The debate on whether to import and post-process files as RAW or as DNG (Digital Negative) is almost as heated – and opinionated – as whether to shoot with Canon or Nikon. The long and short of it is, “it depends,” and “it’s up to you.” There is no “right” answer.

RAW files are digitally unprocessed image files that come straight from your camera. They have no adjustments or alterations made to them so that when you load them into your post-processing software, you have the utmost of flexibility in altering things like exposure, white balance, and the like. The RAW “recipe” varies between camera manufacturers, which means that the file formats are not universal between software brands and versions. For example, when I upgraded from my Canon Rebel XTi to my Canon 7D I also had to upgrade from Photoshop CS3 to CS5, because CS3 didn’t support the 7D’s RAW files.

The DNG file type is very similar to a RAW file in that it is an unprocessed image file that can be manipulated and altered. It is an image standard developed by Adobe and is intended to be a type of “generic” RAW file that is universally compatible regardless of the camera brand. Upon import, the RAW files that your camera took are converted into the DNG file format (so, the RAW files are still on your camera’s memory card until you format it). More software programs can read DNG file formats than proprietary RAW file formats. For instance, if my files had been imported in the DNG format instead of RAW, Photoshop CS3 would have been able to read the files from my 7D.

Many photographers choose to convert their RAW files to DNG upon import for the following reasons:

- DNG files are smaller than RAW files (by around 15%). This is because “unrecognized metadata” (such as focus points and picture control settings) is stripped from the file.
- Any changes and adjustments made to the file are written to the DNG file itself, rather than appending a “sidecar” .xmp file which contains all of the changes.
- Photographers anticipate that the DNG file format will be supported farther into the future, minimizing the risk of obsolescence and incompatibility with future programs.

Many photographers choose to use RAW for the following reasons:

- RAW files open, import, save, and edit more quickly because there is no need to convert to another file format during the process.
- RAW files contain more metadata specific to the camera and the shot itself, which is important to many photographers.
- DNG files are not compatible with some brand-specific imaging products and solutions.

It is important to note that there is no difference in image quality between a DNG and a RAW file.

Personally, I have worked with both. I tend to stick with the RAW file format because I like lots of metadata, and it’s easier for me to go back to original RAW files when I want to try multiple editing techniques on a single image. There are many schools of thought on whether to stick with RAW or import to DNG. I found a handful of articles that you might find to be helpful in making your own decision.

Helpful Resources:

- To DNG or not to DNG at Lightroom Killer Tips
- RAW vs DNG – A Practical Overview of the Differences, a video by SLR Lounge
- A primer on the Digital Negative file format by Adobe.
- Understanding Digital Raw Capture by Adobe.

Do you have an opinion on whether to use RAW or DNG? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook Page.

Related posts:

1. Editing in Camera Raw
2. The Power of RAW!
3. Establishing a Post-Processing Routine

However, that capability to take photos in low light costs us in the way of increased noise.

Noise is that “grain” you see, which when magnified appears as tiny speckles of white and tiny colored specks that don’t correspond to the color of the subject. It is caused by a variety of things, but not to put too fine a technical point on it, it basically has to do with how the components of the camera’s sensor handle electronic signals at high ISO settings. The higher the ISO, the higher the appearance of noise. The larger the camera’s sensor, the better quality the photographs taken at a high ISO will be – so, a photo taken with a crop sensor camera at ISO 6400 will have more noise than a photo taken with a full frame sensor at ISO 6400. In addition, each camera model and each camera brand handle noise differently. Lots of folks like to play around with noise and grain as an added artistic element to their photographs.

With all of that said, there are ways to reduce the noise in your photographs, regardless of how high your ISO or which camera you use. Just keep in mind that the more noise you reduce, the “softer” the appearance of the photograph.

Here is a photo that I took with my Canon EOS 7D, ISO 12,800. Ordinarily, ISO settings are only available up to 6,400, but I activated the ISO expansion option on my camera. This shot is straight out of the camera (click to enlarge):

As you can see, it’s pretty grainy. And actually, zoomed out the grain is fairly aesthetically pleasing, given the subject. When I zoom in using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3, the amount of noise is very apparent (click to enlarge):

In the Develop module of Lightroom, you may have noticed the “Detail” panel:

In the “Noise Reduction” area, slide the “Luminance” slider to the right until all of the white speckles disappear. I had to drag it all the way over to 51 (click to enlarge):

Now, notice the purple-ish speckles and streaks in the spoke on the lower left? That’s an indication of color noise, and to remove it we just slide the “Color” slider over to the right until it disappears, as well (click to enlarge):

Here is the photo with the noise levels reduced (click to enlarge):

Removing noise also has the added benefit of reducing the file size. The original is 16.6 MB, and the file with the noise reduced is 10.5 MB. This application of noise reduction works in a similar fashion in Photoshop, Aperture, and other post-processing software.

Photos by Tiffany Joyce.

Related posts:

1. A Splash of Color in Lightroom
2. My Lightroom Workflow
3. Image Stabilization and Vibration Reduction Explained

Since my husband and I went off-roading last weekend, I have 171 photos to process of us, the Jeep, and the Arizona landscape. Here’s how I’m going about it:

Import: Append Metadata and Add Keywords

The first thing I did when I first started using Lightroom was to set up the import settings so that specific metadata was appended to the files whenever I imported them from my memory card.

- From the Import window (Command-Shift-i or Ctrl-Shift-i), choose “New” from the Metadata pop-up menu under the Apply During Import panel.
- In the New Metadata Preset dialog, input your copyright information and any other metadata you wish to be appended to your files.
- Assign a name to your metadata preset (at the top of the dialog box, “Preset Name”).
- Click on the “Create” button.

Click to enlarge

- On the Import panel, you will see your preset listed in the drop-down menu. This preset will be active every time you open the Import dialogue, unless you change it.
- At this stage I always assign keywords to the collection of photos I am downloading. Once you start amassing a large catalog of photos, keywords will be immensely helpful when you need to find something in the future.

Library: First Pass Flagging

Next I attempt to whittle down the photos into a manageable number that I will want to finish through post-processing.

- In the Library module, I choose the Grid view but expand the thumbnail size so that I can see two at a time. I happen to have my view modes set up such that I can see sorting, flagging, rating, color labels, and navigate buttons (use the arrow at the very bottom right of this screen shot to show/hide sorting options):

Click to enlarge

- This first pass is very simple – I decide whether it’s a “keeper” or not. If I know I absolutely do not want to keep the photo or bother editing it, I click on the “reject” flag while the photo is highlighted (as in the screen shot – I rejected the photo on the right, and you can see the reject flag in the top left corner of that photo).
- Next I filter the photos for all rejected photos, and delete them. That just gets them out of the way right off the bat and unclutters things, at least in my mind.

Library: Second Pass Rating

Once the rejected photos are removed, I go back through the photos again and rate them using the scale of five stars. This time I use loupe view to look at one photo at a time. I also hide the bottom, left and right menu bars so that all I see is the photo and the rating buttons.

Click to enlarge

- A photo gets one star if, upon a second look, I realize that it isn’t a keeper after all. (I’ll probably delete these after I’ve gone through the entire second pass.)
- A photo gets three stars if there is something about it that I want to try to keep – either a significant crop or some strong Photoshopping.
- A photo gets five stars if it’s great just the way it is, or just needs a bit of tweaking for exposure and sharpness right in Lightroom.

Develop: Five Starred Photos

Now I move into the Develop module. By this time I have a small selection of the highest rated (five-starred) photos, so I prioritize those for post-processing.

- Using the filters, I display only the five-starred photos. In the case of my series of photos from the weekend, I have seventy of the original 171 that I deem to be “five-star” worthy.

Click to enlarge

- I look at each photo individually and adjust exposure, contrast, sharpness, and whatever else needs tweaking. Once I have it where I like it, I move on to the next photo.
- If I come across a photo that I don’t want to mess with after all, or have multiple similar shots to choose from, I reduce it to three stars (or one if I decide I want to delete it later).

Export

Once I have gone through all of the photos and adjusted them appropriately, I then select them all (Shift-click), right-click and select Export. My Export settings are as follows:

- Usually I export to the folder the original files were in on my hard drive.
- I use “Custom Name – Original File Number” so I can easily match up the RAW files with the JPEG’s should I need to.
- The file format is JPEG, quality is 100%, exported in sRGB color space.
- Resolution is 240 pixels per inch.
- Sharpen for screen, standard amount (unless I was printing).
- Sometimes I include a custom watermark, depending on the project.
- I don’t minimize metadata, and I don’t typically resize the photos.

Develop: Three Starred Photos

Once the five-starred photos are completely finished, I turn my attention to the three-starred photos. Sometimes I don’t even get to them, to be honest, but I know they’re there should I be after something specific. These are the shots that take more time in Photoshop to bring up to par, so unless there’s something very specific I want to do with them, they tend to be de-prioritized in favor of the five-starred photos. However, I don’t delete these, even if I never get around to processing them.

What does your post-processing workflow look like? Share any ideas or advice with us in the comments or on our Facebook Page.

Related posts:

1. Noise Reduction in Lightroom
2. RAW vs. DNG
3. Establishing a Post-Processing Routine

We all want absolutely tack-sharp photos. We all know that sharpness begins with the shot itself – there is no saving a blurry photo in post-production. We are somewhat familiar with sharpening techniques in Lightroom or Photoshop, but what is the best way to apply sharpening for landscapes? Portraits? Cars? Street scenes? When is the best time to sharpen? Is there a difference between sharpening for viewing on-line and sharpening for printing? What do the terms “amount” and “radius” and “threshold” mean?

Let’s begin to de-mystify the process of sharpening!

Two Rules of Thumb

The first rule of thumb is to apply sharpening as the very last step in the post-processing workflow. This is because softening can result from various editing techniques, so you want to sharpen the photo after all of the editing has been completed. The second rule of thumb is to view the photo at a magnified level (like 50%) as you sharpen, so you can really tell how the sharpening levels are affecting the image.

How Does It Know?

Post processing software such as Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, and Aperture 3 determine the where the edge lines are in the photograph by looking at the demarcation between lines of light pixels and lines of dark pixels. Depending on the settings that you use, sharpening is achieved by lightening the pixels next to the light lines, and darkening the pixels next to the dark lines. This creates greater definition along the edges of the subjects and details in the photograph, which translate into a sharper images as seen by our eyes.

This is a great exaggeration, but shows what I’m referring to. The first image is not sharpened at all, zoomed in to 1200% so you can see individual pixels:

This is an example with an extreme amount of sharpening added. Note the layers of contrast between the red and blue that the program added (click to see full-sized pixels):

What Do Those Unsharp Mask Settings Mean?

Amount: This refers to how significantly you want to sharpen the image. The higher the number you use, the more exaggerated the edges become. The light lines added next to the light edges become even lighter, and the dark lines added next to the dark edges become even darker. In the exaggerated photo of sharpening above, I set the Amount to 200%. This is what it looks like at 50% – notice the added blue lines aren’t AS blue, and the added red lines aren’t AS red (click to see full-sized pixels):

Radius: This effects how many pixels away from the identified edges the sharpening will be applied. A lower radius number means the changes will stick closer to the identified edge line, and a higher radius number means the changes will spread out further from the identified edge line. In the exaggerated photo of sharpening I applied a Radius of 5.0. This is what it looks like at 1.0 (click to see full-sized pixels):

Threshold: Threshold defines what the program considers an “edge” and what it does not. A high threshold number tells the program that a pixel needs to be very significantly different than surrounding pixels in order to be considered an “edge”. A low threshold number tells the program that only minor differences in pixels should define an edge. In the exaggerated photo I used, I set the threshold to “1″ – this means that more content within the photo will be sharpened because there are more incidents of slightly differing relational pixels than greatly differing relational pixels. In this example I set the threshold to “50″ (click to see full-sized pixels):

What Settings Should I Use?

Flowers and other “soft” subjects: You’ll want a fairly high amount (around 130-150%) with a very low radius (1 or 2) and a moderate threshold (8-12).

Portraits: You don’t want to overly-sharpen a portrait, but you do want to make things like eyes and hair highlights stand out. Try an amount of 75-100%, a radius of 2 or 3, and a threshold of 3-5.

Landscapes: There tend to be lots of edges and details in a landscape photo, so it’s appropriate to boost up the sharpening. Try an amount of 110-125%, a radius of 1, and a threshold of 3 or 4.

Very detailed (buildings, cars, anything intricate): If you want to sharpen the HECK out of your photo, set the amount to 60%, the radius to 5 and the threshold to 1.

Scott Kelby’s “All Purpose Sharpening”: In Scott Kelby’s book The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers , Kelby mentions that his favorite “all purpose” sharpening settings are amount 85%, radius of 1, threshold of 4. I do find this to be just the right amount of sharpening for most of my photography.

Sharpening for printing: If it looks just a little bit TOO over-sharpened on the screen, chances are it’s going to look just right when printed. Print out a few test prints on your printer until you establish how much sharpening results in the best prints.

In the shot at the beginning of this entry (taken at this summer’s MotoGP race in Indianapolis – the red Honda tents are in the foreground, and the track’s Pagoda is in the background), which was used for each example, I finally settled on an amount of 85%, radius of 1, and threshold of 3.

Photo credit: Tiffany Joyce

Related posts:

1. My Lightroom Workflow
2. Back to Basics: Image Resolution
3. The Beauty of Soft Focus

“I have been serious about photography for about a year now and am still completely baffled by the area of color management. I love my pictures on the computer, but printed, not so much. Getting my inkjet to print what I see on the screen is a nightmare and I have not loved the results from sites like Shutterfly. I don’t do this for a living, so don’t have money to invest in color calibration products if I don’t really need to. Plus, I work exclusively on a laptop and my understanding is that color calibrating the screen is a waste of time because everything changes as the angle of the screen changes. I would love to see more articles about this.”

Let me start by saying that I’ve been a photographer for a lot longer than a year and I’m still somewhat baffled by color management. I suppose had I been a physics major it would make more sense but they usually don’t teach physics in B school.

Now the real crux of Seepea’s question/comment is whether or not it’s necessary to purchase color calibration products. That question, like so many others in photography is dependent upon what you want to accomplish in your photography. That aside, the short answer is yes, but let me qualify it before you start scrolling to the bottom of the article to post your disagreement.

Your eyes (in conjunction with your brain) see color a little differently than do my eyes or Tiffany’s eyes or anyone else’s eyes. To account for this perception difference among people and create a common color palate for manufacturers, a set of standards for colors have been established by the International Color Consortium or ICC. Sounds like something from a James Bond movie but it’s a very important industry group. You can learn more about ICC by checking Wikipedia or by going to the ICC website and reading a brief blurb about them that will open on your screen if you click on the link.

By following the ICC standards, monitors that are calibrated will display the same colors regardless of the manufacturer. This is important because that means that the way I see a photo on my monitor will be the same way the printing company is going to see it on their monitors.

X-Rite i1 Display being used to calibrate a monitor

Properly calibrating a monitor requires the use of a colorimeter. For example the X-Rite i1Display 2, the ColorMunki Photo – Monitor, Printer & Projector Profiler and the Spyder 3 Studio SR just to name a few. Don’t forget that ambient light also affects how we see color so if you calibrate in one level of ambient light and work in another you’ll see the colors differently on your monitor.

Left to right – ColorMunki, two X-Rite i1Display when they were still called Pantone i1, Spyder and

Why is calibration important? Walk into a big box store like the one that uses blue and yellow as their brand colors and go into the TV department. Have you ever wondered why the colors look so different on one TV from another even when the same program is being shown? Aside from technical differences like sharpness, closeness to true black, etc., they’re different because the calibration is off for any number of reasons, not the least of which is store staff and customers “adjusting” the color settings on the TV. You probably won’t ever get the color exactly the same on all of the TVs but this simple exercise really illustrates what kind of differences can exist between your monitor and other monitors if they aren’t calibrated.

As far as calibrating laptop screens, I calibrate my laptop on a regular schedule the same as I do my workhorse desktop with the 26” monitor where I do all of my digital darkroom work. I use the laptop for tethered shooting when I’m in the studio and I want the colors to look as close as possible on both computers. Regarding Seepea’s point about the angle of view changing on the laptop, that comment holds true for any monitor. I adjust the monitor on any computer so that my line of vision is perpendicular to the plane of the screen. That just happens to be the same angle that the colorimeter calibrates the monitor.

If you send all your work out to a reputable color lab to be printed calibrating your monitor regularly is all you’ll need to do. If you print most of your own photos then you’re only half-way there. Tomorrow I’ll talk about calibrating printers.

While doing some research for this article I ran across an excellent blog post by Norman Koren entitled Color Management that has a lot of good information in it from basic good stuff to headache advance science stuff. The article was posted a few years ago but the primary information is still current and valid.

Who is Norman Koren you might ask. I mean, anyone can post stuff on the internet, right? Here’s a short bio on Norman and I think you’ll agree that he’s quite qualified to wax eloquently on the subject.

Norman Koren grew up in Rochester, NY, about a mile from the George Eastman House (the great photography museum). He became interested in photography at the age of 12, and quite serious at age 21. He studied physics at Brown University and Wayne State University, then went on to pursue a career in magnetic recording technology in Boston, Philadelphia, Silicon Valley, San Diego, and finally Colorado (near Boulder, where he now lives). During that time he pursued photography– often spending long hours in the old-fashioned chemical darkroom. When his magnetic recording career ended in 2001 he decided to become a fine art photographer, but technology pulled him right back. In 2004 he founded Imatest, which has become the world’s leading supplier of software for measuring the quality of digital cameras. He pursues fine art photography (mostly nature and landscape) when he has spare time (a somewhat mythical concept for founders of technology startups).

Click on the link to his company to see what it’s all about. While you’re there check out their customer list to see how widely accepted and used their products are.

Photo Credits:

X-Rite by Lee Bennett on Flickr Creative Commons
Colorimeter Collection by Jerry Liu on Flickr Creative Commons

Related posts:

1. Color Management – Printer Calibration
2. What To Do When The Colors Look Wrong
3. Review: Canon CanoScan 9000F Color Image Scanner

Recently, a Beyond Megapixels reader emailed us the question, “I’m new to photography and was wondering what Photoshop I should buy first?” I responded to the email and got to thinking that this would make a good article.

Comparing image processing software is a lot like comparing other things that are mostly opinion driven. – which is better, New York or Chicago style pizza, which is better Canon or Nikon? There are no 100% correct answers and the way a person answers this kind of question greatly depends on their individual background, experiences and ingrained biases.

I’m aware that there are many different offerings of image processing software out there like GIMP, Pixelmator, Corel’s Photo-Paint and Aperture, but since the question was about Photoshop I’ll stick to the question for this article.

So much of the answer lies with what you want to do with your photos, how much time you’re willing to invest in learning the software you purchase and the size of your budget. Also, since the answers to those issues are going to be different for each person and I’ve owned and used all three of the primary products, I thought I’d relate my experiences, not so much as a recommendation but to share with you what I learned along the way.

I started with Adobe Photoshop Elements. It was my first really serious post-processing software. It was also at a time that I was returning to what I would call serious photography after a long absence. Using today’s prices and products, Adobe Photoshop CS5 lists at $699 (you can get it for roughly $100 less than that with a little shopping around). On the other hand, Photoshop Elements 10 lists at $100 and by shopping around you can save at least $10 off that price. Because I didn’t know at the time exactly what I was going to do with it, the price difference was the driving factor in my decision. If I ended up not liking it or not using it very much I preferred to risk wasting $100 instead of $600.

One way to look at Photoshop Elements is as Photoshop Lite. It has most of the overall capabilities of Photoshop CS5 but not all the shortcuts. There may be three or four ways to do something in Photoshop and only one long, involved way to do it in Elements. For this reason, it’s not always as easy to do something in Elements as it is in Photoshop and it takes more steps to accomplish the same result. However, if you’re not planning to get really creative in post-processing and all you plan to do is to remove and repair various blips and flaws, change the temperature of the light, correct for over and under exposure, Elements could be a good choice for you.

A few months after buying Elements I found a Photoshop class to take and this is where I discovered the real differences between the two products. I very quickly tired of learning a really neat new trick in class and then going home and not being able to do the same thing in Elements. After the third week I discovered a discounted price Photoshop that was also an “upgrade” product that gave me credit for what I’d already spent on Elements. Took me about 30 seconds to decide to part with the money and step up to Photoshop.

I absolutely love Photoshop. I’m always amazed at what can be done to images using features like content aware, HDR, etc. When you add various plug-ins like Nik Software Complete Collection, OnOne’s Plug-in Suite 5 and Imagenomic as well as probably a few hundred other plug-in packages, it seems like the sky is the limit for what you can do to an image. Yet, I’ve only scratched the surface of what the software can do. Each time I attend a seminar like the Scott Kelby “Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It Live” I’m amazed at what I still have in front of me to learn. Like I said, I absolutely love Photoshop.

After being told by 8 or 10 photographers, professional and amateur alike, that I really needed to get Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 I started listening yet I was hesitant to drop more money on software (the list price is $300) until one day I found it on sale for $150. I ordered it immediately. Not only is it far superior to Adobe Bridge (which comes with Photoshop CS5) for managing my library of images, but it’s also possible to achieve many of the post-processing steps of Photoshop. I know of one very well-known professional photographer that states that he does most of his post-processing in Lightroom. In the Scott Kelby seminar I attended, Scott used Lightroom as the software for the tethered shooting he employed for all the images he shot that day. In short, Lightroom is a great software package.

So what’s the recommendation? Had I known then what I know now, the first Adobe software package I would have purchased would have been Lightroom. In fact, I would recommend that approach to anyone considering post-processing software.

One caveat. If you’re only going to shoot jpeg and you don’t have thousands of images, stick with Elements. It’ll do what you need. If you’re going to shoot in RAW, start with Lightroom and eventually, you’ll want to step up to Photoshop CS5 or whatever the latest version is at the time. You’ll still love and use Lightroom but CS5 will allow you to do so much more.

Before all the SOOC (straight out of camera) crowd starts coming out of the woodwork and disagreeing with the article let me address that. If you’re happy with your SOOC images and don’t think you need post-processing software, then that’s great for you. In fact, I really try to get as close as I can to SOOC so I limit the amount of time I spend in front of the computer. However, I open every image I want to keep or use in Lightroom and Photoshop. I’ve watched professional photographers like John Shaw, Scott Kelby and Milton Heiberg perform complete magic on images that when viewed from a pure SOOC perspective would have been immediately deleted.

Also, if you prefer software other than what I’ve discussed in this article, that’s great too. However, there’s a reason that Adobe has over an 80% market share and it isn’t because it’s the least expensive software in the market.

Sometime, a few months from now, I will produce an article where I take a number of images that are SOOC and then the same image after post-processing.

Photo Credits:

Everglades Sunrise by Steve Russell

*The Author did NOT receive any products or compensation in exchange for mentioning the Provider’s products and/or services on this website. The Author purchased this product for personal use with personal funds. We will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. This is not an advertisement.

Related posts:

1. Review – The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers
2. Should You Upgrade to Photoshop CS4?
3. The Main Reason I Upgraded to CS5

Image resolution – how much detail an image holds – is measured in pixels per inch, or ppi. It is also referred to by the width and the height of the image as measured in pixels (i.e. 640×427, 1024×683, etc.). The more pixels the image possesses, the better the image quality.

Rules of Thumb

There are a couple of “rules of thumb” to consider when setting your image resolution.

For printing, you’ll want to use more pixels per inch, like 200-300. Increasing the ppi will allow you to print a larger physical copy while retaining the quality of the image.

For viewing on a monitor or on the web, which can only display a finite number of pixels per inch, setting the image at 72 ppi is just fine. Increasing the PPI for a picture you’re only going to look at on-line only makes the file size larger, it doesn’t improve the appearance of the image.

Do the Math

I know, I know, nobody said you’d have to do math! But in order to figure out how many ppi you need in order to print a high quality image of a specific size, you should at least know the calculations behind it. It’s easy, I promise.

Say you’d like to print an 8×10 image using a ppi of 300 (the standard recommended image quality):

8 inches tall X 300 pixels per inch = 2400 pixels
10 inches tall X 300 pixels per inch = 3000 pixels

So your image resolution would need to be at least 2400×3000 in order to print an 8×10 photo at 300 dpi. That would require a camera that can shoot at least 7.2 megapixels (2400 X 3000 = 7,200,000, or 7.2 megapixels).

You Don’t Have To Do Math

Thank goodness for photo editing software! Programs like Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, and Camera Raw have the ability to resize photographs and do the calculations for you. There are a couple of different techniques you can use, depending on if you’re shooting in RAW or JPG.

For RAW photos, you can set the pixels per inch in Camera Raw or Lightroom. For the purposes of this tutorial (and because I haven’t received my copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 from Amazon yet), I’ll use screen shots from Camera Raw. It works exactly the same way in Lightroom.

Open the photo in Camera Raw. Perform whatever adjustments you deem necessary, then take a look at the blue hyperlink displayed at the bottom of the screen:

Click to enlarge

Click it, and a Workflow Options screen appears:

Click to enlarge

Under “resolution” you can see that my default is 240 pixels per inch (your default may vary). This is where you can change your ppi to whatever resolution you wish. Click on “OK”, then open the photo in your photo editing software and do your thing.

If you wish to adjust the image resolution for a JPG photo, the process is a bit different. For the purposes of this tutorial I am using Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Say you have a photo that was saved at only 72 ppi. In order to print a quality image you want to increase the ppi to 300. However, keep in mind that changing the ppi will reduce the physical dimensions of the photo, as it is “compressing” to fit more pixels into each inch.

Go to the “Image” menu and choose “Image Size”. The following dialog box appears:

Click to enlarge

I kept the rulers in the screen shot for a reason, you’ll see why in a minute. Notice that according to the ruler, the physical size of the photo is about 45.5 inches by about 70.5 inches – a huge print that at 72 ppi would look very poor indeed.

Back to the dialog box. Notice that is split into two sections, “Pixel Dimensions” and “Document Size”. Leaving all other settings the same, un-check the “Resample Image” box, then change the “Resolution” figure to 300. Here is the result:

Click to enlarge

Notice that the pixel dimensions and the document size both changed, in accordance with the ppi set at 300. Click on OK to save the settings. Now when we look at the ruler, we see that the physical size of the image has been reduced dramatically:

Click to enlarge

Now the maximum physical printed size of this photo, at 300 ppi, can be no larger than about 11.5×17.5.

I hope this helps de-mystify any struggles you may have been experiencing with image resolutions. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments.

Photo credit: “Macro of sharpened colored pencils” by Horia Varlan on Flickr Creative Commons.

Related posts:

1. My Lightroom Workflow
2. Back to Basics: Fill Light Two Ways
3. Sharpening De-Mystified

First, daylight fill flash. Here is a photo that provides a perfect opportunity for using a fill flash.

The subject’s face is obscured by shadow, and there is a very significant exposure difference between the subject and the background. So I popped my Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash onto my 7D, dialed down the power by a couple of stops, and tried again.

Not the best composition in the world, and the waterfall in the background is kind of distracting, but you get the idea. You can now see the subject’s face, and the exposure difference between the foreground and background isn’t as jarring. Don’t be afraid to use a flash – even your pop-up flash – outside in the daylight.

Now, what do you do if you have a series of photographs that really need some fill light, but you didn’t take any shots with a flash? That’s where Photoshop comes in. Here is the original image:

When opening the RAW image in Photoshop CS5, the Camera Raw editor is displayed. The default “basic” menu contains a setting slider called “Fill Light”. Moving this slider backwards and forwards adjusts the fill light in the image.

Without changing any other settings, I moved the slider from “0″ to “40″. And here is the result:

Detail is immediately revealed and shadows are dissipated. I would probably also increase the vibrance, contrast, and blacks while toying with the Camera Raw settings to further improve this photo.

So there you have it! Two very simple ways to create fill light in your photographs.

Related posts:

1. Back to Basics: Five Tips to Freeze Action and Motion
2. 3 Ways to improve your Outdoor Portrait Photography
3. Balancing Ambient Light with a Speedlite

The quote above has been said many different ways and attributed to many different people. I like the version above. It’s one of life’s truths, and because photography is a piece of life, it’s true in photography. I strongly believe that to become a better photographer it’s necessary to spend as much time learning about photography as you spend capturing and processing images. If you’re not learning then you’re taking the same quality of images over and over. Because I’m such a strong believer in doing everything possible to increase my knowledge of photography, I take night classes and go to seminars and meetings as often as I can. I talk to other photographers and listen to their viewpoint on various subjects. Learning equals improved photography. Not learning equals…well, you get the picture.

John Shaw

Recently I attended a weekend seminar sponsored by Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris featuring acclaimed nature photographer, John Shaw as presenter. Now before you say you’re not interested in nature photography let me point out that the majority of what John talked about is applicable in almost any kind of photography. In fact, to make a particular point John even used a photograph he had taken of the U.S. Air Force precision flying team, Thunderbirds.

The first day was focused on nature photography and John talked a lot about taking photos in nature and shared a number of images that he had captured over time. Some of them were breathtaking and all of them were ones that most of us wish we could have captured. But it was the more technical aspect of photography was the biggest value of the first day.

Separating auto focus (AF) from your shutter release button. Are you one of those photographers that sometimes gets frustrated because your lens keeps focusing on everything except what you want it to focus on? John advocates, as do many other highly respected photographers I’ve talked to or read, disabling the AF on the shutter release button. If your camera has an AF-On button on the back of the camera you can manipulate the settings in your camera so that the AF is only activated by pressing the AF On button and not activated when you press the shutter release button and setting your focus operation to AI Focus on Canon cameras or Continuous Focus on Nikon cameras. This allows you to activate the AF by pressing the AF-On button with your thumb to focus where you want it. When you release your thumb the focus is locked and you can take as many photos as you want and the focus won’t change until you press the AF-On button again. If you’re photographing moving objects like birds in flight or a football player running down the field, all you have to do is take the photograph without releasing your thumb from the AF On button.

I have both of my camera bodies set this way and use this method of activating the AF exclusively. A word of caution is in order. If you haven’t been using this method and want to try it out, I recommend you work with it a lot until you’re used to the process and the feel of the AF-On button. It will seem awkward at first but once you get used to it, you’ll probably ask yourself why you haven’t been doing it that way all the time.

Pay attention to the gaps. This is the composition “rule” that John demonstrated with the image of the Thunderbirds. It’s also a “rule” we’ve all broken or forgotten at one time or another – think of the tree or sign growing out of your spouse’s head. John’s point was that unless there was a reason for objects to be touching in the image, there should be some separation. He photographed the Thunderbirds in a diamond formation and there was blue sky space between each of the aircraft. Airplanes are not supposed to touch each other in flight, so he made sure to capture the image with some space between each of the planes. The same can be said about an image of a duck next to a limb from a tree. Ducks don’t have tree limbs growing out of their bodies, so make sure there is some separation between the duck and the tree limb. It’s really common sense when we stop and think about it, but all too often we become so excited about capturing the image of the duck that we forget the rest of the composition.

John Shaw’s view on photo manipulation. It’s always great when you hear an expert agree with your beliefs on any topic. This is a topic that seems to create great passion on both sides of the aisle. There are strong advocates of never manipulating photos and that straight out of the camera (SOOC) is the only way to go. Their argument tends to be that if you manipulate a photograph it isn’t realistic. As John pointed out, when you take a photo you just captured a two dimensional image of a three dimensional subject. Sorry, but that isn’t realistic. In the film days, the minute you processed an image in the dark room, you were manipulating the photo. Ansel Adams, one of the best known and highly regarded names in photography, captured his images with the thought of what he was going to do to it in the dark room. Realism in photography is a myth that just doesn’t hold water. However, there is a point where photo manipulation can go over the top. John showed an image of two penguins and a polar bear on the same ice floe to demonstrate the “manipulated way too much” point. John believes that if you take photo manipulation to this level, then you shouldn’t try to represent it as non-manipulated. Of course, having a polar bear and penguins on the same ice floe is pretty obvious and not because the bear would have eaten the penguins.

Here is an example of some of my photo manipulation.

This is SOOC. If I didn’t manipulate it I would probably discard the image. However…

With some cropping, exposure adjustment and a little sharpening I have an image I’ll keep. Which one is more realistic?

Filters for digital photography. John carries three filters – a circular polarizing filter and two neutral density filters. Why those three and why only those three? A polarizing filter reduces glare. The reason the sky looks bluer with a polarizing filter is because the filter reduces the glare of the water droplets in the atmosphere. It will also reduce glare reflecting off the ocean, a lake or pond, wet leaves on trees, etc. The neutral density filters reduces the amount of light that reaches the sensor. This means that when using a neutral density filter in a given lighting condition, you either have to open-up the aperture or use a slower shutter speed than you would without the filter. One of the uses of neutral density filters is so you can use a long enough exposure to capture that wispy blurred effect when photographing streams and waterfalls. Any other filter effect can be created in Photoshop. If you can create the effect with software you already own, why spend money on more filters?

JPEG or RAW? There were over 100 attendees at the Saturday session of the seminar. That 100 may have been more like 200 but because I was sitting close to the front I couldn’t make a good estimate. With a crowd of that size and with questions encouraged, you would expect about any question you could imagine. One question I heard asked multiple times in multiple ways is should I shoot in JPEG or RAW and should I shoot in JPEG and RAW at the same time? After the third or fourth time the question was asked John pointed out that all cameras shoot in RAW. Some cameras, however, convert the image to JPEG and that’s the only output you can get from the camera – point & shoot cameras for example. John answered the question essentially the way I would, just with different words. Here are mine. If you shoot in JPEG what you have is a JPEG image, period. If you shoot in RAW you have a RAW file that you can convert to PSD/PDD, JPEG or up to 19 other file formats and you still have the RAW file. So why would you take a $1,000+ camera with a $600+ lens and shoot in JPEG and only capture about a tenth of the data you would capture in RAW. As for shooting in both formats at the same time – why? Unless you’re immediately forwarding images electronically to a publisher as you take them, why do it? If I have RAW, I can easily create JPEG, I don’t need both. John, of course, was much nicer about it.

I was going to write about the weekend seminar in one article but this article is long enough already and I haven’t even started with Day 2 which I’ll write about in the next article.

There is one thing I want to say about the seminar. When I walked out of the room at the end of the first day, I realized that the second day was going to be free. What I had gained in knowledge and understanding on Saturday was well worth the cost of the entire weekend. In the next article I’ll talk about where to find information about these seminars.

Related posts:

1. John Shaw Nature and Digital Photography Seminars (cont.)
2. The 5 P’s of Photography
3. Book Review – Photography by John Freeman

(Hover your mouse pointer over the photos for notes.)

I am of the school of thought that in order to become a truly excellent photographer, one must practice every single day. If the camera is only brought out for special events or specific assignments, the photographer is relegated to the “occasional” category and cannot truly perfect their art.

This is something that I need to work on, myself. I’ll have a “good” week where it seems that the subjects just keep jumping in front of me, asking to be photographed. I’ll find myself with camera in hand nearly every day for a good stretch, then suddenly POOF. Inspiration dries up. Nothing “special” is happening. I’m not going anywhere new that would encourage me to bring the camera along. I’m stuck in a routine of surroundings, tasks, and environment while my camera sits idle on my desk.

There are just so many pictures that I can take of my cats, after all.

Personally, I am much more inspired by the natural world than the man-made world, which is a problem for my current circumstances. I live in the type of suburbia that defines the term, surrounded by asphalt and concrete, nine-to-five commitments and traffic. My home is abutted by a tiny yard, my day job ties me to a cubicle in a sea of cubicles, and any potential vistas are shrouded in smog. I find it very hard, some days, to be inspired enough to grab my camera.

So what do you shoot when there is, seemingly, nothing to shoot?

Go macro. An entirely new world is opened up when you zoom in on the details of ordinary things. Construct a mini light studio, wander around your house gathering items with interesting textures, and have some fun.

Shoot still lifes. Fill mason jars with marbles and give it some back-lighting – play with bokeh and lens flare. Arrange the implements of your meal-in-process with some artfully placed ingredients. Buy a bunch of flowers and experiment with different backdrops and lighting. Photograph a montage of your favorite possessions (I did a series of the “things I love” on my personal blog – one of which was the ceramic frog at the beginning of this post – and found the process of photographing and writing about each item to be very rewarding).

Play with gadgets. Sometimes inexpensive photography gadgets inspire creativity. Pick up one of these bokeh kits from Photojojo, or one of these lens adapters. Spend a wee bit more and get a Lensbaby. In using gadgets like these, you can take photos of ordinary objects, or photos of things that have been “photographed to death”, and put a new spin on them.

Document a “day in the life”. From the time that you wake up in the morning until you go to bed, have your camera in-hand as much as you can manage. Photograph the elements of your daily routine; brushing your teeth, making lunch, walking the dog, vegging on the couch. Sometimes you’ll find that just having the camera in your hands gives you the motivation and inspiration you need to break out of a photographic rut.

Edit what you already have. Sometimes I enjoy going back through my vast photographic archive, pulling out a handful of photos I haven’t seen in a while, and playing with them in Photoshop. I’ll edit from one extreme to another, practicing my subtlety as well as my ability to be outrageous. This is a good way to teach yourself new Photoshop techniques, as well.

Hold a self-portrait session. Set up a chair, a backdrop (even a solid-colored blanket), and a light or two. Set your camera up on a tripod and grab your remote shutter release. Experiment with angles, shadows, and poses. Get as comfortable with being in front of the camera as you are behind it. Barring that (I could never accomplish that level of comfort), at the very least have a better understanding of the requests you might make of your portrait subjects.

What are your suggestions for things to shoot when there’s nothing to shoot? Please share with us in the comments!

Photo credits (all): Tiffany Joyce. All photographs were taken during occasions when I was casting about for inspiration.

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1. Review – Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It
2. Curing Photographer’s Block
3. Continuous Shoot Advantages