Mac Photography Tips

Creative Vignetting in Aperture 2.0 October 12, 2009

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Beginner Tips, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 11:23 pm
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One of the more creative features of Aperture 2.0 is the Vignetting tool. I say creative because how you use the tool is largely based on your taste and the photo itself. There’s no simple automatic vignetting preset that you can equally apply to just any photo and its application will be effective. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create a preset for vignetting as a optimal place to get started.

Where to Find It
First off, the Vignette tool doesn’t appear by default when you open the Adjustments panel in Aperture 2.0. You have to manually open it by clicking on the left + button at the top of the Inspector HUD/Adjustments panel and then selecting Vignette. It will appear at the bottom of the panel. If you find yourself using the Vignette tool a lot, you can assign a shortcut key stroke for it by clicking on Aperture>Commands>Customize in the menu bar.

vignette tool

De-vignetting
One function of the Vignetting tool entails decreasing lens burn that might occur on a photo during capture. I don’t have an example of that, but if you have a photo where the edges of the image are darkened, you could use the vignette tool to decrease, i.e, get rid of the burned edges. Simply slide the controls to the left to lighten the burn edges. I’ve never had to devignette an image, but I’m sure it will work on digital images that have that issue.

vignette2

Creative Vignetting
I use the Vignette tool in a creative way to bring more focus on the subject. After I do all the basic exposure and enhancement adjustments (the tools above the small Vignette panel) to a photo, I select the Expourse setting of the Vignette tool and slide the controls to the right for the desired effect. The Amount setting controls how dark you want the edges of the photo; whereas the Size control sets how for out the burned edges will go from the edges of the photo.

beforeafter

Switching the pop-up menu button to Gamma makes for sometimes very subtle changes but it seems to primarily affect the color intensity of the pixels in its application. Notice, in this example, the gamma adjustment seems to increase the green of the leaf and darkens the edges even more.

Gamma Vignette

Gamma Vignette

In this last photo, I applied vignetting, but I didn’t do it much because of the dark clothing she was wearing.Comparing the two, I think the vignette brings more focus on her face in the photo.

beforeafter2

The Vignetting tool is not one that you will use all the time, but it’s great to experiment with it and see how it impacts your images. In Photoshop, you have a little more contorl over the vignetting of a photo, but it takes a little longer create the effect. So it’s nice to have it in Aperture 2.0.
process.

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What is Your Digital Photography Workflow? October 5, 2009

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Beginner Tips, Intermediate Tips, Photoshop, workflow — bakari @ 10:36 pm

When you begin getting serious about digital photography, you’ll eventually discover that you perform similar steps when processing your photos in applications like iPhoto, Aperture, or Photoshop. The steps you take to process your images is called a workflow.

I wasn’t aware of my workflow until I started shooting and processing photos on a professional level, which meant that the amount of time I spent on working on images impacted how much money I made on the project. I realized my goal was to shorten the amount time it took me to complete a project while also doing an effective job at processing the images I shot. The only way to reduce the time was to find ways to streamline my workflow.

To get a better handle on my workflow, I actually started documenting my process (including screen shots of the process) in working with Aperture 1.5 and then 2.0. By doing this, I could figure out steps that were taking longer than they needed. It was important, for instance, to stay consistent with the keywords I was using for each job and finding a way to quickly access them. For example, it took me several jobs to realize that I could put all my wedding related keywords in the Keyword Controls panel of Aperture, instead of just a few group of words at a time. I got the set down 15 keywords. A smart album is created based on each keyword. This one little step helped out my workflow tremendously. (Learn more: Keyword Control Sets in Aperture)

aperturekeywordpanel

Other important aspects of refining my workflow included creating shortcut keystrokes, and various exposure and exporting presets for regularly used features. I streamlined my rating system, using only 3 and 5 stars. I created a set of Finder folders and duplicate the set for each new wedding job. I export files to those labeled folders and copy them to DVD for my clients.

My workflow also extends, of course, to Photoshop where I’ve created actions for nearly everything I do to photos in the application. Like many experienced Photoshop users I have lots of advanced free and paid for actions that are important to keep up with. I keep my most used actions near the top of the actions panel and I’ve tried to color-code and assign F-stop keys to frequently used actions.

photoshopactions.png

The goal is to be clear about what I’m doing in Photoshop and not aimlessly experimenting with all its features. There’s nothing wrong with trying out new techniques in Photoshop or your workflow itself, but most times it’s important to have a basic process that you use when working with photos. A workflow not only saves time, but it helps you do quality post-processing (i.e. what you do after you take photos and import them into an image application.)

As an image application is updated or new ones come along, you can further refine your workflow to make it more efficient.

If you have a strong workflow or you have questions about developing a workflow, feel free to leave a comment. I’m eager to hear from readers.

 

Aperture 2.0 Cheat Sheet October 2, 2009

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Beginner Tips, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 5:46 am

If you’re an avid Aperture 2.0 user, but you sometimes a have a hard time remembering all those shortcut keystrokes, well check out and download an Aperture 2.0 Cheat Sheet from 20seven.org Really nicely well done.

 

5 Tools to Improve Any Photo September 24, 2009

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Beginner Tips, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 5:54 pm

Using almost any photo editor (iPhoto, Aperture, Photoshop, or even Apple’s Preview), you can use some basic editing tools to improve any photo. Here’s a basic workflow process.

(Note: click on the title of this article to see the images at a larger size.)

Original Photo

original_photo.png

In this tutorial, I’m using Aperture 2.0.

1. Crop It:
Often times when we’re out shooting, we often times don’t get close enough to the subject(s). But with digital photography, it’s easy to simply crop photos and get rid of the dead space.

crop_it.png

Use what you know about the Rule of Thirds and crop photos so that your subject(s) get more attention.

cropped.png

2. Add Contrast
I’ve rarely shot a photo that didn’t need more contrast. Using the contrast slider of any editing program will always improve the detail in the tonal differences between shadows and highlights (or light and dark areas) of a photo. Using the Curves or Levels tool in advance image editors do even a better job with contrast.

add some conrast.png

3. Saturate It
Intensifying the colors of an image makes it stronger and more appealing to the eyes. You can overdue saturation, so use it modestly.

saturate_it.png

4. Recover the Shadows and Highlights
In this particular photo, we can see a loss of detail in the highlights (bright areas of the photo. Most image editors now have highlight and shadow recovery tools, and if you shoot your photos in RAW mode you will be able to recover more detail in the highlight and shadow areas.

recover_highlights1.png

5. Sharpen Up
Nearly all digital photos need sharpening. So the last step in any image processing workflow is to sharpen the photo, especially if you plan on printing the image. Sharpening, of course, recovers detail in the photo. The effects of sharpening can often be subtle, but if you do it enough you’ll start noticing the difference.

sharpen1.png

After Photo

editedphotos.png

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Aperture 2.0 and iPhoto ‘09 August 26, 2009

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Beginner Tips, iPhoto — bakari @ 8:45 pm
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In these two videos I compare Aperture 2.0 and iPhoto ‘09 and explain why you might want to consider upgrading to Apple’s more professional digital management and adjustment application. I might make additional videos about the differences between the two if I get any related questions that are not covered in these two videos.

 

Creating a smart album for Photoshop files in Aperture 2.0 August 24, 2009

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Beginner Tips — bakari @ 5:02 pm
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Adjust highlights and shadows in Aperture 2.0 August 20, 2009

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Beginner Tips, Intermediate Tips, Video Blog — bakari @ 9:24 pm
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aperture-tips.pngIn this screencast, I show how I use Aperture’s adjustment tools to improve upon the shadow and highlight areas of a portrait image.

 

Bring Back the Sky July 17, 2009

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Automator workflow, Photoshop — bakari @ 9:49 pm

photoshop-tipsNote: click on the title of this article to see the photos better.

Sometimes when you’re shooting with subjects in the foreground and the blue cloudy sky in background, it’s hard to take a photo whereby both the foreground and the background are sufficiently exposed.

That’s the case with this photo below. Shooting in RAW mode, I exposed for the sky so that I could maintain its detail. As you can see, though, the bride and groom are under exposed. But the power RAW mode enables you to work with under exposed photos a lot better than in shooting in JPEG mode.

Picture 6.png

When I correct the exposure for the foreground subjects, I loose detail in the sky. As you can see in this photo. So what to do?

Picture 2.png

1. Well, in Aperture or Lightroom, make a duplicate copy of darker exposed sky photo. While selected, you darken the sky even more if need be. Next, select the other copy of the photo and properly expose it for the foreground. You will lose detail in the sky, but that’s the point. You’re wanting bring detail in the foreground in this copy of the photo. Use adjustment tools (e.g. contrast, Definition, Vibrancy) that you normally use to make the foreground subjects look the way you want.

Picture 3.png

2. Next, open both photos in Photoshop. Holding down the shift key, select the background layer, in the layers palette, of the lighter/over exposed sky photo, and drag it onto the darker exposed sky photo. After doing so, you should see the lighter sky photo on top, with the well exposed foreground.

3. Now click the Layer Mask button at the bottom of the layer’s palette. This will put a layer mask over the photo you just dragged in. Select the Brush tool, and make sure your foreground color is black. Using the brush tool, at about medium size, start brushing back in the darker sky, leaving the rest of the photo as is.

layerspallette.png

Presto, you now have brought back the darker sky to match the better foreground. You can flatten both layers and save the photo back to Aperture or Lightroom. The other opened photo of course doesn’t have to be saved. And here’s the result:

Picture 5.png

I hope these instructions make sense. If not, I’d be happy to make a video of the process.

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Aperture and sRAW: What’s the Problem, Apple? July 13, 2009

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Camera Tip, Canon 50D — bakari @ 9:54 pm

aperture-tips.pngThe Canon 50D digital camera includes three RAW formats, including the standard 15 (4752×3168) megapixel size, and two smaller sizes: the sRAW1 7 (3267 x 2178) megapixel and the sRAW2 3.8 (2376 x 1584) megapixel sizes. These RAW modes are also available, in larger sizes, in the Canon 5D MarkII.

Most serious and professional photographers will tell you that they shoot in RAW mode because it provides much more flexibility and control when working with image files in Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom, or some other RAW processing application.

When I shoot weddings, I typically shoot in the full 15 megapixel RAW mode size, but occasionally I will also shoot in the sRAW1 size simply because I know that I, nor my clients, will not need the larger size for printing. The sRAW1 size can print up 8×10 photo size, while a 15 megapixel image can print up to a 16 x 10 photo.

The file size for a 15 megapixel image can be up to 20MB, while the sRAW1 megapixel files are around 12.6MB each, according to the Canon 50D manual. When shooting hundreds or thousands of photos at a time, these file sizes can take up a lot of hard drive space. So unless you want to constantly add external hard drives to your workflow, you probably will not want to always shoot at the full RAW mode with the Canon 50D. Also, shooting in full RAW size mode, you will most likely have to upgrade to larger CompactFlash media cards. 2gig CompactFlash cards will only hold about 80 full-size RAW images. I’ve had to upgrade to 4 and 8gig compact cards for professional jobs in order to shoot in the larger size RAW modes.

But shooting at the smaller sRAW1 size can be problematic if you’re using Aperture 2.0 or iPhoto, because the programs don’t support the sRAW modes. When you import sRAW files into Aperture, you will get a good preview of the photos in the importing window. So it appears that Aperture will handle the files okay. But when you actually import the files into the application and try to open them up for editing, this is what you get:

Picture 2.png

You will get this unsupported message after when you import the sRAW images, not before. All RAW files get the CR2 suffix as part of their file name, so there’s no way to see which size RAW files you’re about import into Aperture.

The only way to check the format of your Canon 50D RAW files is to view the files in the Finder. You have to view the files directly from the CompactFlash media cards when you connect them to your computer. When you view JPEG or standard RAW files that are supported in OS X Leopard, you will get a preview of those photos. You can actually use Quick Preview in Leopard to view these support files. But this is not so with sRAW files. They will appear like this:

sraw2.png

You have to import these files into Adobe Camera RAW, Adobe Lightroom, or the Digital Photo Processing application that comes with the Canon camera, and then export them as JPEGs in order to view and further process them in Apple’s Aperture or iPhoto.

While Apple released an update to the OS Digital Camera RAW Compatibility back in, I think, June, that update apparently did not include support for the sRAW files. Arggghhh! Why Apple has yet to provide support for sRAW files is totally beyond me. But I do know that this lack of support puts a dint in the post-processing workflow. I’ve read serveral complaints by photographers using the Canon 50D or 5D. Apple not including this support in their last RAW update is seriously an insult, especially since sRAW modes have been out for almost a year now.

If this is problem for you, I encourage you to go to Apple’s feedback (http://www.apple.com/feedback/) page and request that this problem be addressed. You will see a list of other Apple applications in which to also give feedback on.

 

Custom Album Layout Tips for Aperture 2.0 November 1, 2008

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Automator workflow, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 9:00 pm
Aperture Tips.png

If you’re an Aperture 2.0 users, you no doubt know that you can create custom books within the application. You’re not stuck with the pre-designed albums that Apple offers, though those templates are great.

This article won’t go into how to set up a custom book in Aperture. There are other articles and resources already published about that. Aperture User Network has good introduction that you can read here.

In this article I’m just going to provide a few useful tips for doing layouts.

1. First off, if you create a custom album but you want to later delete it from your list of templates, go to Home>Library>Application Support>Aperture>Book Themes. All the book themes you’ve created will be there. You can delete or add custom themes to that folder.

Layout Panel Tips

layoutpanel.png

2. Sometimes it’s not cool to include the page numbers on your album pages. So you can make them disappear by clicking on the Book Actions button of the Layout Panel and select Page Numbers> Off.

page numbers.png

4. I completed a couple of books before I realized that I could save a template and reuse it. Simply right-click on the page layout in the Layout Panel and select Save Page>To Document Master.

save page as template.png

After you save it, you can reuse it by right-clicking on a new page layout and selecting your custom layout. This is a great time saver.
The only draw back is that these custom layouts won’t show up in new book projects, so you have to duplicate the book in which you created the custom layout so that you can reuse it in a new project.

new document master.png

5. Thin border: You can create a border around the photos put into a layout. Click on the Book Actions button and select Show Layout Options. Select the image in which you want to add a border. In the area where it says Photo Border, click on the arrows to create the thickness of the border. If you want thiner size than is offered, type in 0.05 in the little window and click the Enter key on your keyboard.

Also, you can re-click on the selected photo in which you created a border, and select Duplicate. That way you don’t have to type in the number again for a new photo. Unfortunately, you can’t copy a photo from one page and paste it on a new page.

thin border.png

6. Edit photos without leaving your book project. I didn’t realize this at first, but you can simply select an image in your album, click on the Inspector Hud, and then do additional editing and enhancements to your photo. Another great time saver.