Goby resting on a section of brain coral.
Here is the shooting metadata for this image:
D200 with 105 macro
1/100 sec @ f/9 ISO 100
Matrix, Manual, 2 strobes normal sync
The purpose of this post is to let you know about a couple of problems that you can run into using Photoshop’s brush tool and the simple solutions for those problems. What prompted this is I hit the first one of these the other day but forgot about it because I hadn’t ran into for a while. But as Photoshop was coming back up, after bouncing it, I remembered the issue. If you know about these (and remember them) you can save a lot of time chasing you tail. But before I get into the problems some background info.
In the Cursor preferences (Edit > Preferences > Cursors) there are options for how the user wants their cursor for painting tools to be displayed. A few examples of painting tools are the brush tools, the erase tool, and the clone/healing tools. IMHO the first two option are worthless. Standard shows a brush icon and Precise shows only a crosshair for the center of the brush. Most folks have this option set to either Normal or Full Size. The difference is how brushes with soft edges (low hardness) are displayed. When the brush is set to a soft edge, the center of the brush has 100% coverage and outer edge “feathers” from 100% out to 0% coverage. Full Size show the size of the brush size all the way out to the 0% coverage point. Normal only shows the size of the brush from 100% out to where there is 50% coverage.
We started off the day back at Zebriskie Point for sunrises. This first image was shot during twilight, before the sun has risen, and there was still a glow on the western horizon. The two black specs on the hills below are two photographers. Since I couldn’t find a composition, with the glow in the sky, and without them; I decided to include them for a sense of scale.
But the magic doesn’t start to happen at Zebriskie Point until the sun is up and over the mountains. The warm color temperature and low angle of light brings out the colors and textures of the hills that line the wash. Read more »
I will be teaching Digital Photography Essentials for the Delaware County Camera Club on 6 consecutive Saturdays beginning January 30th. The classes will be from 9am to 11am and will be held at the club’s regular meeting place, the Trinity Lutheran Church, right on Rt 3 in Havertown, PA. See the Location tab on the club’s site for directions.
If the weeknight format of my Chester County Night School photography classes doesn’t fit your schedule maybe this Saturday morning format work for you.
More details about the class can be found here.
Pricing and registration is being done by DCCC. The final cost will be determined by the number of students that enroll. For cost information and registration contact the club President via email for details.
For a listing of all my classes see the Workshops and Classes Page of this blog or at It’s All About the Light Tours.
Earlier this week I posted Death Valley–Day 5: Joshua Trees. In it I stated that this week was a twofer. This is the second half of the Day 5 selects; they are from a trip out to the Racetrack Playa.
In the past I had seen pictures of the moving rocks of the Racetrack on several photography forums and have always been intrigued by them. So when I started doing research for this trip, going to the Racetrack Playa was given a high priority. The next to last day we made the long trip out to the playa.
Did I say, “long trip?” That doesn’t begin to describe it. It’s 25 miles of washboard road. It took us over 2.5 hours, each way. I had heard about how bad the road was (many flat tires from the sharp rocks) but had no idea of how miserable of a trip it would be. We had planned the trip so we would be there for sunset so we would have some low light to accentuate the tracks. Because the trip took a lot longer than anticipated I’m very glad we started out early. The good news is we were blessed with some wonderful light while we were there.
In this image I was trying to capture the trail so that it made a S-curve up through the image. Read more »
Nassau Grouper
Belize, Ambergris Cay
Here is the shooting metadata for this image:
D200 with 12-24 @ 16mm
1/30 sec @ f/10 ISO 100
Matrix, Aperture Priority, Comp 0, 2 strobes normal sync
In Part 1 we learnt that increasing the overall contrast in an image by setting a white and black point can add to the overall appearance of an image. And the procedure for setting those points is the same with either Levels or Curves. This time we’ll take a look at adjusting the overall brightness of an image with both Levels and Curves. And then we’ll introduce some of the more advance adjustments you can do with Curves that are not possible with Levels.
In the Levels and Curves dialogs shown below the black and white points have already been set, as discussed in Part 1. Added, highlighted in the red circles, are similar edits to increase the overall brightness of an image. Read more »
Since the images in the selects for today fell into two very distinct areas I decide to do two posting for day 5. But before I get to the images I want to share a story about how I got myself into a mental funk and how that affected my image making for the whole morning.
The night before we decided that we would return to Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes for our morning shoot. I then concluded that we could sleep in a bit because the forecast was for clear skies so there would not be great color in the morning and the good light would be not be on the dunes until after the sun gets up over the mountains to the east. When we got up and out to the gas station for gas and coffee it was still dark but about 30 minute later than “normal”. So far so good.
But as we were driving to the park the most gorgeous morning twilight was occurring; everything started to take on a pink glow. The forecast was wrong. It was partly cloudy and the light was awesome. But where we were, there didn’t seem to be anything we wanted to shoot. This glow only lasted 10-15 minutes and by the time we got to some place we could shoot it was over. I started mentally kicking myself over the decision the night before to sleep in. I don’t know why , but all this really bummed me out. So much so that none of my sand dune shots from this shoot make the selects for the day. (And you saw the possibilities in yesterdays images). There are only a couple of pattern shots of cracked mud that made the day’s selects.
Make no mistake about it, part of your personality and mood are expressed in your images. If for no other reason your personality and mood affect what you choose to shoot. If you are in a bad mood then you will most likely not like what you shoot. Another thing to keep in mind is that image can be made almost any time anywhere. You just need to be open to the possibilities. I’m sure if we would have stopped we could have something to shoot and take advantage of the light. Read more »