Lessfeet » photo

Vertical Verticals

Mark — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 11:32:01 +0000

The one thing that bothers me the about some of my photos and the photos of others is having straight lines that are not parallel to the vertical and horizontal plans. What I mean is vertical lines should be vertical and horizontal lines should be horizontal. The exception to this is converging lines like train tracks. The further away the closer together the lines appear.

You will see many really good photographers shoot buildings from a low position creating a distortion called keystoning. This is sometimes desirable for a dramatic effect but I believe it is used far to often. I will show you an example of this effect and how to eliminate it if you wish, using Photoshop.

Trey Ratcliff of “Stuck In Customs” is a great photographer. Far, far better than I but in this example I felt what I did with his image in Photoshop is more appealing, to my eye. I think Trey was shooting from this very low angle to reduce the amount of the pavement and maximize the amount of the dramatic sky. He was using a very wide 14mm lens. The combination of the wide-angle lens and the tilt of the camera contributed to this exaggerated effect. If you shoot a photo like this and you want it to have a more standard look here’s how you fix it.

[I have the original Photoshop CS so I know at least this version and the versions after that can do this.]

Open the photo in Photoshop. Click “View” and “New Guide”. Guides are just there to help you get your image straight. Create as many guides as you need. I used two for this photo. Drag them to where you need them. Do a “Control A” to select the image. Select the “Move Tool” from the pallet. Click “Edit” and then go to “Transform” and “Skew”. Click the corners and drag out to make alignment adjustments. After you align photo you may have to make other “Transform” adjustments. In this case I did “Free Transform” to make the building taller because the “Skew” adjustment made the church look squat.

I felt too much attention was given to the sky and not much to the church so not only did I straighten it out but I enhanced the definition to the art on the church by adding some contrast using the curves tool. I think that sometime HDR photos seem a little flat.

In my version of Trey’s photo the dramatic clouds are still there but there is a lot more attention to the building. The sides are vertical and the frescos on the building are brighter and show more detail.

Photomatix HDR Basics

Mark — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 10:45:53 +0000

This is an overview of what HDR is and an overview of how to use Photomatix. You can see all free tutorials by checking out Trey Ratcliff’s YouTube channel.

More HDR From Trey

Mark — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 04:24:25 +0000

Here’s one more HDR walk-trough From Trey Ratcliff. This time he’s at the Eiffel Tower showing you how he shot a great photo after sunset.

see all of Trey’s videos at the “Stuck In Customs” YouTube channel.

Trey’s HDR Tutorial

Mark — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 03:53:01 +0000

The fantastic photographer Trey Ratcliff shows you a little about his shooting HDR procedure.

Mostly Photo

Mark — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:22:22 +0000

Mostly Photo is a new podcast from Leo Laporte’s TWiT network all about photography. Mostly Photo will helps everyone take better pictures by teaching you how get the most out of your digital camera, with professional photographer Lisa Bettany and over enthusiastic amateur Leo Laporte, and some of the best photographers from around the world. You can watch Mostly Photo live at 1pm ET on TWiT Live or you can download it from TWiT.

PhotoShop User TV

Mark — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:53:49 +0000

If I was to start over again with graphics software I would not be using Photoshop. It is far to expensive. Hundreds of dollars! I would use the GIMP now. But I got a good deal on Photoshop CS1 a few years ago and watched Photoshop TV now Photoshop User TV. Unless you plan to use CS2 or CS3 I would not bother because these guys are all about promoting the latest product.

RSS Feed: http://www.photoshopusertv.com/?feed=rss2

Photo Repair

Mark — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:25:13 +0000

Here is a recently restored photo that I have been working on. A lot of what was wrong with this photo was not fixed by Photoshop. It was very stained and very dirty. I had to remove the dirt covering the picture first. If you Google cleaning photos it will tell you much better techniques to do this. I was doing this for free so I did not want to spend any money so I used alcohol. I stared in a corner of the photo to see if there was any problems before using it before cleaning the entire photo. After cleaning the picture and scanning it into Photoshop as a color image I then used a “Hue and Saturation adjustment layer” to to take out the yellow cast. I used a second “Hue and Saturation” adjustment layer to adjust the the lightness of the yellow around the wheel area to remove a big yellow blotch. I fixed the contrast and brightness with a “Levels adjustment layer”. Then used the “Clone Stamp Tool” and finally the “Healing Brush Tool” to take out smudges, and scratches. That’s it! More Photoshop tips!

Meet The GIMP

Mark — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:18:58 +0000

The GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) is a free and opensource graphic editing program not unlike Adobe PhotoShop.

The GIMP like PhotoShop can be very difficult to learn. “Meet The GIMP” is a video podcast of GIMP tutorials or lessons. MTG will walk you through the basics of using The GIMP.

I posted about MTG I while back after that I there was a pause and I thought he went off air but he has been posting regularly. Losts of new episodes!

You can click the links on the website to watch the episodes or use the

RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/meetthegimp

Live Photo Gallery

Mark — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:32:57 +0000

Windows Live Photo Gallery is a program included in the new Windows Live Essentials a suite of great products offered free from Microsoft for download. WL Photo Gallery imports all of your photos then you can make adjustments to them. (crop, adjust brightness, color etc.) You can stitch photos together to create great panoramas, tag them and upload them to the internet to share with other online.

Color Calibration Tool

Mark — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:42:20 +0000

One of the great new features of Windows 7 is the “Display Color Calibration Tool.” The “Display Color Calibration Tool” assist you in optimizing your monitor and computer’s display adapter for best viewing. This tool is not as good as using a colorimeter but it seems to be as good as other software solutions like “Adobe Gamma” and unlike a colorimeter it doesn’t cost anything.