From Flat to Finished

Any photographer who calls themselves a "pro" understands that the image the camera takes when you press the shutter button, is NOTHING like the final image.

Its called shooting flat or raw. The initial image is really dull, grey and the colors just don't shine at all. What does this accomplish besides a crappy looking image? 

Take this for example:

This is my original photo on this weird looking flower thingy? As you can see very dull and lifeless.. 

But what this accomplishes is something every photographer desires - Preservation of detail.  

  ...the same applies for video. 

Shooting in a "Flat " Picture style will guarantee amazing details and that "professional" look at the cost of 

spending some "professional" time in front of photoshop or whatever you use...  

And now we see a bright, vivid, detailed photo. (mostly using curves, brightness and contrast, levels and HSL)

Taking a closer look some of the details in the grass blades and petals really shine in the edited version. And I was able to successfully bring all the colors back to the image. 

You can download Picture Styles to install to yoru camera, the most popular: 

CineStyle - meant for Cinematographers to get the most out of their DSLR. 

or you can just use your Camera's built in Neutral Setting, just turn down the Saturation and Contrast and you'll be good.

Now for those who already know about this, here's some advice, use Cinestyle indoors and in controlled lighting conditions... but I prefer to use Neutral when it comes to Harsher lighting conditions like bright overhead sunlight. I find that neutral tends to perform better in harsh lighting than Cinestyle because of Neutrals lesser Dynamic Range let you expose properly :P 

now I don't have any photos to prove it at the moment... 

CineStyle I keep my sharpness at 2

Other Images before and After: 

Just some facts to justify my statement (because some people are skeptical) 

* What would be shadows and complete darkness on normal picture style would now be visible and lit on a Flat picture Style = Increased Dynamic Range

* The grayness is a sort of bypass to prevent the camera from processing the color data too much destroying what valuable details might have been there

* yeah it creates more work later on... :P 

* you take the risks though, be a "pro" and be wiling to spend long hours editing photos or just shoot for fun and don't worry about all the little details... Literally... 

HDR (A Quick How to Lesson)

HDR (high Dynamic Range) is a technique in photography where 3 (or more) pictures are taken of the same subject with DIFFERENT Exposure values.


 [There are ways to pull off this look with only ONE image taken, known as FAKE HDR, which can still look nice when done to the right image, but the REAL HDR will undoubtedly ALWAYS look better!] (simply because the details being emphasized are actually there in REAL HDR, where as in FAKE HDR its more of tricking the viewers to think the details were actually there....)


After editing the 3 pictures down into one, you end up with an image that most accurately represents how the human eye would see the world, OR, the effects can be exaggerated to bring out the details even MORE and create a surreal effect... 


If you don't know how to set your camera to shoot 3 pictures with different exposures, here's a quick lesson on it (Canon users - Nikon Losers ... no jk it should be pretty much the same on both DSLRs) 


Set the camera to "M" and set your picture, adjust your setting and all that stuff you would normally do for a normal picture, once you get an average set up, press the "Q" button and navigate to the Exposure Settings and click "set"

The thingy circled in green is the exposure menue, select it and roll the dial on the top of you camera to set the bracketing... the more the bracketing the more dramatic the difference will be between your shots...

for Magic Lantern users, simply turn HDR bracketing "ON" and that's all you'll have to worry about! >:P 

Now your camera is ready to shoot 3 pictures at 3 different exposures! You might want to add a delay/timer so when you press the button it takes a while before the camera actually takes the pictures 


(to prevent shake in the photo from when you press the camera - and also cause the 3 different pictures have to be EXACTLY the same in terms of composition) 

anyways BLAH BLAH BLAH! in the next post it'll be time to learn how to go from the 3 pictures above to this: 

This is a more exaggerated look, the details seem to POP in a surreal look, there are tons of different effects you can go for, so don't feel like all HDR images will look like paintings... 


  

Light Rays Tutorial

Cheap and easy way to add light rays to any photograph in almost ANY photo-editor (also works for video) 

STEP 1: Create basic shape for the light ray

beautiful.... 

STEP 2: Motion Blur

I see a face...

STEP 3: Layer it 

adding multiple copies of the same ray over and over in different spots of the picture to get a nice look... (change the blending mode to "add" so make the black go away...) 

this is a darker look to emphasize the rays

more washed out

Without the picture below this is what my rays ended up looking like...

I added brighter spots at the bottom to make the light more believable and added some dust particles to give a more dreamy, fantasy look... 

I did not take this picture... 


I think one of the most important parts of adding anything to a photography, is simply, matching the color... 

HSL Magic! The Magic of adjusting Hue, Saturation and Lighting...

Using HSL in any photography editing program and even video editing programs, you can go from the original left photograph, to the new HSL enhanced right photograph with almost no work at all... 

feel free to copy and past the photo below, if you want to follow along with this tutorial

STEP 1:  Do all the "usual" adjustments, from the original photograph and pretty it up the way you think looks best... I usually do a brightness and Contrast adjustment with a few Color Curves to get what I thought looked pretty nice:  

Step 2: HSL adjust... 

Experimentation is the best way photographers will learn... 

THE FINISHED PRODUCT: 

Here's some other photographs edited using HSL adjustments.

Pictures by Andrew Taraba