Using your smartphone to improve your photography
24/01/12 22:01 Filed in: Smartphone | IPhone
Using your smartphone to improve your photography
by Kristin Bishop
I have been shooting Nikon DSLR cameras since 2004, and added the iPhone to my gear list a few years ago. I have always believed the adage that “it’s not the camera, it’s the photographer,” and smartphone photography has clearly proved this beyond all doubt. There are many sites and forums devoted to iPhoneography/Droidography and associated apps for photographers to explore. Apps provide many advanced functions, including the ability to stitch panoramas, use layers, and merge HDR images. These functions and more can be done on the mobile phone, but add an iPad to the mix, and all can be accomplished with much more ease. Additionally, there are many iPad-only apps.
© 2011 Kristin Bishop
The Marines weren't going to let a little thing like a 5.9 magnitude earthquake stop them from putting on their last Tuesday night Sunset Parade of the summer season at Iwo Jima... so I had to go as planned. Drum & Bugle Corps ("The Commandant's Own") was terrific, and the silent drill team was impressive, as always.
I first began using the iPhone camera gradually, because I originally didn’t see the utility of it. But inspired by some of my friends’ iPhone work, I slowly began using it when scouting locations for later shoots with my DSLR. Then I was invited to join an iPhone Pic of the Day group on Facebook for 2010. Previously, I had never been able to envision a 365-day project (or even a 52-week project) because I just couldn’t commit to carrying my “big girl camera” around that much. But then I had the iPhone – “the best camera is the one you have with you.” (Chase Jarvis) So I successfully completed my Pic of the Day project for 2010 and later accomplished a less demanding iPhone Pic of the Week project for 2011.
© 2011 Kristin Bishop
The Discus Thrower, located in Edward R. Kelly Park (Wash, DC), was a gift from the Italian Government as thanks for U.S. help in recovering stolen pieces of Italian art during WWII.
Another advantage to using the iPhone for the Pic of the Day was that it forced me out of my comfort zone. My preferred DSLR subjects are wildlife and landscapes, for the most part. Having to take a photo every day encouraged me to vary my subject matter, and I had to rely on my “foot zoom” to get the compositions I wanted.
© 2011 Kristin Bishop
The White House
The bottom line is that my iPhone has helped me improve my DSLR photography, because I’m shooting more often and continuing to improve my eye. I would encourage any photographer to try it for at least a month, since I know a year is a big commitment. Take a photo a day with your smartphone, even if you don’t publish it. (Posting them does help keep you accountable, though – I post mine to Facebook.) I think you’ll find it a valuable exercise.
Kristin is an avid photographer living in the Washington DC area. You can see more of her work at: http://kbishop.smugmug.com/ .
Coming Up Soon on So You Bought a Camera: Kristin introduces us to an inspirational iPhone artist and we get to take a look at some of his legacy.
by Kristin Bishop
I have been shooting Nikon DSLR cameras since 2004, and added the iPhone to my gear list a few years ago. I have always believed the adage that “it’s not the camera, it’s the photographer,” and smartphone photography has clearly proved this beyond all doubt. There are many sites and forums devoted to iPhoneography/Droidography and associated apps for photographers to explore. Apps provide many advanced functions, including the ability to stitch panoramas, use layers, and merge HDR images. These functions and more can be done on the mobile phone, but add an iPad to the mix, and all can be accomplished with much more ease. Additionally, there are many iPad-only apps.
© 2011 Kristin Bishop
The Marines weren't going to let a little thing like a 5.9 magnitude earthquake stop them from putting on their last Tuesday night Sunset Parade of the summer season at Iwo Jima... so I had to go as planned. Drum & Bugle Corps ("The Commandant's Own") was terrific, and the silent drill team was impressive, as always.
I first began using the iPhone camera gradually, because I originally didn’t see the utility of it. But inspired by some of my friends’ iPhone work, I slowly began using it when scouting locations for later shoots with my DSLR. Then I was invited to join an iPhone Pic of the Day group on Facebook for 2010. Previously, I had never been able to envision a 365-day project (or even a 52-week project) because I just couldn’t commit to carrying my “big girl camera” around that much. But then I had the iPhone – “the best camera is the one you have with you.” (Chase Jarvis) So I successfully completed my Pic of the Day project for 2010 and later accomplished a less demanding iPhone Pic of the Week project for 2011.
© 2011 Kristin Bishop
The Discus Thrower, located in Edward R. Kelly Park (Wash, DC), was a gift from the Italian Government as thanks for U.S. help in recovering stolen pieces of Italian art during WWII.
Another advantage to using the iPhone for the Pic of the Day was that it forced me out of my comfort zone. My preferred DSLR subjects are wildlife and landscapes, for the most part. Having to take a photo every day encouraged me to vary my subject matter, and I had to rely on my “foot zoom” to get the compositions I wanted.
© 2011 Kristin Bishop
The White House
The bottom line is that my iPhone has helped me improve my DSLR photography, because I’m shooting more often and continuing to improve my eye. I would encourage any photographer to try it for at least a month, since I know a year is a big commitment. Take a photo a day with your smartphone, even if you don’t publish it. (Posting them does help keep you accountable, though – I post mine to Facebook.) I think you’ll find it a valuable exercise.
Kristin is an avid photographer living in the Washington DC area. You can see more of her work at: http://kbishop.smugmug.com/ .
Coming Up Soon on So You Bought a Camera: Kristin introduces us to an inspirational iPhone artist and we get to take a look at some of his legacy.
The One Thing
22/01/12 10:35 Filed in: Color Calibration
The One Thing
In a prior essay I posited that, to create photographic art, the camera, lens, computer, software, and printer were in essence irrelevant. I did so not to imply that decisions about these five things would not effect your final product but to establish that the majority of modern cameras, lenses, computers, and software are of a sufficient quality to make very nice art. I also wanted to establish that printing your art at home is not the most economical solution or highest quality solution for the majority of photographers. However, at the conclusion of the essay I stipulated that, in my opinion, there was one piece of hardware that every serious digital photographer should purchase.
As photographers we worry about the lighting, the focus, the aperture, etc. Then we worry about post processing our images. We want the eyes to be sharp and the backgrounds to be blurry. We want the sky to be blue, the grass green and the snow to be white. Every photographer knows the disappointment that comes back in the mail and that vibrant, spectacular, “National Geographic” quality photograph looks dull and lifeless as a print. Why does it happen everyday to millions of photographers around the world? It happens because what we see on our screens is not being communicated to the printer and the most common reason for this happening is that our screens are lying to us.
A CCD camera sensor: The sensor is the heart of a digital camera. It has been called “digital film” but it is far more complex than film. The Sensor is made of of millions of little squares called pixels and these are used to translate what you see, through the lens, into a digital photo. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Beauchamp)
Let’s imagine a simplified version of the data contained in a digital image. Each image is made up of millions of little squares called pixels and each one of these squares contains two important pieces of information. They contain a number that represents the luminance, that is how bright or dark that little square is supposed to be and a number that represents a color that the square is supposed to be. In theory, if we have a bright red pixel recorded on the camera sensor then that same color red pixel will be displayed on the computer screen and that same color red will be printed on the printer or by the printing lab. Everyone that has ever printed a photo at home or at a one hour photo can tell you that this rarely if ever happens. More than once I have heard people complain about the quality of the print that was produced on their printer or from the one hour photo. The vast majority of the time the printer or photo lab is not to blame. The blame almost always can be placed directly on an uncalibrated monitor.
My monitor is brand new, how can it be uncalibrated? Do you know how much I paid for it?
It does not matter if you monitor is new, old, or somewhere in between, it still needs to be calibrated. In fact most monitors are shipped calibrated but the calibration used is not one that is designed for color accuracy. Instead it is designed for high contrast and saturated images. In the early days of computing the monitors were pretty bad. They were dim, lacked resolution, and the ability to produce really rich colors. These monitors were essentially television sets without a tuner. In an effort to make programs like word processors, computer aided design programs and spreadsheets easier to read, the computer and monitor manufactures started adjusting their monitors to show brighter whites, darker blacks and more saturated colors. Then the age of video games hit full force and there was even more desire to have a super saturated, super bright screen. This super saturated/bright screen was a very good thing for most uses of the computer. In fact, that desire to have brighter, saturated and eventually bigger, high resolution, monitors led to the development of the modern flat screen displays that we all now take for granted. However, in 1987 a little program named Photoshop appeared. With the advent of Photoshop, a new age of photography was born and a need to reproduce the on-screen images in an accurate fashion was needed.
This really was not a new problem. In the 1950s the post war world transformed from an age of black and white printing to color printing and a system needed to be developed that could standardize colors. This problem was solved by the Pantone company. They began standardizing colors and eventually their color system was being used by every magazine publisher, auto body shop, fine art reproduction service, and just about anyone else in the world that needed to reproduce anything in color. Pantone used swatch booklets, called formula guides, to distribute the standardized color pallets to printing houses.
A Solid Matte Formula Guide from Pantone, 2005 edition. (Photo Credit: Reid Parham)
By 1993 the need to have a standardized method of representing color was at an all time high. Roughly compatible systems emerged as the industry standards. Apple introduced a system called Colorsync at the system level on every Macintosh Computer and a consortium of several different companies united to establish the International Color Consortium or ICC standard of color. Unfortunately, it would take until 1997 for Microsoft to incorporate this standard into their operating systems at a system level. Early on it was not fun calibrating a monitor. It involved some very tedious and time consuming matching of colors to a printed standard. Luckily for today’s digital photographers the entire process has been automated. Nevertheless there is no free lunch and to get a nicely calibrated monitor you are going to have to purchase a colorimeter. A colorimeter is a device that measures the colors produced by your computer and monitor and then compares them to a known color standard for cameras and printers in order to calibrate your monitor.
Just pick the brand you like and that fits your needs and budget, plug it in and in about ten minutes you will be a lot closer to being a better photographer. Well, at least your prints will look a lot more like what you saw on the camera.
All of the major brands of colorimeters work basically the same. The less expensive models work well for machines with only one monitor. The more expensive models can color match two or more monitors on a single computer. A colorimeter usually looks like a stick or a puck and either affixes to your monitor screen with a suction cup or hangs over the top of your monitor by its cords in such a way that a photoreceptor, on the colorimeter comes into contact with a designated section of your monitor screen. Then when you run the included software, a number of color swatches will appear on your screen. The colorimeter then measures how bright these colors are and what color they are displayed as on the monitor screen. At the completion of the measurements, which usually takes several minutes, the program will save a customized color profile for your monitor. The new color profile will be used by your computer and you can rest assured that your colors are being displayed accurately.
Having a calibrated monitor is a wonderful thing. It allows you make your monitor tell the truth but it goes a bit farther than just making your monitor tell the truth, it can also help you see if your printer is telling the truth. In many of the best photo editing programs you can do what is known as a soft proof of your images. A soft proof is only really capable with a calibrated monitor. Every major printer company provides color tables or profiles for their printers. These files can usually be downloaded from the printer company’s web site or may be included in the installation package for the printer. Most professional labs will provide, at your request, a copy of the printer profiles they use and you can then add those to your color settings on your computer. Then a program like Apple’s Aperture 3 will allow you to “soft proof” your image on-screen. In other words, you can preview a very good approximation of what your finished print will look like on any given printer for which you have a current printer profile. This is a very important tool for a photographer. Not all printers are created equal and they can vary widely in their ability to produce certain colors. So the calibrated monitor with a printer profile is important to at least have a heads up on what you can expect when you hit the print button.
Two on screen soft proofs of a recent cell phone photo. The image on the left is a soft proof based on the printer characteristics of a local print shop and the image on the right is the soft proof of the printer currently being used by Bay Photo. As you can tell the image on the left represents the blacks as more of a dirty dark grey. If I were planning on having the local printing house reproduce this image I would need to increase my saturation and contrast a bit to achieve the desired look.
Conclusion
I know this essay was long. However, I wanted to do more than just say buy a colorimeter. I think it is important to know why you should buy something. I know that money does not grow on trees and that photography is an expensive hobby. I believe enough in the importance of a colorimeter that I use one myself. Below you will find some links to the colorimeters that I recommend. Now, Get out there and get shooting. -- Enjoy
Coming up on So You Bought a Camera: A series on cell phone photography and then it is time for Photography 101. We are going back to basics and we are going to cover the fundamentals of cameras and photography. It is going to be a fun and informative year.
In a prior essay I posited that, to create photographic art, the camera, lens, computer, software, and printer were in essence irrelevant. I did so not to imply that decisions about these five things would not effect your final product but to establish that the majority of modern cameras, lenses, computers, and software are of a sufficient quality to make very nice art. I also wanted to establish that printing your art at home is not the most economical solution or highest quality solution for the majority of photographers. However, at the conclusion of the essay I stipulated that, in my opinion, there was one piece of hardware that every serious digital photographer should purchase.
As photographers we worry about the lighting, the focus, the aperture, etc. Then we worry about post processing our images. We want the eyes to be sharp and the backgrounds to be blurry. We want the sky to be blue, the grass green and the snow to be white. Every photographer knows the disappointment that comes back in the mail and that vibrant, spectacular, “National Geographic” quality photograph looks dull and lifeless as a print. Why does it happen everyday to millions of photographers around the world? It happens because what we see on our screens is not being communicated to the printer and the most common reason for this happening is that our screens are lying to us.
A CCD camera sensor: The sensor is the heart of a digital camera. It has been called “digital film” but it is far more complex than film. The Sensor is made of of millions of little squares called pixels and these are used to translate what you see, through the lens, into a digital photo. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Beauchamp)
Let’s imagine a simplified version of the data contained in a digital image. Each image is made up of millions of little squares called pixels and each one of these squares contains two important pieces of information. They contain a number that represents the luminance, that is how bright or dark that little square is supposed to be and a number that represents a color that the square is supposed to be. In theory, if we have a bright red pixel recorded on the camera sensor then that same color red pixel will be displayed on the computer screen and that same color red will be printed on the printer or by the printing lab. Everyone that has ever printed a photo at home or at a one hour photo can tell you that this rarely if ever happens. More than once I have heard people complain about the quality of the print that was produced on their printer or from the one hour photo. The vast majority of the time the printer or photo lab is not to blame. The blame almost always can be placed directly on an uncalibrated monitor.
My monitor is brand new, how can it be uncalibrated? Do you know how much I paid for it?
It does not matter if you monitor is new, old, or somewhere in between, it still needs to be calibrated. In fact most monitors are shipped calibrated but the calibration used is not one that is designed for color accuracy. Instead it is designed for high contrast and saturated images. In the early days of computing the monitors were pretty bad. They were dim, lacked resolution, and the ability to produce really rich colors. These monitors were essentially television sets without a tuner. In an effort to make programs like word processors, computer aided design programs and spreadsheets easier to read, the computer and monitor manufactures started adjusting their monitors to show brighter whites, darker blacks and more saturated colors. Then the age of video games hit full force and there was even more desire to have a super saturated, super bright screen. This super saturated/bright screen was a very good thing for most uses of the computer. In fact, that desire to have brighter, saturated and eventually bigger, high resolution, monitors led to the development of the modern flat screen displays that we all now take for granted. However, in 1987 a little program named Photoshop appeared. With the advent of Photoshop, a new age of photography was born and a need to reproduce the on-screen images in an accurate fashion was needed.
This really was not a new problem. In the 1950s the post war world transformed from an age of black and white printing to color printing and a system needed to be developed that could standardize colors. This problem was solved by the Pantone company. They began standardizing colors and eventually their color system was being used by every magazine publisher, auto body shop, fine art reproduction service, and just about anyone else in the world that needed to reproduce anything in color. Pantone used swatch booklets, called formula guides, to distribute the standardized color pallets to printing houses.
A Solid Matte Formula Guide from Pantone, 2005 edition. (Photo Credit: Reid Parham)
By 1993 the need to have a standardized method of representing color was at an all time high. Roughly compatible systems emerged as the industry standards. Apple introduced a system called Colorsync at the system level on every Macintosh Computer and a consortium of several different companies united to establish the International Color Consortium or ICC standard of color. Unfortunately, it would take until 1997 for Microsoft to incorporate this standard into their operating systems at a system level. Early on it was not fun calibrating a monitor. It involved some very tedious and time consuming matching of colors to a printed standard. Luckily for today’s digital photographers the entire process has been automated. Nevertheless there is no free lunch and to get a nicely calibrated monitor you are going to have to purchase a colorimeter. A colorimeter is a device that measures the colors produced by your computer and monitor and then compares them to a known color standard for cameras and printers in order to calibrate your monitor.
Just pick the brand you like and that fits your needs and budget, plug it in and in about ten minutes you will be a lot closer to being a better photographer. Well, at least your prints will look a lot more like what you saw on the camera.
All of the major brands of colorimeters work basically the same. The less expensive models work well for machines with only one monitor. The more expensive models can color match two or more monitors on a single computer. A colorimeter usually looks like a stick or a puck and either affixes to your monitor screen with a suction cup or hangs over the top of your monitor by its cords in such a way that a photoreceptor, on the colorimeter comes into contact with a designated section of your monitor screen. Then when you run the included software, a number of color swatches will appear on your screen. The colorimeter then measures how bright these colors are and what color they are displayed as on the monitor screen. At the completion of the measurements, which usually takes several minutes, the program will save a customized color profile for your monitor. The new color profile will be used by your computer and you can rest assured that your colors are being displayed accurately.
Having a calibrated monitor is a wonderful thing. It allows you make your monitor tell the truth but it goes a bit farther than just making your monitor tell the truth, it can also help you see if your printer is telling the truth. In many of the best photo editing programs you can do what is known as a soft proof of your images. A soft proof is only really capable with a calibrated monitor. Every major printer company provides color tables or profiles for their printers. These files can usually be downloaded from the printer company’s web site or may be included in the installation package for the printer. Most professional labs will provide, at your request, a copy of the printer profiles they use and you can then add those to your color settings on your computer. Then a program like Apple’s Aperture 3 will allow you to “soft proof” your image on-screen. In other words, you can preview a very good approximation of what your finished print will look like on any given printer for which you have a current printer profile. This is a very important tool for a photographer. Not all printers are created equal and they can vary widely in their ability to produce certain colors. So the calibrated monitor with a printer profile is important to at least have a heads up on what you can expect when you hit the print button.
Two on screen soft proofs of a recent cell phone photo. The image on the left is a soft proof based on the printer characteristics of a local print shop and the image on the right is the soft proof of the printer currently being used by Bay Photo. As you can tell the image on the left represents the blacks as more of a dirty dark grey. If I were planning on having the local printing house reproduce this image I would need to increase my saturation and contrast a bit to achieve the desired look.
Conclusion
I know this essay was long. However, I wanted to do more than just say buy a colorimeter. I think it is important to know why you should buy something. I know that money does not grow on trees and that photography is an expensive hobby. I believe enough in the importance of a colorimeter that I use one myself. Below you will find some links to the colorimeters that I recommend. Now, Get out there and get shooting. -- Enjoy
Coming up on So You Bought a Camera: A series on cell phone photography and then it is time for Photography 101. We are going back to basics and we are going to cover the fundamentals of cameras and photography. It is going to be a fun and informative year.
The Top Five Questions
The Top Five Questions
The top five questions, new photographers ask: (At least the top five questions that I get asked regularly by new photographers).
1) What camera should I buy to make me a professional photographer?
2) What is the best lens to buy to make me a professional photographer?
3) What computer and monitor should I buy to make me a professional photographer?
4) What software should I buy to make me a professional photographer?
5) What printer should I buy to make me a professional photographer?
The Answers:
1) The camera does not matter.
The camera really does not matter. This image was shot with a Samsung Galaxy S2 cell phone.
2) The lens does not matter.
The lens does not matter. This image was taken using the still image capture feature on a consumer grade camcorder.
3) The computer does not matter.
I use a desktop Mac but I have friends that use Windows Machines and, while I don’t like using it, Windows is a modern operating system and as such is more than capable of photo processing.
4) The software does not matter.
As of this writing I use Apple Aperture 3, Adobe Photoshop CS5, Nik Efects Plug-ins for Aperture and Photoshop, and onOne software plug-ins. I recommend the following apps for new photographers: Pixelmator 2 (~$30 USD) http://www.pixelmator.com as an affordable Photoshop alternative, iPhoto (Free with any new Mac) for workflow management, and Snapseed (~$20 on the Apple App Store) http://www.snapseed.com/ as a tool for color correction, sharpening, and special effects.
5) The home printer does not matter. You can’t print high quality images as well or as inexpensively as having a professional print service* print them for you.
I use Bay Photo for almost all of my processing.
mpix is also a great professional print service.
Many Costco locations offer same day professional print services*.
There are tons of people out there buying high end printers, ink, and paper, and I know that these solutions are right for many full time photographers that need prints the same day. Nevertheless, for most people a professional printing service* is the only real option. Sure it takes a few days to get the prints, but you don’t have to worry about supplies, and if they mess up a print they don’t charge you for the mess-up. For same day printing, many Costco locations offer professional print services*, you must have a calibrated monitor and a fast Internet connection but the prices are reasonable and the product is much better than the product that most people can afford to print at home, see the Costco Photo Center for details on downloading printer calibration files, prices, and pickup locations.
What does matter?
The things that matter most in photography are composition and exposure. With these two things, a photographer can take almost any camera and create art, news, and/or memories. Composition and exposure are not mastered overnight and require lots of practice. In future posts I will discuss composition and exposure in depth and in my next post I will write about the one piece of equipment that does matter and that no digital photographer should be without. In fact I will go so far as to say it is a requirement for great pictures. Stay tuned to find out what it is and why you need it. Until then, get out there and start shooting and as always --
Enjoy.
*Professional print services - For the purposes of this discussion a professional print service is defined as a service offering commercial grade paper, inks/pigments, provides calibrated printer files to the end user and makes no changes to the file submitted by the customer. Many professional print services also provide consumer services such as color correction and photo retouching. It should be noted that local box stores, drug stores, and most one hour photo locations are not professional print services and as such, the quality of their prints varies greatly. These discount retailers rely on automated color correction, cropping, and contrast controls. The papers and ink/pigments used in these locations, while adequate for snap shots, is not of the same quality as premium services. Remember that these local one-hour photo locations are concerned with costs and volume and not with overall quality. In most cases, “good enough” is all they strive for in producing prints.
The top five questions, new photographers ask: (At least the top five questions that I get asked regularly by new photographers).
1) What camera should I buy to make me a professional photographer?
2) What is the best lens to buy to make me a professional photographer?
3) What computer and monitor should I buy to make me a professional photographer?
4) What software should I buy to make me a professional photographer?
5) What printer should I buy to make me a professional photographer?
The Answers:
1) The camera does not matter.
The camera really does not matter. This image was shot with a Samsung Galaxy S2 cell phone.
2) The lens does not matter.
The lens does not matter. This image was taken using the still image capture feature on a consumer grade camcorder.
3) The computer does not matter.
I use a desktop Mac but I have friends that use Windows Machines and, while I don’t like using it, Windows is a modern operating system and as such is more than capable of photo processing.
4) The software does not matter.
As of this writing I use Apple Aperture 3, Adobe Photoshop CS5, Nik Efects Plug-ins for Aperture and Photoshop, and onOne software plug-ins. I recommend the following apps for new photographers: Pixelmator 2 (~$30 USD) http://www.pixelmator.com as an affordable Photoshop alternative, iPhoto (Free with any new Mac) for workflow management, and Snapseed (~$20 on the Apple App Store) http://www.snapseed.com/ as a tool for color correction, sharpening, and special effects.
5) The home printer does not matter. You can’t print high quality images as well or as inexpensively as having a professional print service* print them for you.
I use Bay Photo for almost all of my processing.
mpix is also a great professional print service.
Many Costco locations offer same day professional print services*.
There are tons of people out there buying high end printers, ink, and paper, and I know that these solutions are right for many full time photographers that need prints the same day. Nevertheless, for most people a professional printing service* is the only real option. Sure it takes a few days to get the prints, but you don’t have to worry about supplies, and if they mess up a print they don’t charge you for the mess-up. For same day printing, many Costco locations offer professional print services*, you must have a calibrated monitor and a fast Internet connection but the prices are reasonable and the product is much better than the product that most people can afford to print at home, see the Costco Photo Center for details on downloading printer calibration files, prices, and pickup locations.
What does matter?
The things that matter most in photography are composition and exposure. With these two things, a photographer can take almost any camera and create art, news, and/or memories. Composition and exposure are not mastered overnight and require lots of practice. In future posts I will discuss composition and exposure in depth and in my next post I will write about the one piece of equipment that does matter and that no digital photographer should be without. In fact I will go so far as to say it is a requirement for great pictures. Stay tuned to find out what it is and why you need it. Until then, get out there and start shooting and as always --
Enjoy.
*Professional print services - For the purposes of this discussion a professional print service is defined as a service offering commercial grade paper, inks/pigments, provides calibrated printer files to the end user and makes no changes to the file submitted by the customer. Many professional print services also provide consumer services such as color correction and photo retouching. It should be noted that local box stores, drug stores, and most one hour photo locations are not professional print services and as such, the quality of their prints varies greatly. These discount retailers rely on automated color correction, cropping, and contrast controls. The papers and ink/pigments used in these locations, while adequate for snap shots, is not of the same quality as premium services. Remember that these local one-hour photo locations are concerned with costs and volume and not with overall quality. In most cases, “good enough” is all they strive for in producing prints.
Snapseed
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Nik Software Brings Snapseed to the Mac
Popular photo editing and sharing app available soon on the Mac App Store
Las Vegas, NV (Photo Marketing Association, Consumer Electronics Show)—January 10, 2012— Leading photography software developer Nik Software (www.niksoftware.com) today announced Snapseed® for the Mac. Snapseed is an innovative photo enhancement and sharing app with a powerful suite of imaging filters and tools for anyone, anywhere to transform any image into an extraordinary photo. Designed exclusively for the Mac and available now on the Mac App Store, this new version of Snapseed combines Nik Software’s professional photography tools with its award-winning interface to deliver a powerful new photography app to Mac users.
“We’re thrilled with the success and worldwide recognition of our popular mobile app and are excited to bring the Snapseed experience to Mac users for the first time,” said Michael J. Slater, President and CEO of Nik Software. “By bringing Snapseed to the Mac App Store, we’re able to quickly extend our reach to a worldwide audience of creative amateur photographers while offering our existing mobile users the fully-featured Mac experience they’ve been asking for.”
Anyone can create amazing photos with Snapseed by using its innovative filters and tools, including the company’s revolutionary U Point technology which enables precise selective enhancements to be made to any area of a photo. Snapseed for the Mac is even faster and more powerful, combining filters, textures, and other enhancements, in real-time. One-click adjustments quickly and automatically improve photos. Filters like Grunge, Vintage, Tilt & Shift, and Drama can give any photo a new look.
Snapseed is a new generation of photography software that inspires everyone to enjoy photography. High quality results are now fast, fun, and easy. With this new version of Snapseed, users can capture, enhance, edit, and share their photos via social networks, email and even print in just a few seconds. A video showcasing the power and fun of Snapseed can be viewed at www.snapseed.com.
Key Features
- Tune Image—Quickly correct photos shot in difficult lighting situations, create depth and vibrancy with Ambience, or adjust White Balance, Saturation, Contrast and more
- Auto Correct—Automatically analyzes your photo and adjusts color and exposure, or you can use the sliders to add or reduce the enhancements
- Control Points—Make precise selections and enhancements in seconds with Nik Software’s revolutionary U Point technology
- Tilt-Shift—Creates a narrow in-focus area designed to simulate depth of field, common in a Miniature Scene look
- Details—Enhances details with traditional sharpening as well as Nik Software’s unique Structure control found in the professional Nik Software product line
- Crop & Straighten—Rotate or straighten with simple slider controls and select from a variety of standard aspect ratios while cropping
- Grunge—Explore styles and textures without limits and give photos a totally unique look
- Drama—Add custom effects to a photo which range from subtle enhancements of
textures to wildly creative and artistic effects
–more–
Nik Software Brings Snapseed to the Mac - 2 - (cont’d)
- Vintage—Nine unique nostalgic films, plus controls like saturation, textures and vignettes make any photo look like a vintage color film photo from the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s
- Frames—Add unique borders to photos by choosing styles and textures
- Black and White—Give photos a classic look with this darkroom-inspired filter. Select
styles, grain, vignettes, and more for a perfectly nostalgic look - Sharing—Share photos on Facebook and Flickr, email photos, and print them using your
home printer
Compatibility, Pricing and Availability
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Nik Software, Inc. develops award-winning desktop and mobile software solutions and technologies for the professional digital imaging and consumer photography markets. Established in 1995, Nik Software has become the recognized leader in digital photographic products and technologies, including its patented U Point® technology. The company’s products have won over 100 top industry awards for quality and innovation, including iPad App of the Year in the App Store Rewind 2011 for Snapseed. Earlier in 2011, the company earned the prestigious International TIPA award for Best Photo Software for its Complete Collection of professional photography products, which includes Color Efex Pro, HDR Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro, Silver Efex Pro, Viveza, and Dfine. For more information, visit www.niksoftware.com.
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Christmas Morning Photos: 19 Quick Tips
22/12/11 23:32 Filed in: Holidays | Flash | Natural Light | Candid | Pets | Christmas | Prime Lens | DSLR | Children | Point and Shoot | Snap Shots
Christmas Morning Photos: 19 Quick Tips
Christmas time is here and I just wanted to share a few quick tips for being able to capture those Christmas morning memories. So, here they are:
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Candid photos are a great way to capture Christmas Memories.
A little blur is not always a bad thing.
Even a shutter speed of 1/125s can freeze the action. She was really ripping the paper off of this present.
After the presents are opened, if the kids want to pose with a few toys then be ready to capture the moment.
Remember that is a big day for your pets too.
I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
-- William
Bonus Tip: Don’t worry about the quality of the camera. If you only have an old point and shoot or a cell phone, still get in there and take pictures. The following photo was taken with a 3 mega pixel point and shoot, you can see that the color is terrible and it is grainy and a bit washed out. However, this was the best camera I had at the time. The technical quality of this image does not matter so much as does the fact that I was able to capture the moment.
Christmas time is here and I just wanted to share a few quick tips for being able to capture those Christmas morning memories. So, here they are:
- Charge up your batteries for your camera and put fresh batteries in your flash.
- Format your memory card and make sure to have a backup memory card handy.
- If you have a DSLR and a fast prime lens, then Christmas morning is the time to use them both. A fast lens can really make taking low light photos much easier.
- The night before Christmas be sure to clean up the area around the tree, vacuum or sweep the floor, get rid of piles of magazines, trash or anything else in the background or foreground that might be distracting.
- Talk to the children a few days before Christmas about where you might like them to sit and take a few practice shots. This practice session will help keep kids from sitting with their backs to the camera and will help keep children from sitting in front of one another and blocking your view and ability to take some great candid photos.
- After Santa comes and before you go to sleep make sure and take a picture of the tree. This does not have to be a work of art just a nice reminder of what it looked like before the kids get to the presents.
- Have the kids in modest festive pajamas, or better yet set out some nice clothes and tell everyone to get dressed before anyone can go in to see what Santa left under the tree.
- Get down on the ground and take pictures at eye level with the kids and don’t make the kids look at the camera.
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Candid photos are a great way to capture Christmas Memories.
- Avoid having a large bright light or window directly behind your subject and be sure to set your exposure metering to center weighted or spot metering, either of these settings will help the camera ignore any back lighting that might occur.
- If you are using an external flash unit then remember to use a flash diffuser or bounce the light off of the ceiling or a white wall.
- If you only have a built in flash then turn it off, or at the very least make sure that the red-eye reduction setting is turned on.
- If you are shooting without a flash then bump up the ISO to ISO 400 or ISO 800. Sure the photos might be a little noisy, but at least they will not be blurry.
A little blur is not always a bad thing.
- Shoot in manual or shutter priority mode and try to get as slow of a shutter as you can that will produce an image without blurring movement. I typically will shoot at about 1/160 of a second shutter speed. If your kids are really tearing into the toys then you might have to bump that up a bit, and if your kids are a bit more methodical then perhaps you could slow it down some. Remember to check a few exposures up front to make sure that you are not getting a blurry mess.
Even a shutter speed of 1/125s can freeze the action. She was really ripping the paper off of this present.
- Shoot lots of pictures.
- After the presents are all open then pose a few shots if you want. Then, while the kids are basking in the glow of Christmas, keep taking a few shots of them playing with the toys. I recommend not using the flash and stay a little further away from the kids. This is the time when they will forget that you are taking photos and you are sure to get some fantastic candid photos that will really tell the story of this special time of year.
After the presents are opened, if the kids want to pose with a few toys then be ready to capture the moment.
- If you have pets be on the lookout for them being curious. Remember, this is an exciting day for them too and they can be the subject of some very memorable holiday photos.
Remember that is a big day for your pets too.
- Get in a few pictures yourself. Don’t worry if you feel fat, old, or ugly, your kids love you just the way you are and they will cherish the photos of you when they are grown.
- Most importantly, remember that you are not trying to create art with these pictures. These are snapshots. They do not need to be perfect, they are to record the moment, not to be hung in a gallery.
- Remember to back up your photos as soon as you get the chance to do so. I recommend printing the best photos and sharing them with family and friends using the internet and social media. One word of caution when sharing, make sure that only the people you want to see your pictures can see them, unfortunately there are people out there that are up to no good and they shouldn’t have access to current pictures of your kids, particularly if GPS coordinates are embedded in the picture file or the included with a post.
I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
-- William
Bonus Tip: Don’t worry about the quality of the camera. If you only have an old point and shoot or a cell phone, still get in there and take pictures. The following photo was taken with a 3 mega pixel point and shoot, you can see that the color is terrible and it is grainy and a bit washed out. However, this was the best camera I had at the time. The technical quality of this image does not matter so much as does the fact that I was able to capture the moment.