Hi All,
I've posted a photo today, which was shot (2009) in Dhanushkodi, Tamilnadu, India. Few guys here asked me about the clarity & pattern on the sky. Nothing actually special about it. Maybe some of you know this already.
Usually, in this kind of cloudy circumstances shots, I use to post-process (in PS) the photo by selecting areas. Here, I had dived the photo into two parts. One is the cloudy sky area and the rest is the second part.
I did the 'Levels' & 'Curves' adjustments on the both the areas separately. And finally added a warm 'filter' adjustment to the whole image.
Here is the out-of-camera shot:
The final image:
Power of selective processing
Full View
Labels:
dhanushkodi,
india,
tamilnadu,
tutorial
I've posted a photo today, which was shot (2009) in Dhanushkodi, Tamilnadu, India. Few guys here asked me about the clarity & pattern on the sky. Nothing actually special about it. Maybe some of you know this already.
Usually, in this kind of cloudy circumstances shots, I use to post-process (in PS) the photo by selecting areas. Here, I had dived the photo into two parts. One is the cloudy sky area and the rest is the second part.
I did the 'Levels' & 'Curves' adjustments on the both the areas separately. And finally added a warm 'filter' adjustment to the whole image.
Here is the out-of-camera shot:
The final image:
Hello everyone,
Are you the one who is amazed the cinematography style in most of the English movies? I know 'yes' will be your answer and add me also in that list. Why not! They capture the scenes in style. The composition, the color treatment, the lighting etc.. all Just Perfect isn't? Even I am impressed with the camera work in some of the Tamil movies.
When you watch the movies (well cinematographied ones) on big screen, the wide frames looks so nice and impressive. There is always in my mind to capture still images in this kind of style. Its just few days back, when I was browsing photography sites... happened to came across some fantastic photos in this same movie-style. Those photos inspired me straightaway and forced me to do something like this.
While browsing many photos I absorbed that this kind of stuff would be very nice to outdoors (mostly on public places and streets). Instead of doing this as random shoot, thought of taking it as a project which will help to improve my skills. Thinking of adding some one also for company, I spoke to my friend Saravanan (Kusumban) about the project, he immediately agreed and willing to join. We came up with the name 'Cinematica' for this project and planned to start the shoot as soon as possible (by next week). Now, it's time to hit the streets of Dubai and Sharjah.
By saying that, I had some unprocessed photos in my archive which I felt suitable for this theme. I started processing those photos and it gave me the confidence 'Yes, we can do it'. I've done few photos in the same style. Still long way to go to become perfect. Wider frames, with thick black border on top and bottom to give the movie-scene-look. Yeah, forgot to tell you... I am not a big fan of adding borders to the photos... but this thick-black-borders suits to this theme (excuse me please if you still really not liking it).
Here we go with some photos for your view(click the photos for better clarity). Hope you get the feeling and give me the feed back what you think of it. I know, long to way to go. This is just a beginning.
1) Party time
2) Friends
3) Musician
4) Wisdom lines
5) Early morning walkers
6) Little one
Cinematica
Full View
Are you the one who is amazed the cinematography style in most of the English movies? I know 'yes' will be your answer and add me also in that list. Why not! They capture the scenes in style. The composition, the color treatment, the lighting etc.. all Just Perfect isn't? Even I am impressed with the camera work in some of the Tamil movies.
When you watch the movies (well cinematographied ones) on big screen, the wide frames looks so nice and impressive. There is always in my mind to capture still images in this kind of style. Its just few days back, when I was browsing photography sites... happened to came across some fantastic photos in this same movie-style. Those photos inspired me straightaway and forced me to do something like this.
While browsing many photos I absorbed that this kind of stuff would be very nice to outdoors (mostly on public places and streets). Instead of doing this as random shoot, thought of taking it as a project which will help to improve my skills. Thinking of adding some one also for company, I spoke to my friend Saravanan (Kusumban) about the project, he immediately agreed and willing to join. We came up with the name 'Cinematica' for this project and planned to start the shoot as soon as possible (by next week). Now, it's time to hit the streets of Dubai and Sharjah.
By saying that, I had some unprocessed photos in my archive which I felt suitable for this theme. I started processing those photos and it gave me the confidence 'Yes, we can do it'. I've done few photos in the same style. Still long way to go to become perfect. Wider frames, with thick black border on top and bottom to give the movie-scene-look. Yeah, forgot to tell you... I am not a big fan of adding borders to the photos... but this thick-black-borders suits to this theme (excuse me please if you still really not liking it).
Here we go with some photos for your view(click the photos for better clarity). Hope you get the feeling and give me the feed back what you think of it. I know, long to way to go. This is just a beginning.
|
| 1) Party time |
|
| 2) Friends |
|
| 3) Musician |
|
| 4) Wisdom lines |
|
| 5) Early morning walkers |
|
| 6) Little one |
Hello everyone,
Sometime back when I was bored and had nothing to do seriously, I just scrolled thru my own gallery. I was little surprised to find many self-portraits in there. Most of them are moody/conceptual kind of stuff. What I understood is that, slowly it has become a habit for me to shoot more self portraits. (Yeah, I call a photo as portrait whenever people are there in the frame, whether its a classic old-style portrait or environmental one etc...) On the process of my photography it's developed as an unintentional project. Let me call it as project 'selfism'.
The story behind this is.... I use to go for photo shoots on weekends with my photographer friends. The moment we reach the location, we all do our own jobs without disturbing each others. I have a taste of shooting landscapes with human element in the frame. I personally feel it adds something into the landscape photos. During our shoot, I can't ask my fellow photographers to pose for me. So, I started posing for myself. When I first started, I never thought I would shoot these many self portraits. I'll continue this selfism till the day I run out of posing options. :)
The technique I use is... There is a mode in DSLRs called "Self-timer mode with 'n' number photos". This will fire after 10 seconds once you press shutter. I use to select 10 photos (which will be safer... at least one out of 10 will be good). I normally shoot this with higher aperture to achieve long exposure photos. So that, I never had focus problem.
'Click-run-stand/sit' is the formula till I get the desired result.I'll repeat number of times with different poses.
Here are some photos of selfism. There are many photos unprocessed.
This is the first ever selfism photo I tried. Tried to get the ghost look of mine in the surreal landscape. This is 30sec exposure photo. I came out of the frame after around 20 seconds, which gave the 'lesser opacity' (ghost) look of my image.
EXIF: f/22, 30 sec, iso-100
This was shot in 'ghost town' in Ras Al Khaimah. Awesome spot for such photography.
EXIF: f/18, 2 sec, iso-200
EXIF: f/10, 30 sec, iso-100
EXIF: f/9, 5 sec, iso-100
This tree is joined in my favorites list recently. I had several shots on that particular morning.
EXIF: f/8, 2.5 sec, iso-200
EXIF: f/8, 2.5 sec, iso-200
I wanted to have blurry shot of mine while walking away from the tree. Luckily a bus carrying construction workers entered into the frame to add some spice into the shot.
EXIF: f/8, 0.6 sec, iso-100
This was little challenge for me to shoot since it wasn't long exposure. I have to make proper jumps within the shorter duration (10 continuous shots).
EXIF: f/8, 1/250 sec, iso-200
The following two photos were really callenger for me, why beacuase I had to standstill/sit without even making a minor movement for 20secs & 13 secs in the cold. It was around 10 degree Celsius with some wind blowing (just before sunrise). And one more difficult things was... the slippery rocks. I even slipped once on the way to my position. But in the end it was worth. ;)
EXIF: f/22, 20 sec, iso-100
EXIF: f/22, 13 sec, iso-100
EXIF: f/18, 0.6 sec, iso-100
EXIF: f/8, 1/25 sec, iso-100
Father telling a story. Its my elder daughter Maryam with me. I took her to show the wrecked ship 'Lady Rana', which was off-shored few months back.
EXIF: f/22, 2.5 sec, iso-100
And the dream 'selfism' continues.... Hope the information helps some of you out there.
Selfism
Full View
Sometime back when I was bored and had nothing to do seriously, I just scrolled thru my own gallery. I was little surprised to find many self-portraits in there. Most of them are moody/conceptual kind of stuff. What I understood is that, slowly it has become a habit for me to shoot more self portraits. (Yeah, I call a photo as portrait whenever people are there in the frame, whether its a classic old-style portrait or environmental one etc...) On the process of my photography it's developed as an unintentional project. Let me call it as project 'selfism'.
The story behind this is.... I use to go for photo shoots on weekends with my photographer friends. The moment we reach the location, we all do our own jobs without disturbing each others. I have a taste of shooting landscapes with human element in the frame. I personally feel it adds something into the landscape photos. During our shoot, I can't ask my fellow photographers to pose for me. So, I started posing for myself. When I first started, I never thought I would shoot these many self portraits. I'll continue this selfism till the day I run out of posing options. :)
The technique I use is... There is a mode in DSLRs called "Self-timer mode with 'n' number photos". This will fire after 10 seconds once you press shutter. I use to select 10 photos (which will be safer... at least one out of 10 will be good). I normally shoot this with higher aperture to achieve long exposure photos. So that, I never had focus problem.
'Click-run-stand/sit' is the formula till I get the desired result.I'll repeat number of times with different poses.
Here are some photos of selfism. There are many photos unprocessed.
This is the first ever selfism photo I tried. Tried to get the ghost look of mine in the surreal landscape. This is 30sec exposure photo. I came out of the frame after around 20 seconds, which gave the 'lesser opacity' (ghost) look of my image.
| ||
|
This was shot in 'ghost town' in Ras Al Khaimah. Awesome spot for such photography.
|
| EXIF: f/18, 2 sec, iso-200 |
| |
| EXIF: f/10, 30 sec, iso-100 |
| |
| EXIF: f/9, 5 sec, iso-100 |
This tree is joined in my favorites list recently. I had several shots on that particular morning.
| |
| EXIF: f/8, 2.5 sec, iso-200 |
|
| EXIF: f/8, 2.5 sec, iso-200 |
I wanted to have blurry shot of mine while walking away from the tree. Luckily a bus carrying construction workers entered into the frame to add some spice into the shot.
| |
| EXIF: f/8, 0.6 sec, iso-100 |
This was little challenge for me to shoot since it wasn't long exposure. I have to make proper jumps within the shorter duration (10 continuous shots).
|
| EXIF: f/8, 1/250 sec, iso-200 |
The following two photos were really callenger for me, why beacuase I had to standstill/sit without even making a minor movement for 20secs & 13 secs in the cold. It was around 10 degree Celsius with some wind blowing (just before sunrise). And one more difficult things was... the slippery rocks. I even slipped once on the way to my position. But in the end it was worth. ;)
| |
| EXIF: f/22, 20 sec, iso-100 |
|
| EXIF: f/22, 13 sec, iso-100 |
|
| EXIF: f/18, 0.6 sec, iso-100 |
|
| EXIF: f/8, 1/25 sec, iso-100 |
Father telling a story. Its my elder daughter Maryam with me. I took her to show the wrecked ship 'Lady Rana', which was off-shored few months back.
| |
| EXIF: f/22, 2.5 sec, iso-100 |
Hello everyone,
Its been long time since I've updated something here. Its high time to use this blog space for something useful. So I am here now. :)
I received a question from my photographer friend Dharumi about this particular photo that 'how did I achieve the high-key effect?'. So decided to write-up a 'how to' for him and later thought of sharing it here. So here we go...
About the the shoot, Yeah it was shot indoor with ext flash bouncing off the ceiling.
EXIF: f/2.8, 1/80 sec, iso-100 with Sigma 50mm macro lens.
This is the image what came out of the camera.
This is the final result
To get the final result I've done the following changes in the post processing. Hope you don't feel like "ha, its such a lengthy process". :)
Did I say that I always shoot only in RAW? Yes, for me photos must be only shot in RAW format, nothing else.
Opened the RAW file in Photoshop CS5 RAW editor.
1. Selected the Colors/saturation tab as shown in the below picture, and converted the image straightaway into gray scale. And played with the values of the colors where I get more whitish look in the photo.
2. Opened the first tab, where basic exposure setting can be changed. And did the following changes as in the photo.
3. In the next tab 'Tone curve', change the 'Darks' slider value which will again open up the darker areas.
4. In the next tab 'Sharpening', increased the sharpness little bit.
5. In the 'lens corrections' tab, added the 'bright' vignetting by pulling the slider value into + side. Thats it from the RAW editor side. Saved the file as 8-bit TIFF file.
6. Opened the TIFF file in PS CS5. And duplicated the background layer and renamed it as 'cleaned copy of bk'.
7. In the 'cleaned copy of bk' layer, cloned out the the darker areas using the clone tool as shown in the below pic.
8. Added a 'Levels' Adjustment layer and the changed the values as shown to bring more white in the photo.
9. Added a 'Brightness/contrast' layer and changed the values as shown.
10. I still noticed that there were some grey on the face area. To remove that I wanted to use the dodge(to make it bright) tool. I normally do not dodge/burn directly on the image, instead use to add layer from menu 'layer'->new->layer as shown in the below pic. One layer was added, on which I did the dodging thing.
11. By selecting the above mentioned layer, chose the dodge tool with the values as shown below and then I started paining on the face wherever darker areas were there.
12. I felt the first stage of the post processing is over. So, selected all the layers then press CTRL+A, which will select the whole image area and did 'copy merge' then 'paste in place'. A new layer was added with the effects whatever had been done on the previous steps.
13. Duplicated the layer and removed the noise using the plugin called 'Noise Ninja'.
14. I still felt more white is needed to make high-key look. So that I added a new 'layers' adjustment layer again and changed the values as shown below.
15. Once I was satisfied with the white values, I did the sharpening with 'high pass' filter. Duplicated the noise removed layer and renamed as 'sharpen'. Changed the blending mode into 'overlay' and reduced the opacity to 50%.
16. Then on the menu, 'Filter'->'Other'->'High pass'. Pop up will appear as show below. Those were the values.
17. I found the left side eye-brow had some pbm(chech above picture & below one to find the difference) wanted to fix by burning (making darker) using burn tool. As I mentioned, I never burn/dodge directly on the image, instead created a layer as I mentioned in the step-10. Here instead of dodge tool (step-11), selected the burn tool.
18. Here instead of dodge tool (step-11), selected the burn tool as shown below. And then painted on that area.
That's it. I got what I wanted. Saved the image for web... and here is the result.
I know that I'm so horrible at making tutorials/'how tos' . :) But, I strongly believe that the message is delivered. Hope you guys understand this post processing steps.
High key - How I did this?
Full View
Labels:
highkey,
tutorial
Its been long time since I've updated something here. Its high time to use this blog space for something useful. So I am here now. :)
I received a question from my photographer friend Dharumi about this particular photo that 'how did I achieve the high-key effect?'. So decided to write-up a 'how to' for him and later thought of sharing it here. So here we go...
About the the shoot, Yeah it was shot indoor with ext flash bouncing off the ceiling.
EXIF: f/2.8, 1/80 sec, iso-100 with Sigma 50mm macro lens.
This is the image what came out of the camera.
To get the final result I've done the following changes in the post processing. Hope you don't feel like "ha, its such a lengthy process". :)
Did I say that I always shoot only in RAW? Yes, for me photos must be only shot in RAW format, nothing else.
Opened the RAW file in Photoshop CS5 RAW editor.
1. Selected the Colors/saturation tab as shown in the below picture, and converted the image straightaway into gray scale. And played with the values of the colors where I get more whitish look in the photo.
2. Opened the first tab, where basic exposure setting can be changed. And did the following changes as in the photo.
3. In the next tab 'Tone curve', change the 'Darks' slider value which will again open up the darker areas.
4. In the next tab 'Sharpening', increased the sharpness little bit.
5. In the 'lens corrections' tab, added the 'bright' vignetting by pulling the slider value into + side. Thats it from the RAW editor side. Saved the file as 8-bit TIFF file.
6. Opened the TIFF file in PS CS5. And duplicated the background layer and renamed it as 'cleaned copy of bk'.
7. In the 'cleaned copy of bk' layer, cloned out the the darker areas using the clone tool as shown in the below pic.
8. Added a 'Levels' Adjustment layer and the changed the values as shown to bring more white in the photo.
9. Added a 'Brightness/contrast' layer and changed the values as shown.
10. I still noticed that there were some grey on the face area. To remove that I wanted to use the dodge(to make it bright) tool. I normally do not dodge/burn directly on the image, instead use to add layer from menu 'layer'->new->layer as shown in the below pic. One layer was added, on which I did the dodging thing.
11. By selecting the above mentioned layer, chose the dodge tool with the values as shown below and then I started paining on the face wherever darker areas were there.
12. I felt the first stage of the post processing is over. So, selected all the layers then press CTRL+A, which will select the whole image area and did 'copy merge' then 'paste in place'. A new layer was added with the effects whatever had been done on the previous steps.
13. Duplicated the layer and removed the noise using the plugin called 'Noise Ninja'.
14. I still felt more white is needed to make high-key look. So that I added a new 'layers' adjustment layer again and changed the values as shown below.
15. Once I was satisfied with the white values, I did the sharpening with 'high pass' filter. Duplicated the noise removed layer and renamed as 'sharpen'. Changed the blending mode into 'overlay' and reduced the opacity to 50%.
16. Then on the menu, 'Filter'->'Other'->'High pass'. Pop up will appear as show below. Those were the values.
17. I found the left side eye-brow had some pbm(chech above picture & below one to find the difference) wanted to fix by burning (making darker) using burn tool. As I mentioned, I never burn/dodge directly on the image, instead created a layer as I mentioned in the step-10. Here instead of dodge tool (step-11), selected the burn tool.
18. Here instead of dodge tool (step-11), selected the burn tool as shown below. And then painted on that area.
That's it. I got what I wanted. Saved the image for web... and here is the result.
I know that I'm so horrible at making tutorials/'how tos' . :) But, I strongly believe that the message is delivered. Hope you guys understand this post processing steps.
