The post Facebook Announces Secure Transfer of Photos/Videos from Facebook to Google Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.
If you need a way to quickly move all your media from Facebook to Google Photos, then you’re in luck.
As of this past Thursday, you can transfer photos and videos from Facebook straight over to Google Photos.
For those who are unfamiliar:
Google Photos is the default photo application on Android devices, but it’s also available for Apple users. It’s a great way to store photos of all types, including smartphone shots, personal snaps, portfolio images, and more.
In fact, the app features essentially unlimited storage capacity (though there are caps on file sizes). Since Google Photos uses cloud storage, you can view stored images from all of your devices, as well as on the web (at photos.google.com).
As for the Facebook integration:
In just a few clicks, you’ll be able to take photos you’ve uploaded to Facebook and copy them on over to Google Photos.
Why is this so useful?
For one, Google Photos packs an excellent search function. So you’ll be able to navigate through your photos more quickly on Google Photos versus Facebook.
Google Photos also includes advanced photo organization capabilities that Facebook lacks, so you can carefully catalog and curate thousands of images with ease.
Now, if you’re interested in using this transfer function, just follow a few simple steps.
(Note that the process is slightly different on desktop versus mobile, but the general path is the same.)
First, head over to your Facebook “Settings.”
On mobile, scroll down until you find “Transfer a Copy of Your Photos or Videos,” and select this option. On a desktop, you’ll need to click on “Your Facebook Information.”
Then select “Transfer a Copy of Your Photos or Videos.”
Facebook will prompt you to enter your password. Then you’ll be asked to select a destination for your photos; right now, Google Photos is the only choice, but Facebook has indicated an interest in adding additional options in the future.
You’ll also need to indicate whether you want to transfer your photos or your videos. Note that you can always start with photos but come back and transfer videos later.
Hit “Next.” You may be asked to enter your Google Photos password and, once done, you’ll need to confirm that you wish to transfer your media.
Finally, click “Confirm Transfer”, and you’re done!
So for anyone looking to add Facebook images to Google Photos, go ahead and try this function out!
But, as always, also read the fine print and see if there are any privacies or image rights you may be giving when integrating these options.
The post Facebook Announces Secure Transfer of Photos/Videos from Facebook to Google Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.
The post Sparkling Water Still Life – Put some Fizz in your Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.
Often the key to making a good photo is to show the commonplace in a whole new way. Bombarded by so many visual images each day, photo viewers need something that breaks the rules, that looks different to make them pause on your photo. This sparkling water still life technique will challenge your photo skills. It will teach you how to compose and light still life subjects, give you practice with editing tools and techniques, and help you create interesting images. Maybe best of all, you’ll have some fun.
Strongly backlit and filled with flash, these tulips were shot submerged in a vase of sparkling water. The image was flipped vertically in post-production. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm f2.8macro lens – 1/20 sec. f/11 ISO 200
Perhaps another plus to this kind of photography (I write this holed up at home during isolation), is it can be done at home on the kitchen counter or wherever you like to work. You can then post your creation online, giving us all the enjoyment of viewing your image.
Shall we get started? Break out the bubbly!
Citrus slices make good subjects for this kind of photography as they look like they belong in sparkling water. Sliced thin, they are translucent, lending themselves to backlighting. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – Left – 1/4 sec. f/22 ISO 800 Right 1/30 sec. f/8 ISO 800This image was lit from below with an LED flashlight and from behind with a Lumecube Air.
What you’ll need
Sparkling water
You can use various kinds of carbonated waters or sodas (perhaps champagne if you’re feeling decadent). What you’re after are the bubbles. There are no rules here and so use what suits your vision.
For the images here, I found seltzer water well-suited to the purpose. It is crystal-clear, has good carbonation, and with no sugar added doesn’t leave a sticky mess when it comes time for cleanup.
The colored pencils were taped together, clamped to the rectangular vase, and lit from below with an LED flashlight.
Glass container
What you use will depend on the image you’re trying to create. I found a rectangular glass vase with flat sides well-suited for the purpose. A small aquarium could work well.
Of course, if the subject and the theme you seek are different, wine or champagne glasses could work too. The only consideration here is to think about how the glass may distort anything placed inside it.
Essentially the same shot, but substituting different color backgrounds for different looks. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/10 sec. f/11 ISO 800
Subjects
There is no end to the items you might choose to submerge for a sparkling water still life photograph. I found that things that seem consistent with the theme to be good choices. The kinds of things one might find in a watery-bubbly environment.
Fruits and flowers can be good choices. You’ll also see I used shells and other aquatic items. Of course, other items with good color and interest become even more interesting covered with bubbles.
A quick dip into some science behind all of this – items with rougher surfaces, those with more nucleation sites where bubbles can form, can be more interesting. The flowers in my shots demonstrate this concept. Bubbles won’t form as easily on smoother, non-porous surfaces.
The surfaces of the roses and stem have many “nucleation sites” where the CO2 bubbles in the seltzer water can form. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/30 sec. f/8 ISO 800
Cleanliness
Most often, you will be shooting close-up, very possibly with a macro lens, for this kind of photography. The smallest of items, scratches, and dirt on the glass container, dirt and other material suspended in the water and such, will all show up and perhaps even become places where bubbles might form.
You should scrupulously clean the container you will be using before you get started. Doing so will save you lots of time later trying to remove unwanted specks from your photo digitally.
These shots illustrate some difficulties you might have. The image on the left is straight out of camera. The slow shutter speed of 1/10th second was insufficient to freeze the motion of the bubbles leaving streaks. The starfish was buoyant and floated in the container which wasn’t large enough to allow it to fit fully in frame. The image at right is edited to remove some distractions, but this wasn’t going to be a keeper. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/10 sec. f/22 ISO 800
Setup
Using your cleaned container, place the subject(s) you want inside before adding any liquid. Consider whether the subjects will float. Even if they are just slightly buoyant, once they are covered with bubbles, they are apt to get some extra lift. Be ready with some clamps, wire, tape, or other means of keeping them submerged and where you want them.
Compose and frame your shot. Depending on the subject size and how close you need to be, you may find a macro lens is needed. Other alternatives could be extension tubes, close-up filters, or a reversed-lens.
If you don’t need to be as close, you might put your camera further away and zoom into the shot.
NOTE: Do all of this before adding the water to the container. The bubbles will dissipate with time and you don’t want that happening while you’re still setting up.
Different containers will change the look of your subject, but the curved glass of this glass does distort the image the liquid in the submerged portion of the rose magnifies it making it seem larger than the above-water portion of the flower and the curve of the glass adds other distortions. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/2 sec. f/20 ISO 800
Lighting considerations
This image shows lighting from below with a LED flashlight and from the front with a Lumecube Air.
This is a great opportunity to experiment with lighting sources and techniques.
Working in a glass container gives you the opportunity to light from almost any direction; top, bottom, front, back, left, right, or a combination of these. Whether you use flash, continuous lights, natural lighting, whatever you can come up with – it’s all up to you.
Definitely use this exercise as an opportunity to play and explore. Digital film is cheap. This shouldn’t be a one-and-done kind of shoot. Make lots of shots, exploring lighting placement, various apertures and shutter speeds, light modifiers, whatever you like.
Same subject, front-lit on the left, back-lit on the right. Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/13 sec. f/22 ISO 800Same image, different backgrounds. Experiment with different things! Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/10 sec. f/11 ISO 800
Backgrounds
The addition of bubbles to your subject will cause it to become a “busier” composition. Having a patterned background is apt to distract or overly complicate the image.
I find solid backgrounds, and often plain white or black to work best. (I’ll get into the advantages of those simple white or black backgrounds in a minute.) Again, this will depend on the look you are trying to achieve, but do give consideration to not only your subject but the background.
Canon 6D with Tamron 90mm macro lens – 1/13 sec. f/16 ISO 800
Editing and cleanup
I can almost guarantee your image will need some work in editing after the shoot. Simplifying and cleaning up things you don’t want will be necessary.
Adjusting highlights, shadows, white and black levels, and cloning out distractions will all improve your photo. Whatever your editing tools of choice might be, use this exercise as a means of teaching yourself more about what you can do and how to do it.
My tools of choice are Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop.
Having a white or black background can help a lot in that with adjustments, the adjustment brush, the histogram highlight and shadow clipping tools, and the spot healing tool, I can often do whatever I need in Lightroom alone.
For tougher cloning or healing operations, I may escalate the edit into Photoshop.
Images with color backgrounds are apt to be more challenging. Again, use this exercise as a means of learning tools and techniques you might not have previously explored.
When editing an image in Lightroom with a black or white background, you may purposely want to have the background go totally black or white. Turning on the highlight/shadow clipping tools will show 100% black (0,0,0) areas in a blue highlight, totally white (255,255,255) areas in red. The “J” key is the shortcut to toggle this off and on. You can then use the adjustment brush, automask, and other LR to “paint out” distracting elements.
Flip it
Often while making a sparkling water still life, your subject will be down in the liquid. Don’t overlook the simple ability to flip your image vertically during editing to put it in a more natural viewing position.
Have fun!
Maybe the biggest reason for this table-top photo exercise is it is fun. You will be amazed at how you can make otherwise simple subjects much more visually exciting with the addition of some bubbles and creative lighting when you make sparkling water still life photos.
So, if you have to stay home, why not find ways to creatively use your time to expand your photo skills and make some nice images?
Give it a try, post your creations in the comments section of this article and be well my friends.
The post Sparkling Water Still Life – Put some Fizz in your Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.
Tiny crystals on a glass slide may look unimpressive to the naked eye, but with a macro lens and some polarizing filters they become magical. We show you how to make your own.
Know the answer to Don’s polarization trivia at the end of the episode? Tell us in the comments!
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get new episodes of DPReview TV every week.
The post Fun 5-Second Photos – Using Long Exposures for Creative Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.
Survey your collection of photos, and I’d bet that most will have been taken at 1/30th of a second or faster. Usually, we want to freeze any action, getting as sharp an image as possible. Other times, however, we might want to purposefully use long exposures for creative images.
Silky waterfalls, streaked clouds, oceans waves that look more like mist – those are the images where we might use shutter speeds that last multiple seconds or even minutes. But how about a middle-ground, say a 5-second exposure? What kinds of looks might that give you?
I wanted to tap into the frozen, non-moving ice and the moving fluid water in this photo. I needed an ND filter to get me to the shutter speed I wanted. Canon 6D with Canon 24-105mm lens, 6-seconds, f/22 ISO 100.
For the examples in this article, let’s be a little flexible saying anything between four and eight seconds is what we’re interested in.
Fortunately, Lightroom can filter images by looking at the shutter speed recorded in the Exif data. I was easily able to see which of the over 105,500 images in my Lightroom catalog fell into that range. It was just 1,036 of those or .981%.
So, while perhaps shutter speeds in the 5-second range are not often used for general photography, as you will see, occasionally that range is just right for the look you seek.
Tripod or hand-held?
The “inverse focal-length rule” says that to prevent camera shake blur you should always try to shoot at 1/lens focal length as your minimum for hand-holding your camera. For example, using your 70-200mm zoom lens if you were zoomed wide to 70mm your shutter speed should be 1/70th or faster like 1/100th of a second.
Zoom in to the full 200mm setting, and you’d best be at 1/250th or faster to prevent camera shake.
Keeping the still objects sharp while the water smoothed during this 4-second exposure required a tripod. It was shady and darker here, but I still needed an ND filter. Canon 6D with Canon 24-105mm lens, 4-seconds, f/20 ISO 50.
Those rules apply here. If you intend only to blur those things that move during your 5-second exposure, you’ll definitely need a tripod. However, there might be situations where you could make a 5-second exposure without one:
Your creative intent is to show some camera motion blur. A creative “swish-pan” is a good example.
No tripods are allowed where you are working. Crowded places, sports events, indoor locations or other places might not allow you to use a tripod. Come up with some workarounds – brace your camera against something, set it down on a bench or something, and use the 2-second timer for a hands-off shot. Maybe you could carry a beanbag or improvise with your jacket. If smaller variations of a tripod are allowed, things like a Gorillapod or Platypod might be the answer.
Consider mirror lockup to reduce vibration.
Exposure
You’re familiar with the “exposure triangle” right? If not, follow this link to learn about it. It is foundational knowledge for all serious photographers. Briefly, it states that all exposures are governed by three things, the “holy trinity” of photography:
Shutter speed (how long the sensor is exposed to light),
Aperture (the size of the hole through which light enters),
ISO (the sensitivity of the sensor to light).
Whether you are in Manual mode, Full Auto, or any other camera exposure mode, those three things are always at work. Now, if we’ve already decided we want a 5-second shutter speed, we’re left with just the other two to control our exposure.
ISO and Aperture – which?
You are likely going to want to choose one of two modes when practicing 5-second exposures: Full Manual (which will give you full control over all settings), or Shutter Priority (Tv on Canon and Pentax, S on Nikon and Sony).
Shutter priority lets you choose and lock in a shutter speed and then the camera adjusts aperture (the f/stop) and ISO (if you have that in Auto ISO). If not, ISO will be locked to whatever you set.
Now, you’ve locked in 5-seconds as your shutter speed, should you use Aperture, ISO, or maybe both to get the exposure right? Like so many things in photography, the answer is, “it depends.”
Let’s speak to ISO first. We’re trying to make a 5-second exposure. Doing so will allow quite a bit of light into the camera. So as not to overexpose the image, dialing down the ISO will help. Many cameras have 100 ISO as their lowest setting. Some can go down to 50 ISO. The benefit of lower ISO is less noise. So, set to the lowest ISO possible, yes? Sure, but that by itself may not get you there, and there are other considerations.
Let’s consider aperture.
Setting the aperture (remember the aperture is the “hole.” The term f/stop is the way we reference the “size of the hole.”) to a larger number, i.e. f/11, f/16, or f/22 will let in less light. That too may help us get that 5-second exposure.
Of course, changing aperture also affects the depth of field. We could also encounter a reduction of sharpness if we use the smallest apertures due to what is called “diffraction.”
Pre-sunrise. I didn’t have a lot of light to work with, so a slow shutter speed helped here. It also smoothed the water a bit at the inlet at the Coquille River Lighthouse in Bandon, Oregon. Canon 6D with Canon 24-105mm lens, 6 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 1600.
Proper exposure while considering the implications of each “leg of the exposure triangle” is always a juggling act. If you’re still a novice photographer who has always used automatic exposure settings, I might have lost you here. If so, I suggested you read up on these things:
Aperture
Shutter Speed
ISO
Exposure Triangle
Lens “Sweet Spot”
Depth of Field
Lens Diffraction
Cut the light
So, we have our shutter speed set at 5-seconds, our ISO at say 50, and an aperture of f/22. We check and see the image will still be overexposed. What now? Well, as we might put on sunglasses on a bright day to cut the amount of light coming into our eyes, in photography we use neutral-density (ND) filters.
These come in various grades of darkness. A rating system indicates how many stops of light they reduce. Each increase of ND 0.3 results in one additional stop of light reduction. So an ND 1.8 is a six-stop filter.
That means whatever a good exposure for the scene might be with no filter, putting such a filter on will allow you to adjust to the now correct exposure by six stops.
If all of this makes your head hurt, I suggest downloading a free ND calculator app (Android / iOS) which will tell you the settings you need.
Lee Filters (who makes a 6-stop ND filter called the “Little Stopper,” and a 10-stop filter called the “Big Stopper“) offers a nice free app. To use an example, if I had to shoot in bright daylight and the longest shutter speed I could use was at 1/200th of a second, using a 10-stop Big Stopper could get me down to that 5-second shutter speed.
Another option is a “variable ND filter.” These have two layered polarized filters, that when rotated, allow progressive darkening. They can be nice, but sometimes introduce weird visual artifacts, create color casts and such, particularly at darker settings and when using wider focal lengths. Do some research before you decide to buy one of these.
Standard circular polarizing filters can work to a degree as they will typically cut light by 1.5-2.5 stops. You can stack filters too, but a word of caution here – stacking filters runs the risk of vignetting the image, or worse, sometimes stacked filters can get stuck on the lens. This is a sure way to ruin your day. A filter wrench is a good tool to have in your kit.
In daylight conditions, even with a small aperture and low ISO, you might not be able to get to the longer shutter speed you’d like and have the proper exposure. ND filters which cut the light are often the answer. All of these photos were done with such a filter.
Suitable scenes
Okay, techy stuff out of the way. When and why might you want to take 5-second exposures? Let’s look at some example photos.
Flowing water
Silky water effects are a favorite with photographers. Slower shutter speeds allow you to get the look. Note the various shutter speeds on these images. A recommended practice is to bracket your moving water shots. The speed, volume, and proximity of the water to the camera will make a difference when finding that “just right” shutter speed to create the look you like.
Smooth water, streaked clouds
Whatever moves will blur during a longer exposure. Water, waves, and clouds will all have a different look. You need not always go for extra-long exposures either, note the shutter speeds on these were between 6 and 8 seconds.
Special Effects
A longer shutter speed buys you time for creating special effects photos. The “smoke” in the first shot is actually a piece of dental floss moved during the 6-second exposure. I used sparklers and laser pointers to create the other shots. Note the shutter speeds are all 4-seconds.
Fireworks
I find 6-second exposures are often just right when doing fireworks photos allowing capture of multiple bursts and a nice look.
Zoom during exposure
Longer shutter speeds allow you time to zoom the lens during the shot, producing the kinds of images in the first two photos. In the third image, it was the car that was doing the “zooming.”
Combining with flash
Combine a slower shutter speed with a pop of second-curtain-sync flash, and you get an image like this. The motion blurs during the ambient portion of the exposure, and the flash at the end freezes that part of the exposure. Second-curtain-sync flash shots are two-exposures in one. Canon 6D with Canon 24-105mm lens, 2-seconds, f/5.6, ISO 100.
Low light and night photography
Before sunrise, after sunset, dark days and nights – sometimes you go for a slower shutter speed because there’s not much light. Knowing when to “go slow” can make for some nice images. All of these are between 3.2 and 8 seconds.
Light painting
A longer shutter speed buys you time for light painting. The first image had a 4-second exposure, the second a 5-second exposure. Go read my article on this fun technique.
Lightning
When you don’t have a lightning trigger, you do it the old-fashioned way – Point your camera where you’ve been seeing the flashes and shoot many longer exposure shots. With luck, you’ll catch a bolt or maybe even several during a shot. Canon 6D with Canon 24-105mm lens, 4-seconds, f/9, ISO 800.
Now go “take five”
Shooting into the sun, a six-stop ND filter was mandatory to get me to a 6-second shutter speed here. Canon 6D with Canon 24-105mm lens, 6-seconds, f/16, ISO 50.
So what is the “right” shutter speed to use? When making long exposures for creative images there is no absolute.
Use the shutter speed that best captures the vision you had when making the image. Learn to adjust aperture and ISO to get you to that speed you want and ND filters when you must. The key is taking control of your camera.
As a master painter knows exactly what brush and stroke to use, you as a photographer can make masterful photos when you know the right settings and controls to use. If you have not typically worked in the 5-second shutter speed range, use the photos in this article as inspiration. Now, go “take five.”
The post Fun 5-Second Photos – Using Long Exposures for Creative Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.
The post Poll: What Post-Processing Software Do You Use to Edit Your Photos? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.
Here at dPS, we’d like to know what post-processing software you use to edit your photos so that we can deliver some post-production tutorials that better suit you.
Let us know below. You can vote for more than one if you use multiple editing platforms. If the software isn’t listed, please let us know what you use in the comments section!
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
The post Poll: What Post-Processing Software Do You Use to Edit Your Photos? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.
The post Getting Photos Organized with ACDSee DAM Software appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.
As soon as you begin using a camera with any regularity, you need to find a way of labeling photos and putting them in order. If you don’t, it could soon take hours to locate a given picture among all your folders, hard drives, and devices. ACDSee DAM software sets you on the right path from the beginning.
Cataloging photos used to involve writing on them directly or typing out captions on sticky labels. Many people didn’t bother, but digital photography made record-keeping easier. Original photo by Brett Jordan.
By investing in good DAM software at the earliest opportunity, you won’t get into a position where you have a huge backlog of digital pictures to organize.
By investing in good DAM software at the earliest opportunity, you won’t get into a position where you have a huge backlog of digital pictures to organize. In this article, I’ll introduce you to ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020, which offers a great set of features without breaking the bank.
More reasons for needing DAM
There are many
reasons you might want to locate specific photos among your collection. For me,
writing these articles is one of them. A set of photos illustrating a theme
might be scattered far and wide in my collection.
That’s where ACDSee’s Image Basket is so useful. You can work on
pictures from all over the place as if they were in one folder.
Ten photos from different folders collected in an ACDSee Image Basket. Note that I’m trying out a Lomo filter here using the experimental tools of View Mode.
Perhaps for you, it’ll be a photo book or a website that causes you to search for photos. Or you might be looking for portraits of friends and family. ACDSee DAM software includes excellent Face Detection technology. Once you’ve identified someone a few times, the software does a good job of finding other pictures of the same person. Or, if it’s not sure, it will ask you to confirm ID.
A quick demo of Face Detection technology, albeit using an artwork. With photographic portraits, the software learns facial features and starts to identify friends and family automatically.
A legitimate reason to label photos and get them in order is for posterity. One day, your photos may interest future generations of your family or even local historians. How many prints exist from the last century where the identity of the subjects and location is lost? I find that a shame.
Countless prints of places and people from the last century have become anonymous with time. Photo by Suzy Hazelwood.
ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020: A solution
There are some serious pieces of DAM software on the market. By far the best known is Adobe Lightroom, which happens to be a strong raw editor, too. Other examples include iMatch and FotoStation. But all these products come at a price.
The familiar interface of Adobe Lightroom on a MacBook. Photo by energepic.
ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 is remarkable for several reasons.
It offers a lightning-fast browser, multiple ways to search your pictures, easy tagging and keywording of images, and a good set of editing tools for rendered files.
What’s not to like? You get all that for about a third of the price or less of many rivals.
Manage Mode
In Photo Studio Home and other ACDSee DAM software, Manage mode is where you make a lot of things happen. It’s an HQ for your photography. So, what can you do there?
Folders and catalog panes – finding pictures
The folder system
of your OS is accessible through the left-hand Folders pane in Manage Mode. And
that’s handy because you’re already familiar with it.
As long as your image folders are well named, it’s an easy task to find
what you’re looking for. Alternatively, you can use the adjacent Catalog tab to
filter photos by a wide variety of attributes.
The Folders pane in Manage mode. You only get to preview the images inside if they’re not in subfolders, but you can easily switch to Photos mode to see all content.
Manage Mode drop-downs
There are six drop-down menus exclusive to Manage mode: Import, Batch, Create, Slideshow, Send, and Editors. Importing files is easy. At this stage, you can rename files, add metadata, and divide file types into subfolders, among other things.
Building a contact sheet of flower photos via the Create drop-down in Manage Mode.
ACDSee links up seamlessly with other software too, which is what the “Editors” drop-down is for. Simply add any other programs you’re likely to use and you’ll be good to go. You can flick between them as you can with Lightroom and Photoshop or Photoshop and ACR.
Properties pane – organizing, categorizing
You can add metadata and keywords in Manage, View, or Edit mode of ACDSee. That’s what the Properties pane on the right is for.
As a stock photographer, keywords are a necessity for me. They help potential buyers find my pictures if I’m lucky. I add any words I think are relevant to the image.
At the very least, you should batch-add keywords to photos from the same shoot.
You can add geographical information to the IPTC data of your images by placing them on the Google map in Manage mode and hitting “Reverse Geocode.”
Import keywords
A welcome improvement in the 2020 version of ACDSee is the ability to import sets of keywords. It’s hugely time-consuming to create a keyword list from scratch, but now you can import lists from the Internet or elsewhere. You can also export lists so that you can move them from one piece of software to another.
Keyword lists help you to be thorough in your keywording instead of relying on random ideas. They also save you from repeatedly typing the same words.
Keywording in View mode using the foundation list linked in this article. You can adapt and grow your list as required.
You can import Foundation List version 2.0.1 into ACDSee. You’ll need to build on it, but it gives you a useful structure and a good head start.
Keywords are stored in the ACDSee database and can be applied to all file types. Note the “Embed ACDSee Metadata” tool does not write keywords to the IPTC keyword data field. I recommend copying and pasting keywords to this field if you want them to be visible elsewhere.
Here, I’ve pasted keywords from the Organize tab into the IPTC data field of the Metadata tab. This ensures visibility elsewhere. Of course, you could enter words directly into this field, but then you forfeit the rigor of using a hierarchical keyword list.
Photos Mode, View Mode
ACDSee automatically catalogs the images as you browse. You can catalog folders you haven’t browsed, too, which might be useful if you’re adding lots of pictures in one hit. This is possible in Manage mode or Photos mode.
Photos mode lets you rifle through folders of images according to their date. It even gives you a fair chance of finding pictures with no keywords or tags of any kind. This is a good way of seeing all the photos on your drive in a short space of time.
Flying through images by date in Photos mode. This was the day the “Tour de Normandie” cycle race began a stage in Vernon a few years back.
For browsing photos individually, View mode is the place to be. It’s
incredibly fast, and it gives you a big preview of each photo. This is also a
good place to grade, categorize, and keyword your photos.
I’ll give you a complete workflow to use below, so you can catalog photos like a pro!
Edit Mode
ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 offers a solid set of editing tools for photographers of all levels. Of course, there are things omitted at this price point that advanced photographers may miss. Here are three absentees, along with their workarounds:
No layers or adjustment brush as such, but you can perform localized edits using gradient tools or a regular brush tool. These come with blending modes, so you get quite a lot of control over the result without the sophistication or confusion of layers.
No raw editing. You can open most types of raw files without any say in their processing. Don’t forget you can link ACDSee to a raw processor if you need that extra control. That may also solve the problem of other missing features (e.g. perspective tool).
No 16-bit support, so you have to save any files you edit in 8-bit color. If you bring 16-bit archival files into Photo Studio Home 2020 and want to preserve their color depth, you must use “save as” to create new 8-bit files with all your edits.
One niggle and some good points
On my PC, the Clone tool in this software and the version before it refuses to work. I get a black screen. That’s odd since I don’t see the same thing with ACDSee Ultimate.
There’s lots to like about the editing tools in Photo Studio Home 2020. You get all the control over color and tone you’re likely to need, including the basic version of ACDSee’s esteemed Light EQ tool. This lets you adjust shadow, mid-tone, and highlight areas of an image separately.
I like some of the little touches in ACDSee, such as the way right-clicking resets the default value of any tool. There are creative features here, too, like Color LUTs, Special Effects, and a fun Tilt-Shift tool.
The Tilt-Shift tool works well with high-angle views, but you can try it out on all sorts of photos to alter their “bokeh.”
Workflow suggestion
Although this is a sponsored post, I’m a regular user of ACDSee software. I use it to organize pictures and I edit a lot of TIFFs and JPEGs in it. Below is a Photo Studio Home 2020 workflow that takes you from importing photos to saving the finished articles.
Importing photos and naming folders
1. Import your photos. You can open the Import dialog box in Manage Mode or have it open automatically by selecting the software in Windows Autoplay.
2. Choose a destination for your photos in the Import dialog box. An example might be “Pictures” in Windows. Name a “single subfolder” using the following naming convention: yymmdd-location (e.g. 200531-Paris-France).
3. Locate your imported folder of photos via the Folders tab in Manage Mode. Using the above naming convention, the latest folders are at the bottom of the folder list by default.
4. Double-click the first thumbnail in your newly imported image folder. This will open the image in View Mode while allowing access to other images in the folder. You’re ready to start grading and cataloging your pictures.
Assessing and grading photos
5. Make sure the Properties pane is open alongside your photos.
6. Decide on rejects by tagging all keepers with the checkbox in the Organize pane (top left). At this point, tag all photos you will or might keep for whatever reason. Important: do not reject raw files on the basis of poor sharpness in View Mode, since you are probably looking at an enlarged view of the embedded JPEG. Check the technical quality of raw files later in Edit Mode.
7. Flick back to Manage Mode and click on View > Filter By > Untagged. Delete your rejects. Or, just filter them out by selecting “Tagged” if you don’t like deleting stuff.
8. Back in View Mode, you can now rate your images. Ratings go from one to five. Rather than rate photos on a whim, I suggest writing down the meaning of each rating at the outset so you have a reference point. For instance:
1 – poor photo with sentimental value.
2 – adequate record photo, average family snap.
3 – fairly strong photo with visual interest, worth showing to friends.
4 – approaching your best, worthy of inclusion in portfolios.
5 – your very best, potential competition winner.
Tracking workflow
9. In Edit Mode, use color labels to indicate where in the workflow images are. Again, I have suggestions:
Red – to delete. Once you get raw files into Edit Mode, you can assess their technical quality better at 100%. You might yet want to delete some of them or downgrade their rating.
Yellow – editing in progress. Still more work to be done on color and tone or retouching. Perhaps other possibilities to explore or versions to create.
Green – editing over. Nothing more to be done with this picture. Ready to use.
Blue – to print. You can return the status to green once it’s printed.
Purple – uploaded to a specific photo website, stock library, etc. You can use the blue label for this as well if you don’t tend to print photos.
No Color Label – nothing done since the initial assessments.
10. Photos that need work (those with yellow labels or no color labels using the above system) can be finished in Edit mode. Apply edits ranging from basic color and tone to special effects and LUTs. When you’re done editing, change the color label so you know you’ve worked on it or finished it.
Categories and keywords
11. Give your finished photos categories and keywords. If you’ve imported a set of keywords, you can go through the list top-to-bottom and apply any that suit the image. ACDSee comes with quick keyword lists built-in, which may be enough, depending on how thorough you want to be.
12. Copy and paste keywords from the Organize > Keywords field into Metadata > IPTC > Keywords. Write a caption in the Description field of IPTC. Hit “Enter” or none of this will save. This makes the data universally visible outside of ACDSee.
Naming files
I haven’t spoken of file naming above, since you might want to do that at the beginning or end.
Each photo needs a unique name. You can do it on import if you like. However, if you later delete photos, you might leave irritating gaps in your number sequence (file names invariably include numbers).
A way around this is to forget consecutive numbers and use date and time instead. This works as long as you don’t shoot multiple frames per second, which would create duplicates.
Photo libraries always had their own file-naming conventions. In the digital age, including subject names in the file name makes your photos SEO-friendly.
I always rename files after I’ve selected, converted, and edited them. That’s when I do most of my admin. Raw files keep their original names because I rarely revisit them.
I recommend using a sequential number and place, or subject names in your files (e.g. 0001-Eiffel-Tower-Paris). This can often be done quickly using ACDSee’s Batch Rename tool. The number should obviously be unique in every image.
Get started
Photo Studio Home 2020 is nothing if not versatile. Seasoned photographers who want extras like raw editing or layers can hook it up to other editors and still benefit from the superb DAM tools.
For beginners or photographers who only shoot JPEGs, this feature-laden software might be all they need. Why not get your photos sorted now?
ACDSee is a paid dPS partner.
The post Getting Photos Organized with ACDSee DAM Software appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.
I’ve always been fascinated by anamorphic lenses, which optically compress, or ‘squeeze’, an image in the horizontal dimension, making it possible to capture an artificially wide field of view on a standard film frame or sensor.
I first discovered anamorphics in college, not because I shot with them but because I had a part time job as a projectionist at a small theater. Sometimes films came through in anamorphic format and I had to attach accessory lenses to the projector to desqueeze the image beamed up on the screen.
Fast forward a number of years. I’m still fascinated by anamorphic lenses, only now they’re becoming accessible enough to content creators that you don’t need to be a Hollywood filmmaker to afford them. One of these days I’ll get around to shooting an entire video project with anamorphics, but recently I’ve been intrigued by the possibility of using anamorphic lenses for still photography.
Click the large image above to view the full sample gallery.
Which is why, on a recent trip to Washington, DC, I found myself carrying no camera gear except for my iPhone 11 Pro and two small anamorphic accessory lenses. I’d been in a creative rut for a while and needed a diversion, so I resolved to shoot in anamorphic for the entire trip. It turned out to be a fun creative challenge.
Shooting anamorphic on a smartphone
The two lenses I used for this little experiment were the Moment anamorphic lens ($ 150) and the Moondog Labs anamorphic lens (also $ 150), each of which compresses the horizontal dimension by a factor of 1.33x. Both employ a simple twist-lock M-series bayonet mount (not to be confused with Leica M-mount) and attach to compatible cases from a number of manufacturers including Moment, RhinoShield and Sirui.
The Moondog Labs (L) and Moment (R) anamorphic lenses. Both squeeze the image horizontally by a factor of 1.33x, which is what makes the exit pupils appear oval in this image.
These lenses are primarily aimed at video shooters. When used with standard 16:9 format video they deliver a desqueezed aspect ratio of 2.35:1, about the same as CinemaScope, a widescreen cinema format originally developed in the 1950s.
Shooting still photos, however, requires some creative choices. The native aspect ratio for photos on most smartphones is 4:3, so a 1.33x desqueeze works out to an aspect ratio of almost exactly 16:9.
Of course, if you can already shoot in 16:9, why bother? Because anamorphic lenses provide a qualitatively differently look than simply cropping the frame. You’re effectively using a longer focal length but capturing the horizontal field of view of a shorter focal length, giving you more control over depth of field than you would typically have at that shorter focal length. Additionally, anamorphic lenses produce some distinctive optical effects, such as oval bokeh and horizontal lens flare.
Anamorphic lenses provide a qualitatively differently look than simply cropping the frame.
Of course, when working with a smartphone you would need to be pretty close to your subject to have any appreciable control over depth of field or to generate much bokeh, but there’s certainly the opportunity to create horizontal lens flare.
In the end I settled on a hybrid approach: I set my phone to shoot 16:9 in combination with a 1.33x anamorphic lens. This results in that wide 2.35:1 CinemaScope look, so that’s the route I went.
Shooting in anamorphic
Almost as soon as I began shooting I realized there were more choices to make. Should I shoot Raw or JPEG? Would it be better to use the iPhone’s built-in camera app or a third party app designed for anamorphic lenses? Let the experimentation begin!
Use the slider to compare the desqueezed image (L) with the squeezed image (R). The desqueeze process can be performed automatically by an apps, or in post-processing with a program like Photoshop.
The built-in camera app was the easiest way to get started, and ensured that I was taking advantage of all the wizardry of the iPhone’s computational photography. However, there was one downside: there’s no way to desqueeze the image in-camera. The image is always compressed horizontally, so you need to pre-visualize what the desqueezed photo will look like when framing a shot.
It’s not difficult, but it’s still not as natural as viewing a desqueezed image in real time, so I tried a couple third party apps designed to do just that: Filmic Firstlight (iOS, Android) and Moment Pro Camera (iOS).
Both are feature-rich photography apps that display a desqueezed image preview when shooting and include useful tools like manual controls, focus peaking, zebras, Raw image capture and the ability to export TIFF files.
The Moment Pro Camera app provides a real time desqueezed image preview, making it easier to compose photos.
The most noticeable difference I found is that the Moment app obscures parts of the image behind various camera controls, whereas the the Filmic app does not. As a result, I slightly preferred the Filmic app, but beyond that one issue they provide similar feature sets. They’re both good apps and the one you prefer will mostly come down to personal preference.
The Filmic Firstlight app provides similar functionality to the Moment app, but doesn’t obscure your image behind the camera controls.
Workflow and image quality
The workflow is far easier with third party apps since you can see what your final image will look like when shooting, and photos are desqueezed before being saved to the camera roll: no additional work required.
In contrast, photos shot using the built-in camera app require an additional processing step to desqueeze them. It was easy enough to create a Photoshop action to do this in bulk, but it meant a little extra work and some delayed gratification.
The workflow is far easier with third party apps since you can see what your final image will look like when shooting.
After experimenting with various combinations of app, file format and desqueeze methods, I learned some useful things:
The Filmic and Motion apps are more fun to shoot with thanks to real time previews of the anamorphic image. It’s more intuitive and you don’t need to imagine what the final shot will look like. They also make it easy to share photos in the moment instead of waiting until later.
Anamorphic accessory lenses allow you to capture classic anamorphic characteristics like horizontal lens flares.
iPhone 11 Pro with Moment anamorphic lens.
For the most part, desqueezed Raw images generally didn’t look any better than JPEGs from the iPhone’s native app, even after being stretched out. I expected this for photos taken in low light since the native app can do some exposure stacking, but it turned out to be true in most of the comparisons I tried.
Images captured with the native iPhone app and desqueezed in Photoshop generally looked a tiny bit better than the files from the Filmic and Motion apps. It’s possible the those apps don’t have access to quite the same computational wizardry as the native app, or it might just be that Photoshop does a better desqueeze.
Either way, the differences aren’t significant. As a result, I often found myself using the third party apps for a more enjoyable experience.
The greatest limitation on image quality are the lenses themselves. They’re really intended for video use, so it feels a bit unfair to judge them critically as still lenses. Keeping that in mind, you’re going to see flaws that wouldn’t be nearly as noticeable in a moving image.
iPhone 11 Pro with Moondog Labs anamorphic lens.
Overall, the Moondog and Moment optics performed similarly; as with any accessory lens, neither provides the level of optical clarity found on your smartphone’s built-in lenses. Once you add a desqueeze step that stretches the image horizontally, you’re going to start seeing artifacts. In fact, if you pixel peep the images in this article you’ll almost certainly be disappointed
Final thoughts
None of the anamorphic photos I shot with these lenses will win awards for technical image quality, but that really wasn’t the point of the experiment. Using them forced me to think differently about the way I composed and framed shots, and that’s always a good creative exercise.
Ignoring the optical limitations of the lenses for still photography, I really like the wide, cinematic aspect ratio. I was also pleased that I was able to provoke at least one of the distinctive characteristics anamorphics are known for, horizontal lens flare.
Now, couldn’t you just use the widest angle lens on your smartphone and crop to 2.35:1? Of course you could, but it won’t look quite the same. You’ll often hear cinematographers talk about the characteristics of a particular lens instead of how technically perfect it is, and even on a smartphone these anamorphic lenses result in a different look than you’ll get by cropping. Is it technically perfect? Definitely not, but it can be a lot of fun to visualize the world in a slightly different way.
iPhone 11 Pro with Moment anamorphic lens.
What this experience taught me is that I want to shoot more photos using anamorphic lenses. It’s not something that a lot of people do, but it challenges your creativity and presents an opportunity to create unique images. For my next experiment, I’m planning to kick it up a notch and pair a larger anamorphic lens with a mirrorless camera. That should allow me to take better advantage of unique anamorphic characteristics related to depth of field.
Want to try this this yourself? It’s a fun experiment that you can do on your own. All you need is an anamorphic accessory lens and a case with a compatible mount. In addition to the Moondog and Moment lenses I tried, there are similar lenses available from Sandmarc, BeastGrip and Ulanzi, and cases from Moment, RhinoShield and Sirui. If you give it a try let me know how it works and send me a link to your photos!
The post How to Correctly Resize Photos to Print Images Big appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mark C Hughes.
In this digital age, fewer people are printing their images, missing out on what can be an amazing experience with their images. Many images only exist in the ether (or the internet, if you want to be more literal), or on people’s hard drives. However, there is nothing more impressive than to print images big.
Viewing images on phones and tablets means that the resolution is generally pretty forgiving. However, when you actually take photos and print images big, you need to resize them. Doing so will tend to expose problems related to resolution and color.
When you print images big, your images become even more impressive, with more vibrant colors and detail being visible, which can work for or against you.
Printing big always starts with a great image (f/6.3, 1/800, ISO 320).
Practical and technical issues to enlarging images
Beyond simply printing, there is a question of size.
What if that phenomenal image you took with your camera is so memorable, or of such a decisive moment, that you want to make it big?
There are practical and technical issues you need to address if you want to print those images, particularly when making images that are growing in size.
Questions like, for a given image resolution…how big a print is too big for the camera (or phone) that you used? What are the limiting factors? How do you properly resize your images to make them bigger and appropriate for the size of the print you are looking for?
Printing from a cell phone is typically limited in size.
Camera limits
In this day and age, even cameras on smartphones tend to produce at least 12 MP images. You should be able to print them if the image is good enough (sharp/well lit), to produce a 10 x 13 inch image natively.
With a little help from image processing software, you can improve this to some extent. There are some newer software techniques available to boost those images size, both internally from the cameras (such as high resolution mode and HDR), and externally from image processing software that uses sophisticated algorithms to boost the image size by interpolation.
Cell phones use multiple cameras and computational photography to make images better.
Understanding the fundamentals
The size of digital images is measured in megapixels. Each pixel is a single-colored individual group of photosites that are sensitive to particular colors of light (red, green or blue).
A pixel is the smallest dot that makes up an image. The combining photosites from your sensor produce each pixel. As you add more and more pixels, you eventually get an image.
A megapixel is 1 million pixels (give or take, depending on how it is calculated) for the entire image. When you have a camera with a certain number of pixels (i.e. 16 MP), that tells you how many individual pixels there are within the image. Camera sensors generally come in two flavors (3:2 or 4:3 ratios).
The ratio will affect the overall size relationship. What this also means is the megapixel count tells you how many individual pixels are in each direction.
Crop sensor relative sizes.
Basic math
Megapixels just provides you with the total number of pixels. In order to actually print it, you need to figure out how big you want your print and then do some very basic math to figure out what works best for your image.
When you print, typically, you are looking at print resolution, in dots-per-inch (dpi) rather than megapixels, that is appropriate for the medium and the size of print you are going to make.
For most print media you might hold in your hands, you need a minimum of 300 dpi. This means that megapixels divided by dpi will give you the maximum dimensions natively produced by your sensor.
If you simply use pixels, there is no weird conversion. For example, a 12-megapixel image (common cell phone resolution) on a 3:2 sensor translates into pixels that are roughly 4290 x 2800 on the sensor. If you use 300 dpi to give you a print, the maximum size is 14.3″ x 9.3″ (this is not overly large). Even for a 36-megapixel image, you only end up with printable dimensions of 24.5″ x 16.4″.
Native resolution to size of images.
Hold the Phone
Wait a second, isn’t a 36-megapixel camera a pretty high-resolution camera?
If a 36-megapixel image only corresponds to 24.5″ x 16.4″ that seems really small, how do they print billboards? How do you print something larger than that?
There are two answers to that. First, you don’t hold a billboard in your hands, and you view if from a distance, so the resolution to print can go down. Secondly, to enlarge an image, you use a process called interpolation. Interpolation is the process of how you create new pixels to fill the gaps between the existing pixels so you can enlarge the image.
Nikon D810 (from NikonUSA site) is a 36 megapixel camera.
Confusion in figuring out size
Sometimes, image processing software will tell you the dimensions of your image are 60″ x 39″ at 72 dpi. That seems so much larger. So where does this number come from?
There was a time where it was thought that the resolution you needed for monitors was only 72 dpi (this has changed with technology and time), but the early number of 72 dpi stuck and made the images seem pretty large. The reality is, all you really need to know is that the total number of pixels in each direction will define your image size, not theoretical inches and dpi combined.
The difference between 72 dpi and 300 dpi for the same image (hint: there is no difference) – (f/6.3, 1/800, ISO 200).
Viewing distance matters
To make matters worse, the image resolution of your print is also dependent on how big your image is. A magazine will need a minimum of 300 dpi, whereas a billboard in a subway station may only need 40 dpi. What really matters is how far away from the image you are standing when you view it.
As a general rule of thumb, you need to have a minimum printed resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi) for most prints.
Printing wall sized images (24″ x 36″ Print).
Real-world example
To make things more clear, let’s start with a simple 20-megapixel image taken on a micro 4/3’s sensor (the proportions are 4:3) and work through the process of printing an image for a wall, say a 36″ x 24″.
The image was taken by an Olympus EM1 mark II, 20-megapixel sensor. The image out of the camera is 5184 pixels wide and 3888 pixels. If you open it with image editing software, it may say that the image is 17.28″ x 12.96″ at 300 dpi (the software has done some simple math). The problem is, this is smaller than the image you actually want to print. I want to print an image that is 36″ x 24″
Sample image for printing big (f/5.6, 1/1250, ISO200).
Interpolation… the magic of resizing
The problem with resizing is that each pixel in an image is discrete. In order to make bigger images to print, we need to create new pixels to fill in the gaps between the existing ones. This sounds much simpler than it is in practice.
The classic example is a sharp edge.
As you enlarge the image, the pixels get jagged. It makes it look like something out of Minecraft. This is called pixelation.
Very early versions of photo imaging software would simply average the color and luminance, and put that new pixel in between the existing pixels. This just made the images soft and mushy.
Currently, Photoshop CC 2020 provides 7 different and discrete ways of changing the size of the image. Plus, it has an automatic setting (that selects from the other 7) to make 8 ways. However, it is limited by the content that is already there.
Each algorithm does something slightly different in its approach to interpolating between pixels. Depending on the type of image, each has varying degrees of success.
As you get close into the image, you can see the pixelation.
Although Photoshop has improved much of its algorithms for image size changes, these work reasonably well for smaller changes in size. However, significant changes in size of images can be particularly problematic.
For scaling larger, I have found the best way to increase the size of an image, as of the beginning of 2020, is to use a product from Topaz called Gigapixel AI.
Gigapixel AI uses artificial intelligence to look at the image compared to millions of similar images and creates new pixels with this algorithm.
This is a slow process and CPU intensive. That is because it uses AI to create the missing pixels to come up with a proper scaling that interpolates new pixels that work with the image. It really does work quite well. Each image can take up to 5 minutes, depending upon size.
The process using Gigapixel AI
To scale the images, here is the process I follow.
I shoot micro 4/3s (MFT), so my image sensor is a 20.1-megapixel sensor that produces raw files that average in size around 17 to 18 megabytes. The resolution of the image is 5184 x 3888 pixels.
Doing the math, for a print at 300 dpi, the largest size for the native image (not resized) is 17.28 inches x 12.96 inches. A fair size, but not a huge image.
Suppose we want to print a 36″ x 24″ image. We need to resize it.
In addition, the proportions are not exactly the same. 36 x 24 is a 3:2 ratio and my image is at a 4:3 ratio. Ideally, to get the 300 dpi, we will want to print an image that is 10,800 x 7200 pixels.
Before you start
Before I start, I always use a RAW file from the camera, not a JPEG. JPEG is a lossy format, so you never want any of your intermediate steps to use JPEG images. Even the final one should be a non-lossy image format like PSD or TIF. You can read more about file formats here.
Image sensors record light, not dark. The dark areas are the absence of light.
That seems obvious, but there are ramifications of this. In general, the majority of the image data is located on the right side of the histogram. This means that to have a successful image it must be properly exposed or slightly underexposed and brought back in a raw editor.
Close up of an image sensor
Calibration
Finally, before you start, you will need to ensure your monitor is calibrated.
Calibration of your monitor will ensure that the printed version of our image will be closer to the version you see on your monitor. In general, uncalibrated monitors are too bright. Using an uncalibrated monitor will result in prints that are much darker than what you see on your monitor.
This can sometimes happen even with a calibrated monitor too, but test prints will help assess how far off your monitor is from your prints.
Color Calibration tool for monitors
Noise
When you enlarge an image, you need to ensure that the noise levels are under control before you start.
Enlarging an image with a lot of noise will only increase the amount of noise present. All resizing programs will do their best to examine the underlying data of your image and use it to scale upward, but the noise on an image will only get worse.
High ISO image ISO 6400 (f/2.8, 1/13, ISO 6400)
Sharpening
The sharpening of your image should only happen at the end of the process of resizing an image. Sharpening is a process of looking at areas of high contrast (these are typically edges) and emphasizing the transition to make those transitions seem more distinct. If you do this early in your editing process or during resizing, the scale of the sharpening will create halos or bizarre artifacts that will be really obvious.
Sharpening can cause a crunchy appearance (f/5.6, 1/250, ISO 200)
Photoshop versus Topaz Gigapixel AI
Although many people use Photoshop to resize, as of 2020, I have found that it does not do as good a job as Topaz’s Gigapixel AI.
Larger scale resizing through Gigapixel AI takes longer, but the results are substantially better. All you need to do is to launch the application and tell it how big you want the new image to be. Press Start and go have a coffee, as it takes a little while. However, the results are really good.
Topaz Gigapixel AI is a tool for resizing images large
Making the Big Print
Finally, once you have resized the image to a larger size you need to print the image. There are basically two main methods to print images big. Chromogenic (C-prints) or Giclee (inkjet) prints.
Both can produce big, high-quality images, but the processes are quite different as is the look of each. I generally prefer inkjet-based, but there are lots of people who still use C-print techniques.
Final product printed and on a wall
Conclusion
When you print images big, there are lots of things to consider when resizing your images and then getting them ready to go to print. However, the results are truly breathtaking.
If you have a great image and you take the proper steps to resize the image and print it big, you will be incredibly satisfied with the result. Moreover, you will create a lot of interest in your images, particularly now that few images get printed anymore.
Do you have any other tips to print images big that you’d like to share? Please do so in the comments.
The post How to Correctly Resize Photos to Print Images Big appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mark C Hughes.
SkyPixel, in partnership with DJI, Nikon, SanDisk, and Western Digital Corp, launched its 5th Anniversary Aerial Photo & Video contest on December 3rd. Entries closed on February 3rd and the results were announced earlier this week. The 56 category winners and finalists were awarded prize packages worth over $ 117,000. Since launching in 2014, the SkyPixel platform has attracted over 18 million aerial photographers and content creators from 140 countries.
‘I feel really grateful to be chosen as part of the winning crew of talented people who entered the SkyPixel contest. Taking first place in Sport was totally unexpected. I knew I had a good image but also understood I was going up against thousands of talented people in the community,’ Andy Leclerc, First Prize winner, tells DPReview.
‘The emotion and drama captured in this image (is) very powerful. Fantastic composition and post production,’ says judge Chris McLennan about the Grand Prize-winning image from Tony Wang.
Nominees are currently featured on the recommended photographers section, an area that receives over one million page views according to SkyPixel. They’ll also be considered for the role of DJI Creator. Winning photographs and videos will be showcased at DJI Flagship stores around the globe this Spring. To view all selected photos and videos, visit the SkyPixel 5th Anniversary Aerial Photo & Video Contest page.
Grand Prize: ‘Top of Java’ by Tony Wang (China)
About this photo: ‘Indonesia has the reputation of a volcanic country. Among the more than 400 volcanoes, 129 are active volcanoes. At 2 am, my team and I drove to the most unique viewing platform of Mount Bromo National Park. After shooting the Milky Way volcano, the sky gradually brightened. I decided to use the perspective of a DJI drone to overlook the sunrise of this volcanic park.
When the first rays of sunrise hit the volcano, there was nothing more beautiful than this moment. In the future, Mount Bromo in the foreground has been active for a long time, while the prospect of Mount Semeru is not always in an eruption state, and this picture of the eruption was fortunately captured by DJI.’
Gear and specs: Not available
First Prize: ‘EdgeRider’ by Andy Leclerc (US)
About this photo: ‘I captured my image “Edge Rider” with a Mavic 2 Pro. This particular photo was tricky to plan and execute, I had to get the sun position just right and have his shadow cast the perfect riding position. I used the PhotoPills app to plan for the sun’s position and the burst mode in my camera settings to be able to capture the “WOW” moment. It took 256 attempts to get it right but the results paid off,’ Leclerc reveals to DPReview.
Gear and specs: DJI Mavic 2 Pro, F5.7, 1/500s, ISO 100
First Prize: ‘The Epic Moment’ by Vincent Chen (Zambia)
About this photo: ‘I took this special selfie with Mavic 2 pro in Dolomites National Park, Italy. The setting sun hit at the peaks and clouds at sunset, it was really epic moment, I then used the pano mode to take the amazing whole scene.’
Gear and specs: DJI Mavic 2 Pro, F5, 1/500s, ISO 100
Second Prize: ‘Xiyun Buyun Pavilion’ by Yisan Xiao (China)
About this photo: ‘This is an aerial perspective of Xiyun Wetland Buyun Pavilion in the morning mist.’
Gear and specs: DJI Mavic 2 Pro, F5, 1/400s, ISO 100
Second Prize: ‘Family’ by Ben Mack (Australia)
About this photo: ‘A sight to see on Australia’s East coast. A mother whale with her newborn enjoying their migration South.’
Gear and specs: DJI Mavic 2 Pro, F3.6, 1/200s, ISO 100
Third Prize: ‘Aiken Spring’s Undead’ by Dreamland (China)
About this photo: ‘Aiken Spring is located on the vast ground at the foot of the Snow Mountain, with a wide horizon. Viewed from the air, various beautiful pictures have been formed around the eyes of the spring due to the long-term sulfur precipitation. Because there is no comprehensive detailed and reliable survey of Aiken Springs to date, this geological wonder has been cast a mystery.’
Gear and specs: DJI Mavic 2 Pro, F6, 1/240s, ISO 100
Third Prize: ‘Margaret River Surfing’ by Shaneri (Australia)
About this photo: ‘Margaret River, in Australia, is renowned for wine and the big winter swells that hit the coastline. This shot was captured last Winter.’
Gear and specs: DJI Phantom 4 Advanced, F5, 1/1000s, ISO 100
5th Anniversary Prize: ‘The Beauty of Greenland from Above’ by Albert (Netherlands)
About this photo: ‘Greenland is a truly magical place. We explored this place with our little red sail boats that made great contrast with the white and blue ice chunks everywhere. By using a drone I am able to show the immense size of of these ice bergs compared to our boats. At some point you forget that they’re pieces of ice. I used to just call them mountains.
It’s incredible to fly your drone above these giants. But Greenland’s atmosphere is incredible in general. The midnight sun colors lasting all night and casting their beautiful light on the ice and water. And not to mention the whales that I saw everyday. I enjoyed watching them play right from the coastline of Ilulissat.
You only realize how beautiful this place is when you’re actually there. There’s something magic about the whole atmosphere. It’s a place we should really cherish in the future and that will hopefully not lose its magic because of global warming.’
Gear and specs: DJI Mavic 2 Pro, F3.4, 1/100s, ISO 100
5th Anniversary Prize: ‘Populus Euphratica’ by Wang Hanbing (China)
About this photo: ‘In Western China, there is an ancient tree that condenses the heavens and the earth, crosses the ancient floods, stands proudly in the desert Gobi, and interprets the meaning of survival in a brilliant way. With the body of the cricket, it forms an eternal landscape and an eternal statue. It is Populus euphratica in the desert!
Populus euphratica, a hero tree in the desert, is not afraid of the sand and the heat with a tenacious character, a tenacious body, a stubborn destiny, a persistent spirit, and guarding his homeland, he has constructed the eternal theme of Populus euphratica and life; it With tenacious life and indomitable will, compose a song of life.’
Gear and specs: DJI Mavic 2 Pro, F6, 1/60s, ISO 100
Nominated Entry: ‘Coexistence’ by Dipanjan Pal (India)
About this photo: Captured in Iceland, ’it’s wonderful to see how nature and human can coexist together to create beauty, if we change our perspective a little.’
Gear and specs: Not available
Nominated Entry: ‘Autumn Memories’ by Yamaguchi
About this photo: ‘Located in the “Red Steel City” of Qingshan District, Wuhan, there are a number of staff quarters built by WISCO Group in the 50th century. They are all brick-concrete red roof tiles. The layout is regular and the floors are the same. “Double Happiness” has become a permanent memory of the older generation of WISCO.’
Gear and specs: Phantom 4 Pro, F5, 1/60s, ISO 100
Nominated Entry: ‘Boat Carrying Flowers’ by Tu?n Nguy?n (Vietnam)
About this photo: ‘The monk carried a flower boat in the river, flower pots are transported to the temple to decorate for Tet holidays, the shadow of the cloud shining on the river feels like a boat going in the clouds. I took this picture in Thap Muoi wetland, Vietnam.’
Gear and specs: Mavic 2 Pro, F5, 1/30s, ISO 100
People’s Choice Prize: ‘”Circle” Dream Guangzhou’ by Garrett Liu (China)
About this photo: ‘A night shot of the Guangzhou Yuan Building in China.’
Gear and specs: Mavic 2 Pro, F5, 1/8s, ISO 100
People’s Choice Prize: ‘Walls of Gold’ by Joe Orsi (US)
About this photo: ‘Here is Hohenzollern Castle during the golden hour.’
The post Is Being Shy a Good Reason to Only Take Candid Photos? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.
Standing back with a long lens on your camera and snapping candid photos is an easy option for many people. The alternative is to use a shorter lens and get in close and connect with your subjects. This is challenging for most photographers.
A candid photo is one where your presence and your camera are not affecting the outcome of the photos you take. There is no pose. There is no distraction from you or your camera at all.
When you are shy, using a long lens for candid pictures might be less taxing on your emotions. But it does not often result in the most engaging photographs. If you are capturing candid photos only because you are shy, this is a cop-out. Only using this technique will limit your potential as a photographer.
At times, a candid approach to photography will result in more interesting photos.
You will not always be in a position to engage with your subject. Sometimes doing so will disrupt a natural flow of events.
Finding yourself in situations where you think you or your camera will alter the scene, it’s good to remain candid.
If your subject sees your camera, it may distract them. Sometimes when people are aware there’s a photographer present, they will alter their behavior.
Other times, you might be wanting to photograph a whole group of people. There’s no way you’ll be capable of approaching them all for even a short conversation.
Is your subject highly focused on what they’re doing?
If your subject is absorbed in what they’re doing, you might not want to interrupt them. They might be:
Having an animated conversation
Playing sport
Creating art
Working
Or even sleeping
These are all times when asking permission or otherwise engaging a person will break their concentration (or slumber). This will affect the potential photo opportunity.
In ideal situations, you’ll be able to catch a person’s eye. They will see your camera and might give you an approving nod without breaking the flow of what they are doing. Then you can take photos in a relaxed manner because you know your subject is comfortable with you doing so.
Many times it’s not practical to engage with your subject. Candid photos are the only practical option when you are photographing:
Crowds
Street scenes
Where your subject is inaccessible
At times like this the only other option to taking candid photos is to not take photos.
When you can’t engage, it pays to be patient and observant. Wait for the decisive moment when the action is at its peak. When as many of the elements of a good photograph align, this is when you can capture the best candid photographs.
You don’t need to be an extrovert to photograph people
Being shy is a strength. Shy photographers can make the best portraits. This is because they show empathy toward the people they photograph. Learn to overcome the fear of imposing and you will take portraits with more depth.
To simply take candid photos because you are shy is not a good reason. Yes, as I have pointed out, candid photography is valid at times. But to avoid connecting with people because you don’t want to impose will often not result in the best photos.
When you want to photograph someone you see at the market, or a friend or your barista, talk to them first. Engage with them and build a rapport.
If you’re photographing a wedding or portrait, work on building a comfortable relationship with them. In many circumstances, the degree with which you connect with your subject will directly influence how good your photos are.
Don’t worry. If you are fearful of someone’s response, this will show. They will know and respond accordingly. Approaching someone with confidence, you are more likely to receive a positive response.
You don’t need to get in their face with a false boldness, just be yourself. Know what you want and communicate this to your subject. Take your time as it will pay off with better photos.
Spending time with anyone you want to photograph will usually result in a more interesting portrait. Learn to connect, even if you don’t have much time.
If you’re in a street market or a coffee shop, take a few moments to show people why you are interested in taking their photo.
With a friend, share with them what’s on your mind. Talk with them about why you want to take their picture.
When you’re photographing a model, compliment them.
There are many ways to communicate positively that will enhance your photographic opportunities. Staying quiet will often inhibit your creative potential.
As a young man, I was painfully shy. I loved photography, but could not bring myself to photograph people. Now, the main subjects in my photographs are people. I learned to use my camera as a bridge to connect with the people I want to photograph.
In my book, Photographing People – A Guide For Shy Photographers, I share my experience and teach you how to overcome your shyness.
My journey to becoming a people photographer has been challenging. Camera skills are only a part of what you need to create great portraits, no matter what gear you use.
Learn when it’s best to connect. Learn how to connect. You will create more interesting, more engaging photos of people when you do.
Please Click Here to purchase my book on Amazon.
The post Is Being Shy a Good Reason to Only Take Candid Photos? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.
tool. This lets you adjust shadow, mid-tone, and highlight areas of an image separately.
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