[Photography] How to Understand the Curves Tool in Photoshop

After you’ve mastered Levels, it’s time to take a step up to the tool that is probably the most useful for color and contrast control in Photoshop: Curves. As with levels, you should play around with the basic Curves command to get a feel for it. For safety’s sake, begin by duplicating your background layer, either from the Layer>New Layer from Copy menu, or use the shortcut Control/Command + J. You should make a habit of learning shortcuts because it speeds up your workflow.

The Curves Dialog

Here’s our starting image for this tutorial, shot on a hazy day at Formentor in Mallorca.

Formentor, the northern tip of Mallorca

Use Control/Command + M to invoke the Curves dialog. Taking a look, you’ll see the main part of the dialog is the Curve itself. By default it’s a straight line from bottom left to top right – this is the baseline. There’s faded histogram in the background that corresponds to the tones in the image. There are two other tools to help you work in Curves.

There are two other tools to help you work in Curves. The first is the Channel Overlays, which show you the changes you make when applying curves to the individual red, green, and blue channel curves. The second is Intersection Lines, which appear when you drag a point on the curve. They let you see where the point is relative to the grid. The Channels Overlays, the Histogram, the Baseline, and the Intersection lines can all be turned off in the “Show” section of the dialog box. They’re all on by default.

Another default is that the darker tones are on the left, and the lighter tones are on the right. It can be swapped by clicking the “Show Amount of:” option from Light (0-255) to Pigment/Ink %. Unless you have a specific reason to change it, leave it on the default option Light. The final option is for the Grid. You can change from quarters to tenths by alternating the grid size icon. Alternatively, you can Alt or Option click directly on the Grid to toggle between them.

Starting with Curves

To change the Curve, you click on the baseline to create a control point (we’ll just call them points from here). By dragging the point up, you will lighten the image at those tones and surrounding tone. Drag down, and you’ll see the image darken at the tones around your point.

The most basic change you can make is to click on the center of the curve and drag up. This lightens the mid-tones and acts in a similar way to the Brightness slider, but with more control over the center-point of the effect. By the way, you don’t even need to drag the point. Instead, you can click to create a point and then use the Up/Down/Left/Right arrow keys to move it. A single arrow click moves 1 point (in the range 0-255), while holding the Shift key down as well, moves it 10 points. For utter precision, you can enter the number directly into the Input (that’s the point you click) and Output (that’s the place it moves to).

While it will work as a brightness tool, Curves is really about contrast. Contrast defines the relationship between the tones in your photo. A high contrast image will generally have strong shadows and highlights, with a lot of saturation. Low contrast photos will look flat and almost gray. That’s not to say low contrast is bad, it can be ethereal like the woods in fog, or a flared backlit portrait at sunset. A lot of photos can benefit from an increase in contrast.

So how can you do this? Well, you’ll need to make the shadows darker and the highlights lighter.

Creating Contrast

First of all, click on the line about a quarter of the way in from the left. Next, drag the point you’ve created down. This will darken your entire image. You don’t need to drag it down much to see a difference. After this, you should create a second point, this time about three-quarters of the way along and drag it up a little. Again, only a small amount is needed for this to work.

If you look at your curve, you’ll notice it resembles an S-shape. This S-Curve is probably one of the most common ways for you to create contrast with Curves. Our sample photo has better contrast now, but it is still a little dark, we’ll come to that shortly.

Notice how the line now resembles the shape of the letter S.

As another way of working, start by placing a point in the center. This will be your anchor point. You’re not going to move this one. Now create the point for your shadows and drag it down. You’ll notice that as you drag the shadows down, the highlights will move up automatically across from the anchor point. By clicking and dragging the center up, you both brighten the image and increase contrast. If you want to control the image more, just add more points.

Endpoints and Input

You’re not restricted to making just curves. You can also move the endpoints of the line in. This results in a look that’s similar to when you move the black and white points using Levels. This adjustment makes a huge difference with this image, where most of the tonal information is in the center of the histogram. Notice that as you move the endpoints in the black and white points on the Input Slider move to a corresponding position – so you could also just move these sliders.

Moving the endpoints in curves.

To finish up this look, you can add a little S-Curve after moving the end points. You’ll notice that the increased contrast has also led to increased color saturation.

Erase and Rewind

At any point that you want to start again without closing the dialog and reopening it, you can hold down the Alt or Option key, and click the Reset button that appears instead of the Cancel button.

If you only want to remove a single point, you’ve got a few options. Drag the point right off the grid. Or, you can click on a point and press the Delete key. The last option is to Control/Command+click on a point to remove it.

Presets

Just by way of mention, you should try the Curves presets in the menu to get a feel for what particular points can do to a curve. You can also save any curve you create yourself by clicking on the tiny cog beside the menu and choose “Save Preset”. Your Curves preset will then get added to the menu.

Auto and Options

Just like Levels, there’s an Auto function for Curves. It too depends on the Options section. Rather than repeat it verbatim, go check out the Auto section in the Levels article.

Using Curves as an Adjustment Layer

Up to now, what you’ve done has been destructive editing. You’re completely changing the layer to which you apply the Curve. Instead, it’s best to use Curves as an Adjustment layer. From the bottom of the Layers panel, click the split circle icon and choose Curves.

The Curve will appear in the Properties panel. Using the information you’ve got so far it should be no problem editing a file like this. I’ve started by pressing the Auto button, then added a curve to both increase contrast and brightness.

Sectioning your photo with Curves Adjustment layers

So far you’ve been using Curves on the entire image. Not all areas in a photo may need the same work, but it’s easy for you to select different areas to work on.

Press L to bring up the Lasso tool, or select it in the toolbar. If it’s not the main lasso, use Shift+L to cycle through the options. At the top, enter 15px in the Feather option. You’re going to select the sky first. In order to draw outside the photo edge, hold down the Alt/Option key. You need to do this so the Feather, which softens the edge of the selection, doesn’t soften the edge of the photo. Join the two ends of the lasso to make a selection.

Now, create a new Curves Adjustment Layer. Notice that the mask beside the curve is white on top, and black on the bottom? That means your curve will only affect the top of the image. White means the effect is revealed, whereas black means it’s concealed. You can use the brush tool to add to a mask or remove from it using a black brush. Shades of gray will work too but act like an opacity control.

You can now go and edit the curve for the sky, separately to the main curve. Another advantage to using Curves as an adjustment layer is you can overdo the look of the curve, and then bring it back using the layer’s opacity slider.

Before Curves adjustments.

Here’s the version after curves have been applied.

The Tip of the Iceberg

Curves is a pretty useful tool and more versatile than Levels for advanced contrast control. You’ve seen a lot of what can be done here, but there’s also the color changes that can be done using the individual color channel curves, but that’s a topic for another article.

The post How to Understand the Curves Tool in Photoshop by Sean McCormack appeared first on Digital Photography School.

it's from Digital Photography School http://ift.tt/2nBl3fc
via Sean McCormack

[Photography] How to Customize Your Images With In-Camera Picture Styles

I’ve written before about how your images are being processed. This is true regardless of whether you shoot RAW and process in software such as Lightroom or Photoshop, or JPEG and allow the camera to make color and contrast decisions for you. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the canned in-camera picture styles the camera manufacturers prepackage in their cameras. Some are too contrasty, while others don’t offer enough color saturation for my taste.

A landscape image using a picture style I created in Canon Picture Style Editor.

 

While all of today’s digital cameras have some ability to adjust the processing decisions being made by selecting and adjusting Picture Styles (in Canon-speak) or Picture Controls (in Nikonian terms), many people aren’t aware that you can be even more creative and create your own styles using desktop software provided by Canon and Nikon.

There are two reasons why you would do this. First, if you do not like processing RAW files, or just prefer “getting it right in camera”, but would still like to be able to create your own look to your images, creating a custom picture style is an easy way to do so. Second, if you’re undertaking a project which would require processing large numbers of files, having the camera use a custom look for these images takes away a lot of processing grunt work.

Canon’s Picture Style Editor is available on the Canon EOS Solutions disc which is packaged with the camera and is also available for download via the various Canon websites, under Drivers and Downloads for your specific camera. Nikon’s Picture Control Utility 2 is available via Nikon’s Download Center.

Canon’s Picture Style Editor

Canon Picture Style Editor

Canon Picture Style Editor offers a tremendous amount of control over the final look of an image. Once inside the application, you’ll be prompted to open a Canon CR2 file you’ve taken. A popup will appear advising of the best way to adjust the picture style. First, make the basic adjustments. Next, you should make adjustments to the six color axis. Finally, make adjustments to specific colors.

Make the adjustments you want

In the Basic Adjustments, you select the Base Picture Style to start with, and then you can adjust Sharpness, Contrast, Color Saturation, and Color Tone using the labeled sliders. You can also create a custom tone curve here.

The three adjustment panels found in Canon Picture Style Editor

Once the Basic adjustments are done, you can move to the six color axis. Here you can adjust Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow values including Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity. For further color adjustments, you then click on the Specific Colors tab and again make adjustments there including Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity, as well as Tone Curve.

The number of adjustments available within the Canon software allows for a wide variety of styles for your images. Canon has several downloadable picture styles available so you can see what’s possible, but the ability to create your own really make this utility a great addition to your workflow, especially if you dislike post-processing. Effects such as selective color, muted color, highly saturated color, and more, can be created in-camera.

On the left is an image using Canon’s Portrait picture style. On the right, is a selective color picture style I created in Canon’s Picture Style Editor. You have to know which color you want to show through before the shot is taken, but conceivably, you could create several selective color styles and upload them to the camera.

Adding the styles to your camera

To upload your new custom picture style to your Canon EOS camera, you need to connect the camera to your computer with a USB cable. You also need Canon’s EOS Utility Software, which is provided on your EOS Solutions CD, or is available on Canon’s website.

Once inside EOS Utility, select Control Camera, then Camera Settings/Remote Shooting. You’ll see a window open up that displays the camera settings. Beneath that will be a shooting menu, where you’ll see the heading for Picture Styles. Click on Register User Defined style. A window will open up where you can select from three slots to register a user-defined style. Select one and then click on the Open Folder button to select the picture style file you created and upload it to your camera. Once it’s in the camera, you can select it the same way you would with the pre-loaded picture styles.

Nikon Picture Control Utility

Nikon Picture Control Utility

The adjustment panel for Nikon Picture Control Utility

Nikon’s Picture Control Utility is a bit more limited in its adjustments than is the Canon application, but you still have a fair amount of control to create new image styles. When you open the application, you’ll see a listing of the Nikon Picture Controls on the left. These are the same as you see in-camera when you select the Picture Control menu on your Nikon. On the right hand side, you’ll see the adjustments you can make, which include Sharpening, Clarity, Contrast, Brightness, Saturation, and Hue. You also have the ability to create a custom tone curve if you prefer, rather than using the Brightness and Contrast sliders.

While I prefer the greater control over color that Canon provides, Nikon’s Picture Control Editor allows you good options to create your own look for your images.

Uploading to the camera

Uploading them into your camera is even easier than Canon’s method. Simply connect a Nikon formatted memory card to your computer, and at the bottom of the application window, click Use In Camera. You’ll want to use a descriptive name for your picture control so that you’ll know what you’re choosing when selecting it in camera. This will automatically save the picture style to your memory card.  Insert the memory card into your Nikon camera and in the Camera menu, select Manage Picture Control. Select Load/Save and you’ll see any Picture Control files you’ve saved to the card and be prompted to add them to the camera.

That’s all there is to it. In addition to saving the picture control to a memory card, you can save it to a file on your computer, and also use it in Nikon’s Capture NX or View NX software.

The image on the left is shown using Nikon’s Portrait Picture Control. On the right, is a custom Portrait Picture Control created in Nikon Picture Control Editor.

Summary

In the digital age, it’s sometimes difficult to differentiate your images from the millions of others out there. One way to do so is in post-processing. But that’s not something every photographer, be they professional or enthusiast, wants to deal with.

Creating custom picture styles takes a few minutes on the computer, but allows you to create a look that is distinctly yours. By uploading it to your camera you can then apply it to images you make from that point on. Have you created any custom picture styles for your work? Share samples in the comments below!

On the top is the image using Nikon’s Landscape picture control. On the bottom is the same image with a custom picture control I created. I adjusted to tone curve to reduce contrast and increased color saturation to provide better color in my landscape images.

On the left is Nikon’s Standard picture control, while on the right is a custom picture control I created.

The left image was shot using Canon’s Portrait Picture Style. On the right is the same image where I created a more muted look.

On the left is Canon’s Landscape picture style, on the right is a custom picture style I created for landscape images.

The post How to Customize Your Images With In-Camera Picture Styles by Rick Berk appeared first on Digital Photography School.

it's from Digital Photography School http://ift.tt/2nBl3vI
via Rick Berk

[Photography] Six Ways to Capture Character in Portraits

Broadly speaking there are two types of portraits. The first is where you try to make the model look as beautiful as possible. You may need a make-up artist or stylist to do it properly. Most commercial photographers are paid to make their models look beautiful, and there are many links with the world of fashion photography.

The other is where you try and capture somebody’s essence, create character portraits. One interesting thing about this style of portraiture is that it opens up your range of models beyond people that are considered conventionally beautiful. It’s less complex because you don’t necessarily need make-up artists, stylists, or complex lighting.

Capturing character is a more simplistic, honest approach to making portraits. The techniques and principles behind it are simple but may take a lifetime to master.

1. Focus on the eyes

This applies to all types of portraiture but even more so when trying to capture their character. This idea goes beyond focusing your lens on your model’s eyes and making sure they are well lit and have a catchlight.

I made this character portrait of an elderly lady in Bolivia. Her eyes and the wrinkles around them convey so much about her life.

Eyes should be a focus conceptually as well as literally. They tell you a lot about a person. Eyes convey emotion, vitality, and life. The saying, “The eyes are the windows of the soul” has a lot of truth to it. Older people have wrinkles around their eyes that speak of experiences lived and wisdom gained.

2. Ask the model to wear their own clothes

Choice of clothing can say a lot about an individual, particularly if they have a quirky fashion sense. This is the opposite approach to fashion, where the model often wears clothes that don’t belong to them. When capturing character ask the model to bring along clothes that are meaningful to them.

The model in these portraits is a circus performer, she wore the costume she uses while performing. The close-up portrait draws more attention to her dreadlocks and tattoo, the other to her costume.

3. Shoot the model in their environment

A common component of the type of portrait photography where you try to make somebody look beautiful is to place the model in an unusual or striking environment.

When capturing character you should try and do the opposite. Look for links between your model and the environment. If your model is the outdoorsy type, look for a place to take the portrait that reflects that. Or maybe their home or garden are decorated in a way that reflects their character. Or perhaps they have an interesting hobby or profession.

Think about how you can use these elements to create a portrait that tells a story about the model’s character.

The man in these portraits makes wooden flutes, so I photographed him in his workshop. Hands often reveal character so I took a close-up photo of his hands at work.

4. Use prime lenses

Prime lenses are the secret weapon of the portrait photographer. Part of that is because of the practical advantages. We all know you can select a wide aperture to blur the background and create compositions with bokeh. But you can also set the aperture to f/2.8 or f/4 knowing the results will be sharp (compared to the softer performance expected from zoom lenses at those apertures).

Being restricted to a single focal length means you have to get creative with your compositions. You can create variety by changing the distance between you and your model, and by utilizing different points of view.

But most of all, the minimal approach to gear enforced by prime lenses lends itself to a more honest approach to portraiture. I often take just one camera, one short telephoto lens, and no lights to a portrait shoot. I prefer to rely on natural light (and reflectors). Eliminating distractions helps me concentrate on the next step – making a genuine and meaningful connection with the model.

I used an 85mm prime lens set to f/2.5 to create this portrait. The wide aperture blurred the background, making the model the center of attention.

5. Build rapport

The success of the shoot depends on the relationship you create with your model. You might only have a short time to do this. I’ve turned up for shoots with people who I’ve never met before, having communicated only by email or text message. It helps that I’m a naturally curious person and enjoy learning about other people and their lives.

Part of building rapport is getting the model genuinely interested in the photo shoot. If it is part of an ongoing project (and it should be, because projects are the best way to help you develop creatively as a photographer) let the model know about it so they can take pride in being part of your project.

Use conversation during the shoot to provoke animated expressions. Read the story about Yousuf Karsh photographing Winston Churchill for an extreme example of this!

I made this portrait as part of a project photographing musicians. The violinist enjoyed being part of the project.

6. Post-process appropriately

Think about your style of post-processing. For example, a portrait that expresses character probably needs far less retouching than a portrait that is trying to make the model look as physically beautiful as possible. A light touch is often best, when working in color.

You should also consider converting your best portraits to black and white. There is something timeless and special about a good black and white portrait. It’s ideal for expressing character and emotion.

The strong eye contact and black and white conversion turn this portrait into one that expresses the character of the model.

Conclusion

Capturing character, rather than (but not necessarily instead of) beauty poses a challenge to the creative photographer, but the results are often more satisfying.

I find that an interest in capturing character rather than beauty marks an evolution in a photographer’s thinking, a shift from photographing the superficial to looking for deeper themes and human connections. But what do you think? What techniques do you use to capture character? Let us know in the comments below.

---

If you enjoyed this article and would like to learn more about portrait photography then please check out my ebook The Candid Portrait.

The post Six Ways to Capture Character in Portraits by Andrew S. Gibson appeared first on Digital Photography School.

it's from Digital Photography School http://ift.tt/2ozOfRH
via Andrew S. Gibson

[Photography] Review of the Sigma 24mm F1.4 DG HSM Art Lens

As I begin this review I find myself searching for appropriate adjectives. A few that come to mind are sharp, crisp, beautiful, sleek, and sexy. Easily, any one of these could be used with confidence when describing a sports car or an extra tasty hot dog. But here, I feel the need to apply such words to what very well may be the most impressively performing lens I’ve encountered in some time, perhaps ever. Before I get too ahead of myself, the one in question is the Sigma 24mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art Lens.

The folks at Sigma have long been in the game of photography and lately their newly engineered “Art” line of lenses have been aimed to impress the discerning shooter. Let’s take a look at the 24mm F1.4 Art Lens to see why it’s worthy of all those impressive adjectives.

Build Quality

Aesthetically, this lens is beautiful. It arrived pristinely packaged and once I removed it from the box the high quality of the build is readily apparent. All markings and indicators are well executed and easily readable. The focus ring turns smoothly with very pleasing travel with the autofocus/manual switch being acceptably well placed and crisp.

With Sigma’s Art line came a newly introduced method of manufacture and construction material. This lens is made from Thermally Stable Composite or TSC. The lens barrel is constructed using this material rather than opting for a metal housing such as aluminum. According to Sigma, the benefits of using TSC is its resistance to shrinking and swelling when placed in temperature extremes (not as aluminum would) while maintaining its relatively low size to weight ratio.

It feels remarkably like metal and in the hand, it’s quite difficult to discern the difference. To date, all Sigma lenses I have evaluated which have been made with TSC have performed quite well. The 24mm F1.4 also comes fully weather sealed.

Specs – Size and Weight

The size and weight of the lens feel very manageable especially once it is mounted on the camera. Balance is something that can be difficult to maintain when sporting this wide of an aperture but the weight is very well managed on the Sigma 24mm F1.4. Even with a substantial number of elements (15), it is by no means outlandishly bulky at 23.5oz (665g). It’s close cousin, the Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM weighs in at approximately 22.8oz (646g)

The Sigma 24mm F1.4 Art is both beautiful and manageable.

Here’s a full specification list from Sigma:

Image Quality

The overall image quality is, as I mentioned earlier, completely impressive. Short focal length lenses tend to suffer from distortion at the corners as well as loss of sharpness towards the edges of the frame. This softening becomes more apparent as the shooter uses wider apertures. Even at f/1.4, there is no considerable reduction in sharpness nor is there any apparent barrel distortion.

Another bane of large aperture lenses is the increased incidence of chromatic aberration as the aperture widens. Not the case with this 24mm. The only occurrence of chromatic aberration that I encountered was during imaging with highly backlit objects. There was a minute amount of purple fringing in those cases, which was only visible at 3:1 magnification. Vignetting was also minimal but nonetheless evident at apertures wider than f/2.8.

Chromatic Aberration in corner at f/1.6 is barely noticeable. Note the 3:1 magnification in the preview window.

Sharpness

Sharpness has been second to none, quite literally. Ultimately, maximum sharpness is one of the great goals of photo makers. The Sigma 24mm F1.4 Art lens delivers the best sharpness I have ever encountered with a lens of this focal length. I place it high in the running for the sharpest lens I have used in my career. I don’t make that claim lightly!

From corner to corner the sharpness is superb. At wide apertures there was virtually no diminishment of clarity toward the edges of the frame. Sigma claims this is due to the inclusion of FLD and SLD glass elements. The FLD is marketed as being arguably comparable to fluorite glass found in many telescope lenses. Whether these claims from Sigma are practically applicable or not, the proof is most certainly in the pudding.

Bokeh at f/2.8 and wider is absolutely dreamy. Pure cream, and as the aperture widens the results were even more impressive. Again, for a lens of this focal length, the bokeh is quite brilliant. The unnervingly close minimum focus distance of 9.8 inches (25cm) does a lot to help the lens in this area, as do the nine rounded aperture blades.

Even the lens flare was pleasing to the eye.

Autofocus

The autofocus capabilities of the 24mm F1.4 Art follow form with the other impressive attributes of this lens. The HSM motor is astonishingly quiet and swiftly focuses on the subject. The autofocus is, of course, overridable so the photographer can manually adjust focus without switching the lens to full manual focus. There is no image stabilization on this lens which, is not uncommon for lenses of such short focal length.

Some Final Thoughts

The Sigma 24mm F1.4 Art has excelled in every aspect of testing. It is dumbfoundingly sharp across all apertures, presents low chromatic aberrations, and is virtually distortion free. I don’t mind adding that the lens itself has a beauty that rivals even similar lenses in Sigma’s Art line. Its aesthetic appeal is possibly due to some yet to be discovered cosmic ratio that we haven’t been able to name. In any case…this lens looks downright sexy. There…I said it.

If there’s a cumulative notion I can lend to describe my attitude towards this fine piece of glass it’s this: this lens will likely be finding a home in my bag in the very near future. Here are a couple more sample shots taken with the Sigma 24mm F1.4 DG HSM Art lens.

The post Review of the Sigma 24mm F1.4 DG HSM Art Lens by Adam Welch appeared first on Digital Photography School.

it's from Digital Photography School http://ift.tt/2nNkobg
via Adam Welch