Photoshop Levels.

We all know that a properly exposed photograph will be a better looking photo. And as hard as we try, we or our meters don't always get it right. Yeah sometimes one part is perfect but another part of the photo maybe too bight or too dark. Is all lost for these photos? Maybe not, through the use of Levels, we may be able to turn that photo you were about to delete into a Jewel.

I was going to write this and send it to Smalltown in an e-mail but thought maybe more would like to see it. She was concerned about a photo that I and Lil said seemed Dark on our Monitors. So she asked how would I correct it and I showed her the photo redone as I would. She asked how I did it and that leads us here.

I think the tool I use most often in Photoshop is Levels. Levels is a finer controlled version for adjusting Contrast and Brightness. It breaks the Light Spectrum up into three bands (It actually can do even more if you break it up into each color but that is beyond the Beginner view we are taking here) It Break it up into Shadows, Midtones and Highlights. And displays them in what is called a histogram. A correctly Exposed Photo should show levels all across the band and spectrum of light without Big Plateaus or Big Peaks. (Yes there are exceptions)

I took two Photos, one close to correctly exposed and one totally and purposely too bright and over-exposed.
Let's look at the Photos and Histograms for each.

 Overexposed

The Overexposed one you can see has a very Large Plateau on the left side of the histogram or the Shadow area extending into the Midtones and a very big spike on the right in the Highlights area. This is unacceptable Exposure.

Correct Exposure

 On this one where I exposed correctly with the in camera meter you can see that the spectrum of light is for the most part all across the spectrum with a slight amount of Plateau in the right Highlight area and a spike in that area cause by the whiteness of the cup.  This is a more correct exposure but perhaps not perfect.

How to Use Levels

Now on how to use Levels to correct for an incorrectly exposed Photo. For this I will use Smalltonwn's Image from her post the other day. This is a very well composed image and uses the shadow in the image wonderfully. But in my opinion could use some Levels work to bring out all the detail this photo has to offer.

Let's look at the Original Photo and its Histogram
Original

We can see that There is a huge Plateau on the right in the Highlights area and also that there is a tall spike on the left in the Shadows area which is probably attributed to the Black of the #4 sign.

So, let's drag the slider on the right that controls the highlights and move it to the left and smooth out the highlights area of this photo. It will look like this.
Highlights adjusted

Now I would like to bring back a little more of the Contrast to this photo so I am going to drag the left slider that controls the Shadows area a little to the right and also move the middle Midtone slider till I get the look I really like. (Remember this is all up to your artistic eye and should not be based on the histogram or mathematics only)
It now will look something like this.

Shadow and Midtones Adjusted

I then hit OK and applied these adjustments in Levels to the Photograph and it resulted in a Photo and Histogram that looked more like this.

Final Adjustment applied and Histogram

This is what I, in my view, would rather see for this photo.

Now I wanted to still take this photo one step further and this step is only available to those who have a Full version of Photoshop which Smalltown does.

I next went to Image/Adjustments and Shadows and Highlights and then set the shadows to 10% and the Highlights to 20% this resulted in an image most pleasing to me although it may not to Smalltown. But at least now she has the ability to adjust this image to her liking in what ever way her artistic eye sees.

Here is the final comparison between the two images

  Before and after

Mine is on the left. In my opinion it brings out the wood grain that is in the background and also shows off the number 4 that is cast in a shadow on the background but the Black in the number still stays black. I still would have liked to get rid of a slight amount of Blowout on the right which I could have with the Dodge tool but that is for another lesson.. Is mine better than her's? Not necessarily, it is just the way I saw it and the story the Histogram had to tell.

Just a note, I did not spend a ton of time working on Smallys Photo cause that is for her to do and I wanted to spend more time writing the story, so if you think my version stinks, that's OK as long as the writing was acceptable. Hehehe

Shooting stills for product shoots or whatever can be a real pain due to light bouncing off of the item causing hot or bright spots. If the item has a high gloss finish it can drive you nuts due to blown out highlights.

Put the object you are shooting in a tent. It works wonders. No direct light = no hot spots.

The size of the tent you need depends on the size of the objects you will be shooting and how much room you have. The one I built is about 3' X 3'. Bigger than most will need but if you have the room, go for it. If you have a folding table like a card table, make it to fit on it.

You will need:

2. 10' lengths of 1/2 inch plastic pipe (sch 40) is fine
   
   
4. T fittings
   
   
4. 90º elbows
   
   
4. End caps
   
   

Glue (don't bother with the cleaner)

A white sheet or material to cover the frame

Cut 2 pieces 24" (for the legs) and 2 pieces 34 1/2" from each 10' length. You should have a 3" piece left. Cut it in half. What you are looking to end up with is this when you are done. Dry fit it before gluing and work on a flat surface. Here is a close up of one of the corners so you can see how it goes together. Note the one do not glue joint. This will let you pull the legs off so it will store flat.

This shot shows the  white paper background and floor in place. Use one long sheet and let it curve at the bend to give you a seamless look. Don't fold it. Now get your material and make your tent. I ended up a bit short on the sides. You really want it all the way to the bottom, across the top and down the back leaving the front only open. Place your lights to  the side or from the top depending on how you want the shadows to fall. You do NOT want them shining in from the front. Remember.... we don't want direct light on the subject. You don't have to use strobe. Good old Home depot type shop lights will work fine but remember.. not too close. You don't want to burn down the house.

If you saw the violin post I made you saw what can be done in the tent. Here are a few more I took using it. Put a sheet of clear plexi glass in the bottom and play with reflections. Leave the plexi out for a more "normal" look. I ever mention that I like hats?

That should keep you playing and in where it's warm for a while. Feel free to ask questions.

Dirk and I have been posting images with a look of being framed and matted. Some like them and some don't. That's up to you but if you do like them and have a full version of Photoshop here is how it's done. This will not work in Photoshop Elements. I will touch on that later.

I found the action for doing this on a site that I have no frigging idea how to get back to. It was written by Steve Randle and is free. I do have a copy of it on my site so you can get it there.

Here we go... go to http://www.classyshots.com/downloads/ in your browser. You will see a file called Steve Randles's frames.atn. Right click on it and select "save file as" or "save target as" depending on your browser. Save the file to your desktop. Now open Photoshop and make sure your Actions Palette is open. If you don't see it, on the top menu bar click on Window then on Actions to open it. Now drag the downloaded action off your desktop and drop it on your Actions Palette. When done it will be added to the bottom of your action list like  this.

Now you need to turn the action on and open it up. Check the box for it and click the down arrow like this.

This action is set up to resize the image to 540 wide or 540 tall the way it is configured. ALWAYS work with a copy of your image and not your original!! Open the image you want to work with, tell the action what you want to do and play it. This is the next step. Click on Dble Matte Frame and click the play button. You will get popups and windows telling you want is going on. You can set the amount of sharpening and then select the colors you want for the matts and frame. If you don't want white you can use your eyedropper tool to select colors from your image or just select a color as your foreground color. Click the play button again to start the action playing where it left off.

If you want to get brave and start messing with the size you can double click on this part of the action to change it. I'm not going to go into detail here on changes and mods to the action as I'm sure not an expert on it. Play and learn and have fun.

For those of you using Photoshop Elements take a look in your special effects and filters. There are some frame and matte options in there that may work for you.

Because I'm cheap...and don't have the money, anyway...I decided to try my hand at creating my own backdrops.

I bought a full size tan sheet (poly/cotton blend) and a large bottle of dark brown Rit dye.  

I folded my sheet in half and half again.

I held the sheet by the corner (so the sheet looked like a ghost).  

I then tied off every 4 inches with a shoe string (I opted not to use rubberbands, because I didn't want too much distinction between the two colors).

I filled a small cooler 3/4 full of cold water and 1 cup of sal, then added the dye.  I put in the sheet and soaked for 20-30 minutes.

I dumped the water (in the yard!) and rinsed the sheet with a water hose for about 10 minutes.  

Without untie-ing the sheet, I left it to dry outside for about an hour.  

I then wrapped the sheet in an old towel and dried in the dryer for two cycles.

Here are the results:
Brown Backdrop

Moose asked me to do a "tutorial" on how I did the IR pic yesterday; I'll try, and just pray y'all can understand it.  I apologize in advance for the quality of the pics that will be in this story.  I never realized how hard it is to take close shots of a computer screen until I tried it today.   The program I used is Adobe Photoshop CS2.

First, open the image you want to work with.  Keep in mind, when converting a color image to IR, you get better results if you use an image that has lots of greenery in it.  Once you get the image open, click on the image icon at the top of the page and duplicate the image.  Close the original, and just work with the duplicate.  Once you do this, click on the layer icon and, in the drop down, go to New Adjustment Layer then over to channel mixer.  Once you click here, another box will pop up; click  ok here.  Next, the channel mixer box will pop up.  Be sure to check the Monochrome box in the lower left hand corner; when you do this, the image turns grayscale.  You use the adjustments under red, green and blue to make the image b/w.  If you're doing a landscape, the green needs to be maxed out at 200; for portraits, the red needs to be at 200.  Play with the red and blue (or green and blue) until you have the effect you want.  The constant slider near the bottom of the box changes brightness.

Once this is done, click on the layer icon again, and in the drop down, click on flatten image. From here, click on the filter icon, go down to blur and click on gaussian blur.  Blur the image using the  radius slider; you can watch the change as you do the adjusting.  For images that are 25MB, the slider should be between 5-20 pixels.  For a 5MB image, it should be between 2-10 pixels.

Next, click on the edit icon and in the drop down, go to fade gaussian blur.  Once the box opens up, change the mode to overlay or screen.  Just play with different modes to get the effect you want.  Drag the opacity slider to the left to reduce the effect of the blur.  Where it should be set varies with each image.  

You are done, and ready to save your new image to wherever you choose to save it.  

This is the Final Section on JPEG's TIff and How to Resize and Save for the Web.

In this section, I will give some recipes for resizing and saving for a couple different skill levels and also a Short Lesson on Print Sizing

[Part 2] [Part 1]

Preserving your image quality from Camera to its final use, whether it is printing or Web use such as Here on Photographica or E-mail is very important.

This article, in three parts, will discuss the most popular File Formats and how best to use and save files using each format. And then finally, how to Resize and Save your Photo Files for the best possible use, here on Photographica and elsewhere on the web.

[Part 3] [Part 2]

TMI = Too much information. OK, I don't want anybody complaining if you think this is.

Everyone it seems has been focusing (Hehehe) on Depth of Field when it is desirable to have a narrow or short Depth of Field. Portraits, Macros, Objects etc. but what happens if you desire the Opposite. A very Wide or Maximum Depth of Field. Such as in a Broad and Spectacular Landscape where you want everything in view to have the maximum Sharpness.

This is where another Part of DOF comes in: HyperFocal Distance... Ewwww Scary. OK Most of you will never use this but I will explain it anyway. When you take a shot, 1/3 of your DOF is in front of the point of Focus and 2/3 of it is behind your point of focus. When you take a Big Wide Landscape your camera normally will focus at infinity and with that you will loose 2/3rds of your Sharpness (Theoretically) so for every focal length and aperture and even Camera Type there is a Point closer to the camera that you can focus on that will give you the Maximum amount of Sharpness. This is your HyperFocus Distance. So how do I find the HyperFocal Distance oh Moosey one? Well it's a calculation but luckily if you really care you can get a chart or Buy a Tool or you can do as I did find a Calculator on the web and here is one:  http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html  

Yes it is a Depth of Field Calculator which is also very helpful but it also can be used to calculate HyperFocal Distance. What you need to know is: What your actual Focal length is for your lens. For 35 MM this is easy but if you have a Canon Digital Rebel or 20d you need to multiply your Focal Length by a Factor of 1.6 and For Nikon D50, 70, 100 you need to multiply by 1.5. For other Digital Cameras there is a Conversion calculator on this site also.

So, for my Example with My Canon 20d. I am shooting at 17mm which with the factor becomes a 27mm actual Focal length. I am shooting at an Aperture of f10. In the Calculator it told me that my HyperFocal Distance was 12.6 Ft. So I Set my Camera for Manual Focus and set it at 12.6 feet. I took this shot. Hyper 12 Feet Then I set the focus for Infinity and took this shot. Hyper Infinity Looking at the two you probably don't see any difference. But when I zoom in for a 100% Crop of an area you can see clearly that the HyperFocal Distance Focus shot is clearly sharper. Crop 12 Feet focus Crop Infinity Focus  

So you say, yeah but you can't see that on the full shot you've show here. Correct on an 800 X 600 Image on screen, the difference is negligible. But when you blow up to say 13 X 19 Print the difference is clear or should I say a Clearer Picture resulting in Near Large Format quality for Landscape Prints.

OK, everybody Wake UPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!
P.S. when you get a chance play with different combinations of lenses and aperture in the DOF Calculator so you can see how DOF can go from as Little as an Inch to Many Feet depending on your Focal Length and Aperture. Yeah, I know... Boring 
 

Lots of folks seem to be having trouble with the Gallery feature, so as I service to all, I thought I'd create this brief tutorial.  I hope it helps.

Creating a Gallery is very easy, and incorporating a Gallery into a Story is no more difficult than adding photos... except that you have to manually type the code.

Here are the steps.

1. Upload photos as you would for any other purpose.

2. Click "Create New Gallery", and you'll be transported to a screen that looks LIKE THIS

3. Give your Gallery a Title and a Keyword
   REMEMBER THIS KEYWORD... IT WILL NOT SHOW ANYWHERE LATER

4. Change the colors of the background and text in the boxes shown
   (default is white text on black background)

5. In the left column, select the keyword of each photo you want to include in the Gallery.

   NOTE:  Photos can be no more than 750px wide, or 560 high, or they won't show up in the pulldown  
   (This is about as large as you'd want to go for most images on this site anyway)

   note that the keyword pulldown may appear "lower" on the screen than the corresponding number and description fields..  don't worry about this.

6. In the right-hand column, enter a brief description, which will appear below the photo.

7. Continue as above to add up to 20 photos to the gallery

8. <Click "Submit">, and you've created the gallery.
   

Of course until you plug your gallery into a story, it won't be visible anywhere.  

--------------------------------------

Now, create a new story:

1. Click "Post New Story"

2. write your story text

3. Insert your gallery as you would for a popup, but change the tag "[popup] to [Gallery], and using the Gallery's keyword you memorized in step 3 above.

   So,  for example, this demo gallery uses the syntax:
   
   [gallery keyword="GalleryDemo"] demo gallery [/gallery]
   
   (where brackets [  and ] are really < and > symbols, respectively)

4. preview your story by clicking "preview", and when ready,

5. click "Submit"... and your story is posted to the site.
   

I hope this helps.... let's see some amazing galleries.