Photoshop Tutorial: Content Aware really IS your friend!

Hey!

Yeah i know, off the radar again! I would love to say the reason for my blogging absence is due to being so mega busy that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day…etc…etc…

Fact is - i’ve been too lazy! Ok, a little bit busy too, but mainly lazy!

Anyhoo - as the title suggests, we’re going to touch a little on photoshop.

A couple of weeks ago I was over at Theater Oberhausen, doing a promo shoot for an upcoming production.

You’ll note, that yes, i have shot slightly less insane things.

The above image is straight out of camera. You’ll not that we’re shooting inside a built set, within a larger hall. We were actually in the set building hall belonging to the theatre. No much room to shoot inside this wooden box, and a ton of natural light flooding in through the windows.

It needed to be a moody shot anyway, so killing the ambient light and bringing in flash was always on the cards. The biggest problem though was framing the shot. I shot with the widest glass i had - 17mm on a FF sensor - and had to hold the camera to my side against the wall, so i had no real idea what i was shooting.

Anyway, because of the constraints i had, this meant there would be a fairly heavy chunk of post production coming my way in order to keep this shot wide-looking, but having it look like were just in this stripy room!

The final image

Obviously, i’m not a genius, and don’t have hours and hours to spend bringing images through post production. But, the content aware tool is your friend. Selecting parts of the image that are outside of our little ‘room’, and using the Content Aware fill, really does help to speed up the process. In most cases, it’s pretty accurate in expanding the background.

There’s obviously going to be some imperfections to the background, but they can be tidied up using the clone stamp tool, and with some creative (and fairly liberal) use of dodge, burn and vignette, the image came up good!

Here’s another example:

Note the wall to the right of the finished image also came through CA Fill successfully

Content aware is a fairly simple thing to use: use lasso, patch, pen tool, selection brush - whatever you prefer to select an area - hit delete, select content aware, hit enter - job done! There may be some fixing to do afterwards, particularly with busy images, however, the hit-rate is pretty good!

So, this wasn’t really meant as a photoshop tutorial, but whatever! Thanks for reading!

Until next time!

Ant

Buy your own shizzle! Lightroom Presets Now Available!

Hey guys!

Anyone who dropped by the shop recently will have seen something new!

For the first time, i’m offering up some Lightroom Preset Packs! That’s right kids, now you can edit in one click - apeman style.

Currently, there are two Lightroom Preset packs available, both containing 5 presets. One set colour, and one set of bangin’ black and whites!

And whats more - they’re at a crazy stupid low introductory price - so get on it, check them out!

Just make sure you purchase and download the packs on a real computer! Phones don’t like that sort of thing!

much love

Ant

Behind the Image

Hi, 

It's been a couple of weeks, and as i said in a previous post, i will be writing about my recent shoots with Theater Oberhausen, producing the imagery for their 2018/19 programme.

Well, here comes the first in that series.

The shoot for the theater's new programme involved photographing the permanent cast of the theater in various situations, performing 'other jobs' in the local area. We visited a hospital, funeral parlour, and a kiosk, to name just a few locations.

Most of the shoots were carried out at night, in order to take a look in to what people are doing while the rest of us sleep.

Midnight pizza

These shoots presented of course one major challenge; darkness. Something that can be overcome with knowing what you're doing, and a little trickery with lights here and there.

One of the most challenging shoots however was the team photo. All the men and women who work behind the scenes at the theater, who of course deserve their place in the programme, joined by some of the cast who were around on the day.

Photographing 50 plus people and making it look interesting isn't so easy. 

Thankfully, Franca, who i mentioned in a previous post, was on hand with some ideas and some sharp organisational skills!!

The plan was: use the main stage in the theater, bring some props in, and get everyone to lie on the floor in some kind of organised way so it looked like they were doing their usual jobs - or somewhere close!

From a technical point of view, figuring out how to photograph the stage from directly above was a bit of a sticky point.

Sending the camera up with the lighting rig was the simplest option. Then firing the camera remotely. 

Gaff tape and cable ties. A dream combo!

Instead of using cables to connect the camera to a computer to take the shot, i opted for using my reserve camera, a Canon 6D, and using it's wifi function to connect to my mac and take the shot. Easy right - wrong!

First, the proprietary software which Canon uses to tether the camera remotely is junk! The camera and computer can't see each other automatically like the camera can with Canons smartphone app.  You need to first set up an ad-hoc network on the computer, then try and force the camera to see it. 

When you are finally connected, the connection drops every few seconds. And you can't use more stable software like CaptureOne - or at least, i couldn't get it to work. 

The dropped connection of course could be due to the distance between camera and computer, around 15 meters; but once i had moved myself, and the macbook up into the rafters nearer the camera, the problem continued.

I tried my best to get as close to the camera as i could. This made communicating with the stage difficult.

Franca meanwhile continued to coordinate things down on the stage, with me having to send a screenshot from the macbook over WhatsApp every few seconds. This was of course only possible while the connection to the camera was holding and i was able to see something.

Several test shots later, we were ready to go - and of course, the connection dropped again. Wi-Fi off, Wi-Fi on, close EOS utility, open EOS utility - you get the idea of what a struggle it was!!

We did however get there in the end, and managed to pull an image out with so many things to look at! 

The image features on the inside cover of the new programme, and can be checked out online here!

There'll be more stories about the rest of the shoots coming in the coming weeks! 

Until then... :)

Product review - Saal Digital Fotobuch

A couple of weeks back, i received an e-mail from Saal Digital asking me if i wanted to take part in an offer to review one of their products.

I took them up on the offer of a photo book up to the value of €40. It's free, so why not.

After they approved me, i received an offer code to use on their website. The €40 covered the cost of a standard 26 page hardback book, with padded cover and delivery.

Creating your book should potentially be straight forward. Downloading their software was of course easy, and the software itself is full of templates for various designs. The designs are fairly standard. Baby, family, holiday, etc etc.

I went for a completely empty template which is where i had some issues. Photos could be easily aligned with each other on opposite pages (you know, blue lines pop up when the photos are level with each other), however, on following pages you can't line photos up to the photos on previous pages, or at least i couldn't find out how to do it.

The outside padded cover

Delivery was quick. I ordered Wednesday night, and the book was dispatched the following day, arriving Saturday morning.

All in all, a decent product. Although a little expensive, the quality is very good.

*i ordered a standard sized A4 hardback with a padded cover and matt paper.

Shooting Product

Ever wondered how online sellers get their products to look almost like they've been CGI'd on to a white background, almost like they're floating?

Well, here's an example of how it really happens!

This image appears on a friends online shop:

The above image is directly out of the camera - no Photoshop, no sorcery (except for the text of course!).

...and here is how the magic happens...

This is what i used to achieve this image:

2 pieces of white card, 1 piece of glass from an old A4 picture frame, 3 speedlights, some transparent wire (fishing wire or something similar), a table and something to hold the wire. Of course, you need the camera, tripod and product itself!!

Here's the set-up, complete with 15 month old assistant:

So, there you have it! Not as technical as you'd probably think!

The biggest challenge is eliminating shadows. But that can usually be achieved by blowing your background out with flash. If however, you're not working with a white background, then it's going to be a bit more of a challenge! But, like in this situation, once you have you scene and your settings right you can wheel product after product in front of the camera and shoot away!

The main thing is - have fun!!

Until next time!

Should anyone want to send me a present...

Well there it is! The Karma (Sutra). A new drone from GoPro, along with a new camera, the Hero5 were unvield to the public yesterday afternoon!

It flies, it folds, it looks awesome, and it may well have the guys over at DJI worrying!

Apeman is now officially looking for a review copy of this sucker! 

Aerial photography is something that i've been wanting to get in to for a while. The problem is the cost of quality equipment is somewhat prohibitive. For what i shoot, concerts and cars from time to time, such a piece of kit would open up a whole new world and put me ahead of the competition! I need something like this in my life!

Gopro....if you're listening - i have the camera ready to roll for a review!! :)

New Video! ThinkTank Turnstyle 20 Sling Bag

Hey guys!!

Wow! It's been a couple of weeks!! Sorry! 

If you check out my YouTube page (www.youtube.com/c/apephotos) you'll see i've posted a couple of editions of 'From the Photopit' in the last couple of weeks.

I've also just uploaded a review (of sorts) of the Think Tank Turnstyle 20 Convertible sling bag. I love this little bag - it's so versatile! 

The first shoot I took it on, i took all my equipment in my converted suitcase, and used the Turnstyle as a running bag, containing just what i needed for the part of the location i was shooting from, then returning to base to switch out kit as needed! Very handy!

It's also the perfect bag for shooting concerts with. It fits camera body, wide lens, tele lens and a speed light, along with a few bits and pieces. Basically everything that is required for a day shooting on a festival.

For the price (around €100 if you can find one!) it's unbeatable. 

The biggest shame is that Think Tank products are so hard to find in Europe. There are importers and dealers of course, but they add their premium to an already premium price - making the products just on the border of affordability verses usability. 

If Think Tank are out there reading this, then i'm going to selfishly request they send some of their products to me for review. If I can in anyway help to increase demand for Think Tank products in Europe then that can only be of benefit to us all, right? :)

a little magical bag of lushness

Here is a link to the video

Please give it a like, and subscribe to my channel for more! 

And don't forget kids - Sharing is Caring!

Until next time!

Apeman

Let light live!

Hey! 

So, last week I talked about killing ambient light in order to create a low-key portrait. Well, this week, I've been having a play around with high-key light, again using just one speedlight!

When creating a low-key scenario with one strobe, the starting point is always the shutter speed. Simply, pump it up all the way to your cameras maximum flash sync speed. This is usually in the range from 1/200 - 1/250th of a second. This gives you your starting point to be able to create a dark image from a lit scene.

When creating a high-key lighting effect, the mission is to make your camera as sensitive to light as you can, while trying to maintain a correct exposure. Over-exposing slight isn't going to kill your image, but don't forget that simply over-exposing as much as you can to create the effect will result in a serious loss of detail in your final image, and something that is as good as un-savable in post!

In the image below, my set-up couldn't have been simpler! Usually two strobes as used in this method - one to blow out the background and one to light the subject. I used just the one flash, in room flooded with daylight.

So, in my shot, I used one light, set to 1/4 power, placed on a stand behind me and bounced off the wall and ceiling behind me. That was it! Having a white background is obviously a must. In this case I simply draped a white sheet over my sofa. Depending on the size of your room, or distance to subject, you may of course need to increase or decrease the output power of your light.

Set your ISO to something a little more sensitive, but nothing thats going to cause image degradation - I used ISO 400. As I was shooting a baby, that of course won't stay still, I couldn't shoot wide open. If I did, then I probably wouldn't have got a single sharp shot! f3.5 was used in this case to give me enough depth of field to allow for slight movement. 

So - that's my base settings, then, It's just a case of bringing the shutter speed down enough to let the camera suck in plenty light!! My shot here was taken at 1/80 second at f3.5 ISO 400 with flash at 1/4 power and 24mm for a good spread of light. Some creasing in my background is still visible - so not completely blown out. This can be adjusted in Lightroom using an adjustment brush in the white, highlights or exposure channel. Easy! A word of warning though, be careful not to go to mad in Lightroom - you can end up with the image looking like the subject has been superimposed onto a white background - not good. I've left the slight shadow that was cast just to avoid this look. 

I'll definitely be having a play with this set-up again soon! May next i'll try the trusted 2 light technique and report back!!

Kit used: Canon 7d, Tamron 17-50mm SP DI, Yongnuo YN-560III Flash with 560TX wireless trigger, Walimex pro lightstand, old bed sheet. 

Kill the light

A couple of weeks back I wrote about having to shoot in low light. Not by choice either. Events and concerts are usually dark places. In the case of one concert I shot recently there was virtually no light whatsoever. 

Now I want to write about deliberately creating a low light situation - or more so, killing the ambient light you have in order to create low light, or low key photographs. This type of shot is often used in portraiture, lifestyle and fashion photography. 

Below are some examples of some shots i took during a shoot with a musician this week. These pictures were taken in a small living room (ca. 20 square meters), using one flash. Wait - flash? Shouldn't that mean bright, well lit pictures? Well, not always. The technique used here is known as killing the light, or killing the ambient light.

The method?

Well, don't worry about how bright the room is you're shooting in. Obviously, shooting outside in bright daylight or in a room flooded with midday sun isn't the best thing, but a light room won't derail things too seriously.

First, set your cameras shutter speed to the highest sync speed of your speed light - this is usually around 1/250th of a second. You may be able to go faster if you can use high speed sync. Next, select ISO 100 so as to make your cameras sensor as resistant to light as possible.

Finally, play with the aperture and get shooting. You basically want to end up underexposing your shot to the point that the picture is dark. Black in fact. Once you've metered your camera for darkness, it's time to add some flash. 

For the best results you should have your flash stand and subject as far away from a background/wall as the space you're in allows.

Set your speedlight(s) firstly to low power and fire some shots - they may still be on the dark side, but you've got a good starting point from which you can then work with your subject and increase flash power as necessary until you get the desired result. 

Here's some of my shots - don't forget, this small room was flooded with daylight, there wasn't much separation between the subject and wall either, but enough to provide a virtually non-existent background to remove in post. Dark and a little moody was what I was looking for, which I think I pulled off fine.

Kit used for these shots: Canon 7D, Canon 70-200 F2.8 IS II, Canon 580EX, light stand and 60x40 softbox.

A shot in the dark

I have two shoots coming up this week that will present me with a couple of interesting challenges!

Firstly, I've been given the honour of being invited to shoot a product launch. Not just any product launch however. This is a car launch, from a major manufacturer, with a glitzy invitation-only party!   

Then on Saturday night I'm shooting a rock concert. Yeah ok, so I know the band, but as i'm trying to break in to music photography, every little leg-up is going to help! 

Both events will be major portfolio builders for me, and could lead to further work.

Check back next week to see how things went!!!