As you say previous on the Q&A with Uncornered Market, creating panorama’s can create some amazing images. I took their methodologies and applied them to some of my own panoramas, which do not cover 360 degrees all around. This method is more practical for those of us without fisheye lenses. Take a look at this tutorial if you are curious for a step by step on creating your own immersion panoramas.

You will need to click over to my blog to view the immersion panorama described in this demo because DPS does not yet support embedding the SWF file type. The image can be found at this post and a static version is shown here:

Title: Nepal Himalaya Panorama Exploration

Location: Mong, Nepal

To answer the question, “How did you make that?” I offer this post as instruction. It’s not magic and it’s something you can accomplish. I had the aid of a number of computer programs:

• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
• Kolor AutoPano Giga
• Kolor PanoTour Pro

Additionally, the hardware I used included:

• Canon 7D camera
• Canon 28-300mm L lens
• Bogen 3021 tripod with ball head

Those are the basics. The other important piece of equipment was an alarm clock. I knew I needed to be up at least an hour before the sunrise in order to get dressed (it was a bit cold), grab a snack and find my location. I had scouted a likely spot the night before and I had taken nearly this same photo in 2008 while trekking. Scouting your location really helps when timing, as with a sunrise, is critical.

Get Ready

After getting myself out of bed and trudging up a small hill to the location, scaring a dzokyo with horns (it’s a cross between a cow and a yak) over a fence in the process, and after avoid his ‘cow pies’ (I’m not romanticizing this process enough, am I?), I set up my camera. Important in this step was to find a location with good visibility that would allow me to see over the roofs, but still capture the stupa in the middle of the village. Also important was good stability of the ground so I or my tripod would not slip.

My plan was to shoot the scene as a single swatch of panorama. I didn’t have the immersion viewer in mind when creating this, just a traditional super wide image for print. So I set up my tripod and made sure the base was level. I did this using the back of camera screen level that comes with the Canon 7D. If not, I would need a little level, like this one. This is an important step! If the camera is tilted, the longer your panorama, the less overall useable space you will have when it is leveled and cropped. Practice this at home so you don’t waste time in the field learning to get things level (and then become disappointed when back at home crying at your computer screen. Yes, I’ve done that).

Now with the base of the tripod level, I placed my camera onto it in a vertical orientation. I wanted a tall image and this would allow me to capture more scene. I also knew the timing would only allow for one pass. Once the sun was up, the lighting would change and I’d spend many aggravating hours on the computer trying to balance it all out if I didn’t get it in one pass.

Those steps in bullet form:

• Scout a location before
• Scare off large animals
• Set tripod on stable ground
• Level tripod
• Attach camera

Get Set

Camera on the tripod and the sky is getting brighter. I have a better idea where it will peek over the peaks. I start taking some meter readings and figuring out where I want to set my aperture and shutter speed. I already know I will set my ISO to 100 for the least amount of noise I can hope for. I then picked my focus point and locked it (turned off auto focus). Oh yeah, I also set my aperture at this point based on how much depth of field I wanted, doing this in conjunction with picking a focus point not completely to the horizon. I picked a point about 30 feet from me to focus on. This allowed me, at f/10, to have most of the scene in focus, which was going to include the fence, stupa and distant mountains. Plus my guest on this tour off to my side (who would later be begged, “Please don’t move!” when I shot frames with him in them). My closest object, besides some ground, was about 15’ away.

I did this in Manual mode so the exposure settings would not change. My settings ended up being 1/100th of a second and f/10. Going into the menus for my camera, I turned on the exposure bracketing and chose one step over exposed and one step under exposed. I locked my tripod’s ball head once all was level as I would be using the base swivel where the tripod met the head’s body to turn my panorama. I swung through the action a few times, making sure it was level in all spots. There are newer heads on the market, such as the Induro PHQ, which have levels built-in to help make this step easier.

Lastly in this step, I set my white balance (not required, but it makes post processing easier) and turned off my lens’ image stabilization because I was using a tripod. A couple more swings through to make sure I knew what I’d be doing. One more step was to turn my frame rate to high. This would allow the bracketing to shoot quickly and speed up the whole shoot. In these practice swings I timed myself to make sure I would have time to stop at each point, get my shots, and move while not causing blur from too fast a motion. I also wanted to complete my shot in less than a minute to make sure the lighting didn’t change too dramatically during the shoot.

Those steps in bullet form:

• Meter
• Switch to Manual mode
• Set Shutter Speed
• Set Aperture based on desired depth of field
• Turn off Image Stabilization
• Set focus and lock
• Check level throughout path of shoot
• Turn on high speed shooting mode
• Make sure camera is set to RAW (if desired. A note here: if you find your camera’s buffer can’t keep up with your rate of shooting, you may need to choose a smaller size RAW format if you can, or switch to JPEG)
• Breathe

GO!

I ratcheted my camera back to my start point on the far left side. I was on a hill and would not be making a full 360 degree sweep as the hill itself wasn’t exciting (and far too close). When the sun just started to top the left side of the peak, I started shooting, overlapping by about 30%, give or take. A robot like the Gigapan EPIC would have helped. Each stop produced three images as such:

Under exposed by a stop, at exposure and over exposed by a stop

Sweeping through my shot in just about one minute perfectly I checked the images on the back of my camera and breathed easy. The buffer had started to get full and I had to slow my shooting a half way through, but it wasn’t bad enough to effect the final image.

With the 117 shots secured (and later that night they were backed up to a second and third drive), I continued my tour while still contemplating how to merge them without spending hours on the computer when I returned home.

Those steps in bullet form:

• Wait for your moment to start
• Know your timing for the whole panorama if timing is critical
• Shoot!
• Breathe, again

Putting It All Together At Home

At first I attempted to use hugin to stack my images (each set of three shots makes a stack) and then create a panorama. The results were ok, but there was a LOT of manual work in aligning the images. I then was given a copy of AutoPano Giga to try out and it has created, for me, a boon in panorama processing. I will give a full review in the coming weeks, but for now I just want to show how I created this particular image and not get into all the nuts and bolts of the program.

My first step was to import the images into Adobe Lightroom and adjust the exposure settings. I did this for the middle shot, the one you see above. It has the widest range of light and I wanted to make sure I kept it looking realistic. I only adjusted the middle image, the one with the camera’s suggested exposure settings. After I did this and removed any spots, I also adjusted the image for clarity, saturation and the like, but not too much as I would perform more near the end of the process. This is a personal preference and your settings will vary.

With the one image edited to my liking, I then synced those settings with the rest of the images using Lightroom’s sync feature. Nice and easy. I then exported each image as a full sized JPEG. In later work, I will be using the DNG file type as AutoPano Giga can handle those and there will be less compression. All of those files went into one folder and it’s time to use AutoPano Giga.

This software is quite easy for basic shoots. After starting the program I imported all the photos by selecting “Select Images”. Once loaded the screen looks like this (click for larger version):

An important feature in this software is the simplicity with which I can create stacks. All it takes is a right click and then selection of the “Create stacks by N…”. This allows me to input that there are three (or any number) of images per stack. Now I don’t have to line them up or tell the program I was using bracketing for my shots. With the stacks created, I pressed the “Detect” button up top and AutpPano Giga does its best to align my images. Here’s the result, which appears on the right side of the screen.

Luckily there was not a lot of waste in this image because of taking the time to level the camera properly. AutoPano Giga aligns, color corrects, adjusts exposure and a few other items when performing this step. I will have more on the software in a full review later.

I output this as a PSD file to help preserve the image quality. This takes a while and makes a huge file (2GB). Patience is needed. I could also output to a JPEG to save time, but as I want to present my best work and make it highly zoomable, I chose the PSD format.

Opening the resulting file in Lightroom (in this case, Lightroom 4 Beta), I then crop the image and play with exposure to get it how I want it.

After adjusting the image, I exported the file as a .PSD file type, again to preserve as much detail as I can (and again, I will be using DNG files for the first compression in the future, but that also adds considerable time when processing multiple panoramas. At the very least, you will see the quality possible when using one of the faster methods given here). Opening the file in PanoTour Pro, I have a number of options to set.

On the right hand side are most of the important bits for this project (a review of PanoTour Pro will be forthcoming as well, after I have played with it more). The size is already set with the width of the image imported. I set the JPEG quality to 12 instead of 10. In the next tab, I set the projection to only be 300 degrees so it does not wrap around.

Lastly, I ticked the check box next to “Embed all data”. This enables the output to be a singular file, which can make for easier handling (and a higher file size).

All that was left was to upload the resulting .SWF file after I performed an export (the program has a facility to upload the resulting SWF file or files, but I wanted to check the results locally before spending the time to upload).

I encounter one small glitch while creating this file; my web service isn’t the fastest on the planet. The SWF file that resulted was about 125MB large. Normally not a problem but it slowed down the experience for many readers. So I went back in and cut the image size to 14,000 pixels wide in PanoTour Pro and decreased the compression to 10. This resulted in a file about 5.5MB large and much quicker to download. On that original post, I linked to the original file for those with patience, as the full detail is really incredible.

Those steps in bullet form:

• Import into Lightroom (or your editor of choice) and adjust as needed (but not too much)
• Export to DNG files, ideally
• Import into AutoPano Giga
• Create Panorama and export as PSD (Tiff would be another fine option, or JPEG if your space and resources are limited)
• Open in Photoshop or Lightroom or GIMP or … and crop. Make final adjustments. Export as PSD or simply save file
• Import into PanoTour Pro and set variables as needed
• Export as SWF file and upload to server (using the programs built-in FTP capabilities if desired)

On The Website

To make all this magic work on my blog, I had to install a plugin. The one I chose is called PanoPress and you can download it from their website. It’s an easy install and so far has not wreaked havoc on my site. Natively, WordPress, which is what powers my site, does not support SWF files in the sense of viewing panoramas like this. The best part of all this magic is the ability to choose fullscreen mode. Letting viewers fill their entire screen is something we photographers don’t often do and it can be intoxicating. PanoPress makes this magic work.

Conclusion

2000 words later…that’s it! I know it might seem like a lot, but with the choice of software this time around, I am very happy with the flow. I can also process multiple images in series (often setting my computer to pound through the large files while I sleep) and receive predictable results. I have more learning to do with the Kolor products to refine things and see if I can automate more of the mundane settings.

Also of note, I went through this process in both Lightroom 3 and Lightroom 4 Beta. I was far happier with the results in Lightroom 4 and they are what you see on the site.

I look forward to crafting more of these types of images (and have already started to, here) as I go back through old panoramas that I have taken and make them more presentable on the web. This process will not work for everyone out there (it can, though, be performed on a Mac or PC as listed and on a Linux machine without the Lightroom aspect) but it is my sincere hope that it helps more of you present your art in a dramatic way on the web.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

How I Shot And Edited It – Nepal Zoomable Panorama

One of the common threads of conversation that I’ve been hearing is around the expense of some of the better post processing software tools and a hesitancy to spend so much on a tool when one doesn’t know if it suits you.

I can relate to that feeling. I still remember the first time I looked at Photoshop and considered purchasing it but balked at the price. It seemed a big risk to invest in something that I wasn’t completely sure would suit my needs.

Things have progressed a lot since those days – now many software tools give you trials before you buy. One of the exciting trials currently on offer is the ability to test the brand new beta of Lightroom 4.

Lightroom has been a product that many photographers of all levels have adopted as their preferred option and it has evolved in its first 3 versions into a very useful tool. It’s how I manage and edit my own images and I’m pumped to see them releasing Lightroom 4 soon.

In the lead up to the full launch Adobe are allowing everyone to download and trial Lightroom 4 for free. Download it today and you get to use it until the trial ends on March 31 2012. That’s over 2 months of free use of one of the most popular post processing tools on the planet! More than enough time to see if it’s right for you and the perfect time to take your post processing stills up a notch with our new Post Processing Guide.

So what are you waiting for? Download the free beta of Lightroom 4 today and tell us what you think!

Update: Worth noting are the system requirements for using Lightroom 4 beta:

The minimum system requirements for Lightroom 4 beta are as follows:

Windows
Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 processor
Microsoft® Windows Vista® with Service Pack 2 or Windows 7 with Service Pack 1
2GB of RAM
1GB of available hard-disk space
1024×768 display
DVD-ROM drive
Internet connection required for Internet-based services*

Mac OS
Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support
Mac OS X v10.6.8 or v10.7
2GB of RAM
1GB of available hard-disk space
1024×768 display
DVD-ROM drive
Internet connection required for Internet-based services*

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

Download and Test Lightroom 4 for Free

At Halloween last year I was asked to photograph some kids I’ve shot from time to time since they were born. Basically their mum likes to have some up to date photos of the kids and Halloween seemed like as good a time as any to get some shots.

When I’m shooting like this, my aim is to get some good shots but nothing formal and I prefer not to use a flash because I get a better response from the kids without one. I captured the images in raw and I chewed through three small size camera cards in about an hour and a half.

My deal with their mum is that I get to use the photos for my work and she gets a disk of pictures. To keep this fun – so it doesn’t feel like work for me – I need a fast and effective processing workflow. I need to get the images off my camera, sorted, processed, burned to a DVD and delivered to mum in time for her to enjoy them.

Thanks to Lightroom the process was simple and, in all, I reckon I spent less than 2 hours getting the photos from the camera cards to a DVD. Here is what I call my Happy Snap Lightroom workflow – it’s what I do to quickly process casual snapshots:

Step 1 – Determine a plan of attack

To begin with I have some criteria I work by. I never give away substandard photos so anything blurry, out of focus or over exposed gets permanently deleted. Then I sort out the best of the images intending to give mum around 50-60 photos of the kids – it’s a nice range of images for her to use to scrapbook and post to Facebook and it doesn’t over burden her with too many photos to choose from.

Step 2 – Download the images

To begin, I download all the images from all three cards into a single folder on my hard drive (if there were only one card I would omit this step).

From there I import the images into Lightroom at the same time copying them to their permanent storage on my external photo drive and making a backup to a second drive. Copying rather than adding images to the Lightroom catalog lets me make backups and also add my metadata to the images so, when they popup on Facebook my copyright details are embedded in them.

Importing all the images in one step also means that when I’ve started the import process – which includes rendering standard previews – I can start working through the images and I don’t have to do it multiple times or switch out cards as I work – (the process works for me – your mileage may vary).

Step 3 – Eliminating the duds

The first time I run through the images I am looking for images to delete as well as getting a general look at what I shot.

As I work through the images I’ll press X for images to delete and use the right arrow key to move past everything else. I’ll select to delete all out of focus images, anything where someone has their eyes closed or similar, and anything I don’t want to put my name to!

Once I’m done I choose Photo > Delete Rejected Photos to delete the images from my primary external photo drive. There are still copies on the backup drive and my hard disk but not on my main photo drive.

Step 4 – Sorting the usable images

On the second run through the images I pick those I want to use. By now I have a rough idea as to what I have and what I might want to give mum. So this time I run through the images pressing P to pick an image and using the right arrow key to move past those she won’t be getting.

Step 5 – Create a Collection

Once done, I isolate the picked images by clicking the first of the filter flag icons above the filmstrip. Then with only the picks visible I press Ctrl + A to select all of them and then click New Collection > Create Collection and type a name for it. Because the images are already selected, I leave the Include Selected Photos checkbox enabled and click Create.

Step 6 – Apply initial processing to the images

Now I have a collection of the picks and it’s time to process them. I start out by selecting all the images in Grid View in the Library and from the Quick Develop panel I select Auto Tone. This gives me a head start on fixing them but, because of the lighting, pretty much all of them needed a white balance adjustment.

Step 7 – Process in the Develop module

Switching to Develop module with the filmstrip visible I selected the White Balance Selector and then made sure that Auto Dismiss was disabled. This allows me to adjust the white balance on one image and then click on the next one in the filmstrip and continue to adjust the white balance from one image to the next without having to reselect anything. Basically all that most of these images needed was some white balance adjustment.

For those that needed cropping, I cropped as I finished with white balance adjustment and then moved on to the next image. This ensured that each image was dealt with only once as I progressed across the filmstrip.

Step 8 – Make one off fixes

So, having fixed the worst of the problems I work backwards through the filmstrip to see if any of the images warrant special attention. If so, I make a call to fix them or simply remove them from the collection. To remove the image, right click it and choose Remove from Collection .

Here I had one issue with a couple of images where one child’s face was in shadow. For this, I used the Adjustment Brush tool at a small size with a large feather radius. I brushed over the areas where her face was in shadow and then adjusted the Brightness and Exposure to lighten to her face. In the same images other faces were overexposed so I added a second Adjustment Brush adjustment with the opposite settings to attempt to deal with this. The final result wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny but is just fine for the web and 6 x 4 printing.

Step 9 – Export and burn

Once this was done it was time to export the images. Because they’re all in a collection, Ctrl + A selects all the images. I chose File > Export and then exported them as JPG images, 80 percent quality at the largest size and I added sharpening to them in the process. I made sure these images all went to a new folder so that they would be isolated from everything else and easy to find.

From there, it was a matter of launching Ashampoo Burning Studio, grabbing all the images and burning them to a DVD.

This workflow is one giant step better than simply burning the images direct to a DVD. It takes only a little more time with Lightroom to sort and apply some basic fixes to the images and it also means that only the best of the images get circulated and those that do have my copyright information embedded in them.

So now it’s over to you. What’s your “happy snap” workflow? Do you capture snapshots in raw? Do you process using Lightroom? And how do you get your images processed quickly so you’re not spending hours on images that are really just family snapshots?h3

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

A “Happy Snap” Lightroom Workflow

• In January 2010 we released the first eBook in this series – Photo Nuts and BOLTS which is all about understanding how your camera works and how to take full control of it.
• In January 2011 we released Photo Nuts and SHOTS which built upon the first eBook to cover techniques and tools to use your camera to take great photos.
• Today – January 2012 we release Photo Nuts and POST – which is all about what to do with your images once you’ve taken them.

While the first two Photo Nuts eBooks are all about taking the best photos possible (the only real place to start with great photos) – Photo Nuts and POST is about helping those photos to come to life.

What is it About?

This is not an eBook about making bad photos look amazing. Neil’s written two eBooks already emphasising the importance of getting the best possible photo when you take that photo. Rather this is an eBook about taking those photos and turning them into a finished, polished and appropriately prepared photo for whatever need you have (online sharing, printing or publishing).

As I wrote in the forward of this eBook:

For years my own approach was to avoid post-production; my mindset was that great photographers always got it right in camera anyway and that any processing work was somehow ‘fake’. Over time, however, I’ve come to see the benefit of some gentle processing on my images – not to hide anything but to bring them alive and to reflect the reality of the scenes and subjects that I capture.

While getting your photos right in camera is the only real place to start, this ebook is all about putting the tools and techniques in your hands to take those good images and lift them to new levels through post-production.

I was delighted to work with Neil on this ebook because his approach to post-production is similar to my own. I therefore trust that you’ll also enjoy learning about how post-production can help unleash the potential in your own images.

Who is Photo Nuts and POST for?

• Those who want to process their photos and don’t know where to get started
• Anyone who is skeptical about processing but is keen to explore it
• Photographers who see amazing photos online and want their own photos to look like them
• Anyone who struggles with an aspect of processing for eg – workflow or culling a big shoot
• Anyone who has just started learning processing and wants to take it further

If you own a dSLR camera you owe it to yourself to learn about digital post processing.

FAQ

• What post processing software does this eBook teach? – this eBook is written to be as software-agnostic as possible, but by necessity some of the terminology and examples may be influenced by Neil’s personal choice of Adobe’s Lightroom. Screen shots of examples are mostly from Lightroom, but he has striven to keep them relevant to other software choices.
• Can I read it on my iPad – yes. This eBook is a PDF and can be read on your computer or any other PDF reading device. To read it on your iPad simply download it to your computer and then upload it to iBooks (or any other PDF reading app).
• Is it Guaranteed? – yes, like all of our eBooks if you buy a copy and find it doesn’t suit your needs just contact us within 60 days of purchase for a full no questions asked refund.
• Is there a hard cover version? – Unfortunately not – we only do eBooks at this point in time.
• Got Questions or Needing Help? – If you have any problems with the purchase or download simply contact our friendly support staff. Please include the name of the eBook you are asking for support on as well as your PayPal email address if you have made a purchase.

Special Launch Discount: 33% Off

To celebrate the launch of Photo Nuts and POST we’re offering it for $19.99 – 33% off the normal price.

For more information on it check out the Photo Nuts and POST

Or to secure your copy directly, simply click the Download it Now button below.

You’ll be taken to a page where you can make your payment via PayPal or Credit card and get immediate access for download.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

A Guide to Post Processing Your Images: Photo Nuts and Post

Post-processing your digital photos is a controversial topic for some. The idea that you change and manipulate a photo after it’s been taken is seen by some as changing reality; creating something that’s ‘fake’. I disagree strongly with that idea for many reasons, but the reason I’m going to talk about here is that post-processing made me a better photographer. Not just that I think it made my photos look better, but actually helped me to become better at taking photos.

Accelerated Learning

Getting your photos onto the computer and into an editing program gives you access to an instant feedback machine. You can learn a great deal about how to take photos by looking at those you have taken before:

• Looking at each photo closely reveals problems. You may not notice some issues if you just resize and upload a photo.
• Comparing the results with the settings used gives instant feedback. The EXIF data in a photo is invaluable for giving you clues about why a photo may not have worked.
• Playing with photos in post is almost like touching them. Experimenting with sliders lets you ‘feel’ the potential in a photo.
• The hard-to-define and harder-to-teach skill of learning to see is made so much easier by this process of shooting and feedback.

Lessons Learned

After you’ve been processing your photos for a little while, some lessons about how digital photography works – and the limitations and strengths it has – will become more apparent to you. You can then keep these in mind when shooting and change your settings or shooting technique to avoid running into any problems and make the most of the format:

• You’ll get a better understanding of exposure and the capabilities of the RAW format (you ARE shooting in RAW, right?).
• Learn the consequences of a poorly exposed photo, and how much latitude you actually have to correct such a photo.
• Understand how much can be gained and lost at various noise settings so you know when you can push through low light and keep shooting, or when you need to consider alternative strategies.
• Understand why it’s important to ‘get it right in camera’.
• Conversely, understanding how much can be done in post and what’s best left to that stage.

Expands the Mind

Creating images from the shooting perspective only is a bit tunnel-visioned. Once you free yourself from the metaphorical shackles of preserving some idea of ‘reality’, then you will open your mind to the creative possibilities of processing your photos. Not only that, but you will understand that you are the one in control of how real the photo looks, or how unreal. Your confidence will grow, and that will be reflected in your future work.

• Processing lets you see the hidden potential in a photo.
• You will realise that most of those amazing photos you admire online started with something quite different out of camera.
• You will also realise that your photos could be so much better.
• You are in complete control of the final look of the photo. Whether you just tweak things to reflect your impression of being there, or you create something completely new that was never seen by the human eye, it’s completely within your control.
• Your confidence will build by giving you the tools and knowledge to take your photos to the next level.

An Extra Opportunity

If you’ve been thinking that processing is an extra step you don’t have time for, you’re missing the point. It’s an extra opportunity to learn more, make better photos and become a better photographer. And to be quite honest, post-processing can be fun! Import your photo, sprinkle a bit of magic ‘post’ dust on a photo, and export something with much more life and impact.

Getting better photos is wonderful, but don’t underestimate the power that post-processing has to make you a better photographer.

Want to learn more about Post Production? Check out Neil’s new eBook – Photo Nuts & Post – A Guide to Post-Processing.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

How Post-Processing Helped Me Become a Better Photographer

If you’ve ever tried to crop an image to a fixed ratio in Photoshop you may have run up against an issue. There is, it appears, no option for cropping to a fixed ratio such as 4 x 6, 5 x 7 or even 1 x 1. You can crop to fixed sizes like 4in x 6in and you can set a resolution for the image but you can’t on the face of it just crop to a simple 1 x 1 without specifying a unit of measure. Here I’ll show you how to do this, but first things first…

The risk you run if you don’t watch how your settings are configured and if you don’t watch what you enter in the dialogs, is that Photoshop will not only crop, but also determine the units of measure and resample the image for you.

Default Settings
The default units of measure and the default resampling method are set in the program preferences which you can locate by choosing Edit > Preferences > General (Photoshop > Preferences > General) and then read the image interpolation method being used. In this set up it is set to Bicubic:

The default units of measure are set in the Units & Rulers options or the Panel options for the Info Palette as the ruler measurements:

If you type a number in the Width and Height boxes when you select the Crop tool in Photoshop then the default units of measure are used unless you also type the desired units of measure. This might not sound like it is a problem but if the default units of measure are pixels and you type 6 x 4 and have the Resolution set to 300 dpi you might end up with a very small size image indeed!

It is not possible to type a number in the Width or Height box for the Crop tool without a unit of measure being applied to it. So, what do you do if you want a 1 x 1 ratio crop not a 1 in x 1 in image?

The solution is to type 1in or 1cm in each the Width and Height boxes and ignore the units of measure. Then, remove anything from the Resolution box. When Photoshop is told to crop to a fixed size/ratio and is not told the Resolution to use it crops to the size requested, it doesn’t resample the image, and it simply adjusts the Resolution of the final image to suit the image. It might sound weird but it works to let you crop to a fixed ratio. The problem is of course, that the resulting resolution can be very large indeed.

Here I cropped this image to 1 in x 1 in with no resolution set:

Here are the final image dimensions – the size is 1 x 1 but the resolution is very large:

Change Resolution but not Size
If the resolution of the image is important to you then you can change it by choosing Image > Image Size, disable the Resample checkbox and set the desired Resolution and click Ok to adjust this. This resizes the image to the chosen resolution but does not resample it in the process.

Crop and Resample
On the other hand, if you set a width and height for the image in the Crop tool options and if you set a resolution, Photoshop will crop the image to that size and resolution.

If the image is very large and the desired size is comparatively small then Photoshop will downsize the image and in the process resample the image. If there are insufficient pixels in the image to crop to the desired size and resolution, Photoshop will upsize the image resampling it as it does so.

An Alternate Method
There is an alternative method that lets you crop to a fixed ratio without altering image resolution. It is a little longer but it works well and is bypasses the crop tool entirely. Instead, target the Rectangular Marquee tool and select Fixed Ratio from the Style list and then set the Width and Height as values without measurements. Select the area to keep – if necessary, hold the Space Bar as you are drawing the shape to move it to a new position.

When you ‘re done choose Image > Crop to crop it.

Next time you need to crop to a fixed aspect ratio, one of these methods will ensure you get the result you expect.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

How to Crop to Fixed Ratio in Photoshop

One technique I’ve seen used a lot lately on blogs, websites and even email newsletters is a hand drawn frame effect.

In this post, I’ll show you how to create an effect like this and save and use it for your images.

Step 1

Start with a new image in Photoshop. A good size frame is important to create as you can size it down but not size it up as successfully. Start with an image around 4,000 pixels square with a resolution of 300 pixels RGB color and transparent background.

When the image opens, fill the background with a color of your choice, I’ve chosen a blue fill color.

Step 2

Add a new layer and then select the brush tool and a smallish brush. You want something that is going to ‘paint’ looking a little bit like pencil marks so I chose the Chalk 11 pixels brush and sized it up to around 57 pixels.

Select black or a dark brown or dark gray color as the foreground color and hand draw your frame. It will help if you use a tablet to do this although that’s not necessary and a mouse can be used.

Draw the frame so it has closed inside and outside edges to make the next step easier.

Step 3

Target the Magic Wand tool and click inside the frame. This selects the inner portion of the frame.

Choose Select > Inverse to invert the selection.

Now hold the Alt key and click with the Magic Wand tool on the outer area of the image so you remove the outer edge from the selection.

To eliminate any anti-aliased edges, choose Select > Modify > Contract and contract the selection by around 12 pixels.

Step 4

Add a new layer between the frame drawing and the background and fill it with white.

Return to the frame layer and select the inside again, this time choose Select > Modify > Expand and expand the selection by around 12 pixels.

Add a new layer and fill the selected area with a black/brown or dark color. This is the template for your image.

Save this image as a layered .psd file so you can use it anytime in future.

Step 5

To frame an image, open an image to frame and this frame too.

Drag the background layer of the image into your frame image holding the Shift key as you do so to center it. Press Ctrl T + Ctrl 0 to size the image to size. Make sure the image layer is directly under the drawn frame and above the dark template layer.

Now, with the image layer selected choose Layer > Create Clipping Mask to clip the image to the size of the inside of the frame.

You can move the image layer using the Move tool so it is positioned as desired.

Now size and save the image for print or the web.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

How to Create Hand Drawn Frames in Photoshop

Highlights/Shadows

Wow, wonderful. Nice improvement in what each can do compared to the older Highlight Recovery and Fill Light. Also an improvement is the ability to go up or down (actually left or right) with both of these sliders. I see more solid colors in the shadows when the slider as used as compared to the Fill Light option. Adobe has also added in Whites alongside Blacks (both of which can now also be increased or decreased instead of just increased as in version 3).

Video Inline And Edits

It’s a nice touch to be able to watch video inside of Lightroom. Is it required? Nope. But it is smoother. What is nice is to have the ability to adjust exposure, blacks, whites, contrast and vibrance. It’s little stuff and I hope Adobe keeps it that way to not bloat the software. I have other software that can really handle video well and this subset is perfect for quick edits I might want to do on the road or with non-production pieces. I also like that the rendering of the preview seems to not hold up the rest of the thumbnail creation any more. What I mean by this is, when a bunch of images are loaded in and I view them in grid mode of the Library, it used to hold up on the videos, using another process to render a preview image for that thumbnail, before showing me all the other previews on the screen. Now it will put a black space holder there and continue to show the picture previews, which saves time.

Maps

Hell Yeah! It was nice that version 3 had a spot for GPS data but reliance on third party software seemed odd, especially when something like Flickr made it relatively easy to stamp images after the fact. So far, I enjoy the feature that lets me pull up a map via Google and drag and drop images, one at a time or in groups. It’s useful and appreciated.

Book

The book module gets a “meh” rating in my opinion. I won’t be using it a lot and that is part of my rating. For those who want to create their own books, it IS nice to have everything in one location, as in iPhoto, to create a book, rather than exporting to a folder, uploading to a site, etc… If you plan on making many scrapbooks or print books, this will certainly rate “Hell Yeah!” for you from the ease of use.

Email

It’s a little thing. Overlooked in the past maybe? We share images via email all the time. I’d love this to go a step further and be able to send a text to someone’s phone, but I’m crazy like that. To me, this feature is icing on the cake, not a reason to upgrade.

No Defaults When Importing

Ahhhh, just my photos without Lightroom’s choice of enhancements when importing. Nice. In the past, Lightroom jacked up some settings on import and, while I could make a Preset to counter this, it was annoying at time. Now things like the Tone Curve are left at “Linear” instead of “Medium Contrast”, something I often backed out. I really like this as a starting point now.

White Balance In Adjustment Brush….Kinda

This is a feature I’m happy to see added. The Adjustment Brush gets some more adjustments. It now can control Noise and Moire, but most useful for me is the ability to change the white balance of a particular area. This is great when shooting in two different light sources or with heavy shadows (and white snow). My beef with the current setup is the slider allows for color temperature control, but not as an absolute degrees Kelvin, only relative scale from yellow/orange to blue. It works, but I’d love to be able to set a shadow to 7500K rather than slide around trying to find the right sport. I hope that make that adjustment in the final release.

Spot removal

The improvements in Spot Removal mimic the improvements they made in the DNG fast loading technique. A step back…Adobe adjusted how they create the DNG files upon important to allow the vital image information to load first. In the past the whole file had to be loaded before you could start playing in the Develop module. Now, the image pops up very quickly and while it finishes loading, edits can be started more quickly than in version 3.

I noticed the Spot Removal feature was also tweaked to help those with slower machines. Even on my bogged down travel laptop, I can click from spot to spot and not have a significant delay. In the past, I would click a spot and Lightroom would then select a likely spot to heal or clone from for me. This was a nice update that came about in version 3. But on a slow machine, I had to wait for that process to complete with the current spot before clicking the next. If I had 20 spots on a screen, it was boggy and tedious.

In version 4, I can click away as if I’m playing Whack-A-Mole and Lightroom will catch up with those suggestions when it gets a chance, much the same as a camera buffering images before writing them to the card. This is awesome and speeds up spot removal significantly.

Conclusion

From what I’ve seen of the Beta (minus the occasional crash) I really enjoy the improvements Adobe has made and will gladly plop down money to upgrade. I believe the improvements will give me better results faster. The increased speed in processing and moving between images from Library to Develop alone is worth the expense to me as time is money for me when it comes to play with pictures.

Now, what about you? Have you had a chance to take a look at the Beta version? If photography is not your business, do you think the changes are worth the (likely amount of) $100 to upgrade?

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

Will Lightroom 4 Be Worth The Upgrade Cost?

1. Rounded corners

Gimp makes it dead simple to round the corners of an image. To do this, choose Filters > Décor > Rounded Corners. A dialog will open. Select the Edge Radius, which is the amount of curve, and if desired, click to add a Drop Shadow and then set the Shadow Offset and Blur Radius. You can select to work on a copy of the image (rather than the original), and select whether or not to add some background behind the curved corners – the current background color is used for this. Click Ok to round the corners of the image.

2. Reassign keys

When I use Gimp, I sometimes forget and use Photoshop keys for things like deselect. Unfortunately in Gimp, the Photoshop deselect keystroke duplicates an image! You can, however, remap your keyboard shortcuts by choosing Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts. So, for example, to map the Ctrl + D keystroke to the Select > None option, click to open the Select menu, locate the None option and click it so that the words New Accelerator appear in the Shortcut column. Then press the keystroke to use – I chose Ctrl + D, which is the Photoshop equivalent. Because this key combination is already used a warning appears – if you are ok with replacing the shortcut, then proceed to assign the new shortcut key.

When you change or reassign a shortcut, Gimp is smart enough to add the new shortcut to the appropriate menu so the Select menu here shows the newly assigned shortcut.

3. Move the selection mask

It is so much easier in Gimp than in Photoshop to move the actual selection marquee once you have made it. To see this at work, make a selection, then click the Move tool. Make sure that the Move option is set to Selection in the panel and you can now drag the selection into a new position. This works for circles, rectangles as well as selections made with the free select tool. Once you’re done, return to the tool to perform another task such as Ctrl + Alt + drag to move the selected area or Shift + Alt + drag to copy it.

4. Merge to a new layer (and keep the original layers)

One command that is useful when you need to flatten an image but where you don’t want to lose the layers you have already created is the one which flattens the visible portions of an image to a new layer. This layer is at the top of the stack but is created in a way that leaves the original layers still in place. In Photoshop you do it by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E. In Gimp, choose Layer –> New From Visible. Now you can, for example, sharpen the image but, if you need to make changes to the image, you can delete the top merged layer, adjust the image on the layers below and then remake the new merged layer and sharpen it.

5. Crop Tool Smarts

The Crop tool in Gimp includes a range of cool options. When you select it, check out the panel options. You can, for example, crop just the current layer (or all the image) or you can select the crop area from the middle out (rather than drawing from one corner). You can crop to a fixed aspect ratio or a fixed width (height is variable), fixed height (width is variable), or set both height and width. From the list which shows No Guides, you can choose to display a Rule of Thirds overlay, Center lines or Golden Sections to help you create a well composed image. Enable Highlight to see a dark border around the area you plan to crop to.

So, there are my 5 top Gimp tips. It is over to you. What is your favorite Gimp tip to share with our readers?

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

5 Top Tips for Working with Gimp

We all know that composition is important to keep in mind when taking a photo, and it’s just as important to think about composition when you’re designing a photo book layout. Here are my five top tips for designing good photo book layouts.

1) Less is More

Don’t try to crowd in a lot of photos in a single layout, give your photos some breathing room. In fact, consider placing a single photo per page. It allows your photo to take center stage.

If you are planning to create a whole spread with several photos, think about the end size of your photo book. A very common size offered by photo book companies is an 8 x 8 inch book. How many photos to put into a spread should correlate to the size of the book. For example, laying out 12 photos on a single spread (two facing pages) of an 8×8 inch book is going to print very differently from 12 photos on a single spread of a 12×12 inch book. Doing the former may make each photo appear rather small in the final product and you don’t want folks squinting at your layouts. If you don’t have the benefit of a large monitor, so you can zoom to actual size, many companies display the measurements of your photos so if you have to, grab a ruler so you can see what end size you’re going to end up with. I typically don’t try to place more than 6 to 8 photos on a single spread of an 8 x 8 inch book and even then, you probably don’t want to do that for every page.

2) Establish a Focal Point

If you have a beautiful photo of which you’re especially proud, as mentioned in #1 above, highlight it by letting it have its own spread. Place it in a full bleed spread, or if the book size you’ve chosen is going to cut off key areas of your photo, then choose a container size smaller than the spread.

Another way to establish a focal point when you have more than one photo in your layout is to display one or two larger photos with smaller supporting photos.

A big pet peeve of mine is when companies provide very boring, unimaginative stock layouts based on the number of photos you want to lay out. If you place your photos into a layout of eight equally sized photo boxes, which photo is the focal point? Not to say that a layout like that would never work, but picking one or two photos to highlight tells your viewers the focus of your design.

3) Vary your spreads

I have done a “portfolio” type book where I only placed a single photo per page, and that makes sense with that type of book, but if you’re doing a book of an event like a birthday or graduation, you’re most likely going to place more than one photo per spread. Try to vary your spreads so the viewer doesn’t get bored. With that said, I often reutilize a layout more than once, but scatter it throughout the book. Similarly you can take your layout and reconfigure or make a slight change to it so it doesn’t look exactly the same. By reusing layouts, you can quickly design your spreads. The key is to not bore the viewer.

4) Tell a Story

Just as with any other book, your photo book is meant to tell a story, especially when making a photo book of your vacation photos for example. When you show off your vacation photos, you’re sharing your experiences with your family and friends. You want to make them feel like they were on the trip with you – seeing the sights, taking in the picturesque views. Think about how you want to tell your story. The typical event-based book will likely be chronological. But don’t be afraid to break from that, by grouping photos that make sense together for impact. For example the following layout highlights all the delicious food we ate on vacation!

5) Do your Prep Work Ahead of Time

Designing your pages will be easier, if you haven’t upload all 1000 photos from your event or trip into the photo book design software. You’ll easily lose your mind going through all of them. I’ve found that in a 100-page book, about 300 photos are more than enough and even then I don’t end up using all of the photos. Edit down the number of photos to the best ones, or the ones essential to telling the story you wish to convey. Also make sure you’ve done your post processing using your own software before uploading, as there are typically very few in-program photo-editing tools.

The author is the blogger behind Photo Book Girl – a resource for finding the best photo book companies, the latest photo book deals and helpful tips on designing your own photo book. For more tips, check out her ongoing series: “How to Make Your Own Digital Photo Book“ and her prior guest post for DPS on the same topic. You can also find her on Facebook discussing all things photo book!

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

5 Top Tips for Designing Good Photo Book Layouts