Photography Development Life Cycle

Making Better Images

Karthik Abhirama Krishna

8 Aug 11

karthik.akrishna@tcs.com | 157721

What are we going to cover?

Requirement Gathering Analysis High Level Design Low Level Design Implementation UAT Maintenance

What are we going to cover?

Requirement Gathering = WHY / WHAT Analysis High Level Design = Overall Settings Low Level Design = Settings for the Optimum Shot Implementation = Taking the Photo, Post-Processing UAT

Disclaimer
I am not an expert
This presentation is only intended to share some tips & my approach that I hope others will find useful This is a creative art form, there are no hard rules

Digital Photography
Purpose WHY
Recording an event? For memory? For Facebook? For a poster? For an Advert? For emailing? Setting WHERE Do you have control of the subject, environment, lighting? Equipment Camera, hardware, software

Digital Photography

Whether youre shooting with a camera on a cellphone, a point & shoot camera or a high-end Digital SLR camera, the principle is this Light enters the camera through a lens and hits a sensor, that forms the final image. Process the images through software like Photoshop to produce your final picture (DEVELOPING).

Overall Settings
SET YOUR CAMERA TO CAPTURE AS MUCH INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE Megapixels

Better to shoot in the highest quality setting that your camera will allow eg. 5184 x 3456 FINE (the higher the better, since you can throw away more pixels if you have to crop) JPG is perfectly OK for most practical

RAW or JPG?

Overall Settings
SET YOUR CAMERA TO CAPTURE AS MUCH INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE Colour / B&W?

Shoot colour you can always turn the image into B&W later but you cant do the reverse

Set Date / Time on the Camera Getting a faster memory card will help

Shot Settings / Concepts

SET YOUR CAMERA TO THE OPTIMUM SETTING FOR THAT PARTICULAR SHOT Shutter speed (S or Tv)

Expressed in seconds (1/4000, 1/300, 1/60, 1/5, 1, 5, 30) Affects how long the camera is recording the image and also brightness Fast / high speed = Light enters for short time freezing motion use in

Slow Shutter Speed

Note the streaks produced by moving vehicles.

Fa s t S h u t t e r S p e e d

At 1/4000th of a second, you can capture segments of the display on an auto meter as they light up.

Aperture
Aperture (A or Av)

Expressed with f number (f1.8, f2.8, f5.6) Meaning = How much the lens opens up Affects Depth of Field (how much of the image is in focus) and also brightness Smaller f number = Higher opening shallow depth of field brighter Higher f number = Smaller opening more depth of field darker

Lens Apertures

F 1.8

F 4.5

F 22

Concepts
ISO

Light sensitivity affects brightness Expressed as a number ISO100, ISO200, ISO3200 Higher numbers work better for low light but also produce noise

Exposure

Overexposed = too bright Underexposed = too dark

White Balance

Concepts
Settings

Usually, Program Mode + Flash Off works well for most practical purposes Else, depending on the effect you want, use shutter priority or aperture priority and play with the white balance

Try out some test shots wherever you are... will help in ascertaining a good set of settings

Ta k i n g t h e S h o t
Taking the shot Tell your subjects to say CHEESE Hold the camera as still as possible / use a tripod or place it on a flat surface if you have to Use the lines / grid in the viewfinder to align straight edges as much as possible Take the shot

Holding the Camera

Use both hands as far as possible, hold the grip with the right hand and stabilise with the left hand

Using the Viewfinder

Line up objects (look for walls, floors, doors or other straight edges), grid will also help you apply rule of thirds

Concepts
TELL A STORY THROUGH THE PHOTO. SHOW ONLY WHAT IS REQUIRED AND GUIDE THE VIEWER TO SEE. DONT CONFUSE THE VIEWER. Composition (applies to still images and video too)

Horizon / Straight Lines Include relevant elements (your subject and anything else that is pleasing) and eliminate distracting elements Use Depth of Field to your advantage

Rule of Thirds
Visualise two horizontal & two vertical lines in the frame As if they are dividing up the frame into 9 equal areas Position subjects of interest at the intersecting points Enabling the display of a GRID in your viewfinder will help

Rule of Thirds

Rule of Thirds

Examples

Post-Production
ENHANCE YOUR SHOTS Originals are sacred work only on copies of the images Select your images

Look for well composed, sharp, clear images Only show others the good images no one has to ever see the bad shots except you (to learn from mistakes)

1 - Lens Distortion / Perspective Errors

Distortion / Perspective

Post-Production
ENHANCE YOUR SHOTS 2 - Straightening / Rotation

Straighten tool in Photoshop / Picasa Use objects that are naturally supposed to be straight as a reference Rotate by approximation

3 - Cropping

Crop out unnecessary elements, black or white areas produced by rotation

Rotation / Straightening

Post-Production
ENHANCE YOUR SHOTS 4 - Adjusting Lighting & Colour

Highlights / Midtones / Shadows Brightness / Contrast Levels Colour Variations Warm / Cool

Post-Production
ENHANCE YOUR SHOTS 5 - Sharpening

Unsharp Mask at 30% Export the worked-on image to a high quality lossless format If Im using Photoshop I save in PSD, else I use PNG Save lower resolution JPG images that suit your purpose (emailing / Facebook)

6 - Saving / Exporting

 U AT
Upload on Facebook and see how many Likes & Comments you get

Right one got more number of Likes

Wo r k f l o w
Always store the images that came straight from the camera in an accessible place

C:\Karthik_3\03 photos

Subfolder for Camera (N8, EOS 550D) Subfolder for Year_Month (2011_06, 2011_07)

Store the high resolution images with your edits also in an accessible place

C:\Karthik_3\00 new\images\karthik

Files named starting with yyyy_mm_dd-titleresolution (in both PSD and JPG)

Wo r k f l o w

Stuff I Use
Cameras / Lenses Canon EOS 550D with 18-55mm kit lens, 55-250mm zoom lens, 50mm f1.8 prime lens Nokia N8 Software Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0 (which came with my laptop) IrfanView http://irfanview.com

Final Notes
Repeat: This is a creative art form and there are no hard rules
Dont be constrained by these rules / tips But its useful to know them use them and break them selectively to your advantage!

T h a n k Yo u
Hope this was helpful do share your photographs!