Photo insights June '15

Jim Zuckerman’s

PH OTO I N S I G HTS June 2015

• Realistic HDR • Selective focus • Simulating bokeh • Sepia & Dark Contrast • Online photo courses • Student showcase • Photo tours 1

4. Realistic HDR 10. Selective focus 17. Simulating bokeh 22. Whats wrong with this picture?

23. Short and sweet 26. Sepia & Dark Contrast 28. Ask Jim 31. Student showcase 35. Back issues

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e all have photography comfort zones.

Some of us feel uncomfortable photographing people, for example. Others are insecure in shooting macro subjects or night scenes or birds in flight. And a great many people are totally intimidated by Photoshop.

You can do one of two things about this. First, you can do nothing and continue to feel insecure. You won’t ever find out if you might actually like, and get joy from, another type of photography. Or, second, you can move outside your comfort zone and feel, in the worst case scenario, uncomfortable about doing another type of shooting. This might result in (1) never feeling insecure again about doing this, (2) producing a new body of work that you’re quite proud of, and (3) gaining well earned confidence to try other types of photography that you might also enjoy. In other words, there is only upside potential.

Many years ago I listened to a therapist who had a daily radio talk show, and she talked about moving through your fears. She said it was perfectly normal to feel fear, but that to grow you had to move through the fears and do the thing that inhibited you anyway. During the many photo tours I’ve led, I have seen dozens of people do this. Once they move through their fear of, say, taking pictures of people, they realize that their fears were really no big deal after all. And then when they get positive feedback from photo buddies, their camera club, and various instructors, they can’t believe that their fears actually held them back from enjoying this aspect of photography -- not to mention the engaging interaction with their subjects.

Keep this in mind. It’s a good lesson to remember.

Jim Zuckerman www.jimzuckerman.com

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REALISTIC HDR T

he number one complaint I hear from photographers about HDR is that it is too unrealistic. They tell me they are tired of the garish colors, the unreal skies, and the unnatural contrast and structure all of which are present in the picture on the next page.

Many of my clients have given up on HDR and don’t use it any more.

That’s a shame. Before Adobe stepped up to the plate with good HDR in Photoshop, we

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all used third party programs like Nik Software’s HDR Efex Pro 2 and Photomatix to process our bracketed exposures for the final HDR composite. Most of the presets and sliders in these programs were designed for the wow factor. The results were, to be sure, unrealistic, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the images aren’t good. I like a lot of punch in my work, and I still use both Nik and Photomatix.

However, when I want a realistic rendition of a contrasty scene, such as in the midday shot of Craigievar Castle in Scotland, below, there is a

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procedure built into Photoshop that can accomplish this. In fact, if you study the Scottish castle you will see that the exposure level, and the detail, in both the highlights and the shadows is virtually the same as you would expect to see had you been standing next to me when I took this. The sky is perfectly correct as well.

This technique can be used for all HDR composites in any kind of lighting, from interiors as in the ceiling shot of St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland, below, to the twilight shot of Eilean Donan Castle near the Isle of Skye, also in Scotland, on the next page.

Here is the step by step procedure: 1. In Adobe Bridge, click on the three or more bracketed exposures to highlight them. Don’t

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open them at this point.

2. Go to the pull down menu Tools > Photoshop > merge to HDR pro. In the dialog box that opens, below, choose 32 bit in the mode submenu and check the box ‘Complete Toning in Adobe Camera Raw’. Don’t check the

‘Remove ghosts’ box unless there are elements in your scene that have moved during the time you made the bracketed exposures, such as waves or leaves blowing in the wind.

3. In the same dialog box, in the lower right corner, click the blue button ‘Tone in ACR’ (not visible in the screen capture on page 6).

of clarity and vibrance. Click OK. 5. Go to Layer > flatten image.

6. Go to: Image > mode > 8-bit. (If you always work in 16-bit, then choose that option). This

4. This opens the Adobe Camera Raw dialog box you are familiar with, but now you can work in 32 bit which gives you unparalleled control over highlights and shadows.

Make the adjustments using the sliders and the other tools that, presumably, you know how to do. I usually bring the shadows slider all the way to the right (or almost all the way) and the highlights slider to the left. Then I’ll add a touch

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UPCOMING PHOTO WORKSHOPS Carnival in Venice, Italy Two tour dates, Feb. 2016

Outrageous costumes in a medieval environment! Venice is beautiful any time, but during carnival it’s beyond amazing.

Frog & Reptile Workshop Close-up encounters with poison dart frogs and exotic reptiles in St. Louis, MO.

April 11 - 12, 2015

Home Photoshop workshop Learn amazing techniques to help you be more creative in photography.

May 16-17, 2015

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opens a new dialog box (on page 7); at the same time, your picture becomes much too light. That will be corrected in the next action you take: At the method submenu (red arrow), pull down the menu and choose ‘exposure and gamma’. That brings the correct exposure back and completes the procedure.

You should use Photoshop’s HDR technique when you want to capture what you see with your eyes in terms of exposure and detail in the shadows and the highlights. Even subtle tones like a setting sun seen through atmospheric haze, below, is rendered exactly as it appeared to me when I took the picture. Although this scene was quite low in contrast, had I not used HDR the sun would have been so washed out that it would have been almost irrelevant, and the sky would be virtually solid white.

When you take the bracketed pictures, make sure you use the same f/stop for each one. This means you need to use either aperture priority or manual exposure mode.

I normally bracket in one f/stop increments and typically shoot either three frames or five frames for the composite. When contrast is fairly extreme, such as in the picture of the castle on page 4, I use two f/stop incremental exposures.

If the correct exposure per the camera’s meter is at 1/125 at f/11, then I’ll shoot at 1/30 and 1/500, for example, in addition to the 1/125 speed.

As the f/stop increments increase, contrast in the final composite is lowered. That’s the point, of course. But sometimes you want to retain a bit of contrast. If your HDR images are too flat, use only a one f/stop increment between exposures and that should solve the issue. §

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Selective Focus

have critiqued litterally tens of thousands of photographs in my online courses as well as in person during my photo tours, and a recurring issue that comes up with every picture -- and indeed it is integral to photography -- is depth of field. I have very strong opinions about what makes a good picture, and therefore I have strong opinions about what should and should not be in focus.

Photographers, like all artists, see things from many points of view. Other instructors and authors of photographic topics will see things differently than I do, but I assume that since you are reading this eMagazine you value my thoughts on what contributes to, and what detracts from, successful images.

The thing about depth of field is that it is entirely a man-made construct. We never

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see anything out of focus. In our vision, foregrounds, backgrounds, and subjects are always in focus. Only in a photograph can we blur various parts of a scene or subject, and often this is considered artistic.

I also think that blurred portions of an image can be desirable for artistic purposes. However, it has to be done judiciously and with a practiced eye.

For example, the picture of the tulip on the previous page shows the flower engulfed in a haze of pink color. This works perfectly. The out of focus flowers in the foreground are so blurred and undefined that they are not distracting at all. Quite the opposite. The haze of color adds an ethereal, artistic quality to the composition The background is a bit more defined, but it, too, complements the subject because it helps to direct all of our attention exactly where it

should be -- on the subject. This is selective focus at its best.

To accomplish this look, I used a 400mm focal length (the new Canon 100-400mm zoom) and placed the lens three or four inches from the nearest flowers. I focused on a tulip in the center of the cluster. In this way, the foreground flowers blurred to such an extent that they have been reduced simply to a translucent haze of color.

By contrast, in the photo below of the Old Man of Storr located in the Isle of Skye, Scotland, the lower right corner is out of focus and this is something you should avoid at all costs. This is not artistic at all; rather, it’s distracting and unattractive. This picture should have been taken with a lens aperture of f/32.

Sometimes the depth of field is so shallow that

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only a small slice of the subject is in focus. The shot on the previous page shows this. That can work only if the surrounding areas are a complete blur. It’s also important that the out of focus portions of the image aren’t crucial to be seen clearly. In the case of the flower on page 12, all we need for the graphic design to be successful here is the stem and the buttom of the tulip. Some of the image must be sharp. Had the entire subject been soft, this wouldn’t have worked.

the bird are so out of focus that they complement the subject and provide a non-distracting environment.

Shallow depth of field, i.e. selective focus, makes an otherwise distracting background completely out of focus, isolates a subject from its background, and focus all of the attention on the subject. A case in point is the picture of the crowned crane I captured in the Masai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya. I shot this with a 500mm plus a 2x teleconverter producing 1000mm of focal length. The grasses behind

2. The lens-subject distance should be relatively short. You can’t shoot a subject 100 feet away, for example, with any lens and expect the background to be completely soft. The closer the lens is to the subject, the more out of focus the background will be.

In reviewing what is needed to create backgrounds that are completely out of focus, here are the ingredients: 1. You need a telephoto lens, and the longer the focal length, the more out of focus the background will be.

3. The distance between the subject and the background should be relatively large. The fur-

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ther away the background is from the subject, the more out of focus it will be. If you take a picture of a bird building a nest and branches of the tree are only two or three feet behind the bird (right), there is no way you can make those branches into a blur. In this situation, if you want the background to be a complementary blur, you’d need to replace it in Photoshop. I took this picture of the egret in breeding plumage with a 500mm lens at f/4, and still the near background isnt a complete blur simply because it’s too close to the subject. You can see that the distant foliage is completely blurred. It was about 40 feet distant.

Similarly, the facade of the building in the photo below is too close to the wisteria to be rendered out of focus with any lens and/or any lens aperture. It’s too close to the flowers.

4. You must use a large lens aperture. If you

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want the kind of images you see in this article, shoot wide open. If you close the lens down even a little, you’ll start to get definition in the foreground, such as what you see in the photo below. According to my own sense of aesthetics, this begins to be distracting. This picture still pleases me, but if I had used any lens aperture smaller than what I did here -- f/6.3 -- I wouldn’t have liked it.

Selective focus is a technique that shouldn’t be overused. After a while, all those images comprised of primarily out of focus color get old.

At least, for me they do. They are a creative departure from everything being tack sharp, but ultimately we need to see and appreciate macro subjects, landscapes, portraits, wildlife, and other subjects with tack sharp clarity. There’s nothing quite like an intriguing or beautiful subject revealed with amazing detail like the velvet ant at right. §

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Simulating Bokeh B

okeh refers to ‘the way a lens renders out of focus points of light.’ It is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced by the out of focus parts of an image. For many years, photographers used the Gaussian blur command in Photoshop to do this (Filter > blur > gaussian blur), but this tool never really looked like the type of blur created by the optics in a lens.

We now have a tool in Photoshop that exactly duplicates the type of bokeh created by a lens.

It is most useful when a background is distracting, messy, and unattractive, such as the

metal cage behind the eastern rosella, below left, that I photographed in a small aviary in Holland.

After making a selection of the bird (I used Topaz Remask for this to retain the details in the feathers particularly below the tail), I used Select > inverse and grabbed only the background. I then chose Filter > blur gallery > field blur.

This command turns the cursor into a push pin icon. I then clicked on the background in the upper left area and a circle appeared (the upper right image on the next page). This can be dragged anywhere in the picture, and when the white portion of the outer circle is extended or contracted, the amount of blur is increased or

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decreased. Once you dial in the amount of blur that makes sense, you can click in another place in the background to add more blur. For the image of the bird, I had to use as much blur as possible to completely obliterate the cross mesh. The blur is cummulative. So, you can keep adding abstraction to the background until it is completely unrecognizable.

That’s what I did in the photo below, too. This portrait from Burma shows a very distracting background. Not only are the shapes behind the girl too defined and too graphic, but the overexposed highlights draw our attention away from the girl’s face.

You can see how the picture on the next page is vastly improved. I selected the subject with the quick selection tool (this hides beneath the magic wand tool in Photoshop), and then used

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Select > inverse which selected everything except the girl which obviously is the background. I feathered the edge three pixels and then applied the field blur several times until the shapes in the background were totally abstracted. I also lightened the girl’s face on her right side using the dodge tool on 40% opacity.

I don’t work on layers to do this kind of adjustment, but most Photoshop instructors teach that it’s a good idea to do so. If you prefer this method, then simply make a duplicate layer before you begin using the command Layer > new > layer via copy or simply Command/Ctrl J. Then you can apply the blur. The advantage of this is that you can then blend the effect with the original image using the opacity slider within the layers dialog box (the red arrow below). §

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LEARNING TO SEE

online course

by Jim Zuckerman

The ability to ‘see photographically’, to really grasp how your camera and lenses capture a subject or scene (which is different than how we see with our eyes) underlies successful picture taking. It is the bottom line that you’ve been looking for to take that quantum leap forward in your photography.

The great thing about online courses is that they can fit into any schedule. Life gets in the way at times, and Jim puts no limit on the time you can submit your work for his critiques. CLICK THIS PAGE to read more about this course.

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INDONESIA WILDLIFE & CULTURAL TOUR June 8 - 22, 2015

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What’s wrong with this picture?

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nlarge this image on your iPad, iPhone, or computer and you’ll see that this photo of a baby orangutan has an unacceptable problem: The mouth and chin are not tack sharp. In other words, the depth of field was too shallow. Yes, the most important thing is to focus on the eyes, but since the lower part of the face is so prominent and so important to the picture, it should be sharp. I discussed the technique of selective focus in the article on page 10 in this issue, and shallow depth of field has its place. However, this is not the type of situation where you’d want to use it.

The issue here is that I used a 300mm f/2.8 lens for this picture with the aperture set to wide open. F/2.8 is a very large lens aperture for a 300mm lens, and in fact I paid a lot of money for this lens specifically to have such a large aperture for use in low light situations. The depth of field, though, is so shallow at that opening that in many scenarios it’s the wrong aperture to use. In this case, I paid a price. The picture is not successful.

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I also don’t like the fact that the mother’s arm is so out of focus, but I could live with that if I had to. But half the face of the baby being soft doesn’t work.

The photo above is much better. However, I used the same f/2.8 aperture to shoot it. What’s the difference? The plane of this baby’s face was almost parallel with the digital sensor (i.e. the ‘film plane’), and that made the depth of field sufficient so all of the features are sharp. I was lucky the baby tilted its head this way, but if you understand depth of field, then you know shooting a flat subject parallel to the back of the camera produces good DOF at any lens aperture -even f/2.8.

Still, the lesson here is that while large lens openings are great for low light photography, don’t be seduced by them. The reason why I never bought an 85mm f/1.2, for example, is that for portraits (for which they are primarily designed) they just don’t have enough depth of field to focus on the eyes and keep the nose in focus as well. If you close down to f/4 or f/5.6, then what’s the point of spending a lot of money on a super fast lens?

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SHORT AND SWEET 1.

When shooting straight up, it’s very hard to align the camera perfectly with your subject’s lines and design. Use the live view feature on your camera to do this. In this way, you can orient the camera correctly and study the composition before shooting.

2. When photographing animals with black feathers

or fur, like this European coot, front lighting is best.

If they are backlit or side lit, the lighting will be so contrasty that in most cases they just won’t look good.

The shadows will go totally black with no detail.

3. Use AI servo, or autofocus tracking, even for slow 4.

moving subjects like this narrow gauge train in Scotland. You will be guaranteed that the subject will be in focus. The only thing to watch for is that the surround ing environment doesn’t fool the AF mechanism. Make sure you know where the AF points are.

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Try using a wide angle lens close to your subjects.

It’s a unique perspective. I shot this picture of wild bluebells in England with a 14mm wide angle lens placed about 6 to 8 inches above the tops of the flowers. I put the camera on Program mode, knowing that with this lens there would be enough depth of field. §

Photography Tours 2015 - 2016 VIETNAM, CAMBODIA, LAOS BURMA (MYANMAR) Sept, 2015 Sept, 2015

ETHIOPIA November, 2015

CARNIVAL IN VENICE Feb, 2016

SNOWY OWLS Feb. 2016

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS Mar, 2016

WHITE HORSES, FRANCE April, 2016

CROATIA, SLOVENIA, MONT. May, 2016

GREECE May, 2016

ARMENIA & GEORGIA June 2016

INDONESIA July 2016

CHINA Sept. 2016

For a complete list of all the photo tours/workshops Jim conducts, go to his website: www.jimzuckerman.com.

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S

Sepia and Dark Contrast

epia toning is a very old technique in photography. It’s one of the first darkroom procedures I learned. In the digital realm, you can combine it with one of the Nik Software filters to produce beautiful images from color originals.

Open an image in Photoshop and then use the pulldown menu command Image > adjustments > black & white. Use the sliders in the dialog box, right, to adjust the image to taste, and then at the bottom of the dialog box click the ‘tint’ box. That instantly turns the image into a sepia toned photograph. You can move the hue slider to adjust the color and move the saturation slider to the left to desaturate the color.

Then, in Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro 4, choose

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Dark Contrast. This filter adds contrast, structure, and clarity to the picture which gives it a richness and depth for a classic look. §

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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. If you have a question you’d like Jim to answer, please drop him a note at photos@jimzuckerman.com.

Q: Jim . . .I shot this flag using a shutter speed of 1/100th of a second, and I’m not sure if that was a mis-

take. The reason I say that is because the left half of the flag is not quite sharp, and while it shows motion, I think you’d say this isn’t correct. Should my shutter speed have been faster, slower, or is this ok?

Ruth Mason, Amarillo, Texas

A:

In my opinion, your shutter should have been faster. Instead of creating an artistic blur, this looks like a mistake -- like you meant to freeze the movement but wasn’t successful in doing so. Alternatively, you could have used a much longer exposure, say 1/10th of a second, so the flag was decidedly blurred. You could actually go either way, faster or slow, but what you did doesn’t work in my opinion.

© 2015 Warren Fessell

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Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos photo tour

September 13 - 28, 2015 Culture • Ancient ruins • Great people photography • Temples

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SNOWY OWLS WORKSHOP February 14-17, 2016

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Student Showcase

Each month, Jim features one student who took beautiful and inspiring images on one or more 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.

Margaret Page, Midland, Georgia, Spain/Portugal, Morocco, American Southwest, Botswana

Š 2015 Margaret Page

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Student Showcase, continued

Š 2015 Margaret Page

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Student Showcase, continued

Š 2015 Margaret Page

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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my home

Sat. & Sun., Oct. 17 - 18, 2015

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, replacing backgrounds, using layer masks, blend modes, adding a moon, 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.

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

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

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 or with a GPS. 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.

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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PHOTO INSIGHTS® published by Jim Zuckerman, all rights reserved © Jim Zuckerman 2015 email: photos@jimzuckerman.com mail address: P.O. Box 7, Arrington, TN 37014

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Yasmin Verheijen 3rd runner up Miss Universe 2014 37