Evaluating Your Images

WHERE DO YOU START?All good photos start when you frame the subject and then take the photo.

The journey starts with the click of the shutter.

Some questions? On a photo shoot do you• Click away to your hearts content in the hope of taking a good one?• Do you think before you shoot of what you are trying to represent?• Do you have a plan of what you want to take?• Do you survey the scene first and then shoot, or the other way around?

Remember there is not right or wrong way, but the people that take the best photos do have a plan and do have in mind what they want to capture before they capture it.

WHERE DO YOU START?When we click the shutter we now can preview the image before we continue.

Quickly check the image and look • Histogram are we capturing all the light or do we have lost pixels• Is it sharp• Is it framed correctly• What vertical or landscape be better• Rule of thirds• If we are using zoom do we have it right• Hyper focal distance if shooting landscapes• And a host of other things that may pop into your mind

WHERE DO YOU START?You have just come back from a shoot and you insert your card into the computer….

What now?

Things we need to consider:-

• Are we using a Catalogue a or Just photo editing software?

• Where do we store our photos?

• Do we need to back them up?

• How do we name them?

• What format do we keep them in?

• How do we find them when we want to process them?

• Etc etc

WHERE DO YOU START?Choices:- There are many.• Catalogue systems include:-• Lightroom• Capture One• DXO Optics• Aperture ( now not supported by Apple)

Other programs reference your photos on your hard disks eg• Adobe Bridge• Elements• OnOne

Most have trials so you can test the software before you buy to find one that suits the way you like to work.

WHERE DO YOU START?Once you choose your software you need to think about how you will store your images.

If we shoot in RAW the file will be in an industry format unique to the camera you are using e.g.• NEF for Nikon• CR2 for Canon• RW2 or RAW for Panasonic• PEF for Pentax

But remember the RAW file to specific to camera model. Software has to be continually updated to read the RAW files from the latest models.

To read the raw file we need specific software and some people worry that this may not be available into the future

SO do we need to convert these files?

WHERE DO YOU START?No simple answer as there are pervasive arguments to both sides of the equation.Choices. • Leave files as they are

• Convert files to Adobe Digital Negative DNG

• Convert to another format such as TIFF, PNG, JPG

Important point to keep in mind is that you should never compress a raw file because when you do you throw away information. The problem with JPG is that there is always a compression (ie pixels that are thrown away, to make the image smaller)

WHERE DO YOU START?What is DNG

ADOBE developed DNG as an open standard for all platforms

“Digital Negative was developed to address the lack of an open standard for the proprietary and unique raw files created by each digital camera. DNG allows photographers to archive their raw camera files in a single format for easy cataloging and access in the future.”

Many people convert their RAW files to DNG when they download them

Abobe has a free DNG converter

In Lightroom you can convert the images as you import them.

WHERE DO YOU START?What does conversion do to the file.

EXAMPLE

I have NEF image straight out of the camera and it is 20.5MB

As a DNG it is 18.9MB

PNG it is 96.6MB Saved at a resolution of 300 pi

TIFF it is 96.5MB saved at 300 pi

Converting files to a DNG file is a real option

WHERE DO YOU START?If you use a Catalogue software then do you store the images inside the catalogue or reference them? If you do not use a catalogue, or you want to reference the photos then you need to think about your file structure.

Any file structure needs to be systematic and allow you to find files easily. Many different ways you can do it.Consider these options.1. Chronological

a. By yearb. By monthc. By week

2. Event3. Subject4. By a combination of the above

WHERE DO YOU START?A folder Hierachy likeYear e.g 2014

Then SubjectThen Event

WHERE DO YOU START?THE MAJOR BENEFITThe photos are not software dependent.

I can find the original photos when ever I want them no matter what software I am using

NAMING CONVENTIONIf you use the date in your naming convention then they will always display in order.

My naming convention is Subject on YYYY-MM-DD at HR-Min-SecSo “Kings Canyon on 2012-09-16 at 06-28-51It does not matter what processing software I am using I can find my photos.Also when I back up I use the same catalogue structure with the letters BU in the folder name

NEXT STEP - THE USE OF KEY WORDS.

Key words help you find photos easier.Keywords should be arranged in a well-ordered nested hierarchical structure, with like terms arranged in a broader term > narrower term relationship, and general terms grouped together under easily understandable headings.Example: Geographic Location >Oceania> Australia> Northern Territory > Uluru

There are three reasons for choosing such a hierarchical structure to organize your photos:It's quick to locate the Keyword you need by a logical progression through sensible groupings - When viewing your image, certain keywords will come readily to mind. A well-designed list makes them easy to find because relevant terms are grouped together. It's easy to locate the Keyword that expands your original description - Once a topic has been opened, other keywords should suggest themselves, helping you to refine your description until you are satisfied that it can't be improved. It's important that no aspect of the image description is omitted Its not just to do with Who or What is in the image - a good list will help you describe Where and When it was taken, also Why and How.

NEXT STEP - THE USE OF KEY WORDS.It is vital that the categories chosen are logical, easy to understand, and easy to work with. The only purpose of a Keyword List to help you to find the keywords that you need in a quick and speedy manner. It is therefore important that the words in the list are where you would intuitively look for them.:

The MAIN GROUPINGS: WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, HOW, and SPECIALIST.WHO is in the image? All about the people in the image: their Age, Relationship, what they look like, what they are doing, what their Occupation, Participation, or Hobby is. WHAT is the subject in the image? Describing the Objects and their Materials, their Number and their Arrangement in the image. WHERE was the image taken? Describing the Geographical Location where the image was taken, and any Celestial, Land, Marine, or Water Features. WHEN was the image taken? Describing the Time of Day when the image was taken, the Season, plus any special Festivals, Celebrations or Ceremonies. WHY was this image taken in the first place? Describing the Activity happening in the image, the Adjectives describing the subjects of the image, the Concepts that tell the story of the image, and the Emotions that talk about the feeling behind the image. HOW was it made? Describing the Photographic techniques that were used in creating the image and which will help photo-buyers narrow their choice to your photo: lighting, background, format, framing, perspective, or dominant colors. SPECIALIST: Here is the area where you can add Specialist Lists that apply to a narrow field of interest.

CHOOSING IMAGES TO WORK ONOnce we get the photos where we want them we need to quickly view the images and then have a system in place to mark the ones we think are best.We can use a star systemA colour systemOr a combination of both

Questions you need to ask yourself

Do you want to keep all images or throw the ones you don’t like away.

Keep in mind when making this decision that as software improves and your processing skills improve then images you don’t like now or are too hard to process, may become good images in the future.HARD DISK SPACE IS CHEAP

CHOOSING IMAGES TO WORK ONIf you use a star system consider this form of marking

No Star - Bad image for one reason or another1 star - Passable but not now2 stars - Come back to3 stars - Great want to work on it first

Why not use 4 and five…….. You still have them in reserve as you process.

So first up import your images with naming convention. In most programs the following can be done at the import stageBacking upChanging format (LIGHTROOM ONLY)Ad keywordsThat is a lot of the hard work out of the way AND YOU CAN NOW FOCUS ON CHOOSING THE IMAGES TO PROCESS.

CHOOSING IMAGES TO WORK ONNow the hard work starts

Quickly go through your images and star them

But what is your criteria

Something simple as “I like it” or “I don’t like it” is a good start

Then a second pass of you 3 star photos looking at- Composition- Light- Histogram - Sharpness- Impact Work on them quickly to see the impact of some slider changes…. Don’t like what you see change the star rating

CHOOSING IMAGES TO WORK ONNext move to your 2 star images using the same criteria as beforeThen you one star

Your no star images are one you look at a lot later on - but don’t forget them… some of your best images may be there.

HISTOGRAMSEvaluating HistogramsEach pixel in an image can be set to any of 256 levels of brightness from pure black (0) to pure white (255) and a histogram graphs which of those levels of brightness are in the image and how they are distributed. The horizontal axis of a histogram represents the range of brightness from 0 (shadows) on the left to 255 (highlights) on the right. Think of it as a line with 256 spaces on which to stack pixels of the same brightness. Since these are the only values that can be captured by the camera, the horizontal line also represents the image's maximum potential tonal range or contrast.

SAMPLE HISTOGRAMS

The way a histogram looks depends on the scene you're shooting and how you expose it. There's no such thing as a good or bad histogram other than one that shows unwanted clipping. Whether a particular histogram is good or bad depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If fact, you may prefer to trust your visual reaction to the image more than the very numeric image data provided by a histogram. However, even if you never use a histogram, you can learn about digital photography by understanding what a histogram can show about an image.

Following are some histograms from good images along with a brief summary of what each histogram reveals.

SAMPLE HISTOGRAMS

In this well exposed portrait there is a fairly even distribution of values in both the shadow and highlight areas of the image. There are no pure blacks in the image as shown by the gap at the far left end of the scale.

SAMPLE HISTOGRAMS

This brown moth on a gray card has most of its values in the midrange. That's why there are a number of high vertical lines grouped in the middle of the horizontal axis.

SAMPLE HISTOGRAMS

This high-key fog scene has most of its values toward the highlight end of the scale. There are no really dark values in the image. The image uses only a little more than half the camera's dynamic range.

CHOOSING IMAGES TO WORK ONQuick Tips on Other things to Look For

Any unintentional fuzziness. Even if parts of the picture are sharp, if other parts are fuzzy and it's not clear that they were meant to be that way, it can ruin a picture.

Things that appear to be growing out of people's heads. Not just from a subject's head, such things could come from the chest, a foot, or just about anywhere. This is most often caused by a clutter object behind a person.

Distracting clutter in your pictures. This could be objects, structures, shapes, colors or textures that spoil the composition by distracting focus from the main subject.Multiple points of interest that compete with one another for a viewer's attention.

CHOOSING IMAGES TO WORK ONQuick Tips on What to Look For

Crooked lines that can't be easily straightened without losing important parts of the picture.

Unflattering facial expressions. As a rule, I avoid taking pictures of people when they're eating for just this reason.

Things creeping in from the edges of the frame. Example: when a person steps in front of the camera just as you press the shutter and you catch a portion of them right on the edge of the frame.

CHOOSING IMAGES TO WORK ONSometimes picking the one best photo from a set may be quite easy - only a single photo may actually be good!

At other times the different images in a set may appear almost identical, to the point that you may be tempted to simply pick one randomly. Let's look at a couple of different sets and step through the thought process of determining which is the one 'best' image from each set.

Remember: everyone's tastes differ. The photo I pick here as being the 'best' may be different from the one you'd pick. It's really the process that's most important, so let's focus primarily on that.

CHOOSING IMAGES TO WORK ON

You could say 1 and 9 are unique to stand on their own but the others, while good photos are similar… so how would we pick the best oneThis is where we nitpick

This one is out because of what it shows growing out of his head

This one is out because his face is not sharp and in focus

These are similar to each otherIn pictures 03 and 04 you can see underneath the bottom of the rock. In number 04 you can also see over the top of the rock.In reality, this rock was only about 15ft (4.6m) high. The thing you'll notice though, is that in other photos of the series where you can't see the top and bottom of the rock, it gives the illusion that this may have been a much more dramatic climb. Let's get rid of 03 and 04 because they shatter that illusion.In your own photography, think about each photo from the perspective of a viewer who had never seen what you had captured. By controlling the context of your photos you can tell the story that you want to tell. What you choose not to show is just as important as what you capture!

CHOOSING IMAGES TO WORK ONNow we are left with 5, 6 and 8

In my view, 05 isn't as strong as the others. The climber's body is all squashed up with part of his leg overlapping part of his arm. It also lacks the impressive and dramatic muscle definition of the other two. That leaves 2

AND THE WINNER IS NO 8

WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE HERE

THEY ARE ALL GOOD BUT…..

QUESTIONS or COMMENTS

Are there any questions or comments?