Camera Controls And Photoshop

CAMERA CONTROLS & PHOTOSHOP©ALEXANDRA COPLEY

TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT YOUR

CAMERA CONTROLS

Are you familiar with all of the buttons and what they can do for you?

VIEWFINDER MENU

FOCUS MODES

SELF TIMER

CAMERA MENUS

CAMERA MENUS

WHAT MAKES A DIGITAL PHOTO?

PIXEL ﾐ Picture Element: digital photographs are comprised of thousands or millions of

them; they are the building blocks of a digital photo.

CHOOSE JPEG or RAW

uncompressed (an 8 megapixel camera will produce a 8 MB Raw file)

the complete (lossless) data from the camera’s sensor

higher in dynamic range (ability to display highlights and shadows) lower in contrast (flatter, washed out looking)

not as sharp

not suitable for printing directly from the camera or without post processing

waiting to be processed by your computer

RAW

JPEGcompressed fairly small in file size (an 8 megapixel camera will produce JPEG between 1 and 3 MB’s in size)

lower in dynamic range

higher in contrast and sharper

immediately suitable for printing, sharing, or posting on the web

processed by your camera

PROS AND CONSRAW files are bigger and take more space on your memory card

RAW files need post production

RAW files are better quality

RAW files give you much more control over how the image will look

Better for professional photographers

JPEG files are smaller in size and take less space to store

JPEG files do not need any post production

JPEG files loose richness, detail (sharpness), color range

JPEG files give you less ability to control the final image

Better for snapshots

Take one photo in raw and one in jpeg. Can you see the difference?

FIND YOUR EV

EV-EXPOSURE COMPENSATION

CHARACTERISTICS OF EV

EV means exposure value

The range over which you can manually

over or underexpose to lighten or darken the image

Usually, the range of adjustment

goes from +2 to -2 EV in 1/3 steps

OVER & UNDER EXPOSURE

AEB- AUTOMATIC EXPOSURE

BRACKETING

CHARACTERISTICS OF AEB

The camera automatically takes three or more

shots with a different exposure for each frame

One image at the camera measured exposure, a second at a negative exposure compensation (usually -1/3 EV, though some

cameras allow you to specify the amount), and a third at a positive exposure compensation (usually +1/3 EV, though some cameras allow you to specify the amount)

Useful option for taking HDR scenes

Find the AEB on your camera

VIEWING MENU

IMAGE METADATA

HISTOGRAMS

HISTOGRAMSimple graph that displays where all of

the brightness levels contained in

the scene are found, from the darkest to the brightest

Displays a photographs dynamic range

In camera light meter

READING THE HISTOGRAM

HIGH KEY EXPOSURE

LOW KEY EXPOSURE

WHAT MAKES A GREAT PHOTOGRAPH?

MAKE GREAT PHOTOGRAPHS

THOUGHTFUL TIMING

COMPOSITION (RULE OF THIRDS)

PERSPECTIVE

PHOTOGRAPHS CREATE MEANING

SNAPSHOP VS. PHOTOGRAPH

*WHAT DO ALL OF THESE IMAGES HAVE IN COMMON?

RULE OF THIRDS

RULE OF THIRDSRefers to the placement of the subject

within the frame of your photograph

Places the main subject off center and away from the center of the frame. As a result,

photos can look more dynamic and interesting

Place points of interest in the intersections or along the lines

PLACE OBJECTS AT INTERSECTIONS

RULE OF THIRDS

PERSPECTIVE

Perspective is the way that an object appears to the eye

Dependent on focal length and picture angle

Creative way of looking at your photographic subject

Example ALEXANDER RODCHENKO, BILL BRANDT, HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON

PERSPECTIVE

Boring flowers become an amazing photo

PERSPECTIVE

ALEXANDRE RODCHENKO

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON

BILL BRANDT

IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS

Practice photography on a regular basis

Avoid common photographic mistakes like over exposure, under exposure, or blur

Look at photographs of others to inspire

Read your manual and learn about your camera functions

Learn better compositional techniques

Don’t be afraid to experiment

PERSPECTIVE EXERCISE

Find an object/subject

Shoot 15 different ways (using rules of perspective and composition)

Get creative with angles

30 minutes

ADOBE CAMERA RAWused primarily to read and process raw image files

resulting images can be processed by Photoshop

considered a plug-in but comes with the program Photoshop

opens automatically when adjusting a .raw file

reads your camera default settings (or custom)

allows control over white balance, histogram, crop, sharpness, contrast, saturation and more

ADODE CAMERA RAW INTERFACE

WHITE BALANCE

3 ways to adjust white balance

White balance eye dropper, settings, or temperature and tint

allows control over final color balance

EXPOSURE

controls brightness of an image

moves in F-stop values (f/22-f/1.8)

latitude based on quality of camera and lens used

Using the alt button you can find ‘clipped’ pixels of pure white if over exposing (means losing detail in highlights)

SHADOWS

Much like using the black eye dropper in levels in Photoshop

Allows control over dark details in image

Holding down the alt button allows you to see if you have ‘clipped’ any shadow detail in the image

BRIGHTNESS

overall lightness adjustment

gamma adjustment

maintains all of the image details (shadows and highlights)

No clipping

Histogram not really affected

CONTRAST

is created by the difference in luminance

measures difference between the colors (how stark or not)

think of a black silhouette on a bright white sky (high contrast)

SATURATIONchanges intensity of a photographs colors

high saturation will result in special effects and brighter colors

low saturations will result in a black and white effect

increasing too high will result in color shifts when printing

SHARPNESS & SMOOTHNESS

best to zoom to 100% view of image

used to enhance "sharpen", the detail of an image

sharpening isn't about making a blurred image sharp; it's about getting the optimum sharpness from a photo that was shot sharp

Smoothing also known as antialiasing, is the electronic process of eliminating or reducing noise in an image

or averaging pixels with their neighbors to reduces contrast and simulate an out-of-focus image

RGB HISTOGRAM

R-red channel

G-green channel

B-blue channel

measures color's intensity distributed throughout the image

an RGB histogram produces three independent histograms and then adds them together, irrespective of whether or not each color came from the same pixel

RGB histograms can show if an individual color channel clips

HISTOGRAMhistogram is a graph counting how many pixels are at each level between black and white

black is on the left

white is on the right

the height of the graph at each point depends on how many pixels are that bright

lighter images move the graph to the right

darker ones move it to the left

can be used as in camera light meter for exposure

CLIPPINGa little bit of clipping is OK on things like the

highlights of sun dancing on water (specular highlights)

overexposed digital images are almost useless.

Anything that washes out to white is gone forever

images that are too dark are easy to correct later; just drag the right slider in Photoshop's

Levels command to the left to meet the edge of the histogram

In this histogram you'll see a peak on the left at 100% black, even when overexposed. This is the dark shadow on the left of the photo. This shows that the camera's contrast needs to be lowered, or better still, add fill light in the shadows.

Overexposed histogram means loss of detail in the highlights

IN CAMERA HISTOGRAMS

COLOR/RGB HISTOGRAM

PHOTOSHOPtaking your photograph to new creative heights

useful tips that will improve your Photoshop

skills such as editing, enhancing, practice, tutorials, subscribing to galleries and forums and reading magazines

INTERFACE AND TOOLS

1. START WITH FUNDAMENTALS

http://www.tutorial9.net/photoshop/photoshops-basic-tools/

The Crop Tool allows users to redefine their active image area but not resize the ENTIRE image. It’s sort of like cutting out a smaller picture from a larger photo with a pair of scissors.

There are several healing tools in Photoshop which

are used to repair imperfections in images, or handle blemishes and red-eye

With the Clone Stamp Tool, a user may select a source starting point somewhere on an image, and then paint elsewhere using that starting point as a reference, effectively

cloning the source.

The Eraser Tool can

be used to erase parts of an image, selection, or layer

The Sharpen Tool is used to sharpen edges in an image, while the Blur Tool burs edges. The Smudge Tool smudges an image, similar to using fingerpaint.

The Dodge Tool lightens parts of an image while the Burn Tool darkens. The Sponge Tool is used to saturate, or desaturate parts of an image.

WORKING IN PHOTOSHOP LAYERS

CREATING INTERESTING EFFECTS

PHOTOSHOP TEXTURES & VECTORS

http://zentextures.com/

http://www.smashapps.org/2009/07/42-free-photoshop-textures.html

http://www.vectorportal.com/

PHOTOSHOP PLUG-INS

Photoshop functionality can be extended by

add-on programs

most common type are filter plug-ins that provide various image effects

many free plug-ins online

http://coffeeteaphotography.blogspot.com

http://tutorialblog.org/free-photoshop-plugins/

2. EXPERIMENT

The best way to learn anything new is to

experience it for yourself

3. PHOTOSHOP TUTORIALS

http://psd.tutsplus.com

subscribe to a few that you like the most so you don't miss out on new posts (you may also want to bookmark other tutorial sites in case you want to find them in the future)