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Supplement Contents

Whats in the Bag?

Choosing Your Tools .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 2

Exposure

Understanding Exposure Math .. .. .. .. .. . Variables of Exposure . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Metering Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Controlling Exposure: Blending Aperture and Shutter Speed .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 16 Exposure Compensation .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 22

Tips & Tricks

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Adding Film Grain .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 25 Correcting Lens Errors .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..27 Soft Edges for Vector Masks .. .. .. .. .. .. ..30 Editing Selections .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..32 Creating Image Effects with Gradient Maps .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..34

Saving and Exporting Images

36

Major Graphic File Formats .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 37 Raster vs. Vector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preparing and Saving Images for the Web .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..40

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Whats in the Bag?

by Tim Grey

Choosing Your Tools

When you capture a photographic image, it might seem like there are a virtually unlimited number of decisions to make. What lens will you use? What exposure settings? Where will you position the camera? How will you frame the subject? The list goes on and on.
One of the most exciting and challenging aspects of photography is that it enables you to employ such a wide variety of tools to create the final image. These include the cameras, lenses, and accessories that are used to capture the initial image, as well as computers and software tools that help you manage and optimize the image after the capture. additional items before a photographic opportunity, ultimately youre going to need to decide which pieces of equipment youll bring with you.

Camera Bodies
When it comes to the camera body, the decision tends to be relatively straightforward. Most photographers use one or two camera bodies, and in most cases you will tend to bring all of the camera bodies you own. After all, it can be very helpful to have a backup camera with you should anything go wrong. It is also useful in certain situations to have two bodies, with a different lens on each, so you can quickly switch cameras when you want a different lens, rather than needing to switch lenses on a single camera body.

Of course, a photographic image starts with an idea and a photographic capture, so it makes sense to think about your equipment before you set out to capture images. That includes both what equipment you will use and how you will prepare that equipment. Each photographer has a particular set of tools at their disposal for any given photo shoot. While you might consider purchasing or renting

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physical pixels of the camera sensor are relevant to the quality of the printed image; resolutions blown up artificially by digital zooming or interpolation are meaningless.

Lenses
If you have a relatively small number of lenses, you might consider bringing all of them. But in some situations you will need to make a decision about which particular lenses to bring along. Here it is critically important that you think about the subjects you might photograph, realizing that sometimes it can be difficult to anticipate what opportunities may arise.

If you have more camera bodies than youd like to bring along on a given trip, and those bodies are different models, youll want to think about the capabilities of each camera body relative to the subjects you expect to photograph. Some of the things youll want to think about are resolution, focusing speed, and weight. Sensor and image resolution in digital photography are generally expressed in megapixels; each megapixel equals one million pixels. Higher resolutions allow larger photo prints, because the number of pixels in any given area is larger, meaning the raster is smaller. Only the

Focal length is the obvious consideration that probably enters your mind first. How close will you be getting to your subjects? If you will be far away, do you need a long telephoto lens to do the subject justice? How wide will be wide enough if youll be capturing subjects up close but still want to include surrounding context? Will prime lenses be adequate, or do you need the flexibility of a zoom lens?

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Accessories
Once you have your camera and lens choices made, youll want to think about additional accessories. I realize that many photographers would refuse to admit they ever capture images without a tripod, but if you tend not to use a tripod and need to travel light, perhaps you should just leave the tripod at home. Without a tripod you wont be able to easily capture composite panoramas, high dynamic range (HDR) images, time-lapse images, or long exposures. And of course low-light photography can be a challenge without a stable platform. So give careful thought to whether or not you need to bring along a tripod. And if you are bringing a tripod, be sure you have appropriate plates on your cameras and longer lenses.

My general approach to lens choice is to first just pack my standard walkabout lens, which tends to be attached to my camera most of the time on typical photography outings. For me that is a 24-105mm lens attached to my Canon EOS 7D, but your equipment and preferences may vary. Next I think about how much reach I might need and what focal length would be adequate for that purpose. Will a lens in the range of about 200mm maximum focal length do the trick, or do I need 400mm or beyond? Within the range of possibilities for longer lenses, it is important to think about overall weight (if there are packing limitations or if you might be shooting handheld), as well as the widest possible aperture (if focusing performance or depth of field are chief considerations). I then contemplate the need for a wide-angle lens. I dont capture with especially wide-angle lenses all that often, but when I do I really enjoy the experience. So if the subject matter might lend itself to a wide perspective, Ill think about a lens with a short focal length.

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Depending on the type of photography you tend to do, you may want to think about accessories such as flash units, other lighting, and filters. I realize that with the advent of digital tools many photographers dont feel the need for filters anymore, but they can still prove tremendously useful. If nothing else, you might consider a solid neutral density filter to enable long exposures. Certain accessoriesit hopefully goes without sayingshould always be in your kit for even the shortest photo outing. These include, at a minimum, spare batteries and digital media cards. For longer trips youll also want to include battery chargers, a digital media card reader, and perhaps a laptop or other device for downloading your photos, including an external hard drive if necessary. There are many other possibilities you might consider. For example, if you frequently capture

composite panoramic images, you might want to bring along a bubble level that fits in the hot shoe mount on your camera (unless your camera has a built-in level feature). If you plan to capture longer exposures or time-lapse images, you may want to bring a cable release. If you like to assign GPS coordinates to your images, you may want to bring along a GPS tracking device. And of course, based on your past experience, expectations for your photography outing, and available equipment, you might want to consider other tools to bring along. The point is to think about what subjects you might photograph and what equipment you need. It can even be helpful to develop checklists for different types of photography, to help make sure you remember everything you need. This can be especially helpful for those items that you tend not to use all that often and therefore might forget to bring with you.

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Exposure
by Tim Grey

Understanding Exposure Math

Most photographers arent exactly big fans of math. Quite often their eyes start to glaze over as soon as the subject is raised. And yet, photography in many respects is all about math. From calculations related to focal length and depth of field, to exposure, to adjustments applied using software tools after the capture, there is a tremendous amount of math going on.
Admittedly, most of this math happens behind the scenes, and theres not a tremendous need to understand the particulars. For example, is there really a significant benefit to fully comprehending how pixel values are being adjusted as you increase the saturation of a photo? Certainly the more you understand whats going on, the better equipped youll be to make the most of your digital photos, but theres no question that some of the math you could understand wouldnt provide much benefit other than the comfort of actually knowing.

The Value of Exposure Math

Considering that the moment of exposure truly defines the amount and quality of information contained within the photographic image, it stands to reason that exposure is critical. While todays digital cameras do a remarkable job of calculating proper exposure under a wide variety of lighting conditions, the photographer must get directly involved in evaluating, and when necessary overruling, those calculations in order to produce the very best image.

The Stop
The math related to calculating exposure revolves around the notion of the stop, which is often misunderstood. We talk about stops of light, and yet a stop isnt exactly a unit of measure that defines a specific quantity of light. To be sure, a stop is used to measure light, but not in a direct sense.

There is one calculation, however, that affects the quality of every photograph you take: exposure.

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It is most certainly possible to measure light in terms of quantity, which would largely be a matter of measuring the amount of energy being emitted by a particular light source. For example, the lumen is a measure of the quantity of light, and it has a fixed value. A stop, however, doesnt have a fixed value in terms of quantity of light; it is a relative value. When we say were adding a stop of light, what were actually saying is that were doubling the amount of light. Two stops would be four times as much light, because weve doubled the amount of light twice. Subtracting one stop means were cutting the amount of light in half.

So, there is obviously some math involved when it comes to stops, but that math is relative to a reference point. That reference point can generally be thought of as a proper exposure for the current lighting conditions, but the stop as a unit of measure is relative to a given reference value, not a measure of a specific quantity.

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Variables of Exposure
A digital camera is incredibly busy when capturing an image. Consider all the work that has to be done for a typical exposure. The key subject in the frame must be identified and the distance to that subject must be determined. The exposure must be calculated based on the ambient light, the current metering mode, and other camera settings. The mirror must be moved up out of the way of the image sensor, the aperture must be closed down to the setting established with the current camera settings, and the shutter must be opened for the proper duration.
And of course, once all that work is completed, there is still much more work for the camera, including measuring sensor values for each pixel, applying noise reduction if applicable, calculating the values that will be stored in the resulting file, writing that file to a digital media card, and a variety of other tasks. At the most basic level, with a camera set to fully automatic mode, the photographer simply points the camera at a subject and presses the shutter release, letting the camera do the rest of the work. However, the photographer can always choose to get more involved, and to influence the final photographic image in the process. Fundamental to this notion is the fact that a photographer doesnt adjust exposure by simply turning a dial up or down to affect overall brightness, but rather by adjusting several individual controls. Those controls are the aperture, the shutter speed, and the ISO setting.

The Aperture
A photographic exposure is created by projecting light onto an image sensor (or film, for those photographers still inclined to capture on film). That light passes through an aperture, which you can think of as a gate or a hole; a series of blades allow you to adjust the size of that hole. The size of the aperture is measured as a ratio relative to the lenss focal length. The focal length of the lens is divided by the diameter of the current aperture opening, and the result provides the f-number that is used to describe the aperture setting. This relationship is a common source of confusion among photographers,

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because as the aperture becomes smaller, the number used to describe it grows larger. The reason for this apparent disparity is actually quite simple when you consider the math. For example, if we assume a focal length of 100mm and an aperture diameter of 4.5mm, the aperture value would be about f/22 (100/4.5 = 22.2). A larger aperture that measures 18mm in diameter would yield an aperture value of f/5.6 (100/18 = 5.55). This relationship between lens focal length and aperture diameter is the reason the aperture value is generally written as a fraction, such as f/2.8 or f/8. Think of the f as lens focal length and the relationship becomes quite clear, as long as youre able to think a bit in terms of the math involved.

actual diameter of the aperture opening. The different aperture settings available relate to a doubling or halving of the amount of light being projected. Lets assume f/8 as our starting point. If we wanted to double the amount of light, we would need to open the aperture even further, specifically to an aperture of f/5.6. If, on the other hand, we wanted to cut the amount of light in half, we would need to close the aperture somewhat, to a setting of f/11.

When you adjust the aperture for the lens, you are adjusting the amount of light that will be projected for the final exposure. While the aperture numbers available to you might seem somewhat arbitrary, they are in fact based on the concept of the stop, which also helps explain why aperture settings are referred to as f/stops. The f/number for a given aperture setting relates to the focal length of the lens and the

The move from f/8 to f/5.6 is a change of one stop of light, because an aperture of f/5.6 will allow twice as much light to pass through the lens compared to f/8. The move from f/8 to f/11 will allow half as much light, and so that too is a

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change of one stop of light. When reducing the amount of light (moving to a larger f/number) we say that we are stopping down the lens. When increasing the amount of light we tend to say we are opening up the lens aperture.

speed. This is a simple measure of the duration of time expressed in seconds. For example, a fast shutter speed might be around 1/500th of a second, while a slow shutter speed might be several seconds. There is a directthough inverserelationship between aperture and shutter speed. The larger the aperture opening, the less time the shutter must remain open to ensure a proper exposure. The smaller the aperture opening, the longer the shutter must remain open. Measuring the shutter speed and understanding that measurement are of course simpler than the concepts behind the aperture. However, like the aperture setting, shutter speeds are measured based on stops of light. We adjust shutter speeds in increments that relate to doubling or halving the amount of light being recorded. For example, lets assume a base shutter speed of 1/60th of a second, with the assumption that at the current aperture setting this will yield a proper exposure. If we want to double the amount of light we need to leave the shutter open twice as long. So instead of 1/60th of a second, we could use 1/30th of a second. This is double the duration, and thus double the amount of light, and that means the result is one stop more light, or a one-stop brighter exposure. By contrast, if we wanted to reduce the amount of light, we would need to leave the shutter open for a shorter duration. So to reduce the amount of light by half, or one stop, we would open the shutter for half as much time. In the case of a 1/60th-second exposure, that means using a shutter speed of 1/120th of a second.

Shutter Speed
An image is captured by recording the light that passes through the aperture and strikes the image sensor. In order to control the amount of light actually recorded, and thus ensure a proper exposure, the exposure must be timed.

This is the job of the shutter mechanism, and the amount of time for which the shutter allows the light to strike the image sensor is the shutter

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(Most cameras, for reasons of expediency related to other shutter speed values, use 1/125th of a second for this value.)

The answer is to adjust the ISO setting. A common misconception is that by increasing the ISO setting for your camera you are increasing the sensitivity of the image sensor. This actually isnt the case. Based on its physical properties, an image sensor has a given sensitivity to light; you cant change that. But you can apply amplification to the signal recorded by the image sensor, which produces a result that is similar to an increased sensitivity. Because increasing the ISO setting actually applies amplification, however, there is also a side effect that can be quite problematic at times: noise. When you amplify the signal, you arent somehow magically increasing the amount of information in the scene. In fact, by using a higher ISO setting youre actually intentionally underexposing the image (capturing less light than you would for a proper exposure) and then applying amplification of the signal in order to brighten up the scene. Youre effectively trying to fill in information where information wasnt captured. The result is random variations in tonal and color values for the pixels, which is what we refer to as noise in the image.

The ISO Setting

The aperture and shutter speed need to be adjusted in concert with each other to produce a proper exposure. But what about situations where you cant achieve a good combination based on your photographic needs? For example, if you want to stop the lens down to increase depth of field (the range of detail that is in focus in the frame), but the available light wont let you use a fast enough shutter speed to render a sharp image while you are handholding the camera, what are you to do?

Of course, in certain cases youll need to make a compromise, risking noise in order to achieve

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an adequately fast shutter speed based on the aperture you feel is necessary to produce adequate depth of field. When you do adjust the ISO setting, youre also making adjustments based on stops of light. The base ISO setting for most digital cameras is 100. With film there were lower ISO values available (and some digital cameras do offer ISO settings below 100), but a 100 ISO value has become something of a baseline standard for digital exposure. This is the setting you use when you want to capture an image based on the natural sensitivity to light of the image sensor.

Going from 200 to 400 ISO is another doubling of the exposure. And, of course, reducing ISO from 200 to 100 produces a result that looks as though you had captured half as much light. When you adjust the ISO setting on your digital camera, the idea is generally not so much to double (or halve) the amount of light, but rather to achieve a faster shutter speed. But thats exactly when the notion of stops related to ISO settings becomes so valuable. If you increase the ISO by one stop (for example, from 100 ISO to 200 ISO), you can then increase the shutter speed by one stop (for example, from 1/30th of a second to 1/60th of a second). In situations where a faster shutter speed is critical (such as when you want to freeze motion or to capture handheld in a low-lighting situation), increasing the ISO is a relatively easy way to make the most of the current limitations.

If you want to apply amplification in order to achieve a faster shutter speed (creating the illusion of recording more light, effectively), you can increase the ISO setting to 200. Obviously the number 200 is double 100, and in this case that is no coincidence. A change from 100 ISO to 200 ISO applies amplification that is equivalent to one stop of light. In other words, increasing from a setting of 100 ISO to 200 ISO is producing a result that will look (with the exception of the additional noise) as though you had recorded twice as much light.

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Metering Methods
The metering method that your camera uses determines how it calculates exposure. Most cameras offer several metering methods that you can choose from depending on the shooting situation; the most common are matrix or multi-zone metering, center-weighted average metering, and spot metering.
Matrix/Multi-Zone Metering
With matrix- or multi-zone metering, you can achieve really precise results. In this metering method, the camera calculates an average exposure value for several small measurement fields distributed over the picture area (their number and shape can vary depending on your camera). As a rule of thumb, the more measurement fields there are , the more exact the global result will be. Some advanced metering systems also compare the measurement results from the individual fields with a built-in image database to improve the exposure.

Spot Metering
The spot metering method is the most selective of all metering methods, and it can yield very precise results if used properly, especially for images featuring mainly the midtone range. Spot metering measures only about 15% of the image area. Some cameras use a fixed measurement area in the image center, while other cameras use the active focus point for measurement. The advantage of spot metering is that the measurement wont be influenced by bright or dark areas outside of the small measurement field, allowing you to get very precise exposure values for a certain image area.

Tip: A gray card can be very helpful for spot

metering. Place the card in your image frame and point the measurement spot at it. As soon as you have your reading, you can use the exposure values determined by the camera or you can modify them by adjusting shutter speed and f-stop values. This way, you will obtain a very precisely exposed photo of your subject.

Center-Weighted Average Metering

This method gives the center of the image more weight in the calculationagain, the exact algorithm will vary depending on the camera model. On average, the center part of the image will determine 60-80% of the final metering result. In some situations, especially for portrait shots or if your main subject is in the dead center of your frame, center-weighted metering can be the method of choice.

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Controlling Exposure: Blending Aperture and Shutter Speed

An understanding of the variables that relate to photographic exposure with a digital camera can be incredibly helpful, both in terms of your photographic knowledge and in terms of your ability to calculate the exposure settings that will produce the best results in a wide variety of situations.
Both the aperture and the shutter speed change the amount of light recorded for a given exposure. It is important that you have control over both factors, rather than a single exposure adjustment dial, because adjusting the aperture and shutter speed enable you to exercise considerable creative control over the photographic image. also important to keep in mind that any given lens has minimum and maximum aperture sizes, which in turn affect your flexibility in terms of both depth of field and exposure adjustment. By adjusting the shutter speed, you determine how moving subjects (or camera motion) will affect the final image. With a very fast shutter speed you can freeze motion, which can be useful for a wide variety of situations. That can mean both freezing the motion of a subject that is actually moving and also freezing the motion of the camera when you are hand-holding the camera rather than using a tripod or other support.

By adjusting the size of the lens aperture, you are also adjusting the depth of field. A very large aperture (small f/number) will result in a very narrow depth of field, while a very small aperture (large f/number) will result in a very large depth of field. Of course, the potential depth of field depends on a variety of factors, including the distance to the subject and the focal length of the lens. The point is that varying the aperture will vary the depth of field. It is

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The key to adjusting exposure is to keep the aperture and shutter speed in balance with each other. As you increase the amount of light passing through the lens by opening up the aperture, youll need to reduce the length of time the shutter remains open. Conversely, if you want to stop down the lens in order to reduce the amount of light passing through the aperture, youll need to use a longer shutter speed in order to allow an adequate amount of light to reach the image sensor. Both aperture and shutter speed settings use increments based on stops of light, which makes it relatively easy to determine how to adjust one or the other to ensure a proper exposure. For example, lets postulate a situation where a proper exposure will be achieved at an aperture of f/8 and a shutter speed of 1/250th of a second. If you decide you want to open the aperture up a bit more in order to reduce the depth of field, you might choose a setting of f/5.6, which allows one stop more light (double the amount of light) compared to f/8.

That means you also need to adjust the shutter speed, in this case reducing the exposure time by half to 1/500th of a second. The aperture is allowing twice as much light to come through, but the shutter speed is letting half as much light reach the image sensor. So if you increase the amount of light by one stop using the aperture and reduce the amount of light by one stop using the shutter speed, the two remain in balance and you still have a proper exposure. In this way, you could cycle through a series of aperture and shutter speed combinations, all of which would achieve the same exposure, but with different depths of field. If the largest aperture opening for a given lens is f/2.8, and if you can achieve a proper exposure for the current lighting conditions by opening the shutter for 1/500th of a second, that means you could also achieve a proper exposure by using f/4 and 1/250th of a second, or f/5.6 and 1/125th of a second, or f/8 and 1/60th of a second, or f/11 and 1/30th of a second, or f/16 and 1/15th of a second. From the standpoint of photographic exposure, all of these combinations will produce the same result.

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subjects in the scene, the shutter speed can play an important role. As a general rule, when shooting handheld you should aim to use a shutter speed with a reciprocal that matches the lens focal length. For example, if you are using a 100mm lens, you should use a shutter speed of at least 1/100th of a second, so with most cameras you would opt for a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second or faster. With a 500mm lens, if you were shooting handheld (which calls for strong arms in addition to a steady hand), you would want to use a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second or faster. The reason a longer focal length lens requires a faster shutter speed, by the way, is that the smaller field of view of a longer lens will effectively magnify any motion. A faster shutter speed is necessary to compensate for that magnified motion. When shooting with the camera mounted on a tripod, the question of shutter speed relative to focal length is no longer relevant. However, shutter speed can still be very much an issue when a subject in the frame is moving, and here again you are able to exercise creative control. A typical example would be a photograph that includes moving water. Based on the ambient lighting conditions and the range of apertures supported by the lens youre using, youll have a range of shutter speeds to choose from. A fast shutter speed would be able to freeze the motion of the water, showing a very brief moment in time. A slow shutter speed would result in an image where the water is a silky blur in the frame. Both can be very impactful images, and it is up to you to decide which approach is more appropriate based on the scene and your intent.
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Of course, from a more complete photographic perspective there may be some very significant differences among these exposures. For a typical lens the difference in depth of field between f/2.8 and f/16 is rather significant. At f/2.8 a very small range of the scene will be in focus. At f/16 most of the scene may be rendered in sharp focus. As a photographer you can make an aesthetic decision based on the subject matter and your own preferences.

The shutter speed may play less of a role in the final result, depending on the subject. If you are photographing a landscape without any moving subjects, and the camera is firmly mounted on a tripod, you may not see any difference related to the shutter speed at all. However, if you are photographing handheld or there are moving

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Of course, you need to take into consideration the balance between the effects of shutter speed and aperture size. If youre trying to achieve a deep depth of field in conjunction with a fast shutter speed, you may have a challenge on your hands. For example, lets consider a situation where a proper exposure would be achieved at an aperture of f/8 and a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second. To achieve the desired depth of field, lets assume you need to stop down by two stops to f/16. However, that also means you need to use a slower shutter speedslower by two stopsin order to balance the exposure. That would require a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second in this example. But if you are including a relatively fast-moving stream in the scene, you might need a much faster shutter speed in order to freeze the motion. For example, you might need a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second in this case.

be underexposed by four stops, using an aperture of f/16 and a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second, when that aperture under the current lighting conditions would normally call for a 1/30th of a second shutter speed. It is therefore possible to balance the exposure using an aperture of f/16 and a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second by increasing the ISO setting by four stops. That means going from an ISO setting of 100 to an ISO setting of 1600 (from ISO 100 to 200 is one stop, from 200 to 400 is one stop, from 400 to 800 is one stop, and from 800 to 1600 is one stop).

To achieve a 1/500th of a second shutter speed while maintaining the f/16 aperture, youll need to increase the ISO setting. In this example, going from a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second to 1/500th of a second means you need to adjust the shutter speed by a total of four stops. In effect, that means the exposure would

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As a result, you would have reduced the available light by four stops by changing the shutter speed, but then compensated by applying amplification equivalent to four stops by increasing the ISO value. In any given photographic situation, you are probably focused primarily on either depth of field or shutter speed as your priority. In other words, youre thinking primarily about either a deep or narrow depth of field or managing shutter speed to deal with a moving subject (or handheld camera). However, sometimes both of those factors will be high on your priority list, and you may need to employ a different ISO setting to achieve your goals.

Half Stop vs. One-Third Stop

Thus far the discussion of stops has been limited to full stops, i.e., either doubling or halving the amount of light using the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings. However, most cameras allow you to exert a higher degree of control than is possible with one-stop increments. In general, most digital cameras allow you to adjust exposure in half-stop increments. For example, changing the aperture from f/5.6 to f/8 means stopping down one stop, which will cut the amount of light in half. However, by working in half-stop increments you could also adjust the aperture to f/6.7. Assuming a scene would be properly exposed with an aperture of f/5.6 and a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second, you could stop down by one-half stop to f/6.7 and then increase the shutter duration by one-half stop to 1/180th of a second. Another half-stop would take you to f/8, with a shutter speed of 1/250th of a second.

Most digital cameras will also enable you to adjust exposure in one-third-stop increments. This provides a higher degree of precision in terms of exposure control, which can be helpful in certain situations. When adjusting the exposure settings using one-third-stop increments, instead of moving two steps for each stop (for example, from f/5.6 to f/6.7 and then to f/8), you would take three steps (for example, from f/5.6 to f/5.3 to f/7.1 and then to f/8). For most photographers, adjusting exposure in half-stop increments provides more than enough control. Working in half-stop increments also provides the advantage of working with aperture settings that are more familiar. Most photographers who have been working

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with a digital SLR for any period of time (or who have ever taken a photography class or read an instructional photography book) are probably familiar with the common aperture settings such as f/5.6, f/6.7, f/8, f/9.5, f/11, and so on. When working with one-third-stop increments the numbers between the primary aperture settings are different, which can sometimes prove confusing.

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Exposure Compensation
Another tool available to the photographer when calculating and adjusting exposure is exposure compensation. Here again, the unit of measure is the stop. You can compensate exposure up or down (brighter or darker) using stops of light, and depending on how youve configured your camera, by half-stop or one-third-stop increments as well.
In general, you would apply exposure compensation when you feel (or know) the cameras light meter isnt providing you with the most accurate information for the scene. For example, when you photograph a scene that is dominated by a bright subject, the cameras meter assumes that the overall scene needs to be darkened down. In effect, the camera is trying to make bright white areas appear as middle gray. In that case you would want to apply exposure compensation to brighten the scene beyond what the camera thinks is appropriate. For example, when photographing a snow-filled scene, you will likely need to increase the amount of light captured by the camera by about one stop to compensate for how the cameras meter thinks the scene should be rendered. When working in one of the automatic exposure modes, such as aperture priority (Av, for Apertu re value) or shutter priority (Tv, for Time value), exposure compensation is a way of taking advantage of the cameras ability to calculate exposure and adjust the shutter speed or aperture automatically while leaving the value youve set for the aperture (in Av mode) or shutter speed (in Tv mode) unchanged.

When working in manual mode, exposure compensation is applied by simply adjusting the exposure as desired, using the cameras exposure meter as a reference, and using settings that shift the exposure to be darker or lighter relative to what the exposure meter is showing you. In either case, exposure compensation allows you to deal with situations where the camera might not understand exactly what youre trying to accomplish as a photographer.

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Conclusion
Theres a lot of math being done inside your camera before, during, and after the process of capturing a photographic exposure. While much of that math might be better left a mystery in order to avoid overloading your brain, theres no question that having an understanding of how exposure is measured and calculated can help you work more quickly and intelligently as a photographer. Some of the math might involve mental gymnastics, but in general the basic concepts are relatively straightforward. If you pay attention to your camera settings and how they are being adjusted while capturing a variety of images, the concepts related to exposure calculation will become easier to understand, and youll get much better at achieving the exact exposure you want in your photographs.

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Tips & Tricks

Adding Film Grain

From the CS5 version on, Camera Raw has featured an Effects tab, allowing you to give your digital image the look and feel of an analog film exposure, to age it artificially, and so on. In the past it may have been difficult to add realistic film grain to an existing image, but now this has become very easy.
Opening JPEG and TIFF Images in Camera Raw
In addition to handling RAW image files, you can also open and manipulate JPEG and TIFF images in Camera Raw by following these steps:

1. Go to the Camera Raw preferences (Photoshop/Edit > Preferences > Camera Raw) and make sure Automatically open JPEGs/TIFFs with settings is selected in both drop-down menus in the JPEG and TIFF Handling section at the bottom.

2. Select the JPEG or TIFF image in Adobe

Bridge.

3. Right-click or Ctrl-click and choose Open

in Camera Raw from the context menu (or alternatively, you can press Ctrl/Command+R on your keyboard). Your file will be opened in the Camera Raw plug-in and you can use its tools for your corrections and image editing.

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Using the Effects Tab

High-quality digital photographs tend to have a polished, smooth appearance that might not be beneficial for every subject. Many photographers miss the graininess of classic film, which can add a special touch to images. To add graininess to your digital images, look at the upper part of the Effects tab. You can use the Amount, Size, and Roughness sliders to add a vintage film grain effect to your image. Note that you can save your settings with the panel menu and reload them at a later time to apply the same effects to an entire set of images.

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Correcting Lens Errors

In addition to its many other image-optimization features, Photoshop also offers advanced options for correcting the most common lens-related errors. Typical examples would be the collapsing lines in architectural photos of tall buildings, or barrel or pincushion distortions that result in the images edges being bent outward or inward. Other common lens errors include vignetting (where the images corners are darker than the center) and chromatic aberration (where color fringes appear on the objects edges).
Exploring the Lens Correction Filter
The Lens Correction filter (Filter > Lens Correction) contains two tabs, Auto Correction and Custom.

Switch to the Auto Correction tab to perform an automatic lens correction using a predefined lens profile. Photoshop comes with a preinstalled selection of profiles for common lenses. If the lens profile for your image isnt automatically recognized or you cant find it in the list, you can switch to Custom mode or try to create your own profiles using the complimentary Lens Profile Creator utility.

Tip: The Lens Profile Creator utility is available

for download at http://labs.adobe.com/ downloads/lensprofile_creator.html. Print out the checkerboard template provided with the program and take photographs of it using the lens you want to profile from predefined positions using even lighting. Save these shots using the DNG format and load them into the Lens Profile Creator to generate the profile.

In the Custom tab you can apply custom lens correction settings.

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Manually Correcting Lens Distortions

When you photograph a tall building, it often seems to tilt backward in the image. This is due to the lower part of the building being much closer to the camera and therefore appearing much larger than the upper part. The Lens Correction filter allows you to fix this problem very easily. Just drag the slider in the Transform part of the dialog box to adjust the perspective.

Tip: Make sure you dont overdo this effect

and make the building appear wider in its upper part. This would result in an extremely unrealistic appearance. Additionally, extremely high buildings like skyscrapers photographed from their base shouldnt be corrected, as our eyes are used to this perspective.

Manually Correcting Chromatic Aberration Errors

Chromatic aberration becomes evident in a photograph when rays of light with different wavelengths (or colors) are refracted differently by a lens, and therefore cant stay bundled and do not hit the same point on the camera sensor. These errors can be observed as colored fringes and fuzziness, especially along contrasting edges. To manually correct chromatic aberration, drag the appropriate Fringe slider until the artifacts have disappeared.

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Manually Correcting Vignetting Errors

Using the sliders at the bottom of the Lens Correction filter, you can also correct another typical lens error: lens vignetting. Vignetting occurs when the images corners appear darker than the rest of the image. This error occurs frequently when you shoot images using wide-angle lenses. To manually correct vignetting, drag the Amount slider left or right and adjust the Midpoint slider.

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Soft Edges for Vector Masks

One advantage of shape layers is that your objects always remain editable using anchor points and Bzier curves. In addition, they are resolution independent, so you can scale them up without losing quality. Shape layers also pose a comfortable alternative to pixel layers for tasks requiring mainly geometric shapes.
Creating a Shape Layer
To create a shape layer:

1. Determine the desired foreground color (this

will first be used to fill the form) or choose a style from the Options bar. The color and style will be applied to all elements created in the shape layer.

2. Select one of the drawing tools, such as the

Rectangle or Custom Shape tool.

3. Click the Shape Layers button in the Options

bar for the selected tool.

4. Now you can create the desired shape with

the selected drawing tool. Note that a new layer is created in the Layers panel.

5. If you wish, you can add more shapes to the

layer by drawing more elements or edit the path of the existing shape.

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Applying Soft Edges

In most applications, vector masks always have hard edges. In Photoshop CS6 you can also apply soft edges to shape layers.

1. To do so, simply activate the shape layer and

drag the Feather slider in the Masks panel to the right. In this panel, you can also reduce the density of the mask: The lower the value, the fainter the mask will become, allowing the color to spread into the remaining image areas in a semitransparent fashion.

2. In this panel, you can also reduce the Density

of the mask: The lower the value, the fainter the mask will become, allowing the color to spread into the remaining image areas in a semitransparent fashion.

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Editing Selections
Even pros sometimes struggle to get a perfect selection. Luckily, there are easy-touse tools that can help you improve existing selections.
You can find the Refine Edge command in the Options bar for any selection tool. In Photoshop CS6 this feature has improved edge detection technology and automatic color decontamination. Creating precise image selections and masks of even complex subjects like hair or fur has never been so easy.

The Select menu contains additional useful features for working with selections.

Choose the Modify > Border menu command to create a frame-shaped selection with a width that you define in the dialog box. Use the Modify > Expand or Modify > Contract menu commands to enlarge or shrink your selection by the pixel value specified in the dialog box. For the Select > Grow command, theres no dialog box; it simply selects adjacent areas of similar color. Which areas will be added to your selection depends on how the Magic Wand tool options have been set.

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The Select > Similar command also selects areas of similar color. However, in this case the areas dont need to be adjacent to each other; all areas of similar color throughout the image will be added to the selection. The Select > Transform Selection command allows you to modify the shape of your selection frame without affecting the selected pixels. For example, if you have trouble creating a circular or elliptical selection at exactly the right position, create your elliptical selection in any shape and position, then use Select > Transform to scale and position the selection. Press the Return/Enter key to confirm.

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Creating Image Effects with Gradient Maps

The Gradient Map is a powerful image colorization feature, allowing you to apply a gradient to the tonal range of your image. Gradient Maps yield the best effects for images with distinct edges and prominent subjects of high visual interest.
To apply a gradient map,

1. Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer >

Gradient Map.

2. Click the color bar in the Properties panel

and choose the desired gradient. The colors on the left side of the bar will be assigned to the dark tonal values of your images, and the colors on the right correspond to the brighter tonal values.

Note: This dialog box contains all the

gradients available for the Gradient tool.

3. When you are satisfied with your gradient

composition, click OK.

4. If needed, you can still invert your gradient

by activating the Invert checkbox.

5. Confirm with OK to apply the Gradient Map

to your image.

Tip: More ways to achieve great colorization

effects are shown in the table below.
Effect Invert image colors Reduce the colors in your image to a small number of eye-catching colors Convert dark tones to black and bright tones to white Procedure Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Invert. Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Posterize. Use the slider or the input field to specify how many colors the images colors should be reduced to.

Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Threshold and specify the tonal distribution with the slider.

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Saving and Exporting Images

Major Graphic File Formats

Commercial Printing PSD TIFF PDF EPS DCS Web JPG GIF PNG Video and Visual Effects Targa/TGA Cineon OpenEXR PSD Photos PSD TIFF JPG PDF DICOM (Medical Devices) DNG Camera Raw PSB (Large Document Format) Word/PowerPoint PNG BMP

Exporting from Photoshop

Photoshop offers several commands for exporting files in the File > Export menu.
Command Paths to Illustrator Render Video Zoomify Description With this command you can export all paths or selected paths in the document as a new Illustrator file. Exports an animation created in Photoshop as video. This command helps you create high-resolution screen presentations for the Internet that users can zoom into. In addition to the required image file you will also get the associated HTML code.

Tip: Before exporting documents containing text for use in video clips, make sure the text is contained within the title safe area. Title safe refers to the area where all visual elements containing essential information for the viewer should be placed to ensure that it remains visible on all screens and in all viewing formats. On older tube televisions, for example, the edges of the video will often be closer in, cutting off elements placed too close to the edge. On modern flatscreen televisions, title safe issues are rare, but its still best to make sure the material can be easily viewed on all screens.

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Raster vs. Vector

There are two different types of computer graphics that Photoshop can manage raster and vectorand its important for you to understand what they are and how they function differently.
Raster Images
Raster images, often called bitmap images, are made up of pixels and are commonly used for continuous-tone images such as photographs or digital art. The pixels are arranged in a rectangular grid; you can actually see the rows and columns of pixels if you zoom in close enough. The word pixel is short for picture element, which is the smallest unit of information in a raster image. Pixels are the building blocks of an image, and one raster image contains many of them. The more pixels an image is made up of, the more detail the image contains. The image shown here is one inch wide and one inch tall, and it has a resolution of 72 pixels per inch (ppi). So you can literally count 72 pixels in each direction.

Low Resolution
This rose image has a resolution of 72 ppi and it is currently displayed at 100%. When you view an image at 100%, youre viewing the actual pixels. Because raster images are resolutiondependent, this rose cannot be enlarged without a loss of quality.

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High Resolution
The next rose image has a resolution of 300 ppi. There are many more pixels than in the 72 ppi version, so the pixels need to be much smaller to fit. This increases the image quality and you can zoom in much closer now before losing quality.

Vector Graphics
Vector graphics like this Adobe Illustrator file are made up of points, lines, and mathematically defined curves. They are resolutionindependent, so you can scale them without the edges ever becoming jagged. Its also very easy to edit vector graphics. With the Direct Selection tool you can access the individual points that make up the objects path. Try it yourself by clicking and dragging the handles. Vector graphics are ideal for logos and illustrations that need to be output in different sizes.

Tip: The File > Export > Paths to Illustrator

command allows you to save Photoshop paths as Illustrator files (.ai). In the process, the positio ning of the path relative to the image will remain untouched; Illustrator displays the former image boundaries as crop marks. You can also use the copy-and-paste technique (Edit > Copy/Paste) to copy material between Photoshop and Illustrator. Alternatively, you can select the Pen tool in Photoshop and hold down the Alt and Ctrl/Command keys while clicking the desired path (thus selecting all anchor points) and dragging it into an open Illustrator window. This method is also referred to as the drag-and-drop method.

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Preparing and Saving Images for the Web

In this section, you will learn how to save an image for the web. Well cover some general rules for web images, the Save for Web command, and file formats.
General Rules for File Size and Formats
When creating images for the web, there are a number of rules that you need to observe. Web images must be small in both pixel size (so they fit on the screen) and file size (so they load quickly). The document size or the actual print size of the image is irrelevant. The color space must be sRGB and any layers must be flattened. Only three file formats are permitted: JPEG, GIF, and PNG. Each of these file formats is designed to reduce the size of the image so that it can be quickly loaded on a web page.

The Save for Web Command

The Save for Web Command found in the File menu takes care of these requirements. This command always saves a copy of the image, leaving the original intact. By properly combining the settings in this huge dialog, you can perfectly optimize an image for the web. Choose the 2-up view from the registers above and left. This way you have the original PSD file on the left, and on the right side a copy of the file as it will look as an optimized GIF.

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Using the GIF Format

Start at the top by choosing the GIF format. GIF is commonly used to display graphics that have large areas of solid color, such as logos, an illustrations, or text. The GIF format supports a maximum of 256 colors including transparency. The best way to reduce the file size of a GIF is to reduce the number of colors in it; however, eventually you will start seeing dither patterns. Another way to reduce the file size is to reduce the dither amount.

Using the PNG Format

PNG was developed as an alternative to GIF and is patent-free. In most cases, when saving noncontinuous-tone graphics, the PNG format is your best choice, offering a smaller file size than GIF with the same quality settings.

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Using the JPG Format

JPEG is best for continuous-tone images such as photographs. When you save a JPEG file, there is always a tradeoff between file size and quality, so the key is to find the sweet spot. Select the 4-up option to compare four different versions of the same image, each one with different optimization settings. The main way to reduce the file size is to vary the Quality setting. You can also try slightly increasing the blur setting to improve compression. Reducing the pixel size will significantly reduce file size. For the best quality, choose one of the bicubic methods and dont go too small.

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