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)

Assignment Three: Colour

I've worked on this assignment over the last four weeks starting just after Christmas. I have to say that I found it quite difficult to achieve the mix and variety of photographs required; I was amazed (if not slightly disheartened as I wasn't sure that I could replicate this) by the superb quality of someone else's photograph for this assignement which I happened to see on the OCA site just before I started. The other problem for me is that I suffer from some mild colour blindness and I'm not always sure that the colours that I am seeing (and therefore photographing) are the right ones! A bit of a handicap, I think, for this assignment! I imagine on reflection though that this was probably a good thing in that it has required me to look harder at colour in my environment whether the situation was controlled or not. (Peter: I'm still not entirely clear if I have met what was required but I'm sure you will let me know!)

In four cases, I have taken photographs from my own collection (ie not taken specifically for this assignment) partly because I was having difficulty in finding the topics/colour groupings and also because I was concerned that I was spending too long on this. However, the other photographs have been taken over the last month specifically for this piece of work. I've indicated below where I have used filters.

As usual, my Flikr account has the photographs on it but one or two will be featured here.

As requested, the objective was to produce sixteen images split into four groups:

1. colour harmony through compementary colours (ie colours that face each other across the colour circle);
2. colour harmony through similar colours (ie colours that are near each other as in a cool or warm range);
3. colour contrast through contrasting colours (colours spaced about a third of the way around the circle); and,
4. colour accent (ie when a small area of colour sits against a much larger background of another colour).

The following is a narrative for each photograph in each of the groups:

1. Colour Harmony through complementary colours

• Christmas Tree: green and red always seem to work very well together and traditionally the two colours are used a lot as part of Christmas decoration around the house and outside (possibly stemming from holly leaves and berries). This image of a glass bauble on our Christmas tree works well with the red very much accentuated by the green branches behind. I deliberately placed the red bauble in the left hand side of the picture which I found to be more pleasing and effective. There was no need to use any filters in this image - both colours are very strong and work well together.
• London Eye and the Houses of Parliament: again, I didn't need to use any filters on this image. The picture was taken as part of a Canon Low Light and Night Time Photography workshop that I took part in with Esther, my daughter. I was very pleased with this shot although there was some distortion caused by the curvature of the lens which I corrected in Adobe Elements. The violet of the neon lights on one side of the image work surprisingly well with the yellow lights of the Houses of Parliament across the river on the other side of the image; I have opposite colours of the colour circle on opposite sides of the image with a neutral colour (the darkness of the river) in the centre. The reflections on the Thames extend the colours out from the subjects themselves making more of them.
• Oranges on Blue: this was one of the earlier photographs that I took on this assignment using some tangerines that were in the fruit bowl and placing them on a blue surface; no filters were used for this either (although I did trial a blue filter but it just made the blue too excessive and very unreal). In the same way as the red on green, I found the orange to significantly stand out against the blue background and used the same positioning to that of the glass bauble on the Christmas tree. 
• Swiss Guard: this image was taken in Rome of a Swiss Guard looking out from a doorway - I'm not sure if he was guarding it (as we were behind so presumably he wasn't doing a particularly good job!). I cropped the photograph as there was too much of the doorway on the right hand side of the image placing the Guard more in the centre of the image and I also sharpened slightly the guard himself to make him (and more importantly, the blues and oranges of his coat) stand out aganst a relatively neutral background. The opposites of the colour together with the stripes enhance each other making him more striking and presumably from a professional and security point of view more noticeable.

2. Colour Harmony through similar colours

• Bluebells: this image was taken last Spring with the blue of the flowers against a green background of grass and trees. I left the tree trunk in the image to give the photograph some sense of context and scale and otherwise the photograph is disected horizontally by the blues of the flowers and the greens of the leaves and grass. Both colours work really well together but more importantly, the blue of the flowers seems to make the green of the grass and leaves greener. It makes a visit to a bluebell walk like this one in East Sussex quite stunning.
• Engewood Sunset: Englewood is a tiny town on the west coast of Florida and and as a result, experiences quite stunning sunsets. This image is one of two sunsets that I used (the other features in Colour Contrast taken in France) and I have not used any filters or editing in the photograph. The reds, violets and blues have come out in the photograph extremely well accentuated by the framing, I think, of the silhouetted trees in the bottom half of the picture.
• Still Life of Oranges and Lemons: to some extent, this was one of the simpler, more obvious photographs in the assignement. I placed a white piece of card behind the fruit but, as you can see from the image, there is some reflection of the colours of the fruit on the card most likely as a result of the flash. Possibly not the most stunning of photographs but I was happy with the colours of the fruit and the lightness/ fresh feel (cool lighting) that together they bring.
• Street Theatre, Southbank: the eye is immediately drawn to the dressed figure on the bike and the mixture of cool colours which is predominantly green and yellow but with some pale blue. I was pleased with the shot,  enhanced for interest really, by the woman walking towards the camera and who has no interest whatsoever in the extraordinary charachter on the bike. (Her red bag also brings in an element of complementary colour into the image although, to be honest, this was coincidental.)

3. Colour Harmony through contrasting colours

• Sunset: this is the second sunset featured in this assignment and used because the colours were so markedly different from the sunset taken in Florida, this time with a very definite yellow sky and blue water beneath. I did use blue and yellow filters in the image. The horizon disects the photograph with the movementof the waves enhanced by the blue and the stillness of the sky enhanced by the yellow.
• Snowy Night: as did most of the rest of the country, we experienced quite a lot of snow in December and I have always liked the way that light reflects off of snow at night. We have a loft conversion and I was able to take this image of the rooftops across the road and into the town from the top of our house. The light from the yellow street lamps is reflected on the snow and the lights from the town have made the sky more blue.
• London Cafe: this image was taken in London at night and was one of a series that I took a few weeks back when I was looking for images exclusively for this assignment. The London bus is a fish and chip restaurant and sits on the Southbank near the Tate Modern where there are these light blue lamps in the trees which is then reflected on the pavement and encompasses the red of the bus.
• Apples: originally the colour in the apples looked quite dull. By wetting them and creating a gloss which then relects the light, it accentuates the red and yellow colours on the fruit. In doing so, it makes the fruit more attractive creating a perception that it is fresh - which is why I imagine greengrocers quite often sprinkle water onto fruit to bring out the colour. 

4. Colour Accent

• Love by the Thames: I'm not sure if this photograph was a bit of a 'cheat' but as in the London Cafe above, the blue lights were stunning and when looking across the river, were the only real colour in the dark. As a result, I've made everything else black and white which then enhances the small amount of blue from the lights. Either way, I'm very happy with this as an image and it really conjures up some of the atmosphere by the river.
• Red Chimney: this was taken in Norway in late January 2011 when they were experiencing some of the coldest weather in the winter so far. Everything was very white and grey with the exception of the red chimney from a house just behind. I think the red against the neutrality of the other colours, even though it is very much in the  minority, stands out.
• Red Jacket: Also taken in late January in Norway as a group photograph for a piece of work that I was doing, it was very obvious that the lady wearing the red coat (and co-incidentally, with very red hair) stood out amongst the neutral colours of the other people in the group and the colours of their coats. The white background helps to enhance the red coat even though it only takes up a small part of the image.
• Sanibel Beach: this was one of those accidental photographs (or being in the right place at the right time) whereby the sailing dinghy came by at exactly the same time and in the same colours as the young lady standing on the beach looking out to the sea. (I know it was a coincidence as the girl is my daughter and she had nothing to do with the boat!). The colour of the boat makes this stand out against the blue of the water and sky even though the blue very much dominates the photograph.

January 2011

Primary and Secondary Colours

This exercise required me to find scenes - or parts of a scene - that were each dominated by a single one of the primary (red, yellow and blue) and secondary (green, orange and violet) colours. The idea was to match the colour and to do this I took three shots of each subject by making one exposure at the normal setting and then one at half a stop brighter and the other at half a stop darker.

Depending on the colour, I had more success with some and less with others when it came to finding a perfect match. For example, the primary colours seemed to come out reasonably well whichever exposure setting I used whereas the secondary colours less so. In addition, I had tremendous trouble trying to find a good match for violet.

The subjects I chose were as follows:

Red: Postbox
Yellow: Flower
Blue: Jeans hanging
Green: Foliage
Orange: Clementines still life
Violet: Grace's Ukelele


Photographs for the exercise are on my Flikr account.

Mark

Colour into tones in black and white

My second completed exercise (which is not necessarily in the same order as the unit but this is because of time available and the work I had done so far on this section) was to demonstrate how coloured filters will allow certain colours to pass through but block others - in this case, using a photograph that features strong elements of the colours blue, red, green and yellow.

I took a still life picture of a green Christmas table decortaion with added red baubles on a blue surface and against a yellow background. The image was then converted into a black and white photograph before each of the digital colour filters in Photoshop Elements were applied.

Initially, I used a colour filter density of 25% but found these to be too subtle and so re-applied the filters but this time at double the 'strength' at 50% for which I got a much better result but was still not satified. The images here are at a very strong level (75%) which does work better albeit a bit over powering. However, in each case (and referring back to the original colour photograph), you can see the contrast of the filter with its respective tone in the black and white picture.

Mark

Colour: Controlling the strength

Work had been hectic throughout November and December with much travelling and less opportunity to do the things that I really wanted. Snow at the beginning of December (and again later on in the month) gave me some great opportunities to take some more wintry photographs, two of which are feaured here that I am pleased with.



South Downs Way December 2010



Downs Golf Course, Sussex Downs December 2010

1/25 at f1.4

Anyhow, my Christmas break has given me the opportunity to restart my OCA course and to begin the unit on Colour. The first exercise was to look at how colour changes with exposure using a strong definite colour as a base. I chose our front door - which is a high gloss blue - and took a number of shots all at the same metered setting which was 1/25 (the highest I could get despite the time of day being late morning and it not beeing too much of an overcast day outside). As required in the exercise, I started at a low exposure setting which was f1.4 (using my 'nifty 50' mm lens) and took five photographs stopping the aperture down by half a stop each time and ending at f2.2. As well as the difference in exposure which was to be expected, the main difference in each photograph is a deeping in the colour of the door. Regrettably, the poor light and the reflection of what little light there was has distorted the photographs slightly but the purpose of the exercise was to observe the difference in the strength of colour which was achieved.

1/125 at f2.2.

What has particularly struck me in this unit so far is the note that professional photographers often use this technique to strengthen a colour (or colours) in a picture - something I may play with in the future.

Mark