Improving Your Images Step 2: Tweaking the "auto" setting

So far we have set the white colour balance (WB) to render the image close to what it looked like.

Now is the time to see what Photoshop will do if we press "auto".

By pressing "Auto" the software has taken control of the image and done things like
increased the exposure; reduced contrast, and brought out the shadows. Since this is an image taken at sunrise, I don't like the bright sky so I turned the exposure back to 0 (ie original exposure), and increased the colour in the shadows and contrast and clarity. Simply experiment with each in turn, giving slight tweaks as you go. Notice how we have kept the pinks in the clouds - this is due to us not increasing the exposure in the image. 

In the next blog we will look at removing the noise in the image.



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Improving Your Images Step 1: Adjusting the white colour balance (WB)

In the last blog we decided to turn off the camera's control and shoot in raw instead.
If you have used a  piece of software, such as Adobe's Photoshop or Lightroom, you will notice a few things, such as large files and the image looks poor in terms of colour. That is normal, as we will be adding the magic colour ingredient.

We will start by adjusting the white colour balance (WB) of an image. Some reasons why we need to adjust the WB include:

1. When shooting outside, the sun has a different colour (and hence light has a different temperature) at different times of the day ranging from warm orange, to yellow, to cool blue. If you have ever played with your camera and noticed "K" when adjusting colour it stands for "Kelvin" and refers to the temperature of the light. The warmer the light present, the higher the Kelvin we dial in. 
2. When shooting inside artificial light emits a different colour, whether it is fluorescent, incandescent, halogen or a mixture of these and light coming in through a window.

These situations where different colour light is present (green, purple, blue, yellow) affects the colour of those images illuminated, so we simply want to adjust the white balance in the image (ie set what is suppose to be white to white) to ensure the different components look the way they are suppose to. 


It looks easier than it is to read about ... so let us get to it.

Here is a raw image I will be using to show how to clean up an image. You will see that is has dead pixels, the colour is not very appealing and it is too dark in some places. The first order of business is to set the WB. To do this, open it in photoshop - I use CS6 (from Adobe's creative cloud).

Before we start, we will work in 16-bit/channel (which uses 256 times more data than 8-bit and we need all the information possible to play with images).

To change to 16-bit, click on the link found at the very bottom of the image, the in the depth field, choose 16 bits/channel.












To adjust the WB we click on the 3rd icon at the top menu bar and then choose a point in the scene to set to white. Play around with using different parts of the image and you will see different colour spaces used to colour the image.

Now by selecting different points in the image, a different colour profile is applied to the image. Choose a point that renders the image close to what it looked like. Or if you so choose, alter the colour profile to give the image a cooler or warmer feel.

In the next blog, we will look at tweaking our chosen image to bring out the shadows and a couple of subtle tweaks.



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Post Processing Tip 1: Do you shoot in the raw?

My friends often ask me for advice on how to clean up images they love but didn't turn out as expected. My first question is always "Did you shoot in RAW format?"

So I will spend some time showing and explaining some tips I've learned with photoshop. I am not an expert by any means, but simply enjoy sharing methods I use that help me clean up my images.

Over the next few weeks I will show you how to take an image (taken in raw format) that looks like this:

 and turn it into:

The steps we will take you through will be:
step 1: adjusting and setting the white colour balance.
step 2: tweaking the image
step 3: removing the noise
step 4: removing imperfections and the unwanted boat
step 5: learning a trick to making the image "pop"
step 6: adding a subtle vignette
step 7: sharpening the image. 


So tip number one is: before you take any image - change your camera's setting to shoot in raw format instead of the familiar jpg.

The file size of raw images are lots bigger than that of jpg, and for good reason - it contains lots more information for us to use and we will learn how to enhance these images.

To give a brief overview of raw, jpeg, tiff etc and what we will learn to do, consider the following three general steps back in the days of rolls of film.

step 1. shoot a roll of film and create a negative.
step 2. develop the negative by adding and adjusting colour, tone etc.
step 3. use the fixed negative to print off the image.


Most cameras are generally set to shoot and record as jpg files. These .jpg files take care of steps 1 and 2 above so you can simply print them off and show family and friends. So the camera controls how to represent the colours in the image. 

When shooting in raw format we get images (called digital negatives) that cannot immediately be printed off at your local department store or using your own colour printer. To each image we will apply a colour range (called a colour space or gamut) before saving them into a format that can be  printed off  (eg jpg or my preferred format TIFF).

Sadly there currently is no universal raw format amongst the camera manufacturers. But digital negative format (.dng) is very popular.

The next blog will look at using photoshop to control/adjust the white balance in your raw images.



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Are you happy with your latest image?

Click - now it's time to relax because you have the image you traveled, organised and negotiated with your partner to get permission to go and take. But wait, is it what you want? Is it good enough? If not, would you go back and re shoot it?


Over the past couple of months I have been going to the Crawley Boatshed a few times taking an image in different conditions with different camera settings. I guess I kept going back until I got what I was after. Be open to going back to a location (if possible) and shooting again to get what you were seeking.


Here are my images from three different trips, each having a different feel to it:

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Would you lose your shirt for this?

I've been spending some time at the Crawley Boatshed. The last time was a week ago, the day was overcast with intermittent rain.

I got set up to take some shots, waited for the clouds to be where I wanted them to be, and then it started to rain - I had forgotten to bring a cloth to wipe the filters and my umbrella decided to buckle under the wind and break apart.Thankfully I had a flannelette shirt on, perfect for soaking up rain drops. It was cold, but hey for a good image the shirt came off and the filters were clean enough for long enough to get some shots.

Here is one I liked the most.  I so wanted a third yacht to appear of the other side of the shed, but sadly not on this day.

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