Noise

The purpose of this exercise was to see how much noise (grain) I was happy with; I found a situation inside the villa in Florida which I partially created. The sun shone through one of the windows latre in the afternoon but was filtered a little by the blinds. I found a piece of art (a small statue head of Buddha) which I liked and set this up on a bedside cabinet against a white background; there was plenty of detail in the artwork to be able to identify texture and shadow.

I set the camera on a tripod and took a number of identical images changing the ISO setting from one to the next and wthout any depth of field.

The amount of noise is only really evident when the images are magnified; in this case, the image taken at ISO 6400 is significantly noisier that the image taken at the lowest ISO setting which was ISO 100. I was not surprised by this (through other reading and learning from taking images where there is less light. I realise that in order to get a decent exposure, I will have to compensate some of the detail for noise.).

With hindsight, a different situation could have demonstrated more of a range and visibility of noise but I understood the requirement and the appropriate learning.

ISO 6400

Exercise completed on 16th April 2012 but writtent up on 5th June 2012

Highlight Clipping

For this exercise, I took a number of images outside the villa that we were staying in on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The scene was of the road where the villa was taken in early evening when the sun was still very high and the image consisted of trees and sky. The images were taken in JPEG format.

The following sets out the results:

• f/18: very slight highlighting of sky
• f/20: no clipping - sky and clouds clear on image but foreground very dark
• f/16: increased clipping of white clouds; foreground has more detail
• f/14: substantially more clipping but foregroung clearer
• f/13: as for f/14
• f/11: as for f/14

None of the images were what I would have been very happy with. As  a compromise, I would have accepted the image taken at f/14 but this was personal preference as the sky was not as wasjed out as it was with the image taken at f/11.

If I had taken the images in Raw, I would have used Photoshop to try and lighten the foreground without damaging the detail in the sky.

This exercise was conducted on the 15th April 2012 but only written up on the 5th June 2012

DPP: Digital image qualities - Exercise on sensor linear capture

This exercise was intersting to me not least as a way to start to understand how the digital camera works and how the image is processed by the camera before I get to see it.

However, the description of how to conduct the exercise in the study material is confusing and I am unsure if I have done the exercise correctly or if the exercise description is wrong.

I used an image of a duck that I took yesterday and using Photoshop CS 5.1 (and not Elements as the material says), converted it to 16 bits per channel and made a curve that was identical to that shown in the material. As suggested, the image became much darker and I was able to see what the image would have looked like when it was first captured. The histogram for this image showed significant bunching to the left of the graph.

I then put this 'new' image up alongside the original image and studied the histograms. If the definition of the 'linear' image is the one that is in the camera, unprocessed, then the histogram (as below) shows the tones squashed tightly to the left (and not the right as the exercise description says). The histogram for the camera-processed image shows the tones more even but with an emphasis more to the right of the graph.

To get the linear image as close as possible to the camera-processed version - and it was still a way off as I discovered - I adjusted the curve the opposite way to that when I created the linear image from the camera-processed version to the linear version. This did require some quite significant adjustments as the image below shows (see the curve diagram to the right).

Assignment One: Workflow

The purpose of this Assignment was to demonstrate what I had learned from the unit around Workflow. As I had discovered whilst doing the exercises during this unit, in the past I had paid little attention to workflow but instead using a 'suck and see' approach. The unit has helped me to become more disciplined in this regard as well as explore some of the workflow functionality that is available (and which I had more or less ignored!) in Adobe Photoshop Elements.

The workflow that I worked to for this assignment is below - each step is numbered and my comments and observations as I progressed through each step are alongside each of these.

1. Choose Topic: I selected a location called Stump Beach which is on the Gulf Coast in Florida close to Englewood. We had planned a holiday to Florida and Stump Beach is a place that I have visited several times before and which I thought would be a great subject for this assignment. Stump Beach is made up of a number of dead trees which are on the beach; presumably at some point the beach has been 'constructed' which has allowed the sea to come up and kill off the roots of the trees. In the past, the Beach consisted of many more dead trees and at high tide was impassable but following the BP oil disaster in the Gulf a few years back, the number of stumps seems to have been cleared presumably to allow vehicle access to clean the oil from the beaches. The location is relatively secluded and has the combination of a tidal sea and clear skies. I wanted to pick a day, however, when there was some cloud in the sky to add interest. In addition, there was a relatively strong breeze which also helped to create stronger waves onto the beach. In terms of timing, the images were taken late morning; I would have preferred to have gone out earlier but the clouds helped to diffuse the bright sunshine.

2. Camera and Equipment Check: Despite being on holiday, I had packed probably more lenses than I really needed for the holiday but I wanted to limit the lenses that I took on the beach. As a result, I took my standard lens (24mm - 105mm) and a wide angle lens (10mm- 20mm). I also made sure that my camera battery was fully charged and that I had a spare battery as well as an empty memory card.

3. Photoshoot: The shoot went well with plenty of opportunity to get some images that I believed I would be happy with. The sun was bright at times and this made it difficult to review the images as I was taking them and I made a conscious decision not to edit any images on the fly but rather leave this until I returned back to the villa. I did also find some elements that I was not expecting including a dead fish's head stuck to a tree stump which conjured up images of  'The Lord of the Flies'. I tried a number of shots through the fish's eye but these didn't really work.

4. Create folder and transfer images: Back at the villa, I created a folder entitled 'Assignment One' and a sub-folder within that folder called 'Final Selections'. I transferred all the images taken on the beach into the main 'Assignment One' folder.

5. Selections: Using Adobe Elements Organiser facility and the star rating, I set up a rating system as follows:

• * = discard (out of focus image / did not achieve what I wanted)
• ** = possible inclusion - for further review
• *** = most likely for inclusion in final set
• **** = second selects (for use after first and subsequent sortings)
• ***** = final selects (for use after first and subsequent sortings)

Images were sorted into the first three groups followed by a review of the three star images which were then either moved into the one star (discard) group or the five star (final select) groups. Similarly, I conducted the same exercise with the two star (further review) group moving those to potentially keep into the four star (second selects) group. A second trawl and sort of the four and five star groups left me with a final set of images which I then transferred into the Final Selects sub folder.

6. Processing: I included this step in the workflow for straightening/cropping/enhancing any of the final selects but, on this occasion, I chose not to process further any of the images as I was very happy with the output.

7. Final Preparation: This final step was to convert all the Final Selects images into smaller files for Flikr. (This step could also be used for publishing onto a web gallery or preparation for printing.)

As a consequence of this assignment, I recognise that workflow is very personal. I will have my own way of selecting potential topics for future pieces of work and those choices alone will be subject to my own interests as well as the opportunities that present themselves to me to conduct a shoot. My use of the Adobe Elements rating system is also very personal using three of the five stars available to conduct a series of selection 'passes' and the final, four and five star, groupings for my ultimate decisions.

One other element that I realise was missing was labelling my images. I tend not to do this - rightly or wrongly - but do try and keep up a system of folders, sub-folders and sub-sub-folders to group images and make them (relatively) easy to locate. I recognise that this could be better and will look at this again!

It is very likely that as I progress through the course that I will amend and adapt the workflow above to make it more pertinent to what I am trying to do but, as mentioned at the beginning, this has been great for helping me set up a personal discipline.

The final set of images can be found on my Flikr site which is at http://www.flikr.com/ but the following was my favorite:

Mark Moorton / April 2012

Editing

The exercise this week was about editing - something I have been doing what I now realise to be in a very disorderly fashion for a while. The exercise also prompted me to look again at the editing and workflow tools available in Elements (I'm using version 9) which I had played with once before but in a bit of a hurry and not really making the most of it.

I took a number of images - just over sixty - last weekend up on the Sussex Downs and as part of a walk with Sue. My theme was Sue and trying to get some decent portraits of her which I am really keen to do.

Using Photoshop Elements, I loaded them up and used the five star rating method that is included in the package with one star = delete, three star = review again and four star = definite keep. I left the five star rating empty as I wanted to use this for my final selection. I then proceeded to rate them but messed it up a little when I started to use the two star rating because I could'nt exactly make my mind up! (Some learning there was perhaps to stick to the script!!!)

I then started on the technical edit deleting all one star images which were either blurred, Sue's eyes closed because of the bright sun , hair in her eyes or the light shining from behind was too bright.

From the remaining set of images, I reviewed my two and three star ratings to see if I wanted to upgrade them to a four star (which now became defined as a 'possible definite'!) or to delete them.

The 'first selects' then became those that were rated four star which I regrouped so that I had what I considered were absolute definites in the five star grouping and the seconds in the four star. I reviewed these again and once again deleted out those that I was not so keen on. Interestingly, I had decided at this point which two images I definitely wanted to keep although I had six images now rated five star.

As required in the exercise, I reviewed these one more time and chose only two which are below.

This was an interesting exercise as I realised that it created a level of discipline that I probably have not adhered to before as well as helping the whole editing process to become far more organised.

I've decided that I will now use this method when I take larger groups of images like these in the future.

Mark

Histograms - Exercise

This week I have been looking at histograms. I've often looked at them on the camera after taking a shot but, to be honest, I have tended to rely more on what I see on the screen in terms of my perception of the quality of the image rather than if the histogram is in the right place etc.

Having said that, I found this exercise interesting not least because of the comparisons between low and high contrast lighting and the way that this is demonstrated on the histogram both on the camera and also in Photoshop.

I took three sets of three images over a number of days, all outside and all weather dependent. The first set was on a bright sunny day, the second set on a day when the light was reasonably diffused by cloud but still felt brighter ( I suppose what we would consider is a typical English day) and the third set was taken on a wet overcast day when the sky was very flat and washed out.

The impact on the lighting was obvious in terms of the histograms and what they showed.

One thing I realised when I uploaded the images was that I should have taken the photographs in Raw - that way, I would have automatically got the histogram when I first looked at the image on Photoshop. Fortunately, all was not lost and there is a histogram menu as well as the histogram also appearing on the right hand side of the screen under Levels. It was the latter that I used to take my screen shots and which are below.

The first set of images were taken in an average contrast situation - plenty of light but no deep shadows . As set out in the instructions, one image was taken at normal exposure, one that was one f-stop darker and another that was one f-stop brighter. The screen shots together with the histograms are below:

Average contrast - average exposure



 Average contrast - one f-stop darker
Average contrast - one f-stop brighter

The highlighting and the way that the histogram swings from the left on the under-exposed to the right on the over-exposed is very noticable. I also observed how 'flat' the average exposure was on the histogram. In terms of personal preference, I much preferred the image that was one f stop darker.

The second set of shots were taken in a very high contrast situation - lots of bright sunlight and deep shadows. I deliberately shot into a dark area but with the foreground lit up by the sun. These are below:

 High contrast - average exposure

 High contrast - one f-stop darker
High contrast - one f-stop brighter

The difference in histograms at each stage was not so noticeable - in each case, the pixel brightness recording is highest on the left each time with only a slight variance particularly for the image that was one f-stop brighter.. This was not what I was expecting as I had imagined that with a high contrast image, it would be spread right across the histogram (and I suppose that to some extent it still is although the bulk of the reading is more emphasised on the left). I'm not sure if this means that I have misinterpreted what I thought constituted a 'high contrast' image but will look on this further as I go through the course.

The final set of images were taken on a what I considered to be a low contrast situation where the day was very overcast and there was virtually no colour in the sky (other than a milky grey). The images are as follows:

Low contrast - average exposure 

Low contrast - one f-stop darker

Low contrast - one f-stop brighter

Similar to the 'high contrast' images above, there was little to show in the histograms with mostof the values squeezed together to the right this time. With the exposure one f stop darker, there is some recording on the left side which is what I would have expected.

This has been an interesting exercise and has led me to ask more questions rather than actually answer them - as well as encourage me to have a look at the histogram a little more closely (which I guess was the intention all along). I'll come back to this again as I continue through the course.

Anyway, I'm writing this on a bright sunny day - I really should be outside with my camera!

Mark

DPP: Part One Workflow

Gosh!

Its been a while since I've been doing my photography course but I'm here and ready to go!

I've started the Digital Photographic Practice course and really looking forward to getting the best of my images through the use of my computer.

Part One is about Workflow and these last few weeks I have undertaken the first two exercises around my own workflow.

The first exercise was around a short portrait assignment and I agreed with Sue, my wife, that she would model for me. I drafted the workflow process for this and this is below.

I had chosen part of my garden which, despite being February, was very green and I thought would provide a good location which met the criteria which was attractive but unobtrusive. 

The first problem which I had not considered was the weather! It was raining on the day that we had chosen and I had to quickly rethink what Sue would wear as well as take into account her concerns around her hair! I prepared the camera in accordance with my flow chart and found this part of the workflow easy to follow as I was accustomed to doing this.

I had intended on only taking around 20 images - in reality, I took in excess of 50 which put pressure on the next phase which was around loading and editing down the images. However, I had also put into the workflow a routine that would involve reviewing, editing down, reviewing, editing down etc etc  until I reached five images that I was happy with and which I then subsequently processed using Photoshop.

My favorite of these is below.

In terms of adapting the workflow, I need to add in some form of contingency especially around weather (but it also occurred to me what if my model was suddenly not available as well as other potential risks that needed mitigating against) and I also need to be more disciplined in terms of the numbers of images taken on the shoot so that the post shoot processing could be quicker and smarter.

The second, less structured workflow, was considerably easier to apply (although involved more time to both take and edit images as well as process them afterwards) and as as below.

This coincided with a trip to Canada.  I found it easier to group the images into sections based on locations that we had visited and then enabled me to process them in manageable chunks. I had anticipated this prior to the trip and when I had drafted the workflow diagram and this worked extremely well.

Again, I took large numbers of images which took a long time to edit down and process not least because I had missed out on one issue which was to set the camera to take images both in JPEG and RAW formats. I had set the camera to take in RAW only which added time to review, process and edit. As a result, a change I would make to the workflow would be at the camera preparation stage which was to check the format settings as well as White Balance, ISO etc etc.

These were interesting exercises which helped me think through how I go about the whole process of planning, processing and organising my photography.

Mark (March 2012)