Haddington Camera Club: PHOTO TIPS

PHOTO TIPS

PREPARING PROJECTED IMAGES FOR COMPETITIONS
by Gary Moffat

How to SIZE, Set sRGB COLOUR SPACE and SAVE your file
using Photoshop or Elements

TO SIZE

From the Menu options:

a) Click FILE > OPEN, ‘left mouse-click’ on your chosen file and click ‘OPEN’

b) Click IMAGE > MODE > RGB Color and 8 BITS (In Elements, if you are not prompted on opening, convert to 8 bits)

c) Click IMAGE > IMAGE SIZE (In Elements click IMAGE > RESIZE > IMAGE SIZE), tick all three boxes, ‘Scale Styles’, ‘Constrain Proportions’ and ‘Resample Image’ and choose one of the ‘Bicubic’ options (if you are not sure then just select ‘bicubic’) (Older versions of Photoshop only have two boxes. Tick both of these.)

d) Still in the IMAGE SIZE palette, you now need to set the PIXEL DIMENSIONS.

If a LANDSCAPE (horizontal) image in ‘Pixel Dimensions’ > 'Width' type ‘1400’ (the height will be automatically filled in) OR if a PORTRAIT (vertical) image in ‘Pixel Dimensions’ > 'Height' > type ‘1050’ (the width will be automatically filled in) and left mouse click ‘OK’.

TO CONVERT TO sRGB COLOUR SPACE

From the Menu options:

e) Click EDIT > CONVERT TO PROFILE. In ‘Destination Space’ for Profile select ‘sRGB IEC…’ which will be near the top and for ‘Conversion Options’ choose Engine ‘Adobe (ACE)’ and Intent ‘Relative Colorimetric’. Leave ‘Black Point..’ ticked. If the other two boxes, ‘Use Dither’ and ‘Flatten Image’, are not greyed out tick them too.

f) Then click ‘OK’. Your image will now be in sRGB.
NB: You can only do a basic conversion in Elements, you will not be able to do all of the above – you will find your settings in EDIT > COLOR SETTINGS, and if the file you are opening does not have a profile you will get a message coming up, you can select sRGB here.

TO SAVE YOUR FILE

From the Menu options:

g) Click FILE > SAVE AS

h) Create a new folder by left mouse clicking on the folder icon (if you are not sure which icon, hold your cursor over the icon to find the right one) & type in your ‘Name’, (just type where you see ‘New Folder’ appear) as the ‘New Folder’ name, and then press the ‘RETURN’ key.

i) Type in your choice of filename, select ‘JPEG’ from the ‘format’ drop down list and click ‘SAVE’. Choose HIGH Level 8 Quality.

j) You can now continue to size and convert your remaining images following the steps above and save them in the folder you created at step f).

After you have done all the images you wish to submit, you are ready to exit Photoshop or Elements and burn your images to CD-R.

PREPARING IMAGES FOR CLUB WEBSITE GALLERIES

Use your preferred graphics package to save the images as JPEG format (use high quality - around 80% for systems that use the numerical format), 72dpi, and with the longest side at 400 pixels. Remember to do this with a copy of the original! Save the file with your initials and a name that has no spaces or symbols such as '&' in it. For example, if Ann Other were sending a picture currently called PICT1001356.jpg, she would save it as AO_HerChoiceOfTitle.jpg (or AO_her_choice_of_title.jpeg). Then email it to Lesley, who keeps the website updated. Include your name and a title for the photo. A description and location are optional.

Lesley's contact details can be found here, on the "Contact Committee Members" page.

THRESHOLD LAYERS TO INCREASE CONTRAST IN CS3
by Andy Bennetts

Check that the cursor is set up properly. Edit>Preferences>Cursors – Other Cursors must be set to “Precise”
Make sure you can see the Info tab in the palette and also the Layers tab. We will use these later.
Open the image – it can be any type of file.
Select the Color Sampler Tool from the toolbar
Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Threshold. We are going to use the threshold layer to establish where the lightest and darkest parts of the image are.
There is no need to name the threshold layer – just accept the defaults. The color should be “None” and the Mode should be “Normal”. Click on OK.
The threshold histogram appears – the white triangle below the historgram can be slid right and left.
Slide the histogram triangle to the left until there is only a tiny amount of black visible. Click on OK.
Position the Color Sampler tool cursor over the black area and click – you are taking a sample of the darkest part of the image. This should leave a “target” on the black area, which will stay there.
Go to the layers palette and double click on the screen shape immediately to the right of the “eye” – this will bring up the histogram again.
This time, slide the histogram triangle to the right until there is only a tiny amount of white visible. Click on OK.
Position the Color Sampler tool cursor over the white area and click – you are taking a sample of the lightest part of the image.
With the two targets established, we don’t need the adjustment layer any more, so you can drag it to the bin to discard it. The original image will reappear, and this time the darkest & lightest parts of the image will be indicated.
Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves. We are going to use the curves layer to correct the colours for the two target areas. Accept the defaults & click on OK. The Curves histogram will appear.
Look at the Info panel. Towards the bottom, you will see two entries #1 and #2. These are the two samples, and beside the samples are the readings of Red, Green and Blue (RGB) we will deal with each colour separately.
In the curves histogram, click on the Channel drop down and select Red. For #1 and #2 we are going to set Red values of 10 and 245. You can do this on the histogram, by clicking and dragging the top and bottom of the straight line lying at 45 degrees on the graph.
Do exactly the same for the Green and Blue channel. When finished click on OK.
In the Layers palette switch off the “eye” in the curves layer to see the effect.
To get rid of the targets, click and drag off the image.
Save the file – flatten if you wish.

To download a PDF file of the above text click here
This link will take you directly to the "Threshold Layers to increase Contrast in CS3" PDF on the website box.net where we store our PDF documents. You can then download it to your computer where it can be opened, read, and printed out.
PDF files can be read with Adobe Reader, free to download from www.adobe.com