As we approach the end of 2011 we can pause for a moment to reflect on the year and what it has presented to us. Our show schedule increased, as did our sales. Not too shabby in this economic climate. We have had some very enjoyable experiences shooting with friends and relatives. My wife Eileen is beginning to produce some great images, some better than mine, which is a bit unnerving, but enjoyable to see. We have also been through some learning experiences through a few decisions that didn’t work out as well as planned. From these we will grow. We have purchased and begun to use new and exciting software, allowing for greater interpretation of our images. This is both challenging and exciting at the same time. So with all that. I will invite you to reflect on your year. Have your photography skills grown? Was it a good year?  Mike Moats, a photographer whose work I admire, recently posted on his blog asking us to think about why we shoot. The post can be viewed here . Do you shoot to share your work? Do you shoot to please others? Do you shoot to make a statement? Do you shoot just because it’s so darn much fun? For the most part, my images don’t have a deep earth changing meaning. I like to present my interpretation of subjects that interest me or cause an emotional response. There will always be times when we don’t get the image that we want, but are just thankful that we saw and experienced the scene or event. If my images appeal to others, that’s great. If they don’t, then I am still happy to have shared. In all honesty, in doing the art fairs and galleries, it is much better for me financially if the work is accepted. I do also enjoy selling as it shows that at least someone has a desire to keep the image around for a while. The bottom line, I feel, is that we still shoot because for whatever reason, we enjoy photography, and that is a good thing in my eyes. Nuff said. Take care and enjoy the new year.

Dave Woeller

Dwphotoworks

   In the photo below we see our image in Lightroom with no adjustments. Be sure you are in the develop module and you can make any global adjustments you feel necessary. In this shot I was happy with the color in the boat and other areas. I did feel however that the sky itself lacked any punch.

   To begin our selective color adjustment, left click on the letters HSL in the right tool panel as indicted below

      When you click on those letters, the tool box will expand to show you your options and should look like the image shown below.

   To work with the saturation in our image we will left click and release on the little circle to the left of the word saturation, as shown here. You will see the dot change with arrows up and down to indicate that it is turned on.

      Now that we’ve turned on the saturation button, move your cursor over your image and it will change into a goofy looking shape with a crosshairs and dot with little arrows up and down. If you see a Magnifying glass with a + inside, you didn’t get the saturation tool turned on. Check to see that the little arrows are over and under the little dot next to the word saturation in the tool bar. Move the goofy cursor crosshairs over the color that you want to adjust. In this case, I’ve chosen a section of the blue sky.

   Click and hold your left mouse button. While holding the button down, slide your mouse up or down. Sliding up will increase the saturation of that color only. Sliding down will decrease the saturation of that color. The images below show the starting file, and the file with the blue sky only adjusted. There are some small nuances in using this tool, and you will learn as you go. This technique can be used for hue, saturation, and luminance in the same way

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Take care

dave

   It’s been a good summer for us as we begin to prepare for our fall shows. Our spring shows were a success with only one exception. We’ve had some competition success and have been able to capture some very nice images. We’ve been able to encourage some young photographers along the way, and were encouraged by the reception of the presentations we have given to our club.  Our experiment with the shop in Smithville did not work out as well as we had hoped, but provided knowledge for further ventures. Our fall show line-up includes The Millville Art, Music, and Antique Festival on Sept 11, The Wheaton Festival of Fine Craft on Oct 1 and 2, and the Autumn in Moorestown Art Fair on October 8. I hope everyone’s summer has been as pleasant as ours (with the exception of the heat).

The image above is a manipulation of my hovering Union Lake Osprey shot. This was done for a weekly theme titled “Flight” on www.birdphotographers.net  I always highly recommend this site for those who wish to view some great images, learn from reading critiques, or participate and have their own images reviewed.

If you’re in the area of any of our fall shows, please stop by to chat. it’s always nice to visit with or make new friends.

Please drop by my website and browse our new Black and White, Sepia, and Toned image gallery

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 I’m very happy to anounce that I have placed prints in the Earth and Lace Pottery Shoppe in Historic Smithville Village, New Jersey. The shop, and I, are hoping that the addition of photographic images along with the shops’ artistic pottery artwork will be a successful marriage. The shop is nestled in the quaint historic village of Smithville, which is a lovely collection of various art and collectable shops along with historic structures. We have selected several images from the surrounding South Jersey area to launch this project. We will be offering matted and bagged prints in several sizes along with framed prints and mounted photo standouts. I hope that you will be able to stop by the shop if you are traveling through the area. The image abouve is one of the local images selected. This shot came from Stone harbor NJ. Take care and keep shooting.

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Wow ! Who could have asked for nicer weather. Saturday June 4th was clear and pleasant. We unveiled a new booth setup which turned out to be much more inviting for shoppers to browse all of our products. We also are still rolling out our latest product, wall standouts. These standouts seem to be a hit in this area, as there was much interest shown. We got to meet and chat with some very nice folks and sales were strong for an event of this size. I even got to encourage a young artist with her work, which she eagerly shared with me, cool. our next stop is the Gloucester County art/craft  fair in Mullica Hill on June 18th. Hope to see friends and make new ones then. Thanks for stopping by.

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After a successful show at Bayfest in Somers Point, we are moving on to our next shows. On June 4th we will be exhibiting at the Strawberry Festival at Dutch Neck Village in Bridgeton, NJ. I’ve never done this show but have heard that it is very nice. It will be good to visit with attendees once again and chat about art and photography. On June 18th we will be at the Gloucester County Craft Fair. This is another new event for me and should be an interesting day. They are advertising lots of activities, including a horse show. There will also be home improvement vendors included in the show. The event is held at the Gloucester County 4-H grounds on Rt 77 in Mullica Hill. Hope to make some new friends in this area. If you’re in the neighborhood, please stop by to chat.

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    I’m glad to say that my first show of the year is scheduled for April 30th. I will be exhibiting at the Somers Point Bayfest Celebration on Bay Avenue in Somers Point, NJ.  The festival runs from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. I will have many new images on display, and for the first time will be offering 16″x24″ Standouts. These are images mounted on 3/4″ Gatorboard with finished edges. There is no need for a frame, and the image sits flush against the wall. It is a very impressive presentation. Please stop by to chat if you are in the area. The weather report sounds great for the day. Hope to see you there.

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There are times when we have an image that we feel would benefit from a bit of aggressive sharpening. The butterfly in the image shown above is one such image.  Our concern, however, is that sharpening the entire image can result in the introduction of noise in the background. We also don’t want to degrade the softness of that background as it helps to separate the butterfly from the rest of the image. As with most processes in Photoshop, there are numerous ways to achieve an end result. I’m going to describe a basic method to selectively sharpen using a quickmask. I will assume a basic knowledge of photoshop (tool selection , etc) in this demo.

   After opening the image I wish to work with in Photoshop, the first step I always take is to create a new layer to work on. This preserves the original image in tact so that we can always return to it if we need to restart. Two ways to accomplish this are to go to the tool bar at the top of the screen and click on “Layer”. In the drop down, move to duplicate layer and click on that. A quicker method is to go to the layers palate and left click on the background layer and drag down to the icon shown highlighted in the image shown below, and release. Once you have done one of these two actions, you should see a background layer and a background copy layer in your layers pallet.

We can now begin our quickmask selection.

  Before beginning, make certain that you left click on the background copy layer in your palate to make this the active layer that we will work on. Once you have done that, go to your tool bar and select the ” brush tool”. I generally use a soft edge brush, but a hard edge will work also. You just need to be more precise in painting with the hard edge. The drop down to select a hard or soft brush is in the upper left of the screen. Click on brush and then click on a picture with either a hard or soft edge. Once you have accomplished that you can adjust the size, as you work, by using the right and left bracket keys on your keyboard. (this is for PC users)

   Once you have your brush selected, press the “Q” key on your keyboard (this is for PC users) to activate the quickmask process. move your brush over the area that you want to select and sharpen. Left click and hold as you paint in the outline of the area you want to sharpen. You will see your painting in red. You don’t have to be perfect on the edges your first time trying this, and you can refine the selection later. Once you have your area to sharpen painted, you will see something similar to the photo at the left. Notice that I have also included the antenna and legs.

   After completing your painted edges, you can then go back and fill in the open center area of your selection by simply painting in all exposed areas. Remember that you can adjust your brush size with the bracket keys. This is a big help as you define the outline as well. The finished painted mask is shown in the photo at the right. As you gain more experience, this selection process will become much easier and much cleaner for you.

   Now that we have our butterfly masked out, we can once again press the “Q” key to exit quickmask.

   Now that we have pressed the “Q” key we are presented with an image that looks like the above. We see the familiar Photoshop marching ants, which would lead us to believe that our selection has been made. Look carefully at the selection and you will notice that it really has selected everything but the butterfly. To correct this, go once again to the toolbar at the top of the screen and click on select. The drop down will show several choices, but we will click on “inverse”. Once you have done that you will see your image with the marching ants change to show that only the selected mask (the butterfly in this case) has been selected. The image below shows the new selection.

   At this point, you can select filters, sharpen, unsharp mask on this layer and only the butterfly would be affected. I would like to take this one step farther to allow for more flexibility in your adjustments. Press and hold the ctrl and J keys together and Photoshop will create a separate layer containing only the butterfly selection. Your layer palate will now look like what is shown below.

   You can click on the eyeballs of the background and background copy layers to turn them off. you will then only see the butterfly layer. You can use the eraser to fine tune the selection by erasing any areas that show too much background. Turn the background and background copy layers back on. Click on the butterfly layer and go to the toolbar and select filters, then sharpen, then unsharp mask. Sharpen the butterfly to your taste.

   An added bonus from creating the separate butterfly layer is that it will allow us to go back to the background copy layer and adjust that without affecting the butterfly. You may have a bird on a branch with leaves behind or around it that are just a bit too sharp and distract from the bird itself. To show how we handle this with our butterfly shot, I click on the background copy layer and then go to filters, blur, Gaussian blur and slide the slider to a level that softens the background to taste.

 The files  below show our original butterfly shot and the finished shot with selective sharpening and a touch of Gaussian blur to soften the background a bit more. I hope you have enjoyed this tricks and tips, and that you’ll give it a try with one of your images. Please stop by again.

Original image 

Selectively sharpened 

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 This is the Photosop layer pallet for the above image. Note the fill change mentioned, and the layer mask on the Bachground copy 2 layer.

I hope that this tricks and Tips proves useful to those who are just getting their feet wet in image manipulation. I say go for it, you’ll have a blast.  Beware though that it can become quite addicting. Please stop by again, and feel free to leave a comment.

Dave

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Dave Woeller – DWPhotoworks