The Pen Tool

The pen tool is the most accurate tool for making selections.  This is the tool professional retouchers use for making selections with precision.

The other selection tools like the magic wand are good for making approximate selections but if you want accuracy you are going to have to learn how to use the pen tool.  I think the fact that it is vector based is what puts many people off.  It is not as straightforward to use at the other tools but once you get used to it you will never look back.  Or so I am told.  

The pen tool group includes the main pen tool, a freeform pen tool and the modifier tool to add, delete or modify the path points.

The pen tool has three operating modes.  When in the Shape Layers mode you can use it to draw with.  If you click on the Path modes button this allows you to create a pen path without adding a fill layer to the document.  

I don't tend to make selections very often in my workflow.  However, I have added becoming more familiar with the pen tool to my list of things I must do.  It is just a matter of finding the time.

I do feel though that from the course I have learnt a lot more about selections and I am feeling more confident in making decisions about which tool to use rather than shying away from it altogether.

Photoshop - Actions

Maybe it is just me but I was pretty excited to discover actions n my Photoshop course last month.  Until now I hadn't realised such a feature existed.

Actions allow you to record a number of operations in Photoshop and then apply them to another picture or a number of images in a folder.  They are application scripts that record a sequence of events like converting an image to monochrome.  This sequence can then be replayed on other images.

These are really useful if you have a particular processing routine that you run in Photoshop.  If you record this routine then you don't bother having to do it on every single image you process.  I think actions would be beneficial to me for formatting images for output on the web.  I can make the adjustments to one image while recording them and then play them over the entire folder I want to put online.

If there is a process in the sequence that you don't want to run you can stop that from being applied to other images by turning that action off.

I still feel that in my workflow I work better at the processing stage in Lightroom.  I also feel like I want to consider each image individually and therefore running actions like monochrome conversions would not be suitable for me at the moment.

Man Ray at NPG - BBC review

The BBC news website was running a piece on the Man Ray exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which opens today.  Exhibition closes 27 May.  

Man Ray's Portraits go on show

An introduction to Man Ray

Man Ray was a modernist artist and significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements in photography. He is best known for his avant-garde work and his portrait and fashion images.

He was born in 1890 in America to Russian-Jewish parents and showed his creative talents from an early age. Before working in photography he experimented with other art forms like painting and sculpture but it is his work in photography that he is best known for.

Some of his best work was produced for his Electricity portfolio consisting of ten images primarily photograms or rayograms as Ray renamed them. Solarized images have a degree of tonal reversal was a particularly good technique which allowed him to show pulsating energy.

His most famous image from this series is a portrait of his lover, photographer Lee Miller. We can see he has used montage and solarisation in this image. It is cropped tightly to give the appearance of a torso and an anonymous object. She is like a type of goddess. The new, modern energy system is rooted in the new goddess.  

I feel there is a definite energy in this image. It is surreal and irrational. He has given us the opportunity to view the unviewable - electricity.

"Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask 'how', while others of a more curious nature will ask 'why'. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information."

Looking back at my work on assignment 4 on this course I found myself at a crossroads in relation to my photography. This section forced me to delve into the unknown and leave the technical considerations behind. I realise now that my technical ability has improved which will enable me to become a lot more creative in my work.

I like May Ray's ability to capture things that we can't necessarily see like electricity for example. I am also keen to experiment with some of the techniques he has used in his work.

The National Portrait Gallery is running an exhibition of Man Ray's portraits from 7 February to 27 May and I am looking forward to going. I feel that it will be a great opportunity to see more of his work and to learn more about surrealism in portraits.

Surrealism in photography

The Surrealist movement officially began with the publication of Andre Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism in 1924.

We are all familiar with the work of Dali who is undoubtedly the most famous surrealist painter.  However, what exactly is surrealism and what is its role in photography?

Surrealists viewed the reason as a force that blocked the passage to their search for the imagination.  To find the imagination they looked to the subconscious.  In looking at the unconscious mind they explored dreams, intoxication, sexual fantasy and madness.  Their quest was to find the inner beauty of a world we do not know.

Photography as an art form played a major role in the surrealist movement - the main protagonists being Man Ray and Maurice Tabard.  Techniques like montage, double exposure, combination printing and solarization were used to capture the dream world they sought.

Solarization was a technique that was used in Man Ray's Electricity series.  It is essentially where the image in a negative is totally or partially reserved in tone resulting in dark areas appearing white and vice versa.  This is due to the halogen ions released within the halide grain during exposure diffusing the grain surface in adequate amounts to destroy the latent image.  This method created a particularly surreal effect.


In this image by Tabard we can see many of the techniques at work. This provides a move away from traditional formalist photography and presents us with a world that is unknown to us.





In addition to these techniques, surrealist photographers looked to the meaning of a photograph and the fact that this meaning can change based on people's interpretation.  This saw the snapshot, medical pictures and mugshots take on new meanings roles.

Dadaism in photography

Dadaism was an art movement born out of the horrors of the first world war.  As a movement it had strong anti-war politics and was anti-bourgeois.  It rejected logic and welcomed the irrational.  It was the beginning of abstract art and laid the groundwork for movements like surrealism and postmodernism.

In photography this rejection of reason and logic manifested itself in the use of the photomontage. We can see this at play in the work of Hannah Hock.  Her image Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany focuses on Dada's dissatisfaction with the Weimar Republic.  We can see various slogans in the image like 'Anti-Dada movement' pasted over portraits of Wilhelm II.

In essence Dada in photography introduced artists that were anti-pictorialist.  In Europe these photographers saw photography as a cultural force and viewed it as socially progressive.  Fine art was being replaced by an art based on popular culture. Art was to be for the proletariat and would become a force for social change.


(C) Hannah Hock

Hock was particularly focused on the role of women in society and the method of cutting out images with a scissors to make an image provided a link to the domestic realm.

In this image we can see that women have a role to play.  The image hints at women's suffrage and their domestic situation.  She contrasts traditional domesticity with images of progressive women like actresses and poets.

Other photographers that were influenced by the Dada movement include Man Ray, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Laszlo Maholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky.

If we look at Lissitzky's famous photomontage The Constructor we see an image from his self portrait series.  It is a modernist statement.  He produces a collage of future man using his head, hands and other instruments like a compass.  There compass has drawn a circle which acts like a halo for this prophet.

Revisiting noise reduction

I've already covered noise reduction earlier in the course but I have also covered it recently on my Photoshop course.  

The best way to avoid noise in your images is not to shoot at a high ISO.  However recently I have been shooting indoors a lot in places where flash and tripods are not allowed so I have had to crank up the ISO.  I have noticed that on my D700 I can increase the ISO without getting as much noise as I have with the D90.  

To reduce the amount of noise I have in some of these images I use the Noise reduction sliders in Lightroom.   These are found under the Deatil menu. 

If you want to reduce the colour noise you can drag the Colour slider to the right to reduce it.  

The Detail slider controls how the edges of your image are affected by the noise reduction.  If you drag it too far over you will run the risk of introducing colour speckles so it is best to keep this to a minimum.  

To reduce grain drag the Luminance slider till the noise is greatly reduced.  The Detail slider if dragged too far to the right can make your image more noisy.  It is difficult to have cleanness and detail in a noisy image.  You have to make the decision which to sacrifice.  

I have used this image as an example.  This was shot at ISO 1600.  

If we look a little more closely at the noise we can see that it is a bit grainy.  

Luminance slider increased to 55

We can see that the noise has been reduced significantly.  

Noise can be reduced in RAW images in ACR.  We have the same sliders to work with and they produce the same effects at Lightroom.  

Noise can also be reduced in Photoshop using the Channels Panel.  This type of noise reduction concentrates on reducing noise in colour channels as there is often significantly more noise in a single colour channel than others.  

When you look at the colour channels it is possible to loo at each colour individually.  The blue channel tends to have the most noise.  

Using the Filter menu, select Noise and then Noise Reduction.  In the Advanced option you can reduce thte noise by colour channel.  

I think that the methods that I find work best for me is to use Lightroom or ACR to reduce noise.  I think the Photoshop method would be good for a noisy JPEG but I rarely tend to shoot JPEG only so I don't have this problem.  

I think introducing noise reduce at the processing RAW image stage works best for my workflow.  

Looking at colour managment and colour space

On my Photoshop course we looked at colour management.  I have read a lot about it but it was a good opportunity for me to find out if I was on the right track and had understood everything I had read.  I do find learning some of this stuff from a book soul destroying at times so I was pleased to have some face to face tuition on this subject.  

The specific problems we encounter with colour management is when our images on screen don't match those that we have printed.  

There are three Digital colour systems:

1. RGB - Red, Green and Blue channels.  Colour in relation to screens and cameras
2. CMYK - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key.  This relates to printing
3. LAB - lightness, green to red, blue to yellow channels

The most common systems that we encounter on a daily basis would be RGB and CMYK.  

In order for our on screen images to match our prints we need to use a universal colour management system - ICC.  This ensures that all software and hardware are adhering to a set of specific colours.  Prior to this printer manufacturers had colour systems unique to them which made printing a big issue.  

We can use a tool like Color Checker to set a profile for our cameras as cameras tend to render some colours differently.  You would do this if getting the colours 100% accurate was very important for a specific image.  

Colour space is essentially the colours you decide to work with on your computer.  There are a number of colour spaces:

• sRGB
• Adobe RGB (1998)
• ProPhoto RGB (this is the widest range)

This graph shows us the difference in colour numbers is each of the above. As we can see ProPhoto offers the most colours, more possibly than the naked eye can see.  

In order to ensure your monitor accurately displays colours you need to profile it regularly using a tool like ColorMunki.  I do this on a regular basis and I have found that my prints are now more accurate than before.  I don't tend to have colours that vary too much although there might be slight variations.  I still have problems with black and white images at times though as they often come out with a pink hue.  

In my workflow I have added colour space - I will use RGB for website and screen work and Adobe RGB for print.  This would mean having two separate files for a single image if you were going to use it online and then print it.  

In relation to camera settings I always shoot RAW so therefore I do not need to adjust camera settings as I will set the colour space in Lightroom or Photoshop.  

Imaginery view: An exhibition by Dan Tobin Smith and Rachel Thomas

On a recent visit to Somerset House I stumbled upon this exhibition by photographer Dan Tobin Smith and designer Rachel Thomas.  It is a personal project for both artists and it appears that this is just thet start of Imaginery View and there is more to come in the future.

This is a very unusual exhibition in that it consists of a series of photographs of landscapes the artists crafted from polystyrene.  These polystyrene models are deceptively huge - you can get a sense of scale as some of the sculptures are displayed alongside the photographs.  This adds a different dimension to the exhibition - one of intrigue and illusion.

I like the milky white world they have created.  This has been achieved through Tobin Smith's use of light, smoke and that heat haze blur you see in distant landscapes on a hot day.

The polystyrene provides an interesting texture and it doesn't decompose which makes it interesting in relation to the subject.

I like the use of black and white in this work.  If colour had been used it would have spoiled the element of disguise.  When I first looked at the images I didn't for a minute think they were constructed out of polystyrene - I actually thought they were somehow real.

This exhibition shows what can be achieved through the medium of photography and a lot of creativity.  It has also given me some food for thought on the different uses of black and white and what can be achieved with the use of light and smoke in photography.

A number of the images can be seen here

They have a dedicated wesbite for the exhibition
http://imaginary-view.com/

Klein/Moriyama study visit

On 12 January I attended the OCA study visit to the Klein/Moriyama exhibition at the Tate. 

In preparation for the visit I watched the BBC’s Imagine programme – The Many of Lives of William Klein which I recorded before Christmas.  I also watched the Tate video on Daido Moriyama.  I relied on the internet for further research and viewing of images.

From my first impressions of their work I feel I had a tendency towards Klein finding his work personally more interesting and possibly familiar.  Moriyama’s work seemed to present some kind of barrier or distance and I found it hard to digest his images finding them dark and often impenetrable. One of the first questions I asked myself was why a joint exhibition? 

Moriyama was influenced by the work of Klein would be the most obvious answer to that question but was that it?  Their work on first glance may seem similar – black and white images of life on city streets – but on closer inspection they are very different. 

The fact that both worked in each others’ cities would perhaps be a stronger parallel. Although Moriyama’s New York is a very different city to the one we see in Life is good and good for you in New York.  Likewise can be said for Klein’s Tokyo. 

The exhibition begins with Klein’s work, more specifically his film Broadway by Light, where we are introduced to the city’s gaudy neon signs – a forerunner of pop art.  We see Klein the artist as he was more than simply one of the greatest photographers to come out of the US as this exhibition shows us. 

Rooms 2 and 3 display the images that were to make up Klein’s first book – a photo diary of New York – an idea which would lead to further diaries of Rome, Tokyo and Moscow.  After living in Paris he returned to New York to work as a fashion photographer.  During this time he began work on his photo diary where he saw the city – his home town – from the eyes of an outsider.  The result is a collection of candid shots of life in New York in the 50s. 

I found Klein’s use of a wide angle lens very interesting.  In all his images the viewer feels part of what is happening as the photographer is part of the action.  It is very different from Henri Cartier-Bresson the man who inspired Klein.  My own personal experiments with street photography have usually involved the use of a medium to telephoto lens which introduces a distance in the image.  I feel that moving forward I would like to experiment more with a wide angle lens in the hope of injecting some energy into my street work. 

I also find the interaction with the subjects in his images.  It is clear that he is not being conspicuous.  They are very much aware of his presence.  However, true street photographers would argue that the essence of this genre is to capture life on the street without interacting with the subjects.  This interaction can lead to a more posed shot and a subject who is aware of the camera behaving differently.  However, I feel the interaction and awareness of the photographer in Klein’s work displays an intimate moment that might have been lost otherwise. 

Rooms 4 and 5 look at Klein’s earlier work as an abstract painter and provide a necessary background if you are attempting to discover where he is coming from.  I feel that this background as a painter and an abstract painter led to Klein’s experiments with his images in Contacts. In this series he experimented with blowing up his contact sheets and using a red pencil/enamel paint he shows the chosen image.  Again we see his work moving into the pop art world. 

If Klein’s exhibition is wide and varied in size and subject matter with large prints and film, Moriyama’s introduction is almost understated.  I feel that is it a disservice to the artist that his work is presented after Klein’s in the exhibition.  Klein’s work has stimulated all the senses and finishes with the bright colourful Contact images.  When entering Moriyama’s exhibition the images are small and black and white and I couldn’t help feel it was a bit of an anti-climax. 

I feel that also due to the sheer volume of work displayed in Klein’s rooms the exhibition goer is probably suffering from fatigue and information overload by the time they come to view Moriyama’s work.  I know I was and from talking to other people on the study visit many of them had already been before or were planning to go again. 

As Moriyama works with the intentions of publishing his images in books I feel that this has an impact on the images exhibited.  They are small (possibly to replicate the experience of viewing a book) and difficult to adapt to after Klein’s work.

Moriyama’s work in contrast to Klein’s is very dark and sinister.  The high contrast black and white and graininess of his images makes for hard viewing and demands a lot of the viewer.  They are not pretty but then they don’t have to be, but they do portray Tokyo as a very dark, unwelcoming place. 

Where Klein’s New York is vibrant and full of energy Moriyama’s New York is seen from the view of a cultural outsider.  His streets are bare and his people do not have the energy and intimacy we see in Klein’s work.  I feel that they are images resulting from an outsider looking in who has not connected with his subjects or the place.  There is a sense of loneliness and not belonging.  This sense of loneliness and not belonging is how I feel about Moriyama’s work myself.  It is a world that is culturally very different to ours.  It is unfamiliar.  It makes me feel uneasy.   

I feel the reasons why I prefer the work of Klein can be summarised as follows:

• The order in which they are presented tends to favour Klein as does the variety of work presented.
• The cultural language of Moriyama’s work is a challenge.  It is unfamiliar territory.  It presents a barrier that I found hard to get over.
• There is humour in Klein’s work that I don’t feel there is in Moriyama’s
• In the film on Klein you can associate more with him
• More subjects in Klein’s work – a more diverse range.

Some of the parallels in their work

• Both worked in the city, but the city meant different things to them.  Moriyama in his film says that he can’t make photographs without a city.
•   Post production work and the re-working of old images can be seen in Moriyama’s dog image and Klein’s Contacts
• Both willing to push the limits of photography and introduce other ways of making the final image.

For me, Klein will have more of an impact on my work.  I will as I have mentioned earlier experiment with a wide angle lens.  However, I will also look at shooting on the streets with a compact camera as Moriyama does.

The exhibition has given me plenty of food for thought in relation to black and white versus colour, post production, street photography versus posed shots and presenting your work at an exhibition.

Assignment 5 feedback

I have been going through my feedback from my tutor on the last assignment of this course and overall I feel it is pretty positive.  In fact it is probably the best feedback I have received of all the assignments I have submitted.

I found this subject - time - pretty challenging to capture so I was glad to get feedback that reflected this and stated that I had 'done well in pursuing the development of my exploration of time'. He also said that it was 'good to see you thinking about the topic and not just how best generally to represent it photographically but more importantly how I want to'.  He then mentioned that this my progression to'developing your own voice'.  Yes the 'voice' word.  I have struggled for so long wondering what my voice would be, how you would know when you are on the way to finding it and whether I would ever have a 'voice'.

On the images itself there were a few minor technical issues - adding a little contrast to one or two and a tighter crop suggested for the last image of the series.  I have to saw that I agree with the contrast but I do not want to crop out the left hand side of the last image - Out of darkness cometh light.

This side of the image for represents the past, or a darker side of life.  Having the dark passage beside the light to me presents a challenging contrast to the viewer - which path to take or which place have you come from.

For this reason I believe I want to leave the image as it is.

Comments were also made about about image 5 which contains some noise which would be visible if the image was to printed enlarged.  This could be re-visited if I felt the need to enlarge the shot.

Overall I feel that this was an enjoyable assignment to complete and has given me a theme to continue working on in the future.  Time is a huge subject and I look forward to discovering new ways to represent.  I also look forward to seeing if time comes to have a different meaning for me as I grow older or my circumstances change.

The best way to do non global sharpening

There are different ways in which you can sharpen your images and I have carried out some of these in an earlier exercise on this course.

From my Photoshop course I have learnt that the best way to sharpen your images - the non-destructive way - is to use layer masks.  This means that your original image is not affected by the sharpening.  It is paramount that you protect your images as much as possible in the processing stage.

Whilst you can use the eraser tool to remove sharpened areas from your image the best way to do this is by using the Smart sharpen tool and layer masks.   You can then use a paintbrush to paint over the face or areas that you don't want to sharpen.  This ensure that the image below is protected.

This method is particularly useful when sharpening portraits where you don't want the face to be over-sharpened.

Prior to attending this course I wasn't aware of the damage my processing may be doing to the image below.  Perhaps this is a reason why I should move away from using Lightroom for most of my processing.

Advanced Photoshop course

I recently wrote about how I had enrolled on a Photoshop course at City Lit.  The course covers advanced skills in Photoshop for photographers.

The course is run using the latest version of Photoshop CS6 Mac version.  I don't own a Mac so it will be interesting to work on one.  I don't think the learning curve will be that steep on warrant me to go on their short course for using Apple Macs.

The course aims to introduce me to the following tools and techniques:

• layer masks, paths and alpha channels ( I know a little about layer masks)
• clipping and stroking paths
• adjustment layers
• blending modes
• layer styles
• layer groups and layer comps
• actions
• batch action and droplets
• colour management
• processing raw files 
• high dynamic range
• Adobe Bridge

Most of the above will be new to me but I have what I would think is a good grasp on using layers and blending modes and HDR.  I am also pretty competent when it comes to processing raw files.  

I think for me Lightroom replaces Bridge.  

I do feel that I need some help with colour management.  Although I have a good understanding on it I just feel that I need a little guidance on some areas and perhaps the verification that what I know is correct.  

I will post relevant findings/learning/outcomes on my blog.

Learning outcomes
I have now completed the course and I feel that I have gained a lot of confidence in my ability to use Photoshop.  Overall I am pleased that I went on the course and I found it very useful.  It also gave me the opportunity to network with other photographers - professional and amateur - which was enlightening.

• Knowledge of actions and how they can be used to improve my workflow
• Clarification (at last) on layers, layer masks and the best practice for applying them
• Improved knowledge on colour management.  I feel it is finally making sense for me and the pieces of the puzzle fit together
• New ways of converting images to black and white.  
• Duotones are a bit dated 
• Blending modes and when to use them.  This was especially useful when I looked at assignment 4 again.  
• Better knowledge of clone stamp tool 
• The pen tool.  I feel though that I would need to practice a lot more with this tool to improve.  
• Knowledge of other ways of making selections other than using the magic wand or lasso tool. 
• Using channels
• HDR and ways to use it.  I have played around with HDR during this course but I'm not sure how I would use it in my day to day working.  I can see the benefits of it but I'm not sure if I really like the HDR effect we see in currently trending in landscapes 

Assignment 5 - Personal project

For this assignment I worked on the concept of time.  I have outlined my proposal for this piece of work in an earlier post.

I divided my work into the following sections:

• Seeing time
• The cyclical nature of time
• Personal vision of time

Seeing time 

The palm of my hand

Layers

A time and place

Old and new

Cyclical time

One sixth of a second

Day and night

 Seasons

Personal vision of time

Out of darkness cometh light