Innholdsfortegnelse for April 27, 2013 i Amateur Photographer

TENS of thousands of images captured by renowned war photographer Lee Miller, many never seen before, are set to go on public show in an online archive. Miller (pictured), who worked as a photographer during the Second World War, as well as a fashion and celebrity photographer, lived in a farmhouse in East Sussex, where 60,000 images were found in the attic by her family after her death 35 years ago. The collection includes portraits of personalities the US-born photographer met during her career, among them Clark Gable and Fred Astaire. Also languishing in the loft were 20,000 vintage prints and contact sheets. After spending years collating and digitising the collection, the photographer’s family say they plan to release the first 3,000 images on a new Lee Miller website on…

A CREATIVE, almost abstract approach to wildlife photography has resulted in an exciting work from South African Heinrich van den Berg. The book is divided according to ‘Elements of Art’, with categories such as line, texture and colour. Van den Berg is a seasoned hand and there are breathtaking moments scattered throughout. Standouts include a close, soulful image of a cheetah at rest and several wide, beautiful landscapes. The poetic flights of fancy in the captions may not be to everyone’s taste, but they don’t detract from the superb images. Look out for a feature on Van den Berg’s wildlife photography in the next issue of AP. EXHIBITION Karl Blossfeldt Until 14 June. Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. Tel: 0207 522 7888. Website: www.whitechapelgallery.org. Open Tue-Sun…

THERE have been two interesting and thoughtful debates in AP recently about online retail versus high-street outlets and major named brands versus the smaller, but possibly equally good, manufacturers and suppliers. As well as being a nice change from the film vs digital and post-production processing vs what you take is what you get debates, these have given me food for thought regarding the nature of the decisions we make as consumers. For me, these two debates are different in many respects, but have deep-rooted similarities that make them intrinsically linked. In both cases the buying decision is not, and should not, be all about cost. In both cases there are several factors for a discerning buyer to consider before making any purchase. Anyone who fails to do so may…

Martin Roberts, of Gloucester, is the winner of our Life in Motion round of APOY 2013. Martin will receive a Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH3 plus a Lumix G Vario HD 14-140mm f/4-5.8 Asph Mega OIS lens, worth a total of £2,093.99. The GH3 is a compact system camera with a 16.05-millionpixel, four thirds, Live MOS sensor. It has a weather-resistant magnesium-alloy body, an extended sensitivity range of ISO 125-25,600 and a 1.744-million-dot EVF. The Lumix G Vario HD 14-140mm f/4-5.8 Asph Mega OIS lens offers a wide and long zoom range of 14-140mm zoom (28-800mm in 35mm equivalent) to suit a variety of shooting situations, from scenery to portrait. Our second-placed winner is James Balda, of Budapest in Hungary, who will receive a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ30, worth £319.99. The TZ30 is…

SCRATCH A forceful use of a knife or straight razor would result in a whitening technique known as a ‘scratch’, where Brandt would essentially remove a portion of the emulsion to reveal the paper beneath, thereby creating pure-white highlights. ‘He’s really going at the paper, removing large portions,’ says Lee Ann Daffner. ‘He’s going down to the paper fibres, just removing the emulsion so you see the baryta layer. He’s creating highlights, so really he’s making the handkerchief pop [see ‘Losing at the Horse Races’, above]. And this is just one example – again and again we saw scratching to make those highlights pop.’ IMPRESSION One unique effect that Brandt achieved was an ‘impression’. This involved pressing the point of a graphite pencil down on the emulsion, and creating a…

Green Clean Silky Liquid & Wipe £10 www.snapperstuff.com SILKY Liquid & Wipe from Green Clean is a two-part cleaning kit, containing a Silky Wipe cleaning cloth and a 20ml spray-bottle of Silky Liquid cleaning fluid, both of which are designed for cleaning sensitive optics. To use, spray the fluid onto the lens surface from a distance of about 20cm and then gently apply the cloth. On a heavily smeared kit lens covered in fingerprints, I found that an application of the Silky Liquid partially reduced the intensity of the smears, but it required a further spray to eradicate them. It was pleasingly effective on the dust that had collected on the lens, and the softness of the cloth meant I was never concerned about the lens coating. The fluid is…

WI-FI has received a lot of coverage in camera tests recently, but it deserves mention here due to the number of possibilities in the NX300. First, the support has been improved, with dual-channel (band) IEEE 802.11b/g/n rather than the IEEE 802.11n in the NX210. Autoshare is new in the NX300 and automatically loads images to a paired device. Also new is Near Field Communication (NFC) – a technology that provides a more straightforward Wi-Fi connection between NFC-enabled devices such as cameras, tablets and smartphones. There is also a new app, called Samsung Smart Camera, which covers both existing Mobile Link and Remote Viewfinder apps. With Samsung’s electronics background, it is hardly surprising that Wi-Fi, on the whole, works very well in the NX300. There is a bit of a lag…

Nobby Troutface asks I am very new to photography – just a few weeks and addicted! I’ve been posting stuff on Instagram and somebody suggested I use the rule of thirds. I’ve read up about it and understand it now, and I also understand how it gives your shots a better effect. I’ve also read that there are times when that the rule should be broken, or times when it can’t be used. When are those times? ClareBear replies There are no specific times when the rule of thirds should be broken or should be used – it’s just something you’ll learn over time. Look at photos that are considered great and work out why. Figure out why you like certain photos and why you don’t like others. I think…

IT IS in the nature of writing a column that you upset some people sometimes. But I find it intriguing that in a photographic magazine, the greatest number of negative letters are normally evoked by just two subjects: economics and computers. Seldom, with any other subjects, am I accused of such utter ignorance. Recently, though, I came up with a hypothesis as to why this might be. It is because neither economists nor computer nerds ever deal with reality. Instead, they deal with models and representations of reality. When reality doesn’t fit their model, as is almost invariably the case with economics and quite frequently the case with computer programs, they are apparently unable to handle the concept that if there is a conflict between their model and reality itself,…

1 Select the Quick Mask mode at the bottom of the tools palette in Photoshop. This will allow you to create a selection. Use black to add to the mask and use white if you make a mistake and wish to partially erase the mask. You want to mask everything in the image, except for the teeth. 2 Once finished, exit Quick Mask mode by clicking on the button on the tools palette again. What remains should be a selection around just the teeth. Open the Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation. To take any discolouration out of the teeth, reduce the saturation. Make sure that you don’t reduce all the colour otherwise it will look unnatural having completely white or grey teeth. 3 With the teeth now slightly more neutral it is time to…

1 Content-Aware Fill is useful for removing large unwanted objects from an image, such as the plastic bin in front of the beach huts in this scene. It is best to work from a layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer). Depending on the object that needs removing, select the appropriate Lasso tool from the tools palette. I have used the Magnetic Lasso tool because the bucket is distinguishable from its surroundings. Select the immediate area around the object. 2 With the mouse inside the area selection, right click (PC) or hit Ctrl click (Mac) and select the Fill option. In the Contents box under Use, select the Content-Aware option, keeping the Blending Mode to normal and Opacity at 100%, then click OK. The area has now been filled in. Content-Aware Fill can be…

1 Detail that simply isn’t there, such as burnt-out highlights (pure white), cannot be restored. However, available tonal detail can be enhanced using the exposure sliders in Adobe Camera Raw. This landscape has been shot with a dark exposure to maintain detail in the brighter sky, but the overall exposure is too dark. Brighten the Exposure slider until the land area looks just right. In this case, I have brightened it +2EV. 2 The highlight detail has now been blown out, but because it was there to begin with it can be recovered. Bring the Highlight slider down until the information on the histogram has returned (the white arrow disappears). In this extreme example, the slider needs to be reduced to -60, but at its minimum -100 setting the sky…

1 With the image open in Photoshop, create a back-up layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer...) To adjust the Levels on this new layer, go to Image> Adjustments> Levels or Cmd/Ctrl + L. Adjust the blacks, midtones and whites to taste using the sliders. I also adjusted the white output level to recover highlight detail 2 The overriding blue tone of this image has to be corrected. Open Color Balance Image>Adjustments>Color Balance (Cmd/Ctrl + B). Using the sliders, adjust the colour balance of the Shadows, Midtones and Highlights until you achieve an accurate colour. Predominantly yellows and reds were added to this image. 3 To improve contrast, add a low-opacity Soft Light layer. Go to Layer>Duplicate Layer, change the blending mode to soft light, then lower the layer’s Opacity to suit the image.…

1 Open your image in Photoshop and duplicate it by selecting Layer>Duplicate Layer... This technique is often best used to create a darker sky, so we will darken the sky in the version of the image created on the new layer. Do this using the Curves tool (Image>Adjustment>Curves…) Aim to make the sky darker, but retain some highlight detail in any clouds. Alternatively, you can use two different bracketed images – exposed for highlight and shadows. 2 Create a Layer Mask on the adjusted top layer by clicking on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the tools palette. Once the Layer Mask has been added, click on it to select it so it be worked on. 3 By painting using black onto the Layer Mask you are effectively…

1 Since the launch of Adobe Camera Raw 6.1 and Lightroom 3, it has been possible to apply automatic lens corrections to images. If you have a lens that isn’t currently automatically supported, you can create your own profile. To start with, download Adobe Lens Profile Creator from Adobe.com and print one of the test charts. 2 As a general rule, you should print the largest chart available and make sure it is fairly evenly lit. The included instructions go into more detail about this. Set your camera on a tripod to photograph the chart, with the chart taking up around half the centre of the frame. 3 Read the instructions carefully to make sure you take all the shots you need. This may require taking shots at different apertures,…

1a If you want to recreate some classic film looks similar to the Instagram app, then here are three to get you started. This first effect is slightly desaturated, so apply a Color Balance adjustment layer and adjust the sliders to tone down the Red, Blue and Green hues. 1b To finish our first effect, apply a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and reduce the Saturation to further enhance the lightened tone of this image. Each image will vary, but start with these values and adjust from there. Save this as Effect 1. 2a Our second effect is a much brighter image and features a slight corner darkening, or vignette. To begin, apply a Curves adjustment layer and in each colour curve (red, blue and green) copy our curves chart above. 2b…

1 There are many ways to produce an HDR (high dynamic range) image, the best of which involve multiple photographs. However, I’m going to show you how to produce an HDR-effect image from a single source photo. Open your image in Photoshop and go to Image>Adjustments>HDR Toning…, which will call up a dialog box. 2 From here, use the Preset dropdown menu at the top of the screen to choose an effect that best suits your picture. You can create your own custom settings as you get more confident. 3 Use the sliders to customise the presets. I used Scott, but found that reducing the Radius produced less of a halo effect around the edges of the flowers.…

Wednesday 24 April EXHIBITION Conexiones: New Photography from Spain and Latin America by eight UK photographers, until 10 May, at Instituto Cervantes, Manchester M3 4FN. Tel: 0161 661 4200. Visit www.manchester.cervantes.es. EXHIBITION Brett Weston: Nudes & Dunes, last day, at 3 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TD. Tel: 0207 352 3649. Visit www.michaelhoppengallery.com. Thursday 25 April EXHIBITION Claire Aho: Studio Works, until 21 July at The Photographers’ Gallery, London W1F 7LW. Tel: 0207 087 9300. Visit www.thephotographersgallery.org.uk. EXHIBITION Findings, pinhole photography by Tom Hunter, until 19 July at Church Street, Birmingham B3 2RT and St Paul’s Square, Birmingham B3 1QZ. Friday 26 April EXHIBITION 2013 Sony World Photography Awards, until 12 May at Somerset House, London WC2R 1LA. Tel: 0207 845 4600. Visit www.somersethouse.org.uk. EXHIBITION Bert Hardy Centenary Exhibition, until 26…

● CITY LIGHT by Dave Butcher, £15 The monochrome images in this book of urban landscapes are taken from cities from all over the world, and this gives it some real visual variety. Butcher’s style involves long exposures that give the light a soft, dreamlike quality, and it works especially well in the night shots – the most striking images. This stylish work is definitely recommended. ● NIKON D600 DIGITAL FIELD GUIDE by J Dennis Thomas, £16.99 A solid, workable guide to the D600, this is a wellwritten and accessible book that takes everything step-by-step to ensure the reader never becomes overwhelmed with technical information. It is a guide best suited for beginners (the ‘Advanced’ section is rather slim), so consider your own skill level before purchasing. ● GAME DRIVE…

THIS image was taken on the shores of Jökulsárlón in Iceland, which is a glacial lagoon. I went there at dawn and noticed that this fantastically clear piece of ice on the foreshore was enlarging the pebbles underneath it and reflecting some of the colour from the sky. I liked the solidity of the ice as opposed to the motion blur of the water that was rippling around it, so I wanted to make that contrast. I decided to make it a bit ambiguous – in fact, a few people who have seen this image thought that I’d frozen a wave. I started by photographing a number of different pieces of ice together in a group and I saw this one piece that was magnifying the pebbles with the light…

BILL Brandt’s importance to photography in the 20th century should not be underestimated. Covering an enormous breadth of genre, style and technique, his body of work has become famous for its dissection of British culture and its development of the photograph as an art form. While his images are still well known today, perhaps more so than his name, many people are unaware of the extent to which he would retouch his film prints by hand, using tools to sculpt and mould the images until he was satisfied. This is just one of the topics raised in Shadow and Light, a book by Sarah Hermanson Meister, curator at the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She and her colleagues surveyed hundreds of prints under…

IN EARLY 1990, apartheid in South Africa, under which the minority Afrikaner community ruled the black majority, was beginning to crumble. The system, which had been official government policy since 1948, prevented non-white people from having the vote, forced them to live in separate communities and severely reduced their human rights. In response to this regime, anti-apartheid groups such as the African National Congress (ANC) had organised uprisings and protests. The government reacted by often violent repression and the imprisonment of opposition leaders. On 2 February 1990, the new President, FW de Klerk, announced a set of major reforms. They included repealing laws that directly discriminated against the black community and lifting the ban on the ANC. Crucially, de Klerk also announced that the charismatic ANC leader Nelson Mandela was…

THE SCHOOL OF PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGING – in association with Nikon – is one of the largest and most vibrant photographic education communities in the world. Laura Farnsworth Enrolled on: Foundation in Digital Photography Age: 36 Occupation: Lawyer Equipment: Canon EOS 600D Q When did you first become interested in photography? A One of my earliest memories as a child is of my dad developing photographs in our dark attic room. Then my big sister bought me a pinhole camera kit when I was about ten. These things definitely sparked my interest in photography, although it was only recently that I appreciated how much skill is involved in capturing inspiring images and it’s that skill I’m trying to develop through the SPI course. Q What do you enjoy most about photography?…

RRP £599, with 20-50mm lens Sensor 20.3-million-effective-pixel CMOS Output size 5472 x 3648 pixels Focal length mag 1.5x Lens mount Samsung NX File format JPEG, SRW (raw), MOV Compression 3-stage JPEG, 1-stage raw Colour space Adobe RGB, sRGB Shutter type Focal-plane shutter Shutter speeds 30-1/6000sec + bulb (max 4mins) Max flash sync 1/180sec ISO 100-25,600 Exposure modes PASM, smart auto, lens priority, panoramic, video, HDR, 13 smart filters, 14 scene (smart) modes Metering system 221-block segment TTL metering, with multi, centreweighted and spot Exposure comp ±3EV in 1/3EV steps White balance Auto, 7 presets, custom and manual, with fine-tuning Drive mode 8.6fps LCD 3.3in, 768,000-dot AMOLED Viewfinder type N/A Focusing modes Single, continuous, manual AF points 105 phase-detection pixels and 247 contrast-detection AF points. Single-point, 21 multi-point, 35 close-up, face…

When used in reference to digital photography, interpolation simply refers to the introduction of new data. It’s a process that’s used in a number of different ways, with the first most likely happening moments after you have fired the shutter in the form of demosaicing. If your camera has a sensor fitted with a Bayer pattern filter (and most cameras do), this is part of the process where the individual red, green and blue-filtered photosites are converted into colour pixels. The second type of interpolation that you are likely to encounter is when you enlarge an image. This might be in your editing software, when you want to increase the image size to create an enlarged print but without reducing the number of pixels per inch (ppi). For example, increasing…

Using image-editing software can be a daunting experience. Sometimes there are so many options that it’s difficult to know where to begin. It is all too easy to get stuck in a routine of making the same corrections and adjustments, and never really exploring and using the software to its full potential. This supplement aims to change that by teaching you 25 different image-editing techniques that will help you to explore more than the basics. While we have separated the techniques into sections, many of them can be applied to different types of images or in different ways. For example, tip 10 on page 9 about blending exposures can easily be converted to apply a selective colour adjustment. The best way to learn what you can do with your software…

1 The Oil Paint Filter in Photoshop CS6 is a great tool for skin and hair retouching. First, duplicate the background layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer) of your chosen image. To make the Oil Paint Filter only visible on the hair a Layer Mask is needed. With the new layer selected, go to Layer>Layer Mask>Hide All. Using a 100% Opacity brush with the Layer Mask thumbnail selected, paint white over the area of hair you wish to retouch. The mask can be amended at any time. 2 Click off the Layer Mask thumbnail and onto the Layer itself, then go to Filter>Oil Paint. You will see a dialog box with various sliders. First, located at the bottom is Shine. Turn this down to 0. Next, bring the Stylization slider to the maximum…

1 This effect is best applied in Adobe Camera Raw or similar raw-conversion software. Start by using the Highlights (named Recovery in older versions of Camera Raw) to darken the highlights in the sky. You may also wish to use the Clarity slider to add some local contrast to the image, which can help bring out some detail and shape in the clouds. 2 Go to the HSL panel and select Luminance. Move the Blues slider to the left to reduce the brightness of any blue colours in the image. Obviously, you don’t want to go too overboard with the effect, especially as it may affect any other areas of blue in the image. 3 With the blue sky darkened, switch to the Saturation tab and slightly increase the Saturation…

1 An ND grad filter effect can be applied to a single image. Create a copy of the original image by selecting Layer>Duplicate Layer and name the new layer ‘ND grad’. With the new layer selected in the layers panel, use the Levels tool to darken the image until the contrast and exposure in the sky are just right. 2 In the layers palette, create a new Layer Mask for the ND Grad layer. Now select the Gradient tool from the tools palette and choose a black-to-white gradient. It is the Gradient fill tool that adds the black-to-white gradient on the ND Grad layer. The dark side of the gradient creates a transparent area of the ND Grad layer, which consequently reveals the original lighter layer underneath. 3 Click and…

1 Old scanned photos can be full of dust, scratches and stains, but with a few basic skills, and a lot of patience, you can make old images look a lot better. The trick is to work on small areas at a time. For example, here I have used the Patch tool to tackle this crease, but I have only selected a small section to repair. 2 Working on creases in logical sections makes them easy to repair using the Patch tool. However, when you work close to an edge, you can often create strange marks. These can easily be removed using the Clone tool. 3 Small specks of dust and dirt are very time-consuming to remove, but it must be done to restore the image to its former glory.…

1 In this portrait the background should be a pure white, but it has ended up being grey. The image has been edited using the Levels tool in Photoshop, concentrating on making sure that the subject looks good, rather than the background. 2 Create a new Levels Adjustment Layer by selecting Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels… 3 With the Levels palette for the adjustment layer now displayed, select the Shadows slider. Hold down the Alt key and move the Shadows slider to the right. The aim should be to move the Shadows slider to the right so that as much of the subject turns as black as possible, without the background turning completely black. 4 With the Levels adjustment finished, click back on the background image layer. Select the Dodge tool and…

1 The tone in this landscape is fl at and could benefit from a lift. As Dodge and Burn are destructive tools, it is best to work on a layer (Layer>Duplicate layer). Select Dodge from the Dodge and Burn option in the tools palette. In the top tool bar select Midtones and then adjust the Exposure to under 5%. Paint over the midtones that need a lift – in this example, the jetty. The effect is subtle as it builds up, but after each paint undo the step (Cmd+Z or Ctrl+Z) to see the difference. 2 Once all the midtones have been lifted to your satisfaction, go back to the top bar and select Shadows. I want dark areas of the sky to be even darker to add drama, so…

1 I started out by making a few adjustments to both Levels and Curves in Photoshop to boost the contrast for the black & white to take greater effect. I also cropped the original image at this stage. Then, adding a new Adjustment Layer, I selected Black & White. There are a few ways to convert your images, but this is really simple, and it still allows you a degree of control over the end result. 2 The Adjustment Layer calls up a dialog box that allows you to tweak individual colour channels to achieve the best effect for your image. Make sure you have the Layer Visibility toggled on to ensure you can see the effects of your alterations on screen. 3 We want to add a grainy look…

1 This image is colourful, but has a very distracting background. One way to solve this is to apply a vignette, darkening the corners and drawing the viewer’s eye into the centre of the frame and the subject. Start by creating a new layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer). Select the Gradient tool, click on the Radial Gradient from the boxes at the top and draw a line from the centre out. 2 The image above will appear on your screen, with the darker colour in the middle. Now hit the Reverse checkbox at the top of the window and redraw your line. Your screen should now look similar to the image on the right. 3 Apply Multiply to your layer from the Mode at the top and have a play with the…

AT PANASONIC’S Digital Imaging Convention in Vienna, Austria, all the talk was of the newest member of the company’s micro four thirds G series, the Lumix DMC-GF6. The GF6 has a number of improvements over its predecessor, the GF5. Most notable is the new sensor, which increases the resolution from 12 million pixels in the GF5 to 16 million pixels in the GF6. In fact, the new model uses the same sensor as that used in the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1, which sits above the GF6 in the range. The new sensor adds more than just a higher resolution, though. Compared to the GF5’s sensor, it offers low-frequency noise, improved low-light performance and better signal-to-noise ratio. All these improvements have allowed Panasonic to increase the sensitivity of the new sensor to…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Wins a 20-roll pack of 36-exposure Fujifilm Superia ISO 200 35mm film or a Fujifilm 8GB media card* WE NEED SHOPS! In his letter in AP 30 March, James D Brown says of shops that ‘we, the amateur photographers of Great Britain, no longer want or need them’. Well, I want them and I doubt that I am alone in this view. Recently, I spent around an hour in my local shop (part of a national chain and still in business) trying out a 150-500mm lens. The shop staff let me have a seat so I could view the images on my netbook. That hour saved me around £500 because I decided against buying the lens. I needed a 10-22mm lens at a time when they…

IT’S AN unfortunate truth that those who discover photography in the digital age will probably never lay a finger on a film camera. The ease of use and relatively economic way of creating images with a digital camera, and the increasing difficult in finding and developing film, deters many from dipping their toes in to the world of film photography. Looking at the photographs across the following pages, it’s obvious that Jan Scholz is very much a film fan. However, it hasn’t always been this way. ‘I started in photography about six or seven years ago,’ he explains. ‘I began a new job in the Netherlands and was trying to find a way to spend my free time. I’d always been interested in photography, but with the extra time I…

POROUS POINTED PEN It is somewhat surprising to learn that one of Brandt’s methods – albeit one that was sparingly used – involved the addition of marks with a porous pointed pen, more commonly known as a felt-tip pen. ‘That’s a fascinating area of his work,’ says Lee Ann Daffner. ‘We only looked at a handful of those, maybe a dozen or so. He definitely used a marker, there’s no question about it. This [on ‘Jean Dubuffet’, above] is actually a fairly restrained use; we saw other ones that were quite uninhibited. He’s not afraid to get in there and really modify the image and enhance it.’ GRAPHITE When Brandt wanted a more precise enhancement, he would use a graphite pencil. Sometimes he would use the pencil’s shading qualities to…

Eric Begbie Roman Back Street Olympus Pen E-PL3, 14–42mm lens, 1/200sec at f/5.6, ISO 200 THERE’S something intrinsically ‘right’ about street photography presented in black & white, as monochrome street shots are often imbued with a naturally timeless quality. Take this image by Eric Begbie, for example. In real life, there are numerous elements that have the potential to be distracting in this scene: the shutters and windows might be painted in different colours; the walls of the buildings could be different shades; and the tables and partially concealed sign at the lower left corner could be bold primary colours. I can’t say any of this for certain, as I don’t have a colour shot to compare it to, but in a street scene such as this there’s every possibility…

Tim Coleman Deputy technical editor SAMSUNG has been an active presence in the photography market over the past few years. In fact, the company’s established position in electronics, particularly the smartphone sector, has been used to good effect in its NX series of compact system cameras. The company has led the way when it comes to features such as a built-in Wi-Fi, and small cameras with good connectivity are popular at the moment. The new NX300 is the fourth instalment in a viewfinder-less CSC line, replacing the NX210. At first glance, it appears that only subtle changes have been made to the NX300 since the earlier NX210. But dig a little deeper and many more significant improvements come to light, such as a new sensor, AF system, processor and rear…

PRINTING PANORAMAS Q I have a Sony NEX-3 camera and the main reason for me buying it was the panoramic facility. The photos were then printed by Jessops, but as this company is no longer trading as it used to, where can I get my photos printed? Do I now have a camera with a useless feature? Michael Holmes A Don’t worry, Michael, the sweep panorama feature on your NEX-3 hasn’t been rendered useless. In 2011, Sony launched its Print! service, which was powered by PhotoBox. This was intended to help Sony customers get the best from the features offered by its camera, such as prints made from sweep panorama images. The website can be found at http://print.sony.co.uk, although at the time of writing, ‘This website is currently undergoing scheduled…

WHEN looking for the next item to add to your photographic kit, a waterproof, freezeproof, shockproof compact camera may not be the first item that springs to mind. These so-called tough cameras are often portrayed as being for those people who spend most of their time diving in coral reefs, or hurtling down the world’s toughest ski slopes. Yet while they are perfectly suitable for these extreme conditions, a tough camera will allow you to take creative images in difficult conditions far closer to home. Waterproof cameras can be used in a torrential downpour, when most photographers would be worried about taking more valuable equipment outdoors. The same seals that make these cameras waterproof also helps to keep dust and dirt at bay, so they are fine for taking to…

1 Open the image in Photoshop and zoom in to check for blemishes. Remove these using the Patch tool. Simply circle the blemish and then drag it to an area of blemish-free skin. Make sure you pick an area of skin close to the blemish, as different parts of the skin have different textures and pores. 2 Now create a new layer (Layer>New>Layer…) above the original image layer. 3 With the new layer selected, use the Brush tool with a 5% opacity. Pressing Alt quickly switches the Brush tool to the Color Picker tool. Keep pressing Alt and sampling different areas of the face, then paint this colour over the blemished area of the face. By sampling different colours from the face, you can build up these colours, smoothing out…

1 The Clone Stamp and Healing Brush tools are widely used for removing small objects from a scene, but the Patch tool works well, too, and is generally a quicker method. Distant sheep and small objects in the grass litter this landscape, detracting from the main subject matter. Start by making a duplicate of the original image (Layer>Duplicate Layer). Select the Patch tool from the tools palette and then draw around the object that needs to be removed. 2 Right click (PC) or Ctrl click (Mac) inside the selection area and select ‘Use patch as Source’. Click and drag the selection area to a nearby part of the frame – in this case a clean patch of grass. The object has been removed. 3 Images like this one have several…

1 This is another effect applied in Adobe Camera Raw or similar raw-conversion software. Edit your image as usual, but apply only a very basic hint of sharpening. Concentrate on the contrast and the exposure of the image. 2 Using the Adjustment brush, paint the sky. Use a large brush with a soft edge so that it fades slightly with the landscape. Now reduce the Clarity slider and Sharpness. Combined with a fairly strong application of the Noise Reduction slider, this should be enough to smooth the sky. Zoom in to 100% to check that the luminance noise has been smoothed. You may want to add some contrast back into the sky if it has become flat. 3 Now create another local adjustment mask and apply the corrections you usually…

1 An HDR merge does not work well for moving objects, such as the fl ag in this scene (left), for which an exposure blend is better. In Photoshop, choose File>Automate>Photomerge… from the top menu. Click browse and import the bracketed images. In this case there are five. In the Layout options select Auto if it is not already selected and then ensure the ‘Blend Images Together’ box is unchecked. Hit OK. 2 Photoshop combines the images into one file, with each of the five exposures as a layer. Order the layers with the mid-exposure as the base layer and then in order the darkest up to the lightest exposure at the top. In the Layers palette select each layer in turn, clicking the Add Layer Mask icon to add…

1 With your image loaded in Photoshop, duplicate the layer by selecting Layer>Duplicate Layer... Now use the Magnify tool in the tools palette to zoom in on the area you wish to sharpen. In this case, it’s the car. 2 With the duplicate layer selected, go to Filter>Other>High Pass. Gradually increase the strength of the Radius setting until the details that you want to be sharper are revealed. Take care not to increase the noise too much, and try to avoid creating a strong halo effect. 3 Now use the Color Picker tool to select a 50% grey colour from the Color Swatches palette. Paint grey onto the areas that you don’t wish to be sharpened. You can even vary the sharpening effect by changing the brush to an Opacity…

1 With the image open, go to View>Rulers. This is used to measure and align the image. Create some visual markers to help in your correction by clicking and dragging from the centre of the rulers. Drop these guides in a place that suits your image – putting guides over horizons, buildings and straight points is best. 2 Next, level the horizon using the guides as a visual reference. Go to Select>All to select the entire image, then Edit>Free Transform. A box will appear and by positioning the cursor outside the box you can rotate the image until it is straight. When finished, hit Enter to confirm the transformation. 3 To correct perspective, go to Select>Select All (if previous selection is still live, click Select>Deselect first). Go to Edit>Free Transform.…

1 Some, but not all the colours in this image could do with added vibrance to make them ‘pop’. In the Layers palette click on the ‘create new or fill adjustment layer’ and choose Selective Color. In the properties box a colour channel will appear. In this case, I selected green as the primary colour and then adjusted the sliders to get the right tone. Adding to the black slider gives greater vibrance to that colour. 2 For any other colours that need enhancing, repeat the process from the primary colour part. For example, there are some pink flowers that can be enhanced by working on the magenta primary colour. Now, in the Layers palette again, change the mode from Normal to Overlay. The contrast of the image will now…

1 Make sure you select a photo with bright blues and greens for the best results with this infrared special effect. Open the image in Photoshop and duplicate it (Ctl+J), invert it (Ctl+I) and change the blending mode to Color. Apply a Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer above this, and in the Red channel reduce the red to 0 and increase the blue to 100. In the Blue channel, reduce the blue to 0 and increase the red to 100. 2 At this stage, your photo should look similar to the screenshot above. If it doesn’t, you may need to find a new starting image. Apply another Adjustment Layer, this time the Hue/Saturation. Reduce the Saturation of the Red channel to create a grey image, then increase the Hue slider until…

1 You can scan in some old negative film strips to get the edge detail that you want to apply to your photos, but a quicker way is to download a free Photoshop brush set (http://all-free-download.com/photoshop-brushes/photo_film_brush_40347.html). These have solid masks for clean edges around your photos without any need for cutting out! 2 Next, open your image in Photoshop and import either the scanned negative image or open the Photoshop brush set to apply to your photo. I’ll talk you through the brush method in the next few steps. You can access the brushes you have downloaded via the brush palette shown in the box above. 3 Go to Image>Canvas Size… and resize your photograph so you have a white border of one or two centimetres all around the outside…