Digital Photo May 2010 by www.photoanswers.co.uk

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ISSUE 129 MAY 2010 £4.99

D-SLR & PHOTOSHOP PROJECTS

TAKE GREAT OUTDOOR SHOTS

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D-SLR

PULL -O TO TRUT GUIDE FILTE IPODS, RS & MO , BAGS RE!

Get your best-ever pics with our easy 48-hour course!

EASY ADVICE

PHOTOSHOP MASTERCLASS Learn how to squeeze even more detail out of your shots

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PLUS NEW PHOTO GEAR WIDE-ANGLE ZOOM LENSES TESTED SAMSUNG NX10 OLYMPUS PEN E-PL1 THE BEST D-SLR ACCESSORIES

LEARN NEW D-SLR & PHOTOSHOP SKILLS NOW!

WHAT YOU NEED ANY D-SLR & KIT LENS WHAT YOU’LL LEARN LANDSCAPE SHOOTING SKILLS

OUTDOOR MADE SHOTS EASY!

Spring is here, so it’s time to get out there with your camera! We’ll show you how to plan your shoot and build a stunning landscape portfolio in a weekend WORDS & PICTURES BY KINGSLEY SINGLETON & PHIL HALL

HAT ARE YOU DOING this weekend? Decorating? Sorting out the garden perhaps? Or making an unwanted trip to the rubbish dump? Why not put these things on hold for another week and get out there with your camera, setting yourself a challenge of building-up a series of must-have landscape shots that any photographer would be proud of? While you may think this can take months of time and effort to achieve, with some careful planning, it’s possible to shoot and enhance a stack of great outdoor shots in

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just 48 hours. So rather than giving the spare bedroom a lick of magnolia, why not grab your camera and head into the great outdoors? Over the following pages, we’ll show you what you must shoot and why, how to use your kit out on location and how to get the best results in Photoshop or Elements once you’re home… all in the space of a weekend!

SEE HOW EASY IT IS TO GET THE SHOTS OVER THE PAGE

COMING UP

YOUR 48-HOUR GUIDE TO GREAT OUTDOOR PICS

SEE PAGE 26 We’ll show you how to plan your shoot, so you can visit a variety of locations with ease.

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SEE PAGE 28 Out on the shoot, there’s expert advice on using your camera the right way.

SEE PAGE 32 With your shots in the can, we’ll show you all the tricks you need to improve them.

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OUTDOOR SHOTS EMAASDYE!

WHAT YOU NEED PHOTOSHOP OR ELEMENTS WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FOCUS STACKING FOR TOTAL SHARPNESS

FOREGROUND FOCUS

THET BES TO WAYUPER S GET ARP SH TS SHO

PIN-SHARP PICS THE EASY WAY

Convert a single RAW file twice to achieve a perfectly Use focus stacking in your landscapes for exposed landscape shot the ultimate front-to-back sharpness TECHNIQUE BY PHIL HALL TECHNIQUE BY KINGSLEY SINGLETON

MIDDLE FOCUS 2 MIDDLE FOCUS 1

FOCUS STACKING To ensure every part of the scene is sharp, four separately focused shots are taken, then blended using Layers, so only the sharp parts show!

FOCUS STACKING IS a wonderful example of how digital shooting and editing can come together to make great scenic pictures. After shooting the series of pics on location, each focused in a different part of the scene, the results can be seamlessly blended so only the sharp parts of each exposure are visible. So, within a few minutes you can achieve a shot that’s pin-sharp in both the foreground and the background. Using Layers is vital to achieving this and allows you to remove the fuzzy parts of one shot, thereby letting the sharp areas of another show through. If this sounds a little tricky, don’t worry, nothing could be further from the

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truth and by following the step-by-step guide below, as well as watching the video lesson on the CD, you’ll quickly see how a focus-stacked image can be put together.

Deleting or Masking? Though we’ve used Elements to put this image together, and employed the Eraser tool to delete the blurred areas on each Layer, those with a full version of Photoshop are advised to use Layer Masks instead, which make it easier to correct mistakes if you’ve removed too many pixels. Okay, let’s get started!

“ Using Layers is vital in creating a focus-stacking effect... ”

BACKGROUND FOCUS

STEP-BY STEP BLEND THE SHOTS

START COMBINE PICS. Open Ashness_1, 2, 3 and 4 then make sure you can see all of them on screen at the same time by going to Window ➔ Images ➔ Tile. Now pick the Move tool, hold Shift and click in Ashness_2. Keep the mouse button held down and drag it into Ashness_1. Repeat this with Ashness_3 and 4, then click back on Ashness_1 and close the other pics down.

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OPEN LAYERS. Go to Window ➔ Layers and you’ll see four Layers in the palette – the highest being the Ashness_4 and the lowest (the Background Layer) being Ashness_1. Now, making sure the top Layer is highlighted in the Layers palette, zoom in and check the sharpness – you’ll see that though the bridge and background are sharp, anything much closer to the camera is out of focus.

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Photoshop Masterclass

Your expert guide to the tips, tools & techniques that really matter...

Shadow/Highlight Command ENHANCE THE DETAIL IN EVERY IMAGE YOU TAKE Photoshop’s Shadow/Highlight command is great for revealing detail. Here, we find out what it does and how it can work for your pictures

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TECHNIQUE BY MICHAEL TOPHAM

WHAT YOU NEED PHOTOSHOP CS OR HIGHER WHAT YOU’LL LEARN USE THE SHADOW/ HIGHLIGHT COMMAND

N PHOTOSHOP’S MENU BAR, CLICK ON IMAGE, hover your mouse over Adjustments and you’ll reveal an impressive list of no less than 23 image adjustment options. This month, we’re examining the Shadow/Highlight command from this list, the first incarnation of which was seen in Photoshop CS. This handy command has the ability to bring out detail in areas that were previously thought to be too dark or light to recover. What’s interesting is it works in a different way to many other adjustment commands, like Levels or Curves. Instead of merely lightening or darkening pixels, it carefully works out the neighbouring pixels within an image and makes a compensating adjustment based on the average pixel value within a set radius. If all that sounds a bit complex, don’t worry! We’ll be putting the

command to great use over the next few pages, taking you through everything you need to know in an easy to follow, step-by-step technique.

Controlling Shadow/Highlight Going to Image ➔ Adjustments ➔ Shadow/Highlight loads the basic adjustment dialog. The two Amount sliders can be set between 0 and 100%, letting you increase or decrease the amount of shadow or highlight correction. When you want to make quick adjustments these two sliders are all you need, as we’ll see in Part 1 of the Masterclass video lesson on the cover CD. If you want to take control of the Tonal Width, Radius, Color Correction and Midtone Contrast, however, you’ll need to tick the Show More Options box to reveal the full set of eight sliders. We’ll be looking at these advanced

BASIC DIALOG

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When you load the Shadow/ Highlight dialog the shadows in your image will lighten. This is because the Shadows slider is set to 50% as default. To prevent this happening, reduce the Shadows Amount to 0% and tick on the Show More Options box. Click on Save As Defaults at the bottom. To restore Photoshop’s original default settings, hold down the Shift key while clicking the Save As Defaults button at the bottom.

controls in greater depth in a little while. One of the main drawbacks with the Shadow/Highlight command is that it can’t be applied as an Adjustment Layer. This means you can’t change any of the settings after they have been made, so it makes sense to work

on a separate Layer so you don’t alter the pixels in your Background Layer. Just drag this over the Create a New Layer icon at the foot of the Layers palette to make a copy. Before we start renovating though, let’s take a look at the controls in the basic and advanced dialogs...

ADVANCED DIALOG

TONAL WIDTH Tonal Width lets you control the range of tones in the shadows or highlight areas that are modified. A low tonal width will narrow the adjustment to the darkest or lightest pixels. As the Tonal Width gets higher, it affects increasingly more midtone pixels.

PREVIEW Check out the ‘before’ and ‘after’ difference by toggling this box.

RADIUS This controls the size of the local area around each pixel to work out if a pixel appears in the shadows or highlights. Moving the slider left specifies a smaller area. Moving it right denotes a larger area.

COLOR CORRECTION

HOW WE CREATED THIS IMAGE

Setting up Shadow/ Highlight

KNOWLEDGE The Shadow/Highlight options After going to Image ➔ Adjustments ➔ Shadow/Highlight. you’ll be faced with the basic dialog box, but it’s handy to have an understanding of all the controls and sliders in order to achieve the effects you’re after. The basic dialog with its two sliders suggests it’s a pretty simple command, but there’s a lot more on offer after you’ve placed a tick in the Show More Options box. Getting to know the eight sliders here will give you a much better understanding of how they can affect the darker and brighter areas in your pics, and will set you up for the technique over the page.

Dereliction.jpg started out as a heavily under-exposed image. To enhance it and make it more appealing we loaded up the Shadow/Highlight command in Photoshop, and adjusted the eight sliders in the Advanced dialog to fix the exposure and bring out the detail and texture. On pages 54-55, you’ll be able to follow the technique that was used to create the final image. Once you’ve given this project a try, you’ll be able to recover and improve your own images with confidence.

EXPERT TIP

Lets you fine-tune the colour areas in the image. Dragging it over to the left reduces the saturation.

AMOUNT Moving this slider left or right lets you achieve the amount of Shadow/Highlight correction you need. It can be set anywhere between zero and 100%.

START IMAGE DERELICTION.JPG

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MIDTONE CONTRAST This slider is used to increase the contrast in the midtone areas only.

DIGITAL PHOTO

CAMERA CRAFT PULL-OUT GUIDE

FILTERS & which ones you really need A FILTER IS A GLASS or resin element that sits in front of your lens and modifies the light entering your camera. There’s a whole host of different filters available for adjusting colours, like warming up or cooling down shots, adding a toned look, or even creating special effects like star bursts. With digital photography, though, all of these effects can easily be replicated back in the

comfort of your digital darkroom, which means you don’t need to carry lots of filters around. What’s more, you can try out different adjustments on a ‘regular’ image to see which one suits it best. But there are several types, such as UVs, polarisers and neutral density filters, that create effects that are either beyond Photoshop, or are difficult to replicate well, so these are the ones you need.

“ FILTERS THAT CREATE EFFECTS BEYOND PHOTOSHOP’S POWER ARE THE ONES YOU NEED... ”

Polarising filters Polarisers control how much polarised light passes into the lens, and are used to filter out reflected light from water or glass, darken blue skies or boost saturation. They’re a must for landscape shots, and they’ll enhance any pic that includes a reflective surface or needs the colours boosting. They work by cutting out waves of light and by rotating the polariser you can control the strength of the effect. Maximum polarisation occurs at 90º to the sun, so quickly check where it is in the sky and if possible, adjust your position and composition accordingly. Darkening blue skies and boosting saturation isn’t too much of a problem in Photoshop of course, so generally polarisers are best used to remove reflections.

WITH POLARISING FILTER Using a circular polariser we can see more of the river bed, which has really enhanced the foreground.

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UV filters A UV filter is a must-have accessory for each lens you own. They’ll filter out UV light rays that can make shots look hazy, but more importantly they’ll protect the front element of the lens against scratches so if you do damage it you only have to replace the filter, not the lens. If you’re planning on leaving it attached to your lens it’s worth investing in a good quality UV filter and the Sigma EX DG range costs between £17 for a 52mm to £120 for the 105mm one.

Neutral Density filters

One of the filters you really need is a UV to protect the front element of your lens against scratches and smears.

NO POLARISING FILTER Without the circular polariser the reflections from the water make the foreground less impressive.

Neutral density (ND) filters reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor to increase the exposure time without affecting the colours. They’re most useful when you’re working in bright light and want to use long exposures to blur the movement in water or clouds. They come in different densities like 2, 3, or even 10 stops, and the greater the density, the less light enters the camera and the more your exposure time increases. Graduated ND filters reduce the light passing through half of the filter, and have either a smooth or hard graduated edge. They’re used in landscape work, where there’s a large dynamic range and you need to compensate for the difference in brightness between the land and the sky. With digital imaging, though, you can do this easily by shooting RAW and making a dual conversion or, if the dynamic range is really extreme, simply shoot two exposures, one for the sky and one for the land, and then blend them together in Photoshop later.

NO NEUTRAL DENSITY FILTER In these bright conditions without an ND filter we’ve been forced to use a much quicker exposure and shutter speed.

“ WHEN WORKING IN BRIGHT LIGHT ND FILTERS ARE IDEAL FOR BLURRING MOVEMENT ” Which filter suits you?

There are two types of polarising filter – linear and circular. The linear variety are cheaper but can play havoc with modern AF and metering systems, so if you’re using a D-SLR you should opt for a circular polariser, which will work fine with autofocus. Prices vary with makes and coatings, but for the screw-in types expect to pay anything between £10 for a Kood 52mm budget option, to £200 for a top-of-the-range B+W 82mm model.

DIGITAL PHOTO PULL-OUT

With a 3-stop ND filter you can use a longer exposure which has helped to blur movement in the sky and water.

If you use screw-in NDs, you’ll need a different filter for each size of lens you own, or a load of stepping rings.

Which polariser do I buy – Circular or Linear ?

WITH NEUTRAL DENSITY FILTER

CAMERA CRAFT

A filter holder system may seem expensive, but once you’ve invested in the system you can use it with any lens in your arsenal.

CAMERA CRAFT

ND filters come in two varieties, screw-in and mounted. Screw-in filters attach directly to the thread on the front of your lens, whereas mounted versions slide into a holder that attaches to your lens. Screw-in filters need to be the same diameter as your lens, so if you have lenses with different sized threads you’ll need a filter for each. Using a mounted filter

though, you only need one filter holder and one filter, which will attach to any lens via differently sized lens adapters. The Cokin Z filter holder, which can be used with lot of different lenses, including wide-angles, costs around £19 for each adapter ring, £45 for the filter holder and anywhere between £40-£200 for the actual filters themselves.

DIGITAL PHOTO PULL-OUT

WHAT YOU NEED PHOTOSHOP OR ELEMENTS WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ADD GRITTY GRAIN EFFECTS TO MONO

Technique of the Month

Add mono film grain effects Turn a mundane snap into a grainy black & white masterpiece with bags of atmosphere, using this quick, easy and effective technique TECHNIQUE BY GAVIN HOEY

ONE OF THE GREAT THINGS about using software like Elements is how quick and easy it can be to produce impressive effects. Nowhere is this more true than when working in black & white where you can create stunning shots really fast. But if you want your images to stand out from the crowd you need to add something a little more special to the mix – in this case, a classic grain effect that takes us back to the days of fast film. To complete the look, you’ll see how to add a timeless double border too, so what are you waiting for? Just choose one of your own pics, or load up the start images to get cracking!

FINAL IMAGE

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HUT&BIRD.JPG The start image Hut+Bird.jpg has a nice textured sky with some dramatic cloud detail, but it lacks impact and is just itching to be made into mono!

“ Add something special – a classic grain effect that takes us back to the days of fast film ” STEP-BY-STEP GRAINY MONO

START GET SOME GRAIN. Open Hut+Bird.jpg and then click Layer ➔ New ➔ Layer. Click OK and then click Edit ➔ Fill Layer. Choose Black as the contents and click OK. Now click Filter ➔ Texture ➔ Grain. Set the intensity to 100, the Contrast to 0 and the Grain Type as Enlarged, then click OK.

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ENLARGE THE GRAIN. Press Ctrl+T and set the W (Width) and H (Height) to 200% then press Enter to complete the transformation. In the Layers palette, change the Blending Mode to Difference. To soften the grainy effect slightly, click Filter ➔ Blur ➔ Gaussian Blur and use a small Radius of around 1.5 pixels then click OK.

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MAKE IT MONO. You’ve probably noticed the grain is rather odd in colour so press D to reset the foreground and background colours to Black and White, then click Layer ➔ New Adjustment Layer ➔ Gradient Map. Click OK, and all of your image should now have turned to black & white.

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FINISH ADD A BORDER. Click Image ➔ Resize ➔ Canvas Size. Tick the Relative box and change the units to Pixels. Enter a Width and Height value of 20 and click OK. Press X to set the background colour to black and then repeat this step using a Width and Height value of 800 pixels. Click OK, then go to Layer ➔ Flatten Image.

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ULTRA WIDE-ANGLE LENSES FIND YOU NEXT R L RIGHENS HER T E!

ULTRA ZOOMS

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WHAT WE TESTED A range of corrected ultra wide-angle lenses available for cropped-sensor D-SLRs. Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £649 Nikon 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G AF-S IF-ED DX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £695 Olympus 9-18mm ED f/4-5.6 ZUIKO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £439 Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £399 Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £529 Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II LD AF SP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £380

GROUP TEST Ultra wide-angle lenses offer a whole new view of the world and are perfect for landscape use. We test six examples… TEST BY PHIL HALL

LEARN MORE ABOUT THESE GREAT LENSES OVER THE PAGE 84

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LONG EXPOSURE FILTERS

LONG EXPOSURE FILTERS TESTED

A 9- or 10-stop Neutral Density filter allows you to get creative with ultra long exposures and turn mediocre scenes into spectacular shots. We put three extreme ND filters to the test... TEST BY MICHAEL TOPHAM

IF YOU WANT to restrict the amount of light passing through your lens to the sensor, you need to invest in a Neutral Density (ND) filter. With one of these screwed on to the front of a lens or slotted neatly into a filter holder system, you’ll be able to use slower shutter speeds in your shots, and this opens up a world of opportunities. One of the most exciting applications of this is in capturing the motion of flowing water and clouds, but slowing the shutter can also be used to rid busy urban scenes of moving people – very useful for travel shots! With a wide range of ND filters on the market it’s not easy working out which is the best one for you and if you only want to block out a few stops of light, a 3-stop ND will be adequate. However, if you want to block out even more light and like the idea of very

long exposures, you’ll need a specialist type with a greater optical density or attenuation factor. The three filters tested here cut out a whopping 9 or 10 stops of light. To put that in perspective, they can turn a 1/60sec shutter speed into a huge 15secs exposure!

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KNOWLEDGE

USING AN ND FILTER Held up to the eye, it’s impossible to see anything through a 10-stop ND, which makes the job of using one quite an art! Before the filter is attached, you need to compose and focus your shot. Only then can you start thinking about attaching the filter, setting the exposure and taking a shot, and therefore you’ll also have to remove it every time you want to take a new shot. This repetitive task can get a little tiresome but, a bit like using a tripod, it’s a great method of slowing down the way you

HOW WE DID THE TEST To test the three filters, we headed to the coast and set up our D-SLR on a sturdy tripod looking out to sea. After carefully composing and pre-focusing our image, the filters were attached in turn to the lens. Shots were fired off in both cloudy and sunny conditions to find out how each filter fared in different lighting conditions, then back at base, prints were made from the final images, which were carefully analysed for their detail and tonality.

work and making you think more about the composition. Over the page we’ll reveal how each ND filter in our test

performed and the results will be studied comparatively to work out which one offers the best image quality.

ND FILTER TABLE Neutral Density filters come in lots of different strengths and the stronger they are, the more light they hold back.

WHAT WE TESTED

B+W 77mm 110 ND 3.0 – 10BL 1000x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .£80 Hoya HMC NDX400 72mm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .£95 Lee Filters The Big Stopper 100x100mm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .£90

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Filter Optical Density

F-Stop Reduction

0.3

0.6

0.9

1.8

1,000

3.0

9- or 10-stop ND filters blur out any motion in a scene and here, the 15secs exposure used has flattened out the waves and blurred the cloud movement in the sky.

Three ND filters from three major manufacturers, the B+W and Hoya featuring a screw-in design, while the Lee version is attached using a LEE filter holder system.

Attenuation Factor

FIND OUT WHICH FILTER OFFERED THE BEST RESULTS OVER THE PAGE

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