Author Archive for Kjell Harald

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13
Nov

print swapping

By Kjell Harald 1 Comment
Categories: print exchange

A couple of weeks back, Eric Jeschke and I started a print swap. I sent him this shot

 

and I got this one back, called “Evening Swim“.

It was a really nice picture contrasting the action of kids having fun jumping into the water with the calm mood of the sunset. It was also printed well.

I’ve been doing these swaps for a while now, and I’m starting to accumulate a stack of prints from different people. No doubt the technical quality varies, but they are all a joy to own, and I’m starting to learn more and more from this. First of all, don’t ever underestimate the kind of abuse the postal service will do to your envelope. Sturdy packing is essential, even if it is a bit more expensive to ship due to weight. The important thing is how they work as a reference to measure my own effort against. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys the printed image, and want to improve their own skills.

13
Nov

Not the night for shooting

By Kjell Harald 0 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized

I went out last night with my camera thinking I should do some more night shots, but it turned out that what I needed was a fast walk. Lately, my wife and I have worked on her getting her drivers license, which she did yesterday. This has consumed a lot of time driving around the last couple of months, and we both noticed the tension prior to her exam. It went really well, so we’re both happy, but I certainly did not have the right state of mind to do any shooting. Hopefully this will change now that things are calming down.

02
Nov

some night shots

By Kjell Harald 0 Comments
Categories: pictures

I originally thought of something like this for the SoFoBoMo project, but the evenings in May aren’t really dark enough, so i put it on hold. More on the idea and concept later when I have done some more shooting  and thinking. It still haven’t settled in my mind.

 

02
Nov

cropping tool in Lightroom

By Kjell Harald 0 Comments
Categories: software

I still haven’t settled on my input sharpening, mostly due to lack of time for experimenting. I’ve read a couple of small articles on the subject, but it seems that most don’t really know what their talking about. The main problem is the “Detail” slider. One thing is to just fiddle with the sliders until it looks about right, but I want a systematic approach to it. A way to quickly set the sliders very close to the optimum. If I just turn “Detail” to 100%, I have a pretty good method for the others.

Anyway, I was doing some quick processing of some recent takes when the grid in the cropping tool suddenly disappeared. Things like this happens from time to time if I accidentally press some button. The good thing is that I then learn a keyboard shortcut in order to fix it again.

The shortcut in question is the letter “O”. Press this when in crop mode, and you’ll toggle through a series of different grid overlays. Some of them are not symmetrical, and those can be flipped around by pressing Shift-O. Still haven’t figured out how I turn it off, but I like it on, so I don’t bother.

24
Oct

input sharpening in LightRoom 2

By Kjell Harald 0 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized

I was about to write a post on how I adjust the input sharpening in LightRoom2, but while I wrote, I started to rethink the method I was using. I need to experiment some more.

18
Oct

local corrections, Lightroom or Photoshop

By Kjell Harald 3 Comments
Categories: software and technique

It’s been a while since LR 2 came about, and I’m increasingly fond of the new gradient and brush tool for local correction, but it’s definitely not for everything. Like with everything that is new, I have used this tool maybe a little too much lately, making it a bit difficult for myself. The thing is, even if it is local adjustments, they are not as precise as in Photoshop. First of all, unless you have one hell of a computer, the time you wait for the spinning beach ball (hour glass in Windows) will limit how much tweaking you do to a mask. My computer, an 8 core mac pro, really kick ass, so this isn’t that much of an issue for me, but I have tried to use it on a 2.16GHz iMac and it was not that fun. The second thing that limits the precision is that you have to paint the mask by hand. Ok, you can get some help, but the vast number of methods for creating masks in Photoshop is unbeatable. As a side note, the lack of precision when creating masks was my main issue against LightZone. This was even more annoying than LightRoom since the masks were made by creating vector drawings. Anyway, it seems like it is very important to not get stuck in LightRoom  when Photoshop can do a much better job, even now when LightRoom has become this versatile.

18
Oct

lots of subtle changes

By Kjell Harald 0 Comments
Categories: photoshop and technique

This was so obvious when it suddenly dawned on me. The reason why I mostly end up with very few layers in my Photoshop editing is that I tend to try and make all the curve adjustment in one layer. One layer for dodging and burning, one layer for correcting colors and so on. So figuratively speaking, I wanted to paint the entire scene without lifting the brush from the canvas.

When I analyzed Diane Varners example a bit closer, I see her doing many small adjustments, and when I looked back at some of my more successful images, that is also what I have done. While doing this, you should pay attention to whether you start to create layers that reverse the effect of a previous layer instead of removing the previous. When I have done this, I have made my worst failures.

So, adding many small and subtle adjustments seems like an easier approach than doing it all in one stroke. And why not, this is what you do if you draw or paint.

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