CAGD 112
Final ePortfolio Post
May 11th, 2018
Hyper-realism (Compositing)
Original Images
The objective of the Hyper-realism assignment was to learn how to use all of the techniques that we have learned throughout the year to create a composite photo of multiple images, resulting in an "impossible photo".
The intended composition of my scene that I was creating was meant to capture a couple of things:
a) Miniature people
b) The illusion of Dylan floating away attached to a bunch of balloons
c) Shawn and Joe attempting to get Dylan back
d) A sort of realistic (well, as realistic as you could try to make it) render of the illusion
The focal point of the image was meant to be the people in the image. I wanted the scene to be based around the people in the photo in the hopes that the viewer of the image might chuckle a little bit at the notion of a tiny person flying away when attached to a group of balloons. I thought that the concept was not only humorous, but also just enough unreal to be real...if that makes any sense at all. I think that I successfully drew the viewer's eye to the main point of the image because they are the thing that contrasts with the background so well and the background of the image isn't so much that it takes away from what they are meant to see. Additionally, there is a nice shallow depth of field so the parts of the image that are in focus are that much more noticeable.
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| Final Image |
When it came to complications with this photo, there were a nice heaping handful of them. First of all, when the photo was taken at one time of day, the background at least, it meant that the other photos used in the image had to be taken at that same time of day. The reason for that was the lighting in the image. Then, when one of the images did not work, it was up to the magic of Photoshop to make up for the lost and inconsistent lighting. Then, post-processing was another bear. Not only were the selection tools in Photoshop a little bit tricky to manage, but then it was about making the image look (if you could) a little bit more believable. The hardest part was the sharpness of the subjects. Due to the fact that you cut the subjects out of other photos, the blur and the focus would be too inconsistent across the board. Then, because you are digitally inserting things into this scene, it was up to the power of the brush to create the shadows that were needed on the surface.
In the realm of post-processing, I think the question should not be what was done, but what wasn't done. First of all, the selections of the photos were taken to place the subjects into the scene that was taken. Then, lots of adjustments had to be made to the specific subjects' selections so that the lighting would attempt to be consistent throughout the image. A minor change that had to be made was to flip the perspective of the two guys on the ledge because it worked much better that way, but also so that Dylan could fly away into the sky and not into the wall. After that, it was up to the good ol' friends dodge and burn to make the shadows and lighting a little more believable in the scene. The ledge was burned so that there was a shadow cast by Shawn and Joe and sides and fronts of the people were dodged to make it seem as though the sun was hitting them. Once that had all gotten into place, it was time for the blur. You did not want so much blur that it would take away from the image, but you also had to have enough that that the subjects did not look too sharp. After various adjustments and flattening, the photo was finally ready.
At the end of the day, this project was a little bit tricky, but it was well worth all the struggles because it was a fun one to put together. Not only did it put to practice everything that we have learned throughout the year, but it also taught us some new tricks and had us put those to practice. I can successfully say that I know how to make an "impossible photo".
The objective of the Portrait Assignment was to take a series of photos of human subjects and then use post processing techniques within Photoshop to enhance the photos to make them more visually appealing (also without making the image look too processed and fake).
The basic components of the photo that I was trying to capture were:
a) The human subject as the focal point of the image
b) An interesting view point in the photo
c) Nice, soft lighting on the subject as not to over-expose/light the subject in a visually harming way
As I mentioned above, the focal point of the image that I was trying to capture was the subject's face. When I was taking the photo, I was using a reference image that I liked that was taken of one of my favorite bands.
When I saw this image, I really liked the point of view that the image was at. I liked how the band was looking up as not to get any of the disliked "double chin" that is found sometimes in photos of humans and it also captured the full body of the subject. Then, when I found the right vantage point to take the photo, I knew it was an opportunity that I had to take. Considering this assignment was all about the portrait and the human, I figured it was most important to make the subject the focal point of the image.
I would like to think that I successfully guided the viewer's eye to the focal point of the image because of the fact that it is in the middle of the photo, but also because there isn't anything that is really distracting in the background and additionally, the post-processing techniques that I used help to enhance, brighten, and make the face of the subject that much more appealing.
The biggest challenge for me in this photo was probably the vantage point. My favorite part of this image is the fact that it really took itself. I was with a couple of other people during the shoot so I had them make him laugh and in that split second of a candid moment, I was able to take the shot. It was to my benefit that the lighting in that particular spot also happened to be pretty nice. The vantage point was really the biggest thing. I am, for lack of a better term, vertically challenged and mu subject was rather tall. Due to the fact that I took this photo on a staircase and not a cherry picker, or something that allows for a flat angle, I had to make sure that I shot the picture straight and not at an angle.
The post-processing part of the image was also a hard part. When I initially brought the image into Photoshop, I was amazed at the quality of the photo. Not only did the face of the subject not really have any issues, but the surroundings were also pretty complementary to the subject. It was hard to identify things that could be fixed. I ended up making the image around the subject a little bit brighter and used some burning to enhance the vignette around the focal point. The only other big change that I did was remove the dark circles underneath the subject's eyes.
Overall, I believe that I was able to capture a visually appealing image and a nice portrait. Through this project I was able to learn more about what makes for a good photo of an individual, get practice at capturing character, and learn how to use Photoshop to enhance (rather than alter).
1) natural lighting
2) side lighting (made by artificial light)
3) lighting created by artificial lighting
4) silhouette lighting
The intended composition of this was to get a candid shot of my friend Dylan here...well, this is the captured moment of me failing to get that candid shot of Dylan. However, with this shot, I did get a back lighting effect on Dylan from the sun and a couple sun flare/spots. With this particular lighting situation, it was interesting because you cannot just move the sun. Unlike an artificial light where you can pick it up and move it to better suit your subject, you have to completely move your subject and/or the angle in which you shoot from. If that still doesn't work, well, it may be the wrong time of day to shoot as well. This particular time of day is supposed to be one of the best times to shoot, but I did have a slight issue when trying to get the light to positively affect my image. My biggest problem was trying to get the aperture and the shutter speed in balance. I wanted to have a nice wide aperture to get a shallow depth of field, but at the same time, I also wanted to make sure I did not blow out the sky. I did have a little bit of an issue with the blown out sky, but the problem on top of that was that I still wanted to be able to see Dylan's face. While this photo is not one of the greatest that I have taken, I liked certain components of it like the sun spots, the way that the light illuminated Dylan's back, and angle at which Dylan was oriented in relationship to the camera.
I thought that the artificial lighting photo was a problem, but then we ran into a whole new beast: silhouette lighting. For silhouettes, my main area of composition was meant to capture the shape of Becca. Now I know that sounds a little funky, but hear me out. Since you cannot see the face of the subject in a silhouette, it is all about the way that they pose that makes all the difference. Thus, I thought I would capture a little bit of innocence in this photo with the shape of a heart that Becca could create with her hands. The biggest problem with this photo was the light. I know that seems to be the common denominator in all these situations, but in this case, you really had to get the lighting to be correct. We took this photo probably twenty times before we finally got it the way that we wanted it. The first issue was making sure that the light didn't show because if it did, it would create a large hotspot in the photo that shifted the subject matter to that instead, issue number two was making sure not to illuminate any of the elements around her (as we did not really work out of a studio), and issue number three was making sure we got the exposure correct: too fast the photo would be too dark and too slow would have too much illumination on the foreground. Once we got all these things in balance, we ended up getting the shot that we worked for.
Portrait
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| Original Image |
The objective of the Portrait Assignment was to take a series of photos of human subjects and then use post processing techniques within Photoshop to enhance the photos to make them more visually appealing (also without making the image look too processed and fake).
The basic components of the photo that I was trying to capture were:
a) The human subject as the focal point of the image
b) An interesting view point in the photo
c) Nice, soft lighting on the subject as not to over-expose/light the subject in a visually harming way
As I mentioned above, the focal point of the image that I was trying to capture was the subject's face. When I was taking the photo, I was using a reference image that I liked that was taken of one of my favorite bands.
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| AJR - Reference Image From Instagram - @ajrbrothers |
When I saw this image, I really liked the point of view that the image was at. I liked how the band was looking up as not to get any of the disliked "double chin" that is found sometimes in photos of humans and it also captured the full body of the subject. Then, when I found the right vantage point to take the photo, I knew it was an opportunity that I had to take. Considering this assignment was all about the portrait and the human, I figured it was most important to make the subject the focal point of the image.
I would like to think that I successfully guided the viewer's eye to the focal point of the image because of the fact that it is in the middle of the photo, but also because there isn't anything that is really distracting in the background and additionally, the post-processing techniques that I used help to enhance, brighten, and make the face of the subject that much more appealing.
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| Final Image |
The biggest challenge for me in this photo was probably the vantage point. My favorite part of this image is the fact that it really took itself. I was with a couple of other people during the shoot so I had them make him laugh and in that split second of a candid moment, I was able to take the shot. It was to my benefit that the lighting in that particular spot also happened to be pretty nice. The vantage point was really the biggest thing. I am, for lack of a better term, vertically challenged and mu subject was rather tall. Due to the fact that I took this photo on a staircase and not a cherry picker, or something that allows for a flat angle, I had to make sure that I shot the picture straight and not at an angle.
The post-processing part of the image was also a hard part. When I initially brought the image into Photoshop, I was amazed at the quality of the photo. Not only did the face of the subject not really have any issues, but the surroundings were also pretty complementary to the subject. It was hard to identify things that could be fixed. I ended up making the image around the subject a little bit brighter and used some burning to enhance the vignette around the focal point. The only other big change that I did was remove the dark circles underneath the subject's eyes.
Overall, I believe that I was able to capture a visually appealing image and a nice portrait. Through this project I was able to learn more about what makes for a good photo of an individual, get practice at capturing character, and learn how to use Photoshop to enhance (rather than alter).
Portrait Lighting
The purpose of this assignment was to try out different portrait lighting techniques that could also be applied to our Portrait Project. Alongside a black and white filter, the four techniques that were to be utilized in this lab were:1) natural lighting
2) side lighting (made by artificial light)
3) lighting created by artificial lighting
4) silhouette lighting
Natural Lighting
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| f/8.0 , 1/60 sec , ISO 100 |
The intended composition of this was to get a candid shot of my friend Dylan here...well, this is the captured moment of me failing to get that candid shot of Dylan. However, with this shot, I did get a back lighting effect on Dylan from the sun and a couple sun flare/spots. With this particular lighting situation, it was interesting because you cannot just move the sun. Unlike an artificial light where you can pick it up and move it to better suit your subject, you have to completely move your subject and/or the angle in which you shoot from. If that still doesn't work, well, it may be the wrong time of day to shoot as well. This particular time of day is supposed to be one of the best times to shoot, but I did have a slight issue when trying to get the light to positively affect my image. My biggest problem was trying to get the aperture and the shutter speed in balance. I wanted to have a nice wide aperture to get a shallow depth of field, but at the same time, I also wanted to make sure I did not blow out the sky. I did have a little bit of an issue with the blown out sky, but the problem on top of that was that I still wanted to be able to see Dylan's face. While this photo is not one of the greatest that I have taken, I liked certain components of it like the sun spots, the way that the light illuminated Dylan's back, and angle at which Dylan was oriented in relationship to the camera.
Side Lighting
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| f/5.3 , 0.5 sec , ISO 100 |
The intended composition of the shot was my lovely friend, Becca. With the side lighting, I was able to give the photo more of a dramatic feel. What I wanted to do was focus the image on her face and I know from previous experience with black and white images that the eye will travel to the brightest point of the image because it is all about contrast. It was to my luck that when I asked her to be my model, she decided to wear all black and that the wall that I had available to me was stark white, allowing for a perfect contrast between my two elements. Then, with the help of the lighting, I was able to highlight her face and make that the focus of the photo. One of the biggest issues with this photo that I had was getting the light to hit her face just right. We were not allowed to use any kind of natural lighting so I waited until dark to get the kind of shot that I wanted but the issue here was that any kind of lighting that I had was put in place by myself. After a little bit of noodling with the light itself and asking Becca to turn her face a little bit, I was able to capture the shot that I wanted.
Artificial Light
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| f/5.0 , 0.5 sec , ISO 100 |
This photo was genuinely a struggle. My intended composition, again, was Becca, but this time I wanted to get her in relationship with another subject matter: the lights. I was able to use the same kind of key light that I used in the side lighting image and the added fill light was the light that was given off by the string lights...which found to be most problematic. As you could guess from my presented frustration in the last few sentences, the hardest thing to work with was that string of lights. I was able to get the key light in the right place that it would add an ambiance and not change the effect of the lights in any way, but the string lights made for multiple areas that were illuminated. The first struggle was getting them to not light Becca in a bad or unflattering way and then problem two was getting them to add a sort of (for lack of a better term) narrative to the image. We started with them all balled up in her hands and then out in front of her, but it was not until we finally lay them around her neck, draped them to her side, and had her hold them that we got the image that we really wanted to capture.
Silhouette Lighting
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| f/5.0 , 1/10 sec , ISO 100 |
I thought that the artificial lighting photo was a problem, but then we ran into a whole new beast: silhouette lighting. For silhouettes, my main area of composition was meant to capture the shape of Becca. Now I know that sounds a little funky, but hear me out. Since you cannot see the face of the subject in a silhouette, it is all about the way that they pose that makes all the difference. Thus, I thought I would capture a little bit of innocence in this photo with the shape of a heart that Becca could create with her hands. The biggest problem with this photo was the light. I know that seems to be the common denominator in all these situations, but in this case, you really had to get the lighting to be correct. We took this photo probably twenty times before we finally got it the way that we wanted it. The first issue was making sure that the light didn't show because if it did, it would create a large hotspot in the photo that shifted the subject matter to that instead, issue number two was making sure not to illuminate any of the elements around her (as we did not really work out of a studio), and issue number three was making sure we got the exposure correct: too fast the photo would be too dark and too slow would have too much illumination on the foreground. Once we got all these things in balance, we ended up getting the shot that we worked for.
HDRI
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| Original Image (Combination/Stacking of the 5 photos shown above) |
The purpose of this assignment was to understand the benefits of taking an HDRI image as well as exploring and playing with the toning tool that becomes available with taking an HDRI image.
The intended composition of the image that I was trying to capture was a little bit of a "photo within a photo" kind of thing. I wanted to get the glass in the shot, but I thought it would be interesting to almost see what the glass sees, as if it was something that was personified. Additionally, some of the main components that I intended to capture in the image were:
a) A shallow depth of field with the background
b) Contrasting colors with the glass and the trees
c) A bokeh effect
The focal point of the image that I wanted to capture was the phone and the picture that was on the phone. Like I said above, I really liked the idea of having that "picture within a picture" idea. I wanted to make something that was visually compelling that seemed to give the viewer a "hmmm" kind of thing. Though it does not really look like I was able to capture the screen as the focal point of the image in the original photo, I promise that it gets better when we get into toning...
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| Toning (Layered on top of the original HDRI image) |
Based on this photo, I really think that I drew the viewer's eye to the intended focal point of the image. With some dodging and burning, curves adjustments, and hue and saturation adjustments, I was able to bring forward the screen and brighten it up in the image a little bit.
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| Final Image |
When I took this photo, there were quite a few issues that I had. First of all was the lighting. When it came to where the sun was at that time of day, let's just say that it was not in a desirable location. I tried to change the angle multiple times, but it was not until this shot that I felt like it was kind of okay. Another issue that I had was with the lighting between the phone and the background. If the lighting was just right for the foreground, then it was not right for the background. If it was just right for the background, then it was not right for the foreground.
Overall, however, the image was nothing that could not be fixed in Photoshop. I talked before about how I was able to use dodging and burning as well as some photo adjustments, but on top of that, there was the toning that also helped to brighten and strengthen the colors of the image. With the toning, I was able to help refine certain areas and saturate the colors a little bit more. I liked the image that I ended up with and, overall, it helped me put to use the toning tool in a beneficial way.
Mid-Term ePortfolio Post
April 6th, 2018
Panorama
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| Original Image |
In the panorama that I took, the intended composition was meant to capture:a) The colors of Main Street in the sunset time of day, seeing the light both artificial and naturalb) The leading lines of the street to highlight the castlec) The castle being the focal point of the image
The focal point of my image was meant to be the castle that you see at the end of Main Street and I chose this to be the focal point not only because it was the most visually compelling, but also because I wanted to give the viewer the visual experience of what it would be like to walk down Main Street; the view that you would get to see. I would have liked to add the people in the image to make the experience more authentic but since this was a compiling of multiple images, it is very hard to get the thousands of people walking down Main Street in the Magic Kingdom to stop walking and freeze in the location they are in.
I would like to think that I drew the viewer's eye to the intended focal point of the image because in my final image, I made sure to highlight the castle a little bit more with post-processing techniques and I also utilized the natural leading lines in the scene. Additionally, though the focal point is not always in the center of an image, in this case, that works in my favor because all the lines are leading the viewer right to that point (okay, maybe it is slightly off center, but you get it).
The biggest complication that I ran into when I was going about this image was the lighting. That tends to be the problem a lot, but in this case, it was for the fact that there was still some light in the sky, but the buildings covered up the influence of the natural light and overshadowed it with artificial light. Then, on top of that, the castle at the very end was only influenced by the natural light, making the portions of the front of the image look brighter. The sky in turn looked very off with the combination of these two light sources. In order to solve this problem, it took a lot of post-processing. The only other issue that I had with this photo was the people that kept moving around, causing a problem when the photos needed to be stitched together. The best part about that problem was that I could just crop the majority of them out.
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| Final Image |
When I put this image into Photoshop, the first thing that I did was what you should do when making a Panoramic photo...stitch and blend the photos together by applying a layer mask to each of the original photos. After that, I used some of the curves adjustments to fix the lighting problems that I was having with the natural light vs. artificial light battle. Since the castle was the main point of the image, I dodged that to make it a little brighter (also to make it look like it caught more of the natural light from the sunset) and I burned some of the areas in the foreground of the image to make the castle a little bit more of the brightest point in the image. To pull out more of the interesting colors, I also went in and boosted the saturation of the overall image and of certain areas as well to make it more visually appealing. I feel that all of these components then worked together to make a panoramic photo that looked like it was one photo taken instead of multiple singular photos.
At the end of the day, this assignment was a very educational one. Before now, I only knew how to take a panoramic photo by using the setting on my phone labeled "Panorama". Though it was a little bit of a time consuming assignment for all the post-processing that had to be done, it was very informative for all the post-processing that had to be done. I know now how to utilize layer masks, stitch photos together, and make a successful panoramic photo "manually".
At the end of the day, this assignment was a very educational one. Before now, I only knew how to take a panoramic photo by using the setting on my phone labeled "Panorama". Though it was a little bit of a time consuming assignment for all the post-processing that had to be done, it was very informative for all the post-processing that had to be done. I know now how to utilize layer masks, stitch photos together, and make a successful panoramic photo "manually".
Things
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| Original Image |
The objective of the "Things" assignment was to create a very shallow depth of field in an image and center the focus around one object in the frame. In this assignment, you could choose to utilize black and white filters or enhance the image by using the colors captured.
In my image, the intended compositional components that I was trying to capture where:
a) A shallow depth of field with the book and the heart created by the pages being the main subject
b) The direction of all the "lines" in the photo leading to the main subject
c) A slight emphasis on the subject by using the "on the edge" technique
The focal point of the image that I intended to capture was the heart shape that is created by the pages of the book. Whether I somehow did it on purpose or not, it was interpreted by some people that viewed it as a metaphor or a message of the love that people have of books. Where I did not mean to do that at the time, it was still something that could be seen as a reason for having that be the focal point. The way that I looked at it when I took the shot was that it was not something that could naturally be found, but something that was staged and that it gave a 2D component to a 3D image, giving the viewer something interesting to look at based on illusion.
I believe that I successfully drew the viewer's eye to the focal point because of the shallow depth of field that was used and centered around the main subject I was trying to obtain. Additionally, there are not any straight lines in the photo, but the lines that are present, whether from the bookmark or the pages of the book, lead the viewer's eye to the heart that is in the image.
My biggest problem when I was taking this photo was the lighting. I took the photo inside and at night time so the only lighting that was available to me was the artificial lighting that I had. Due to this factor, that is half the reason that the final image that I created (seen below) has an added black and white filter. With the black and white, I was able to not have the distinguishing color that unnatural light adds to photos but still have the effect that light gives off. Another problem that I encountered when taking this photo was the framing of the subject. I took this photo multiple times because I had initially put the heart in the center and it didn't look right. Then I made it most of the frame and that looked a little overbearing. I finally decided on this photo because I felt the "on the edge" technique captured the aesthetic that I wanted.
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| Final Image |
As I mentioned before, when I put this image into Photoshop, I immediately put a black and white filter on it. I tried to fix it by scaling down the saturation of the bookmark and the cutting board in the back (as they were very bright colors that threw off the focus of the image), but that didn't work out so I felt that the black and white would fix both that and the unnatural color of the artificial lighting. After that, I really wanted to highlight the main point of the image, which was the heart so I used the dodge and burn tools to darken/lighten less important/more important areas. I dodged the heart to make it a little brighter and then burned the bottom of the book to make it a little less apparent, but also to add more depth. I think that all these components together enhanced the image by putting focus on certain parts of the image and getting rid of components that were not aesthetically pleasing.
Overall, this was a very fun assignment to do as I got to play with different objects that I had as well as experiment with different angles and perspective. As far as learning goes, this assignment helped me understand the ideas of a shallow depth of field and how to achieve that as well as what to balance exposure when you have a very open aperture to get the depth of field you desire.
On The Edge
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| Original Image |
The objective of the "On the Edge" assignment was to be able to frame the subject of your image "on the edge" of the frame as well as to utilize black and white to emphasize both contrast and texture within your image.
The basic composition components of the image that I was trying to capture were:
a) The contrast in the different newspaper stands
b) The leading lines that the newspaper stands created
c) The idea of the newspaper stands being, inherently, "on the edge"
d) (if you wanted to read into a metaphor within the image itself) The conceptual idea of the newspaper being an "edgy" topic.
The focal point of the image that I wanted to capture was the different newspaper stands because I wanted to show off the different contrasting values of them. From what we learned in class, black and white photos are all about making sure that there is a lot of contrast present because of the lack of color. Additionally, another element that I wanted to be able to highlight with the newstands is the different textures that they bring out (another important component of the black and white filter in an image). The components around the newstands have a lot of texture in them as well, but since the newstands were the focal point of the image, I used tools in Photoshop to keep them as the main subject of the image, darkening the background and lightening the subject.
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| Final Image |
I like to think that I successfully was able to highlight the subject of the photo by utilizing different tools in Photoshop, as mentioned above. In order to achieve this effect, first I started with a darker gray overlay on the black and white image and then used a soft edge brush and a dark/light wash to darken/lighten the image, respectively. In order to make sure that the highlighted parts and darkened parts were separated, I used a quick mask to select the areas that I wanted to work with and the reverse tool to work on the other areas. The image was, essentially, separated between background and subject.
There were not a lot of complications for me when I was taking this photo as it was shaded nicely by a tree (the photo was shot during the mid-day) and there was a little bit of a cloud cover to block out the direct light of the high noon. There were also not a lot of people around because of the quiet Sunday afternoon in Downtown Chico. Additionally, the newspaper stands were so conveniently all lined up with their contrasting colors that it was natural for me to want to stop and take the photo. The one issue that I would have had, if any, was that I have a problem with holding the camera straight, so it took a couple of tries to get the leading lines and the sidewalk to all look straight in the image (though, that is more of a personal problem than a design problem).
Overall, I believe that this assignment was very useful in order to help put to use the things that I have learned thus far about Black and White Photography, using tools in Photoshop to enhance images, and also just getting out of my room to take photos.
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