Charlotte Sessions, Part 2: Caleb + Travis

Caleb and Travis are Gracyn and Ryan’s cousins. More cute kids in this family! We had a good time playing in the trees and on the rocks. Here are a few cute ones from our session:

Gracyn & Ryan

This is the first session of 10 from my trip to Charlotte. I introduced you to Gracyn in the previous post, now you get to meet her little brother too! His name is Ryan and he is a laid back little guy. They were both great little models and cute to boot! Here are a few of my favs:

Tuesday Tip: Photoshop Toning, part 1,999

Okay, so the “part 1,999″ thing is just a joke. I know have I done several of these toning tips, but they are fun and there are so many interesting ways to tone an image in Photoshop. As always, here is my disclaimer: Every image has its unique qualities, so tone thoughtfully, in a way that is specific to each image. I just got back from Charlotte, NC  Sunday evening. I had 10 photo sessions scheduled over the weekend, so I met all kinds of cute kids! I will be sharing those sessions with you in the following weeks, here is a quick peak at one.

This is Gracyn, my sister’s niece. Sooo cute…wait until you see her brother…he is a cutie and a half too! The type of toning we will do with this technique lends itself well to achieving an aged photograph feel.

Step 1: Start out by locating a photograph you would like to tone, then open it in Photoshop. Do your necessary adjustments before toning. And of course, you may need to make some adjustments afterwards.

Step 2: If you have multiple layers click on the top most layer in the layers palette, then go down to the adjustment layer menu (half-black, half-white circle) and choose “Color.”

I am going to start you out with a warm tone, but you will experiment later on.

Step 3: Enter 92 for red, 86 for green and 74 for blue. Click OK. This will give you a warmish gray color that fills your image window.

Step 4: (With your solid color adjustment layer selected) Go up to the blend modes menu and choose “Color.”

Now your image should appear toned:

This was just one tone. To experiment, double click on the solid layer icon (looks like a box in the layer with the color in it), then try different colors other than what I gave. I hope that will be useful for you!

Tuesday Tip: Workflow Timesaver

Hello All! Today’s tip is not so much a Photoshop technique but more of a workflow technique. When editing event and portrait sessions I have sooo many images to go through, so any time saver tips I can find help so much. Today, I thought I would share one that I use that saves me many steps in Photoshop. It really applies to images that belong in a group that are meant to be edited (contrast/color) somewhat similarly. This isn’t a one-step cure all, but it can alleviate a few steps. Over time I noticed that I made similar adjustments to each image I work with, especially ones that were part of a group and meant to have the same “feel” to them, so a while back I decided to make actions (you record your steps and Photoshop repeats them for you in a much more timely manner.) for those steps to work as a starting point, I stress “starting point.” I usually run around 3-4 actions that I have created that serve as a starting point: a basic boost, a warming action, a saturation action, and a slight vignette to contain my corners. So, here I have two similar images:

I start with one and then run those 4 actions. Instead of going to the other image and running those actions all over again, I can save those steps and just select all of the layers and drag them onto the second image. Okay, so one thing to note is that this really only works with actions or steps that involve layers. (So, I can’t really apply this workflow timesaver to sharpening techniques or things you need to do directly on the image layer itself) To select all the layers (just the ones added by the basic steps/actions) click on one to select it, then shift-click all the others. (If you have CS vs. CS2 you will have to use a layer group). It will look something like this:

When they are all selected I click and drag those layers while holding the shift key (this will keep things centered) and drop it on the second image window. Now you have those adjustments layers without having to wait for the actions to run. I would like to note again, that 99.99% of the time I have to make adjustments from there. They are usually local adjustments that need to be applied to each image versus the global adjustments that come from the adjustment layers or actions. So, my point is don’t get lazy! This process and using actions can lend themselves to laziness! Don’t forget to evaluate each image individually. I hope that made some sort of sense…there really is a lot more to this workflow option, which you can explore if you find that this fits into your workflow. Here is my working image (mean, not done yet) from one of the images above just to show where I would take it from the above basic adjustments (again, not quite done with this one yet??):

They Can Coexist

There is much debate about which is better: film or digital? I have always been in the group that loves both! I appreciate aspects from both the traditional film medium as well as the digital. I love for my students to start out in the darkroom and with fully manual cameras because I feel they learn to rely more on their knowledge of manipulating the camera, exposure, and darkroom techniques to go after their desired image. And, most of what they learn with traditional photography applies to the digital medium. Of course, we all love the immediacy of the digital cameras. I say, why not use them both! In graduate school I started using the aspects I liked about each to create a single image. I love exposing with film, then taking it into the digital darkroom to manipulate. I recently purchased a Canon 5D and I felt the full frame sensor allowed me to explore that way of working in reverse. I have been experimenting with digital paper negatives, although they were scans from negatives made into a digital negative. I have reversed it a bit by using images I exposed using the 5D. I bring the image(s) into Photoshop to manipulate, then create a negative (invert it), bring down the contrast (when you contact print it increases the contrast), then print it onto thin inkjet paper to contact print as a negative in the darkroom. Because I enjoy both process I have found great interest in learning ways to combine the two. You really can bring the best of both worlds together! Here are my digital negatives with their darkroom prints. I lost some detail through the scanning process.

(I am trying to find the right image to start exploring the bromoil process…that will be interesting) You can see the first digital image in color in an earlier post.

For the Byrds

This past Saturday I met the Byrd family in Wilmington for a photo-session. It was soooo HOT outside!!! But, we endured so we could get some good belly shots. Holly is Jill’s (my sister) best friend. They have been friends since, well, I can’t even remember…forever it seems like. Little Cole and Bree (my niece) are like peas and carrots. What a cutie this little Cole Byrd is. I love him! The Byrd family will be expecting a little girl, “Caitlin Grayce”, sometime around the end of August to early September {around my birthday  } Anywho, here are a few: 

Cole picked out this location himself:

Quotes for Today

I have come to admire the writings and thoughts of Ansel Adams concerning the photographic medium. He was after all one who said: “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”  Over the years of my experience with the photographic medium I have attempted to take along much of his thoughts and practices concerning creating a meaningful photograph from its conception to its finished state. He takes care to every detail in every part of the process, not leaving any stage of the art making process neglected. He would think of exactly how he wanted the finished image to look before he even pressed the shutter (pre-visualization), would make well calculated and considered exposures and developments, then would take utter care in the darkroom to bring that visualized print to reality. Many think he just created pretty landscape images, but as read his thoughts you realize there is so much more. I will leave you today with one of Ansel Adams’ quotes: “A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.”

Harry + Reba are married!!

I would describe Harry and Reba as being fun, animated, and just plain nice! They really were great to work with. So, here are some of my favorites from their beautiful day:

The ring bearer’s job is quite exhausting as you can see:

Tuesday Tip: Composition, Part Two

Okay, so I know I said I would get back to Photoshop, but I thought I would make Composition a two-parter because it is such an important topic. I have two thoughts/suggestions for you this week concerning composition. The first one has to do with compositional observations. Whenever you have repeated elements like shape, color, etc. in a composition it creates a connection between them, thus causing the eye to travel around. In other words, it creates movement, so the viewer doesn’t get stuck on one area. When you are out photographing, look for repeated elements that may connect the viewer to important focal points in your scene. Here is an example of repeated shapes:

Notice that the shape of the couple is mimicking the shape of the window in the background. Both elements are of importance in this scene. The repeated shapes just help us draw a connection between thetwo. 

When my Photo I students create Photograms I always tell them to view the image on each side. When you do this you can see how the images alters when viewed differently and sometimes you find that you like it a different orientation than how it was originally made. So, here is an example of how this works. I made this image during Harry and Reba’s (above couple) reception, just enjoying the colors and the contrast between the negative space (background) and the flowers:

I took notice of the wonderful negative space and decided to work with it. So, this is how I altered from the viewpoint and took advantage of the negative space:

Whoever said you have to present it the way it is “supposed” to go?  So, don’t be scared of that negative space, it is just as important as the positive space.

Whiteville Trip: the peach harvest

I went to the big city this weekend and got to hang out with the fam! My parents have all kinds of fun fruits and vegetables growing and it just so happened that the peaches were ready to be picked. My niece Bree loves peaches, so we headed out Friday night to harvest some, so I brought my camera along. You can see how serious Bree is about this peach business! She worked hard and we got to reap the rewards of our harvest with a tasty peach crisp made by my Mom.