Photodigitary

Not the Usual Nature Photos

One of the challenges all nature photographers face today is that there are so many photographers taking pictures of nature! And a lot of good photographers, too. A lot of this imagery is excellent but looks a lot like the rest of the photos out there. That’s not necessarily bad, but it does mean that sometimes good nature photos get lost in the crowd.

One way of getting your photos to stand out is through the use of ideas and techniques that are not expected, giving photos that are not like everyone else’s. There is certainly a danger in doing that because not everyone will like your photos if you start bucking the commonly accepted ways of photographing nature. 

My friend, Bill Neill (the landscape columnist for Outdoor Photographer magazine), has long followed his own drummer in his work. Bill photographs in many areas, but he lives near Yosemite National Park, so he photographs there quite often. Very few of his photos look like everyone else’s shots of the park. He strives to go deeper than a quick shot of a beautiful scene, looking for images that connect people with nature in different ways.

That’s why a few years ago, he started adding movement to his photos of landscapes. He actually moved the camera during the exposure. He has created a striking body of work that has a spiritual quality, I believe, that goes beyond simple identification with a specific scene. He has now put these images together in an inexpensive e-book called, Impressions of Light. This is a stunning group of photos that I think can inspire anyone who loves photography and nature. Don’t expect to see the “usual” in nature photos, though — you can expect the extraordinary. This book is about light, color and how they play out in nature. You can find out more about Bill’s new book at www.williamneill.com/books/impressions.html. He even has special pricing until October 1.

Posted in Books, Nature, landscape photography, nature photography | Comments Off

Composition and the “rule” of thirds

I had a question about composition with my web class on Your Photographs — Getting the Wow Response that I do with BetterPhoto.com (www.betterphoto.com). The rule of thirds should be called a guideline of thirds. The idea of the rule of thirds is good — it divides the image area into thirds, top to bottom and left to right. Then you place important picture elements at the thirds — horizons at the top or bottom third, key subjects at one of the four intersections of the thirds lines. This gets subjects out of the center of the frame and creates visual relationships within the picture area — it is a common part of a lot of landscape and nature photography.

The problem with this idea is that the world doesn’t always fit the thirds, plus if every subject is always at one of four places in a photograph, that gets a little old after a while, too. You will find a lot of pros never pay any attention to it because it can be limiting. 

The key things to consider with composition are getting the subject out of the middle of the frame (except when the subject really demands it) and using relationships of elements within the frame. The rule of thirds does encourage the photographer to do that, but only to a degree. 

Photographs can be much more interesting if we go beyond the rule of thirds. This is easy to do with digital cameras. You need to experiment with different compositions, deliberately working the frame (changing how things are arranged and aligned within the photograph). Put your camera on a tripod and shoot a series of photos with different compositions. Immediately after taking a shot, review the shot in your LCD. 

Can you draw lines from each corner through the middle, making an X and the subject is right there? Then you have a centered subject, which in most photos is not the most effective way to use composition.

Try putting your subject in different places. Bottom left, bottom right, top right, top left. Extreme positions, too. A horizon at the bottom of the frame … or the top! See what happens to the image. What relationships are created between your subject and space? Between your subject and other picture elements (such as a background)? How can you create relationships between your subject and the rest of the image in interesting ways that are not expected? Can you move around, tilt the camera up or down to change these relationships? What happens to the corners and edges of the frame? Are things included that help? Or hurt? Try to make a composition with “nothing” in the center — nothing important to the subject other than space. 

Push yourself. Try some really extreme placements of subject matter. You might not like the results, but you will learn from them — anyway, that’s what the trash button is for, right? To get rid of experiments you don’t like! As you do this sort of experimenting, you will begin to learn a lot about composition.  

Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Digital camera techniques, landscape photography, nature photography | Comments Off

The Importance of Setting Blacks in Digital Photos

A problem that I have seen consistently with digital images is lack of blacks. This is even a very big problem with publications. Some people still claim digital doesn’t look as good as film because of this (a side note — blacks are set properly in film, not from the film, but from how they are scanned in — so in essence, publications are setting blacks there and must do the same with digital image files if photos are to look their best).

Setting blacks affects the contrast, color, brilliance and general attractiveness of digital image files. Often, a photo with poor blacks looks like it was shot with a gray filter.

You can set blacks in a number of ways, but I find the quickest and easiest is by using Levels in Photoshop or Blacks in Lightroom or Camera Raw because there you have an easy access to a threshold screen. I consider that screen vital to the adjustment. By holding down the Alt or Option key while moving the left (black) slider in Levels or the Blacks slider in Lightroom or Camera Raw, a white screen appears, showing black thresholds. As you move the slider, blacks begin to appear. In most photos, you need to at least have the blacks start to appear (these are pure black in the photo). A photo with blacks in the composition is no guarantee that any true blacks are actually in the image file. Some photos with intense color will not show pure black, but will have colors appear showing where channels are at their max “black.” You would not go for any pure black in a foggy photo.

Where to set blacks is an art and not a precise science so you must practice. I have more information about this on my website, www.robsheppardphoto.com. After setting blacks, you must also check whites and adjust midtones for proper brightness appropriate to the subject and its interpretation in the photograph. 

Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Lightroom, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop techniques, Uncategorized, landscape photography | 4 Comments »

Helping Out Local Nature Organizations

A lot of photographers have great images and wonder what to do with them. Wall space is only so big, right? One possibility is to use your photography to help out local organizations that represent causes you care about. I am attending the Land Trust Alliance Rally in Pittsburgh this weekend as part of a panel on using media to communicate about the land and conservation.

The Alliance includes land conservancies and similar groups from all across the country. Most of these organizations publish all sorts of publications, from brochures to newsletters to booklets to magazines to coffee table quality books. There are many organizations across the country from church organizations to community groups to recreational groups and more that do similar things. All of them need photography at some level.

I can tell you that a lot of the photography in these publications, including the glossy ones, is extremely variable. Some is excellent, some is pretty marginal. Most of these places would love to have someone who is a good photographer help them out. In some cases, you may be paid, in others, you would do this strictly on a volunteer basis. However, if you find an organization you care about, this can be an opportunity to get your photos published. If the publication turns out really nice, ask for multiple copies for “payment.” This can truly be a win-win situation for both you and the organization.

Posted in Nature, landscape photography, nature photography | Comments Off

Keywords and Lightroom

I have heard from some photographers who were a little puzzled by keywords in Lightroom. When they added keywords to a photo then checked that photo in Photoshop, no keywords appeared. What is going on here? Is Lightroom doing some strange sort of keywording that only applies to Lightroom?

Lightroom is doing keywords so that they can be applied to photos and have them read anywhere. Notice I said, they can be applied. It is true that Lightroom has some keyword capabilities that Photoshop does not have, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be read (it just means more flexibility within Lightroom). However, here is something very important — all keywords in Lightroom attached to a photo are in data base and not actually in the metadata of the image file … at first. Lightroom is “non-destructive” for everything! Including information added to a file.

You can attach keywords by going to a folder of images (you have to tell Lightroom where to do this), then go to the menu item, Metadata>Save Metadata to File. This will actually apply other changeable metadata such as caption or copyright information.

In addition, keywords are always attached to an image whenever it is exported out of Lightroom.

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New Book

If you like the East Coast and great nature photography, I would recommend you look into a book by my friend, Jim Clark, called Between Ocean and Bay: A Celebration of the Eastern Shore. It is about the life of the Eastern Shore of the mid-Atlantic part of the East Coast around Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. 

I have always enjoyed Jim’s down home, truly heartfelt books of nature photography and thoughts about nature in the Mid-Atlantic states. But when Jim sent me a copy of this book, I was truly wowed. It is a very impressive book of excellent photography. This may seem odd, but there is a shot of a mosquito swarm that is just stunning. It is shot at dusk and is quite amazing. What makes this so interesting is that this is so representative of a naturalist/photographer, which Jim is, not just a naturalist, not just a photographer. 

The book is inspirational in its photography, plus Jim gives a lot of ideas about how he got the shots, too.  

Posted in Books, Nature, nature photography | Comments Off

Photoshop Elements and Camera Raw

I often get questions about RAW files and Photoshop Elements. While I am a big believer in Photoshop Lightroom for photographers, I also think some version of Photoshop is needed. For many photographers, that will be Photoshop Elements 6 or 7. 

Adobe includes a restricted version of Camera Raw in Photoshop Elements. It has the same basic, key functions of Camera Raw that comes with Photoshop, but it does not include the more advanced functions, such as the Tone Curve or HSL (hue-saturation-luminance). It also has the same underlying programming, so you get equal quality processing, just  not as many choices.  

You can work around some of this by telling Camera Raw to export to Photoshop Elements with a 16-bit file. Then you use the Color Curves (dumb name as it is not used for color by most photographers) in place of the Tone Curve (the parametric part of Tone Curve was actually inspired by the Color Curves in Photoshop Elements). Use the Hue/Saturation adjustment in place of the HSL tab by looking for Edit:Master, then clicking on Master to get a list of colors (you can click on the photo to match colors to what you are adjusting; luminosity in Hue/Saturation doesn’t work all that well).

The approach to adjustments is pretty much the same as in the Camera Raw in Photoshop, you just don’t get them all in Camera Raw in Photoshop Elements. Also, you can only resize in Photoshop Elements (not in its Camera Raw), but having the file in 16-bit helps. 

Posted in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop techniques | Comments Off

Lightroom vs. Photoshop

A question I am getting more often is, “Why Lightroom if I already have Photoshop”? Certainly you could use Photoshop and Bridge for your photos — that is true regardless if you used JPEG or RAW. And I definitely believe Photoshop in some form (even if Photoshop Elements) is still needed. 

But there are some really big advantages for photographers to do most of their work in Lightroom. Frankly, right now if I had to choose between upgrading to a new version of Photoshop or using Lightroom with Photoshop Elements 6, there is no question I would go to the latter. That would give most photographers more power and an easier, faster workflow for their images.

Here are a number of advantages to Lightroom that apply to both JPEG and RAW:

1. Nondestructive editing — all work done on your photos is non-destructive, i.e., nothing is actually changed in an image until the photo is exported. This means you can do anything, change it, change it again and again, but no quality is lost as it would be in Photoshop. 

2. Better controls over organizing your photos. Lightroom has Collections and Smart Collections which are very helpful. For example, say you were gathering together a group of your photos to use in a slideshow. You could put these into a collection so you could go to them instantly at another time. The photos are not actually moved, so the collections are “virtual”, meaning they need little storage space. Once you start doing this with collections, you will find a lot of uses for them. 

3. Large views. Lightroom has larger compare and survey views of images when you need to compare them for editing them compared to Bridge.

4. Quickly customizable interface. Simple keystrokes allow you to go from viewing lots of photos to a single image to an enlarged photo. Simple keystrokes also allow you to quickly change what is shown on the interface so you can simplify down to just the photo or keep just the panels open that you really need, but you can quickly and easily make anything reappear. This is simply not possible in Bridge or Photoshop. 

5. Interface that keeps controls readily and quickly accessible. One of the challenges that has long plagued Photoshop is that everything is based on opening and closing individual adjustment windows. You have to either go through menus or know a lot of keyboard shortcuts. You cannot go instantly from Levels, for example, to Curves, which you can do in Lightroom. All Lightroom controls are kept available in panels right next to the photos.

6. Superior batch processing. Batch processing in Photoshop is a bit of a pain. In Lightroom, you simply adjust one photo of a group that you like then tell it to synchronize those adjustments and it is done. You can also easily copy the adjustments from one photo to another anywhere in the Library.

7. Superior color control. No one offers anything like this. In the HSL or hue-saturation-luminance section of the Develop right side panel, you gain more colors with very precise control. This is not so different than Camera Raw (which can also be used for JPEG) except for one thing, a “magic button” — the targeted adjustment button. Click on that and you activate your cursor. Now you can click on the photo which then selects the correct color for you, then drag the cursor up and down to change that color’s hue, saturation or luminance, and no other colors (well, some colors that are mixes will be changed). That to me is huge — control that is faster, easier and more effective than any other program has. This is huge for correcting problem colors as well as refining the look of the photo. 

8. Nondestructive, easy local control. Local control, or adjusting small parts of a photo without affecting anything else, has long been an important part of photography. Cameras simply do not capture the world the way we see it and sometimes inaccurately as well. This was always a part of black-and-white photography, but it has been a problem with color. It was difficult to do with film and prints, and it takes a lot of time on that old learning curve to master such controls in Photoshop. In Lightroom 2, you can darken, lighten, affect color, change sharpness and more of specific areas in the photo simply by brushing your cursor across the areas. And if you don’t like the results, you just delete and try again. 

9. Nondestructive cloning and healing brush. Photoshop has far more power in its cloning and healing brush tools than Lightroom, but Lightroom does offer simple cloning and healing that is nondestructive. You can make a change, yet if it looks bad, you can make some further adjustments or even just delete it. 

10. Virtual copies. A lot of times it is great to be able to experiment on a photo to get several versions. Or it can be interesting to do both a color and black-and-white version. In Photoshop, you have to actually create separate images to do this, which takes time and storage space. In Lightroom, you simply make a virtual copy of your photo and do whatever you want — little time is taken and essentially no storage space (it is only information).

Yes it is true that you have to get Lightroom to “recognize” your photos by importing them into the program (you actually don’t import them INTO the program, but import information about their location so Lightroom can find them). But you only have to do this once and you are set. With Bridge, you have to find the photos’ locations each time and wait for Bridge to load their previews every time (you can tell Lightroom to always have full size previews at the ready).

Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Lightroom, Photoshop | 1 Comment »

Downloading memory cards

Sometimes I am surprised to learn what people hear or don’t hear at my talks. I just had a question from a photo instructor who was puzzled at something one of his students said that I had said at a talk at FotoFest in St. Augustine. Supposedly, “my idea” was that using a camera for downloading images would “wear out” the camera. He had every right to be puzzled.

Wow! That is one of the strangest things I have heard — I am not exactly sure how that idea came about. Sometimes it is fascinating to learn what people “hear” at a presentation. There is no way you could wear out a camera by downloading directly from the camera.

But this is a good reminder to revisit memory cards and card readers. I don’t recommend downloading from the camera for these reasons (though I would not suggest so strongly that one “never” do it):

Posted in Digital camera techniques, Equipment thoughts | 1 Comment »