[Photography] Step by Step How to do Cloud Stacking

The effect of the clouds streaking across the sky is a very popular look now, but not everyone has ND filters and can get those photos. However, there are other ways of getting similar results. Cloud stacking can give a similar look. The process is much like what you do for stacking car light trails. You have to be more careful with how you take the original images, but you can get some wonderful results if you follow these steps.

One of the original images.

You need a lot of photos for cloud stacking, and the best way to get them is by doing time lapse photography. Take a series of images over time, then try stacking them to see if they will work. Unfortunately, you don’t always get enough movement in the sky to get a good cloud stacking image, but others will be fantastic.

How to do Time Lapse Photography to get the images for stacking

Time lapse is about taking a series of images, one after another with a break in between, to capture the movement of a scene. Normally, once they are taken, you would put them on your computer and make a video from them to show that movement, however for cloud stacking you will be doing something else.

There are several ways of capturing your photos for a time lapse sequence. Many Nikon cameras come with a feature that allows you to do some, called Time Lapse Interval. You can set it up so that it will take the images at certain intervals, how many shots to take each time, and the final number of images you want. Basically, you can tell your camera to take a photo every 5 seconds, and to stop when you have 300 images.

The Interval Timer Shooting on a Nikon Camera

If you have an intervalometer it will do the same sort of thing. Set what the interval will be, and how many shots to take. If you have neither of those options you can still do them, but it will mean you will have to keep an eye on the time and remember to press the shutter button at the intervals.

The Nikon Intervalometer, but you can also purchase other ones as well, get the one that works with your camera.

Usually what you do first is determine what the interval (time between shots) needs to be. Look at the sky and see how fast the clouds are moving. If they are moving fast, then the interval in between shots might need to be shorter. If the clouds are slower moving, then longer times will be needed. It does take experience, and the more you do it the better you get at figuring out the time between the shots you need.

The images for this tutorial were done at sunset, and the clouds were moving moderately fast. The camera was set to take an image every 10 seconds. A total of 122 photos were taken, but only 54 frames were used for the final image.

Direction of the Clouds

Cloud stacking seems to work best if the clouds are moving towards or away from you. Look for the clouds that appear to flow in a V shape. The base of the V is on the horizon and the arms come out over the top.

Using the photos

Once you have the photos on your computer, you need to work out which ones to use. The photos do need to be loaded into Adobe Photoshop as layers, the first consideration has to be the size of the images. If they are raw files they are likely to be too large to do this, so they will need to made smaller.

You can process the images in Lightroom first. Do a basic edit, and then sync, so that all the images have been treated the same. Resize the images when you export them from Lightroom, saving as smaller jpegs. (As this was going to be a tutorial for dPS the images were resized so the long side was 1500 pixels – if you want to print your image make sure you size appropriately, but do a test smaller first.)

Loading the images

For this tutorial I used Adobe Bridge, but you can also do it in Lightroom.

All the images to be used for the cloud stacking.

Select all the images you want to stack, using either Ctrl+A, or click on the first one, press the Shift key and hold, and click on the final image. Load all the images into Photoshop as layers. Select Tools > Photoshop > Load Files into Photoshop Layers (in Lightroom right click and select Edit in > Open as layers in Photoshop).

Select all the images and open them as layers in Photoshop.

This can take a while, depending on how many images you are using, and how large the files are. Once they are loaded select all again. Click on the top layer, hold the shift key down, then click on the bottom layer and it should select them all.

In Photoshop select all the layers.

Stacking the clouds

Go to the layer blending options, at the top of the layers panel and select Lighten.

Go to the Blending options and select Lighten.

You should notice a difference straight away.

The image after the stacking process.

You could leave the image there and be happy with your stack, but for this tutorial I’ve added some extra ideas on processing . They are relevant to this image, but you can try some ,or all of these ideas for your own image.

Some Additional Processing Tips

There are no hard and fast rules with what you can do when processing an image, it is up to you how you want to go. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Select all the layers, except for the bottom one, and put them into a group. This will make it easier to process the images. In this image it was windy, and the trees moved around, so in the final image they look blurry. By adding a mask to the groups you can carefully use the brush tool, painting with black, to go over the trees so only one is seen and they appear sharper.

Add a mask to the Group layer and remove anything unwanted, like the trees in this image so only layer one is seen.

The silos appear a bit too dark, and lightening them up a bit would make them stand out a little more as well.

Select the Lasso Tool, and draw a line just inside the silos. Press Shift F6 to get the feather tool. For this image a small amount of feathering was chosen as it is a small image, but on larger sized ones you may prefer to use a feathering of around 200 pixels.

Use lasso tool to draw a selection, and then feather it.

Go to the Adjustments above the layers panel and click on Curves. Try to always use these ones as they do the adjustment as a layer, and if you decide you don’t like it later you can simply edit it, lower the opacity of the layer, or delete the layer (this is non-destructive editing).

Add some light or dark depending on what the image needs. For this one the silos were made brighter.

For this selection curves was used to lighten up the silos.

The final bit of processing will be to add a little vignetting or gradient. Add a blank layer to the image, click on the symbol at the bottom of the layers panel, it is the one next to the rubbish bin. Make sure it is selected, then select the gradient tool from the toolbar.

Use the gradient tool to add some darkness to the sky.

At the top under the menu bar you will see the options for the gradient tool. Make sure the tool selected is the Foreground to Transparent is the one you are using (make sure the foreground color is set to black).

Make sure you have the right tool option for what you want to do.

You don’t want this to be 100%, it’s best to use it at around 50%. You can build it up, but start with that. You can change that by going to the tool options and changing the 100 to 50.

Add some gradient to the sky to darken it slightly.

To use the tool, click and hold outside the image then move inside the image and release. It will do a gradual lightening of the colour, so the darkest area is where you did the first click.

If you want it darker you can repeat until you get the desired effect. The image here it was done twice.

The final image

That is a very basic edit on this image, but is enough for now. The image is fine as it is, but, as with all images, the only thing stopping what you can do, is your imagination.

 

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[Photography] 5 Tips to Improve Your Background and Make the Subject Stand Out More

If you are looking for a quick, simple, hassle-free way to make your images pop more and stand out, this is the article for you!

You don’t have to be a Photoshop genius – in fact, this may help you spend less time in Photoshop. These simple tips can elevate the photos you take. If there was one element in many images I see that could greatly improve it, it would have to be this: backgrounds. An ugly or distracting background can easily reduce the impact of even the best subjects. A clean, un-distracting background will help improve your images and make your subjects stand out even more. The best past is, you wont even have to spend a cent to do this.

Even though the background here works quite well with the subjects, using a wider aperture has ensured that the subjects do not get lost, but stand out. © Daniel Smith / Getty Images.

All too often we overlook the background and what is in it. You swear that those power lines weren’t in the viewfinder when you took that picture, and that post, where did that post come from?! That surely wasn’t protruding from your partner’s head when you clicked the shutter button. This occurs for a number of reasons:

• You’re too focussed on the subject alone that it’s almost like you have blinders on and the subject is all you can see.
• You may get too obsessed with the camera settings and making sure you nail the photo that you miss all those little annoying things that pop in to the frame.
• Or you are simply unaware of the importance that a good background can make.

So how can you improve your backgrounds, or at the very least, reduce the negative impact they can have on your images? By following these simple strategies, you’ll be well on your way to a better background and improving your images.

#1 – Location, Location, Location

If you have the option, do try and choose a location that has a nice background – that will make it as easy as it can get. What defines a nice background will depend on your subject, but as a very general guide, look for a spot that has a uniform look to it. Brick walls, corrugated iron roller doors, metal cladding on walls, or even something as simple as a painted white wall, can all make for a nice clean background. Ultimately, what you are not looking for is something that has a lot of other elements in the frame, that do not add to your subject.

If you cannot find a location that has a clean background, looking for somewhere where the background complements – or works with – your subject will also work, too. An example of this would be with sport photography. You simply cannot decide where the game will be played, so you have to work with what you have. In this situation, think about what would look good as a background. Would a stand full of supporters look better than a car park full of cars or a building site? I think it would. The stand full of supports, while not clean, works with your subjects and in fact, has more impact as the supporters add a nice element of atmosphere to the image.

Even though this image has the stadium in the background, it is a little cluttered. The seats are mostly empty, so it’s not really portraying any sense of atmosphere in the sport.

By changing my position, I was able to use a the large black cloth in the background to make the athlete stand out much more. Nothing more than moving was required; much easier.

Here, the backgrounds in these two images are quite plane. They help make the subjects the heroes of the images, as there is nothing else to compete with them.

With this image, the stands in the background have much more people in them. This works nicely to complement the subjects which, in this case, are the players. © Daniel Smith / Getty Images.

While this is a nice action frame, the background is not that fantastic. It’s in between areas of the different stands at this venue. It would look much better if it were against the full stadium, as in the previous image. © Daniel Smith / Getty Images.

You’ve found your location, but a clean background just cannot be had. What do you do?

#2 – It’s All About Perspective

A good backgrounds can be anywhere, and it can change quite a lot depending on the angle at which you photograph your subject. You may be in a very busy space, but within that space will exist areas of calm and peace. By this I mean that your backgrounds can be clean; even when it just looks cluttered in all directions.

When this happens, consider photographing from a different perspective. Photographing your subject from down low will make the sky your background. Conversely, if you’re looking down on your subject, whatever is below them will be the background. So if you cannot find an ideal background, don’t forget to look up and down – that’s where the best one may be hiding.

This rower was photographed from a bridge, making the water the background. in this case, the background works quite well with the subject.

This time, I was photographing this plane landing. This meant that I would be looking up, and the sky became the background here. The complementary colour set of the blue sky and yellow light on the plane also help to make the subject stand out more.

You may have the best background sorted. But it’s not always possible to be lucky enough to have that perfect background all the time. So what else can you do to help your subject?

#3 – Camera Craft

There will be times – more often than not – where you simply cannot win with your background. No matter which way you stand, you just can’t seem to find a nice clean backdrop. What now? Here’s where a little camera craft comes in to play and you have a couple of tricks up your sleeve with this.

First point of call is aperture. You know that you can simply open your aperture up a little more, and give that background some nice bokeh (or blur) to reduce its impact. Even when you do have a nice complementary background, it’s still a good idea to use a wider aperture to blur it out a bit and make your subject stand out against it more.

What if you can’t open your aperture any further, though? There’s still hope. Our next strategy is to play with shutter speed and use a panning technique. This can help greatly in rendering a busy background into a nice blurry mess. It also helps to add a great sense of movement and action, as well as give a sense of excitement to an image. If you’re unsure about how to do panning, have a read of this article – it will help greatly. But in a nutshell, panning is the technique of using a slower shutter speed (usually around 1/60th or slower) while tracking a moving subject. The combination of a slow shutter speed, coupled with the panning action, will result in a nice motion blur affecting the background, and if done correctly, the subject will remain sharp.

This background is clean; there are no real distractions in it, but it could be improved upon.

Here’s a different frame but this time, a panning technique has been used to remove all the creases in the blue backdrop. This has made the background cleaner again, and the added motion blur gives a sense of speed which works well with the subject.

The use of a wide aperture here has dramatically blurred out the background making it much cleaner. The result is that the subject stands out much more. © Daniel Smith / Getty Images.

#4 – Can You See the Light?

Something that seems to always be overlooked in photography is light. This seems to me like quite a remarkable thing since without light, we don’t have much of a photo. But using light, and the contrast it can provide, is another way to reduce the appearance of a distracting background. With this strategy you need to look for a higher amount of contrast between your subject and the background; that is, you’re subject is (ideally) brighter than the background. By exposing for your subject (the brightest area) you effectively make shadowed areas in the frame darker, thereby affecting your background. This can be achieved with both natural light and flash.

In this image, the flower was in the daylight; whereas the background was in the shade. I exposed for the flower and this made the background darker.

Again, the background here is much darker than the subject; helping to isolate the subject more. © Daniel Smith / Getty Images.

These photographs were taken in an undercover car park. I used two flashes (both off-camera) as my only light source. This removed any ambient light affecting the image.

#5 – The Final Stop

You’ve done what you can with the background. You’ve tried everything, but your background still doesn’t want to play ball. There will be times when you simply cannot control any of the aspects that have been mentioned. Don’t worry – it isn’t uncommon. Now all you can do is hope that there is something that can be done later, and there is!

If you’ve done everything you can to help improve your background and you’re still not winning, the last port of call is post-processing. You may be thinking, “Hold on, I’m not that great with selecting and masking in Photoshop yet.” but you needn’t worry. There is no selecting or masking with this one. (As a side note, if you intend on making a selection around your subject and replacing the background, you will need to photograph your subject accordingly to make this much easier and more natural).

All you need do is crop your image. That’s it. Cropping is about all you can do now. By cropping, you are effectively removing as much of the background as possible without cropping into your subject. Don’t worry about how much you are cropping out – unless of course you intend on doing a large print. You’d be surprised at how much many photographers are willing to crop.

Do you have any other tips for making the subject stand out, or improving the background? Please share your thoughts and images in the comments below.

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[Photography] Fast Glass: Tips for Working With Wide Aperture Lenses

As photographers, many of us become infatuated with new gear, such as a new flash, tripod, or lens. We scrimp and save our money, and go off to the camera store to purchase that new lens we’ve had our eye on, most times satisfied with whatever new piece of kit has found its way into our bag. Sometimes, though, it happens that for some reason that new gear we’ve spent our hard-earned money on doesn’t live up to our expectations.

Fast lenses enable the photographer to use shallow depth of field creatively. A 24mm f/1.4 lens, shot at f/1.4 was used for this image.

It may be that it was overhyped, or it doesn’t suit your workflow. There are occasions, however, when a piece of gear has a learning curve attached to it that needs to be solved before you can fully enjoy it. One such item that seems to have that learning curve attached, is a fast lens (one with large maximum aperture).

At some point, we all begin dreaming of fast (large aperture) lenses. For the purpose of this article, I’m going to define fast lenses as ones with maximum apertures wider than f/4.

Fast lenses are great for a lot of things, shooting in low light being one of the major advantages, because the wider aperture allows more light into the imaging sensor, which in turn allows you to use a faster shutter speed. This is why lenses like the 70-200mm f/2.8 are such a workhorse in a photojournalist’s camera bag. Another advantage to the wider aperture is the ability to create shallow depth of field in your image, which can make your subject really stand out from the background. The 85mm f/1.4 is one of my go-to lenses for almost any portrait situation for just that ability.

When photographing portraits, focusing on the closest eye is ideal when using shallow depth of field.

That all sounds great, right? But it’s that last point regarding shallow depth of field which seems to create the biggest problems for most photographers, who are new to using a fast lens. I often hear of photographers complaining about a lack of sharpness in their lenses, and more often than not, the issue crops up when the photographer is using a fast lens.

It may be a portrait photographer trying to use an 85mm f/1.8 wide open, or someone doing street photography with a 35mm f/1.4, and for some reason there’s a lack of sharpness to the image that will invariably be blamed on the lens. In my 20 years in photography, I’ve owned and worked with a lot of gear – 0ver a dozen different camera bodies, and several dozen lenses I’ve used at one point or another. I can honestly say that I have never once had one come straight out of the box brand new, and not be in perfect working order, so treat that option (that the lens is faulty) as a last resort for now.

Understanding Depth of Field

In addition to their low light capabilities, many photographers purchase fast lenses simply because of the ability to shoot with a shallow depth of field. When used creatively, a lens with a large aperture used wide open, allows you to be very selective in what you show the viewer, and what you hide in soft out of focus areas, known as bokeh.

However, it’s very important to understand that depth of field works differently dependent on the lens you are using. For instance, a lens such as the Nikon 85mm f/1.4 will have paper thin depth of field when used at f/1.4, at close distances to the subject. As the subject moves further away from the camera, that depth of field becomes a little greater. But at the minimum focusing distance, you could focus on an eyelash on your subject, and still have the eyeball be out of focus, despite the fact it’s only half an inch behind the eyelash. Assuming you don’t want to back up and change the framing on your subject, the best way to ensure sharp focus on the eye, is to choose a focus point on the eye and be careful it does not accidentally focus on an eyelash.

If you are willing to sacrifice a bit of that shallow depth of field, simply stop down a bit to give yourself some leeway on where you focus. While at f/1.4 or f/1.8 you may not be able to get both the eyelash and the eye in focus, but at f/2.2 or f/2.8, you’ll likely have enough depth of field to achieve sharp focus on both.

Using a 24mm f/1.4 lens wide open, setting the focus distance to the hyperfocal distance, allows you to get greater depth of field even when photographing wide open.

Even on wide angle lenses, such as a 24mm f/1.4 or 35mm f/1.4, which have inherently (seemingly) greater depth of field due to the nature of wide angle lenses, you’ll still notice some issues arising due to the use of a wide open aperture. If you can step back from the subject, you can increase the perceived depth of field since you’ll be focusing further away. You can calculate how far away you need to be by using a hyperfocal distance calculator.

The hyperfocal distance is the closest distance at which a lens can be focused, while still keeping objects at infinity acceptably sharp. In the shot of the upended bus at night, knowing the bus was about 30 feet away, I calculated the near limit of focus for the lens I was using at about 18 feet and the far limit was 91 feet, meaning anything past that distance would still be out of focus at f/1.4. By focusing at the hyperfocal distance of 44 feet, I knew the bus would fall into the area of sharp focus, while still keeping the stars in sharp focus. This is true because the hyperfocal distance is where everything from that distance to infinity falls within your depth of field, and everything from the hyperfocal distance to the point halfway between the camera and that distance, also falls within your depth of field.

Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to focus at the hyperfocal distance. For instance, photographing at a party in a dimly lit room, you may notice some areas out of focus due to the shallow depth of field. The fix here is to  stop down a bit if you can. If you need more light, consider using a flash if appropriate, and stopping down the lens to give greater depth of field. Another option is to raise the ISO a bit to allow you to stop down the aperture more.

You may find yourself saying, “I didn’t purchase a fast lens to use it at a smaller aperture!” While that may be true, if you find yourself unable to capture sharp images due to the shallow depth of field, stopping down is the best solution. Please keep in mind, I’m not talking about a lens that just isn’t sharp. I’m talking about a lens that, due to its fast aperture, isn’t capable of capturing the depth of field needed to keep everything that you want sharp in focus.

Choosing Your Focus Point

When it is critical to focus on a specific area in the image, choosing the correct focus point will ensure sharp focus where you want it, even when using a wide aperture with shallow depth of field.

One of the best things you can do when using a fast lens, is to ensure you’re focusing precisely where you think you are focusing. You want to be sure your camera is set to allow you to manually choose a focus point. By manually selecting a focus point, you can ensure the camera focuses on what you think it should. Most cameras default focus point selection method is automatic. In this mode, the camera will generally try to focus on the nearest object with detail that is covered by one of the focus points. Allowing the camera to choose can be a recipe for disaster, since quite often, the nearest object with detail is not what you want to focus on.

One of the best things you can do as a photographer is take control of where your camera is focusing by selecting the focus point that you want, and ensuring that the focus point you choose is on the subject you want to be sharp. Cameras today have multiple focus points, with some having as many as 61 AF points. While it’s true that generally speaking the center point will be the most accurate of those points, technological advances have made the points along the outer edge much more accurate than in the past. This means that you can choose those outer focus points with confidence when composing your image.

Using shallow depth of field on a portrait allows the photographer to focus on the eyes, and lets the rest of the body fall out of focus. An 85mm f/1.2 lens was used here.

Another related problem to the camera choosing the wrong AF point, is photographers employing a technique known as focus and recompose. This technique came about back when cameras only had a few AF points bunched around the center of the viewfinder. In many situations, it’s not a problem, as long as you are using an aperture that will provide adequate depth of field to maintain focus on the object or person you’ve focused on.

However, when using a fast lens, at a wide open aperture, focusing and then recomposing your shot becomes a real problem. This is because when using a fast lens at a wide aperture, the depth of field is so thin, that recomposing the shot will actually shift the plane of sharp focus away from the subject you initially focused on. So while you may have focused on the correct subject, using the center AF point, in adjusting your composition you knocked your subject right out of focus again. The solution for this issue is the same as above: manually select an AF point that you can place right on top of your subject, without recomposing your shot.

Embrace the Bokeh

Shallow depth of field can be used to create interesting effects and force your viewers to look where you want them. This image was made with a 70-200mm lens at f/2.8.

Lastly, in answer to those who bought fast glass to shoot it wide open, I say – embrace the bokeh! Bokeh is defined as the visual quality of the out of focus areas of an image, and each lens renders these areas a bit differently. Fast lenses typically have beautifully smooth bokeh.

Compose your shots so that the shallow depth of field is used creatively. To do this, you’ll need to understand what you can and can’t do when shooting wide open. Knowing that you will have a shallow depth of field, you’ll want to avoid stacking subjects at different distances. Create compositions that contrast sharp areas, with out of focus areas. Use that contrast to highlight certain objects within your frame, and by the same token, hide other objects by causing them to be drastically out of focus.

Using shallow depth of field allows you to highlight one object in sharp focus against a blurry background. This image was made with an 85mm f/1.2 lens.

Images created using shallow depth of field force your viewers to look where you want them to, because the eye is naturally drawn to areas of sharp focus. By using proper focusing techniques, you can ensure the image you see in your mind is the one you capture, and by understanding how the lens will handle depth of field, you can ensure that you’ll know to stop down when you need to for added depth of field, avoiding the mistake of having an important part of your image out of focus.

What’s your favorite fast lens to work with and why?

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