Category: Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: Your advice [in Tuesday’s webinar presentation] to “expose to the right” on the histogram made sense, but it triggered a question immediately regarding HDR [high dynamic range imaging]. I understand your point about noise being a major reason for the advice to expose to the right. But does HDR override that advice given that the series of separate HDR frames include a wide range of exposures? I assume it does, and for the most part, I don’t see the noise problem you illustrated today.

Tim’s Quick Answer: With a good approach to capturing the original frames for your final HDR exposure, you will indeed achieve the basic benefit of “expose to the right”. This issue is less critical with HDR captures, but that is in part because of the blending of multiple exposures.

More Detail: My two key recommendations for capturing the individual frames for an HDR image address the benefits of the “expose to the right” approach, which can help maximize detail and minimize noise in the final image.

First, I recommend that for an HDR sequence you start with an exposure that is as bright as possible without losing highlight detail. In other words, your first exposure is an “expose to the right” capture for the overall scene. Of course, if HDR techniques are required this exposure will be lacking shadow detail.

My second recommendation relates to how many exposures to capture. In short, I want to capture enough images that the final image (the brightest of the sequence) shows the far left end of the histogram display at about the midpoint of the histogram display. In other words, areas of true black in the scene would be rendered closer to middle gray in the final capture.

By having this extended range of information that generally covers the full tonal range of the scene, you’ll ensure that you have good information (light) to blend together. That, in turn, will help ensure minimal noise for your final result.

Again, this isn’t a major concern for HDR imaging under normal circumstances, but by taking the approach outlined above you’ll be sure to gain the benefits of the “expose to the right” approach for your HDR captures.

Today’s Question: While in Photoshop I was exploring the panels at the right side of the screen with attention focused on the Layers tab. I decided to click on the tab and drag it into my image area, which was fine. The only thing was, I clicked the small “x” at the top left corner of this floating panel thinking this would cause it to go back to its place at the bottom right corner of the screen. It disappeared! I have had a search through the help section of the application but have turned up blank so far. Can you please advise me on this?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can bring back any “missing” panels in Photoshop by choosing the panel by name from the Window menu. So in this case you can choose Window > Layers from the menu to bring up the Layers panel.

More Detail: All of the various panels available in Photoshop can be found on the Window menu. The panels can be docked to the side of the main Photoshop window, left floating within the interface, or minimized to a iconic button you can click to view the full panel.

As noted in the question, if you drag a tab for a docked panel you can “drop” it elsewhere in the interface to make it a floating panel. Clicking the “X” at the top-left corner of the floating panel will close the panel. But you can bring any panel back to view by selecting it from the Window panel. Note that a checkmark to the left of a panel name on the Window menu indicates that the panel is already visible within Photoshop.

To help maintain your preferred interface arrangement within Photoshop you can save a custom workspace. Start by configuring the panels within Photoshop the way you want them. Then choose Window > Workspace > New Workspace from the menu. In the New Workspace dialog you can type a name for the workspace, perhaps using your own name or the nature of the tasks you’ll be performing with that workspace configuration.

Once you’ve saved a workspace, anytime you make changes to the panel layout you can reset to the saved configuration by choosing Window > Workspace > Reset. Note that this “Reset” command on the menu will also include the name of the saved workspace you are currently using.

Today’s Question: I realize you can use soft proofing in Photoshop to see which colors in the image are out of gamut based on a particular printer profile. But is there then an easy way to select those out of gamut areas so an adjustment can be applied to only those areas, leaving all other pixels as they are?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can actually select out of gamut colors very easily using the “Out of Gamut” sampling option available with the Color Range selection command.

More Detail: The Color Range command in Photoshop is generally used for creating a selection of a specific range of color values in an image, often to select a particular object or area within the photo. However, there are also additional sampling options available for the Color Range command, including an option to select out of gamut colors.

The first step is to configure soft proofing based on the desired output conditions. To do so, choose View > Proof Setup > Custom from the menu. In the Customize Proof Condition dialog that appears, set the applicable output profile using the “Device to Simulate” popup. Set the desired Rendering Intent (in most cases I recommend using “Relative Colorimetric”), and turn on the Black Point Compensation checkbox. Adjust any other settings as desired, and click the OK button to apply the change and enable the Proof Colors view option.

If you’d like to see a preview of which areas of the image are out of gamut, you can choose View > Gamut Warning from the menu. Then, to get started creating a selection of the out of gamut areas, you can choose Select > Color Range to bring up the Color Range dialog.

Within the Color Range dialog click the Select popup, and choose “Out of Gamut” from that popup. You can then click the OK button to close the Color Range dialog and create the selection of the out of gamut colors in the photo.

You can then, for example, add an adjustment layer to apply an adjustment to the selected out of gamut areas of the photo, or otherwise work specifically with that portion of the image.

Today’s Question: One of the articles in your most recent issue of Pixology details the procedure for changing the shape of a brush when used with certain tools such as the healing brush tool, etc. I often have use for a square rather than round shape brush when editing an image. My question is this: Can this adjustment be made in Photoshop Elements, on is it available only in Photoshop. And, if so, what is the appropriate procedure?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can access a crisp square brush shape in Photoshop Elements by using the Pencil tool in conjunction with one of the selections among the Square Brushes option within the brush settings.

More Detail: The Pencil tool (rather than the Brush tool) is the key if you need a consistently crisp edge for the brush. You can think of the Pencil tool as essentially being the Brush tool with a Hardness setting that is always at 100%.

Once you’ve selected the Pencil tool in Photoshop Elements, make sure the Tool Options panel is displayed. You can simply click the “Tool Options” button along the bottom toolbar to bring that panel up. Then click the popup below the “Pencil” label at the left side of the Tool Options panel. At the top of the popup menu that appears, you can click the Brush popup to display a list of brush shape options. Select “Square Brushes” from that list, and you can then choose from the square brush shapes at various sizes.

You can, of course, then adjust the Size slider as needed. With one of the Square Brushes options for the Pencil tool the result will always be a square shape with a crisp (non-feathered) edge.

Today’s Question: What is the best way to remove yellow from photos when the photographer did not use a flash?

Tim’s Quick Answer: There are two approaches that will likely help here. You can apply a strong shift with a Temperature adjustment, or use a technique for removing a strong color cast in Photoshop.

More Detail: The first approach would be the simpler. Very often in this type of situation simply shifting the Temperature slider significantly toward blue (away from yellow) will provide a good solution. This is possible even if the photo was not a RAW capture. For example, you could use the Camera Raw Filter in Photoshop, even with a JPEG capture. The same adjustment is also available in Lightroom and other software tools.

If the color cast is too strong for a simple Temperature adjustment, then I’d employ a helpful technique in Photoshop. Start by dragging the thumbnail for the Background image layer to the “Create a New Layer” button (the blank sheet of paper icon) at the bottom of the Layers panel.

Next, choose Filter > Blur > Average from the menu. This will process the Background Copy layer so that it contains only pixels of a single color, representing the average color for the full image. That is essentially the color of your strong color cast. You need the opposite color though, so choose Image > Adjustments > Invert from the menu to invert the color to the opposite value.

Next, on the Layers panel, click the popup at the top-left of the panel (the default value is “Normal”) and choose “Color” from that popup. This will set the blend mode for the Background Copy layer to Color, which will cause it to alter only the color (but not the tone and texture) of the underlying image.

Finally, to reduce the strength of the new color cast, reduce the Opacity setting for the Background Copy layer using the control at the top-right of the Layers panel. Start at a value of about 50%, and fine-tune from there for the best color.

With either of the above adjustments you may need to enhance overall saturation and contrast to compensate for other issues in the image. But the strong color cast should be something that can be resolved with one of the above approaches.

Today’s Question: Your answer about time-lapse software got me thinking about a project I’ve had on my list for a while. I’d like to record a time-lapse video of me working an image from start to finish. Can you recommend an approach for this?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I suggest using simple screen capture software, configuring the software for a reduced frame rate. You can then use virtually any video editing software you’d like to adjust the playback speed of the video to create the time-lapse result.

More Detail: The first step here is to capture your screen video, showing the editing process you have planned. I prefer iShowU HD (https://www.shinywhitebox.com/ishowu) for screen captures on Macintosh computers, and Camtasia (https://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html) for Windows computers. These tools (or other screen capture software) enable you to specify a frame rate. You can use a relatively low frame rate (perhaps even one frame per second) to reduce the overall file size of the video you’re recording.

Regardless of the frame rate you use for capturing the initial screen capture video, you can then use video editing software to increase the playback speed for the video you recorded. The specific approach here will depend on the video editing software you’re using, but for example in Adobe Premiere Elements you can use the Time Stretch feature and in Premiere Pro you can adjust the “Speed/Duration” setting for a video clip to speed up playback.

The result can then be rendered to produce a new video at the desired speed, compressing the time you’re presenting in the video. For example, if you speed up by a factor of thirty, you can present a one-frame-per-second capture at an output rate of thirty frames per second. In other words, a process that took you thirty minutes to perform can be presented in a time-lapse video that is only one minute long.

Today’s Question: I’ve been doing a lot of nighttime shooting of the northern lights, and star trails. With the northern lights, I’ve been looking for a software program that will allow me to make a time-lapse video of 300-400 images.  Any suggestions??

Tim’s Quick Answer: My preference is to use video editing software to assemble time-lapse videos. This provides the additional benefit of being able to apply additional adjustments and effects to your final video. I use Adobe Premiere Pro for this purpose, but you could also employ Adobe Premiere Elements (http://amzn.to/2ovHnIH) if you prefer a more basic tool.

More Detail: With video editing software you can include still images, and specify the duration for each still. For example, if you specify that each still should be displayed for one frame, then for every thirty photos you’ve captured you’ll end up with one second of time-lapse video.

In Premiere Elements you can specify a default number of frames for each still image within the Preferences dialog. You can then import all of your still photos into your project, select them all, and add them to the timeline.

Another approach you could use in Premiere Elements would be to use the “Time Stretch” feature. With this approach you don’t need to specify a still image duration before you get started, letting the software fine-tune that setting by applying the “Time Stretch”.

You can find Premiere Elements (download version for Macintosh) here:

http://amzn.to/2ovHnIH

Note that Premiere Elements is also available for Windows, and you can also opt to purchase the software on DVD if you prefer.

Today’s Question: In some of your videos covering Photoshop I noticed that the filename for the image includes a copyright symbol in front of it. How do you get that copyright symbol to show up?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The copyright symbol displayed in front of the filename for an image you’ve opened in Photoshop appears automatically if the Copyright Status in metadata is set to “Copyrighted” rather than “Unknown” or “Public Domain”.

More Detail: It is important to note that the Copyright Status field that is available within Adobe applications (including Photoshop, Bridge, and Lightroom) is an Adobe-specific feature. In other words, other software tools for managing photographic images may not support this metadata field.

That said, if you’re using Adobe software products to manage your photos, you can apply a “Copyrighted” status to your photos. That, in turn, will cause the copyright symbol to appear within Photoshop if the image is opened. This might not exactly prevent someone from using a copy of your photo without permission, but it couldn’t hurt to have this additional information in Metadata.

In Lightroom you can find the Copyright Status field by choosing the Default set of metadata fields from the header of the Metadata section of the right panel in the Library module. In Adobe Bridge or Photoshop you can find the Copyright Status field by for the selected image by choosing File > File Info from the menu.

While this particular field is specific to Adobe software products, I do feel it is worth updating the Copyright Status to “Copyrighted” for all of your photos. It is worth pointing out, by the way, that an image is technically copyrighted by you the moment you capture the photo. So even if you don’t submit your images to the Library of Congress to register your copyright, you can still apply the “Copyrighted” status to the image.

Of course, if you do submit images to the Library of Congress to register your copyright, then you may want to use the Copyright Status metadata field to identify images that have been submitted for copyright registration versus those that have not yet been submitted.

Today’s Question: What is the situation with Facebook and ownership of a photographer’s images? I don’t post many photos but am still concerned. I’m also a member of a photographer’s collective and many of our members post frequently.

Tim’s Quick Answer: In my opinion (as a non-lawyer with no formal legal education) the “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” included as part of Facebook’s Terms of Use make it very clear that you retain the copyright to all images you post to Facebook. Obviously there is some concern that others may steal copies of photos you share, but from a legal perspective you retain ownership of your photos.

More Detail: I fully recognize that many photographers are concerned about the terms of use that apply to the photos they share in a variety of ways. For example, it is somewhat widely known among photographers that some photo contests include terms of use that provide unlimited and perpetual use of any photos you submit, even if you never win any prize in the contest.

In my opinion, however, Facebook has drafted (and updated) their Terms of Use in a way that respects the rights of photographers. To begin with, the “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” makes it clear to me that when you post any content to Facebook, you retain any legal copyright over that content. You are simply providing a license to Facebook so they can actually host your content and make it available on the Facebook platform.

For example, section 2 of the “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” begins with this text:

“You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings.”

Furthermore, you have control over the privacy settings for any content you share on Facebook. For example, you can choose to make the post public so anyone on Facebook can see it, or to share it only with friends you are connected with on Facebook.

Personally, I view the ability to share my photos in this way as providing some degree of benefit to me. For example, when I share photos during one of my field photography workshops, in reply I often receive inquiries from photographers who want to join me for a future workshop. To me the potential benefits outweigh the risks of image piracy, but it is up to each photographer to determine what they are comfortable with.

But again, when it comes to the Terms of Service for Facebook, I don’t find anything that causes me to be alarmed, or that would cause me to be uncomfortable sharing my photos through Facebook.

If you’d like to read the full contents of the Facebook “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” by following this link:

https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

Today’s Question: What do you recommend for the number of brackets for HDR [high dynamic range] capture and the f stop interval?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The real answer here depends in large part on the specific lighting situation for the scene you’re photographing. But in most “typical” HDR scenarios you are generally safe with about five exposures separated by two stops each, perhaps using seven exposures to provide a little extra “insurance”.

More Detail: When it comes to an HDR capture versus a single exposure, it isn’t as simple as needing to bracket versus not. In some cases you might be able to accomplish your goals for a scene by simply adding one additional exposure that is one stop brighter than your initial exposure. In other cases you may need to capture many more exposures to cover the full range of tonal values present in the scene you are photographing.

Generally speaking, I find that the types of situations most photographers face when HDR becomes necessary can be captured with a total of three exposures separated by two stops each. Most cameras enable you to bracket a total of three exposures, so this is an approach just about any photographer can take if they prefer to use automatic exposure bracketing (rather than manually adjusting the exposure for each frame).

Many cameras now support five, seven, or nine exposures for automatic exposure bracketing. This provides you with greater latitude for two issues. First, it helps ensure you’ll be able to cover the full range of exposure values for a wider variety of scenarios. Second, it provides you with a little insurance for situations where you needed to apply some exposure compensation above and beyond the exposure bracketing.

For example, a basic automatic exposure bracketing situation might involve a shot at a minus two-stop exposure, a shot at an even exposure, and a shot at a plus two-stop exposure based on a meter reading for the scene. But a given situation might actually require a minus three-stop exposure, a minus one-stop exposure, and a plus one-stop exposure in order to properly cover the range of exposure values within the scene. Having a greater number of exposures provides some additional latitude to cover this type of situation.

If you’re using two-stop exposure increments (which is what I recommend using) for HDR, chances are that nine exposures will be more than you need the vast majority of the time, and even seven exposures are probably more than you’ll need much of the time. But I would rather have too many exposure options than not enough, so I tend to favor using seven exposures separated by two stops each.

As for the separation between exposures, there is no need to use one-stop increments for HDR capture. Two stops will provide all of the overlap that HDR software needs to assemble an excellent result.