Appendix

Preliminaries

This is a simple one. Just go out and take photographs! Familiarize yourself with the work-flow: Try different things with your camera, then file your images on the computer. Edit for your best images and then make some changes to those images. 

The Edge and the Light

The main tools that photographers use to interpret the world are edge and light. They are two basics differences of how camera vision departs from our vision.

THE EDGE: Unless we are in a car or looking out some other window, we do not normally see the world with a frame around it. Photographs have definite edges (frames). This is one way they differ from reality or how they abstract reality. For this assignment do not just put your subject in the middle of the frame—use the edges very obviously. Cut things off, put them to the side. Hide them outside the frame. Make it edgy! At least unexpected. And if you don’t understand how to use edge, then just cut things off using one of the four edges of your camera frame. Put the thing people expect in the photograph half outside of it.

THE LIGHT: You are not photographing the things in the world, but light reflected off those things. Think about this while you are walking around with your camera. Do not photograph objects, photograph light. Look at light that is revealing things closely. If you don’t understand this, then take photographs of shadows. They obviously show light.
Each of your photographs should either show obvious light or obvious edge, and if possible, both!

Convert all of your images to black and white for this project. Color is great, but tends to obscure light interactions. If you can learn to see tonalities in black and white, it will make even your color images better.

And turn off your flash at this point and keep it off. Your built-in flash might be useful at times, but not when you are learning photography. All you really can learn is that you have to be close to your subject for the flash to illuminate it.

While doing this project you might find that nice light isn’t always very bright. In dimmer situations you need to brace your camera carefully and perhaps even use a tripod.

Portrait

If you can imagine all of the photographs that have ever been taken in a big pile, how many of those would be pictures of people? I would venture a guess that it is a lot. People have a never-ending fascination with... people. Portraits get to the heart of this. Here a portrait is not a snapshot. It is a thoughtful rendition of someone else’s image. It says something about the subject, and most probably also some things about the photographer and perhaps even their relationship to the subject.

Obviously the formula portraits that you get from Walmart are not included in this definition. Nor are quick or candid snapshots. It is relationships that matter here. Who is the subject to you? What are they doing? How comfortable are they? Are they doing something? Try to make the images meaningful.

While taking these, experiment. Look at the light and how it falls onto a face. Notice the background and control it with the position of the subject and the camera. Perhaps point up or down at the subject (this makes a big difference). You might even try to direct them like a movie director directs the actors. Take control of the situation—remember that photographs are not reality, but an interpretation of it. Your interpretation.

Different subjects will present different challenges. You are shooting your subject, so understand their apprehension and nervousness. One fact that photographers are aware of is that people tend to lose their apprehension the longer you take to photograph them. So perhaps after the first half-hour of shooting they will drop that photo smile and present something more genuine.

Try to find a subject that is tolerant of you taking time with them, and make sure they are not hungry (feed them!) or otherwise preoccupied. If you know someone who loves to have their photograph taken, it is easier. Your subject may even help you make photograph decisions. This project is a collaboration after all.

Self Portrait (not selfie)

This project departs from things photographers do every time they take a photograph, and instead presents you with a variety of technical and aesthetic problems somewhat like the ones photographers encounter daily. 

In taking a self portrait there are three considerations: The first is how do you want to portray yourself for others to see? It can be fictional, real, one or more aspects. Remember, photographs are not reality, but an interpretation of it!

 

The second consideration is how you actually view yourself. At least some of these should include your face, which is kind of at the root of our self-perception (for better or worse). But there are also bits of you in people you love or objects you covet (or objects you love and people you covet!). Don’t use clichés here. Your teddy bear collection may be important to you, but does it really communicate that to others? ...Perhaps, but only if you do it right.

The third consideration is technical. How are you going to make the photographs? You could find reflective surfaces or use your camera’s self timer. Perhaps just your long arm, but stay away from making this a selfie, and be more thoughtful about it. Try not to have someone else take the photographs, since this introduces a variable that isn’t helpful.

Note: If you are doing this with the camera’s self-timer, focusing might be a problem. Just focus on something that is the same distance from the camera as you will be, then switch the focus to manual to lock in that distance.

SELF PORTRAIT LEFT Kate Shindelar. This is very much like a standard portrait, but feels incredibly direct and honest. RIGHT Brei Aspenson. We find a lot of the identity of ourselves in our family, especially in our parents. This photograph could also fit very well with the interaction project.

PANORAMAS

To make panoramas in Camera RAW, simply select multiple images, then in the same menu go to Merge to Panorama. 

The different projection options can be tried to see what works best. Basically, the choices come down to how the program deals with straight lines that no longer remain straight when the camera is turned (see illustration below). 

Camera Raw needs plenty of overlap with the images (if in doubt take a lot of images), and it works best when all of the images are the same exposure. 

You can also use this technique to either take a wider-angle view of something or stitch together images to make a high resolution file. In these situations shoot each image vertically for horizontal images (and vice-versa).

HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE

RAW images are capable of recording a wide range of brightnesses, but they can’t record very contrasty scenes like sunsets, night shots, or even looking out a window.

In very high contrast situations you can take several pictures at different exposures and combine them with the menu item Merge to HDR (in upper left illustration). The resulting HDR image has an incredible amount of tonal information which can be made visible with highlight/shadow adjustment and local controls.

There are limits to what you can do with HDR, and the resulting images can easily look very unnatural. Like bad postcards from the last century.

When taking photographs for HDR make sure you take enough photographs for Camera RAW to figure out how to align them. You only need the Deghost options if there is movement of something in the frame while you are taking the pictures.

LIGHT PAINTING 

There is no rule in photography that says that everything needs to be exposed at the same time. In a dark scene with your camera set to a long exposure you can do many things.

During a long exposure you can take a flashlight (or other light) and literally ‘paint in’ the lighting in a dark scene, moving the light across the area to expose certain parts of it.

Hold it on one part longer, it will be brighter.

You can also turn that light towards the camera, and make a drawing in the air, or do both things during one exposure.

Different lights have different qualities. LED lights sometimes flash on and off so quickly you don’t notice the flashing, but it they are moving, the camera will notice.

You can also do a lot with the color of lights, such as put colored pieces of plastic over them. With the light of a cellphone screen you can easily choose the color.

You are not limited to moving the lights. You can also move the camera to paint with light.

Light painting steps:

1 Find a darkened room or go out at night. 

2 Set your camera to manual mode.

3 Set your shutter speed to B or to a very long exposure like 30 seconds (if set to B you will have to have something to hold down the shutter button or a remote release). 

4 Set your f-stop to whatever it needs to be (do some tests). 

5 Set your focus to the approximate distance and turn off auto-focus. 

6 Set your camera on a sturdy support, but for some you could move your camera during the exposure. 

7 Take and retake as needed. 

8 Experiment and have fun. 

STEREO (3D)

Cross-Eyed Stereo

At normal viewing distance, look at the pair 
of dots in the middle illustration and slightly cross your eyes until you see three dots, then concentrate on the middle dot and bring it into focus. 

If you can do this, try it the same way with the top  pair of images (the woman sculpture). You should see depth.

To make your own cross-eyed stereograph, simply take two photographs pointed at the same subject, but for the second image rock 
a bit to the right so the images are taken from a point about two and a half inches apart. You can move more for an exaggerated depth. Don’t worry about being too precise.

On the screen (or in a print), put the image taken on the right to the left of the other and use this viewing technique. Keep them small since the bigger they are the more the viewer’s eyes need to be crossed.

Pie-Eyed Stereo

More difficult to view is the pie-eyed technique. Now again look at the dots, but this time stare past  the dots. While continuing to stare, move your eyes closer to the dots until they overlap into three dots.

Here is the tricky part—concentrate on the middle dot, then slowly move away from the dots until you can see the middle one in focus, while still seeing the other two dots on the sides in your peripheral vision.

If you can do this, you will be able to do the same with the bottom pair of images, and you can see depth in the image. 

Of course, you can also make or buy viewers that can make this viewing easier.

To make a pie-eyed stereograph, take photographs as you did for the cross-eyed, but this time put the right image on the right and the left on the left. As big as the pair can be is about 4 inches across since a bigger pair would require the viewer’s eyes to splay out in different direction—an ability very few people have!

COMBINING IMAGES SIDE BY SIDE

There are many ways of combining multiple images in Photoshop. Often students’ biggest problem is actually figuring out exactly what they want to do before they start doing it.

A few pointers: Black or white is your friend. Transitions can be hidden with any color, but they are much easier with black or white.

Image sizing is actually very important, and you should figure it out. Otherwise it is easy to bloat file sizes into gigabytes by only combining a few images.

Consider using an application other than Photoshop for combining images. There can be much less of a learning curve because image sizing does not come into play as much. Illustration programs also allow you to combine type with your images without having to worry as much about typography’s additional resolution requirements.

If you are printing, consider wide format printing. Printers that take 24 inch to 44 inch paper are common, and you should be able to have a copy shop or photography studio make your image big. Prices vary widely.

COMBINING IMAGES INTO ONE

Like combining images side by side, there are many ways of combining images together into one image. 

Again, the first thing to do is get a firm concept of what you want to do, then figure out how to get there. But be prepared to change your concept somewhat to fit your skill level.

Often you need to tailor how you shoot the images as the first step in combining them. Do several tests of your idea before shooting the entire project.

Some ways of combining images are very easy. In the bottom right image the same person is photographed multiple times in a scene, then the images were simply combined as layers in Photoshop and parts were erased.

MULTIPLE IMAGE EFFECTS

Many special effects in Photoshop start with combinations of images. For instance, you can take a photograph of a textured surface, and then apply that texture to another image, either imparting it’s color, tonality, or both.

It is impossible to outline the infinite ways this can be done, but you can browse through Photoshop instructions on the web to get an idea of what is possible and how to do specific effects. For example, you can combine multiple images to get greater depth of field (focus stacking). Or ‘wrap’ images onto other images (image wrap or displacement map)

If you are going to be doing images with a lot of handwork, a pen tablet (often called a Wacom tablet because this brand is ubiquitous), is a critical piece of equipment. Some things work better with a mouse or track-pad, but drawing is not one of them. 

PHOTOSHOP MISCELLANY

There is a plethora of information on the web covering a myriad of Photoshop techniques to do this, that, or just about anything. As noted before, Photoshop is very deep since most effects used in combination produce still more effects.

Some common effects are polar coordinates, which makes an image a small planet; and selective blur, which is used for everything from making something look miniature to making a false lack of depth of field. 

You can also colorize a black and white image or combine the original color of an image with a black and white version. 

Just a tour through the Photoshop filter menu will present you with a multitude of ways to improve an image... or mess it up.

WITH A COPY STAND

Using a copy stand is the easiest way to take photographs of artwork (or anything that is flat and less than about 16 by 20 inches).

Preparation

Attach the camera to the copy stand, making sure back of camera is parallel to artwork. If it is not, rectangular material will be rendered trapezoidal. You can use a level to be precise.

If lights are not placed at 45 degrees to material, adjust them, making sure lights are pointed to the center of artwork or a little beyond center. Set your camera to a zoom setting about midway between wide angle and telephoto. All zoom lenses bend straight lines, but the effect is almost always less at this setting. For more accuracy you could do tests to see where the exact setting for your zoom lens renders lines straight.

Setting exposure

Turn off any lights other than your copy stand lights. If you have exposure controls on your camera, set it to manual mode and the lowest ISO. Adjust aperture to f-8 (on many lenses f-8 is the sharpest aperture). With artwork in place, set the shutter speed as necessary to obtain good exposure: If your material is a neutral gray, then it should be neutral gray in the resulting image, if it is light, then it should be light, and dark should be dark. For more accuracy, take a test photograph of a white sheet of paper. Adjust your shutter speed so that the histogram for the resulting photograph shows the hills near (but not at) the right side of the scale.

However you arrive at your shutter speed, use the same speed for all of your photographs. In this way, dark material will show up appropriately dark and light material appropriately light.

Setting the white balance

If you have your camera set to save JPEGs, you need to adjust the white balance. One way to do this is to set it for 3200k, or indoor lighting (represented with a light bulb symbol). For more accuracy, set it manually using a white sheet of paper (see your camera instructions). For even more accuracy, take a photograph of a white sheet of paper at first using RAW format. Take the rest of your photographs using RAW format and set all to the same color balance (color temperature) as your white sheet in your image editor like Photoshop. Always use RAW image format for the best quality.

Focusing

Ideally, every time you move the camera height you would want to focus manually. In practice, this doesn’t work very well. Instead, use the automatic focus on your camera. If your camera has a hard time focusing on material, temporarily place something with detail on it (like a sheet of typing). Press the shutter button down half-way to lock the focus, then remove the sheet and take the photograph.

Taking the pictures

Even if your shutter speed is fairly short, there is always the possibility of moving the camera slightly when pushing the button to take your photographs. To avoid this use the self-timer so that the camera fires after you push the button. Many cameras have a 2 second delay for the self-timer which is made for this purpose.

It is also a good idea to turn off any image stabilization (or vibration reduction) if your camera has these settings. If your camera is on a sturdy support having this setting on might actually increase blur.

For even sharper images you could use a remote release. Some cameras even have a way to lock the mirror up before you take the photograph so that the movement of the mirror won’t jar the camera, although this is generally not needed unless you have a very flimsy copy stand.

Take and look

Take several shots, then view them on the computer. Enlarge them to see if there are any problems. If there are straight lines (like the edges of the artwork) are they straight? Is the artwork framed okay? Is your exposure good? Are your colors fairly accurate or is there a color cast? Is everything sharp? When you are sure everything is okay, take the rest of the photographs.

WITHOUT A COPY STAND

Sometimes you can’t use a copy stand because there isn’t one available or your artwork is too large to be evenly lit with the copy stand lights. In this case, you can use a tripod, two lights, and a pin-up wall to make your own very big horizontal copy stand.

The illustration of the copy stand is seen from the front. Instead, imagine it as a lighting set-up looking from above with the artwork pinned to a wall. 

Place the camera so that the back is parallel to the artwork. This is a little more difficult than with a copy stand. One easy way to do it accurately is to have someone hold a mirror flat on the center of your artwork. When you can see your camera centered in the mirror you can be sure everything is parallel.

How far away the lights (at 45 degrees to the artwork) should be is also something you will need to figure out. If they are too close, the work will not be evenly lit. If they are too far away, you will have to use overly long exposures and you run more risk of reflections, especially if the artwork has glass covering it. Turn on and off each light to better see how each is illuminating the artwork. Watch for any areas which are brighter with each light (hot spots).

How you arrive at your exposure, color balance, and other settings is just like with using a copy stand.

WITHOUT ANYTHING

Sometimes you might not have the luxury of having any equipment other than a camera (you definitely need the camera). 

You want as much light as you can get while staying away from direct sunlight (which would accentuate any texture or defects in the thing you are copying). Also try to find a place that is amply lit from the side. The image above is photographing on a porch. You can also use a wall to put the artwork on or just put it on the ground and point the camera down. 

Setting exposure

Just use the Program (P) setting on your camera. The light may change, so you don’t want it on manual mode. Also, the program setting does a pretty good job of determining the optimum shutter speed and aperture combination. For artwork that is lighter in tone, set your EV adjustment to +1 or +2. If the artwork is darker, set it to EV -1 or -2. Experiment.

Setting the white balance

Set the white balance on the camera to daylight. You could also use the same white balance methods as for the copy stand, but if the sun goes behind a cloud your white balance will change.

Focusing

If your camera has a hard time finding a focus, then point it at another part of the artwork, hold the shutter half way down to lock the focus, then recenter and take the photograph.

Taking the pictures

If you are shooting with a tripod, a level can make sure the camera is level with the art. If you are hand-holding your camera you definitely want image stabilization (vibration reduction) turned on. Also try to hold your camera against something. Your forehead works well if you are using a DSLR. If you are using a smaller camera with a viewing screen, put the neck strap around your neck and pull against it to steady the camera. If there is something else like a chair handy to steady the camera, use it!

If your pictures turn out blurry, then you may want to also set your ISO to a higher setting. Set it only as high as you need to get sharp images.

Other considerations

The success of this method really depends a lot on the reflective qualities of the artwork you copying. Thick acrylic or oil paintings have gloss surfaces that depart in small areas from being parallel to the main surface. Glass presents daunting reflection problems. Pencil lines may disappear if graphite is reflecting light badly. And so on.

But, if you are careful and thoughtful, you can do very high quality copies of many types of things with nothing but a camera and your keen eye focused on what you are doing.

PROCESSING THE IMAGES

No matter what method of shooting you use, processing the images in the computer should be fairly straightforward. Count on the lighter tones compressing—in other words, it is difficult to come up with something which has the exact same tonality as the original.

Most image processing programs have provisions for correcting non-parallel lines that result when your camera is not perfectly parallel to the copied material. These corrections can be automatically applied to all of your images at once.

Also, if you are using manual exposure, you should be able to correct exposure and contrast to one image and then paste the same correction to all the images.

Cellphone Camera Software

Even before you take a photograph with a cellphone, little AI gremlins get to work on that image. How much light is there? What does the contrast of lighting look like? What does the histogram look like? Is that sky or a face? The gremlins make a lot of decisions based on these and other things, all in the hopes that you will look at the image they made and congratulate yourself on a photograph well-taken. They can even give you different versions of the photograph starting before the time you pushed the button. 

Those gremlins are smart in a way, and many times the fruits of their labor will give you the image you want. At other times they can present you with flesh-tones that look like a quarter-inch of makeup, skies that are so blue they only exist at forty thousand feet. And detail that looks like someone smudged it all up with a paintbrush. And the worst thing is you have little or no control to improve that image to suit it to your taste. 

This sounds like a criticism, but it is really not. I use the standard camera app on my camera-phone at least half the time I use my cellphone camera, if not more. It is, after all, EASY. You don’t have worry too much about the amount of light available or holding the camera steady. You get a pretty good shot no matter how distracted you are, and really, if I wanted an image I could control a lot I would be using a dedicated camera. 

But there are times when it would be nice to have some control over a cellphone image, and for that you need another application. Adobe Lightroom includes a camera function, and there are others that are quite inexpensive. At the time of this writing one of the best of these is Halide. With Halide installed on your phone, you can have better control while shooting since it is easier to selectively focus and change your exposure. But best of all, you have more control with your processing, since you can set it to shoot RAW images (in DNG format) in which the tones can be stretched and pulled when you edit the image. You can’t control tonality to the extent that you can with a dedicated camera image, but you are not stuck with the tonality the gremlins dictated when you took the image.

Lens & Aperture

Because cellphone cameras must be thin, they cannot use an optical zoom lens. The digital zoom that is available just takes part of the image on the sensor, so the marginal quality of the image just gets worse. I am sure you have experienced this. 

The best solution to this problem is to have multiple lenses on an cellphone camera. Actually this is multiple cameras, since each lens needs its own sensor. By combining these cameras, the software can mimic a zoom lens or do other tricks, such as forming a ‘depth map’ that can be used to different parts of the image blurry, (badly) simulating a large aperture.

This is useful since the aperture of cellphone cameras is not adjustable, and even if it was, would not be able to render depth of field: The actual focal length of the lens is simply too small to significantly put the background out of focus with photographs taken at normal distances.

Image Format

The applications that come with cellphone cameras give you photographs in either of two different formats. JPEG should be familiar to you, and it allows for small file sizes and compatibility with other software and devices.

HEIC format is also used. This format is much more flexible than JPEG, and allows multiple images to be stored in the same file package. So, multiple images or depth maps can be stored in the same place, allowing for later adjustments. Since this file is not compatible with many other applications, when you send an image or transfer it to another application it is often converted to another format and any additional images (or depth maps) are stripped from the HEIC file. For example, if you send someone a still image, that image will be sent as a JPEG. Or, if you send a small HEIC file animation made with an Apple cellphone, the file will be converted to a GIF file, an animation format that any device can decode. 

RAW format does not need much explanation here. It is the same as other camera RAW formats, except you should not expect the wealth of information that RAW format can provide in cameras. You can still easily change the white balance, but exposure changes and color information will be more limited since the small sensor is not able to capture it in the first place.

The Future of Cellphones

The fact that cellphone cameras do as well as they do in ease of use and quality is a surprise to me. In other words, I don’t know what the future of cellphone cameras hold. 

Physics limit the image quality at this point, but there are many experiments attempting to work around these limitations. For instance, one newer cellphone fits the length of a telephoto zoom lens into a thin phone by using a mirror to change the direction of the lens to align with the side of the phone. Another solution is adding a larger sensor to the wide angle lens, since that lens requires less distance from the lens to the sensor.

Perhaps more computing power will add to cellphone quality, or perhaps just more lenses. An array of lenses (with sensors) could theoretically enhance image quality, and other experiments, such as attaching a larger sensor/lens combination external to the phone might prove fruitful. Or might not. 

Or, it might be that the technology that is already out there just gets more fine-tuned. Is there really a market for better quality cellphone images when at this point they are good enough for more people to post on Facebook and Instagram? Stay tuned.

SET UP LIGHTROOM

Before you even open Lightroom, connect the camera’s SD card to the computer. Also connect the hard drive or flash drive where you will keep your images and catalogue—you may want to make a folder on this drive called Images. 

Now open Lightroom and go to File/New Catalog... in the menu at the top of the screen. Name your catalogue and save it your external drive (hard drive or flash drive).

As the application directs you, click the Import... button to show the Import window. On the upper left select your camera’s SD card as the source (where your images will be coming from).

At the lower right of the Import window select your drive as the destination (where your images will be copied to). 

In the illustration above I had previously made a folder called Images to put the photographs in. Do not put them in the folder that is titled with your catalogue name—this is a folder Lightroom made when you saved your catalogue (here named Lightroom Images).

Study the options you have when importing images. Most of these are on the right hand side of the Import window. Many of the options you might need now are self-explanatory. 

In the File Handling category (panel) there is an important option to not import duplicates.

You should choose this if it is not checked. Lightroom does not delete images from your camera’s SD card after you import them. Instead it assumes you will leave them on the card as a back-up, which is a very good idea. The next time you import images, it will overlook the images you have already imported with this option activated, only retrieving the newer images you have taken.

If you run out of room on your SD card, you can buy a new card or delete the images manually outside of the application (see below). 

Speaking of backups, Lightroom will at some point ask you if you would like to back up your catalogue. Importantly, doing this will not back up your images, but only the information (such as organizing) you have added in Lightroom. 

Since you are just starting out, you probably don’t need to back up the catalogue since you could easily rebuild it by making a new catalogue and re-importing the images.  

One last thing to do is make sure your camera’s SD card has been ejected from the computer before you remove it. This can be done automatically from Lightroom (next to source option) or from outside the application. Not ejecting your card will hide forever any files you may have deleted (and subtract that file space from your card).

BASICS OF DEVELOP MODULE

Change Lightroom from the Library to the Develop module on the upper right. If you cannot see the Basic Panel as shown you can scroll the panels up and down.

These two views can be set to specific magnifications in the Navigator Panel. With an enlarged view you can also move the image around by dragging the box overlaying the Navigator panel’s image.

Below the image in the Develop module are the view controls. The first icon on the left will present the selected image (Loupe View). The second icon takes you to Reference View where you can select two different thumbnails to compare different images. The third icon allows you to compare the same image Before & After adjustments.

The small triangles next to the last two icons activate pull-down menus to choose the type of arranged views you want.

The three icons on the right allow you to switch adjusted and non-adjusted views. Essentially these allow you to undo adjustments or confirm adjustments in preparation for more adjustments. 

Experiment with these buttons and get used to using them. Adjusting photographs is more than just sliding a bunch of sliders. Also, for explanations of the buttons, just rest your cursor over them for pop-up explanations.

You may have to scroll down in the left set of panels to see the History Panel. This panel allows you to select any previous adjusted state of the image, even long after you have made the adjustments. 

The Crop Tool (red arrow) is in the set of tools in the right set of panels. As with all of the tools, clicking on it will reveal options for the tool which appears below it. Clicking the tool again will confirm or cancel the tool and close the options panel.

Crop an image by dragging on the image itself. You can always reset the crop or constrain it to different proportions by using the options in the tool’s panel.

The preferences for Lightroom are in the Lightroom menu. Take a quick gander at these, but don’t change anything you don’t understand. 

Each catalogue also has its own settings in the Catalog Settings directly below the preferences menu item.

COMPARE, DANG IT

It always amazes me how students will make changes to an image and then compare these changes to an image they only hold in their memories from before the changes were made. This only works for extreme adjustments, and is not good for eking out the best in an image.

Instead of comparing changes you have made to an image in your memory, use the before/after buttons. Sure, these are a little difficult to get the hang of, but they are important.

The following are questions you should ask yourself about this section of Lightroom instructions.

CAN YOU...

Import images using Lightroom and know where those images are being stored?

View and organize a set of images in Lightroom?Scroll through panels and resize sets of panels?Make a collection and put images into it?

Sort your best images by dragging them in a collection?

Find information about your images, including the time and date they were taken?

Export a sized JPEG image from Lightroom?Adjust the white balance of images?

Adjust the exposure and contrast of an image?Easily reset an adjustment slider to 0.

Zoom in or out of an image to see details or entire image?

Look at different areas of an enlarged image?

Set the white balance using the eyedropper when a neutral area is available?

Crop images?

Use comparison views to see changes clearly?

Use comparison views to move adjusted images back and forth or reset them?

Set Lightroom Background to White

If you hold the control key and click and hold on the border of your image (you may need to reduce the magnification of your view to see the border), you will have the option to make the background white.

This is a good idea if you are going to print your image or otherwise show it on a white background in an email or on the web. 

Adjust Your Display Brightness

Different computer displays have different brightnesses, and even the same display appears at different brightnesses relative to the level 
of room light. This is a problem, since you can correct an image to be just perfect, but change the room light or the display and the result is not perfect.

The easiest method to adjust display brightness is to hold a piece of white paper to the side of the display and adjust the brightness of a white area on the display to match (or make a bit brighter) than the paper.

Other Modules

Choosing modules in Lightroom is like changing applications, but as you have probably noticed, some things carry over from one module to the next, such as images that are selected and collections you are viewing.

You might not need these other modules, but if you are curious, here is what they do:

The Web Module is like printing, but instead of prints it generates web pages. The designs (templates) here are fairly long in the tooth, but who knows, you might find them useful.

The Book Module generates PDF books of images. Some book printers, such as Blurb, also make plug-ins that allow you to generate a book and send it to them for printing.

The Slideshow Module allows you to make slideshows for viewing with Lightroom.

The Map Module shows you where you took your images if they have GPS information embedded. Your camera phone probably embeds this information, but your dedicated camera probably does not. 

You can also record location information on images by dragging their thumbnails onto the map. Selecting multiple images locates that set in one place.

Remember that all of these instructions are just to get you started, which in most ways is the hardest part. More information about specific parts of Lightroom are easily found elsewhere.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Think about this for a second: Say you have a photograph that you are viewing on a dark Lightroom background. How are you going to know how light the lighter areas are? They may look very bright, but is that because your monitor is set to a high brightness? You can’t tell. I know that because I can’t either.

Set your background to white. Yes, I know it doesn’t look as cool, but for any photographs that are going to be printed or shown on a lighter background, it is the easiest way to judge the tones in an image. 

But what about the darker tones? Yes, you can tell how dark the darker tones are better with the background set to black. But for a variety of reasons this is less of a problem unless the final viewing situation is on a black background. 

Adjust your display brightness or you may have an embarrassingly bad image when you show someone the photograph you adjusted on a display that was set too bright.

MULTIPLE IMAGE ADJUSTMENTS

Try selecting a few images in Lightroom, then go through the steps of adjusting one then applying that adjustment to others. 

REVIEW

Now is a good time to go back to the previous chapter (1lr) and review the things there while you are sitting at the computer. These are important basic techniques that we will be building on later.

DID YOU...

Set your Lightroom background to white and adjust the brightness of your display?

Notice how I repeat some things a lot?

CAN YOU...

Make an adjustment to one image, then apply that adjustment to other images?

Print an image?

Still do everything covered in the previous Lightroom instructions (1lr)?

Highlights

These are the lighter tones (or colors) in an image. After you adjust the brightness and contrast, sometimes you will find that the lighter areas in the image are too light and so without detail. Bringing down the highlights will correct for this.

Shadows

These are the darker tones (or colors) in an image. If they are too dark without detail, you can lighten them to correct for this.

Less often with both highlights and shadows, you may need to adjust the other way. Such as if the highlights are too dark or the shadows too light.

Whites

These are the very light areas of the image. Be careful adjusting these since all of the spark of an image can be dulled with too low a setting and all detail lost with too high of a setting.

Blacks

The very darkest tones. Making them too light will render the darkest areas gray and muddy, so be careful with this adjustment also.

Texture

The edges of small repeating details are sharpened to enhance the impression of texture.

Clarity

Clarity is like contrast, but works at a more detailed level. As with all the adjustments, try the extremes to see what they do.

Vibrance

Vibrance is like saturation, but protects skin tones and already saturated colors from getting too saturated.

Saturation

Saturation is how intense the colors appear. With no saturation you have a black and white image, and with a lot of saturation the colors ‘pop’ unnaturally. This is a common control, and since contrast also effects saturation, it is often needed when you make a contrast change. 

Saturation, along with exposure, contrast, and white balance work linearly on the image, while the other adjustments use a bit more ‘intelligence’, which can lead to a very artificial look when used without discretion.

HISTOGRAM

You may notice that histograms on cameras are dealt with in Chapter 6 of this text. The histograms in Lightroom are basically the same, but they are more immediately useful when editing images. That is why they are introduced here first.

Get used to looking at histograms as you adjust images. They help you see what is happening to the tones of an image, and so are very important. As you get better at the controls they will become even more helpful... but only if you know how to use them.

TONAL ADJUSTMENTS

Most students tend to drag the more advanced controls discussed here wily-nilly in strange ways. Be intentional!

In other words, do the basic exposure and contrast adjustments first, then invoke the others only as you need to. So, if you adjust the exposure and contrast, then find you need the shadows to be lighter, only then use the shadows slider (see example of this below). Adjust the same way for the other controls.

This is a good time for you to review how to compare images side by side (1lr) so you can see exactly what is happening when you make an adjustment. Just make one adjustment at a time (then reset it) to see what each slider does.

All of this takes practice. I wish I could tell you how to use any control in Lightroom and suddenly you would know how and when to use it, but it doesn’t work that way. Practice is the only way to learn these controls. This book only gets you started.

CAN YOU...

Understand the basics of what a histogram is showing about your image?

Predict the contrast and exposure needs of an image just from the histogram?

Turn on and off the clipping buttons to see the tones outside areas of an image?

Understand the function of all the sliders in the basic tab of Lightroom?

Identify and change the sliders by dragging directly on the histogram?

Auto Mask

Much different than this mask is the Auto Mask. When turned on (red arrow below), the adjustments brush will attempt to find boundaries in the image and constrain the painting to within those boundaries. This is the way you use the adjustments brush to adjust things instead of areas in the image.

Often when using auto mask you should first paint along the edges of the thing you want adjusted, then turn off Auto Mask to paint in the rest of the thing to be selected for adjustment.

Painting and erasing (also using auto mask) at enlarged views is a way to refine the edge, and you may have to repeat this several times to get the right masking edge.

Auto mask does have its limits. Edges in images are not clear cut, and often include transition pixels that are neither the color of the object nor of the background.

In general, do not expect to make radical adjustments using auto mask to define things.

The image above shows the red mask defining areas painted while using Auto Mask on the right and a darkened sky on the left. While auto mask does a good job in large areas with definite borders (the beak), it has a very difficult job selecting smaller areas and areas with less defined edges (like the small feathers on the top of the bird’s head). 

Hard edges are actually composed of transition pixels (below right) which can cause problems with extreme adjustments when using the auto mask.

LOCAL ADJUSTMENTS

Being able to adjust only parts of an image is a powerful technique, but one that takes a lot of practice. You might as well get started now.

Pick some images that might need an adjustment in areas that is different from the overall adjustments, and see what you can do. Make things lighter, darker, and maybe increase the contrast. Try changing the color of an area using the white balance tools at the top of the adjustment brush panel. Try to instead change the color using the Hue slider.

Perhaps find some images that don’t need obvious adjustments. Can you improve the image using them? In general, lighter areas draw the viewer’s eye and darker areas recede. Can you use this fact to control the way the viewer sees elements in the image?

Experiment. As always, view your changes side by side with the unchanged version to compare them. 

AUTO MASK

Use auto mask to limit your local adjustments to just one thing in the image, such as the sky, or perhaps a person’s face which is too dark in relation to the rest of the image.

Get the hang of how accurate auto mask can be by enlarging the adjusted image to 1:1 (100%) to view it. In general the heavier the adjustment the more accurate auto mask needs to be.

Small section of a photograph before and after the sky was darkened with the adjustment brush using auto mask. The transition line along the horizon is very obvious on the adjusted image. Auto mask does have limitations, especially with the heavy adjustment seen here.

Two options to hide this limitation would be to make the adjustment not as extreme or make the photograph (and therefore the imperfections) smaller—as shown at right. 

CAN YOU...

Effectively change only parts of an image?

Make your local adjustments seem natural?Erase and add to portions of your adjustments?Use appropriate brush sizes and feathers?

Use flow to control the strength of the adjustments within an adjustment area?

Make multiple adjustments and then go back and edit each one individually? 

View your adjustment areas using a mask?

Use auto mask to limit adjustments to objects (tonal edges)?

Use auto mask to paint edges, then fill in areas to be selected with auto mask off?

The Tone Curve

Curves are another way of adjusting tonality in an image. There are two modes in the Tone Curve panel. For the tone curve mode, make sure the  Regions are showing below the curve. If they are not, click the small button in the lower right.

Adjusting on the Image

Click the small circle in the upper right of the panel to activate direct image adjustment. 

Now pick an area of your image and drag the cursor up or down. All areas with that same tonality will get lighter or darker. This is a great way to tweak an image to the correct tonality.

You can look at the tone curve in the panel to see how the changes being made to the tone curve (which you can instead adjust directly by dragging the curve itself or the sliders below). When you are finished dragging in the image to adjust the curve, click the small button in the upper right again.

Curve adjustments have a different effect than the adjustments in the basic tab (highlight, shadow, whites, blacks). In short, adjusting the curve will generally give a more naturalistic look, but also can make the image look flat (low contrast) in areas.

You can also change the extent of your tonal adjustments (highlight, shadow, whites, blacks). Click and drag the three small triangles touching the bottom of the histogram.

By clicking the Point Curve button (red arrow) you can free-edit the curve. This is somewhat tricky and because of this has limited utility at this point. Still, try it.

You can add points by clicking on the line and remove them by double clicking on them.

Although the point curve is more difficult to edit, it is very powerful. Playing with it can show you the extent (not the refinements) of the adjustments possible.

You can also adjust the three color channels individually, but it is my fond hope you will not need to any time soon.

Adjusting Discreet Colors

The HSL/Color panel lets you adjust discreet colors. Activate direct image dragging using the small button (red arrow) as you did with curves.

Click and drag on an area in the image with the panel set to Hue, Saturation, or Luminance. 

Hue: Allows the shifting of the color to another similar color.

Saturation: Controls the intensity of the color.

Luminance: Controls the brightness of the color.

The images at right show some of the controls for adjusting colors in Lightroom. Typically, the controls are used more subtly to correct skin tones, sky color, and over or under-saturated colors.

Instead of dragging directly on the image you can of course adjust these colors directly with the sliders in the HSL/Color panel.

TONE CURVES

Using the tone curve to adjust tones is an alternative to using the controls discussed in the last chapter. It is really handy because you are actually editing the histogram directly (see it behind the curve?).

Unfortunately curves don’t always help you if you are also using the highlights/shadows/whites/blacks controls since they somewhat duplicate their functionality, but in an entirely different way.

Play around with the parametric curve to see if you like the way it works. Try it on several different images. It may work great for you for small adjustment, but the other controls may work better for large adjustments. At the very least remember them so that you can try them again on an image you can’t get just right.

COLORS

Color adjustments are essential. Practice them, play with them, and remember them. 

Although at first these adjustments may just seem like fun because you can change your blue car into a green car, in reality they are very useful for tweaking the color of everything. Getting that skin tone just right. Adjusting the color of the sky that your camera got wrong.

So play now, but remember these controls. You will need them if you care about good images. Modern cameras are pretty good with color 
in many situations, but they often need help with interpreting that color. And color in a photograph is not reality, but an interpretation.

POINT CURVE

Mess around with the point curve. The worse thing that could happen is that you understand image tonality a bit more.

The illustrations to the right show three different curves. The first is the unadjusted image. For the second image the tones (and colors) were reversed by dragging the lower left of the curve to the top left and the lower right to the top right. The curve for the last image is shown below it.

Point curves are usually used for fine adjustments to tones (and colors). I doubt that you will need or want to do this right away, but playing can help you understand how the point curve could be an important advanced control.

CAN YOU...

Use the targeted adjustment tool on your image to adjust the parametric curve sliders to improve and image?

Change the extent of the four tonal areas on the parametric curve?

Add, move, and delete points on the point curve?

Understand what hue, saturation, and luminance is when referring to a color?

Adjust the hue, saturation, and luminance of individual colors in an image?

Make an image black and white and change the tonality of the original colors?

MORE LOCAL ADJUSTMENTS

The graduated filter tool is the most used in my toolbox. It is simple, direct, and very quick to use. Try using it to darken skies or the edges of images. 

Try editing your graduated filter area using a brush. Erase parts of the filter, periodically switching the mask (not auto mask) on to see where you are painting. 

Use both adjustment brushes and the graduated filters on the same image. See how strong you can make the adjustments. I will be willing to bet that what you think looks a bit like a ‘fakey’ adjustment will be accepted by the viewer as unadjusted. 

The radial filter is much less useful as an adjustment, but when it is needed it is great. Try lightening the area where a main subject is in an image. Try using it to darken an image’s corners. 

RANGE MASKS 

Okay, I admit it, range masks are a little difficult considering how useful they are at this point. But they can be great in certain situations, so try them out. Then when you get to an image that really calls for them you are prepared to learn the finer details about how to use them.

Try to select different colors using the color range mask. Also try to use the luminance range mask to limit adjustments to one tonal area. Play with these controls. We are learning tools here, and the more tools you have the better you will be able to make improvements in the future when you need them.

CAN YOU...

Use the graduated filter to adjust parts of an image?

Erase parts of a graduated filter?

Erase using auto mask?

Use the flow tool to control how much to erase parts of the graduated filter?

Use multiple graduated filters and edit them?

Use the radial filter and invert the effect? (don’t tell me you didn’t see that option)

Use the color and luminance range masks in conjunction with the adjustment brush and the graduated filter?

Use the color range mask tool to limit an adjustment to similar colors?

Select a range of colors with multiple samples or dragging through an area of colors?

Use the luminance range mask to adjust only the darker or lighter parts of the masked portion of the image?

Lens Profile

All lenses have faults which Camera Raw can correct by simply telling the application which lens you are using.

The first image below has parallel lines that bow out. This type of distortion, called barrel distortion, is common with wide angle lenses. The second image has this distortion corrected automatically by Camera Raw. 

Go to the Optics panel to bring up the Lens Corrections panel, then choose Use Profile Corrections. With newer common cameras, Camera Raw will recognize 
the camera/lens combination automatically.

Careful inspection of the images at left will reveal another difference. The first image has darker corners. This vignetting is mostly caused by the fact that the center of the sensor is closer to the lens, and therefore gets more light. Profile Corrections also corrects for this automatically.

If the corrections for distortion and vignetting are not quite right for your image, you can always further adjust them using the sliders at the bottom of the Lens Correction panel.

If your lens is not recognized by Camera Raw, there are two things you can do. First, look for a camera/lens combination in the drop-down menus that appear when you click the disclosure triangle (arrow). Select the lens that you have or one that may be close to what you have.

If there is no camera/lens combination close to what you have, you can manually adjust vignetting and distortion using the sliders under the Manual Tab near the top of  the Optics panel. This tab also has color corrections which will be covered on the next page.

These lens corrections may not be necessary, and unless you take photographs of things like buildings, you may never need them. Applying them unnecessarily will not visibly degrade your image, so you can use them whenever you have doubts, although some vignetting can sometime be beneficial to an image.

Near the corners of an image with high contrast there can be bands of color called Chromatic Aberration. It is often seen as a purple fringe around objects as you can see in the first image on the right. It may also show up as other colors, and many times one side of an object will show one color, and the other side a contrasting color.

This is easily corrected in the Profile tab of Lens Corrections panel by activating Remove Chromatic Aberration. This has been done in the middle photograph on the right.

The Manual tab for the Lens Corrections panel lets you further remove the chromatic aberration colors. This is how the purple fringing was completely removed from the bottom image on the right.

Generally, when manually correcting aberration, you can just slide the Purple or Green Amount. If you do need to tweak the Hue Adjustments it will be obvious which range of colors to specify.

Be careful that you don’t also remove any important details that may be colored similarly to the fringe color.

Notice that the Distortion and Vignetting controls on the manual tab have a much greater range of adjustment than the ones on the profile tab.

LENS PROFILE

The first thing I do when importing images is apply profile corrections. Lightroom can be set to to this automatically, and at least with my cameras it not only straightens curved lines, but also lightens the edges to make the field of tonality even.

I suggest you at least try the profile corrections on a few images to see if it improves them (the strength of the effect depends on the lens used). 

Try the manual corrections instead of or in addition to the profile corrections. The profile correction is not always perfect, and tweaking it with the manual corrections may be necessary.

If you only take photographs of people, you may never need these corrections. If you take architectural photographs you may always need them. 

CHROMATIC ABERRATION

How much you need to correct for chromatic aberration really depends on how you take photographs. Like the lens profile corrections, you may never need this. At least try to find an area (near edges at 100% magnification) that needs correction in an image and apply the correction. That way you will remember it is there if you find you need it later.

CAN YOU...

Notice any curvature or vignetting inherent in your lens and correct for it by applying a lens profile?

Manually correct for curvature and vignetting both in the profile and manual panels?

Notice any chromatic aberration inherent in your lens and correct for it?

TRANSFORM TOOLS

If you don’t have a picture of a building, go out and take one. At least take a photograph of something that has straight lines, like the room you are sitting in right now (spooky how I know where you are).

Try the various automatic transform tools. Play with the sliders. Zero out your controls and try the guided tool and draw lines on your image to straighten them to each other.

THE REST

Try each of the rest of the tools. Some may be helpful. For instance, if you often take the lens off your camera I am sure you will use the spot removal tool a lot. That dust just stays there casting its shadow on every image you take.

Your way of working may also benefit from using the snapshots panel. Or it may not. 

CAN YOU...

Straighten a crooked image?

Use different techniques to correct for converging lines (parallax)?

Remove blemishes (from a pimple to an old boy/girlfriend) from an image?

Remove the image of the (red) back of the eye from a flash photograph of a person? 

Save your changes to an image using snapshots?Apply split toning to an image?

Save sets of adjustments to use on other images?

Apply at least a few effects that an image might need?

Leave the camera calibration alone?

CATALOGUE APPLICATIONS

Although Lightroom is a very good cataloging (DAM or Digital Assets Management) application, there may be reasons to use another instead or in addition to it. 

Adobe Bridge

A very light cataloging program. Very good at quickly assessing and editing batches of images.

Apple Photos

Very easy and nicely designed, without much versatility (no local adjustments, limited lens correction). Integrates extremely well with other Apple devices.

Capture One Pro 

Best at image editing, with strong local controls. I have found it not great at cataloging many images unless they are broken into smaller sets, but my cataloging experience with it has been minimal.

Corel Aftershot

Very much like Lightroom, but cheaper and not quite as versatile, but may do everything a person needs it to do.

Camera Manufacture Applications

These range from not-so-great to worse, but sometimes include special features, such as good tethered shooting (viewing and shooting from a connected computer).

Others

There are other catalogue applications you can easily find on the web, such as Alien Skin’s Exposure. Most programs have free trial versions you can use for a month. RawTherapee and Darktable are open-source and free. There are also web-centric image cataloging methods such as Flickr and Google Photos.

Lightroom

Lightroom comes in two different versions (Lightroom CC and Lightroom CC Classic). These pages have covered the Classic version. 

The non-classic Lightroom is striped down and has a ‘groovier’ interface. It is also made for mobile devices such as an iPad. Lightroom uses an ingenious system to synchronize one catalogue with all image adjustments across devices. A limited version is free to try out.

EDITING APPLICATIONS

Without cataloging capabilities, these applications are narrower in focus and generally can do many things catalogue programs can’t. So, while this book is about improving images, it is not about manipulating images (to any extent). To combine images (&c) you need an image editing application such as one of the following ones. There are too many others (such as Luminar) to cover here.

Photoshop

The best, meaning that it is the most versatile.  

Affinity Photo

A solid and inexpensive application. It does all of what many photographers would need it to do.

Pixelmator

A well-respected and inexpensive application.

Gimpshop (or Gimp or Seashore)

Free versions of open-source software. Many compare these with older versions of Photoshop. Fairly versatile and you can’t beat the price. While all of these are basically the same application, they have different user interfaces applied to them.

Others

There are many photo editing applications out there. You can usually download an application and try it for free. Everyone’s needs are different for editing images, so it might take some time with Google to find one that is right for you.

Tablet and Phone

There are also many applications for tablets and phones made to edit images. Although not as featured as computer applications, some deal well with RAW files, and all are easy to use. Affinity Photo (shown above) is one that has impressed me. For $20 (at the time of this writing) you can’t go wrong. Unless you don’t have a newer iPad.

Photoshop is also available for mobile devices. At the present time it is only suitable for compositing, but Adobe promises more to come.

If you want to add drawing or painting to your photographs, there are tablet applications such as ProCreate which have many controls for this.

Image Credits

Images in this text identified with names were made by students in Introduction to Photography. I am always amazed at what students of mine create, and it is with great thanks to them for keeping me interested in teaching for many years. These images are all very good.

Images without a credit in the caption were taken by me. Some images are good, some not-so.

The History of Photography chapter contains images that are in the public domain. Most of these are from the Library of Con-gress, and a few of them are from my small collection.

Colophon

Pagination for this text is done for reading devices where the page index of the PDF reader will correspond with the page num-bers at the top of the pages.

The body of the main text is set in Chaparral Pro. It is clear to read on and has a somewhat modern feel without much attitude. The font also has a wide variety of weights and has contrast attributes suitable for a wide variety of viewing devices. Cap-tions and page heads are in Gill Sans Nova, which pairs well with Chaparral in this context. 

Instructions are set in Witney, which has a precise look that makes difficult instructions at least easy to read, and chapter headings are Tungsten for a slight bit of attitude.

The Text

I have been teaching photography in colleges and universities for the past forty years. The primary intention of this book is to provide students with a kind of text that fits the way they learn while also providing a firm foundation in photography.

The second intent of the book is to clean house. Photography has change radically during the time I have been teaching it, and momentum sometimes dictates what I teach. Writing this text has provided a way to question what I am teaching, add things that have gained relevance, and discard things that are no longer needed. The text in the gray boxes are things that I didn’t think were really needed, but nor did I quite want to toss them, either because they are interesting or because they might answer some questions students might have.

I am fully aware that not everything will be understood by all students. Experience has taught me that students’ needs vary widely. So, while one student might easily understand depth of field, they might have a really difficult time with motion blur. And vice versa.

That being said, let me know if there are better ways of explain-ing anything in this text, and please let me know where there are errors. The editing of the text was in proportion to its price.

Various sets of my photographs can be found at quxl.net.

Thomas Payne

thomas.payne@wartburg.edu