Digital Shutters

Sometimes when you are making adjustments to your photo you will want to play with the color balance and hue saturation and by the time you are finished you don’t save any of the changes you made and give up in frustration. As a photographer there are many photos that I have to correct and I just can’t seem to get right. The sky may have been cloudy that day or the angle of the light in the photo just doesn’t work. These trouble photos I turn to black and white. And adjust the color balance from there.
This photo was taken a few years ago with an HP 315 auto focus point and shoot. As you can see the sky is dark and gloomy and the pond is over green the composition is great but the colors are bad. The bright brown grass in the foreground distracts from the rest of the photo. I turned the photo to black and white and used color match to bring out the luminosity of the photo. Now the photo looks balanced and the grass no longer distracts from the rest of the photo.

May 6, 2007 Corel that it received the works with Windows Vista software logo for Corel DESIGNER® Technical Suite 12. This is good news for all that have upgraded their computers to vista or went out and bought new systems that run vista. You can download the latest service pack.

Me being a big Corel Draw fan myself and have followed and upgraded all the way from 4 to 10 was happy to receive news in January that Corel Draw Suite X3, would work with Vista I guess now I have no excuse to upgrade.

May 14, 2007 Adobe PostScript Driver Provides Higher Quality Print Output; Helps Preserve Hardware Investment. This new print driver software will allow you to use your postscript printers with Vista, The driver will be shipped in July to the OEM Partners to be bundled with their devices.

May 9, 2007 EI Technology Group is offing links to websites that have 3D graphics, It also announced that it has extended the Electric Image Animation System Competitive upgrade until the end of May. This is a significant reduction in the cost.

PHOTO OF the Day
This is not acutally a photo but a Graphic I created from Amorphium a 3D Program by EI Technology

One of my digital darkroom effects is the Photocopy filter. Most editing programs have this feature. In Adobe PhotoShop and PaintShop Pro you’ll find this feature in filters and under the sketch options.
First thing I do is select the hue saturation and put the settings on about + 50% this way it helps the filter pick up the detailing. Using my ink dropper I select the darkest color on the subject I want to photo copy. Next I select the photocopy filter and put the setting on + 25% detail and 5% darkness. Check the preview to see if enough detailing shows up and click ok.
Once I have applied the filter to the picture I save it under a different file name usually I just add a –number or letter on the end of the already existing file name. This way it keeps them together.
Next I re-open the original photo and using the ink dropper I select the color from the original photo that I want to add the photocopy picture. Using my overly tool or color replace tool I go over the photocopy area that I want to re-color. Like the lips and eyes or highlights in the hair. Once I have my subject finished I erase the background.

This puts a unique perspective on my portraits that I hang on the wall.

Lately one of the trends is to turn your current photos into the aged look. This effect is called Sepia. Sepia has been most associated with the 1800’sphotos where were printed in the browns and yellows and not true monochrome. Sepia refers to the color range between yellow and brown. Many high end cameras these days let you create this effect with the camera itself or if your camera doesn’t have that type of setting you can use photo editing software programs such as Photoshop and have greater control over the actual color effect.
When ever I start editing my photos I always save the orinal and work off a copy. In this photo I using the Hue/Saturation tool and changed the hue to 27 the saturation to 40, I wanted an older aged looked. Although according to Wikipedia, Adobe recommends a saturation of 21. Play with your photos to get the effect you want. To really give it a old photo look use the sketch tool grain effect.

There is not much in the way of camera reviews lately.

Last week Cannon announced a release on the European market and this week announced the USA release. 5-7-07 Cannon released the PowerShot S5 IS an 8 Megapixel from different reviews I’ve read this is the USA version of the earlier S850 Europe release

Another release is from a Digital Camera Component manufacture, this seems to be a new direction for them. 5-5-07 Foxconn released a 12 megapixel DS-C350 digital camera. Foxconn is Taiwan-based, they have mainly been a manufacture of OEM in the digital camera market.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Our new puppy he is 4 weeks old here.
Taken with Olympus E-500 Digital SLR
File size 3264 X 2448 5.72MB

As a Photographer I often get asked where do you print your photos? People get shocked when I tell them Wal-Mart. But then again I’m a stock photographer / Real Estate Photographer. The photography I do that I get paid for I don’t have a need to print the photos. I will occasionally print a black and white on photo canvas and use my oil paints to repaint in highlight colors and sell them as fine art (but that’s another topic). But for the most part I take my photos and turn the disks over to the clients for them to print. But then I got to thinking that maybe I should dust off my old HP 1700 Super-B printer and give it a new shot at life, then I remembered that the inks cost $35.00 per cartridge and it take 4 cartridges and Probly no longer works with my new Vista operating system, maybe I should just replace this thing and buy a new one, and with all the talk of the new archival inks out there I thought I would check it out.
One thing to remember though when deciding which is best for your printing needs, is that their claims are done with their inks and their paper. Check the manufacture recommendations as to what paper works best with their inks and use that paper. The results will always be better. Here are a few of the most popular in the industry.

HP has a new ink Vivera that promises 108 years of fad resistance this looks promising since HP has always been one of the leaders in printing. Randomly selecting the cartridges for a price check this new ink doesn’t cost anymore than there earlier counterparts.

Kodak claims their inks last a lifetime (under normal household display conditions) what ever normal household display conditions mean. I have never printed with a Kodak home printer but if it’s anything like their Kiosk then we can’t really go wrong there. Their big promotion is the printer paper and ink packages together. Their ink cartridges seem to be less expensive but they only give you print counts using a 4X6 print.

Lexmark another leader in the industry also claims better and longer lasting photos and their cartridges are also comparable in price the others. They had a test done comparing their products to other compatible products and even have the report published for your reading pleasure. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll find a click here link in little tiny red letters and that will take you to a PDF File.

Epson Claims a 92 year print on their inks. And says they will save you money with more prints per cartridge. And checking their prices the cartridges are about the same price as the rest.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Portuguese Man-o-War that washed up on the Texas Gulf Coast
I used an Olympus E-500 Digital SLR
JPEG Image Original File size 3264 X 2448 5.32 MB
UV Filter

With all the tech talk out there and everything that I’ve mentioned before there is still one important factor to determine what your final picture will look like. All cameras either digital or film use light metering to determine how the picture will come out. Metering is what controls the shutter speed and aperture of your camera based on the lighting conditions and ISO’s. Understanding how your cameras light metering works is very important. It’s the difference between just a picture and WOW What a shot!

In photography light metering is essential to determine your camera settings. Most professional photographers have a hand held light meter. A light meter helps with setting your f-stop and shutter speed. If you have manual control over your digital camera a hand held light meter is must tool to have.

Generally there are two types of light meters a reflected light meter which is the one built into your camera, there are also hand held ones, measuring the amount of light reflected by an object. With reflected light there limitations, these meters are preset to a certain standard. This could result in over or under exposure of the photo if the “scene� is not within the preset standard. A hand held reflective meter is a spot meter, its uses a very small pinpoint range, this way you can factor in the shadows, highlights, and the very bright areas.

The other is the incident light meter which measures the amount of light falling around an object. This type of meter is used when the measuring needs to be precise and consistent, such as landscape, outdoor model, and cinematography.

A better understanding of this can be found at wikipedia.org where they explain the diffenent light meters and how they are used and at cambridgeincolour.com Where there is a good explanation of how the light metering in your camera actually use the light spectrum.

If you decide to become a professional photographer you need to look at the laws governing what you are taking photos of. I am a real estate photographer, stock photographer and this covers a broad range of area. If I take photos of people I need to have their permission and written model release if their faces are recognizable. As you can see these photos that I took at the beach are of groups of people. I needed their permission to take their photos. But since you cannot recognize their faces I did not need a model release. Most of the time I tell the people who I am and what I intend to do. Most people don’t have a problem with it and sometimes I even get lucky and make a few extra bucks on the side with group shots that I copy onto a CD for them. Of course this involves getting their address to mail the CD. Do not offer to print the Pictures for them as this will cost you more money.

With buildings the law is a little different. As long as it is not a national landmark or a private residence and there is public access to the area you are taking a picture of then normally you do not need permission. You cannot have images if copy written objects. If you are taking photos inside the buildings then you will need permission to do so. This is something that you need to check on even if you are on vacation and taking vacation photos. The laws are different in all areas. With me when I take photos of a building then I already have the permission to do so and in my contract I state that I own the copy rights of the photos and can use them as I see fit. If the customer wants the copy rights to their photos then of course the price for my services goes up. Remember with the heightened security now you are not allowed to take photos inside a commercial Harbor Port. Once I was taking a photo of a ship coming into harbor and when I turned to take the photo after it passed me a security guard told me I was not allowed to point my camera in that direction. I was fine as long as I was taking them looking out of the port.
A good informative article on this is at About.com

One of the biggest events in Corpus Christi every year is the Annual Buc Days (Buccaneer Days). This is a festival that lasts 2 weeks with a Rodeo, Carnival, an Illuminated night parade and fireworks. Although I am not much into the Rodeo, the Parade and Carnival are fun. People will find a spot along the parade route the day before the parade just to get a good spot. I did not get a chance to attend th eparade this year so I only got photos of the carnival. In this photo that I took of the carnival lights, I used the auto setting to stop all motion so I wouldn’t blur the Farris wheel, and a tripod to stop camera shake. In earlier articles I mentioned that a tripod is necessary during night shoots since the shutter is slow to react.

According to Digital Photography Review; Sony announced May 1, the new Cyber-Shot S800 will be released in Europe by the end of May.
I checked out the Sony website and as of yet found nothing about its release in the United States.

From the Sony press release it looks as if it could be a nice little camera to have. It has a long life rechargeable battery promising 390 shots between re-charging, and PictBridge for direct printer connection, and 8 MP and has a 56MB internal memory.

This camera has a 6X optical zoom and a 12 X digital zoom, a 2cm Macro for those really close up shots. The Cyber-Shot S800 is promising to get you closer.

I looks as if Sony packed alot of punch into a little camera.