Assignment 5: explanation

Thanks to a lovely fellow student, I have realised that I might have been a bit rash in my previous past (thanks Eileen!!). I have not clarified why I don't like some of the images I presented, and perhaps I have a larger set of potential images than I first thought before. I guess I was being swayed heavily by the requirement to produce 12 images for the assignment, so naturally I had to only choose 12 out of my potential set of circa 46 images.

I think I had quite a clear idea in my mind of what I wanted to capture initially when I started this project, so naturally I was biased by this when deciding what was and wasn't acceptable in the final images, but perhaps I should question this assumption. I do still prefer the images where I have gone back and photographed without the really prominent bins in the front of the houses. Just because I think they are not as aesthetic. The same goes for the cars - they detract from the clean lines of the house, and unbalance the images for me, particularly when they are off-centrered. However, perhaps a couple of them could work.I revisited the image below to see how it might look with some minor processing applied (levels and slight increase in blue saturation).

house 'villa elba'

It actually works quite well despite the cars in the foreground, though I do feel the balance is somewhat off and too focused on the car in the foreground, whereas my interest is on the house in the background. I also notice the prominence of the trees in the foreground which is not necessarily a problem, though the one on the right looks a little sad!

I think in reconsideration, the set of houses with trees in the foreground is actually worth working up as a second set, as it presents well together. I also will work on some of the other 'reject' images and then make my final decision when I have a bunch of prints in front of me, rather than just files on the computer screen. I need to go through the process of working on a large number of images together to see which ones work cohesively before I make a final editing decision and lock my thoughts in. I also remember reading that it was worth sticking your images upside down on the fridge for a while and letting them mull over in your mind before finally deciding what works and what doesn't. Perhaps if I can find room on our fridge I will do that also!! I certainly want to present a good set for the assignment, but if the complete set can be larger and still be good images then surely that is preferable? I think the process is important here, and I want to make sure I go through all the elements and maybe even lay out 20 or 30 good (final) prints on the floor and consider how they fit together as a presentable set for the final assignment.I  do want to continue on to the next level for my photography studies, so I need to practice these skills of choosing and fitting the images together as I hold them in my hands.

Back to the drawing board then! And more Photoshop hours ahead straightening and tidying and getting the images in order!

Assignment 5: the unnacceptable images

I am once again thinking about Assignment 5, which is my study of houses in Brisbane, Queensland, specifically in the Windsor area. I am interested in the typology of these houses, and have taken a few hundred photos of houses in the area on days of various weather, sun angle etc. I am now looking at choosing the final set to work on in Photoshop, and as part of this, am considering my rejects first. I had previously gone through and 'starred' my images, and considered which ones were good enough to consider for the assignment.

Since I am looking at typology, the set needs to be consistent, almost above every other aspect!! That said, the photos need to be interesting, there needs to be visual appeal, and the images need to be well presented and prepared appropriately. I am no longer able to take any more photos, as I don't live in the area any more and cannot travel there, but I feel like this is not at all a problem as I have a large set of images to work with, and previously considered capturing the images in a consistent manner.

I started with 46 images in my 'Houses' collection. A couple of these were 'doubles', that is, houses that I photographed on more than one occasion, for one reason or another. For example, if the weather was a bit overcast on one day, but I wanted to record the house anyway as I was there, I took the shot in the poorer weather and then returned on another day. I also sometimes was unlucky with cars being parked in front of the house, but took the shot anyway, then I could decide later if it was worth returning to or not. I also photographed one lovely sunny day that also happened to be bin collection day... not ideal. Below is an example of one of my doubles that I returned to later:

a house I returned to (left photo) to capture an image without bins, and also with better sky

The second image (left) has the advantage of the bins not being present, and also the weather is better for my selection, which has almost all blue skies.

Another reason for images not being acceptable was the presence of parked cars. For some houses there was simply always a parked car out the front, so I could never get an image without a car there.

houses with cars parked out the front

As I discussed in this blog post (Alteration), I could spend numerous hours removing cars from the image (not really my strong point!), but this is not the aim of my exercise nor my interest, so I am not going down that route!

Another group of houses had large trees that just seemed to take over the image too much. Looking at these as a grid they could almost be a set of their own! However they were not suitable for this project, despite me quite liking a couple of them, they didn't fit in with the others I selected. Some of these also had the 'bin' problem! I took a couple of these thinking that it might be interesting to have the house 'hiding' behind the tree, but visually it didn't really work all that well, though I do like a couple (middle top row and middle and right second row in particular).

houses with large trees present

Finally there were the images that just didn't have the right 'feel', or lacked a certain oomph. There is nothing wrong with these images, the houses just weren't quite right for my taste, or once again didn't fit in with the set as a whole. A couple suffer from the 'bin' issue also. It is quite hard for me to define what it is I don't like about these images, they just are not as coherent as the final set.

rejects just because they didn't fit in

So then I have the final set of 12 which I think I will now go forward with editing and preparing for presentation. They are shown below:

Final 12 images

They are not ordered as I plan to present them, but they still feel like quite a coherent set. There are a couple with bins which I will decide later on whether I keep or remove digitally. I also need to do some straightening of verticals and horizontals, and need to get the skies a more consistent colour perhaps? There will be individual tweaks to each image and I have done some cropping on the above images which I will review when doing the next stage of processing in Photoshop. I plan to open them in the raw convertor, apply constant adjustments for each image, then open them as smart objects in Photoshop, do further cropping/cloning/straightening as required, and still have the flexibility to go back to the raw editing later if it is necessary. I think this is the best way for me to edit them as a set, especially as I won't be able to do all the editing at once. I will also try to keep some notes and document some of the editing on this blog for my own learning.

Exercise: Sharpening for print

The aim of this exercise is to see the effect of sharpening on an image. This is a good exercise for me as I have not really toggled much with the sharpening, and certainly don't know about the differences between sharpening for screen or print, except that there is a difference!

I have chosen a reference image, as suggested I have chosen a portrait image, shown below with no sharpening applied (at this point I note that Lightroom by default does apply sharpening). I have zoomed in (using Photoshop Raw) over an area of the original image, where at 100% it about fits the size of my print at 8 by 10. I was unsure of how to otherwise 'print at full size', as this is a bit vague, depending on camera resolution and DPI etc.

What is sharpening?
I decided to do some reading about what sharpening is, and why it is used. It is used differently depending on if a print is for screen or print, and probably also depending on what paper it is printed on (eg newspaper vs gloss vs canvas or other materials). I found the following information on a fellow students blog which I have copied below to help me out:

	Amount Slider: This slider allows regulating amount of sharpening; setting the value to 0 can turn off the sharpening. Depending on the amount specified, the contrast between varying pixels increases. This creates the illusion of the edges being sharpened.
	Radius: Regulates the area to which sharpening is applied (outside the perceived edge). It is like the feather effect of “Photoshop”. Need to use this slider judiciously; otherwise it can produce strange effect.
	Detail: This slider adjusts how much sharpening will be applied on the details of the image. Smaller number will be restricted towards the edge, where as a higher number will affect greater details. This slider can help to bring out the texture. However, there is a risk of increasing the noise in an image.
	Masking : This is the most practical and nifty feature. It masks the area that does not require sharpening. It is similar to the mask tool in Photoshop however; it is not as controlled.

 Taken from http://ocastudynotes.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/775/ for personal study purposes

I should note that it is important not to over-sharpen as this can introduce noise into images (an interesting article in Wikipedia). And to always observe the changes when zoomed in, at or around 100% magnification, to see the effects properly.

The sharpening was actually undertaken in Photoshop, but the same RAW engine is underneath both programs, so I won't investigate any differences in the two software packages (there shouldn't' be any!). I have not done any other editing.

no sharpening applied

The next image has 'mild' sharpening applied (settings below also).

mild settings of sharpening

settings for mild

The next image has 'medium' sharpening applied

medium settings of sharpening

settings for medium

The final image has 'heavy' sharpening applied

heavy settings of sharpening

settings for heavy

The differences are really only noticeable when zoomed in on screen, but they really are there! I mostly concentrated on the eye area, as this is where the camera was focused and should be nice and sharp.

I then uploaded the four images to a new site, Atkins Technicolor, which is based in Adelaide (where I now live) for printing. I have had some prints done there before, they are somewhat expensive, but a professional printing lab and I know that they will be high quality. I would like to use them for all my final printing for my work from now on, despite the costs. The advantage is I don't have to pay for postage and can just visit them in a lunch-break from my office, thus being moderately convenient. I note that we are meant to have a printer for this course. We don't own one and never have, and I must admit I don't really want to start fiddling with inks and having a huge printer in my work area, so I am going to avoid it for now and if it becomes an issue in the future I will deal with it then. I can't imagine every single OCA student has a printer at home...

Once I had the prints at home, I observe the differences...

Firstly I compared each print with the other. The 'none' version does look quite soft, particularly when compared with the others. The 'mild' and 'medium' both look good - the eyelashes are sharp and there is some texture on the cheeks and nose but not too much generally. The 'heavy' is noticeably sharper all over, probably to the detriment of the image, with there being too much sharpness on the cheeks and nose which should be softer. This could probably be controlled with the 'masking' option in Lightroom and Photoshop, which simply masks out continuous areas so they are not sharpened. 

When comparing between the print and the screen, I think the print can handle more sharpening than the screen image. This is probably because there is some slight matte-ness to the paper that 'absorbs' some of the sharpening? The 'heavy' for example, in print, just looks a little too sharp, whereas on the screen it is quite obviously over-sharp. I would probably choose the 'medium' for my selection in print form, whereas I would choose the 'mild' for the onscreen version.

Conclusions:

I think that the amount of sharpening required will vary for different scenes - perhaps a landscape print will need different sharpening to a portrait and so on. Something that should be tested before any large scale prints are made perhaps? The prints are more 'forgiving' than the screen for sharpening, so perhaps I should apply slightly more sharpening for printing than for on-screen images. Generally though I don't use much sharpening, just stick to the default for Lightroom ('mild' in my testing above) which seems to do a good job generally. It's always possible to sharpen more later, but removing sharpening is less easy!!

References:

http://www.atkins.com.au/tkins-prints-online/ [Accessed on 24/05/13]

Wikipedia (2013), Unsharp masking [online], Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsharp_masking [Accessed on 27/05/13]

Madhvee Deb (2012), OCA Learning Log [online], Available from http://ocastudynotes.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/775/ [Accessed on 27/05/13]

Assignment 5: More research

I am in the process of preparing for Assignment 5. I took the photos late last year and am just commencing processing and bringing them together as a set. I was browsing blogs tonight and came across Keith Greenough's set of beach huts from Miami. Wow, they look great all together! My set of Queenslanders won't be nearly as distincive, but I like that I'm thinking along the same lines of someone so much further on in the Photographic study as me! Perhaps I will get there...

He has chosen a consistent viewpoint and angle, filling the lower middle of the frame with the hut, and allowing more sky in at the top. How does he do this using a large-format camera? It must be incredibly difficult to remember exactly where he placed the other huts within the frame and fill them to almost exactly the same space. I found this hard with my houses when I was photographing them. He also has quite consistent weather - he has shot at the same time of day and the weather looks fairly constant between each shot. I also took the time to shoot with the sun roughly directed constantly on the houses, and even chose houses on one side of the street and not the other for that reason. I also almost always shot on sunny, blue sky days (we get a lot of those in Queensland!)

I  like the way he presents them as a grid (like I want to do with mine) and the lovely soft colours are great. Not bad given he only spent 45mins a day doing photography on his holiday... (more than I managed on my recent holiday, but I don't think he had a 3year old and 8mth old with him!). Below is my version of a beach hut, taken at 90 Mile Beach, Lakes Entrance (Victoria) which I took in February as we were driving from Brisbane to Adelaide.

Beach hut, Lakes Entrance, 90 Mile beach

References:
Greenough, K photo-graph. Online, available at: http://photo-graph.org/2013/04/26/8-lifeguard-stations-south-beach-miami-usa/ [accessed 22/05/13]

Alma Haser Photographer

I was reading the L E N S C R A T C H blog this week and came across an interesting artist, Alma Haser. She was highlighted on the blog for winning a prize called 'Cosmic Surgery'. I am not personally interested in editing photos in this manner (not yet anyway), but I am fascinated by what some artists do with their images. I understand that these are photos of friends, which are them printed, cut up and folded into Origami, and then placed back on the image and re-photographed. This method seems complicated and time-consuming, but the results are quite interesting. They are both three-dimensional and two, flat and raised at the same time. The faces of the subjects are mostly or partly obscured by the folded print, and as a result eyes, noses and lips are repeated in strange orientations over the face. It is obviously still a face with character, but we would probably not recognise the person on the street. Is it a portrait therefore?

I have grabbed two images from the blog to display below for my own reference. They are slightly washed out and pale, and have a slightly old-worldly look - perhaps this is a result of the paper they are printed on, perhaps it is not photographic paper that she then cuts out and folds? Otherwise the portraits are lovely, but are definitely given an unusual feeling by the process of cut and fold and place.

I have heard of other photographers re-photographing their images afterwards - I wonder how they feel when they are doing this - is it an alternative form of post-processing? Perhaps using bright flash to obscure faces that shouldn't' be seen (I saw this in the BJP), and also sometimes photographers photograph their computer screens, to capture something there in a different way. All interesting modern techniques. The folding and montaging is all old technique though, being around in the dada and surrealist photography periods. Perhaps everything old is new again :)

taken from http://www.lenscratch.com/2013/05/alma-haser-magenta-foundation-bright.html for personal study purposes

taken from http://www.lenscratch.com/2013/05/alma-haser-magenta-foundation-bright.html for personal study purposes

References:

Smithson, A Lenscratch. Online, available at: http://www.lenscratch.com/2013/05/alma-haser-magenta-foundation-bright.html [accessed 22/05/13]