Archives for Photo Techniques category
The term bokeh refers to blur in an image. But more specifically, it refers to blur used for aesthetic or artistic purposes not just “oops I did not focus properly blur.” Good bokeh is generally used for parts of the image that are outside of the depth of field to render them blurred and distinguish them from the main focus of the photograph. However, as with all of the rules of photography, sometimes you need to reinterpret them or outright break them. If it makes sense to you to blur the entire image then go for it. Since bokeh is an artistic effect it is open to the interpretation of the photographer and should be used to create an more beautiful image.
You can achieve a bokeh effect in your photographs using the same principles you do to accomplish a shallow depth of field. To manipulate the depth of field you can adjust several factors such as lens focal length, aperture, and shooting distance. Using a large aperture (smaller f number) will give you a shallow depth of field in your images thereby blurring out the background of the scene. You can also accomplish a full image bokeh effect by setting your camera to manual focus and intentionally not bringing your subject into clear focus. Generally an over blurred image is considered a mistake and not bokeh. But if you can pull it off and it works with the image you are presenting there is no reason not to experiment and see what you can come up with .
I have done a few posts on the rules of photography such as how various composition methods from leading lines to framing an image are designed to make a more visually pleasing image. One key point I believe is important with all the rules of photography is that you have to know how and when to break them.
I am participating in a 365 Photo Project hosted by Faded and Blurred. One of my recent images was taken under tungsten lighting and I did not adjust the white balance settings in the camera to compensate for the yellowish/orange glow that is omitted by normal household bulbs. Nor did I do any post processing work to make it “right.” This elicited some comments that the white balance was “not right.” From a purely technical standpoint I totally agree with the commenter. This image is not “correct” according to the rules of white balance. However, as photographers, amateur or professional, we have the benefit of “artistic license.”
Artistic License – the freedom to create an artwork, musical work, or piece of writing based on the artist’s interpretation and mainly for effect.
I intentionally left the orange glow given off by the tungsten lighting of the room because I felt it resulted in the image that I was looking to create. It sets a mood and more accurately reflects the true setting of the scene.
The constructive criticism that you get from fellow photographers when sharing your photographs on sites such as Flickr is a huge benefit. So I do not object to one of my images being interpreted as being “not right.” But I stand behind my belief that as long as I know and can follow the rules of photography I am free to break those rules to interpret a scene or subject and create an image with my creativity added. But you do have to have a base understanding of what you are doing before you are free to deviate.
The composition rules in photography all serve the general purpose of engaging the image’s viewer with the image. That may be through getting an image that follows certain standards of beauty or enticing some sort of interaction from the viewer. The purpose of leading lines in a photograph is to lead the viewer’s eye through (and occasionally right out of) the photograph so that they view the image as the photographer wants them to see it, starting at point A and following a specific path to see the image as the photographer saw the scene. Leading lines are also used to bring the viewer’s attention to one particular point in the image, generally the main subject.
How the leading line is achieved and what is used to construct it is completely up to your imagination. Railroad tracks are probably the most common example of a leading line. But fences, roads, the edge of a building, or a row of similar objects can all make a leading line. As mentioned in the Framing the Subject post the “rules” o f composition are not absolute so much as they are guidelines to use and expand upon to produce images that are appealing. As photographers we have to interpret and often break or reconstruct these rules to get the images we are after.
The image in the upper right is using the yellow lines of the road as the leading line to start the viewer in the lower left corner of the photograph and leading them to the center and the sunset.
The photograph of the tunnel above is simply directing the viewer’s eye to a termination point of the light at the end of the tunnel.
Finally, the image of the path on the right takes the photograph viewer from the shade to the light and finally the museum building at the end of the path. In this photo one could argue that the path, or the leading line, itself is the subject rather than termination point of the museum.
In photography, composition refers to how the elements in the frame are constructed and arranged to result in the desired final image. There are many “rules” of composition in photography that are designed to produce an image that is appealing to the human eye. Of course there is no one thing that is universally beautiful. So these rules are not absolute so much as they are guidelines to use and expand upon to produce images that are appealing. As a photographer you have to interpret and often break these rules to get the images you are after. They do not have to be, nor are they meant to be, set in stone and followed blindly.
A good (and relatively easy) rule of photography composition to start with is framing the subject. Simply put, framing a subject in an image is a photographic technique similar to physically framing your image in a picture frame. Only in the case of photography you are using elements in the image to frame the part of the image that you want to draw the viewers attention to.
When you are composing your shot look for natural elements in the scene that could act as a frame for the main subject you want to draw the viewer to. It does not need to be a solid, four-sided physical frame however. It can be an implied frame, a hint of a frame on only 2 or 3 sides or anything you feel is appropriate for the image you want to make. Remember the rules are made to be broken.
Railroad Bridge in Sepia
f/5.6 – 1/500 sec – ISO 100 – Focal Length 50 mm
Photoshop CS4 is an amazing tool for photographers. It offers some very complex and powerful tools for fixing, improving and artistically altering your images. But it also offers some very basic tools that do not require too much advanced knowledge of Photoshop and most anyone can quickly learn to use. One of those is adding a sepia tone to an image. Sepia simply means a brown color tone with a hint of red.
Most actions in CS4 have more than one way to be accomplished. But one of the easiest ways to get this effect is to use the adjustments tool. Here are the 3 easy steps to take a color image like the one on the right and give it a sepia tone like the one above.
- From the menu bar at the top go to image>adjustments then select black & white.
- Your image has now turned black & white and the Black and white dialogue box has opened. In this box, just below the color sliders is a check box next to the word tint. Check this box.
- The default should be a sepia tone. So you can stop here if you like the coloring. But if it defaults to another tone or you want to further adjust the sepia color click in the square of color to the right of the word tint and change your color to anything you like.
The fundamentals such as proper exposure and composition are a critical part of photography. By understanding these photography fundamentals you can improve your images immensely. But there are also some very basic things you can do without much studying or mastering new concepts.
1) Know your camera, really know it! – Whether you have a point and shoot or an advanced DSLR your camera is a sometimes complex machine full of features, buttons and dials. The best thing you can do to really know your camera is to read the manual from cover-to-cover. The manual will give you all the basic information you need so that you can become familiar with all those functions and dials and buttons.
If you don’t have a manual for your camera you are not out of luck. There are a couple of options for missing camera manuals.
- Most camera manufactures have online versions of their manuals available for download. Here are some of the more common ones:
- For an even more comprehensive “manual” than the one that came with your camera try the Magic Lantern series of books
. These are well written and detailed guides to your camera that guide you to everything you need to know about your camera.
2) Take your time – Rushing through a photo shoot is going to result in images that look like you rushed. Take the time to explore your subject; to shoot from different angles; to really think about what you are shooting and the end image you would like to capture.
3) Pay attention – Pay attention to your surroundings and those of your subject. Yes, the subject itself is important, but so is everything around it. A distraction in the background can ruin the perfect shot. If you have ever seen a tree growing out of the top of someone’s head in an image you know what I mean about the background. But it is not just the background that is important. All the elements of the setting can influence the final image. Here are just a few things to be on the look out for:
- Shadows – yours, your subjects and any others that might be creeping into your image
- Distractions – in the background or in the foreground – anything that takes the focus off your main subject
- Lighting – Glare, bright spots, dark spots, uneven lighting
4) See what everyone else is doing – One of the best ways to improve what you are doing with your photography is to see what your fellow amateur photographers are doing. The Internet is full of resources for this. Look, ask questions, make comments, post your own photos, ask for feedback. Participate in the online photography community. Here are a few places to start you off:
5) Shoot, shoot and shoot again – Cliche as it is, practice makes perfect. Even if you don’t know the difference between shutter speed and aperture you can improve the images you capture by shooting and shooting often. But don’t just shoot. Take a critical look at your images and note what you like and what you would like to improve on next time.
Black and white images can be very dramatic and in some instances can actually reveal a lot more about a subject than a color image can. With film photography you generally had to make a decision between black and white or color when loading your film. Yet another advantage of digital photography comes from not being bound to one or the other.
I rarely ever switch the settings on my DSLR to shoot images in black and white. That is not because I do not like black and white photography. Rather, the process to convert an image into black and white (or grayscale) in photo editing software such as Photoshop is so simple that I leave the camera alone and only convert those that I want in post processing.
Here are the simple steps for one method of converting a color image to black and white using Adobe Photoshop. Note that I said “one method.” That is because there are multiple ways to accomplish this. I feel this is the simplest and most basic method, but you can do multiple other things such as channel mixing and color desaturation as well. Also you are not stuck if you do not have Photoshop. There are plenty of other photo editing software programs that allow you to do something similar. My post from a while back on 5 free online photo editors is a good reference if you don’t have Photoshop.
Don’t blink, this is pretty quick:
Step 1: Open your color image in Photoshop
Step 2: From the Image>Mode menu select “Grayscale.”
And there you have it, two simple steps.
If you want to do a little more adjusting there are a lot of options for tweaking your new black and white image. Here are a couple you can play with after you have completed the two step process above.
1) Shadow/Highlight – from the Image menu select Adjustments>Shadow/Highlight. This feature gives you several options for adjusting your black and white image to get the effect you are going after. Experiment with different levels to get the shadows and highlights just right for your image.
2) Gradient Map – Again from the Image menu select Adjustments>Gradient Map. Select a black and white gradient and using the sliders you can adjust your black and white values. Make it a little more black or a little more white or varying gradients in between.
With digital photography you don’t have to shoot the images in black and white necessarily. The post processing options available allow for a wide range of creativity with your images.
So what exactly is RAW? Contrary to popular belief it is not a file format like JPEG or TIFF. The term RAW simply refers to a file that has had minimal or no in camera processing performed on it. When shooting under the standard or jpeg setting in your digital camera the processor takes steps to manipulate the white balance, contrast, sharpness, and color saturation based on the setting you have on the camera or automatically based on how the camera is programed. After doing so the files are compressed to some extent. RAW file formats vary from one camera manufacturer to another. My Sony Alpha for example uses ARW.
Here are a few pros and cons (as I see them) to help you determine if shooting in RAW is right for you.
PROS of Shooting in RAW
1) More control in post-production
When you shoot in RAW the camera leaves it to you to do the processing of the image. This means you have total control over the image in the post production process (think PhotoShop). All the adjustments you may want to make such as white balance, saturation, levels, contrast, curves, image size, etc. are available to do on the original unprocessed image. If you have some skills with a program such as PhotoShop this kind of control can be invaluable and leaves the creative power up to you, not the camera.
2) No loss of image data from the JPEG conversion process
When the camera processes the image into a JPEG file format part of that processing involves some compression and therefore loss of original image data. A JPEG is a lossy file type meaning some data is “thrown away” each time the file is saved to the JPEG format. You will lose color saturation, color range and sharpness. This is not the case with RAW since there is no in camera processing.
3) You will always have your “negative” to go back to.
Unless you delete it or save the original as another format your RAW file will always remain as the untouched/unprocessed original “negative” of your image. This allows you to go back to it again and again and make changes. You can try different techniques and adjustments to get the final image you want without ever losing that original RAW file data.
CONS of Shooting in RAW
1) Larger file sizes decrease the number of images you can fit on your memory card
Since a RAW file is not compressed like a JPEG it stand to reason that it will take up more space on your memory card. For example I use a 4 GB memory card. When I set the image format to a standard JPEG I can get 1512 images on the card, a heck of a lot. When I change the format to RAW, I can get 266 images on that same 4 GB card. That is still a lot, but it is 1246 less than when shooting in JPEG alone.
2) You have to have the appropriate software to open the file
Unlike a JPEG, which can be read and edited (to some extent) with the standard photo software included with most PC and Mac operating systems, RAW files require more advanced software to be read and edited. If you are already using PhotoShop that should not be a problem, but it something to keep in mind. You do not want to shoot for a day only to find out you can’t open the image files.
3) You need more room to store the photos
Based on #1 the larger file size of RAW images is going to require more storage space. Just as your memory card can fill up quickly so can your hard drive space if you shoot often. The space needed can add up even quicker if you are editing your images and saving the edited copies as well as the original RAW file (which you should). A 1.5 TB (that is terabyte) drive for under $200 can easily resolve that issue, but the more you shoot the more space you will need.
White balance has to do with color temperature. If you have ever shot photographs using film indoors you are probably familiar with the yellow/orange or bluish cast that often washes over the scene. The reason for those casts of color is that all light has a temperature associated with it. The temperature of the light you are shooting in impacts the image by pushing the overall color towards red or blue. The lower the temperature, such as tungsten or standard household lighting, the more the color shifts towards red. The higher the temperature, such as fluorescent lights, the more the color shifts towards blue. In film photography you either deal with the color cast in your images or use filters on the lens to balance the color out.
In digital camera, particularly DSLRs, the camera generally has a white balance setting. You can select auto white balance or select from a number of pre-set options such as daylight, shade, cloudy, tungsten, etc. The camera will then compensate for the lighting conditions and color temperature so that the overall color hue of the image is accurate.
You can leave the white balance set to automatic, but as will all of the settings on your digital camera taking them off automatic opens up the possibilities for more creativity with your photography. Experiment with the different white balance settings and note how they each impact your subject.
These images were all taken of the same subject in direct sunlight. I adjusted the white balance setting on the camera itself to show the effect of each on the image. There is no Photoshop work on these images other than to re-size them and combine them into the one collage. The camera did all the white balance adjusting.
Top Row L – R : Auto White Balance Setting, Daylight, Cloudy
Bottom Row L – R: Tungsten, Fluorescent, Flash (the setting, no flash used)
Notice in the tungsten photograph (bottom left) the blue cast. Since tungsten light has a lower temperature it shifts towards red. The tungsten white balance setting on the DSLR attempts to compensate for this by adding blue. But in a setting such as mine, where I am using the tungsten setting without any actual tungsten lights, the blue tone takes over the photograph.
For this post, when I talk about color in photography I am not talking about using color film vs black and white film (or changing a digital setting to black and white). Although the choice between shooting in color or black and white can be a critical one, this post is about using color to enhance your composition and even as the subject of your photograph. For many amateur photographers we don’t often think about the mechanics of color when shooting, but all those technical details can really help make or break an image.
First things first, you probably remember the color wheel from your art classes in elementary school. The color wheel is the basis of how colors relate to one another. The official definition (via Wikipedia) is:
An abstract illustrative organization of color hues around a circle, showing relationships between colors considered to be primary colors,secondary colors, complementary colors, etc.
Keeping the color wheel in mind there is a lot you can do with the composition and subject of your photographs. Here are 5 ways to experiment with color next time you are shooting.
1. Monochromatic
In a monochromatic image one color is used in varying degrees of saturation (the intensity of a color) and lightness, or shade. This results in several contrasting shades of the same color in your photograph. Look for a scene with one central color, blue for example. Factors such as the lighting can influence the shade of that color and make for a more interesting image. Avoid the obvious such as a photograph of the sidewalk. Yes, that will result in a monochromatic photo, but the excessive lack of contrast can make for a boring photograph. Using some creativity and your photographer’s eye you are sure to find a subject with varying shades of one color that make the photo both monochromatic and interesting.
2. Analogous
Analogous refers to two or more colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. Yellow and yellow-green for example. One color tends to be the dominant color in the image while the other(s) are used to enrich the overall image. An analogous photograph is similar to the monochromatic one, but offers more variation in color and tone. If you take your time you can find analogous subjects to photograph in both nature or the man-made environment. You could also set up your own scene and experiment with different analogous color schemes.
3. Complimentary
Colors that compliment each other are opposite each other on the color wheel. Red and green or violet and yellow for example. When colors are opposite each other they are thought to be in balance when they appear together. The intensity of each color is also increased when complimentary colors appear next to each other. This is referred to as simultaneous contrast. You can easily set up a scene to capture complimentary colors by gathering some objects and arranging them together for your photograph. Or challenge yourself and head out to find complimentary colors in your everyday environment.
4. Color and Light
The source of the light you are shooting in can have a dramatic impact on how color is perceived. The intensity of sunlight, for example, differs by hour of the day and time of year. Early morning and late afternoon light is much warmer (red) than midday light which is cooler (blue). Shooting the same subject in varying natural light will impact the colors of that subject. Other lighting sources, such as shade, florescent and tungsten bulbs and even flash can all result in the same color appearing very different in your photograph.
A great way to get a feel for the impact different light sources can have on your subject is take one (portable) solid colored subject and photograph it in varying light sources. Shoot it in the morning and again at midday and at sunset. Then move it indoors and shoot under regular household light (usually tungsten). The tone and intensity of the color will vary, sometimes greatly, depending on your light source.
Top – Tungsten Light Source Bottom - Sunlight at Mid-Afternoon Light Source
5. Color as the Subject
Once you have an understanding of the color wheel and the various ways in which colors relate to each other you can step your photography up a notch and try getting artsy. One possibility is to use color itself as the subject of your photograph. Although there can still be a physical object in the photograph,work with the color itself making it the primary focus of the photograph. Use different tones, light intensities and complimentary, monochrome and analogous colors to create the image and see what you come up with.
