Yes, we have a thread about Digital Cameras...but the camera is only part of the equation. I thought that it'd be nice to have a thread to discuss the photography part of it...plus the post-processing. I'm pulling a couple posts from other threads to get this one started: Quoted from…
Originally posted Wednesday, March 1, 2006 (6 years ago)
If you're a Flickr user, and want to play with us, feel free to come join the Yehoodi Photo Homework group (invite-only, which means I have to approve you to join. This is just to make sure that only Yehoodites are in it right now).
Sometimes it's easier to be creative with some direction. Here's how this group will work: Every other Monday, a new topic for photo assignment will be posted. Add your submission(s) to the group pool.
The only rules are -
Please try to only post photos taken specifically FOR that assignment. Try to not use photos you took previously.
Tag your submissions with the assignment topic.
Each assignment will be posted as a discussion thread with the assignment number, the date range (two weeks), and the topic. Anyone can post a new assignment, but it must be posted on the proper Monday. If that makes sense. The first "assignment" post on that Monday is the assignment. Admin will delete any duplicates/late posts.
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
Originally posted Thursday, March 2, 2006 (6 years ago)
Quoted from "Keither"
In terms of a camera sensor, dynamic range refers to the amount of variation your camera can capture. Most decent cameras are in the 5-7 stop range. If the dynamic range of the scene exceeds the dynamic range of the camera, then information will be lost (either as blown highlights or detailless shadows).
(I'm sure you guys probably know all this, but I did want to correct the terminology.)
Oh, don't assume I know it - I'm completely new to all this stuff I keep trying to remember things like what f-stops are and whether f/16 or f/0.7 lets in more light through the lens :-)
Quoted from "Keither"
In the real world, you've got only one real choice in dealing with a scene like this (where you can't control the lighting and can't repeat the shot to bracket) - you must decide what's most important to you in the shot and meter for that. In most of my photography (people), it's NOT the sky, so I generally let the sky blow out. In someone else's case, the sky may be more important, so they'd expose for that.
Yes, in these shots certainly the main subjects were much more important than the sky, so have the sky blow out was not a disaster. I wa
more concerned with whether I should have been doing some simple technically to prevent it, but it sounds like in a lot of the conditions I was shooting it it's a nontrivial problem to avoid.
Quoted from "Keither"
Also, if you shoot your images in your camera's RAW format, you'll have more dynamic range to play with. You can get an extra stop or two worth of information using a RAW file processed to a 16-bit image. Then you can adjust the contrast curve yourself. You can also do things like fixing white balance after the fact. That's a huge bonus if the light is changing rapidly.
Unfortunately the Canon doesn't give you the option to save in RAW format, which I suppose is one disadvantage of that model.
Quoted from "Keither"
However, saturation is a setting you can change in the camera (for JPEG output). You can also fix it pretty easily in PS with a channel mixer adjustment layer.
Looking at my manual, I do have a setting for color saturation, which can be set to -(weak), 0 (neutral) or (strong). I'm a bit confused though by the term color saturation. What precisely does it mean to say that an image has saturated colors? How does that relate to a color or colors in an image being visually vivid or bright?
What's a channel mixer adjustment layer? (Might as well be a flux capacitor or a warp drive for all I know :-)) Or is that something you need to study the Photoshop manuals to get a handle on?
Quoted from "Keither"
[list]Fix the white balance. Auto white balance can give you a cooler look than you want. Use a white card, or try using a cloudy white balance instead of auto
Yes, it looks like on the Canon you can set one of a few different hardcoded white balance settings (daylight, cloudy, flourescent lighting, etc), or a mode where you manually set it based on a reference subject.
Originally posted Thursday, March 2, 2006 (6 years ago)
Quoted from "ostrich" I keep trying to remember things like what f-stops are and whether f/16 or f/0.7 lets in more light through the lens :-)
Think about the f/stop as a fraction. :wink: The bigger the f-number, the smaller the opening. Of course, this gets confusing. Stopping down means a smaller aperture, larger f-number. Opening up, the opposite. A fast lens (or glass) is a lens with a large aperture (or small f-number). Slow glass is the opposite.
Quote I was more concerned with whether I should have been doing some simple technically to prevent it, but it sounds like in a lot of the conditions I was shooting it it's a nontrivial problem to avoid.
It really is, and it's the same non-trivial problem you run into with any sort of analog to digital conversion. Digital doesn't handle saturation gracefully. You run into the same problem with recording music onto a digital format.
Quote Unfortunately the Canon doesn't give you the option to save in RAW format, which I suppose is one disadvantage of that model.
D'oh! Yeah, I looked it up later. Not having RAW mode can be a big disadvantage.
Quote Looking at my manual, I do have a setting for color saturation, which can be set to -(weak), 0 (neutral) or (strong). I'm a bit confused though by the term color saturation. What precisely does it mean to say that an image has saturated colors?
Here's a good explanation of what saturated means. Here's an example:
I've created three rectangles of solid color: red, green, and blue. Then I overlayed a saturation adjustment. The left is completely unsaturation and the right is completely saturated. As you can see, the more saturated a color, the less gray in it. So, a saturated color is brighter, and more ... of that color.
Quote What's a channel mixer adjustment layer?
Think about your picture being a physical print. Now think about overlaying a piece of colored plastic on top of it. When you look at the image (through the plastic), the image has changed. This is an adjustment layer - it's a layer that sits on top of your image (in Photoshop) that changes what the image underneath looks like without altering that image.
At its simplest, a layer is clear piece of plastic. However, Photoshop is very sophisticated, so you can color the plastic, make it more or less transparent, draw on the plastic, stack multiple layers, and so on. If you completely drew on the plastic and set it down, you couldn't see the original image at all. You can even cut holes in the layer so the original shows completely through.
An adjustment layer is like a camera filter.. it's a fixed adjustment that you apply (like a colored piece of plastic). In the example above, the adjustment layer was a -100 saturation. I then used a layer mask with a gradient to adjust the intensity of the layer so that on the left it was completely affecting the image and on the right it wasn't at all with a smooth transition in the middle.
Quote Yes, it looks like on the Canon you can set one of a few different hardcoded white balance settings (daylight, cloudy, flourescent lighting, etc), or a mode where you manually set it based on a reference subject.
Originally posted Friday, March 3, 2006 (6 years ago)
A lot of these relate to general photography, not just digital, but I felt like putting it here, so :P .
25 PHOTOGRAPHIC TRUTHS
The best scenic views are clearly designated by highway signs reading NO STOPPING ANYTIME.
Edward Steichen owned a three-legged dog, which he named Tripod.
The Post Office folds all parcels containing photographs.
Camera straps never fail above soft surfaces.
Lens caps and cable releases can become invisible at will.
Spotone bottles are designed to tip over when the cap is removed. [Spotone is black dye used to touch up spots on a black and white print]
Financial success in photography is directly related to proper choice of subject matter. Falling airplanes, exploding volcanoes, and certain Presidential motorcades work best.
No two light meters agree.
The word "Daguerreotype" cannot be spelled correctly. [Louis Daguerre was one of the inventors of the photographic process - the metal images produced are called "Daguerreotypes"]
A new Hasselblad would take better pictures than your present camera. [Their new 39mp digitial costs 40,000]
1/60 at f/8 is the correct exposure for all photographs.
When your friends finally realize that you are a true artist, committed to making sensitive and meaningful images, they will ask you to photograph their wedding.
Color slide viewing cures insomnia.
On any tripod, only two legs work properly.
Dust is attracted to sky areas.
YES, PHOTOGRAPHERS DO IT IN THE DARK... but they have to stop every thirty seconds to agitate.
There's nothing wrong with a 35mm that a 4x5 can't cure.
Ansel Adams has three Secret Zones known only to him.
Fast films compensate for slow photographers.
Mounting a photograph is a misdemeanor in Arkansas.
Owning more than one lens assures that you will always have the wrong lens on the camera for any given picture.
A camera store will charge 75 to repair a camera that has been adjusted with a butter knife.
Originally posted Friday, March 3, 2006 (6 years ago)
This post is in reply to the question started here, and finished here.
Quoted from "mity" Toni,
How do i paste into a specific part of grid?
As far as I know, whenever you paste, it'll either stick it into the middle of the composition, or maybe the middle of your current viewing window. Either way, you don't have control over that. What you can do, is then move it into its desired position. That's when the grid and snap come into play.
First, figure out how large to make your background. With your application, this will depend on your monitor's resolution. For example, make a new sheet at 1280x1040, with your resolution set at 300 pixels/inch. Next, turn on your grid (View -> Show -> Grid, or Ctrl '). Then, set your grid measurements (Edit -> Preferences -> Guides, Grid & Slices). I typically do a gridline every inch, with 4 subdivisions per inch. That way I can easily have 1/4" of space inbetween my photos. Adjust as you see fit. Lastly, make sure snap is turned on (View -> Snap or Shift Ctrl ;). Now, when you paste in photos, you can easily move them to an exact gridline, keeping everything lined up. Plus, if you need to figure out how big a photo needs to be to fill a space, count the number of squares, divide by 4 (or whatever you use) and that gives you the inches.
Let's say the space you want to fill is 8x12 little squares. Then, crop the photo you want there to 2"x3" at 300dpi. A consistent dpi is important. If this is just for your monitor, and not for printing, and you want to minimize filespace, then go ahead and use a dpi of 72. Just make sure it's consistent.
Originally posted Friday, March 3, 2006 (6 years ago)
Sometimes it can be helpful to create guides - just set your rule to percentage, and then create guides at every ten percent on each axis. You'll snap to the guides as well. Can be useful.
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
Originally posted Friday, March 3, 2006 (6 years ago)
If he's making this for a desktop background, I would suggest converting everything to 72 dpi at the beginning. that way he's working with his true screensize (image size) dimensions to begin with.
I wonder if it would also make sense for him to batch process the levels of his images prior to using them so that they're all the same relative levels. If he tries to do it after flattening, may not work as good, but I'm not sure. I guess I'm from school of correcting the originals as much as possible first.
Originally posted Friday, March 3, 2006 (6 years ago)
I'm thinking of dragging out my 35mm Nikon SLR. I'm just not happy with my Nikon digicam. (Although, I love my Cannon digital point and shoot). I bought it in 1986. I don't think I've used it in the last ten years...
Digital Secrets: How Spirit Makes Great Photos
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 06:00 am ET
14 January 2004
NASA's Spirit Rover is providing a lesson to aspiring digital photographers: Spend your money on the lens, not the pixels.
Anyone who has ever agonized over whether to buy a 3-megapixel or 4-megapixel digital camera might be surprised to learn that Spirit's stunningly detailed images of Mars are made with a 1-megapixel model, a palm-sized 9-ounce marvel that would be coveted in any geek's shirt pocket.
Spirit's images are IMAX quality, mission managers say.
The word pixel is derived from the term "picture element." A pixel is the smallest dot of information that goes into making a digital image. One megapixel is a million pixels set up in an array equal to 1,000 by 1,000.
Intuitively, more pixels means higher resolution. That's generally true on a display screen. But when capturing images, where a pixel is more properly called a sensor, the count is just one of many factors that control quality.
Seeking perfection
The technology used to make Spirit's Panoramic Camera, or Pancam, is essentially the same as what goes into a Casio or Pentax digital camera.
But the Pancam's lenses -- there are two, which provides stereo imaging capability -- are crafted more finely than anything you'd probably want to plunk down a Visa for. And the light-capturing chunk of silicon, called a charged coupled device, or CCD, was manufactured with no tolerance for the minor flaws that are inherent in mass-produced consumer cameras.
Perhaps most important, the sensors on Spirit's CCDs are bigger, explained Patrick Myles, director of corporate communication at the Dalsa Corporation, which built the CCDs for all of the rover's cameras (Spirit has nine altogether, including hazard avoidance cameras and a microscopic imager).
A Sony DSC-F717, with a street price of around 600, has 5.2 million sensors (or 5 megapixels) on a chip that is 8.8 by 6.6 millimeters (or .35 by .26 inches). The Pancam has just a million sensors spread across a chip that's 12 by 12 millimeters -- nearly a half-inch square.
Each tiny Pancam sensor, measured in microns, is nearly four times as big as those on the Sony.
In the consumer market, which Dalsa does not target, 5-megapixel cameras often use the same size CCD as a 3-megapixel camera. More pixels are simply crammed onto the same-size chip.
"The pixels themselves get smaller," Myles said. "This has an impact on image quality."
Why? For one thing, smaller pixels are less light-sensitive.
Also, the lens quality might not support the additional pixels. As the receptors get smaller, a higher quality lens is needed to properly focus light onto each pixel. So where each pixel ought to capture different light information -- say perhaps a subtle shading change on the subject's cheek -- the same information can get spread across several pixels after passing through a lower quality lens.
20-20 vision
The Pancam was conceived at Cornell University and built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dalsa, based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, makes cinema-quality video components and other high-end imaging devices and was called on to make the CCDs for the Pancam and the other cameras on Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity.
"They are the world's highest performing chips in terms of light sensitivity and chip quality," Myles said in a telephone interview earlier this week.
Overall, how does a Pancam stack up to the typical 5-megapixel camera you might purchase at Best Buy?
"There really isn't any comparison," Myles said.
NASA officials say the camera shows what a human with 20-20 vision would see on the surface of Mars. But anyone who has zoomed in on a distant rock in one of Spirit's color pictures would have to wonder if perhaps Superman's vision might be a better comparison.
Experts argue endlessly about what the human eye can actually see, however. Comparing human vision to what a camera captures "is really up to great speculation," Myles said.
NASA's analogy, Myles explained, is "probably a bit of marketing spin. It helps people visualize the quality." The height and breadth of a Pancam image is roughly equal to what a person would see, taking into account peripheral vision. And the Pancam has a human perspective. It sits atop a mast on the rover, 5 feet (1.4 meters) above the surface.
Myles said the actual image quality probably exceeds human capabilities, especially after the image is processed and a computer is used to provide a zoom function.
Tricks with light
The Pancam does not make a color picture directly. Instead, it records light versus dark in shades of gray. As with other CCD cameras used in high-end astrophotography, such as on the Hubble Space Telescope, a series of filters are applied to gather multiple images that are then blended together.
In the most basic application of this process, three images are gathered of a scene, one each recording red, green and blue light. Those are then put together with special software to create a color picture.
A consumer digital camera uses a single coated filter to make the transition from photon reality to electrons and then digital information.
Additionally, the Pancam swivels 360 degrees around and 90 degrees up or down, so that individual scenes can be stitched together to create a view of the rover's entire surroundings. The pictures are expected to reveal important geologic details about rocks, and they're also used for navigation and to pick distant science targets.
Modern Ansel Adams
Spirit's pictures are said to be three times sharper than those of the 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission or the 1970s Viking landers.
The Viking missions, as well as the Voyager missions to the outer planets, used technology similar to antiquated television vacuum tubes. CCD technology was first developed in 1969, but it took decades before arrays were big enough to be useful.
Much of the research that ultimately led to today's commercial digital cameras was funded by NASA. A first major step was in developing an 800 by 800 pixel array -- less than a megapixel -- which is what's in the Hubble telescope.
The Pancam results so far have mission managers ecstatic. Cornell astronomer James Bell, who led the development of the camera, called the first Spirit pictures "absolutely spectacular."
Nobody has argued with him.
In fact, Steven Squyres, a Cornell professor who directs the rover science team, called Bell "the Ansel Adams of the Space Age."
Originally posted Saturday, March 4, 2006 (6 years ago)
FYI, I finally got around to ordering prints from Flickr. I ordered 8 8x10" prints of some of my favorite shots... I was very pleased! Great color saturation, nice and sharp. I'm going to get more soon!
Originally posted Sunday, March 12, 2006 (6 years ago)
What software programs do you use to organize and print your photos? I just discovered that the Nikon software I've been using is at fault for my photos turning out green, so now I'm printing them through Windows Picture and Fax and they're fine, but surely there's something better. I'm using Photoshop 6.0 (probably going to upgrade soon) for editing etc, but that's too much trouble for batch printing.
Originally posted Sunday, March 12, 2006 (6 years ago)
Do any of the Photoshop experts out there know what the practical differences are between the different versions? The full professional version of PS is quite expensive, but the Photoshop Elements package is a lot cheaper. But it's not clear whether you would really ever want any of the features that the professional package has without being, well, a professional.
For example, it's hard to guess at what "Edit and retouch photos with professional level software that provides greater precision, power, and control" means.
Originally posted Sunday, March 12, 2006 (6 years ago)
Quoted from "Keither" Are you printing to a local printer or are you sending them out?
I'm printing to a local printer that has been properly calibrated and prints photos just fine from other programs. It's the Nikon software that I've been using to organize my photos that effs everything up, so I'm looking for somethign new.
Originally posted Monday, March 13, 2006 (6 years ago)
Quoted from "grasshopper" I'm printing to a local printer that has been properly calibrated and prints photos just fine from other programs.
Try Qimage. It's gotten really high marks from some photographers I really respect. I don't personally use it, since I don't do a lot of prints, so I can't personally vouch for it.
Originally posted Monday, March 13, 2006 (6 years ago)
Quoted from "ostrich" Do any of the Photoshop experts out there know what the practical differences are between the different versions? The full professional version of PS is quite expensive, but the Photoshop Elements package is a lot cheaper.
Try google. I did a search for "photoshop vs. elements" and came up with this informative link.
Something to remember - there's a no-foul upgrade path from elements to the full up version. Right now Elements is running about 150 from Adobe. The upgrade to PSCS2 is 500. Total cost - 650. Total cost of a new version of PSCS2? 650.
So, the way I see it, it doesn't hurt you to start with a program like Elements. Especially if you're fairly inexperienced with Photoshop. And then, if/when you grow out of Elements, you can just move up to new version of Photoshop without having to pay the complete price.
Originally posted Monday, March 13, 2006 (6 years ago)
IMHO, the biggest "loss" with Elements is the lack of layer masking. Also, you know that cool HDR stuff Eli keeps talking about in the Flickr group? You need CS for that. Lack of Curves adjustment will make color-correcting harder too. You also lose some pretty key adjustment layers.
But Keither's advice is sound - if you're considering Photoshop, you can't lose by trying Elements first.
Edit - it appears that quite a few of the "limitations" I mentioned of Elements can be addressed through various "work-arounds". Interesting.
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
Originally posted Monday, March 13, 2006 (6 years ago)
no layer masking?
how do they survive??
HDR stuff can be done in ( 99) Photomatix
all of the lacking features in Elements are important.
though, as the very informative article Keither posted mentions, many people who get Photoshop simply because they were told it's the best don't utilize the full power anyway.
Originally posted Friday, March 17, 2006 (6 years ago)
I just discovered a neat-o extension for FireFox. It's a way to right-click on any photo on the web, and bring up a box with all of the EXIF data, assuming that the data is still embedded in the file information.
Install Opanda IExif 2.25. (I missed the step the first time around, so you make sure and do it.)
Install IExif for Firefox. (This last link takes you to the page that explains it all.)
Apparently, besides showing you EXIF data, if the image has any address info stored with it, you can also GPS the location using Google Maps. I haven't played with that option much yet, though.
[edit to add: In playing around with this on flickr, it seems to only work with the image viewed at the original upload size.]
Originally posted Sunday, March 26, 2006 (6 years ago)
You know what annoys the [bleep!] out of me?
When I forget to check the settings on my camera before using it.
I just took a whole bunch of pictures of Carrie moving into our new house. And when I uploaded them...discovered that my camera was still set on ISO 400 from the other night when I was shooting in the dark.
So all the friggin' pictures are noisy as hell.
I'm so dumb.
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
Originally posted Sunday, March 26, 2006 (6 years ago)
I find I like to shoot now in the display mode that shows all the settings in the viewfinder even if you're not in manual mode so I at least have a chance of seeing something like that.
Originally posted Sunday, March 26, 2006 (6 years ago)
Oh, I shoot in that mode, Ostrich.
Doesn't mean I notice anything.
It tends to not burn me when I'm doing "real" shooting, but more for stuff like yesterday, which was grabbing my camera to fire off a couple quick shots of Carrie sleeping on the bed with the dog.
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
The NYPL has an exhibit on the 3rd floor of the main branch called New York Street Photography from the 1960's and 1970's. Its also on line. While the actual exhibit shows all the photos and the on line exhibit shows only a few, I actually preferred the on line exhibit.
The library also has a pretty extensive digital collection on line.
http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/art/photo/photo.html
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The Generic Digital Photography Thread
Yes, we have a thread about Digital Cameras...but the camera is only part of the equation. I thought that it'd be nice to have a thread to discuss the photography part of it...plus the post-processing. I'm pulling a couple posts from other threads to get this one started: Quoted from…
Page(s): < Previous 1 2 ... 5 6 7 8 9 ... 27 28 Next > (815 items total)
If you're a Flickr user, and want to play with us, feel free to come join the Yehoodi Photo Homework group (invite-only, which means I have to approve you to join. This is just to make sure that only Yehoodites are in it right now).
Sometimes it's easier to be creative with some direction. Here's how this group will work: Every other Monday, a new topic for photo assignment will be posted. Add your submission(s) to the group pool.
The only rules are -
Please try to only post photos taken specifically FOR that assignment. Try to not use photos you took previously. Tag your submissions with the assignment topic.
Each assignment will be posted as a discussion thread with the assignment number, the date range (two weeks), and the topic. Anyone can post a new assignment, but it must be posted on the proper Monday. If that makes sense. The first "assignment" post on that Monday is the assignment. Admin will delete any duplicates/late posts.
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
Oh, don't assume I know it - I'm completely new to all this stuff I keep trying to remember things like what f-stops are and whether f/16 or f/0.7 lets in more light through the lens :-)
Yes, in these shots certainly the main subjects were much more important than the sky, so have the sky blow out was not a disaster. I wa more concerned with whether I should have been doing some simple technically to prevent it, but it sounds like in a lot of the conditions I was shooting it it's a nontrivial problem to avoid.
Unfortunately the Canon doesn't give you the option to save in RAW format, which I suppose is one disadvantage of that model.
Looking at my manual, I do have a setting for color saturation, which can be set to -(weak), 0 (neutral) or (strong). I'm a bit confused though by the term color saturation. What precisely does it mean to say that an image has saturated colors? How does that relate to a color or colors in an image being visually vivid or bright?
What's a channel mixer adjustment layer? (Might as well be a flux capacitor or a warp drive for all I know :-)) Or is that something you need to study the Photoshop manuals to get a handle on?
Yes, it looks like on the Canon you can set one of a few different hardcoded white balance settings (daylight, cloudy, flourescent lighting, etc), or a mode where you manually set it based on a reference subject.
Think about the f/stop as a fraction. :wink: The bigger the f-number, the smaller the opening. Of course, this gets confusing. Stopping down means a smaller aperture, larger f-number. Opening up, the opposite. A fast lens (or glass) is a lens with a large aperture (or small f-number). Slow glass is the opposite.
It really is, and it's the same non-trivial problem you run into with any sort of analog to digital conversion. Digital doesn't handle saturation gracefully. You run into the same problem with recording music onto a digital format.
D'oh! Yeah, I looked it up later. Not having RAW mode can be a big disadvantage.
Here's a good explanation of what saturated means. Here's an example:
I've created three rectangles of solid color: red, green, and blue. Then I overlayed a saturation adjustment. The left is completely unsaturation and the right is completely saturated. As you can see, the more saturated a color, the less gray in it. So, a saturated color is brighter, and more ... of that color.
Think about your picture being a physical print. Now think about overlaying a piece of colored plastic on top of it. When you look at the image (through the plastic), the image has changed. This is an adjustment layer - it's a layer that sits on top of your image (in Photoshop) that changes what the image underneath looks like without altering that image.
At its simplest, a layer is clear piece of plastic. However, Photoshop is very sophisticated, so you can color the plastic, make it more or less transparent, draw on the plastic, stack multiple layers, and so on. If you completely drew on the plastic and set it down, you couldn't see the original image at all. You can even cut holes in the layer so the original shows completely through.
An adjustment layer is like a camera filter.. it's a fixed adjustment that you apply (like a colored piece of plastic). In the example above, the adjustment layer was a -100 saturation. I then used a layer mask with a gradient to adjust the intensity of the layer so that on the left it was completely affecting the image and on the right it wasn't at all with a smooth transition in the middle.
Try using the cloudy white balance.
A lot of these relate to general photography, not just digital, but I felt like putting it here, so :P .
25 PHOTOGRAPHIC TRUTHS
The best scenic views are clearly designated by highway signs reading NO STOPPING ANYTIME.
Edward Steichen owned a three-legged dog, which he named Tripod.
The Post Office folds all parcels containing photographs.
Camera straps never fail above soft surfaces.
Lens caps and cable releases can become invisible at will.
Spotone bottles are designed to tip over when the cap is removed. [Spotone is black dye used to touch up spots on a black and white print]
Financial success in photography is directly related to proper choice of subject matter. Falling airplanes, exploding volcanoes, and certain Presidential motorcades work best.
No two light meters agree.
The word "Daguerreotype" cannot be spelled correctly. [Louis Daguerre was one of the inventors of the photographic process - the metal images produced are called "Daguerreotypes"]
A new Hasselblad would take better pictures than your present camera. [Their new 39mp digitial costs 40,000]
1/60 at f/8 is the correct exposure for all photographs.
When your friends finally realize that you are a true artist, committed to making sensitive and meaningful images, they will ask you to photograph their wedding.
Color slide viewing cures insomnia.
On any tripod, only two legs work properly.
Dust is attracted to sky areas.
YES, PHOTOGRAPHERS DO IT IN THE DARK... but they have to stop every thirty seconds to agitate.
There's nothing wrong with a 35mm that a 4x5 can't cure.
Ansel Adams has three Secret Zones known only to him.
Fast films compensate for slow photographers.
Mounting a photograph is a misdemeanor in Arkansas.
Owning more than one lens assures that you will always have the wrong lens on the camera for any given picture.
A camera store will charge 75 to repair a camera that has been adjusted with a butter knife.
Falling lenses are attracted to rocks.
Into every life a little grain must fall.
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
This post is in reply to the question started here, and finished here.
As far as I know, whenever you paste, it'll either stick it into the middle of the composition, or maybe the middle of your current viewing window. Either way, you don't have control over that. What you can do, is then move it into its desired position. That's when the grid and snap come into play.
First, figure out how large to make your background. With your application, this will depend on your monitor's resolution. For example, make a new sheet at 1280x1040, with your resolution set at 300 pixels/inch. Next, turn on your grid (View -> Show -> Grid, or Ctrl '). Then, set your grid measurements (Edit -> Preferences -> Guides, Grid & Slices). I typically do a gridline every inch, with 4 subdivisions per inch. That way I can easily have 1/4" of space inbetween my photos. Adjust as you see fit. Lastly, make sure snap is turned on (View -> Snap or Shift Ctrl ;). Now, when you paste in photos, you can easily move them to an exact gridline, keeping everything lined up. Plus, if you need to figure out how big a photo needs to be to fill a space, count the number of squares, divide by 4 (or whatever you use) and that gives you the inches.
Let's say the space you want to fill is 8x12 little squares. Then, crop the photo you want there to 2"x3" at 300dpi. A consistent dpi is important. If this is just for your monitor, and not for printing, and you want to minimize filespace, then go ahead and use a dpi of 72. Just make sure it's consistent.
Er... any other questions, or clarifications?
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
Sometimes it can be helpful to create guides - just set your rule to percentage, and then create guides at every ten percent on each axis. You'll snap to the guides as well. Can be useful.
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
If he's making this for a desktop background, I would suggest converting everything to 72 dpi at the beginning. that way he's working with his true screensize (image size) dimensions to begin with.
I wonder if it would also make sense for him to batch process the levels of his images prior to using them so that they're all the same relative levels. If he tries to do it after flattening, may not work as good, but I'm not sure. I guess I'm from school of correcting the originals as much as possible first.
thanks toni, i will try it now.
I'm thinking of dragging out my 35mm Nikon SLR. I'm just not happy with my Nikon digicam. (Although, I love my Cannon digital point and shoot). I bought it in 1986. I don't think I've used it in the last ten years...
Here's an article that reminds you again that the "more megapixels is better" idea isn't necessarily so:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/pancam_techwed_040114.html
Digital Secrets: How Spirit Makes Great Photos By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 06:00 am ET 14 January 2004
NASA's Spirit Rover is providing a lesson to aspiring digital photographers: Spend your money on the lens, not the pixels.
Anyone who has ever agonized over whether to buy a 3-megapixel or 4-megapixel digital camera might be surprised to learn that Spirit's stunningly detailed images of Mars are made with a 1-megapixel model, a palm-sized 9-ounce marvel that would be coveted in any geek's shirt pocket.
Spirit's images are IMAX quality, mission managers say.
The word pixel is derived from the term "picture element." A pixel is the smallest dot of information that goes into making a digital image. One megapixel is a million pixels set up in an array equal to 1,000 by 1,000.
Intuitively, more pixels means higher resolution. That's generally true on a display screen. But when capturing images, where a pixel is more properly called a sensor, the count is just one of many factors that control quality.
Seeking perfection
The technology used to make Spirit's Panoramic Camera, or Pancam, is essentially the same as what goes into a Casio or Pentax digital camera.
But the Pancam's lenses -- there are two, which provides stereo imaging capability -- are crafted more finely than anything you'd probably want to plunk down a Visa for. And the light-capturing chunk of silicon, called a charged coupled device, or CCD, was manufactured with no tolerance for the minor flaws that are inherent in mass-produced consumer cameras.
Perhaps most important, the sensors on Spirit's CCDs are bigger, explained Patrick Myles, director of corporate communication at the Dalsa Corporation, which built the CCDs for all of the rover's cameras (Spirit has nine altogether, including hazard avoidance cameras and a microscopic imager).
A Sony DSC-F717, with a street price of around 600, has 5.2 million sensors (or 5 megapixels) on a chip that is 8.8 by 6.6 millimeters (or .35 by .26 inches). The Pancam has just a million sensors spread across a chip that's 12 by 12 millimeters -- nearly a half-inch square.
Each tiny Pancam sensor, measured in microns, is nearly four times as big as those on the Sony.
In the consumer market, which Dalsa does not target, 5-megapixel cameras often use the same size CCD as a 3-megapixel camera. More pixels are simply crammed onto the same-size chip.
"The pixels themselves get smaller," Myles said. "This has an impact on image quality."
Why? For one thing, smaller pixels are less light-sensitive.
Also, the lens quality might not support the additional pixels. As the receptors get smaller, a higher quality lens is needed to properly focus light onto each pixel. So where each pixel ought to capture different light information -- say perhaps a subtle shading change on the subject's cheek -- the same information can get spread across several pixels after passing through a lower quality lens.
20-20 vision
The Pancam was conceived at Cornell University and built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dalsa, based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, makes cinema-quality video components and other high-end imaging devices and was called on to make the CCDs for the Pancam and the other cameras on Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity.
"They are the world's highest performing chips in terms of light sensitivity and chip quality," Myles said in a telephone interview earlier this week.
Overall, how does a Pancam stack up to the typical 5-megapixel camera you might purchase at Best Buy?
"There really isn't any comparison," Myles said.
NASA officials say the camera shows what a human with 20-20 vision would see on the surface of Mars. But anyone who has zoomed in on a distant rock in one of Spirit's color pictures would have to wonder if perhaps Superman's vision might be a better comparison.
Experts argue endlessly about what the human eye can actually see, however. Comparing human vision to what a camera captures "is really up to great speculation," Myles said.
NASA's analogy, Myles explained, is "probably a bit of marketing spin. It helps people visualize the quality." The height and breadth of a Pancam image is roughly equal to what a person would see, taking into account peripheral vision. And the Pancam has a human perspective. It sits atop a mast on the rover, 5 feet (1.4 meters) above the surface.
Myles said the actual image quality probably exceeds human capabilities, especially after the image is processed and a computer is used to provide a zoom function.
Tricks with light
The Pancam does not make a color picture directly. Instead, it records light versus dark in shades of gray. As with other CCD cameras used in high-end astrophotography, such as on the Hubble Space Telescope, a series of filters are applied to gather multiple images that are then blended together.
In the most basic application of this process, three images are gathered of a scene, one each recording red, green and blue light. Those are then put together with special software to create a color picture.
A consumer digital camera uses a single coated filter to make the transition from photon reality to electrons and then digital information.
Additionally, the Pancam swivels 360 degrees around and 90 degrees up or down, so that individual scenes can be stitched together to create a view of the rover's entire surroundings. The pictures are expected to reveal important geologic details about rocks, and they're also used for navigation and to pick distant science targets.
Modern Ansel Adams
Spirit's pictures are said to be three times sharper than those of the 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission or the 1970s Viking landers.
The Viking missions, as well as the Voyager missions to the outer planets, used technology similar to antiquated television vacuum tubes. CCD technology was first developed in 1969, but it took decades before arrays were big enough to be useful.
Much of the research that ultimately led to today's commercial digital cameras was funded by NASA. A first major step was in developing an 800 by 800 pixel array -- less than a megapixel -- which is what's in the Hubble telescope.
The Pancam results so far have mission managers ecstatic. Cornell astronomer James Bell, who led the development of the camera, called the first Spirit pictures "absolutely spectacular."
Nobody has argued with him.
In fact, Steven Squyres, a Cornell professor who directs the rover science team, called Bell "the Ansel Adams of the Space Age."
FYI, I finally got around to ordering prints from Flickr. I ordered 8 8x10" prints of some of my favorite shots... I was very pleased! Great color saturation, nice and sharp. I'm going to get more soon!
What software programs do you use to organize and print your photos? I just discovered that the Nikon software I've been using is at fault for my photos turning out green, so now I'm printing them through Windows Picture and Fax and they're fine, but surely there's something better. I'm using Photoshop 6.0 (probably going to upgrade soon) for editing etc, but that's too much trouble for batch printing.
thanks.
Are you printing to a local printer or are you sending them out?
Do any of the Photoshop experts out there know what the practical differences are between the different versions? The full professional version of PS is quite expensive, but the Photoshop Elements package is a lot cheaper. But it's not clear whether you would really ever want any of the features that the professional package has without being, well, a professional.
http://www.adobe.com/products/psprelements/pdfs/compare_chrt_wc.pdf
For example, it's hard to guess at what "Edit and retouch photos with professional level software that provides greater precision, power, and control" means.
I'm printing to a local printer that has been properly calibrated and prints photos just fine from other programs. It's the Nikon software that I've been using to organize my photos that effs everything up, so I'm looking for somethign new.
Try Qimage. It's gotten really high marks from some photographers I really respect. I don't personally use it, since I don't do a lot of prints, so I can't personally vouch for it.
Try google. I did a search for "photoshop vs. elements" and came up with this informative link.
Something to remember - there's a no-foul upgrade path from elements to the full up version. Right now Elements is running about 150 from Adobe. The upgrade to PSCS2 is 500. Total cost - 650. Total cost of a new version of PSCS2? 650.
So, the way I see it, it doesn't hurt you to start with a program like Elements. Especially if you're fairly inexperienced with Photoshop. And then, if/when you grow out of Elements, you can just move up to new version of Photoshop without having to pay the complete price.
IMHO, the biggest "loss" with Elements is the lack of layer masking. Also, you know that cool HDR stuff Eli keeps talking about in the Flickr group? You need CS for that. Lack of Curves adjustment will make color-correcting harder too. You also lose some pretty key adjustment layers.
But Keither's advice is sound - if you're considering Photoshop, you can't lose by trying Elements first.
Edit - it appears that quite a few of the "limitations" I mentioned of Elements can be addressed through various "work-arounds". Interesting.
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
no layer masking? how do they survive??
HDR stuff can be done in ( 99) Photomatix
all of the lacking features in Elements are important.
though, as the very informative article Keither posted mentions, many people who get Photoshop simply because they were told it's the best don't utilize the full power anyway.
Sorry if that was unclear - I didn't meant to say that you needed CS to do HDR, but more that Elements couldn't do it.
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
I just discovered a neat-o extension for FireFox. It's a way to right-click on any photo on the web, and bring up a box with all of the EXIF data, assuming that the data is still embedded in the file information.
Apparently, besides showing you EXIF data, if the image has any address info stored with it, you can also GPS the location using Google Maps. I haven't played with that option much yet, though.
[edit to add: In playing around with this on flickr, it seems to only work with the image viewed at the original upload size.]
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
You know what annoys the [bleep!] out of me?
When I forget to check the settings on my camera before using it.
I just took a whole bunch of pictures of Carrie moving into our new house. And when I uploaded them...discovered that my camera was still set on ISO 400 from the other night when I was shooting in the dark.
So all the friggin' pictures are noisy as hell.
I'm so dumb.
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
You're not the only one to have that happen.
I've known some VERY good photographers who've fallen victim to leaving the camera in a high ISO mode.
like me. today, in fact. AFTER i saw you did it in your photo stream. i am smart.
I find I like to shoot now in the display mode that shows all the settings in the viewfinder even if you're not in manual mode so I at least have a chance of seeing something like that.
Oh, I shoot in that mode, Ostrich.
Doesn't mean I notice anything.
It tends to not burn me when I'm doing "real" shooting, but more for stuff like yesterday, which was grabbing my camera to fire off a couple quick shots of Carrie sleeping on the bed with the dog.
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
Guess who put her camera on ISO 1600 to take a quick natural-light shot in a low-light venue, and then left it there for the entire exchange?
Me, that's who. :crash:
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
The 7 Best Photo Contests to Enter Today
We are the keepers of Funny, the Judges, the Whisperers. We are Superior Naysayers And Rebukers of Knavery. We are SNARK. - Boosh!
http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/art/photo/street/
The NYPL has an exhibit on the 3rd floor of the main branch called New York Street Photography from the 1960's and 1970's. Its also on line. While the actual exhibit shows all the photos and the on line exhibit shows only a few, I actually preferred the on line exhibit. The library also has a pretty extensive digital collection on line. http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/art/photo/photo.html
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