I upgraded to Adobe Lightroom 6 with some trepidation, after reading about and not being impressed by the new features. Adobe touted HDR and Panorama Merge especially, and my thought was “so what?” I’m no HDR fan, and for panoramas I get great results with Microsoft ICE. What I wish for in Lightroom is more […]
A Most Important Thing ____ 2014/02
Early on, nature photographers are taught the necessity of using a tripod. The great teacher John Shaw calls the tripod a crucial, best single accessory. Pros use tripods. With a tripod you slow down, take control and become a better photographer. You can better fine tune compositions, pick and choose elements like line and shape, […]
Lightroom 5 HSL Panel: More Pop and Mystery ____ 2013/12
Last year (2012/09 Photo Tip), I wrote about using Lightroom Development tools to create Pop and Mystery in a photo. The gist: darken skies, selectively increase color saturation and increase contrast. Ansel Adams famously said the negative is the score, the print the performance. The RAW file you create in camera is a digital negative; […]
Photo Tip: Microsoft ICE for panoramas ____ 2013/09
For Windows users—Vista, XP, Windows 7 or 8—Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor), version 1.4.4, generates single or multi-row panoramas with a speed and accuracy that leaves Photoshop eating dust. It’s a free, no-frills, stand-alone application. I downloaded it last month after having some difficulty with Elements 10’s Photomerge Panorama. Re-loading Elements 10, as well as […]
Photo Tip: Focus Stacking ____ 2011/06
Focus stacking is a relatively new digital imaging technique, especially useful for macro and scientific photography, and an occasional aid for landscapes and small portraits as well. It’s a clever digital answer to lens optic limits that conspire to demolish resolution and depth-of-field (DOF). Image resolution falls precipitously at high f-stops (f/22 and smaller). Depth-of-field […]
Got Histogram? Field Tool Extraordinaire ____ 04/2010
A camera’s histogram is a great field tool, among the best of tools in a digital photographer’s kit. It’s in the review mode built into almost every camera; some cameras even have it “live”. So take advantage of it. Learn how to use the histogram. As photographers, we’re always pushing the review button to see […]
Photo Tip: Backpacker Panorama Hardware __ 09/2009
A year ago I built a light-weight panorama tool out of wood. My hope was to make back-country panoramas. My dream was to rival the pixel count of high-end, medium-format digital backs, or scanned 4×5 film cameras without the weight, bulk or cost. Here in Washington State, I imagined Prusik Peak in the Enchantments, or […]
Tutorial: Adobe Elements 6 Panoramas ___ 08/2008
Edited 3/15/2013. Prior to Elements 6, on the rare occasion that I made panoramas, I stitched images manually. A big problem was that automated stitch programs produced banding in the sky, often accompanied by bizarrely-merged foregrounds. But when I saw a Mark Galer example (Adobe Photoshop Elements 6: Unleashing the hidden performance of Elements) demonstrating […]
Tutorial: Floral Portrait Conundrum ___ 07/2007
When shooting wildflower or floral portraits — pictures of single flowers or small groups of flowers — it’s often difficult to achieve both sharpness in the flower(s) and pleasing, poster-like, out-of-focus backgrounds. In the past I ususally went for the pleasing background, picking the most important floral part, like the stigma or edge of a […]