Do You Color Outside The Lines?

New York skyline, approaching storm.

Profiles.  They can be good or bad, your left side or right side, or what you write about yourself on Facebook.  But in digital printing,   profiles are part of the the glue that connects the colors your digital camera captures to the colors in your digital print.

A printer profile is a bit of software, called an ICC file,  that describes  how a particular combination of printer, inkset, and printing paper reproduce colors at a specific printing  resolution. For example,  the ICC profile SP7898 PLPP260 PK 2880.icc describes how an Epson 7800 printer using the K3 inkset with Photo Black ink printing on Epson Premium Lustre 260 paper at a printing resolution of 2880 dpi reproduces color.

Profiles are useful because they let Adobe Photoshop  accurately  preview what your image will look like when it’s printed, and  to control your digital printer’s output so it matches that preview. (or, at least, as close as ink on paper can look to pixels on a monitor).

Once the appropriate profiles are installed, Photoshop  uses them in the View>Proof Setup command on the top menu to preview images,  and in the Print dialogue to control your printer. Voila, an accurate print.

Or maybe not.

Along with ICC profiles, colorspace helps to determine what colors your camera records, that Photoshop displays and  your print or digital file reproduce. A device colorspace defines the range of colors, or gamut, that a device, such as a camera or printer, can reproduce. An editing colorspace is device-independent, but determines the color range you can work in with, for, example, Adobe Photoshop software.

The main colorspaces photographers work in are Adobe RGB (1998), the traditional editing space for, naturally, Adobe Photoshop;  sRGB,  which is primarily used for  images posted on the web; and, more recently ProPhoto.

sRGB  has a smaller gamut than Adobe 1998, which has a smaller gamut than ProPhoto. Why is this important?  Because to know how the beautiful colors in your digital image will look in a print, your devices need to be using the same colorspace, your monitor needs to be calibrated accurately to the same colorspace, and your editing software needs to display the same color space.

See what I meant by insanity?  BTW, for you people working with Adobe Lightroom, it uses the ProPhoto color space.

My, What A Beautiful Profile You Have!

Surfside Dawn

One of the great things about digital photography is convenience. You can see your pictures right away, and delete those you hate and take more.

You can take a bazillion pictures and they’re saved on a teeny tiny memory card that’s barely bigger than your thumbnail.

You can load them into a computer and store them,  erase the memory card, and go out and take more pictures.

And you can make prints yourself, hooking your computer up to a digital printer, and – sometimes they look great.

But too often, digital  prints are a disappointment because the colors are wrong, or the pictures are too dark, or they just look gooky -  not at all like the glorious images you saw through the viewfinder.

I teach digital printing workshops, and the question I hear most often is,  “Why don’t my prints look the same as my pictures looked on the monitor?”

That’s a good question with a complex answer.

It’s because  digital cameras see (and record) color differently than a computer monitor, which sees color differently than a digital printer. Metaphorically, while they’re all talking the same basic language, it’s like each one is speaking a different dialect and missing a few words of what the others are saying.

In my digital printing workshops, I teach how to get all these devices talking to each other properly to get consistent results, to have your prints match what you see on your monitor, and how to control the digital printing process so that you can make artistic choices in how to render an image.

Or, in other words, the art and science of  using a color managed digital workflow.

And, just as the future rested on single word, “plastics,” whispered to Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate,” digital color management also rests on a single word: “profiles”

Next Time:  Profiles, Color Space and  Insanity.

Fun with Photoshop Actions

I now use Adobe Lightroom for about 90% of my work, but I still use Adobe Photoshop for pictures that require layers,  compositing, and creative tools that Lightroom doesn’t have,  such as Actions.

Actions are awesome. An action is a programmed series of operations in Photoshop that is set in motion with a single mouse click, and can be designed to do just about anything, from simple to extremely complex. They’re one-step solutions that can really add to productivity and creativity.

Photoshop comes with a few actions, and you can write your own, although the process is not very intuitive. There are gobs of free actions on-line for a huge range of tasks, and I regularly surf for them,  looking for new ones to add something special to my pictures or automate  really boring and repetitive tasks, such as resizing pictures and saving them as jpgs.

One of my favorite actions converts an image into a high-contrast black and white duotone.  I often combine this action with layer masking and painting to create duotones that also have areas of color.  Above  is a before and after example of this technique.

To add an action to Photoshop, click on the menu box in the upper right corner of the Actions Palette, and select “Load Options”. Then, navigate to the folder on your computer where you have saved the action and select it.

To apply an action to an image, first open the image in Photoshop and click on the button for the action in the Actions Palette. In the picture on the left,  above, each of the horizontal bars with text is an action “button”.

Below are some of my favorite Actions websites;   Google “Photoshop Actions” to find many, many more.

Have fun!

Action Central

Deviant Art

Smashing Magazine

What in the World?

I work a lot with patterns, line, shape – the textures of the world.  And, sometimes, I see things through the viewfinder, in isolation, that I might not see if I didn’t have a camera pasted to my forehead most of the day.  I’ve been working with a new camera, the Canon G10, that produces big, sharp pictures, and the other day I went around the house photographing patterns that caught my eye. I’ve posted some of the most interesting ones here, to see if anybody can figure out what I was photographing. In my next post, I’ll reveal what they are.

Red Room picks Diane Chamberlain video as Best Video of the week.

Great news!  The writers’, site Redroom,  www.redroom.com picked one of the video programs I produced for Diane as its Best Video of the week! Cool!  This is one of six videos I’ve produced this year for her, starting with a Video Book Trailer for her newest book,  “Secrets She Left Behind.” You can find these videos at Diane’s web site,  or on YouTube, and can see clips from more videos I have produced at my web site. Just click “Video.”

A Day of Her Own

Diane receives certificate proclaiming May 16 Diane Chamberlain Day in Surf City, NC.

As some of you know, my significant other is a noted novelist, and last weekend we went to a party in Surf City on Topsail Island to celebrate her 20th year as a published author.  It was a great party where we saw old friends and made new ones.  The highlight of the evening was a proclamation from the Mayor of Surf City officially designating May 16 as Diane Chamberlain Day. Pretty cool, to have a day named after you!

Kids, Capes and Cameras

It’s been said that photographers should avoid children and animals, but I really like working with kids. They are great fun to photograph, because once you gain their trust they open up to you and are entirely at ease in front of the camera.  I recently started a new series with children, sparked by a shoot I did with my significant other’s grandkids, boys age 3 and 5. It started as a conventional portrait session, but suddenly veered into something else when the 5 year old wanted to wear his new red cape, that has a big white star on it.  Now, I’ve photographed a lots of kids modeling clothing, for advertising and clothing catalogs,  but this time was very different.  What I saw through the viewfinder wasn’t a shy, quiet 5 year old boy, but a SUPERHERO ready to save the world, and that came across powerfully in the pictures.  I started photographing other kids dressed in costumes and acting out their fantasies, and their transformation to superhero, ballerina, sports star, or cartoon character has yielded strikingly different and powerful images. As a result, I’ve added Kids’ Fantasy Photo Adventures to my portrait business.  I hope you’ll visit my site and check out the Fantasy Photo Adventures gallery and let me know what you think.

Photography and recharging the creative batteries

First, my apologies for not posting for so long; about a three weeks ago I had cervical spinal surgery and I have been  moving a bit slowly. Also, apologies for the typos, my right hand is not back to normal yet and, unfortunately, I have not yet learned to type left handed, though that might be  a useful skill to work on.

The past few days I’ve had a chance to get back in the field and make pictures while teaching a photography workshop in the North Carolina Outer Banks. We had an enthusiastic group of participants from across the country and from Canada, and they managed to get up before dawn every day and work until way past dark. It’s amazing, and sometimes scary,  what people can create when they have been deprived of sleep for three or four days. I’m thinking of doing a study of how creativity is enhanced by depriving creative people of sleep for long periods of time. Let me know if you would like to volunteer, and I’ll refer you to a competent psychiatrist for an evaluation before you are committed to an asylum!

The workshop is part of a series I teach with two other talented photographers as part of the Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures. We teach workshops across the country, helping photographers hone their skills, especially their ability to see beyond the ordinary and create extraordinary images. Then, we teach the basics of color-managed workflow so our participants can control color reproduction from the camera through the computer to the printer and create prints that match the images they see on their computer monitors.  Everyone goes home with a big digital print made on site of an image they created and worked on during the workshop.

Sometimes there is no better reward than seeing a student have that “Aha!” moment when they have made a breakthrough and learned something new. Well, I have to amend that; NOTHING is better than good Champagne, fois gras and Cote D’or dark chocolate, and what often follows when two consenting adults indulge in these wonderful things.

The weather was perfect and we were able to take our people to some of our favorite spots to experience the glory of the sun rising from the Atlantic Ocean and painting the dunes, and to work with the exquisite afterglow that remains when the sun has set but its light is still reflected from the immense dome of the sky. Having a few picturesque lighthouses as subjects didn’t hurt, either.

We had a great time working with our participants and we hope they had just as good a time working with us. If not, please send complaints to the Dead Letter Office of the US Post Office.

Original Image

Duotone B&W Conversion

Quadtone B&W Conversion

Since I try to talk about photographic issues with each entry, I will return to the subject of creative black and white digital printing. In an earlier post, I covered an alternative way to create quality B&W conversions in Adobe Lightroom; today we talk about creating Duotones and Quadtones in Adobe Photoshop CS3. One of the best ways I know to create lush, rich B&W prints is by changing them into Duotones or Quadtones. A Duotone combines a second color with black to subtly enhance the image and, particularly, the feeling of depth of tone. A Quadtone combines four inks to do achieve a similar effect, but usually with added subtlety and impact. I use this technique often on my web site.

How can you do this in Photoshop? First, convert your image to Grayscale if it is color with the Image>Mode menu setting (I would create a copy first so you can always preserve the original). Then, again under the Image>Mode setting,  select Duotone. A Duotone Options dialogue box will open, showing the inks and contrast curves Photoshop has pre-set for duotones. While you can go in and change all of these parameters, Adobe has done a pretty good job of choosing ink colors and setting up curves, so you might want to use their choices to learn the process before experimenting.

There is also a drop down box in the Dialogue box that also lets you choose Tritones and Quadtones, and a “Load” radio button on the right side of the box that lets you select and load in other combinatons.

You may have to hunt for the folder where Adobe has hidden the Duotone and Quadtone curves; in my PC copy of CS3 the path is: Program files>Adobe Photoshop CS3>Presets>Duotones, where you should find separate folders for Duotones, Tritones and Quadtones.  Experiment with them to see if you like the results. Remember, if you change parameters and come up with something good you can save your changes as a Preset in the Dialogue box. Convert your image files back to RGB to preview them in Photoshop’s Softproof feature or the print them with an RGB printer. Most inkjet printers are set up to print RGB images.

Well, I feel the need for more heavy drugs and a short nap, so I will stop, but have fun with Quadtones and let me know what you think.

A new way to create B&W conversions in Lightroom

Recently Adobe released Lightroom 2, an update of the original program with more capabilities. Now, I was reluctant to but Lightroom in the first place  when I already owned Photoshop and Bridge and they seemed to work just dandy. Slowly, with a great deal of complaining, I began to experiement with Lightroom. In fact, I experimented so much that I now use Lightroom 90% of the time, even thought I still have Photoshop CS3. Why do I use Lightroom so much more than Photoshop? Because Lightroom is designed for photographers instead of graphic artists, the way Photoshop is. Put another way, Lighroom is designed for people with ADD. Lightroom’s various modules bring together elements of a digital asset manager, an imaging program, a slide show creator, a digital printing manager and a really slick web gallery producer that can create and upload web galleries in html and flash formats almost as quickly as I can type this sentence.

One of the many cool things about Lightroom is the ability to create grayscale images from camera RAW files with one click of the mouse. Yesterday I learned a new way to use Lightroom 2 to create better black and white conversions. I got the tip from Adobe’s Lightroom web site, Lighroom-News.com.

This video, featuring noted Photoshop expert Martin Evening, explains the process and at least two alternate ways to create B&W conversions. I tried it, it works, I like it a lot. Enjoy.

The More Things Change…..

I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” I’m thinking of rewriting it to say,  “the more things change, the more only ONE thing stays the same.”  I’ve made photographs for a living for 35 years, and photography has changed more in the last 5 years than in the last 50. Picture styles flare up and die out in the blink of an eye and old markets fade as new ones are born. Those of us who practice this craft are scrambling to keep up. Sometimes I wonder why I got into this business.

The upside is that you get to create neat images and you get to play with cool stuff. Cameras and lenses and lights and computers and so many other toys! Since the digital photography revolution began, almost everything is different; pixels have replaced grain, cameras have gotten smaller and smarter, pictures now live on computers instead of in dusty albums, and film is fast going the way of the dodo bird.

In the midst of all that has changed, for me one thing has stayed the same; I get up in the morning thinking about new pictures to create, even if I now work with a computer instead of in the darkroom.

In this blog, I’m going to talk about photography, its tools and techniques, theory and practice, history and future, for all who love to make pictures.

I welcome your comments and I hope you will share your experiences.