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Adobe Photoshop has so many buttons, tools, and options it can seem
overwhelming and intimidating to beginner photo editors. Rather than
diving into the deep end and trying to learn every possible tool all at
once, I recommend a more measured approach. Pick one thing and learn
that, and then move on to the next tool or technique. And learning Layer
Masks in Photoshop is one of the most important and useful tools for
any editor. High
school senior, class of 2017. There is no number 17 on his shirt. I
added it in Photoshop with layer masking. Nikon D200, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/90
second, ISO 200.
In 1994, Photoshop Version 3 introduced a concept that blew the doors off the image editing industry: layers.
This allowed editors to stack multiple image elements on top of each
other to form a complete picture. This is all well and good, but what if
you put one layer on top of another layer and still want to see
something on the layer below?
You could use the Eraser tool to remove part of the top layer, which
is what I used to do when I first started using Photoshop years ago.
A much better solution is to use a Layer Mask, which lets you show
and hide any part of a layer. Instead of using the Eraser tool, you use
the Paintbrush (or other tools) to make any part of a layer visible,
invisible, or transparent.
As an example, here’s a picture of a truck on a farm. It’s alright, but the sky behind the truck isn’t very dramatic. Nikon D750, 95mm, f/2.8, 1/3000 second, ISO 100
What if I replaced the boring blue sky with this dramatic sunset? Surely that would be a much more interesting photo, and maybe help the farmer sell his truck too. Fuji X100f, 23mm, f/16, 30 seconds, ISO 200
If
the pictures of the truck and sunset are stacked in Photoshop, the
truck is visible but not the sky. This is where Layer Masks in Photoshop
can save the day! You can use a mask on the truck layer and then edit
it to remove the sky. This would leave the truck visible but the sunset
showing through. Layers
are fundamental to the image editing process in Photoshop. Layers are
on top are visible, whereas layers underneath cannot be seen unless some
parts of the layers on top are visible.
To add a Layer Mask, click the top layer (in this case, the truck) and choose Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All.
Alternatively, click the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. The rectangle with a circle icon will add a layer mask to the selected layer.
At this point, nothing in the picture has changed because the entire
layer is still visible, and nothing has actually been masked out. This
is why the menu command is “Reveal All.”
The layer mask shows the entire layer to which it is applied. At this
point, you can use any number of methods to remove portions of the
layer you are working on.
The
white rectangle is your layer mask. Click on it to select the mask, and
then you can start hiding portions of the layer which it is attached to
(in this case, the Truck layer).
My preferred method to show and hide Layer Masks in Photoshop
is to use the Brush tool. Press the ‘B’ key on your keyboard or click
the Brush tool icon on the left-side toolbar. Then start brushing the
portions of the layer that you want to make invisible, just as though
you were using an eraser. Brushing
the layer mask will reveal whatever is beneath the layer. Here you can
see how, after a few brushstrokes, the sunset layer is starting to show
through.
Notice how any part of the mask that you erase is also reflected in
the thumbnail. Black portions are where the mask has been eliminated,
which is a subtle but useful indicator of the work you are doing on the
mask. As you apply the brush to portions of the mask, the mask thumbnail is updated accordingly.
To completely remove the sky behind the truck, I used the Quick
Selection tool to select the sky. Then I switched back to the Brush tool
and brushed over the entire selected area. It worked! The original sky is gone, replaced with a dramatic sunset. But there are some errors that I still need to fix.
At
this point, a Layer Mask probably seems much more complicated than just
using the Eraser tool. If you want to erase part of an image, why
over-complicate the matter with masks and brushes and selections? Layer
Masks provide an enormous advantage in that you can un-erase whatever you want just as easily.
With the Brush tool selected, press the ‘X’ key to invert your brush,
and you can now put everything you erased back. Use the ‘[‘ and ‘]’
keys to change the size of the brush, and the ‘Z’ key to zoom in on
portions of the image to get the finer details. Invert the brush tool by pressing the X key to un-erase any part of the layer.
All the normal controls for brushes can be used when working with
layer masks – opacity, smoothing, etc. This makes Layer Masks in Photoshop incredibly powerful and exponentially more useful than just using the eraser tool. It still needs some touch-ups, but it’s a lot better than before thanks to the flexibility of layer masks.
Layer Masks can do so much more than replacing the sky. They can be used to combine any number of images, layers, and effects.
I created the picture at the top of this article with Layer Masks in
Photoshop in just a few minutes. It started with the picture below of a high school senior wearing a blue shirt. Since this young man graduated in 2017, I wanted to put a 17 on his shirt. Photoshop made it easy. A high school senior, Class of 2017. A nice big 17 would look good on his shirt.
I started by using the Fyra font for the number 17. I set the color to white and used the Soft Light blend mode
to make the number look like it was part of the shirt, not just sitting
on top of it. The young man’s crossed arms presented a challenge, but
one that was easily solved in seconds thanks to layer masks. What to do about his arms? Layer Masks to the rescue!
With the base layer selected, I chose the Lasso tool and selected the
portion of the picture containing the arms. Then with that selection
active, I right-clicked on the image and chose “New Layer via Copy.”
This created a new layer in my Layers panel, which I moved to the top of
the list by clicking and dragging.
With the new layer selected in my Layers panel, I went to the Layer
menu and selected Layer Mask>Reveal All. This created a new masking
layer, much like the truck and sunset example, that I could use to show
and hide whatever portions of the arms I wanted to. Click the white box next to Layer 1 to edit the layer mask for the top layer.
With the new Layer Mask in place, the rest of the operation was fairly simple.
I
zoomed in on the image to get a closer view by pressing ‘Z’ and then
clicked on the arms. Then I pressed the ‘B’ key to select my Brush tool
and used the [ and ] keys to get the right size. As I brushed out the
part of the top layer I did not want, I pressed the ‘X’ key to switch
back and forth between erasing and un-erasing. This makes it very simple
to perform fine adjustments to your layer mask. Brush options such as Opacity and Smoothing can be used to perform edits to your layer mask with surgical precision.With
one hand on your mouse and another hand on the X key, you can quickly
show and hide whatever part of your layer that you want.
Using layer masking instead of just erasing portions of an image
means you can continue to manipulate your image as separate layers even
after you have made your edits. Watch how the number 17 can be moved and
resized without any additional editing or erasing. This is possible
because the arms are a separate layer in front of the number, and the
blue part of the arms layer has been erased or masked out.
Reading through all these steps to learn Layer Masks in Photoshop
might seem kind of overwhelming. If you follow along step by step, it’s a
lot easier than it seems. Also, there are hundreds of ways to edit
layer masks to create compositions you probably thought were previously
unattainable.
If you have never tried using layer masks in Photoshop, I recommend
giving it a try, and see where your creativity takes you. You might find
that it opens up a door to entirely new types of artistic expression
and editing possibilities.
Share your results with us in the comments below! Share this article.
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Thursday, July 23, 2020
Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X Pro DX II LENS – bargain ultra-wide?
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If you’re looking for an affordable ultra-wide angle lens for your
APS-C cropped sensor Canon, Nikon, Sony or Pentax DSLR in 2010, you have
quite a few choices. In the last year or two, most lens makers have
updated their ultra-wide offerings: Tamron replaced its 11-18mm model
with a new 10-24mm (available for Nikon, Canon, Pentax and Sony), Sigma produced a new, faster 10-20mm (Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Sony), Nikon replaced its 12-24 with a 10-24mm and Olympus added a more affordable 9-18mm model to the existing 7-14 mm f/4.0.
Canon didn’t do anything but, by all accounts, the current EF-S 10-22mm
is a great lens worth every dollar of its reasonable asking price. Even
Ken Rockwell says it’s better than Nikon’s dearer ultra-wide. This is
an EF-S lens and will only fit on APS-C (cropped) sensor Canons. All the
lenses listed below are designed for cropped sensors. The list includes
recently updated/replaced lenses which are still on the market:
Notes:
1) The Tamron 10-24mm is available with an inbuilt AF motor for small Nikon DSLRs – D40/60/3000/5000.
2) The Tokina 124 AT-X Pro 12-24mm is the obvious bargain here at
US$400, but the inbuilt AF-motor for small Nikon DSLRs costs another
$100.
3) The Tokina AT-X 116 Pro DX is faster but dearer and offers no inbuilt AF motor for Nikon.
4) The new Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 takes the lens diameter from 77mm to 82mm. That’s a pain if you’ve invested in 77mm filters.
5) The Pentax lens listed here looks like a Tokina 12-24mm in a
different suit. It is indeed a close relative as Pentax and Tokina are
both owned by Hoya. There’s no Pentax version of this Tokina.
Choosing and buying – second time around
I owned the cheaper Sigma (10-20mm f/4-5.6) not long ago but sold it
on eBay a while back, mostly because it turned out fewer keepers than
all the other lenses I’ve used. Still, I missed not having an ultra-wide
and decided to buy the Tokina since all the reviews said that it was
the sharpest and the best built, and the 12-24mm comes with an inbuilt
AF motor for my trusty old Nikon D40.
The Sigma goes to 10mm, which gives almost 10 degrees more Angle of
View (roughly 100 vs 110°), so it’s well worth considering if 12mm is
wide enough for you. It’s 50% wider than a kit zoom, to be sure, and
bear in mind that more width brings more distortion. With ultra-wide
lenses, that’s the nature of the beast.
With the Sigma, sharpness was often difficult to achieve without a
lot of post-processing, which I tend to avoid. Still, every once in a
while, the Sigma would produce a stunning shot like this one:
These lenses need a fair bit of concentration and good technique to
get the best out of, something I’ll explore in a future article. Their
optics are stretched to the ragged edge and it shows when you work on
the super-wide end of their zoom range. Away from the centre of the
images, things tend to go a bit squishy, and the Tokina is no different
from the Sigma in that regard.
Construction
The Tokina AT-X 124 Pro uses a chrome-plated brass mount plate and
features an all-metal zoom unit, with polycarbonate covering the outer
lens barrels. The optics include 13 elements in 11 groups, including 2
aspherical elements and an SD element. The minimum focus distance is
0.30m, and the lens features 9 aperture blades.
The lens does not extend during zooming and the non-rotating 77mm
filter threads mean that filters are not affected by changing focus.
It’s possible to change filters without removing the petal shaped hood.
The lens uses an inbuilt micro-motor for auto-focusing, which is fast
and not noisy.
Switching between auto-focus and manual is a simple matter of sliding
the focus ring back and forth, which can be done in any focus position.
A constant f/4 across the zoom range makes the lens useful in imperfect
light conditions. Tokina offers the 11-16mm f/2.8 if you need a faster
lens. A flimsy user guide that comes in Japanese, Japanese or Japanese
is the only letdown.
Handling
The AT-X 124 Pro looks like pro lens costing two or three times as
much, with a subtle, classy-looking crinkle finish and a quality lens
cap. It feels nice as well, with none of that cheap plastic stickiness.
If you dropped the 570g AT-X 124 Pro on your foot, I suspect that your
toes would break before the lens. It feels a bit hefty on a small Nikon
or Canon body but the barrel is only 8cm long without the hood.
Tokina’s one-touch focus clutch mechanism is pretty slick, and there
is a distance scale for manual focusing. Both the zoom and focus rings
move smoothly with just the right degree of resistance. Getting the lens
hood on and off takes a bit of effort, as the slot is very positive.
The hood is pretty substantial too and won’t come loose once it’s locked
in.
Image Quality
The biggest issue with ultra-wide lenses is flare, the white-out
caused by bright light in the frame. Their wide angles catch a lot more
light than normal lenses, and the Tokina performs no better in this area
than the Sigma despite claims of improvements for this DX II version of
the lens. You’ll see what I mean about the light in the next image –
and the sun’s a long way to the left here.
On the positive side, AF is accurate and colours are realistic. The
Tokina is a little sharper than the Sigma, but not to the extent the
reviews suggest. The problem is worst at the 12mm end but, even at 18mm
the Tokina isn’t as sharp as my Nikon kit lens. Not in a long shot, any
way.
Getting right in close to the subject is often a better idea with
these lenses than trying to grab an armful of landscape, and then
sharpness is not such an issue.
If you want to get technical, there’s a fair amount of barrel
distortion at the wide end, and a some vignetting (darkening of the
image corners) but these problems are not hard to solve with a good
editor. Colour fringing is much harder to correct but happens less
often. The most frequent problem is flare, and it rears its head as soon
as you aim the lens anywhere near bright light (the hood makes little
difference).
I’ve posted a gallery of more test shot on my blog. There are some decent shots but I threw out more than ten for every I kept. http://briard.typepad.com/get_the_picture/tokina-1224mm-f4-test-shots.html
Summing up
I’m a bit disappointed by the Tokina, mostly because so many positive
reviews led me to expect more. Yes, the build quality is tremendous for
the money (or any money) and yes, the price is great, but the
performance is not convincing where it counts most: at the wide end of
the spectrum. Lenses like this really have few other uses.
The
Tokina is good for dramatic shots when you’re right in the middle of
things, or in cities or buildings or rooms as long as you watch the
light. And it’s good for motorbikes and cars, of course, as long as you
lie on the ground.
Spending more money may not improve things – Ken Rockwell who is no
fan of third-party lenses says there’s little difference in Image
Quality between the Nikon 12-24mm and the Tokina (the older version
without the in-built motor).
Get a Price on the Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X Pro DX II LENS
Ultra-wide lenses aren’t easy beasts to use or live with and, as I
hinted above, I’m planning an article on how to get the best out of them
in the near future. Meanwhile, here some other views and resources:
Sony Announces Brand-New, Ultra-Wide, 12-24mm f/2.8 Lens
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Sony has officially announced its FE 12-24mm f/2.8 GM lens, which is impressively wide, and offers a very fast aperture for such a wide-angle zoom.
While Sony did release a 12-24mm zoom back in 2017, it packed an f/4 maximum aperture, which just doesn’t offer the same low-light utility as a wide-angle f/2.8.
But now, with the new 12-24mm f/2.8, Sony shooters have the
opportunity to work with an ultra-fast wide-angle lens, which is perfect
for any sort of night photography, and astrophotography in particular.
In terms of the lens’s specs:
A lens offering a maximum f/2.8 aperture is bound to be somewhat
large, but Sony has kept both the size and the weight fairly reasonable:
5.5 in (137mm) long, 29.9 oz (847 g) heavy.
This means that landscape photographers and travel shooters won’t have too much trouble carrying the 12-24mm f/2.8 around in their bag.
The lens comes with a permanent hood, and the front element is
unsurprisingly big, which means you won’t be able to use standard
filters. However, Sony has designed the lens with a rear filter mount,
which allows photographers to work with cut gel filters.
As for the optics:
Given
that this is a GM lens, you can expect quite a lot, and early reviews
seem to bear this out. The Sony 12-24mm f/2.8 is incredibly sharp, in
the centers to the corners, both wide-open and stopped down.
Now, if you’re in need of a fast wide-angle zoom, you have two main options:
The new Sony 12-24mm f/2.8.
Or the Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM, which is a very impressive lens in its own right.
Ultimately, picking between these lenses will come down to personal
choice, but the extra 2 mm on the wide end can be pretty significant,
especially for landscape and astrophotographers.
That
said, while the Sony 12-24mm f/2.8 is a truly excellent new piece of
glass, the cost ensures that only the most serious of photographers will
be able to add it to their bags.
It’ll ship in mid-August with a starting price of around $3000 USD.
Bottom line:
If you’re looking for a pro-level, fast, wide-angle lens for
landscape photography, then this is going to be a good option, assuming
you can afford the price.
https://bit.ly/2JzXFdk
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
RAW Versus JPG – Why You Might Want to Shoot in RAW Format
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If you have ever shared a photo by email, or posted one online, you
might have seen a three or four-letter extension at the end of the file
name that looked like “.jpg” or “.jpeg”. Almost every camera – from cell
phones to point and shoots to expensive DSLRs takes pictures in this
format – with good reason. You can fit thousands of JPG photos on a
memory card, and they are generally good quality and easy to view on a
computer or mobile device. You don’t need any special software to open a
JPG file, and if you do want to edit one, almost any application from
iPhoto to Photoshop can do it. However, all DSLRs, and even some
point-and-shoot cameras, are able to shoot in another format called RAW
which has some incredible benefits for you. Some people swear by the RAW
format, others use JPG, and some use both. There is no correct answer
in terms of which one is better, instead it’s important to find a
solution that works for you.
RAW Versus JPG: Why You Might Want to Shoot in RAW
To illustrate why you might want to show in RAW format, here are a few reasons I use it instead of JPG.
1. Adjusting the White Balance
Different types of light (such as sunlight, fluorescent bulbs, or a
camera flash) affect how colors show up in real life. Our brains are
aware of these differences and adjust our perception of the colors
accordingly, but your camera doesn’t always know what to do in these
various situations. To fix this, it has something called a White Balance setting,
which usually contains values like Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten,
and Flash. Unless you set the White Balance properly, your photos will
often have a yellow or blue tint that is not always easy to fix. This is
an important limitation of the JPG format, which tosses most of the
data it deems unnecessary for a given photo and can make fixing the
White Balanc a little tricky. Fortunately, in RAW the White Balance can
be easily adjusted to suit the photograph because all the color data is
saved.
When you snap a photo in RAW mode, the camera uses one of its White
Balance settings as a starting point, but you are free to adjust it
however you wish on your computer. Programs such as Lightroom,
Photoshop, and Aperture have simple controls for adjusting the White
Balance, and even though modern cameras are much better at getting it
right on their own I still find myself tweaking the white balance quite
often. For example, my camera calculated a White Balance for this photo
of a child’s lamp at a value that I thought was far too yellow. Shooting
in RAW gives me the flexibility to fix this, and with a few
adjustments, I was able to get an image that was much more pleasing to
me than the one my camera originally produced.
My camera applied a White Balance setting to the RAW file, but I didn’t really like it.
Using editing software I was able to change the White Balance to a cooler tone that was much more pleasing to my eye.
2. Fixing the exposure
Shooting in RAW not only gives me the freedom to adjust the colors
you see, but also to adjust the colors you don’t see. When a JPG photo
is too bright or too dark (i.e. overexposed or underexposed), there is
not much that can be done to save it because much of the data that was
captured by the image sensor no longer exists. Cameras have all sorts of
ways to help us get the right exposure when we take a picture, but
sometimes things just don’t work out, and you might find that some of
your most precious memories were either too dark or washed out. Since
RAW keeps all the data when an image is captured, you have much more
leeway in adjusting images after the fact.
The original photo was way too dark to be usable.
RAW allowed me to boost the exposure significantly to create a much better photo.
When
I shot this picture of some flowers on a tree, I noticed after I got
home that it was far too dark to be usable. If this was a JPG I would
have been mostly stuck with the results. But, because I shot in RAW I
was able to brighten the dark areas and produce a much better image. In
JPG, the data from the dark areas would have been just that, dark. The
same can be done for overexposed images too; if a picture is too bright
or washed out, it can often be saved if it was shot in RAW.
3. General color adjustments
A third reason I shoot in RAW is that I often like to make adjustments to specific colors
in a photo. JPG stores 8 bits of information per color for Red, Green,
and Blue–each of the three primary colors of light that make up every
pixel in a given photo. Don’t get too caught up in the math here–all you
need to know is that those 8 bits (2 to the power of 8, or
2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2) really mean that a JPG stores information for 256
individual shades of each of the primary colors. RAW, on the other hand,
stores 4096 or 16384 shades of information per color, depending on
whether your camera supports 12 or 14-bit files. These numbers might not
mean a lot, but it’s easy to see that either of the latter numbers is
far greater than 256. This means that since RAW gives us so much more
information to work with, we have a lot more flexibility when editing
the colors of our image.
This photo of a family friend (below) turned out fairly well, but I
was not happy with a few elements. Her eyes were too dark and and the
colors were not as vibrant as I would have preferred. Thankfully, RAW
gave me the freedom to edit the picture in order to create an image that
was not only more pleasing to look at, but more accurately reflected
what I saw when I captured it. This is much more than simply throwing a
filter over an existing image; RAW gives you access to the original
color data, which allows for far greater control over the finished
product.
The original is not bad, but not as good as it could be.
Shooting
in RAW meant I had so much color data available that I was able to
adjust the colors to create a more pleasing final picture.
Of course shooting in RAW has downsides too, most notably the file
size. RAW files can easily take up 10 times as much space on your memory
card as JPG files, which seems like a lot of wasted space if you don’t
do a lot of editing or post-processing. To be honest, if you are just
shooting pictures of a nature hike or your kids in the park, RAW might
be overkill. It’s not that JPG files can’t be edited–they certainly can,
as anyone who has ever used an Instagram filter will attest. They can
be manipulated in Photoshop and other image editing programs as well,
and there is enough color information in most JPG files for some editing
wiggle room. But RAW gives you much more freedom to work, and even
though the file sizes are much greater, the tradeoff is worth it, in my
opinion.
You
will have to make the decision for yourself, but whatever you decide,
try to resist getting drawn into a RAW versus JPG debate–neither format
is objectively better. The important thing is that you find a workflow
that fits your shooting style and goals. At the end of the day, as long
as you are taking pictures you like, that’s all that really matters.
I won a photography contest with this picture…and I shot it in JPG.
You might be just fine with shooting in JPG, and if that suits you,
then don’t let me or anyone else tell you different. But if you have
ever wanted to experiment with more advanced editing techniques
or just coax a little more out of your photos than you might otherwise
be used to, RAW might be just the ticket to a whole new world of
photography awesomeness. Further Reading: RAW vs JPEG: Which Should I Shoot in?
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6 Tips for a Faster Lightroom Workflow So You Can Get Back to Taking Photos!
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Many photographers rely on Lightroom
to organize, edit and share their photos. While this software has a
vast array of tools to help people in several key areas, it has not
always been known for speed. Recent updates and GPU acceleration have
helped, but if you really want to have a faster Lightroom workflow,
there are some simple things you can do to supercharge your
post-processing. These aren’t hacks or plugins, but simple tweaks to
Lightroom that can make your life a lot easier.
1. Apply a preset when importing images
The first thing you can do for a faster Lightroom workflow is to apply a preset when importing images.
Lightroom has a mind-boggling number of options and sliders to adjust
when editing images. If you find yourself using the same types of edits
on most of your pictures, you can use Presets
to shave hours off your editing. Most people already know this, but you
might not be aware that you can apply Presets when initially importing
your files.
On the right side of the Import screen, there is an option for “Apply
During Import.” Use this to select one of the many presets built into
Lightroom (or select one of your own that you may have saved) and have
it automatically applied to your pictures as you import them.
In the screenshot above, you can also see an option called Nikon RAW import. That’s a custom preset I
made that contains specific adjustments I like to apply to my Nikon RAW
files, which gets me to a good starting point when editing. That alone
has helped me with a faster Lightroom workflow, but applying it to a
batch of photos on import is even more of a speed boost.
Don’t worry about messing anything up if you apply presets on import.
Like everything else in Lightroom, they are non-destructive, meaning
you can always go back and change things later.
2. Sync settings across multiple images
If you have spent any time editing multiple similar images in
Lightroom, particularly from an event or photo session with clients, you
have no doubt found the Copy/Paste Settings to be useful. Right-click
on any image in the Develop module and choose “Develop Settings->Copy
Settings…” Then check the boxes next to any (or all!) the settings you
want to copy.
Finally,
go to another photo, right-click, and choose “Develop
Settings->Paste Settings.” Or better yet, use Ctrl+C (cmd+C on mac)
and Ctrl+V (cmd+V on mac) like you would on any word processor.
I
shot dozens of pictures of this wasp. The Sync Settings option let me
instantly edit a single image
and then apply those edits to all my other
images in an instant.
This process works great, but what if you want to paste your settings
on to five, ten, or a hundred images? Even the fast method of using
Ctrl+V starts to feel like a chore.
Fortunately, there’s a better way.
Image
21 is selected, and Images 17-20 are also highlighted. After clicking
the Sync… button, all
the edits from 21 will be applied to 17-20.
In the Develop module,
select a single picture in the filmstrip at the bottom of the screen.
Then hold down the [shift] key and select more images. Finally, click
the “Sync…” button to synchronize any (or all) of your edits on the
original image to the rest that are selected.
When I discovered this trick, I almost fell out of my chair! I didn’t
just speed up my Lightroom editing. It supercharged my editing.
3. Straighten your pictures with the Auto button
I’m always a little leery of anything that says Auto when I’m editing
pictures. I don’t need my computer to do what it thinks is best – I
want my computer to do what I think is best! At best, I use some Auto
options, like when setting white balance on RAW files, as a rough draft that I go and refine.
However, there is one Auto setting that I have learned to use over
and over again. Learning to embrace Auto for straightening my photos has
saved me a lot of time and really led to an overall faster Lightroom
workflow.
The
Auto button in the Crop & Straighten panel can really help make
things go faster when you
need to straighten your photos.
The reason Auto works so well for straightening images is that it
doesn’t try to make a guess which affects the artistic goals of the
photographer. It simply looks for straight lines such as light poles,
buildings, or horizons, and then adjusts images accordingly. It works
far more than I initially thought. Plus, it can really speed things up
when editing in Lightroom.
My tripod was askew when I shot this, but Lightroom fixed it with a simple click of the Auto button.
4. Automatically organize with smart collections
Collections in Lightroom are an easy way to organize your images. You
can create as many collections as you want, and one photo can exist in
multiple collections. What you may not realize is that Lightroom lets
you create Smart Collections, which are populated dynamically according to rules you specify.
To create a Smart Collection, choose the + button at the top-left of
the Collections panel. Then select “Create Smart Collection…” and
specify your parameters for the Smart Collection.
As an example of how this can lead to a faster Lightroom workflow, I
create Smart Collections to sort my photos by month for an entire year. I
do this each January, and for the rest of the year my photos are
automatically sorted month-by-month without me having to do anything.
I create Smart Collections for my personal images at the beginning of each year. My images are
then sorted automatically.
These Smart Collections also do not include any photos with the
keyword “PhotoSession” which I apply to all images that I take for
clients. Photos with that keyword go in another set of Smart Collections
that I use to keep client images separate from personal photos.
Smart Collections can contain dozens of parameters including Rating, Pick Flag, Color Label, Keyword,
even metadata such as camera model or focal length. They are an
incredibly powerful but very simple way to make your day-to-day
Lightroom editing significantly faster.
5. Multi-Batch Export
Lightroom has long offered customizable export presets.
These allow you to export photos with certain parameters specified such
as file type, image size, quality setting, and even specifying custom
names.
New in the November 2019 update to Lightroom Classic is the option to
perform a single export operation that utilizes multiple Presets. This
means you no longer have to do an export operation for full-size JPGs at
100% quality, another export for low-resolution proofs at 80% quality,
and so on.
Just check any boxes in the Export dialog box for the presets you want, and Lightroom will take care of the rest!
The November 2019 update to Lightroom Classic lets you select multiple presets for a single export operation.
This is a great way to save time when you are ready to export your
images. It’s not the kind of workflow addition that will change your
life, but it’s another simple but highly effective process you can
utilize to shave precious minutes from your editing. And as someone who
exports a lot of photos regularly, those minutes add up.
6. Cull on Lightroom Mobile
One of my favorite aspects of the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan is the synchronization between Lightroom Classic and Lightroom Mobile.
While the mobile version of Lightroom isn’t as full-featured as its
desktop-based big brother, it does one thing incredibly well that has
made a huge difference for me when editing photos for clients.
Click the checkbox next to any Collection to sync those photos with
Lightroom CC. This means you can access low-resolution previews of all
those images on the web, your phone, or tablet. (Note that this does not
work with Smart Collections, only regular Collections.)
I don’t find Lightroom Mobile particularly useful for detailed
editing, but it absolutely runs circles around the desktop version when
it comes to culling operations. If you have an iPad, this could honestly
change your entire approach to culling your images. It also works
pretty well on other mobile devices too.
Load
a picture in any collection that you have synced to Lightroom CC and
then click the Star icon in the lower-right corner. This switches to a
mode where you can quickly assign star ratings or flags to any picture.
Tap one of the Flag or Star icons at the bottom of the screen to change
the status of the image. A quick swipe of your finger will load the next
image.
Tap
the star icon in the lower-right corner of Lightroom Mobile to quickly
assign Flags and Star
Ratings with a swipe of your finger.
This is all well and good, but there’s one trick here that will send your culling into overdrive.
Slide a finger up or down on the right side of the photo to change
the Flag status. Slide a finger up or down on the left side to assign a
Star rating. Then swipe to the next image and repeat.
All your edits on Lightroom Mobile, including Star ratings and Flag
statuses, are instantly synced back to Lightroom Classic on your
computer.
I’m not kidding about the speed of this operation, either.
I used to dread the culling process,
but now it takes a fraction of the time it used to. A few weeks ago, I
returned from a photo session with over 1,100 images. In about an hour, I
was able to cull them to a fraction of that amount, thanks to Lightroom
Mobile.
There
were hundreds of images from this session that I had to sort through.
Lightroom Desktop
makes this a burden, but Lightroom Mobile makes it a
breeze.
All six of these tips have saved me a huge amount of time over the years. I hope they are useful to you as well. If you have any other tricks or suggestions for a faster Lightroom workflow, leave them in the comments below!
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Tuesday, July 21, 2020
The 4 Ps – Tips for Improving Your Wildlife Photography
Tags:
Outdoor Photography, Portrait Photography, Printing and Framing, Nikon, Travel Photography, How to avoid photography
problems, bad mistakes, photography, video. Photography
tutorial for beginners, photography, photography tips, photography
tricks, photo tips and tricks
Check out our new Ultimate Guide to Nature and Outdoor Photography.
Taking photographs of wildlife can be one of the most exhilarating
photographic experiences you can try. Spotting an animal in the wild can
be thrilling, and being able to record that moment can be highly
rewarding. However, wild animals can be a particularly challenging
subject matter, so wildlife photography can often prove frustrating.
To help you get the most out of this compelling type of images, here are some tips to improve your wildlife photography.
#1 PREPARATION
No matter what type of wildlife you have chosen to photograph you
will need to spend time getting to know its behaviour, routine and
movements. Read up about your subject in advance, or search online for
video or audio files, that can help you learn more about spotting your
chosen subject. If possible, talk to experts in the field who know
where, and when, to spot wildlife. If you are heading to a nature
reserve or national park to take photographs, staff and volunteers are
normally very willing to let you know of recent sightings, or give you
some handy local advice.
Because you may only get a limited time in which to take wildlife photographs, getting to know your camera settings
is extremely important. Familiarize yourself with how your camera and
lens work before you get to the location so that you don’t miss an
important shot by having the incorrect settings.
Before setting out, make sure you have packed all of the required
gear, and you have spare memory cards and charged batteries. For
wildlife photography, a telephoto lens
is probably going to be essential, but do not overlook packing a wider
angle lens to capture your animals as part of the landscape. Some of the
best wildlife photographs show an animal in its environment and are not
necessarily frame-filling portrait shots. If you are using a telephoto
lens, a tripod or monopod can also form a useful part of your kit to
minimize camera shake. A monopod offers greater flexibility of movement
than a tripod when you are tracking wildlife on the move, but can still
provide adequate stability for your camera to get sharp images.
Check weather reports for the day you are going to shoot wildlife,
but do not necessarily be put off by bad weather. Animals do remain
active during rainy or stormy days, and it is possible to get some
dramatic shots in such conditions. You can buy special covers to protect your camera and lens in wet weather but, often, a durable plastic bag fixed in place with elastic bands can work just as effectively.
As with all genres of photography, lighting is key, and the best light for wildlife photography tends to be around sunrise and sunset.
Animals also tend to be more active at these times of day, often
searching for food. Therefore, make sure you get up early to be ready to
take photographs in the golden light as the sun rises. Shooting into
the sunset can transform a mundane subject into something special, so
look for opportunities to capture dramatic wildlife silhouettes as the sun goes down (see image below).
#2 PRACTICE
As with all types of photography, composition can make the difference
between a good image, and a great image. When composing wildlife
photographs, remember basic compositional guidelines such as the highly
effective Rule of Thirds. If your subject is looking to the left or
right, leave an appropriate amount of space in the frame into which they
can look. The same guideline applies if a moving animal is being
captured – always leave room in the frame for them to move into.
Getting down to eye-level (or lower)
with an animal can produce dramatic images. Taking a shot of an animal
from a standing height looking down on it will usually lack any Wow
Factor as this is the angle from which we are most used to seeing
wildlife. Laying down on the ground so that you are at eye-level with,
or looking up at, the animal will make your chosen subject seem large
and powerful, and can add an element of drama to your final image.
A fundamental rule of wildlife photography is that the subject’s eyes
must always be in perfect focus. However, the autofocus system on your
camera can easily be tricked into locking onto another part of the
animal. A helpful way around this is to set the camera to One Shot mode
(AF-S for Nikon users), select the centre focus point in the
viewfinder, lock the focus on the eyes by pressing the shutter release
button halfway down and then, without releasing, recompose your shot. In
addition to being perfectly focused on the eyes, the most compelling
wildlife images have a catch-light in the eye. A flash, or speedlight,
in your kit can be extremely useful for adding light to dark eyes when
taking close-up animal portraits.
Getting the right focus becomes even harder when shooting an animal
in motion. For moving wildlife, select a continuous autofocus mode such
as AI Servo (AF-C) and select a single focus point in the viewfinder.
Track the action by keeping the single focus point on the subject to
ensure that remains in focus at all times, rather than the background or
foreground.
Shooting in Aperture Priority mode
can be extremely useful for wildlife photography. By using the widest
aperture available (such as f/2.8) you will be able to use the fast
shutter speeds necessary to produce sharp images. The narrow depth of field from using a wide aperture will also help to blur the background and, therefore, will isolate your subject and really make it stand out in the final image.
Do not be afraid to increase your ISO settings
a little in order to keep the shutter speed fast, particularly if
shooting in environments where lighting can be difficult, such as in a
thick forest. A little bit of noise in your image is more acceptable
(and easier to correct if you so wish) than an out-of-focus, or blurry
image.
#3 PERSEVERANCE
While there is no denying that a certain amount of luck definitely
comes in handy, the real key to taking better wildlife photographs is
patience. Not necessarily the patience required for your chosen subject
to appear, but the patience to capture the perfect shot that you have
envisioned.
When you do find an animal out in the wild, watch it for as long as
possible and not just from behind the viewfinder. Spend time with it and
learn its ways. While observing the animal, try to capture some form of
behaviour that is unique to that species. Documenting such behaviour
can produce compelling wildlife shots. Most importantly, enjoy the
experience of wildlife watching as much as taking photographs.
One quick tip is to keep all noise (as in be quiet, not camera noise)
to a minimum when you are shooting in the wild. Dress appropriately,
tread carefully, and possibly most importantly, switch your phone to
silent mode. There is nothing worse than framing a shot and having your
subject scared off by a ringing phone.
There may very well be some periods of waiting and watching. Try not
to get too focused on one particular subject, take a look around while
waiting for your subject to return. You never know, there may very well
be something more interesting waiting just around the corner.
If you want to put in more practice with your wildlife photography
but don’t have much time to spare, a public park can be a great place to
visit on a lunch hour or after work. Parks attract a range of wildlife
such as geese, swans or deer and often you can get a little bit nearer
to the action. A duck pond can produce many opportunities for action
shots and is a great place to practice your skills at close range.
#4 PASSION
To take your wildlife shots from good to great, you need to be
passionate about the natural world you are photographing. Take the time
to appreciate nature and wildlife in all of its forms, wherever you find
it. You do not have to go to an exotic location to do great wildlife
photography. For example, macro photography
offers a range of wildlife opportunities including spiders, beetles and
flies. As someone who was once highly arachnophobic, I can now
appreciate the beauty of spiders and, since photographing them, I do
find them more fascinating than scary.
You could even make a few simple changes to your own garden to encourage more wildlife to come to you.
Making your garden wildlife friendly can be relatively inexpensive and
highly beneficial to local wildlife. Adding a pond or wildflower patch
is both good for the environment, and may provide you with photographic
opportunities.
Most importantly, take great care when photographing wildlife. Do not
put yourself, or the wildlife, at risk and do not disturb their natural
habitats in the process of getting your shot. Respect all wildlife, get
to know your subject well and you will be rewarded with some great
images to share with others, to inspire them to care as much about the
natural world as you do. Share this article.
