photo editing- photoshop levels

histograms

Histograms

I used photoshop to adjust the light and dark levels on this image. Althought they are subtle changes, you can still see them. The tone around the edges of step has been increased and also around the hand rail.

                                      

Edited

Unedited

I also used it to adjust the colours.

 Before

After

After

Here i started to use both 'colour' and 'black and white' in the same photo. To do this you use the brush tool to re apply the colour.

Here i was trying to see the max and minimum contrast you could use on one photo.

Original

High contrast

Low contrast

Finally we used the crop tool on our images.

Man Ray & Moholy Nagy

Man Ray was an American modernist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Being significantly known for his contribution to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal.

Born:August 27, 1890

Died:November 18, 1976

Periods: Surrealism, Modern art, Dada

Moholy Nagy,( full name László Moholy-Nagy) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts.

Born: June 20, 1895

Died: November 24, 1946

Periods: Good design, Bauhaus style, Modern art

 

Low key lighting

Low key lighting.

Using low-key lighting for portraits and still life photography can be one of the most enhancing photo effects you can use for creating a high quality, professional picture.

Low-key lighting makes the most of dark tones and shadows to create images with drama and atmosphere.

Unlike high-key photography, which requires plenty of natural or artificial light, a low-key lighting shoot requires very little. 

The backdrop needs to be mostly hidden in the shadows, while particular features on the subject are illuminated to make them stand out. 

This means that when you’re shooting low-key portraits you don’t need much in the way of lighting kit – a single flashgun mounted off-camera will be adequate. 

As shown below in this picture from 'Digital Camera Worlds' website.

Some DSLRs have an integrated transmitter, which enables you to fire a compatible external flash via the camera’s pop-up flash.

If your camera doesn't have this feature you’ll need a wireless flash trigger, which is mounted on your camera’s hotshoe.

For this technique the ambient lighting needs to be as low as possible, so shooting indoors is ideal.

You want to eliminate as much of the ambient light as possible, which you can do by narrowing your aperture; a fast shutter speed would achieve the same effect, but on cameras the top flash sync speed is either 1/200 or 1/250 sec. 

When you expose for the ambient light you don’t need to worry about underexposing your subject, as the flash will illuminate them – you can simply adjust the flash power as required to expose them correctly.

Here's a 'how to' on setting up your camera for low key lighting.

01 Location
A large and spacious room is ideal for this shoot. It doesn’t need to have good natural light – the darker the better in fact – and you don’t need to worry about cluttered backdrops, as only your subject should be visible when you exclude the ambient light.

02 Get set up
For this shoot a standard zoom lens will give you plenty of versatility. You don’t need a ‘fast’ portrait lens with a wide maximum aperture, as we’ll be using flash to light our model rather than relying on natural light.

As we’ll be shooting with an external flashgun you’ll need a light stand or tripod to place it on, using the mount supplied with the flashgun.

03 Camera settings
We want to eliminate as much of the ambient light as possible, so forget about exposing for your subject for the time being.

Set a low ISO of 100 to retain maximum quality for smooth, noise-free shadows, and set your shutter speed to the maximum flash sync speed, which is 1/200 sec (1/250 sec on higher-end EOS cameras). Start with a wide aperture value, such as f/5.6, and take a test shot.

04 Narrow the aperture
If the scene is still fairly light, dial in a narrower aperture and take another test shot, and repeat until you’ve eliminated all the ambient light and the whole scene appears dark.

You can use the histogram to help you; ideally there should be just a few lines of pixels clipped at the left-hand edge of the graph to indicate a heavily underexposed scene.

05 Flash settings
Now we need to set the camera’s pop-up flash to trigger our external flashgun. Select the first shooting menu, scroll down to ‘Flash control’ and press ‘Set’.

Next scroll down to ‘Built-in flash func’, press ‘Set’ and then scroll down to ‘Wireless func’ and press ‘Set’. You want to select the third option here, to fire just the external flashgun.

06 Test the flash
Set the flashgun to Slave mode (refer to your manual for how to do this), and make sure your camera and flashgun are set to the same channel so they can communicate; the default channel on your camera is 1.

Set your flashgun to Manual, and place it in front of your model to one side. Set the power to one-quarter to start with, take a test shot, and increase the flash power if your model appears underexposed.

07 Flash adjustments
If some of the background is illuminated and your subject is still underexposed, increase the flash power and move the flashgun more to the side of your subject, so that less light is falling on the backdrop.

Alternatively, you can move the flash closer to your model and reduce the power; the closer it is the less power will be required, and this will also reduce the amount of light hitting the backdrop.

 08 Start shooting

If you want to soften the effect of the flash you can direct the light into a light modifier, such as a reflective umbrella, to create a more diffuse light; you can achieve a similar effect by using a reflector to bounce the light back on to your model. When you’re happy with your exposure and flash settings, switch your lens to AF and start shooting.

There you have it. How to fully set up a camera for low key lighting.

Here are some examples of low key lighting photos that I've taken.

The pen tool

The pen tool.

What is it?

The pen tool is probably the most powerful and versatile tool in Illustrator. It can be used to create countless lines, curves and shapes, and serves as the building block for illustration and design. The tool is used by creating “anchor points,” and then by connecting those points with lines, which can be connected further to create shapes, (that you would be unable to make with regular straight lines or angles). Use of the pen tool is perfected through practice. Unlike many graphics software tools that have clear use and limitations, the pen tool is extremely flexible and encourages creativity. This can be used from the beginner stages or first time of use, right up to the 'adobe master' stage of life. Where I aim to be in the future... 

Below I've staged out the steps to use it and the different variations of it and its use. 

How to Use Adobe Illustrator Pen Tool.

(I used the following images from wiki how as they aided my explanation the best).

1.

The Pen Tool contains four tools inside, they are - Pen Tool(P), Add Anchor Point Tool(+), Delete Anchor Point Tool(-) and Convert Anchor Point Tool(Shift+C)

2.

The first is the Pen Tool, you can use this tool to create a vector, there are handles present in every point you made, this handle is used to adjust a curve or change the position of the point.

3.

To adjust the object shape, Select the Direct Selection Tool and click at the point you want to change, the handle will appear. Click at the handle an adjust it

4.

The second is Add Anchor Point Tool, This tool is used to add a new anchor point in a path. You can use it by selecting this tool and clicking at the position you want to add a new point on the path.

5.

The third is Delete Anchor Point Tool, it use to remove the point you don't need from your path, select the object to make it show the points, select this tool and click at the point you want to remove

6.

The last is Convert Anchor Point Tool, it use to change your path shape such as, from curve line to straight line.


Theres not really any health and safety concerns with this other than sitting a safe distance away from the screen to not strain your eyes as it is just using a mouse and monitor. other than that, you should be fine to just use this at will.

Shutter speed

shutter speed

In photography and digital photography the shutter speed is the unit of measurement which determines how long shutter remains open as the picture is taken. The slower the shutter speed, the longer the exposure time. The shutter speed and aperture together control the total amount of light reaching the sensor. Shutter speeds are expressed in seconds or fractions of a second. For example 2, 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000, 1/8000. Each speed increment halves the amount of light. 
Long-exposure photography involves using long-duration shutter speed to capture objects normally while blurring or smearing any moving objects. An example would be a city street in which the buildings remain normal in the picture, but the fast-moving cars whir by in streaks of color.

Mono printing

Mono print

In frottage the artist takes a pastel or pencil or other drawing tool and makes a rubbing over a textured surface. The drawing can be left as it is or used as the basis for further refinement. While superficially similar to brass rubbing and other forms of rubbing intended to reproduce an existing subject, and in fact sometimes being used as an alternate term for it, frottage differs in being aleatoric and random in nature.

It was developed by Ernst in 1925. Ernst was inspired by an ancient wooden floor where the grain of the planks had been accentuated by many years of scrubbing. The patterns of the graining suggested strange images to him. He captured these by laying sheets of paper on the floor and then rubbing over them with a soft pencil.

Photograms

Photograms.

A photogram takes the principles of photography right back to its roots using light to paint pictures. A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image that shows variations in tone depending upon the transparency of the objects used. Areas of the paper that have received no light appear white; those exposed through transparent or semi-transparent objects appear grey.

Developer. 

Why you need it: A developer reacts with the exposed areas of silver in the paper's emulsion turning these parts black to form an image. Areas that receive more light become blacker when developed. Areas that receive no light stay clear. You have to use a developer to produce a result.

Alternatives: You could make up your own developer. 

Stop bath.Why you need it: This is used to time how long the paper is in the developer, stop bath and fixer, although accurate timing is less important than it is with film processing.

Alternatives: If your clock or watch has a seconds finger you can use that. Even the timer on your mobile phone could be used. Or you could count out elephants!

Fix.

Why you need it: An acid solution that quickly counteracts the developer to prevent over development of the paper.

Alternatives: You can use water but it doesn't stop the developer as quick. As it's acetic acid some people use vinegar, but it's not recommended.

Timer.

Why you need it: This is used to time how long the paper is in the developer, stop bath and fixer, although accurate timing is less important than it is with film processing.

Alternatives: If your clock or watch has a seconds finger you can use that. Even the timer on your mobile phone could be used. Or you could count out elephants!

Wash. 

Why you need it: To ensure all traces of fixer are removed before the print is dried. 

Alternatives: It's possible to wash prints in a bucket of water, but keep changing the water to ensure best results and give each print a final wash under a tap. 

Three developing trays 

Why you need them: To hold the developer, stop bath and fix  for processing. 

Alternatives: Some photographers use cat litter trays or garden seed trays (without holes). Make sure the trays are shallow and not much bigger than the maximum prints you intend to make to avoid using too much solutions to cover the print.

Darkroom

A room that's blacked out with enough space to lay three 10x8in printing trays in a row with a bucket of water nearby and an area where you can expose the paper to light. 

Some photographers convert a spare room into a permanent darkroom others temporarily black out a bathroom or spare bedroom while they work. 

Light source

Most photographers who make photograms will also be making prints using an enlarger. This provides an ideal concentrated light source for the exposure of the photogram, but is not essential because they can be made using the room light or a reading light.

Sheet of glass

This is used to hold flat subjects in close contact with the paper or to raise the subject from the paper to produce a softer edge.

The step by step process.

1 Set up the light source so that it covers an area bigger than the paper you are going to use.

2 With the lights out and the safelight on, at a safe distance, arrange your objects on the paper.

3 Make a test strip (see separate article)

4 Switch the enlarger on and expose for the time determined by the test strip. As a guide ten seconds should be long enough with the lens set at f/8.

5 Carefully take the objects off the paper and place the paper in the developer, then stop bath, then fix (see test strip article for times). 

6 Wash and dry - success your first photogram! Ideally this should have clean white silhouettes against a rich black background. If you use transparent objects you'll end up with results more like Man Ray's rayogram with areas of grey too.

Some things you could used in a photogram.

Nuts & bolts, keys, feathers, ferns, pieces of cut card shapes, stencils, scissors, tools, nails, safety pins, paper clips, springs, plastic and glass items, netting, developing reels, negatives, bottles, hands, feet, lightbulbs, shells, dried fruit slices...and, most of all...imagination. In my oppinion, the best item i used was a section of chain off of my bike.