September 2015 Newsletter

Brett Ossman Photography Newsletter
September 2015

Check out my website at BrettOssman.com

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Hope you find something useful and/or interesting.  Please feel free to send me a note with any suggestions, and/or comments.

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This newsletter will primarily cover the following in each issue:

• What’s Happening at Brett Ossman Photography
• Photo Spotlight
• Hot Tip (not necessarily photography related)
• Featured Artist 

Plus, I’ll add other tidbits I hope will be of interest.

First Things First

In appreciation for reading my first newsletter, I’m offering a coupon for any of my photography products.  This coupon is valid through the end of September 2015.  Simply apply the code below, on checkout, to any purchase:
 

NTXRCZ

With the range of products available from prints to greeting cards to throw pillows to shower curtains, and more: the discount will depend on the specific product(s) purchased.

What’s Happening at Brett Ossman Photography

My biggest initiative currently, other than shooting photos, is my new web site BrettOssman.com.  I have many plans in the works for the site, so check back often.  Especially with it being a new site, I am VERY interested in suggestions and comments, so send me a note.  Currently the site contains the following sections:

• Home Page
• Photos For Sale
• Other Photos
• Contact Me
• Tidbits
• Newsletter
• About Me

Photo Spotlight

Want it? Just click it!

This photo was shot at Myakka River State Park in Florida.  We went out to watch the gators do their thing.  The sunrise exploded in color.  The gators were pretty subdued, so I started looking around.  I turned and, WOW, saw the scene above.

Interested in any specific subjects, themes or styles let me know.  Not only do I have photos For Sale on my website, but many more on my Viewing page that simply haven’t made it for sale yet.

My photography tastes are eclectic.  The old adage “Variety is the Spice of Life” definitely applies to me.  If you aren’t sure what you want, check out my site for a diverse array of photos.  Hopefully, you’ll get some ideas.

Hot Tip

One question I see a lot, is why do my web photos look so different than those on my computer screen?  One of the biggest culprits may be your browser.  That’s right your browser.  Check out the following post on my blog.  Very eye-opening.
 

HUGE TIP: Why Do Web Photos Look Like Crap?

Featured Artist

Looking for something different?  Visit Catherine Van Der Woerd’s Mosaic Glass site, and let her know I sent you.
 

Catherine Van Der Woerd

As Catherine says on her site:
 

Working with watercolor and pen and ink most of my life, I was recently introduced to mosaic glass, thanks to my sister, and immediately fell in love with it. My art is mostly for windows or places with lots of light. It will brighten any home and it changes color with the daylight. I use stained glass pieces that I break (and sometimes cut) and then apply on clear glass like a puzzle. It cannot be replicated, even by myself and as I work on it I am unsure of how the final piece will look.

 

Thanks again for reading my newsletter, and don’t forget to Join My Mailing List

HUGE TIP: Adobe Lightroom Does Not Change Photos

First off:

My New Photography Newsletter Starting at the End of the Month - Click Here to Subscribe

Now, back to the topic.

I'm sure some of you are asking:
What do you mean Lightroom doesn't change a photo?  
What if I edit it?

How Lightroom Handles Photos

Many folks are leery of Lightroom, because they are concerned about ruining their photos.  Lightroom never changes the photo itself.  Lightroom simply points to the photos.  In fact, if you open the original photo outside of Lightroom, say in Windows Picture Viewer, you won't see any Lightroom changes.

For example, note the photo locations on the left.  That's from my external hard drive, and when I import a photo, Lightroom notes where it resides.

This is key to understand.  
Once you import a photo into Lightroom, do not manipulate the photo outside Lightroom, such as moving, renamimg, deleting, etc.  Anything further work on the photo should and can be done inside Lightroom, including opening in external editors like Photoshop..  If you maneuver the photo outside Lightroom, Lightroom may lose that link, because the file name or location is now different.  You take steps to correct this, but why would you want if you don't have to?  Stay in Lightroom.

Saving a Photo in Lightroom

You never actually save the original photo in Lightroom.  You save the tasks performed in Lightroom, such as editing, keywording, etc.  Lightroom saves these changes separate from the photo.  Then, when you re-open the photo in Lightroom, it re-applies those changes on the screen.  Again, it hasn't changed the original photo at all.

For example, in the Develop module (editing), the History Panel shows all the edits I've done.  Since the final result isn't stored in the photo itself, I can easily back out of any changes or even start over.

Saving the Photo with Lightroom Changes

Your question now may be, how do I give the photo to someone with my changes?  You Export it to a brand new file created from your original plus any Lightroom changes.  Again, doesn't touch the original photo.

Restoring a Photo of a Family Friend

This post won't be a typical quick tidbit, but I though some of you might like to see me restore an old photo.  This won't be a full tutorial, just a demo.  There are plenty of resources on the web for restoring photos.  Just Google any of these steps.

First I scanned the photo at the maximum resolution available to me (600dpi) to get as much detail as possible.  I also scanned it to a TIFF file, for maximum flexibility editing.

As you can see, I have a bit of work ahead of me.

Next, I loaded the photo into Adobe Lightroom, cropped, and adjusted the white balance.

Now the fun starts, getting rid of those nasty spots. I decided to look for one of the web resources for restoring old photos, as mentioned above.

I used the Spot Healing Brush to remove the isolated spots by the car's rear window and the one on the lawn.  Super easy for those.  Just a point and click for each.

The others will be a bit more work.  I used combinations of many healing tools in Photoshop to remove the other spots, including the Patch Tool, Spot Healing Brush, Healing Brush, and Clone Stamp.  I even selected some spots and did Replace Colors to replace the rust colors with nearby colors.

Next in line is some exposure adjustments to add some contrast and take care of those extra-bright, blown-out areas.  I started to work with Photoshop, but decided Lightroom might work better for me.  First, some some Highlight, Shadow, Contrast, White and Black Point adjustments, plus a bit of Clarity.

Sky and top of the car are still too bright for me, so back to Lightroom.  I used a Graduated Neutral Density Filter to address the sky, a Radial Filter for the top of the car, and a Targeted Adjustment Brush for the small bright spot next to his right shoulder.

Well, the exposure seems much better, but these adjustments exposed how rough the photo is.  Since the colors are pretty bad, decided to try a black and white first.  Back to Photoshop as I want to try to clean up that sky first.  First, I used the Spot Healing Brush to remove a bunch of specs from the sky.

Much better.  Now for the black and white conversion.  I used Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.  Brought down the highlights a bit and added a little contrast.

And finally, the color version.  Wasn't sure I was going to get any semblance of a good result.  Photoshops Auto Color got me most of the way there.  Then, I went back to Lightroom and added the Neutral Density Filter, and added the blue color.

HUGE TIP: Some Perhaps No So Obvious Online Tools I Found Helpful

In my journey setting up a photography business, I found many online tools that proved very useful.  Here are, perhaps, some of the not so well-known ones that I truly believe can help anyone, not just photographers:

If This Then That (www.IFTTT.com)
A FREE site that lets you create recipes for automating repetitive online tasks.  The principle is basically if this happens, then do that.

Here are my recipes, so far, to illustrate:

• Anytime my wife or brother-in-law post items for sale on eBay or Etsy, automatically pin them on a Pinterest board I created for vintage items.
• Anytime I post a photo to my 500px site, automatically:
• Pin it to a Pinterest board
• Post it to my Flickr site, and 
• E-mail it to my Mom

I set them up, each in a minute or less, and I'm done.
How cool is that?

YouTube (www.youtube.com) 
YouTube is not just for goofy or funny videos.  It contains serious tutorials, many FREE, on just about any subject.  Believe it or not, almost all of these folks, that I've seen, know their stuff.  When I find an excellent video, I subscribe to the contributor.  Now, I get e-mail notifications when they release a new video.  Here's a couple of FREE videos on my plate to watch:

• Anthony Morganti instructional videos Adobe Lightroom
• Social Media for Photographers

I have several others, and am always downloading more on my memory stick to watch on TV.

Android Smart Phone Emulator (www.bluestacks.com) 
Ever wanted to do things on your PC you THOUGHT you could only do on a smart phone, like posting Instagram photos, or using smart phone apps.  Check out this emulator.  It looks and functions just like an Android smart phone on your PC.  I use it to post Instagram photos from my laptop.

GoDaddy (www.godaddy.com)
There are many places to get your own web site.  I decided on GoDaddy simply for the cost.  For under $20 for the first year, I got:

• A domain: BrettOssman.com
• An email address: Brett@BrettOssman.com
• A quick and easy web site builder, no programming required

Check out my new site: Brett Ossman Photography

Hopefully, some of you will find the above useful.  If you need any help with any of them, let me know, but they are all very easy to use.
 

Photo Finishing or Editing - Example

Thought some of you might be interested in me finishing a photo.  I'm going to use Adobe Lightroom, but you can accomplish many, if not all, of the tasks in other photo processing programs, some FREE.  The key is to learn how to use the program you have.

I'll try to keep this one generic and simple, hopefully applicable to any photo processing program.

You'll notice very subtle changes as I go.  Sometimes that is all you want.

I'm starting with the following photo out of the camera.  It's an Anole lizard crawling across our lanai screen.

Yuck, ugly.  Going to get better.

• Cropping- basically any sizing, straightening/rotating I want.  I wanted to fill the frame more.

• White Balance - I shoot camera RAW, so I set White Balance to Daylight
  
  
  
  
• Exposure Adjustments - brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows

•  Color - saturation and/or vibrance, I typically use vibrance as it is not so over-powering

• Contrast - Decided I wanted a little more contrast at this point.

• Sharpening - Next is some sharpening and noise reduction.  NOTE: This will NOT fix a blurry, out of focus photo.  Just crispen it up a bit.  Is crispen a word? LOL

•  Vignette - Finally a little dark vingette around the edges to make it pop a bit.

 

This is a pretty basic finish, but many times, this is all I do.  Hopefully, it shows what you can accomplish in a few quick steps.