Photofocus

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My Favorite App for Shooting Sunrises and Sunsets

Posted by Richard Harrington on April 1, 2013
Posted in: Reviews, Tips. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 9 comments
I’m getting ready to go shoot time-lapse photography, and one of the most important things I need to know is where the sun will be (closely followed by where is it going). Even if you’re just shooting sunrise and sunset its still useful to know where the sun will be coming and going.  In fact, I find myself opening this app on just about any shoot that not happening in the middle of the day.
I present to you, the essential and indispensable Sun Seeker: 3D Augmented Reality Viewer By ozPDA.  It has saved my bacon time after time. This app can tell you both when the sun will rise and set, and even more importantly… WHERE!?!

Features

This app does several things that let you know a lot of detail about the sun and its position.
1. You can use the GPS and magnetometer to find your location and determine sun data based on your position.
2. You can see a compass view that shows solar position, angle, and elevation for both day & night.
3. A map shows you elevation information for each hour in the day.
4. You can see details about sunrise, sunset, dusk, and twilight
5. You can compensate for time shift and enter a future date to use the app while scouting but see into the future
But the COOLEST feature is by far is the 3D Augmented reality view.  You can open the camera on your iPhone or iPad and actually see the horizon with an interactive display.  You’ll see a helpful arrow to shot you where the sun is (even if its hidden).  You also get a rich overlay which shows you where the sun is moving with times called out.  This makes it much easier to frame your shots for time-lapse as well as now where and when the sun will rise or set.

The App sells for $8.99, but is an absolute steal. This hands down makes my time-lapse shooting better as I know how to frame my shots as well as when I need to be in position.  Check out the app here to buy or read more reviews. It is currently available for iPhone and iPad. It’s also available for Android devices too here.

 

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Get Results with Photoshop’s Spot Healing Brush

Posted by Richard Harrington on March 31, 2013
Posted in: Technique & Tutorials. Tagged: , , , . 1 comment

Photoshop offers many intelligent tools to quickly fix image blemishes.  One of those is the Spot Healing Brush tool.  It gives you the ability to heal blemishes with a short brush stroke. It can quickly remove blemishes and imperfections in photos without the need of setting a sample point.

©Richard Harrington LLC

  1. Open a photo with a blemish (such as a skin tag, pimple, or sun spot.)
  2. Select the Spot Healing Brush tool in the Tools panel.
  3. Choose a soft-edged brush from the Options bar. Set the brush to be a little bit larger than the problem areas. The keyboard shortcuts of left and right bracket are useful to adjust brush size.
  4. Set the blending mode in the Options bar to Replace.  This will preserve noise, grain, and hair texture along the edges of the stroke.
  5. Choose a Type of repair in the Options bar:
    • Proximity Match. Pixels from the edge of the selection are used as a patch for the selected area.
    • Create Texture. Pixels in the selection are used to create a texture to fix the damaged area.
    • Content Aware. This option works best to automatically generate patterns based on the surrounding pixels.  I usually try this one first.

      Spot-Healing-2
  6. Click once on an area that you want to fix. You can also brush over a larger area. If you are unhappy with the spot healing stroke, simply undo and try again using a smaller brush. You can also try painting brush strokes in different directions to modify the results.
©Richard Harrington LLC

©Richard Harrington LLC

 

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Accidentally Reformatted a Memory Card and Need to Get Your Pictures Back? There’s an App for That.

Posted by Richard Harrington on March 29, 2013
Posted in: Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , . 5 comments

klix_splash

It hasn’t happened to me in a LONG time, but I did get asked the other day by a fellow photographer about recovering pictures from a memory card after an accidental reformat.  There’s a great tool that I’ve used int the past that can pull back photos from the grave called Klix.

The following issues can be solved:

  • Deleted images
  • Reformatted memory cards
  • Corrupted memory cards (often cause by sudden loss of camera power)

The tool works on all types of cards and can recover photos or video (as long as you haven’t written a file to that new place on a memory card). The following card types are supported. It really works well and I’ve used it to recover gigabytes of data with no hitches. The best thing is the try before you buy. You can download the demo and scan your cards… if the demo version sees the pictures it can recover them. File this away for that disaster moment when you realize you’ve blown away a picture (or even a whole shoot) accidentally.

For $20 this is a good insurance policy… you can get more info or the trial here.

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Removing an Object From Its Background in Photoshop

Posted by Richard Harrington on March 27, 2013
Posted in: Technique & Tutorials, Tips. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 comment

A question came up on the Alaska Eagle trip about removing an object from its background. I was asked what was the “best” way which is a subjective question of course. What I shared was the most “powerful” way… Calculations. The Calculations command can be used to create a new selection based on the details in an image’s channels. This technique doesn’t work on all images, but when it does, it’s a big success.

© Richard Harrington LLC

© Richard Harrington LLC

  1. Open an image that has a complex subject over a background.
  2. Select the Channels panel (Windows > Channels). You need to determine which channel has the greatest differences between subject and background. Because you want mask the background, look for the contrast between the foreground and background. The blue channel should stand out.calculations_Eagle2
  3. Choose Image > Calculations and make sure the Preview box is checked. It’s now time to add one more channel to the blue channel to create a new channel based on the color. This new channel will be the alpha channel and can be used to store transparency data.
  4. In the Source 1 area, set the Channel to Blue. In the Source 2 area, you’ll need to experiment to find the right combination of channels and blending modes. In the case of this image, the red channel is a good place to start, because it looks the most different from the blue channel.
  5. Choose Red from the Source 2 pop-up and click the Invert check box to reverse the details. This will help mask out the bird.
  6. Combine the Blue and Red channels by using Blending. Use the Blending menu, to experiment with different blending modes. Blending are used to control how two different images or channels blend together based on their color and luminance values. Different source images need different modes, so you’ll need to click through many of the modes on the list. You may also want to try deselecting the Invert check box when working with other images. In this case, the Linear Burn mode works well to create a clean matte of the bird.calculations_Eagle3
  7. Click OK to create a new channel in the Channels panel. The channel, should be named Alpha 1 automatically and becomes the active selection in the Channels panel (with the RGB channels turned off, for now).
    calculations_Eagle4
  8. It’s now time to touch up this channel into a clean black and white mask. This will be done with a Levels adjustment at first. Choose Image > Adjust > Levels or press Command+L (Ctrl+L). Move the White Input Levels slider slider to the left to lighten the gray areas to white. Move the Black and Gray Input Levels sliders to refine the matte and improve contrast between foreground and background.
    calculations_Eagle5
  9. The new matte is very close and just needs a little touch up. Choose the Brush tool and set the foreground color to white. Paint over any areas that need to be removed from the matte. You may find it easier to zoom in and paint with a smaller brush. You can also run a one pixel Gaussian Blur on the channel with the Filter command.

    calculations_Eagle6

    Paint with a brush set to white. Zoom in to make it easier.

  10. Once the alpha channel has all holes filled in, Command-click (Ctrl-click) on the alpha channel thumbnail to load the selection. For this image, you may need to choose Select > Inverse to reverse the selection so the bird is active.
  11. Click the visibility icon next to the RGB composite channel to enable it. Click on the RGB composite channel so it is the active channel as well. Look closely at the selection; it should be pretty accurate.
    calculations_Eagle7
  12. Choose Select > Refine Edge to improve the selection.
  13. Use the Refine Edge command to improve the selection. The Smart Radius option with a low value should do the trick. You can use the other sliders to taste.
  14. Click the Output pop-up menu in the Refine Edge dialog and choose New Layer with Layer Mask.
  15. Click the check box next to Decontaminate Colors and click OK.
    calculations_Eagle8
  16. In the Channels panel, disable the visibility of the Alpha 1 Channel to see the final results.

calculations_Eagle9

Does this method take a little time? Yep… but it gets faster with practice. Of course, quality work is worth a little effort.

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Google Responds to Nik Criticisms by Slashing Prices

Posted by Richard Harrington on March 26, 2013
Posted in: News. Tagged: , , , . 12 comments

nikcollectionbygoogle

WIthin a few days of killing Snapseed, Google has announced a major price reduction in the price for the Nik plugins.

The six plugins (HDR Efex Pro 2, Color Efex Pro 4, Silver Efex Pro 2, Viveza 2, Sharpener Pro 3, and Dfine 2) are now in a single bundle costing $149  (versus the previous $499).  The individual plugins are no longer for sale, only the bundle can be purchased.

Google does promise an interesting upgrade to its users…

“If you’ve already purchased one or more Nik plug-ins in the past, then don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. In fact: we’re going to upgrade you to the entire Nik Collection by Google for free. Just keep an eye out for emailed instructions in the next few days.”

Be sure you update your contact info in the Google database if you want to be contacted.

You can visit niksoftware.com for more information.

Do you think this is an attempt to grow the market or a fire sale?

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Photofocus Podcast March 25

Posted by Richard Harrington on March 25, 2013
Posted in: Audio Podcast. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 comment

NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE: The Photofocus Podcast Feed HAS CHANGED!

Here is the new feed: feed://feeds.feedburner.com/photofocuspodcast
Download episode here…   or get it on iTunes

PLEASE BE PATIENT – OUR SERVERS SEE LARGE LOADS ON PUBLISHING DAYS. THE DOWNLOADS MAY GO SLOWLY BUT THEY WILL FINISH.

The Many Tripods Used on the Alaska Eagle shoot

The Many Tripods Used on the Alaska Eagle shoot

Rich and Scott record a special podcast live from Alaska.  They breakdown the gear they brought and share an in-depth look at camera support.

Topics include:

  • Lightweight support including the Joby Gorillapod
  • Ultra-portable travel tripods
  • Using a slider
  • A High Hat for video shooting
  • Going with a solid set of legs
  • Why tripods are called sticks in the first place
  • Getting gear onto small airplanes
  • Practical advice for traveling with equipment
  • How to approach prepping for a shoot on the road

Hosted by Rich Harrington & Scott Bourne

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Alaska Eagle Diary 2013 – Part 3 – Eagles Can Dance

Posted by scottbourne on March 24, 2013
Posted in: News. Tagged: , , , . 3 comments
Photo by Scott Bourne – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons

Photo by Scott Bourne – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons

I’ve been having a great time co-leading a workshop with my pal Robert O’Toole. We have a surprisingly superb group with many return clients from past trips. We’ve had more good weather and light than bad. Today we have more challenging conditions so it will be good to see what the students have learned.

I forgot to mention earlier that I did some smartphone photography through the plane window as we came over one of Alaska’s many glaciers. Using Trey Ratcliff’s amazing 100 Cameras in 1, I made the picture below. I was surprise by how well it turned out.

Photo by Scott Bourne – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons

Photo by Scott Bourne – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons

I’ve learned that Micro Four Thirds cameras can indeed be used to capture fast action shots. They are not as reliable in this function as say, a Nikon D3s or Canon 1DX, but it can be done. I have about an 85% keeper rate with the D3s and the 1DX. My keeper rate with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 and Olympus 75-300 (EFL 150-600) zoom is one fourth that. But it’s good enough to get some great action shots.

The trick I’ve learned is to manual focus on the area where you think the birds will be. Then use a smaller aperture, around f/8 to f/11 to give you greater depth of field. On the Olympus, when you turn the manual focus ring, the EVF automatically gives you a magnafied view of the scene, which makes critical manual focus easier. Then I simply wait for the eagles to fly through the pre-focused area and the attached photos prove it works. Give it a try if you’re using these cameras. It’s a tactic we used back in the day, before good/fast autofocus back in the film days and it’s still valid today.

One of my favorite shots of this trip so far appears above. This one happens to have been made with a Canon 1DX and 300mm F/4 but it was less about the camera and more about luck. We found a group of immature eagles. They are actually very beautiful and this one was very active. I caught him just before he grabbed for a fish and the result was it looks like he’s dancing on the water. I have lots of eagle pictures so it takes a great shot to get me excited, but I think this one qualifies.

Photo by Scott Bourne – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons

Photo by Scott Bourne – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons – Olympus OMD

We’re heading out on a foggy morning with the possibility of snow today. I’ll let you know how we feel. Thanks for following along on my eagle adventure. I appreciate all the positive comments I’m receiving on the eagle diary.

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Skip Cohen University Professional photo education for wedding & portrait photographers.

ThingLink offers an interactive, online photo experience like nothing you’ve seen before. Join for free.

Drobo – Not only is Drobo 5D fast, but it’s easy-to-use, expandable, flexible, and protected.