Tilt-shift miniatures

I’d seen them on occasion, but recently looked into how to actually fake a tilt-shift.

In case you are wondering, Wikipedia defines tilt-shift as:

Tilt-shift photography is an artistic technique where the lens is tilted and shifted relative to the attached camera.

On a view camera, the lens and camera are connected by a bellows. When tilt is applied, the film or image sensor is not at a right angle to the optical axis of the lens, causing a gradient of focus. The technique can also be done with a modern camera by constructing a tilted lens manually.

On the other hand, tilt-shift miniature faking (according to Wikipedia):

…is a process in which a photograph of a life-size location or object is manipulated so that it looks like a photograph of a miniature scale model. By distorting the focus of the photo, the artist simulates the shallow depth of field normally encountered with macro lenses making the scene seem much smaller than it actually is. Many miniature faked photographs are taken from a high angle to further simulate the effect of looking down on a miniature.

It’s pretty easy to do, just check out this tutorial… I use it loosely, and usually add a vignette on most as well to help draw in the focus. Happy miniaturizing!

Tags: fake, miniature, photoshop, tilt-shift, Tips, Tutorials

5 Steps to Improving Your Shots in Photoshop

Just received this tidbit in my email from the Digital Camera Magazine:

1. Rotate and crop: If you rotate and crop the image first, you’ll minimize the file size for subsequent edits and keep things speedy.
2. Levels: The Levels dialog will tell you if the image has a full tonal range or not. Adjust levels to give solid blacks, brilliant highlights and solve saturation problems.
3. Brightness: Don’t use the Brightness/Contrast command. Instead, move the midpoint slider in the Levels dialog or drag the image curve up or down.
4. Colour balance: If there’s still a colour problem after Levels adjustments, try the Variations dialog, Color Balance dialog or use the Set Gray Point eyedropper.
5. Sharpening: is best applied right at the end because it can produce edge effects and noise that the other processes might exaggerate.

Looks like I was doing a couple things wrong/out of order - I’ve been using the Brightness/Contrast command, as well as sharpening right away. Will have to try their tips and see what it changes!

Tags: digital camera magazine, edit, editing, photoshop, Tips

HDR Tidbits (links, news, inspiration)

Great little article and list of links regarding HDR over at Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips blog. Few links include software, learning and inspiration.

Happy Friday again. Everyone seems to be enjoying the HDR video so I thought I’d include a whole post about HDR stuff.

Interesting, never though how great using HDR would be for real estate, something I should look into! Check out the post over at the Lightroom Killer Tips blog!

Tags: hdr, lightroom, links, photoshop, Tips

HDR : Battle Royale!

NOTE: Clicking on the images in this post will open them larger in a new window.

High Dynamic Range Imaging

HDR, or High Dynamic Range Imaging seems to be all the rage these days. HDRI is described as:

In image processing, computer graphics and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.

More accurately however, the images that are commonly seen and referred to as HDR or HDRI images are tone-mapped.

Tone mapping is a technique used in image processing and computer graphics to map a set of colours to another; often to approximate the appearance of high dynamic range images in media with a more limited dynamic range. Print-outs, CRT or LCD monitors, and projectors all have a limited dynamic range which is inadequate to reproduce the full range of light intensities present in natural scenes. Essentially, tone mapping addresses the problem of strong contrast reduction from the scene values (radiance) to the displayable range while preserving the image details and color appearance important to appreciate the original scene content.

Definitions and technicalities aside, I decided to look into HDR and tone mapping a bit closer to see if there really was a difference between different processes. I was curious to see if there was noticeable differences between generating HDR/tone-mapped shots from a single RAW, multiple RAWs, multiple JPGs from the camera, and multiple JPGs generated from a single RAW. For the purposes of the rest of this post, I will be referring to my final images as HDR images (even though we all now know that’s not exactly correct).

Here is the original, straight out of the camera image shot with my Canon Digital Rebel XT/350D.

Honestly, not a bad image for SOOC! Anyways, the recommended way to produce HDR is to take multiple exposures using your camera’s Auto Exposure Bracketting (AEB) setting. I’m not going to get into the details on this, I’m merely posting my comparison results here.

(more…)

Tags: bikers, bmw, car, comparison, hdr, hdri, hood, motorcycle, motorcycles, photomatix, photoshop, redynamix, reflection, test, tone mapped, tone mapping, tutorial

Curvy Cross Processing in Photoshop CS3

This tutorial describes one of my favorite techniques for ’spicing’ up a photograph. This method is adapted from the color darkroom of old. In those days, innovative photographers often processed film in a chemical solution intended for another type of film. For instance, they might process color slide film in C-41 chemicals. The result yielded a most unusual shift in color, which created a very retro look. To recreate this technique using the computer is both easy and fun.

Check out the tutorial over at Layers Magazine!

Tags: cross processing, curves, photoshop

pagan - flickr Fave of the Day

Been a bit slack lately when it comes to posting a Fave of the Day… here’s todays… daneli has such great skills with Photoshop and her post production work on her images… outstanding!

pagan, originally uploaded by daneli.

Tags: daneli, flickr Fave of the day, photoshop, Portrait