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 Photography 2:
Progressing with Digital Photography

Written by
Michael Freeman

© Open College of the Arts

 Open College of the Arts
Michael Young Arts Centre
Redbrook Business Park
Wilthorpe Road
Barnsley S75 1JN

Telephone: 0800 731 2116

E-mail: enquiries@oca-uk.com
www.oca-uk.com

Copyright OCA 2004; revised 2006

Document Control Number: Ph2pwdp_121108.doc

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted in any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopy,
recording or otherwise - without prior permission of the publisher
(Open College of the Arts)

OCA is a company limited by guarantee and registered in England under number

2125674.

Registered Office, Open College of the Arts, Michael Young Arts Centre, Unit 1B,
Redbrook Business Park, Wilthorpe Road, Barnsley, S75 1JN, United Kingdom

© Open College of the Arts 2

About the author

Michael Freeman is one of the world’s most highly respected professional

photographers. He is widely published, with more than 80 books to his credit
including the classic 35mm handbook (over 1.5 million copies sold). His
publications include Spirit of Asia, Angkor: Cities and Temples (both Thames
and Hudson), Japan Modern and The Modern Japanese Garden (both Mitchell
Beazley).

Michael has also produced a unique series of guide books for the digital
photographer and this is published by ILEX, who are digital media
specialists.

He has worked on commissions for many well-known publishing clients,

including Time-Life, Reader’s Digest, Condé Nast Traveller and GEO. He is also
the principle photographer for the Smithsonian Magazine.

© Open College of the Arts 3

© Open College of the Arts 4
Contents

You and your course

Background
A photographic revolution
What’s in your course pack
Basic minimum equipment and software
The course
Starting the course
Your portfolio
Your logbook
Student profile
On completing the course
About printing
Project and tutorial plan

1: Full colour control

Dynamic range
Project 1: dynamic range
Measuring the image qualities
Project 2: understanding the histogram
Project 3: a variety of lighting conditions
Working with colour
Project 4: your camera’s colour performance
Project 5: a personal range of colours
Memory colours
Project 6: measuring colour
Fine-tuning colour
Project 7: altering colour with levels
Project 8: altering colour with hue/saturation
Assignment 1: seasonal colour changes

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2: Image combination
Enlarging and reducing images
Project 9: resizing
Combining layers
Project 10: blending modes
Same scene, different light
Project 11: high density range
Project 12: changing light
Selection
Project 13: selecting an object
Project 14: adding an object
Project 15: adding a new sky
Assignment 2: a day in the life of …

3: Photo-realistic retouching
Brushwork
Project 16: extending an image
Project 17: retouching a face
Project 18: gradient filter
Project 19: focus blur
Shadows
Project 20: adding shadows
Assignment 3: a critical review

4: Degrees of alteration
Enhancing colour
Project 21: a stormy sky
Project 22: an improvement in the weather
Changing shape
Project 23: facial distortion
Project 24: extreme distortion
Surrealist images
Project 25: blending body parts
Assignment 4: a linking theme

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5: New worlds of imaging
Sequence in time
Project 26: a sequence in one image
Immersive imaging
Project 27: a 360º panorama
Cubism and mosaics
Project 28: digital mosaic
Project 29: a composite, multi-facetted view
Unreal colour
Project 30: strange food
Assignment 5: in the style of your chosen theme

Your portfolio
At the end of your course
Appendix A: if you plan to submit your work for
formal assessment
Appendix B: information concerning the proper
use of materials and equipment
Appendix C: OCA colour chart
Further reading

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© Open College of the Arts 8
You and your course

Background
Some of you will already have a background in traditional film photography,
and naturally will want to make comparisons, particularly in image quality.
Others will be coming fresh to photography, un-influenced by experience
with negatives and slides. In either case, it’s important to remember that the
technology of digital cameras is new. It is also evolving.

A photographic revolution
At a mechanical and operational level, there is a lot to learn, but once you
have become familiar with the principles of digital imaging, the techniques
and procedures will quickly fall into place. One of the things I want to stress
in this course is that if you understand the basics - which include pixels, how
a sensor captures an image, and how digital colour works - then the jargon
used by camera manufacturers and software suppliers will become
recognisable, and the apparent brand differences will disappear. Above all,
you need to become completely familiar with the capabilities and limitations
of your digital camera, and appreciate what it is capable of. This will give you
the confidence to get the most out of digital photography.

There is a strong element of convenience in digital photography, and one of

its most obvious attractions is that the images you shoot are available to use
and print cleanly and instantly. The middle step of processing is removed,
which saves time, money and the risk of the film being damaged or
misplaced.

Ultimately, however, the exciting opportunity that digital cameras offer is

that they can allow you to improve your photography and to explore new
kinds of imagery.

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There are many exotic techniques that you can apply to images, most of them
coming under the heading of Special Effects, and it is arguable that there is
nothing in principle inferior or false about doing this. Indeed, this course
looks in detail at some of the most interesting of these. Being able to alter and
manipulate photographs blurs the distinctions between photography and
painterly art, and while this does not please traditionalists, it opens up broad
new avenues for creative expression. Nevertheless, there is so much to learn
about the digital approach to regular photography that these more unusual
procedures should be a second step. The job here in this course is to become
thoroughly proficient with taking images of the real world, and doing so with
a level of mastery over the quality, colour, tone and even the geometry of the
view that has never before been possible.

Even within ‘straight’ photography, digital techniques open up wonderful

possibilities. You can, for instance, achieve exactly the colours that you would
like, perhaps enhancing the green of a plant, or muting the hues in a
landscape for a gentle, pastel effect. More than this, to my mind, digital
photography makes it possible to undertake shots that you might otherwise
not have attempted. Lighting conditions, particularly indoors or at night, may
be so dim or unpredictable that with a film camera you might simply not
bother. Digital cameras are far more adaptable. For instance, if you enjoy
reportage photography - people behaving naturally, un-posed and going
about their normal activities - the choice of sensitivity and colour balance in a
digital camera extends the occasions on which you can shoot. Also, any
uncertain picture situation, whether because of light, fast action or the
unpredictability of what is happening, can now be checked and tested. The
results are instantly viewable, and you can adapt your technique for the next
shot if you need to. For me, this extra capacity for making images is the most
valuable feature of a digital camera. Quite simply, it can help you to take a
vast range of images, irrespective of the conditions. This surely is what a
creative tool ought to do.

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What’s in your course pack
• This home study manual
• CD-ROM

The CD contains sample digital images that are referred to in the manual, and
which you can copy and use on your own computer. The folders in which
these images lie are organised in the same order as the course and projects.

Basic minimum equipment and software

To meet the needs of this course, a certain amount of equipment and software
is needed.

Digital camera
This should have at least 3 megapixels and the capacity for different focal
lengths (meaning either a fixed zoom lens or an SLR with zoom or wide-angle
to telephoto lenses). The actual range of focal lengths is not particularly
important.

Memory card(s)
One or more cards with sufficient capacity for at least 20 large, highest quality
images (the size of these will depend on your camera).

Camera-computer connection
The means to transfer images from camera to computer - either a connecting
cable (usually USB) or a card reader that plugs into the computer.

Tripod
Used to keep the camera steady during long exposures, or to aid horizontal
panning when creating a panoramic image (to maintain a level horizon).

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Desktop computer with monitor, or laptop
This should be to the following minimum specifications:

Windows
• Intel Pentium processor
• Microsoft Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000
or Windows XP
• 64 MB of RAM
• 125 MB of available hard disk space
• colour monitor with video card supporting 16.7 million colours (that is,
8 bits per channel, which is 24 bits in total)
• monitor resolution of 800 x 600 or greater
• CD-ROM drive (and CD-R writer, otherwise a separate unit - see
below).

Macintosh
• PowerPC processor
• Mac OS software versions 8.5 or later (including OS 9 and OS X)
• 64 MB of RAM
• 125 MB of available hard disk space
• colour monitor supporting 16.7 million colours (that is, 8 bits per
channel, which is 24 bits in total)
• monitor resolution of 800 x 600 or greater
• CD-ROM drive (and CD-R writer, otherwise a separate unit - see
below).

A CD writer
Either built-in or separate, with the appropriate software.

Desktop inkjet printer

The basic quality of inkjet printers is sufficient for this course, so that while a
high-quality model, with 6 or more inks, would be ideal, it is not essential.

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Project 11: high density range
One common situation in digital photography is when the dynamic range of
the scene exceeds that of the camera’s sensor. We looked at this in some detail
in 1: Full colour control; Dynamic range. It may be that there is no single
exposure that will preserve both shadows and highlights. In a situation like
this, provided that you can fix the camera so that it does not move between
shots, there is a solution that involves combining 2 exposures – 2 frames, in
fact. The reason that the camera has to be motionless is so that the 2 exposures
can be combined in perfect register, hence a tripod. Look at these 2 images
(they are also available digitally on the CD-ROM in the folder goldlotus).

This art object has been gilded and painted, and the gold reflections make it
very contrasty under the single studio light. Not only that, but the intention of
the artist, Yukako Shibata, is to exploit the reflected light from the shadowed
area underneath. Hence it is important to preserve the entire tonal range. One
image has been taken with an exposure that preserves the highlights but
leaves the shadows too dark. The second preserves shadows but loses
highlights. We can combine the best parts of each.

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The simplest, hands-on way of doing this is as follows (try this for yourself
with the digital images). Paste one image onto the other, then use a soft, large
Eraser Tool to remove the unwanted parts of the top layer. Put the lighter on
top of the darker, then brush away the highlights, in other words. There are
complex software algorithms for achieving this, available as specialist
software (such as Photomatix), but this is an easy start.

Now find a situation for photographing that has a too-high range of contrast.
It could be, for instance, an interior in daylight, with a view through an open
window. Take 2 exposures. One should look right for the shadow areas, the
other should hold the highlights (no clipping warning in the camera’s LCD).
Use a tripod to keep the shots identically framed. Then, in Photoshop,
combine them in the way described above. Experiment with degrees of size,
opacity and softness for the Eraser Tool.

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Project 12: changing light
Other possibilities suggest themselves, all legitimate in the sense that they
stay within the realm of photography without intruding on illustration and
special effects. For example, photographing the identical scene under
different lighting conditions. With just a pair of shots, sunlit and cloudy, you
can create any combination of the 2. Superimpose one over the other in
perfect register, as 2 layers in an image editing program, and use a
Paintbrush or Eraser Tool to create the effect of a burst of sunlight
illuminating just a part of the subject. With more images in register, the
choices are increased. In the example below, 2 shots of Cadbury Castle were
taken during the morning, one before sunrise, the other after. I thought it
would be more interesting to have the sun appear to strike just the hill rather
than the entire landscape.

CadburyCastle_1 CadburyCastle_2

CadburyCastle-final

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Again, the images are available digitally for you to experiment with, in the
folder cadburycastle. The pre-dawn shot was pasted on top of the sunlit shot.
Then, the Eraser Tool was applied to those areas in which I wanted the
sunlight to appear. Very simple, very effective.

Now find, an outdoor scene that you can photograph under 2 different kinds
of lighting. It could be sunlit and cloudy as in the example above, or daylit
and night-time lighting. Do the equivalent of the procedure just described.
When you have finished, flatten the image (that is, reduce 2 layers to one).

Selection
Central to image editing, and often the first step after making simple global
corrections, is selecting the area that you are going to manipulate. The 2 most
valuable in Photoshop Elements are the Magic Wand Tool and the Selection
Brush Tool. You should familiarise yourself with these before continuing.
You can use the 2 together, for instance by beginning with the Magic Wand
Tool, then fine-tuning the edges at 100% magnification with a small Selection
Brush Tool. Remember that the size of the brush is variable, as is the hardness
or softness of its edge, and what you choose depends on the subject. If you are
using the Magic Wand Tool, the Tolerance determines how widely the tool
searches for similar pixels. Always keep Anti-aliased ticked – this reduces
jagged steps along diagonal edges of a selection.

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A good place for experiment is an area of clear sky in a photograph. Typically,
this shades from one part of the image to another: say, from a darker blue
above to a paler colour near the horizon. If you click on the bluest area with
the Magic Wand Tool, it will probably choose some, but not all, of the sky. If
you start again with a broader setting, the selection will cover more of the sky.
Then add to selection by Shift-clicking in the darker and lighter areas (see
following project). Finally, use the Similar command to add gaps between
leaves.

The danger here is that you may pick up areas that you do not want, and in a
large image file you may not notice without a close, zoomed-in inspection.

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