OCA – Digital Photographic Practice
Project 4: Reality & Intervention – Exercise 21: Enhancement
The purpose of this exercise was to look at making changes to an image that many
people would say go beyond reality. Photographing a close up head and shoulders
portrait and make various adjustments as detailed below.
I selected the following images from my database from 2010.
A Nikon D300 camera and Nikon 50mm lens were used.
Original Photograph
Selection 1 – Face Brightness & Contrast Changes
You can see from the image above that by using the quick selection tool I was able to
select the face only and adjust the brightness and contrast to this area within the photograph.
Selection 2 – Brightness & Saturation to Eyes
Within this photograph I made changes again using the quick selection tool and using
this to change the brightness and saturation of the eyes only. This has really made the
eyes stand out and look more colourful.
Selection 2 – Hue change to Eyes
By selecting the eyes again and amending the hue, the eye colour has been changed
from brown to green.
My personal view is that reality has been tampered with when the eye colour has been
changed. This is not an enhancement, but a complete change to reality.
OCA – Digital Photographic Practice
Project 4: Reality & Intervention – Exercise 22: Addition
For this exercise you had to add one element from a different image. This was broken
down in to two stages. This required the use of photoshop and an image taken using a
tripod.
A Nikon D800 camera and Nikon 24-70mm lens were used.
Original Photograph 1
This image was taken in Jasper, Canada using a tripod and remote.
Original Photograph 2
The second image was taken using f14 and 1/500sec.
Original Photographs Merged
This is the merged photograph using the automated photomerge option on
Photoshop CS5. Small adjustments were made to the image in Lightroom 4,
with a slight lightening of the foreground.
Sky Photograph for part two
This is a stock photograph I had with a suitable sky. This now had to be
placed over the sky in the merged photograph above using Photoshop CS5.
Merged Photograph for part two
The final result has merged all three photographs together.
I believe this has produced a realistic effect and the sky suits the overall
image above.
OCA – Digital Photographic Practice
Project 4: Reality & Intervention – Exercise 23: Alteration
The purpose of this exercise was to deliberately make an alteration to an
image using Photoshop. This required the use of the Clone-Stamp tool and
its cut-and-past abilities. Ideally the image should have one distinct subject
occupying an area of between one six and one eighth of the total image.
A Nikon D300 camera and Nikon 18-200mm lens were used.
Original Photograph
This image was taken on a green near the river in Stamford. The image has one
distinct person and different tones of grass, with an additional shadow to remove.
Photograph after Alteration
The image does look as though it’s an image of just grass, although slightly
uninteresting, it shows how the process of alteration has worked.
I used the Clone Stamp tool and the Patch tool to complete this process.
OCA – Digital Photographic Practice
Project 5: The Final Image – Exercise 24: Sharpening for print
The purpose of this exercise was to discover the ideal amount of sharpening for your prints and to appreciate the differences between viewing sharpness on the computer screen versus on paper.
A Nikon D300 camera and Nikon 18-200mm lens were used.
Original Photograph
This image was taken indoors at home with a black background.
Photograph with Sharpening set at 30
There does not look to be too much of a difference between these images with the
sharpening set at 30 on Lightroom 4.
Photograph with Sharpening set at 100
On the computer screen the differences again were small, but printed you begin to
see noise within the image.
Photograph with Sharpening set at 150
At this level of sharpening the image produced much more noise when viewed
closer on the computer screen and when printed.
The ideal amount was around the 30 level for sharpening, producing a printable
copy with no noise visible.
OCA – Digital Photographic Practice
Project 5: The Final Image – Exercise 25: A Web Gallery
I now have a full website working with photographic galleries as requested in this exercise.
During this process I considered the template structure, colours and built in logos. The simplicity to use was also very important.
davidwatsontimelessphotography.com
