except when I am stuck with using my Mobile Phone). The reasons for choosing any setting will be governed by what the scene is that is being photographed. If you want fast shutter speeds - to stop movement - a fast (higher) iso number must be used but my advice is always to use the lowest practicable number for your iso setting to give smoother tones and less "grain" (noise).

I haven't had any spare time...

2008-05-25T11:00:00.004+01:00

Excuses, excuses. I have been trying to find time to say some more about black and white. I have been turned on by colour photography from a very early age - it must have started with "The Wizard of Oz", you know that bit where it changes from black and white to colour. Well I am prejudiced I suppose. But, once you have selected black and white on your camera settings, thats it - a lost opportunity. Now then why not have the best of both worlds. You see, if you shoot with the black and white setting it converts the colour channels to the same grey scale. This prevents you making any changes to the relationship between colour tones. If, on the other hand, you shoot in colour you can make these changes mimicing the effect you would get if you had shot the subject using colour filters. For example, a portrait of a male subject might benefit from use of a blue filter to make his skin tone rugged and weather beaten. Or a portait of a female subject might benefit from a red filter to neutralise skin tones making them softer. A landscape with a blue sky would benefit from a yellow filter to make the sky contrasty etc, etc. All these things can be done to an colour image - after the event, whereas in the days of film you had to use a filter at the time of shooting. I have done a compilation image of a pastoral scene that shows some of the possibilities.

I have labeled these images to show how they were done. The two on the right show desaturated and the other is the Photoshop CS3 Black and White setting. The black and white image on the left is how a green filter would look. Both Photoshop and Lightroom give you endless variations of filter changes and even the older versions of Photoshop can be used to provide an infinite choice by changing the colour relationships with "Levels" before desaturating the image. This is not the only way but with Photoshop one method of doing some change is as good as another (most of the time).
I will try and update more frequently now I have found a subject for my black or white blog.

You might not want to see this - its uncovered

2008-04-29T19:06:00.003+01:00

Today I had my stitches out so my digital hand looks a mess. The surgeon warned me that it would look as if a dog had savaged it and it does. I will put the image of it up as small as it will go and it's up to you if you click on it to see it life size. As a matter of interest I used the flash on the camera as available light made it look even worse than it is. After the surgeon had told me it looked ok to him i was taken away to have the stitches removed. The nurse who removed them thought I would be having physiotherapy so left it uncovered. When I checked in to physio they gave me an appointment for tomorrow. I had to come home with it as you see it. Not a pretty sight.

Cutting-out

2008-04-24T13:35:00.017+01:00

Todays episode was going to be a simple cut-out. I started with a simple shape from an old portfolio picture of mine. A change in background would work well.
I opened the picture in Adobe Photoshop and tried various ways of selecting either the background or the head but neither worked. Of course I could have gone right tound it with the lasso tool - but I find when you get to a corner the lasso generally lassoos itself through a bit you didnt want to go through. The other alternative is the pen tool to make a path that can be converted to a selection. Well- you folk out there don't learn from doing it the easy way so here is how I finally got to cut it out. The first problem I had was that the image was grainy and the edge was not very well defined. To make the edge clearer I chose to use a channel. I opened the channels folder and selected first the blue channel`nd made a copy of it. This wasn't quite right so I made a copy of the red channel - this was good enough. (Unhappily when I set photoshop up I elected to show channels in colour so this is a good reason not to as you can see straight away which channel is going to give the best contrast).
The next step is to enhance the edge of the subject (it isn't really necessary here as the edge is quite clear - but you might need to do this sometime). This takes several steps.

click: Image/Adjustments/Equalise
The next step is click: Filter/Other/HighPass - and choose a radius that gives the best definition
Next: Image/Adjustments/Levels - to give a high contrast
Next you can start erazing the background roughly, not to close and eraze it to white (ie background color white)
For the next step you need to clean up to the subject - I do this at fairly high magnification to see what is happening. For the forehead I used the Lasso tool and for the nose, mouth and chin I used the Pen tool to make a path which I converted to a selection. Just click on your Delete button on your keyboard to clear a selection.
When I had converted the path to a selection I addeed a layer and filled my selection with white. (When you convert a path to a selection you get the opportunity to "feather" curves which I did at 1 pixel). The next thing to do was to select the white backround I did this with the Wand tool. I realised that it was going to crop into the head so I made yet another layer and filled the background with grey (it could have any colour just that I needed to see what was going on.
Finally I re-selected the layer with the mouth etc. and selecting the background inverted my selection then in the top layer with the rest of the background I erazed the area where the main background was overlapping. This was easy to do as I just rubbed out up to the selection dots. To give this result:

An addition to my panorama blog

2008-04-21T18:22:00.004+01:00

The "Layers" panel on the right is showing a "Background copy" - I did this to give me a transparent background. If you work directly onto the original Background layer the canvas takes on the colour of the background a solid tone of black, white or whatever you choose. I prefer to be more flexible. With Background copy you can reposition it, put a border all the way round and so on. If you click on the Background in the layer box and highlight it you can add a new layer which will become the base layer. This layer can be filled with a colour ot a pattern to make a border. If you want a border dont forget to cange both the width and height measures when changing the canvas size. I prefer to work with image files at the original size (full size camera original) as retouching is more accurate. When you have finished all the steps then crop and change pixel depth at the end. If your intention is to prepare an image for the web it doesnt need to be any bigger than a normal full screen size - about 1000pixels wide. If it is going in a blog it will be displayed smaller than that anyway, only going to full size when it is clicked on.

Framed - View

An Afterthought

2008-04-19T15:25:00.002+01:00

My previous blog regarding Panoramas was becoming too big so I published it before I was through. I would like to emphasize that there are many ways of doing things in photoshop. It is important that you remember what works best for you. My next point is regarding subject suitability. My 3 pictures just about work together because I shot them with a panoramic view in mind. You might notice that I didn't have a tripod - I got away with that. I shouldnt have used a Polariser - you might see the join in a print but it works fine on screen. My camera is tending to vignette at it's widest angle. Wide angle lenses are notorious for being brighter in the centre of image than at the edges. This is highlighted by the special filter made for the Hassleblad SWC that is calibrated to the lens you are using. This gives perfect illumination over the entire image area. I would not suggest going that far. Photoshop can compensate for this problem if you happen to be using RAW images.

A Triptych or how to join a Panorama

2008-04-19T13:45:00.013+01:00

I like panoramas. Sometimes a photograph cannot contain a whole view. If I can I set my camera on it's tripod and take a series of shots -mostly landscapes-and stitch them together in photoshop. There are many programs available that do this but I get nore satisfaction out of doing it myself. Today I have chosen 3 images taken in Austria last year. For a start I will put them next to each other then marry them together.

My 3 Images laid in rough position
I have chosen the left-hand image to be the container for the others. Click on image choose canvas, click on a square on the left side of the box with all the arrows and then input a size you want the width to be. I chose 300cm approx 3 times the size of the background image.
Choosing the centre image Ctrl+A selects the whole image, Ctrl+C copies the selection then if you click in the area of the background picture with the large empty space and then click Ctrl+V - you will have pasted the 2nd (middle) image into the picture. Do the same with the 3 rd shot to end up with 3 images together. At this stage the images can end up anywhere in the scene so.
Using the Vectot tool click on the middle images layer and move it to where you want and the same with the other image. You can use this technique with as few or as many images as you can fit into your computers memory. I have ended up with file sizes of over 100Mb-things can slow down an awful lot if you go for the full 360 degrees.
This illustrates the Vector or Moving tool. A very useful device. If you right click on the area you want to move a menu pops up showing the layers so you just click on the layer you want then move into potition. If all you want is to have your pictures next each other you can stop there, or, if you want to go for the panorama then move the layer into its appximate postion.
Ready to crop for a Triptych.
The 3 subjects I have chosen for this exercise are not the easiest as the sky is darker towards the right. This was due to my using a Polarising filter.

The top image (ie the middle one) has it's left side erazed with a soft brush erazor.
You will also notice that I have needed to put in some adjustment layers to make blending easier. I used Levels in the adjustment layers as the sky was giving me problems.

Like this.
And Finally (I straightened it up a bit)

A bit more of my portfolio

2008-04-18T19:15:00.004+01:00

I dont have thousands of images in my portfolio as you will see - as time goes on. I had to leave piles of stuff behind when the landlord of the building I was using changed the locks. This is my first record sleeve that had my name credited on it. The group are mostly famous for "Two pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please". I am sure you all remember that. Cover Design by Barbara/Ian for Cream (I don't think they still operate under that name). The shoot was'nt altogether a success as Splodge (the dog) wouldn't pee into the horn. Et was all we could do to get him to stay in shot. This was long before Photoshop got going. I am not saying it wasn't around just my clients were artists and didnt hold with new-fangled technology. (Sorry Ian). The wonder was that we got anything at all. Such was the life of a Photographer in those days. As I said before - this was the first of my oics to carry my name. There are many occasions when the photographer is anonymous -some planned and some not.

My first actual album cover doesnt really count as it is only a flat-art copy. This, however, was much more tricky than the Splodge as it had to be dead straight - there being no Photoshop etc. My first was Pink Floyds "The Wall". The artwork was a full size (almost) rendition of a cartoon drawing of a wall. Of course my copy of the album doesnt quite make it straight. To get the shot we had to borrow a large studio and 10x8 camera -the lot. My little company didn't run to such luxuries. We had tried shooting outdoors but I got colour casts from the doors of the lock-up garages in the mews I worked in. Also the traffic wardens weren't very helpful as also the weather. I think the only tip I picked up from this exercise was how to make sure the camera was flat on to the artwork. If anybody needs to know this kindly drop me a line or put a comment up.

My hand

2008-04-13T11:58:00.006+01:00

This is the current state of my left hand which will be under wraps for the next couple of weeks. I have been given 2 weeks supply of painkillers and am slightly concerned that I dont really need them. As you can see the NHS do a fine job of bandageing - they hd a bit of trouble with the sling though. They are not allowed to use safety pins so it looked a bit of a mess until I got home where we are not governed by health and safety issues. I think that I am going to start a political party whose manifesto is to disband the H&S Executive so we can all be treated as sensible human beings. The human race is known (in latin) as homo sapiens sapiens - this means wise, wise man - I don't think so.
I don't think this blog has much to do with photography, but, as I may have said before everything I write in this blog is my own opinion and is derived from years of experience.
You may like to know why my hand is bandaged up. Well it has been operated on for a condition called Dupuytrans Contractor. My fingers were curling in towards the palm as the tendons had developed a growth surrounding them. The nice people at Charing Cross H{ospital seem to have done an excellent job and my thanks go out to the team on the 7th floor that looked after me for the day. The consultant was Mr Forester and if you ever need it done I would recommend him. The dupuytrans.co.uk web-site like to make it clear to everybody that you must choose your surgeon with care as not all surgeons are up to the delicate surgery involved in working on the hand - which has more bones, tendons, nerves and blood vessels than practically any other part of the body.

Close-up

2008-04-12T11:38:00.002+01:00

Today's topic is the close-up, as in macro-photography. I am not going to illustrate this as it is rather technical and I want to simplify it for you. Let us say that we want photograph a small insect. If you were using a slr 35mm film camera you might want to fill as much of the image area as possible or at the very least shoot it the same size as in real life. The standard lens for a 35mm has a focal-length of 50mm (this corresponds to the diagonal measurement of the film plane). To obtain an image of 1:1 ratio ie same size you will need to use extension tubes that will add another 50mm to the distance between the effective centre of the lens and the image plane. If you achieve this you would find that point of sharpest focus is about 100mm away. The point of sharpest focus at the widest aperture is very shallow about 1 or 2 mm. To get sharp focus therefore you need to be able to rack the camera in and out with quite a lot of accuracy. It is extremely unlikely that you could use autofocus effectively as there is no point in moving the focussing ring on the camera as all it will do is make your slightly out of focus image smaller or larger as by try to focus using the cameras focus moves the lens further or nearer the image plane.
Now then, if you are trying to do this with a zoom lens you might find it difficult as the construction of a zoom lens uses negative or extra elements to change the focal length. Most lenses of this type use a telephoto design to reduce overall size. The most likely outcome is that the subject ends up so close to the front of the lens that it is impossible. As an example of this the Canon 300D was made with the reflex mirror small enough to site the lens nearer the image plane - but still it is what is called retrofocus (ie the focussing distance is greater than the effective focal length). To achieve optimum close up focussing the focal length of a lens needs to be greater than the physical body depth plus the distance to the effective centre of the lens array. Even if you can achieve real close up with a zoom or retrofocus lens the field of sharp focus will not be flat. Lens manufacurers go to a lot of trouble to make "macro" lenses. However, they are worth it as an investment. As a general rule I prefer single focal length lenses over zoom lenses as I have found them to both sharper and clearer than zoom lenses. If you are thinking of buying new lenses always read the reviews and not just from one source. Never trust a salesman to give unbiased advice. There is a lot more to be said on this subject. I will try to illustrate it next time. Any questions - please ask.

Image Size

2008-03-31T18:21:00.008+01:00

I made this image to show you the effect of random reduction or enlargement of images when used on the web. I am sure you have all see the effect. The top image is how I made it and the next two are:

Reduced by a third ie 66.6% of the top image
You can see the lines have developed saw-tooth edges.

Reduced by a half or 50% of the top image
You can see that the lines have retained their smooth edges.

Now, I hope, you can see that if an image is reduced by a third - strange things happen to edges. When it is reduced by an even number the effect is not so marked. The reason is that digital images are made up of pixels. A pixel is the smallest block of the screen image. It is indivisible - so you can,t have thirds or even halves of a pixel. What you can do is take a square block of 4 pixels and reduce it to 1 - this halves the image size. This image, on the left is the same as the one at the top but reduced, by blogspots software, to emphasize the point I am making. If you click on the image you will see that it is back to normal. When you are making images for a web page or a Blog try and reduce the image before hand to exactly the right size to fit the parameters laid down by the Host. But it is, I think, wise to work with reductions or enlargements that are even number divisions or multiples of the original. Photoshop, for example, will do quite a good job at resizeing images but at some magnifications and with some subjects there is a danger of producing dramatic moire pattern effects.

Colour or is it color?

2008-03-31T12:04:00.005+01:00

You may think that a grayscale (above) is not about colour - well you are wrong the picture at the top of the screen will tell you many things about the way your computer is set up and how accurately it records colour. The step at the left end of the scale should be pure white and the right end pure black. All the intermediate tones are pure tones of grey. That is they all have equal quantities of red, green and blue. If you see any colour other than grey in this greyscale it will be because your monitor/video card need adjustment. Similarly, you should also be able to see 21 steps in the greyscale so adjust your brightness/contrast controls until you can.
If you have Adobe Photoshop or Elements why not download this greyscale and check this for yourself. If you now have the greyscale image on screen click on the "Foreground" colour near the bottom of the Tools bar and get the color picker screen up. Using the eye-dropper move it over each grey tone and note the values. The image below illustrates what it looks like for red. When you put the eye-dropper on any tone in the image the colours of that tone are shown in the color-picker. Look at the R,G,B figures to see what the values are.
This screenshot shows the values of pure red (just to confuse you). The values are recorded as R-255, G-0 and B-0 in the above illustration. Where 255 is full red and the others none. In web design we can use either these values or (I prefer) the hexadecimal value which in the above illustration is #ff0000. Taking my example. If you want pure white you can click on the G and type 255 and B and type 255 with all the values at 255 you will have pure white. If you shoot a picture that you want a tone to be pure white Make sure that your foreground colour is set to pure white by checking its values. Then using "Levels" or Adjustment Levels" use the highlight eyedropper and place it in the area you want white and it will be white.

More Unsharp Masking

2008-03-29T18:06:00.003Z

The image on the left is an actual illustration of unsharp masking at a magnification you might need to use. The area to the right of the dots has unsharp masking applied. You might notice the black dots scattered around - these are known as artifacts (in the trade). You might not want see your pictures liberally laced with black spots. I admit you will need to be making a very large print but even at small magnifications these spots will appear. The image on the left is not much of an exageration - so be vey careful.

Unsharp Masking

2008-03-29T17:36:00.002Z

Some cameras allow you to turn a control called "Unsharp Mask" on and off. I prefer to leave it off. This picture tells you why I think that. I admit I have exagerated the effect (quite a lot) but if you look at the magnified pixels inside the dotted box you will notice that instead of being all one tone the edges are darker against a light edge and lighter against a dark edge. Of course its not as bad as this representation - but....
If you leave it off you can put it on later with most image editing programs. You will need to add it if your photography is not as pin-sharp as you would like or if you want to make the detail a bit crisper. I would recommend that you keep a copy of the original without it though as the results of overdoing masking can be particularly nasty in photographs that are printed out as all the pixels in the image have an edge to them - even where you dont want it. If you do need to sharpen your image, despite my warnings, I would recommend using the unsharp mask option as being the best and most effective. In Photoshop you have a large degree of control. Incidentally my illustration is made by screen grabbing three times to make the pixels that large.

A lighting technique

2008-03-28T18:09:00.006Z

In the previous blog you may have noticed that my subject was a - highly reflective- chrome object. When photographing shiney objects it sometimes looks better if you light the subject so that it only reflects white (instead of other incidental surroundings). To aid this I made a white "tent" out of an old - white - plastic bag and attached it to the lens with a rubber band.
This picture illustrates the tent arrangement and this one
is a suitable subject. If you have larger objects to photograph it may be necessary to build a tent from suitable material. In the past I have used "Kodatrace" - a drawing office type of material, translucent plasic - similar to the plastic bag and also polystyrene sheets and using a "soft-box" as a light source. Naturally the lens will be reflected in the subject so this an occasion to use a long focal lenght lens to get the camera as far away as possible so that the lens reflections is small. Then it is quite easy to remove using an image editor - such as Adobe Photoshop. I intend to clean the shot up later - as you can see there are still a lot of reflections going on.

More on Depth of Field

2008-03-28T17:59:00.004Z

To emphasize the effect of the f number on the depth of field I have produced a photo of my bit of plumbing (in situ). The waste connector is in a wooden sink and I have shot it at an angle to show what the depth of field is at f3.5 and then at f9.5.
You need to click on the image to open it up to full size and then you will see the difference a couple of f-stops can make.

Lightroom continued

2008-03-28T11:25:00.005Z

I have only a short time to finish this review before it's time is up. You will find loads of tips and stuff about image editing programs on the internet. I am not setting myself up as a "guru" but I can give you the benefit of my experience. Computer programmers and software developers dont often see the problems confronting the end user. There are changes I would make to some of these programs -if asked. Likewise there are changes to the hardware that would make everyones life easier - but life aint like that. Lightroom seems to be very well thought out and is an ideal tool for the busy pro-photographer. It gives a degree of control over all aspects of the image that are simply amazing. There are some things that need the power of the parent Photoshop, but, for colour correction and general image correction I dont think you could do much better. This image of the control panel for image "Development" shows just the basic settings that can control the colour and tone of the image.

Don't forget that all these images can be seen at full size by clicking on them to open them in a new screen.

The panel on the left shows the left side of the screen just to show the complete picture. This is the Navigator panel and shows some of the other panels and modes that there are. I am really impressed by the cropping tool which, if you choose, can provide a grid based on the mythic Golden Rule (as I mentioned in my composition blog). A word about saving your work. Lightroom saves your work in a special catalogue file - it doesnt re-save your jpegs causing compression problems. Lightroom does, however, ask you to back your catalogue files up. This is very important. Once you have done all your corrections and saved them, made prints,etc, You can do further editing of your images by exporting them to an external image editor (such as Photoshop) you can do this by sending a copy of your image with or without your edits. I could list all the possibilitied that Lightroom is capable of but perhaps you should find out for yourself. I recommend downloading a trial copy.

More Adobe Lightroom

2008-03-28T10:55:00.004Z

After I blogged my last blog a friend asked if you could do comtact sheets in Lightroom. Well so you can as these screen grabs will testify. This image shows the control panel which shows that I have set the page out into rows and columns.

This image, of the preview area, shows the thumbnails along the bottom - which are oriented upright - whilst the preview panel is in the landscape view principally because the default setting on my Canon Pixma ip4300 is set as landscape (as I was previously printing landscapes).

Printing with Adobe Lightroom

2008-03-27T18:24:00.004Z

Before my trial version of Adobe Lightroom ran out I decided to try printing a batch of pictures - about a 100 or so. I was very impressed. My photos were all taken with the same light and so after I had done one to check it was ok I just went through the whole session choosing the image to print from a thumbnail and so was able to set up quite a large batch to print at a time.
Habibe Designs

Where did I leave off

2008-03-21T08:35:00.003Z

Oh yes! On yesterdays blog I forgot to mention that the Minolta Dimage 7i, that I use, has a Macro button on the lens. This means I was able to get to .30 of a metre with the wide angle setting and in the picture I am putting up today - the Long focal length Macro setting allows you to get to .25 metres. The difference is dramatic. (Those of you who do not have this facility should purchase either/or a close up lens or extension tubes) The wide angle shot was trimmed out of the full frame where the long focal length shot was almost full frame (I just cropped it a bit to make it stand up straight). I have placed a blue line across todays image to show where the point of focus is. This picture is shot at f3.5 (almost the widest aperture). The depth of field is very small and it is difficult to decide where to focus. The most important thing to remember about close up work is to set the lens to focus at a point where you have as much of the subject as you want in frame. Then to focus critically you either move the camera or the subject. At extreme close up ie. 1:1 there is no other way of focussing. USM etc will not help. Of course you might by a flook prove me wrong - but I write from the knowledge of 50 years experience.

Finally. A word about the images I am using. If they are shot with my digital camera I cut the image size down to 960x1280 pixels and then saving them at 30% quality in jpeg. I dissobey my own rule of not saving the image as a photoshop image first simply to get maximum image size reduction. The images on Blogspot are kept in Picasas web storage facility and I dont want to use all my available storage space let alone using precious bandwidth.

Depth of Field and Telephoto -Zoom

2008-03-20T15:12:00.009Z

The depth of field in a picture is the two points, in front and behind, of a subject that appear in sharpest focus. These distances are governed by four things in the main
Firstly - the actual focal length of the lens. Second - the distance the subject is from the camera thirdly - the aperture that is set on the lens and finally the size at which the image is to be viewed. These are not in order of importance they all effect the result. The two images I am going to use for this do two things they show the difference between wide angle close up and long focus.

The left image is taken with the lens on maximum zoom and the right image is shot at maximum wide angle. They both had the same aperture (fully open for the zoomed shot and stopped down a tad for the wide angle shot).
As you can see the longer the focal length the less the depth of field is - there is more apparently sharp in the wide angle. Shot - but if you click on it to make it larger - there is less apparent sharpness. This is the result seeing the image small it looks sharper than if you enlarge it. If I had used a smaller aperture ie stopped down to the cameras smallest aperture of F8.0 then the sharpness would be increased quite a large amount in both cases.
The only thing remaining is the 'apparent' focal length. My camera says that the wide angle setting is eqquivalent to 28mm on a standard 35mm camera but, it is in fact only 7.4mm. This shorter focal length will produce substantially sharper looking images than an actual 28 mm lens at the same aperture. The reason is the same as for the difference in the above two pictures. Let me know if you still have a problem with that.

Small Studio sets

2008-03-17T17:29:00.005Z

Sometimes you need to get over the top and look straight down on the subject. In the example pictures above you can see how I have arranged my tripod. The two front legs being vertical with the back leg extended a bit more to make this happen. Naturally mother nature doesnt allow this as we get a centre of gravity problem. To overcome this I have tied a doorstop to the back leg. Any heavy object that is tie-able will do. The lighting was provided by daylight through the window. To light the shadow side of the subject I have simply bounced the light back with some sheets of paper. If you do this sort of thing a lot I suggest obtaining a sheet of white polystyrene from a builders merchant. You may be lucky and find some small enough to get in the car. If you need to cut the polystyrene the cut edge might need taping up with what I know as "gaffer tape".

Just to prove it works I exchanged my trusty old 'Los Angeles Olympics 1984' Canon F1 for the Minolta Dimage 7i and took a snap This is how it looked straight from the camera. To improve things a bit I used a technique described on the Photoshop Heros site. The trick I used was the "Velvia" one where the colours in the picture are intensified to make it look like the effect you got with Fuji Velvia in the days of film (it is still available).

Lightroom

2008-03-17T12:46:00.002Z

In one of my previous missives I said that Lightroom did not have a very comprehensive printer control. Well obviously I am blind, slightly anyway, the printer controls appear - like all other menus - when you run your mouse over the menu button. My reservation with this is that if you use the print options in the "File" menu these alternatives are not shown.

Composition

2008-03-16T11:22:00.008Z

Today I am going to try and cover composition. The first thing to say is that every person is entitled to see things their own way and that all rules (in life and composition) should be treated with an element of suspicion. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so they say. As an example I am using a simple Austrian landscape. First as shot:-

As you can see - a typical mountain scene with a road leading to a house. It's no prize winner but I think it's OK. With the aid of hindsite I might have cropped it so that the farm house obeyed the Golden Mean or Section rule I suggest that a Google search on this subject would be better than me explaining the concept. But with an image editor (Elements or Photoshop) such a thing is possible.

This is going some way towards my aim - which is to have the road lead the eye to the farm house - but it needed to have slightly more foreground (I cut a chunk off and placed it at the bottom to give more depth). Doing this moved the farmhouse further up the picture so that it was close to the intersection of the image divided into thirds which approximately corresponds to the Golden Mean (Section or Ratio)

This is the way composition works - the eye needs to be drawn to the subject or object of interest. Any way of doing this has the same effect but the Golden Ratio system is meant to be aesthetically pleasing. If you are taking a picture for advertising purposes then anything that draws the viewers eye to where it matters is mostly what it's about. You could use lighting to the same effect.

Evening and Night Photography

2008-03-15T17:56:00.005Z

This picture was taken as the sun was setting, when the sun has just gone below the rim of the earth. The street lights are on and the shops are lit-up. If you were to set the colour temperature setting on your camera to "Tungsten" the sky will go to a more interesting colour. The bottom picture is shot with a daylight setting and the top has been adjusted to look as it might shot with a tungsten setting.

This is just one approach to shooting at night. Another is to use flash to capture moving objects but also using a camera shuuter speed that will allow the ambient light to record. I don't recommend that you photograph passing vehicles in case you cause distress to the driver. At least not without warning them first. When shooting in this way it is best (if you can) to use something called second blade synchronisation. What happens here is the camera flash will fire at the end of an exposure instead of the beginning (as normally happens). For example: you could photograph someone running (dancing or any movement) and what happens with the image is that the last bit of the movement is recorded with flash and is static with the blur behind it. Try shootting both ways to see what I mean. I will try and produce some images to back me up on this. One more thing is to remember that the best light of the day occurs a couple of hours before sunset - when the shadows are long and the colour is warm.

2008-03-14T15:49:00.003Z

This is how it looks with the outside at the original density. It isnt perfect as I only spent 5 minutes doing it - but you get the idea. This image was made using two layers the top layer being thae lightened version and the bottom being the original. I just used the "Lasso Tool" to select the glass bit of the window and deleted it from the lighter version. Easy when you know how. As there are several different ways you can do the same thing - why not try doing it differently.

Photoshop Levels

2008-03-14T15:05:00.008Z

By special request I am covering levels in Photoshop today. Open a picture in Photoshop and you might find something like this image where the meter was reading what the light was doing outside. If you now click on "Image" on the top menu bar the "Adjustments" then levels you will see agraphic display of the highlight, midtone and shadow regions of the picture. Under the graph it will say 0(shadow) -1.0(mid-tone) - 250(highlight). Above each figure there is a slider. By dragging the midtone slider to the left (for example) the midtones are lightened - lowering the contrast of the picture. The slider on the right, when moved to the left, will lighten the image. In the following example I have done just that. In the lighter image the sliders now read o, 1.7, 180.

If you want to be really smart you could find a way to keep the image outside from becoming too bright and still retain the interior density. I will away now and do just that - for next time. As mentioned in a previous episode if you make a duplicate layer and do your levels adjustment on that you will find photoshop, rather cleverly, retains your changes in the levels panel, but only if you do the levels adjustment as an adjustment layer, "Layers", "New Adjustment Layer", "Levels" and tick the box that is next to the statement that says "Use Previous Layer to Create a Clipping Mask".

See the following blog

Printing photographs

2008-03-13T16:34:00.002Z

If you have a printer that prints pictures at a good quality - and you cant wait to take your images to be printed at a photolab - make sure that you are using the best available settings on the printer. If you are printing from Adobe Photoshop or Elements it is better, in many cases, to let photoshop handle the "colour management". This means that you need to disable the printers own colour management preferences and make sure that Photoshop or Elements is set to use the programs colour management. I am using a Canon iP 4300 and have found that this produces the nearest print colour to the screen. The printer controls on both these Adobe products are excellent when used this way. In my experience, allowing the program to tell the printer what to do, seems to give the best results in whatever Image Editing system you use. While I am on the subject of printing I have found that printing from Adobe Lightroom doesnt give so many possibilities as Elements and Photoshop itself. The main thing it lacks is the control over how the image is enlarged or reduced to fit a print size. I have been printing 6inch x 4inch prints from digital images taken on my Minolta Dimage 7i. As the format does not fit the print size I have been adjusting the magnification, slightly, to fill the print area - you can't do this in Lightroom. This surprises me as the print engine must already exist for the other programs so why not use it on Lightroom? Maybe someone will let us all know. It is a waste of time and money if you have to keep swapping from one program to another merely to output your work.
You can regard the previous passage as part of my ongoing assessment of the Adobe products.

Title Picture

2008-03-13T16:09:00.002Z

You may have noticed my new banner title. This is another advantage of using Adobe Photoshop. The type tool is very versatile and allows styles to be applied - such as drop-shadow, embossing, contouring and many others. Loads of control as well. I have played for hours getting the ultimate text design - mainly for web pages. Of course it is not necesarily a good idea to use images instead of text in a web page as our friends at google have one less thing to search on. Sometimes you have to do what is most pleasing to the eye.

Another Portfolio Pic

2008-03-11T18:18:00.008Z

A Bit of My Portfolio
This is an old shot of mine. The band "Drop Nineteens" were a bit taken aback when they were shown it - the were an American band who weren't at all associated with the image. The art director "sold it" as it was different -to say the least. The shot was taken in a teaching hospital in London, (they were very helpful), we were shown into a big room with stainless steal benches dotted around. Some of the benches had body shaped objects on with covers over them. To cut a long story even longer we found a Technician and told him that we had arranged to photograph a human brain - and he said @right then - how do you want it'. We thought in a jar. So he slapped it in this glass jar and filled it with water and what you see here is the result. This image is not - by any means - digital but shows what old fashioned film could do - and we didnt have to spend hours sweating over a hot computer to get the effect. However the drop nineteens label was added afterwards. The faces on the back cover were also done "in camera". Has anyone heard of this group?
The art direction on this shoot was by Ian Kay of Hills Archer Studios

Adobe-Photoshop, Elements and Lightroom

2008-03-11T16:23:00.003Z

I thought I would try my hand at software review. I downloaded the trial versions of "Elements" and "Lightroom" to see how they compare to the "Photoshop" type. I am comparing them to the latest CS3 Photoshop as they are, in many ways, interconnected. Elements is probably called "Elements" because it has some elements of the parent Photoshop. All three of these systems perform very well in the fields inwhich they are intended to operate. Elements has some strong editing functionality using most of the tools found in Photoshop. There are obvious differences in both Elements and Lightroom. Elements is designed to handle small (ish) files. It wouldn't touch the panorama that consisted of 15 layers of large digital image files. But then, it was over 100meg. Photoshop takes long enough to load it. The file saving was paerticularly good as it offered a jpeg2000 option. If you don't know anything about jpeg2000 it is worth looking up on the web. There is too much to be said about it here. It's major benefit is that it will compress a file without loss. (you do have the opportunity to reduce file sizes further with a bit of loss but it's still better than the old jpeg standard. I reduced am image from 45,700 to 3900kb in it's lossless mode.
Photoshop CS has the jpeg2000 plugin as an option on the CD in a folder "Goodies", "Optional Plugins", "Photoshop only", "File Formats", "JPEG2000.8BI. Just copy this file and put it in the plugins folder in the Photoshop folder in the Programs directory putting it under "File Formats". You can Comment me if you need any help with this. I will continue this blog later when I will tell you about Lightroom.

Long focal length lenses

2008-03-08T13:03:00.005Z

I was hoping to use an example of the sort of problems encountered with lenses of 200mm or equivalent, it seems that I deleted it so here is a good one(well OK). To cut a long story short. I borrowed a Canon 350D camera with a Tamron zoom lens that I was using at about 150mm focal length equivalent - 38mm actual . I was using a pretty solid tripod and available light. I had spent hours the previous day trying desperately to get a sharp image. The camera was on a Manfrotto tripod - one heavy duty enough for a 4x5 camera. The lens seemed to become sharp at f16 so that is what this was taken at. To complete the job I set the camera to "Mirror-up" and used the remote control release. Well the shots came out sharp and the client was pleased - and he paid me. However, if I had not have spent a few hours experimenting then it would have been a disaster. When shooting for best quality I try and use the 100 ISO setting as that produces the least "noise" in the picture. The Canon is still pretty good at higher settings but if you want to avoid speckly shadow areas then stick with the slower ISO setting.
As a result of this I was using a shutter speed of 1/2 sec which is far too long for hand holding. In this picture of a full size dining room chair you can see how sharp it is (at least you can in the original). If you are taking pictures in extreme circumstances, without a tripod, try and find something solid to lean the camera on and also shoot several shots at a time. Usually at least one will be sharp. If you are shooting moving objects- and you need to pan the camera with the movement-keep your finger on the expose button. Digital film is cheap opportunities are rare.

Todays Photoshop tip

2008-03-06T19:04:00.003Z

A quick tip for all photoshop and Elements users:
When using layers, and I hope you are, give them a name. To name the layer is quite simple just click on the layer to get the drop-down menu and at the top click on rename layer. If you get loads of layers in a complicated edit you will find it easier to navigate. Layers can also be grouped together and color coded to make it easier still. I have worked on multi-layered images that have had about 50 layers in 10 groups of 5. When they are grouped together you can turn the whole group off and on - a great time saver when doing multiple roll-overs.

A record cover

2008-03-06T15:19:00.002Z

This picture for the Irish group "The Frames" is an illustration of depth of field. Tne background to the picture was foil with the lyrics typed onto it with a typewriter that had no ribbon. I was required to make it as out of focus as possible hence the nails through the apple being the only sharp bit. Dont ask me why though - perhaps it's art.

Wide angle - telephoto

2008-03-06T14:00:00.002Z

In my last blog the illustration I used was taken at mximum wide angle. Todays picture is taken with the lens set at near full zoom. The camera I am using for these shots is a Minolta Dimage 7i. This camera has a 5 megapixel ccd and is more than adequate for this demonstration although a Canon 350d or 400 would be slightly different on the depth of field examples - you have to try this for yourself. The the longer the focal length of a lens the narrower the band of sharp focus you also get a change in perspective. In the not too distant past text books on portraiture would advocate being at least 2metres (6ft approx) from your subject so it would be useful to have a lens that fills the field of view with the subject. In my illustration you will see the depth of field quite clearly when shot zoomed in on the subject. The effect of stopping down is also very noticeable. You will perhaps notice (with your own camera) that your wide angle images and zoomed images behave differently. This is because the focal length to ccd size varies considerably from camera to camera. With the Dimage 7i the true focal length of the lens is 7.3mm which is the equivalent of 28mm on a camera with a full(35mm) size ccd. (the ccd is the part of the camera that is in the 'film' plane and receives and converts the image to digital data).

More on photography

2008-03-04T15:40:00.002Z

Depth of Field

Many people do not understand depth of field. Simply it is the region, in a picture that is acceptably sharp. What is acceptable is entirely dependant on how big an image is to be reproduced and how far away the viewer is. A picture, of a landscape - for example, that has sharp focus in the middle distance will be acceptably sharp from close-up to the far distance when printed at a small print size (6inch x 4inch) but will only be acceptably sharp at the point of focus at poster size (30inch x 40inch). This you can see for yourself by experiment using your computer printer -for instance.
Depth of field is governed by several things.

Aperture: if you have control over your camera and can control the aperture size. The aperture is the iris diaphragm inside the lens system. When it is very small it is said to be stopped down (f8 say) and when it is wide open the aperture will be close to the maximum possible. Sometimes the maximum varies, with some makes and types of lens, the reason we dont need at this moment. When the lens is set wide open the depth of field, at a given focus point, will be shallower than when stopped down the smaller the aperture the more depth of field you get.
Focal lenght: most cameras seem to have zoom capability. If this is through changes to the lens and not digital zoom the depth of field at wider angles of view will be greater than with narrower angles as when you zoom-in.

If you want to use selective depth of field, concentrating the attention to a small depthof the image, then you need to set the camera away from the subject and select a wide aperture ie F2.8 or f3.5. You will have the narrowest band of sharp focus at the maximum zoom and maximum aperture and corresponding greater sharpness at smaller amounts of zoom and/or aperture.
In the accompanying photograph I have photographed som rulers indicating the f stop number on each of three images. I will tell you more in my next episode.

More on photography

2008-02-25T17:23:00.002Z

This tip comes from years of studio experience it's about using a white background. There are problems white as a background if it is near the subject it is difficult to light and also it tends to "bleed" round objects making edges less clearly defined. My best advice is to keep the backround as far away as possible and I do mean far. The further the better. Light it as evenly as you can but dont make the brightness too much or it will bleed. In the studio when shooting fashion the model is frequently on a raised "stage" ( a sheet of chipboard on beer crates) this can be covered in background material and the subject of the picture is lit separately. If you are shooting small objects then it still applies. Background as far as possible (within reason).
Lighting is all important but it is down to personal taste (or lack of) how you go about it. If you have nice clean, white ceilings then it is good to use the ceiling to reflect diffused light down. This produces the most natural light. Small objects can be livened up with bits of mirror or aluminium foil stuck to pieces of card etc. If you can-use flash off camera. I have experimented with using on-camera flash to set off seperate flash units couple to slave cells and very effectively. One of the good things with digital cameras, however, is that you can change to a tungsten light setting- thus making room light vey useable. It doesnt work with low energy bulbs vey often though.
Further to my comments about shooting on white backgrounds. If you need to cut the image out to put onto a different background then it is better to use a light grey. Pure white produces edges that are very difficult to see when masking them out in Adobe Photoshop (for example).

Edit with Adobe Photoshop

2008-02-25T16:03:00.002Z

I downloaded Photoshop Elements to see what the difference is between elements and photoshop.
Not much, surprisingly. If you only want basic editing it is ideal. My real reason for checking it out was to see what recommendations they made regarding saving files without losing the integrity of the original. I am sorry to say that my banging on about ever decreasing file sizes and quality is not covered. So if you did not read my blog of a couple of days ago here it is again. When you first open an image in any image editing program make sure you ahve a back-up in the original state as shot or scanned or whatever. Picasa, Elements and Photoshop all will save over your original mostly without warning. If you use photoshop save your file-before you work on it-as a PSD file or TIF (if you have a recent version that save layers). Then if you are editing the picture you only need to save it without "saving as".
The next phase of editing, I think, should be to make a duplicate layer to work on. This done by clicking on "Layers" in the tool bar and clicking on "Duplicate Layer".
In Photoshop there are many different ways of achieveing the same result. If I tell you to do something a particular way it is because I know it works. There may, of course, be quicker ways of doing the smae thing - but so what.
Specifically with Adobe Elements and Photoshop your next step might be to make some colour correction and brightness/contrast correction. There are tools that will do just that. In elements you can have the programme do it for you at the click of a button. In Photoshop if you go to the top toolbar and click on "image", "Adjustments", "Levels" you are presented with a slider control thatallows you to adjust shodow detail, mid-tones and highlight detail. Firstly all three colours can be adjusted (RGB), then if you click on the RGB box the drop-down menu will allow you to select any of the three colours. In the colours section moving the left hand (shadow deatail) slider towards the centre will cause the colour to intensify for the colour you select ie Red will be redder etc. If you move the right hand (highlight) slider towards the centre you will go towards the complimentary of the colour (the photographic opposite). The compimentary to Red is Cyan or Blue -Green for some other English speaking countries. It is worth while taking some time and experimenting with these effects as colour problems are a regular feature of photography as the colour of daylight and artificial light varies dramatically. Once you have achieved a result close the box and thats it - unless you change your mind. If you have followed these instructions to the letter you will be able to go back by clicking on the "History" tab and reverting to a previously saved version. A better way would have been to click on "Layer" again and this time clicking on "New Adjustment Layer" in the drop-down and selecting Levels, corves or whatever you want. Having made sure that the layer you are editing is highlighted. If you use this approach the adjustment layer allows you back in to change what you have done. If you want to apply your corrections to the layer immediately below the the adjustment layer be sure to tick the box that says "Use previous layer to create a clipping mask".

Day Two - tip for today

2008-02-24T08:06:00.002Z

If your camera has a screw thread for a tripod - buy a tripod. Although the camera looks as if it will always produce a sharp picture there are always times when it needs to be held shake-free. If your camera tells you what exposure settings you are getting anything with a shutter speed longer than 1/100th second will be liable to camera shake - unless you can stop your heart beating. Tripods come in all sorts of strenghts and weights. Obviously the sturdier it is the better. However, even the most flimsy lightweight tripod can be given that bit extra. For example to give it more weight - hang something heavy on it. You can improvise with anything heavy - your shopping bag, a 5litre water bottle can be tied to a leg of the tripod - anything that weighs 4 or 5 kilos (10lbs) should be enough. No string to tie it on with - a lace from a pair of trainers will do. Using this device you can even get more over the top of objects that you might want photograph - food photography, for example, where you might want to get the whole of the dish in the shot rather than a profile. I will demonstrate fairly soon with some images but for now - take my word for it - it works.

Day One Part Two

2008-02-23T18:26:00.002Z

If you are computer savvy you might already have an image editor. Most images can do with a bit of a lift in the pre-digital days photolabs would enhance the image duriong the printing process by dodging and burning-in. Even now you will find the latest printing equipment makes changes to the image - enhancing shadow detail for example. These are all quite simple tricks. Once the basics have ben mastered then making the next step is logical and easy to do.
Most digital cameras offer a choice of image format ie. jpeg, tiff or raw. The most widely used format though is jpeg, mainly because it produces a smaller file without too much degradation. The downside of using jpeg is that it is all too easy to compress the file again making it even smaller and degraded to a noticeable degree. The first thing to do, when image edit a jpeg, is to re-save the image in a different format. For example saving a jpeg as a tif file will prevent this from happening and if you then look at the properties of this new file you will notice how much larger it is. As an example an photo taken with a Canon 350d might be 3,643kb but when opened in photoshop and fully decompressed it will be 22.8M. Now if this image is re-saved as tif or photoshop psd file - without compression - it will be 23.36M. However, if you save the picture again - even without doing anything else to it - it will resize down to 1,904kb. Your image is degraded, next time it will be worse and so on. If you are worried about filling up your harddrive you can delete your tif (psd) file once you have made all the changes you need.
This first step has to be the first thing you do - that is (again) before you edit your picture save it as a tif or psd file. Edit it save the tif and keep it until you are sure its ok. If you need prints from a supplier that will only accept jpegs thats fine just re-save your file as a jpeg at maximum quality. It will be as good as the original, better, hopefully, if your editing was ok. For editing I do mean anything such as cropping, red-eye correction, swapping body parts and etc.

Day One

2008-02-23T12:10:00.002Z

This is the first day of my blog. Lets start with the obvious. You will need to read your manual. Unless, of course, the salesman sets your camera up for you and tells you which button takes the picture. So go and take pictures. The only rule in photography is "there are no rules". Just look in the magazines - anything goes. If you have an artistic bent it may help looking around some galleries. By all means copy the techniques of the famous - but if you have your own it is much more rewarding. It is useful to know what you will do with the pictures you take. If you are just viewing them on screen the image size - usually called quality doesnt need to be high. If you want prints - what size? An image from a mobile phone can look quite good even up to 10inches by 8inches or even A4 - but even better at 6"x4". If you can't stand the excitement of seeing you pictures on you computer it is ok to take your camera to your local print shop and have them do it all for you, however, I think you might want to play. See my next entry

mikesdigitalimaging

A Photoshop Starter

ISO Settings

I haven't had any spare time...

You might not want to see this - its uncovered

More about the cutting out post

Cutting-out

An addition to my panorama blog

An Afterthought

A Triptych or how to join a Panorama

A bit more of my portfolio

My hand

Close-up

Image Size

Colour or is it color?

More Unsharp Masking

Unsharp Masking

A lighting technique

More on Depth of Field

Lightroom continued

More Adobe Lightroom

Printing with Adobe Lightroom

Where did I leave off

Depth of Field and Telephoto -Zoom

Small Studio sets

Lightroom

Composition

Evening and Night Photography

Photoshop Levels

Printing photographs

Title Picture

Another Portfolio Pic

Adobe-Photoshop, Elements and Lightroom

Long focal length lenses

Todays Photoshop tip

A record cover

Wide angle - telephoto

More on photography

More on photography

Edit with Adobe Photoshop

Day Two - tip for today

Day One Part Two

Day One