More Photoshop Fun

Well not that much fun, but I have been honing my PS skills a bit in the last few days, specifically making some adjustments to some publicity shots for the local Arts Centre where Susie is involved.

I was asked to take some pictures of the building where the Centre is located, being an unusual and pretty photogenic old Victorian school I thought there would be real possibilities to take something that did the old building justice. However, on the day of the session the weather was horrible. Drizzle and a completely grey sky. Colours were flat. Nothing to lock onto as a feature…. I took the best picture I could of the outside and hoped to fix things on the computer.

Here’s the initial shot…..

Drab.....

Obviously, it needed brightening up considerably. The biggest change I decided upon was to swap out the sky for something that actually had some blue in it. Photoshop has produced a new insert that allows you to change skys almost at will. I could have chosen a sky that made in look like Krakatoa had erupted behind the Arts Centre, which, while fun may have somewhat distracted the casual observer!

The other thing was that the soft tones of the building had been lost in the greyness, so I turned the brightness and saturation up a bit to try and restore it. Finally, I went around the image “Tidying”. The horrible junction box and burglar alarm were removed, as was the litter bin.

What emerged was an image that is still instantly forgettable, but at least, via some fairly sublte changes, makes the building slightly more welcoming !

If Ansel Adams had Photoshop

Everybody these days knows about Photoshop. In some circles it’s become synonymous with falsity and deception. It can apparently create an alternative reality and change history and is one of the terrors of the modern world. But there are a couple of things to me at least, missing from that view. It’s not the Fifth horseman of the Apocalypse by any means. Let’s consider a couple of positives….

Firstly, very few of the images that grace magazines, webpages and yes, gallery walls have not been altered in some way after the point where the original image hit the back of the camera. Why is that? Well, I would argue that at least in some respects what the photographer is trying to do when he uses Photoshop is move the image closer to what he saw in his mind’s eye when he took the picture in the first place.

When I bought my first SLR camera I lived in Cardiff. I remember racing out of my flat to shoot the first roll of film on a nearby meadow where some horses grazed (I know… Cardiff was a different place in 1981). I shot a roll of film in overcast conditions and then got the ruinously expensive 2 hour developing option in Boots. The pictures when I picked them up were a hammer blow…. They were blurry, boring, flat. They were more ‘muddy’ than ‘moody’. That was what I had seen when I looked through the viewfinder. Had I had Photoshop 40 years ago I might have been able to salvage something. I could have sharpened them, maybe darkened them down and even tried monochrome. It was probably only that I had spent over a hundred pounds (!) on a camera and lens that made me persevere at all.

The other thing to say though is that the skills of the professional photographer have always included a strong element of post-production jiggery-pokery. From Ansel Adams to Terence Donovan, photographers have manipulated images to get closer to what they had in mind when the picture was taken. All that’s happened is that the tools today are better.

Which doesn’t mean to say that there aren’t occasions when a picture isn’t photoshopped to death…. Follow enough people on Instagram and your eyes eventually bleed from the horrors visited on nondescript pictures, tarted up beyond any sense.

As with many things, knowing when to stop is probably the key. Anyway, thankfully and sensibly I didn't keep those first efforts, though I still have the image I was after.... it came from the inside cover of Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother" - Good eh?

Bloody Cameras - Final Part!!

Warning…. Tech speak coming….. sorry but no avoiding it. Just for this entry I promise.

So, the deed is done. The new camera bought. I thought long and hard about the choice and eventually there was really only one route to go down.

Before I tell you what I actually bought the logic went like this:

1) My Samsung Note 10 camera phone takes great pictures. I will use that in future when attending social events. It stops me being allocated photo-taking duties and allows me to enjoy whatever’s going on.

2) I want something that is great for the actual hobby/business of photography. Something that will take the best possible pictures at the highest resolution. It has to have all the expected tools incorporated too, like image stabilisation, adjustable autofocus etc etc

3) It has to be fairly portable and not too heavy

4) It has to be easy to use and familiar. I hated the menu system on the small Lumix to the extent that it spoiled the experience for me.

5) It needed to be good enough to be a “Last” Camera. Not being morbid but trying to emphasise that it needs to be future-proofed and good quality.

Cutting to the chase I bought a Nikon Z5 with a 24-50 F4 lens. I also bought an adapter to allow older Nikon lenses to fit.

It seemed to offer the best compromise all round

1) Full frame images (24.5mp)

2) Not too big (Mirrorless construction means it’s significantly less bulky) but has all of the bells and whistles I wanted.

3) New Nikon Z system is their future roadmap.

4) The cheapest version of the full-frame system – I’ve bought into the club at the lowest cost. The compromises are in areas I’m not bothered about (Video, Burst shots etc)

5) The adapter will enable me to use some older lenses.

There will be another post when I’ve got to grips with it, the positives and negatives. Initial feedback: Having had Nikon SLRs for 30 years I love the familiarity of the positioning of switches. The topography of the Nikons doesn’t change. The feel is indistinguishable from older cameras. I’ve only shot 30 or so images so far and not been out with it yet, but it feels good!