Slade Knowledge Base » Digital Photography

Camera settings for night photography

MJC — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:24:55 +0000

Enlargement software for digital images

MJC — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:40:26 +0000

There are a range of Photoshop plugins to assist with enlarging image files.

Attached Mac User article article discussing the most recent versions of these plugins. The conclusion to draw is the type of enlargement software used, really depends on the file you start with. The plugins mentioned make a noticeable difference to enlargement of web-graphics.

Everything you need to know about buying a camera

MJC — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:32:15 +0000

Cameras! It’s almost impossible to get away from cameras nowadays, yet most of us use them with the bare minimum of knowledge required to snap the nearest tweet-worthy scene. That’s not because we don’t care about truly pretty pictures — even casual observers know the difference between good and bad photography — but have you tried to make an educated choice between cameras lately?

Spec sheets are laden with alien terminology like ISO and F numbers, and once you manage to get a grasp of what those mean, you’re still confronted with a spectacular variety of options. To help you navigate your way through this quagmire of excess information, we’ve put together this guide. It’ll enlighten you about which specs are important when, and what cameras are suitable for whom. Sound good? Then read on!

web: http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/2/2663464/camera-buyers-guide

Flextight/Imacon Advanced Black and White Scanning using RGB mode

Sarah — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:29:56 +0000

pdf

How to Retouch Portraits Without Losing Skin Texture with Frequency Separation

MJC — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 12:29:26 +0000

Here’s a great introductory retouching tutorial by photographer Sara Kiesling, who writes,

Basic skin retouching using frequency separation and dodging & burning. I use this process on every photo that I do, and I usually spend about 4-5 minutes on headshots like this (and less time on full body shots when there is obviously less detail in the face). This is not intended to be a high-end retouching tutorial, but techniques that can help people who want to do natural-looking retouching while maintaining most of the natural skin texture!

Frequency separation is a technique that allows you to give skin a smooth-yet-sharp look.

Here’s an explanation by retoucher Ben Secret for his tutorial “Retouch images with frequency separation“:

[Frequency separation is] a technique that enables you to selectively process not only different areas of an image, but also different detail levels. Frequency separation involves creating a high detail (high spatial frequency) layer and a low detail layer from a source image [...] Using this technique enables you to smooth and rework rough and fine details independently, and opens up some very high-quality and non-destructive methods with which to sharpen your images.

Julia Kuzmenko McKim has a great text-based tutorial as well, titled, “Skin Retouching – Frequency Separation Technique.” Her page also includes a number of before-and-after examples that you can switch between by dragging a slider.

You can find the finished version of the photo in Kiesling’s video here.

Imacon Flextight Scanning

Sarah — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:00:57 +0000

pdf Screen shots of all set up menus on Flextight Scanner

pdf Basic Setup for RGB scanning on Flextight Scanner

pdf Advanced Setup for RGB scanning on Flextight Scanner

pdf Automatic Film Holder Setting info – Important!

pdf 16 bit versus 8 bit files

pdf Advanced Setup for B&W scanning on Flextight Scanner

Imacon Scanning Advanced Black and White – greyscale scan

Sarah — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:58:08 +0000

photography_digital_photography_flextight_advanced_b&w_greyscale

Photoshop Blend Modes Explained

MJC — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:00:36 +0000

In this extensive article photographer Robert Thomas explains how blend modes work in Photoshop. He shows how to manipulate blend layers through keyboard shortcuts, as well explains the actual mathematical operations that drives each mode.

Photoshop colour settings for print

MJC — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:44:35 +0000

The attached file are Slade’s recommended colour settings for Photoshop when working to any print output in colour or greyscale.

slade-recommended.csf

Once downloaded, goto Photoshop and from the menu Edit > Color Settings, and use the load button to locate this file. Quit and relaunch Photoshop.

Professional reviews of all digital cameras: Digital Photography Review

MJC — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:45:14 +0000

If you are thinking of buying a new digital camera, make sure to read reviews on Digital Photography Review. Professional and indepth testing and reviews of all digital cameras.

Website: http://www.dpreview.com/

SLR Camera Simulator

MJC — Sat, 14 May 2011 09:28:31 +0000

Want to play around with SLR Camera settings and see how it affects your photo, but without actually using an SLR? Well, you can do just that with the Online SLR Camera Simulator. This simple application allows you to choose the lighting, ISO, shutter speed and aperture. A great tool to teach someone the basics of photography.

Website: http://camerasim.com/camera-simulator.html

Software at UCL Clusters

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:28:50 +0000

There are many applications available at UCL Clusters that would be useful to Slade students, such as Photoshop

It’s worth noting that some Clusters, such as those in UCL Libraries, are open 24 hours at certain times of year.

Full list of software is on this webpage: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/isd/staff/purchasing/software/software_bid/applications