This blog is designed to facilitate the instruction of ART 3000 Digital Photography; a Digital Photography course offered at the University of Toledo in Toledo, OH, USA.
I have changed the paper in the printer. For the remainder of the semester, you will be printing using Epson Enhanced Matte photo paper. This means you will have to set the paper in the printer as well as select the new custom printer profile that I made named RC PHOTO Enhanced Matte.
Screen grabs of the correct settings are below.
I am recommended that you now use the Perceptual rendering rather than Relative Colormetric as it is more appropriate when printing to matte papers.
Lastly, when you select the paper in the Printer Settings, the output resolution will drop to 1440. Set it back to 2880.
Please be sure to triple check all your settings before printing as we are on the verge of running out of paper and ink. Please only print work for class.
I tweaked the write up a tiny bit more. I sent along Kim's image for use on the Nature Center's website and wherever else.
Someone needs to create a Facebook Even page right away and invite everyone....
Nature in the Urban Scene
In this exhibit, photography students
from the University of Toledo explore the ways in which urbanites
experience nature. From feeding the squirrels, to exotic pets, circus
acts, and animal rehabilitation - our love for nature takes many forms
and not all of them are to nature's benefit. This work explores
nature's presence in our man-made environment in an effort to better
understand the sometimes strained relationship between city dwellers and
nature.
Artists:
Casey Becker, Kim Reuther, Eric Broz,
Kayla Dopfer, Hayley Geyer, Andrew Grady, Crystal Hand, Abhisheck Mutha,
Mike Nelson, Emily Pawlicki, Kelsi Roth, Murilo Teldeschi, Tony Wilcox,
Caitlyn Witt, Dee Brown, Emily Pohlman
Curator:
Seder Burns
Artist reception: Saturday
May 4th 12- 5
Work
will hang in a gallery with carpeted walls. 36 linear exhibit feet
comprising 4 walls of 7, 12, 9 and 8 feet with a 9 ft. ceiling. We
frequently double stack exhibit prints.
Work needs to be turned in Wednesday 1st during final exam session.
: all day combo reception for grand re-opening of the
building and the exhibit. There will be light refreshments.
The total number of days between Tuesday, January 8th, 2013 and Thursday, April 18th, 2013 was
100 days. Thus, in a perfect world you would have 100 daily photos.
I
know that a number of you went away for Spring Break. If you were
photographing something that was Toledo location specific, then I
will give you a grace of 7 days. If you fit this criteria, then you
should have 93 photos.
Your daily photos should all be on Flickr. I asked youto
post them to Flickr every week or two. By Thursday, they should all be on
Flickr. If they are not, this will negatively impact your project
grade.
If you haven't kept up on this assignment,
please do not try to pull a fast one and shoot 100 images on a single day
and tell me that one was taken each day. It won't work. I can read the
data from the files. That would constitute academic dishonesty and I
would be required to report it to the university.
I look forward to seeing the resulting videos from your photos!
A few students have requested extra credit opportunities. I am offering three such projects for extra credit.
1. Assemble all your daily photos into a single grid with perfect spacing by setting up a grid. This will require you to do some math to determine the size of the individual image and the final grid image. It wouldn't be adequate to just use the 'pixel shim' method for this. The instructions for this are below.
2. Alternatively or additionally, you could create an additional Multifaceted Personality assemblage. It must be comprised of at least 30 individual images. It must show multiple aspects of that person's personality. It must be of someone other than the person who you photographed for the required 3x3
and 5x5 grid images.
3. Alternatively or additionally, you could create a PhotoSynth of Artomatic 419! Here you can read up and watch videos on how to make one. Note: You have to upload the files using a Windows machine running PhotoSynth. I could install it on a computer in the lab that I installed Windows 7 on using Apple Bootcamp.
How to assemble all your daily photos into a grid with perfect spacing
Now, you are going to take your individual images and combine them into a single image consisting of a grid of portraits. You are going to create the completed grid with adequate resolution and quality to make a print of no less than 16" in the shortest dimension @ 300ppi. Since 16 x 300 pixels = 4800 pixels wide, this would be appropriate resolution for your width.
Before you begin, be sure to have your images fully edited. I suggest you edit them all at once using Adobe Camera Raw. Browse to them all using Bridge. Control click (right click) and select open in Adobe Camera Raw. Edit them all. Save them all into a new folder.
Then open PS. Go to File > Scripts > Image Processor. Re-size all you images to an appropriate size. Be sure save them into a new folder (though I believe by default it will save them into a folder named JPEG assuming you are saving them as JPEGs). In class, I decided I wanted them all to be 2" wide, so each image was 600 pixels wide (300ppi x 2"). I decided to use 1/4" borders between everything. So, each border is 75 pixels.
If you have an assortment of horizontal and vertical images, you have to make a few decisions. One option is to crop them all to the same orientation. If you only have a few, then I suggest you go that route. If it is roughly a 50/50 mix, then I suggest you re-size all your images so that the longest dimension is 600px. Then, layout your grid as though there are 600x600 pixels squares for each image. Then just center your image within that area of the square. That will results in borders that are not uniform in width, but all the images will be equidistant from each other based on their centers (which is to say, it will still look good).
Using Bridge, browse to the folder containing the newly re-sized images. Select them all, then from the main menu go to Tools > Photoshop > Open as Layer Stack. This will open them all up as individual layers in a single image.
Save that image. You can use this as the basis of your animated video (extra credit, plus it is cool).
Re-size your canvas. For this one I set the width to 4800 pixels wide as discussed above. The dimension that you pick for the height isn't that important now as you can add or crop off canvas from the bottom as needed. I suggest you just go with 4800 pixels high to get started. Keep the stacked layers in the top left when you do the re-sizing.
Then go to Image > Canvas Size and set the width to 16".
Turn on the grid. Make sure snap is on. By default, it is marked every 1/4 inch. If that doesn't work for you, then you will have to go into Preferences and change the grid preferences.
Select one of the layers. Move the layers into place and let them snap to the grid. Not the that your layers are stacked. Are they in the right chronological order? I suggest that you order them chronologically. If they were all taken with the same camera, then they should be automatically stacked in the right order. If you use multiple cameras, you will have to sort the layers out before placing each image within the grid.
Keep doing this until you run out of space. Add canvas to the bottom as needed. When you are done, be sure to save a version with layers intact as well as a version with the layers flattened.
To add a background color, just make a new layer at the very bottom of the layer stack and fill it with any color that you want.
I encourage you to keep up on this project. You can always add more canvas to the bottom of your image to add the additional images whenever you have the time.
NOTE: I want you to have space between all your images.
You need to host it on YouTube or Vimeo to get credit for it. Personally, I prefer Vimeo. YouTube may be faster as you probably already have a Google account of some kind and can use that to log into YouTube.
***You can make a higher resolution video if you want. It turns out 640x480 is NOT the standard resolution of older style TVs.
The standard resolution of older style TVs is 768x576. I suggest you make your video 1920x1080 which is referred to as Full HD.
DVD resolution: 720x576 pixels
HD resolution: 1280x720 or 1920x1080 pixels. The HD definition corresponds to the 16:9 format, as per modern TVs (Plasma/LCD).
Blue Vintage filter that I used in the video. NOTE: It downloads as a .rar file and you have to have a program that can uncompress that. 7Zip is a free utility that opens and writes a number of compressed file formats included .rar. It is Windows only. Try RARExpander for Macs. Or just pick a different action that isn't saved as a .rar file!!
3x5 assemblage from Video with action applied
3x5 assemblage from Video without action applied
completed 5x11
complete 5x11 assemblage with selected action applied
A nice series of work by an Italian photographer Maurizio Galimberti. He used Polaroids for these, of course you don't have to use Polaroid film.
For this assignment, you will shoot it digitally and composite the images using an image editing program.
How to shoot such an image:
Decide on the structure of the resulting grid. Suggestions:
7x5
5x7
7x10
Images must have a great deal of overlap.
You will have to be very close to your subject. You must be able to focus closely. Don't get so close that your camera can't focus.
Your depth of field become more shallow the closer you are to your subject. Thus, you should stop down as much as possible (use the smallest aperture that you can get away with) to maximize your depth of field.
Perspective must change a lot between each shot.
Consider if you want your subject to remain in a static pose or not.
Image shot under diffuse lighting if possible (avoid strong shadows on part of the face).
Start with a 3x3 to get a feel for the results. Assemble it.
From there, get increasingly complex. If even one image is blurry, throw it out and make a new one.
How to assemble the images:
Edit all the photos in Camera Raw. Synchronize them so that all the edits are the same.
Save a downsampled copy of all the files as TIFFs into a single folder.
Increase your canvas size. Final image should be at least 5000x5000 pixels.
Move your images into place.
Use a grid or 'pixel shim' to place your images correctly.
Save the multi layered image as a TIFF.
For class, take a 3x3 and quickly assemble it. If that looks like it will be good, then just leave it as it is for completion next class. If it came out poorly, then shoot another 3x3 and try to loosely assemble it just to assess your shooting. Only then move onto the more complex 5x5 (or more) images.
By next class, shoot images for an assemblage of at least 5x5 images. No need to edit them or attempt to assemble them yet. Please spend some time looking at the portraits on the website to which I linked above. I think the 5x7 images look particularly good, but you can go nuts and shoot a 10x10 if you desire.
Next class we will go over how to fully assemble them and spend more time discussing resolution.
I would like you to try to show multiple facets of one's personality in this collaged piece. Consider half of it shot with one hair style, facial expression, clothes, makeup, whatever, and the other half of the images shot with a change of one of more of those elements. You may want to shoot 5x5 of both 'dress ups' and then choose which ones to combine later.
Finally, after much frustration and bad information, I found a nice
and accurate account of how to convert an existing equirectangular
panorama to at stereographic Little Planet projection. Plus, it's very
easy!!
You can use this for any existing equirectangular panorama. This is really handy if you prefer to assemble your equirectangular panoramas using Microsoft's ICE or Photoshop.
All cameras are limited in their ability to capture detail across a wide range of brightness values. The range of brightness values that a camera captures detail in is its dynamic range. In general, most digital cameras have about an 8 stop dynamic range. This is debatable though as it is really governed by how much noise you are willing to put up with. The darkest tones in a digital image are always the noisiest. So, your measure of dynamic range depends on whether or not you want to include the noisiest values recorded. Any case, there are innumerable situations in which the camera is not able to capture detail across the entire range of tones that we would like it to.
A classic example would be trying to take a photo of your living room in which you retain full detail in the scene through the windows and inside the room. Unless you are shooting on a very overcast day and your house is extremely well lit, the contrast of the scene is simply too great for the camera to capture detail throughout. This leads to compromises. You could expose for the windows and lose detail in the room, expose for the room and lose detail in the windows, or split the difference and lose some detail in both. None will result in the image that you really want.
In the past, I would suggest that you take two photos; one exposed for the windows and one exposed for room. You could then mask the two together. Depending on the image, this could take a great deal of time. However, you can get really great results doing this. Another problem with this technique is light spill. I you have some light source creating a gradient of light across the floor or wall, it is very hard to mask that in such a way that it will look natural.
Enter HDR. HDR is an acronym for High Dynamic Range. An HDR file is made by combining the detail from multiple exposures into one 32bit image containing far more information than a single shot could. Basically, you take the same photo multiple times while varying the exposure between each shot. This insures that you have data over a larger range than you could capture with a single shot.
This expanded range of tones contained in an HDR file is then mapped down to a range that you can work with in your image editor. I would suggest you tone map it down to a 16 bit per channel image.
How to shoot a scene to be combined into an HDR image
Let me begin by saying that this technique is only applicable to a scene of high contrast such as your living room during the day. Other examples would be a scene with containing deep shadows and open sunlight. HDR imaging also lends itself to the night photography very well as it allows you to retain detail in those areas that are not directly lit.
How do you know if the scene is high enough in contrast to warrant HDR techniques? If you have significant data climbing the left side of the histogram when you properly place your highlights as far to the right wall as possible without touching, then you should consider HDR techniques.
I you should begin by determining your initial exposure for the highlights that you wish to maintain detail in. Then change your shutter speed to allow in one stop more light. Repeat this until you are certain that you have captured all the detail in the shadows that you wish to maintain. Basically, the last histogram should show a ton of data climbing the right wall and nothing should be on the left wall. In fact, you should have a sizeable gap between the left wall and where the data begins. This will insure that the darkest areas of the image are recorded with ample light and will have little or no noise in the resulting combined image. I would suggest at least 5 shots. I think I have done up to 10. It can't hurt you to take too many. You can always clip some unwanted data when you tone map the HDR image down.
Here is a really great video on exposing for HDR by the makers of HDR Expose.
HDR photography is an advanced technique and accordingly requires good technique.
Things to keep in mind when shooting your images:
●You need to use a tripod. I have taken images without a tripod and then tried to combine them into a HDR image using multiple different programs with no success.
●You should set your white balance manually so that it doesn’t change between shots. I suggest you use the daylight setting when shooting at night. This insures that the funky colors of lights are recording as funky colors.
●Focus once and then don’t refocus. If you don’t have the best vision, you can always allow auto focus to determine the focus for the first image and then turn if off. If you are using a compact digital camera that doesn’t allow you to manual focus, then just be sure that it achieves focus at the same distance each time.
●Capture RAW files if your camera supports them. If not, capture using the highest quality JPEG option.
●Use a remote release or self timer to trigger your camera. If you shake your camera when pressing the shutter release button, then you risk blurry images and images that don’t register correctly.
●Use a lenshood to reduce the chance of lens flare
●Turn on your camera long exposure noise reduction feature. You are likely going to end up with some longer exposure times. This feature helps keep your images as noise free as possible
●Use manual exposure mode. You will need to change your shutter speed rather than your aperture for each shot. Manual mode will allow you to do this. If you want to try this with a compact camera that lacks manual exposure capability, then you have to use exposure compensation to vary your exposures. This should still work fine even if it changes the aperture as compact cameras always have great depth of field due to their small sensor and optical system.
●Use your lowest ISO. Since this technique requires that you take multiple exposures, it really lends itself to non-moving subject. Thus, the long shutter speeds necessitated by using a low ISO isn’t an issue. This will keep noise levels down even further.
Creating an HDR image and tone mapping
There are a number of programs available to create an HDR image from your multiple exposures. I suggest you start with Photoshop CS2 or CS3 if you already have it. If you don’t, try one (or all) of the free programs. They do a great job without all the bells and whistles that you may not need or want initially (or ever for that matter). Each program uses its own algorithms for tone mapping. It has been my experience that some types of images work better with some than others. I have categorized them by cost:
Free programs:
●Picturenaut
Freeware. This a full featured HDR generator with tone mapping capabilities. Most featured of the free programs. Here is little write up on the application which includes a video tutorial. Here is a comparison between Picturenaut and Photoshop.
●FDR Tools Basic. Freeware. This a free version of the extremely full featured FDR Tools Advanced. As such, it is very basic. Just enough to let you see the possibilities. No options to speak of in terms of tone mapping. Very easy to use though.
●EasyHDR Basic. This a free version of the extremely full featured EasyHDR Pro. Offers some tone mapping controls. Only supports JPEGs.
For a fee programs:
●Adobe Photoshop CS2-CS5. I begin with Photoshop as many of you already have it. Navigate to File > Automate > Merge to HDR. Once you generate the HDR image, four different methods of tone mapping become available when you opt to go down to 16 bit or 8 bits per channel. The Local Adaptation options offers the most control. Don’t be put off by the initially terrible preview. Enable the advanced options and you are presented with a curve. Begin by setting your black and white point. It will already look much better. Generally, your image will benefit from bringing down the three quarter tones. Then edit the rest of the curve as desired. There are numerous more options for tone mapping in CS5 than in previous versions.
Here is a nice little write-up on what all the new sliders in CS5 mean and do.
Video on how to use the Merge to HDR Pro feature in Photoshop CS5. Her shooting advice is not so good though; she encourage you to shoot in 2 stop increments and suggests it is okay to hand hold the camera. Don't do either.
●EasyHDR Pro. 25 English Pounds. (around $40 dollars). Full featured program with a nice user interface. Trial version is available.
●FDR Tools Advanced. USD 57.69 Full featured program. It is supposed to support masking which would allow it to be used with scenes with moving subjects. Haven’t had a need for that yet, so I don’t know how well it works.
●PHotomatix. USD $99. Well established and full featured application. Good website. Some good resources. Feature rich. Also features the ability to tone map just two images together. This is the most popular third party HDR application. They offer 75% for students and educators.
●HDR Expose. USD $149. They offer an academic discount, but I don't know what it is. It claims to be designed for realistic looking HDR images. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I am going to as I am so impressed by their video tutorials. You can check them out here.
●HDR Efex Pro. Nik Software the maker of many fine plugins such as Nik Sharpener, just released this program. I haven't had a chance to play with it yet.
Software summary:
While I have used Photomantix for HDR, I generally use Photoshop CS4 and CS5 as it is the program that my students are most likely to have or have access to. PS is really quite capable of stunning results. It gets a bad rap for its HDR capabilities, but I think that is because you have to be able to edit the tones using a Curve and many people can't pull it off. Photomantix is simpler to use. If you don't have PS or just want to try a free program, I would go with Picturenaut.
As of Wednesday the 20th, you should have already successfully assembled no less than 2 panoramas. One which should be 360 degrees around.
Make sure you accomplish this before taking the next set of images due Monday. You need to take images to create a 360x180 (equirectangular) panorama. In simple terms, you need to take photos covering every direction. This will require three 'rows' of images. Use you widest angle setting of your lens. One with the camera level (use your camera in the vertical orientation for all these shots), one with it tilted up as much as possible while still insuring at least 20% overlap with the tops of the first row. Then same thing but with the camera facing down. It is likely that you will need 10 ish images per row. Maybe more, maybe less. Then, move your tripod and take a shot of the ground where the tripod was and take a shot of the sky above the tripod. Of course, you have to keep the same focus and exposure for all of the shots.
We will edit these and assemble them in to a 360x180 panorama on Monday. I will then show you how to change the projection to create a Little Planet image.
This project is deciptively hard. Take great care when shooting these images or you will find that you have to re-shoot them or spend lots of time fighting with them on the computer.
Meanwhile, you should also be continuing your research and shooting for the Urban Nature project.
Hugin is a fantastic opensource panorama assembly program. You can use it to create a 'real' little planet as opposed to the polar coordinate derived little planet that I will show you how to create using Photoshop. I will go over using Hugin in class on Monday.
Okay, we are going to make some panoramas! I love panoramas! One day I will offer an all panorama class!
Once you have all your images shot for inclusion into a panorama, you need to use a program to stitch the individual images into a single panoramic image.
The Photo Merge panorama feature in PS is much better than it was before. You might just want to start there. It can be accessed by going to File > Automate > PhotoMerge. NeoPanoramic - features reviews of many of the programs listed below. They are worth reading.
Hugin - a very powerful, feature rich panorama stitching program. It is however, not the most user friendly program. It is free though. Awesome name. PTgui is a commercial product similar to Hugin but possibly with better support. It is expensive, but very capable.
There are other programs besides Hugin that you might want to try. Microsoft's Image Composite Editor (ICE) - Free Microsoft program, simple but powerful. There is however no official support. Support is via a community forum. Of course, it is Windows only. Gigapan is project to create incredibly high resolution panorama images using a robotic panorama head.
Autopano - high end panorama stitching software. Very powerful, but expensive.
Flaming Pear Flexify - Photoshop Plugin which facilitates making pans in various projections. Does some really incredible things. Great name!
Panorama 360 Action - It automatically crops your panorama to 360 with no overlap.
AltoStorm- Panorama Corrector - a program to clean up panoramic distortions. I haven't used it, but it would seem that you can do the same things in Hugin.
Flickr Group which utilizes a clever utility to display your rectalinear images as immersive images.
Dermander - an online panorama creation utility. It hosts them as well and makes interactive versions.
Panomonkey - another online panorama creation site with hosting.
PTStitcher - free program for Mac and PC that can generate full 360 x 180 images. I haven't had a chance to try it yet though.
This is the space. Eric said it's in an old church that had been converted to a basketball court. I will discuss volunteer requirements in class today.
*By Tuesday, shoot two sets of images to be combined into a panorama- don't edit them yet, just focus on shooting them correctly* How to correctly shoot a series of images to be combined later into a Panorama
Seder Burns
Use a tripod. Using a tripod helps to insure accurate alignment of images. If you plan on using Hugin to assemble your images on the computer, I suggest you overlap each image somewhere between 30-50%.
3 way tripod heads are preferable as they allow you to change just the horizontal axis independent of the other axis. If you use a ball head, it must have the option of rotating along the horizontal axis independently of the other axis.
You should level your camera when possible. Leveling your tripod insure that horizontal lines stay that way. If you have a built in level, use it. If you don’t have a tripod with a built in level, you can purchase a hot shoe mounted, dual axis, spirit level (around $35).
Using a tripod allows you to use a small aperture to increase depth of filed when desired without having to worry about blurry images due to camera shake.
If you have the means to do it, determine nodal point of your lens and pivot on its axis. This is most easily achieved by purchasing a commercially made panorama tripod head.
Use a cable release, electronic release, remote release, or self-timer to release the shutter. This avoids any potential blurriness caused by shaking the camera. If one image is blurrier than the others, then your panorama is ruined.
If your camera has a mirror lock up feature designed to minimize vibration cuased by the movement of the mirror, use it. This is different from a mirror lock up feature designed to flip up the mirror for the purpose of cleaning the sensor. Some cameras such as the Nikon D100 have an anti-shock feature that causes a delay after the mirror flips up to allow the vibration from the mirror to dissipate before the shutter opens.
Determine your exposure and then lock it in. If your camera has manual exposure capabilities, then set your exposure and don’t change it from shot to shot. If your camera doesn’t have manual exposure capabilities, try to find an exposure lock button and keep it pressed in while shooting each image. This insures consistency between each shot. This is super important.
When determining exposure, consider the brightness values of the whole scene. As always, determine your exposure for the highlights. Set your exposure based on the brightest area in which you wish to preserve full detail. Don’t worry if the shadows look very dark. You can always open them up later using software, but you can not restore blown out highlights.
Consider bracketing. Of course, I mean bracket the whole series and not from frame to frame.
When taking panoramas outside, be mindful of rapid changes in brightness caused by shifting cloud cover. This can result in stitched panoramas with abrupt changes in brightness and color.
Manually focus your camera for a given distance and do not refocus between each shot.
If you have a DSLR, you should focus manually. If you have trouble focusing manually, then use autofocus to focus the first image, then turn autofocus off to shoot the other shots. This will insure focus doesn’t change from image to image.
If you have a point and shoot style digital camera, then you can usually manual focus by selecting a distance at which to focus from a menu.
Carefully consider the distance at which you focus. Also consider your depth of field. Choose a small aperture for greater depth of field when desired.
To facilitate clean stitches, try to use the longest focal length you have available. This will necessitate moving further away from the subject. I realize that this is not always possible when shooting within confined spaces.
In order to minimize distortions caused by parallax, shoot directly at the things that are closest to you. Placing close objects directly in the center of a shot keeps them away from edges and seams where they are most problematic.
Use a lens hood to prevent/minimize flare. If you don’t have a lens hood for the lens you are using, then go buy one for it.
Manually set your white balance. Otherwise auto white balance may change setting from image to image. I suggest you set it for the dominant light source. If you are shooting under mixed lighting, you may want to set the white balance using a white or gray card (see your camera manual for instructions on how to do this).
Shoot in RAW file format. This will allow give the greatest image quality and the greatest latitude in editing.
I suggest that you sketch what you anticipate the completed panorama will look like. It is a real challenge to create a compelling panorama image. It is much larger frame to make use of. Often, only part of the image is interesting.
Don't use a polarizer. The effect of polarizers varies according to the angle to the sun. So, the effect will change as you rotate the camera. I suppose you could use a graduated neutral density filter, but you would have to insure that you are absolutely level.
You will begin working on this right away. I strongly suggest that you start by doing research. Additionally, start making note of the various animals and such that you see around the city/suburbia. Deer, squirrels, and song birds are the obvious ones, but what about bats, possums, coyotes, raccoons, rats, etc that you don't always see but you know are around? What is growing over Southwyck mall as well as all the others abandoned places in the area?
You will have to do some real research on this. I don't know how to find coyotes at night. You will have to figure it out. You may need to get permission to photograph somewhere. It may take time to procure permission. You will need to get the ball rolling on this as soon as possible.
The idea for this show
comes from the BBC/Natural History Museums Wildlife Photographer of the
year competition. The Detroit Zoo regularly has the traveling exhibit on
display there where I have seen it in the past. There is an Urban
Wildlife category that I find most interesting. They define the category
thus:
Urban Wildlife
Images must capture the magic of the commonplace. They must be
surprising, stirring, revelatory compositions that focus on nature’s
occupation of the man-made environment. Here is a link to three of the winners in this year's competition.
I love it. However, given the time frame I am broadening the scope from
wildlife to nature in general with an emphasis on wildlife when
possible.
Some things that I would like you to consider:
How do urbanites experience nature?
Nature in the urban environment.
Collision of cities and nature.
Essentially, I would like you to consider how you and other city/suburban dwellers experience nature. Consider the idyllic representation of the
deer in the pond at dawn surrounded by mist and the sun rising versus
the reality of the deer in the backyard eating mom's garden. I suggest that someone contact the appropriate UT folks to photograph the
peregrine falcon that lives in the tower on campus.
Outback Photo is a great resource on digital printing. They have developed an evaluation image for the sake of testing printers and profiles. They make is available as a free download. The also have a write up on how to evaluate the results. The article, Using the Printer Evaluation Image, also has a link to download the image.
Here is a link to nozzle purge patterns. You can print these to free up stuck nozzles on a printer.
Please join the Department of Art and the Friends of the Library in welcoming the extraordinary, internationally known photographer and author, Rosamond Purcell at her lecture to be given in the Carlson Library on the University of Toledo’s Bancroft campus.
Rosamond Purcell has written or illustrated 17 books, including two books with Stephen J. Gould. She is known for her photographic documentation of natural history collections housed in such far-flung places as the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. In addition, Ms Purcell has had more than 50 solo exhibitions of her photography including: Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard (1984); the Field Museum, Chicago (1988); Bishop Museum, Honolulu, 1990; the Cleveland Museum of Art (1995); and, fall 2012 as part of Very Like a Whale: Seeming is Believing in Shakespeare, exhibition by Rosamond Purcell and Michael Witmore, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.
This event is free and open to the public. Reception with refreshments will immediately follow the lecture.
Date/Time: February 28th at 12:00 noon
Place: Canaday Center for Special Collections, 5th floor, Carlson Library
University of Toledo, Bancroft campus
For further information please contact: Barbara Miner at: Barbara.Miner@Utoledo.edu, 419.530.8315, or David Remaklus at: David.Remaklus@Utoledo.edu , 419.530.4030
Thursday, February 14 - Sunday, March 24, 2013 Reception: Friday, February 22, 6-9pm
Gallery Project presentsFirst Contact, a multimedia exhibit in which33regional,national, and international artists exploreour desire to encounterextraterrestrials,our preparedness for such anevent, the event itself, and its possible consequences.
Technological
development has brought us to the precipice of first contact, but has
humanity kept pace? Is our search for extraterrestrial life simply a
search for answers to our own existence? What makes us believe that we
are prepared for a relationship with other worlds when we have
difficulties on our own planet? Is it our innate curiosity or primal
fear that motivates us? 'Artists," wrote Ezra Pound, "are the antennae
of the race." Media analyst Marshall McLuhan expanded on that idea when
he wrote, "Art as radar acts as an 'early alarm system,' as it were,
enabling us to discover social and psychic targets in lots of time to
prepare to cope with them." If art is an 'early warning system,' then
what does art aboutFirstContact foretell?
ContributorsincludeSeder
Burns, Thomas Carey, Ross Carlisle, John Causland, Debra Davis, Lynda
Davis, Rocco DePietro, Zeek Earl, H.R. Giger, Brad Gieske, Clifton
Harvey, Mayumi Haryoto, Dan Hernandez, Nicholas Kahn, Tanya Kazakova,
Charles Lindsay, Kevin Margo, Ian Moersen, Gloria Pritschet, Simon Ray,
Michael Rea, Kris Rudolph, Richard Selesnick, Sara Schleicher, Douglas
Scobel, Brian Spolans, Derek Stenning, Po-Wei Su, Mike Tarr, Jacob
Tebbe, Brana Vojnovic, Lynn Whitney, and Barry Whittaker.
The exhibit is curated by Seder Burns, Lecturer of New Media, University of Toledo, and Gallery Project collaborator.
Image: Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick,Elysium Planitia
215 South Fourth Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48103
New Hours: Thursday-Saturday, noon-9; Sunday, noon-6; closed on Monday Thru Wednesday
The first thing you should do when preparing to convert your image to black and white is to first make a very nice color version of the image. Of special importance is the color correction/determination of correct white balance. Most of the methods used to convert an image to black and white are based on assigning tone based on color. If there is a color cast, then this will make it harder to make targeted edits to tone based on color.
Here is the handout that I wrote up back in 2006. It is a little dated, but most of it still applies. It covers many of the techniques that I demonstrated in class. All that is missing is the conversion available via Camera Raw and the Black and White tools within Photoshop proper.
Being a UT student, you have access to the wonderful resources that the University of Toledo library offers students in the form of online books. If you connect to the internet via a UT connection, you will not have to sign in. If you are at home, then you will have to sign in using your name and R number. I will try to remember to demonstrate how to do this in class tomorrow.
To access the online books through UT's library system, begin by going to:
Go to the Quick Links section and run a search on the relevant subject matter, let's say Photoshop Pen Tool. Look over the books . You will see that most of them have an ebook icon on to the right of the listing. You will see a link just below the book title which says Connect to Electronic Resource. This will take you to the book within Safari Books Online. You will see a large blue button which says Start Reading.
Additional reading on Converting images to Black and White - please read these online books available via the library by Wednesday
Real World Digital Photography, 2nd Edition, pp. 556-567, well written section on converting to black and white and some novel means to toning images. I used to use this book as the assigned textbook at Owens. A bit dated now, but still an excellent read.
Digital Infrared Photography, Chapter 5, we will briefly discuss digital infrared in the near future, but this book covers some interesting digital conversions to grayscale some of which are specific to IR images.
For your next project, you will create an image dealing with the notion of an individual's idea of sacred space.
Essentially, you are going to take a portrait of someone and then combine it with a photo of the space that is sacred to them. You will combine it to make it look good. The technical aspects are really pretty easy.
I would like you to follow this link and watch the video to more fully understand the process. If your camera doesn't support multiple exposure, or you don't want to combine them in camera, then you can combine them in your image editing application.
Also, shot an image to be combined for the Trichromy assignment.
You don't need to perform any editing. We will do that in class on Tuesday. Have fun!
UT offers a 'virtual computer' experience to allow students and faculty access to the programs and services of a UT computer lab. They call it VLab. To use it, you must download and install the Virtual Lab client.From that site, you then follow the link to launch the virtual lab. It will always be a Windows 7 environment.
You can install programs within the VLab environment. Thus, you can install Pepakura Viewer on VLab. FYI- once you log out of a VLab session, the program that you installed previously will disappear.
Pepakura Viewer is the free utility that will allow you to open up your Pepakura file (.pdo) and facilitate your models assembly. You can download it to your virtual desktop.
To access your .pdo file you have to first save it somewhere online. You could use Google Drive or your H drive. UT supplies all its students with some space on their file server. This is always available to you as your H drive. Below is a screenshot of how to upload your files to H drive.
In summary, you can use Pepakura Viewer (or Pepakura Designer for that matter) on a Mac using the Virtual Labs service. Below is a screenshot of Pepakur Designer running on a VLab virtual computer (FYI- that isn't my Tron model. You can download it here).
