February Challenge - Blue week

Blue sky
Originally uploaded by hpebley3

This month I'm participating in February Challenge: Color Theory. The idea is to focus on one color each of the five weeks. I chose blue for this week's color.

This image was taken on a relatively clear day between storms. I was in my backyard, letting our hibernating rose garden frame the gate, looking towards the mountains. One of the reasons I took this picture was because the sky was pretty flat. I wanted to show my wife how to use layering with selective effects to take a blah image and make it more presentable. This was the result.

February Challenge - Green week

Green cup
Originally uploaded by hpebley3

This month I'm participating in February Challenge: Color Theory. The idea is to focus on one color each of the five weeks. I chose green for this week's color.

I received this mug for my birthday from people at my first programming job and it still sees daily use. It enumerates a bunch of "laws" of programming. One of my favorites is Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you'll find out programmers cannot write in English. It's amazing how relevant most of these are over twenty years later.

Hmm. You know you're getting old when you're using a coffee mug older than some of your co-workers.

Backlit self-portrait

20/52 Backlit
Originally uploaded by hpebley3

This self-portrait was inspired by a scene in a movie I saw recently. (I don't remember which one; it was something based on one of Jane Austin's works.) It took a bit more work than I expected; here's what it took.

I knew I only needed one light and a dark background. I had my backdrop setup to use the white side so I set a moderately high aperture of f/13, turned off all the ambient lights and set the chair about 8 feet from the backdrop. This made the white canvas appear black. I already had the monolight setup with a soft-box from some previous work and started by setting it directly in front of me.

A test shot resulted in the whole front of my face being lit. It was a nice effect with some potential but not what I envisioned for this shot. There was too much light and the falloff from light to dark was more gradual than I wanted. The soft-box was doing it's job and giving me a nice soft light. So I took the soft-box off and blinded myself with a bare flash.

The shadows changed from soft to hard, eliminating the gradual drop-off from light to dark. But I still had more light on the front of my face than I wanted. Next I moved the light back next to the backdrop pointing towards the chair.

Test shots with this setup produced a light on me close to what I wanted. But it lit the background enough that it changed from black to grey and introduced lens flair. I grabbed the barn doors and put them on the light. I adjusted the vertical doors to have a very narrow window, lighting only the chair and eliminating the light on the camera and backdrop.

This setup, with a bit of tweaking light power, was what produced the final shot.

Here's a diagram of the final setup (produced using the online tool at http://www.sdgphoto.com/lightingstudio/.

February Challenge - Red week

Open neon
Originally uploaded by hpebley3

This month I'm participating in February Challenge: Color Theory. The idea is to focus on one color each of the five weeks. I chose red for this week's color. It's amazing how many things related to fire are red: signs, extinguishers, alarm pulls, siren boxes, fire lanes. I wonder if this is a cultural association or more universal. This is one of the few things I saw (and shot) this week that was red but not related to fire.

February Challenge - Yellow week

This month I'm participating in February Challenge: Color Theory. The idea is to focus on one color each of the five weeks. With only two days, this week is short, but I'm starting off with eight shots of yellow.

Photowalk Utah #6: Remixing at the Moran

Bryan Jones has announced the next Photowalking Utah event. With it still being winter, this is another indoor venue at the John A. Moran Eye Center located on the University of Utah campus. It will be held on Saturday, February 23rd from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. Here's a map and here's a link to their contact page with TRAX and UTA info.

There are two items of interest at this event. First, the lovely and talented Ann Torrance will be giving a presentation on how to do a post-processing technique she calls a remix. It's sort of a photographic version of a DJ remixing a song. I'm really looking forward to this tutorial.

The second item of interest is the building proper. It's rumored to be architecturally interesting; which should be fun in its own right. But to further sweeten the deal, it sounds like we'll have access to some of the labs too. It's not every day one has the opportunity to photograph interesting scientific equipment.

Photowalking Utah events are a non-competitive time to meet with, learn from and enjoy the company of other photographers here in Utah. All ages, skill levels and equipment are welcome. This sounds like it's going to be another great time. Be sure to put this on your calendar and join us in a couple weeks.

DIY Telescoping Monopod

Inspired by this Strobist article, I made my own telescoping monopod. It was pretty easy as most of the parts were available off the shelf from my local big-box home improvement store (Lowe's).

First, a shot of the assembled unit:

(Click on photo for a larger image.)

The yellow part continues on out of frame for a total of about 4 feet 9 (1.2 m). Overall assembled length is 4' 10" (1.47 m); maximum extended length is 8' 4" (2.54 m).

This consists of three parts:

(Click on photo for a larger image.)

1) Mr. Long Arm Extension Pole
2) Extension tool holder: I couldn't find a reference to this model online, but here's a different model to show the idea. The one Lowe's carries is the handle shown above (in the left foreground) with another piece which bolts onto the bracket. I took this piece off and fabricated my own adapter to bolt on in its place.
3) Camera/flash adapter mount (in the right foreground).

Here's the piece I had to make:

(Click on photo for a larger image.)

This consists of:
1) two short pieces of wood;
2) two long pieces of wood;
3) a large leveling leg (to fit the hole in the handle adapter);
4) a small leveling leg (to fit in the tripod mount for a camera or flash);
5) an integrated washer/nut;
6) some epoxy to glue it all together.

The leveling legs are the types of things found on the bottom of appliances (washers, driers, stoves, etc.). They are a bolt with a large, flat round head on them instead of the more standard hex head. At Lowe's they can be found in the specialty connector section of the hardware department. Also in the specialty section is the integrated washer/nut. I wanted to use this instead of a standard nut to provide a bit more support surface for whatever is attached to it.

The assembly was pretty straight forward. First drill two holes for the bolts, one in the center of each of the large pieces of wood. Then epoxy the bolts in place. Once that was cured, I epoxied the four pieces of wood together in the configuration shown above. Then I put the nut/washer piece on the 1/4"-20 bolt to help support items screwed onto it. Finally a hit the whole thing with a coat of black paint to make it less ugly.

Here's a couple pictures I took shortly after making it. These were taken at maximum extension.

(Click on photo for a larger image.)

And here are some from BluHeron which she took at Photowalking Utah #5 while testing it out.

How to duplicate the Orton Effect in Paint.Net

I've noticed some buzz on the blogs and photography web sites I visit about the Orton Effect and how to do it in Photoshop. I had close-ups of a couple flowers I wanted to do some special post-processing on and thought this might be an interesting thing to attempt in Paint.Net.

Basically, the idea is to add some blur to the image to give it a soft, dreamy look. The original technique used two over-exposed transparencies sandwiched together. In the digital realm, this is duplicated by layering blurred copies with the original image.

This tutorial is a recipe for what I did. These steps are not original to me; they're simply an adaptation for Paint.Net of what I found on other sites. [1]

Original:


After this tutorial:


To start, right click the image below and select 'Save image as...'. Select somewhere on your computer and save it. Then start Paint.Net and open the file you just saved.




Ok, here we go...

1. Change the name of the layer to make it clear which layer is which. Do this by clicking on the Layer properties button and typing in a new name; something like 'Sharp'.





2. Now duplicate this layer.



3. With the duplicated layer highlighted, click on properties and change the Blending mode to Screen. This has the effect of lightening the image. In the original Orton technique, the sharp image was over exposed one stop. This simulates that effect.



4. Next, with the duplicated layer still highlighted, click the Merge layer down button on the Layers window. This creates a single new layer.



5. Using first step 2 and then step 1, duplicate this layer and name the new layer something like 'Out of focus'. You should now have two layers.



6. Make sure the 'Out of focus' layer is highlighted and on the menu select Effects | Blurs | Unfocus. Up to this point things have been fairly mechanical. Now some subjectivity comes into play. The value to enter here is to a large degree personal preference and specific for a given image's subject and resolution. The idea is to blur out the sharp lines and details but leave the general shape. In general, the higher the resolution of the image, the more unfocusing is needed. For this image, I used a value of 100.



7. Now comes the interesting part. Click on the Out of focus layer's properties and set the Blending mode to Multiply. This blends the two images such that the overall exposure is made similar to the original, brings back the detail but leaves some nice soft edges.



We've now arrived at the final result of applying this method.


(Click image to see a larger size.)

If you're pleased with the result, you can merge the two layers and save your image. If you want more or less blurring, you can go back to step 6 in the history and change the Radius on the Unfocus dialog to something else. Alternatively, you can decrease the Opacity in the properties dialog on step 7. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you have something you like.

In addition to the radius, you can experiment with various other adjustments and effects on the two layers. Things to try could be adjusting brightness and contrast, playing with the levels in different color bands and so forth. Remember you can do different things in each layer prior to merging for a wide variety of changes to the original image.

As example, this image is the final one above with additional tweaking of the brightness and contrast on the Out of focus layer and some levels adjustments on the Sharp layer.


(Click image to see a larger size.)



[1] Here are some other, non-Paint.Net references regarding this effect:
http://www.pcin.net/update/index.php/2006/11/01/the-orton-effect-digital-photography-tip-of-the-week
http://macroartinnature.wordpress.com/2006/04/12/using-the-orton-method-for-artistic-blending
http://tutiki.nikoncafe.com/w/index.php/The_Orton_Technique

Someone posted a comment on one of these sites suggesting Paint.Net's Glow effect was equivalent. I'm not sure I agree. It does have some similarities, but in my admittedly limited experimentation, it doesn't give as much control over the final result. For comparison, here's the above original with the Glow effect added.


(Click image to see a larger size.)

How to use the Clone Stamp tool between layers in Paint.Net

This tutorial shows how to use the clone stamp tool in Paint.net to copy portions of one layer to another.

It shows how to change these:




Into this:


To prepare, save the files used in this tutorial by right clicking on these links and selecting 'Save link as':

• Hear See Speak 1
  
• Hear See Speak 2
  
• Hear See Speak 3

Now let's just go through things step-by-step.

1. Open 'Hear See Speak 1.jpg'

2. Select Layers | Import from file...


3. And open 'Hear See Speak 2.jpg'. This creates a new layer and puts this image on it.

4. Do another layer import on file 'Hear See Speak 3.jpg'. We now have three layers, each with a different image on it.

5. On the Layers window, uncheck the check box on 'Hear See Speak 2'.


6. Make sure the 'Hear See Speak 3.jpg' layer is selected.


7. On the Tools window, click Rectangle select.


8. Select the portion of the image on the right to copy. I used the rectangle selection tool for ease, but you can use any of the selection tools. Depending on the image, you may want to use a selection tool which gives a closer crop on the source. This step is not mandatory but I recommend it. If you don't do this, you may accidentally clone over part of the destination layer which you don't want to change and have to undo and start cloning over. [1]


9. Next click the Stamp tool.


10. Then Ctrl-click on a section to copy.


11. Set the Brush width to 100.


12. Clear the check box for 'Hear See Speak 3'. You should now see the background with a selection rectangle on the right with a round stamp tool indicator.


13. Align the cursor's brush indicator directly on top of the stamp tool's indicator.


14. Click and drag the cursor. You'll see the image from the other layer get copied to the background. Slowly outline the image on the background layer...


15. ...and then fill in the middle by simply dragging the cursor.


16. Repeat for the 'Hear See Speak 2' layer:

• Click the check box for 'Hear See Speak 2' and then click on the layer to highlight it.
  
• On the Tools window, click Rectangle select.
  
• Select the portion of the image in the middle to copy.
  
• Next click the Stamp tool.
  
• Then Ctrl-click on a section to copy.
  
• Clear the check box for 'Hear See Speak 2'. You should now see the background with a selection rectangle in the middle with a round stamp tool indicator.
  
• Align the cursor's brush indicator directly on top of the stamp tool's indicator.
  
• Click and drag the cursor to copy the second layer.

17. Layers 2 and 3 can now be deleted.


18. Done


Hints:

• Put selection rectangles on straight lines in the image to help hide the transition.
  
• Don't forget to copy shadows and reflections.
  
• Use a tripod.


• Use Manual exposure and focusing so there's no change in exposure from one image to the next.

[1] Thanks to davidtayhs and jcav5 on the Paint.Net forum for comments helping to clarify this point.

About me and this blog

Hi. I'm Harley and I'm a photographer. I'm also a lot of other things, but the focus of this site is about images and this aspect of who I am. I grew up in the graphics arts industry. My paternal Grandfather owned a print shop. My Dad worked in the printing industry until after I moved out on my own. Some of my earliest memories are in print shops. My first three jobs were in pre-press production.

In this context I've been around and involved with images, photography and communicating through written media my whole life. For both good and bad, I'm sure this impacts the way I see the world around me and how I take pictures.

I got my first camera in grammar school: a 35mm point and shoot. In high school I got a Minolta SLR with a 45mm fixed focal length lens and a 75-300mm zoom. I enjoyed taking pictures, but with the cost of film and processing and the lack of immediate feedback, it wasn't something I pursued aggressively. I picked up an inexpensive digital point and shoot in the late 90s and loved the immediate feedback and zero cost of taking pictures. I didn't like the fixed length lens and low resolution. It did let me see the potential of digital over film; peaking an interest.

Then several years ago a friend of mine, Rich Legg, got back into photography in a big way. As we talked about what he was doing, the latent interest in me was reignited. I picked up a Canon XTi kit in December of 2006 and haven't really put it down since.

The goal of this blog is to provide an place for my thoughts on the what's happening in the photographic scene, recaps of places I've gone for images, announcements of photography related events in the greater Salt Lake City, Utah area, various how-to items and tutorials.

In general it is not a gallery or portfolio of my work although I am likely to post pictures I've taken to illustrate points. The bulk of my online photos are on my Flickr stream. I do have some images for sale on iStockphoto.

Comments are welcome but I do moderate them. This is simply to keep things wholesome for general family viewing. By default, comments will be accepted. The few things that will cause a comment to be rejected are:

1. It is too long even though it may be well-written and make interesting points. It's supposed to be a comment, not an essay. If you have that much to say, write a blog article and backlink to me.

2. It is nasty, impolite or uses language that is unacceptable.

3. It includes a a link that has a typo or is broken in some other way.

4. It should have been sent as an e-mail since it is clearly addressed to me and does not appear to have been intended for other readers.

5. It is blatantly self-promotional. This does not mean it can't be self-promotional at all, but it should add some value over an above the marketing.

My e-mail is harley3 at pebley.org. I also twitter. And finally, I have a page that contains a list of my other blogs and some more general information about me.