Thread for all technical problems

This the forum board for the CM 101 class starting March 2013
imported_Tanja
Posts: 294
Joined: Mon Feb 04, 2013 2:15 pm

Postby imported_Tanja » Tue Apr 30, 2013 10:39 pm

Hi Dan,

think Greg is leaving til friday evening, when I understand right in our last conference call.
Maybe you write a message to Mike for waiting not so long.
There is a support adress somewhere here or on the homepage.

Greetings, Tanja

ggroess
Posts: 5342
Joined: Wed May 24, 2006 2:15 am
Contact:

Postby ggroess » Tue Apr 30, 2013 10:59 pm

I will be gone Thursday and Friday.

I did reply to Dan off list...

Greg

imported_Tanja
Posts: 294
Joined: Mon Feb 04, 2013 2:15 pm

Postby imported_Tanja » Tue Apr 30, 2013 11:26 pm

Hi Greg,

not the first time I have my problems with Tuesday and Thursday ;-).
Good to now, that you are still here. So class jumps on the tables earliest on Thursday  ;D

Greetings, Tanja

ggroess
Posts: 5342
Joined: Wed May 24, 2006 2:15 am
Contact:

Postby ggroess » Wed May 01, 2013 1:13 am

open the pilsner tap on thursady and don't hold any back for me....

Greg

Daniel Zuck
Posts: 130
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 3:00 pm

Postby Daniel Zuck » Thu May 09, 2013 9:46 pm

Greg:

Since our last discussion period will be tomorrow, I wonder if you could please talk about photography basics a little.  For example, I don't know whether I should get an external hard drive to put my photos on, since C drives are in the terabyte neighborhood or more.  Also, do you remember what week's conference you discussed the Taipei toy store?  And what is this about Adobe going subscription?  How will that influence Curvemeister?

More importantly, you directed us to an article in the "Online Photographer," "Expose To The Right Is A Bunch Of Bull" by Ctien.  I can now see the danger of blowing out highlights when I take a photo, because if I do this there's no fun with 'Man From Mars' techniques.  Regardless of 'Man From Mars,' I hate blowing out highlights.

What do you do to make sure you're not blowing out highlights when you take a photo?  It used to happen all the time when I had a cheap camera, but then I bought a Canon and it doesn't seem to happen as much.  Still, have any tips to share?

Also, if you know you will be spending weeks in a country like India that has a bad pollution problem, is there anything that can be done to protect the camera?  Does it need protection?  What about the constant humidity there?  How can that affect the camera?

Finally, are there any precautions that need to be taken when taking photos at the beach?

But the big question is, is it better to expose to the left, instead of the right?  A lot of the photos you gave us to correct were dark.  Was that done on purpose?  This was done so we could have fun with 'Man From Mars,' etc. and there would be no blown highlights?

Finally, is this 'Man From Mars' thing an 'art form' or something.  I know you don't like it very much, but you really did a good job translating it into Curvemeister lingo.  If you were to put 100 of the best photographers in a room, and ask them, "do you work with some form of 'Man From Mars,' " do you think its important, not only technically, but artistically, what would they say?

Is it legit to look at a portfolio based on 'Man From Mars' technique, or is it something to laugh at. 

I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

Anyhow,  hope these aren't too many questions.

It has been quite an enjoyable learning experience, even though it was not easy.

Dan



Dan


ggroess
Posts: 5342
Joined: Wed May 24, 2006 2:15 am
Contact:

Postby ggroess » Fri May 10, 2013 12:40 am

Dan,
Awesome questions and I will take them on for you to the best of my knowledge.
I'll print these out and have them for the call tomorrow.

Greg

imported_artmar
Posts: 327
Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:33 pm

Postby imported_artmar » Fri May 10, 2013 1:04 am

Hi Greg,

I have a few questions for our conference call tomorrow, if there's time.

1. I'd like to see how you correct a "mixed cast" image such as the London Flower Vendor, in which correcting one part of the image leads to an exacerbation of the cast in another. Never quite sure how to handle this.

2. Our discussion last week of the PPW whet my appetite, and I purchased a copy of MPCW which arrived yesterday. The purchaser of the book has access to a set of videos that DM made covering various issues/concepts/examples from each chapter in the book. I've watched a few. In the video on RAW workflow he goes over a procedure for colour correction -- I wonder what you think of it (Elements unfortunately doesn't seem to have the resources to duplicate it.)  He works on a photo taken indoors, in the evening, under tungsten lighting, so of course the image has a severe yellow cast.  He uses the eyedropper tool to select a colour from a part of the image which shows the colour cast but is not a central point in the image. He sets this as the foreground colour. He creates a new layer (over a duplicate of the original image layer) and fills it with the foreground color. Then control-I to invert the colour to its complement. Set blend mode to colour. Add a layer mask and under Apply Image, apply the RGB composite greyscale to the mask. Reduce opacity as required. Colour cast is gone. What do you think of this procedure?  Does it have any advantages, or disadvantages, over setting a neutral pin?

3. DM seems to be taking several different approaches to colour correction in general including this one: work fast, use PPW with different setting to produce several different versions of the image. The successively blend each with the others choosing a blend mode that extracts from each its best characteristic. He claims that this will produce a better final image than prolonged work on a single version. This is somewhat counterintuitive to me, but I'm wondering what you think of this idea?

4. Could you tell us more about the 201 class? What it will cover, when it might be offered? I'd be eager to take it.

Many thanks,
Art

imported_Tanja
Posts: 294
Joined: Mon Feb 04, 2013 2:15 pm

Postby imported_Tanja » Fri May 10, 2013 10:23 am

Hi guys,

lots of good questions. This will be very interesting today!
Of course the DM techniques are most interesting for me, better say all of Arts questions.

Dan, short tip for exposing. Use spot measuring and exposure memory. So you don't have overexposed pictures.
Problem is, that you might have a lot of noise in the darker parts. Some lights can be saved in cr. So maybe is good to find a "middle way" of exposing.

Greetings, Tanja

imported_artmar
Posts: 327
Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:33 pm

Postby imported_artmar » Fri May 10, 2013 3:15 pm

Hi Dan,

My 2 cents on your questions:

1. Storing photos:  The bad news -- hard drives fail randomly. The good news -- memory is cheap (relatively).  Solution -- back up, back up, and then back up some more.  I store my photos (and documents) on one of my computer's large HDs , and also store duplicates on two separate external hard drives. Having had several hard drives fail seemingly without warning over the years I figure by doing this I'm stacking the deck in my favor since it's improbable that all three drives will fail at once. Of course, it takes time to make multiple back ups, but worth it in the event of failures. A high speed USB 3 connection, which I use on both the computer end and the hard drive end, also makes the process much quicker than with USB 2.

I've also installed a program on my computer called Hard Disk Sentinel which continuously monitors the "health" of my computer's drives. I look at it several times a day. The standard version is very reasonably priced and well worth the cost I think since it will give you advance warning of a disk failure (although this is a bit controversial in the case of solid state drive,  like my C drive).

http://www.hdsentinel.com/

2. Exposure. Once again, flash card memory is cheap, so you don't need to choose between exposing for the highlights or the shadows or mid-tones. Do all three. Set your camera to exposure bracketing and you'll get three differently exposed images of each scene. Select one, or blend them. I also use exposure lock quite a lot. If I'm focusing on a high contrast scene I also look for something in the vicinity that's in the mid-tones, like concrete or grass, take an exposure reading, press the AE lock button, and then move the camera to re-focus where I want.  This is far from fail safe, and so it's always good idea to look at your LCD and/or histogram to make sure you're in the range you want to be.

3. My impression is that DSLR's are pretty well sealed these days with respect to a wide range of ambient weather conditions. If you want the ultimate assurance purchase you'd have to purchase one of the more expensive Canons or Nikons which is expressly weather sealed, as are the Canon L lenses. Use a clear or UV filter to help seal the lens.  (If visiting places like India or China I'd worry more about my lungs than my camera, but that's another topic.)

Speak to you later --

Cheers,
Art

Daniel Zuck
Posts: 130
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 3:00 pm

Postby Daniel Zuck » Fri May 10, 2013 4:59 pm

How does one get into the alpha masks with PSE and CM?

dan


Return to “Curvemeister 101 - March 2013”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests