Tag the ‘Tog

I have been working as a full time photographer (a “‘Tog”) for a number of years, and one thing that I come across consistently, that causes me to grind my teeth in frustration, is leaving off photographer’s credit on the images that get posted on various forms of media. Social media platforms in particular like Facebook and Instagram. This isn’t just my work, but it is endemic across all media platforms with all levels of photography and other ‘Tog’s.

Sure many people don’t do this for a full time living, and mainly do it for a hobby, regardless though, put the person’s information with the photo they created. It really is fairly simple, and here’s the reason why it gets me, in particular, upset:

I have spent a considerable amount of time refining my craft; learning techniques for composing, lighting, posing, staging, equipment upgrades, location scouting, etc.. This represents a significant investment on my part to create images for clients and friends. 

I also spend a significant amount of money in advertising and marketing, and still have found that word of mouth is one of the best forms of advertising available. Which brings me back around to the practice of providing photo credit for images... aka “tagging”.

Almost every single one of us have IG/FB/whateversocialmediaplatform BUSINESS profiles. Use that to tag the creator of your images not the personal page. It increases the reach of our work exponentially, potentially getting our name and our images out to more and more people... 

While I despise the term “working for exposure” as often it devalues a photographer’s work. It’s almost as if they’re saying “I like your work, it’s incredible, but I’m not going to pay you for it”. At the same time, when we do a shoot for someone, and we get paid for it, then it goes out on social media with our images being shared, passing across so many screens, and there’s no mention of the creator of the image anywhere, that is very irksome to say the least. Word of mouth advertising is the most powerful form of advertising there is. 

We work hard at making these images, the very least you can do is give proper credit where credit is due. 

One last thing before I close this down too... don’t put a cheap ass filter on our images then repost it... seriously, just don’t do that. If you want something added or removed from the image, speak to the photographer. We can do that for you without a sad IG ‘sepia’ or ‘clarendon’ filter. It just pisses us off. 

Tag the ‘Tog... it’s a simple concept of respect for the creator of the image.

Lightroom Tutorial Spot Removal

De- Spotting your Images

One of the most common omissions I see in a lot of images is spots. They drive me nuts… and I can usually pick them out almost instantly. They detract significantly from the image when being shown, and if it is printed, shows a lack of thoroughness in the editing process. Spot removal ought to be the first step in the editing process. They may appear because of dust on the lens, on the sensor, or from water spray. Regardless of how they got there, they need to go! Here’s a quick way to do that in Lightroom:

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Step 1:

Open your image in LR, some of the spots will be readily apparent as you can see in this image on the beach. The spots in the sky are from the ocean spray that I couldn’t avoid. I went in and circled the offending spots already, but as you can see, some are very apparent, while others aren’t so much. I’ll show you a very easy way to highlight those other spots.

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Step 2:

In the Develop module, on your tool bar on the left, click the icon with the circle with a line coming out. This is the Spot Removal Tool (keyboard shortcut is Q). Once open you may choose either clone or heal. The difference is simple: Heal Matches the texture, lighting, and shading of the sampled area to the selected area. Clone Duplicates the sampled area of the image to the selected area. Usually for this I have Heal selected.

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Step 3:

Mouse over the spots and click on each one. You may adjust the size of the brush either by moving the slider in the tool menu, or by using two fingers on the mouse pad up and down. Adjust the feathering of the brush using the slider. This slider lets you control how gradually the Clone or Heal edits are implemented. Sliding all the way to 100 means your edits will gradually fade out near the edge of the tool, Setting it at zero will have no feathering whatsoever, and will result in a visible circle around your spot.

The program will automatically select the area it thinks “best” suits your image, but it’s a computer, and while it does do a pretty good job, sometimes it’s way off. To get the right blending, you can move the sampled area around until it best suits your shot. Bring your cursor over the selected area, click & hold, then you can move the circle wherever it best suits your image.

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Step 4:

If you’re having difficulty seeing the spots then there’s an option that works great. There’s a couple different ways to do this, but with LR CC it’s built in now. At the bottom of your image is a slider and a check box for “VISUALIZE SPOTS”. Check the box and this turns your image in a negative black and white. Moving the slider increases and decreases the brightness and contrast so you can see the spots better.

Its the same process for removing the spots in this screen, but you need to be careful, as you won’t be able to see how well they blend in the full RGB colour image. just toggle the check box on and off a few times and you’ll be able to see how it’s all coming together.

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Step 5:

Once you’re all done getting rid of the spots, simply hit the “DONE” button on the bottom right side of the image and you’re finished. The nice thing about doing this in Lightroom, is that it’s non-destructive. If for whatever reason you don’t like how one of the areas looks, go back into the spot removal, and it will bring up all the changes you did. You can then change each one individually simply by clicking on the pin (the grey dot in your image).

Final de-spotted sky.

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This works on landscape images, as well as in portraits for clearing up skin. Although in portraits, it’s not nearly as effective as you will get in Photoshop using a frequency separation layer, but for the most part, it will get you a good head-start to clean up acne, or other small skin blemishes. You can also do the spot removal in Photoshop using the clone stamp tool or, well there’s many different ways to do it really. This is the principle method I use for my images, when I’m still in Lightroom.

Thanks for checking this out, and check back for another tutorial coming soon!

Milky Way Fire Part I

I decided to do this as a 2 part blog, as it became very long with set-up, settings, and explaining the initial shooting flow. I hope you enjoy the write up, and as always Dear Reader, please feel free to contact me with any other questions or critiques. 

 Before I begin on this blog, I must state that my kit is not the best kit for  making images of our galaxy. For these shots, I was shooting with a Canon T3i, stock 18-55mm F3.5 lens. For best results, I'd highly recommend a wide angle, fast lens like a Rokinon 14mm f/1.8 or if you can afford it, the Sigma 20mm Art Lens provides an amazing piece of glass for taking Astrophotography images. 

 Firstly, the easy part: figuring out where the galactic centre was. For that I have an app on my iPhone called Sky Guide. It's a great app for finding and predicting where the Milky Way will be at any given time, on any given day. Or if you happen to already know where the constellation of Scorpio is in the sky, the galactic centre is pretty much right there. For me in Port Alberni, on the West Coast of BC Canada, it sits right on the summer horizon due south of me. 

 I switched the camera to live mode and zoomed into the brightest star to get the focus set properly, and put a piece of electrical tape on the focus ring so I didn't accidentally move it. Then calculating for exposure time, I use the 500 rule.

 500/(focal length)/(crop factor)=EV. 

 Crop factor is: full frame =1; APS-C=1.5; 4/3=2. For my set up that puts me at 18/1sec. It still leaves me with slight trails, so I usually keep my shutter speed in the 15-12 second range. Except when I want the colours of the Milky Way to be really bright, then I'll leave the shutter open for up to 45 seconds. But know that it will be more work in post-editing to get rid of the star trails. One other last tidbit is to make sure the mirror lock up in your custom functions is enabled. This reduces any extra vibration inside the camera. You can find it in your camera's user manual if you don't already know where it is. On my T3i it's (C.Fn III 8); enable. There's a bit of a debate going on whether to use this feature or not, or if it makes a difference, from what I've found though, is in my particular case it does. 

 I have both a cable release and an IR remote, so depending on whether I'm light painting in front of the lens or static behind the lens determines which one I'll use. For these shots, both were actually used, cable for the stars and since I was the one spinning fire, I used my IR remote for those shots. 

  Ok enough technical speak...LETS GO SHOOT!!!

 I got everything set up, took a couple shots to make sure everything was working properly. I shot the stars first, taking multiple shots with my camera set in bulb mode and the shutter speed ranging from 9 sec to 20 seconds. I believe I shot about 30 images, which because I use long exposure noise reduction in camera takes a while. I know there's programs out there that could reduce that time, but hey, I'm outside in my element doing what I love to do. So what if I have to wait a little while for each shot?' Once I figured I have enough pictures, I take more. 

 Now for the really fun part...playing with fire. I weave some fine steel wool through the links of small chain, rub the contacts of a 9v battery (the square ones) and that ignites the steel wool. Keeping the chain centred in my mid section, I simply spin creating that awesome orange ring with sparks flying off. I do that a few times, partly to see how it all works, partly for pure giggle factor. 

 I reset everything, I mark the spot that is the limit of my IR remote, and stand a log up there. Using my flashlight, I zoom in on live mode and set my focus. Now I best guess my shutter speed, kick over the log Chuck Norris style (or Bruce Lee depending on favourites), ignite the steel wool, hit the shutter, and start spinning. As soon as the wool burns out, hit the remote again. Walk back review, reload the steel wool.  

 Repeat..again and again and again... until I have more than enough fodder to work with in post. 

 Now that I have my images, it's time to put everything away, sit down with a mug of whiskey (I always take some with me when I'm camping), light a campfire, sit back and contemplate Life, the Universe, and Everything. 

 In part 2 I'll go through the editing of these images. From LR, to blending the two together and giving them some pop in Photoshop. 

Enjoy the day, and keep your shutter clicking!

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