Sunset with Expression and Emotion

Evia located north of Attica; it’s the second largest Greek island after Crete. The best known place in North Evia is Edipsos. The curative thermal springs have been known for thousands of years; from the old Greeks to the Romans and more recently to Sir Winston Churchill, Onassis and many other well known personalities.

Shooting Sunset Photos

Sunsets are a beautiful natural spectacle. The ever changing light conditions under the declining sun offer great photographic opportunities and challenges.

Everybody can take sunset pictures, it’s not all that difficult: just point your digital camera and shoot … the automatic settings will do the rest. If you want however take a more stunning sunset, the one that knocks even an ice-bear out of his socks, then you may consider some of the following aspects and try them out.

Light and Colors

In order to take a smashing picture, you need dust and or clouds. The red and orange colors result from micro-particles in the air. Dust can come from anywhere, pollution helps to break light, smoke, fog and so on. A second element for great effects are Clouds.

Clouds add structure, interesting light effects and in as much as I am concerned, I prefer the cloudy sky to the straight gradients resulting from a cloudless and dust-free atmosphere.

The Horizon

Look at your scenery and decide what’s more important to you: the sky of the foreground. The more beautiful your sky the more of it you want to ban on your photo. In general it’s of good advise to follow the rule of thirds.

The first image above features two horizons: one in the foreground and one in the back-ground. The foreground horizon is placed about on the lower third line, while the back-ground horizon is at the boring 50% level. The sun is on the first third line from the left.

The second photo focuses clearly on the sky. The horizon is just below the one third line from the bottom.

Applying the rule of thirds will help to focus on the essential aspects of the sunset and adds tension to the image. Of course there are always exceptions and you may find yourself in a situation where the totally balanced and centered approach will reflect tranquility and desired harmony; as usual, it will depend on the story you want to tell.

The Composition

The sunset is spectacular and usually it becomes more spectacular if it’s seen in an interesting context. The foreground is what often gives the special touch” a few palm trees, a jetty, a bridge, people or most any object which adds a scale to your picture.

For the purpose of this post I add a photo from Kavouri beach in Vouliagmeni, where the focus is on the busy foreground.

Your creativity is the limit.

It seems to be a commonly accepted rule, that foregrounds are represented as dark silhouettes, herefore your flash should be set to “off”. In some cases however it may be interesting to capture some reflections from a foreground, such as the ones you can see on the cars parked at Kavouri Beach or the small reflections from the town in the foreground of the first image from Agios above. Context matters and adds expression.

The Frame

This is part of your composition. Experiment with the frame; make it wider or narrower depending on the story you want to tell. It’s better to frame when you take the picture than to cut the image in Photoshop or any other image editor. If you use zoom, make sure to remain within the range of your optical zoom and don’t use the digital zoom to preserve a maximum of quality, data and image size.

In Agios I thought there was an interesting frame focusing on the sea, separating the island of Evia from the main land (Attica).

The image is full of harmony, smooth gradients and tints around the golden reflection of the sunset in the sea. The sky is of no importance here; it’s all a matter of light and tints in for my taste, very nice proportions.

The Exposure

This is probably the most important and also most difficult issue, namely with digital cameras. In automatic settings, digital cameras most often use matrix metering which is reflected by an average exposure and results in under-exposed photos. The issue is due to the huge extremes between highlights and shadows.

For best results, it’s recommended to use a a metering device and meter the two extremes as well as the environmental light and average in function of the priority set by your composition and the story you want to tell.

The best advise is: just experiment! There is never just one right exposure as different exposures will produce great results, however the effects are different. Again, it’s a matter of what you wish to express with your picture.

Professionals use bracketing and so may you. Most digital cameras have a bracketing function; when you shoot,the cam will take 3 pictures: one as per automatic or manually set metering, one with one F-stop higher and one with a F-stop lower. Say you take the picture at 1/60 s at f/8, the cam will take a shot at these settings, then one at 1/60s at f/5.6 and one at 1/60 s at f/11. You will then be able to select the most expressive shot.

The trouble is in the highlights. Digital cameras’ sensors are very sensitive to light. The danger consists thus in overexposure of highlights which boils down to a reduced dynamic range in the light areas of your picture (lack of gradients, texture and structure).Your digital camera may have a iHighlight function,which may remedy or different presets for the white balance.

Sunset pictures as well as night photos are interesting subjects for HDR photography: shoot multiple shots from your tripod at different settings and mash them up in Photoshop with the HDR feature. The trick may help as the extreme light zones and the extreme darks may your camera cause to think for you (and that you definitely don’t want …) and select either priority. The camera’s choice will most often result in a loss of dynamic range throughout the spectrum, namely if you are shooting with a lower end point and shoot cam.

Digital Photography Ycademy

This month’s Ycademy calls will deal with digital photography and on improving our quality as photographers and photo editors

Also we are working on Digital Photography with the purpose of building a high quality Stock Photo and Media Portfolio which will serve the needs of many a website developer as well as graphic designers in the need of new, fresh, unique and exclusive media content.

Our daily calls start at 8 pm London time (GMT +1) and they take place at our easy to use online live conferencing center.

For more info and joining Ycademy, contact Bianca Gubalke  directly from here:

Name *

Email *

If you want to submit this form, do not enter anything in this field

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Where is the Truth and what’s the Story

Editing a Photo has basically two aspects:

1. Technical editing which consists in applying calibration and recovering a maximum of data from the image.
2. Tell your story by enhancing the expression.

This post will deal only with the first aspect using a Photo ©2010 Laetitia Paris.

The Photo

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Original

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Original

What comes out of the camera is fundamentally good however the bright sky representing about 40% of the frame has it’s negative influence on the metering. The sky looks over exposed. The question is whether the camera sensor has captured color data which can be exploited.

Focusing on the sky

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Recovered Sky

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Recovered Sky

The difference may appear small here in this down-sized image, however on the full size image it is substantial. The increase of blue tones in the sky impacts on the perception of the greens.

Painting the sky

Of course Lightroom allows to intervene on selected areas; you can paint and tint your sky as you like (or use the Dark Skies Plug-in).

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Painted in Sky

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Painted in Sky

Working with Saturation

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris – desaturated

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris - desaturated

Lord of  The Rings

Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings

Firenza

Firenza

Firenza

Autumn Glow

Autumn Glow

Autumn Glow

The above exaggerated examples show how the mood and expression changes depending on how we deal with the photo in the post editing process. The important question remains: what’s the story you want to tell and how can the photo best express the essence of the story, mood or atmosphere.

We will talk about the expression at the Monday call.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Today’s Call: We edit a Photo

To make things more transparent we will edit a photo step by step during tonight’s call. In fact we will all edit the same photo. Zo has sent in a Picture, the kind you just shoot out of your window towards the neighbor’s house, which is perfect for the purpose. As you will see the photo bears all the strong and weak points a ‘normal’ photo can have.

The Photo

Photo by Zo

Photo by Zo

We will spend one hour editing this picture using Lightroom. As the case may be we will find the time to do some post editing for various purposes.

Zo Image Color

Zo Color Image

Zo Old Timer

Zo Old Timer

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Smart Editing Digital Photos

At our recent calls we have been trying to crystallize a smart way to quickly edit digital photos. This post will resume the 3 steps we are following.

1. Camera Calibration

The camera calibration serves to correct systematic deviations inherent to the type and model of the camera. If you camera returns images which are too yellow or green, this can be corrected; the same applies to other lens corrections, like sharpness or distortions as the case may be. The corrections are saved as a Calibration Preset in Lightroom.

All photos you import from your camera can be automatically filtered with this calibration preset.

Astir Beach Snorklers

Astir Beach Snorkelers on September 2, 2010

2. Photo Editing 1

This steps purpose is to recover a maximum of available data from your image. The image is brought down to a balanced close to ‘what you saw’ state whereas we try to recover data namely in the over exposed areas as well as in the shadow areas.

Most of the corrections are standard corrections by type of image (low-light, bright-light, sun-set and so on). These corrections can be saved as personal presets in Lightroom and you may then apply them to the corresponding type of calibrated image imported.

The corrections under this step do not yet tell the story or max-out the expression of the picture. They prepare the picture for best post-editing.

3. Tell the Story – Enhance the Expression

A good photo tells a story. If you shoot a landscape just before a thunderstorm, you may emphasize the the dramatic clouds with your editing tools for example. It’s about making the photo more expressive. When you shot the photo, you took it because nature was telling you a story; you ban that story in a photo and you try to express what triggered in you the emotion when looking at nature. If your picture can trigger that kind of emotion in a third person, then you have probably a good picture.

Seagull

Seagull at Astir Beach

Don’t forget: the picture works only with visuals while in nature you are also experiencing sounds, temperature, humidity, smells and so on. Your visual image must therefore compensate for the absence of these additional sensations. Visual enhancements help to trigger a maximum degree of emotion or impression without exaggerating the effects. If you overdo effects, your image loses in credibility and you shift from photography to “art”, or “illustration” or what ever people often call  their messed up production.

Also: keep in mind that editing for printing requires good density and saturation levels. The use online at 72 dpi means automatically a loss of 50% to 75% of points per inch; therefore, if you start out with a “thin” picture, it will only get thinner and flatter when publishing for the web.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Astir Beach is the Best Beach in Greece

From my previous posts you guessed it: Astir Beach is my number one beach. And every day the dedicated staff and management confirm this statement… since 1960.

Basketball World Championship Live at Astir Beach

No reason to stay at home to watch the basketball World Championship at a vulgar boob tube; Astir’s mega screen with exceptional luminosity and resolution is simply the best.
SIpping your Mojito, connecting with the world through the Wi-Fi net, watching the Greek team winning and all this while doing maintenance on your sun tan … Is that what crises means in Greece?
All photos live by iPhone.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Some clouds over Astir Beach in Vouliagmeni and great light create ideal photo conditions for the iPhone 4.

Posted from Vari, Attica, Greece.

Astir Beach iPhone 4 Photos is a post from: iPhone 4 Photos All content Copyright © 2010 Yorgo Nestoridis. All rights reserved. Contact mail: iPhone (at) yorgo.net

Calibrate and recover a Maximum of Data

The purpose of this exercise is not to reach a final result but to prepare the image for editing and post-editing. When calibrating, we try to correct systematic shortcomings of our camera. When we edit, we try to drive a maximum of data out of our image, namely because the camera delivers jpeg files which compress away quite some data of which some can be recovered.

Once we have the best possible set of data, we can apply filters and presets with a foreseeable result.

Photo © 2010 Ute Schaedler

The Original

Photo © 2010 Ute Schaedler original

Photo © 2010 Ute Schaedler original

Edited Version

Photo © 2010 Ute Schaedler edited

Photo © 2010 Ute Schaedler edited

BW Version

Photo © 2010 Ute Schaedler edited bw

Photo © 2010 Ute Schaedler edited bw

Post-edited Version

Photo © 2010 Ute Schaedler post-edited

Photo © 2010 Ute Schaedler post-edited

Enjoy!

Photo © 2010 Bianca Gubalke

A somewhat more difficult sample in the sense that this image is not ideal for calibrating because of the color range and because it’s zoomed (114 mm in 35 mm equivalent). The image is therefore not at maximum sharpness or detail.

However, it’s a nice bird, worthwhile to spend some time on :-).

The Original

Photo © 2010 Bianca Gubalke as shot

Photo © 2010 Bianca Gubalke as shot

Edited Version

Photo © 2010 Bianca Gubalke edited

Photo © 2010 Bianca Gubalke edited

Edited Version 2

Photo © 2010 Bianca Gubalke edited 2

Photo © 2010 Bianca Gubalke edited 2

Edited Version 3

Photo © 2010 Bianca Gubalke edited 3

Photo © 2010 Bianca Gubalke edited 3

Post-edited Version

Photo © 2010 Bianca Gubalke post-edited

Photo © 2010 Bianca Gubalke post-edited

No comment, let the yellow bird tweet!

More later.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Image Editing made Transparent

Tomorrow, our call we will focused on Image Editing. For this exercise we need one photograph in original format as shot.

Preparation for the call

I order to be able to advise call participants individually, I would like to ask you to select your image (can be most anything, landscape, monument, animal, flower, portrait) from your collection and attach it to an email and send it to my email at yorgo(at)yorgo.net. Please make sure you send a photo as shot without any editing, cropping or clipping or filtering. Don’t even add Lightroom camera calibration filters.

Please send a shot which has been taken without zooming. In the worst case just set your cam on automatic and take a shot out of your next window without zooming and send that one.

The earlier you send your picture, the bigger the chance that we will have time to edit it and to help you with presets or filters which may serve your camera calibration and ’standard filtering’ for quickly develop and edit your pictures.

Sample:

Recco Italy Image

Recco Italy Photo

Recco Italy Photo © 2010 Yorgo Nestoridis

Recco Italy Image

Recco Italy Photo © 2010 Yorgo Nestoridis

Recco Italy Image Black and White

Recco Italy Image Black and White © 2010 Yorgo Nestoridis

Recco Italy Image Post-edited

Recco Italy Image © 2010 Yorgo Nestoridis

Image 1: as shot and delivered by the camera.

Image 2: basic editing – rotate the picture as the horizon was not horizontal and the verticals bend to the left side; a global vitamin pack gets the pic up to speed. As this is a heavily zoomed image, the sharpness and details cannot be recovered as should. That’s why we would like to get a image without zoom.

Image 3: Black and white version of version 2.

Image 4: Some post-editing to remove crane and construction works. This post editing job can be done much better: in this case I just blew in 3 strokes with the content aware healing brush from Photoshop CS5 – this takes exactly 3 seconds!

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Registration for Ycademy Seminar Participants

Today as planned we will start populating the Photo Media stock platform. The pre-launch is reserved for Ycademy August Seminar Participants. Those concerned will receive a personal invitation by mail from Bianca later today.

Vouliagmeni from the Marina

Vouliagmeni from the Marina

Beta Tests

During the next few days we will beta test the site extensively with the help of all venture partners. Today we focus on the sign-up procedure as well as on the identity verification. Also we will test upload capability as well as the resizing engine.

During the testing, the site will not yet be officially accessible from the home page link; please use the link contained in your invitation email.

Today’s task: Register with the site from the “Become a Seller” link on top right of the site and submit 10 Pictures for evaluation.

Administration

Bianca Gubalke and Zo Nicholas are the site admins whereas Bianca is focused on the Commercial end while Zo looks after Technical issues and Maintenance.

Tonight’s Call

Join tonight’s Ycademy call where we will analyze the site’s behavior and give support where needed. Also we will set up your Venture Partner’s accounts based on your registration.

I am looking forward to a great venture!

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Testing HDR Imaging with Lightroom 3

High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDR) is a ” set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminances between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods” (Wikipedia).

The below exercise is a simple test, using only two images with different exposures.

Image 1 – Balux Glyfada

Balux Glyfada 1

Balux Glyfada 1

The image has been taken inside a room exposing it to feature the colors of the interior. As you can see, the consequence of properly exposing the interior leads to over exposed areas, namely on the table and then all over the background where we basically see only white.

Image 2

Balux Glyfada 2

Balux Glyfada 2

The interior is underexposed, however the background or the exterior area shows colors and details as the metering is set to render a clear image in the background.

The HDR Image created in Lightroom 3

Glyfada Balux HDR

Glyfada Balux HDR

After the merger we end up with a nice compromise which can be adjusted in post editing. Lightroom did a good job on the background as wel as on the table where we get now some of the blueish shine as a reflection from the external tones.

HDR Image post-edited

Balux Glyfada edited

Balux Glyfada edited

For the purpose of this test I have just darkened the tonal range of the highlights a bit to see a real contrast to the previous image.

Conclusion

HDR imaging has become an easy task with Lightroom 3, even for beginners. The difference between the first and the last photo is simply smashing. The ability to edit HDR in Lightroom with just a few mouse-clicks will help many amateurs to get a more professional look to pictures featuring interiors.

Of course it’s also a great feature for night photography or anywhere where improved dynamic range cannot be reached with just one shot.

This and more we will demonstrate live and exercise with the participants at this week’s Ycademy calls as an add on to the Ycademy Seminar which took place during the past week-end.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.