Baublicious: September 2011

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Editing my Photos for Print and the Web

My favorite image editors are Photoshop and Acorn. At $49, Acorn is one of the best software values I know. Developed by Flying Meat Software, Acorn has all of the functionality I need to edit my photos for both print and web, but is unfortunately only available for the Mac. My old version of Photoshop (CS2) is licensed for Windows. We're a mixed computer family, with both Mac and Windows, so I still use both. But I use Acorn more and more instead of Photoshop and all of the screenshots in this post will be from Acorn.

Editing Tools
I use relatively few tools to prep my images in the theory that simpler is usually better. Here's my general 'toolbox':

A) Mediocre photo B) rotate 1.5 degrees, crop C) auto levels, remove smudge

Image Size - At 14 megapixels, my pictures are typically much larger than I need, so my first step is usually to resize them to a more workable file size with enough extra to give me working room for cropping and such.
Rotate - My photos are often a degree or so out of plumb. Free Rotate fixes that in a jiffy, though I then need to crop the photo a little to get rid of the edges. And of course, no one likes a sideways image, hence rotate 90 degrees.
Crop -There are two ways to use crop.

Use a selection tool to outline the area you want to keep, then select crop from the pull down menu.


Using Rectangle Selection Tool to define crop area

Use the crop dialog box to specify both the pixel height and width. I use this in the final crop when working with print media, when I want my image to be a particular size (2 inches high by 3 inches wide translates to 600 x 900dpi at 300dpi for print media). Once I've typed in what I want, I can move the selection window around until I have just the right focus. With Photoshop, you can also do this with Canvas Size.


Using the crop dialog box to further refine the crop


Final, cropped photo - no other editing

Levels If my original is just a little too dark, or the image appears a little washed out, levels can often help.

Try Auto Levels first - if it improves the look of the photo great, if it doesn't hit 'undo'. Then try the Levels dialog box. If the graph is flat at either end, adjust the sliders to eliminate that space, watch how it changes the image.


Using the levels dialog box


Cropped and leveled photo - still dark, but better (difficult white background)

Sharpen - Use this tool very, very sparingly! It can be tempting to go overboard here to correct blurry photos. the final result will look flat, like an over-exposed cardboard looking image if you go too far.

A) original slightly blurry, B) sharpened once, C) too far

Adjust Colors - This is another tool that can be extremely useful for minor adjustments, but which should be used with caution. Remember that everyone's computer monitor (including yours) sees color slightly differently, so be careful in making adjustments. The safest way I've found to use this tool it to use the photo's background as your focus. Make minor adjustments until the background is the color it should be, then look at your jewelry and see if it looks better too. If not, discard your changes.

Saving My Edits

File Formats, JPGs and DPI Most point-&-shoot cameras save their images as JPGs. These days, JPGs work well for both print media and the web so there's seldom a need to convert your photos into alternate formats. However, you do need to take some care in saving your jpgs if you want to maintain your photos' quality.

JPG is a Lossy File Format. What this means is that each time you save a jpg, its compression routine throws out 'extraneous' data in order to achieve the smallest possible file size. If you save the image several times, even without making any changes, the image can degrade visibly, especially if you save it at a higher compression rate (low quality). Get around this by:

Always working from your original image file.
Use "Save As" or "Export for Web" and save a copy of your edited photo instead of simply hitting "Save".
If I need to make additional edits after you've saved your copy, return to the original file.
If you think you're going to need to make a lot of changes, with saves in between, save a copy using the native file format of the image editor you are using. This format (.psd for photoshop, .acorn for Acorn) will not compress the file and no data will be lost, but you will need to remember to do a save as later and change the file format back to .jpg before you can use it on the web or in most print media.

DPI stands for "dots per inch". Your computer monitor projects 72 dpi, so if you're saving your image for the web, you don't need any more. In comparison, quality printing is 300dpi or higher, depending upon the printer. So if you want to use the same image in both media, you'll need to save two copies, each at the appropriate dpi.

Tracking photos for Freeform Peyote Beading

Tracking your Photos. When saving your photos, come up with an easy to remember filing system to quickly find and differentiate both your original images and your edits. It's a sinking feeling when you realize you've just saved your only copy of your original photo as a 100 x 100dpi thumbnail.

For my book, I put together a spreadsheet to track my photos. Originally intended to pair raw with edited photos in case I needed to make further edits, the spreadsheet also became useful in page layout - helping me keep track of my required dimensions when searching for just the right photo. While it's not necessary for smaller projects, it was a huge time saver during the later stages of the book production as I worked to massage the page layouts into shape.

What Image Editors Do You Use?
I'll admit to being curious as to what image editors other people use, especially editors with a more reasonable price point, like Acorn. Feel free to leave a comment and share.

Monday, September 26, 2011

WOW Week

In line for Splash Mountain

{Bead Soup Reveal}

Just got back from a WOW (women's only week) trip to Disney World in Florida. My co-conspirators on this trip included my Mom, Lynnie (my mother-in-law) and my Aunt Pat. It was an absolute blast!

We live scattered around the country - Seattle, southern Oregon, central and eastern Missouri - so we don't manage to get together nearly as often as I'd like. But for a week we had a chance to laugh, play, swim, talk and simply enjoy each others' company.

Hanging out at Animal Kingdom

Even better, neither Lynnie, nor Aunt Pat had visited the parks before. They proudly wore their 1st Timer buttons through the week and I've discovered it's just as much fun to take adult first-timers as it is kids. Everything was new. Despite the heat (I am sooo a Seattle heat wimp!) we explored all four parks and even did a Segway Tour of Epcot.

I took very few photos while there and am hoping Aunt Pat will share hers, but here are a few oddities I snapped with my phone.


Scale replicas of the Terracotta Army in Epcot's China

The only downside? I'd brought my Ipad intending to continue blog hopping through the Bead Soup Challenge, but the rooms at our resort didn't have wireless, only Ethernet. And my Epad doesn't have an Ethernet port. So I was stuck web surfing on my phone. I've still managed to visit over fifty blogs so far, but I promise I'm still surfing! And my pace should pick up dramatically now.

Also have plans to finish up my Bead Soup piece and a post about editing photos using Photoshop Elements and Acorn (a fabulous image editing software package for the Mac) this week. We'll see how that goes....

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Photographing my Bead Work

Macro photo from Freeform Peyote Beading

While I won't claim to be a photography expert, I have learned a fair bit about successfully photographing my beaded jewelry over the course of my book project and thought I'd share some of what I've learned.

First, all of my photos are taken with digital point-and-shoot cameras. I like the simplicity of the point-and-shoot, and get great results because I know my cameras' eccentricities and strengths.

A good macro setting is absolutely essential to focus clearly on the detail that makes each piece unique. The standard focal length doesn't allow for these closeup shots. A warning: not all camera's macros are created equal.

Macro focuses at center of photo - yuck!

After destroying my first camera in a photo shoot (knocking it off a table will do that), I worked with a borrowed camera for several months. While truly grateful for the loan, the camera and I went numerous rounds because its macros focus was fixed at the center of the field of view. This pretty much limited me to straight on shots, though I learned to work around it. Frustrating! This is not what you want!

When I finally bought a new camera, I made sure its macro focused on the closest object to the lens. This gives so much more flexibility in photo layout! After researching Olympus' Stylus Tough online, I visited a local store to give it a test drive, even bring a couple of pieces of jewelry along for the test. Its dual image stabilization also helps keep my macros in focus, since I often work without a tripod.


Macro's focus is at the front of the field, on the beaded bead. Much better!

I like the focus here, but the background is too detailed, and distracts from the piece. Which brings me neatly to my next topic:

Backgrounds and Lighting

Solid white, multi-colored & soft stone backgrounds

I tried to separate these two, but they're heavily intertwined. Like most photographers, I prefer bright natural, indirect lighting for my work. The key here is to illuminate the work (bright), minimize shadows (indirect lighting) and maintain the true color palette (natural lighting).

In my studio, this generally translates to a well-lit table near, but not directly next to the windows. Early morning light, right around sunrise, is my favorite if I'm working outdoors. The air is bright, but the light is still difused and shadows are almost nonexistent. I take any pictures where I want a stone background then, and will even set my alarm if necessary so that I don't miss my chance.

With point and shoot cameras, I've learned to avoid solid white backgrounds like the plague. The cameras simply can't adjust to the brightness and contrast. Most often the background takes on a yellow tint and the work is too dark to make out details. Using the exact same lighting conditions, I get far better results with darker, more light absorbent backgrounds. My favorites include my grey beading cloth, black felt, the rough wood of my studio floor and the patio stones just outside my front door.

Same piece, two different backgrounds

With the darker backgrounds, both colors and details tend to show up more clearly. But by darker, I don't necessarily mean black - simply not white.

This also works well with color theory - lighter, brighter objects will appear to advance (into the foreground) in relations to darker, duller objects which recede into the background.

Take Lots of Photos
Take lots of photos, from lots of angles, on multiple backgrounds. If one picture is good, three or four are likely better - its digital, so you don't have to worry about film. Take multiple shots from each angle; this increases your chance of getting the perfectly focused shot. Then think of how else you might photograph the same piece. Take lots of detail shots, too.

Painted papers, fabric and stone backgrounds - which works best? (No editing)

Oh, and be careful with props. Remember their purpose is to enhance and showcase your piece, not take center stage themselves. This goes for models too - their hair style, makeup, clothing shouldn't distract from your jewelry. If it does, fix it. Be aware of your audience. Blog photos can be a lot more fun, with more interesting backgrounds, than you would want to use in a photograph to be considered for a juried show.

And remember - if you can get -close- to where you want with your camera, then photo editing software can often take you the rest of the way. I use Acorn for the Mac and Photoshop for the PC and will review both with my most used features in another post.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

A Little Underdone

With a little clever photography, I could claim that my Bead Soup piece is complete, combining right angle weave 'links' with the lovely sea glass bezels and fused glass focal created by my fabulous swap partner Kimberly Roberts. I definitely finished enough to get a feel for the final piece.

But the truth of the matter is, it's not yet done. Late arrivals of my soup mix due to hurricane Irene, unexpected time requirements in my other work and design challenges all left me really running behind on this one. If it hadn't been for the need to follow through to show Kimberly's pieces, I might have thrown in the towel.

My orginal thought was a solid freeform peyote collar

The large, square, transparent glass focal was a real challenge for me. The shape didn't lend itself to my more organic stitching, and I wrestled with the issue of transparency - do I bead behind it or do I let it stand alone? I considered creating a solid freeform peyote collar, with beading behind to provide a backdrop for the focal, but it just didn't feel right. Too heavy and solid for the focal bead.

Stitching the right angle weave closed around the wire

I finally decided to echo the open feel and shape of the focal with my right angle weave links. Each link is stitched around a 20 gauge wire core to give it strength and stability. I taped the ends with acid-free artists' tape and then painted the tape with a little acrylic to help it blend (the white tape would have shown through the bead work).

For each link I worked three rows of right angle weave the length of the circumference, like a long narrow ribbon. And then I'd lace it closed around the wire, pinching it into shape as I went.

I'd originally thought I'd use the sea glass bezels in a separate piece, but when I laid them out amongst the links they looked right, so they were added in as well. When the piece is complete, the links will graduate smaller around the neck.

So now check out the other Bead Soup participants' work:

The Hostess, Lori Anderson and her partner, Manuela Wutschke