BetterPhoto Instructor Insights

Improve Your Computer Monitor's Accuracy

By Peter K. Burian

One of the most frustrating aspects of digital imaging is getting prints that do not resemble the beautiful images that we see on a computer monitor. Are your own prints as impressive as the images you saw in the electronic display? Or do they exhibit an undesirable color cast or unsatisfactory brightness?

Problems such as these are common when making prints after modifying images using a computer if the monitor does not produce a true display of an image's actual color and brightness/contrast. In order to achieve a high level of satisfaction with any print, you must be confident that your monitor accurately reflects the characteristics of a digital image: the correct brightness, contrast and color rendition. That's easy to achieve with color management. While there can be more to that, monitor calibration is the primary component.

The concept of color management can be complicated and multi-faceted, but the most important aspect, monitor calibration, is straightforward. After installing the software that came with the kit, and attaching the sensor to the monitor, follow the on-screen instructions. Photo Courtesy of Daymen

Hardware and Software: In order to ensure that images are displayed with maximum accuracy, buy a monitor calibration kit such as a Datacolor Spyder3. The affordable Express works well (about $100) but serious photographers might want the Spyder3 Elite (about $250). Especially with Express, the calibration process is straightforward and should take less than 10 minutes.

Settings: If you're using a Windows Operating System, disable the computer's Adobe Gamma feature before calibration. Right click on Start > Open All Users > Programs > Start Up and if Adobe Gamma is listed, delete it. This will not actually delete that software but will prevent it from interfering with the more sophisticated calibration software. If given the option to set a desired Gamma and White Point, I recommend setting 2.2 and 6500K, respectively.

The calibration software will create a profile for your monitor and adjust the display so it provides greater accuracy re: brightness, contrast and color rendition. As you start working with a fully reliable monitor, you should find that the display produces substantially greater accuracy. When you make a print, it should closely match the appearance of the image on your monitor display in color rendition and in tonal values. That should certainly minimize frustration, reducing the need to make a lot of test prints that can waste time, ink and paper.


NOTES:

- Peter Burian teaches Mastering the Digital Camera and Photography and Mastering the Canon EOS Digital Rebels at BetterPhoto's online digital photography school.

- Also, Peter is a contributor to the just-published The BetterPhoto Guide to Creative Digital Photography and the upcoming The BetterPhoto Guide to Photographing Light (due out in April 2012). Both of these how-to photography books are co-authored by Jim Miotke and Kerry Drager.

Photoshop Tip: How to Replace a Sky

By Jim Zuckerman

(c) Jim Zuckerman

There are two things about this picture that are good and one thing that’s terrible. I like the low perspective from which took the picture, and I also like the ears flared out. Both of these make the huge elephant seem even more impressive. The terrible aspect of this image is the white sky. It’s very distracting.

To replace this sky is impossible using any of the selection tools in Photoshop because the fine grasses blend with the background in such a way that they can’t be separated. None of the other software programs like Topaz Remask 3 or Mask Pro 4 by onOne could do justice with this scene, either. I could make the sky a solid blue color with Nik Software’s Viveza 2, but that wouldn’t be appropriate. The diffused light calls for an overcast sky to make this look believable.

There is only one solution. I used a layer mask in Photoshop to produce the image below.

(c) Jim Zuckerman

Here is the process:

1. Choose a sky full of gray clouds. It should be similar in resolution to the elephant photo.

2. Copy the clouds to the clipboard with Select > all, and then Edit > copy.

3. Paste the clouds on top of the elephant photo with Edit > paste.

4. Make sure the foreground and background color boxes at the bottom of the tools palette are black/white, respectively.

5. Make a layer mask using Layer > layer mask > reveal all (or use the shortcut — the small icon immediately to the right of the fx icon at the bottom of the layers palette).

6. Choose the gradient tool. Drag the cursor from the bottom of the clouds to the top. The bottom portion of the clouds disappear gradually, as you can see, leaving the elephant and the grass exposed but covering the sky. You can vary the demarcation line between the clouds and the clear bottom portion of the image by varying how long you drag the cursor in the photo. If you drag it an inch, the line will be hard. If you drag it four inches, the line will be softer, more gradual.

7. There will still be some clouds on the elephant, so now choose the brush tool and brush them away. If you make a mistake and brush some of the sky away, reverse the black/white color boxes so they are now white/black and paint the clouds back. When you do this touch up, work at 200% or so.


Notes from the Editor:

- Jim Zuckerman is a top stock photographer and published author who teaches many courses at BetterPhoto's photography school online, including Creative Techniques in Photoshop, Advanced Creative Techniques in Photoshop and Photoshop: Thinking Outside the Box.

- In addition, Jim Z is a contributor to two new BetterPhoto Guide how-to books (co-authored by Jim Miotke and Kerry Drager): the just-published The BetterPhoto Guide to Creative Digital Photography and The BetterPhoto Guide to Photographing Light (due out in April 2012).

Travel Photography and Creative Photo Projects

By Deborah Sandidge

(c) Deborah Sandidge

This old bicycle is aged to perfection, and locked up for safety against an old peeling painted wall in Lima, Peru. The yellow and blue wall added more texture and detail throughout the composition. I tend to like to work close, and sometimes the parts are more interesting to me than the whole, as with this bicycle.

Bicycles are an ongoing project that I like to add to during my travels near and far. I used Nik Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast to accentuate the texture in the mid tones, and also subtly increase the overall saturation.

Make great pictures! ~ Deb


Notes:

- Like these idea? Then join Deb Sandidge in one of her online photography courses - Photoshop - Enhancing Digital Images and Creating Works of Art and Digital Infrared Photography - at the BetterPhoto school of digital photography.

- Also, Deb is a contributor to BetterPhoto Guide book (co-authored by Jim Miotke and Kerry Drager): The BetterPhoto Guide to Photographing Light (due out in April 2012 and published by Amphoto Books).

Layer Mask Technique in Photoshop

By Jim Zuckerman

(c) Jim Zuckerman

This beautiful grist mill is located in Jericho, Vermont, and I photographed it on my recent photo tour to New England. The original sky was white, and since I found that to be less than ideal (white skies are very distracting because our eyes are drawn to the lightest part of a photo first), I wanted to introduce some clouds. A blue sky wouldn’t be appropriate since that would imply direct sunlight, and this scene was illuminated by overcast conditions.

Therefore, the only thing that made sense was to put in a sky of gray clouds. The problem, of course, was all that vegetation. That made it very difficult to use my usual technique of cutting around subjects with the pen tool. The magic wand tool was useless in this situation.

The only way to make this into a believable composite was to use a layer mask with the gradient tool. Here is the procedure:

1. Open a cloud photo (the same size as the grist mill shot), choose Select > all, and then Edit > copy. This put the cloud image in the clipboard, Photoshop’s temporary holding place for one photo at a time.

2. Activate the grist mill image and use Edit > paste. This placed the cloud photo over the mill and the river.

3. Choose Layer > layer mask > reveal all (or click the small icon just to the right of the f/x icon at the bottom of the layers palette — this is the shortcut).

4. Make sure the foreground/background color boxes at the bottom of the tools palette are black/white, respectively.

5. Choose the gradient tool. Drag the cursor from the bottom of the clouds to the top. The lower portion of the clouds will disappear leaving the top portion visible. If there are too many clouds, start dragging the cursor about 1/4 up from the bottom of the image. Experiment with exactly how you drag the cursor until the clouds look good. In this case, I started dragging about 3/5 up from the bottom.

6. Click on the brush tool, and now you can brush away clouds that cover parts of the subject that should be free of them, such as, in this case, the mill itself.

Editor Notes:

• Jim Zuckerman is a top stock photographer who teaches at BetterPhoto's digital photography school. His Photoshop courses online include Creative Techniques in Photoshop, Advanced Creative Techniques in Photoshop and Photoshop: Thinking Outside the Box.

• Jim Z is a contributor to two BetterPhoto Guide books (co-authored by Jim Miotke and Kerry Drager): the just-published The BetterPhoto Guide to Creative Digital Photography and the upcoming The BetterPhoto Guide to Photographing Light (due out in April 2012).

Creative Photoshop: Using Abstracts in a Unique Way

By Jim Zuckerman

(c) Jim Zuckerman

I like mixing abstract images with many types of subjects. If the elements go together artistically, the results can be quite compelling. In the image above, I first abstracted a macro shot of a rose by applying the Photoshop plug-in Flexify 2 (made by flamingpear.com) several times. I saved quite a few variations, and then I cut out portions of one abstract and pasted it into another.

All of these variations came from the same flower, below, using different parameters in Flexify 2.

(c) Jim Zuckerman

Finally, I selected one section of the background with the quick selection tool (which hides under the magic wand tool in the tools palette) and then pasted one of my favorite costumes from Carnival in Venice into the selection.

Here are the steps:

1. Open photo of model, Select > all; Edit > copy.

2. Open abstract background and select area using the quick selection tool.

3. Feather the edge of the selection to make the edge of the ‘window’ blend.

   with the model better. Select > modify > feather (1 pixel only).

4. Edit > paste special > paste into; this puts the model inside the selected window in the background.
5. Size the model to taste using Edit > transform > scale.

Editor's Notes:
- Jim Zuckerman teaches many excellent online photography courses at BetterPhoto's photography online school, including Creative Techniques in Photoshop , Advanced Creative Techniques in Photoshop and Photoshop: Thinking Outside the Box.

Book Alert:
- A new book is coming out this October - by Jim Miotke and Kerry Drager! Check it out: The BetterPhoto Guide to Creative Digital Photography (subtitled: "Learn to Master Composition, Color, and Design").

Revisiting Black and White Photography

By Rob Sheppard

Black-and-white photography is where nature photography started. I am always so impressed by what William Henry Jackson did in the early 1870s, photographing Yellowstone before it was Yellowstone National Park, and that led to its preservation. And then there was Timothy O'Sullivan who shot the West around the same time. Both used huge view cameras and glass plates for "film!"

(c) Rob Sheppard

I used to shoot a lot of black-and-white when I first started photographing as a teenager and through college and beyond. I went through the view camera stage and Ansel Adams was my hero. I even had the opportunity to shoot with an 8x10-inch view camera (for those not familiar with such a beast, this is a camera that uses an 8x10-inch film, one per shot) - amazing results, but very expensive to shoot and process.

Over the years, I discovered the joys of Kodachrome and the wonderful work of Ernst Haas. I was very privileged to have a workshop with him (he must have been in his 70s at the time - amazing photographer). He did a book, Creation, that still has some of the most inspiring nature photography I know. And then the publishing industry began to favor color, so I did more of that, too.

Two things really brought me back to working with black-and-white. While I had done some such work in Photoshop, it was never fully satisfying to me. Lightroom changed this with the Black-and-White adjustment (originally Grayscale, which is a very poor name for the richness of the tradition of black-and-white) - it made conversion to black-and-white such a joy.

And then came Nik Software Silver Efex Pro. I admit that I love Nik Software products. They are among the most truly photographer-friendly software programs on the market. I know the Nik folks and I can tell you they truly care about photography and photographers, not just computers, and it shows in their software. Silver Efex Pro was the best software for black-and-white I had seen. It was both easy to use for photographers new to black-and-white, plus it had advanced features that even a long-term black-and-white photographer would benefit from.

Well, they recently introduced Silver Efex 2. I have to admit that while I knew it would be good given Nik's track record, I was not sure how they could really do much better than the first version. Boy, was I wrong. This new version is simply outstanding. There is no reason to have any other software for black-and-white work.

(c) Rob Sheppard

color version (c) Rob Sheppard

But even more, I found using the new program inspiring. That doesn't really happen that much with me. But it was. I loved what was happening with my images as they became black-and-white. Nik includes some new and phenomenal algorithms for dealing with black-and-white in their new program. Plus they include some funky looks, including cool edges, that I would never have tried without this program. I am falling in love with black-and-white all over again. If you have any interest in black-and-white at all, you must check out this program.

I do have to qualify this a little. Silver Efex Pro 2 is no magic piece of software that instantly makes any color image (or even an original black-and-white image) into a stunning black-and-white photo. Black-and-white is not that simple. Some scenes look better in color no matter what you do. And some compositions never really look good in black-and-white because the original composition is truly based on color. You have to work with black-and-white a while to understand what it can and cannot do, but have fun doing that! Play with it and see where it looks good and where it doesn't.

If you are new to black-and-white, play with black-and-white using a lot of different color images just to see what you get. Don't worry if it should be black-and-white or not. Just try it. And never base your ideas of what a color photo will look like in black-and-white based on what you see when an image is converted to Grayscale or when Desaturate is used in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. That is generally a very poor conversion. With Silver Efex Pro, you instantly see all sorts of excellent conversion styles that you can choose. That makes it really easy to get good looking black-and-white images.

If you are an old hat with black-and-white, then be prepared to be amazed by some of the new features of Silver Efex Pro 2. I can tell you that I was. Structure is a phenomenal feature introduced in Silver Efex Pro -- now you have finer structure controls. You have to experience the new amplify whites and blacks feature which really increases your capabilities in getting the most from tonalities quickly and easily. And there is more. Check it out for yourself at Nik Software.

You don't have to believe anything I have written. As I mentioned, I like Nik Software and the folks there are friends. But you don't have to take my word for this. Nik offers a free trial of a fully functional program - try it.

If you do, and if you like black-and-white photography, I think you will be in for a renewed interest in making excellent black-and-white photos!

Note: Outdoor Photographer editor at large Rob Sheppard teaches many outstanding online photo courses at BetterPhoto.com, including Impact in Your Photographs: The Wow Factor, Composition Boot Camp, and Creating Storytelling Photos.

Photography at Twilight: A Magical Time!

By Deborah Sandidge

(c) Deborah Sandidge

Many photographers pack up their gear right after sunset, however the most magical time to make pictures can be twilight! Patience is key as the sky slowly takes on a vivid shade of blue. Everything looks beautiful during twilight, subject matter can be anything from architecture, to trees, to mountains, nothing is off limits!

Here, I photographed Venice during a very cold and wintery evening. The lights warm up the scene and the pink glow on the background buildings creates a more inviting picture. This image was also photographed in HDR for more dynamic range in the composition, and a finishing touch of Topaz Labs Simplify added a slight painterly touch. Twilight is a visual treat that you can capture with your camera! You'll come away with very expressive photographs. Tips for shooting at twilight...

• Tripod, cable release or camera self timer, low ISO

• Small aperture for starburst effect

• Long exposure to capture streaks of light from passing cars

• HDR for more dynamic range in the scene (image composites)

• Shoot cityscapes during the week for the most office lights and car traffic.

Notes from the Editor: Deb Sandidge teaches at BetterPhoto.com - the biggest and oldest of the photography online schools. Check out her Internet photo classes: Photoshop - Enhancing Digital Images and Creating Works of Art and Digital Infrared Photography.

Silhouette and Texture: Creating an Artistic Image

By Deborah Sandidge

(c) Deborah Sandidge

Silhouettes create a dramatic presentation of a subject, adding a little more mystery and intrigue! Photographing near sunrise or sunset provides a good opportunity for creating a silhouette as shown in the photo above, darkening the the trumpet player, while casting a warm glow around him. I positioned my camera so that the sun was hidden behind the musician, and used a white balance of cloudy to accentuate the warm tones throughout the image. I slightly tilted the camera to create a more dynamic pose. To create the interesting texture that surrounds the subject, I used a new texture from Flypaper Textures Spring Painterly Collection called Pantheon Stone. The addition of the texture layer worked nicely to add more depth and drama throughout the image.

Texturing is super easy. You can copy/paste, or drag the texture layer over the original image. The key is to select a blend mode that will enhance the image. I used a blend mode of Multiply in the photo above and followed up with adjustments in contrast. To experiment with Blend Modes, make sure the Move tool is active, hold down the Shift key and press the plus or minus key to scroll through the various blend mode to find one that best accentuates your image.

This photo was taken just after sunrise along the Malecon, Cuba's beautiful waterfront. Getting up early is key to take advantage of finding great subjects in the best light. An alternative would be to photograph the musician with warm light falling on him, which also makes a nice photograph, two ways to tell different stories about the subject.

Have fun shooting! ~ Deb

Editor's Notes:

• Like these ideas? Then join Deb Sandidge for her awesome courses that she teaches at BetterPhoto's online digital photography school: Photoshop - Enhancing Digital Images and Creating Works of Art and Digital Infrared Photography.

• In addition, check out BetterPhoto's free email photography newsletters.

Get Creative with Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.0

By Jim Zuckerman

(c) Jim Zuckerman

I am not a black and white photographer since I love color so much, but some images look so dramatic in black and white that I am compelled to work in that arena.

A case in point in the picture of a Balinese dancer I photographed in Indonesia about ten years ago. I always loved the shot, and in preparing for a webinar for Nik Software, I experimented with this image in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. Color images always lose contrast when converted to black and white – this happened in film and now it happens in the digital realm, too – but using the many presets in Silver Efex takes care of that problem.

After I saw this photo as a black and white image, I realized that the dancer needed to be highlighted to be separated from the complex background. Using one of the control points, I lightened just the dancer and that directs our attention to her. To further dramatize the effect, I then added a dark vignette around the periphery of the photograph.

Finally, I selected one of the many monochromatic tones in Silver Effects to add the blue color. As much as I like the color original, I think this version has a lot of visual impact.

(c) Jim Zuckerman

Notes from the Editor: Jim Zuckerman is a top stock photographer and published author who teaches many excellent courses at BetterPhoto's digital photography school online, including Creative Techniques in Photoshop , Advanced Creative Techniques in Photoshop and Photoshop: Thinking Outside the Box.

Book Alert: A new book is coming out this October - by Jim Miotke and Kerry Drager! Check it out: The BetterPhoto Guide to Creative Digital Photography (subtitled: "Learn to Master Composition, Color, and Design").

Creative Photography: Tell twice the story with a reflection...

By Deborah Sandidge

Tell twice the story with your photograph by creating a watery reflection! This technique can enhance your image and make it look more dimensional. This is one of many techniques that I teach in my online photo courses at BetterPhoto.com's digital photography school!

(c) Deborah Sandidge

Both the shore and the bird were photographs converted to silhouettes, and the rest of the image was fabricated for fun in Photoshop! This is part of a tutorial I wrote for Photoshop Creative magazine. Here's how you can create a reflection in Photoshop...

• Select your image, Cmd/Ctrl A, and copy Cmd/Ctrl C. Cmd V to paste.

• Rotate the image, Rotate Canvas>Flip Vertical (it will look upside down).

• Increase the size of your original image by about double. Go to Image>Canvas Size and click on the top center square and type in the new size in the height field.

• Drag new rotated "reflection" to mirror your existing image. You can also create a rippled effect by choose Filter>Distort> Ocean Ripple.

• Merge the layers, Cmd/Ctrl E.

Another easy and fast way, and my favorite method, is to use the Flood Filter from Flaming Pear. This is the technique shown in the shorebird image above. I use the crop tool to roughly extend the canvas area, and then choose one of the cool effects in Flood. This filter has unlimited variations on waviness, complexity, brilliance and blur. You can also "roll the dice" for a random effect.

These techniques for reflections can make a beautiful difference with your images. Get creative! ~ Deb

Note from the Editor: Join Deb Sandidge for her online Photoshop courses: Photoshop - Enhancing Digital Images and Creating Works of Art and Digital Infrared Photography.