I launched my personal project oldmapsofparis.com a few months ago and it has been a huge success both technically and from the feedback of visitors to the site. When I launched the site I just wanted to get the maps up and online and at the time I didn’t create a home page. If you navigated to the site you went straight to the first map.

Today I have relaunched the site making it easier to navigate, as all the maps are now indexed on the homepage. In addition I thought I would make use of the Skeleton CSS framework again to make it a little more mobile friendly, now the site should resize and allow you to navigate the maps on your smart phone.

The biggest change is under the bonnet. Previously to add a new map, I would need to run a script locally to create the map tiles and then uploading all the tiles via ftp (100s of MB in some cases) and then set up the references to the files manually in the database. All that has now changed. I can upload the single processed file and the site now automatically processes all the tiles and sets up the references. What was previously a chore has become a pleasure, so expect more maps soon… oh and not just of Paris

You can read more about the project, on my projects page.

Please check out: www.oldmapsofparis.com 

I came across this documentary on PetaPixel yesterday and thought I would share it. Everything is a Remix is a short film by Kirby Ferguson that puts forward the idea that most things we celebrate as original and creative are based on previous work by others. Kirby presents a fascinating argument backed up by some convincing evidence and then goes on to describe how the original motivations of intellectual property mixed with human nature have lead us to the litigious world we now live in that stifles creativity.

It is an excellent documentary that is well worth watching.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

If you enjoyed watching that, you can also support Kirby’s next project “This is not a Conspiracy Theory” on Kickstarter.

I recently discovered the work of Erik Johansson who shares a lot of my beliefs about photography, then yesterday I happened to stumble upon a TED video he did last November. It’s only 6 minutes long and well worth the watch, as not only does he talk about how he started creating images like this, but he also shows some of the source images that make up his work

More recently he has worked on an interesting project at Sergels torg in Stockholm where he created a giant trompe l’oeil in the center of the square and is currently working on a project with Google. More details on Erik’s Stockholm project can be found in his blog.

I mentioned last week that I was updating my site and I launched the update over the weekend. I have focused my spare time on this the last few weeks since finishing the Darker Side of the Orchids project.

Although I only recently relaunched the site back in October using an off the shelf theme, I couldn’t find one that I really liked, either there were too many gimmicks such as full screen slide shows running behind my article text or too boring or too corporate looking, so I decided to design my own.

My main requirements were to add a space for me to showcase my personal projects and portfolio, as the previous theme didn’t offer for this, as well as creating something a little more unique to me.

I also really wanted to make sure that I took a mobile first approach to the design. I had noticed an increase in visitors using mobile devices to my site in Google Analytics. We have made use of the Skeleton framework at Go Tripod for a couple of projects, including the next release of Stubmatic, and I through this would be a good side project for me to get up to speed.

In addition to this I also wanted to make the website behave like an app, if it is installed to the home screen of an iPad or iPhone. I am not sure how many people will want to do this (so this was probably a feature purely for my use). There were several technical challenges we had to overcome to do this.

If you are interested in the technical details then please subscribe to the Go Tripod blog where I will be blogging not only about some of our technical solutions used here, but also for the next release of Stubmatic.

I hope you like the new site. Now I can get on with my next project which involves lots of keys…

The premise of Simon’s message is that leaders and those that inspire start with why they are doing it. Sounds simple and common sense, but surprising few people have the ability to think this way. Simon puts it far better than I do, so over to him:

Side notes

I know I only recently changed the design of my website but it was a temporary move. I uses an off the shelf template rom the excellent themeforest.net, to get me by until I got around to designing a new one. I’ll be updating the site in the next few days but the improvements will be mobile browser support as well as project pages, which the current theme lacks. For the techies amongst you I am using the Skeleton framework as the core for the layout so that is scales based on the device width.

Oh, I am now also on Pinterest, which is a great way for me to classify things that inspire me, so feel free to join me on there.

A couple of months ago I came across an article on how Xerox have developed a new algorithm to sort photos based on their aesthetic qualities, you can try the free online demo here. At the time I thought “That’s cool!”. Then I gave it some more thoughts and realised that this is a cool technology, but not how they are using it.

On the surface the way Xerox are using this technology looks great, “what a great method to sort the wheat from the chaff”. Just try the demo and it looks impressive. I am certain the intentions of the research team at Xerox are good, however here is a concern with this technology. I have posted about my thoughts on Algorithms before. The problem with algorithms like this is that they rely on rules and rules have to be based on textbook or conventional wisdom. So in photographic terms these are rules like the rule of thirds, the conventional belief that shallow depth of field = better that colours should not be dull.

Great, but also a load of BS (nonsense). The best images break rules. So when sites like Flickr licence this technology  and incorporate it into their Explore algorithm, the selected images that are output are even more homogenised and boring that they currently are.

But wait, there is a solution

The main issue with these algorithms at the moment is that they are based on rules designed to please the masses, but rules don’t have to be fixed. What these algorithms need, is to be engineered in a way that they are personal to you, the viewer. They need to learn each time you like an image, establishing a ruleset that is dynamic and changes over time. Also important is that they adapt to ones changing tastes and also throw in the odd curve ball that breaks your own rules, allowing you to explore new boundaries.

We do need to find ways to identify the good images though all the uploaded noise, but blanket filtering like this is the wrong approach. What we need is personalised discovery algorithms to help us find new refreshing images that we, personally, like. Even then the computer is a long way off from identifying the emotional or intellectual qualities of an image. So for now the human element will not be replaced.

Now the orchids can play, without approval or obey. Inhaling pleasure to excess, Their downfall and demise is their quest.

View the first and second images in the series.

Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
- Ansel Adams

Photoshop seems to be getting a lot of flak lately, so I wanted to post something in support of such an amazing tool.

To give you some background, I started using Photoshop 4 in 1997 but in those days it was mostly for web design purposes. In fact, I did a few shoddy composites at the time as part of my degree and did a miserable job  (I wish I could find the file and show you but I fear I have long since destroyed them out of embarrassment). Only in the last 4 years have I started working with Photoshop again for what it was intended (Photos rather than websites) and I have been doing more and more compositing recently. I now feel I am at a stage where I am confident to tackle whatever my imagination throws at me.

Images can be broadly categorised by those that are conveying fact and those that are opinion. Examples of factual images are those that form part of a reportage or advertising photos those that show the effect of a product.

With factual images, any photo manipulation could be considered deceitful, this is where most the controversy lies, as how much photo editing is too much. I agree in the case of L’Oreal this is clearly falsifying the ability of their product and wrong,  but is it wrong for a photo journalist to enhance the contrast and colours? For me the line is drawn at whether the post processing changes the facts conveyed by the image. So making a product appear to do things it can’t, is clearly a lie. As are photoshopped celebrities in factual publications, also a lie.

However the negative press Photoshop receives for the examples above, combined with a snobbism over whether an image was caught in camera sticks. The general view seems to suggest photoshop is the easy option, and often I see photographers / artists I admire play down Photoshop and emphasise the fact they have made models and created most of it in real life, as if Photoshop is something to be ashamed of. Doing it with models and staging in real life can be more fun granted, but it is not necessarily easier to do in Photoshop. It takes years of practice to do Photoshop well and people should be proud of their ability to use it well.

To me if an images is not factual then any post processing or manipulation is okay. Why shouldn’t a landscape painter modify the landscape and architecture in their images? Why shouldn’t a portrait photographer make their sitter appear more regal and 10 years younger? Why shouldn’t an event Photographer make the event bigger and better than is was? After all, we don’t talk down Canaletto for re-arranging Venice or John Singer Sargent for making his sitters “more glamorous, taller and thinner” (In the words of Andy Warhol) so we should look past the tools and methods used and focus more on the message conveyed by the image.

In the words of Ansel Adams “The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the print the performance.” and this still applies.

As he warms himself by the fire, he catches a glance of his assailant’s reflection in the warm glass of the stove. Too late for him. The fire burns as the roots tighten around his neck. The orchids can now chase their prize and indulge in vice.

View the first and final images in the series.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and good health, happiness and success for 2012.

Amongst all the amazing Christmas things that Helen has made this year, she made some reindeer food for our boys and their friends to sprinkle in the garden tomorrow night. She’s super creative and crafty like that!

The card reads “Reindeer Food – Sprinkle this sparkly reindeer food outside on Christmas Eve. Father Christmas will see the sparkles and the reindeer can have a tasty snack! Happy Christmas! x”

I am having some offline time over Christmas so I will not be posting anything until the new year.

Best wishes,

Jon

This is the final part of this series of articles on using colour grading techniques “borrowed” from the film industry with Photoshop to enhance our photos. Having covered using, hue, saturation and exposure, simulating the time of day, creating the bleach bypass and the teal and orange look, this week we look at one of the most popular looks in photography, the cross process look.

Sophie with a magenta/green cross process

The key to the cross process look is to push contrasting colours into the shadows and highlights. The easiest way to do this is to use a single curves adjustment, on a single channel. As we have seen previously, with each of the curves channels, you can either add or subtract a colour. So, with the green channel for example, if you add green you introduce a green colour cast and if you subtract green you get its contrasting colour magenta. So the image above simply involves pushing the green curve up in the highlights and pulling it down in the shadows (see below).

Magenta / Green Curves Adjustment

Mask Panel

When you add colours like this, the skin tones will look terrible, so add a layer mask to your curves layer and mask out the skin. However, imho if you remove the cast completely from the skin, the image doesn’t look unified. I personally like to reintroduce some of the look back into the skin. Do this simply by reducing the mask density to 50% on the Masks panel.

You are not limited to magenta and green. You can use the blue channel to create a blue / yellow look, with yellow in the highlights and blue in the shadows:

Sophie with a blue/yellow cross process

Or use the red channel and that brings me back to the image that started this whole process. If you remember back to the first week, I showed you my first attempt at the world of colour grading photos, before looking into it this more depth and sharing my findings with you. Here it is again:

Sophie at the Life Guard Hut #2

The problem with the image isn’t so much the colour, though they are maybe a little strong. It is the fact that I didn’t mask off the flesh tones. We can fix this quickly with the masking technique described for the magenta & green look then push red into the highlights and subtract red from the shadows to get cyan. You can see the effect re-applied (without the vignette) below:

Sophie with a cyan/red cross process

So as you can see, there are no end of possibilities with the cross process look. You can do all of these looks shown here on the inverse, i.e. the magenta / green look with magenta in the highlights and green in the shadows, etc. Or try your own cross process look. The key is to experiment and one thing worth reiterating is that it is far better to apply the look liberally with big colour changes than to make shy adjustments. You can always dial the adjustment back, by reducing the layer opacity on the adjustments.

My wife has an obsession with Orchids and they seem to be slowly invading our house. As beautiful as Orchids are, on closer inspection I think you’ll find they have a darker side. Take their flowers for instance: their petals could be mistaken for the head of a cobra and if the resemblance to snakes was not enough, they have fangs (I kid you not!).  Their aerial roots are spidery and reach out at you like tentacles. They might grab you at any moment. Look closely and you will see that they are seducing your loved one, and stealing your home.

View the second and final images in the series.

Continuing our series of using colour grading techniques “borrowed” from the film industry with Photoshop to enhance our photos. We previously covered using, hue, saturation and exposure, simulating the time of day and creating the bleach bypass look. This week we look at how we can create the high energy (perhaps overused in the cinema) Teal and Orange look, popularised by Transformers.

Biker 101: Teal and Orange Look

The look is basically made up of adding orange in the highlights to warm the image and then pushing orange’s contrasting colour, Teal, into the shadows to create a colour contrast. The original image is shown below for comparison.

Biker 101

The Teal and Orange look can be created using many different approaches, such as the Curves or Color Balance adjustment. We have covered using the Color Balance tool previously so this week I wanted to share with you how we can use curves to achieve the same thing but with more precision.

Without going into too much theory on the Curves tool, you can basically think of it as a way of adjusting/changing the colour, targeted a specific tonal range within the image. The mechanics of curves are beyond this blog post but you can find out more here. Basically they allow us to adjust a particular colour channel (Red, Green or Blue) or all three at once (RGB) by either adding or subtracting the amount of the selected colour, to a specific tonal point in the image. If you adjust all three colours (when RGB selected), their values are changed equally, so the colour stays the same but instead you change the luminance (brightness), making a specific tonal range lighter or darker.

To make a colour adjustment with curves, we have three channels that we can work with: Red, Green or Blue. To get the other colours in the spectrum, we have to mix these by either adding or subtracting various amounts of red, green or blue.

Luminance Curves Adjustment for Teal & Orange Look

Red Curves Adjustment for Teal & Orange Look

Green Curves Adjustment for Teal & Orange Look

Blue Curves Adjustment for Teal & Orange Look

To apply the Teal and Orange look, we want to add Teal to the shadows. We can do this by adding subtracting red (to get cyan) and adding blue to the darker tonal range of the image. To get orange into the highlights we can then subtracting blue (to get yellow) from the highlights and add some red. In the image above I got a slight magenta cast in the highlights so I added a little of it’s complement, green, here to compensate (Note you can get yellow by either subtracting blue, or adding red and green).

If you are not comfortable with curves you can use the Color Balance tool do roughly do the same thing. It is worth playing/experimenting with the curves tool as it gives you more precision, allowing you target particular tones within the image.

Next week, we will look at another look that can be created easily with a simple adjustment layer.

Using colour grading techniques “borrowed” from the film industry we can use Photoshop to enhance our own photos. We have previously covered using, hue, saturation and exposure as well as simulating the time of day. This week we look at how we can achieve one of the most popular looks, popularised by Saving Private Ryan, the bleach bypass look.

Blue Hills Biker, 2011: Bleach Bypass Look

I have applied this look to a shot I took of the Blue Hills Rally earlier this year. The original has had nothing done, other than minor colour correction.

Blue Hills Biker, 2011

To create this look we first want to increase the contrast of the image and for the sake of simplicity I will use a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer. You are more than welcome to use what ever method you prefer. Add the adjustment layer and increase the contrast as much as you can get away with. Don’t worry about clipping the highlights or shadows, we are applying a look, not colour correcting. As you can see below, I have cranked my contrast right up to 100.

The second adjustment Layer we will use is a Black & White layer. Adding this layer will make the image black and white (as the name suggests) but if we now slide back the layer opacity, we restore some of the colour to the image. In the image (top) I set the layer opacity (you can find this in the top right corner of the layers panel) to 67%. We could have used a Hue/Saturation adjustment here instead of the Black & White adjustment, but the Black & White adjustment has an advantage of the Hue/Saturation adjustment. Once you apply this effect, you can then use the colour sliders in the Adjustment Panel to increase or decrease the brightness of the different colours in the image. For example, I pushed the yellow slider to the right slightly, increasing their brightness.

Contrast Adjustment for Bleach Bypass Look

Black & White Adjustment for Bleach Bypass Look

As you can see with two simple adjustment layers, we can create a striking Bleach Bypass Look. Next week we will look at another popular look from the cinema.

Continuing my series on Colour Grading Photos, this week we are looking at how we can use the techniques we have learnt so far to change the time of day. In this series we are taking inspiration from the techniques used by colourists in film/TV to use colour to effect mood, time of day or create a stylised shot.

Please note: we are not aiming for perfect colour reproduction, we are in the realms of creative photography and so there is no right or wrong here it is purely down to what you want to achieve as an artist.

As many of you will know weather and the time of day has a significant effect on our digital cameras white balance. If you look at the graph below you will see how. We measure the colour temperature of light using the Kelvin scale and as you can see illustrated the colour temperature of the mid day sun (~ 5000k) is considerably colder than sunrise (~ 2500k). So when suggesting the time of day we need to take this into account and change colour accordingly.

Colour Temperatures in the Kelvin Scale

For the sake of illustration, we are going to use this picture I took of my good friend Dan when we visited the old disused gunpowder factory at Kennel Vale. The picture below is straight out of camera, with only minor white balance adjustment. One thing to point out here is you should address any white balance issues before you apply any of the adjustments.

Dan, Original

Golden Hour

Golden hour (or Magic Hour as referred to in cinematography) is used to refer to the first and last hours of light each day. During this time the colour temperature is a lot warmer and the sun gives off a golden light (note: Golden hour also gives you longer shadows but we are concerned with colour here, but keep this in mind in you are simulating this time of day). As we have seen in previous exercises we can use either Curves Adjustments or the Color Balance tool to push our overall colour around and simulate Golden Hour. For sake of simplicity, I am going to use the Color Balance tool here as it is easier for those unfamiliar with Curves.

Dan, Golden Hour

The method I like to use, to achieve a Golden Hour look, is to push yellow into the highlights. Add a new Color Balance Adjustment Layer by selecting Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance… By default the Color Balance tool will be set to affect the mid tones, as we want to target the highlights we need to change tone to highlights then adjust the blue-yellow slider moving the slider towards yellow until you have a nice warm glow in your highlights. We can have warmth in the skin tones as this is the whole point of Magic Hour, but if you are introducing too much warmth (which are generally in the midtones) we can either add a mask to this layer and mask the tones out slightly or use the same adjustment layer and switch the Tool to the midtones. Then slide the same yellow-blue slider back into the blue to pull back some of the added colour. Note: your changes to the highlights are not lost when you switch the tool back to midtones.

Golden Hour Highlights Adjustment

Golden Hour Midtones

Midday

Dan, Midday

When simulating midday we need to consider the weather and where the image was shot. If it is cloudy or was taken in the shade then our light needs to be cooler than if shot in direct sun, which would need our whites to be balanced correctly. Also when cloudy the light is diffused and so we have less saturation. In our example below, I am happy with the colour of the original and so we just need to increase the contrast slightly by increasing the exposure in the Highlights. We can do this easily with a Curves tool (okay I said I was avoiding curves but here we are going to simply adjust the luminance which is easier than adjusting colour) and dragging up the luminance (RGB) curve as shown below. I have also reduced the input range slightly to darken my shadows.

Curves for Midday

Evening

Dan, Evening

We can achieve an evening look again with the Color Balance tool, we need to use the yellow-blue slider again but this time we want to drag the slider towards the blue. You may find this starts to introduce red into the image in which case you can compensate slightly using the cyan-red slider, and slide towards cyan to remove the redness. Once again we can reduce the effect on any skin in the midtones slightly (remember we expect to have a blue cast on the skin as the main light source in coming from the sky which is blue) by switching the Color Balance tool to the midtones and adding yellow with the blue-yellow slider. We also need to reduce the overall exposure of the image, we can do this with a exposure adjustment or use curves, as I have done below, pulling down the midtones.

Curves for Evening

Day for Night

Dan, Day for Night

Producing a day for night grade can be quite tricky, but using the skills we have discussed here we can achieve a fairly convincing day for night look. Starting with the evening adjustments above, we can basically push these further to get a darker and bluer look. Firstly with the Color Balance tool, you can almost push the blue-yellow slider right into the blue. You may find this introduces magenta into the skin tones, again compensate slightly in the midtones using the blue-yellow slider towards the yellow. You can also pull some of the magenta out using the magenta-green slider and sliding into the green to suit.

Mitdones: Day for Night

Highlights: Day for Night

Next we need to pull the exposure down further, return your input and output values to 0 and then pull the midtones down to get a much lower key shot.

Curves: Day for Night

Finally we need to reduce the saturation. Add a saturation adjustment layer and pull down the saturation until you get the desired effect.

Saturation: Day for Night

So as you can see we can get some pretty convincing looks that can suggest a different time of day than from when they are shot, or you can use these techniques to emphasise the time of day of your shot.

Next week we will start to look at how we can achieve some stylised looks using these techniques.

Continuing my series on Colour Grading Photos, this week we are looking at how both Saturation and Exposure can effect mood. In this series we are taking inspiration from the techniques used by colourists in film/TV to use colour to effect mood, time of day or create a stylised shot.

Please note: we are not aiming for perfect colour reproduction here, we are in the realms of creative photography and so there is no right or wrong here it is purely down to what you want to achieve as an artist.

You have probably noticed that when you add contrast to an image in post (be it in Photoshop, Aperture or Lightroom) you will see an increase in Saturation. This is not just a pixel thing, away from the computer the same is true of how we perceive the sun. At sunrise and sunset the sun produces a direction light with strong contrast that increases the saturation, making the environment more vibrant. The opposite being true of cloudy days, when the light is soft with less contrast, resulting in low saturation. Our brains adjust what we see for us and often these visual cues may be barely noticeable but sub-consciously these cues are affecting our mood.

Take the two images below, both are straight from camera with only the saturation adjusted. The first image should leave you feeling colder than the second warmer, happier image.

Surfer, Desaturated

Surfer, Saturated

Exposure can also be used to manipulate the mood, again playing on our psychology (and probably a little, our universal fear of the dark). Darker Low key shots can emphasise mystery and the unknown whereas lighter high key shots can suggest excitement or energy. Low key and high key exposure is best done in camera but we can push the values a little in post to help covey our message.

You can easily adjust the exposure with an exposure slider but this will effect your image globally (all the highlights, mid tones and shadows at once). I personally like to use the curves is this situation, but you can use whatever you prefer. If we want to increase the exposure I like to do target the mid-tones and highlights, without washing out the shadows too much. However when reducing the exposure I like to limit this to the mid-tones, not to darken the shadows or highlights too much.

So using the RGB or luminance curve, we can easily adjust these. Photoshop gives us some guidelines to help us locate the shadows, mid-tones and highlights (But if you want to be more precise, you will need to look at the histogram beneath the curve to find these).

Curves, for Low Key, targeting just the mid-tones

Curves, for High Key, targeting the mid-tones and highlights

And so, remaining with our surfer (despite her looking exhausted), we can push the exposure up creating more energy.

Surfer, Increased Exposure

Or, pull the exposure down to create more mystery

Surfer, Decreased Exposure

So bringing it all together and going back to our image of Sophie from last week. We can now add these saturation and exposure techniques to the hue adjustments we covered last week.

Sitting on the decking #1 (Chill)

As a closing tip. Don’t be afraid to push these hue, saturation and exposure values further than you would otherwise be comfortable, you can always knock them back using the opacity slider, but by being bold with your adjustments you can emphasise the effect, getting a better impression of the affect, then dial it down to taste.

Next week I will be covering how we can use some of these techniques to change the time of day.

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As discussed in my last post, when colourists are grading film, they look to use colour to enhance the message the director is trying to portray. We can do the same with stills photography and use colour to enhance the message or story, we as photographers are trying to convey.

We will start with the Hue or overall colour of an image and how this can be used to manipulate the mood.

Hue

Adjusting the overall hue of an image allows us to adjust the mood by using warm or cool colours. The easiest way to adjust this is using the white balance and push the photo into the cooler blues or warmer orange. Warm and cold colours are not limited to orange and blue, in fact if you look at the colour wheel to the right, the warm colours include all the colours that go clockwise from Red-Violets (Magenta) right the way around to the Yellow-Greens and the cool colours continue round the other side passing through Blue and Violet.

Giving an image a warm or cool look can effect it in several ways. Warm colours by definition create a feeling of warmth in the viewer so they are best suited to images conveying romantic, dream like or secure vision while cooler colours do the opposite and  can be used to convey bleakness, insecurity and fear.

Warm colours are also considered as advancing colours, and advance towards the viewer which can be used for intimacy as they tend to pull the viewer in, while cooler receding colours can be used for opposite effect.

In addition to this different colours can have different psychological effects, for example Reds and Yellows have been shown to increase appetite (Think Maccy Dees!) but this can be effected by cultural meanings. For example in the west, Green can be considered calming because of it’s association with nature (hence green rooms) but can also be associated with superstition and death in celtic tradition and even eroticism in Chinese cultures. It gets more complicated because different shades and hues of a colour can change the feeling. The full extent of colour theory is far beyond what I can do justice to in a blog post but there are a lot of resources out there and armed with this knowledge you can use colour to great effect.

While on the subject of green in particular, if you push the skin tones into the green you run the risk of making the subject looking ill or nauseated.

Photoshop Color Balance Tool

Back to Photoshop, you can adjust the colours of an image using curves, which give you a lot of control but are trickier to get started with. So the easiest way to get started or save time is to add a Color Balance adjustment layer. When working with colours the Color Balance tool makes it easy to adjust the hue separately for the shadows, mid-tones or highlights.

As a general rule of thumb, you want to keep your shadows clean and adjust the highlights and mid-tones when colour grading.

In the photo below, I am using the receding property of cool colours to emphasise Sophie’s isolation and loneliness by pushing the highlights and mid-tones towards the blue hues. When pushing colour around you need to watch skin tones. While you can get away with a colour cast on the skin, it is more difficult to pull off as it needs to remain relative to the rest of the image, so the brain still interprets the skin correctly.

When we were doing the shoot for this photo, we used a gold reflector as a fill light. This additional warmth has allowed me to push the mid-tones (where Sophie’s skin tones reside) much further than I would usually be able to. Despite this, Sophie’s skin tones are still warm. This warmth additionally contrasts the blue and you can use contrast like this to create tension in the image.

Sitting on the decking #1

You can see the original warmer image here to contrast.

In the next post, I will look at how Saturation and Exposure both effect mood, before going on to how we can use these techniques to change the time of day of an image.

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Sophie at the Life Guard Hut #2

The current trend to give photos a cross process look (or colour treatment) is certainly a visually interesting effect. The effect, applied in post process, once needed a little bit of Photoshop foo (and originally a bit of darkroom magic) to achieve but the advent of apps like Hipstamatic and Instagram, has made the effect ubiquitous and in everyone’s pocket.

In the hands of professional retouchers (in particular those working in fashion) these techniques are used to great effect creating stylised images that compliment the subject and message. In the hands of the many, however, these looks are generally applied without thought to how that treatment may effect the image, and when done purely for the sake of it, are becoming a little cliché. Hey,  I am even guilty myself in the image above. These colour treatments are not new, and colour has been used as a tool, intelligently, by colourists in TV and Film for years when grading film. Colourists use colour to add an additional dimension to the image and deliberately guide the viewer’s eye or manipulate the mood of the images, to not only help realise the directors vision but help communicate the narrative of the story.

As I have a passion in anything related to capturing and representing images, I keep a keen eye on what is happening in the cinematography world and recently I stumbled upon a series of free Final Cut Pro X grading courses by Denver Riddle over at Color Grading Central. Denver is a working colourist and has shared some top tips (and some excellent Final Cut Pro X Presets, if that’s your bag) on how to use and manipulate colour to our advantage.

Over the next few weeks I plan to release a series of articles, translating some of Denver’s excellent ideas and cinematic devices into Photoshop, please find these linked below:

Colour Grading Photos: How you can use hue to affect the mood
Colour Grading Photos: The Effects of Saturation and Exposure on Mood
Colour Grading Photos: Simulating Time of Day

• Erik Johansson's talks at TED about the philosophy and secrets of his photography
• Home
• New website done! Phew, I can get back to taking some photos

AppSumo are running an exciting content at the moment. 10 lucky winners will win Photoshop CS5 + free upgrades for life. For your chance to win, all you have to do is scoot over to AppSumo and enter in your email. But hurry, competition closes on the 14th November 2011.

Good luck!

• Erik Johansson's talks at TED about the philosophy and secrets of his photography
• Home
• New website done! Phew, I can get back to taking some photos