Digital Photography - The Digital Darkroom.pdf 3ix6b

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Digital Darkroom: Removing Red -Eye, Contrast Adjustment, Cropping From "Digital Photography: The Digital Darkroom" Episode DPG-103

The Digital Darkroom Taking digital pictures is just half the fun of digital photography. Taking your pictures from camera to computer opens up a whole range of capabilities that once were available only to professionals. With some basic digital tools, you'll be able to manipulate, enhance and "fine -tune" photos after they've been taken. Using a PC, image-based software such as Adobe's Photoshop (TM), a scanner and a color printer, the photographer has a number of practical and special -effects options available that once required a full-blown darkroom with enlargers, photographic chemicals, specialized filters, etc. Now, with little more than the click of a mouse, it's possible to remove "red -eye" and other unwanted elements from a photo, adjust brightness and contrast, create photo montages and special effects, and even restore old or damaged photos. In some instances, imaging software can allow you to turn a bad photo into a good one.

Image-based software like Photoshop enables you to manipulate and enhance your photos in ways that once required professional darkroom techniques.

Removing Red-Eye from Flash Photos The red-eye effect is a common problem with indoor flash photography. The familiar red glow that appears in the center of a photo-subject's eye is actually caused, at the instant the flash goes off, by light reflecting off the retina at the back of the eye. Guest expert Rob Sheppard demonstrates how easy it is to remove the red-eye effect from a photo using Adobe's Photoshop Elements (TM) program. l

With the picture loaded onto the computer and opened in Photoshop, the first step is to use the magnifying tool to enlarge the portion of the image with the redeye effect.

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The program has a useful tool, designed just for this purpose, called a red-eye brush tool. Simply click on the red-eye icon (figure A ) to access the tool. Next, click the icon labelled "Default Colors."

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With the picture magnified to show the red-eye in detail, simply place the tool cursor (it appears as a cross-hair) over the red area (figure B ) and click your mouse. The red-eye will begin to disappear, being replaced with black or dark pixels to match the normal black pupil of the eye.

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Repeat these steps for each red-eye problem area.

Rob Sheppard, editor of PC Photo magazine, talks with Rick Sammon about some of the things that you can do in the "digital darkroom."

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There are other methods for altering photos digitally to remove red-eye, but the fact that this program offers a specialized tool just for this purpose makes the process very fast and easy.

Salvaging a Dark Image Using Brightness/Contrast Another common problem with snapshot photos is underexposure of the subject. This

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can be due to photographing in low-light situations without a flash or shooting your subject against a light background so that the subject's features appear dark and shaded. If the problem isn't too severe, a dark photo like this can sometimes be salvaged or improved using the brightness and/or contrast adjustments in the image software. Here are the steps: Figure C l

In Photoshop, open your image, then select the menu item "Enhance." Under the Enhance menu, select the "Brightness/Contrast" option (figure C ).

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This will open a window with an interface that will allow you to adjust either brightness or contrast (or both) by dragging slide controls back and forth with your mouse (figure D).

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In some cases, a photo that's too dark can be fixed simply by raising the overall brightness level of the photo. If, however, there are light and dark areas, raising the overall brightness to adjust the darkened area may result in the lighter areas (such as a light-sky background) becoming too light, or "washed out." Try playing with the brightness and contrast controls to see whether you can achieve a balance that gives good detail in the subject without overbrightening the background. Your image will adjust to reflect your enhancements as you make changes. Once you strike a balance that you're happy with, simply click "OK" to save your changes and make them permanent.

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Photoshop offers a special menu-tool for this situation called "Fill Flash" (figure E). When selected, this tool will assess the overall picture and calculate changes necessary to lighten only the darker areas of the image without overadjusting or washing out the brighter background. In many cases, this tool may be the most effective means to get the best results. As with the "Brightness/Contrast" adjustment, the "Fill Flash" tool provides an interface (figure F) with a slider that allows you to choose the degree of brightening. It also has a "Preview" button that allows you to compare the unaltered image with your enhanced one. Once you're happy with your enhancements, simply click "OK" to save the changes.

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Cropping Images With some photos, you may want to crop out an unwanted portion of an image to feature only the main subject of the photograph. In traditional photography, this is done using an enlarger to magnify the image so that only a portion of the image will be printed on the photographic paper. With digital image-enhancement, this is even simpler. l

Photoshop provides a crop tool that's designed specifically for this purpose. Simply click on the crop icon (figure G) to access the crop tool.

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Use your mouse and cursor to draw a box around the the portion of the image you want to include and highlight the key area (figure H). You can use your cursor to move the lines of the box, if you wish, to adjust the size of the highlighted area.

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Once you're happy with the area you've selected, click "OK" to crop the image. The areas outside the highlighted box will be removed, leaving only the area of the image you've specified (figure I).

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To make your changes permanent, select "Save" under the "File" menu.

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Resources > Rick Sammon, professional photographer > Special Thanks for DIY's Digital Photography workshop, episodes 101-105 > Adobe Photoshop > PC Photo magazine > The Complete Idiot's Guide to Digital Photography > Complete Digital Photography > 50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques > Rob Sheppard, photographer and photo -computing specialist

Related Projects > Creating a Digital Slide Show > Digital Cameras: Memory Cards and Batteries > Digital Cameras: Shutter Delay, Continuous Mode and Action Photography > Creating Greeting Cards With Your Digital Photos > Digital Photography Primer > Digital Photography: Printing Your Digital Photos > Turning Digital Photos into Graphic Art > Digital Photography: Controlling Exposure > Creating Photo Albums Digitally > Digital Photography: Presenting Digital Images

Figure I

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Digital Darkroom: Special Effects and Photo Montages From "Digital Photography: The Digital Darkroom" Episode DPG-103

Image-software packages such as Photoshop (TM) offer a wide range of menu options and commands that allow you to do some pretty amazing things with your photographs. Filter Effects Under the Filters menu item, the cutout filter allows you to turn an ordinary photograph into a graphic image that looks like a collage made from from cut-out paper. In our demonstration, we began with a color photo of a macaw (figure A ). By opening the image in Photoshop, then selecting the menu item "Filters," and the options "Artistic" and "Cutout," an interface appears (figure B) that allows you to set several levels and tolerances. By watching the preview screen within the interface, you can see the effects of the changes you're making. Once you're satisfied with your selections, click "OK" to initiate the changes.

Rick Sammon shows how to use digital darkroom techniques to achieve special effects such as this photo montage created with digitally overlaid images.

The program will go through some calculations that will take a few seconds, then will display the new image with the cutout effect (figure C ). A much different effect can be achieved with the graphic pen filter. Simply select "Sketch," under the "Filters" menu, then select "Graphic Pen." As before, you'll then see an interface (figure D) that will let you set some parameters with respect to this filter. Adjust the levels as you wish, then click "OK" to initiate your changes.

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After a few seconds, the graphic pen effect will be displayed (figure E). These are only two examples of a great many filters and effects that are available in this program. Experiment with these, and others, to expand your creative options.

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NOTE : As you make changes to an image, you can always reverse the changes you've made by selecting the "Undo" menu option. To make your changes permanent, select "Save" from the File menu.

Creating a Photo Montage

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One fun application of the Photoshop software is the creation of photo montages from several digital photographs or scanned images. In our demonstration, Rick Sammon superimposed a photo of a frog into a snapshot of his son Marco and his pet cockatiel -- giving the effect that both the frog and the bird were perched on the boy's shoulders. He began with two separate digital photos open in Photoshop: the snapshot and the color picture of the frog (figure F).

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To do this, he first selected and copied the frog image. He then activated the window of the snapshot by clicking on that image. From the edit menu, he pasted the frog image into the snapshot image.

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Using his cursor, he dragged the frog image to the part of the snapshot where he wanted it superimposed.

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The background of the frog image didn't match the background of the snapshot, so some image alteration was needed.

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To create a uniform background, the frog image was first magnified, using the "Zoom" tool (figure G), to enlarge the area of the image to be altered.

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With the image enlarged so he could see it better, Sammon then selected the "Erase" tool.

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Once the erase tool was selected, he was able to pick the size of his "digital eraser" from an array of brush-sizes (figure H ). He opted for a brush selection that simulates an airbrush effect, to create soft edges and better transitions between the superimposed images.

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He then used the selected tool to erase the dark areas from around the frog image (figure I), so that the superimposed image blended seamlessly into the snapshot for a believable effect.

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In the finished image (figure J), it would be difficult to discern that the frog was only superimposed and not part of the original snapshot.

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With a little imagination, you can achieve some surprising effects by combining individual photos to create montages.

Resources > Rick Sammon, professional photographer > Special Thanks for DIY's Digital Photography workshop, episodes 101-105 > Adobe Photoshop > PC Photo magazine > The Complete Idiot's Guide to Digital Photography > Complete Digital Photography > 50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques

Related Projects > Printing a Digital Image on a T-Shirt > Digital Photography: Printing Your Digital Photos > Digital Photography: Digital Cameras, Quick and Easy > Creating Greeting Cards With Your Digital Photos > Digital Photo Tips: Using Color Modes and Color Manipulation > Creating Photo Albums Digitally > Digital Darkroom: Restoring Old or Damaged Photos > Creating a Personalized Calendar from Your Digital Photos > Digital Photography: Presenting Digital Images

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Digital Darkroom: 360 -Degree Panoramas From "Digital Photography: The Digital Darkroom" Episode DPG-103

Most people are familiar with the popular panoramic cameras that take impressive, extrawide photos. The pictures made with these cameras provide an expanded perspective and a greater sense of "being there" by including more of the scene within the picture. For that reason panoramic cameras are particularly popular with vacationers, and the feature is even available on a number of the throwaway cameras you can pick up almost anywhere.

Some people will also try to achieve a similar makeshift effect by simply taking two or more photos from a specific location, then splicing the prints together with tape (figure A).

Host Rick Sammon shoots a series of images at the Venice Canals near Los Angeles. Later, he'll "stitch them together" to create a striking interactive panorama.

As you might expect, computers have enabled a new means of taking the panoramic effect to some impressive new heights. It's now possible to take photographs in such a way as to reproduce a landscape or scene that allows the viewer to see in all directions. Figure A

With some very specialized software, it's possible to take a series of digital photos from a fixed point, then digitally splice all of the images together to create a seamless, scrollable, interactive panorama. The end product is a composite picture that allows the viewer to "look all around" the image by scrolling with the mouse. This high-tech digital effect gives the illusion that the viewer is, in effect, "inside the photograph," and able to look in all directions. This can be particularly impressive when used with photos of beautiful landscapes, but there are many other creative uses for this technology.

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Several companies have authored software that achieve this 360-degree -image effect. In our demonstration, Rick Sammon utilized a program called Cool 360 (TM) by Ulead (TM). This particular program is designed for personal use and is -friendly enough for beginners. Following are the steps that go into creating one of these interactive vistas. 1.

Select a good vantage point that provides an interesting view in all directions.

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Set up your camera on a tripod (figure B) that will allow it to swivel on a horizontal plane in all directions. The tripod will help you line up your pictures and ensure that the horizon line in all of the photographs will be level. This will later enable you to create an even and seamless panorama.

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With the vantage point selected, and your camera mounted on the tripod, take

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your series of pictures, taking care to include all of the necessary shots to encom the entire 360-degree vista (figures C, D, E, F, G, H ). In our demonstration, Sammon took six shots. (With a wide-angle lens, this will require fewer shots.) Important: Take your series of pictures so that sequential pictures overlap by about 15 percent. This will help ensure that the image program will later be able to stitch the images together seamlessly, without visible breaks or transitions.

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Once you've taken your pictures, you're ready to transfer them into the computer. (For information on this process, see "Transferring Digital Images to Your Computer" in episode 101 of the Digital Photography workshop.) For ease in importing the pictures into the Cool 360 program, name your photos with numbers to indicate their sequence, and place them in a single folder on your desktop. Figure F

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With your photos ed onto your computer, and the Cool 360 program launched, select "New Project" from the initial screen.

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The next screen will give you some menu choices. Under "Project Type," select "Full 360-Degree Panorama" (figure I). Click "Next" to continue. Figure G

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Browse to the folder containing your photos, open the folder and begin adding your images into the program (figure J ). In this program, you may choose to add your photos one at a time or a all at once. Once you've added all of your photos, click "Next" to continue.

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You'll then need to select your camera's lens-type from a lens menu (figure K ). This will allow the program to properly present your images based on the optics of your camera's lens. In our demonstration, our lens was a Kodak DC40.

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Once you've added your images and selected your lens type, click "Finish" to initiate the finalizing process. The program will then create a continuous, panoramic image from your individual photographs (figure L).

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There is one final step. In the newly created 360-degree image, you may need to adjust the brightness or contrast of the individual pictures to make sure the transitions are invisible. Visible transitions can be caused by variations in lighting between individual shots. Click on any photo that you want to adjust, then use the adjustment menu (figure M) to make changes to the brightness, contrast, hue and color saturation. With some minor tweaking, you should be able to match all of the pictures so that the transitions are practically imperceptible.

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Once you're satisfied with your changes, click "Finish" to complete the project.

Resources > Rick Sammon, professional photographer > Special Thanks for DIY's Digital Photography workshop, episodes 101-105 > The Complete Idiot's Guide to Digital Photography > Complete Digital Photography

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When shooting a panoramic series, it's important to overlap adjacent images by about 15 percent to ensure you get good transitions between individual images.

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> 50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques > Ulead's Cool 360®

Related Projects > Digital Cameras: Shutter Delay, Continuous Mode and Action Photography > Digital Darkroom: Removing Red -Eye, Contrast Adjustment, Cropping > Creating Photo Albums Digitally > Digital Cameras: Pixels and Image Resolution > Digital Photography: Transferring Images to Your Computer > Digital Photography: Digital Imagery via the Net > Digital Photography: Presenting Digital Images > Digital Cameras: Automatic and Manual Exposure > Digital Photography: Digital Images Without a Digital Camera

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Digital Darkroom: Restoring Old or Damaged Photos From "Digital Photography: The Digital Darkroom" Episode DPG-103

With a scanner and some photo-enhancing software, you can create duplicate images of old photos and digitally eliminate scratches, cracks or spots that appear on the original. This is a process that until fairly recently would have involved sending your photographs to a retouch specialist. Now you can do the same thing at home on your PC. You may even be able to enhance the duplicate image so that it looks better than the original -bringing out contrast and detail and counteracting the effects of aging and fading. The first step is to digitize the image so that it can be loaded onto your computer. To do this, you'll need a scanner -- a computer accessory that acts much like a copy machine but creates digital rather than paper duplicates of images. The scanned image is imported into the computer as a digital file.

Precious family photos that have become damaged or faded can be digitally restored using a scanner and some basic photo-enhancing software.

Lay your photo face down on the scanner (figure A ) and scan in the image according to the instructions that come with your scanning software. With the image scanned into your computer (figure B), you're ready to begin work restoring and enhancing the image.

Removing Water Spots or Age Spots

The original photo (BEFORE) and the digitally restored duplicate (AFTER).

In our demonstration, the aged family photo had some spots due to aging as well as a prominent crack and some fading. To remove the spots from the digital image: l

Use the Zoom tool to magnify the area of the image with one of the age spots so that it is easily visible.

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Select the Clone-Stamp tool, sometimes called the rubber-stamp tool (figure C). This tool allows you to sample a small area from the photograph -- from a location near the spot you'll be removing -- and superimpose this sampled section over the damaged spot.

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The stamp tool works in such a way as to avoid visible, sharp lines, and effectively replace the discoloration with the corrected color, shade and pattern (figure D). With a little practice in sampling, you'll be able to remove most imperfections so that correction is virtually invisible. Figure B

Fixing a Cracked or Scratched Photo Surface imperfections like cracks (figure E) and scratches can also be removed from a digitized photo using similar methods: Figure C

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Use the zoom tool to magnify the area of the image with the crack.

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Select the clone-stamp tool. With that tool selected, we opted for a smaller brush size (figure F) since the width of the crack is fairly narrow. This tool allows you to sample a small area from the photograph -- from a location near the spot you'll be removing -- and superimpose this sampled section over the damaged spot.

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The stamp tool is used in much the same way that it was to remove the age spot, sampling from the areas near the crack and then, bit by bit, replacing the lighter crack area with the darker surrounding areas (figure G). This technique requires a little artistry, but you'll get better with practice. The advantage of doing this digitally is that, if you should make a mistake, you can simply rescan the photo original and try again.

The results are a restored photo-duplicate (figure H) with the damaged areas digitally "repaired."You may want to go a step or two further, however: l

Old photographs are sometimes lacking in contrast and definition because of the limitations of early photo techniques, and age may worsen this problem with fading. You may be able to bring out some detail and definition and make for a more dramatic -looking image by adjusting the brightness and contrast (figure I ) under the "Enhance" menu. Make these adjustments slowly and carefully to avoid overadjusting.

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Photoshop also provides burning and dodging tools, which emulate a technique used in real darkrooms. With these digital tools, you can judiciously lighten particular areas to accentuate detail. A common use of burning is to darken the outer areas in a portrait, drawing the viewer's focus to the subject at the center of the photo.

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Another technique you might try is to use the dodging tool -- selecting a very small brush size -- to brighten the whites of a portrait subject's eyes.

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The cumulative effect of contrast adjustment and selective burning and dodging can result in a more dramatic photo (figure J). These techniques can be used in a variety of ways in other types of photos as well. Read the manual and documentation that come with your image software for more tips and examples.

Resources > Rick Sammon, professional photographer > Special Thanks for DIY's Digital Photography workshop, episodes 101-105 > Adobe Photoshop > The Complete Idiot's Guide to Digital Photography > Complete Digital Photography > 50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques

Related Projects > Digital Cameras: Memory Cards and Batteries > Digital Photography: Presenting Digital Images > Digital Photography: Printing Your Digital Photos > Digital Cameras: Pixels and Image Resolution > Creating Greeting Cards With Your Digital Photos > Creating Photo Albums Digitally > Digital Darkroom: Special Effects and Photo Montages > Digital Cameras: Automatic and Manual Exposure > Creating a Digital Slide Show

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