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Posts Tagged ‘Snapshots’

How to Avoid This Travel Photography Mistake: Taking Snapshots

10 Dec

The post How to Avoid This Travel Photography Mistake: Taking Snapshots appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

avoid-taking-snapshots-in-photography

When I teach travel photography workshops, I am always quick to encourage people not to rely on interesting subjects. An interesting subject does not always make a good photo. A good photographer does. So, in this article, you’ll learn to avoid just taking snapshots.

avoid-taking-snapshots-in-photography

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Travel snapshots

Taking snapshots when you travel is so easy. You find yourself in different, stimulating environments. They’re packed with exotic, compelling subjects provoking you to squeeze a quick photo as you rush by. Thinking the impressive subject is enough to create an appealing photograph is a mistake.

Pay attention to lighting, timing, and exposure. Taking snapshots without this care rarely hold anyone’s interest. You might find the most fascinating subject and not do it justice due to a lack of attention or time given to it.

Also, be careful of misconceptions about camera equipment. There are two main ones I notice.

‘I have a professional camera, so I take professional photographs’.

Just as a good subject does not make the photograph, nor does a good camera. A good photographer makes good photographs. Don’t rely on your camera to be creative. It cannot be. It is smart, that’s for sure. The artificial intelligence in modern cameras is phenomenal, but they are not creative. You are.

avoid-taking-snapshots-in-photography

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

‘I only have my phone or compact camera so I can’t take good enough photos’.

You don’t need to stick to taking snapshots with a compact camera or phone. Don’t limit your creative expression because of the equipment you use. Sure, there are limitations with that kind of camera. You can still creatively capture interesting subjects when you put your mind to it.

Take your time

Slow down a little and think about how to make whatever it is that’s interesting into a great photo. Don’t rely on the subject alone. Every place you go, from Thailand to Turkey, you’ll find compelling subjects.

Something iconic needs to be treated with more imagination because everyone photographs it. To capture a photo of a monk in Chiang Mai or the Istiklal tram in Istanbul, you need to think outside the box. Everyone who’s been there has snapshots of these subjects.

Take your time when you find something engaging to photograph. Think about the lighting. Consider the best angle to photograph it from. Check out the background and make sure it’s relevant. Look at it for a while and ask yourself why you want to take a photo of it.

Image: © Kevin Landwer-Johan

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Don’t take only one photo

The first composition you make will not always be the best. Often it will be the most clichéd. The one everyone else takes.

Experiment with different angles and lens focal lengths. Make horizontal and vertical compositions. Try a dutch angle or two.

Always think about filling your frame. What’s within the edges of your viewfinder or monitor? Is everything you can see relevant and supporting your main subject? If not, do something about it. Change your angle, aperture or lens. Or wait. Sometimes you have to pause for people or traffic to move out of the background space. This will help your subject will stand out.

Image: © Kevin Landwer-Johan

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Be in control of your camera

Relying on an auto exposure mode and averaged metering gives you predictable results. Your camera is programmed to make even exposures. It’s not going to choose to expose for the highlights and let what’s in the shadows fall into blackness. Nor is it going to selectively slow down your shutter speed and purposefully allow motion blur to happen. You have to do these things.

Image: © Kevin Landwer-Johan

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Knowing your camera and how to control it will help you intuitively see when you can incorporate creative techniques. This will diversify the photographs you take. If you’re happy to use your camera like a point-and-shoot, then snapshots will fill your travel photo albums.

Taking your camera off the auto settings can force you to slow down (until you become more familiar with it). You can then think about all aspects of picture-taking at a more relaxed pace. Great photos are rarely quick.

Even most of the best street and travel photos are not taken on the spur of the moment. They are planned. They are preconceived. They are anticipated before the action happens, or the light becomes perfect.

When you do see something amazing happening and must react quickly, flick your camera back to auto. Take a few photos, and then, if you still have time, pop it back onto manual mode. Now you can get creative with your aperture and shutter speed.

Image: © Kevin Landwer-Johan

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Take a travel photography workshop rather than a tour

Many people use their camera predominantly when they travel. People have more time to take photos of interesting subjects when they travel. The problem is remembering all those settings. How can you get the most out of your equipment when you seldom use it?

Taking a travel photography workshop at the start of your vacation or journey will kickstart your creative process. You can learn to be more confident with your camera when you have a better understanding of how it works.

Picking up your camera and being stressed because you’re uncertain if it’s going to do what you want is not fun. A good tutor will walk you through the essentials of using your camera and build your confidence to do so.

A workshop will also give you hands-on experience on location. You’ll learn how to see the most interesting subjects and what to do with them. On a photo tour, all you usually get is a guide showing you interesting things to point your camera at. A workshop will equip you to take great photos wherever you go because you’ll learn how to use your camera in a multitude of different situations.

avoid-taking-snapshots-in-photography

© Pansa Landwer-Johan

Avoid photographic clichés

It’s not difficult to avoid photographic clichés when you stop and think about it – even with iconic subjects. Slow down and enjoy the moment. Create a beautiful memory of it by thoughtfully composing your photos instead of taking snapshots.

Diversify your research. Don’t rely on Instagram to show you where the best photo opportunities are to be found. These are the places everyone will go and take the same boring pictures.

Think outside the box. Infuse your photos with creativity by looking for alternatives. Even if your subject is iconic, make it fresh and new in the way you choose to photograph it.

Do you have any other tips on how to avoid taking snapshots when doing travel photography? Do you have any stories to share? Please do so in the comments section.

The post How to Avoid This Travel Photography Mistake: Taking Snapshots appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.


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How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshots, and Virtual Copies

05 Aug

I often find myself knee-deep into editing a photo when an idea hits me to try something totally different. Maybe it’s exploring different cropping options, creating a black-and-white version, or getting crazy with the adjustment brush. One useful feature of a Lightroom editing workshop is that it gives you the flexibility to explore as many different paths as you want for a picture. While always giving you the freedom to jump back to different editing points or start over entirely.

Three of the best ways to do that are with the History, Snapshot, and Virtual Copy options. Let’s dig deeper into each one separately.

butterfly on a red flower - How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshot, and Virtual Copies

Lightroom History

Decades ago in the early days of personal computers, you were lucky if you could click undo more than once. Even the first version of Photoshop did not allow more than one undo!

This meant that you had to be extraordinarily careful when creating or editing digital images because any changes were basically permanent. Whereas today most programs allow virtually limitless error-correction when it comes to undoing your work. Lightroom is no different and if you want to fix a mistake just choose Edit > Undo and any errors or changes will be immediately wiped away.

Better than undo

History in Lightroom is sort of like undo but it is infinitely more flexible. It’s a veritable time machine that gives you the freedom to revert back to any aspect of your editing even if you have made dozens and dozens of changes to an image.

Whereas Undo lets you go back to earlier versions of your image one step at a time, the History panel actually lists all the changes made since you imported an image into your Catalog including the numerical values of each edit. If you make a change that involves a numerical value those will show up in the History panel as well, including the amount of the change and the resulting value.

For example, if you adjust the Exposure by +0.5, the History panel will show you Exposure +0.50 and then the resulting exposure value of +0.50. If you make another exposure adjustment of 0.2, you will see that in the History panel along with a final value of +0.70. This helps you see a written description of all the edits you have made to an image as they were applied.

lightroom history - How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshot, and Virtual Copies

The complete history of all my edits to the butterfly image at the top of this article. Clicking on any of the edits listed will instantly let me jump back in time to that particular step of the editing process.

History is saved within your catalog

Every image’s complete editing history is saved in your Lightroom Catalog so you can revisit changes you made to photos years ago just as you can with photos you take today.

Using the History panel is fairly straightforward. Click on any edit and your image will instantly revert back to when that change was made.

However, if you then make any subsequent edits at that point, the changes will be reflected at the top of the History panel and therefore will not take into account all the additional edits you already made. This is where the Snapshot tool comes in handy.

Lightroom Snapshots

You can use Snapshots in combination with the History panel or all by themselves. Either way, it opens up a great deal of editing flexibility that is light years beyond what the Undo/Redo commands have to offer.

As you work through your edits on a photo you might find yourself wanting to save the current state of your image so you can make additional changes but still have the option of reverting back to a specific point in time or a specific set of edits later.

Snapshots let you do that easily with one click. They are extremely useful for trying new things or even just saving various versions of a single image.

countryside weather vane - How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshot, and Virtual Copies

The above image was taken on a recent trip through the state of Kansas. I got it printed as a canvas for my wife to hang on the wall.

Creating and naming a snapshot

After creating this version of the picture I wanted to make some additional changes and even try a black and white version. But I did not want to lose the original image in case I ever want to get it re-printed. Lightroom makes this a simple one-click step. All I had to do was click the + button under the Snapshot panel. Lightroom then created a version of the image frozen in time at that exact point in the editing process.

name your Snapshot in LR - How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshot, and Virtual Copies

After creating the Canvas Print Snapshot I did a black-and-white conversion, changed the Blue color slider to adjust the brightness of the sky, and re-cropped it to be a 3:2 aspect ratio.

black and white version - How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshot, and Virtual Copies

I was happy with the result, so I saved a new Snapshot which I titled according to the edits made.

black and white snapshot named - How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshot, and Virtual Copies

Benefits

This process lets me switch between two versions of the same image with the click of my mouse. I can also create as many Snapshots as I want while also re-naming or deleting them by right-clicking on any given Snapshot name. In addition, I can use the History panel to create Snapshots by hovering over any of the edits listed in the History, right-clicking, and choosing the “Create Snapshot” option.

Finally, one nice but an often-unnoticed benefit of Snapshots is that you can move the mouse over your list of Snapshots and see a preview of each one in the small window in the top-left corner of Lightroom. It’s a handy way to see what each snapshot looks like without clicking and loading them one by one.

snapshot version of windmill - How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshot, and Virtual Copies

Three renditions of the windmill photo now exist, each with its own Snapshot that I can click on at any time to load that particular version.

Virtual Copies

One limitation of the Snapshots is that you have to manually click through your Snapshots one by one by one if you want to export them as individual photos. This is fine if you have one or two snapshots of a single image, but if you need to export multiple snapshots from multiple photos the process can become cumbersome right away.

This is where Virtual Copies really shine. While they are similar to Snapshots there are some key differences that make them highly useful in certain situations.

maternity portrait - How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshot, and Virtual Copies

I cropped this image into a square and while the client loved it, she asked if I could send her a vertical version. I used Lightroom to make a Virtual Copy and re-cropped that so I would always have my original crop.

How they work

Virtual Copies function in a manner almost identical to Snapshots in that you can create what is basically a saved state of your edits at any point in the editing process. After that, you can add more changes to each saved state without impacting the other Virtual Copies.

To create one, right-click on any image in the Library or Develop module and choose “Create Virtual Copy” or choose “Create Virtual Copy” from the Photo menu (or use the keyboard shortcut Cmd/Ctrl+’). This essentially duplicates the photo in your library (as a new thumbnail) but does not actually create a copy of the original file.

Virtual Copies are duplicate versions of images that can be edited like any other photo in your library, and function almost identically. A Virtual Copy has its own unique editing history, can be cropped and adjusted like any other image, and can utilize editing presets as well.

The only way to distinguish Virtual Copies from other photos is that they have a small triangle icon (like a page turning) in the lower left corner of their thumbnail.

How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshot, and Virtual Copies - virtual copy in thumbnail strip

The small triangle icon in the lower left corner of an image thumbnail indicates that it is a Virtual Copy.

Snapshot or Virtual Copy?

Snapshots are fine when I’m experimenting with different editing techniques, but I prefer Virtual Copies on client work, particularly when I want to give them multiple versions of a single image.

For example, when processing a recent session I was able to edit an image for white balance, sharpness, tonality, etc., and then create a virtual copy with those same edits that I cropped much closer. When I exported my images from Lightroom both versions got rendered and saved to my computer, which is not the case when working with Snapshots.

How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshot, and Virtual Copies

I had two different crops of this image that I wanted to send to the clients. I used Virtual Copies instead of Snapshots so both would be exported when I created the final batch of images to send to them.

Conclusion

Lightroom has a host of small but powerful features like this that, once learned, can greatly streamline and enhance your workflow.

Do you use History, Snapshots, or Virtual Copies? If so what are some of your favorite tips and tricks that help you get your work done more efficiently? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

The post How to Use the Lightroom Editing Trifecta: History, Snapshots, and Virtual Copies appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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Four Ways to Use Snapshots in Lightroom

27 Aug

What’s Lightroom’s most underrated feature? If you ask five different photographers you’ll probably get at least six answers. But for me, it’s Snapshots.

Lightroom snapshots

Unused and unloved – that was the fate of Snapshots in my Lightroom workflow for many years. It’s taken me a long time to appreciate how useful they are. For most of that time, I used Virtual Copies when I needed to create different versions of the same photo. But now I use Snapshots, and it’s made life a lot easier.

Why use Snapshots in Lightroom?

Let’s look at why you would use Snapshots or Virtual Copies.

One of the benefits of a Raw file is that you can interpret the file in many different ways in Lightroom. The most obvious example is that you could create both a color version of an image and a black and white one.

How to use Snapshots in Lightroom

Two versions of the same photo created in Lightroom from the same Raw file.

There are so many different ways of developing a photo in Lightroom that’s easy to make multiple versions of the same image. Sometimes it’s difficult to know when to stop! Especially if you have a large collection of Develop Presets.

Snapshots are the easiest way to keep track of all the different versions you make of a photo.

What is a Snapshot?

A Snapshot captures all the work you have done on a photo at a particular point in a time.

Snapshots are related to the entries in the History panel. You can turn any entry in the History panel into a Snapshot by right-clicking and choosing, Create Snapshot. Snapshots save you time because you don’t have to go searching through the History panel for the point you’d like to revert to.

Lightroom Snapshots

Some of the History panel entries for a photo I developed in Lightroom. It’s nearly impossible to pick the correct entry if you want you to go back to an earlier version of the photo.

How to create a Snapshot

There are two ways to create a Snapshot.

1. Go to Develop > New Snapshot (or use the Cmd-N [Mac] / Ctrl-N [PC] keyboard shortcut.)

Lightroom creates a Snapshot from the current Develop module settings. You can give it a name or use the default (current date and time).

Lightroom Snapshots

2. Right-click on an entry in the History panel and choose, Create Snapshot. Lightroom creates a Snapshot from the settings applied to the photo at that point in the development history.

Lightroom Snapshots

Reasons to use Snapshots

Now you know how to create a Snapshot, let’s look at some ways you can use them.

1. To record where you are in the Develop module

When you’re developing photos in Lightroom you may find yourself arriving a point where you are about to go off in a different direction. For example, let’s say you want to make both a color and a black and white version of the same image. You might start off by developing it in color. When you are finished, you make a Snapshot.

Then, you can convert it to black and white. When you’re done, make another Snapshot. You can then switch between the two versions by clicking on the appropriate Snapshot. See what that might look like below.

Lightroom Snapshots

2. To test out Develop Presets

Let’s say you would like to apply some Develop Presets to your photo, but you are not sure which ones are best. For example, I often develop my portraits using my Vintage Portrait Presets for Lightroom. There are 30 presets in the pack, and I don’t know in advance which ones will work best.

Using Snapshots, you can go through the entire set. When you find a preset that you like, you can create a Snapshot quickly using the keyboard shortcut Cmd-N [Mac] / Ctrl-N [PC].

At the end, you will have several Snapshots. You can then click on them one by one to see which preset you prefer. For example, I applied five different Vintage Portrait Presets to this portrait and saved each as a Snapshot. In the end, I decided the Vintage 19 preset was my favorite.

Lightroom Snapshots

Tip: Rename the Snapshot you decide is the one you like best to something like “Preset name [final]” so you can remember which one it is. You can also delete the other Snapshots by right-clicking and choosing, Delete.

3. To make comparisons

There’s an easy way to compare two Snapshots to see which version you like best.

Start by right-clicking on the first Snapshot and selecting Copy Snapshot Settings to Before. Then click on the second Snapshot to apply it to the photo you are developing. Use the backslash (\) keyboard shortcut to switch between the before and current settings to make the comparison.

You can also cycle between the Before/After views by clicking the icon marked below in the Toolbar (use the T keyboard shortcut to display the Toolbar if you can’t see it).

Using the Before/After comparison to compare two Snapshots.

4. To take the place of Virtual Copies

At the beginning of the article, I mentioned that I use Snapshots instead of Virtual Copies. The main reason is that Virtual Copies are difficult to keep track of.

For example, let’s say you create four Virtual Copies of a photo, each one developed a different way. To start with, they are probably all in the same Collection. As time goes by you may create more Virtual Copies of the same photo. This is quite common – many photographers change the way they develop photos as their style evolves and Adobe adds new tools to Lightroom.

A problem arises when those new Virtual Copies are in different Collections to the originals. Suddenly you have a situation where Virtual Copies are scattered across your Catalog. That makes it nearly impossible to see how many Virtual Copies of a photo you have created.

Snapshots solve that problem. With Snapshots, there is only ever one version of your photo in the Catalog. You never have to go hunting for missing Virtual Copies. All you need to do to see the different versions of your photo is click on the Snapshot name.

Lightroom Snapshots

This photo has 9 Snapshots. If they were Virtual Copies instead it would be much harder to keep track of them.

Tip: What happens if you make a Snapshot and then update the settings? The Snapshot doesn’t change as it’s intended to record the state of a photo at the point in time you made it. But it’s easy to update the Snapshot. Just right-click on the Snapshot’s name and choose, Update with Current Settings.

Conclusion

Hopefully, now you can see why Snapshots are both useful and under-appreciated. If you have a problem with too many Virtual Copies in your Catalog then try using Snapshots instead to see if they solve your problem.

And of course, if you have any questions about using Snapshots in Lightroom then please let me know in the comments below.


If you’d like to learn more about Lightroom, including great tips like the one in this article, then please check out my popular Mastering Lightroom ebooks. You’ll be making the most of Lightroom in no time.

The post Four Ways to Use Snapshots in Lightroom by Andrew S. Gibson appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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No, you don’t need a $100 permit to take snapshots in Laguna Beach

23 Jun
Photo by Don Graham. Licensed under CC 2.0

The city of Laguna Beach has cleared up some confusion about its photography permit policy. A broad interpretation of one of its two photography permits created a minor uproar recently, as many people took it to mean that the city was requiring a $ 100 permit for anyone taking photos. It seems now that this wasn’t the intention.

As it stands, the city has two permits for two different types of photography: commercial and ‘non-commercial’; the latter has a $ 50/hr rate with a minimum of two hours required. This meant, as the policy was interpreted, that anyone taking photos – including personal photos – in Laguna Beach were required to buy a $ 100 permit.

The non-commercial permit category’s vague description resulted in quite a bit of public complaint, and the city has chosen to rename it as a result, leaving only talk about true commercial photography on its website’s related permit page. The category was never intended to cover casual personal photography, according to a city official speaking to OC Weekly. Rather, the ‘non-commercial’ permit category was created as a cheaper alternative to the primary commercial permit, giving photographers an option for ‘less complicated photo shoots such as engagement photos.’

The city’s website still specifies two different photography permits, but one with a new name: commercial and ‘professional still photo.’ The latter carries the same $ 100/2hr minimum as the former ‘non-commercial’ category, explaining that this option is for ‘single camera shoots such as engagement photos, wedding photos, family portraits, holiday cards, etc.’ Nothing about the permit policy except the ‘non-commercial’ verbiage has changed. However, it is now clear that personal, non-compensated photography doesn’t require a permit.

Via: OC Weekly

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Scan to CAD: Software Turns Volumetric Snapshots into Usable 3D Models

17 Nov

[ By WebUrbanist in Gaming & Computing & Technology. ]

scan

Bringing a critical gap between 3D scanning technology and functional outputs for architects, designers and homeowners, Canvas can scan a room in minutes then generate useful CAD software files.

Raw scans of spaces can be helpful in terms of generating rough measurements and usable as a baseline for a more rigorous three-dimensional model, but it takes time and energy to translate between the two. So while they are great for point-to-point measurements and as-built drawings, such scans are limited in terms of letting someone rework or envision changes to a structure.

3d-sensor-technology

Occipital, the startup behind Structure Sensor, wants to make that transition smooth, painless and effectively automatic. After a users scans a room (or a whole house) with their iPad, they can send away for CAD files that will be returned in two business days. They can then plug those files into software of choice, like Sketchup, and begin remodeling their space.

3d-design-capture

The company calls their vision “augmented home” and pictures their software and hardware getting increasingly refined over time to the point where on-the-spot shots can be immediately transformed into precise and full-color 3D files.

3d-space-model

“I think we’ll probably look back at today as a time, just like the 1830s, when we just started to have photographs,” says Adam Rodnitzky, the company’s VP of marketing. “We’re now entering the era when we’re going to start having a 3D record of the world around us.”

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Images from the past: Circular snapshots from the Kodak 1

06 Oct

kodak-1-national-media-museum2.jpg

The first consumer point-and-shoots didn’t have art effect modes or face detection smile-shutters. They looked like the Kodak 1, a leather-encased box with a key to wind the film, a shutter release and not much else. Introduced to the public in 1888, each Kodak 1 contained a roll of film with 100 exposures. The National Media Museum owns a collection of prints from these first consumer ‘compacts.’ Click through to take a look at a set of these early snapshots.

News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Boston marathon snapshots take on new meaning

18 Apr

TS520x0~cms_posts_2720003956_photo.JPG

DPReview Connect contributor Lauren Crabbe was among those taking photos with her smartphone at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday. Following the explosion of two bombs in the area just over an hour after she was there, her snapshots took on a new meaning when the FBI asked spectators to submit their images as evidence in the ongoing investigation. Read her first-person account today on connect.dpreview.com.

News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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8 Steps from Snapshots to Artistic Portraits

16 Oct

Appreciation of a portrait photo greatly depends on a viewer himself. If a lady looks at her own photograph, she seeks some imperfections she thinks she’s got, and estimates, how good a photographer is at concealing them. If you are a photographer looking at an image made by other photographer, you will, consciously or subconsciously inspect it for technical quality, Continue Reading
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