Sharpening

Sharpening can be divided into two classes of operation.  One is to correct losses of sharpness due to processing and the other is to optimise the appearance of the image for the medium where it will be displayed.

Oversharpening can introduce artefacts into the image like halos around areas of contrast.

In this exercise I will examine the differences in sharpening for print and for on screen viewing.

To do this I have to take an image that I have shot with some edge detail and some smooth areas like a portrait.  In a portrait eyes have detail and the skin areas are soft, smooth areas.

My reference picture is as follows:

Reference image

No sharpening has been applied.   

I will make three versions of he above image with varying degrees of sharpening.  To determine the levels of sharpening I will be using Scott Kelby's The Adobe Photoshop CS5 book for Digital Photographers.  

To sharpen images in Photoshop you use the Unsharp mask feature in the Filters menu.

The Amount slider determines the amount of sharpness applied to the photo.

Radius determines how many pixels out from the edge the sharpness will affect.

Threshold determines how different a pixel must be from the surrounding area before its considered an edge pixel and sharpened by the filter.

It is important to note that the lower the threshold number the more intense the sharpening.

The recommended level of sharpening for a portrait.  
According to the book, the recommended level of sharpening for portraits is Amount: 75%, Radius: 2, Threshold: 3.  These settings provide a soft, subtle sharpening with enough punch to bring our the detail in the eyes.

Whilst viewing the image at 50% magnification I input these settings.

Maximum sharpening
For this image I used the maximum sharpening settings which are recommended for architecture and buildings.

Amount: 65%, Radius: 4, Threshold:3

Moderate sharpening

In this image I applied a moderate level of sharpening. 

Amount: 120%, Radius: 1, Threshold:3

Looking at these images on screen I don't see a dramatic difference between them.  The maximum sharpening looks the sharpest and I don't really like the fact that the hair and curves of the face are just as sharp as the eyes.  

The moderate level is slightly better with the skin having a softness to it.  

My preferred is the settings for portraits.  I feel that the eyes are adequately sharpened and the skin is soft.  

I will now arrange for my images to be printed so I can compare them in print.  Printed images require different levels of sharpening depending on the type of printer you are using and the paper you are printing on.  Based on the ideal print output sharpening can be calculated by looking at the normal viewing distance of the human eye resolving detail to around 1/100th of an inch.  This means that an image with a resolution of 300 pixels per inch will need a radius of 3.  

From my prints I have found that printed images can require a lot more sharpening that web outputs.  I have found that images that look distorted due to the level of sharpening on the screen look good printed.  

Playing around after Light it, Shoot it, Retouch it.

In a previous post on my attendance at Scott Kelby's Light it, Shoot it, Retouch it seminar I mentioned that I had started using some of the tips I learnt from him.

I don't usually take portraits, mainly due to lack of models or willing subjects and a lack of confidence.  However to show some of the techniques I have acquired I took this quick head and shoulders shot and enhanced it.

I must first point out that I do not like the images we tend to see of people on weddings days and in magazines where their faces have been softened too much and they start to look like a completely different person.

However, some subtle work can make a huge difference.

The original image with just the exposure tweaked. 

I applied softening to the skin and enhanced the eyes and lips.  This gave a nice soft texture to the skin which smoothed out some of the wrinkles and marks on the skin's surface.  I didn't want this treatment to be too extreme so you can if you look closely still see subtle lines around the eye areas.  

I applied a soft focus sharpening to the image to keep just the eyes sharpened and the skin soft. 

I converted the image to monochrome using the aged photo preset in Lightroom.  I just wanted to see what it would look like in black and white.  

I feel that my skills for doing quick portrait retouches have been enhanced by going to this seminar.  I will continue to look at ways in which what I have learnt on this course will enhance my photography moving forward. 

Adobe Creative Cloud

In my last post I mentioned cloud technology and how it might be useful for archiving or backing up images.

I have now looked into it a little more.

Adobe offer various packages where you can download any of their apps from Creative Suite 6, get 20GB of cloud storage and sync so you can access your images from anywhere.

In theory this all sounds pretty useful.  You would always have access to the most up to date versions of their software for starters.  And seeing as they bring our a new version every year this is something that would work out very handy indeed.

I'm not sure about the 20GB of storage and how that actually works.  It sounds quite a bit but is it really?  We all know how PSD files swallow up memory.

The price is pretty good.  Well if you are a student it is.  Currently they are offering membership for £15.88 a month which works out at just over £180 a year.  This is the price of a student version of CS6 alone.

I think it is something definitely worth looking more into especially seeing as I am going to be a student for another few years.

For more information, check out their website.
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/creativecloud.edu.html

Finishing

This section of the course looks at the end of our workflow and displaying the final image.  There are two ways in which we can display the final images - in print or in a web gallery.

Back ups
We should always keep back ups of our images and store them in a safe place. We can do this by saving our copies in a separate folder but is this simply enough?

It depends on how valuable your images are to you.  Would you be devastated if you were to lose them all? I think I probably would be really disappointed to see all my hard work vanish due to some computer malfunction.  All my images are backed up on an external drive which protects me from this.  However, what it doesn't protect me from is flood or fire damage.

Archives need a separate physical location because in the event of theft, fire or flood damage you need your images to be safe.

One option would be to look at backing up to a dvd and saving these off your premises.  This could be cumbersome.

Another option would be to explore the opportunities afforded us now with cloud technology.

Assignment 4 - Real or fake?

For this assignment I had to further explore the techniques covered in this section of the course and the ethical issues some of these techniques present. 

Throughout this part of the course I was presented with situations I had previously avoided.  As a raw shooter I am aware of the need to optimise images. However, I personally don’t see exposure adjustments or spot fixes for sensor dust or unwanted objects in your image as manipulation.  I think on the contrary that they are necessary enhancements.  Enhancements are something that I view as producing images that do not deviate too far from reality.    

I tend to see manipulation as the point where images cease to look real.  In many pictures we see in magazines, images are created using composites which to me is an obvious manipulation of a set of images.  It is clear that the final image is not the result of a single picture taken with a camera. It is the result of another form of creative design where your final image is made post production. 

I had the option of creating a book or magazine cover for this assignment.  I chose to recreate the front cover of Irvine Welsh’s book Ecstacy. 

I adopted a fun and minimalistic approach to the image.  I wanted the focus to be on ‘ecstasy’ with few distractions or busy elements in the final image.  I also wanted the image to be very bright with colour playing an important role.  In a sense I wanted the image to have a slight psychedelic feeling to it.  In relation to the book and its content I wanted to try and create some of the fun associated with the characters and their drug taking lifestyles.   

The image

I used two images to create the cover.  For the first image I shot a pink pill - a Neurofen tablet.  I felt that pink added a fun colour to the theme I was attempting to create for the book cover.  I then added the words ‘ecstasy’ to the pill to give the impression that the word was actually printed on the tablet.  I formatted the text to make it wrap around the pill’s curved shape. 

The pill also being round would be representative of the world - the drug taking world in the book. 

The second image I used was of a blue cloudy sky.  I had to use the clone stamp tool to remove the trees in the lower part of the image and I adjusted the exposure to make the sky very contrasty. 

In Photoshop I created a zoom burst for this image by selecting a radial blur filter.  This gave the image a sense of movement with motion trails emanating from the centre. 

I then cut the pill out of the first image and pasted it into the blurred sky so the movement now trails from the pill.  The movement draws the viewer into the focus point – the pink pill and in turn the title of the book. 

The blue sky provides the image with a universe for the ‘drug globe’. 

Outcome

I think I achieved what I set out to, that is, to create a ‘fake’ image. However I felt that the creative process was one that was very different to how I normally view an assignment or shoot.  I found that more doors were open to me and I could be less conservative in my work or approach. 

My workflow was altered greatly in this assignment.  Instead of working to get the best possible image from your camera in relation to composition, the camera and pictures served as elements which would make up your final image.  This final image and the majority of work to complete it was constructed in Photoshop. 

 In relation to ethics, I have already touched on how I feel about image manipulation, but for this assignment I had to manipulate my image.  I wanted to do this in a way that would not interfere with my ethics. 

There is nothing natural or real about the production or effects of drugs so from an ethical standpoint this image lives up to the themes running through the book.  

Tutor feedback

Overall the feedback I received on this assignment was positive.  However, my tutor suggested that I need to take this image further perhaps by pushing the manipulation of the tablet to strengthen the allegory of it representing the world or by improving the typography superimposed on the pill.  

He noted that the adjustments I made to the sky have worked well.  However the text at the bottom is harder to read so maybe I should try to change the type font or the colour of the text.  I think I like the font so I would opt for changing the colour to white and perhaps making it bolder or bigger or both.  

Moving forward, I feel that I need to give this image some more thought and see how I can further improve it.  

Looking at the work of Jerry Uelsman...

Browsing the internet the other day I came across the work of Jerry Uelsman.  I think I may have seen some of his images before but didn't know who created them.

I think his images are very surreal.  They are also interesting in relation to this course and to 'ethics' when you consider they were not manipulated digitally.  I suppose most people believe the digital age gave birth to image manipulation.  However, this is not necessarily the case.

Looking at Graham Clarke's The Photograph which is a history of photography dedicating a chapter to each genre, image manipulation began in the early 1900s possibly with Alvin Langdon Coburn's vortograph.

I am still not sure where I stand on the entire manipulation thing but I can say that I am less resistant to the idea of manipulating images.  I can actually see the benefits now and also the fact that manipulation and the use of Photoshop doesn't mean you are cheating in any way.  It is just another part of the creative process in the piece of art you are making.

Back to Uelsman, I really like the dreamy feel to his work and I can see how his influence could work on 'Project Time'.

I also like the way the manipulation is subtle.  It almost looks like it has been painted/sketched.

http://www.uelsmann.net/

Researching assignment 4

Assignment 4 is all about using all the tools available to you to create a 'fake' or manipulated photograph.

As most of the work of photographers that I like does not use a lot of manipulation I decided to buy some Photoshop magazines for inspiration and I suppose guidance.

Some months ago I attended a seminar by Scott Kelby who is big into Photoshop.  The CD that was part of the seminar notes is a good resource for basic retouching especially for portraits.  There is also a section on compositing.

At the seminar he had a special guest - Glyn Dewis - who is a photographer, retoucher and Photoshop trainer.  He shoots a lot of promotional and commercial material and when I saw a section by him in Practical Photoshop I decided to buy that as a starter.

His 'How to create a portrait with punch' was interesting and although I liked the final image I was keen on attempting it myself.  Although the instructions were clear enough my portrait didn't look as punchy as his.  Perhaps my model just lacked that certain 'punchability' or else I just missed something along the way.  I abandoned the idea either way.

I liked some of the images that readers have sent into the magazine and I also found some of their ideas more inspiring than the real articles and 'how to' sections.

The challenge in the previous issue was a poetry inspired challenge.  The results in the issue I had were really good.  I liked the introduction of text to the image.  I felt that this was particularly relevant to my assignment.

I think I need to continue to buy Photoshop magazines to keep an eye for these types of images and to keep my options open as to how they would work in my own photography.