Unenhanced vs. enhanced photos

I always print my digital images. I grew up printing my pictures in a darkroom and feel very uncomfortable not "printing" my digital images in my electronic darkroom: Photoshop.

The first image is an unenhanced grab shot of a number of goslings cuddling together to protect themselves from a cool, spring breeze. I racked the lens on my Fuji FinePix HS10 well out and shot the goslings with the camera handheld. Double-click to see the image full sized.

Unenhanced image as it came from the camera.

The second image has been taken into my electronic darkroom, Photoshop, and has had the white point set, the contrast has been tweaked using Curves, a little colour correction has been applied and then the colours have been saturated just a little. Finally, the image has been sharpened.

Enhanced image.

Whether you like what I did or you don't, it is clear that what the camera gives you is not the final say. Remember, the colour and the contrast delivered by the camera is not always dead on accurate. Photographers have been burning and dodging since the dawn of photography. There is little reason to stop now.

Clicking or double-clicking the above images should give you the larger, full-sized images.

Join "City Daily Photo"

Have fun, learn a little about your town, and force yourself to fine tune your photo skills --- all the while sharing your town with the world.

My health has been giving me some serious problems of late and I have been letting down the "daily photo side." I really am sorry as it is a good group of people. Some of the members are damn fine photographers.

I took today's picture from the parking lot at my family doctor's office. I loved the imaginative balconies, the hard light accenting the strong, repetitious shapes and  bringing out the texture in the concrete. The bright, blue sky next to the grey and red-brown of the apartment was another plus.

Check out City Daily Photo and if your town isn't being represented, think about it. If it is being represented, note if a picture is really posted every day. If not, why not contact the person running your city's site and see if they could use a shooter. They just may love having the help. (I know I would.)

Cheers,
Rockinon
londondailyphoto1@gmail.com

Pictures roll in with the fog

You can set your white point almost to the max; Your strongest black is a gray.

When I saw the fog this morning I knew I had a picture making moment. Fog delivers beautiful images where normally the scene would be too busy to be worth taking. The fog mutes distant colours while making those very close to the camera pop in comparison. Fog adds mood and depth to an image with distant, distracting backgrounds fading gradually into the soft mist.

Sometimes the fog itself can be the focus of your images but for most pictures apply the usual rules: Have a strong, main subject, watch your composition and shoot fast. Fog can lift without warning.

A little selectively applied saturation helps this lilac bush pop.

Saving pictures with sharpening.

Enhanced with Photoshop Smart Sharpen.

I like to say that sharpening doesn't really work, and it doesn't. It is actually an edge effect that increases contrast along the edges in an image, giving the illusion of sharpness. The truth is the sharper the image, the cleaner the edges and the better sharpening works. All that said, if you are using an image small on the Web or simply making snapshot sized photos, sharpening can save a picture that is just a little too soft when it comes to focus.

Unsharp mask, despite its name, is usually the best choice for sharpening. There are three controls to be set when using unsharp mask (USM): Radius, threshold, amount. I usually use a radius of about .8 pixels, a threshold level of about 3 and for amount I like to vary the percent but 100% is a good starting point. The radius controls the size of the edges affected (too much and you will not sharpen small details); The threshold controls the brightness level at which sharpening starts (too low a setting and you sharpen grain); and the amount is the overall strength of the sharpening effect (too much and you will produce the infamous halo effect known as over sharpening.)

A couple of caveats: Sharpening is irreversible. Always save an unsharpened original. (I always save my original, unenhanced images. I save my enhanced images under a modified name and thus do not overwrite my original image.) And always apply USM last. Sharpening is the very last thing you do to an image before saving it. Remember, digital images are inherently a wee bit soft; A wee bit of USM before saving is always a good idea.

If you have Photoshop, I have CS5, you might play with the Smart Sharpen setting. I have been quite impressed with it thus far. Click on the Smart Sharpen link to see the Adobe instructions. USM emulates an method used in the good old days of film to give the illusion of a sharper image. Smart Sharpen takes sharpening control to another level.

For more details on USM sharpening, click on this link to the Guide to Image Sharpening. Read the info in the guide and you will know more than the average pro photographer about USM.

It gives me nuts!

My little Fuji FinePix HS10, and it is rather little compared to a full-fledged DSLR, is fun. Yet, I have to agree with the little boy who said about something that bothered him, "It gives me nuts!"

For years I shot with a high-end Canon EOS DSLR. The quality was superb. Now, shooting with what is essentially a sophisticated but dated point-and-shoot, I have to make some trade offs. I say dated because there is now an HS20 and it reportedly fixes some of the problems that I have encountered with my first generation camera.

But what the HS10 lacks in absolute quality, it makes up in fun. I shoot for the Web or to make small snapshots. The quality is more than adequate for my needs.

This shot of a young bride dancing with her father was shot at ISO 800. I popped some straight on strobe into the scene, punching up the highlights and to opening up the shadows a smidgen. I set the zoom to its widest setting, 24mm, laid down on my stomach and with the screen on the camera back pulled out and rotated, I composed my picture.

I may not have ultimate quality but I have a picture with visual impact. It is a different shot from the one being captured by the photographer standing off to the side with a high end Canon camera equipped with a pro telephoto 'L' lens. It is a judgement call but I prefer my angle. Now, if I just didn't have the shutter lag I must contend with. (Reportedly, the new HS20 is not bothered by shutter lag to the same extent as my older model.)

Fuji FinePix HS10, lens cranked out to telephoto. Auto.

With ultimate quality well out of my reach when shooting indoor stuff like the above, I must cover myself by shooting other images outside using lots of available light. Unfortunately, it was heavily overcast on the day of the wedding. Shooting inside a covered gazebo, I was still up against some low light level issues.

Note: When shooting the bride, groom and groom's parents, I was well off to the side to stay out of the way of the photographer hired to shoot the wedding. This angle has the benefit of making for a tighter grouping with almost no dead space between the subjects' heads.

I got the images I needed with a camera I can easily carry and I'm happy --- even though the little devil can really "give me nuts."

Rules are made for breaking

Wide angle setting on a Canon S90 on fully automatic. No room to get back.

 Never shoot a portrait with a wide angle lens. It's a rule. Use something between 85mm and 135mm. I like 105mm, myself.

Yet, if the space is tight and the portrait is begging to be shot, forget the wide angle rule.

My granddaughter loved the blue Jelly Dog the moment she saw it in the store. Her dad made the mistake of letting her hold the stuffed animal "temporarily." Giving up that blue doggie was tough but Fiona did it. But her dad couldn't give up the stuffed dog as easily. He carried the memory of his daughter's delight and subsequent disappointment for days --- until he returned to the store and bought Blue.

I saw Fiona clutching Blue tightly to her cheek while sitting in her backward facing car seat. The 85mm was out; No room. The 28mm was in and so was the picture. So she's a little distorted, I can live with that.

The lesson: always take the picture. Always. If it doesn't work out, so what. But if it does . . . Eureka!

Fuji FinePix HS20: good for newspaper reporters

The HS10 captured both the speaker and the screen image.

For more than three decades I was a staff photographer for a daily newspaper. First, I worked in Sault Ste. Marie and then, after earning my BAA in filmmaking from Ryserson, I went to work for the Blackburn Group in London, Ontario, owner of The London Free Press.

During my time at the papers, reporters rarely took pictures. Double-threat folk were rare. Today all that has changed. Reporters shoot both still pictures and video and photographers carry video cameras, do online reports and write the occasional story.

I humbly suggest that the new Fuji HS20 may be the camera that today's reporters should be carrying. It is an even better camera than its predecessor, the HS10, and I use the HS10 for shooting news and posting to the web.

Colour excellent but Photoshop needed for sharpness.

The other night I covered an indoor event at the Covent Garden Market downtown. I set the camera to capture indoor scenes, triggered the Best Frame Capture (BFC) and easily grabbed some shots to illustrate my story. Using BFC is important as it is hard to time picture-taking perfectly with a point-and-shoot. There is less shutter lag with the new camera.

I was very happy with the exposures, although the images did benefit from a brief visit to Photoshop. This was mostly to sharpen the shots before posting to the web. Using the lens zoomed to telephoto indoors meant that I was shooting at a wide-open aperture setting with a very long lens. Absolute sharpness was, I hate to admit, poor. Thanks to  Photoshop the images were fine for the web and would be equally good for publication in a newspaper.

I would not like to make a huge enlargement from the two images shot with at telephoto.

Newspaper reporters cannot devote a lot of time to their pictures. Remember, they are covering a news story. They need to follow what's happening and grab some good quotes as well. This means they must learn to think pictures. They must know what they want and then get it and be done with it. Reporters can't waste time taking too many pictures.

I staked out a position where I hoped I would be able to line up a monitor in the background with a speaker in the foreground. When a slide appeared on screen announcing the name of the event behind councillor Judy Bryant, I wasn't lucky, I was ready. Likewise with the mayor, Joe Fontana. With publishable pictures of both Fontana and Bryant captured, I grabbed one last shot showing the density of the audience and showing some of the well-known Londoners in attendance.

(Below) The fellow in the lower right is sketching out his vision for downtown London. This is perfect. This image captures both the reason for the event while, at the same time, illustrating its success.

At wide angle the images were sharp as expected.

My story, complete with art, ran here and here. I'm still not a great reporter but I am proving that both jobs can be done successfully by one double-threat reporter/photographer.