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Featured Gallery
 © - Rajasekar Alamanda
Welcome to the 362nd issue of SnapShot!
Hello,
Exciting times at BetterPhoto! Imagine getting direct feedback on your photos from a famous professional photographer - regardless of where you live! But act now, since our online courses begin Wednesday, April 2nd! See our school schedule... Need help finding the right course? Try our cool CourseFinder... Congratulations go to BP instructor Scott Stulberg, whose fascinating article - "Staying in Focus in Iraq" - is featured in the April issue of Shutterbug magazine. In addition, Scott's Web site also received kudos in the magazine's Web Profiles column. But that's not all: Congrats also to BP member Marc Adamus, whose awesome scenic shot graces Popular Photography magazine's April cover and whose excellent article ("Landscapes: The 5 Big Questions") appears inside. Marc, by the way, was the Grand Prize Winner of our first Cash Contest. ... That's it for this week. Have fun with your photography!
Jim Miotke
Where Is Jim?
Updates From BetterPhoto
Make April the month that you take the next step in your photography or Photoshop! Sign up for a fun-and-fast 4-week course or a more intense 8-week class.
Sign up for our awesome yearlong ClassTracks program and you receive a free Pro BetterPholio! Then, upon completion, you qualify for an additional free 4-week course. The next session begins this Wed., April 2nd. Learn more...
Our classes are 100% online, but you needn't be online at any particular times. Still, our classes are very interactive between instructor and students - in fact, it's a great way to get pro feedback! All course activity takes place in a Web site called Campus Square, so that you can read the Q&A, ask questions, make comments, upload photos, read critiques, etc. ... any time, at your leisure.
- Take a quick tour of our virtual classroom...
- See what past and current students have to say...
Photo Q&A
1: Gallery Show - What to Put on Title Cards?
Hello,
I'm having my first exhibition, and I just talked to the gallery owner about making title cards to go next to each photo. He told me to print: name, title, size of print, type of paper
1) I'm not sure what to put for type of paper. I used Kodak Royal Digital Paper. I don't really want to put that on the card. Should I put "AgX Paper" or "silver halide paper"? Or just leave it off altogether?
2) Do I put the size of the print? Or the size of the print, plus the 2-inch matte? Any advice would be very welcome! Thank you!
- Robin
ANSWER 1:
Hi Robin,
Kodak Royal Digital is conventional silver/gelatin (emulsion) negative color paper. It is intended to be used in combination with a digital printer that exposes via a laser or LED or Light Valve print engine. Thus it has been sensitizes to accommodate these specialized light sources. Crystals of silver salts are the chief light sensitizing ingredient. These are imbedded in gelatin which is the binder that holds the mixture and affixes it to the paper.
As a sidebar: Chemical-based papers are processed by submersion in chemical baths. The paper is made from pine pulp thus it has a defined cell structure. Residual chemicals tend to be retained in the cells and if not washed out or neutralized, stain the image in short order. Waterproofing the paper became common by mid century. Today the waterproofing is accomplished by coating the paper, both sides with a plastic overcoat. This prevents the paper from being wet during the water based chemical process, only the emulsion coated on top of the overcoat is infused with chemicals. Since the emulsion has no cell structure its easy to wash out all residual chemicals. This greatly speeds up the process and paper drying as well.
The coating is called RC for resin coat.
You could therefore label your paper "Silver/Gelatin RC Color Paper".
No need to put print size.
Maybe paper type as above, a title and your name.
Best regards,
Alan Marcus (marginal technical gobbledygook)
- Alan N. Marcus
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2: Merging Photos in Photoshop Elements
Say I take two tripod shots of the same landscape, exposing one for shadows and the other for sky, and then create a PSE layer for each and flatten/merge them. Will I end up with an image that shows the proper exposure for both?
- Thomas E. Dillon
ANSWER 1:
Thomas, You are going to have to work with blending or masking in some form to get the result you want. Just putting one layer over the other doesn't tell the program what you want to do. I am working on a course that gets into this type of thing, and I do explore it to some extent in my Layers course ( Leveraging Layers: Photoshop's Most Powerful Tool), though you may need to build into that as it is an advanced course via my other courses ( Richard Lynch's Photoshop courses).
See Richard Lynch's Premium BetterPholio™:
http://www.betterphoto.com/mg.asp?id=121428
Take an Online PhotoCourse™ with Richard Lynch:
4-Week Short Course: Correct and Enhance Your Images
4-Week Short Course: From Monitor to Print: Photoshop Color Workflow
4-Week Short Course: Photoshop 101: The Photoshop Essentials Primer
Leveraging Layers: Photoshop's Most Powerful Tool
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3: Telephoto Lens Vs. Macro Lens
Hi,
I would like to purchase a lens for my camera. Can you please fill me in on the difference between a macro and telephoto lens? Thanks so much! =)
- Tarah Dawdy
ANSWER 1:
A telephoto lens technically is one that is designed such that its actual length is less than its optical focal length. More generally, it refers to long focal length lenses that give a narrow angle of view and "bring distant objects closer."
A macro lens is one that focuses very close so that it can project a 1/2 life-size or larger image onto the film or sensor. Macro lenses can be wide angle, normal, telephoto or zoom. The camera makers (Canon, Nikon, etc.) tend to reserve the term "macro" for their lenses that are capable of 1:1 (life size) or greater. The third-party makers, like Sigma and Tamron, are a bit looser in their definition and will use the "macro" label on zoom lenses capable of focusing close enough to give 1:4 magnification (1/4 life size) or larger.
- Jon Close
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1: How to Fix Red Eye in Photoshop
I am having problems fixing red eye on pictures of my son! Please help! (I know that the ideal situation would be to avoid getting any red-eye in my photos in the first place, and for special times I use my Nikon D-70 with SB-600 flash, so no problems there. This red-eye dillema happens occasionally when I use my point-and-shoot for quick photos around the house, etc.) Thanks in advance! - Carin Griffith
ANSWER 1:
Carin,
Thanks for uploading these examples. As you see from this, red-eye tools will fix some things, but not others. The case you show here is pretty extreme. The tool's natural response is to balance the hot color, but there is just too much brightness in the pupil for this to work as designed. The harsh color will be reduced but there will be some unpredictable behavior as well. Such is the case with 'magic' tools as they can't see to evaluate the image. No matter how clever they might be, they still are based on a cold calculation.As you say, the best solution is avoidance. Some things you can try here are more an approach to reduce the brightness and mediate the color. 1. create a new layer at the top of your layers stack.
2. set the layer mode to multiply.
3. choose the brush tool and paint in black over the iris.*
4. lower the opacity of the layer until pleased with the result. *you can use a hard brush and blur, or a soft brush. Even this will not solve all red-eye problems and may come with issues of its own. For example, the boy ends up having brown eyes here and from other hints I am guessing his natural color may be blue. The issue may be a residual issue from the intense red that was there... You might add a Hue/Saturation change as well...You can target the area by Command/Ctrl+click on the thumbnail for the layer you painted on to load the solid area as a selection. I don't cover expressly this in my courses here at BetterPhoto, but all the concepts in and around it which lead to these solutions. I hope that helps!
- Richard Lynch
See Richard Lynch's Premium BetterPholio™:
http://www.betterphoto.com/mg.asp?id=121428
Take an Online PhotoCourse™ with Richard Lynch:
4-Week Short Course: Correct and Enhance Your Images
4-Week Short Course: From Monitor to Print: Photoshop Color Workflow
4-Week Short Course: Photoshop 101: The Photoshop Essentials Primer
Leveraging Layers: Photoshop's Most Powerful Tool
See Sample Photo - Red Eye Burn Result
http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery/dynoGallDetail.asp?photoID=5870035
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