Photo Composition-The Cropping L's in Use

Sunday, March 18, 2012
St.-Patrick's Day Parade in 
Montreal,Quebec,Canada

Photo Composition

The Cropping L's in Use

     Yesterday, I introduced you to the "Cropping L's". They're basically 2 right-angled shapes that look like the letter "L", or a carpenter's square. That's the tool that is 90 degrees and make sure that your cuts are square of 90 degrees when you cut.

 Here's one of my images from yesterday.

It's a nice photo, but it can be improved. 

As I use the Cropping L's, I'll explain the reasons for the improvements. 

 The Cropping L's outside of the image area.

 I've changed the shade of 1 of the cropping L's or croppers in order to show you 

how I move either the black, the grey, or both "croppers".

1. I removed the car

2. I removed the concrete wall at the bottom of the photo.

Both crops focus in tighter (closer)on the people and the bird.

As well, the car is a bit of a distraction.

 1. I removed the 2 men on the left side of the photo

2. I removed 1 of the horizontal bars at the bottom of the photo.

Now the focus is more on the bird, since the men are removed, 

and this cropping will make the bird larger.

 1. I put back the men into the photo.

This allows for a "human element"in the photo.

As well, the photo with the men create's an "imaginary" triangle with the movement of your eyes.

The movement is from the bird, to the top of the small light house, to the 2 men, to the bird.

 1. I cropped the right side so that the bird is not so centred in the photo.

This  is better, since placing an object in the centre of the photo 

(in this case on the lower 1/3 imaginary line), weakens the photo.

 Below are 4 photos that I took yesterday.

The best thing is to always take lots of photos and think about your composition as you shoot.

In this way, you'll have large-sized files, and won't need to worry about having only small images after the cropping.

 Each of the above 4 images can be improved through cropping.

If you've made your croppers, you can use them to improve each image.

It's best to double-click on any image so that it will appear against a black background in a new window.

You can make what is called a "Viewing Frame". 

You take this device on location with you when you are taking photographs. It allows you to frame your photo before you use your camera. It' will train you to think 35mm format when you go on location.

You will need a piece of string that you can add pieces of tape to. You then write on the take pieces that are on the string the different focal lengths.

The closer the frame is to your eye, the wider the angle of view (focal length). The farther away the viewer, the narrower the are of the scene in the frame, hence a longer focal length.

So buy some black board at your local graphic arts or art store, or simply cut out some shapes from a larger corrugated box.

Either way, you'll start to be able to "envision"how your photo will look before you take the photograph!

As always,  thanks for dropping by, and have a great morning, afternoon or evening, wherever you my be.

Photo Composition - An Introduction

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Photo Composition

(An Introduction)

     Yesterday was a great day to take photographs. I woke up to a very foggy morning, and decided to go out and take pictures! I'll show you what I took, and introduce to a few terms of composition. 

 The  35mm format with film was 24mm x 36mm or 2 x 3. It's changed slightly with most DSLRs, as they have a smaller frame than the full-frame more expensive cameras. However, the basic principles of composition haven't really changed.

The above 2 diagrams present to you what is called "the rule of thirds".

If you divide your viewfinder into imaginary 1/3's, you'll get the vertical lines intersecting with the horizontal lines. 

The 4 points at which the vertical  and horizontal lines meet are called "crash points". Placing your main parts of the photo (elements or subjects)at these intersecting points, makes your photos more interesting. The reason is that the lines intersect and draw your eyes to these points.

The other part of the "the rule of thirds" tells you to place any horizontal or vertical main parts of a photo (e.g. the horizon or the water level)at the lower or upper 1/3 line position.

I'll show you what I mean by these terms. Have a look at the photos below.

Notice how I try:

1. To keep the  horizon line in the lower 1/3 of the photo. 

Of course I could have positioned the line in the upper 1/3 also.

 2. Notice how I try to place important parts of the photo on the "crash points".

Below are more photos taken near the above location, and on the same day.

These photos still are trying to apply the same 2 compositional elements as above:

a. The rule of thirds

2. Crash Points.

However, all of these photos can be better improved through what is called "cropping".

Cropping is  a method whereby you re-frame the photo to take out parts of the photo that may be distracting. Originally, this would be done to a photographic print. However, it can just as easily be done on a computer screen as well.

The objects below are called "cropping L's", since 3 their design 

or shape is in the form of the English letter "L". You can make small ones or big ones depending on how you like to preview your images on a computer screen.

You can see how they can move in 2 directions:up and down and left to right

I've made then narrow, but you can make them bigger. This will hide areas of the photos that you don't like, or by the use of the cropping L's you can tighten the area of view of your image.

Try to make a pair of these cropping L's.

I'll continue tomorrow to show you how they work, but I'm sure you can figure that out.

Caution: Be very careful to not scratch your computer monitor or Imac which has a plastic covering over the front that protects the glass behind!

You can even place them slightly away from the computer screen, and they'll work as well.

From there, you can then recrop your photo (crop and paste)to present to yourself a new reframed photo.

That's it for today, so thanks for dropping by.

Have a great morning, afternoon, or evening as usual.

The Contact Sheet

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

The Contact Sheet

     The term "contact sheet" was carried over from photography into Photoshop, like manuy other photographic terms. A contact sheet was  a photograph of all the photograph frames from a session of taking photos. What you did was place the photos that were cut in strips above a piece of enlarging paper.   You then placed a sheet of clear glass over them and the paper to keep them fla. Then you exposed the paper and developed it.

    Because I have the toys that I present in my oldantiquetoys.blogspot.com for a short time, I take plenty of photographs to keep with me. I decided that for today's instalment, I'd show you a contact sheet.

   Photographers would create these contacts to view all of the images. They'd view them with a magnifying "loupe", one at a time, and edit them out.  Photographs or images that were out-of-focus, badly exposed, things in the frame that weren't supposed to be, and all other "rejects" were crossed out with a wax crayon or magic marker.

   The remaining "good photos" were then enlarged to let's say 4" x 6" sizes called "proofs" for the client to look at.  The contact below is the contact before the "editing". However, since I'm presenting you an image to fit a space on the blog, you won't be able to see the out-of-focus" images. Nevertheless, the contact sheet still has its' merits.

   I usually use  Photoshop CS4, the latest version, but I just discovered that this version no longer has a contact sheet. You need to go to Bridge, another Adobe program, in order to create the contact sheet. I don't know why they removed this feature, but perhaps Adobe found that there were many people like me who never used that feature.

 The Contact Sheet From the "Shoot" or Photo-session. 

 The Best of the Images From the Contact Sheet

 The Final Selected Images for 

the E-Bay Listing

     What Photoshop and other similar programs like that have done is to make the process of viewing the images of a "shoot" must faster. You really only need to open op the files, magnify them to a large size, then scrutinize each image, and keep it open or close it. From there, you can then "photoshop" the image fir the final "save". Don;t forget to save the file as a new file, so that you have the original. This is more important when you're working in "RAW"!

   I'll talk about "RAW" at some time in the future, bit for now, all of my images have been JPEG's. The main difference  between Raw and JPEG is that the RAW file is a much larger file, containging the individual "layers" of RGB, the colours used to create the image. Working with a RAW file offers you better control over the "small details"

So thanks for dropping by.

Have a great morning, afternoon, or evening, 

wherever you may be.

Shadow Adjustments

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Shadow Adjustments

in

Most Image Editing Softwares

     I have to start by saying that the best thing to do when your doing any photography, especially where you have lots of control, is to do everything on location or in the studio. That's what I try to do with my toy photography on E-Bay.

    The reason for this is simple:  Do it right in the studio or on location, and you spend less time on the computer. More importantly, if you're a pro photographer, you're charging for a finished product (Photoshopped) and the longer you spend, the less money you are earning per hour or per assignment.

    Why I'm writing today's instalment is that I see too much bad photography on E-Bay. Sometimes I think it's intentional - don't show the flaws, breaks and scratches, and let the buyer be responsible. Furthermore, E-Bay doesn't seem to mind how descriptions or photographs are done or their respective quality. Only when A buyer files a complaint does anything happen!

    Below are 2 photographs that I took. One is better lit than the other, but I wanted to show you what can be "salvaged" or improved  through any image-editing software.

Image 1:

Problem: Needs better detail in the shadows

Solution: Add more light in the shadows either form a reflector or with a second light.

Image 2: Better detail through the use of a reflector in the shadow area

Problem: Not enough light in the driver's head

Solution: Adjust the reflector angle, or use a second reflector or light

However, just like life in general, things don't always go smoothly or in the right direction

So.there are Image-Enhancing Software features to help you out.

Image 1:

Problem: Needs better detail in the shadows

Solution: Use Photoshop's 

Image>>Adjustments??Shadows/Highlights

This is the default percentage when you use this function -

 it's 37% which means that you lighten the darkness by 37%

The "highlights" are by default zero (0).

The highlight setting is used when your bright area 

are too bright and detail is being washed out or is too bright.

Here's the result.

Much better, even though I did not photograph the item 100% in the studio!

The 2 images before

The 2 images after using the highlight/shadow command

    Photoshop, like all other software programs is a "hoarder". By that, I mean that it keeps every function and improvement since day one, when the program hit the market. There are at least 5-10 ways or procedures to do the same thing as I did above with the blue Hubley Cast Iron racer (circa 1930's).

    So here's another way to do the same thing, which would be to lighten the shadows. The command is "Dodge". What that does is to lighten up the dark areas via a large circular tool. I'm going to use  a different image to demonstrate this tool.

h3 Images of the same car, but with improved lighting in the shadows from top to bottom.

hThe dodging tool location

The arrow is pointing to the size of the circular dodging tool.

You can increase or decrease the size either by entering a number or by moving a slider.

The "Range" sub-menu allows you to improves the:

shadows

mid-tones

highlights

By selecting 1 of the 3.

hI like to work in steps.

I will move the "dodging tool" along the area needing to be lightened up, 

but I will take 3 passings to do this.

It's slower, but it the end it's faster.

Each step of dodging, allows toy to see the result,"a bit at a time", rather than 

dodging too much with an over-aggressive setting.

Here  is the second passing over a dark area to lighten it.

Here  is the third passing over a dark area to lighten it.

Here  is the final image where I used the dodging tool in selective dark areas to lighten up those areas.

Here  is the image before I did the dodging.

So thanks for the visit, 

and as always,

Have a good morning, afternoon, or evening,

wherever you may be.