Another misconception is that the HDR software requires images to have a large exposure offset range to effectively process the images into a single HDR. The reality is that the HDR software is equally as effective in subtle changes to images as it is for very high contrast images, even to toning down a few highlights by a small amount.

The two basic techniques for single image HDR are 1) to tone-map just the one original RAW image; and 2) to create a copy or copies of the original image and adjust the exposure up or down as required, then send these adjusted image(s) together with the original, for tone-mapping or fusion processing by the HDR software.

As previously mentioned some say this is cannot increase the dynamic range of an image. It has also been suggested that both the aforementioned processes produce the same result because they are both processing the same data. Really ??? …

The following image is a small valley a few minutes west of our home. The view is north-west just after sunset, so the light source is from the left in the image. The HDR effect is only subtle but I believe also improves the image.

Original image:

 
Exposure adjusted copy of the above image:

 
HDR result:

 
This is the HDR from using method 1) above, tonemapping just the one original image:

Notice the light distribution is different from the image copies HDR above and the sky detail is noticeably less.

The Dynamic Range of a camera image sensor can be described as the greatest possible amplitude between light and dark details the sensor can record.

HDR photography, while generally accepted as mulit-shot, or bracketed shot photography, is simply defined as technique(s) applied to create a single image with a wider tonal range than is possible with a single exposure.

It follows from the definitions above that a High Dynamic Range image is one that extends beyond the Dynamic Range of a given camera sensor, but all digital cameras are not created equal. It logically follows also therefore, that what is defined as an HDR image can also vary by camera/sensor and scene being photographed, and that by definition some cameras capture HDR, or higher dynamic range images by default relative to other digital cameras. Follow? No? Don’t agree? Read on …

For example, while my current Nikon D7000 has a Dynamic Range of 13.9 Ev (DxOMark Lab results), another similar common camera, the Canon EOS 7D, has a Dynamic Range of 11.7 Ev. Potentially for the Canon 7D to capture an image of the same scene with the same Dynamic Range as the Nikon D7000, it would require bracketed shots to make up the extra 2.2 f/stop dynamic range differential – in theory at least.

The extent of increasing the Dynamic Range of any image is only defined as an increase, not any specific amount. It may be subtle for some scenes or dramatic for high contrast scenes, each is HDR none the less.

In the same valley as before but facing home with the light source behind me, is the 0Ev exposure of a bracketed pair of images, below that is the second bracketed image offset by -2Ev:

 
-2Ev bracketed sequence image:

 
This is the above image in Lightroom, showing the histogram:

 
Now in lightroom I created a virtual copy of the first, lighter image and adjusted the exposure, black clipping and fill light as seen here the histogram is also almost a spot on match to the previoius bracketed image:

 
The Lightroom export process creates a new .tiff file applying the edited values, so the original pixel values are no longer available to the HDR software (or even Lightroom for that matter) in the newly created .tiff image.

Here is the result of tonemapping the one image:

 
Resulting HDR from the bracketed pair of images:

 
HDR from the lighter image plus the adjusted virtual copy:

The latter two are very similar and both are subtly different to the single image tonemapped result most noticeable in the sky details. HDR can be as delicate as it can be pronounced.

This image is very clean with little noise so the skies are all quite clean but where the differences are most notable is in the following images, the left side is a crop of the bracketed image HDR, and the right side image is a crop of the image copies (single image) HDR:

The foliage movement has created more ghosting and halo effects than the HDR software can effectively handle resulting in loss of fine detail, not only in the highlights but across the image generally.

The next pair of images are zoomed to 2-1, showing the foliage and the lack of resulting detail in the bracketed image HDR on the left, compared to the image copies (single image) HDR which once again is on the right. Foliage misalignment between the bracketed images has blurred the fine details as is shown, the single image HDR is sharper on the finer foliage:

 

 
A few more examples -

Patong Beach Ski Train original:

 
Exposure adjusted copy:

 
HDR result:

 
Nai Yang Crown Hotel Original:

 
Nai Yang Crown Hotel -2Ev exposure adjusted copy:

 
Nai Yang Crown Hotel +2Ev exposure adjusted copy:

 
Final single image HDR, original exposure and two exposure adjusted copies of the same image:

 
Original:

 
Exposure adjusted copy:

 
HDR from one image:

 
HDR from the original plus exposure adjusted copy:

 
Wanganui River original:

 
Exposure adjusted copy:

 
HDR from adjusted image copies:

 
HDR from one image processing:

 
Single image HDR processing, is it indeed false HDR – Faux? Or does it have merit, is it also valid HDR technique and true – Vrai? Well you have seen some results here so you can obviously make your own mind up on that one.

This, for me, is another effective tool at my disposal. There is no substitute for a quality exposure, as always the basic rule is GIGO, Garbage In Garbage Out. We can and do apply many different processing techniques to achieve the vision of that scene as we saw it at the time.
 
 

HDR or HDRI – High Dynamic Range Imaging:

The blending of multiple exposures, with offset exposure values, of the same scene to create a single image with a wider tonal range than is possible with a single exposure.

The modern thinking is that HDR was initially pioneered and developed in recent years for use with digital images and computer-generated graphics. While techniques and technology have developed greatly in this age, the pioneering of high dynamic range images – using more than one exposure to increase the tonal range of a print – goes way-way back.

Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray became famous for his seascape photographs 160 years ago. Le Gray used two negatives, one for the sky and a second longer exposure for the sea, to produce one positive print with a much higher luminosity, or dynamic range, than was possible with only one exposure – back in the 1850′s!

The technique further developed from the 1930′s into layering films of different exposure values to create the higher dynamic range, dogging and burning techniques were introduced to the process in the 1950′s. Now here in this digital age there is truly nothing new under the sun.

My personal preference for HDR images is realism, (not a fan of the overdone grunge look) where HDR technique is another tool at the photographer’s disposal. When executed carefully, HDR makes for some striking images – photos with the “wow” factor. In point of fact, HDR technique is more widely used by professional photographers than most people realise.

There are many software solutions now-a-days to aid in the combining of multiple exposures to create one HDR image. I use Photomatix Pro, which allows exporting the files directly from Lightroom 3.6 and reimporting the tone mapped combination image back into LR. I have tried the Photoshop CS5 merge to HDR, maybe I need to spend more time learning this particular tool, but not a fan at this stage.

The common HDR technique is to bracket two or three images with 2EV differential between each sequential exposure, then tone map these images in the software of choice. Of course the number of images and exposure offset value is subjective and will vary by photographer, equipment and scene. As an example, the images that follow of Mount Ruapehu on the Desert Road are unedited JPEG conversions of the original raw NEF files. The first image is camera exposure setting in Aperture Priority mode, the second image is -2EV from this setting while the third image is +2EV from the initial setting, each exposing for detail in a different area of the image:

These were exported into Photomatix Pro for tone mapping, then imported back into Lightroom 3.6 as a .TIFF format for final sharpening and colour adjustments. The resultant tone mapped image received a levels layer in CS5 to produce the final image, which worked very well in this case because the evening was still with no breeze and therefore no foliage movement:

This approach of layering several different images has obvious draw-backs for landscape photography. If there is a light breeze for example ghosting appears around leaves and grass and any moveable object due to the different position of the object(s) in each exposure, which is particularly nasty against a sky or a highlight area. There is also a chance of camera movement and misalignment between images. Bear in mind also, I am referring to a final image of quality to print to 24″+ wide (on quality print paper) where ghosting and fringing are all the more obvious, rather than a screen presentation image where a lesser quality image can still be made to look reasonably good.

When referring to image quality, a screen image of smaller proportions that looks “wow” what a great image may not be that great an image. Every image I publish, I know intimately. Scrutinize at 100% or even 200%, which is, or should be, standard practice I believe. Look for quality of detail, sharpness, fringing, moire, chromatic abberation, noise etc. You will often find the smaller screen image does not present that well under close examination, ergo printing to large sizes is out of the question.

Shooting RAW is also standard practice for me, allowing the maximum chance of maximum quality. Adjust the images before exporting to HDR software, eg. black clipping, white balance etc. Highlight recovery is ok for a small amount but it tends to leave a halo around leaves, branches etc that are against the high lit sky or background, which is accentuated more during the HDR process.

Another (and my preferred) Approach

If it is possible to balance an image exposure such that the camera histogram is not clipped or only slightly clipped, indicating that all the detail in the image is retrievable, there is the opportunity to create a finely detailed, noiseless HDR image from the one exposure.

There are a number of ways to create a second, exposure adjusted image from an original. I have found that exposure adjusted copies of the one image, saved in Capture NX 2 do not align perfectly when layered for HDR processing – not sure about the latest update though. Lightroom 3 can create a virtual copy of any image, which allows editing separately and apart from the originating image. Both the original image and the virtual copy can then be exported to Photomatix Pro for tone mapping, returning one HDR from the one image, and the layer alignment is always perfect.

Because both images are essentially the same image, detail is exactly the same for both images so when they are layered for tone mapping they are an exact match. Details remain crisp and noise is not introduced from the usual underexposed bracketed images used for HDR tone mapping.

In the following images of the Wanganui River, once again the first photo is a JPEG conversion of the original raw file with some black clipping applied. The second image is the exposure adjusted virtual copy of the original image by -2EV, and the final image is the returned tone mapped final HDR. The -2EV exposure adjusted image is much the same image that would be produced if I bracketed the shots. The important difference is that if this were a bracketed separate exposure, it would be very noisy in the dark areas which is the majority of the image, but because the image I am using is an exposure adjusted copy of a correctly exposed image there is very little or no noise and this obviously means finer detail in the resultant HDR.

The next example at Cape Turnagain of a wave splashing against a rock shows the subtle effectiveness of HDR technique between the first, original photo and the final HDR image:

A virtual copy of the above image, exposure adjusted by -2EV:

Both the original and virtual copies are exported from Lightroom to Photomatix Pro, to produce the following resultant HDR:

Finally a few more examples of (in my opinion) effective HDR both herein and elsewhere. Each image links back to the original:

Finally …

Previously I spoke generally of quality and professionalism with some discussion toward Realestate photography. So now we have a photoshoot for a local Realestate Agent, whom we meet at the property they are going to market and have contracted us to photograph for them.

Take good care to be consistently punctual, on time or a tad early, considering both the Agent and vendor who likely will be home at the time. Usually I have given my property presentation guide to the Agent who has forwarded this to the vendor. The document is basically a single A4 sheet, with my business name, logo and contact info, guiding the vendor in point form through preparing their property not only for the photography but for any open home viewings.

It is quite common to arrive at a property that has not been prepared for presentation, either because the vendor has not received any guide or they have not bothered or bothered very much. In such cases the Agent is usually very helpful and we skip around moving items out of a room for each photo, replacing them and off to the next room etc.

This can be time consuming but I consider this a small “value add” service. Some photographers I know arrive to an unprepared property and leave again with a “call me when it is ready”. The photography business is as much about relating to people as it is being a skilled photographer, without either quality you will not be very successful.

As the photographer you will be looked to for the expertise in presentation of each room and as such for the time you are there you are in control, so politely take control in a manner that puts the vendor at ease and makes the Agent want to help you out. Adopt an easy manner, smile and be friendly, instill a sense of confidence towards you from both the Agent and vendor. Be encouraging, complement the vendor on their preparation, decor etc.

Photographing the Property

With a large property and a house with many rooms it can be easy to miss a room or important view, so I do a basic walk or work flow from the front of the property, into and through the house then back outside for the rear and sides (if necessary) of the property.

First impressions are the street view or the frontage, which will most likely be used as the main presentation image but keep your mind outside of the box so-to-speak – the main view could be from the patio with a glass or two of wine in a nice setting on the outdoor table overlooking the beautiful lake or looking towards another cactching view!

Walk around the property first, to check preparation and look for angles, different attractive perspectives, features that should be included in your images. When entering the house I remove my shoes, leaving them outside the entrance (unless the vendor specifically says otherwise) and ask (as a courtesy) if I can look through the house first and as for the outside,  walk through checking for preparation, does anything need moving or cleaning and looking for angles, views, features etc. On the way I point out that which I would like moved or hidden from view that the Agent and vendor are usually happy to help with.

Ok, so now we are happy it is into the photos. The reality is, once you are familiar with what you are doing the front of the house has already mostly been photographed by now but for our purposes here I will start from the front, finishing at the rear with a selection of images from which I can choose 20 good images – more or less – according to the land area and the house size.

Get your frontage shots including any nice gardens, shrubs, trees, features etc, then starting at the front entrance work your way through the house. You will find a natural flow to most houses and following this flow you will not miss anything. When presenting rooms for photographs, less-is-more. Remove as much clutter as possible and distracting coloured mats etc. The viewers eye wants to survey the room and the view outside, not the three cats on the bed and the psychedelic floor mat.

Remember, once you leave – you have left, gone, so be sure you have all the images you need before you go and that they are of a sufficient quality. Check your camera histogram for every shot, make sure there is no, or very little clipping on either side of the graph and that the information is in the middle or biased to the right. This will give you the best image to work with. See my post regarding the camera histogram here (a new window will open)

How you compose your shots is very subjective and in the eye of the photographer. Here I can only suggest that you browse property listings, you will soon form opinions on what looks good and what does not, what catches your eye and what repels you, remembering that you have only seven – 7 – seconds to capture the attention of potential buyers.

Frontage needs to take in gardens and other features that enhance the viewing appeal.

This preceding image also makes obvious one of the reasons I use a monopod. Set the self timer, point and hit the shutter button focusing where you want and hold the monopod high – you easily have a different and attractive perspective. Another reason for the monopod is the following image taken with ambient light at a much slower shutter speed than is possible hand held …

1/5 second shutter speed at f/8.0

The inside images must convey the ambiance of each room. The way to achieve this is balancing the light between inside and outside. Your camera settings need to allow correct exposure of the view outside the windows, doors or openings and the flash will balance the light inside the room – balanced fill flash. Turning on all the lights helps with that bit of extra fill light and is necessary for shots with ambient light only.

Equipment and Settings

Equipment for the task varies for different photographers obviously. I use Nikon and my basic kit is D7000, SB900 flash, Tokina ATXPRO 11-16 f/2.8 lens and a monopod. I use a Velbon Ball head on a Velbon Geo carbon fibre monopod because it is tall and strong – and I already have a Velbon tripod so the mounting plates are already in place.

You will need a wide angle lens. As a basic rule of thumb, I would suggest 11mm-12mm min focal length lens for a cropped sensor camera and 16mm min focal length for a full frame camera – this will give you enough coverage for most rooms to be able to take in a full two walls and a bit more maybe. Some popular cropped sensor or DX lenses for this purpose are: 11mm-16mm zoom, 12mm-24mm zoom, 10mm-24mm zoom, 10mm-22mm zoom get the picture? For FX or full frame then: 14-24mm, 16-35mm, 17-35mm etc.

I use the M “manual” setting and A “aperture priority” mostly with an aperture setting of around f/8 or f/10 which allows a good depth of field for interior shots. The view finder has an exposure indicator at the bottom, so as I dial in a different aperture and shutter speed the indicator will show if the settings are under or over exposed for the shot. Just like the old exposure metres I guess but this one built into the camera. Of the three preceding shots, the first is taken with no flash and the next two with fill flash, that is TTL setting or Through-The-Lens metering for the flash output levels.

Tips

The next image is using ambient light only – using the house lights and outside light for fill light …

1/4 seconds shutter speed at f/8.0

Once again, 1/4 seconds exposure possible with the monopod. If I were to have used a flash in this room, the heavy roof beams and the uprights in the middle of the room would have cast distracting shadows and this being a very large room would have had a very bright roof immediately above me to allow for sufficient flash fill light in the far corner.

Remember the image on your camera screen will look alot lighter than it does when it gets to the computer so I cannot stress enough – check your histogram after each shot. Adjust your setting until you get a nice graph on your histogram and you won’t go too far wrong. No one minds if you take a shot, check and adjust and take another shot or two.

Onlookers are admiring your work, not being critics so relax and concentrate on your task, they need not be a distraction.

All of these tips are from my own experience and have happened to me at some time, the wisdom being – learn and don’t let it happen a second time.

If your shoes are left at the front door, move them out of view for your shots!

Carefully check your equiment, clean lenses etc. One shoot went pretty well until I got back home to the computer. Several shots had flaring that I just could not get rid of. Checking the lens, the inner glass has a very light smudge mark! I must have rubbed my finger over it lightly when fitting it to the camera. This one cost another trip for some more photos.

Ensure you have spare batteries for your flash, don’t trust that they are newly charged.

Don’t burn out windows – overexpose the outside view, this detracts from the image for what we are doing. Balance the light, ensure the view outside is what you would see with your naked eye or as close to.

Try to get two full walls into most of your room or bedroom shots, giving a good view of the room itself.

Some rooms I don’t photograph: toilet, unless it is in the bathroom; laundry; inside the garage unless it has been converted to another room.

Look behind you. Go to the other side of the room and see what the view is from there, you may find quite a worthwhile view by looking in a different direction to the images you have just taken.

Outside tables can enhance an image with a nice wine setting, a bottle, two or three glasses and a nice centre piece.

Evening shots can be particularly attractive, only this time you balance the light inside the windows …

Take your shots as the sky darkens and the light balances between the sky and the ground, obviously with all the inside lights on and it can help to have outside lamps to direct at the house. Use a tripod for this one and a cable release helps too. Take a series of shots as the light changes.

Editing and Publishing

Talk with your Agent about the images and how they want them, are there any specific size requirement, lighter or darker, colour space etc? Most agencies do something different. For example some I supply to at two image sizes, first set at 4000px wide at 300dpi, AdobeRGB for printing; second set at 800px wide, 72dpi sRGB for web presentation. Another agency only require prints images at 3000px wide. It varies so talk with them about this which is also builds rapport.

Mostly I deliver the images on CD, with my business details on the label etc. I also supply a link from my web site that the agency can click to download a .zip file containing the images which works well.

First pass for me is import into Lightroom 3, adding keywords. Then select and flag my final images, rename them in order to give a flow from the front, throughout the house and to the rear.

Step through those 20 or so images now, one at a time, removing the barrel distortion, and straighten the images so walls, doors, window, fence posts and poles are all vertical; lighten shadows, darken highlights, recover overexposed areas, all the while trying to to get an image that is not too “flat”, some contrast is desirable. Once done, apply a batch sharpen. I use sharpen to 40, detail and masking to 50 and noise luminance to 10, this usually works pretty well.

Now export them to your publish folder as 100% quality jpegs to the specifications you have already discussed with your agent and burn them to your custom label CD. When I deliver them it is also another chance to say hi and keep my friendly smiling face remembered in their office. If your face wants to smile let it, if it doesn’t then make it!

Well … that is a wrap! Please contact me with any questions or suggestions, in the mean time enjoy the following images … see you ’round the ridges!

Real estate photography is one of my sources of income as a photographer. I saw a need as I browsed the local properties for sale and was quite shocked at the poor quality imagery used to market such an expensive product as real estate – even some of those presented as “professional”.

In a nut-shell, seeing poor quality photos out there in the marketing arena makes my teeth itch, so I write here in the hope that these ramblings may help some to professionally prepare and present real estate images to clients, be they agents or vendors.

Of course alot of this post is relevant to professional photography in general. In my next post I will talk about a few more real estate photography specifics.

A couple of basics first off – for the purposes here,  I always shoot RAW and post edit in Adobe’s Lightroom 3, and sometimes using Photoshop CS5.

Real estate photography is presenting the viewers with imagery that will grab their attention. Over 90% of home and property buyers use the internet to search for their dream home, investment property or holiday get-a-way. On average I have 7 seconds for my images to hold their attention – within 7 seconds they will decide to look at more of this presentation or move on.

As a photographer I must understand what makes images pleasing to viewers and what generally does not – what it is that holds a potential home buyers attention. House and Garden type magazines will often present images of homes, inside and out, gardens and other scenes as high-key images. These are stylish images where the sky and highlights of the scene are pure white, including windows and doorways for internal shots.

This stylized look does not work for real estate photography in my experience. A burnt out high lighted window or door opening detracts from the room or scene my image is presenting to the viewer. This is one reason, I believe, that video presentation is hot and getting hotter – buyers can view the videos and get a good look and feel of the property. When they then visit the property, it is a case of … “yes, I remember seeing that on the video”.

My images must convey the same connection and to do that each room or scene must be a very close representation of what the eye would see naturally. This will convey the true ambiance to the viewer – being able to clearly see the room or scene as well as the detail outside or beyond. Balancing the light is the photogapher’s skill as in this next pair of images …

Or outside looking in, once again balance the light …

Both the first examples I have seen the equivalent of, and much worse photos used to present homes for sale to the public.

So without further ado, some considerations and discussion …

Always shoot in camera RAW

Camera RAW files are just that, raw files containing all the information recorded for the image you have just clicked off. Jpeg images can look very good straight from the camera but information is lost in the process of compressing the file to the JPEG format. When it comes to bringing detail out of a dark area or an overexposed area the RAW file offers the best chance of recovery, of course only if the image is not too far overexposed or underexposed.

Image detail is much finer, clearer and cleaner in RAW format than in JPEG. This may not always seem to matter so much but I prefer to always present the best images possible.

RAW file noise reduction is more effective than for JPEGS, as is image sharpening and lighting / colour adjustments. Every manufacturer has their own OEM RAW file formats, and likewise produce their own RAW file conversion software to convert the RAW formats to a generally usable format such as jpeg or tiff. I use Adobe Lightroom 3, which will convert most RAW formats with several updates per year as more camera models come onto the market.

Lightroom 3 has Adobe Camera Raw technology inbuilt, the extact same technology but not as a plugin – as part of the program.

If the images are converted ultimately to JPEG anyway, then why not straight from the camera I hear someone ask? Keeping the RAW format for all of your editing, adjusting and cropping is working with 100% of the data recorded for that image. The final edit is then converted to jpeg for web presentation or printing – the very last thing done is the conversion.

When a JPEG is taken direct from the camera, data is stripped from the image to begin with to achieve the JPEG format. With a JPEG file, each time an edit is made and the file is saved, more data is stripped from the image. Every “save” compresses the image data and degrades the overall image quality but not so with camera RAW files or TIFF files for that matter.

Process the Images before delivery to your client

(I am assuming images imported to your Photo management / catalog software, keepers flagged and others rejected or otherwise tagged and metadata applied)

Post processing is a must, even if you do decide to shoot JPEGs. Using a wide angle lens causes some barrel distortion of the images where the walls and doorways look bowed out in the middle. This is unavoidable and must be corrected for final presentation.

The second image correction is making sure all the vertical lines as in walls and window frames, power poles etc are actually vertical, and there is no vertical or horizontal distortion as can happen if the camera is not quite level in any direction. This is where the top of the room is wider than the bottom of the room or visa versa.

The next adjustment is lighting and colour, darks are not too dark and lights not too light and colour is true colour. Most of the light balance is from the camera and flash settings but minor adjustments can be made here.

I then zoom in to 100% and check for chromatic aberrations, these are the red, blue, cyan or yellow fringes along some of the edges. Lightroom 3 handles these fringes and all the above edits very well.

While zoomed in I apply sharpening and noise reduction if necessary and the final image is ready for export in, usually, JPEG format.

Present yourself as professional both in manner and appearance

Present yourself as a professional, clean, tidy, smart dress, company logo on your shirt etc. Let your manner be friendly, polite and very helpful. Make it a pleasurable experience for the people who deal with you. I know of some photographers who miss repeat business for this very reason. You are the professional, you have the knowledge, you have the skills, your clients are relying on you for those qualities, afford them also the pleasure of your company -

If your face wants to smile, let it – if it doesn’t, then make it!

A property presentation guide

A nice touch is to prepare a property presentation guide as a hand out for agents and vendors to help them prep their properties for photography and for inspections. People living in their own homes are often not aware of their often used items on hand or on shelves looking like clutter to prospective buyers.

Less is more so help them along and most people do appreciate this advice.

Deliver your images to your client on CD or DVD or via FTP

Even if my images are sent via email or uploaded directly to the client website, I still deliver them to their office on a CD. This is a personal touch, and allows further contact with your customer if you are able to hand deliver the CD, and more advertising with your nicely designed CD label with your logo, contact details and services offered. Currently I supply images on CD and via a download link where the client clicks an email download link, downloading a .zip file from my web site.

In my next post I will talk some more about real estate photography specifics. Until then – see you ’round the ridges!

Simply, the histogram is a graphical representation of the information stored in the selected image file – from shadows on the left to hightlights on the right.

To access the histogram on a Nikon Camera, push the playback button, then press the down arrow of the selector dial:

This will now show some information about the selected image, including camera settings and the historgram which is the white graph to the right of the image:

The histogram shown here has the bulk of the data to the left of centre which means more shadows than highlights in the image. Note the left and right ends of the graph intersect the bottom line and don’t touch either side – this is good, exactly what you want.

You may have heard the term “clipping”? This is when the line of graph hits the left-most or right-most verticals above the base line which means that information is lost and parts of the image shadow will be just black, or some of the highlight areas will be white (burnt out). A good example is clouds on a sunny day, burnt out clouds are just pure white shapes instead of the moody contrasts so often attractive in clouds.

In reality you can get away with a small amount of “clipping” at times on the right particularly as this can be pulled back with in camera processing or with Photoshop or the like without losing any detail from the image.

I check my histogram for every image, and what I look for initially is:

1. No clipping.

2. Expose to the right.

We have discussed clipping, now exposing to the right means that the bulk of the image information is on the right side of center rather than the left as the histogram above. Why expose to the right? Darker exposures can introduce digital noise, which robs detail from the image.

A well exposed image will have a histogram something like this:

There is no “clipping” on either side which means we have not lost any digital information, there are no absolute blacks or whites. Most of the data is right of centre.

When processing this image, if I wanted more shadow for mood, I could reduce the brightness values in Photoshop and have nicely toned shadows with plenty of detail.

An under exposed image:

The bulk of information is to the left and the graph is “clipped” on the left hand side of the histogram. This means I have pure blacks in my image.

I likely would not process this image for a large quality print, but if I were to try and increase the brightness values, the shadows would have discoloration and details would be poor due to the noise from such an exposure.

An over exposure:

The “clipping” on the right means I have pure white in my image and alot of it with the bulk of the information stacked hard right.

Nothing can be done with this image – delete it, readjust your camera for another shot if you really like the subject: choose a smaller aperture if you want more depth of field ( the amount of the image that is in focus) or increasing your shutter speed – either will allow less light into the camera sensor, reducing the exposure levels, assuming you have already selected the lowest ISO for a quality landscape shot :

Don’t worry about how high the graph goes, concentrate on the left and right sides and having the bulk of the information to the right of center if possible.

I quickly (at times ruefully) learned to rely on my histogram after ruining more that a few images. One occasion cause me many hours of unnecessary editing and adjusting to satisfy the clients needs – if only I had checked the histogram and not relied on the camera live view!

I check now after each shot or burst of shots – a quick check showing no clipping and reasonable amount of data middle to right and I am happy.

I encourage every digital camera user to find and use the histogram on their model of camera. It is very easy to use and you can be confident of nicely exposed images.

I hope this is clear enough and helpful to some. See you ’round the ridges!

I won’t go into the finer details and technical jarg regarding digital noise here, I am not a scientist, camera designer or technician – I just take photos! Alrightey then …

Firstly, I shoot mostly in Manual or Aperture Priority modes preferring more control over the camera settings and performance

• Keep your ISO setting low. Higher ISO means higher noise levels, so for all but sports and action, I keep my camera ISO setting at minimum. This often requires the use of a tripod or monopod to keep the camera steady, but I am serious about image quality so I consider this well worth the effort. There is much talk about the hi ISO abilities of cameras like the Nikon D3s and many statements regarding the image quality. If you are serious about fine art prints, landscape, product photography, food photography etc then even with a very highest quality sensor, lower ISO will always give cleaner, superior results and professional quality large prints – by large, try 630mm + high x 2300mm long, Durst Lambda printed on Kodak Professional Endura print paper, view the image here.

• Long exposures introduce noise, so keep your exposures times as low as practicable. This is not always possible in which case I set my camera long exposure noise level reduction. Generally I have found with the cameras I currently use, exposures under 15 seconds are all pretty low noise if I have exposed the image correctly. Exposure times over that, is where the cameras long exposure noise reduction setting helps.

• Under exposure will also add noise to images when trying to increase the exposure level in Photoshop or Lightroom (or which ever is your software of choice). I expose to the right, meaning the bias of my exposure is to the right of centre on my camera histogram.

• After each exposure or set of exposures I always check the histogram to ensure correct exposure – that there is no “clipping” the graph on either the left or right sides of the histogram. In practice a small amount of clipping can be brought back in Lightrooom but too much and you have lost information from your image, meaning there will be either total black or white areas where there is no image detail recorded.

Exposing to the right is not over exposing but keeping the exposure on the + side or right side of centre on your histogram. If I adjust an image exposure up by any considerable amount in Lightroom 3 or Adobe Camera Raw, I have found noise introduced and less definition resulting, whereas adjusting the exposure down on a brighter image (the image of course is not overexposed, only brighter than I want the final image to be) retains detail and has not introduced noise.

• A hot camera sensor will cause more noise, some suggest the noise level doubles for every 5 degree Celsius increase in temperature. Basically I keep my camera in the coolest spot possible, shade – but not sitting in the car at 45+ degrees C as it can be in parts of Australia. Nikon recommends operating in temperatures up to 40 degrees C is ok, which I have found it to be in practice also. Remembering of course that ambient temperature is considerably increased inside a black camera body exposed to direct sunlight.

• A larger sensor area will produce lower noise levels, this is why full frame or FX sensor cameras (35mm film equivalent) produce cleaner images than cropped sensor cameras, four-thirds micro and compact point-and-shoot cameras. Medium format cameras generally produce cleaner images again. This has something to do with pixel pitch and the amount of gap around each pixel or photodiode on the sensor plate, a larger sensor plate having more space around each individual pixel. It follows that smaller sensors with the same megapixels has them all closer together.

• Shoot in camera RAW if possible. Some of the smaller cameras will not do this but most DSLRs have a camera RAW setting which I use exclusively. Jpegs, even at the highest quality setting strip information from the image. Camera RAW files – NEF for Nikon, Canon CR2, Fuji RAF etc, these files are just the raw data the camera has recorded for the image, they are not useable in this state and must be processed and converted into a usable format, the most common being JPEG and TIFF. Camera RAW files record the most information to bring the best out of your image, but remember the basic premise of any processing is GIGO, or Garbage In Garbage Out. There is nothing that can correct a really crappy image. I check my lens is clean, focus, exposure (meter in the view finder and the camera histogram after the shot) framing, white balance … and push the remote button!
  • I am not a software expert and have not used alot of RAW converters, Nikons’ NX2, Adobe’s Camera Raw and now Adobe’s Lightroom 3 which has the latest Adobe Camera Raw technology built in. I use Lightroom 3 almost exclusively, simply the results have won me. There is other software available, but that is another post – sorry!
• Post processing. I have used Nikon ViewNX, Nikon (Nik Software’s) Capture NX2, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Photoshop CS5, Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom 3 and Noiseware Professional. Of these I have found Capture NX2, Noiseware Professional as a plugin to Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3 (which is Adobe Camera Raw built in) all very good. Of course excessive noise is just that and a reject image for me.
  • If you don’t process your images after downloading them, consider learning to do so and making this your practice. Nothing too complicated about basic processing but the results will bring a smile to your dial if you love photography. In camera processing is another option but once again – that is a yarn for another post!

I am sure there is more that could be covered, but by following some basics and making them my standard practice, my images quality has improved and that is what we are all about really.

• Select Elliptical Marqee Tool
• Frame subject with an Ellipse or Circle
• Invert the selection
• Add a levels adjustment layer, darken or lighten to your liking
• Apply Gaussian Blur filter – this demo uses 180px
• Adjust layer opacity – this demo uses 70%

The menus shown here are CS5 menus. Soooo …

open your image in photoshop. Press M to select the elliptical marquee tool. If the rectangular tool is active, pressing shift-M will toggle the tool between ellipse and rectangle. Alternatively you can select the marquee tool directly from the left vertical tools menu. Right clicking on the menu item will open a selection menu where you can choose your desired tool. Directly above the vertical tools menu your selection – in this case ellipse – is now visible. Immediately to the right of this are 4 other selections between the ellipse and the Feather size box. From left to right they are single selection, add to current selection, remove from current selection and intersect with current selection so ensure the left-most selection is selected is the active selection.

Click to the upper left of the subject and drag the ellipse to the lower right until the subject is framed nicely. I may take a few goes to get it just right, simply click and drag again – the previous ellipse will disappear.

The current selection is everything inside the ellipse. We want to select everything outside the ellipse, so invert the selection by Select>Inverse or Shift+Control+I for windows users, Shift+Command+I for Apple.

Your image should have a marching ants ellipse around the subject, and a second marching ants line around the periphery of your image. The current selection is now everything outside the ellipse.

Add a levels adjustment layer from the top menu by Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels, or by clicking on the black / white round button at the bottom of the layers pallete and selecting Levels from the popup menu.

A layer called Levels 1 is now sitting above your image in the layers pallete. In keeping with good practice, and especially important when working with many layers, rename this layer by double clicking on Levels 1 and typing your new name, I will use Vignette.

Above the layers pallete is the adjustments pallete which now has the levels histogram (black graph) and adjustment sliders. Click on the middle slider moving to the right to darken the selection, in this instance I will move the slider to 0.60. Moving the slider to the left will lighten the selection. Your image will now show a defined elliptical shadow around your subject as in this image.

To make this effect softer and much more subtle, we are going to blur the selection and reduce the opacity slider.

Select Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, either adjust the slider or type the pixel value directly into the Radius box, in this demo I am using a 180 pixel blur, then OK.

I will soften the effect a bit more by decreasing the opacity of the levels layer. In the layers pallet, above the Vignette layer is an opacity box, click on the blue down arrow to expose the opacity slider and move the slider to the left, in this demo I used 70% opacity.

Moving the levels slider all the way to the left lightens the vignette. Play around with the ellipse size and position, levels, blur amount and opacity until you are pleased with the result.

Don’t be shy … experiment and enjoy !! See you ’round the ridges!