I took this photo last year during a hike to the summit of Mount Livemore on Angel Island, San Francisco. It was a great hike but obviously the photo looks dull and unattractive. It was slightly hazy that day and the camera, Nikon D70, didn’t do the magic for me. No problem. Let me show you how to fix photos like this one using Nikon Capture NX in several different ways. Read More…
People love lomography, as evident in the the flickr groups for the real LOMO, or the fake LOMO. If you are not sure whether or not you want to pick up one of the real LOMO analog cameras, you can fake the effect using digital photography techniques. I have seen at least half a dozen Photoshop tutorials on how to do this. Here I am going to show you how to create the similar effect in Nikon Capture NX. Read More…
I have been having some fun with Nikon Capture NX lately. It is not Photoshop, but it has some really nice features that can make the same photo enhancements effortlessly with out purchasing the much more expensive alternative. Today, I will present a tutorial on how to remove distracting background using the selection brush in Capture NX.
The selection brush tool allows you to selectively apply effects and enhancements. You can do the same in Photoshop using layers and layer masks, but the selection brush tool in Capture NX is more intuitive and doesn’t require users to master the concept of layers and layer masks.
The selection brush tool is highlighted with a red circle in the screen capture shown above. Next to the brush icon, you can see a small “+” button and a small “-” button. These are the two modes the selection brush can work in. In the plus “+” mode, the brush will allow you to paint in the effect you have previously applied to the entire image. In the minus “-” mode, the brush will allow you to remove the previously applied effect from where you paint over with the brush. Confused a little bit? Don’t worry. It is actually much easier than it sounds. Read More…
Posted in Photo editing on November 8th, 2007. 1 Comment.
High pass sharpening is one of the popular sharpening techniques along with unsharp mask (USM) and lab color sharpening used by Adobe Photoshop users.
Capture NX is Nikon’s NEF raw workflow software and it has many innovative processing technologies. The best thing about it is that it offers most of what raw shooting photographers need without breaking the bank. Here is a tutorial on how to do the high pass sharpening using Nikon Capture NX. Read More…
Posted in Photo editing on November 4th, 2007. 11 Comments.
The photo below shows a typical example of a landscape photography situation with challenging dynamic range. Taken at ISO100, f/8, and 1/180sec, the multi-pattern (matrix) metering on the Nikon D200 choose to expose the clouds properly but most of the scene below the sky was under exposed. Should I blame Nikon for making such a bad camera? Nope, you may get similar result, if not worse, from just about any camera. Thanks to the camera’s decision not to properly expose the field instead, or I would be left with over exposed sky that I could not fix with post-processing. It is really a easy fix in Nikon Capture NX. Follow the link below the photo to read more.
Posted in Photo editing on October 8th, 2007. 5 Comments.
The zoom (during exposure) effect is a classic special effect technique that can be traced back to early film photography era. By zooming the lens during a long exposure (typically 1/4s to a few seconds), photographer can create dramatic radiating streaks from center of the frame. This is a great technique to accentuate motion or create tension in photographs. Here are three different ways to achieve the classic zoom effect today. Read More…
The EXIF data embedded in the photos you took may contain surprising amount of data. On some photo sharing sites I have seen people complaining about people removing the EXIF information because they are interested in learning photography from other peoples photos. However there are always reasons people want to remove this information. So here are some free tools for you if you really want to do so.
1. IrfanView. you can remove the EXIF information from individual photo or many photos using batch process.
2. Jhead. This is what I use. It can do a lot more on the EXIF data.
- To remove the EXIF data from all files in current directory, type the following in windows command shell:
jhead -de *.jpg
- To remove only the comment field by third party programs (e.g. Photoshop)
jhead -dc *.jpg
- To get rid of all unnecessary data
jhead -purejpg *.jpg
3. jStrip. It has both command-line and graphical user interface. It also supports batch processing.
4. ExifTool. Another powerful command-line tool.
- Remove all meta information
exiftool -all= *.jpg
- Alternative method: rename exiftool to the following name, drag and drop your files on top of the icon
exiftool(-overwrite_original_in_place -Software=).exe
Push processing (pushing, uprating) is a well known film photography era technique, in which the photographer intentionally underexposes the film then compensates for the underexposed film by over-developing it in the processing lab. Typically this is done by telling the camera the loaded film is rated for higher speed than it actually is. The purpose of using this technique is to obtain the needed shutter speed to avoid blur caused by camera shake or freeze motion.
With today’s digital technology, the sensitivity of the sensor (ISO) can be easily changed at any time to obtain the desired shutter speed. In the film days, it would have meant exchanging the film in the camera with another roll that is rated at a higher speed. Is there any more incentives for underexposing then compensate it in post-processing (the equivalent of a film processing lab) with today’s digital photography? After all, many people suggest that the shadow needs to be properly exposed to avoid noise. Before answering this question, let’s look at the results of my recent experiment. Read More…
-
Subscribe
