Kristin, Piano Reflection.
Ansel Adams, a classically trained concert pianist who became a world class landscape photographer, often said “The negative is similar to a musician’s score, and the print to the performance of that score”. Adams was right. Today we might say the digital camera file is the score and the work in the digital darkroom is the performance. The click of the shutter is an important step in the photographic process but not the end of the process.
Red Winged Blackbird, composite image
When you just can’t get the right pose out of a wildlife subject, compositing two images together may be just the right ticket to the image you want.
Sisters.
The best way to insure excellent color in a portrait is to begin by setting a custom white balance on the camera, but that isn’t always practical. That’s when Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) comes to the rescue.
A Moment of Discovery
When you are photographing very active children around 2 1/2 years of age, it is often best to just follow them around and let them do their thing, rather than try to “pose” them. I followed my grandson around my backyard for almost an hour, taking pictures and hoping to get just the right image. To get the best point of view I needed to be on my knees. Spending that much time on your knees is hard on the knees, but what else can you do? When you photograph children you need to be down on their level.
The Heartbleed Bug has created vulnerabilities in about 66% of all internet online servers, including major sites like Yahoo. On a scale of 1 to 10, this is an 11 according to security experts. The odds are good that one of the sites you have logged in to has been affected, exposing your personal information (name, user name, password, credit card information etc.).
Flower Modified with Painteresque
I was walking our dog yesterday and spotted the first flowers to pop up in our neighborhood. It is starting to look like spring! This is an iPhone photo modified by Painteresque, one of my favorite iPhone apps.
Mount Rundle, Two Jack Lake
Today I was asked by a client where I was when I took some photos in Banff National Park. I was able to provide him with the exact locations, complete with marked satellite images. It is a good idea to known where you were when you created your most important images, and the more specific the information the better. It is good info to have for your own use and sometimes it can make the difference between whether or not one of your images is published.
Vermilion Lakes Sunset, new (top) and old (bottom) ACR “process versions”. Click on the photo to see a larger image.
Adobe has a new “process version” for Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). This means better image processing for your RAW camera files.
The Chalice of Life
This morning I was sitting in a waiting room with not much to do when I became interested in the play of light through a wall made with glass blocks. I decided to have a little fun with my iPhone and some apps.
Autumn Leaves, Banff National Park (modified image)
I take pictures with my iPhone just for fun. And that includes altering the photos, like the one above, with some of my favorite iPhone apps.
Exif Viewer, GPS Photo Location Data
Your smartphone is designed to geotag the locations of your photos and store it in the photo’s “metadata”. Many other cameras do the same thing. This means if you take pictures of your family and post them online, anyone (including some very unsavory characters) can pull up a map of where the photo was taken. Is there really a danger? Yes. Burglars and kidnappers are already using online photos to track potential victims. Law enforcement offices are warning that sexual predators can do the same thing. See the articles and videos linked below. What can you do to protect your family? Keep reading.
Originally posted August 13, 2013. Revised and updated January 28, 2015. Updated again Dec. 17, 2016.
The Strip, Las Vegas with Fireworks
You can point your camera at the sky in auto exposure and autofocus modes and fire away whenever you see a burst of fireworks, but for the best quality photos, it helps to know a few tricks of the trade. It’s easy when you know what to do.
Moment of Birth
There are very few moments on earth that match the birth of a baby. Such wonder, awe, and love. It was a privileged to be asked by the parents to be there and photograph the big event.
My first YouTube video. I did a video screen capture of a 90 minute retouching job and sped up the video 16x to a little over 6 minutes (not counting opening and closing titles). Watch it here or see a larger version at YouTube.
Vermilion Lakes Sunset, new and old ACR “process versions”. Click on the photo to see a larger image.
Adobe has a new “process version” for Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). This means better image processing for your RAW camera files.
Adobe Elements 11, Lightroom 4, and Photoshop CS6
Question:Â “I’m looking at photography courses online. The courses are free but some require students to own or have access to various versions of Photoshop. Does anyone know if Photoshop 6 is the same as Photoshop CS6?”
Christmas Tree Impressions (iPhone 4S)
I never thought I would sell prints from my iPhone. I was wrong.
Night Sky Over the Mojave Desert.
How do you photograph the Milky Way, that milky band of light across the night sky that has our galaxy’s brightest concentration of light? With a wide angle lens and a tripod it is simple if you know a few tricks. Finding a dark enough sky is more of a problem.
Adobe Elements 11, Lightroom 4, and Photoshop CS6
Your photos will look their best if you optimize them with some good image editing software.
Short list:
Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 or 10
Adobe Photoshop CS6 or CS5
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 or 3
Bumble Bee and Flowers
There are a lot of apps that claim to jazz up your iPhone and Android photos. A few of them will actually do wonderful things to your photos. If you want to turn some of your photos into “paintings”, there is a great app that will do that for you.
National Geographic’s Kurt Mutchler, Executive Editor, Photography
OK, admit it. If you are serious about your photography, you would like to see one of your photos in National Geographic. Sadly, the odds of that are about as good as they are for starting in an NBA basketball game. So the next best thing is to meet one of National Geographic’s photo editors. That dream came true for me last week.
Adobe Photoshop Software
Your photos will look their best if you optimize them with some good image editing software.
Short list:
Adobe Photoshop Elements 10
Adobe Photoshop CS5/CS4/CS3
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3
Jeremy Bruskotter and I were the instructors for a photography workshop at OSU’s Gibraltar Island this past weekend. One of the participants was using a MacBook Air as his travel laptop. What a delightful, featherweight machine. And his photos looked wonderful on the screen.
JPEG AND RAW Files, 2 Stops Overexposed.
RAW files have a huge advantage over jpeg files when it comes to exposure latitude. With the same exact exposure, a RAW file can give you a good image while the jpeg file is a throwaway. Why is that? RAW files have a lot more exposure latitude than jpeg files. You can read all about it in The RAW vs Jpeg Exposure Advantage.
Colorado Aspen – Last Dollar Road
How big a print can you make from your digital camera and still have good image quality? That’s a common question. I received an e-mail today about camera file size and quality 8×10 inch prints. The question and my answer follow.
With 12 books and hundreds of magazine articles to his credit, digital photography expert Tim Grey really knows his stuff. If you love digital photography and you aren’t on his e-mailing list, you should be. More about that later.
In his Elements Weekly eNewsletter for today (January 10), Tim makes the following book recommendation:
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Book Recommendation
As you know, I tend to focus most of my energy on helping photographers with their images after the capture. I do lead a variety of field photography workshops, but my focus tends to be more on what happens after the picture is actually taken. When it comes to the actual capture, the most common questions I hear from photographers relate to exposure. I’ve recently discovered a book that helps photographers truly understand exposure, and that knowledge can dramatically improve the quality of your digital photos. The book is Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies, authored by Jim Doty, Jr., and published by Wiley. This book provides you with everything a photographer needs to know in order to truly understand exposure and how it affects the original capture.
If you’re interested in learning more, or perhaps purchasing a copy of this book, you can learn more through Amazon.com here.
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Brainard Lake, Damaged File
After I work on a group of photos, I back them up by burning them to DVDs and transfer them to external hard drives. I always set the DVD burning software (by NERO) to “verify” the contents of the DVD. It takes more time but it is well worth it.
After burning some photos to a DVD today, NERO told me the verification process had failed because some of the files were “different” from the originals, and provided a list. I opened the photo folder on the DVD and all of the thumbnails looked fine. So I tried to open one of the “different” files in Photoshop and received this ominous message.
Spyware programs, also known as “scumware”, are the parasites of the computer world. Spyware is undetected by most virus protection software. Spyware can end up on your computer simply by clicking on a link, opening an email, or you can get it from one of those annoying popup ads while you are browsing. A number of downloadable programs such as Comet Cursor come complete with spyware.
Continue reading
Each new version of Photoshop has new and wonderful tools, but each version requires more and more computing horsepower. If you are buying a computer today, what do you need to run Photoshop?
Bay Area Bridge. Photo © Jim Doty Jr.
I was asked recently how to re-size images for the web using Photoshop. The person asking the question was not only having problems resizing images, but the photos looked desaturated with muted colors. My instructions (below) are for using Photoshop CS3 for Windows, so some menu items may be a little different in other versions of Photoshop or with Photoshop Elements, but the basic principles and steps are the same.
My reply follows.