We perceive the world around us by looking and observing things, people, lines, etc. Ever wondered why diagonal lines, curves and specific object placement are pleasing to most people, even to those who are not involved in art? That’s because every brain comes pre-equipped with some tools that help us visualize what looks good and what doesn’t. These visual tools are already there, but they might not be fully “activated” by you. How would you do that? With lots of training, learning, patience and interest in your craft, it is just a matter of time. There is no shortcut, no magic bullet.

Once you fully unlock and activate all the visual tools, your brain can take your past experiences or “visual imprints”, along with your imagination, and effectively use these tools to develop a unique style. Your form of expression, your perception of the world.

The more I work on the creative front and the more I take photographs, I come back to this simple concept of finding something pleasing and unique to my eyes only, which rarely fits into the square box of set rules.

I am not a big museum buff, you may not find me looking through old art books seeking inspiration. For each his/her own… I look for beauty, as I perceive it, around me, in my everyday life. I look at women, children, men while on a walk and think of concepts befitting them, seeing something that someone else may not see. At times my mind is just blank…

With whatever I have in my visual arsenal, I sit down and work on my photographs. Some of them rarely need post-processing, as I visualized and shot them just the way I wanted. Other times, I come back knowing that I may be tweaking certain things, by adding or removing some elements, which again, has to do with my own perception of things.

My dear friends, there is no perfect skin color correction method that will fit everyone out there. There is no best way to bring out colors and make something visually attractive. Trying to do everything by the book may be absolutely appalling to your personal vision. While hard work to master any skill is necessary, I genuinely ask you not to try too hard in developing your style right away. Give yourself some time and save yourself from burning out. Trust your instincts, be a child, learn the basics, give yourself and your visual perception recognition… These are the things I tell myself every day and I hope you will not mind a free thinking post today on Mansurovs.

By the way, lunar eclipses typically happen more often than solar eclipses. Photographing the moon is a very different process when compared to photographing the sun. See my how to photograph a lunar eclipse article for more details.

1) The Danger of Viewing and Photographing a Solar Eclipse

Before I talk about the process of photographing a solar eclipse, let me first talk about the dangers of doing it. First of all, you should never look directly at the sun with your eyes, especially through a DSLR viewfinder that shows the sun much more magnified. Remember Galileo or those crazy Indians that stared at the sun and went blind? You surely do not want the same faith. Looking at the sun through the viewfinder without blocking any light, especially UV can result in immediate blindness. See this article on Wikipedia for more details.

So what do you do? If you prefer to see the eclipse with your naked eyes, then get a pair of eclipse glasses. If you cannot find them or it is too late to get them now, then there are two things you can do:

1. Build a small pinhole camera/projector
2. Use the camera’s liveview/LCD for viewing the sun

Building a small pinhole camera/projector is very simple. Just grab two pieces of cards, make a small hole in one card, then hold the card above the other one and align them with the sun. The sun’s image will be projected through the hole into the second card. If you want something more advanced, check this tutorial out.

The second method to view the sun through the camera LCD is what I did. First, make sure to mount a very dense/strong neutral density filter in front of your lens. Then, use your camera’s LiveView function to look at the sun. It is ideal to have a camera that allows manual exposure control, so that you could stop down the lens and increase the shutter speed while looking at the sun through live view. Bear in mind that if the ND filter is not strong enough, viewing the sun through the LCD could actually damage your camera. Either way, I would not use LiveView for more than a minute or two, since it could overheat the image sensor. I only used LiveView when taking pictures and turned the camera off in between. When the sun is too bright during partial eclipse, unless you have something like Hoodman loupe, you might not see much when looking at the LCD though.

If you have a point and shoot camera with a relatively small lens, the same eclipse glasses you war could be used as neutral density filters. Just hold one in front of the lens and it should work great.

2) Photographing the Sequence

One thing you need to decide on, is whether you want to shoot the entire sequence of the solar eclipse, or just the middle of the process (period of totality) when the moon blocks most of the sun, creating a “ring of fire”. I would personally recommend to document the whole process from the beginning to the end, so that you have pictures of all the phases – from partial eclipse to totality and then back to partial eclipse. The nice thing about having the entire sequence in pictures, is that you can later combine images together, creating a nice sequence.

Bear in mind, you will have to be very patient though, as the process could take a while. If for whatever reason you cannot stay for the entire duration of the eclipse, then I would just stay for the total eclipse to capture the “ring of fire”.

3) Camera Equipment and Lenses

When it comes to photographing a solar eclipse, the type of equipment you are using plays a huge role. Using a camera with a bare lens is not going to work, because the sun is way too bright (especially during partial eclipse) – it will be totally blown out. Even stopping down to a very small aperture like f/22 and lowering ISO to the lowest value might result in an exposure faster than what your camera allows. Therefore, you need a very strong neutral density filter that would block most of the light from the sun, allowing you to use slower shutter speeds and larger apertures. If the neutral density filter is not strong enough, you might need a couple – in my case, I had a 6 stop ND filter stacked with a 3 stop ND filter together, but a 10 stop ND filter would be better. Stacking multiple filters is not a problem, because you will be shooting with your longest lens at its longest focal length anyway.

Talking about lenses, the longer the lens, the better. I used the Nikon 300mm f/4 AF-S with a 1.4x teleconverter, because I had it handy. Longer lenses are ideal, so if you have a 600mm lens with a teleconverter in your arsenal, then get them ready! My 300mm was already mounted to my Nikon D700, so I did not bother changing the camera body.

Camera does not matter, because you will be capturing the solar eclipse at the lowest ISO. Cropped-sensor/DX cameras would work great, because they provide better magnification on the pixel level.

4) Camera Settings

Camera settings are quite simple. Here is what I recommend:

1. Set your camera and lens on a tripod.
2. Set your ISO to the lowest value like 100.
3. Set your camera mode to Manual.
4. Start out at the fastest shutter speed your camera has to offer, such as 1/8000 and see if you need to lower it.
5. Start out at f/8 and stop down a little more if the shutter speed is too fast. If the sun comes out too bright and overexposed, it means that you are using a weak ND filter.

Depending on what ND filter you are using, your shutter speed should be fast enough to not cause any vibration issues. I was shooting between 1/500 to 1/8000, depending on the phase of the eclipse and how bright I wanted to sun to come out.

5) Focus Accuracy and Sharpness

No matter what lens you are using, getting a very accurate focus on the sun and moon is extremely important. I know that some photographers suggest to shoot at infinity using the lens marks, but since many lenses now allow focusing “beyond infinity”, getting a true infinity focus is not that easy – a slight inaccuracy in focus will make the sun and moon appear blurry. Forget about trying to acquire focus on the sun without an ND filter – it is too bright and could be too small in the frame for that. What I would do, is point your lens at a really far object and focus on that object (either through viewfinder or LiveView). Instead of dealing with refocusing every time you take a picture, I highly recommend to switch off autofocus once you get an accurate focus. Take a picture and use the LCD screen of the camera to see how sharp the sun is. Zoom in all the way and make sure that the sun appears sharp.

One more thing I would like to point out, is if you are using a lens with a teleconverter, or if you are using a consumer zoom lens, the optics are probably not very sharp when shooting at large apertures. Stopping down the lens aperture to f/8-f/11 should give you the sharpest results. Don’t use apertures larger than f/16 – diffraction will kick in and make the moon appear even softer.

6) Composition

Unless you are shooting at short focal lengths with a foreground object or some sort of a scene, don’t worry about composition – place the sun anywhere in your frame. The location does not matter, since you can easily crop the sun out in post-processing. If you have some thick clouds in your frame, then play with the exposure a little and see if you can use clouds as part of your composition. Here is an image that I captured with the clouds, when clouds opened up a little bit during the start of the eclipse:

7) Post-processing

As for post-processing, aside from cropping and playing with white balance and saturation levels, the only issue you might have is dealing with some noise that might show up even at the lowest ISO levels. Noise levels will increase if you underexpose and try to brighten up in post-processing, so try to expose the sun correctly (you can also bracket your shots). If noise is an issue, see my “noise reduction tutorial” that I posted a while ago – there are plenty of tips in that article on how to clean up noise in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

What Is It?

The Tone Curve represents all the tones of your image. The bottom axis of the Tone Curve is the Tone axis: the line starts with Shadows at the left-most end and ends with Highlights in the right-most end. In the middle you have Midtones, which are then further split into darker Midtones, called Darks in Lightroom, and brighter Midtones, called Lights. In other words, going left to right, the curve starts with Shadows, Darks, Lights and ends with Highlights. You can also see the corresponding range shown to you by Lightroom once you hover over a specific slider under the Tone Curve, in the Region section of the Panel. The Y axis represents lightness of a given tones. The tones get darker as you move lower and brighter as you move up the axis.

While all of this may sound very technical, it is in fact quite simple to adjust. All you need to decide on is which range of tones you want to alter, for example: if you want to make the Midtones of the image darker, just click on the middle portion of the Tone Curve and gently drag it downwards – you will notice your image getting darker as you drag it, similarly as it would if you were to decrease Exposure in the Basic Panel. If, on the other hand, you wanted to make your Shadows part of the image brighter, you should click on the left-most third of the Tone Curve which represents the Shadows and gently drag it upwards to see them brighten up. Simple, isn’t it?

Region Curve and Point Curve

Lightroom has two different Curves you can work with. The one that I’ve been showing you so far (the enlarged screenshot at the top) is the easiest to operate, especially for beginners – lets call it the Region Curve for simplicity sake. When you’re using this Curve, Lightroom basically helps you keep it as smooth in transition as possible, so that you don’t ruin your image by accidentally distorting the Curve too much. You can either adjust it by dragging the Curve itself or using the sliders bellow it, which will give you exactly the same flexibility. You can also adjust it using an automated Lighroom tool, which appears as a dot at the top left of the Tone Curve Panel, right next to the Tone Curve. All you have to do is click on it to turn the tool on and then click-and-drag on the particular tone range or area of the image to adjust it. Even if you tried hard, however, you could not make a, say, “N” shaped Curve using Region Curve simply because Lightroom is aiding you by keeping a smooth tonal transition – a very useful feature, really, it saves you from ending up with something like this:

But then there is another Curve you can use if you do need to make adjustments not possible with the Region Curve, and it is called Point Curve. You can activate it by clicking a small square button at the bottom right of the Tone Curve Panel. Once you do that, you will instantly notice sliders disappear only to be replaced with one control – Channel. This setting allows you to choose which color – Red, Green or Blue – you want to alter (the default is set to RGB, which includes all colors). Changing individual colors opens up a whole new range of editing possibilities, like simulation of film cross-processing (deliberately using wrong chemicals to develop film and get crazy cool colors), but we won’t be getting into that this time – that’s a whole new article. Lets leave the Channel setting at its default RGB mode.

The idea of Point Curve is that you can alter it whichever way you like and make a complete mess out of your image – Lightroom will not get in your way. It’s a great tool for some advanced B&W and color work, but is also very useful when used as a starting point to work with Region Curve afterwards, much like the tone curve your camera uses when you take photographs. Lightroom actually allows you to choose one of the default settings of the Point Curve to use as a starting point – you can choose it by clicking on the drop-down list at the bottom left of the Tone Curve panel in either Region Curve or Point Curve mode.

I plan to discuss the use of the Point Curve in greater detail in future tutorials as it offers a complete new range of creative editing. For now, lets focus on the simpler and more popular Range Curve (and simply call it Tone Curve further on before it gets too confusing).

The Easy Part

As I have already mentioned, working with the Tone Curve is actually very easy. Depending on what you want to achieve, there are basically only four things you need to remember.

1) How To Make Your Image Pop

Most of the time, this is the primary intention when using Tone Curve. Sometimes you may find that, after you’re done with the Basic Panel adjustments, while everything may technically be correct, there is still something missing, something to make that photograph look worlds better than it does. And you can see it in your head – it should look better, but why doesn’t it?

There are a few ways you can adjust the Tone Curve to give your picture that bit of magic it seems to lack initially, but by messing with it too much, you might as well end up with a horrible, unrecognizable image. The most dependable technique is adding a slight “S” curve by dragging the lower third of the curve down slightly, and the upper third of the curve slightly upwards. What this does is darken the shadows, which is the lower third of the Curve, and lightens the bright portions of the image, which are represented by the upper third of the Curve. You may just as well use the sliders under the Tone Curve to specifically change exactly what you want.

Lets take the above picture and try to add a little more contrast to it by playing with the Tone Curve. By setting the Lights slider to +29, I boosted the brighter portions of the image while still retaining enough tones to keep them from blowing out. By moving the Darks slider to -39, I’ve darkened the shadowy parts of the image, yet not enough to make them completely black. This is what I got (enlarge and use arrow keys to compare; note changes in the Panel):

Looks much better, doesn’t it? And with such a modest adjustment, too. You may notice color has changed somewhat as well – it’s a bit more saturated now, deeper, especially the cherries. While in this case I don’t mind extra punch in colors, it would be nice if I could set the effect to Luminance only – too bad Lightroom didn’t add such feature with the new version, Photoshop allows one to do that. Still, I can always bring those colors down by adjusting the Vibrance slider in the Basic Panel if needed.

2) And If You Want Less…

…all you need to do is set the curve to reverse “S” by bringing the Lights down and upping the Darks a little. You may want to do that when you find the image to be too contrasty as it is, or if you want to achieve a certain low contrast look. Setting the Tone Curve into reverse “S” will flatten the image, bring Lights and Highlights closer to Darks and Shadows in their tonality. This also helps if you have blown-out portions of image that you want to fix specifically with this tool, although you should always remember the Tone Curve works best in conjunction with the rest of the tools you can find in Lightroom.

Lets see what happens if you push the upper half of the Tone Curve slightly down (Lights at -50) and the lower half of it upwards (Darks at +50):

Looks much more flat, and the colors are less vibrant, too. This kind of Curve adjustment can often serve B&W photographs very well. Have you ever wondered why some of those black & white’s are so dreamy and moody? A low contrast Curve might just be one of the reasons, take a look:

3) Don’t Overcook It

Too much is usually not a good thing, and Tone Curve adjustments follow this rule. Altering the Curve too drastically may lead to blown-out highlights and pitch-black shadows, so unless this is what you’re after, play safe and adjust the Tone Curve along with Basic Panel settings to get the best result. Remember, while it is one of the most powerful tools in Lightroom, you may end up ruining your image just as easily as enhancing it.

4) Experiment!

You may find that you only need to alter Lights, or Highlights, or maybe turn that straight line into a zigzag. Experiment! It’s the best way you can learn quickly and find new techniques to enhance your images on your own and then, hopefully, share them with others.

Good luck!

1) Identity Plate

You can brand your copy of Lightroom for your photography business by inserting your logo to the top left corner of the software through the “Identity Plate” setup. You can get to the “Identity Plate Setup” by clicking on Edit -> Identity Plate Editor. Make sure to check the “Enable Identity Plate” checkbox, otherwise you will see the default Lightroom logo at the top left of the window. In the editor, you can either use a stylized text Identity Plate, or a graphical Identity Plate.

Stylized text Identity Plate allows you to input any text you want to show at the left side of your Modules Panel. Use the drop-down menus to set the font, style, size and color of any text (or a part of it). Using text makes it very easy and quick to change the Identity Plate at any time.

Using Graphical Identity Plate allows for more flexibility – you can turn any image into an Identity Plate. Using PNG instead of JPEG format offers transparency, which, again, helps you make your logo blend in better with the graphical interface of Lightroom. One thing you need to be aware of is the height of the image you want to use – keep it at about 50-60 px, otherwise Lightroom will not fit it in the narrow Modules Panel.

Tip – if you want to see the changes live as you make them, make sure to keep your Modules Panel (top-most panel in Lightroom) down before opening the Identity Plate Editor.

2) Changing Module Pick Buttons

While you cannot change the actual names of different Modules in Lightroom, you can change their font, size, style and color so that they compliment your Identity Plate. You can use the same font you use in your logo or pick any other font you like. Within the same Identity Plate window, navigate to the right side of the window where you see “Library | Develop | Map | Book | Slideshow” and change the font, style, size and colors. If the controls are not visible, click the “Show Detail” button at the bottom left corner of the Identity Plate Editor window:

3) Interface Preferences

If you go to Edit->Preferences… and click the Interface tab, you will find a number of other settings you can adjust to make Lightroom a better environment to work in.

“End Marks” are graphical elements you can find at the end of left and right Panels in Lightroom, as well as some other places throughout the Interface. You can either pick one from the drop down menu or disable them altogether. You can also change the Font Size used in the program, however you will need to restart Lightroom in order for the changes to take effect.

Next down are the “Lights Out” options. Lightroom allows you to dim or completely turn off all elements of the program except for the image itself for preview purposes (press “L” to go to “Lights Dim” or “Lights Off” modes). Choose the color you want the screen to go to from the drop down menu when you dim or turn off the interface (default is Black). You can also specify the percentage of “Lights Dim” mode (default is 80%). Along with that, in the next section of the Interface Preferences window, you can change the background color of Lightroom. You can even pick a “Pinstripes” texture if you like. Play around, see what fits you best.

Tip – I set my Lights Out color to white. This lets me preview the image in a black background when in normal working environment (Lights On) and see how it looks in a white one when I choose the “Lights Dim” or “Lights Off” viewing modes.

Although these customizations are rather small, they could make your work in Lightroom just a little more enjoyable. Plus, if you have a photography business, it is always nice to show off your branding in front of your clients when they review images with you.

Where to Find It

The Basic Panel can be found in the Develop Module right bellow the Histogram display at the top-right side of the screen. Expanding the panel will reveal a number of basic controls offered by Lightroom. These controls show you the most obvious benefits of shooting in RAW, such as White Balance and Exposure Compensation adjustments. Lightroom was developed with a left to right, top to bottom editing workflow in mind. While in some cases you will find yourself going back and forth between the settings, we will try to stick with that order at this time.

Tip – if you left-click the top of any Panel while holding down the Alt key (for Windows users) or the Option key (for Mac OS users), Lightroom will go into Solo Panel mode and only keep one Panel open at a given time (for example, if you had Tone Curve Panel open and then click on Detail Panel, the Tone Curve Panel will then close). This allows for a more tidy experience, especially if you often find yourself scrolling through the right-side Panel List. Clicking it again the same way will return Lightroom to previous state. If you want to open another panel without closing the previous one in Solo mode, Shift-click it. Ctrl(Command)-click a panel to open/close all.

The Settings

1) Treatment

The very first setting you can change in the Basic Panel is the Treatment of the image. You have two settings – “Color”, which is set by default and keeps your image in color, and “Black & White”, which, as I have mentioned in my B&W Portrait tutorial, is a great way to start working on a B&W look of your image if that is your intent.

2) White Balance

Sometimes the Auto WB setting on your camera may pick the wrong value, or you might choose a wrong one yourself. These settings are there to make sure that the color captured in your image is correct no matter how the camera was set when you took the picture, so if the image is too blue or too orange, you can easily correct it.

Tip – you can also tell Lightroom what the correct White Balance is by using the White Balance Selector tool (press either “W” key or click on the eyedropper next to the White Balance slider) on a white color on your image. Lightroom will adjust accordingly. This tool will work best if you have a picture of an 18% Gray Card (X-Rite Color Checker works magic for these things) taken in that light – use the tool on the picture of the Gray Card and apply the value on all pictures photographed in that light.

2.1) Temp

Here, you can either choose one of Lightroom’s presets in the drop-down menu and, if needed, tweak it further on, or simply set it to the value you think is best. Temperature tweaking is one of the most noticeable advantages offered by RAW image format over JPEG. It sets the warmth of color in your image. As you probably know, it differs greatly depending on the light source. Just move the slider until the color looks correct.

2.2) Tint

Sometimes setting correct Temperature may not be enough. Adjust this slider to the left if your image seems to have a purple tint, and to the right if it seems to have a green tint. The initial adjustment depends on what the camera was set to when the image was taken.

3) Tone

Tip – us the “Auto” feature to let Lightroom decide what Tone settings fit that particular photograph. While it might make a mess of things, sometimes you can find a good starting point in Lightroom’s automatic features that will only need a modest amount of tweaking.

3.1) Exposure

This setting allows you to, to an extent, artificially adjust the exposure of the image (for example, if you took the image at ISO 800, f/2.8, 1/125s and adjust the exposure to -1.00 stop, it will look as if the photograph was taken at 1/250s). The extent of the adjustment largely depends on the Dynamic range of the photograph (and, obviously, your camera). This setting is extremely useful in correcting any kind of over or underexposure that may have happened. Do note that it doesn’t really change camera settings, it just darkens or lightens the image, and so extremely dark shadows or blown-out highlights cannot always be saved. Brightening the image a lot will also increase the noise somewhat, especially in the shadows. Lightroom 4 lets you adjust the exposure by either +5 or -5 stops, while Lightroom 3 offers adjustments of up to +4 and down to -4 stops. Either is enough in most situations and often exceeds the Dynamic range of the image.

3.2) Contrast

Adjusting this setting will either make your image have more or less contrast. Move the slider to the left to make bright parts of the image less bright and dark parts less dark, or move it to the right to make shadows and highlights more distinguishable. This slider is good for making minor changes, but overall doesn’t offer much control over which tones should be considered as bright or dark. The Tone Curve is much better for that, but it’s also slightly more complicated.

3.3) Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks

These tools are among the most powerful in Lightroom 4 and are real life savers, they let you individually adjust the dark and light parts of the image. If you find that, even after using the Exposure Compensation slider, some parts of your image don’t look good enough, use the Highlights and Whites sliders to bring back some of the seemingly blown out areas in the image, or Shadows and Blacks sliders to fill in those dark portions of the photograph and give the it more detail. With that in mind, you can also move the sliders to the other side to make the light parts of the image even lighter, or dark and shadowy parts darker. To make the light or dark parts darker, move the sliders to the left, and to make them lighter, move them to the right.

Tip – these tools work well in combination with the Contrast slider or, especially, the Tone Curve tool – they allow you to keep the image nice and contrasty while, at the same time, keeping those highlights and shadows at bay. These sliders don’t affect the mid-tones much, so your overall exposition will remain correct – just set it the way you like and then adjust the parts of the image that are either too bright or too dark to get exactly the look you want.

4) Presence

4.1) Clarity

This tool mostly affects the transition between light and dark portions of the image (makes it less or more sudden, defined) and visibly alters the micro-contrast of the photograph. If changed extremely, it can also have a slight effect on the overall contrast of the image and shift the color somewhat. When set to a high setting it will make any shapes or forms more defined, starting with small, like skin imperfections, and ending with much bigger ones, like highlights in the background (the circles of bokeh). If you move the slider to the left it will, on the contrary, make the image less defined, give it an almost soft-focus effect, which fits portraits well. For landscape photography, it is often better to move the slider to the right to give a more defined look to textures and shapes. Don’t overdo it though, as it will make your images look too fake and over-detailed.

4.2) Vibrance

If you want the colors in your image to be more saturated, this is the setting you change. Now, while I said “saturated”, the correct term would be “vibrant”. This slider, if moved to the right, will make the colors more intense, but only where needed – it will not shift them or give a color cast to the image. If you move it to the left, the colors will be much less intense, but the photograph won’t go completely black & white.

4.3) Saturation

Saturation is often wrongly used to make the colors of a particular image pop. While, if mildly changed, it can make a photograph more colorful, if pushed at least a little too much you will find your colors shifting, loosing detail and the whole image will have a sudden color cast to it. This is because this setting affects all the color in a particular subject, not just the one that dominates (faces, for example, will often become a mixture of red and orange). I recommend using this setting only if you want to desaturate your image for a B&W look. If you want your colors to pop, use the Vibrance setting, it will be a lot more flattering (neither should be pushed too hard, though).

Differences In Lightroom 3

The biggest visible differences between the older Lightroom 3 and newer Lightroom 4 are possibly found in the Basic Panel. The older version, instead of having separate Highlights/Shadows/Whites/Blacks sliders has Recovery/Fill Light/Blacks/Brightness sliders instead. While they are slightly inferior in flexibility to the new controls, they can still give you the desired effect. Use the Recovery slider to bring back the highlights and the Fill Light slider to make shadows brighter. While the Blacks control can not be moved to the left beyond the value of “0″, a combination of Recovery, Fill Light, Brightness and Exposure sliders can save you a lot of detail in both blown out parts of the image as well as the darker shadows. Experiment with these options to find the best balance for your image – even though the tools are slightly different from Lightroom 4, they are still very powerful. After you are done with all these settings your image should have perfectly fine colors as well as a correct exposure for both shadows and highlights so that you’re ready to move on to more advanced editing.

The Limitations of the JPEG Image Format

You will find that all the functions found in the Basic Panel will do their job when editing JPEGs, however they will have much less latitude (the Exposure slider, mostly) and will be much more intense. If you had a small error in your WB settings, for example, Lightroom might help you fix it, but only if it’s not too critical. With a more extreme adjustment, you will find your image losing quality rather quickly, simply because JPEGs limits the amount of information stored in the image, specifically color, shadows and highlights. Edit those JPEGs with care.

Depth

Mastering the depth of the story and being able to translate it into a visual prospect is very important, so it certainly helps to have a solid understanding of how depth of field can affect your images and the story you are working on. Whether it is a portrait or a landscape shot, the right amount of bokeh should be able to transport the viewer into your story. You can choose a longer lens with a large aperture (small depth of field) to pinpoint one element in an image that your viewers could concentrate on, or use a small aperture (large depth of field) to portray the melting pot of action, with many elements to the story.

Background

Background of a photograph is a very big information carrier. Choosing an appropriate background will make your post-processing job a whole lot easier. Who wants to sit and spend precious hours editing out unnecessary distractions on the background? Instead, look for a cohesive environment to work with your story. Background can work hand in hand with your lens aperture to save or ruin your image as an information carrier and storyteller. So, being able to utilize your depth of field efficiently with the background is an art in itself. Ask these simple questions: Is the background relevant to the story that I want to portray? Are the any extra elements in the background that I want to change or eliminate? Should I recompose my shot so that nothing looks out of place?

Here are some simple things you can do with the background that will immediately help you get better results when photographing portraits:

1. Find a different background that is less busy, more or less colorful (see below on color), etc
2. Learn to crop in camera to avoid irrelevant content. Move yourself or your subject to a slightly different location or use a different angle.
3. To get the best bokeh, make sure to give plenty of space between your subject and the background. Having a good fast lens like the Nikon 50mm f/1.8G (see our Nikon 50mm f/1.8G Review) or a solid portrait lens like the new Nikon 85mm f/1.8G will certainly help with getting good bokeh.
4. Don’t be afraid to bring your subject close, but watch out for distortion. Wide-angle and short focal length lenses are known to greatly distort images. Unless your intent is to make your subject’s face look out of proportion, use longer lenses for better compression. That’s why telephoto lenses are ideal for portraiture.
5. Pay attention to lines and curves in the background that could enhance the composition and overall feel of the image.
6. If there are any vertical lines in the background, place your subjects in such a way, that the lines are not directly behind the head of your subject. A great image could be ruined by things growing out of a person’s head.

Color

Color and tone are among the main conveyors of mood and character in any photograph – it can be both distracting and amazing. Although tonality could be more of a post-processing topic, color is most definitely not. You should be able to see the color before you take a photograph, regardless if you wish to alter it later or not. Just like the background, color can make your shot look cohesive or all over the place. Positioning your subjects against a background with lots of different blues, reds and greens may not be a good idea. When you want the eyes to rest on one spot, over your subject, choose a background with a less distracting color palette.

Then again, there are always exceptions to these guidelines, so do not be afraid to experiment.

Hello Nasim, 2 months ago I bought my first Nikon camera – D7000. I’ve read much about it and decided that this is best camera for me, but recently I am noticing that in certain lighting conditions colors are inadequate. There is an awfull yellow-green color, especially noticeable on people’s faces. Skin on pictures is also has strange color. Changing wb temperature is hardly helping. As an owner of the D7000 could you tell me if this is the problem of all D7000 cameras or is it malfunction of mine? What can i do to fix this?

And here is a sample image that was attached to the case study:

Our reader can relax – there is nothing wrong with his D7000. In fact, even the best camera in the world would not have produced an image with better skin tones and colors. Why? Because in this case, the ambient light around the subject is what is affecting the colors and skin tone. The picture was taken in the evening, after sunset, so the light is coming from what seems like a mix of incandescent and fluorescent lamps over and on the side of the subject. To understand how artificial light affects skin colors, one needs to fully understand “white balance and how it affects colors in images. The hardest and nastiest light that can make a photo impossible to fix is when multiple light sources are thrown into the mix – for example, when there is natural light on one side, bulb light on another and some flash on the front. You might have been in a situation when you want some of the ambient yellowish light in the room to be visible and yet want to throw some flash on your subject to brighten up the face. The end result – a very ugly picture with blues and yellows that is close to impossible to fix in post-processing. How do you go around those types of situations? The answer is not as simple, because it depends on the type of light around you, but you could use some very simple techniques like using gels on your flash to balance the light coming out of flash with the ambient light. These and other flash photography tips and tricks can be found in our “Flash Photography Tips” section of the website. We will be adding more content there very soon, perhaps in another “flash photography month”.

I asked my post-processing guru Lola to try to edit the above image and see if she can fix the skin tone and here is what she came up with:

She is currently working on a big project and once she is done with it, she promised to write a detailed article on working with skin colors and how to correct them in post-processing. The above image was sent in resized JPEG format (it is close to impossible to change white balance in JPEG), so she was limited in what she can do with it. It took her a couple of minutes to do this and I then resized and sharpened it a little for the web.

Another alternative is to convert an image to black and white, which should even out the skin tones. Here is her second version of the photo in B&W:

When photographing subjects, if you are not sure what White Balance (WB) setting to pick, you should shoot in RAW. When you open a RAW photograph in Lightroom or Photoshop, you will have the option to change WB to whatever you want. See my JPEG vs RAW article for more information on why you should be shooting in RAW. Recovering images with incorrect WB will also be much easier in post-processing:

The subject of skin colors can be rather complex, but once you employ good post-processing techniques, use proper lighting and have a solid knowledge of white balance, you can achieve great results when photographing people.

I have no idea what this streak is on my pictures could you give me an idea? I bought a new lens, because there was a small scratch on my old one. However, the same streak appears in the exact same place. It is a line about 1 inch on the top right of my pics. Usually seen when shooting skylines, clouds. etc.

Here is the attached image:

So, what are those spots and streaks that are clearly visible in the above image? First, the good news – the above spots and streaks have nothing to do with the lens. In fact, lens problems and even major scratches on the front lens element rarely ever show up in images. Unless the rear lens element is damaged/scratched, you should not see any lens defects show up in your images. Those of you who have seen my articles on cleaning DSLR sensors probably already know what these are. They are dust spots, along with a piece of hair that is sitting right in the middle of the camera sensor (the long dark line streak). Now the bad news – whenever you see something like this consistently show up in your images when shooting at small apertures, you will have to either clean the camera sensor yourself or send your camera for cleaning in order to get rid of all this dirt on the sensor. The latter is a safer method, but will cost you a lot of money to continue sending your camera every time you need it cleaned; plus, you won’t be able to take pictures while it is in service. The cheapest method is to clean your camera sensor yourself. As I have shown in the my cleaning DSLR sensor article, you can clean a sensor very quickly without any hassles, as long as you have the proper tools. Is it risky? Unless you do something stupid, the procedure is very safe (obviously, I take no responsibility for any potential damage to your camera). Just watch the video and then watch the more detailed videos on how to clean DSLR sensor and keep your camera gear clean for more info.

Let me know if you have any questions!

I use a Nikon 300mm f/4 paired with a Nikon D200 for my bird photography. While shooting, I notice that I do not get a clean background, which I would expect from a prime lens. I have got such a background in one image of mine, however, the subject is a little too soft for my liking (the picture is attached). Is there any way to get a clean background so as to help the viewers’ focus remain on the subject (the bird in this case)? Could you share a tutorial with us? I’m attaching sample images for this case study in JPEG format with full EXIF info.

And here are the two images Gaurav attached:

The first image above is cropped, showing a pleasant out of focus background (bokeh) with a slightly blurry bird.

The bird on the second image is sharp, but the background is busy.

So Gaurav’s question is why does the first image have a nice-looking background, but a blurry bird, while the second image has a sharp bird, but busy background?

Before I talk about the background blur, let’s first see why the first image is sharp and the second is not. Looking at the first image, the exposure is 1/350, f/4, ISO 100, while the second image is shot at 1/250, f/4, ISO 200. Both are shot in Aperture Priority Mode using Spot Metering. I am assuming that Gaurav was using a tripod or a monopod to get the above shots, because the shutter speeds are a little low to be hand-held for this lens and camera combo. As I explain in my “how to photograph birds” article, if you want to get sharp photographs when shooting hand-held, your shutter speed should be at least the total focal length of your lens multiplied by the sensor crop factor. So in this case, Gaurav would approximately need a shutter speed of 1/450 and above to get good results if he hand-held the camera + lens. But this is an approximate “suggested” value – with a good hand-holding technique, one could certainly get sharp results even at lower shutter speeds.

Why did I think that Gaurav used a monopod or a tripod to take the above images? Because the bird on the second photo, as well as the branches on the first photo appear sharp. The source of the problem on the first photo is focus – it is not on the bird, but a couple of inches off on the branch. Therefore, the only thing Gaurav could have done better, is reacquire focus and try taking another picture. If the lens he was shooting with has no front/back focus issues, he could have gotten good focus on the bird after several tries.

Let’s now talk about the background blur – the bokeh on both photographs. Why does the first image have a nice, clean bokeh, while the second photo has a busy bokeh? The explanation here is very simple – there was nothing close behind the bird on the first photo, while you can see leaves and branches of a tree behind the second bird. So the problem here is proximity of objects behind the birds. If you want to have a beautiful, creamy bokeh, you should pay attention to four things: focal length of the lens, aperture/depth of field, camera to subject distance and subject to background object distance. The longer the focal length of your lens, the larger the aperture, the closer you are to your subject and the further away your subject is from the background objects, the creamier your bokeh will be. Phew…that sounds too darn complex and too long! Basically, try to stay close to your subjects and move them away from the busy background. How could Gaurav have accomplished this on the second photograph? Aside from moving closer towards the bird and filling the frame (which would have probably spooked it), he could have changed the angle. If I see a busy background behind birds, I will move around the bird and try to find a spot that will have the least busy background. It is obviously not always practical, since the bird might not tolerate you walking around it, plus the environment you are in might not be suitable for circling like that. But you hopefully get the point.

The only other thing you can do, is try to fix the image in post-processing. Now this would require some advanced Photoshop skills, but if you have the time and patience in your hands, you can do it with pretty good results.

Here is my quick attempt to clear up the background on the second photo (took me 5 minutes):

And here is what I did in Photoshop:

1. Create a duplicate layer
2. Select the second duplicated layer
3. Select Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur
4. Radius: 125 pixels, Click OK
5. Select the second layer and set it to “Overlay” in the Layers panel
6. Pick the eraser and start erasing the bird
7. Work on the edges with the eraser tool and get rid of extra branches
8. Set the second layer back to “Normal”
9. Merge both layers
10. Sharpen the image
11. Crop the image
12. Resize the image
13. Save for Web

I did it very quickly and obviously did not do a good job with feathers, but I hope this shows what you can do with the background in situations like this.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions!

Losing images from a long-planned and expensive trip can be very painful. After it happens, you realize that it is not the financial aspect of it, but the effort you put into creating those images instead that hurts the most. We as photographers have to work with the best light during the day, which happens at sunrise and sunset times, no matter where you are located. In Glacier National Park, the sunset times in summer can be as late as 10 PM and as early as 5 AM in the morning. Northern Canada and Alaska are even worse, with sunset times close to midnight in July and sunrise in less than 5 hours. Add +1 hour after sunset and -1 hour for sunrise to get back and to the location, and we are talking about less than 3 hours of sleep at night. In addition, those late hours are also the peak and active time for wildlife, making it dangerous to hike to get to a good spot. And I am not even talking about the weather, which can go against you in those twilight hours. In addition, you carry the heavy weight with you and spent a lot of time tweaking your equipment and composing your shots using different spots and angles. So with so much effort put into making those images, the last thing you want is to lose them. What’s worse is, if you have been shooting for a while, you know if you got a great photo right at the time you take it. You take a look at the camera LCD and you know it is a keeper, a potential for your showcase portfolio. Once you lose photographs, you start to remember those keepers and deep regret hurts even more. So, why even take the chance? Take all the steps you can to protect your photographs when traveling and working on the field.

1) Back Up Your Data

Whether you are a professional photographer or a photo enthusiast, it is critical to not only back up your existing data, but also the new data that has not hit your permanent storage yet. I always take my laptop with me and back up photos from memory cards on a daily basis. I did not take my laptop with me just once when space and weight were an issue, and of course, it was the time when I lost many “keepers” on a 16 GB compact flash card. It was painful to lose so many great images, but maybe it happened for the better – going forward, I will remember to always take a backup device with me. Now when I say “back up”, I do not mean back up photos and then delete them from memory cards. You should never keep data in a single location, because any data medium can fail. With hard drives, it is just a matter of time. So when I back up my photos, I keep the originals on memory cards, until I safely get back home. Only after copying all images to my home storage and backing them up, I then format the memory cards for my next assignments.

Backing up your data on the field can be done in several different ways. If your camera is equipped with dual memory card slots (like Nikon D7000, D300s, D3, D3S, D3X), you can configure your DLSR to write to both cards simultaneously. While this means wasting one card, it is a good idea, because two cards will contain the same images. If data is corrupted on one card or one of the cards is lost, you still have a backup on the second one. Memory cards are cheap, so if you do not need the speed for video or fast action photography, get multiple slower cards that you can use in parallel.

If your camera is not equipped with a dual memory card slot or if you want to still back up your data to a different location, another option is to use an external memory card reader with a hard drive. There are many different options available on the market with devices of different hard drives sizes and obviously the price also varies depending on size and features. Something like Sanho Hyperdrive, although expensive, would work great for this purpose. Backing up your photos to an external storage device is a good idea – what if you were to lose your camera, or if you dropped it somewhere you cannot recover from? And lastly, if you travel with a laptop, just backup your photos to your laptop’s hard drive. That way you do not need to worry about getting an external storage device.

2) Label Your Memory Cards

I typically label my memory cards and provide my contact information on the back of them. If your memory card does not have space to write on, just put some white tape on it (make sure to use thin tape and do not tape over contacts) and provide at least your phone number. If anybody finds your memory card, they will at least have your contact information to contact you.

3) Properly Store Your Memory Cards

Keep your memory cards organized and store them properly in your camera bag. There are many different memory card holders out there, but the one I personally like and use is the Pelican 0940 CF Memory Card Case that securely holds 4 Compact Flash Cards. If you shoot with SD cards, you will want the Pelican 0910 SD Memory Card Case that can hold up to 8 SD and 16 Mini SD memory cards. Both card cases are water-resistant and well-protected against occasional abuse. If you have been storing your memory cards in camera bag pockets, I highly recommend getting one of these. I have four 16 GB SanDisk Extreme Pro cards stored in the 0940 Pelican. When I lost one of my memory cards, it was because I temporarily put it into my pocket in rush. Storing memory cards in pockets or in camera bag pockets is not a good idea, since dirt, moisture and other factors could damage them. Dust can get into the holes in CF cards.

If you only have one or two cards and do not want to purchase a card case, at least store the memory cards in plastic cases that came with the cards. When you are home and you are done using the memory cards, store them in dry, cool space (room temperature).

4) Label Used Cards

I once formatted a used card with photos I needed, because I did not label it after it was used. While you can recover photos from formatted cards, if you happen to write anything over the formatted card, the images you had before will not be recoverable, especially if you fill up the card with new images. You can purchase small color labels from any local store (for example green labels for formatted and red labels for used cards) or you can just come up with a method to identify used cards. If you use a memory card case like above, you can come up with a storage method for formatted and used cards without having to use labels. For example, I always put the formatted cards that are ready to use with their front up, while used memory cards are stored with their backs up.

5) Format Cards on Your Camera

If you have a habit of moving your images from your memory cards and forgetting to format the cards afterwards, I highly recommend to stop doing that and get in the habit of formatting memory cards in your camera instead. I have seen people with corrupt images and all kinds of other problems, just because their memory cards were not formatted properly. Always remember to format memory cards in your camera and not in your PC. It takes several seconds to do it in camera and if you shoot Nikon, you do not even need to get into the camera menu to format memory cards – you can just push two buttons with red labels and hold them for two seconds and once you push them together again, the memory card will be formatted.

6) Don’t Delete Images From Your Camera

If you do not like an image, or if it comes out blurry, don’t rush and delete images from your camera. This is another mistake I made during my last trip – every night I deleted plenty of images from my first memory card when it got full and many images from my second week ended up in my first memory card instead of the second on my Nikon D3s. If I had not done that, I would not have lost so many good images and my images would have been sorted better. If you run out of storage periodically, just buy more memory cards – they are cheap.