Experience, comments, tips, topics, all around photo beginners should know !
They say “don’t shoot in the bright sun at midday !”
I do.
They say “Landscapes should be shot in colors!”
I don’t
They say “Do not over process your shots!!!”
I do. When it makes sense.
And here is the result :
No Photoshop. I used 100% Alien Skin Exposure. And it took me 2 Minutes to get this.
At this point I have to say that I use a light meter which enables me to get a perfect exposure in the camera.
Another attempt with my new plug-in TOPAZ which I really do like.
I am really impressed how pictures are affected, and I mean it in a positive way. There are hundreds presets you can modify (opacity, colors,etc…) and the nice thing is that you only need a few minutes to understand how the all thing work.
As I am not a huge fan of spending hours in front of my computer, I try to make the shot in the camera.
That being said, I know that you can get more of shot by adjusting clarity, contrasts, tonality, and so on…
Before :
After :
Here few links related :
Frank Doorhof presents TOPAZ FILTERS
Videos from TOPAZ about TOPAZ RESTYLE
And a last one from Mike Moats
Here the same pic as yesterday but processed with topaz lab – Restyle.
The time need for the process has been 3 minutes.
Look at the sky and compare this to yesterday’s shot ! Awesome !
You can get this plugin with a very nice discount here!
Be quick, this promotion ends on 08/31.
More to come…
This one was shot two days ago in Barcelona, Spain.
The tinting with AS_Exposure 5 is a liitle tricky compaired to Topaz.
I will post tomorow the same shot tinted with Topaz.
More to come…
I have downloaded Topaz Restyle and I simply love it.
Great thing really ! It is the perfect tool for tinting your pictures.
Promotion is valid until 31.08 !
Above my first attempt
More to come !
My tip is today is very easy to put into practice and will give a lot of punch to you pictures.
So, look at the clown above. His look is very strong. The composition focusses on the expression. Note that his face is cut by the horizontal lines of the frame. So what?
Here my tip :
Go very close to your subject and use long lenses. Focus on the core of your subject, get rid of the rest
My tip today is very simple and is actually common sense :
Do not select your pictures right after you have made them.
Wait a few days if possible and see them with a critical eye.
Your aptitude to judge them will be much more accurate.
More to come…
Frank Doorhof, a pro fashion and glamour photographer explains in a video why a color checker in a must in his workflow. Enjoy…
more to come
Yesterday I have posted an article about colors, calibration of displays and the color-checker.
Today I want to go deeper into this subject.
What are steps that the light goes thru when you shoot digital? We really have to understand that so we can figure out what to do get the real colors.
Step one is what I see. White is not white (same thing applies for other colors). White is white in a specific so-called white balance. My wife wears a white T-shirt on the beach. It’s white. OK ? Then we go in a night club, Her T-shirt is still the same, everyone will say she wears a white T-Shirt. But the white on the beach and the white in a club are different. This is the White Balance Effect. The good thing is that the WB influence the entire color range in the same direction. So our brain, somehow corrects the balance. We all have experienced it : you are in a bar with red-ish lights and you go out : your first impression is that the light has a blue hue outside. After a while, you do not notice it anymore, your brain presses the button “WB-Correction” and everything looks normal. But the light hasn’t change.
So, how it is with camera ?
Step two is the light captured by the lens. It goes actually thru a bunch of glass pieces and each of them influence the quality of the light (amount of light, which means contrasts and colors). According to this statement, every lens has its own “lightprint”. Keep that in mind for later.
Step three is the sensor. Depending on the technology used, the sensor analyzes the light, pixel after pixel, and translates it into a value which contains information about color, brightness, etc…
Step four happens after you have uploaded your pictures from the cam. Lightroom, but other softwares work the same way, reads the files and has to translate these into a picture on a screen. This translation is a program that says “for such a value, the pixel has to look like this !” and this, pixel after pixel. This translator has a name. It is called PROFILE. So, there are many ways to write translators, wich means there many way to translate the data and to provide an image. LR has a buit-in Profile called ADOBE PROFILE. It gives good results in most of the case. But still, it is not perfect. Your CAMERA PROFILE is also on board so to say, and this one is very interesting since it shows you how your camera sees the world. Then switch to ADOBE PROFILE, you see how ADOBE sees the world, trying to guess how to correct step 1, 2 and 3.
Now let’s have a look at the shots I have posted yesterday.
My model wanted to have a great shot of her wrapped in her scarf. She loves the violet colors and the green reflections. I make a shot, and the picture is very different on the camera display! Why? Well, the profile used is the camera’s profile + the RAW (NEF) file is converted into a jpeg. This compression creates data loss. OK, I upload the files in my PC and this is how the picture looks like with the CAMERA PROFILE:
And here, you can see how the ADOBE PROFILE translates the data of the file to create the picture:
In both case the image is nice, but the colors are not what they should be. The skin is OK, but the scarf is way too blue.
Now, you can think: “maybe it is because my screen is not calibrated.” And you are right, you have to calibrate it too make sure that what you see is what other guys with a calibrated screen also see like you do. So I calibrated my Imac, I have noticed a few changes, but the bluish hue remained.
And this why a color-checker is very important: it creates a profile for the pictures you are doing right now. The color-checker pass is a software which aims is to recognize colors on a picture. Besides, you have a sort of passport with several rows of different squares of color. The software knows how these colors are in the file and compares with how they should be. Then it computes the adjustments and creates a new profile you have to name before using it.
So, during my shooting, I make a shot with the opened passport that lightroom is able to recognize. It asks me to name this new profile and it’s done. I can synchronize the other images of this very one shooting set up and that’s it.
And the scarf had the nice violet / green colors back.
Have a look:
I have chosen a RAW file so you are positive there is no photoshop done here.
More to come…
Photography thru my lenses 