Photoshop Layers and Mask in Action
(This lesson is part of my “How It’s Done” series of photography lessons)
Here we are at lesson three in this introduction to Photoshop layers. In the last two lessons we learned the basics of how layers work. Now, you are ready to learn some photo editing techniques using layers and masks. I’m going walk you through a basic photo edit and hopefully with some imagination you’ll be able to apply these techniques to your photography and then maybe come up with more ideas of your own.
Here is the photo I am going to be working on. It’s a picture of my daughter, Ella, taken at Carmel Beach. The photo already looks pretty good to me, the light was great, but there are a couple enhancements I want to make. For one, I want Ella’s shadow to pop a little more. Also, I want to add some saturation to the waves in the background. When we were at the beach the water looked a lot more colorful than it does in this photo. With some help from Photoshop we can bring back some of that missing color. (more…)
Introduction to Photoshop Layers
(This lesson is part of my “How It’s Done” series of photography lessons)
Learning Photoshop layers and masks has frustrated many photographers. There are some photographers out there that just can’t wrap their heads around the layers concept. That’s unfortunate because layers are probably Photoshop’s most important tool. Learning layers takes mental visualization. I believe that anyone can learn layers if they have the right visualizations presented to them. That’s why I’m writing these tutorials. I’m going to try to present the subject of Photoshop layers in a way that is easy to visualize. . These tutorials are designed for both beginners and those of you that have tried to learn layers in the past and failed. I am going to be unorthodox and skip the introductory explanation of why and how you should use layers. That discussion will be saved until after you have done some playing in the sandbox and have developed a feel for what layers and masks are all about. In this lesson and the next we aren’t going to talk about practical image editing, but rather do some structured playing in the Photoshop sandbox. These two simple lessons should help you get a feel for layers and masks. After you have a developed an understanding of layers at their most basic level, we’ll then be able to talk about their practical applications. (more…)
It’s All About Focus
(Note: This is lesson 6 on my “How It’s Done Series“)
I hope that you are finding my “How It’s Done” series of photography lessons useful. By now, you might have noticed a theme flowing through all these various lessons. I am trying to convey the importance of the photographer taking control of the picture making process. Well, the most obvious thing a photographer can control is focus. That’s what we’re going to cover in this lesson, focus.
From the previous lesson about depth of field you might have gleaned this important piece of information: your camera can only focus at one specific distance at a time. That’s a concept that a lot of beginner photographers have a hard time understanding. It’s easy to get confused by multipoint auto focus. When you are in multipoint auto focus mode your camera might show that you are focused on more than one point at a time. Your camera isn’t lying to you. It might have more than one point in acceptable focus, but that is only because all those points are pretty much in the same plane. Your camera is only focused on one plain, one distance from the camera’s sensor.
Since you can only focus perfectly at one distance it is important that you make it count. Take control of your focus. My camera is almost never in multipoint mode. In multipoint mode you have no idea what the camera is going to focus on. I like to know exactly where I am focusing. Put your camera in single point focus. You’re going to have to check your owner’s manual for that. And, as long as you are digging around in your manual, figure out how to toggle between the many different focus points that are available in single point focus. If you plan to shoot any moving subjects, you’re going to need to be able to toggle your focus point without taking your eye away from the view finder. For my canon 5D (via the custom functions menu) I was able to select the tiny joystick on the camera back as my focus point controller. It works awesome. I can set the focus point with my right thumb while keeping my eye to the view finder and my finger on the shutter button. Your camera probably has its own slick way to select a focus point. Dig around in the custom functions if you have to. Total focus control is worth the small effort.
If you transitioned from consumer level camera up to a DSLR you might be surprised by how selective you can be with the focus control on your new DSLR. With most point and shoot cameras the focus points are big old rectangles and you never really know precisely where the camera is focusing. The focus point really doesn’t matter all that much with a small camera because the depth of field on point and shoot cameras is gigantic. This deep depth of field is a result of the teeny tiny sensors used in consumer grade point and shoot cameras. Small sensor size equals big depth of field, even with a big aperture — it’s a law of physics. The larger sensor in your DSLR means you really have to know where you are focusing. Improper focus is really easy to notice in photos taken with a DSLR. The positive aspect of this precise focus control is you can be very creative with selective focus. You can focus on your subject and then use of a wide aperture to blur the the background. Conversly, if you want everything in the photo to be in focus (big depth of field) select a small aperture like f/16. With a DSLR you get the best of both worlds. However, to achieve successful results you have to know what you are doing.
You have to know exactly where you are focusing. I mean exactly. For example, when I take a picture of a person, I always focus on an eye. Let me make that clear — I pick one eye, not both, to focus on. Further more, if I am close enough to this person that I can make sure to focus on the pupil and not the eyelash, I’ll make sure the focus point is on the pupil only. Does that sound like overkill? Really it isn’t. If you are shooting wide open, like f/2.8, it is immediately obvious in if the photographer accidentally focused on the tip of the nose rather than an eye. You’ll see every pore and tiny hair on the nose and the subject’s eyes will be out of focus. It’s distracting and looks terrible. If a photographer does it right there is an opposite effect. The eyes are sharp and nearly leap off the page. The tip of the nose might be slightly out of focus because of the shallow depth of field, but no one notices. The photo looks correct.
How do you get this exact focus? There is a process. It is really easy. I’ll lay it out step by step.
Step 1 — Make sure your camera’s auto focus is turned on (did you think I’d recommend manual focus? I’m not completely crazy)
Step 2 — Make sure you’re using only one focus point. GET OUT OF MULTIPOINT MODE ALREADY!
Step 3 — Put your camera to your eye and compose the picture.
Step 4 — While keeping your camera to your eye, activate the focus point that is closest to the area you want in focus. This focus point might not be over the area you want to focus on yet. That’s OK. You just want to be close.
Step 5 — Reposition your camera so that the active focus point is now directly over what you want to focus on. If you’re photographing a person you would put the active focus point directly over one of your subject’s eyes.
Step 6 — Push your shutter button halfway down. This engages the auto focus and, your camera should focus exactly on what the auto focus point is pointed at.
Step 7 — Keep the shutter button pressed halfway down. This locks in the focus. Now, recompose the picture the way you want. Your focus remains the same as long as you don’t let up on the shutter button.
Step 8 — Push the shutter button all the way down to take your well focused picture.
I know that’s a lot of steps. The process is actually easier to do than it is to explain. Play around with your camera until you get really good at changing focus points. Also, get a feel for how your shutter button works. The halfway down press and focus method is absolutely key to taking good pictures. I’d say it is the most important and basic tool I use. If I’m hand holding the camera I use it on every single shot.
Now, we have to talk about when you’re auto focus doesn‘t work and how to make work again (I hate manual focusing and avoid it at all cost).
First, a bit of background. Your auto focus works by maximizing contrast. When you push the shutter button down the focus motor on the lens is engaged. This motoring is called hunting. The focus gets motored back and forth to find the sweet spot where the camera sees maximum contrast. When the auto focus computer sees maximum contrast it stops the focus motor and the camera is now ready to take a picture. A good camera and lens will focus quickly and you won’t even notice that the lens is hunting for the best contrast. It looks as if the camera just magically knows how to pull a perfect focus.
What happens when the auto focus computer can’t find a best contrast? The lens will hunt back and forth a couple times and sooner or later the camera gives up. You see nothing but out of focus fuzz through the viewfinder. The camera won’t take a picture. If you want to see your camera’s auto focus fail, try this little experiment. Point your camera at something blank and smooth — something like a white wall. The wall can’t have any texture or this experiment won‘t work. Now, try to get your camera to focus. It won’t. The lens will hunt back and forth but it will never find that sweet spot of maximum contrast. It can’t because the blank white wall has no contrast. Now, imagine if you stuck a piece of black tape on the wall. Do you think your camera would focus when you aim the active focus point at the piece of tape? Of course it would. The black tape on white wall makes it easy for your camera to pick out maximum contrast.
Out in the real world there will be times when your camera won’t auto focus. It happens for the same reason we discussed in the previous paragraph. It can’t find a maximum contrast to lock onto. This can happen when you’re shooting in low light. It can happen when your shooting directly into bright sunlight, or it could happen while photographing a large smooth subject. Fortunately there is an easy fix. Simply find somewhere else to focus the camera. Find an edge that has some contrast. Or, maybe pick out a flaw, a crack, anything with some texture. Just be careful to pick a spot that is near where you want your camera focused. If you’re taking a picture of your black dog and your camera won’t focus on the dog, don’t focus on the tree that’s ten feet behind your dog. Instead, try focusing on the grass directly below your dog.
Above is a photo that required some tricky focus maneuvers. The primary subject, my sweet little woodland fairy, Ella, was backlit and standing in the shade. The camera wouldn’t focus on her face, or even her dress. Can you guess where I placed the auto focus point? I put it the highlight in Ella’s hair. The focus computer grabbed focus from there and keeping my finger lightly pressed down on the shutter button I recomposed the shot to the way you see it here. The whole process took only a second or two. You have to be well practiced if you want to pull this stuff off in a hurry. Anyone who takes pictures of small children knows you’ve got to be quick.
Sometimes the light is so bad that your camera won’t focus even when pointed at a sharp, contrasty edge. There is one more trick you can use. Try switching to the center focus point. Your camera’s center focus point usually can find focus better than any other single focus point. On my ancient Canon 5D, I find myself using the center focus point quite often. If you can’t pull a good focus using the center point, you can (as a last ditch effort) switch to multipoint and see if your camera picks up focus somewhere. If that fails — you have to switch to manual focus. Have fun with that.
Now that you know how to focus it’s time to think about where you want to focus. It’s an important decision. When someone looks at a photo their eye is pulled towards the sharpest, most focused area of the image. The photographer has a certain amount of control over the viewer’s eye. Think about where you want the viewer to look when you are choosing your point of focus.
Another consideration is what looks right. With some types of photos there isn’t much choice where to focus. If you don’t pick the right spot the photo looks all wrong. People pictures are a good example. If the eyes aren’t the center of focus the picture looks off.
The above photo is a good example of the type of photo that would look all wrong if you picked the wrong place to focus. I focused on the horse closest to the camera. I chose that horse because he was the most prominent. Also, that horse was closest to the camera. If I would have focused on either of the other horses the big guy up front would have looked a little blurry. Most viewers don’t like foreground blur. If I would have focused on the butte in the background the photo would have looked like an unfortunate accident.
When you’re a beginner it’s good practice to study other peoples photos. Next time you pick up a magazine pay attention to where the photos are focused. Pretty soon you’ll be able to pick out the center of focus without even thinking. Make a mental note of what you like and don’t like. Apply those techniques to your photos.
What if your trying to focus on a moving object? No discussion of focus would be complete without covering servo mode. Servo mode is available on pretty much every DSLR. It’s a focus mode designed to track moving objects. If you’re trying to photograph a race car, airshow aircraft, or Olympic sprinter, servo mode is your best friend. It only works correctly when you are shooting bursts of pictures — holding the shutter button down. What servo mode does is track a moving object and calculate its speed relative to the camera. Then the real magic happens. Servo mode knows the frame rate of your camera and it actually calculates the focus to stay slightly in front of the moving object so that the object is in correct focus at the exact fraction of a second the shutter is open. The calculation only works if the object is moving at a constant speed, so don’t expect miracles. However, you can expect some good results if you use servo mode correctly.
Above is a photo of my dog, Jack, shot in servo mode. I had several considerations when planning this shot. First of all, l I knew I’d need lots of light because this picture would require a fast shutter speed. I had to wait for a sunny day to try this shot. Secondly, from past experience with my camera I know that sometimes servo mode has a hard time tracking my black dog. The solution — have Jack carry something bright and contrasty for the camera to focus on. The last consideration is: how far can I throw? In order for servo mode to work correctly it has to be tracking an object that is moving at a fairly constant speed. This means I have to start my burst of photos when Jack is going full speed straight towards me. If I try to photograph him while he’s accelerating there’s a good chance servo mode won’t work. It took a long toss and some luck to get this photo.
One more note on servo mode — it’s OK to use multipoint focus in servo mode. The camera seems to do its best tracking while in multipoint mode. The trade off is you don’t know exactly where the center of focus will be. When I am shooting in servo mode I will often times use a smaller aperture than usual to ensure the entire subject falls within the depth of field. This of course means a slower shutter speed unless you increase ISO. Like everything in life there is always a tradeoff.
That’s pretty much everything I know about focusing a DSLR camera. I hope it was helpful. Please leave a comment if you have any questions.
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A Christmas Gift
This photo is my Christmas gift to you!
You’re welcome.
What? You are not happy with the photo I’m offering? Can’t you see I am offering you the greatest gift of all, the gift of freedom? You can clearly see that this photo is inviting you to fly freely into the fresh blue sky. You didn’t need to attend a high caliber university like the one this author graduated from to decipher that simple visual message. Did you think that the best photo blog on the web would offer such a banal Christmas gift? If that was your first thought, you really need to try harder. In fact, I am a bit disappointed that after all our time together and all my efforts you still harbor such shallow expectations and your vision remains so narrow. How do you ever expect to become a photographer when you can’t see past the tip of your nose?
There is a deeper message in my gift photo. It is a message of freedom, photographic freedom. It’s staring you right in the face. It’s not hidden at all. Can you see it? Perhaps the better question is do you deserve to see it?
Even though I am perched high upon the mountain I can still hear the collective sigh of you grasping millions. The sound of your struggles rises up through the clouds to reach me at my home in the sun. The awful sound chills me like the winter wind howling through an empty cave. I will help you. I must help you, for how can my soul ever warm when I am enveloped by the chill of your mass ignorance.
For those of you that haven’t suffered for photography the way I have, let me explain to you the larger more important gift this photo carries. Look at the bottom center of the frame. What color do you see? No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. That is perfect, pure white! You don’t get a white like that in photography unless you’re willing to go over the brink. To achieve a white like that you must be either mad or more cunning than Coyote.
How did I do it? How did I achieve a pure white, a white so pure that it reminds you of immutable laws of our universe? How did I create a white so impossibly bright that it made the sky look more blue? How did I create a white that can make this master’s callused hand appear to float in infinite space?
Here is the answer if you are ready. I overexposed. I willingly overexposed. Do you think that is crazy? After I took this photo vast areas of my camera’s LCD flashed with the warnings of a thousand Japanese engineers. This warning claxon would have frightened most photographers, but I had no fear. When you have knowledge you don’t know fear. I basked in the glory of the warning flare. The flashing of my camera’s LCD was nothing more than the bright ambassador enlightenment. White was what I was after and white is what I got.
So that is my present to you. You are now free to create white in your photos! Here are the keys. Now open the shackles of your ignorance and soar towards the open sky.
Understanding Exposure One Pixel at a Time
(This is lesson 3 of my how it’s done series.)
You’ve made it to lesson 3. The reward is we’re going to actually talk about cameras in this lesson. This is the first lesson of three parts where we will be discussing exposure. Exposure is the heart of taking pictures. Once you understand exposure you can take control of the photographic process. Understanding exposure is the first step in becoming a creative photographer.
So what exactly is exposure? Exposure is how much light you allow into your camera when you take a photo. The two controls a camera has over exposure are aperture and shutter speed. That’s it – only two controls! Sounds pretty simple right? It is simple once you understand how aperture and shutter speed work together to create the correct exposure. “But wait!” you might be saying to yourself right now, “why does my camera have ten separate exposure modes if there are only two controls over exposure?” That’s an excellent question, and we will answer later. For now, I’m going to break down exposure to its basics. After you understand how aperture and shutter speed relate to each other we’ll delve into all those exposure modes on your camera and also talk about light metering and how to get the correct exposure. But, we have to start at the start. Here we go.
We’ll start at the very smallest level – one pixel. Your image sensor is made up of millions of light sensitive pixels. This extremely sensitive array of pixels lives most of its life in total blackness inside your camera. When you press your camera’s shutter release the shutter opens for a set amount of time and exposes the image sensor to light. Each pixel records how much light it was exposed to. Your camera collects the information from all these millions of pixels, processes it, and produces an image that you can recognize. It’s pretty amazing, but there is a catch. Your camera’s pixels are only sensitive to a a certain range of light. If too little light exposes a pixel it records only black. If too much light exposes a pixel it records only white. Between the two extremes of total black and total white is where your camera can record detail. A correct exposure exposes your camera’s sensor to just enough light to stay within the range from black to white. (Are you starting hear echoes of lesson two’s discussion of white and black points?)
I like to use a cup of water as an analogy to explain exposure. Imagine each pixel in your camera as a measuring cup, and imagine light as water filling that measuring cup. To make the analogy complete we have to make one slight change — imagine the first tick on the measuring cup is slightly higher than the bottom of the cup. We aren’t going to count the first few drops of water that fill the cup. We start our measuring slightly higher than zero.
OK, let’s look at this pixel/cup of water analogy starting at black. Black is what your camera records when not enough light fills the pixel to get above the lowest tick mark on the measuring cup. The first photons (particles of light) that fall on the bottom of the cup are too few and far between to be considered meaningful and the camera processor says, “hey, I’m not counting you. You are just some random photons and not good information.” Below is an illustration of this idea. The yellow circles represent light particles, and there is a scale on the right from black to white that shows what your camera sees as the cup fills up.
Now, we’ll fill the cup a little more. Between black and white is the area where the amount of light can be recorded. In this example the cup is about half full. This pixel would record as medium gray.
In this next example the cup is full to the highest measuring line. This pixel would record as pure white. When the cup is full the image processor says, “That’s white!”
What if we over fill the cup? The camera will record the pixel as white. Once you put more water in the cup than it can measure everything beyond measures as white only.
Let’s take a look at a sample black and white photo and discuss how the this theory relates to an actual picture. Why black and white? Because for now color is too complicated. In reality all the pixels in your camera have either a red, green, or blue color filter covering them. Each pixel is measuring the lightness or darkness of one color, and from that information your camera’s processor builds a color image. For the purpose of this discussion it is easier to imagine your image sensor is recording only shades of gray.
This is a photo of an elk skull I found in Yellowstone National park. The elk was most likely a victim of hungry wolves. There are piles of bones everywhere in the back country of Yellowstone. It looks like an animal battlefield. You can see that the elk’s antlers are cleanly sawed off. That’s likely the work of a park ranger trying to prevent someone from making a high value souvenir out of the skull. Anyhow, I placed a bunch of sample points in this photo and it is up to you to guess how full the pixel cup is at each sample point.
Starting at sample point one – this point is nearly white. The pixel cups in sample point one would be almost completely full.
Sample point two is in an area that is gray, but not very dark gray. The pixel cups in sample point two would be about three quarters full.
Sample point three is pretty dark gray, but not completely black. The pixel cups in sample point three would be about one quarter full.
The area in sample point four is in a dark shadow. It is one of the darkest spots in the photo. The pixel cups in sample point four would be empty, or nearly so. Sample point four is black.
By now you should be getting the hang of how pixels sense light. The correct exposure is really a Goldilocks scenario. When the light is too little the pixels record black. If the light is too much the pixels record white. If the amount of light exposing the pixels is just right the image sensor records detail that creates a photograph. But, I still haven’t explained how you as a photographer control the amount of light entering your camera. That brings us back to shutter speed and aperture.
We’ll talk about shutter speed first. Shutter speed is simply the amount of time your camera’s shutter is open. A shutter speed of 1/250 means your shutter will be open for 1/250 of a second. A shutter speed of 1/800 means your shutter will be open for 1/800 of a second. The slower the shutter speed the more light is let into your camera to expose the sensor. Therefor a shutter speed of ¼ lets a lot more light into your camera than a shutter speed of 1/500. Lots of cameras don’t display shutter speed as a fraction. They only display the divider and that can be somewhat confusing. My camera displays the shutter speed 1/250th as 250 and 1/800th as 800. A new photographer might look at 800 and think that 800 is bigger than 250 therefor it means more light exposing the sensor. That is backwards. Remember you are dealing with fractions and your camera may be only displaying the divider. Refer to your camera’s manual to find out how your camera displays shutter speed.
A helpful way to think of shutter speed is to refer back to the measuring cup example. Imagine that you are filling the measuring cup from your kitchen faucet. The shutter shutter speed is the amount of time you leave the tap open. The longer the tap is open the more water goes into the cup. The longer the shutter is open the more light gets light into your camera. Simple enough, right.
But, not all faucets are created equal. Some faucets have a big wide mouth and others are narrow. Which brings us to the other control we photographers have over exposure: aperture. Aperture is the diameter of the smallest opening in your lens. The aperture is constructed of movable metal blades that open and close depending on the orders given by your camera. A narrow aperture restricts light while a wide open aperture lets more light into the camera. Going back to the measuring cup and faucet analogy, think of a wide aperture as a really big faucet (like a fire hose) and a small aperture as squirt gun sized faucet. Which one would fill the measuring cup faster? The fire hose would of course. How long do you think it would take for a fire hose to fill a small measuring cup? I’d guess it would take about 1/250 of a second. What about a squirt gun? Maybe if you had a super soaker you could fill the measuring cup in about 30 seconds. Do you see where I am going with this? A small aperture is going to require a slower shutter speed than a wide aperture.
Aperture is expressed in F-stops. This is a concept that will be covered in a later lesson so I am not going to go too deep into it yet. For now all you need to know is that the smaller the F-stop number, the wider the aperture. An aperture value of f2.8 is wider than f5.6. F11.0 is wider than f16.0. This is another set of counterintuitive numbers that seems to throw off a lot of new photographers. A small number F-stop lets in more light than a large number. Why do camera manufacturers make things so confusing? It’s a long answer. Here is the short version: the F-stop is a ratio between the width of the aperture to the focal length of the lens. A wider aperture means a smaller ratio – hence the smaller number for a wider aperture. Don’t ask me to go any deeper than this… You don’t need to know. The answer involves pi, and not the sweet tasty type of pie. I’m talking about pi – the 3.142 variety. I don’t want any of my more intellectually challenged readers to have unpleasant flashbacks to 10th grade geometry class.
We are almost done with this incredibly long lesson. Congratulations to those of you with the attention span to stick it out this far. The entire internet is just a mouse click away and here you are sticking by my side. I am so proud of you. Here is a question for my star students: What part of the measuring cup and faucet analogy have we left out? We talked about how long you leave the tap open (shutter speed) how big the faucet is (aperture) but, we left out one important element. Is there a plumber in the audience? Can you think up another factor that will affect how fast the cup fills with water? The answer is water pressure. If you have no water pressure it doesn’t matter how big your faucet is because you won’t be able to fill your measuring cup without water. Likewise, if you have a very small faucet, but have incredibly strong water pressure (like a pressure washer) you would be able to fill your measuring cup in a fraction of a second. Now how does water pressure relate to photography in this analogy? Water pressure is the same as your light source. A weak light source (low water pressure) like a candle in a cathedral means you will need a longer shutter speed, or bigger aperture, or both. A bright light source (high water pressure) like high noon in July in death valley gives you the opportunity to use a faster shutter speed, or smaller aperture.
Does that all make sense to you? Good. This lesson is over. Now that you understand exposure we’ll be able to talk about more about how to set the right shutter speed and aperture in upcoming lessons.
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Your Eyes are a Miracle, Your Camera is a Machine
(This is lesson 2 in my How It’s Done Series)
The first lesson was primarily a downer. I’ll try to win you back with a compliment. You have beautiful eyes. No, I’m not just saying that so you continue reading my boring camera lessons. I really mean it, and I want to make a point. Your eyes are amazing instruments created through millions of years of evolution (or god — depending on your state of mind). A camera does not come close to the sensitivity and flexibility of your eyes. More importantly, your eyes are connected to the best image processing computer available, a human brain. Your brain adjusts contrast and exposure so quickly that you don’t even notice it’s happening. Have you ever looked through your eyes and said to yourself, “Hey, this scene could use some more contrast, or maybe it needs a saturation boost.”? Maybe if you were an eagle in a previous life you might have those thoughts from time to time, but most people take their vision for granted and never give much thought to the fact that there are other ways to perceive light than the way a human eye does.
Here is the most difficult concept of my entire “How it’s Done” series, and possibly the heart of the art form known as photography: A CAMERA DOES NOT SEE LIKE A HUMAN EYE (capitalized for emphasis, not yelling). First, the obvious differences, your eye sees motion and your eye sees in three dimensions. Your camera records a split second of light and sees in only two dimensions. Some of the more difficult to understand (frustrating to beginners) differences between camera and eye are dynamic range, perception of light temperature, and contrast.
Let’s start with dynamic range. What is dynamic range? It is the range of what is visible between complete darkness and bright white highlight. Your eye has almost twice as much dynamic range as a digital camera. On a sunny summer afternoon your eye can see details in the shadows beneath a tree and also see the bright white puffy clouds in the background. A camera can’t. Your camera only has enough dynamic range to see inside the shadows or the white puffy clouds, but not both at the same time. Below is an example of a photograph of a shady area on a bright summer afternoon. When I took this photo my eye could see details in the shadow that the camera couldn’t. By looking at this photo can you tell what color the woman’s hair is? I can’t, but if you were standing there next to me when I took this photo you would have had no trouble answering that question or telling me the brand name of the stroller by reading the lettering on the stroller’s sun visor. The stroller in this photo is so dark you can’t even see the lettering on it. The next lesson is going to be explain exposure so don’t get worried if you don’t understand my next point. What if I would have exposed this photo for shadow detail instead of exposing for the background? If I would have lightened the exposure so you could see inside the shadows then the background would turn bright white (over exposed). Do you now believe me that your eye is more sensitive than your DSLR? If you had to exchange your eyes for two DSLR image sensors you would live in a world of blinding highlights or impenetrable shadows. Walking in the park would become an adventure. You would have to choose between seeing in the shade or seeing in the sun. You can’t have it both ways. The dynamic range of a DSLR sensor is much smaller than your eyes.
Another major difference between your eyes and a camera is the perception of color temperature. Every light source has a different color temperature (color cast created by the frequency of the light emitted from the source). Incandescent lights cast a yellow/orange light. Florescent lights give off a blue/green glow. The sun is mostly neutral, maybe a little yellow. You might notice these casts if you pay close attention, but your eyes combined with your brain do a marvelous job eliminating color casts caused by various light frequencies. When was the last time you walked into a florescent lit store from a bright sunny afternoon and said to yourself, “Man, these lights have a horrible blue cast.”? Probably never. Your eyes adjust for color casts instantly, and they can even adjust for multiple casts in the same viewing area. Digital cameras handle color temperature much less gracefully than your eyes. Your camera has a white balance setting that you can set for a various situations. Your camera’s white balance can be set to auto, tungsten, sunny, cloudy, florescent, ect. These settings will eliminate a color cast from a standard tungsten or fluorescent bulb, but they don’t work well if your light source is anything other than what your camera’s engineers called average. That means almost every light source is going to give you a color cast. Fortunately there is a great solution to this problem. Shoot in RAW format. When you shoot in RAW you set the white balance in photoshop. Rather than relying on the rigid in camera white balance presets you set your white balance via the RAW converter. You can easily tweak the settings and get exactly the right white balance. Sounds complicated, right? Don’t worry – there is a camera RAW lesson coming in the future. All you need to know right now is that your camera sees color temperature and your eyes don’t.
The last concept I am going to cover in this lesson is possibly the most important because it is the first step to developing a good photographic eye and a sensitivity for light. It is so important that it will be talked about again and again throughout this series, and it might even get its own article. For now, I’m just going to give you an introduction so that you can get started developing your photographers instincts. I call this most important idea “the black point light point rule”. Here is my definition of the black point white point rule: For every scene you look at (with a couple exceptions that are just as important as the rule to be discussed later) your eye automatically sees the darkest spot as black and the brightest spot as white. What does that mean? No matter what you look at you are going to see the darkest area as complete black and the lightest area as completely white. Your eye is constantly adjusting contrast to its maximum so the the brightest spot of whatever you might be looking at is white and the darkest shadow is black.
Here is a sample of what I am talking about – the cup of ice water is sitting on a glass topped desk and lit by nothing other than window light. I marked the white point and the black point. Now, try it out for yourself. Look around your room and see if you can spot the white point and black point as your gaze moves around. No matter what your field of view you should be able to pick out a white point and black point. Practice picking out the white and black point whenever possible. You can do it when you’re walking the dog, brushing your teeth, or sitting in a boring meeting. Once you’re really good at it you will be able to pick out the black and white point without even thinking about it. It will be second nature. When you are really, really good you’ll be able to pick out the black and white point and know how far apart they are in terms of dynamic range. You’ll know whether a scene will fit inside you’re camera’s limited dynamic range with just one glance. That’s the goal. The next couple lessons will explain exposure so practice finding black and white points for now and get a jump on the competition.
Like every rule my black and white point rule has some exceptions. In certain situations you won’t be able to find a black or white point. There is no black point when you are looking at a polar bear in a snowstorm, and there is no white point in dimly lit areas. I’m typing this at night – in a room lit only by a 40 watt bulb. There is no white point when I look around the bedroom right now. It is important that you learn what type of situations will be missing a white point or black point. Play the “find the white point black point” game a lot. Get good at finding the exceptions to the rule. It will help you later when we start talking about exposure, and it will really help you when we start working in photoshop.
Above is an example where there is no white point. It was too dark for anything to be white.
The above photo is an example where there are multiple black points, and only one white point.
Are you understanding this? Practice as much as you can. Look for the white point and black point in every photo you see. You should get so good at finding white and black points that you don’t even think about it anymore. You’ll see a photo or a scene and you will know what is the darkest spot and what is the lightest spot without thought. The next couple lessons will explain exposure. If you aren’t understanding these concepts yet, my exposure lessons should clear everything up. Feel free to leave a question or comments. It’s hard to write about abstract concepts. I want to know if I’m getting the point across.
Disillusionment is a Positive First Step
(This is Lesson 1 of my How It’s Done Series)
Lesson one shouldn’t really be called a lesson. Lesson one would be best described as deprogramming. The first step in becoming a functional, self aware digital photographer is to purge yourself of years worth of photography misconceptions. Since the dawn of consumer photography the photo industry has been selling the idea that there is a little bit of magic involved in the making of photos. The camera manufactures have a long track record of taking control away from the photographer and transferring it to camera engineering. To market their consumer level cameras they have sales pitches like, “So easy even grandma can do it” or “You just click and we’ll do the rest.” The manure is piled even deeper for professional level photo equipment with hundreds of user generated reviews proclaiming the magical nature of certain lenses, and hundreds more sentimental forum posts about the mystical film cameras of yesteryear. You have to let go of these notions. Your DSLR camera is an appliance with just four controls – aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and focus. Knowing how to operate these four basic controls is what determines whether or not you can take a decent photo.
If you are reading this you’re probably the owner of a brand new DSLR, and the ravings of a zealot aren’t going to diminish the materialist lust you feel for your shiny, new camera. She’s a pretty little machine, and you paid a lot for her. I don’t blame you for being so easily smitten. Just remember, I am trying to help you out. It’s in your best interest to feel as dispassionate about your equipment as possible. Here’s an idea. Try to think of your camera as a copy machine. That’s what I do. In my mind’s eye my camera is a twenty year old manila colored copier parked somewhere near the back of a bail bonds office in Montgomery, Alabama. Why do I choose a copy machine? Because a copy machine is essentially what your camera is. Taking a photograph is just making a two dimensional copy of the scene in your camera’s lens. There is no magic. The image sensor records the light and that information is stored as one and zeros in the camera’s memory card.
Are you still thinking unhealthy thoughts about your camera? You might need to take drastic measures. Go down to your basement, find a rusty nail, use the nail to make a bunch of unsightly scratches in your camera’s case. If that doesn’t work maybe you should find some puke green spray paint. Be careful not to get any paint on the front lens element.
Now that we have thrown that sack of puppies in the river it is time to bring on the next round of disappointment. You need to buy photoshop. Everyone tries to get away with not owning photoshop and everyone who is truly serious about photography eventually ends up buying photoshop. Save yourself a year or two of flailing. Buy photoshop now, or at least start saving up for it. I wish someone would have laid this fact out for me when I first got into photography. For those readers that think photoshop is all about making fake photos or amping up average shots, you have the wrong idea. Photoshop is the digital darkroom. Sure you can use it to create special effects, but the primary use of photoshop (for me) is to color correct photos – to make them look as similar to the original scene as possible. During the age of film the photo lab did for you what photoshop does now (color correction). Back in the time of film cameras nobody ever asked, “was that picture photo labbed?” If you are thinking that using photoshop is somehow impure you have no idea what photoshop is used for.
Here is something else you need to know about your new DSLR. The company that built your DSLR added a lot of automatic junk to your camera to help the average nonthinking photographer take better looking pictures. This added junk works great in average situations for people that don’t really care about overall image quality, but it is disastrous to a photographer shooting in any nonstandard situation, or using a better than average lens. Your camera is making decisions for you that should only be made by you in photoshop. Most cameras when left to their own devices automatically add sharpening, saturation, and mid-tone contrast without you even knowing it. Why is that so bad? Because there are many photo situations where you don’t want these effects. Probably for close to 50% of the photos you take these automatic changes made by your camera are the wrong choice and hurt the image rather than help it. Here is one example – imagine you are taking close up photos of flowers and you want the flowers to be in focus and the background to be a creamy out of focus blur. Your camera doesn’t know you are trying for this effect. It just goes ahead and auto-sharpens the entire frame. Now your out of focus background is full of jagged pixelated artifacts. Here’s another example. Lets say you are taking a picture at sunset and there are lots of shadow areas in your photo that you hope to keep detailed. Your camera doesn’t know that it is sunset and it goes ahead and adds mid-tone contrast because your camera thinks mid-tone contrast is great. Now, instead of having nice detailed shadow areas you have featureless black blobs in your photo. The added mid-tone contrast crushed the shadow detail.
Fortunately, there is good news. You can turn all this junk off. Get out your camera manual, figure out how to navigate the various menus, and turn down these settings: in camera sharpening, saturation, and contrast. If your camera has more auto features that you aren’t sure of, you are probably better off turning them off also. Leave a comment if you have a question about a specific feature. The greatest feature of a DSLR is the ability to shoot naked of all added garbage. Your DSLR has an awesome image sensor, and if you were smart it also has a great lens. Use the sensor and the lens – that’s it. Turn off the other stuff. Your computer does the other processing stuff better than the camera. Most importantly you make better processing decisions than your camera’s algorithms. Remember, your camera is programmed to handle average situations not all situations. You don’t want your camera’s faulty logic baked into your image files. You want your image files to be light, crisp, and free of nonsense.
The best way to avoid the in-camera automatic nonsense is to shoot in RAW mode. What is RAW? It’s a file format where your camera only saves the actual image information from the sensor to the compact flash card. Absolutely nothing is added to the file. When you shoot in RAW it’s all about the lens, the image sensor, and you. No Japanese camera engineer is making imaging decisions for you when you shoot in RAW. The maximum amount of detail is saved and you are free to make all the processing choices in photoshop. I will dedicate a coming lesson to RAW format so I’m not going to get too deep into here. For now, I recommend shooting in RAW so that when we get up to that lesson you’ll have some RAW files to play with.
OK, so this lesson was primarily bad news. If you read this far you are more disciplined than I was as a beginning photographer. When I first started out I hated hearing that I needed to spend yet even more money on photography by buying photoshop ($600), and then I had to work with cumbersome RAW files. I thought the magic of my camera and a dash of talent would hurdle me above those uncomfortable obstacles. After three years of beating my head against the wall I found out I was wrong.
Now a quick review of what we learned today.
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Don’t think sentimental thoughts about your camera
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You need to buy photoshop
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Turn off all the automatic image processing stuff your camera offers, or better yet start shooting in raw format
The next lesson should be more fun. Stay tuned. If you have a question or suggestion please leave me a comment.
How to Remove Artifacts and Avoid Istock Rejection (Part 2)
Just in case you didn’t read the title – this is part 2 of this photoshop tutorial. Here is a link to part one. Read part one first or else you’ll have no idea what we’re talking about here.
Ok, you read part one and you have a photoshop action named “create two edge masks” saved on your computer. Now it’s time to remove artifacts and digital noise from an actual photo that you plan to submit to istock. Normally, I run noise reduction (artifact removal) as the second to last step in my photoshop workflow (sharpening is last). When you use this process for an istock photo try to do it at the end of your editing process. For the purpose of this tutorial you can use any photo you want, and you don’t have to make this your second to last step in the editing process. Try to pick a photo that has some noise or artifacts so you can see what the process is doing.
The first step is to convert your photo to the LAB colorspace. Our “create two edge masks” action only works in LAB. Converting to LAB is easy. Go to the top menu bar and click image → mode → LAB color
Now it’s time to run our “create two edge masks action”. Press the action button to reveal the photoshop actions flyout menu. Locate the action named “ create two edge masks” and click on it to highlight it (see image below). Now press the play button. That’s it. All the steps we talked about in part one run behind the scenes and magically two new channels pop up in your channels pallet at the lower right corner of photoshop.
At this point your photo might look all black with a few white lines. Don’t worry. It looks like that because photshop is displaying one of the new channels rather than your photo. To fix this go to the channels pallet and make sure you’re displaying the correct channels. The lightness channel, the A channel, and the B channel should be activated. The little eyeball icon shows which channels are active. Clicking the eyeball turns that individual channel on or off. See the diagram below – you’re channels pallet should look like this diagram.
The next step is the easiest. We’re going to create a duplicate layer. To do this press ctrl+J. That’s it. In your layers pallet you’ll see a layer called background and one called layer 1. Layer 1 should be active, meaning it’s highlighted. Your layers pallet should look like the picture below.
Now we’re going to reduce the noise in Layer 1. From the top menu bar select filter → noise → reduce noise. This brings up the noise reduction dialog box. I’m not going to lie. I’m not an expert on the noise reduction dialog box. From experience I’ve developed a technique for coming up with noise reduction settings. Each image is different so you’ll have to come up with new settings for each photo. I simply scroll the noise reduction preview window around my photo to areas where I know there is artifacting. I then tweak the settings until the artifacting disappears from the preview window. Once I find settings that seem to remove all the noise I dial the settings back until the noise pops back up again. Then I dial the settings back up again until the noise just barely disappears. The object is to use the lowest possible settings that still remove all the noise. Does that make sense to you? If you have a better method please leave a comment. If my explanation doesn’t make any sense at all to you just use settings: Strength 7 all other sliders 25. That should do the trick without over doing it.
At this point it is time to load a channel as a selection, and then convert it to a mask. Sounds super easy, right? It actually is. Here it is step by step… Go to the top menu bar click select → load selection. This brings up a dialog box. In the lower window select “edge mask” (see image below). That is the channel we created with our photoshop action. Click OK.
Your photo now should be covered in ants marching selection lines. The next step transforms this selection to the mask, and it’s ridiculously simple. Click on the create layer mask button in the layers pallet (see image below, it’s the little rectangle with the circle in the middle). That’s it! The ants marching lines should have disappeared and a mask icon should show up next to layer one.
Your layers pallet should now look like this.
For those of you that have no understanding of what layers and masks do let me try to explain very briefly what’s going on at this point. Your photo, right now, is in theory two photos stacked on top of one another. The top photo in the stack is the one where we reduced the noise. The bottom photo is the original image. What’s displayed in photoshop is the top photo (the less detailed, slightly blurred, noise reduced image). The mask we created allows the bottom photo to show through in the areas of your image where there are lots of details or edges. What you’re getting is the best of both worlds. The details in your image stay sharp and the areas of no detail get noise reduction. Noise lives in areas with little detail so we’re essentially taking the fight to the home of the noise and creating no collateral damage. This technique works better than a smart bomb and doesn’t create a foreign policy nightmare. If you have no idea what I’m talking about don’t get anxious. I’m an airline pilot not a teacher. Follow the next few steps without thinking too much and we’ll all make it home safely.
If we weren’t submitting our photos to istock I’d say we’re done at this point. But, since the istock inspection process is so anal I have to add one more step to help you keep your photos from getting rejected. Noise and artifacts tend to exist in darker areas of your image only. Why run noise reduction on the entire photo when half the image is bright enough to have no noise at all? The way to get the reduced noise layer to not show in brighter areas is by using layer blending options. Once again, this is something that sounds way harder than it is.
Before we get into the blending options menu, do yourself a favor and press ctrl+alt+0 (the number zero, not the letter O). This zooms your image to 100% size. You need to do this now because you can’t do it with the blending options dialogue box open.
To open the blending options dialogue box right click on the small image icon in layer 1 in the layers pallet. From the menu that pops up click on blending options. See the image below.
We aren’t going to get too crazy with the blending options. We’re just going to move one of the sliders. Find the top right slider. Move it to the left. What this does is allow the bottom (more detailed, but more noisy) layer to show through where the top image is lighter than tonal value to the right of the slider. Is that hard to understand? Here’s a simpler explanation: the farther left you move the slider the more noise will show through. The trick is to move the slider as far left as possible without seeing any noise in the image. This lets the maximum amount of the detailed lower layer to show through and limits the blurred upper layer to areas of noise. The best method for setting the slider is to simply play around with it and also scroll around your blown up to 100% size image. Slide that top right slider back and forth and watch the noise appear and disappear. Eventually you’ll find the perfect spot where you don’t see any noise show through, but don’t set it any further right than that. Hopefully, the two example images below can show you better than I can write. Once you’re happy with the slider’s position click OK. Note, you’re optimal slider position might be a lot further left than my example. My sample picture was taken at High ISO and very noisy to start with.
We’re pretty much done. All that’s left to do is flatten the image. Right click on the background layer and click flatten image. Before you’ll be able to save this picture as a jpeg you’ll have to convert it back to RGB colorspace (image → mode → RGB color). Also, you’ll have to delete the two extra channels in your channel pallet. Simply drag and drop them into the trash. I always forget to do that step until I try to save the photo and photoshop only lets me save it as a psd document.
That’s the end of part 2. There is a part 3 coming up. I’ll show you how to remove artifacts from blue sky. Also, I’ll show you what to do with that mysterious Sharpen Edge Channel.
If you’re a photoshop master, I am sure you have already thought up some tweaks to improve this tutorial (how about doing the noise reduction on only the noisiest channel?) Please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.
How to Remove Artifacts and Avoid Istock Rejection (Part 1)
Are you ready for this? I couldn’t use the actual words in the title because I was afraid I’d scare off those most in need of help. Today you’re going to learn how to create a useful (get ready for the scary words) photoshop action. This action will help you get your photos accepted into istock and then save you hours of labor because you’ll be able to run the action on each photo you submit to istock in the future. You only have to create the action once and then it’s yours forever, or at least until your hard drive crashes. If you have never created an action before don’t worry. It is easy. If you can’t figure it out by the end of this tutorial I’ll give you your money back.
Before we start let me first explain what this action will do for you… One of the primary reasons photos get rejected on istock is for artifacting. Artifacts are the little bits of digital noise that you can spot in magnified digital images in areas of shadow or large areas of even colors (a big blue sky for example). The normal way to get rid of artifacts is to run the reduce noise filter. The problem with running the reduce noise filter is it not only removes the noise, but also reduces details. Too much noise reduction is bound to get your photo rejected from istock for loss of detail. If only there was a way to preserve details and also remove noise… That’s where this photoshop action comes in. It creates a mask that preserves details when you run the reduce noise filter. And, since it’s so easy to add to this action I’m going to show you a great method for sharpening your edges in a way that won’t get your photos rejected from istock. Let’s Begin.
Start by opening a photo into photoshop. Pick a photo with some artifacting (you Nikon shooters will have lots of photos to choose from). If you don’t have an artifacty photo, don’t worry, open any photo. It doesn’t matter all that much.
Convert the photo to the LAB colorspace (image → mode → LAB color)
Here’s where the create action part begins – try not to be frightened. First to make sure we’re all on the same page go to the top menu and select window → workspace → default workspace Now that your screen looks correct, look along the right side pallet for the little triangle that looks like the play button on a CD player. Press it. Below is a screen shot of the fly out menu you should see now see.
Press the create new action button. This brings up a menu. In the name box type “Create Two Edge Masks” (you can name it whatever you want actually, but for ease of understanding you’ll probably want to stick with the names in this article). Now press the record button. From here on photoshop is recording every button you push so be careful to follow the next steps closely. If you screw up press the stop button (the little square) and drag your messed up action to the trash. You can then start over and try again.
Next, go to the lower right and find the channels pallet. Open it up, find the lightness channel, right click the lightness channel, and select duplicate channel.
Another menu box will pop up. Name this new channel “Edge Mask”. Click OK. You should now see a new channel at the bottom of the channel pallet called “Edge Mask”. This is not the edge mask in its final form. We will modify it and turn it into an edge mask. This channel does not effect your photo in any way. It just sits there in storage waiting around for potential use later. We can do whatever we want to this channel and it will have no effect on your photo at all. Later, we’ll turn this channel into a mask – that’s where we’re headed, and that’s why we named it “Edge Mask”.
Click on the new channel called “edge mask”. This displays the new channel and none of the others. The little eyeball icon should be on the edge mask channel and none of the others. A black and white version of your original photo should be displayed.
Now, we’re going to start turning this channel into a mask. Go up to the top menu bar click filter → stylize → find edges. After running the find edges filter your photo will be nothing but black lines on a white background. These lines are the beginnings of a mask. Unfortunately the find edges command also finds the edges of artifacts. The next couple steps will fatten up the lines around actual edges and remove the lines from areas of noise and artifacts. At this point your photo should look something like the picture below.
Press ctrl+M to bring up the curves dialog box. We want to make the actual edges solid black and turn the artifacts white. To do this move the curves sliders to the positions shown in the diagram below. Most of the noise and artifacts live in the area on the right side of the histogram. By sliding the top slider to the left we turn all the noise white. Moving the bottom slider right darkens the black on the areas of detail in your photo. This step is an art and as you get more experienced with creating edge masks you may later want to change these curves to better eliminate noise and protect your edges.
Next we’re going to fatten up the black lines. Go to filter → blur → guasian blur. Set the radius to 2.2 and press OK.
Now you have thicker lines, but they aren’t as dark black. To blacken them up again open up curves dialog by pressing ctcl+m and adjust the sliders like the example below.
Ok, your edge mask is complete. We’re just going to add a couple more steps so you can also have a mask to use for edge sharpening. This is a two for the price of one action. Right click on the channel named “edge mask” and select duplicate channel. In the dialog box that pops up name this new channel “Sharpen Edge Mask” Click OK. You should now see a new channel named “Sharpen Edge Mask” directly below your edge mask. It will be highlighted and active as long as you haven’t clicked on anything else yet. Press ctrl+I to invert the channel. The image you see displayed should now be mostly black. If you have done everything correctly so far your channels pallet should look like the example below.
We’re almost done. The last step is pressing the stop button up on your action recorder. It’s the little square button on the bottom left of the actions fly out menu. You can see it in the first diagram of this tutorial. Once you press the stop button photoshop is no longer recording your clicks and keystrokes, and your edge mask action is saved. If you want to create an edge mask for any photo in the future just select the action you named “Create Two Edge Masks” and press the play button. All the steps will run and two new edge masks will appear as if by magic in your channels pallet. There is one caveat though for this action. Before you run it you have to convert your image to the LAB colorspace (image → mode – LAB color) or else it won’t run. If you prefer working in RGB over LAB you can convert your picture back to RGB after the action runs and you will still have the new channels after the conversion. If you’re sharp and you like to use RGB, you could rerecord the action with the transformation to LAB and back to RGB as part of the action. I mostly use LAB so I leave my photos there until I save them.
Now that we’re done you’re probably asking yourself, “What do I do with these two extra channels?” I’m saving that for part two. Did I mention this is a two part tutorial? I might have left that out, sorry. I didn’t want to scare you off before we got started. The good news is Part 2 is where the fun stuff happens. We’ve gotten all the boring but necessary stuff out of the way. In Part Two we’re going to run noise reduction and do some Unsharp Mask (USM might get its own part 3). Most of you are probably familiar with that stuff so it won’t all seem so foreign. Don’t let your guard down though. I’m also going to teach you some scary stuff like loading a selection from a channel and transforming a selection to a mask. Try to get some sleep. You’ll need it.
Part two is now finished. Here’s a link
Photos4u2c 