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.

Aperture is one of the ways we control how much light gets to the film or sensor but it is is just so much more useful than that. In this article we will look at how it affects the image in so many other ways. Of course, aperture also enables lots of creative ideas to be realised. Come with us on an enjoyable journey down the exposure rabbit hole while we explain what aperture is, and how you can change your camera settings to create exceptional travel images.

The basics of aperture

The hole that changes size

Aperture is the hole in the lens that gets bigger and smaller depending on your settings. The bigger the hole, the more light that comes through onto the film or sensor. The hole can get bigger or smaller because it is made up of a number of blades.

Wide aperture means the hole is big (more light enters).

Small aperture means the hole is small (less light enters).

Different lenses have different numbers of blades. Some are straight and some are curved.

The number of blades (and if they are straight or curved) will affect how the out of focus areas look. The quality of the out of focus area is known a bokeh.

What are f-stops?

The light that comes through the aperture is measured in f-stops. Each full f-stop is double (or half) the light of the next stop. So f.5.6 allows double the light through than f8. f16 allows half the light of f11.

The lenses are usually advertised with the maximum aperture value so for example you might have a zoom lens that says 24mm-70mm f4 – f4 being the widest aperture of that lens. The bigger the maximum aperture, the more light can come in and the lower light you are able to photograph in. Of course larger maximum apertures come at a price. A wide aperture lens is usually heavier and more expensive than a smaller aperture.

All lenses are different but this lens shows the f-stop of 2. The number after that is the lenses focal length.

Pro tip

If you want really sharp images, shoot in the f5.6 to f11 range. Not to get too technical but less expensive lenses are corrected for sharpness better in the middle than at the edges. So why not shoot with very small apertures? Well the light is diffracted by the edge of the aperture blades causing the image to be less sharp.

A prime lens (not zoom) will usually be sharper than a zoom lens.

What is the difference between a “pro” lens and the kit lens that came with my camera body. Is it the aperture?

Generally yes. The aperture is usually wider on the pro lens.

Other factors also affect come into play.

• The kit lens is often made of plastic, whereas the professional lens needs to take a beating and so is usually made of metal.
• The more expensive pro lens probably has better correction for colour fringing – chromatic aberration.
• While the kit lens that comes with the camera usually has very good middle sharpness at most apertures, the images are not so sharp in the corners and especially so at wider apertures.

Aperture can be controlled from either the lens or in the camera

Aperture also affects focus

The wider the aperture you use, the narrower the depth of field. This means that out of focus areas will be more out of focus which allows you to isolate subjects away from their background

The smaller the aperture, the greater the depth of field

As a gross generalisation, people photography works well with wide apertures where you want to isolate the person from the background, whereas landscape photography works well with small apertures where you want everything in focus from foreground to infinity.

Drag the slider to see the difference between f4 and f16

For the left image of Ally, I used a larger aperture f4. Doing this ensured that the background is thrown totally out of focus.

For the right image I used a small aperture f16 so the background is more in focus and is less visually pleasing.

So how does it work – The Tecky Geeky stuff

This diagram shows how bigger apertures make the out-of-focus areas more blurry

The light comes from the scene, goes through the lens and the wide aperture and focuses to a point on the film or sensor plane.

The light comes from the scene, goes through the lens but is out of focus. The focus point is in front of the film or sensor plane. As the aperture is very big, the out of focus area called the circle of confusion will be big too. Lots of blur.

The light comes from the scene, goes through the lens but is out of focus. The focus point is in front of the film or sensor plane. As the aperture is very small, the out of focus area will be small too. Much less blur.

How does this affect travel photography then?

Lets look at some images

Ally shot this steam train handle glow, with a large or wide aperture (f2.8) to isolate the handle from the details in the steam.

Tim shot the Croatia “hole in the wall” using a small aperture, to get everything in focus from foreground to infinity.

So finally lets break some rules!

Once you are comfortable following the ‘rules’ of aperture it will then be time to break them. Maybe try photographing a wide vista landscape wide open to isolate the horizon or a foreground tree. Try shooting a portrait with a busy background with a small aperture to get all in focus. The more you experiment, the more you will learn so keep trying new techniques.

Aperture seems such a mine-field; however armed with the knowledge we looked at in this article you should be able to improve your technique, and create some awesome photographs.

The post What is aperture – why it is important to travel photography appeared first on ImageExplorers.

London at night is an awesome city. Lights, music, noise and a feeling of culture mixed with bohemian lifestyle. There are millions of images of London at night from the main tourist areas to dimly lit backstreets of East London where Jack the Ripper once stalked. So how can you do unique night photography in London? We would like to show you a few techniques we use to shoot London at night.

We are fortunate to live within an hour’s train ride away from the centre of the city and I, Tim, spend a lot of my life around there running Adobe training courses for business. Of course at the end of the day the last thing one wants to do is to go around creating images especially if it’s winter so Ally and I make special photography trips to London just to shoot. If you are visiting London from other areas there are lots of Airbnb places near the centre but even if you are further out, you can still get late night tubes (24 hours Friday and Saturday) or a night bus home when you’re ready.

A few tips before we start

Dress warmly as the river area can get particularly cold out of summer months.

Travel light – You will walk a lot so remember, the weight of your equipment is inversely proportionate to how far you can explore.

Try to walk as much as possible using maps and not the tube. You will discover more this way.

We rarely carry a large tripod at night, preferring to hold a mini tripod on a wall or other solid surface for long exposures.

London is relatively safe but don’t flaunt your equipment in deserted areas.

Movement with long exposures

Steady your camera against a solid object and use long exposures to get moving lights. The image of Parliament Square with the red bus blur was created by putting the camera on a small wall and using long exposures. Ally tripped the shutter just as the bus entered the scene with a 5 second exposure.

London Bus Blur long 5 second exposure

Long exposures of water at night are really effective especially if there are coloured lights in the scene. Ally actually hand-held the fountain one, just balancing it carefully on the edge of the fountain.

For more about long water exposures read our ND Filter article.

Long exposure of water in Trafalgar Square, London

Use reflections

London at night is just a mass of coloured lights and the river Thames (pronounced Tems) is perfect to reflect these lights. For more on why reflections can make awesome images read this article.

The view across the Thames to London city from Charing Cross bridge

I hand-held the image above from halfway across Charing Cross bridge. I was also aware of composition rules and used symmetry on the horizon as well as placing the largest buildings on the third. For more details about composition rules see our article on How to photograph like Arnold Newman

Look for the unusual

A few years ago I was out photographing by myself (Ally and our daughter India were at the ballet at the Royal opera house). I quite like ballet but I thought I’d go shooting instead. It was just after the terrorist attack in Paris at the magazine Charlie Hebdo. I came across this  memorial outside the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. The person paying respects just happened along as I was taking the image.

Paying respects at Charlie Hebdo memorial

Use a narrow depth of field.

Try isolating subjects and get interesting out-of-focus light details. I used f2 on a very old leica 40mm lens on my Sony A7R to get the interesting bokeh donut highlights when I photographed this scene in a night market in Greenwich, London. The complementary colour scheme red/yellow and blue also helped.

Lights in Greenwich using narrow depth of field with aperture wide open

Finally

Doing night photography in London during summer is an absolute joy and you may find yourself photographing into the small hours, but the lack of sleep is far outweighed by the incredible images you create. London at night during winter is a totally different city however, and the main obstacle to photographing during winter nights is the cold. Enjoy your winter photography by stopping every so often at the numerous late night cafes around central London. Not only will you warm up but you might see interesting scenes that you would otherwise have missed.

The post Night Photography in London appeared first on ImageExplorers.

What is shooting Contre-jour? Well Contre-jour is a French term for “against daylight” and it is a technique where you photograph directly into the sun. The technique has been used for decades as it was originally a painting technique.

The New Forest in the UK just after dawn photographing directly into the sun

So what should you do to create awesome contre-jour images?

There are a few things to watch out for when you point your camera at the sun. It does however usually depends on the type of final image you want but here are our top recommendations.

Lens flare

Unless you want lots of lens flare on your image make sure your lens is scrupulously clean. Smudge and dust-free will make all the difference. Very often, we will take off the protective UV filters we use so that we have a perfectly spotless lens. You could also cary a spare clean filter for just such an occasion, say if you were photographing in a very dusty or sea spray environment.

Sunrise on our local river with a clean lens for very little flare

More lens flare

Of course maybe you want tons of flare. The same applies in reverse. Carry a spare old filter that you  have smudged with oily fingers. The heavier the smudge, the more flare you can expect.

Contrast

This also goes with flare. If you are shooting a contre-jour image it will have a lot of contrast as you are photographing and possibly exposing for the sun, and of course the objects in the scene that face you are in shadow. Think silhouette. Haze in the scene will also reduce contrast. If you look at our New Forest image above you will see where the light streams through the early morning mist there is very little contrast.

Shadow details

The issue with contrast is that it’s very hard to get all the detail your eyes see in the scene. Your eyes dart around the scene that you are photographing and your iris opens and closes to get you detail in all areas. In photography we don’t have that luxury, so in order to let the viewer see all the detail (in a suitably contrasty scene) we need to help things along. If you were photographing in a studio you would help things along with a reflector to get details in the dark areas. In landscape photography we dodge and burn.

How it works in practice when shooting contre-jour

We usually increase the shadow slider in Raw to claw back some of the darker details. However we then counter this by increasing micro contrast with the clarity slider. After doing the basic edit we will then use adjustment brushes to dodge and burn (as well as selective contrast) specific areas. Even the most basic Raw file converter will allow you to do these edits. Finally we resize and sharpen our images.

Original image exposed to get enough detail in the highlights and a bit in the shadows

After a bit of dodge and burn processing in Raw I retrieved the shadow details

What else can you do when shooting contre-jour images to improve them?

Hide the sun

One of the tricks we use most of the time is to hide the sun behind an object in the scene. It could be trees or even the mast of a boat. We find this technique for photographing into the sun leads to our most pleasing images as we can still see some details as the sun doesn’t ‘blow out’ (overexpose) the main areas.

Watch your exposure

In digital we tend to expose for the highlights and let the shadows take care of themselves. This is the opposite of working with negative film where you expose for the shadows and let the highlights take care of themselves. (Unless you are a zone system shooter like Ansel Adams in which case you control everything with development based on the contrast of the scene.) We also bracket a lot (bracketing is when you take a number of different exposures of the same scene).

New Forest early morning contre-jour pan with added texture layer

The New Forest

The New Forest in the images above is in the south of the UK about 70 miles south west from the centre of London. It was proclaimed a Royal Forest by William the Conquer (First Norman king of England). It was later used by the Royal Navy as a supply of wood for their timber based war ships built in the nearby ports of Portsmouth and Southampton.

So finally give contre-jour photography a try. Get out early in the morning and don’t be afraid of the direct sun. Keep your lens clean and bracket like a crazy person.

Mostly just enjoy yourself. It’s why we all create photographs anyway isn’t it?

The post Shooting Contre-jour : Photograph into the sun appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Before we look at what makes a good black and white photo let us first see why we want to create black and white photos. There are so many reasons why we would create a black and white over a colour image and here are just a few. It could be that we’re looking for a certain cool and modern minimalist style. We might be going for a traditional classic photography look. There might even be times when the colour is too overwhelming or awful that we feel the need to remove it. Whatever the reason we need to understand what makes a good black and white photo so that our images look amazing.

What can colour do that Black and white can’t?

Colour is a great mood changer. It can add a sense of mood into an image that black and white just can’t do. Just look at the terminology we use when talking about colour. Warm colours, cool colours. The colour in the image doesn’t have a temperature but our brains ascribe certain feelings to certain colours. Red equates to warmth, comfort, passion etc. Blue equates to cold, loneliness, distance.

Contrasting colours can also augment areas and help to lead the eye around an image. Have a look at these 2 images of the Bugatti car grill below. In the colour image the red logo is the most important feature that your eye is drawn to. In the black and white image our eye fights between the circular logo and the triangle one.

The red colour in the Bugatti grill is what your eye is drawn to

In the black and white version, the eye is drawn towards the teal logo shape

So how can we make our Black and White photos look awesome then?

We have a number of tools at our disposal. Using a combination of these can create a very powerful image. I have listed three of the most important ones below but there are a number of others you will discover yourself.

Shape

Our eyes are normally drawn to very clear shapes. Triangles have a particular power to attract our attention but any shape will still add to what makes a good black and white photo.

In the colour image of the Bugatti dashboard and steering wheel, you can see that your eye fights for attention between the steering wheel and the blue of the car body, but with the black and white image our eye just goes straight in to the most important shape that is the logo on the steering wheel.

On the Bugatti dashboard, your eye fights for attention between the blue body and the yellow wood

In this black and white version, the background blue doesn’t distract the eye from the dashboard and wheel and the logo shape is more obvious

Light verses dark

Where colour images use contrasting colours to differentiate areas in a photograph, in black and white photography we can use light and dark areas. Lighter areas with interesting contrast and shapes just scream out ‘look at me’. Darker areas and less detail tend to make the brain work too hard to see the detail so it automatically goes back to the lighter, easier to ‘read’ areas. A contrasting shape will grab the viewer’s attention as easily as a contrasting colour can.

The eye is drawn towards the lighter parts and doesn’t spend much time in the dark shadows

Texture

When we look at what makes a good black and white photo, one of the really important weapons we have in our armoury is texture. Texture is the one thing that can really give a black and white image punch. It gives the eye something to hold on to.

Texture is so much more apparent in black and white photos than in colour. Use it to your advantage.

You can see how the texture in the roof really jumps out in the image of the steam traction engine compared to the colour version.

The texture on the roof shows up beautifully on the black and white

The texture on the roof of the colour one is not as obvious

Whatever your reason to create an image in black and white over colour, be sure to make the image interesting. In colour photography we can control the viewer’s eyes and emotions with colour but in black and white photos we only have light to dark tones. Finding shapes in your image as well as textures and contrast will help you to lead the viewer’s eyes around your image. This will enable them to see the image as you envisaged it.

We photographed all the images in this post at the Aldham Steam Rally, UK.

The post What makes a good Black and White photo? 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.

Embocraft are the the local South African heroes who are empowering local entrepreneurs with skills training. Making portraits of these amazing people was a bit difficult due to the low and very extreme lighting conditions involved and required low light photography techniques.

What is Embocraft

Situated just up the road from the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust / Woza Moya. Embocraft was started in 1986 to alleviate poverty in the surrounding areas. They do this by conducting skills training to help local entrepreneurs develop and launch their own craft businesses. Training offered there is in sewing, basic computer skills and the internet, welding and screen printing. Work is assessed as they go and feedback given to help improve where appropriate. They are the local heroes who are empowering local entrepreneurs.

Embocraft Sewing Class

As well as these, there is a conference room for hire and a shop where Woza Moya / Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust also have their products for sale.

Making Images

We had the privilege of Goodness showing us around and we were free to make our own images. There was a sewing class and a welding class going on at the time. The lighting conditions in the welding class particularly called for low light photography techniques.

The classes are product based and the entrepreneurs learn how to make clothing, bags and kitchen accessories. As they go along, they receive feedback from their tutors. There was an excitement amongst those where they were able to learn something that would really benefit them and bring in an income.

Thandi inspecting some work – Embocraft Sewing Class

Welding Woes

The main issue we had with photographing was with the welding. It was very dark in that area and then we had the problem of the bright light of the ‘sparks’ in contrast necessitating us to pump up the ISO and using other low light photography techniques. Once finished though, it can give a very striking image. If we exposed for the welder before he started welding, then the image would be totally overexposed when the bright welding sparks kicked in.

One way around this is to set your camera to Auto and then compensate using the exposure compensation buttons. What we did though, was to shoot manually. We took a reading from the scene and then stopped down a few stops to compensate for the light from the welding. We then did a test to see how much we needed to change it. The final resulting images look very dark, but with some Raw adjustments, we were able to pull back a lot of the details whilst still keeping and showing details in the welding sparks. See our tutorial on exposure compensation and how you can do all this in Raw.

Welding class at Embocraft

Welding class at Embocraft – necessitated low light photography techniques

Embocraft is another model example of the way that South Africans have found to help one another in tough times. It is staffed by people who care deeply about what they do and although money is always needed to make these organisations run, it is secondary to the well-being of everyone involved.

The post Embocraft – Unassuming Local Heroes and Low Light Photography appeared first on ImageExplorers.

The Tombs of the kings before and after image is of a UNESCO World Heritage Site about 2 km from Paphos Harbour. Many of the tombs date back to the 4th century BC. It has nothing to do with kings! The name comes purely from the magnificence of the tombs.  There are a lot of ruins obviously, some more interesting than others. But if you go down underneath some of them there are some amazing images to be made. One in particular, with lots of pillars, with the golden light coming through was beautiful. We visited the site late in the day so the light was streaming in at an angle.

Drag the centre line to see the difference

The problem image

The problem with the scene is that I wanted a bit of detail in the bright sunlit areas as well as in the darker bits. Most cameras have a range of light that the sensors can record. This is known as the camera’s dynamic range. Using Raw you can access a greater range of light, than photographing as a jpg will give you. I exposed my image so I definitely had a bit of detail in the highlights and then ‘pulled back’ the details from the shadows in Adobe camera Raw. I used a manual setting on the camera so as not to overexpose the highlights as the camera can lie to you about exposure.

To create more atmosphere, we kicked up some of the dust so it was hanging in the air. Unfortunately this didn’t give us the ‘correct’ looking light streaming through the haze so we added it in later in Photoshop.

Let me show you the steps we took with this Tombs of the Kings before and after tutorial. It is done in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop but could easily have been done in Affinity Photo. Click the link to see our favourite Photoshop Shortcuts.

Into Camera Raw

Original out of camera image before adjustments

So straight into Adobe Camera Raw. (Quick tip: Instead of double clicking an image to open it in Raw try right-clicking it. This allows you to choose to open it in the Raw file converter without waiting or Photoshop to open first.)

Setting the base adjustment

Adjusting the exposure is not the way to get effective results

If you just adjust the exposure you will find that the highlights also get lighter. This is similar to what would happen if your camera was set to auto and the camera would try to lighten the large dark area.

Use the Highlights, Shadow, Clarity and Vibrancy sliders to set a base exposure

Instead of adjusting the exposure a lot, I pulled the Highlights slider down to darken the lighter areas, the Shadows slider up to lighten the darker areas, and the Clarity slider up to to get as much texture in the rock as possible. Finally I added lots of vibrance to bring out the colour of the rock.

Selective lightening with the adjustment brushes

Go to the adjustment brushes tab along the top of the screen (it’s a brush icon) and paint an area you wish to adjust. I painted a large area (where I put the green circle) and then changed the settings on the right until I liked what I saw. All the white dots you see are where I added a new brush adjustment. The red dot in the red circle is the active brush.

Adding your own lighting

I was still not happy with the light rays, so I decided to create my own. I will be dedicating a full tutorial to this technique but basically I made a selection where I wanted the rays to be, added a solid white adjustment layer and then feathered the mask. Finally I reduced the opacity of my new ‘ray’ so it’s barely visible.

Final Image

Tombs of the Kings in Cyprus

So to sum up the edit of the Tombs of the Kings Before and After image.

• Photograph in manual
• Do your initial Raw edit with the whole image in mind
• Use adjustment brushes to ‘dodge’ and ‘burn’ areas until the image you envisaged appears.
• Possibly add extra lighting you were unable to capture in camera.

I was really happy with the final result as it was just how I had envisaged the final photograph.

The big question is! Is this a “cheating” image, as I added in the rays that were not visible? Well… I think that it reflects what I saw when I stood there but you might think differently.

The post Tombs of the Kings – Cyprus – Before and After Image appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Very often as you fly over somewhere interesting you can be blown away by the view, but it can be quite hard to get a reasonable image through the nasty scratches and cloudy window. Have a look at how we create interesting aerial photography landscapes through a commercial aircraft window.

Providing the port hole window it isn’t tooooo scratched and not full of condensation you can actually get quite a good image. This is mostly due to the fab Dehaze tool in Photoshop.

Air landscape, Cape, South Africa

Air landscape Cape, South Africa – before dehaze

When framing your image check the reflections through the viewfinder to ensure they’re not too prominent. You can reduce them by tilting the camera a bit.

Once in RAW, make your initial Exposure adjustments. Then in the panel on the right hand side, click “FX” (7th tab along). Dehaze is at the top of that. Push the slider slowly to the right and watch the change in the image. As with all changes in RAW (and Photoshop) it’s always a good idea to push it too far and bring it back – this gives you a good idea of what too much looks like.

North Africa from the air

North Africa before

Aerial photography landscape – North Africa

North Africa airscape before

You’ll be amazed at how you can make a reasonable aerial photography landscape when flying thousands of feet in the air.

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Tourist free photography! Impossible you cry! Not impossible we say!

During our short Italian trip, we had a few days in Venice and were desperate not to “just photograph” the gondolas but to create something a bit more special. Here’s how to do it:

Prepare yourself the night before by having a nice couple of glasses of wine and either … set your alarm for 3 am! And then again for 4 am. That way when it first goes off, you can say “yay! I have another hour in bed!” Or don’t go to bed at all! (The time you need to get up will depend on the time of year and when it will be light).

Ensure you have a tripod. Stumble your way down to the waterfront (can you tell I’m not a morning person?) You may have to vie for a spot with other photographers, then wait for the sun to come up. You could try doing some long exposures to give the misty water effect but this will give you movement on the gondolas. Alternatively you can do shorter exposures to freeze the gondolas. You may need to get creative with exposures to get all the detail in the sky. See here on why your camera lies to you!

As you can see from our image we had a reasonable exposure so we went mid-range and got a little movement on the gondolas. Once the sun’s up and the crowds appear, go treat yourself to a large Italian coffee and breakfast … or more sleep!

See here for our favourite Top 10 Photoshop Shortcuts.

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