Friday, November 12, 2010

Colour and RGB

Professionals know to look for websafe colours when they are making a site. I tend to continue, haphazard, to job along happily without worrying about how a fine blue may show up as lurid purple elsewhere.

Merttol have some good tips on the subject.

I probably should calibrate my monitor... but that, unfortunately, would just be more work...

Echium

Thursday, November 11, 2010

It's Obvious, Really

The grinding upward struggle to make work quicker, more efficient, finally stopped yesterday.

Just make screenshots.

I worked out that using the colour conversions feature in Irfanview repeatedly, following that by "auto adjust colours" led to some strange, if effective duotones.

However, when the final jpeg was saved, it was full of broken pixels and blotchy skies.

Just snap the chosen image with the Prt Sc button on the keyboard and paste into your favourite photo editor.

Obvious, really...

Architectural Details in Merrion Square

Monday, November 8, 2010

I Have Thought About How to Make Sharp Photos...

from a moving vehicle.



The main tip is to shoot in manual, setting the exposure to at least 1/350 seconds.

Any photo taken at less than f8 will be a bit soft, but can be sharpened, if needed.

Setting the ISO last, not first, ensures balanced exposure.
It may mean that the final photo may be a bit grainy, but that is better than a dizzy blur.

There is a useful explanation of the science involved on a site
"A Sibilant Intake of Breath".
It's called "Try f/8".

Oh... and I almost forgot... I always use a sturdy travel tripod to keep the camera steady.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Monotone

I have come to like Black and White photography so much I find that searching through the various groups on Flicr increasingly pleasant.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Film

Many photos taken with film in dull weather can be very grey.


This one was worked on in Irfanview to coax some colour out of the marble fountain.

Fountain in the Piazza Colonna, Roma

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Sumi-e

By chance, the Sumi-e painterly effect in my software caught my eye.




Eucalypts