A-Photo Mag

We see shadows all around us, in nature. The shadows are what help us see three dimensionally. To put that another way, the gradation from light to dark on the surfaces of objects helps us to see depth. We’ve covered that in another article with the example of a circle and a sphere, both represented on two dimensional paper. So, in the absence of shadows we see the world in a sort of two-dimensional way. That is not what shadow less lighting is all about by the way….just so you don’t get confused between the two.

By shadow less lighting, we refer to diffused light that does not cast a sharp shadow. Light that is not diffused, for example the flash light from a compact camera, casts a sharp shadow of the subject on the wall behind. That’s light that is NOT diffused. So what really causes this sharp shadow? Try this simple experiment – for this you will need a room with a bulb as well as a tube light. The bulb could well be a lamp light without a lamp shade. Now, switch on ONLY the bulb and hold your hand a few inches away from it. You see a shadow of your hand on the wall opposite. Next, switch off the bulb and switch on the tube light. Hold your hand near the tube light. No shadow! The bulb light is an example of light that is NOT diffused, and the tube light creates diffused light. The basic difference is – the bulb is a point light source (the light emanates from the filament of the bulb, which is pretty much a point source). The tube light on the other hand, is a diffused light source, meaning light does not emanate from any one point within the tube, but from all points on the surface of the tube, with equal intensity.

When you keep this simple idea of a tube and a bulb light in mind, you increase your control and understanding of diffused light, which is so often used in photography, especially in the studio environment. In reality, the tube light also creates a shadow, but a very soft one when compared to the point light source, the bulb. The shadows created by diffused light are much softer and thereby pleasing to the eyes. However, certain shoots call for the hard light of the bulb, the point light source. These may include a photo shoot that mimics the lighting from a spot light on a stage. So, let us not compartmentalize hard and soft lighting into good and bad categories, but rather get a better understanding on when and where each kind is required, and hone a better control over creating each kind of lighting artificially. In nature of course, the sun’s light is usually diffused by the clouds. However, on clear days when the clouds disappear, one can often see sharp shadows of people and objects, especially when the sun is high up at times like noon.

A photomontage is the result you get when you use two or more images to make one composite result image. Like almost everything else in today’s world, there are two ways to make a photo montage – the old fashioned ‘manual’ method, and the digital one. 

The art of photo manipulation can be traced back to the initial years of photo process discoveries. However, photo montages were first made around the time of the First World War. At this time, montages were made using the double exposure techniques, and by placing objects on contact print machines. People also found it very amusing to make postcards of different heads on different bodies! In today’s world, the most common place photo montages we see are on cinema posters. Today, montages are made on computers using Photoshop, all over the world. You could make your own montages. Maybe you have a few family images you would want to put into one single frame…the key to an acceptable montage, at least by today’s standards, is to seamlessly add images to the frame. Meaning, the images should NOT look like they’ve been ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ from elsewhere. Let us go ahead and try and make a simple photo montage of just two images.

First, decide on the print size of your final image. We made our montage of 6 by 8 inch size. Open Photoshop. Open a new file under FILE-NEW. Enter the relevant parameters of resolution and width and height  on the dialogue box that pops up. Remember, you need to set resolution (DPI) to 300 for print, and 72 for web usage. Next, select the image that you would like to use for the montage. We open the two images that we need, which gives us three image boxes on our work space – 2 photographs, and one canvas for the final image.

Next, we cut out the areas of interest from both root images, and paste them into our final image canvas area. Instead of using accurate selection tools such as the pen tool, we suggest you make simple, basic selections using something like the lasso tool. Making montages is not very hard work! Just make a basic selection outline with one motion of the mouse, and then feather the selection to something like 50 radius on a 4 by 6 300 dpi root file. If that confuses you, no sweat…simply experiment with various feather densities until you are able to get a good fade-out affect when you paste the copied image into the canvas. To recap, we

1. Select an outline
2. Feather
3. Copy-Paste into the new canvas

Do this for both (or however many images you are using) image.

We took things one step further by converting the entire image to black and white and then adding the brownish sepia touch to it (refer to our article on sepia toning to learn how you could do this).

One of the first things we notice about an image is its sharpness level. Sharpness is associated with the quality of lens, the aperture used and critically, the point of focus. The more accurately you have focused on the subject, the better will be the overall sharpness in the image. Ideally sharpness is something that needs to be taken care of at the shooting stage and not the post production stage. If certain information is missing in the raw file from the camera, nothing on computer can mimic it. However, we definitely can increase the apparent sharpness of images that are not of very low quality in the first place. Do not use the techniques mentioned in this article as a rescue tool when you have made a boo boo in the shooting stage. Rather, use it as a touch up before final presentation of your images. Again, there is nothing that can replace a quality lens, the right aperture or the critical point of focus. Alright, lets get down to the photoshop bit -

Check out the two image above. The second one appears much sharper than the first, if you look closely. Let us learn how to do this. As usual, open up the image in Photoshop using FILE-OPEN. Once the image is opened, go to the filters menu and choose SHARPEN, and further choose UNSHARP MASK in the sub menu. Here you will be presented with three options.

Well, once you have the Unsharp mask options in front of you, you can begin sharpening the image. The first option, AMOUNT obviously controls the amount of sharpening that is applied to the picture. Instead of beginning with this, we suggest you start with the second control option of RADIUS. This effects the radius of pixels that are effected with the sharpening procedure. The levels of sharpening that you apply – the levels of the 3 tools you see in front of you, will vary depending on the resolution of the image, as with most Photoshop tools. The larger the dimensions of the image, for example, the larger will be the required pixel radius for sharpening. When you alter the variables in the sliding bars, you resulting effects will simultaneously be visible in the opened image. Experiment with radius and amount until you reach the desired effect. Beware-do not sharpen the image to such an extent that it is obvious to the naked eye – you begin to see high contrasts when you over-sharpen, and this is to be avoided at all times. The 3^rd and final tool on the Unsharp mask palette is the THRESHOLD tool. Use this to soften the sharpening effect if it is overly obvious after you’ve adjusted the first 2 sliding bars. We usually leave this alone and work with just the first 2 options of amount and radius.

You could use the SHARPEN EDGES tool under the SHARPEN menu to sharpen only the outlines of the subject. However, the technique mentioned above will give you much more acceptable and natural results. 

1. Don’t use the fill-flash unless absolutely required - it is a fact that in-built camera flashes tend to give a very flat and 2-dimensional appearance to photographs. Avoid using it unless the existing light just isn’t adequate. Try using longer shutter speeds instead. In case of automatic cameras, shutting off the flash (if possible) would automatically ensure longer shutter speeds.

2. Don’t pose people awkwardly - it is ridiculous to see people posed in awkward positions, especially when the subject is a shy person who doesn’t like doing so in the first place. With people like those, it is much better to shoot them candid, or give them a prop to distract their attention.

3. Don’t leave room for red eyes - when using flash, avoid the red eye syndrome. You can do so by ensuring that the eyes are not absolutely parallel and directly in fron of the flash. Try shooting at an angle to the face.

4. Don’t use high ISO levels. Well, not unless the existing light is too low. Remember, the lower the ISO value, the better would be the pixel quality in your files.

5. Don’t allow for cluttered backgrounds. A distracting background can take the charm out of the most pleasant of portraits. Make sure you throw the background off focus if you cannot reposition the subject. Also, you could zoom in as much as possible, to keep your attention (and the viewers’) on the subject’s eyes.

6. Never shoot strangers unawares. Thats what the paparazzi do, and that is why they often get into trouble! Of course, candid photographs are always a special something. But when shooting candid, it is better to do so with people you know.

7. Never jerk down the shutter release. Instead, squeeze it gently until it fires. This ensures you do not allow the camera to ’shake’ by the finger movement. In fact, it is also good to hold your breadth for the second you are firing your shutter, while you rest the camera against the side of your face!

8. Never leave your camera at home! If you are looking for winning images, you need to carry your camera with you everywhere you go. For example, this candid image was photographed on the spur of the moment when the photographer’s friend sat down to rest after a long bike ride.

 9. Never leave batteries in your camera for lengthy storage. It is a pathetic way to lose your camera’s functionality. All batteries leak after a certain period of time, especially the use and throw ones. So, if your camera uses something like AAA batteries, REMOVE them when storing your camera for long durations.

10. Never let your camera get damp. Well, not unless it is one of the more modern water-proof models. Dampness is one of the worst enemies of all cameras, digital cameras in particular. Use a water-proof case for your camera while transporting it.

Positioning and posing people is a vital aspect of every day snapshot photography as well as professional photography. It is true that seldom does the everyday ‘amateur’ photographer have the presence of mind, or the time to ‘wait’ for a natural photograph-friendly moment to occur. More often, we use the camera as a means to capture everyday moments on family picnics and get-togethers with friends. Here are a few tips on how you can pose people for your photography. We hope the article will be of use to you, and that you will soon be able to shoot more appealing images after reading this.

Many professionals feel that posing is more than half the ‘portrait battle’ won! Body language plays a vital role when you position the limbs and head and torso of your model(s). A chin held high spells out confidence. A chin held a little too high could, on the other hand, speak of pride. Similarly, a stooping posture could give the viewer an impression of sluggishness or depression, while a chest held out firmly tells the viewer that the model is confident and content.

Photographing and posing children is of course much more difficult than shooting images of adults, simply because kids do not respond to specific instruction as adults do. So, one needs much more patience and dedication to shoot a portrait like the one shown above. It is a great idea to ’set up’ everything other than the child, and wait for the right moment to begin clicking away. For the above shot, the photographer conveniently asked the child to lean her elbow on the bonnet of the family car, and then began conversing with the child. The hand on the bonnet forced a pose out of the child. Being the exceptionally boisterous child that Tanya is, she was not shy at all, as she laughed at all of the photographer’s jokes with zest!

Of course, it is much more difficult to photograph a child, or an adult for that matter when he or she is camera-shy. In such case it is best to pre-occupy the subject’s attention with a prop of some kind. For extremely shy people, it could well be their favorite book or magazine. In case of children, it could be their favorite toy…

A few things to remember in general - never let the background be too cluttered. Never let poles and trees ‘grow’ out of people’s heads and shoulders. Instead, it is better to lean them against the prop. Also, why not get the person’s hands to do something? Hands tend to go stiff when people are asked to pose for a photo. Again, in the above image, the child’s right hand was forced to get involved in the pose, by asking the child to take her hat off. Finally, shoot more images than you require, and select the best of the lot - to get the right expression on the subject’s face. The above image is one out of about 20 photographed one after another.

When photographing in the outdoors, one needs to work with ambient light as the main light source (generally). In such a scenarios you can obviously not have much of a control over the lighting conditions. You need to work with the existing light, which is affected by the position of the sun, the clouds and the relational positioning of the subject. Obviously we cannot have a control over the position of the sun or the clouds. That leaves us with positioning the subject as our most versatile tool.

The classic rule of outdoor photography tells us to keep the subject in front of the sun, meaning keep your back to the sun and position the subject in front of you. The subject would be well-illuminated in this case, and moreover you would eliminate the risk of lens flare (which occurs when the light source is in front of the lens behind the subject). This is a fail safe method to get good exposures. However, make sure that if you have a large area of the sky behind the subject, you lock focus on the subject by half-pressing the shutter before you fire. Also, the exposure can go haywire if the camera was focused on the sky instead of the subject. In such case, you would get a well-exposed sky and an under-exposed subject. To take things further, that is exactly what you should do if you want to photograph a silhouette!

If you wish to experiment with outdoor lighting further - well, wel need to break the rule we just taught you! Lets say we are shooting a portrait. Have you ever seen outdoor portraits where the sun creates a kind of halo effect in the hair of the subject - the classic ’sunshine in your hair’ look? If you want to shoot such a portrait, wait for the time when the sun is low on the horizon. Twilight is too late, around 4pm should do fine in most countries. The sunlight should have started to turn yellow by then, but still bright enough for a good exposure - and just NOT bright enough to create a lens flare. So - we have a light source-subject-camera arrangement here. Look through the viewfinder and position the camera-subject combo in such a way as to catch that light in the hair. This works very well for brown and blond hair. Also, zoom in as much as you can. Not only are longer focal lengths better for portraits in general, but they provide just the right effect for the sunshine in your hair effect.

If you wish to shoot outdoors at night, you have no option but to either use flash lighting, or long exposures. In case of the latter, you will need a tripod, or a support of some kind to place the camera upon. Using natural light in the outdoors, is however the best light source you can have. Just as long as you can either wait for the right time (for the right lighting), or position your subject to suit your photo idea.

A sunset in Goa, India

Correcting colors on an image is one of the most widely used applications of photo-correcting software. Let us take a closer look at how and why this can be done.

The truth is, that any digital camera, however much effort has been put into its color correction and white balance settings; creates a color cast under certain situations. This is thanks to the different ‘color temperatures’ of different kinds of lights.  For example, our everyday tube lights have a ‘cooler’ tone as compared to the ‘warm tone’ bulb lights from incandescent light sources. No auto white balance setting can be so perfect (at least not till today) that it can accommodate changes for a variety of light sources such as fluorescent, neon, bulb, tube light and daylight. Most cameras perform well under daylight. So what do you do when you get an image with a color cast? Well, you open Adobe Photoshop!

Check this image out for instance. The skin tones clearly tell you that it has a yellowish and unnatural tone. Well, we open the image in Photoshop, and then open the color corrections option. In fact it is called color balance in Photoshop, and you can reach this panel under IMAGE-ADJUST-COLOR BALANCE-

This shows you a sliding tool. In fact it shows you 3 sliding adjustments wherein you can adjust the red, green and blue tones - consequently adjusting their complimentary tones of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow respectively. Consider the image in question. We have declared that it has a markedly yellowish tone. This is obviously due to the fact that it was photographed under something like bulb light with the camera’s white balance set to daylight. Most compact camera users never fiddle with the camera’s white balance settings, and this is exactly what you can expect as a result. Anyway, we declare that it has a yellow tone simply by looking at the image.

Once you have the sliding tool open under the COLOR BALANCE option on Photoshop, we need to reduce the yellow. In other words, we increase the blue. Either way you look at it, it has the same effect on the image nevertheless. When we reduce the yellow (and a bit of red as well), the image begins to look much better - in fact we have adjusted it to clearly look much better, almost as if it were photographed under daylight -

 Do keep in mind that the color correction tools cannot have an effect over the exposure (or the brightness level) of the images. It simply replaces one color tone with another of your choice. However, the wrong color balance at times does seem to look like there is a problem with exposure.

Photoshop also has an auto color correct option. Look under IMAGE menu (IMAGE-ADJUST-AUTO COLOR). This works very well at times, but we have learned that one can get much better results by doing the correction manually using the above described process.

Photographing pets is one of the most common of reasons why people buy cameras at all. Pets, children, family get-togethers and the likes of such everyday subjects make up the blk of photography of the ‘usual’ kind. Since photographing pets is one of the most common of reasons for people investing into cameras, we decided to run an article on how this can be done best.

When you are taking photographs of pets, remember it is much like photographing toddlers. Babies trust very few people, and so do pets. It will be difficult to get good images of a pet if its owner is not on location, especially if it is only a few times that you have met the animal. So, make sure that the pet owner is around, and ask him or her to interact with the pet as you look on and take photographs. Photographing a portrait of the pet with its owner is also a great idea. If you are looking for an individual portrait shot of the animal, you could ask the owner to stand by your side while you focus your camera on the dog or whatever it is that you are photographing. Well, thats the psycological part of things, now for the technical.

Use slightly higher shutter speeds, because the movement of an animal can be quite unpredictable, especially in the case of very young and active ones. Cats tend to dart at things all of a sudden, and so do puppies. Wait for the right moment - this is imperative. Pets rarely pose for you. Keep the animal in the vie finder at all times and be ready to fire away at literally a moment’s notice. More often than not, you miss the good shots simply because your finger was not present on the shutter release button, even if your eye was on the viewfinder. Keeping all this in mind, it is good to use fast ISO settings and greater depth of field and shutter speeds. However, if the pet tends to sit still for a bit, go to the larger apertures and thus blur out the back ground.

Another HUGE point here - ALWAYS get down to the eye level of the pet while photographing a portrait. It works wonders as far as composition goes, and also makes things more ‘personal’ if you may. You can interact much better with the animal from it’s eye level. The greatest pet portraits, as you will see on web sites and in magazines, have been photographed from low levels, in other words - the eye levels of the pets.

Finally, you may want to make sure that the pet is looking well-groomed, especially if the shoot is for professional reasons. A shining coat of fur makes the pet, and thereby our photograph, look that much better. Go ahead, have a great time photographing pets!

A telephoto lens is a lens which is considerably longer in focal length, compared to the ‘normal’ 50mm equivalent (on 35mm film cameras). When you use a long focal length lens, quite a few things happen - your depth of field becomes shallower (as seen in previous article), your images appear sharper as a result, the perspectives become flatter (background objects appear bigger than they do to the normal eye or the normal lens), and then you have a lot of technical mumbo jumbo to take care of as well. Lets look at some of that mumbo jumbo.

When you use a telephoto lens, your hands have to be that much steadier. This is thanks to the obvious reason that the longer the telephoto, or the focal lenght of the lens, the greater the dimensions of the lens, and the greater the difficulty of holding the thing steady. Simple physics tells us that the longer the ‘arm’ from the ‘fulcrum’, the more is the effect felt on the end of the arm when the fulcrum is disturbed. If you don’t understand that, no worries. It simply means, the longer the lens, the more chances you have of getting shaky pictures. The longest tele lens that you should brave hand-held would be the 300mm. Here is a rule to swear by - make sure your shutter speed is at least the inverse of the focal length. There is no hard and fast technical logic behind this, but it is simply a convenient way of determining a rough minimum shutter speed setting, as a mental note. For instance, if you are shooting on the 200mm setting of a zoom lens, you will need to have a minimum shutter speed of 1/200 sec. However you will in all probability still have a negligible amount of shake on your images, only visible to the trained eye, or on enlarged prints. To get a brilliantly sharp image, always use a tripod with your telephoto lenses. Some lenses are so heavy they need their own tripods.

This image of a homeless man was photographed in Bombay, using a tele lens. Notice that the sizes of the people’s legs behind him appear the same size as his own legs. This would not have been the case if the image was photographed on a wide angle lens. Moreover, a negligible amount of shake is visible, which means the image cannot really be enlarged to say more than 6×4. But of course it was a candid image, so the photographer had no time to set his camera on a tripod. Anyway, what is to be demonstrated by this image is the flattened perspectives of telephoto lenses.

To put things in a nutshell,

Tele lenses flatten perspectives

They gave shallow depth of fields

They need higher shutter speeds (to avoid shake) if hand-held

Very long focal length telephoto lenses are used for wildlife and sports photography

Extreme telephoto lenses are expensive and bulky!

Many a time we (including professional photographers) miss out on great photographs thanks to careless errors. There is no substitute for discipline while you shoot your images, however experienced or inexperienced one may be. We have put down a set of five golden rules to keep in mind when you go photographing your subjects. More to follow later -

A. Always use a tripod - there is no other tip that one can stress on more than this. And it is often the most overlooked as well. While it is true that you can shoot acceptable images with a hand held camera, it is also true that your hands will have some amount of ’shake’. To get impeccable results, you will need to ensure that the camera is mounted on a tripod or a support, especially on shutter speeds lower than about 1/100 second.

B. Keep your fingers away from the flash - this is especially true with compact cameras, which usually have the in-built flash on the top left corner of the camera. That is also the area your forefinger rests when you hold the camera in a proper grip, and it is easy to let your finger get in the front of the flash, resulting in underexposed images, or a shadow on a part of the image. With digital cameras and preview screens, it is easy to see the error soon after you photograph your subject.

C. Think before you fire - in these days of instant everything, we forget at times that composition is one of the two crucial factors of a good photograph. Take the time to compose your frame - resist the urge to fire away at everything that you see. Do get a few shots and then rethink, re frame, re compose and THINK how you have arranged the subjects in your frame and why…

D. Visualize - Try and visualize the finished image on print/computer screen. This is especially true for studio photography and landscapes. When you are able to visualize the finished image, back track your thought process and plan out every step of the photo taking process - the lighting set up, the exposure points, the filter, the lens, the film/ISO level, the shoot timing, the model make up and costumes if any, the photo editing stage and finally the presentation. When you are able to break it up into segments like this, you have a control over your photography like never before, and you have arrived!

E. Use a UV filter - there are more uses to a UV filter than simply blocking out the UV rays. Remember, the filter costs you only a fraction of the amount you paid for your lens. Keep a UV filter attached to every lens that you have (considering it is an SLR of course). If you happen to scratch the ‘lens’ surface, you will find solace in the fact that you have only damaged the cheap filter, and not your lens surface.