Digital Darkroom
by Michael Frye | Dec 16, 2010 | Announcements, Digital Darkroom
It’s easy to find information about Photoshop, Lightroom, or just about any other aspect of the digital darkroom. But too often this information consists of random tips and tricks.
So I asked myself how I could help people put it all together. How could I help photographers develop a simple, powerful workflow, learn to make good decisions about how their photographs should look, and convey their original inspiration?
And that’s when I had the idea for this book.
In Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom I’ll take you step-by-step through each decision as I process five different images in Adobe Lightroom. You’ll see my workflow in action, and I’ll explain why I use particular techniques in a particular order. But more importantly, you’ll come to understand the esthetic judgements behind each decision—how a certain amount of contrast conveyed my vision, or why too much saturation muddied the color rather than enhanced it. As you look over my shoulder you’ll gain insights about how to convey your own unique vision, and how to squeeze every ounce of beauty, emotion, and inspiration out of your photographs.
While I use Lightroom for these examples, the basic principles apply to any software. Learning how to make good decisions and find the right balance is more important than learning any particular tool or technique.
This eBook is published in conjunction with Craft & Vision, David duChemin’s great photography eBook site. Like all their eBooks, Light & Land is normally only five dollars. But for the next four days you can get it for only four dollars. Just use the code LAND4 at checkout. Or use the code LAND20 to get 20 percent off if you buy five or more Craft & Vision eBooks.
Click here to order your copy!
by Michael Frye | Dec 10, 2010 | Digital Darkroom, Photography Tips, Video Tutorials
White Balance for Landscape Photographs – Part 1: Sunlight from Michael Frye on Vimeo.
My recent critique of Mark Wilburn’s dogwood photograph prompted a lively discussion about white balance, so this seemed like a good topic for a more in-depth treatment. I’ve created three videos on white balance for landscape photographs, and here’s part one, which looks at images with sunlight, including sunrises and sunsets. Part two will discuss photographs captured in the shade, and part three will present solutions to a common problem in landscape photographs—finding the right white balance when mixing low-angle sunlight with blue sky.
In all of these videos I discuss what I think is the key to setting color temperature—finding a good balance between warm and cool colors, and preserving the vibrance of all the individual hues.
To see this video clearly, be sure that “HD” is on (the letters “HD” should be white instead of gray; if not, click on them), and click the “expand” icon just to the right of “HD.” Once you’ve expanded you might want to turn Scaling off if you have a big monitor.
As I mentioned yesterday, my new eBook will discuss my entire workflow in depth. I’ll post more details soon.
by Michael Frye | Dec 9, 2010 | Announcements, Digital Darkroom
My first eBook, Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, will be released next week on December 15th.
Light & Land is a natural successor to my last book, Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters. In the last chapter of that volume I talk about the fundamental tenets of the digital darkroom, like workflow, creating a master file, curves, and dodging and burning. In Light & Land I delve into more detail, discussing every decision about processing five different images, demonstrating the workflow from beginning to end, and, most importantly, showing you how you can use your original idea, your inspiration for pressing the shutter, to guide you as you work in the digital darkroom.
It’s published in conjunction with Craft & Vision, David duChemin’s great photography eBook site. Like all their eBooks, Light & Land will be only five dollars.
Stay tuned for more details!
by Michael Frye | Jul 27, 2010 | Advanced Techniques, Digital Darkroom, Video Tutorials
Vision is the most important part of photography. Your eye is what makes the difference between a great photograph and a mediocre one.
But when realizing your vision and making it come to life in the final image, getting the right color is vital.
Recently I posted two videos about using curves in Photoshop, Lightroom, and Camera Raw. But there’s a more fundamental step that I haven’t talked about, something you might want to do with Raw files before adding curves, correcting white balance, or doing anything else: choosing a profile.
What is a Camera Profile?
A camera profile is a translator: it’s translates the colors that a camera captures into the colors they should be. In other words, if a certain camera tends to turn reds into orange, the profile will correct for that and convert those reds back to their proper hue. Of course there’s no such thing as “correct” color—it’s all subjective. So profiles can come in different flavors: more saturated, less saturated, more contrasty, etc. Choosing the right flavor for your image is the first step toward making your visualization come to life.
I’ve posted a new video on YouTube that delves into this seemingly esoteric yet actually quite simple subject. In it I show you how to choose different profiles in Lightroom, and explore whether creating a custom profile might be worthwhile. I evaluate some profiles I made with the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport, a $99 package for making custom camera profiles in any lighting situation. Yes, full disclosure, they actually gave this to me for free—I must be hitting the big time!
Also, there’s one more reason for exploring different profile options: reducing noise, banding, and posterization. I show an example where the profile choice made a dramatic difference in noise and banding.
I didn’t have time to demonstrate it in the video, but the same profile choices are also available in Adobe Camera Raw—just look under the Camera Calibration tab, third from the right, as shown here.
So here’s a link to the video:
Camera Calibration and Profiles
As always, it helps to view this at the highest resolution, 480p, and click on the double-sided arrow to make the video larger.
I hope you enjoy it! Comments are always appreciated, and if you like video, please share it with a friend: Email this article, or click on one of the buttons below to post it on Facebook or Twitter.
by Michael Frye | Jul 6, 2010 | Advanced Techniques, Digital Darkroom, Video Tutorials
Curves in Lightroom and Camera Raw
As promised, I’ve posted another tutorial on YouTube about Curves in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw. In this video I examine the default settings in these applications, and why you should avoid using them—at least sometimes. These defaults actually apply three curves to your image before you even start processing it. Watch the video to see what’s really going on “under the hood” with the settings in Lightroom and Camera Raw.
Again I had to break this into two parts; here are the links:
Curves in Lightroom and Camera Raw – Part 1
Curves in Lightroom and Camera Raw – Part 2
I hope you enjoy these—comments are always welcome! To see everything clearly you need to view in high resolution—click on where it says 240p or 360p in the lower-right corner and choose 480p. Also, if you click on the little double-sided arrow you’ll see the video larger.
by Michael Frye | Jun 24, 2010 | Advanced Techniques, Digital Darkroom, Video Tutorials
I did something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: post a video tutorial on YouTube. It’s called The Power of Curves, and it’s about, well, curves in Photoshop. This is one of those things that’s just easier to show than explain, so it’s a perfect subject for video.
I think Curves are the single most powerful tool in the digital darkroom; if you learn to master Curves, you’re well on your way to mastering image-processing. Curves tend to intimidate some people, as they seem foreign if you haven’t used them before. But Curves are really quite simple, and I hope this video helps clarify how to use this amazing tool. I had to break this into two parts; here are the links:
The Power of Curves Part 1
The Power of Curves Part 2
Originally I had wanted to talk about the new Point Curve feature in Lightroom 3, but then realized that I needed to explain some basics about Curves first, and that Photoshop was a better tool for that. But I’ll post another video in about two weeks about using Curves in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw, and about dealing with their strange default settings.
So I hope you enjoy these—let me know what you think! To see everything clearly you need to view in high resolution—click on where it says 240p or 360p in the lower-right corner and choose 480p. Also, if you click on the little double-sided arrow you’ll see the video larger.
