The Photography Thread

[Magnakai]

Cheers for the assistance...

...I was sort of with you until "Load the first channel you created as a selection, then fill it on the gradient channel".

Any chance of a step-by-step for this bit? I've got three channels - the original image, the cut out of the bloke and the gradient background. I see "fill" on the edit menu, but I can't make it do anything useful. Photoshop help recommends that I merge the bloke/gradient channels, but I can't - the option to merge is ghosted.

Sure!

1. Control/Apple+click on the bloke shaped channel, which should look something like this, but a lot sharper. Btw, you might want to gaussian blur it a couple of pixels so that it's not such a harsh difference. Trying doing it 3 pixels, then 1 pixel.
(I may have the black & white the wrong way around. I was a bit drunk when I wrote that first post. It doesn't matter, though, as long as the bloke's the same colour as the bottom of the gradient.)
That'll load the shape as a selection.

2. Go to your gradient channel (which should look something like this) with the selection still active. Make sure you've got the foreground colour (i think!) set to black.

3. (I'm on a Mac right now, so the PC shortcut might be wrong for this. It's either Alt or Control) Hit Control/Apple + Backspace, and it should fill your selection. You should end up with something looking a bit like this.
If it's upside down, go back a step in the history and invert the selection, then try again.

After that, just select your rgb layer and hit up lens blur.

Does that clear things up?
Looking back, it is more than a bit vague. I'd just got back from a night out, so I wasn't a model teacher.

Any more problems, feel free to ask!

I hope it helps. I do stand by what I said before, though - it's a cracking photo and it doesn't really need anything doing to it. Well done!

[DaiSuki]

Sorted, nice one. When I can be arsed to do a neat cut around the guy, I may resubmit that one

Is there a way, while you're zoomed in while during tracing, to scroll around slowly, rather than move-the-mouse-to-the-bottom-of-the-screen-and-scroll-5,000-pixels-in-half-a-second? I'm just doing wild quick-down-then-up motions with the mouse and hoping the screen ends up in the right place :/

[Magnakai]

It depends how you're tracing, but usually if you press Space, then it should turn into a hand which will allow you to drag your picture around. That's pretty universal in Photoshop, and is probably the most useful keyboard shortcut around.

Personally, I find the best way is to do a pretty decent outline with the magnetic lassoo and then tidy it up with the freehand lassoo. You can hold down control and alt to add or subtract selections.

[spagmasterswift]

Any tips on taking good pictures of candle lit meals? I have a 'Candle' setting but it just baths you in an orange light. Alternatively the flash goes off and you can see way too much detail in the shot. I tried playing around with different shutter speeds and got some funky trails off the candle lights but not really what I was after. Actually didn't think to try it with no flash on at all

Anyways - any tips?

[charlesr]

Play with the white balance until the colours look right. At least that's what I do and it seems to work, although I know nothing about photography really.

[MartyG]

Any tips on taking good pictures of candle lit meals? I have a 'Candle' setting but it just baths you in an orange light. Alternatively the flash goes off and you can see way too much detail in the shot. I tried playing around with different shutter speeds and got some funky trails off the candle lights but not really what I was after. Actually didn't think to try it with no flash on at all

Anyways - any tips?

You're going to need no flash and a reasonable lengthy shutter speed, and in order to make that work, you're going to need a tripod or at least something solid that you can rest the camera on to avoid the shake. Also use the timed mode so that you don't shake the camera on the shutter release (or a remote release if you have one of those).

As for the exposure length, just play around with it, a candle isn't particularly bright, but it will also depend on how much ambient light there is in the room, half a second should be close, put the camera in shutter priority mode, and perhaps push the ISO setting to 800 (if you can do that with your camera).

[spagmasterswift]

a reasonable lengthy shutter speed

Cheers Marty, wont that pick up on the flicker of the candles and give me those trace lines?

Oh I see. I was playing around with 3 to 6 seconds I shall give half a second a go.

[Ginger Tosser]

You might be able to mess around with your flash exposure level and turn it down a step or two.

[MartyG]

You might get away with doing that, depends on the flash. Even with mine on 16th power it still washes out the candle light. See attached, left is without flash, right low power flash.

[Ginger Tosser]

Does look a little washed out. I suppose the way to a flicker free image is 2 pics one timed and one quick then add photoshop.

[Ginger Tosser]

Today i took my camera to work and found the local Matalan on fire. Now what will the people of stechford do for shell suits and other chav wear?

[Distant Cousin]

lmao, if my Gran lived in Stechford she'd be devastated

[DaiSuki]

God damn, slipped to page two again. You lot just aren't busy enough with your cameras

Symmetrical Children
Portrait Photography Action

Symmetrical Children is sadly out of focus a bit, but I still like it.

[MartyG]

Your camera has focused perfectly on the wall in the middle though - does it not have a 5 point auto focus selection, come on, you had it on centre did you?

I've not had chance to take many photos this week, but I'll be out and about on Saturday at the Smart Home Show at the NEC - where there'll surely be something to photograph.

[DaiSuki]

Hey, maybe I wanted the wall to be the focus :/

I don't believe I've ever used centre focus, and I intend to keep it that way