Ok, ehasler, heres how i do it...
Discussion
Here is a quick guide to how I shoot still life. I chose my old, battered nokia because its quite dark which makes exposure a bit more tricky, and it has reflective surfaces which can cause problems.
Here is the finished article. It looks a bit turd now its been shrunk and compressed but hey:
I like my photos quite edgy and contrasty so I use a lot of quite strong directional light.
However for this photo i needed to diffuse the main light source a bit so i wrapped my strip desklamp in tissue paper to soften the light a bit.
I did this because otherwise the light wouldnt fall properly across the black subject.
The other light to cast a stronger shadow.
A picture paints a thousand words, so here is how I set them up. Two cheap desklamps. Nice and easy:
I over exposed the photo purposefully to stop it looking too flat, as my camera cant hack high contrast photos too well otherwise (dark objects look crap).
Here is how it came out of the camera:
not bad i thought...
but as you can see my phone has been abused and there is dust trapped under the plastic on the screen, and the photo is slightly overexposed....
SO:
open photoshop,
Use the unsharp mask filter to give the image a bit more punch. Play around with the settings to see what happens but i used:
Amount:100%, Radius 6.8 pixels, and threshold 44 levels.
Then open the levels tool and choose the black and white point using the pipettes on the right to get the exposure balanced.
Last step was to grab the clone tool and tidy up the scratches and dust.
I hope this is useful!
Matt
Here is the finished article. It looks a bit turd now its been shrunk and compressed but hey:
I like my photos quite edgy and contrasty so I use a lot of quite strong directional light.
However for this photo i needed to diffuse the main light source a bit so i wrapped my strip desklamp in tissue paper to soften the light a bit.
I did this because otherwise the light wouldnt fall properly across the black subject.
The other light to cast a stronger shadow.
A picture paints a thousand words, so here is how I set them up. Two cheap desklamps. Nice and easy:
I over exposed the photo purposefully to stop it looking too flat, as my camera cant hack high contrast photos too well otherwise (dark objects look crap).
Here is how it came out of the camera:
not bad i thought...
but as you can see my phone has been abused and there is dust trapped under the plastic on the screen, and the photo is slightly overexposed....
SO:
open photoshop,
Use the unsharp mask filter to give the image a bit more punch. Play around with the settings to see what happens but i used:
Amount:100%, Radius 6.8 pixels, and threshold 44 levels.
Then open the levels tool and choose the black and white point using the pipettes on the right to get the exposure balanced.
Last step was to grab the clone tool and tidy up the scratches and dust.
I hope this is useful!
Matt
Damn useful 
LB
edited to say:
Been meaning to post for a while, asking why certain pics (especially GetCarter's
) literally jump out at you with their vibrance, while I feel mine just don't seem to have the same effect.
Obviously taking into account subject matter, what's missing in mine, preventing them from making the viewer say "wow"?
Couple of samples:
>> Edited by luca brazzi on Tuesday 18th May 13:24
LB
edited to say:
Been meaning to post for a while, asking why certain pics (especially GetCarter's
) literally jump out at you with their vibrance, while I feel mine just don't seem to have the same effect. Obviously taking into account subject matter, what's missing in mine, preventing them from making the viewer say "wow"?
Couple of samples:
>> Edited by luca brazzi on Tuesday 18th May 13:24
Very good work on the lighting front. (good editing too).
Been reading up on this in my new book.
Now where can get a sheet of white paper and 2 desk lamps twice the size of my Griff?
Spent a weekend snapping the car and just collected the results. Im stunned, amazed and very excited. They look fantastic.
Good photography makes me feel great.
Perhaps I should buy an EOS300D after all
Been reading up on this in my new book.
Now where can get a sheet of white paper and 2 desk lamps twice the size of my Griff?
Spent a weekend snapping the car and just collected the results. Im stunned, amazed and very excited. They look fantastic.
Good photography makes me feel great.
Perhaps I should buy an EOS300D after all
pleaseluca brazzi said:There are some very good books on the subject (I'm half-way through this one at the moment), but the main thing which makes a picture leap out at you is contrast.
Been meaning to post for a while, asking why certain pics (especially GetCarter's
You can tweak this in Photoshop by using the Levels and Curves tools.
These are very powerful tools, and you can do pretty much everything you need to with them - especially curves.
A very quick overview of how to increase the contrast though is as follows:
With your image open, open the Levels dialogue.
What you should see in a well exposed picture is a histogram which looks like an upsidedown U which spreads across most of the window, but doesn't quite touch the sides. If everything is scrunched up at the left then the image is very dark (i.e. underexposed) and if it's over to the right, it's very light (overexposed).
What you do next is to select each colour in the dropdown list in turn (e.g., do Red, then Green then Blue instead of just RGB), and slide the left and right arrows in until you just start clipping the histogram.
You can see what pixels are being clipped by holding down the Alt key (on a PC) at the same time that you slide, and this shows the pixels that will be clipped. Basically what happens is that all pixels up to the point of the arrow will be set to either 0 or 255 depending on whether you're sliding the left or right slider. The remaining levels then get spread out across the histogram.
If you do this for each of the 3 colours, you should see the image become more contrasty, and by selecting/deselecting the "Preview" tick box, you can see what effect it has on the image.
Curves are more powerful and complicated, so I won't try to explain them here, but basically it turns the existing level of a pixel (x axis) to a new level (y axis), so for example by adding a point to the top right of the line (assuming you're using it in RGB mode) and moving it up, you are making all the light pixels lighter.
There's a whole load more you can do with adjustment layers, but most photo manipulation can be done just by using levels and curves.
There are lots of tutorials on the net too - this is quite a good overview one.
That's a superb guide! I've just bought this which is also a very good guide to digital photography in general www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/8931435010/qid=1084886466/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_0_1/026-6282569-9695615
With still life, I've found you can create some amazing tinting effects without using Photoshop or filters, just by using different flash and WB combinations.
This is something I knocked up a couple of days ago, when fiddling with WB and DOF
Facts, figures : EOS300D, 18-55mm, f3.5, flash fill, fluorescent tube WB. Shot against white paper.
Now, if anyone can give some good tips on dusk shoots, that would be appreciated. Went out last night to take some arty dusk shots of the Chim and ended up with a heap of underexposed blur!!
Steve
With still life, I've found you can create some amazing tinting effects without using Photoshop or filters, just by using different flash and WB combinations.
This is something I knocked up a couple of days ago, when fiddling with WB and DOF
Facts, figures : EOS300D, 18-55mm, f3.5, flash fill, fluorescent tube WB. Shot against white paper.
Now, if anyone can give some good tips on dusk shoots, that would be appreciated. Went out last night to take some arty dusk shots of the Chim and ended up with a heap of underexposed blur!!
Steve
fatsteve said:My only advice would be to use a tripod and assuming you're trying to capture the colours in the sky like the shot below,
Now, if anyone can give some good tips on dusk shoots, that would be appreciated. Went out last night to take some arty dusk shots of the Chim and ended up with a heap of underexposed blur!!
Steve
then you need to expose for the sun/sky (use the spot meter on the camera) rather than the car or scenery as otherwise the sky will be blown out.
It's pretty hard to get this right, so the best thing to do is just take several shots using different exposure settings and see what comes out best.
ehasler said:
Now, if anyone can give some good tips on dusk shoots, that would be appreciated. Went out last night to take some arty dusk shots of the Chim and ended up with a heap of underexposed blur!!
Steve
My only advice would be to use a tripod and assuming you're trying to capture the colours in the sky like the shot below,
then you need to expose for the sun/sky (use the spot meter on the camera) rather than the car or scenery as otherwise the sky will be blown out.
It's pretty hard to get this right, so the best thing to do is just take several shots using different exposure settings and see what comes out best.
Wow, that's the kiddie, that really is beautiful. Did you use on of those star-cross filters.
luca brazzi said:
Obviously taking into account subject matter, what's missing in mine, preventing them from making the viewer say "wow"?
Good question. I'll have a go with my 4p worth... There's nothing 'wrong' with them particularly, but as you say they don't strike you either. IMHO I think it's because you're trying to take a 'nice' photo but in doing so you lose focus (not literally!). The one that stands out to me is the close-up of bracken. I want to look harder at it. The other one is a picture of a cat and the other one is a picture of a bush. Nice cat but that's about it.
There's a big difference between a photo you take for a record and one you take for effect - a piece of art if you like. Not many photos get you staring at them looking for more; the sort you can climb in and look round.
I love to get in close and cut out a piece of detail which the eye wouldn't normally notice. It turns an ordinary object, eg a bush, into something much more interesting. The pic below was taken outside my patio door with a 3.2Mp digital compact - and every time I see it I still like it. The black is natural, IIRC
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