Understanding Curves in Adobe Photoshop

One of the most powerful, yet sometimes overlooked tools in Adobe Photoshop is also one of the simplest. The Curves tool can have a profound effect on your photos when used properly. They can make a dull photo pop to a professional level and they can even control the color balance of the photo. When mastered, it could possibly be the only tool you'd need to bring your photos up to their full potential.

There are two ways to access the Curves window, but only one of these ways will create a non-destructive layer that you can go back to and re-edit. The other method is most recommended for a quick edit to a photo you don't plan on saving for archival purposes. To access the Curves from this area, go up to the Image menu, then Adjustments and in there you'll see Curves. The other method is a much more recommended method and is accessed by looking at the bottom of the Layers window and looking for the Adjustment Layer pop-out menu. It's a small black and white circle icon and once clicked, you have all the same options as in the Image -> Adjustment menu, only these will all make a new layer that only affects the layers below them, thus preserving the actual image and allowing you to modify the adjustment layers at any point in the editing process.

Once brought up for the first time, the Curves window can be a bit intimidating in the sense that there aren't many intuitive clues to get you going. Luckily Adobe Photoshop CS3 has helped that out just a bit. One of the big new features is now you can see the histogram behind the curve. The histogram is a measurement of the lights and shadows in your photo. At the left are you shadows, in the middle the midtones and at the right are the highlights. Laid on top of the histogram is a diagonal line extending from the bottom-left to the top-right. The bottom-left of the line represents the darkest shadows and the top-right are the brightest highlights. You can drag either one of those points and you'll see the effect that the points have on that particular area. The magic comes in however, when you create new points. To do so merely click anywhere on the line and a new point appears! You can manipulate this new point by dragging it in any direction and then creating another point to create some new contrast. You can theoretically create as many points as you want, but as a rule of thumb, it's best to keep the curve moving from bottom-right to top-left. Too many interruptions from this motion will create some unwanted effects.

Another new feature in CS3 are the Curve presets. You'll notice at the top of the window there's a Preset drop-down box that gives you some predefined curves that you can use to, if nothing else, give you a better idea of how the curves work when certain points are applied to certain places.

Now that you have a pretty decent idea about how to control the overall tones of the image, what about color? Located right under the Presets, you'll see another drop-down box labeled Channel. From here you can select either the Red, Green or Blue channels, each bringing up their own Curve window. This gives you ultimate control over how each different channel effects the entire overall image.

Rather than blindly modifying the Curves from a brand new image, I find it's easiest to hit the Auto button and begin modifying from there, as needed. This can save quite a bit of time, especially if you have multiple images you'll be editing. The best part is that with Adjustment Layers combined with their Layer Masks, you can always add more Curves to tweak individual aspects of an image. You can see from this example how the Auto feature created much more contrast in this image just by tweaking the histograms for each channel with just one mouse-click. From here I typically OK that window and begin using new Curve Adjustment Layers to make any further changes or modifications.

You should have plenty of information now to help you get started taking full advantage of Curves. Just remember, there is a bit of a learning curve in understanding how to manipulate the curves. Keep practicing and one day it will click!

Photoshop, Digital Photography and White Balance

The digital age has made many aspects of photography much simpler and less complex. One such example is the subject of White Balance. Many film-based photographers will tell you that adjusting white balance can be tricky and at times, time-consuming.

With modern digital cameras, that practice has become practically obsolete. Believe it or not, everything can be adjusted upon opening the image in Adobe Photoshop CS3. I've always left my camera's white balance settings on auto, and then when opening the RAW file in Photoshop, adjusted it there. It even has the settings labeled accordingly to most conditions so that you can see the photo closer to the actual conditions when it was shot.

Take for example this photo of a caribou from Denali National Park. It was a particularly cloudy and overcast day, so for this photo I picked the Cloudy setting and Photoshop did the rest. You can see the difference between the original shot (top) and the White Balance adjusted shot (bottom). It's not a dramatic difference, but it creates a much more natural look when the colors are where they're supposed to be.



Take another example of Beaver Falls along the Havasu Creek in the Grand Canyon. You can see that the original (top) is a bit cooler in color than the adjusted (bottom) one that has been set to the Daylight setting. The colors are warmer, thus recreating the actual conditions that were present when shooting.



The final example is from a shot from our hotel window in Waikiki. You can see a big difference in this one, even in the histogram at the top-right. Since the shot consists of mostly fluorescent lights on the ground and in the buildings, I used the Fluorescent setting which turned the photo from a murky yellow, to the appropriate dusk scene that we actually saw.



You can see the sky is more blue and the streets are more defined in varying colors.

If you're not fully satisfied with the presets that Photoshop creates, you can always tweak them on your own by dragging the sliders on the Temperature and Hue meters toward the colors that you'd prefer to see. Don't be afraid to play and have some fun with it! Just remember not to get too overboard.

Create a Stunning Black and White Photo Outside of Photoshop

Everybody knows you can create a truly unique black and white photo in Photoshop. However not a whole lot of people know that you can create virtually the same image before the image is ever even opened in Photoshop. All the tools are right there in the RAW viewer.


Select a RAW file that was shot with your camera and open it so that Photoshop brings up the RAW viewer. The area outlined in red in the above shot is the area we'll be concerned with here. Select the appropriate white balance if necessary and adjust any primary settings such as exposure and brightness, and then look for the HSL/Grayscale button, which is fourth from the left underneath the histogram and EXIF data. This will allow you to convert the entire image to a grayscale image right there by checking Convert to Grayscale. You can control all values of colors, even more so than Photoshop gives you in the Black and White adjustment layer.

This gives you ultimate control over your image in the conversion process. The histogram is also right above to make sure your image is consistently properly exposed.

Want to add a little color to it to make it a duotone or tritone? On the button bar, go to the next one over to the right where you can add a bit of color to your highlights and shadows. Something subtle typically works best here, if you choose to use them.

Let People Steal Your Images

Almost all photographers and copyright holders want to keep a firm grip on their work, or in some cases, their artists' work. Photographers especially can get pretty annoyed when they see people using their images without permission for anything from MySpace and desktop wallpapers to printing out lo-res copies to hang on their walls.

Let it go. People don't steal images to upset you, they "steal" them because it's the most convenient way to show their interest and appreciation in your work. To paraphrase author, Miguel Ruiz, life becomes a lot less stressful and more enjoyable when you stop trying to control people. That is, in a sense, what you're doing. You're trying to control people from enjoying your work on their terms. You want them to enjoy your work on your terms, but quite often, your terms don't match up with their terms and so it becomes unfeasible for someone to enjoy your work that might have otherwise.

Perhaps a small company used one of your photos off your web site without paying for it and have it on a web site or worse, a printed ad. Oh well. Chances are they most likely bookmarked it while the project was in development and upon its completion, another ad agency likes it and asks about it and all of a sudden, you've got something from nothing. You've possibly just made a sale that might not have ever even happened.

Many photographers try to keep their work from being stolen, or if you think about it, spreading, by placing watermarks that distract from the actual photo. Sometimes they'll even go so far as to disable right-clicking on their site to prevent someone from saving it. Unfortunately most don't know that the Print Screen button is just a quick shortcut around that, but since you've already alienated a potential fan of your work, they'll get disgruntled and move on to appreciate someone else's work. After all if you're inhibiting somebody from downloading your photo, your essentially inhibiting that person from being able to show it to friends and brag about what they found.

When someone sees a piece of art that's relatively unknown that they have a connection with, they want to show it off to their friends. They want to support it and get their friends behind it also. By preventing that with watermarks and technological locks, you're essentially killing off any word-of-mouth advertising you would have had.

Now of course if someone's downloading it and selling it, that's a completely different story and they should be reported to authorities. Anyone unlawfully profiting off of your work should be stopped, but your average kid that likes your work and can't afford a poster shouldn't be crippled from enjoying your work if he/she likes it. Let them steal it. Stop trying to control people, relax and have fun with photography so that other people can have fun viewing it.

How to Create an HDR Photo

The photography world is buzzing nowadays with the latest technique in creating perfect exposures every time - the High Dynamic Range (or HDR) photo. Using a series of images ranging from underexposed to overexposed, a perfect image can be blended together using Adobe Photoshop CS2 or CS3, assuming you've got the right equipment and follow the procedure accordingly. It may be a bit daunting at first, but it can quickly become second nature.

The first thing you'll need is, of course, a camera. But not just any camera will suffice. In this case a Digital SLR camera, such as a Canon Digital Rebel XTI or 5D, is recommended to take advantage of multiple shutter speeds. If you have a point-and-shoot camera that will allow you to manually adjust both shutter speeds and aperture, that will work as well. If you've never worked in M mode, or changed around those settings much, you'll learn how here.

Next you'll need a tripod. This unfortunately isn't optional because the images that Photoshop merges all have to be identical and can not have shifted at all. No matter how steady your hands are, they will produce shaking and none of them will line up.

Another piece of equipment you may want to consider using is a shutter-release cable to prevent camera shake when the shutter button is pressed. It seems like a lot, but it's worth it.

Onto the technique! A good practice subject is a sunset because they're readily available and that will also show you the true power of an HDR photo. Find a scenic spot so that you can see the sun on its way down and set your camera into M mode. You could technically use Tv mode, which allows you to control just the shutter speed, but we'll stick with M mode just to make sure the aperture also remains constant. Most cameras have a small light meter built into them and will tell you if your exposure is potentially over or underexposed. Using this meter, move your shutter speed down so that the meter is at the -2 and take your first shot.

Now that you've got one, just how many photos do you actually need to create a good HDR photo? Technically Photoshop only needs three to work, but ideally you'll want between 10 and 15. Why so many? This gives Photoshop a larger range of values to work with when blending between lights and darks, and thus, creating a smoother transition and more aesthetically appealing photo. So with your first photo captured, increase the shutter speed a bit and take a series of 10-15 photos gradually increasing the shutter speed for each one until you're at the +2. The photography part is done! Now pack up and head back to your computer to see your new HDR image.

Using Adobe Bridge (bundled with Adobe Photoshop), select all of the photos you took for the image and go up to Tools -> Photoshop -> Merge to HDR. Photoshop will begin working and at this point, you wait. In fact, no matter how fast of a computer you have, this process will take a while. Go make a sandwich. Actually you'll also have time to eat the sandwich. You know what? You'll even have time to clean up the dishes after you eat your sandwich. How bout a drink?

Well if you're computer is relatively new, it should be close to done by now. You'll know when it's done because it will present you with a dialog box verifying which images you want to use, all of them checked by default. In most cases you'll want to hit OK and proceed.

Now you're left with an image that doesn't look so great. It's ok though, all information is stored in there in much deeper levels than you're used to working with as 32bits per channel. In order to clean it up and create the photo you were wanting, you'll first have to convert it to 16bits per channel. This can be done by going up to Image -> Mode -> 16bits/channel. This will open up another dialog box with four options in a drop-down menu. 99% of the time you won't have to worry about the first three. Instead, select the fourth one and then click the arrows at the bottom-left to expand the window. After doing this you'll notice that your image looks even worse now behind the Curves window that was just expanded. At this point it's just a basic Curves window and if you have experience with curves, you probably know what to do here. If you don't, or you need a bit more explanation, the bottom-left area controls the shadows and the top-right area controls the highlights. You'll notice a histogram behind the curve (at this point a diagonal line). Drag the bottom-left point to line up with the very edge of that histogram and you'll notice the shadows in the photo become more pronounced. Do the same with the top-right point and you'll notice the same happening to the highlights. Be careful not to overexpose each though.

Now it's almost ready to go. This final step though can be a bit tricky and certainly takes practice. The great thing about Curves is that you can add a point anywhere on the line and drag it to bring out more highlights or shadows or midtones. It takes a bit of playing around with and since every photo is different, there's no magic formula. The thing to remember though is that you want your curve, ironically, to be as straight as possible. You still want to create bends though because that will create contrast, but just don't get too excited with them as that can create unwanted effects.

Give it a little practice. Now that you know the technique, you're able to do it all you want! Also don't be afraid to try it on things other than sunsets, some interesting effects can be found by using this technique on night shots, water, skies, etc.

Taking Better Outdoor Photographs

One thing I get asked a lot is "How come your pictures pop and mine don't?" The answer is quite simple, but like any hobby, it just takes practice. It's not about the camera or the equipment, it's all in how you take the picture. You'll only need the newest and greatest digital camera if you've managed to master everything below it while also looking for the challenge of learning how to bring even more control into your photos. If you wanted to learn to play the guitar you wouldn't go out and buy a Les Paul and start studying blues scales right away. You'd start with a basic guitar and learn the basic chords: C, G and D. Once you started to feel comfortable with those you would begin to branch out to a few other chords until slowly but surely, you could perform a few covers of some radio hits and maybe even write a few of your own songs. It's no different with photography. In my case I started with a Kodak 2.0 megapixel point-and-shoot that I got for Christmas in 2000. When I felt that I wasn't getting the full control I wanted of my photos, I bought a Canon 300D Digital Rebel in 2004. That provided quite a challenge for a while and it wasn't until late 2006 that I was really comfortable with that and discovered there was more I could do with my photos if I had something that truly opened up all the doors for me. I found a good deal on a Canon EOS 5D, and set out into the world of photography to give it my all in making a name for myself.

The first step in a good photo is a rule that goes with any art piece, the rule of thirds. You've probably heard of it and may even have a hard time remembering it when you've actually got the camera in front of you ready to shoot. For those that haven't heard of it, the rule of thirds is a basic rule of composition that breaks up your potential shot into nine pieces, all evenly divided into thirds. Rather than trying to visualize the potential image in thirds, the easiest thing to remember is simply to not put your main subject in the dead center. If your main subject lies dead in the center of the photo, it leaves the eye without anything to carry it around the rest of the photo. Placing it off-center, or on one of the thirds' intersections, creates movement and more potential for your eye to wander around the photo, and thus, an aesthetically pleasing image.

The previous section can be helped out tremendously by another very simple step. Instead of holding the camera out in front of your face, try kneeling down to get something in the foreground. If you're taking a photo of a large landscape you'll create much more depth if you find an object, such as a plant or a fallen branch, to place in the foreground with that great landscape in the background. What you'll find by putting this rule into place is that you'll have a much deeper photo rather than a flat snapshot of great, wide open space. Another key point to remember when shooting landscapes that applies to both this rule and the former is always try to avoid putting the horizon in the vertical center. It winds up cutting your image in half and there's typically not enough in the scene to bind the two together. What you wind up with is an image that almost looks like it's two seperate images; one of a sky and one of a landscape, simply stacked together. To avoid this, crop out more of the sky by focusing on that foreground object. If you're in a situation where the sky has to be included because of perhaps some interesting cloud formations, try cropping out more of the ground by getting lower and finding a plant, for example, that sticks out into the sky. If you follow this rule, you'll find the first rule just happens to fall into place automatically.

While on vacation in Alaska in 2006, I picked up the book, Photography Outdoors: A Field Guide for Travel and Adventure Photographers. I unfortunately didn't start reading it until after I got back from my vacation. It offers a huge resource that expands on the tips I've provided in plain english and other tips for other types of settings, such as night shots. I was even able to see an improved difference in my photos after I read it. Lastly, it includes the final rule I'll provide that I read in it that helped me out immensely. To put it plainly, if you're shooting a large landscape, shoot vertically, if you're trying to tell a story, shoot horizontally. You'll capture much more depth and mountain majesties by shooting vertically, and by shooting horizontally you'll be subconciously instructing people to "read" your photo as they've been taught: from left to right.

As I first stated, you don't need the best equipment to take a good photo. You only need to follow a few simple rules. Try to practice all, or even just one of them and you'll be amazed at how much more depth and content begins to speak from your photos. Once you put them to the test, you'll see if you really want to graduate to something higher further down the road.

Desert Photography

Photographing the desert southwest can be tricky. If you follow the basic rules, however, the difference in creating a simple, but elegant photo can be astounding. As always, the basic rules still apply, but if there's one rule that applies more than any others, it's to avoid shooting in the middle of the day. Ignore it, and your photos will turn out as flat as the desert landscape in front of you. Take a look at some of your favorite professional desert shots and pay special attention to the lighting. You'll notice long extended shadows and a warm light reaching in the photo.

The thing that you really want to keep in mind while out in the desert is that you're taking a 3D space and converting it to 2D. This holds true no matter how expensive the camera is - it's just the nature of photography. What makes understanding that transition difficult sometimes is because when you see it with your own eyes, you've got two different eyes creating the depth. The camera, however, only has one and it'll show once you're back on the computer or when you're looking at the print. Where'd all the depth go? It got compressed into that one eye that the camera has. Now add into it the fact that the sun was overhead and all the shadows were going straight down, and you're left with a shadowless, shallow photo that becomes hard to appreciate.

A few simple steps though, can easily fix this. First, wait until the sun is at a different angle than overhead. You'll hear people say it over and over again: a couple of hours around sunrise and a couple of hours around sunset are the peak times to be doing photography. The sun is at a position where it can illuminate the colors hidden in nature, while at the same time casting long shadows that add drama and more interesting compositions. Take another look at those desert photos. You can now see how they were able to capture that drama. Photography in general is all about lighting. Take advantage of that and the impact your photos have will skyrocket.

The next step is another simple one, but for some, may require a bit of effort. Never just get out of your car and stand there and take a picture. The same goes for a desert hike or walk. In order to add a unique perspective, climb up a nearby hill, or get down to a coyote's, or even a lizard's perspective. Either of those will give you a different point of view that people can be more interested in because both angles can give you a bigger sense of depth that a standard person's height cannot. For a little extra impact, try placing an object in the foreground of your landscape. If you're down on the ground, this should be pretty easy. For example, if you've got a baby cactus in front of you, make sure you've got the whole thing in your image. Don't crop it out as the closest object to the camera will be the main attraction in the photo. If you've climbed up a hill, try finding a plant or an interesting rock to put into the foreground. People typically make the best foreground objects though because it not only gives a good sense of scale, but also gives the viewer something to relate to. So if you're with a friend, put him or her into the foreground of your photo and put that dramatic landscape behind them.

Using these simple techniques, you'll be amazed at how much your photos will pop!

Now are there exceptions to the rule? Absolutely. There always are. The biggest exception to shooting in the middle of the day in the desert is on an overcast day. Take for example, the above panorama. I had actually shot a very similar photo in the middle of the day on a clear day that wasn't nearly as interesting as this one. It was as simple as a change in the weather that created a much more dramatic landscape. On overcast days you can throw all the rules about lighting out the window. With the clouds blocking out the sun you're in a completely different type of light. Rather than the sun beaming down overhead creating harsh shadows, it's now penetrating through the clouds just enough to create a soft light on everything practically eliminating harsh shadows. The added bonus in this type of environment is you'll frequently get sunbeams shining through the clouds which creates a whole new type of drama in itself. A lot of times these are caught best in the middle of the day. Unfortunately, with roughly 300 days of sunshine a year, don't plan on catching one of those overcast days in the desert.

Another exception is in extraordinary rock formations, such as a slot canyon in this case. Only in the middle of the day will you see beams of sunlight shining through the top. These beams not only create unique experiences, but also help illuminate the rocks into different colors that would otherwise appear dull.

Generally speaking though, if you're planning a typical day out in the desert, it's best to keep in mind those first two rules. Follow them even loosely, and you'll be pleasantly surprised at what you're capable of.