The real world has a much larger dynamic range — the range of brightness from the brightest highlights to the deepest shadows — than what the camera can capture (and the print can show). One option to try and recreate the scene in your photo is to compress the shadows and highlights using an S-Curve, providing a greater percentage of the available dynamic range to the mid-tones, where the human eye is more sensitive. Overdoing this, though, can result in a loss of detail in the shadows and highlights, resulting in deep black and bright white blobs.
A better solution is to adjust the small scale contrast instead of worrying about the entire dynamic range.
The human eye and brain care more about small scale contrast than large scale contrast. Large scale contrast is that between significant light and dark areas in the image. Small scale or "local contrast" is that between much smaller adjacent areas in the image. Improve this and you’ve made the shadow and highlight areas (where contrast is most compressed) appear broader.
You can do this using the unsharp mask in Photoshop. Try this:
Turn the layer on and off to see the difference. Here is an example (click on the images to see a larger version):
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Before local contrast enhancement |
After local contrast enchancement |
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Detail |
Detail |
The effect is subtle, but you don’t want it to be any more than that. Try changing the radius and amount to see what difference it makes. Don’t be afraid to experiment.
Here’s another example.
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Before local contrast enhancement |
After local contrast enchancement |
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Again, this is a subtle effect. But when you look at the images, and especially the prints, side by side, I think you’ll be amazed as well as pleased by the results.
Thanks to Michael Reichmann for the explanation of why this works!
I’ve been using Pixelpost for a little over four years, but I’ve decided to shift to Wordpress for my photoblog. Pixelpost is great software for photoblogging, but lately I’ve become a little frustrated with it.
The big thing is that I can’t post with my iPhone, and I can do that with Wordpress. Wordpress also has a much more active development cycle, a wider user base, and a very rich set of extensions, add-ons and templates.
You were good to me, Pixelpost, but it’s time to say goodbye.
Artist and photographer Laura Levine was recently going through some of the 15,000 LPs she bought to sell at her shop, Mystery Spot Antiques. Buried within this treasure trove of out-dated music, she found “Famous Photographers Tell How”, featuring the voices of some of the most accomplished photographers of the day.
One of the photographers on the record is Weegee, the nickname taken by Arthur Fellig (a phonetic rendering of Ouija, due to his frequent arrival at scenes only minutes after crimes, fires or other emergencies were reported to authorities).
Weegee is known for his candid, stark, in-your-face photographs of street life in New York City. You may not know the name, but you’ve certainly seen some of his photos of crime scenes, car-wreck victims in pools of their own blood, overcrowded urban beaches, and drunks on the street. Whenever you see a black and white newspaper shot of a gangster crime scene in a movie, it’s usually based on Weegee’s style.
"Now the easiest kind of a job was a murder, because the stiff would be laying on the ground. He couldn’t get up and walk away and get temperamental and he would be good for at least two hours."
Boogie Woogie Flu has posted an MP3 excerpt from this album. It’s fascinating to hear Weegee talk about photography in New York City in the 1930s, and it’s interesting that young photographers today can still learn from him.
“You can’t be a Nice Nelly and do photography”
Be sure to read the entire article at Boogie Woogie Flu, including the bonus track from Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Tags: famous photographers, history
Famous Spanish Civil War photographer Robert Capa once said, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”
I like to interpret that as not only physical proximity to the lens, but mental proximity to the subject. One way to achieve that mental proximity is to feel empathy towards your subject.
Take this image for example. Most people driving down the street would see a pile of trash waiting for pickup. A photographer, though (especially one who had also been through Katrina), would see a family’s prized possessions, thrown out by a tearful family.
When you have water up to your roof for several weeks, very little can be saved. A beloved family portrait, ruined in its frame, is destined for the trash heap.
I showed this image at a photography seminar once. Afterward, several Katrina survivors, tears running down their faces, came up to me to share their own stories, knowing I would understand.
You don’t have to survive a major hurricane to empathize with your subjects. But if you can understand their situation, try to understand how they feel, you can better create an image describing it.
Empathy isn’t the only way to get close to your subject. Understanding its behavior can also help; wildlife photographers have know this for years. If you know what an animal or an insect is going to do, you can better prepare yourself to get the image.
Take a few minutes to study behavior. For example, if you watch a dragonfly flying about in a field, you’ll notice that it will return to the same perch many times over. If you put yourself in position, you can wait for the dragonfly to come to you.
What does a tree frog do right before he leaps? Where do hummingbirds tend to hover? How long does a deer freeze when startled? What time of day do the red-winged blackbirds sing while sitting in the reeds?
Don’t just wait for the pictures to come to you. Take the time to study behavior (and this includes people!), and you can be sure to be in the right place at the right time.
Get a little closer.
Tags: iphone, iPhone Pic o' the Day
I posted this image a long time ago on my photo blog, and since then it’s been my most hot-linked and shared image.
Following the links back from my server logs and stats pages, I’ve seen this image on Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Friendster, LiveJournal, personal blogs, and forums specializing in funny pictures, pets, pests, critters, acid rock, race cars, vampires, pirating, gardening, shopping deals, goth lifestyle, and many, many more in languages I don’t speak.
Although I think it’s cute, it isn’t anywhere near my best or my favorite image.
I used to get mad that people were stealing my images, but I don’t worry about that anymore. They’re not making me pay any more for bandwidth, they’re not claiming them as their own, and they’re not using them commercially (at least I don’t think so). And the only way to completely protect an image on the internet is not to post it in the first place.
So I don’t worry about it. After all, images want to be seen.
Tags: fotoblog, hotlinking, nature, photoblog, possum, wildlife
Conflict is at the heart of all story. For an image to imply a story, it must include conflict.
The easiest and most obvious way to include conflict is to portray actual, physical conflict. A fight is something no one can ignore, whether we enjoy watching it or not.
Another easy method is emotional conflict.
In this image (to the left), you can see that, even if you aren’t familiar with the story of Cabaret, the distant stare of the woman and the last, lingering glance of the man show some sort of strong emotional conflict going on.
Stage plays, by definition, portray plenty of conflict and drama, and the photographic possibilities are endless.
Not all stories (and images showing a story) are about open conflict, though. More often, we try to imply a sense of story by showing contrasts. The visual contrasts of light versus dark, soft versus hard, color versus monochrome. And the conceptual contrasts such as big versus small, mechanical versus natural, expected versus unexpected. All these can imply a sense of story.
In the image to the right is an example of contrasts of textures. Notice the tones throughout the image are very close, but the very smooth surface of the water contrasts with the sharp, random branches of the tree.
The image to the left is showing several different types of contrast, both visual and conceptual. Light versus dark. Bright colors versus drab browns.
Life versus death.
This close-up of a Roseate Spoonbill shows several type of contrast as well. Beautiful versus ugly. Color versus monochrome. And expected (the soft, beautiful pinks of a bird) versus unexpected (the wrinkled, vulture-like ugliness of his head).
And the last example, the formal, reverent facade of the Alamo versus the frivolous pink hat and teddy bear of a tourist.
Not all images imply (or should imply) a story. But if they do, it makes them vastly more interesting. Understanding the concepts of story, and how it is achieved in an image through conflict and contrast, can help you make stronger images.
The best camera is the one that’s with you.
I’ve been taking lots more photos with my iPhone than with either my G9 or my 40D. It’s always with me. I read with it, I text with it, I keep track of my calendar and to-do list with it, I surf the internets and play games with it, and every once in a while I even use it as a phone.
But I’ve really been enjoying using it as a camera lately, and that’s due partly to some of the really cool photo editing apps and special effects programs available for the iPhone.
I have an entire page on my phone dedicated to camera and photo apps (and part of another dedicated to the ones I’ve tried and just don’t like).
They include: Photogene, Photo fx, PhotoForge, FastCamera, FotoTimer, QuadCamera, NightCamera, Flickit, Mobile Fotos, Picture Safe, Panorama, CameraBag, FocalLab, CinemaFX and DSLRemote. I’ve been experimenting with all of them, and some are really, really powerful. It’s amazing that you can do this sort of editing on a phone.
PhotoForge is almost like a mini version of Photoshop: curves, noise reduction, unsharp mask, cloning. All that is possible using PhotoForge.
CameraBag, and CinemaFX are simple filter effects programs that produce some very nice results. I’m really getting into the Holga and Lomo looks. Photo fx, by Tiffen, is a little more advanced and customizable.
None of these apps cost me over $10, and most were under $3. Definitely worth it for the fun I’m having.
The underside of a banana tree leaf, backlit by the sun. I love these textures.
Tags: iphone, iPhone Pic o' the Day
