Photo Insights Feb. '13

Jim Zuckerman’s

PH OTO I N S I G HTS February 2013

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Filter Forge Layer masks Grunge Reflections Travel photography Photo tours Student showcase

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Table of Contents

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Filter Forge Layer masks Reflections Travel photography What’s wrong with this photo?

Short and Sweet Ask Jim Grunge composites Student showcase Back issues

Many years ago I had an elderly lady as a student on several of my photography workshops and tours, and she constantly bombarded me with questions before she’d take a single picture. She was very inhibited and wanted confirmation that she was doing everything right. She would begin her questions with opening lines like, ‘What if I tried this…’ or ‘What would happen if I did that …’ It turned out that she was so afraid of making a mistake that her fear was paralyzing her from even trying. I had known her for many years, so I felt comfortable in finally saying, ‘Barbara, just shut up and shoot!’ What I was really saying, of course – and she heard this loud and clear – was to just take the shot and if it didn’t turn out, it was okay. The world would not come to an end and nothing bad was going to happen. If she didn’t like the results, I could help her figure out what the problem was and then she’d try it again.

Even professional photographers have to do this. No pro takes perfect pictures every time. If we get a great picture in one out of ten we’re really happy. With subjects like wildlife photography, the percentage of great images is much less than this.

Part of the learning process is making mistakes. We all know this, but sometimes people are so inhibited they forget. The idea of failing is a frightening proposition to some. The solution to dealing with this fear is to realize you can simply hit the delete key and try again.

Not getting a great picture when you are trying very hard has nothing to do with your self worth or your abilities as an artist. It just means that you didn’t get a great picture. Join the club.

My friend Barbara, after my ‘shut up and shoot’ comment, put that on her peronalized license plate: S U A S. It reminds her to take risks in photography and in life.

Jim photos@jimzuckerman.com www.jimzuckerman.com

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FILTER FORGE expand your mind

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ilter Forge is a program that allows you to manipulate photographs in unbelievable ways. It is a stand-alone program, and without a doubt it is the most incredible software since Photoshop -- and that’s saying a lot. You can access approximately 10,000 filters, and each one has multiple presets, and each one of those can be adjusted and tweaked with sliders. The bottom line is that there are so many possible combinations that you could devote the rest of your life to creating incredible images from the pictures you already have in your files and you wouldn’t live long enough to see the end of the possibilities.

Compare three images -- the cover of this issue (a painterly lion portrait), the photo on the previous page (a closeup of a costumed model in Venice, Italy during Carnival), and the staircase below I shot in a bookstore in Porto, Portugal. These are three completely different types of effects, and they were all done using just three filters within the Filter Forge software.

An effect that I’ve been wanting for many years is a way to turn any photograph into a kaleidoscopic abstraction. Filter Forge has several filters devoted to this particular effect, and they are all different. With the various permutations of the presets and the sliders, a single Filter Forge defines infinity. There’s never a light at the photograph can produce scores of unbelievably beautiend of the tunnel because the tunnel goes on forever. ful images.

That’s how many effects there are.

On the following page, you can see two kaleidoscopic And, unlike many other creative programs and Photo- images at the top, and they both come from the origshop plug-ins, the effects are so varied, so unique, and inal photo below that I took in the Eastern Sierras in so mind-blowing that you can produce artistic images California. I obviously added a lot of color saturation, way beyond your imagination and your expectation. but the texture, the graphic design, and the patterns are quite intriguing. Every time you move any of the sliders Needless to say, I’m impressed! in the dialog box you get something different, and it’s completely unpredictable. That’s part of the fun.

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When I want to hold detail in a certain part of the image, such as the eyes in the portrait of another costumed model in Venice, right, I apply the filter (this one is called Daub in Filter Forge) to create a pointillistic impression over the whole photograph, and then I bring back the detail to a certain degree using a layer mask in Photoshop (I explain how to do this in the next section).

Because Filter Forge has thousands of filters and tens of thousands of permutations, any kind of subject can be manipulated with wonderful artistic results. One of my favorite subjects, nature, can be turned into amazing works of art. Butterflies, flowers, leaves, mushrooms, rock textures, feathers -- whatever you can think of.

The red spotted purple butterfly I photographed in Tennessee is an example. The original capture in the inset shows you what a remarkable transformation this was.

If this painterly image were printed on a large canvas and framed, no one would imagine that this was originally a photograph.

To really give you a sense of the unlimited creative potential of this software, the picture at the top of the next page began with the same butterfly, but this time I ran the image through a fractal-generating filter. The resulting abstraction is completely different. This shows

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UPCOMING PHOTO WORKSHOPS Baby Wildlife Workshop Hinckley, Minnesota June 14 - 16, 2013

Frog & Reptile Workshop St. Louis, Missouri June 22 - 23, 2013

Two back-to-back Carnival Workshops, Venice, Italy Feb. 21 - 27 - 23, 2014 Feb. 27 - March 5, 2014

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you that a single image can be turned into a huge number of variations, most of which will be very different from the others.

The picture at right is the same staircase from a bookstore in Porto, Portugal that you see reproduced on page five. What an astonishing difference! Both creations are intriguing and artistic, and they are totally different from each other.

Many of the images you create with Filter Forge are rendered quickly. My digital files are around 60 megabytes, and these typically take 30 to 60 seconds to render into a TIFF file. However, some of the filters can take quite a bit longer. While the effect is being generated, you can work in other applications, including surfing the Internet, so your computer can work in the background.

If you like thinking outside the box, or if you feel stagnant in your creativity, Filter Forge is a brilliant way to kickstart your photography. When you first get the program, it may be confusing that you only see a few filters. However, in the upper right section of the dialog box there is a link that reads: Filter Library: Download More Filters. This is the portal to the almost 10,000 filters and effects that come with the software. ยง

http://ww.filterforge.com/ 9

LAYER MASKS made easy

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nce you know how to do something, it doesn’t seem difficult at all. Before you have the knowledge, though, the task at hand often seems quite challenging.

Layer masks in Photoshop are just like that. They are very easy. If you don’t know what they do or how to do them, they seem difficult to master.

In photography, a mask originally refered to a film image (such as a high contrast, all black and clear piece of litho film) that prevented light from exposing certain portions of an underlying image. The black areas of the mask prevented exposure while the clear areas allowed light to come through and expose an underlying piece of film or photo paper. This was normally done in the darkroom. In this way, you could lighten or darken certain areas of the photograph (such as darkening a sky that is too light). A mask could also give you a great deal of control when compositing two or more images together, like when you wanted to replace a sky. The new sky had to be prevented from being superimposed over the landscape, for example, and that’s what a mask would do.

In the digital realm, we use masks the same way but now they are layers instead of film. In Photoshop, though, we are able to be much more precise and we have much more control and no darkroom chemicals.

A case in point: The unmanipulated portrait of a costumed model in Venice at the top left of the next column was modified with Filter Forge, top right. I love the effect but I lost definition in the eyes, and that doesn’t work for me. So, the question is, how to keep the pointilistic treatment but bring back the compelling eyes of this model.

The answer is a layer mask. Here are the steps I used to achieve the final image on the following page: 1. Select the manipulated version with Select > all.

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2. Copy this to the clipboard, Photoshop’s temporary (and invisible) holding place, Edit > copy.

3. Paste the clipboard image over the original photo with Edit > paste.

4. Click on the icon as indicated by the red arrow, below. This shortcut creates the layer mask.

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5. Make sure the color boxes at the bottom of the tools palette are black/white, respectively.

6. Click on the brush tool and choose the size of the brush you want with the right and left bracket keys next to the ‘P’ on the keyboard.

7. At this point, you can paint away the pointilistic effect until the eyes show through. By adjusting the opacity of the brush (in the tool bar), you can vary the amount that the layer is brushed away.

Example two The photo below is an elephant skull I happened upon in Kenya several years ago. I always liked the image except for the very distracting white sky. This was originally shot on film, and at the time there wasn’t much that could be done to replace the sky and make it look perfectly real. Using a layer mask in Photoshop, though, solves the problem.

Replacing a sky with leaves or palm fronds is challenging for the same reason hair is difficult. The edges of the leaves or fronds are slightly translucent and they show some of the background color and tone. In other words, the plant material doesn’t just end and the

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background begins with a razor sharp demarcation line. Instead, there is a two or three pixel transition in which some of the light and color from the sky shows through. You just can’t cut around this accurately with any of the tools in Photoshop.

I got around this problem by using the gradient tool. I used the same steps as in the previous example, except after the clouds were pasted over the elephant skull photo with Edit > paste, instead of selecting the brush tool, I chose the gradient tool. I then dragged the cursor from the midpoint in the photo to the top of the picture, and the clouds blended gradually with the tree and the skull.

It took three or four attempts to get the blending just right. The way the clouds blend with the landscape depends on precisely where I started dragging. Also, note the curvature of the top of the tree. Therefore, instead of choosing the straight gradient tool, I chose the circular gradient as shown below. These icons appear in the tool bar only when the gradient tool is selected. §

Tips for Shooting

REFLECTIONS

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his picture of autumn leaves reflecting in a Vermont stream looks more like a painting than a photograph. Or, you might think I used a Photoshop plug-in to get this effect. In fact, this is exactly what I saw at the time with one caveat: 13

I am presenting the image upside down. The forest appears right side up, and since reflections are always seen upside down, it’s obvious that I reversed this.

I find this to be a compelling way of showing reflections. By inverting them they look like watercolor paintings. This is the first tip I wanted to offer.

Second, make sure you use complete depth of field.

Usually the lens you use for reflections is a telephoto, and that means right off the bat the depth of field is shallow. I feel that the entire reflection should be sharp, and with the back of the camera oblique to the water’s surface (as is usually the case when shooting reflections), you need a small aperture like f/22 or f/32 to recover the lost focus.

Third, focus on the reflected subject, not on the surface of the water.

Fourth, if you include the subject itself, then the reflection should encompass the entire subject and not

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a portion of it. For example, in the shot of the leopard, below, notice that I included the entire curvature of the cat’s back. It would be very easy to overlook this in the heat of the moment. With such a stunning photographic opportunity, some people get so excited that they only direct their attention on the subject and forget about the rest of the image -- the background, the horizon line, the foreground, the periphery of the composition, etc.

I always tell people who travel with me on my photography tours that it’s fine to get excited when you see something great ... but get the picture first and then you can emote. Don’t let the excitement cause a brain freeze. I know this often isn’t easy, and it takes mental discipline to put the emotions aside while you focus on the camera’s controls and the composition, but that’s one important ingredient in taking successful pictures. Concentrate on the getting the shot: the background, the framing, the light, the expression, etc., and then after you’ve captured the moment in the best way possible, you can get excited and share the special experience with others. §

Check out these great eBooks click each ebook to see what’s inside

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TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY PRECONCEPTIONS

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hen I first joined a stock photo agency, I was highly motivated to be successful.

Since I was competing with the best photographers in the world, I knew I had to do anything and everything to make my photographs outstanding. Since I love travel photography so much, a large percentage of the work I submitted to the agency was from other countries. I quickly realized as I traveled that serendipity wasn’t reliable enough to allow me to consistently take strong images. Sure, once in a while I would have a wonderful photo opportunity because I was in the right place at the right time, but usually this didn’t happen. Therefore, it was up to me to make things happen.

When I travel, I constantly ask myself “What if...?” In other words, what if I had the ideal scenerio? What would that be? What could I do to make a shot overthe-top fantastic? Would it take hiring a model, using Photoshop, adding a prop, gain an elevated vantage point, or something else?

For example, the facade of the architecture in a private

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home in Jodhpur, India, above, makes a bold picture, but the addition of the model makes it exponentially better. This section of the city is famous for wonderful color, and by adding the human element -- and introducing vibrant magenta -- I made the picture much more compelling (and marketable).

Similarly, what if I had a model in front of the beautiful canal in Venice, Italy, below. Not only would that

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make a stronger image, but it would sell more readily as well. This picture was done in Photoshop. I cut out the model and the post and pasted them in front of the background.

Many times I will see a cultural performance when I travel, and usually it is not conducive to taking great pictures. For example, my seat might be at a bad angle, the background might be distracting from where I’m sitting, the performance could be outdoors in the middle of the day, or the light level might be too low for high quality photography.

Consider the Kecak Fire Dance from Bali, Indonesia, on the previous page. It is always performed at night. This requires a flash, then, but on-camera flash from the audience is not attractive. Also, I don’t like the light fall-off on the background. To get the picture I saw in my mind, I spoke to the director of the dance company and negotiated a price to hire the entire company to perform for me and the people in my photo tour group. I became the director, and whatever I wanted the dancers would do. I chose the time of day (5pm to avoid mid-day sunlight), the arrangement of the performers (I wanted the most graphically pleasing composition based on the actual

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correography of the dance), and I told the dancers not to dance but to pose as if they were dancing. That way we didn’t have to worry about fast shutter speeds. Everyone in my group took turns shooting from a midpoint above the dancers to capture a classically beautiful and symmetrical travel image. This wonderful picture came about because I asked myself, “What if I could make the best photographic scenario possible?”

I was able to take the photo below on the island of Borocay in the Philippines using a similar idea. I wanted to shoot carnival there, but I was two weeks late. So, I spoke to the concierge at my hotel to see if he could arrange three of the costumed participants for a photo session. After he made some calls we settled on a price for three teenage boys to be at the location of my choice. I did some scouting and came up with the beach. Again I had to wear the director’s hat, and I suggested poses, chose the shooting angle per the direction of light, and ended up with some images that were unique, visually compelling, and culturally representative of the Philippines.

When I was in Iceland with a photo tour group, one of my goals was to photograph the beautiful Icelandic po-

nies. However, I didn’t want pictures of horses grazing in a distant field. Horses with their heads in the grass make boring pictures. I wanted them to be animated so we could get action shots, and I wanted to get close enough to take portraits in beautiful light. I asked my local guide if he could arrange this, and he contacted a farmer who has about a hundred horses. He agreed to let us photograph them, for a fee of course, and he helped get them running for us. In beautiful sunset lighting, it was a visual treat. Everyone in my group got beautiful pictures that would have been impossible simply shooting from the road. Having access to the horses and the farm made the difference.

You can do the same thing when you travel, either domestically or internationally. The three best resources for getting permission to do pretty much anything are taxi drivers, the concierge at your hotel, and a local tour guide you can hire. If they don’t know who to call to make the arrangements you want, they know someone who does. In this way, I have been able to take amazing pictures wherever I go. I can’t always get what I want, but much of the time I can simply because I preconceive what I want and then I’m persistent in getting it done. §

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What’s wrong with this picture?

There are two things about this picture that are good, and there are three things that are bad.

On the positive side of the ledger, the rose breasted cockatoo is a beautiful bird. Great subjects make great pictures. In addition, the lighting was soft and diffused, and it’s certainly complementary to the subject. Contrast is minimal and that made good exposure easy.

On the negative side, the background is so bad that it ruins the picture.

This image taken in captivity has no redeeming qualities at all other than showing a beautiful exotic bird.

The other thing I don’t like is that the perch looks too artificial, as if it were specifically set up for a captive bird.

Also, the right side of the branch is out of focus, and in most circumstances soft foregrounds are distracting and unattractive.

The photo on the next page shows the remarkable difference after some Photoshop work. I used a distant jungle hillside as the background (I purposely photographed it out of focus for future use as a natural background), and for the perch I cloned from one picture to another (with both images open on my desktop).

Finally, I darkened the bottom of the branch using the burn tool on 50% opacity. Even with diffused daylight, the underside of subjects receives less light than the portions facing the sky.

The shadow on the branch matches the original shadow on the chest of the cockatoo which helps make this look real. § 20

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SHORT AND SWEET 1.

When you compose the sun far away from the center of the viewfinder, it’s influence on the meter reading is significantly reduced. This is especially true at sunrise or sunset because the atmospheric haze reduces the light more than at other times of the day.

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4. Consider using a wide angle lens for environmental portraiture. Usually when photographers photograph people, we think of a medium telephoto first. Try using a wide angle placed very close to the subject. It provides a unique and dramatic perspective. I took this image of a Karo tribesman in Ethiopia with a 14mm lens. §

When shooting cityscapes, look for elevated points of view. They give a great sense of the place. This is Tallinn, Estonia I photographed from a tower in a cathedral. I often choose hotels consisting of many floors just to be able to shoot these types of images.

When shooting in low light circumstances, such as these oryx at a water hole in Namibia after dark, you can’t rely on autofocus to work. It doesn’t have enough contrast to lock onto the subject. Use manual focus, and always bring a high intensity flashlight to help you focus on the subject.

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Photography Tours 2013/2014 EASTERN TURKEY August, 2013

LONDON/PARIS August, 2013

BHUTAN October, 2013

NAMIBIA November, 2013

COSTA RICA December, 2013

TIGERS & PANDAS in CHINA January, 2014

CARNIVAL IN VENICE February, 2014

SOUTHWEST USA March, 2014

MONGOLIA September, 2014

Check out the itineraries and photo galleries from these and other tours: www.jimzuckerman.com.

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ASK JIM

Every month Jim will answer a question from his online students, from people who participate in his tours and workshops, or from subscribers to this magazine.

Q:

Is there an easy way to get rid of a lens flare using photoshop? Are there techniques that will reduce it without taking hours of painting and other tedious operations. In the photo below, the flare at the top center above the stained glass window is obviously unattractive. Thanks.

Mac Wheeler, Peoria, IL

A:

Excellent question, Mac. There are many situations in which flare occurs, and how you handle it depends on the background. For example, lens flare in a blue sky can be easily eliminated using the healing brush, the patch tool, or content aware (Edit > fill -- then use: content aware).

Regarding the cathedral image below, this is much more complicated. There are three techniques you must use to eliminate the flare -- and you need all three. First, before you do anything, try this: Select the flare and use the hue/saturation dialog box to reduce saturation in a specific color. This works surprisingly well.

For example, the flare is green/blue. Therefore, in the submenu within the hue/saturation dialog box, first select blue and reduce saturation. Then select cyan and do the same thing, and finally try green. You might also try yellow. By reducing the saturation of the color, the flare will partially or totally disappear.

Second, at 300 or 400% enlargement, use the clone tool where possible. The curved sections will be problemeatic, though, so you can only clone certain portions of the flare.

Third, you have to use cut and paste. Select a section of the curved concrete support struts without the flare, and then paste that over the portions affected with the flare. Rotate the layer (Edit > transform > rotate) so it naturally extends the curved line, and then flatten the layer and use the clone tool and healing brush to blend the new section with the background.

I didn’t say this would be easy, but these are the steps you should take to elliminate the flare.

(c) Mac Wheeler 2012

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Costa Rica Hummingbird Photo Tour Nov. 30 - Dec. 6, 2013

Hummingbirds - Rainforest - Great reptile shoot - Awesome photography

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GRUNGE COMPOSITES

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runge can be thought of as a gritty, coarse, pattern or texture that is combined with an original photograph to add an artistic flair indicative of a painting. The types of images you can use for a grunge look vary widely. You can create your own or buy collections of them online (for example, from flypaper.com).

Creating your own grunge images requires you to see artistic potential in subjects that you most likely would never shoot. You must look for subtle textures and patterns that won’t overpower the subject. For example, a brick pattern wouldn’t work at all. It’s too bold. On the other hand, a plastered wall would be perfect. That’s what I used with the tall ship, above.

Start focusing your attention on subjects that can be combined with other images. For example, when I led a photo tour to Indonesia in 2011, my group and I had lunch in a restaurant in Bali. I noticed that so many of the 12 x 12 inch tiles on the floor had interestingl texture, color, and random patterns. I photographed some of them, and the image of the tattooed man at right was 26

made with one of the closeup tile photos I took with a 50mm macro lens.

For the horse portrait below, I used a tight shot of rough stucco on a building in Venice, Italy.

A partial list of subjects that often work well as grunge backgrounds are: Brushed metal Scuffed or cracked porcelain Weathered wood Watercolor paint smeared on white paper Off-white plaster Sections of concrete sidewalks or driveways Canvas Art and hand-made paper Old stucco Pealing paint Sand Rock surfaces Taut leather Travertine tile Rusted metal

The technique The way you combine the grunge texture with the original photo is easy. First, select the texture image with Select > all. This is followed by Edit > copy which places the grunge photo in the clipboard. Then, use Edit > paste.

Now the grunge image is a layer on top of the background.

Next, go to the blend modes. They are accessed in the layers palette with the pull down submenu (red arrow, right).

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oosF Choose one blend mode after another until you like the effect. Usually one or two of the blends will look very good while the others won’t work at all.

Instead of manually choosing each blend mode, which gets laborious, you can scroll through them by holding down the Shift key and hitting the + key when the move tool is selected. in the tools palette.

You can also blend images with opacity. Once you have a layer floating on top of the background image, use the opacity pull down slider in the layers palette to adjust the opacity. You can do this in any blend mode as well as when no blend mode is chosen.

I use the blend modes for many different kinds of effects. For example, in the Civil War battle reenactment photo, below, I gave it a vintage look. For the Venetian carnival portrait, right, I made it look like a painting rather than a photograph. Blend modes are amazing. §

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Get professionalcritiques critiques of yourof workyour work Get professional with Jim’s online courses with Jim’s online courses Betterphoto.com betterphoto.com Learn composition, exposure, Photoshop, beginning fundamentals, techniques in low light photography, flash, making money in photography, and more at your convenience and on your schedule.

5000 20 pounds of northern elephant seal, San Miguel Island, Channel Islands National Park, Ventura, California

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Student Showcase

Each month, Jim features one or more students who took beautiful and inspiring images on one of his photography tours or workshops. It’s really fascinating how photographers see and compose such different images even though we may go to the same place. Everyone gets great images on my trips.

Renee Doyle, Queensland, Australia

Photo Tour to Ireland; Carnival in Venice workshop (3 times!); online Photoshop course

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Renee Doyle, Queensland, Australia

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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my home

Sat. & Sun., April 20, 21

Photoshop is a photographer’s best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless. In a personal and ‘homey’ environment (I have a very cool classroom setup in my home), I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, using ‘grunge’ textures, modifying lighting, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many great techniques that you won’t believe what you’ll be able to do. I go over each technique several times to make sure you understand it and can remember it.

creative ideas that will inspire you to produce amazing images with the pictures you’ve already taken.

Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. My approach is to be as expansive in my thinking as possible in creating unique, artistic, and compelling images. In addition to showing you how to use the various tools, pull down menus, layers, and so on, I spend a lot of time giving you

Contact me if you would like to participate in the workshop and I will tell you how to sign up (photos@jimzuckerman.com). All you need is a laptop and a lot of your pictures. If you don’t have a laptop, I have two Mac Book Pro laptops I can loan out for the duration of the workshop. §

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I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and if you fly into the airport (BNA) I will pick you up. If you drive, I’ll give you my address and you can find my home on Mapquest. For the $450 fee, I include one dinner in my home (prepared by my wife who is an amazing cook and hostess) and two lunches, plus shuttling you back and forth from my home to your nearby hotel.

Click on the past issues of

PH OTO I N S I G HTS you would like to read.

Nov. ‘12

Dec. ‘12

Jan. ‘13

Feb. ‘13

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PHOTO INSIGHTS®

published by Jim Zuckerman, all rights reserved © Jim Zuckerman 2013 email: photos@jimzuckerman.com physical address: P.O. Box 7, Arrington, TN 37014

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