574 - Light Out Of Darkness

Normally I don't do this. I've already shown this portrait as a second example in the tutorial for Tuesday, "571 - Them There Eyes II". On the other hand, this was not the Image of the Day for Tuesday, and the image was actually shot on Friday, as an example for an utterly badly lit portrait, a worst case example, thus the timing is OK, because this is the entry for Friday. And then, apart from the fact that I had nothing better, I am also pretty damn proud of what I've achieved here :)

If you are curious now and haven't read the tutorial yet, just follow the link above.

The Song of the Day is "Light Out Of Darkness" from Shirley Horn's 1993 album "Light out of Darkness (A Tribute to Ray Charles)". Sorry, neither video nor lyrics are available.

571 - Them There Eyes II

This is an image that I shot on Tuesday. I couldn't post it that day, because my ISP had severe DNS problems. I could resolve most websites, but www.blogger.com was not one of them. Bad luck. The next two days I had no time at all, now it's Friday afternoon, I sit on the train again and try to catch up.

While post-processing this image of an old Volvo, I thought that the method is very simple, takes hardly any time and is so versatile, that I should probably make another tutorial. Here we go:

This time we look at the incredible power of a frequently underused feature - blending modes. What is a blending mode anyway? Well, that's basically the method Photoshop uses when displaying a layer that is on top of other layers. The most frequently used blending mode (and the default) is "Normal". Basically that means that the top layer hides the layers below. Pretty as you would expect it. Think of it as a stack of playing cards. You can see the top card, but nothing below.

Even in "Normal" mode we can make some interesting things. We can attach a mask to the top layer, and by painting on the mask with black, we can hide the layer partially (mask it). It's a bit like cutting away parts of the top card in the stack. We can also lower the opacity of the top layer from 100% to, say, 50%. Now you can see through the top layer like through a colored plastic foil.

Both of these techniques, masking and opacity, will be used, but we will use it on layers of more exotic blending modes.

Let's first begin with a look at the original Volvo as the camera has recorded it. I always shoot "Large RAW + JPEG Fine", which on my D300 means to use the full 12 megapixel, record the sensor data as a RAW file and to additionally produce a JPEG file of the same size and the best possible quality.

This image, the JPEG from the camera, is obviously meant to be about the headlight. I have used my Sigma 10-20 at f4, went very near and focused on the glass. With a lens this wide and with a maximum aperture of f4 (note: maximum aperture = minimum f-number), you have always a big depth of field, but when you focus near enough, you'll still get some background blur. That's what I was after.

As regards exposure, the camera has done what cameras set to matrix metering tend to do. The exposure is pretty leveled out. There is clearly detail almost everywhere in the car, only the reflexes in the headlight are partially burnt out, but that still looks pretty good to me. The house in the background is perfectly exposed but ugly, and although the sky is much too light, it seems to hold detail as well.

I want this to be about the light. As the image originally was, the light was in an awkward position, neither centered nor on a third. I wouldn't want to center it anyway, so let's put it on a third. The Rule of Thirds is no hard rule at all, but here it does well. In Camera RAW I crop in from the left and a little from below, a tiny bit from the right, and at the same time I make the image boring and flat. I do this by using a linear tone curve (medium contrast is the default) and letting the automatics set exposure, contrast, etc.

I don't always crop in Camera RAW. Normally I do it in Photoshop, and sometimes even at the very end of processing. In Photoshop I also choose the option to hide the cropped area instead of deleting it. Then I can always go back with "Image / Reveal All", and that without reverting the other steps made in between. Here cropping in Camera RAW is OK, as I exactly know what I want.

For the next steps I want to have another layer, basically the same, but with even less overall contrast and instead much increased local contrast. This is the layer that I want to use for blending. In order to get such a thing, I duplicate the background layer and use the PhotoLift plugin on it. See "492 - Roughly About Sundown" for more about that. Alternatively you could also use a curves layer to lower the contrast, and then unsharp mask with a high radius and a low amount (well, to get this effect you'd need more of a medium amount). This is not as convenient as PhotoLift and takes some experimenting, but it works quite well. See how we get detail in the sky now. The look of this layer is almost like many HDR images are, unnatural and comic-like. As it is, this layer is still in "Normal" blending mode.

Next we set the blending mode (that's at the top of the "Layers" palette, left of "Opacity") to "Multiply". Eeek! That's much too dark! On the other hand, the sky is nice, the ugly house is mercifully lost in the shadows, and maybe the darkness would do nicely as a vignette.

Let's add a mask now, and then let's paint with a big, soft brush and the color black on the mask. Where it's black, the layer with the mask is hidden. Let's do that on and around the headlight. Ahhh! Much better. The problem is only, that what we have revealed, is still the boringly flat original background.

What do we need now? Basically we want our contrast back, and along the way we want some more colors as well. We don't want it everywhere, we only want it on the headlight, or in other words, we want it where we have painted with black on the mask. I simply duplicate the top layer, change the blending mode to "Soft Light", and then invert the mask. Voilà! A little sharpening with an edge mask, and that's the Image of the Day. Here is a shot of the layers palette.

What have we done? We have set a strong focus in the image. This is now really about the headlight, nothing else.

Of course the same result could have been reached in a number of ways. There is always more than one way to do things in Photoshop, but I think two layers, that's not too shabby. The point is, that it really pays to know about blending modes and what you can do with them.

This is the image that inspired me to write about blending modes, but compared to the original image, the effects are still subtle. Let's look at something really dramatically bad, and let's try to change it into something usable.

Today I've asked my friend Erich to sit for a really bad portrait. I wanted something terribly lit, an image with a light background (a window), the face looking into the room, being fully in shadow. This is a worst case scenario, something that I would normally avoid under all circumstances, and if I couldn't avoid it, I would use a flash. Still, sometimes such an image is all that we get. It has either been taken by someone else who didn't care, or we had the choice to take it or get no image at all. The first image is straight from the camera. We have extremely harsh contrasts, the background is partially gone and we still don't see details in the face.

The first step is again to convert it in Camera RAW into something flat. The real reason behind this is to incorporate all detail that we can get. The result is even less attractive. Now let's do some blending.

We begin with "Multiply" again. But, wait, what do we blend? For the last image we have used a pixel bearing layer with increased local contrast, but this is not always necessary. You can blend any layer, even adjustment layers. Thus we add a curves adjustment layer, don't bend the curve at all, and only set the blending mode to "Multiply". This has the same effect as duplicating the background and setting the result to "Multiply", only the curves layer takes much less space in the resulting file. But this is not only more efficient, we could even manipulate the curve to fine-tune the effect. No need to do it here, but it's good to know that we can. The effect on the background is OK, but of course we want to paint in the mask to reveal the face. This is what the image to the right shows.

Let's add another curves layer to lighten up the face. I duplicate the "Multiply" layer, change the blending mode to "Screen" (which strongly lightens up) and again invert the mask. Now that's dramatic! For the first time we see the face.

That's positively the right direction, but I want more light. One way would be to duplicate the screen layer, but doing so still does not give enough light, and even worse, the contrast in the face is deteriorating. Let's try another blending mode.

Basically there are three groups of blending modes that work well in such situations. One group darkens the image. "Multiply" is the most frequently used mode of them, "Color Burn" and "Linear Burn" are also useful. A white layer in one of these modes is neutral and does not change the image.

The second group lightens the image. We have already seen "Screen", "Color Dodge" and "Linear Dodge" are others. A black layer in one of these modes is neutral and does not change the image.

Finally there are modes that increase contrast. Light portions of the upper layer lighten the image, dark portions darken it. "Soft Light", "Overlay" and "Hard Light" are the most useful modes in this kind of post-processing. A mid-gray layer in one of these modes is neutral.

What we need here is first some more light, and trying the lightening group shows that "Linear Dodge" does quite well, although we need to dial back opacity to 80%. The first attempt at a mask was a copy of the mask for the screen layer, but then I decided to use a strongly blurred version of that. Furthermore I have painted in the mask to tone down some highlights that would otherwise have burned out. "Linear Dodge" preserves more contrast than "Screen", but it also tends to be aggressive to extreme highlights, so be careful.

The next step is to increase contrast. We don't need much, but some contrast we do need. The most gentle mode to increase contrast is "Soft Light". "Overlay" and "Hard Light" would be next, but for this particular case, "Soft Light" at an opacity of 50% is OK.

Originally the face was in complete shadow and we had no clue what a correct white balance would be. Now though we see that the face is too yellow. The camera was on automatic white balance, and in that insane mix of background daylight and muted interior neon light it actually did quite well. Still, it's too yellow and we'll need to correct that.

There are many ways to correct color, and while I have extensively used Lab color mode last year, my current tool is the "Photo Filter" adjustment layer. We need some cooling here, and the cooling filter of choice for this image is "Cooling (LBB)" at the default strength of 25% and an opacity of 30%. Of the three cooling filters, LBB is the one that has a slightly reddish cast, and that looks good here.

Now that colors and tones are about right, it is a good time to clone out some blemishes of the skin. Remember, this is not about altering the image, it is about removing distractions that are not part of the personality of your model. Everybody has some red spots at times, but nobody considers those spots essential for recognizing the person. They are alway in different positions, it's only the photographic image that would lock them in place. By removing them, we only reveal the archetype the sits below. Good riddance.

We could stop here, but a little beauty blur is always nice in a portrait, and even more so when the image quality is already stressed by an attempt to pull detail out of deep shadows. I call this my "neutral blur", and I have an action for that. Basically it goes like this:

Select the whole image, "Copy merged" and paste into a new layer. Duplicate this layer. Set the first one to "Screen" mode and Gaussian blur it with a radius of 30 pixels. Let Opacity at 100%. Then set the other one to "Multiply", blur it with a radius of 5 and set the opacity to 60%. Group the two layers and set the opacity of the group to what looks good. Here I have used 70%.

For women we would probably leave it at that, but Erich is a man and here we want a tad more definition. I could have used a PhotoLift layer, but instead I "Copy Merged" again and use unsharp mask with an amount of 60 and a radius of 60 pixels on the result. An opacity of 50% is ideal in this case.

Impressive? Certainly. It's not that I did this in zero time, not at all. Especially the mask of the "Linear Light" layer took me some time, but I guess the result clearly recommends having a look at blending modes.

One note though: Don't expect such extreme manipulations to work with JPEGs taken with a point-and-shoot camera. Photoshop can't do wonders. Noise and JPEG artifacts will frequently restrict how far you can go. For maximum malleability you need RAW files and a DSLR.

The Song of the Day is again "Them There Eyes", but this time it's not Louis Armstrong, this time it's Anita O'Day and her 1957 collaboration with the Oscar Peterson Trio "Anita Sings the Most".

565 - Miss By One

It's late Friday evening, these are the images for Wednesday. Let's see how far we get tonight. This first image is of a view that I've seen thousands of times in 24 years. Morning light falling through my living room window in Vienna. It's a tad on the yellow side, isn't it? Uuhh ... yes. This is the JPEG from the camera, and I had left it set to "cloudy" white balance from the day before. You know, normally I'd have corrected the white point, brought in a tad of color variation, increased contrast, etc, and I shortly tried, but ... it completely ruins the shot. Some images are not meant to be "optimized".

Wednesday was traveling day, and when I am packed with my big camera backpack and an extra bag, I normally use public transport and most of the time that means the Underground. Not so this day. I decided to ride by tramway for some stations, and then go the rest of the way to work. When I left the tramway in Josefstädter Straße, the sun was shortly gone. I used the light for some images of tulips and came up with this. Did you know that all tulips originate from Kazakhstan?

Later on, at work, I used the opportunity for another portrait of Erich. He was very concentrated and left me the time to focus the 50/1.2. Never be sloppy with this lens, because, when using the focus indicator LED, it is crucial to set the focus point to exactly where you want it. At f1.2 the plane of sharpness is so thin that it becomes apparent that it is no plane at all. It is curved, just like the lens. Forget any focus-and-recompose technique, it won't work. You'll never get sharp images.

The last one, the Image of the Day, was taken shortly after the tulips. The sun had come back and I used a polarizer to get rid of the reflections on the peeling paint.

Now, why is this a "miss by one", you ask? Well, the thermometer shows 18 degrees Celsius, which is quite nice for 8am, but I had hoped for 17. Missing it by one made me reconsider the title. You know, I really had to have "17 Again" from the 1999 Eurythmics reunion album "Peace" as Song of the Day one time :)

I absolutely adore Annie Lennox. She has such a wonderfully powerful voice and the end of this song is ... special. If I remember well, they have performed the song to an overwhelming reception in the morning of New Year's Day 2000 at a concert in London's Trafalgar Square. I really would have given a lot to not only see it on TV :)

There is a remixed version of the album, that's what you currently get if you don't care, and nobody seems to like it. I can't tell, I have the original, but you are warned. See the video on YouTube.

557 - Sarah

May I introduce my niece Sarah? She is a year and some days old, daughter of my sister Astrid and her husband Martin, and she is the delight of my father, who has spent the last two weeks working in Vienna and living with them. Yesterday we returned to Carinthia.

These images are from my visit on Tuesday evening. I had already worked on them and uploaded them to SmugMug, thus I can post this entry. The other images of the week, Wednesday and Thursday, are unrecoverable at the moment, I will post them when I am back in Vienna.

The Song of the Day is "Sara" from Antonello Venditti's 1978 album "Sotto Il Segno Dei Pesci". The lyrics are not exactly what one would write about his baby niece, but Bob Dylan's "Sara" wouldn't have been better in this regard :)

See Antonello Venditti perform live on YouTube.

540 - I'm A Lumberjack, And I'm Okay

Saturday morning I woke up from the door bell. I thought it was the baker who comes every Saturday morning. "I'm coming!", said I and dressed quickly, rushed to the door, opened it and ... saw cousin Peter smiling in my puzzled face, just like on this image, in full attire, saying: "C'mon, let's go and cut down some trees!". I'd give a lot for an image of my face :)

It turned out that he was here to fell two trees near our house, just on the other side of the street. He said he needed me to watch for cars, and I thought I couldn't let him work alone, so I volunteered to help him. Well, two trees became eight, and when we were done with work it was four hours later.

The Image of the Day is from late afternoon. This is a pond near Klagenfurt and I love the reflections of the trees.

The Song of the Day is the "Lumberjack Song" from "Monty Python Sings". See the video on YouTube.

425 - Michael and the Happy Fish

This is Michael. Biologically he may not be our son, but I guess that mostly ends the difference. He is in Vienna at the moment, an aspiring young man with a university degree in law, speaking more languages than I can think of, searching for a job in a publishing house. Got one? Drop me a line please :)

Tonight we were out for dinner at "Il Sestante", a wonderful Italian restaurant at the heart of Vienna's 8^th district. You can eat fine pizza there, but tonight it was fish soup. It is easily the best fish soup in town and I always eat fish soup there. Try it for yourself, you won't regret it.

Actually it was all fish tonight, even the lights were fishy. Is this a nice, happy guy or what?

Both images were shot with the Nikon 18-200, Michael at 18mm, f3.5, 1/30s and ISO 2500, the fish at 18mm, f3.5, 1/80s and ISO 200. Post-processing in Photoshop.

The Song of the Day is once again from the soundtrack to Alan Parker's "The Commitments". This time it is "Too Many Fish In The Sea" from the second album. Never seen the movie? What a shame!

386 - That's Me

Five days ago, Michael Campbell posted a hilarious self portrait of his shadow, and when today, in the last rays of the sun, I had the opportunity to plagiarize on the concept, I shamelessly did. It is much less cool, but I guess the background makes up for that.

Nikon 18-200 at 95mm, 1/8s and f8, shot seconds before sundown.

The Song of the Day is "That's Me" from Paul Simon's 2006 album "Surprise".

365 - Special as Muck

I've already told you the story of this cat's name in "134 - Muck!". He is special, because he is a member of our family, loved and respected, a target of affection and a source of joy.

The Song of the Day is Ian Dury's "Common as Muck", to be found e.g. on "Sex & Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll: The Best of Ian Dury and the Blockheads".

231 - Up so Close

This is Raimund. We work together and he is one of those guys constantly perstered by me and my camera. He's a nice guy and he endures it stoically. This is another image with the Nikon 50/1.2 at f1.2, this time from very near. I have focused on the area below the left eye, and see how out of focus his nose already is. Post-processing was done in Capture NX and was mostly concerned with color temperature and control of contrast.

The Song of the Day is "Up So Close" from Cake's 1994 album "Motorcade of Generosity".

208 - Gerhard

Late as always. I'm afraid you'll have to bear with me, I can't help it.

This is the entry for Wednesday. In the evening we were out to a restaurant with the company. By now the guys are accustomed to me photographing all the time, and that's good because it makes for relaxed portraits like this one of Gerhard, my boss.

Nikon 50/1.2 at f1.2, 1/60s and ISO 1600, ambient light, white balance manually set to 2500K.

We were at the Italian restaurant "Il Sestante" in Piaristengasse in Vienna's 8^th district. They serve a divine "zuppa di pesce". If you're in Vienna, go try it yourself. You won't be disappointed.

The Song of the Day is Billy Joel's "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" from his 1977 album "The Stranger".

162 - Sweethearts Together

I've threatened to upload another image, here it is, this one taken today.

I've seen these lights a thousand times. I've seen them in conjunction with this old portrait of people who were in love eighty or ninety years ago and are long dead, but it never occurred to me that these are hearts, a circle of hearts.

Do we die? Does love die? The Song of the Day, in celebration of an old love, is "Sweethearts Together" from one of the best albums the Rolling Stones have ever made, the fabulous "Voodoo Lounge".

Well, now having my duty fulfilled, I guess it's time to go back to bed. Have a nice day :)

140 - After Work

Yesterday we had a party at our boss' flat in Vienna. I shot this image of Erich while waiting for the tram, just around the end of civil twilight.

At last year's party I made a lot of photos with the Kodak DX7950, but mostly had to resort to flash. It's quite a difference to be able to shoot handheld and still get better images. And of course Auto ISO rocks. It has taken some time to get acquainted to this style of shooting and the "loss of control", but nowadays, when not shooting from the tripod, I use it always, only adjusting minimum shutter speed to the type of subject and the lens I use.

The Song of Yesterday was "Ain't Nothin' But A Party" from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band's album "Medicated Magic". No lyrics necessary, because the only words sung are those of the title :)

135 - My Father is a Carpenter

My father is now in his 72^nd year and he builds a house. He has always had his own small business, never more than one employee and at most two apprentices. He is a workingman and the Song of the Day, Bob Dylan's "Workingman's Blues #2" from "Modern Times", the probably best Dylan album in 30 years, is for him. Though he probably wouldn't like it. English songs are not his style. Well, never mind.

There certainly is a Story of the Day, but alas not here. Sorry, it's simply too late :)

133 - Working Mode

A tad late, but at least this image is genuinely from yesterday. On the train from Vienna to Carinthia I asked this young man if it was OK for me to take some images of him. He agreed and soon seemed in working mode again, quite oblivious to me.

I used my newly acquired Nikon 50/1.2 for the shots. It was already after sundown, the compartment illuminated only by the guy's laptop screen and a dim reading lamp. It is quite amazing that I was able to shoot handheld at f1.2, 1/30s and ISO 500. There are three more of this series in my "Portraiture" gallery, and there you also find an image of my friend Erich, that, being less limited by the D200's low-light deficiencies, is more indicative of the quality of this lens.

This is, aside of the Lensbaby, my first fully manual lens, and even if depth of field is incredibly shallow, it is very easy to handle. I have programmed the D200's FUNC button to let me set lens data. When I press the button, I can use the two command dials to set focal length and maximum aperture. After changing lenses, it takes a second and then the camera correctly meters, and even more important, it measures focus and, if the selected focus point actually is in focus, indicates this in the viewfinder. That's accurate, convenient, and leaves nothing to wish for. I love this camera :)

News of yesterday would be old news, thus there is no Story of the Day. As regards songs about trains, I get plenty of hits when I only search for the word in my music folder, and that covers only filenames. The train seems to be one of the more popular metaphors in songwriting. Now, it's an impossible job to identify "the" prototypic train song, so while Tom Wait's "Train Song" from "Frank's Wild Years" is an obvious choice, we will at least look at a non-obvious but gorgeous cover version by Holly Cole, live on her incredible concert album "It Happened One Night". Don't let the hollow sound of the audio sample at Amazon fool you, I own the CD and it sounds immaculately.

91 - A Portrait?

This is the first non-family portrait I've posted here. I have some more portraits in my "Portraiture" gallery, but so far they are only self-portraits and family. This friendly guy works with me and has allowed me to post the image as long as I don't mention his name.

Actually I make photos of the guys at work all the time ("Oh no! Not again!"), but most of them so far suffered from the usually distracting backgrounds. Now, that was one reasons for buying the Nikon 50/1.8. It's bokeh may not be as creamy as that of the famous 85/1.4 (we'll see when I have it, maybe sometime in Spring), but it costs only 1/10^th of it, and it makes for a very handy portrait lens on a crop-factor camera. I'm loving it!

46 - I

What do you do when you are confined at home for the second day and in desperate need of an Image of the Day? Mount a fast lens on your camera, the camera on the tripod, and shoot a series of self-portraits, of course :)

It's pretty amazing how many exposures you need to get anything decent. Anyway, as far as I can say now, I'm back at work tomorrow, thus I won't bother you with myself any more.

45 - Watching Myself Dreaming of a Garden Shed

I've not gone to work, therefore I am restricted to what I see from out of the window of my living room. This is a composite (Surprise!) of a lensbaby shot taken today and two old B&W portraits of myself, the one on the left side a self portrait, both taken with the old Kodak DX7590.