Development Tools for Film Processing

Any photography will produce images which need developing somehow, whether using digital development processes or chemicals. I generally use digital cameras but as part of my journey, I am building my film camera skills too. You can read my initial post on film photography here. 

When processing my own films, I have learnt about a number of interesting options available to use in development, including introducing sepia and bluetone hues to my pictures. The sepia and bluetone processes require a photograph to be developed in the usual manner. The picture is then subject to further development processes to produce either a sepia or a bluetone effect.

The images which follow are examples of a black and white image, then the same image which has been produced in sepia and in bluetone format. I've talked through the steps at the end of the post to give you an idea of the process used to create the end pictures.

   Original black and white image

                                 Sepia Image

     Bluetone Image

Sepia is created by submerging the print in a tray of sepia chemical for around two minutes (the indicator is the time at which most of the black on the photo has disappeared; this takes about two minutes). After this, the image needs to be rinsed for a further two minutes in another tray. The third stage is to put the image into the final chemical tray to bring out the sepia tone. The tone can be lighter or darker depending on the strength of this mix. Finally, leave the image to rinse for three minutes. Sepia toned images can be dried using a drying machine. 

Bluetone is also created through the use of extra chemicals but there are only two stages. Firstly, make sure the image you wish to tone is dry. Then submerge the image into a tray of bluetone developer for three minutes. Agitate the chemical mix during this time to keep the mixture moving across the image. Secondly, place the picture into a tray to wash it. You should be looking for the blue tone to come through in the image; it might look yellow for a time until the blue comes out. This stage can last up to 5 minutes. Dry the picture naturally and not in the machine.

I really enjoy the chemical processing part of film development as you can introduce a personal element to the pictures. I think the image above works quite well in black and white but I do like the sepia tone too. I think the bluetone is something I'd be more likely to try on a snowy scene, to introduce an extra layer of coldness to the image.

iPad Photography

I tend to have a camera somewhere to hand most of the time. This won't always be my digital SLR camera and as I've discussed before, mobile telephone photography can be very effective.

I took the following picture on my iPad when trying to hunt down some of the cats for their regular flea treatment. It was an opportunity to capture an image which I did not want to miss, but had I taken the time to set up my digital camera, I suspect the cat would have found another hiding place. The photograph still captures the catch lights in the eyes and the depth of field means the cat is in focus while the foreground is blurred.

A tip for new iPad users still getting used to the camera function ... the iPad will focus for you but if you touch the screen gently where you would like to focus specifically, the image will adjust accordingly, changing the exposure to adapt to the main area of focus.

Another function which can be useful is the ability to a sequence of images by keeping your finger on the shutter button. Some of the resultant pictures may be blurred but you will generally find some nice sharp ones, even if the subjects were in motion when photographed.

The Zoom Burst Technique

This is a little creative technique which I enjoy using from time to time. It's quite straightforward and will look more or less effective depending on your subject. For this example, I've used a tree.

Here's the tree photographed without any extra zoom effect:

At this point I've used manual focus to ensure that the tree is in focus with the zoom at its maximum width.

The zoom burst picture is created by slowing the shutter and zooming steadily in on the subject. I slowed the shutter to 1/4 second which of course allows more light into the picture, so I used the exposure compensation option to reduce the exposure by five stops. Keeping the camera as steady as possible, I zoomed in on the tree which resulted in the following picture:

I like the technique and it's something I will continue to experiment with. There are numerous good examples of similar photographs on-line and I'd particularly like to try some night-time work and crowd photography. 

Flowing Water

Photographing water flow, such as a river or waterfall can lead to some impressive images. If you would like to create a smooth effect to the water, set the camera mode to shutter priority and slow the shutter speed. This of course allows more light into the image so you may need to decrease the exposure using the exposure compensation setting on your camera. You should also consider whether you need to use a tripod for stability.

The following picture, which I took a couple of years ago, used a shutter speed of 1/8 of a second. I braced the camera (and myself) on a rocky shelf to reduce the chance of camera shake. I lost elements of the colour through having a longer exposure so I've brought out some of the colours in Photoshop on this occasion.

If I had the opportunity to revisit the scene and take a similar picture, I would use a polarising filter to help bring out the different colours and I would experiment with longer exposures, compensated for by adjusting the exposure compensation setting in the camera functions. You can read an introduction to polarising filters in my post here.

An Introduction to Polarising Filters

Using a filter is very much a personal choice. When I started photography I tended to use UV filters on all of my lenses. While the UV filters did not alter the images a great deal, they did offer a certain level of protection to my lenses from things such as dust and sand. It is a good idea to buy high quality filters if you can afford to. Using a cheap filter on an expensive lens is likely to degrade the quality of your images by introducing vignetting and sun flare, for example.

These days I tend to use polarising filters most of the time when photographing outside. Light is polarised when it is reflected from a transparent material. For example, light in the sky will be polarised when it passes through water droplets in the atmosphere. This can create glare which in turn can appear on your photographs. Polarising filters remove most polarised light and in doing so, enhance colours such as blues in the sky while reducing reflections such as those on water. When using polarising filters you should keep in mind the fact that the filters will reduce the exposure by around 1 to 2 stops. To counteract this, you may need to slow the shutter speed, or adjust the exposure compensation to capture the image you are seeking. Slowing the shutter speed might of course mean that you will need to use a tripod to stabilise the camera for some situations.

There are two main types of polarising filters, circular and linear. Without delving too deeply into the science, both filters produce the same sort of photographs but the difference is in how they interact with your camera. A linear filter will work on a manual camera as you control all of the settings. The linear filter works by removing all polarised light which would otherwise reach the lens but as you control the settings, the camera does not need any polarised light in order to work. However, digital SLR cameras need some polarised light in order to perform certain functions such as auto-focus, and auto-exposure. The circular polariser allows just enough polarised light through to let the camera work properly. My polarising filters are all circular and these screw straight onto the end of the lens.  

So, looking at the filter in action. The photograph below was taken without using a polarising filter:

Compare that with the following picture which was taken with a polarising filter:

The difference between the pictures is subtle but you can see a little more colour in the sky, and greater contrast between the clouds and the blue.

It might be clearer in the following images. The first image is the one without the filter. I've ringed a patch of sky where I think the difference is particularly noticeable:

And here is the image with the polariser, with the same patch of sky ringed:

In the second image, the clouds are defined more clearly, and the contrast between the clouds and the sky is more noticeable. 

The following two images show the difference a polarising filter makes when used to shoot a cloudy sky. The first picture does not use a filter, while the second one uses a polarising filter.

The cloud contrasts are much more marked in the second photograph in which I used the filter. You do however lose some of the detail of the field. Shooting in Raw will enable you to draw out some of these lost details. See my posts on Raw images for more information; you can find the first post here and the follow up here.

That's all for the moment, keep enjoying your photography.

Still Life With A Twist

I enjoy working in the studio and also enjoy the challenge of trying to recreate studio type conditions at home. Having discovered an interest in still life photography, I wanted to take a set of photographs which would display a range of both light and texture in my images.

I set up a home studio using a black curtain as a back-drop and a small picnic table on which to create my display. To keep the images dark in tone, I opted to use natural light which fell from above the display through a large window and from the side where I had another smaller window.

I opted to take pictures of fruit, vegetables and nuts and I also wanted to try some pictures with a slight twist in them using an idea which had been in my mind for a while but which I had not attempted to shoot. 

I shot in manual mode to control the shutter speed and aperture myself, and I used manual focus. For the shots with the wooden base, I selected daylight on the camera’s white balance as this brought out the different tones more clearly. As the shutter speed was low (typically 1/10 to 1/60 of a second) I made sure I used extra support to keep the camera as steady as possible. I was working in a small area and a tripod would not have been practical but I was able to brace myself and the camera well enough to avoid camera shake.

Having downloaded the pictures, I used minimal editing in Photoshop to enhance the colours and highlight some of the shadow contrasts. I like to avoid editing pictures too much but drawing out some of the colours and textures can be very compelling (see my post on Photoshop editing for some basic editing techniques). The editing element of photography is something which I will be working to learn more about over the coming months with the aim of being able to edit subtly and effectively towards creating impactful pictures.

I was pleased with the end results of my work. It is a subject which I would like to build on in future, exploring a wider range of textures in particular and building on the idea of including a twist in some of the images. The images are displayed below.

Kitchen Selection

Fruit Bowl

Pepper Cut

Bleeding Pepper

Pepper Heart

Walnut Brain

The First Cut

Bleeding Out

Garlic

Nuts

Developing An Image In Photoshop - Step By Step Tutorial

I like to leave my images as untouched as possible but there are times when a picture will benefit from some further development using a product such as Photoshop. This post will take you step by step through making some minor changes to an image in Photoshop.

The image I have chosen is shown below. I was pleased with the picture but found the tilted horizon distracting and I also noticed a piece of rubbish and a sign in the image which I wanted to remove. 

Step one: I open the picture in Photoshop.

Step two: I identify which sections of the picture I would like to remove. I have circled the rubbish and the sign in the following picture.

Step three: I select the rectangular marquee tool from the left hand tool bar. You can see this button highlighted in the image below.

Step four: using the rectangular tool, I draw an edge around part of the picture which I would like to remove.

Step five: from the drop down edit menu, I select fill.

Step six: in the pop out 'fill' box, I select content aware from the drop down options. Then press OK.

Step seven: after pressing OK, I can see that the piece of rubbish has been removed from the image and Photoshop has filled the gap with colour and texture to match that section of the photograph.

Step eight: repeat the process for the sign. First, I highlight the area which I would like to adjust.

Step nine: then repeat the selections of edit, fill, content aware.

Step ten: now that the rubbish and the sign have been removed, it is time to consider straightening the picture. For this image, I would like to add a horizontal ruler to help me judge when the picture is straight. I check under the view drop down menu that the rulers option is ticked.

Step eleven: I grab a horizontal line from the top ruler and drag it down the screen.

Step twelve: when the ruler is in place, I release it and a highlighted line appears across the page.

Step thirteen: it is now time to begin the process of rotating the image. I go to the image drop down menu along the top bar, and select image rotation.

Step fourteen: selecting arbitrary from the rotation menu, I consider which way I would like to rotate the image and by how many degrees. I decide that I wish to rotate the image to the left, so counter clock-wise (CCW) and by a small amount. I will try 3 degrees of rotation.

Step fifteen: the rotation of 3 degrees seems to line up well against the ruler guideline. The image now looks like this:

Step sixteen: I would now like to crop the image to remove the white edges. The crop tool is found on the left hand menu.

Step seventeen: using the crop tool, I have highlighted the area of the picture which I would like to retain. You can see in the image below that the areas which will be removed after applying the crop have been darkened.

Step eighteen: I am happy with this crop so select the tick box to commit current crop operation.

Step nineteen: this is how the picture is looking at the moment. I would like to remove the ruler now that the horizon has been straightened.

Step twenty: to remove the ruler, I will go into view and clear guides.

Step twenty-one: the guideline disappears and I have a better idea of how the image is looking.

Step twenty-two: I took the photograph soon after sunrise one morning but some of the depth of colour has been lost in the image at present. I decide to adjust the image some more using tools in the adjustments box.

Step twenty-three: firstly, I will adjust the vibrance.

Step twenty-four: changing the vibrance and saturation will help to draw out some of the different colours in the image. 

Step twenty-five: I have increased both vibrance and saturation to highlight the colour of the sunrise in the clouds, bring out the plumage of the swan, and deepen the blue of the sky and the lake.

Step twenty-six: I use the arrow in the bottom left of the adjustments box to return to the adjustments list.

Step twenty-seven: I'd like to adjust the brightness and contrast of the image now.

Step twenty-eight: this step has brought out some more of the colours and contrasts in the image.

Step twenty-nine: and so I now have my final image which I will save.

You can see how, with minimal further development, a good photo can be enhanced to bring out the best of what you saw in person when taking the picture.

Let's have a look at the before and after pictures:

Before

After

The final picture is straighter, the distractions of the rubbish and the sign have been removed, and the colour is more vibrant. 

I have a lot more to learn on Photoshop but knowing some of the more basic editing techniques has helped me to enhance some of my pictures. I see Photoshop as a tool for developing pictures, in the same way that film may be developed in a darkroom. While I do not want to misrepresent what I saw, I would like to share the best of the image with the audience by drawing out colours and details. I also appreciate being able to remove distractions from pictures such as the rubbish and the sign in the swan photograph.