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Posts Tagged ‘Exposure’

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time – Part Three – Post-Processing for Exposure Optimization

26 Apr

The post How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time – Part Three – Post-Processing for Exposure Optimization appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Digital photography allows us an incredible scope to work on our computers to enhance and manipulate images. Optimizing your exposures during post-processing can make a dull, flat-looking photograph into a much more vibrant and interesting one.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every TimeMarket Guy

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

My approach to post-processing most of the time is to make my photos look as they did when I captured them or with some variation to the background tone. Because our eyes see more dynamic range than our cameras, this means I am working to balance my exposure and the way the light looks in the photo.

RAW or Jpg?

If your photos are saved only as jpg’s, your camera will have made certain tweaks to them already. It may have added some sharpening, color balance, contrast tweaks and possibly manipulated them in other ways. Jpg images as designed to look good straight out of your camera and may require little or no post-processing.

If you do decide to work on your jpg files, you will face limitations because of the file quality. As your camera saves jpg files, it compresses them and discards some of the information from the photos. Jpgs are technically lower quality which means they do not stand up to as much post-processing as RAW files do.

RAW files contain all the information your camera captured when you pressed the shutter release. They do not look great when you first see them because the camera has not altered them at all during the capturing and saving process.

To make a RAW file look good you must make some adjustments manually or use a preset or Action to make them for you. The technical quality of a RAW file is superior because there is no data lost from what your camera recorded. You have a greater capacity to be able to manipulate these files without losing quality.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Temple and Big Sky

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Choose your best photos

From each series of photographs you make I hope that you will have a number of exposure options to choose from when you sit down at your computer. Picking the best images to work on is the first part of post-processing.

Naturally, you’ll be wanting to pay most attention to the main subject in your photo. Is it exposed the way you want it to be? Can you see that there’s sufficient detail in those areas of your composition?

In some cases, such as when you’ve made a silhouette or are using low-key lighting and high contrast, you may have little or no detail in your subject. This is okay if that’s what you want.

However, if exposing for detail was your intention, and there’s not enough in your photo, look at the pictures where you used different exposure settings.

Your background exposure is also important. Does it enhance and support your main subject? Is it too bright or too dark? Again, look to see if there is detail. When there’s no detail, because of overexposure or underexposure, it will be more difficult to manipulate these areas.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Attractive Young Photographer

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Make use of the histogram

Your histogram gives you information about the tonal values in your images. It shows you where the most detail is and if you have lost detail in the bright or dark parts of your compositions.

If your histogram is bunched up to the left or the right of the chart, with the graphic touching the top, this means there will be no detail recorded in those areas.

If you can see a histogram bunched to the right and hitting the top, you will have lost detail in the highlights. If it’s bunched to the left and hitting the top, you have lost detail in the dark areas.

If your main subject is within this range and you wanted it to contain detail, you will need to choose a photo with a different exposure setting to work on.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Hill Tribe Girl

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Using presets or manual manipulation

Lightroom and Photoshop come with presets and Actions. These can be used to help balance your exposure. You can also download many more or make and save your own. These tools can enhance and speed up your post-processing workflow.

I often chose one of a variety of presets as I begin to post process a photograph. Rarely do I apply a preset without then tweaking it further. Every exposure you make is different, so to get your photos looking their best some manual manipulation is usually best.

Working your highlights and shadows

Having been careful to expose your main subject well, you may already be happy with its tone value. However, some parts of your composition may still need tweaking to get them looking the way you want.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Happy Hat Wearer

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Your intention is the most important. How do you want your photograph to look?

Here are two examples of different manipulations made to the same RAW file.

Example one: Dark background

I wanted to make the background darker so the roses would stand out. Using a preset I made in Lightroom, I then made further manual adjustments. I controlled the Blacks, Dehaze, Contrast, and Shadows sliders.

When making this kind of adjustment to manipulate the background of your image, pay attention to your main subject also. These sliders make universal changes to your photos so affect your main subject as well.

With a light-toned main subject and a predominantly dark background, the changes I made did not have much effect on the roses.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Lightroom Dark

I then opened the photo, with the Lightroom adjustments, in Photoshop. At this stage, I darkened the lightest part of the photo to lower the overall tone range.

There are many techniques you can darken or lighten specific areas of a photo. I prefer to use the Dodge and Burn tools set to a low exposure to do this. I also used the Patch tool to remove a few of the brighter areas in the background.

As a result, the background is darker, and the highlights on the rose are not so bright.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time

Example Two: Light Background

To render a lighter, softer look, I took the Dehaze slider towards the left, and the Shadows towards the right. I added a little more Black and some Contrast, otherwise the image looked too flat.

Next, using Photoshop, I tweaked the highlights a little so they were not so bright.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Roses

In both of these examples, my main objective was to enhance the roses because they are my main subject.

The background tone is also important. Between the two examples, there is the most difference in the tone of the background. This has a large impact on the overall feel of the photo.

Conclusion

As with all post-processing, there are a variety of methods you can use to gain similar results. Here I have demonstrated a few techniques I am comfortable using.

Concentrating primarily on the tone of your main subject in relation to the background is a good place to start when post-processing. Once you have made adjustments you are satisfied with, you can then move on and make other changes to your photos if you wish.

Aim to expose your main subject the way you want at the time of making your photos. Doing so allows you more flexibility to make changes in post-production and not lose quality. If you are stuck working with a main subject that’s either underexposed or overexposed, you will be limited in how much you can achieve.

Experimentation is the best way to discover how you like to work with photo manipulation software. There is no right or wrong way to work with your photos so long as you achieve the result you want.

You may also like

  • How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part 1 – Seeing the Light
  • How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part Two: Managing Your Exposure

 

The post How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time – Part Three – Post-Processing for Exposure Optimization appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.


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A Beginners Guide to Exposure When Mixing Flash and Continuous Lights

14 Apr

The post A Beginners Guide to Exposure When Mixing Flash and Continuous Lights appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ana Mireles.

Have you ever struggled with high contrast situations? Perhaps you’ve encountered shadows so dark or big that they steal the attention from the subject? That’s because sometimes you need to add a second light to your images. However, if they are different types of light, it can be difficult. Keep reading for a beginners guide on how to expose when you’re mixing flash and continuous lights.

Taking a photograph means to capture and register the light, so understanding how to do that is key to obtaining a good result. In this tutorial, I want to talk about continuous light and flash lighting, and how you can set your exposure to register both. First, I’ll explain what I mean by these terms.

Types of lighting

Continuous lighting

Continuous light (also called constant light) is the light that is on for the entire duration of the photo. This can be natural light when you’re outside, but can also be window light when you are inside. It can also be artificial light such as a table lamp or even professional photography lighting. Basically, it ranges from the sun to a candle – as long as it is continuous.

Flash lighting

Then there is flash lighting, which is only available for a quick moment when triggered. It can be from a professional strobe light, an off-camera flash, or the flash integrated into your camera. You can use these two different lights exclusively or together to complement your lighting. You can use them to create a special ambience or to achieve a particular effect. In this tutorial, I’ll explain how you can set your exposure when you use both continuous and flash lighting in the same shot.

Mixing the lighting styles together

I want to show you a situation in which I used continuous natural light as the main light and then filled in the shadows with an off-camera flash.

This first shot I took with only sunlight coming in from a window on the left and behind the camera. The camera settings used were ISO 2OO, f/8, and 0.3 sec. It’s enough to light the bowl of fruit; however, the dark shadows it has cast on the wall are not appealing.

Photography is about representing our tridimensional world in bidimensional ways. To do this, we make use of different things. One of them is shadows because they give depth. So we don’t want to eliminate all of the shadows – we want to control how many there are, how dark they look and their direction. If I slow the shutter speed to let in more light and try to ‘fill in’ the dark shadows to soften them, it overexposes the main subject.

If I slow the shutter speed to let in more light and try to ‘fill in’ the dark shadows to soften them, it overexposes the main subject. It happens here at ISO 2OO, f/8, and 2 seconds.

Therefore, it needs another source of light from the right. You can add this light source using either another continuous light or with a flash. I did this image with ISO 200, f/8, 0.3 seconds – the same settings I used for the correct exposure using only the continuous light. This solved the problem of one set of shadows but ended up creating new ones on the opposite side, so I need to fix the exposure again.

Since the flash is just a shot of light that lasts for a fraction of a second, it doesn’t make a difference how long your shutter speed is open like it does when shooting with continuous light. You can set your shutter speed as slow as you want or as fast as the synchronization limit allows you (in my case is 1/250 sec). The flash lighting exposure needs to be regulated by the aperture.

I used ISO 200, 1 sec, f/11 for this image.

In this image, I used ISO 200, 1 sec, f/16.

If you set the shutter speed to the light coming in from the left, meaning the continuous sunlight coming from the window, and set the aperture according to the light coming from the flash on the right side, you can control the complete illumination of the scene.

Conclusion

You can decide which shadows are good to keep and which ones to fill and by how much. In summary, have an image with depth and enough information both in the highlights and the shadows to either keep as shot or post-produce to your liking.

Exposure ISO 200, 1/250, f/8

*Extra tip

As you may have noticed on the examples, every light has a different color temperature, that’s why some photos have warmer or colder tones. This is a broad topic that I can’t manage to cover in this one article, but I did want to mention it. When you’re mixing different types of lighting you may need to deal with this. Sometimes the auto-white balance of the camera does a good enough job. However, if it doesn’t, I advise you to do some more research about it.

The post A Beginners Guide to Exposure When Mixing Flash and Continuous Lights appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ana Mireles.


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How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part Two: Managing Your Exposure

11 Apr

The post How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part Two: Managing Your Exposure appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Part Two – Managing Your Exposure

This is the second article in a series of three discussing how to make well-exposed photographs. The first article covers subject choice, some common misconceptions about exposure and the photographer’s intention.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Thai Dancer

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Having identified your subject, managing your exposure then matters most. These things will influence how your photograph is exposed:

  • Point of view
  • Lens choice
  • Timing
  • Reading the light
  • Exposure settings

You’ll notice that I’ve placed ‘Exposure settings’ at the bottom of this list. This is because it’s the most obvious aspect of managing your exposure. I want you to consider how the other items on the list affect your exposure setting choices.

Point of view

Where you choose to take your photo from can significantly affect your exposure. Is the light behind you? Behind your subject? To one side?

By changing your position you can manage what you see in the background and how it impacts the amount of light entering your lens.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Giant Soap Bubbles

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

In this photo, the reflection off the water makes up a large portion of the background. Had I not been careful with my exposure my subject may have been underexposed. In this photo, I compensated for the bright background by adding some fill flash.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Giant Soap Bubbles

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Changing my point of view so I no longer included the lake in the background meant I could expose my subject well. The reflected light off the water surface no longer affected my exposure. In this photo, I did not need to use my flash as there was no strong backlight to compensate for.

Lens choice

Composition is partly governed by your choice of lens. Using a telephoto lens will include less background. In doing this, you can restrict light sources and bright areas of your composition more easily. With a wider lens, you are more likely to include more sky or other bright areas which can have some effect on your exposure.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Rice Fields

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Had I used a wider lens for my photo of these rice fields I would have included the setting sun in my composition. This would definitely have a strong impact on my exposure and the whole look and feel of my photo.

I could have eliminated the effect of the sun altogether by using a lens focal length that was slightly longer. I could have also tilted my camera down slightly, but the foreground was unattractive, and I like the sunburst.

Timing

The time you choose to make your photograph can also influence your exposure. It may mean waiting until the sun is in a different place in the sky for a landscape photo. Or you may have to calculate when to press your shutter release to avoid bright headlights of a passing car. This was the case when I photographed the image below.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time On the Iron Bridge

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

The timing for blue hour photos is particularly important. You must wait for the ambient light to balance with any other light source you have in your frame. This amount of time will vary depending on your proximity to the equator.

In Chiang Mai, Thailand, we have about ten minutes each evening to capture a rich blue sky with the electric lights included in the composition.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Chiang Mai Iron Bridge

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Reading the light

To be able to set your exposure you must use an exposure meter or let your camera make the calculations and settings for you.

Leaving this choice completely up to your camera is rarely best as your camera does not know what you are photographing. Your photos will potentially lack creativity.

Your camera has amazing artificial intelligence built into it, but it cannot see the way you see and discern what your main subject is. By leaving your camera settings so the meter is set to take an averaged reading and is on any auto or semi-auto mode, your camera is in control. You can use exposure compensation or set your camera manually to take control of your exposure.

One of the easiest ways to read the light is by using live view and looking at your monitor. Some cameras do not have this capability, so you need to consult your manual and do some testing to discover if you can use this method.

Checking your exposure with live view works when you have your camera set to manual mode. It’s easy to watch the light values on your monitor changes as you alter your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Using this method in conjunction with your histogram is recommended so you can check if there’s any clipping happening.

Using your exposure meter set so it takes a reading from the entire frame and then calculates an average exposure is okay when the light and tone is even.

When there’s any amount of contrast in the scene it’s good to take a spot meter reading directly from your subject. This will provide you with the specific information about the light reflecting off the most important part of your composition.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Opening the Windows

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

For this photograph, I took a spot meter reading from the Buddhist nun, as I wanted her exposed well. Had I left my meter on the averaging mode it would have included the bright light outside and the dark interior into its calculations. This would most likely indicate a setting which would have rendered my main subject underexposed.

Exposure settings

Once you have made your exposure reading and ascertained how the light is affecting your composition, you need to set your exposure.

You may decide your subject will be well exposed by setting your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO so the meter reads zero. You may prefer to have it read overexposed or underexposed, depending on the tone value of your subject and your creative expression.

When your subject is very dark or very light, you may want to alter your exposure settings to compensate. When you take a spot meter reading the camera is calibrated to see the thing as being middle gray. This means a black or a white subject will both appear gray in your photo if your meter is reading zero.

You must decide the tone you want your main subject to be. Do you want a clearly exposed subject? Will it look better if it appears brighter than it really is? Do you want a silhouette?

For this photo of pink orchid flowers, I chose to overexpose from the reading my spot meter was giving me. I did this to produce a softer feeling in the image.

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Pink Flowers

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Had I been making the photograph to document the flower and its color accurately, I would not have overexposed it. My intent was not to make a technically accurate representation of the flower.

If technical accuracy is what I wanted I would have changed my point of view to avoid the backlighting. I would have set my exposure so the color and tone rendered correctly to how the flower looked to my eyes.

Try it out and see for yourself

Find a white or black subject to photograph. Make a spot meter reading and set your exposure so that the meter is at zero. Take a photo.

Now, for a black subject, change your setting so the spot metering indicates it is two stops underexposed. For a white subject make your settings so it’s two stops overexposed.

Which photograph is most appealing? The ‘correctly’ exposed photo, or the under or overexposed photo?

How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time Laughing Lady

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Conclusion

Experimentation is always good when lighting and subject material are challenging. If you’re not 100% certain you have a perfect exposure, (I never am,) make a series of photos whenever you can.

Tweak your aperture and/or shutter speed settings between each exposure. Don’t make huge shifts in these settings, but just enough so you have a few options to look at when it comes to post-process them.

I’d love you to leave your comments below letting me know if this article has helped you understand exposure better.

The next article in this series will cover post-processing techniques which will enhance your exposure choices.

The post How to Make Well Exposed Photos Every Time. Part Two: Managing Your Exposure appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.


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This online tool calculates the “exposure” you should demand when being asked to work for free

03 Apr

Many photographers (and other creatives) know the situation very well: you’re offered a freelance job but once the conversation turns to remuneration it becomes clear that there won’t be any hard cash but instead you’re expected to accept ‘exposure’ in some vague shape or form as payment.

Problem is, it’s very hard to put a value on exposure. The people behind Photography Domination have now come up with a way of quantifying how many ‘exposures’ your photography is worth.

The Exposure Calculator is an easy-to-use online calculator that lets you input some information about your work, for example your level of experience, the photographic genres you work in, your equipment, the number of followers of your Instagram account etc. When you hit the “Calculate” button you get the number of “exposures” you should asking for as a result.

In a very helpful way the calculator also provides conversion rates to US dollars, leads and exposure to social media followers.

Just in case it wasn’t entirely clear that the calculator shouldn’t be taken too seriously, there are notes saying ‘This calculator is obviously created with parody intentions’ and ‘Of course, if you’re serious about becoming a photographer you should almost never work for “exposure” alone.’

Maarten Mellemans, the creator of the calculator, has also authored a blog post in which he gives advice to photographers receiving ‘work-for-exposure’ offers.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Review: Alien Skin Exposure X4 Software

24 Feb

The post Review: Alien Skin Exposure X4 Software appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.

Alien Skin Exposure X4 is a photo editor providing direct competition to Adobe Lightroom, but with a few extra tricks up its sleeve. While it is a cataloging software, it doesn’t require a catalog like Lightroom. There is no importing to be done. It has a host of features and over 500 presets to help get you started with edits.

Who is it for?

Exposure X4 is aimed at a wide variety of users. From novices just getting started who want a little help via presets, to advanced photographers possibly tired of the subscription model Adobe keeps pushing for its programs.

As a professional myself, I don’t find any show-stopping limits within the program as I’ve seen from Lightroom competitors in the past. You’ll notice the word “robust” used a number of times in this article and I don’t use it without warrant. It’s a very serious competitor to Lightroom.

Highlighted Features

No catalog

At its core, Exposure X4 is built to edit photos quickly, dynamically and then to help you get the finished product out to the world, be it in print or online. Exposure X4 uses non-destructive edits, much like Lightroom, and does this without a catalog. Instead, Exposure X4 drops another folder inside of any folder you are editing as in the screenshot below.

Some may like this system because without a catalog there is no catalog to corrupt. While not a widespread problem in Lightroom, it can happen if you don’t close the program properly or if your computer crashes. Uniquely, it also allows for a limited amount of shared editing.

As the program only looks to individual edit information files (those ending in .exposurex4 in the screenshot above), it is conceivable to run the program on two computers sharing the same files, such as with a Network Attached Storage or other file sharing services (Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, etc…). There’s also no need to pack up or export a catalog before moving files as the folder with edits will travel with the master folder.

File copy from cards

Instead of importing files, Exposure X4 uses a simple copy and bookmark feature to handle raw images.

The copy feature lets you copy from a card, or from a hard drive or network resource if you want to move files. This is a separate process than simply bookmarking an existing folder to bring its contents into Exposure X4.

The copy feature is pretty robust, with the ability to change file names, make backup copies, add metadata, including keywords and copyright. It can also apply presets (from the over 500 included or ones you create yourself).

The file naming convention is also robust with all kinds of variables you would expect. Below is an example of all the date related options you have.

As a long time Lightroom user, I was happy with the selections included.

Bookmarks instead of Imports

Lightroom requires you to run an import function to bring any images you want to edit into its catalog. Exposure X4 accomplishes this, in my opinion, in a more elegant way.

Simply click the plus sign on the Folders pane and select which folder you want including in the program.

The program also has the ability to monitor folders, so when new images show up (if you are importing with another program, for instance, or shooting tethered) the program will automatically bring those images in.

Layers

For those familiar with Photoshop, the Layers technique of editing will see standard practice. Using features like Brushes (for masks) and gradients will create a new layer for each desired effect.

In this case, I added some clarity to the mountains and a slight gradient. The array of presets is decent and you can modify any mask/edit to your liking.

Each layer can be turned on or off, which is very helpful when you want to see what effect each has without having to step back through the History.

Lastly, as you would expect, layers can be copied, named and deleted.

All the other edits

Exposure X4 has a vast array of editing options as you can see from this collapsed panel below.

While featuring every single item is beyond the scope of this review, I will mention the IR (infrared) and Focus.

For instance, take this shot of photographers in front of Cho Oyu, the 6th highest mountain in the world, shot from the Nepal side.

With a quick swipe of the adjustment brush on a new layer mask then a few slider moves as such:

Bingo! We have selective focus.

 

Further editing needs to be done, but this is a nice start to helping the photographers stand out.

Presets galore

If you love presets, you’re going to love what Exposure X4 packs into its programming. Here’s a quick screenshot of the categories:

If you want to see what is behind each of those headings, take a look at their website.

One downside I can see is there aren’t many third parties making presets for this program, at least not that I was able to find.

However, you are able to create your own with no limits.

Lightroom Migration Tool

Now the crux of it!

When you install Exposure X4 on a computer with Lightroom, it will add a Migration Tool as an add-on within Lightroom.

So what does it do?

It’s fairly basic and, for the most part, tells Exposure X4 where to find all your files from the Lightroom catalog as well as bring over keywords and collections.

Does it work?

Yes and no. You need to know what to expect.

First off, it’s not going to bring over the entire history for a photo with all your edits just as they are in Lightroom.

You have two options: 1) Simply point Exposure X4 to the RAW file and then start from scratch or 2) Export each file that you have edited as either a JPG, TIFF or PSD file.

The second option works well when I had it create new PSD files. Keywords, star ratings, color coding, and all the metadata came right along into Exposure X4. The one annoying thing is it renames each file and appends it with “_migrated.psd”. This can easily be cleaned up with Exposure X4’s renaming feature.

Here’s an example of a small catalog brought into Exposure X4.

More info on the tool can be found on their site.

Show me more

There really is way too much to talk about in this one post. Luckily they have a great Features page that lists the plethora of features you may be looking for.

What Could Use Work

I found a few issues with the program while testing it. I left out the items I would describe as “That’s not the same as Lightroom!” where I blurted out that phrase because it’s not exactly the same.

No preview on import

I admit that import is the wrong name for it. Mentioned above, I’m talking about the “Copy From Card” feature to move items from a card to a local hard drive and also include them in Exposure X4.

When running this feature, there’s no ability to preview the images. This also means there is no ability to choose individual images when copying from a card.

Hopefully, this will be addressed in a future version. But I can see why they left it this way; because Exposure X4 is supposed to look at all images in a folder. If you don’t want to see them, they shouldn’t be there! It does cut down on the need to synchronize things as Lightroom can.

Not all profiles are present

The camera profile for my drone, a Mavic 2 Pro, was not included. At least that’s what I thought.

While it did have the profile for the Mavic Pro, it was not automatically recognized and applied in the Lens Correction pane. This may be a temporary thing, but the Mavic 2 Pro has been out since last summer.

Two finger rotation

This will seems like a little thing, but it really annoyed me. Rotating images is accomplished by holding down Command/Ctrl and the left and right arrow keys. Using the arrow keys make sense, because they point the way of rotation, but I want it quick and easy, not with the added Command key.

I know, it’s a little thing.

Lack of Add-Ons and Plug-Ins

Because it is not Adobe, Alien Skins doesn’t have a huge pile of developers pumping out plug-ins and add-ons for Exposure X4. It tries to make up for this fact by offering a robust program from the start, but I use the Lightroom tethering abilities often and not having that feature in Exposure X4 is hampering.

Conclusion

Alien Skin Exposure X4 can do almost all of what Lightroom can do. It’s worthy competition that deserves a close look if you are getting fed up with Lightroom and Adobe’s current path.

It offers a number of creative features you won’t find in Lightroom, like the adding sun streaks or other lighting effects to your photos.

It’s a fun and different approach than Lightroom. It can export to Photoshop and has a decent migration tool if you are already using Lightroom.

It’s not compatible with Lightroom, though. Using both programs on the same images will not work, so you need to choose one or the other. In my mind, it’s worth giving it a try and really diving into the keyboard shortcuts (“-” is used to reject a photo and “+” is used to flag it, while either shortcut can be used to toggle off the flag. No more trying to find “U” (to unmark!) to see if it is the right program for you.

Have you used this software? What are your thoughts?

The post Review: Alien Skin Exposure X4 Software appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.


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How to Shoot Long Exposure Seascape Photography [video]

08 Feb

The post How to Shoot Long Exposure Seascape Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

In this video by Landscape Photography IQ, Tom Mackie shares some great tips on how to shoot long exposure seascape photography.

?

Firstly, seaspray and salt cover everything! So bring optical wipes or spray to clean your lenses and filters.

Things to consider:

  • Think about your composition. Are there leading lines that you can use?
  • What direction is the wind going, and how is that affecting the movement of the clouds?
  • What are the tides like?
  • How quickly is the light changing?

Camera settings:

  • You may need to use a polarizer, with a graduated ND filter over the sky.
  • Put ISO at the lowest setting (64 or 100 ISO).
  • Stop down to your aperture to around f/14 max (depending on the amount of foreground and background you want in focus). Further than that softens the image through diffraction.
  • Play with different exposure times for varied effects. Try 30seconds or 60seconds.

You may also find the following articles helpful:

Step-by-step Guide to Long Exposure Photography

Recommended Gear for Doing Long Exposure Photography at Twilight and Dusk

How to Avoid Blurry Long Exposure Images with Proper Tripod Setup

How to Choose the Correct ND Filter for Your Desired Long Exposure Photography Effects

Long Exposure Photography 101 – How to Create the Shot

Long Exposure Photography 201 – How to Edit a Long Exposure Seascape

A Guide to Shooting Long Exposure Landscape Photos

The post How to Shoot Long Exposure Seascape Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.


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Xiaomi details DeepExposure, an AI that automatically fixes image exposure and detail

06 Dec

Chinese company Xiaomi’s AI Lab has published a new paper detailing an AI network called “DeepExposure” that improves low-quality images through machine learning. “Comparing with other methods,” the researchers explained in their paper, “our algorithm can restore most of the details and styles in original images while enhancing brightness and colors.”

DeepExposure utilizes generative adversarial networks and asynchronous adversarial learning to split low-quality images into segments called sub-images. The system computes both local and global exposures for these sub-images, then evaluates their quality before blending them with the original image.

The end result is an image with improved exposure and detail, opening the door for future solutions that may automatically enhance low-quality photos. It’s possible that Xiaomi may one day offer this technology on its smartphones, which already offer other AI capabilities.

The researchers point out in their paper, “Due to the requirement of expertise of photography, photo quality enhancement is beyond the capability of non-professional users, thus leading to the new trend of automatic techniques of image retouching.”

The study indicates that DeepExposure could also be adjusted in the future to improve image tone and contrast.

Xiaomi isn’t the only company using artificial intelligence to automatically improve images. Earlier this year, researchers with Intel and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign detailed a deep neural network able to brighten low-light images without reducing their quality. Similarly, a technology called Deep Image Prior was unveiled last year with the ability to recreate damaged parts of an image based on the image’s existing elements.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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500px Home Feed redesigned to increase photographers’ exposure

16 Nov

500px has launched a redesigned Home Feed that was inspired by photobooks, according to the company. The new 500px Home Feed is designed to increase photographers’ exposure and enable them to browse more images without navigating away from the feed. 500px says machine learning powers a new recommendation system to help surface content.

500px explained in a blog post that its new recommendation system will help increase photographers’ visibility on the platform by more evenly distributing exposure. Users will see a greater variety of content on the new Home Feed, as well.

Photo pages have been redesigned to make details, Pulse, views and other info readily accessible without being distracting. Photos are prominently displayed at the top of the page on a dark background for minimized distractions.

The changes apply to both desktop and mobile, the latter of which now supports the ability to view and publish Galleries. The redesign also enables users to add images to existing Galleries and then share them with followers.

Other changes revolve around the recommendation system and include suggested images in a grid format for desktop and carousel for mobile, as well as recommendations based on user activity. Recommendations will also draw from recently uploaded images to improve the discovery of new content.

According to 500px, it will not provide NSFW content on its new mobile Home Feed in order to comply with Google’s and Apple’s respective app store restrictions. The NSFW images will still be accessible on desktop, however, assuming the user opts-in to the content in their account settings. The changes are rolling out now.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs

27 Oct

Want to know how to balance exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to improve your photographs without causing white or black clippings?

Have you ever faced a scene so contrasted that it’s impossible to achieve balance in the exposure?

If you shoot in Auto mode, you may have seen this quite a bit. If you were not able to solve this problem while shooting, this is the tutorial for you. I’ll show you how to balance exposure in Adobe Camera Raw using helpful post-processing techniques.

For this exercise, I’m using a photo with extreme problems to really highlight the adjustments I’m making. Images with less-obvious exposure problems can still be improved using this same technique.

Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs - Before and After Comparison

Firstly, let’s clarify that this works best with a RAW file, but even if you shoot in JPG format this tutorial can help – so keep reading!

A RAW file is a ‘digital negative’ that contains all the information without being processed, so it won’t open directly in Photoshop. Instead, it opens in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), which is where the editing is done for this tutorial.

Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs - Open File

If you are working with a JPG file, open the ACR manually. To do this, go to Photoshop ->Menu -> File -> Open. From the browser window choose your JPG file and select ‘Camera Raw’ from the ‘Format’ drop-down menu. Click ‘OK’ to open in ACR.

If you are not sure whether to shoot with RAW files or JPG Files, read this interesting article.

Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs - Open JPG File

*From this point, you can follow the same steps for both RAW and JPG files.

Activate your clipping warnings

To help balance your image, activate the clipping warning in ACR.

To do this, go to the top corners of the histogram where you have a white and black clipping alert. Click on the one you want to view first.

Once activated, this highlights any pixels that exceed the intensity represented.

Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs - Activate Warnings

The Shadow Slider

The order in which you decide to tackle different problems doesn’t matter. You have to go back and forward through the adjustments until you reach the balance that works for you anyway.

In this case, I’m going to start brightening up the bottom, so my first instinct would be to lighten the shadows.

Adjust the ‘shadows’ slider until you achieve the desired look.

Look at the changes to the histogram as well.

Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs - Shadows

The Black Slider

Now we can see much more detail in the lower part of the photo, but now the contrast has lowered so much that the image has become quite flat. You can correct this by moving the ‘Black’ slider, which determines the darkest black of your image.

Adjust the ‘Black’ slider and see how the darkest areas are now being highlighted in blue to show you the clipping areas because you’re exceeding the range.

Be careful not to exaggerate.

Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs - Blacks

The White Slider

Now it’s time to fix the lightest parts. The sky is completely blown out and has little detail; therefore I’ll lower the brightest white possible by moving the ‘White’ slider.

Adjust the ‘White’ slider until you achieve the desired look.

Notice how the red spot in the sky that represented the clippings is getting smaller.

Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs - Whites

The Highlights Slider

The image looks better but it hasn’t completely solved the problem.

The next step is the ‘Highlights’ slider to add more detail to it. Be careful not to render the image too dark now.

Adjust the ‘Highlights’ slider until you achieve the look you want.

You’ll need to go back to the Shadows and Blacks to balance them according to the new sky. You can go back and forth through these until you find a balance you are happy with.

Notice how all the clippings have gone:

Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs - Histogram

Before and After Previews

Apart from the clippings you canals keep an eye on the histogram, look how the original had very high points in both ends and was very flat in the middle while the current one is much more balanced.

To view before and after previews, press the P on your keyboard, allowing you to make comparisons without losing any of your adjustments.

Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs - Before Preview

Balance is not necessarily all there is to it.

In this case, it resulted in a flat and muted image.

To give it that extra punch you can boost areas such as contrast or saturation.

Keep in mind that these can create clippings again, so always keep checking the entire image.

Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs - Preview

If you worked through this process with a RAW file, it is non-destructive, so you can keep editing until you’re satisfied without losing any pixels or lowering the image quality.

Due to the JPG file being a destructive process, I advise you to save it as a copy to always keep your original intact.

If you want to learn more about the basics of ACR, I invite you to read my tutorial ‘Quick Beginner’s Guide to Processing RAW Files in Photoshop Adobe Camera Raw‘.

The post Balance Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw to Improve Your Photographs appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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1000-year long exposure due to reveal effects of climate change for exhibition in 3018

26 Oct
The view from Eagle Rock – a digital pinhole image by Ryland West, showing the view from one of Keat’s camera sites

A series of pinhole cameras have been positioned around Lake Tahoe to record in a single exposure the effects of climate change over the course of the next 1000 years. Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has booked space at the nearby Sierra Nevada College to hold an exhibition of the results in the year 3018.

The idea of the project is to show the long-term effects of climate change on the environment, by recording how the scenes the four cameras are pointed at alter over the course of a 1000-year exposure. Though technical details are scant regarding the size of the aperture, the basic premise of the cameras is a pinhole construction with a rose-colored pigment to record the image. The pinholes have been made in 24-karat gold sheets (though the reason isn’t clear why gold was used) and the pigment records the image by fading in areas where it is exposed to most light. As it is the areas that are exposed to light that fade the final image will be positive.

According to an interview on the Vice’s Motherboard website Keats has ‘borrowed a technique from Renaissance painters who worked with copper. This involved rubbing the copper with pumice stone, then rubbing it with garlic and finally applying a layer of pigment. After studying different pigments, Keats chose rose madder, a red pigment that is derived from the root of a madder plant.’

The tiny cameras have a copper body and measure 2.75in long by 2.25in in diameter, and have been placed in strategic positions to monitor the condition of the lake and its shoreline. Whether the cameras can remain still for 1000 years, and whether the exposure will be right in 3018, remains to be seen – but not by any of us. Keats himself says in the Motherboard interview “The [environmental] changes that happen may wipe out the camera or wipe out the institution that’s in charge of it. I just signed a contract with Sierra Nevada College that is for an exhibition of these four photographs in the year 3018. We’re certainly taking chances with this, but that’s also part of the picture in a way.”
I’ll wait closer; to the time before buying a ticket for the opening night.

Press release

TAHOE TIMESCAPE VISUALIZE LAKE TAHOE IN 3018

Experimental Philosopher Jonathon Keats Explores 1,000 Years of Environmental Change in the Lake Tahoe Basin

TAHOE PUBLIC ART INSTALLATION | 2018 – 3018
ART EXHIBITION | OCT 18 – NOV 16, 2018
TAHOE GALLERY, SNC, Incline Village, NV

Tahoe Timescape is a public art project conceptualized by experimental philosopher and artist Jonathon Keats that photographically documents the next thousand years of environmental change in the Lake Tahoe Basin. The project enlists a new approach to photography based on the traditional pinhole camera. Pierced through a plate of 24-karat gold, a minuscule pinhole focuses light onto a rose colored pigment, such that the color fades most where the light is brightest, very slowly imprinting a unique positive image. The Millennium Camera’s thousand-year-long photographic exposure, taken between 2018 – 3018, not only shows the view in front of the camera, but also records how it develops over time, revealing dynamics ranging from urban development to climate change.

Digital Pinhole Photograph from Eagle Rock | Site Photography by Ryland West
While one goal of Tahoe Timescape is to provide documentation of human and environmental dynamics for study by future generations, the Millennium Camera, custom made from copper for durability, is equally intended as a mechanism for people today to envision their long-term impact on the environment – and potentially to change the picture by altering their behavior.

Tahoe Timescape features four Millennium Cameras that will be deployed around all four shores of Lake Tahoe, with fixed vantage points positioned to provide an expansive view of the Lake Tahoe Basin, presenting multiple opportunities for the public to engage in deep-time thinking as they explore the region. The copper brackets that secure each camera in their location, as well as informative plaques mounted next to the cameras, are fabricated locally by Mountain Forge. The four locations, pinpointed on a topographic map and identified by geographic coordinates, are as follows:

  • South Shore: Heavenly Mountain Resort, South Lake Tahoe, NV / CA
  • West Shore: Eagle Rock, Homewood, CA
  • North Shore: Lake Tahoe Dam, Tahoe City, CA
  • East Shore: Sand Harbor, NV

Jonathon Keats and Tahoe Public Art’s Executive Director, Mia Hanak, conducted site surveys to identify the vantage points and Millennium Camera locations. Local landscape photographer Ryland West explored each site to shoot a set of landscape photographs paired with digital pinhole photographs focused on the actual vantage point from the Millennium Cameras to help us imagine the photographic composition that will be recorded by each between now and 3018.

“Tahoe Public Art is truly excited to be presenting the conceptual art of Jonathon Keats to the Lake Tahoe Basin. With the ongoing stewardship of Sierra Nevada College, we hope this encourages tourists and residents alike to contemplate the future of the basin and how they can become active in its preservation.” – Steve Miller, Chairman, Tahoe Public Art.

Further outreach will be facilitated by an exhibition about deep time photography at Sierra Nevada College’s Tahoe Gallery. Opening on October 18th and running through November 16 in 2018, the exhibition will feature four sets of landscape photographs, digital medium format pinhole photographs, and photo documentation of the cameras secured at each location. Samplings of pinhole cameras, and a topographic map showing the camera sites and geographic coordinates will also be showcased. On September 5th, Keats led a pinhole camera workshop for SNC students. The exhibition will also showcase original artwork by SNC students — including 2-D, 3-D, digital arts, and interdisciplinary art — encapsulating how they envision Lake Tahoe in one thousand years.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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