Photography Chat

Esa Paulasto

01:58

ipvm.com/report/sony_acquires_pixim

Sony bought Pixim. Almost two years old news...

I was searching for something else, but found this:

google.com.br/patents/US6498576

That's why I wanted to know who owns Pixim. And the answer is: Sony.

I wonder if they are doing anything with it, or bought it so that nobody else can't take hold of it.

AJ Henderson

02:35

stupid people annoy me

or more accurately stupid people calling other people stupid

particularly if the other people are in fact less stupid

(stupid person in WoW insulting our healers who managed to keep an under-geared idiot tank alive despite the fact that he refused to let me taunt off him to get stacks off him, while doing about 1/2 the damage he should have been doing)

Esa Paulasto

02:58

Aye, one of those things that I don't miss in WoW.

rfusca

04:13

@AJHenderson been playing around adding moving backgrounds to the announcement videos. Thoughts?

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AJ Henderson

04:59

@rfusca need to work on the lighting and text to give it better background separation for a video background

rfusca

@AJHenderson not sure what you mean

AJ Henderson

put a nice strong back light on the speaker, move them a bit to the left to give more space for the text and put a relatively strong dropshadow on the text

(just a very small bit to the left, like inches)

rfusca

gotcha, ya - they're normally a bit further to the left - this was the end od a really, REALLY long session lol

but ya, I've been wanted to do the backlight - just lack of lights right now

AJ Henderson

but yeah, the big thing with a moving background is that you need it to be visually clear that they are in front of the artificial background

otherwise the eye starts splitting focus

rfusca

ic

I think i'll blur the background more too

AJ Henderson

05:01

because they don't stand out from the background

rfusca

its too in focus

AJ Henderson

yeah, or possibly try a different type of motion

rfusca

ya, this was just an example

just testing the technique

AJ Henderson

that particular example makes you feel like something else is going on in the scene without the speaker being really prominantly in the foreground. Other backgrounds would likely have less of a problem from that

rfusca

sure

AJ Henderson

05:02

but the big thing is use any visual queues you can to add depth

so that the text and speaker are on a plain in front of the background

rfusca

gotcha

AJ Henderson

drop shadows tend to show distance for the text (you want strong but very, very soft, so it is noticeable but not well defined)

rfusca

(totally unrelated) - you can buy every command and conquer game ever for $5 right now - I used to love those lol

maybe I should buy them and pretend I'll have time to play

AJ Henderson

not the difference in visual look to the text and how it seems to stand out more

rfusca

see, I don't like that

AJ Henderson

05:10

I went with a grey to balance the focus a little more towards the speaker, but you can still go with a white to make it more focused on the text

it's hard with a black background

normally I'd use a black drop shadow, but it didn't really make it stand out much

rfusca

well, it looks better not super big - scaled it down some and looks better

AJ Henderson

yeah, I noticed I don't like it super big either

the link was the first time I looked at it full screen

rfusca

i'm on my new system btw :D

AJ Henderson

second attempt where I actually previewed it full screen before posting

went with the white text to show the difference in how much it stands out with white vs light grey too

you can see how in the former, you look at the guys eyes and notice, hey, there's some text over there

in the second you see a guy and some text

@rfusca nice

nothing caught fire, I suppose that's a good sign

another thing about the drop shadows is that you don't get the full effect without the video

drop shadows work far more effectively with something moving under it

they look less (3d) like the first one did and more like depth

because of how it interacts with the background

the trick is to get it just subtle enough to get the effect you are looking for without overdoing it

it can be a process of trial and error

rfusca

Ok, I made the drop shadows more grey and blurred the background - the blur had a BIG effect on seperation

almost done uploading

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AJ Henderson

05:19

yeah, I'd blur the dropshadow a bit more and reduce the size

the other thing, as I was playing that actually seemed like it might work is a pure black, very hard, very small dropshadow

ala

the extra blur on the background was a big help though

rfusca

ya, I kind of like that

AJ Henderson

drop shadow is one of those things that people under-estimate the difficulty of doing right :)

done right, it's great, but it is hard to get perfect

even though it is such a simple concept

followed by the even more edge case glows

which I've only found two or three situations to use over the course of 14 years

Esa Paulasto

Streetphotographer's problem:

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rfusca

@AJHenderson ya

AJ Henderson

@EsaPaulasto haha

ok, time to go back to my latest consumption of time thanks to SE

someone in one of the chats recommended the TV show Arrow

rfusca

05:29

<--------- this guy probably

AJ Henderson

so I'm now stuck watching the back log on netflix

rfusca

arrow is freaking awesome

AJ Henderson

in fairness, I had already contemplated watching it

I love the actor that plays the main cop

though every time I see him I think Dresden Files

I mean, it really is practically the same character

rfusca

ya, I'm actually following him on facebook

AJ Henderson

I would almost break my rule for him

I generally don't follow or friend anyone I don't actually know or have met in person

well, maybe not "in person", but had a chance to socialize with

rfusca

05:34

sure

there's a few famous people I follow because their accounts are interesting

like the actor that plays the arrow has a pretty neat page actually

Matt S.

13:53

You guys were right. Polarizers are pretty magical 500px.com/photo/72494985/…

Although of all the days to forget my tripod.. I'm still trying to lighten up the bottom part.

AJ Henderson

15:12

@MattS. nice shot. I wish it was just a hair wider, that dock is really interesting, but it doesn't feel like it is part of the subject

my eyes first lock on the trees above the dock

and eventually they realize, hey, there is an interesting dock and water here

which is partly compositional and partly the aforementioned darkness you were trying to lighten up

Matt S.

@AJHenderson Unfortunately I found out I was leaning when I took the picture. So I had to do some cropping and rotating to get the water from being crooked.

I think I would like more space on the left though.

rfusca

i know you mentioned lightening it up, but the bottom does feel very dark to me

AJ Henderson

glad you had a good experience with the CPL though

they are a lot of fun

Matt S.

@rfusca It was 10 times worse before this edit. It was 7:30 when I took the picture. So the sun was just below the trees.

AJ Henderson

15:30

@MattS. oh wow, not bad for a hand shot then

Esa Paulasto

20:37

@MattS. Do you play computer games on that computer that you use for editing photos?

Matt S.

@EsaPaulasto No, I use my laptop for everything but video games.

Esa Paulasto

Perhaps you've turned the brightness up on the display, which would be a common thing to do when playing games..

Okay :)

Matt S.

Although that reminds me that I have fl.ux installed. And I'm probably lucky the colors don't look weird. :P

The problem with that photo I think was just the sun was behind the trees, and I was focusing on the sky to test the polarizing filter.

Esa Paulasto

I was an active gamer until photography stealed my time and inspiration. At first I made all my photos rather dark, until I realized I was still having the brightness high up after all those years spent playing :)

Yeh, that must be it. The up-side of it is that the sky looks great :)

Matt S.

I played with it a bit over lunch and I got it brighter, but I'm not sure I like how it took away the contrast in the trees.

I really like how the trees look, it's just the water and the one tree in the foreground that I want to lighten up.

Esa Paulasto

20:56

The curve tool can do that.

Matt S.

I think that's what I was using. But it applies to the whole photo.

So if I lighten up the water, the dark spots in the trees lighten up.

Which might not actually be bad. I'll put a picture of what it looks like when I do that after work.

Esa Paulasto

12

A: How levels and curves tools are related?

Levels are a special case of curves, where the curve is pinned at both ends and has one control point in between. The two pairs of "input levels" and "output levels" specify the coordinates of the end points of the curve. The "middle value" specificies the degree of curvature. Levels can only h...

JohannesD

21:13

Apropos brightness, has anyone else found Lightroom's auto tone a bit... overaggressive with regard to exposure adjustment?

Esa Paulasto

The steeper the curve goes, the more contrast there is between neighboring tones. Called local contrast. You can do some micromanaging of contrast on the tone region where the foliage is.

JohannesD

These days I like my photos a bit high-key and usually shoot with +1/3..1 EC

and Lightroom usually still wants to up the exposure by .5 EV or so

Esa Paulasto

There may be a limit to how many control points you can use. The software I use allows for six control points for a curve, and I find it to be enough, even thou I often really use all six. Only in some cases I wanted to have seven of them, but it was always more about me being lazy to move the six to meet my needs than actually needing seven.

@JohannesD - Sounds indeed a bit aggressive. I don't use LR, so that's foreign ground for me. In geneal I try to avoid all automatic fixes, wanting to do all by myself, but that's partly because of me being a beginner still, and learning the ropes comes natural when adjusting everything by hand (mouse;)

JohannesD

@EsaPaulasto I'm just too lazy to do full manual adjustment, often I end up tweaking the values anyway, but the autotone gives a better starting point than SOOC

anyway, maybe it's just how I like my photos these days, but the camera's default metering just seems way too dark :P

Esa Paulasto

21:35

It actually may be your camera's metering. For example some JPEG related settings affect metering even when you shoot RAW-only. The setting most commonly doing this is the one that attempts to increase dynamic range in JPEG mode. Named differently in Canon, Nikon, Sony and Olympus, but you know what I mean?

So, check if you have been playing with that kind of settings and then forgotten about it when you switched back to RAW-only mode.

JohannesD

21:53

Yeah, there's the highlight priority or whatever but that shouldn't be enabled

then there's the Auto Lighting Optimizer... should probably investigate how exactly it affects metering

Matt S.

@EsaPaulasto What do you use instead of lightroom?

Esa Paulasto

@MattS. Sony's own converter software plus GIMP for finishing.

There is an advantage in using Sony's converter for Sony RAWs. The software knows exactly what to do and how to read the RAW file. And it is free ;)

Matt S.

ah, I'm not patient enough for gimp.

Esa Paulasto

22:09

The downside is that denoising is not good (and I like to shoot the starry night sky) and sharpening tool is not good, and it can't crop and resize at one go.

So, I resize and sharpen (unsharpen mask) in GIMP. Denoising problem is still there, but it's a minor headache anyway.

What else I do with GIMP is to apply lens correction for those shots that I've taken with Samyang 14mm lens. And then make some corrections to perspective when needed. Such basic stuff really, and GIMP does them well enough, not testing my patience at all :)

Matt S.

I was indoctrinated into photoshop basically when it came out. So it's trying to find the tools that I'm used to using that frustrates me.

Esa Paulasto

Matt S.

I'm also not really a fan of how they did their ui. It feels cluttered and messy to me. Maybe if I had a desk set up with some monitors it'd be better.

Esa Paulasto

^^ a "GIMPed" photo :)

Matt S.

Those are funny angles for a building.

Esa Paulasto

22:24

Ah, yeh GIMP felt a bit cluttered until Inoticed I only need one sidepanel. So I turned the rest of them Off. They stay Off after restart, so I have it nice and clean now whenever I open Gimp.

It was shot with a 14mm lens. Quite distorted in every way. GIMP is easy to use for the kind of simple corrections that I need. Easy and quick.

Perfect tool for the jobs I need done.

Matt S.

Are the windows sticking out like that just the style? Or is there a reason the building isn't flat-sided?

Esa Paulasto

The reason is Finnish Architecture is just so cool ;)

Actually, most blocks of flats are flat sided. Boooring. But here they hired someone with ideas to design the building.

Especially the Japanese people seem to like Finnish design and architecture.

AJ Henderson

23:09

@EsaPaulasto that's why in-game gamma is your friend

@MattS. sounds like time for you to graduate to graduated filters...

Matt S.

How is this version? 500px.com/photo/72586309/floating-dock-by-matthew-schnoebelen

AJ Henderson

or atleast emulating them with gradient based exposure tools in post

Matt S.

@AJHenderson Maybe, I probably wouldn't have had the foresight to use one for that picture though :p

AJ Henderson

@JohannesD Lightroom has autotone? I didn't realize... I haven't used it in 5 years...

not lightroom mind you, the autotone ;)

actually, that's joking a bit, I have used it before just to see how badly it does, but I never use it when I'm really working on my photos

@MattS. honestly, with the dynamic range of modern camera's it is easier just to do it in post with a gradient exposure tool

especially since you'd lose more light on the sides from filter stacking

@JohannesD just set your white and black point and you'll be at a far better starting point than the auto tool on most shots

@MattS. white balance feels off now

it's slightly green

not a lot, but a hair

you might actually consider a slight selective desaturation on the green to allow you to bring up everything else a bit more while maintaining the overall tone of the foliage (maybe an 8% cut, maybe less)

Esa Paulasto

23:30

@AJH - Maybe. I haven't used gamma slider for ages, maybe they do it better nowadays? Long time ago when I used it, it made everything brighter, including black. Where there should have been black there was only dark grey, and color tones went kinda flat too. So that ended my using in-game gamma. Perhaps it works better nowadays.

Matt S.

500px.com/photo/72587637/floating-dock-by-matthew-schnoebelen

Like that?

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