I Got In!

I recently posted a link to a call for entries for anyone interested in entering a photography exhibit juried by Christopher James. I decided to enter the show not really knowing what to expect. I have had Christopher James’ book on Alternative Processes for some time now, so I thought if anything it would be a great opportunity to get him to look at my work. I am happy to report that I got in! The show will be on display in May at the Smithtown Township Arts Council in St. James, New York. This is the piece I got in: 

Bree Time!

Well I am on Spring Break this week, so I was able to spend some time with my niece Bree. Obviously by all the pictures on my blog and website I have fun taking pictures of her. I just can’t imagine how many pictures I will take when I have kids. Bree is 2 1/2 now and I am amazed at how many new things she has learned each time I visit. I had so many pictures I couldn’t decide what to post….so here are a few…I actually got in one!

 

The Hondros Family

I met up with the Hondros Family at Greenfield Park in Wilmington on Tuesday. The park is full of old trees and ducks and the azaleas are now in bloom which made it even more beautiful. I did see a snake while I was there, which did not give me the warm fuzzies. Little Luke who is 2, however, did give me the warm fuzzies. What a cutie!! They are expecting a little girl in June, so Luke will be a big brother!
 

Tuesday Tip: Creating a Vignette

Welcome to another Tuesday tip. Today we are vignetting. As I said in an earlier post, I really love the techniques in Photoshop that mimic processes done the darkroom. Vignetting is a technique in which the edges of the image seem to fade away. There are variations of vignetting from dark edges, light edges, blurry edges and fading edges…all used to draw the viewer’s eye to a certain area/subject matter in the image. Today, we are going to make a dark vignette. I feel like I am always telling my students to darken the edges of their print. Again, there are many ways to do one thing in Photoshop, so today we will just explore one way to vignette.

Step 1: So, we will begin by opening an image in Photoshop to which we wish to add a vignette.

Step 2: The easy way to add a vignette is to go to the menu and choose Filter>Distort>Lens Correction and drag the vignette slider to the left. However, you don’t have a whole lot of control that way…I like to make a separate layer just for my vignette. Choose the Rectangular or Elliptical Marquee tool from the tool bar (top left). Click and drag a selection around the image that leaves a border around the edge of the image. (I really am going to start doing screen shots to make this easier!!)

Step 3: Go to Select>Feather and enter an amount of 100. The amount will vary based on the size of your image. If you have a very small image you may only need around 50, if you have a very large image like I often have your amount will be larger like 200. Feathering makes the selection disperse across the image rather than having an abrupt edge.

Step4: Go to Select>Inverse. Now the area around the edge is selected rather than what is in the middle.

Step 5: Click on the adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette (looks like a half-white, half-black circle) and choose Brightness/Contrast. This will open up the Brightness/Contrast dialogue box. Drag the Brightness slider to the left. You will notice only the are within the selection will get darker. Click OK when you are satisfied.

Step 6: Now you will have a separate Brightness/Contrast layer just for your vignette. From here you can make adjustments such as lowering to opacity, or changing the blend mode (near top left of layers palette) or even working on the layer mask. I often change the blend mode to multiply. To adjust the vignette in terms of size or how it fades click on the Brightness/Contrast layer mask (white box in Brightness/Contrast Layer). With black as your foreground color choose the paint brush tool and choose a soft edge brush. Now paint on the image to mask out part of the vignette. You can adjust it in varying degrees by changing the opacity of the brush. If you take a little too much out just set white as your foreground and begin painting on your image to reveal more of the vignette. As usual, here is a before and after. And yes, this is my ever-cute niece Bree. I had some Bree time this week…so stay tuned for new Bree pics.

Tuesday Tip Time: Give it a Boost

Today’s tip is on giving your image a bit of a boost in contrast and saturation. There are a million ways to give your image more contrast and saturation, but today we are just going to explore one. We are going to be adding a bit of contrast to each the Red, Green, and Blue Channels that make up your image. So, here we go:
Step 1: Open an image you wish to enhance the contrast and saturation.
Step 2: Duplicate the background layer (it’s good to work on a duplicate layer so you can keep the integrity of your background layer).
Step 3: Click on your channels palette to make it active (if you don’t see it in the palettes that are open, go to Menu>Window>Channels).
Step 4: Click on the Red Channel to select it.
Step 5: Choose Menu>Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast. Enter a value of 20 for the contrast. Click OK.
Step 6: Click on the Green Channel and choose Menu>Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast. Enter a value of 20 for the contrast. Click OK. 
Step 7: Repeat step 6 for the Blue Channel. Click on the RGB composite channel to activate all three channels. You should now see a big difference in your image. To see the difference go back to the layers palette, and click on and off of the visibility of the layer (click on the eye icon of the layer). Just remember not every image is the same so you may have to vary your adjustments for each image. Alternate Steps: For more contrast, change the blend mode of your duplicate layer to soft light. To add a simple and subtle vignette go to menu>filter>distort>lens correction and drop the vignette slider down (to the left) to -25 or whatever suits your image. This technique may also be used to create the “lomo” effect. To get the “lomo” effect simply do not add any contrast to the blue channel and bump up the contrast values that you add to your red and green channels. As always, here is a before and after of this technique followed by one with the “lomo” effect: 
 

40 Things I Have Learned About Photography

Only 40? Well, there are lots more…but I’m trying to keep it short. Besides 40 is a good number. So, I started giving my Photo I class an assignment last semester in which I asked them to make a list of 25 things they have learned about photography…and I thought it was fun. So, it’s that time of the semester again so I thought I would share my list with you all, so here we go:

1. Great photographers have VISION.

2. Find/Have a source of inspiration

3. Always have a backup for everything (cameras, flashes, batteries, files, etc).

4. Make twice as many images as you think you need.

5. Check your focus, then re-check it again

6. Be 100% sure your film is advancing before completing the whole roll

7. Carry lens and camera cleaning supplies

8. Make images at the same place at multiple times of the day

9. Be patient

10. Bracket the really important shots

11. Find the slowest shutter speed that YOU can successfully handhold the camera without getting camera shake and remember it can differ from camera to camera depending on the weight of the camera (and how much coffee you have had that day)

12. If you are photographing anything moving at all, make sure you have a fast enough shutter speed to capture the motion

13. Look at the corners of your composition

14. Acknowledge what your main subject is

15. When you have acknowledged what your main subject is, do a 360 around it to find the best possible viewpoint

16. Acknowledge why you make images

17. Learn by experience and learn from the experienced

18. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes as long as you are willing to learn from them

19. Find a photography friend

20. Read/learn something new about photography everyday, even if it is just a sentence.

21. When contemplating the scene, divide your image into layers or planes and compose those layers/planes to work together

22. Pre-visualize the scene before you press the shutter button – in terms of your choice of aperture, shutter, composition and print quality.

23. Don’t just think about how you will react to your images, think about how a wide variety of people will react to your images.

24. Take a step in each direction, N,S,E,W, and up and down, before pressing the shutter button

25. Find somebody who knows more than you do about photography and befriend them.

26. Find somebody who know LESS than you do about photography and befriend them – you learn a lot about what you know when you have to educate someone else.

27. Always work on a duplicate layer (in Photoshop)

28. Don’t forget to save periodically (for digital) and always back up your work!!

29. The more pictures you make in various places and situations the more improvement you will see

30. Consider the end result, not just in the end, but the beginning.

31. Shoot in RAW! (for digital) and if you shoot in JPEG then be sure to turn the camera’s default sharpening off!

32. Read your camera’s owner’s manual – you will be amazed at what jewels you will find

33. Expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights.

34. Experiment

35. When you don’t know what to do, do something anyway

36. Double check your ISO, then check it again.

37. Get feedback and consider the feedback when making new images

38. When you’re feeling down about your work, take a look at the first few photographs you ever made

39. Always look at the light falling on the subject

40. Find a way to give back

 

Tuesday Tip Time: Split-Toning in the Digital Darkroom

Many of the techniques I enjoy in Photoshop are inspired by traditional processes that were developed way before the digital medium was ever explored. It is interesting to note that so many processes in Photoshop that we all love and enjoy doing come from a desire to replicate processes done with film and in the traditional wet darkroom. On a side note, this is why I believe the traditional concepts learned with good old film and in the wet darkroom serve as a wonderful learning foundation. So, that’s what we are up to today – the split toning process done in the digital darkroom. We can call it a tradigital technique. Just to give a bit of learning foundation, the traditional split-toning process involves toning a print is such a way where both warm and cool tones are present. Toning itself is a process in which the silver in the silver salts of the paper are replaced with another metal. With split toning a toner is used that works on the middle and low values and a separate toner is used for the highlights – or it the highlights are left untoned. You can apply this digitally using several methods in Photoshop. The one we will use today is with the color balance adjustment tool because you can adjust the highlights, midtones, and shadows separately. 
Step 1: Begin by opening an image in Photoshop you wish to split tone.
Step 2: Use a method to convert to black and white (gradient map, channel mixer, etc). For this one, I am going to use the channel mixer. Choose the channel mixer adjustment layer from the layers adjustment menu (at the bottom of the layers palette – half white half black circle). This will open up the channel mixer dialog box.
Step 3: Click on Monochrome in the bottom left of the dialog box. In general, when using the channel mixer to convert to bw you want the R,G,B values to add up to 100. The values will be different for each image because each image has differing amounts of Red, Green, and Blue. For my image I chose 60 for Red, 40 for Green, and 0 for Blue. Click Okay when you have found the desired results.
Step 4: Now choose Color Balance from the adjustment layer menu. For this image we are going to make the highlights warm while giving the midtones and shadows a cooler tone. Click on the Highlight button, then drag the bottom slider to the left to add yellow…maybe to around a value of -20. Now click on the midtone button and drag the bottom slider to the right to add a bit of blue to a value around +5. Now click on the shadow button and drag the top slider to the left to around -5 to add a bit of cyan, then drag the bottom slider to the right to add blue to the shadows…maybe to a value of +15. Again every image is different, so you many need to adjust these numbers to get the desired results for your image. Click the okay button when you are satisfied. (For added warmth try adding a warm photo filter adjustment layer on top of the color balance adjustment layer.) Thanks again to Mrs. Jane at LCC for the daffodil. Here are my results from color to bw to toned image:
 

Mr. Walston’s Store, Part 3

I have been continuing to work on the negatives I exposed of Mr. Walston’s old store in Wilson, NC. This image originated as a black and white negative which I scanned in and then  layered with texture and color. The first image I worked on in this series was accepted into an art exhibit at the Community Council for the Arts in Kinston. Here is image #3 from the Wilson Store series: 

Post for Polaroid!

Hello All! In an earlier post I gave a link to a flickr pool that is dedicating to saving polaroid film. So, I posted an image to the group. If you love polaroid film, please post one too! I really don’t want to see polaroid film go! If you want to see the flickr pool click HERE. Here is the image I posted, (you have to post a self-portrait): 

Tuesday Tip ‘O the Day: Save it for Later!

This is a 2 part deal today. The first part is a bit more simplified – just making a warm tone image using the gradient map adjustment tool. The second part is how to save your gradients once you have created them in the gradient editor. I love the gradient map adjustment tool because you can choose what colors/tones go in specific tonal values of your image. So, here we go, the example images are below.
Step 1: Open an image of course -be sure to start with a good color image in terms of tonal value.
Step 2: Be sure that black is your foreground color and white is your background color. (You can just hit the “D” key to get the colors back to default). The reason for this is that the gradient map with insert the foreground color for you shadows and insert the background colors for your highlights.
Step 3: Go down to the bottom of the layers palette and choose the gradient map from the layers adjustment menu (half-black, half-white circle), this should turn your image black and white and the gradient map dialog box should have opened.
Step 4: Now we are going to take it a step further and adjust the gradient to get a warmer toned image. Click anywhere on the gradient, this will open the gradient editor. Take a look at the presets. There should be a few default presets to choose from, however, we are going to make our own, then save it under the presets so we can use it later on.
Step 5: Under gradient type there is a long gradient, this is where we will choose our warm tone. You can click on the “stops” – the little squares below the gradient, to edit the gradient. For this one, we are going to create a new “stop” to work from. Click in the middle of the gradient directly underneath the gradient box. This should create a new stop.
Step 6: Find the color box under “Stops” and click on it. This should open up the color picker. For curiosity sake, you can click around the colors to see what happens. We are just going to enter some numbers for this warm tone technique. In the Lab boxes, enter 54 for “L”, 3 for “a”, and 6 for “b.” This should give you a warm tone image. Click OK.
Step 7: Now we are going to save this gradient so we can use it later. Enter whatever you wish to name your gradient in the box next to “Name” then click “new.” This will add your new gradient to your gradient presets. It will also show up in the presets when you use the regular gradient tool.
Step 8: Finally, not all images are the same, so you can drag that middle stop to the left or right to adjust the tonal value of your image. You can create all different types of toned image by using the gradient…try funky stuff, like putting blue in for the shadows and yellow in for the highlights. Hope that was helpful! Thanks to Mrs. Jane for bringing me this beautiful daffodil at work. She brightened up my day…I had to photograph it  The first example is the original color image, the second is with the warm gradient applied, the third is one I call Vintage and the fourth is called Warm Selenium…I keep it in my gradient storehouse.