Before digital photography came of age, photographs had to go through the darkroom. Like cars on a conveyor belt, each image had to go through a series of steps, all the way through the development and printing process. Digital photography doesn't require a darkroom, but it does help to keep that conveyor belt in mind, and run each picture through the same process, or Workflow.
Everyone develops a workflow that's best for them, and a process that makes perfect sense to one photographer will be hopelessly confusing to another one.
First, the pictures have to be transferred from the camera. Most cameras have an Upload feature, where the camera is plugged directly into the computer. Plugging the chip into a chip reader also works well. Archive off a master collection, so that you don't overwrite the original with the edited version.
Second, filter the collection. Delete the accidental shot of the photographer's knee and the portrait where the baby crawled out of the frame.
Next, make the edits that will apply to the entire image. Color balance, contrast, brightness, and cropping, for example. If you're working with RAW images, you have a lot more control at this stage.
Once the large adjustments are made, it's time to focus on the smaller ones. Are there areas of the picture that could use cloning (like painting away the electrical wires passing through the subject's head)? Would a little bit of background blur make the subject stand out better?
When you're satisfied with all of the large and small scale edits, it's time for one final sharpening step, like using Unsharp Mask. Multiple sharpening steps will make a picture look terrible, so only do it once. Save the edited and sharpened version under it's own name, and then save a JPG compressed copy for emailing and web work.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
Monday, June 21, 2010
Wildlife Photography, Catching The Animals By Surprise
Photography has been around for more than a century and our topics will never cease. There is portrait, landscape, wedding, and wildlife photography just to name a few. One of the most rewarding styles of photography centers on wildlife. It may take you several hours before finding the perfect picture and capturing it, but the reward is more than worth the wait.
Wildlife photography is perhaps the most difficult in the profession. You have to have the time, inclination, and of course the camera. Most wildlife shots are captured using a telephoto lens because the animal will not walk near you. Every once in a while you will be able to capture the fox, elk, bear or other animal as it comes through the woods in your path, however most of the time they are yards away and elusive.
Wildlife photography doesn't wait for you to happen a long and snap a photo. You need to immerse yourself in the site you choose your camera at the ready, and set for the light of the day. Most automatic cameras work great on the preset for those who are just learning to take wildlife photographs. Photography has always been about the moment and the best photographers can catch the moment with a speed and agility of the animal they are capturing.
Start with small subjects when you begin your foray into wildlife photography. Practice on your pet. Let them roam naturally and see if you can capture the wild and crazy moments on film without the photograph ending up blurry. All great photographers have studied and practiced. They also use more than one shot. Making sure your camera has a quick shutter speed will help you take more than one shot as your move with the animal. When you have the subject in your site you need to follow it while focusing and then quickly snap as many pictures as you can before they move out of site. This technique is known as panning. Rather than the subject coming to you, you follow the subject.
When you have mastered your pets you can begin to explore the outdoor world of wildlife photography. Some of your subjects will be standing still and this is another practice technique. Be aware of the lighting and placement while trying not to disturb the animal. It is most easy to get a squirrel when they are intent on eating or foraging for food. If you stay silent and walk carefully you can often get pretty close.
If you are choosing a larger subject such as a deer or bear you will want to stay far enough away to get the shot, and not draw attention to yourself. Bears are dangerous creatures, but they can be photographed if you use common sense and don't tread upon their territory. Wildlife photography and thus the photographers have a code of ethics when attaining the perfect shots. You will want to follow these ethics for your safety and the animals.
Wildlife photography is a waiting game for the perfect picture to sprint across your viewfinder. It takes patience and a lot of practice, but the reward of having a family member or friend go, ' where did you get that photograph? I have got to have one,' will sweeten the deal.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
Wildlife photography is perhaps the most difficult in the profession. You have to have the time, inclination, and of course the camera. Most wildlife shots are captured using a telephoto lens because the animal will not walk near you. Every once in a while you will be able to capture the fox, elk, bear or other animal as it comes through the woods in your path, however most of the time they are yards away and elusive.
Wildlife photography doesn't wait for you to happen a long and snap a photo. You need to immerse yourself in the site you choose your camera at the ready, and set for the light of the day. Most automatic cameras work great on the preset for those who are just learning to take wildlife photographs. Photography has always been about the moment and the best photographers can catch the moment with a speed and agility of the animal they are capturing.
Start with small subjects when you begin your foray into wildlife photography. Practice on your pet. Let them roam naturally and see if you can capture the wild and crazy moments on film without the photograph ending up blurry. All great photographers have studied and practiced. They also use more than one shot. Making sure your camera has a quick shutter speed will help you take more than one shot as your move with the animal. When you have the subject in your site you need to follow it while focusing and then quickly snap as many pictures as you can before they move out of site. This technique is known as panning. Rather than the subject coming to you, you follow the subject.
When you have mastered your pets you can begin to explore the outdoor world of wildlife photography. Some of your subjects will be standing still and this is another practice technique. Be aware of the lighting and placement while trying not to disturb the animal. It is most easy to get a squirrel when they are intent on eating or foraging for food. If you stay silent and walk carefully you can often get pretty close.
If you are choosing a larger subject such as a deer or bear you will want to stay far enough away to get the shot, and not draw attention to yourself. Bears are dangerous creatures, but they can be photographed if you use common sense and don't tread upon their territory. Wildlife photography and thus the photographers have a code of ethics when attaining the perfect shots. You will want to follow these ethics for your safety and the animals.
Wildlife photography is a waiting game for the perfect picture to sprint across your viewfinder. It takes patience and a lot of practice, but the reward of having a family member or friend go, ' where did you get that photograph? I have got to have one,' will sweeten the deal.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
White Balance and Color Cast
Light has color.
Most people don't realize what difference light sources make in photography until they see the results--and then wonder why the picture looks absolutely nothing like what they remember pointing the camera at.
Light of various temperatures is associated with a temperature in Kelvin. For example, a candle is about 1500 K, a standard light bulb about 3400 K, and the flash on your camera about 5600 K. Light from a sunset, for example, is a rich golden yellow. Light from flourescent bulbs actually shows up as purple in some photos! If you really want your subjects to look like people and not refugees from a planet of purple-skinned strangers, you'll need to keep White Balance in mind.
White Balance is an automatic setting on most digital cameras to account for these adjustments in light sources. Cameras come with a variety of pre-programmed settings. The camera recognizes that if the setting is for flourescent bulbs, then "white" is actually going to look "purple." It will find an example in the frame that it thinks is supposed to be white, and adjust the spectrum for the picture accordingly. Then the picture will turn out with the colors that people expect to see. Unless your picture has wide areas of just one color, it's generally safe to let the camera decide the white balance automatically.
But, if your camera didn't do the white balancing job correctly, then you'll get purple-people syndrome, and you'll have to use your photo-editing program to make up for what the camera missed. Most programs have some sort of color balance control, and the majority of them work the same way the camera was supposed to. Select a point in the picture that was supposed to be white, and the computer will then adjust the entire color spectrum of the picture appropriately. Presto, no more purple people.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
Most people don't realize what difference light sources make in photography until they see the results--and then wonder why the picture looks absolutely nothing like what they remember pointing the camera at.
Light of various temperatures is associated with a temperature in Kelvin. For example, a candle is about 1500 K, a standard light bulb about 3400 K, and the flash on your camera about 5600 K. Light from a sunset, for example, is a rich golden yellow. Light from flourescent bulbs actually shows up as purple in some photos! If you really want your subjects to look like people and not refugees from a planet of purple-skinned strangers, you'll need to keep White Balance in mind.
White Balance is an automatic setting on most digital cameras to account for these adjustments in light sources. Cameras come with a variety of pre-programmed settings. The camera recognizes that if the setting is for flourescent bulbs, then "white" is actually going to look "purple." It will find an example in the frame that it thinks is supposed to be white, and adjust the spectrum for the picture accordingly. Then the picture will turn out with the colors that people expect to see. Unless your picture has wide areas of just one color, it's generally safe to let the camera decide the white balance automatically.
But, if your camera didn't do the white balancing job correctly, then you'll get purple-people syndrome, and you'll have to use your photo-editing program to make up for what the camera missed. Most programs have some sort of color balance control, and the majority of them work the same way the camera was supposed to. Select a point in the picture that was supposed to be white, and the computer will then adjust the entire color spectrum of the picture appropriately. Presto, no more purple people.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
What Do You Know About Stock Photography
Stock photography, groups of photographs that people take, grouped and licensed for selling purposes. Instead of taking new pictures every time they need pictures, many people use the stock photography method. People that work for magazines, as graphic artists, and advertising agencies sometimes use public pictures instead of hiring photographers for individual projects.
Alternate names for stock photography is picture libraries, photo archives or image banks. Typically, in order to use these pictures, although publicly available, there is a small fee or a purchasing of usage rights that comes with a fee in order to use the pictures. Sometimes a membership purchase allows you to have access to a particular group of stock photography.
Saving time and money, stock photography is a great way to enhance newsletters, blogs, advertisements, company brochures and more. It is obviously less expensive than putting a full time photographer on staff and takes less time if you need images of something specific. Many times, it is as easy as using a search engine or checking an email.
Sometimes full rights and usage is available for purchase. Other times, full rights are limited. In those cases, photographers might be requiring that they receive a certain percentage of sales and or royalties of usage. Agencies usually hold the images on files and negotiate fees. With the technology and easy access that the internet provides, negotiations are quicker and easier.
The cost of using stock photos depends on how long the pictures will be used, what location the images will be used, if the original photographer wants royalties and how many people the photo will be distributed to or seen by. Prices for stock photography can be anywhere from one dollar to two hundred dollars.
There are several different pricing arrangements. Royalty free stock photography allows the buyer to use photographs multiple times in multiple ways. When you buy royalty free pictures, there is only a one-time charge for unlimited usage. When the images you purchase have a royalty free section, the agency is able to resell the image to others. If an image is rights managed, there is a negotiated price for each time that it is used.
Sometimes a buyer of stock photography might desire to have exclusive rights to the images. In that case, no one else will be able to use the pictures once exclusive rights have been purchased. It may cost thousands of dollars to purchase exclusive rights because agencies who handle the sales have to make sure that they are making a profitable sale. If a photograph would make more money staying in circulation, they would lose out selling exclusive rights.
Stock photographers sometimes work with agencies producing images for them alone. Different subjects and categories might need multiple varieties of images. Sometimes contributors work for multiple agencies selling their photographs for a fee. They work out arrangements for royalties or they sell their shots for full rights. This has proved to be a big business for photographers around the world.
Stock photography started in the early 1920s. It especially grew as its own specialty by the 1980s. Galleries hold hundreds, thousands and even millions of pictures available for purchase. Stock houses sprung up in many different places. By 2000, online stock photography became microstock photography, which we call photo archives online. Companies like istock photo and bigstock photo offer you the opportunity to purchase so many pictures and when you use them up you can add more credits for another fee. Photos that are distributed online are typically less expensive than those that are sold hard copy.
Websites like www.shutterpoint.com and www.fotolibra.com allow stock photographers to upload and sell their images. It is a great way to market pictures and earn money with photography. You can also purchase images at those websites as well. With all the stock photography sites available, one may find pictures you never even heard of before.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
Alternate names for stock photography is picture libraries, photo archives or image banks. Typically, in order to use these pictures, although publicly available, there is a small fee or a purchasing of usage rights that comes with a fee in order to use the pictures. Sometimes a membership purchase allows you to have access to a particular group of stock photography.
Saving time and money, stock photography is a great way to enhance newsletters, blogs, advertisements, company brochures and more. It is obviously less expensive than putting a full time photographer on staff and takes less time if you need images of something specific. Many times, it is as easy as using a search engine or checking an email.
Sometimes full rights and usage is available for purchase. Other times, full rights are limited. In those cases, photographers might be requiring that they receive a certain percentage of sales and or royalties of usage. Agencies usually hold the images on files and negotiate fees. With the technology and easy access that the internet provides, negotiations are quicker and easier.
The cost of using stock photos depends on how long the pictures will be used, what location the images will be used, if the original photographer wants royalties and how many people the photo will be distributed to or seen by. Prices for stock photography can be anywhere from one dollar to two hundred dollars.
There are several different pricing arrangements. Royalty free stock photography allows the buyer to use photographs multiple times in multiple ways. When you buy royalty free pictures, there is only a one-time charge for unlimited usage. When the images you purchase have a royalty free section, the agency is able to resell the image to others. If an image is rights managed, there is a negotiated price for each time that it is used.
Sometimes a buyer of stock photography might desire to have exclusive rights to the images. In that case, no one else will be able to use the pictures once exclusive rights have been purchased. It may cost thousands of dollars to purchase exclusive rights because agencies who handle the sales have to make sure that they are making a profitable sale. If a photograph would make more money staying in circulation, they would lose out selling exclusive rights.
Stock photographers sometimes work with agencies producing images for them alone. Different subjects and categories might need multiple varieties of images. Sometimes contributors work for multiple agencies selling their photographs for a fee. They work out arrangements for royalties or they sell their shots for full rights. This has proved to be a big business for photographers around the world.
Stock photography started in the early 1920s. It especially grew as its own specialty by the 1980s. Galleries hold hundreds, thousands and even millions of pictures available for purchase. Stock houses sprung up in many different places. By 2000, online stock photography became microstock photography, which we call photo archives online. Companies like istock photo and bigstock photo offer you the opportunity to purchase so many pictures and when you use them up you can add more credits for another fee. Photos that are distributed online are typically less expensive than those that are sold hard copy.
Websites like www.shutterpoint.com and www.fotolibra.com allow stock photographers to upload and sell their images. It is a great way to market pictures and earn money with photography. You can also purchase images at those websites as well. With all the stock photography sites available, one may find pictures you never even heard of before.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
What Photo Editing Software should I use?
If you're serious about photography, and if you're looking for the best and most powerful photo editing program around, the de facto standard and market leader is Adobe Photoshop CS2.
Unfortunately, with it's steep learning curve and equally steep price tag, Photoshop is overkill for the people who just want to play with their pictures. Photoshop CS2 has every possible feature that a digital photographer could want except a low price. What other programs are available?
Adobe recognized that their flagship product was a bit much for the beginner, so they scaled it back. With a few of the more complex features removed and a price tag under $100, Photoshop Elements still packs quite a punch, and might be considered the market leader in it's own price range. It has the same basic interface as the full powered Photoshop, and most of the same functionality.
Elements' leading competition is Corel's Paint Shop Pro XI, and some reviewers prefer Corel's product to Adobe's. Paint Shop Pro, in general, is easier to learn in many areas, and is just as powerful in most of it's tools.
Both Elements and Paint Shop Pro have red eye removal features and bundled photo organizer programs, and quite literally run neck and neck in terms of features and ease of use.
Another product on the market is the Microsoft Digital Imaging Suite. With the latest version, Microsoft has added wizards to help novice users work their way through the program. While the new features are an improvement, most reviewers still don't rank this product as highly as either Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro. One feature that really stands out in Microsoft's package, though, is the slide-show program called Photo Story, which is much better than the equivalent in Elements. Photo Story is offered separately as a free download.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
Unfortunately, with it's steep learning curve and equally steep price tag, Photoshop is overkill for the people who just want to play with their pictures. Photoshop CS2 has every possible feature that a digital photographer could want except a low price. What other programs are available?
Adobe recognized that their flagship product was a bit much for the beginner, so they scaled it back. With a few of the more complex features removed and a price tag under $100, Photoshop Elements still packs quite a punch, and might be considered the market leader in it's own price range. It has the same basic interface as the full powered Photoshop, and most of the same functionality.
Elements' leading competition is Corel's Paint Shop Pro XI, and some reviewers prefer Corel's product to Adobe's. Paint Shop Pro, in general, is easier to learn in many areas, and is just as powerful in most of it's tools.
Both Elements and Paint Shop Pro have red eye removal features and bundled photo organizer programs, and quite literally run neck and neck in terms of features and ease of use.
Another product on the market is the Microsoft Digital Imaging Suite. With the latest version, Microsoft has added wizards to help novice users work their way through the program. While the new features are an improvement, most reviewers still don't rank this product as highly as either Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro. One feature that really stands out in Microsoft's package, though, is the slide-show program called Photo Story, which is much better than the equivalent in Elements. Photo Story is offered separately as a free download.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
Unsharp Mask
Yes, the name is backwards. The "Unsharp Mask" tool in Adobe Photoshop and other programs does exactly the opposite of what the name implies--it sharpens pictures. But, it does it by emulating an old photography sharpening trick. It also happens to be one of the best tools in the photo editor's drawer.
Darkroom photographers discovered a trick for making pictures appear sharper. They would start with the negative they wanted to print, and would develop a positive of the same image. When they went to print the negative, they would shine the image through both the positive and a sheet of glass. The end result would be that the image would "stand out" more.
Photoshop does almost exactly the same thing, only with pixels instead of glass. Inside the computer's memory, it produces a negative image of the one on the screen. Black dots in your picture are white in the negative. It blurs this negative, just a little bit, and then it compares the two images, pixel by pixel. In areas where there isn't a lot of difference (like sky), the unsharp mask doesn't make any changes. But, in areas where there's plenty of detail, the original is going to be very different from the blurry negative, and that's where the program goes to work. It makes slight changes to the pixels between areas of different colors, making those borders "stand out" and, in effect, making the picture look sharper.
The three controls for the Unsharp Mask program control how much of an effect it has on the picture. Amount will differ with each picture. A Radius bigger than .8 starts to affect pixels away from the actual edge, so it's a good idea to keep this number low. And you'll probably want to keep Threshold as low as possible, too, because anything over zero affects the "grain" of the image.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
Darkroom photographers discovered a trick for making pictures appear sharper. They would start with the negative they wanted to print, and would develop a positive of the same image. When they went to print the negative, they would shine the image through both the positive and a sheet of glass. The end result would be that the image would "stand out" more.
Photoshop does almost exactly the same thing, only with pixels instead of glass. Inside the computer's memory, it produces a negative image of the one on the screen. Black dots in your picture are white in the negative. It blurs this negative, just a little bit, and then it compares the two images, pixel by pixel. In areas where there isn't a lot of difference (like sky), the unsharp mask doesn't make any changes. But, in areas where there's plenty of detail, the original is going to be very different from the blurry negative, and that's where the program goes to work. It makes slight changes to the pixels between areas of different colors, making those borders "stand out" and, in effect, making the picture look sharper.
The three controls for the Unsharp Mask program control how much of an effect it has on the picture. Amount will differ with each picture. A Radius bigger than .8 starts to affect pixels away from the actual edge, so it's a good idea to keep this number low. And you'll probably want to keep Threshold as low as possible, too, because anything over zero affects the "grain" of the image.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
Understanding the Histogram
Imagine, for a moment, if we could do a statistical analysis on a digital photo.
We would want some way to count how many dots of each color there are in a given picture. And, once we had that count, we would want to chart it somehow, so we could see at a glance how those dots compare against each other. This chart could show us whether our picture was washed out or too dark before we even printed it.
This chart is called a Histogram. Many digital cameras will generate it for either the picture you've taken or the one you're about to take. And, most photo editing programs will create one, too.
When we view the historgram of a picture, we're looking at the extent of color information contained in a photo. A dark photo will have the bulk of the data on the far left side of the chart, while a "daylight" photo will be somewhere in the middle. The chart could show a single hump, or a series of spikes; it could be very tight, only a fraction of the histogram, or it could spread from edge to edge.
There's no sugh thing as a "perfect histogram" because every photo and every histogram is unique. But learning how to read the lines on a histogram can give us an insight into whether or not we have the image we want.
There's really only one sort of histogram that points out a bad picture, and that's one where the data is up against the edge. The far left edge is pure black, and the far right edge is pure white. If there's a large amount of absolute black or white in the picture, then some detail has probably been lost--because it's very rare to have pure, absolute black or white.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
We would want some way to count how many dots of each color there are in a given picture. And, once we had that count, we would want to chart it somehow, so we could see at a glance how those dots compare against each other. This chart could show us whether our picture was washed out or too dark before we even printed it.
This chart is called a Histogram. Many digital cameras will generate it for either the picture you've taken or the one you're about to take. And, most photo editing programs will create one, too.
When we view the historgram of a picture, we're looking at the extent of color information contained in a photo. A dark photo will have the bulk of the data on the far left side of the chart, while a "daylight" photo will be somewhere in the middle. The chart could show a single hump, or a series of spikes; it could be very tight, only a fraction of the histogram, or it could spread from edge to edge.
There's no sugh thing as a "perfect histogram" because every photo and every histogram is unique. But learning how to read the lines on a histogram can give us an insight into whether or not we have the image we want.
There's really only one sort of histogram that points out a bad picture, and that's one where the data is up against the edge. The far left edge is pure black, and the far right edge is pure white. If there's a large amount of absolute black or white in the picture, then some detail has probably been lost--because it's very rare to have pure, absolute black or white.
Learn How To Quickly And Easily Start Taking Awesome Photos With Your Digital Camera, Even If You Are A Complete Newbie
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