Big Blue Huddle

Quote from: LennG on July 30, 2020, 07:03:40 PM
Just remarkable Frank. 

Thanks Lenn.  I don't even know what I did.  I changed a Blending Mode to Difference and I used some artistic brush but I don't have the foggiest idea of which brush or how I did it.  I have to write down what I do so that I can go back and replicate it.

OK.  It made it smaller but it didn't affect the color.  I see what the changes to the settings did to the output.

I took a picture of a bird and changed to standard view of the bird to look more like a watercolor.  The after file was to large to bring into the posting so I had to change the resolution.  I hope it didn't change the colors to much as that is what makes the picture.

Before


After

Quote from: LennG on July 28, 2020, 05:32:09 PM
Frank

That is amazing what one can do. You took just an ordinary pix of family and made it into a professional portrait shot. How long would something like take to do?

Lenn, I started about 10 years with another product from Adobe called Photoshop Elements.  At that time Photoshop cost about $600 while Elements cost about $90 so I went with Elements because at the time I was working and really didn't have the time to put into therefore I couldn't justify the cost.  Lightroom cost about $300.  The problem with Elements is you had to pay for upgrades to the product almost every year.  A few years ago Adobe came out with a subscription based product with a photographers bundle which includes Lightroom and the full version of the software at a monthly cost of $10 or $120 a year.  This subscription provides you with all of the upgrades from Adobe without any additional cost.  As a result I got the subscription in January of 2018 and have been working with the 2 products since then.  I had the time and the cost was decent for the two products.  Today Adobe only sells the products as a subscription.  Lightroom lets you catalog, organize and store all of your Photos as well as perform about 80% of edits that you will need.  The remainder needs to be done in Photoshop.

As a result of all of this I'm constantly working on three things cameras and photography as well as Lightroom and Photoshop.  I spend hours a day on the 3 and I feel that I just scratched the surface.  As I've said this is a passion and I truly enjoy what I've been doing so I feel it is time well spent.  I buy digital books, subscribe to You Tube video, attend classes through my local Coastal Camera Club and belong to online groups.

For example, the local camera club had a professional from Strobist an online flash photography, https://strobist.blogspot.com/ for $250 which is a real good price for an all day class.  I learned a lot so now I'm starting to get into flash.  This was before the shutdown in March.  Since then the club has provided to it's members online classes because we can't meet. 

One such class was by Matt Kloskowski https://mattk.com/stuck-inside/.  Take a look at what he does with a simple picture of a bird and how he can change it to look stunning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0vPofykKck&t=554s.

The method used in the family photo that you referred to is called Texture Blending.  It entails taking 2 photos and placing each in a layer in photoshop. you then mask out a part of one of the pictures or layers.  Think of layers as two prints, the original one and the textured background one.  You then mask out or in the case of the two prints the background garbage and the textured background appears.  It's like you cut out the family and paste it on the background.  The problem is you need to soften the edges so that the seams where the two meet mesh into one so that they look like one photo.  Once you learn what to do you can do the transformation in about 15 to 30 minutes.

One last thing I started with film about 50 years ago.  At that time I used a hand held light meter for exposure and had to manually focus all pictures.  As a result I had a learn the basics such as the exposure triangle with little or no shortcuts.  I also use to have my own darkroom and developed my own black and white photos. 

I have just scratched the surface with the two software products and to be honest I probably will never know how to even use half of them but it is fun and it keeps the mind going.  My goals over the remainder of the year is to become better at flash photography, learn how to better use brushes in photoshop and if I have time learn how to better use another software product call PhotoPills.

Here are some of photos I took at a 1 year old birthday party.  I hate taken pictures where you have numerous people taken pictures with whatever cameras they have.  I changed the background in Photoshop to remove distracting background garbage.  The problem that I'm trying to correct but I haven't gotten the hang of it is to make the photo not look like a cardboard cutout but rather become one photo.  It's not quit there yet.

Original

Exposure adjustments.

Changed Background to remove distracting garbage.

Another changed background.

Quote from: LennG on July 27, 2020, 08:56:59 PM
Wonderful shots Frank. I LOVE those close up of young kids. Are they your family?

Yes Lenn.  They are my nieces two sons.  They were taken about a year ago.  I worked on them for several months in Lightroom while learning to use the software to get them where I want them to be.  I printed them and gave them to her for Christmas.  It's what I enjoy doing and being retired it's a great hobby to have.  The only problem that I have is GAS (gear acquisition syndrome).  My wife is going to kill me but I'm looking at moving to a mirrorless camera.  In fact the entire industry is going mirrorless.  Sony right now makes the best and I have my eye set on one of their full frame models.  As I said I have a bad case of GAS.

As I've said before I love to work in post processing to bring a different perspective to a picture.  You can modify a picture just to save it as I did with a boy on a swing, clean up a kid who has food on him or change the background and crop to make a better picture.  You can also make a photo that is very different then the original.

Original photo that had lost most of the detail in the background highlights.


I changed in the second photo the exposure and cropped in to get closer to the boy.


He had food all over his face after eating so I had to clean him up.


This also had to be cleaned up.


Before.


After adding a background and adjusting the color of the flower and adding a red streaks.


Before.


After changing the background to look the same on both sides of the flower.

Lenn, you may not always come across a situation where you can use HDR but sooner or latter you will and you can now experiment and see what you can get.  Do you remember at a game in the old Dallas stadium where you had the opening in the roof.  If you remember when a player was tracking a ball down the sidelines and the picture on the TV got washed out.  Some of the picture you could see but the rest was washed out.  That's what happened.  There wasn't enough dynamic range in the TV camera.  The player had no trouble tracking the ball because humans eyes can compensate.  We humans just have a much better dynamic range then any camera that can be built.

Quote from: LennG on July 26, 2020, 12:41:42 PM
Frank

I really appreciate your knowledge of photography. A lot of it is lost opn me as far as the technical aspect.

This intrigued me as I do make shots, sort in the dark. looking out at bright scenes. This HRD you speak of, is this something you have to manipulate your camera to do, or just set it to take a certain type of pix and it does it automatically. I am using a Canon Rebel T-6 which has specific settings for all sorts of different types of pix, yet I rarely use them, preferring to stay in Auto, or move it to a Tv setting, which I can control the speed of the pix. I am sort of familiar with that where I can manufacture effects, like trying to shoot into the sun, or blurring the  water, as I have posted. After that, I am sort of dumb and dumber. I should enroll in even an online photo class, I believe I would love it.
Again, I really don't understand too much of the technical aspects, but I appreciate any help you offer.

Lenn, don't sell yourself short.  You have a great eye for what to include in a picture and your composition is excellent.  There are many photographers who can go many years and never achieve the level of composition that you do.  This is a hobby and it is suppose to be fun so just enjoy what you are doing.

To answer your question, I can't answer for Canon as I have a Nikon however, there should be an HDR setting as well as bracketing.  You will more then likely need to shoot in JPG which is the standard file format that is universally accepted and you are more then likely shooting with this file format already.  There are a number of picture file formats.  As I said the most commonly used is JPG.  I shoot mostly manual with a few exceptions in what is called Camera RAW.  You don't need RAW so stay with what you have been using.  Basically what happens in JPG format is your camera determines based on the picture you are taking what the end product should look like while RAW is used mostly for post processing.  I'm sort of a geek at heart so I really enjoy post processing even more so then the actual taking of the picture.  When I take a picture I'm always thinking what can I do in post to enhance what I'm seeing.

In short, check out the link below and look at your camera's menu settings.  It will tell you what to set to get an HDR picture.  Remember you need to take an HDR picture when you have a high contrast subject.  By that I mean you bright highlights and dark shadows.  Just set it and let the camera work for you.

https://www.google.com/search?q=canon+rebel+t6+hdr+settings&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS874US874&oq=Canon+Rebel+T-6+HDR&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l4.17260j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Lenn, great photos.  Going back to your photos on the sun setting behind the Maine Lighthouse, I loved the last few as the sun is setting behind the horizon and you get into the blue hour, which last only about 20 minutes give or take depending on where you are located in relation to the equator.  The further from the equator the longer the blue hour. 

By the way, there is an app for cell phones called "PhotoPills" that you can get for $10.  This software will tell you where the sun, moon, stars, the Milky Way, and planets are at any given time in the sky, at any location on Earth, at any time of the year.  It allows you to plan a shoot in advance.

Also, love your picture of the old New Hampshire bridge looking thru to daylight.  If you wish to expose for the inside of the covered bridge you can take a high dynamic range (HDR) photo.  All cameras have a limited dynamic range which is where the highlights begins to wash out and the shadows loose detail.  By combining the photos you can increase your cameras dynamic range without having to buy more expensive equipment. 

Below are three photos the first two are over exposed by one f stop and underexposed by one f stop.  The third photo was a merger in photoshop that combined the over and underexposed images that created an increase in dynamic range that my camera lacked.  I opened up both photos as layers in photoshop and placed a layer mask on one so that the other picture or layer would filter through.  This method can be much more easily performed today by using HDR which is in most of today's edit software. 

A tripod should be used to line up the photos correctly.  Also, your camera should have a bracketing feature that allows you to take 3 consecutive pictures with different exposures without having to change your camera settings.

Over,


Under.


Composite.

After posting yesterday I took a walk down memory lane and found these tidbits from Albany camp 2003.



Left to right: Me, not sure perhaps Lenn or Ed could help, Gordon, Mojo, my sons Matt, and Luke.


Mr. Carson


Mr. Jones


Gordon and John (Spider)

Quote from: Jolly Blue Giant on July 23, 2020, 07:12:29 PM
There's a lot of talent by the men on this board with a camera in their hands. That sunrise and fishing boat picture could be entered in a contest and would probably take the trophy. It's that nice!

Thanks Jolly.  I took that shot on 4/22/2018.  It was shot at 1/500 of a second, f8 and ISO 125.  The lens was a Sigma 150-600 MM zoom that was set at 250 mm.  I did a little post processing just enough to give it some shape to it and get some detail in the boat.  I got a little luckey in that the boat just happen to be passing when the sun was at a perfect elevation.  A few minutes earlier and the sun would have been partially blocked by the horizon and the picture may not have been as good.  I took a lot of pictures that morning but only a few had the boat and that is what makes the picture.

I have another picture of a rather large bird that I did major alterations in Photoshop but the site will not take the file because it is 29.14MB and the max that it will take is 24MB. I used an impressionist brush and made it look more like a painting then a photo.

I took these picture of a bird who was bathing himself in a puddle of water on my lawn.  There are a series of pictures that at one point he closes his eyelid while under water.

Tim, I realized that I forgot the click on the icon to post the image after so I corrected it also.

Below is a sunrise over the atlantic with a fishing boat.  I got up at 4 in the morning and went to the beach and took this picture when the boat happened to pass by during the golden hour.  If you look closely you can see gulls around the boat.


I got this picture of a Cape Henlopen lighthouse while the sun was going down.  This was during the Blue hour when the sun is below the horizon and the color emitted is special. 


During the Covid shutdown I went onto my deck and with a 600 MM lens I got this shot of a bird (first photo).  I then went into photoshop and created a textured layer.  I then went back into Lightroom and Cropped the image to eliminate the white fence.

Ed, great interview.  You were prepared and as always Pat had good insightful answers.  What sticks in my mind is the statement by Pat that Pat Shurmur has a temper that the public doesn't see.

I do think that when we submit questions we should keep them short and to the point.  At one point Pat had trouble remembering  certain parts of a question because it was too long.