The X= Blog has posted the first of a two-parter on using the grayscale sliders in Lightroom.

The article covers how to convert a colour image to grayscale in Lightroom and how to use the sliders inside the develop module to best effect to alter the relevant brightness of just specific colours.

One of the more interesting things in the article is a list providing a rough indication of how each of the colour sliders will affect the image. For example, the orange slider has the biggest impact on skin tones, and the yellow slider can be used to lighten teeth and eyes.

Follow the link below to read the full article and look out for part two which will cover more advance techniques to use on monochrome images and some tools to make the task easier.

X= : Monochrome Mojo – Mixing in Grayscale – Part 1

Over on the Flickr Travel Photography group, a simple question on tips to get the best travel shots turned into a discussion on the subject of appearing in your travel shots.

Some of the group members thought it funny seeing tourists positioning themselves in the shot of a famous landmark or beautiful scenery. Others were completely against this and did whatever they could to avoid tourists being in the shot and never took any shots of themselves whilst travelling.

One of the reasons for appearing in your shots is to act as a memory hook. Enabling you to remember a particular place and time when reviewing old travel photos. However, personally, I find the shot of the place or landmark itself is enough for me to remember where I was when I took the shot. I don’t need to be in the scene as well.

I remember on a trip to Egypt a few years ago, I often had to wait sometimes up to half an hour to get a shot I wanted. Every time I was about to take a photo someone would wander into view. At touristy places you can’t really get angry with this as they are there to see to sites just as much as you. Being patient is definitely an advantage. Although there have been a couple of occasions where I’ve politely asked someone to move.

Of course, its also sometimes useful to have people in the shot as it lends a sense of scale to the objects you are photographing. Those viewing your travel shots may not be familiar with your subjects and being able to judge whether a carving or ruin is 6 foot or 60 foot based on someone wandering through your shot can often help immensely.

So how about you? Are you the type who always grabs a photo of yourself in front of a famous landmark to prove you were there. Or do you tend to hand around for ages waiting for everyone to clear out of the shot? Let me know in the comments.

Section 44 gives police officers the power to stop someone without reasonable grounds for suspicion that they are engaged in a terrorist activity. Many photographers in the UK, both professional and amateur alike have complained about being stopped under this anti-terrorism legislation.

Lord Carlile continues in the report to specifically addresses photographers’ concerns over the introduction of a law (Section 58A) that makes it a potential offence to photograph a police officer. On page 39 of the report he states:

A number of professional and amateur photographers have approached me to complain that this provision is being used to threaten them with prosecution if they take photographs of police officers on duty.

The report comes just days after police stopped the editor of a photography website (PhotographyBLOG), using Section 44 powers, in central London. Mark Goldstein, who edits PhotographyBLOG, said:

It seemed I was booked under ‘Section 44/J’ of the Terrorism Act simply because I didn’t fit into any of the other available categories. Despite the officer taking about 30 seconds to ascertain that I wasn’t a threat to national security, I was still issued with Form 5090 (X).

Rupert Grey, a leading photography rights lawyer from Swan Turton solicitors, agreed that Section 44 of the Terrorism Act puts police officers in a ‘very privileged position’. He told Amateur Photographer:

If they abuse that privilege, by using the power in plainly inappropriate circumstances, relations between the police and the ordinary citizen will be damaged. Worse, the trust between the press and the police will break down, with serious consequences for objective and accurate reporting on what happens on our streets. Lord Carlile’s warning must not be ignored.

More on this from the Amateur Photographer site:
Stop and search: Police under fire over ‘unnecessary’ terror stops
Carlile warning ‘must not be ignored’, says photo rights lawyer

I’m not going to go into each step in detail (the links below) however these are the steps:

1. Keep a notebook
2. Shoot frequently
3. Shoot in different conditions
4. Set goals
5. Read
6. Ask questions
7. Change your perspective

I like that last one! However I think my failing at the moment is I’m certainly not shooting frequently. For one reason or another since I got my new camera I seem to have cut back on my shoots which is making me feel as guilty as hell. However I have a trip coming up soon (Northern India for the Phyang Festival) so hopefully that will re-energise me.

DPS: 7 Steps to Becoming a Confident Photographer

First up, how about a Photoshop alternative?

GIMP

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Project) is a very well known open source image editor stuffed with an very extensive feature set. It’s a raster editor, which means that it performs operations directly on the pixels that make up the image (like Photoshop), and not a vector editor (think Illustrator). Unless you are working as a graphic design GIMP will meet jsut about all the image editing requirements you have. For more information and to download it visit:  http://www.gimp.org

Next up lets look at an alternative to Photomatix for producing high dynamic range (HDR) images.

QTPFSGUI

Despite the rather strange name, this program provides you with tools to tone map and create HDR images (although please, no weird halos around everything!). It supports a range of HDR format and allows source images to be imported from a variety of formats – JPEG, PNG, PPM, PBM, TIFF(8 bit). Once again, this application is open source and you can find more information and download it from the following site: http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net

Now how about organising your images and doing basic editting?

PICASA

Produced by Google, Picasa is surprisingly good at allowing you to organise and sort your photographs. In addition it allows you to eliminate scratches & blemishes, fix red-eye, crop and produce basic video slideshows. Combined with Picasa Web Albums it allows you to upload your latest and greatest shots to the web to share with friends and family. For more info, visit: http://picasa.google.com

Finally, rather than Picasa, were you looking for more of a workflow tool like Lightroom? Well you might just be in luck.

Whilst it’s early days, blueMarine is an open source attempt to replicate much of the functionality of Adobe’s Lightroom and Apple’s Aperture. At its most basic it is a photo browser, which can be explored in different ways (by folder, by calendar, by tags, by galleries). The aim of blueMarine is to fully support the photographic workflow, even before the photo shoot (for instance, trip planning supported by maps) and beyond print or archival. It support a variety of the more popular RAW formats although doesn’t yet provide the non-destructive editing features of some of its more costly competitors. Definitely something to keep an eye on! (http://bluemarine.tidalwave.it)

What’s your favourite freebie photo related application?

Whilst most of the news and blog posts have focused on the additional of a function to allow manual exposure control when shooting HD Movies is does contain some other improvements and fixes. So even if you are not interested in the manual exposure feature it may be worthwhile installing it.

Firmware Version 1.1.0 incorporates the following improvements and fixes.

1. Includes a function to enable the manual exposure setting when shooting movies.
2. Fixes a phenomenon where the peripheral illumination of images cannot be properly corrected, even if the images were captured with the lens peripheral illumination correction function set to Enable.
3. Fixes incorrect indications on the Arabic, Romanian, Spanish, and Ukrainian menu screens.
4. Changes the battery information displayed on the camera when using the optional Battery Grip BG-E6.

The link below will take you to Canon page where you can download the update and find installation instructions.
EOS 5D Mark II Firmware Update Version 1.1.0

I travelled just North of Newcastle today to visit Belsay Hall and Castle. The Hall is an austerley classical Greek Revival villa, built in 1807 by Sir Charles Monck who was inspired by the Ancient Greeks and the buildings he saw in Athens on his Honeymoon. This is the colonnaded main entrace hall off which are all the downstairs rooms.

Charlie Waite’s Take A View Landscape Photographer of the Year competition is open for 2009. This year the competition’s total prize fund exceeds £20,000, plus an eight-week exhibition at the National Theatre and the publication in a full colour book of Best Entries.

There are four categories you can enter:

1. Classic View – An image that captures the beauty and variety of the UK landscape.
2. Living the View – Images of people interacting with the outdoors – working or playing in the UK landscape.
3. Your View – What does the UK landscape mean to you?
4. Phone View – Images taken on a camera phone of 1 mega pixel or more.

Follow the link below for more information or to enter.

Take A View Landscape Photographer of the Year 2009

Digital Photography School recently posted an article which included 5 tips for successful panning and provides some nice images as examples.

However if you want to take things a little further, have a look at the article on Harry Nowell Photography site on mastering advanced motion techniques. In the article they go beyond panning with your subject and talk about fixing your camera onto the moving object, such as a bike or car. Not for the faint of heart, or those with expensive equipment!

The Art of Panning (Digital Photography School)
Mastering Advanced Motion Techniques (Harry Nowell Photography)