Using Photoshop’s View > Proof Colors to Head Off Problems Before Printing

Literally the evening after I posted my Digital Printing 101 article, my sister came over to print out some mandala/spirograph-like iStock images to decorate her office with. I opened the images, loaded the correct printer/paper profile (HP Z3100 onto Breathing Color Vibrance Luster photo paper, with gloss enhancer enabled - helps prevent “bronzing” when there’s a lot of black in the print), and printed, feeling quite full of myself.

The first one came out great. However, the second one didn’t match what we saw on screen. Obviously, I had a bit of egg on my face, after just proclaiming to the world I had the answer for reliable, correct digital printing. However, a bit of sleuthing revealed:

1. It wasn’t my fault - but…
2. I could have fixed it before wasting paper and ink - and losing face.

Digital Printing 101

One old theory of knowledge was that we were born knowing everything (having gained that knowledge in a previous life), and it was just a matter of “remembering” that which was obvious once explained. Well, with all due respect to the ancient Greeks, color managed print workflow - the best way to ensure what you print is as close as possible to the original image - is not obvious, and being a relatively recent development in the world of photography, we don’t have knowledge from a prior life to draw on.

That said, neither is it unknowable - and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to learn it yourself. After watching fellow artists beat their heads against the wall or print endless tests hoping to land upon the magic combination that works for them (and having done that very thing myself several years ago), I thought it would be worth outlining the basic workflow to create repeatable, as-accurate-as-circumstances-will-allow printing. Yes, there will always be devilish details and inevitable exceptions, but this will give you a solid foundation to build on.

Snowblind

A few years ago, I made a decision: I was going to save every image I shot using the Camera Raw file format. This decision is as automatic as waking up for professional photographers, but may bring apprehension for many amateur and semi-pro shooters. Indeed, I dare say more are creating multi-image HDR files (thanks to the profusion of tools available today - even for cell phone cameras!) than using Camera Raw. Therefore, I’d like to walk through how Camera Raw saved what would have been an otherwise unusable shot in hopes that it helps convert a few more into taking advantage of this format.

The Chapel: A Timelapse HDR Short Film

More people are experimenting with combining timelapse photography and motion control to create wonderful “videos” using still image cameras. One particularly lovely one is The Chapel by Patryk Kizny of LookyCreative. In addition to some of the nicest motion control timelapse moves I’ve seen (way beyond your typical horizontal slider bar movement) and a stunning setting (an abandoned, derelict Protestant temple in Zeliszów, Poland built at the end of the 18th century), Patryk also employed HDR (High Dynamic Range) capture and processing to pull details out of the interior of a building illuminated only by windowlight.

Two 80 Megapixel Cameras

I really appreciated the move up from our old 6 MP (megapixel) Canon 10D to a 21 MP Canon 5D mkII: Not only could I print larger images with respectable resolution, I could also pull finer detail out of an image, or zoom in on and crop down to a relatively small portion of the frame. But of course, this is tiddlywinks compared to really high-end digital camera backs, where 80 MP is defining the new high end. The well-respected Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape notes “if you step up from a 24MP or smaller DSLR you’ll be stepping into the bizzaro universe, where resolving tiny flecks of mascara on a model’s eyelashes from 20 feet away becomes commonplace, and being able to clearly see telephone wires at a distance of 2 miles always amazes.”

Day for Night

As some of you no doubt know (but which I just discovered today), Gizmodo regularly has a set of shooting challenges. The most recently posted results concern shooting a night, but an exposure long enough that the result is bright enough to be mistaken at first glance as daylight. The result tends toward pastel colors and dreamy motion blur of objects like the sea and clouds. I’ve been having a lot of fun taking advantage of the Camera Raw dialog to tease more out of photos shot with my 5D (which seems to have a couple of stops of latitude - a lovely sensor resides inside that body), but this opens a whole new area to explore.

Fresh Snow on a Seedling

Here in the East Mountains of New Mexico, a pair of winter storms are rolling in. Fitful flurries were followed by miniature styrofoam pellets were followed by real snow, which is now accumulating on any horizontal perch in the perfect still. As dusk was falling, I noticed one of our new seedlings in the courtyard was accumulating snow on its thin branches, so I ran outside quickly with the 5D and snapped some pictures. This was the best (before I started getting too wet); I took several shots until I was happy with the framing of the foreground versus the background. When shooting in show, it’s hard to find contrast; I kept moving around until I was happy with what the dark rock was doing as a backdrop, and made sure the aspen on the left and red rock on the right framed rather than distracted from the foreground.

Avian Aspirations

The primary reason I agreed to write this Hybrid Artist blog was to share information about using photographs as the basis for creating collages as well as other forms of abstracted art. In that vein, here is a quick blow-by-blow for the latest piece I finished: Avian Aspirations.

Page 2 of 4 pages  <  1 2 3 4 >