Funkymunky wrote:.
How do you get the skies to be sovivid and blue,.
Increase saturation in photoshop or the PP program of your choice.
How come there is so much detail on a potrait shot ofa person?.
Sharp lense, longer focal length (to prevent cropping), good PP skills.
How are all this done??? Can someone please explain to me,the curiosity is killing me. Can I learn this from somewhere links,ebooks, etc?.
Shooting in RAW is your first answer, where you can play with WB, sharpness, contrast and saturation before converting to JPEG. Those should be your first few steps..
Example:.
Before.
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After, increase contrast, increase saturation, PP out the guy in white shirt..
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Tim'Be the change you wish to see in the world.' -Mahatma Gandhihttp://www.flickr.com/photos/timskis6/..
Another (possibly simpler) way of getting that sky is a circular polarizing filter (google it). They generally consist of two lenses fastened together the outermost of which you rotate until you get "that sky" you want. These generally don't work when pointing directly at or away from the sun though. For those you could use a sunset filter, or any number of warming filters. Your lens should have threads on the end to screw the filter on, just get the size off of it or take it to your camera store and they can help. Plan on spending anywhere from $30 to$100 depending on size and brand, but they are worth it.
Enjoy...
That may be of some help..
The first is an easy to understand tutorial by Bill Huber of the Olympus Talk Forum. ( Click on the Thumbnails ).
Http://www.pbase.com/otfchallenge/the_basics.
This site allows you to compare/practice settings..
Http://www.photonhead.com/exposure/simcam.php.
And finally this is an online site that has fairly comprehensive chapters that can be printed and kept for later reference. (click on each chapter and there will be subcategories.).
Http://www.shortcourses.com/using/Joe B..
Best wishes.
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Anything's possible if you don't know what you're talking about...
The vivid colors are often the result of post-processing. For good post-processing you need good software, which is unfortunately often expensive. Photoshop is the best, along with a raw processor. shooting in raw gives you more flexibility for fixing less-than-perfect exposure..
To get detail in a photo, you need to take a sharp photo. A good lens will help, but more important is to keep the camera steady, or use a fast shutter speed to "freeze" the movement if the subject is not stationary..
A good tripod will help with portraits & landscapes..
Generally, if you are shooting hand-held, if your focal length is 50mm, you will need a shutter speed of 1/50 or faster to avoid blur. if your focal length is 100mm, then you will need a speed of 1/100 or faster. etc..
This will help avoid blur caused by your hands moving the camera. if your subject is also moving, then you will need even faster shatter speeds to avoid blur..
Another important concept to understand is how aperture affects depth of field. shallow depth of field gives you the blurred backgrounds that help the main subject stand out in the photo..
Another thing that can affect exposure is ISO. Increasing ISO effectively makes the sensor more sensitive to light, so you don't have to let as much light in to get the same exposure, so you can close the aperture to give you more depth of field, or increase shutterspeed to help you avoid blur / freeze motion. It is also obviously helpful in situations where there is not much light..
The drawback of increasing the ISO is that it can add "noise" to your photos and make them look grainy..
Read through the pro forums and you will find examples of photos that include details on what settings were used when they were taken. you can also search - for example search on "depth of field" or "dof" and someone else may have asked the same question that you're thinking..
There are a lot of very talented pros on this site who are very happy to share their knowledge..
Oh, and practice, practice, practice!!!.
Enjoy.....
Timskis6 wrote:.
Funkymunky wrote:.
How do you get the skies to be sovivid and blue,.
Increase saturation in photoshop or the PP program of your choice.
The problem here is that most cameras tend to overexpose sky at the slightest provocation when in auto modes. (Not that sky is blown white, just blue histogram is a bit clipped, which produces bland and uninteresting sky.).
So, for better PP results it may be needed to underexpose a bit...
In my opinion and experience (as well as what some pros have said here an elsewhere), there's nothing wrong with shoot JPEG. There's also nothing wrong with trying to get the perfect shot straight out of the camera with minimal (or even no) post processing required. Even if you do end up with a problem picture, with most modern software you can edit/adjust a JPEG just as easily as RAW, and you can get exponentially more JPEG shots on your memory card as you can RAW, and your hard drive doesn't fill up so quickly..
I use an entry level DSLR (Olympus E-500) with the kit lenses, and on my recent trip to the Mediteranean, the skies and water were bright blue, the tile roofs were bright orange, and everything else was sharp, clear, and colorful. Every picture was taken in JPEG, and most required no post processing other than a resize and maybe some sharpening (usually because of the resize). FYI, the panorama in my signature has no color changes to it at all. I realize it's not a good quality example because it had to be resized so small, but the color is true. It was a breathtaking view and the camera captured it well...as a JPEG..
If you're intimidated by the idea of manual versus auto, I predominately shoot in aperture priority, which is still rather auto. The only time I shoot full manual is when I use an external flash, but even so it's not difficult to do. You just have to play around and get used to your camera. It's not like you're wasting film or anything..
Just keep experimenting and try to figure out how to get the most out of your camera. But don't think that you have to go RAW, spend a lot of time editing on the computer, or have a $5,000 DSLR in order to get nice shots, because you simply don't..
Chris(Gear in profile).
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Just an image after PP I saw on pbase for discussion sake. I notice heavy PP has been done to a stage that the photo looks more like a painting!.
Http://www.pbase.com/lysdexia/image/72914986..
Funkymunky wrote:.
Just an image after PP I saw on pbase for discussion sake. I noticeheavy PP has been done to a stage that the photo looks more like apainting!.
Http://www.pbase.com/lysdexia/image/72914986.
But do you really want that look? Honestly, there's nothing wrong with this type of image, but to me it's more in the digital art category than it is a photograph..
Chris(Gear in profile).
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The best way to get good blue skies ios to wait until the skies are blue, and tghen use a polarizing filter. These make the sky darker, more blue, and provide mpore contrast between the sky and any clouds..
They also take the glare off water, and sometimes of painted flat areas, and usually off glass. Pretty much the same as wearing polaroid sunglasses..
For clear portraits, the keys are making sure the light is sharp and contrasty enough. Sharp light is light that you can observe makes the faces clear just look around outside in the sun, outside in the shade, inside in subdued light, and you'll see for yourself..
As for software to modify pictures in the world of semi-advanced and advanced digital photography, more often than not the photographer makes the kinds of modifications to pictures using software that used to be made to naegatives in the automatic printing machines at the photolab. Or the darkroom specialist made in the darkfoom. These modifications mean making the picture a bit lighter or darker, modifying the color a little bit, and printing on normal, low contrast or high contrast paper, and on normal or more color-saturated paper..
You'll read about Photoshop. People suggesting this are either rich or don't know what they are talking about or careless writers..
It's very expensive, very complicated, and provides no useful advantage over Adobe Photoshop Elements, which is less than a quarter the price of the product know just as Photoshop or, more accurtately, Photoshop CS2 or CS3, aor some other name without "Elements" in it.n Photoshop Elements is available in Windows and Mac versions..
The latest Windows version is Element 5 and says on the box it is Vista and XP compatible look for this on the box if it matters to you..
THE BEST WAY to improve portraits is to pay attention to the contrast; if the overall lighting is flat, add some life to it, often using fill flash or a reflector. And if it is too contrast, fill in the dark side by fill flash or a reflector. Don't wipe out the shadows entirely..
BAK..