Jim Zuckerman’s
PH OTO I N S I G HTS October 2017
Topaz Remask 5 Blur technique Embedded in ice Photo tours Ask Jim Student showcase
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4. 14. 17. 23. 25. 26. 27. 29. 35. 38. 22
Topaz Remask 5 Blur technique Embedded in ice What’s wrong with this picture? Short and Sweet Ask Jim Photo tours Student showcase Back issues Subject index for Photo Insights
On the cover: Snub-nosed monkeys from central China; This page: Herding horses in Inner Mongolia, a northern province of China.
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n the last couple of years I’ve had a few potential clients tell me that they feel uncomfortable and afraid about traveling now due to the many problems in the world, specifically Islamic terror. I certainly understand this -- we all do. In the face of emotions, though, facts often are dwarfed in their impact on a person’s psyche. Reason is thrown out the window. Paraphrasing a well-known talk show host, “Facts to an emotional person are like Kryptonite to Superman!” For example, given the terrible attack on September 11, should we never visit New York City? Given the Boston marathon bombing, does that mean we dare not visit Boston? How about the tragic mass murder in Orlando? Should parents never take their kids to Disneyworld now? Is Paris, London, Madrid, and San Bernardino, California now off limits? I have two responses to these kinds of fears. First, I won’t let evil people run my life. If I lived in North Korea, I wouldn’t have a choice. But here in America, I do, and I choose to live life to the fullest. And second, the odds of being murdered by a terrorist are infinitesmally small. I found some very interesting statistics online that are quite sobering: In the U.S., the lifetime odds of dying from any motor vehicle accident is 1 in 113; from drowning, 1 in 1,183; from any force of nature, 1 in 3,122; from bicycling, 1 in 4,337; from an animal attack, 1 in 30,167; from foreign-born terrorists in all forms, 1 in 45,808; and from illegal immigrant terrorists, 1 in 138,324,873. So, should a person conclude from this that to be safe the ideal is to live in a tornado shelter, never get in a car, never swim or go near water, never ride a bike, and never have a pet? Obviously, that’s a ridiculous way to live. And so is not traveling if that’s what you love to do. Jim Zuckerman www.jimzuckerman.com photos@jimzuckerman.com 3
TOPAZ REMASK 5 Dealing with hair
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eparating a subject with hair or fur from its original background is one of the toughest challenges for Photoshop. Most photographers try to smudge the edge of the hair with the background or use a blurtype technique, but this never looks correct especially upon close examination assuming the entire subject is sharp. For example, in the photo of two young pandas at right, if the animals are sharp and the edge of their fur is blurred, yet the background is sharp, this doesn’t make sense optically. It would never happen. The problem with hair is that it is not completely opaque. The edges of hair -- even dark hair -- are translucent. Light from the background is seen through these edges, and to simply cut around them, even with the ultra precise
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pen tool, never looks natural. Topaz Remask 5 is the best software available that allows photographers to select a subject with hair or fur. It is not perfect at all, but it’s the best we have to replace backgrounds behind animals or people in which this kind of fine detail is an issue. If you go online and search Youtube for video tutorials on using Topaz Remask, virtually all the examples show significant contrast between the subject’s hair and the background. You’ll see a brunette’s hair against a light, solid background (at right) or a blonde photographed against a dark environment. This kind of contrast makes it easy for the software to distinguish the subject from the background, and many (although not all) of the fine hairs will be retained in the selection.
some cases, totally absent. What do you do, for example, with black hair against a deep shadow? Or white hair against a bright highlight?
If you look at the panda photograph on page 4, you can see that because the background has mottled lighting as well as a myriad of branches and leaves, Remask would have a tough time distinguishing between all that stuff and the It’s much more difficult when the contrast be- precise edge of the fur. In the comparision pictween the hair and the background is low or, in ture on page 5, I pasted in a new background
ETHIOPIA PHOTO TOUR January, 2019
Primitive cultures Early Christian art Volcanos Beautiful birds
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-- and one that is much more complimentary and natural -- and most (but not all) of the fine edge detail was retained. Here are the steps I used to achieve this. 1. Open the photo in Photoshop (Remask 5 is now a stand alone program and it’s not necessary to have Photoshop do this). If you are using Photoshop, access the software here: Filter > Topaz > Remask 5. 2. The photo seen in the dialog box in Remask 5 will look green (at right). Green is the color that represents what you want to keep in the selection. 3. In the tools palette at the left side of the diaThe tools palette in Topaz Remask 5.
log box, you see two rows of colored boxes. Click on the blue box in the upper row (blue arrow at left). Blue is the color that tells Remask where the border is between the subject and the background. You can vary the size of this tool by using the ‘Brush size’ slider, and you can also use the bracket keys on your keyboard next to the ‘P’ key: the left bracket makes the tool smaller, and the right bracket key makes it larger just like in Photoshop. Drag the cursor around the entire periphery of the subject. In this case, it’s the pandas and the tree on which they are climbing. If the edge of the subject is clearly delineated, such as the tree trunk, the brush size can and should be smaller. When the border between the subject and background is more complex, use a wider blue brush size. The blue line doesn’t have to be neat. If the first computation of the mask isn’t perfect, there are ways to tweak it. 4. Next, fill in the background with red. The red color defines the 7
LEARNING TO SEE online course by Jim Zuckerman
The ability to ‘see photographically’, to really grasp how your camera and lenses capture a subject or scene (which is different than how we see with our eyes) underlies successful picture taking. It is the bottom line that you’ve been looking for to take that quantum leap forward in your photography. The great thing about online courses is that they can fit into any schedule. Life gets in the way at times, and Jim puts no limit on the time you can submit your work for his critiques. CLICK THIS PAGE to read more about this course.
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fur has been obscured. The mask is imperfect in these places. This now has to be addressed. 6. The screen capture above shows five icons that appear in the top left section of the Remask 5 dialog box. The ‘trimap’ icon shows the red, blue, and green colors used to create the mask shown at left. When you hit ‘computer mask’, the black and white icon shows you the mask below. If you choose ‘keep’, you will see the photograph with the background replaced by the gray and white checkered design that indicates ‘transparent’ (seen at the top of the next page). The ‘keep’ icon shows you exactly what areas of the subject are part of the selection and what parts have been omitted from it. The left hand red arrow, below, points to a section of
area of the image that is to be excluded from the selection, i.e. the background. To do this, you can click on either of the two red color boxes in the dialog box (red arrows, page 7). The top red color box allows you to brush on the red color by hand; the lower red color box allows you to fill the background areas with red simply by clicking in those areas when you’ve selected the lower red color box. The result of applying the blue border line and the red background fill is seen in the screen capture above. 5. In the tools palette shown on page 7, click ‘computer mask’. In a few seconds the image turns black and white, and you can see the mask (at right). The red arrows indicate the periphery of the pandas where the fine detail of the 9
one of the pandas where the edge fur has been obscured. That same section is reproduced at right after I hit the ‘keep’ icon. You can see that the software had a hard time distinguishing between the fur and the background. To add more of the subject to the selection, or to remove some of the selected area from the background, make a small brush size and choose either the upper red color box (to remove the selection from the background) or the green color box (to add parts of the subject to the selection). This fine tunes the selection all along the periphery between subject and background. If black fur is juxaposed against a black area of the background and the delineation of the fine hairs is hard to see (or the hair is completely blended with the background), there is nothing Remask 5 can do. You either have to accept these areas that are less than perfect or
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you have to use Photoshop in an attempt to make the results more realistic. For example, in the screen capture above, I would copy the portion of the fur at the far right and use that to paste along the edges where the hair was obscured. The success of this technique depends on (1) the type of subject and the type of background and (2) how well you can tweak the mask. 7. Once the mask has been tweaked to your satisfaction, click OK. The mask now appears
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UPCOMING PHOTO WORKSHOPS Carnival in Venice workshop Outrageous costumes in a medieval environment! Venice is great to visit and photograph any time, but during carnival it’s magical. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world. Exotic masks, stunning colors, classic images.
Feb. 1 - 8, 2018
Frog & Reptile Workshop Close-up encounters with poison dart frogs and exotic reptiles such as chameleons, geckos, snakes, and more in St. Louis, Missouri. This is a macro workshop in which everyone consistently gets amazing pictures.
March 24 - 25, 2018
Photoshop workshop The setting is in my home, and in this two day workshop you’ll learn enough to be truly dangerous in Photoshop! How to replace a sky, how to fix all kinds of photographic problems in your pictures, how to handle blown highlights, how to be incredibly creative . . . and more.
Nov. 11 - 12, 2017 10
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as a layer in the layers palette within Photoshop (red arrow at right). To activate the selection, choose Select > load selection, and in the submenu that opens opt for ‘Background copy Transparency’. Alternatively, hold down the command key on a Mac or the control key on a PC and then click the Background copy layer. In either case, the marching ants will appear and the subject (in this case the panda) will be selected per the mask you just made. 8. To select the background (into which a new photo will be pasted) instead of the subject, choose Select > inverse. 9. Open a new background picture, choose Select > all and then Edit > copy. This places the image in the clipboard, Photoshop’s temporary holding place for a photo or part of a photo. Activate the subject photograph and choose Edit > paste special > paste into. This places the new background photo behind the subject and into the background. 12
You can see in the comparison photos of the panda shot at the bottom of page 10 and the one above that Remask 5 did a very good job in retaining the fine detail in the fur all around the periphery of the animal. Was I able to retain all of that subtle and minute detail? No, I wasn’t, but for the most part, it looks quite believable even upon close examination. Given the kind of subject and background this is, I
was quite happy with the results. Now look at the before and after photos on this page. This is a very tiny panda baby about two weeks old in an incubator in a panda reserve in Chengdu, China. I had to shoot through glass, and the background paneling was obviously unfortunate, photographically speaking. I never thought I could successfully replace it, but the image below looks very good.
Look at the fine hairs on the back of the neck in the original image. They didn’t carry over in the composite. While Remask 5 did an incredible job, it wasn’t able to capture that kind of subtlety such that those fine hairs were part of the selection. This shows you the limitations of the software. §
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A Blur Technique
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e spend so much of our energy, money, and attention on getting sharp pictures that sometimes it’s easy to forget creative possibilities with using slow shutter speeds to create blurred images. This is autumn, and blurring stands of colorful trees can produce beautiful, abstract photographs. This idea makes you focus on a very different kind of imagery, and part of the fun is that you never know exactly what you’re going to get until you look at the LCD monitor on the back of the camera.
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The picture below is a shot of a stand of birch trees in China. The leaves were a mixture of yellow with some green. I shot this with a 1635mm wide angle, although any lens can be used for this technique. I used a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second, and just before I snapped the shutter I began moving the camera vertically. It’s important to begin the movement before taking the picture to make sure the camera is moving throughout the exposure. It’s also important to focus. Don’t think that just because the result is an abstraction, sharp focus isn’t important. It is. Without focusing on the
subject, you won’t capture the fine detail -- albeit blurred -- that defines the picture. A variation on this theme is the picture above. I took this in Vermont from a moving vehicle (while someone else was driving). I used a 70200mm telephoto zoom for this shot and chose 1/8th of a second for the shutter. Instead of moving the camera to create the abstraction, I let the movement of the car passing the trees do the moving. The trees lined the road, and seen through the viewfinder they moved very fast. The shutter speed choice was trial and error. You will have to experiment with various shutter speeds to determine how much or how little abstract blur you want in the picture. Even after you have done this technique several times or even over the course of years, you won’t know
exactly what shutter to use until you see the results. The shutter speed selection depends on: (1) the focal length of the lens (the wider the angle of the lens, the slower the shutter should be), (2) how much of the frame is filled with the subject (the closer you are to the subject and/ or the more of the frame it fills, the faster the shutter should normally be), (3) how fast the camera moves past the subject, and (4) how abstract you want the scene to be (the more abstract the subject, the slower the shutter should be to create that look). Use a low ISO, like 100 or 200, because this forces the shutter to be slow -- which is what you want. A tripod isn’t necessary, obviously, and depth of field isn’t really relevant either. I suggest using shutter priority as the exposure mode so you can specifically choose the shutter 1515
speed to create the effect you want. It is best to avoid contrasty scenes. You will get much better color by choosing scenes and subjects in diffused light. In addition, you won’t have to deal with blown out highlights and/ or black shadows. The more muted light of an overcast sky or shade will also help you use longer exposure times. Both of the images on this page were done using a downward vertical movement, and both were done with 1/10th of a second. This is the shutter speed I suggest you start with, and then you can adjust it from there, if needed, to create the kind of images you like. I used 100 ISO for both pictures because even in diffused light, the slower shutter speeds could be denied to you unless the ISO is very low. You will see that when you set the camera on shutter priority, the aperture becomes small because the
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slow shutter gathers so much light. The small f/stop balances the exposure. For example, in the photo above the camera’s meter chose f/18, and for the landscape below the aperture ended up being f/22. Make sure that you compose the picture such that you fill most of the frame with color and design. This provides maximum visual impact, and the abstract will appear to be more interesting and more compelling. §
EMBEDDED IN ICE W
hen I moved to Tennessee, I did so with the idea that the winters would be relatively mild compared to further north and the summers would also be fairly mild compared to the heat and humidity of the Deep South. I’ve been a bit disappointed, though, that the winters here are a bit too mild. Winter photography has a lot to offer, but it just doesn’t get cold enough in Tennessee for rivers to freeze and for a serious snowfall. With that in mind, I wanted to replicate frozen ponds and frozen rivers so I could capture beautiful wintry images. I came up with the idea of finding natural subjects that would look good embedded in ice and then freezing them in the freezer in my kitchen.
I began with colorful leaves. Filling a large, rectangular Tupperware container with water, I placed the leaf or group of leaves in the water and arranged them to look as natural as possible -- as if they’d fallen into a pool of water or a stagnant stream. I then put the container in the freezer and in a few hours the leaf or leaves were embedded in ice. In cold climates, outdoor freezing usually takes place several weeks after the peak of the autumn colors. By that time, the leaves have turned brown. My technique allows you to capture colorful leaves in ice, and the results are better than nature! When I take the Tupperware container out of
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Expand your photographic artistry with
eBooks
Click on any ebook to see inside
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eBooks continued Click on any ebook to see inside
Fantasy Nudes is in production and is coming soon 19 19
the freezer section in the refrigerator, I often like to pour some hot water on it. This makes it crack and fracture, typical of what you’d see in a frozen stream bed. You can photograph the leaves while still in the container using diffused light (this is the ideal type of lighting), or you can take the block of ice out of the Tupperware and use backlighting. The ice can be held up to the sun, you can use flash behind it, or you can simply place the ice on glass and let ambient light infuse the block of ice. The photo of the ice-bound leaf on page 17 shows the effect of backlighting with diffused light. You can see that the ice is illuminated within from the subtle backlight. The leaves below illustrate the luminous look when the block of ice is held up to the sun. The leaves
seem like they are glowing from within and the colors are super saturated. On the next page, I used a different subject. This is a plaster cast of a sabre tooth tiger skull that I froze in a deep Tupperware container. The lighting you see here is simply diffused daylight. I took the frozen block outside and photographed it in the shade. The cool color is typical of deep shade, and I liked this color cast so I didn’t change it. Note how this ice looks compared to the pictures of the leaves. This is more realistic based on what you’d find in nature. My intent here was to suggest that I came upon a remarkable find in the Arctic of an extinct mammal from the ice age. If you live in a cold climate, you can spray water on outdoor subjects and in a few hours they will be covered in ice. Flowers that bloom late in
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the year, for example, make amazing subjects like in the photo at right. You can also go to a florist or any floral department in a grocery store and buy flowers to embed in ice as I did in the image below. I did this in Tupperware, but it could also be done outside. Spraying a mist of water on a subject produces beautiful designs in ice. ยง
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SNOWY OWL WORKSHOP, Canada Jan. 21 - 24, 2018
Great shots of snowy owls in flight
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What’s wrong with this picture?
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t’s pretty obvious what’s wrong with this picture. It’s the background. I could have waited until the person on the left moved away before I took the shot, but even so, reflections in the background and the illuminated ceiling are distractions. This terra-cotta statue of a soldier from the Han Dynasty in China (210 B. C.) was behind glass, and I used a 16 - 35mm wide angle lens placed against the glass to make the picture. That eliminated many of the reflections, but not all of them. When shooting in museums, you can expect that most of the subjects will have poor backgrounds. It just goes with the territory. The solution is to replace the background and make the image look more like a studio shot in which you had total control of the background. This can be easily done with the gradient tool in Photoshop. 23
In this version, you can see that whatever was behind the statue didn’t matter because it’s been totally replaced. To do this, I selected the statue and the base on which the statue is resting. I used the quick selection tool because it’s so fast, but since it’s not entirely accurate (in places where the colors in the statue were very close to the colors in the bgackground, the tool had a hard time distinguishing the actual edge of the artwork), I had to touch up the selection using the lasso tool to add or subject areas that weren’t precise enough to make a perfect selection. Once this was done, I used Select > modify > contract, and this contracted the selection to move it away from the original background. This prevents any unwanted color from clinging to the statue. Finally, I feathered the edge one pixel with the command: Select > modify > feather. I then chose the colors for the circular gradient by selecting beige and black, respectively, for the foreground/background color boxes. With the gradient tool selected, I chose the ‘circular gradient’ icon (in the upper left corner of the tool bar) and dragged the cursor from the center of the statue to the upper right corner. § 24
SHORT AND SWEET 1. Carry a set of extension tubes with you when you
2. When possible, take wide angle shots of wildlife.
travel. They instantly can turn a long lens into a telephoto macro. They are inexpensive, light, and take up very little space in your gear bag. This lizard was shot with a 70-200mm lens plus two extension tubes.
This means getting extremely close. The effect is ultra dramatic. I shot this white pelican in Namibia from a boat with a 14mm lens. The closer you can get, the more the picture will have visual impact.
3. Old cemeteries offer a lot of photographic oppor-
4. Rain and a thick cloud cover doesn’t necessarily
tunities like this 15th century one in Prague. Other great cemeteries include the Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia, Clonmacnoise Cemetery, County Offaly, Ireland; La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Colon Cemetery in Havana, Cuba.
mean good photography is finished for the day. Sometimes you’ll get a window in the sky where a dramatic shaft of light can happen, as it did here in Salzburg, Austria. This happened five minutes before sunset, and just a few minutes earlier it seemed hopeless. §
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ASK JIM
Every month Jim will answer a question from his online students, from people who participate in his tours and workshops, or from subscribers to this magazine. If you have a question you’d like Jim to answer, please drop him a note at photos@jimzuckerman.com.
Q:
Jim . . I have three questions about this picture. First, is there any way to avoid lens flare in situations like this? Second, do you think the lens flare hurts this picture? And third, is it possible to eliminate the lens flare in this shot in Photoshop or possibly Lightroom? Dwayne Mills, San Diego, California
A:
To answer each of your questions: (1) If the sun is included in the composition, there is no way to avoid lens flare. More expensive lenses should have coatings that minimize this, but that’s all they can do. If the sun is just outside the frame, then either a lens hood or your hand can block the sun from striking the front glass element, preventing the flare. (2) Yes, I think the flare hurts the picture. The streaks coming from the sun are fine. I like them, actually, because they give a feeling of radiance to the sun. It is the hexagonal shapes that hurt the shot. (3) Yes, the offending flare could be removed in Photoshop but it would take a lot of skill to do it. You’d need to use the content-aware tool, the clone tool, cutting and pasting, and various blending tools. It’s doable, but it’s not easy. This would be impossible to do in Lightroom. §
© Dwayne Mills
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Photography Tours 2017 - 2019 SNOWY OWLS Jan. 2018
CARNIVAL IN VENICE Feb. 2018
WHITE HORSES, FRANCE May 2018
LAVENDER FIELDS, FRANCE July. 2018
GRIZZLIES in CANADA Sep. 2018
THE PANTANAL, BRAZIL Nov. 2018
ETHIOPIA Jan. 2019
OREGON COAST Aug. 2019
NEW ZEALAND Apr. 2018
INDONESIA WILDLIFE Aug. 2018
CHINA Dec. 2018 - 2019
UZBEKISTAN & KYRGYZSTAN Sept. 2019
For a complete list of all the photo tours/workshops Jim conducts, go to his website: www.jimzuckerman.com.
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South Africa & Namibia photo safari April 25 - May 9, 2018
awesome wildlife exotic birds monster dunes ancient dead trees
White rhinos, Namibia
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Student Showcase Each month, Jim features one student who took beautiful and inspiring images on one or more of his photography tours or workshops. It’s really fascinating how photographers see and compose such different images even though we may go to the same places. Everyone gets great photographs on Jim’s trips.
Linh Nguyen, Germantown, Maryland Frog and reptile workshop
© 2017 Linh Nguyen
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Student Showcase, continued
© 2017 Linh Nguyen
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Student Showcase, continued
© 2017 Linh Nguyen
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Student Showcase, continued
© 2017 Linh Nguyen
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WILD INDONESIA PHOTO TOUR August 27 - 31, 2018
Wild orangutans, Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo
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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my home
Sat. & Sun., November 11 - 12, 2017
Photoshop is a photographer’s best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless. In a personal and ‘homey’ environment (I have a very cool classroom setup in my home), I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, using ‘grunge’ textures, modifying lighting, replacing backgrounds, using layer masks, blend modes, adding a moon, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many great techniques that you won’t believe what you’ll be able to do. I go over each technique several times to make sure you understand it and can remember it. Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. My approach is to be as expansive in my thinking as possible in creating unique, artistic, and compelling images. In addition to showing you how to use the various tools, pull down menus, layers, and so on, I spend a lot of time giving you
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creative ideas that will inspire you to produce amazing images with the pictures you’ve already taken. I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and if you fly into the airport (BNA) I will pick you up. If you drive, I’ll give you my address and you can find my home on Mapquest or with a GPS. For the $450 fee, I include one dinner in my home (prepared by my wife who is an amazing cook and hostess) and two lunches, plus shuttling you back and forth from my home to your nearby hotel. Contact me if you would like to participate in the workshop and I will tell you how to sign up (photos@jimzuckerman.com). All you need is a laptop and a lot of your pictures. If you don’t have a laptop, I have two Mac Book Pro laptops I can loan out for the duration of the workshop. §
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• Topaz Glow • A different approach to composition • Photographing puppies • Kaleidoscopic images • Online photo course • Student showcase • Photo tours
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Subject index for past Photo Insight issues 1/3 focus law 3D sphere 90 degree finder Abstracts in soap Aerial photography African safari Airplane windows Alien landscapes Anatomy of 8 photographs Aperture vs. shutter speed Aperture priority Aurora Borealis Auto white balance Autofocus, when it fails Autofocus failure Autofocus failure
Jul. ‘15 Mar. ‘16 Mar. ‘13 Feb. ‘15 Jun. ‘13 May ‘16 Mar. ‘16 Jan. ‘13 Jan. ‘16 May ‘14 Sept. ‘14 Apr. ‘17 Dec. ‘13 Apr. ‘15 Aug. ‘15 Jan. ‘17
Backgrounds, wild Nov. ‘12 Backgrounds, busy Apr. ‘13 Backlighting Apr. ‘16 Birds in flight Aug. ‘13 Birds in flight Jan. ‘14 Birds in flight Mar. ‘16 Black velvet Mar. ‘14 Black and white conversions Mar. ‘17 Black and white solarization Sep. ‘17 Blur technique Oct. ‘17 Bokeh Jun. ‘15 Butterfly photography Jul. ‘14 Camera setting priorities Jun. ‘17 Capturing lightning Jun. ‘13 Catchlights Jul. ‘16 Cheap flash stand Apr. ‘13 Children photography Jun. ‘14 Chromatic aberration May ‘13 Cityscapes Aug. ‘14 Cityscapes May ‘16 Clone tool, fixing an issue Sep. ‘17 Composition, different approach Jan. ‘15 Contrast vs. exposure Jul. ‘15 Creating a star field Jan. ‘14 Creative blurs Jan. ‘14 Dawn photography Dawn photography Dead center Dealing with smog Decay photography Depth of field
Jan. ‘17 Feb. ‘17 Jan. ‘13 Oct. ‘16 Sep. ‘15 Aug. ‘16
eBook, how to make Jan. ‘13 Embedded in Ice Oct. 17 Energy saving bulbs Sep. ‘14 Exposing for the sun Sep. ‘16 Exposure, the sun Jul. ‘13 Exposure technique Sep. ‘13 Exposure, snow Jan. ‘14 Exposure triangle Nov. ‘14 Exposure, to the right Apr. ‘15 Exposure compensation Sep. ‘16 Extension tubes Dec. ‘13 Fill flash Sep. ‘13 Filter forge Feb. ‘13
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Fireworks Jul. ‘13 Fisheye lenses May ‘13 Fisheye lenses Feb. ‘15 Flash backlighting May ‘15 Flash, balancing exposure Oct. ‘15 Flat art Sep. ‘16 Flowers May ‘15 Flowers in harsh light Jul. ‘16 Focus points Mar. ‘15 Focus stacking Mar. ‘17 Focusing in the dark Oct. ‘16 Foreign models Jun. ‘13 Fractals, generating Sep. ‘13 Framing May ‘17 Freezing ultra action May ‘17 Fun with paint Oct. ‘16 Fundamental ingredients Apr. ‘13 Garish imagery Great subjects Green screen Grunge technique
Dec. ‘15 Apr. ‘15 Mar. ‘13 Feb. ‘13
HDR, one photo Apr. ‘13 HDR at twilight May ‘13 HDR, realistic Jun. ‘15 HDR, hand held Dec. ‘16 HDR panoramas Jun. ‘16 High wind Apr. ‘17 Highlights Apr. ‘14 Highlights, overexposed Feb. ‘15 Humidity Oct. ‘13 Hummingbird photography Apr. ‘13 Hyperfocal distance Jul. ‘13 Implying motion Sept.‘14 Impossible DOF Feb. ‘16 Impossible DOF Jan. ‘17 Indestructible camera bag Dec. ‘14 Infrared photography Jul. ‘14 Interiors Oct. ‘15 iPad: Loading photos Aug.‘17 Jungle photography
Dec. ‘14
Kaleidoscopic images Keystoning, correcting
Jan. ‘15 Aug. ‘15
Landscape photography Landscape photography Landscape photography Light fall-off Lighting a face Low light photography Macro flash Macro flash Macro flash Mannequin heads Metering modes Meters, when they fail Middle gray Model shoot
Dec. ‘12 Apr. ‘14 Nov. ‘16 Feb. ‘14 Oct. ‘13 May ‘15 Nov. ‘12 Sep. ‘14 Aug. ‘15 Apr. ‘16 Nov. ‘16 Dec. ‘16 Nov. ‘15 Jan. ‘17
Subject index for past Photo Insight issues
continued
Moon glow Oct. ‘16 Mosaics Jun. ‘17 Museum photography Mar. ‘13 Negative space Neon edges on black Night photography Noise reduction
Jan. ‘16 Aug. ‘14 Feb. ‘14 Feb. ‘17
Optical infinity
Jun. ‘16
Paint abstracts May ‘13 Painting with light Sep. ‘15 Panning motion Dec. ‘16 Parades Sep. ‘13 Photoshop, content Aware Nov. ‘12 Photoshop, sketch technique Apr. ‘13 Photoshop, replace background Apr. ‘13 Photoshop, actions palette Dec. ‘13 Photoshop, layer masks Feb. ‘13 Photoshop, the clone tool May ‘13 Photoshop, soft foliage Oct. ‘13 Photoshop, mixer brush tool Sept. ‘14 Photoshop, b & w with color Jun. ‘14 Photoshop, drop shadows Jul. ‘14 Photoshop, creating texture Feb. ‘14 Photoshop, face mirrors Feb. ‘14 Photoshop, liquify Mar. ‘14 Photoshop, face mirrors Aug. ‘14 Photoshop, digital spotlight Sep. ‘14 Photoshop, enlarge eyes Nov. ‘14 Photoshop, darken the periphery Dec. ‘14 Photoshop, mirror images Dec. ‘14 Photoshop, beam of light Apr. ‘15 Photoshop, polar coordinates Mar. ‘15 Photoshop, chrome May ‘15 Photoshop, actions palette Nov. ‘15 Photoshop, cut and paste Nov. ‘15 Photoshop, geometrics Oct. ‘15 Photoshop, plugins Oct. ‘15 Photoshop, multiple selections Apr. ‘16 Photoshop, sharpening Apr. ‘16 Photoshop, Flood plugin Apr. ‘16 Photoshop, Desaturation Aug. ‘16 Photoshop, making a composite Aug. ‘16 Photoshop, the pen tool Feb. ‘16 Photoshop, canvas size Jan. ‘16 Photoshop, using the earth Jun. ‘16 Photoshop, define patterns May ‘16 Photoshop, paste into Nov. ‘16 Photoshop, b & w with color Feb. ‘17 Photoshop, open a closed door Apr. ‘17 Photoshop, palettes May ‘17 Portrait techniques Nov. ‘15 Portraits Mar. ‘13 Portraits, mixed lighting Aug. ‘14 Portraits, side lighting Sep. ‘17 Portraits, window light Mar. ‘15 Portraits, outdoors May ‘17 Post-processing checklist Dec. ‘13 Post-processing: Contrast Aug. ’17 Problem/solution Apr. ‘17 Protecting highlights Dec. ‘12 Puppies Jan. ‘15
Reflections Feb. ‘13 Safari May ‘13 Safari strategies Jul. ‘15 Seeing as the lens does Nov. ‘14 Selective focus Jun. ‘15 Self-critiques Jul. ‘13 Self-critiques Oct. ‘13 Sepia and dark contrast Jun. ‘15 Shade May ‘14 Sharpness problems Mar. ‘14 Shooting through wire mesh Sept. ‘14 Silhouettes Jun. ‘13 Soft light Jan. ‘13 Stained glass Mar. ‘17 Star photography Jul. ‘16 Stock photography Sep. ‘14 Tamron 150-600mm Topaz Simplify 4 Topaz simplify 4 Topaz glow Topaz glow Topaz Impression Topaz Remask 5 Travel photography Travel portraits Travel tips Travel photographer’s guide Two subject sharp rule
Apr. ‘14 Dec. ‘12 Jun. ‘14 Jan. ‘15 Sep. ‘17 Sep. ‘15 Oct. ‘17 Feb. ‘13 Mar. ‘14 Apr. ‘14 Jun. ‘17 May ‘14
Warm fingers in winter Nov. ‘15 White vignette Aug. ‘15 White balance Feb. ‘15 White balance, custom Mar. ‘16 Wide angle lenses Mar. ‘13 Wide angle portraits Nov. ‘14 Wide angle lenses Jun. ‘17 Wildlife photos with wide angles Mar. ‘15 Window light Dec. ‘15 Window frames Feb. ‘16 Winter photography Dec. ‘12 Winter bones May ‘13 Winter photography Dec. ‘15 Workflow May ‘13
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PHOTO INSIGHTS® published by Jim Zuckerman, all rights reserved © Jim Zuckerman 2017 email: photos@jimzuckerman.com mail address: P.O. Box 7, Arrington, TN 37014
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