This is how we edited the steam train cab image of the Umgeni Steam Railway train from the before and after post.  The following screenshots show the process of editing in Camera Raw to finished photograph.

The image was taken on a very wide angle lens. We bought a Voigtlander 15mm manual lens for our Sony A7r and A7 before we left for a South African trip. Have to be honest here. I (Tim) am a wide angle lens freak. I can’t get enough of them. If I could only have one lens ever, it would be a prime super wide. Not only that, I really like manual focus.  Ally, on the other hand has a more rounded view of lenses and is happier with longer focal lengths but will still use wides.

The great thing about wide angles is the huge amount of depth of field they give so for the image below, I didn’t have to focus through the camera. I just set the lens to about 2m and everything from o.5 to infinity was in focus at f11.

I was standing outside the cab and just held my hand with camera inside and pressed the shutter.

Finished image with Raw editing

The Raw file editing

The whole image exactly as it came from the camera

The first thing to do was to crop the extra unwanted detail away in Raw for a better composition.

Post crop without any Raw editing

Post crop after global Raw editing

Once this was done I set about doing a global adjustment in Raw. Darker areas were lightened with the shadow slider and the lighter areas darkened with the highlights slider. Don’t over do it or it will look either too flat or like a bad HDR effect. All the editing in Camera Raw here can all also be done in Lightroom, Affinity Photo or any other raw file editor.

Doing the dodge and burn dance

Most of the work on this image was done with adjustment brushes. Every little white dot you see on the above screenshot is an adjustment brush. Most of the brushes affect the lightness / darkness as well as clarity (micro-contrast) and finally saturation and colour.

The image was finally taken into Photoshop for resizing and sharpening.

If you wish to learn Photoshop on the iPad or Affinity Photo on the iPad have a look at our Udemy courses below.

Click here for amazing money off deals to Learn Photoshop or Affinity Photo v2 on the ipad with his Udemy course

Remember – All the adjustments I have done are just a form of dodge and burn but affecting colour and contrast, not just dark and light. All the great photographers from Dorothea Lang to Ansel Adams used dodge and burn so you are not ‘cheating’.

Final image verses the original from camera Raw file. Drag the slider to see the difference between before (right) and after (left).

The post Editing in Camera Raw – How to appeared first on ImageExplorers.

To paraphrase Mr Toad. “There is nothing quite so awesome as messing around in steam.” We love steam trains. Old, new, big, small – we don’t care. To be perfectly honest we don’t even know much about trains. We just know that these huge steam breathing, snarling and grunting creatures, that have a life of their own, make stunning photographs. In this article we’d like to share a few tips on how to photograph steam trains to get great images. (Of course we love all things steam – see our Steam, Smoke and Noise post.)

When we first started photographing steam trains we were rather disappointed with our results. The incredible steam beast that was so full of life on the track had been reduced to a dull, lifeless, public transport vehicle. We see the same issue in so many photographers’ images. We would like to show you how we tackled the problems, to create images that do these beautiful machines, and their keepers, justice.

Find your unique angle

What do you want your image to say about the train? For us it is showing the engine as a living entity, so we look for angles that are unusual but still show the train as living and breathing. We spend a lot of time with the engine at the station wandering around getting all sorts of angles. When we photograph moving trains we tend to scout the area for an interesting (sympathetic to the type of train) background first and then look for our position to photograph from. We tend to treat moving steam train images like a landscape photograph. If you can remove the train from the scene and still have a stunning shot then you’re onto a winner.

When thinking about how to photograph steam trains, one of the things we always advise, is to look for angles that not everyone else does. Go high, go low, go inside, put your camera under the train if it’s not moving and safe to do so. Just don’t be boring.

The decisive moment

As the train is not moving for most of our images we try to show the movement by including steam as much as possible. While the train is waiting in the station we usually are able to create images with a small amount of steam; however the perfect steam comes just as the train starts to move. Clouds of steam and smoke billow out. This has 3 functions. Firstly it gives the train ‘life’. Secondly it hides distracting background details (cars in the carpark, hoarding board advertising etc) and lastly it gives the image a wonderful impressionist look with swirling clouds of white and the front of the engine emerging from it. You can also try panning to capture the movement.

Details, details, details

A steam train is filled with interesting details but don’t get so carried way that you forget your composition. Sometimes it can be helpful to look at the details through your camera but un-focus the camera so you just see the blurry shapes. This helps to concentrate your brain on the relationship between shapes and you will fin your composition improves. If you have an auto-focus lens you can usually switch to manual focus to do this. If you can’t then just focus on something far away and don’t touch the focus button until you’re ready to shoot.

Ask and you might receive

People who run steam trains are usually very proud of their engines, and rightly so as they put a lot of work into them. If you ask politely they are often willing to let you photograph areas of the train that the public don’t normally get to see. Remember not to get in the way and send them some images afterwards.

Exposure

One of the issues with trains in bright sunny conditions is the high contrast in the scene. We tend to expose for the highlights most of the time as the shadow detail is easier to retrieve in developing in Lightroom or Photoshop Raw converters.

Leaving your camera set to auto is great if you are constantly switching from sun to shade and don’t have time to check the exposure as you could miss an important image. However if you do this be careful that the camera isn’t being fooled and over- or under-exposing. Ally always shoots on manual. I (Tim) occasionally shoot aperture priority but if I do I always keep an eye on my exposure and use the exposure compensation button if I need it.

Develop your images to create your vision

Don’t forget that a large part of the image creation process is developing your images. Were not talking about just taking the image and converting it from Raw to jpg. We’re talking about getting your image back to how you envisaged it when you shot it.

In the raw file converter:

• Correct your exposure. Make it look like you saw it.
• Sort out your colour (white) balance. ‘Correct’ is not always ‘right’. Make it look like you envisaged it. Warm it up, cool it down. Whatever works for your image.
• Increase or decrease the vibrance / saturation as needed.
• Add micro-contrast using the clarity slider.
• Try it in black and white.

All the above are done to movies. This is called Colour Grading. Different movies have different ‘looks’ to complement the scenes for example The Matrix series had a very green tinge. Some movies very contrasty or orange. Nothing is right or wrong.

Once you have created your ‘vision’ with the basic settings, save it as a preset so you can use it on the other images in that set. Most developing software, be it Photoshop Raw file converter, Affinity Photo, Lightroom or other has the ability to save and reuse Raw settings.

On an individual image basis go in and use the adjustment tools on the image to dodge, burn, increase or decrease contrast and vibrancy. Remember all the great photographers used dodge and burn techniques. From Ansel Adams’ landscapes through to Dorothea Lang’s migrant worker images.

Filters

When you are learning about how to photograph steam trains, filters can be a great help. If you are having trouble with the contrast between the sky and the dark of the train details, try adding a graduated ND filter.

To get rid of reflections and increase the saturation in vegetation try using a polarising filter.

As always the most important part of the whole process is to thoroughly enjoy your photography.

About the Umgeni Steam Railway (Inchanga Choo Choo)

All of the images you see in this article were photographed in South Africa in KwaZulu-Natal at the Kloof railway station. The train that runs here is the Inchanga Choo Choo that is part of the Umgeni Steam Railway (USR). The USR is a volunteer run organisation dedicated to preserving these railways in South Africa. The Inchanga Choo Choo runs on the last Sunday of every month generally. It is a lovely ride from Kloof to Inchanga (a tiny village approx half an hour’s ride away). It has a craft market at Inchanga and people often take a picnic. It’s a perfect way to experience the atmosphere of a traditional steam locomotive. It is a favourite of young and old alike. Tickets sell out fast in advance!

Thanks!

Many thanks to the Inchanga staff, particularly to Andre the driver, for allowing us to photograph inside the engine cab. We apologise to both the fireman and engineer, in whose way we inadvertently got in. For an awesome photographic experience we cannot recommend this highly enough

The post How to photograph steam trains appeared first on ImageExplorers.

(or how to photograph like J.M.W. Turner)

This is Creative use of Shutter and Aperture series no 1

We are great fans of super sharp images and usually do all we can to get things razor sharp. This could be by spending extra on lenses (we both use sony camera now with rather pricy Zeiss glass). Or it could be we sacrifice our health to carry a heavy tripod to our chosen scene to avoid any camera shake. Sometimes however, the subject calls for a more impressionist style and this is where some camera motion blur created by panning comes in.

The how and why of the subject

The subject I (Tim) choose for my panning for camera motion blur was old cars. Now 2 things you should know. Firstly both Ally and I really like photographing old stuff, be it trains, planes, boats or automobiles. Ally aIso like cruise ships and gets very excited whenever she sees one – real life or on the screen. This strange affinity for large floating hotels is because she spent some time as a photographer on the Caribbean cruise ships many years ago. That was about the same time as I was photographing crime scenes around London. Mmmm… I wonder who had the better gig? I digress, so on to the subject matter.

The second thing you need to know is that I absolutely love a painting by J.M.W. Turner called ‘Rain, Steam and Speed – the Great Western Railway’ that gives the impression of the movement in the painting. If you haven’t seen this beautiful painting then look here. Turner painted a slightly blurry impression of the train and then used the steam to add movement to the scene the and I hoped to create the impression of movement in my cars photographs.

London to Brighton Veteran car run

There is a ‘race’ every autumn for vintage cars that goes from London to Brighton in the UK. If you’re travelling around the UK November time, this is a really interesting spectacle to photograph. I use the term ‘race’ lightly as most cars go well under 20 mph and often break down several times along the route. There is no place order – if you finish before 4 pm you get a medal. The run has been going every year since 1927 but was first started in 1896 and is for cars built before 1905. There was even a fictional movie about it made in the 50’s called Genevieve. Now combine the beautiful autumn yellow leaves with a blue sky and an old car and you can see we are already set up for some amazing images especially when you add the steam of a cold morning into the mix.

Equipment

Now while I like to travel light I don’t always make things easy for myself. I wanted beautiful images of the cars with all the colour of fall so I went with medium format and colour film. A Hasselblad 500c/m with a standard 80mm lens and a Hasselblad SWC/M which has a super wide 38mm (by medium format standards) fixed lens. When I was standing at the side of the road watching a few cars go by I realised my mistake. Super sharp images of these cars wouldn’t show the movement. If you’re looking at getting into film photography, see our best film cameras for beginners guide, best black and white films for travel photography, and how to load 35 mm film into your camera.

Sharp but dull image

Not so sharp but an infinitely more pleasing image

Panning for camera motion blur

I decided to use the super wide Hasselblad to pan with a slow shutter speed to create movement. The SWC/m has a separate finder on top so it’s actually easier then you would think.

The technique

The way this works is to follow your subject, as it passes, with the camera and when you push the shutter button to take the exposure just keep following. Don’t stop the panning movement until well after the exposure is finished. Now combine this with a slow shutter speed – start with around 1/15 second. It’s best to practice this with a digital camera as it takes a bit of getting used to and there will be many ruined images. The longer the shutter exposure, the more blur you get, but the less sharp the main subject will be.

Panning with a slow shutter speed keeps subject sharpish and background a blur

Pan and blur for images with a JMW Turner like impressionism

Spinning wheels

The other thing that happens is that the car wheels end up with circular motion blur too. Cool!!

Circular motion blur created by the longer exposure

Wide angle

I used a really wide angle so I was really close to the cars. This meant that the blurs have this awesome distorted look to them.

The final results

I scanned the negatives using a flat bed Canon f8600f scanner and then cleaned them up with the Raw file converter. Sounds weird but I scan the images to tif files and then you can open both tif and jpg files into the Raw file converter in Adobe Bridge. Ctrl + R (PC) or Cmd + R (Mac)

A bit of dodging and burning and some sharpening helped the image to ‘pop’.

These then become non destructive edits.

Try it out

This technique works so well on any moving subject. Mechanical objects are a-given but panning for camera motion blur can create incredible images of people and animals with blurred backgrounds and interesting blurs on legs and swinging arms.

Take lots of shots, get a nice smooth panning action and finally experiment with different shutter speeds. Above all – enjoy every new technique.

The post Panning for camera motion blur appeared first on ImageExplorers.

I often get asked about free online Photoshop and my stock answer is that if you can’t afford or don’t want to pay Adobe the monthly rental then there are a few options.

My first option would be to use Affinity Photo that has a one off fee (around £40) or download Gimp to your computer (free). I very rarely recommend an online version for serious work but recently I had seen Photopea, (not made by Adobe) and was intrigued. Could this software actually work like Photoshop but be free and online? I decided to set myself a challenge. Could I do this whole post’s images in Photopea?

What is it?

Photopea is a simplified clone of Adobe Photoshop that works in your browser. You simply go to photopea.com and there it is. Choose File and open an image from your computer. When you’re done editing just save as a Photoshop compatible PSD file or export as a jpg, png etc. It saves these files to your download folder.

The Photopea (Online free Photoshop) interface

Let’s start with Raw

Not wanting to overload the browser I started with a 12mp file. I wanted to see Photopea’s Raw file ability so I had a dng file (digital negative file) ready to go. To say the Raw file settings were sparse would be an understatement.  5 sliders! Basic temperature, Tint, exposure, brightness and contrast. That is it! At least there is a histogram.

Not a great start; however it must be said that at least it did open the Raw dng file.

Basic Raw settings

Photopea interface

The interface you are presented with looks very similar. Mmm.. I can see the Adobe lawyers getting all hot under the collar. Anybody with any Photoshop abilities will feel right at home. The tools are similar, the layers look the same and even the masks and adjustment layers have the Adobe look.

Look… It’s online Photoshop! Except it’s not

Start with the adjustment menu to alter the contrast with a curve. Well it works but it’s very basic.

Curves in Photopea are minimal

Non-destructive editing

I wasn’t holding out much hope when I went to the adjustment layers. I thought I would try out a very simple brightness and contrast but it actually worked very well. I was surprised. I even had a mask to use to stop the adjustment affecting the sky. Things are looking up. I was getting into it now and just copied the adjustment layer like I would in Photoshop by dropping it on the new layer button. Yes! that worked too. Better and better.

Adding an adjustment layer

Couldn’t stop now. I had to add a gradient adjustment layer and mix it with the layer below to hide the white using the blend mode. See our tutorial on how to make the sky dark in a photo. If you’re not used to layers and masks, see our post on using these with our textures tutorial and the Vatican multi-image edit tutorial.

This is the colour final version

Why stop now!? So on to converting it to Black and White to finish off the whole thing.

Changing the image size has very basic options – Bilinear or nearest neighbour as interpolation option.

Still, it didn’t look too bad.

After using the crop tool I exported out as a jpg.

The finished image

See what we think makes a good black and white image.

Conclusions

So how was it? Well there are good and bad.

First the good.

• It’s free
• It works on a browser so both Mac and PC
• The software doesn’t take up room on your drive
• You can use it on an iPad. We got it to work on an iPad mini
• It strips the software down to the bare basics
• Even the brush size keyboard shortcuts using the [ and ] keys worked. (See our top 10 Photoshop shortcuts).
• You can save as PSD files and all the functionality is still there in Photoshop

Now the not so good

• The Raw settings are too stripped down
• It struggled a few times and things slowed right down. I made sure I had no other tabs on the browser open but it still occasionally froze
• The crop tool was a bit clunky. I struggled with it as it kept freezing.
• The brush was a bit difficult to control.
• The interpolation options are a bit sparse and as this is an online version I suspect it will be used for a lot of resizing.

So would I use it again?

If I was totally stuck without Photoshop or Affinity Photo then yes I would, but I’d always go for a non-online browser based option first.

Would I recommend it?

Only if you are going to do image manipulation a few times a year and really can’t afford Affinity or Photoshop or you need to do some quick manipulation on your tablet.

I do have high hopes for Photopea though (or any free online photoshop). It can only get better and faster and as a free web resource it is actually very good.

Give it a try. You have nothing to lose.

The post Free online Photoshop? appeared first on ImageExplorers.

I, Tim, have 2 favourite photographers. I could sit and contemplate their work for hours on end. Both these photographers are landscape master craftsmen and artists of the highest order and their images bring me untold joy. One of these photographic genius’ is Michael Kenna who is still creating beautiful, thought-provoking images from around the world. The other is Ansel Adams, a legendary landscape photographer famous for his spectacular images of Yosemite National Park in The United States. As part of how ‘How to photograph like…’ series that includes Michael Kenna and Edward Weston I’d like to show you how to photograph like Ansel Adams or at last get your digital colour images to look like his beautiful prints.

Drag the slider left and right to see before and after

A purist photographer?

Ansel Adams photographed mostly using black and white film and large format cameras. His beautiful landscapes were enhanced using yellow or orange filters to darken the sky and despite being seen as a photographer who never manipulated his images he was never shy about dodging and burning to create the image he wanted.

The Zone System

Ansel’s one overriding concern was to create beautiful prints that had a full range of tones and to do so he worked out the zone system with Fred Archer. This system works by measuring the contrast of a scene and processing the film accordingly. A lot of ‘pre-visualsation’ is used to determine dark and light areas of the image. The ‘zones’ are 11 tones ranging from black 0 through to white 11.

Describing the zone system in 2 sentences is like explaining string theory using a colouring book and crayons – can’t be done, so for a full and proper explanation go to the Zone system wiki page.

Here is how I created my version of the legendary 1941 Ansel Adams image ‘Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico‘

Ansel Adams’ Moonrise, Hernandez, appears to be fairly contrasty as it’s probably a late afternoon, sunset image.

Open in Raw and convert to Black and White

This is my original image taken in the Drakensberg, South Africa, near Champagne Castle which was taken early morning. We were staying at a beautiful place called Spionkop and this was a couple of minutes walk from there. For more information on exposure for the moon look at our moon tutorial.

Original colour photograph for Ansel Adams conversion

The first thing is to get your landscape image open in Raw. If you have a Raw file you can just go ahead and open it, If you have a jpeg image you will need to open it from bridge by right clicking and choosing Open in camera Raw.

In Raw convert to Black & White.

Increase contrast

Push the Contrast, Whites and Clarity to the right. Experiment until you’re happy with the result.

Darken the sky

Using the Magic Wand make a selection of the sky.

Then using Select and Mask (along the top), ensure that the Contrast is pushed a little to separate.

Now, darken the sky – I used Levels and pulled the bottom slider from the right to the left.

And voila! You can photograph like Ansel Adams too.

Final Ansel Adams style photograph

Have a look at our other  ‘How to photograph like…’ series that includes Edward Weston and Michael Kenna to see how to create images like they have.

The post How to photograph like Ansel Adams appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Churches and cathedrals provide some truly extraordinary lighting. The glow from the altar candles, the multi-coloured light reflections onto stone textures from stained-glass windows or even the delicate light rays visible through the darkness and dust make low-light photography in churches and cathedrals an absolute joy. In addition to this, there is often the opportunity for some stunning symmetry in your images. We found the Eiffel Tower in Paris was incredible for creating symmetry.

Unfortunately, the ecstasy of these images comes with photography agony. Let us show you how to overcome the problems and create some truly awesome low-light photographs.

Fantastic symmetry and lighting – here at St Chappelle in Paris

Getting Your Exposure Right

Obviously, the issue in many churches is the contrast of the darker areas with the bright lights which could be candles, stained-glass windows or tiny clear windows that let in a beam of light. If you expose for the church you will find your candles / windows will be totally over-exposed but if you expose for the candles, you’ll have no detail in the shadows. What we tend to do is to expose for the main church shadow areas, and then stop down 2-3 stops to prevent the highlight subjects overexposing. It’s a good idea to do a few test images, bracketing at 1-stop intervals. With bracketing, you can also mix 2 or more images together in post-processing to get the details from both the shadows and highlights. This process is a form of HDR.

When you see your images in the back of the camera, or once they’ve been downloaded, don’t panic if they look a little bit on the dark side. You can always bring back details from the shadows easier than you can rescue burnt out highlights.

Pro-tip:

When lightening (dodging) areas in Camera Raw, remember that you will be increasing the grain in the shadow area. Also, the shadow areas have less saturation than the middle tones. To compensate for this you can reduce the grain and increase the saturation with the same adjustment brush that you are using to lighten the darker areas.

Light rays make stunning images – St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, Rome

Using Slow Shutter Speeds without a Tripod

If you can use a tripod in a church, by all means do so. However, a lot of the large cathedrals have a ban on tripods and flashes but are happy with other photography. There are a few ways around this. Using a small bean bag, you can steady your camera on the top of pews or any other flat surface for longer exposures. We often push our camera hard against a wall or a pillar to hold it steady for multiple-second exposures.

There are a few mini-tripods that are very sturdy available on the market and most church-photography-police don’t see these as an issue if they even realise what they are at all.

Look for the Spiritual Element

Churches can be beautiful empty places, but sometimes you want to get more of the spiritual feeling of the place. Look for elements that can enhance this feeling like beams of light streaming through upper windows in the darkness (light of Heaven lighting the dark paths!) Sometimes you’ll find worshippers in contemplation – if you are able to photograph them in a respectful way, retaining their anonymity – these can make for beautiful images.

Whilst being sensitive, worshippers can add the spiritual element to your image – Notre Dame, Paris

What to do About Tourists

Tourists can be an annoying bunch … ourselves excluded of course! One of the methods we use, especially in churches, is to have them moving through the long exposures. This augments the feeling the ethereal or spiritual and can look quite interesting. The other method is to take several images and put them together in post-processing to remove the people. (See our Vatican stairs tutorial).

Fixing Weird Perspectives

Try to bear in mind when you are taking the photograph with a wide-angle lens that your perspectives are going to be quite extreme and if you can keep your camera as parallel to the ground as possible, then the wild perspectives will not be quite as bad. You will of course have lots of foreground in your image but this can be cropped off in post. Of course you can always sort out your perspectives in Camera Raw using the perspective correction tools.

Watch out for your perspectives – these can add to an image, or you can adjust in Adobe Camera Raw – Notre Dame, Paris

So, there you have it, five easy techniques to improve your low-light photography. The next time you have access to a church or cathedral, go in and practice so when the building is truly awesome you will be prepared to create incredible imagery.

The post Beautiful Low-Light Photography in Churches & Cathedrals in 5 Easy Techniques appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Have you ever seen a scene that is so expansive and beautiful and thought to yourself something like “A single image with my wide angle lens just can’t do this beautiful vista justice”? On the other hand, maybe when you’re out creating images, you just don’t have a lens that is wide enough. Whatever the problem we would like to show you how to photograph a panorama and get pro results.

Our scene

We were is Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt and had spent the afternoon on camels, riding to an area of the Sinai desert. As this trip was to go stargazing through the large telescopes they set up in the desert and we were on camels (not the most comfortable experience!), we were travelling very light.

Just before sunset we got to the amazing scene you can see in our Panoramic images. Obviously it was too wide for our widest lenses we were carrying but this was where the multi image stitched panorama came into play.

How it was done – The Photography

The video we took – the vista was incredible however far too wide and also very “flat” contrast-wise.

We photographed the scene using the standard focal length on our cameras so as not to get any distortion on the images. The standard focal length is about 45mm to 55mm on a full frame camera and 28mm to 34mm on an APS-C camera. (This is known as standard focal length as it gives the similar field of view as the human eye).

When you photograph a panorama, ideally you should have your camera on a tripod so that when you take each image the horizon stays in the same place. We didn’t have that luxury so we just did the best we could by putting the horizon at about the top third of the image.  When you photograph a panorama scene make sure you overlap each image or you will end up with gaps in your final image. It’s really easy to miss a bit out so do be careful at the photography stage. We always do 2 or 3 sets just in case.

As you can see from the un-retouched raw images below we underexposed the images to get a bit of sky detail. We always prefer this method as it’s easier to lighten dark shadow areas than it is to get back blown-out highlights in Raw. We expose digital like we used to expose transparency film. For more ideas on how to make the sky dark in a photo, see our post. You can also use filters to help darken down the sky.

Un-retouched Raw images  

How it was done – Preparing the original images

The next stage is to correct all your images in Raw. We do them all at once in the Raw file converter from Adobe bridge but you can do the same in Lightroom. The most important thing is consistency.

Images in Raw ready for processing for panorama

Contact sheet of images once processed in Raw

How it was done – Creating the Panorama

Using Adobe Bridge in Creative Cloud, we  went to the tools menu and found Photoshop and chose Photomerge.

This can also be done from the File menu in Photoshop (any version) and choose automate and then Photomerge.

We used the Auto setting as it seems to give a good stitch result for most scenes.

The stitched Panorama photograph is made up of masked layers. Each original image is a separate layer. Once I have checked the image for any issues, I flatten it down by merging the layers.

Pro Tip: You can create your Panaroma as a raw file, so the original Raw images are editable within the pan. When you open the Raw files in Camera Raw, select them all and then choose Merge to Panorama in the drop down menu by the film strip.

Initial stitched image in Photoshop

Next stage is to crop the image to size. We still do some more editing at this stage. In our scene there were some temporary dwellings created by the nomadic Bedouin people. We removed them from the scene as they are not permanent features of the landscape. We do the same with rubbish as it’s not part of the scene and might not be there on a different visit a few weeks later. Removing permanent structures is changing the scene totally and requires a totally different conversation for another time, about how far your own manipulation can go.

This is the un-retouched final Panorama

Here are the temporary structures that we removed

We used the Spot Healing tool to very quickly remove the unwanted details.

Initial images after removing temporary dwellings

The final resulting Panorama

An alternative version of the same scene

There are some great textures in this scene which could also be incorporated into other images.

To sum up the workflow:

• Photograph with a standard lens or lens setting on your zoom
• Overlap the images
• Watch your horizon line
• Let Adobe Photoshop do all the hard work for you. (See our favourite shortcuts)
• Print it large and wait for the flood of compliments!

So there you have it. Never worry about not having a wide enough lens ever again.

The post How to photograph a panorama – a tutorial appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Learn from the Masters

Some days we look at well-known photographers images and something in us just cries out “I wish I could create images like that”! At first I thought it was just me but I have discovered that the majority of photographers feel like this about certain other photographers some time. If you have ever seen the beautiful black and white zen-like work of Michael Kenna then you will probably know this feeling really well. If you don’t know Michael Kenna’s work, have a look at his web site. Once you have finished weeping with inadequacy come back and let us look at how to photograph like Michael Kenna so you too can create similar style images.

Have a look at our other  ‘How to photograph like…’ series that includes Edward Weston and Ansel Adams to see how to create images like they have.

Now before we get started there are a few things to know.

• Michael Kenna creates images on a medium format Hasselblad.
• He uses film
• He has a very zen-like nature about him
• He is a photographic genius
• He is a darkroom super-craftsman

So now the bar has been set so spectacularly high, let’s see what we can do with our DSLR or Mirrorless digital cameras – no pressure then!

I photographed these cranes at the Bristol harbour, UK in a Kenna style with simple shape and no shadow detail

Analysing the Master

When trying to imitate anybody’s style we start by analysing their techniques, so when looking at Michael Kenna’s photography, this is what I saw.

Composition:

Michael Kenna looks for simplicity in his composition, moving closer or framing the subjects to get rid of extraneous objects. He uses a lot of symmetry and rule of thirds but is not afraid to break rules if the composition calls for it. As he photographs on a Hasselblad which has a square format, a vast number of his images are square.

• Pro tip – Michael will often put the horizon on almost the centre of the image. He uses a technique called the optical centre. This is about 10% above the centre of an image and is where the eye naturally rests.

The images have a timeless quality about them, which suggests a photographer who is in no rush, and analyses every scene and possible angle before creating the image.

Black and White film:

In an interview with Procameraman.jp Michael talked about his favourite film as Kodak Tri-X 400 ISO. This is a very forgiving / flexible film and well suited to the long exposures he does. Some are as long as 10 hours. It also has a very distinctive and pronounced grain structure.  See our post on what black and white film to choose to find out more.

ND to blur clouds or water and other filters to darken skies:

In order to create the long exposures, to get the milky water during daytime we need to assume that Michael uses an Neutral Density filter and the camera on a tripod. See our how to photograph with ND filters tutorial.

We can also assume he uses a red and or polarizing filter to darken and lighten parts of the image. We have written extensively about using filters in black and white photography in other posts.

Quite a lot of contrast and high key:

Michael Kenna’s images appear to have large tracts of almost black and almost white in them. The middle tones are there but are in the minority. A lot of his images are also high-key, meaning most of the image is really light although almost every image has something nearly black in it. As a master craftsman Kenna is probably using a combination of film development chemistry and darkroom techniques to augment the original stark image. For more ideas about black and white, see our post on what makes a good black and white image.

I photographed this high key image in Wivenhoe near our home on a misty autumn morning. Not quite Kenna style as it doesn’t have any very dark areas.

How to Photograph like Michael Kenna Step-by-Step guide

Find your Perfect Composition

This is the hardest part of the process but with a little patience you will achieve extraordinary results. Don’t rush things. Leave your camera in your bag until you have found the perfect spot to create an image from. Try to pre-visualise the final image before you touch the camera.

Look around for simple details, structures or shapes. To photograph like Michael Kenna, try to ignore the colour aspect that can be overwhelming.

To help us compose we set the Sony A7R camera to black and white mode so the images appear in the viewfinder as black and white (most mirrorless cameras have a similar feature).

If we’re using Ally’s Nikon D600 DSLR or a film camera that doesn’t have this feature then we view the scene through a strong coloured filter. This gives you one colour, and even though it’s not black and white, it helps to show the shape and form of the scene.

Exposing the Scene

To photograph like Michael Kenna, use long exposures with the camera on a tripod to get movement in clouds and water. Make sure you’re using a solid tripod, as even the slightest movement on the camera during a 30-second exposure can ruin an image. Use a Neutral Density filter to help you get the very long shutter times you need. Our 10-stop filter usually allows us to achieve 30-second shutter times in normal daylight.

We use Manfrotto and Gitzo heavy duty tripods with robust heads. They are a pain to carry but so worth it when you images are stunning. We recently tried out a travel tripod from Manfrotto but it was much to wobbly in even the slightest breeze so it’s going on eBay soon. Don’t forget your red or orange or polarising filter to darken the sky. These will also help to give you longer shutter times.

Not all of Michael Kenna’s photographs are long exposures though but they are all about simplicity. Taking the essence on the scene into a beautiful composition. Michael once referred to his images as a Haiku rather than a literary work.

The Digital Darkroom

Michael is known as a darkroom master artist and artisan and so it comes as no surprise that he does a lot of dodging and burning on his images. He also mentioned in an interview with Camerawork magazine that he uses Ilford Multigrade paper so he can dodge or burn areas at a variety of contrasts.

All of this we can do in our RAW files using adjustment brushes.

Finally, a how to photograph like Michael Kenna post would not be complete without talking about toning. Michael uses sepia tone on his images to give the highlights a bit of colour. We can easily do this to our RAW files in the RAW converter or, (and we prefer this method), use a Gradient Map adjustment layer in Photoshop.

Final and original image from our Michael Kenna style photographic trip. Drag slider to see more.

Putting it all into practice with a trip to the North Norfolk coast in the United Kingdom

The Photographic Process

Ally and I live in a county called Essex, which is about an hour’s drive from central London (or 2 if the traffic’s bad). About 2 hours drive north of us, is the beautiful undeveloped coastline of Norfolk that offers plenty of scope for interesting images. After a long hot summer we set off for 2 days photography knowing that we wanted to create something simple and stark.

The first day was stunning, bright blue sky with small puffy clouds, long sandy beaches with sand dunes, photography heaven. The second day was rainy and overcast and just awful. So how did we do? Well, the first days’ images were ‘pants’. (This is an English expression meaning rubbish!)

Tim looking for the perfect composition on the rocky pier

It was the overcast sky that gave us the beautiful stark and simple images (without harsh shadows) that we were looking for. I find this very annoying as I (Tim) am a sun worshiper and hate overcast days but there we go.

Ally trying a different angle

Once I had viewed all the potential photographic vantage points for the pier I wanted to photograph, I set up the Manfrotto tripod on the rocks and made sure it was secure. I wanted to do some longer (30 sec) exposures to give the water movement so I attached our ND filter. The exposures ranged from 10 to 30 seconds and even though I had a sturdy tripod the wind still gave me a bit of camera shake on some of them.

This is what the bit of wind did to my long exposure when it buffeted the camera

When composing I used a combination of symmetry and the rule of thirds for my horizon.

Rule of Thirds

In the Digital Darkroom

I am using Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud (2018) however this technique will be very similar in any software that enables RAW file editing including Affinity Photo, a favourite of ours on the iPad.

Cromer contact sheet in Bridge including some edits

In Raw, the un-retouched original

In Raw with very basic edit 

The first thing I did when opening the image in Raw was to convert it to Black and White. I also set the options to sRGB (not greyscale) and the channel bit depth to 16.

This gives me an image with smooth gradients that I can add colour to in Photoshop. If you open it from Raw into Photoshop in greyscale mode you will have to convert it to RGB colour to add the toning adjustment layer. Having it as 16 bit rather than the default 8 means that there are thousands of shades of lightness per channel rather than just 256. This gives you smoother gradients without as much ‘banding’.

I then took down the highlights as some of the clouds were overexposed.

Raw gradient to get the dark sky Michael Kenna style

Along the top of the camera Raw window you will see a little gradient icon. I clicked the icon to get to the gradient area and added 2 gradients to darken down the clouds a bit.

Raw dodge and burn edit like Michael does in the darkroom

Clicking the little paintbrush along the top again, takes you to the adjustment brush area. I added a brush, painted the area I wished to adjust and then adjusted the settings on the right. Not only can you lighten and darken but also change contrast, sharpening, clarity and a host of other properties. As you can see by the dots on the picture I did 13 different brushes. Some to lighten the water, some to increase contrast and detail on the rocks. The little mask button at the bottom allows you to see the areas you are painting. I switch it on and off to see what I’m doing.

Overall on the image I lightened the highlights and darkened the shadows to get that distinct Michael Kenna look.

Lastly I added a selenium tone adjustment layer

I opened the image in Photoshop as a Raw smart object. You do this by holding down the Shift key while clicking the open image (object) button in Photoshop Raw.

If you wish to learn Photoshop on the iPad or Affinity Photo on the iPad have a look at our Udemy courses below.

Click here for amazing money off deals to Learn Photoshop or Affinity Photo v2 on the ipad with Tim’s Udemy course

Having my image in Photoshop as a Raw smart object allows me to double click the smart object any time and go back into Camera Raw to make adjustments. If you’ve never converted to black and white before, check out our post with technical and geeky explanations!

I added a Gradient map and chose the Selenium tone Gradient Map. Even though Michael Kenna uses sepia tone over selenium I thought it looked better on this particular image. The difference is that a sepia tone works on the highlights first and selenium toning works on the shadows first.

Final Image

Go Forth and Create Like a Master

As you can probably tell by the tone of this post, Michael Kenna is one of my favourite photographers and although I don’t go out to copy his work, it has always had a great impact on my personal style. Anybody can copy anybody else’s technique; however you need your own personal vision to really create you own image of he world. Learn all you can from all the master photographers but then turn all that knowledge into your own unique vision. See our post on photographing like Edward Weston  and Ansel Adams.

To sum up a post of how to photograph like Michael Kenna we need 2 things. Beautiful simple composition and lots of shadows and highlights in a toned Black and White image.

Try it out. You might find that your own style, added to this technique creates some amazing images you’d never thought of doing before. Mostly, have fun doing it.

The post How to photograph like Michael Kenna – Tutorial appeared first on ImageExplorers.

So you’re out travelling and all prepared to go out to photograph that amazing landscape you noticed on the drive to the hotel yesterday. Unfortunately, the weather has other ideas and it’s pouring with rain. What can you do? How about creating your own beautiful images from items you find around your apartment? In this post, I’d like to show you how to photograph like Edward Weston. Edward Weston was an American photographer born in 1886, and was regarded as one of the masters of 20^th Century photography. He photographed primarily using an 8×10 large format camera, and was known primarily for his black and white “landscape like” still lives.

Edward Weston’s most famous red pepper – photograph from Wikipedia. Find out more about him here

Learn from the great masters

Have a look at our other  ‘How to photograph like…’ series that includes Michael Kenna and Ansel Adams to see how to create images like they have.

Why remove the colour?

One of the important features of Edward Weston’s work was the beautiful shapes that he created. When we photograph the pepper in this tutorial, look at the original in colour. Yes, it’s very striking, the red on the black, but that’s all you notice – red and black. We really want to show the form and texture of the vegetable, so black and white does this beautifully.

The Setup

The photographic setup, is incredibly simple. I put the pepper onto one of my black t-shirts on the table. I set up the camera on a tripod and the whole scene was photographed next to a window. The only other lighting, apart from the window lighting, was from a large white reflector. You can use anything white to reflect light back into the image.

Camera set up for how to photograph like Edward Weston

The Photography

When trying to photograph like Edward Weston, the more gnarly and quirky the fruit or veg, the better. Unfortunately, my peppers from the local supermarket were neither, so I moved it into a position where it would at least look interesting. As it kept falling over, I propped it up with my lens cap.

Move your scene and your reflector around until you get some interesting highights on the subjects. I photographed with quite a small aperture, therefore the shutter speeds were quite long; so, a tripod was essential as I needed to ensure the camera was steady.

Tim tries a green pepper for how to photograph like Edward Weston

The Photoshop process

To get the final photograph like Edward Weston has done, we need a bit of post production.

I first opened the image in Camera Raw but you can do the same in Lightroom or Affinity Photo Raw

Original image opened in Adobe Camera Raw

Convert colour into black and white

There are many ways to convert colour to black and white and this is just one of them. See our article on converting colour to black and white with tips and techy-geeky explanations.

Darken shadows to get the Edward Weston contrast style

I darkened the black and increased the contrast and highlights so the feeling of my image was a photograph like Edward Weston although I went for a much darker overall look than he used to create.

Darken large areas with the adjustment brushes using Exposure or Blacks

Lighten highlights for authentic Edward Weston contrast

Still in the adjustment brushes, click on the New radio button at the top to create a new brush and paint in the highlights. In the highlights increase Exposure, Contrast and possibly Clarity. If you go too far you can click the Erase radio button at the top to remove any over-painting. Click New again and do the same but on the shadows, darkening them down to taste.

We’re now going to take this into Photoshop, but before we do, click on the information underneath the photograph which will then allow you to use sRGB rather than Greyscale as the Colour Mode. This will give you the ability to put colour into your image in Photoshop when you start to add the toning. If you open the image as a Greyscale image in Photoshop, you would then have to convert to RGB colour before adding any colour back in.

Techy-Geeky stuff!: Whilst you are in this area, you could also choose the 16-bit channel option, over the 8-bit channel option. This will give you thousands of shades of grey per RGB channel, rather than the 256 shades you get from 8-bit.

The first stage of toning your image in Photoshop for that authentic Edward Weston like photograph

In Photoshop, go to your Layers panel, and click the black and white circular icon at the bottom to add an adjustment layer. The adjustment layer you need is called Gradient Map.

In the Gradient Map, click on the drop down next to the gradient. In here you will see your basic gradients. But then now click the little cog to the right. This opens up some more options and you need to choose the Photographic Toning option. This will give you a lot of gradients, that replicate traditional photographic print toning. I chose Selenium 2 to get a beautiful subtle selenium tone to my final image. (If you go back to the cog, you can choose to view the gradients options in different ways, and by choosing the Text Only option, you’ll see what the gradients are called).

Experiment with various gradient map photographic tones

Using the master photographers as a base inspiration, you can go on to create all kinds of photographic styles. You can then experiment and tweak them to make them your own. This particular how-to-photograph like Edward Weston technique, works beautifully on vegetables and still lives. However, it’s also a really interesting technique on faces and real-world landscapes.

Most importantly, enjoy every part of the process!

See our convert colour to black and white in 30 seconds video.

The post How to photograph like Edward Weston appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Very often you may photograph a dramatic sky but when the image is straight out of camera, you look at it and think, I know the sky looked way more interesting that that!

Example!

Dramatic Sky not as dramatic as it should be

Camera Raw to the Rescue

This can, thankfully, be rectified very easily in Adobe Camera Raw. There are a couple of ways of doing this. Today I’m going to concentrate on one using the Gradient tool.

As you saw above the dramatic sky isn’t as dramatic as it should be. So we open up the image in Raw. We choose the Gradient tool (hit G or click the fourth icon from the right from the options along the top), then click and drag down.

We then adjust the settings on the right hand side. The main ones to play with are:

• the Exposure – this will darken it down when you pull the slider to the left.
• the Clarity – this is ‘micro-contrast’ which helps bring out details when pushed to the right (or softens details when pulled to the left.
• the Dehaze tool – this does what it says on the tin and will reduce haze when you push the slider to the right (or bring more haze back in when you pull the slider to the left) upping the contrast and the saturation accordingly.
• the Highlights – where there is a lot of blown outness (new word I just invented) – ie, where there is a lot of sun blowing out the highlights, then pulling the Highlights slider to the left can help bring these back. Be careful not to overdo it as it can go grey.
• the Shadows – this will lighten up the shadows where they may be too dark (pull to the right).

Showing the gradient tool bringing in the details of the dramatic sky

Don’t forget, even if you take a picture on your camera phone or other device, you can still get to the Raw settings by opening it up in Photoshop and going to Filter > Camera Raw Filter.

So, is this cheating?

Absolutely not. As we’ve talked about in a number of other posts, a camera gives an average exposure, (usually weighted towards the centre). This will darken down the whole image dramatically so when you lighten up your exposure in your camera to see the detail in the foreground, this is usually at the expense of a dramatic sky. All we’re doing here is bringing the image back to how you saw it originally. See this before and after tutorial of how we used Camera Raw

Drag the centre line to see the difference

The post The Elusive Dramatic Sky and How to Retrieve Using Camera Raw appeared first on ImageExplorers.