Purple Fringing Quick Fixes

Purple Fringing, AKA: Chromatic Aberrations (sounds like something you would hear on an episode of X-Files), AKA: Lens Fringing. Even with the best lenses you will occasionally find these little buggers lurking amongst the edges of your photos. Purple fringing usually shows up as purple halo's around objects in the edges of your photos. Luckily there are a few easy Photoshop fixes you can do to get rid of them.

Lens Correction - Fire up Photoshop and go to the Filter menu, Distort, Lens Correction. This will open your image in the Lens Correction editor. Under the Chromatic Aberrations slider there are two options, depending on what kind of fringing you have use the appropriate slider. Hit OK when your done and goodbye chromatic aberrations.

Hue/Saturation layer - Here is an easy one. Open your fringing image...snicker, snicker... in Photoshop and click the Add Adjustment Layer button, select the Hue/Saturation option and where is says "Edit Master" change it to the color you want to get rid of, magenta for example. Then with the eyedropper tool click on the area of fringe you want to get rid of then slide the saturation slider to the left to desaturate that area.

Sponge Tool - Here is an even easier but, not always the most efetive way of removing chromatic aberrations. With your image open in Photoshop select the Sponge tool from the tool bar (it is hiding in the Dodge/Burn button if your not familiar, just right-click and hold and you will see it pop up). With the Sponge tool simply paint over the areas of purple fringing you want to get rid of. I find this helpful in landscapes or areas of foliage.

While these tricks are fine and dandy the best way to fix purple fringing to is avoid it in the first place. You can prevent purple fringing by using high quality lenses, stopping down your lens (shooting at an aperature of f8-f22), and if you are using a zoom lens avoid using the maximum and minimum focal range. A lenses "sweet spot" is usually somewhere in the middle focal lengths.

Hope these tips help.

If you have any questions email me at
travismanley@hotmail.com


*photo from my Shutterstock portfolio

5 Simple Photoshop Fixes

Here are a five simple Photoshop fixes you can to to most of your photos that will really make them shine.

1. Levels - Check your levels. There are a couple ways to do this here is one of them. Click on "Add new adjustment layer" in the layers window and find "Levels." Levels is a tool for moving and stretching the brightness in a histogram. There are three points you can adjust on a slider, on the left the black point, on the right the white and in the middle the midtones. Generally you want to grab the two point on either end of the slider and slide them toward the middle in order to reduce areas of absolute black and absolute white. Then you can adjust the midtone slider to adjust the brightness.

2. Level Horizons - Nothing screams SNAPSHOT like a crooked horizon line (unless it was done purposefully). Luckily crooked horizon lines are easy to fix. Open your photo in Photoshop, make a copy of your layer to work with (like one of my teachers told me about a million times "If you pervert the original that makes you a ...?" lol. Make sure you have guides turned on (View menu - Show - check "Guides") click on the ruler at the top of the widow and drag a guide to where the horizon line should be in your photo. If that horizon line isnt straight hit Ctrl+T and grab one of the corners and rotate it until its where you want it. Presto your done.

Also a quick note if your horizon line curves as a result of using a wide angle lens you can straighten it out by going to the Filter menu - Distort - Lens Correction and tweak the Remove Distortion.

3. Great Skies - Want great looking skies but, dont want to mess with Polarizing filters? Its easy, this works best on photos with a good chunk of sky with no trees, mountains, etc intruding into them. Open your photo in Photoshop and create a new layer, select the Gradient tool and set it to foreground to transparent, make sure your foreground is set to black and create a gradient in the sky. What...you dont want a black sky? Now head over to the layer option and select Soft Light this should give you a nice blue gradient in your sky. You can play with opacity settings and even duplicate the layer for a darker sky as well as trying other layer options.

4. Clone Stamp and Patch Tool - Both of these tools are a "must use" for us stock photographers. Whether its cloning out those pesky sensor spots in your skies, editing out logos or covering up unsightly blemishes etc. I use both these tools on a daily basis. To use the Clone Stamp tool select it from the tool bar and hold down Alt+left click to take a sample of an area to stamp over the area you want to cover up, with that done paint out the unwanted areas. You might have to do this a couple times sampling from different areas to get it right. To use the Patch tool select it from the tool bar and draw a line around the area you want to cover up, with that done click and drag the selection over a similar area to replace the selection. The Patch tool will then combine the two areas.

5. Contrast - Want to make those dull photos pop? Here is an easy one, open your image in Photoshop, duplicate the layer and select overlay as the layer mode then adjust the opacity to your liking.

Hope these quick tips help

Any questions hit me up at travismanley@hotmail.com

Thanks!

*Photo from my Shutterstock.com portfolio

POTD #22

Photo of the Day

Took this shot at an equipment rental shop while on a walk with my family.

The Breakdown: This is another one of those shots where the light was really bright and contrasty. I got a few good stock shots with the sun at my back but, I thought it might be cool to flip around and put the sun right behind my subject for some backlighting and this is what I got.

After taking the photo I boosted the contrast and the blacks to get a good silhouette and then tweaked the color to get the sky the way I wanted.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5d
Exposure:		0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture:		f/20
Focal Length:		105 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		-1/3 EV

Here are links to some of the equipment I used to get this shot. If the equipment I used is no longer available I have listed either the newer version or a similar substitute. I no longer use some of the items on this list.

Photoshop CS4

Canon EOS 5d

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens

B + W 77mm UV (Ultra Violet) Haze Multi Coated (2C) Glass Filter #010

My Photography Workflow:

I shoot in raw,
organize and review shots in Adobe Bridge,
process raw files in Adobe Camera Raw
and export as .jpeg if im done,
if I need to do more work in Photoshop I export as .tiff,
make final touches in Photoshop,
I add titles, descriptions and keywords in Bridge when im done editing.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

Great Photography Podcast!

Just finished listening to the first podcast at studiolighting.net, it is a few years old but there is still a lot of great info in there about setting up a home photo studio and also and interview with the great Paul Buff founder of White Lightning and Alien Bees lighting equipment.

The whole podcast is great, but if your not going to listen to the full hour I recommend fast forwarding to the last 20 minutes or so. Paul Buff goes into detail about what makes Alien Bees so awesome and some useful info about hot light (mainly how not useful they are).

Here is the link http://www.studiolighting.net/studio-photography-podcast-lightsource-episode-1/

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #20

Photo of the Day

Took this one overlooking the water near the Dungeness Spit in my hometown (Sequim, WA). I know sunsets are cliche and have been done a million times, but I havent done them a million times and I felt like it was something I wanted to play around with and see what my version of a great sunset looked like.

It was alot of fun actually. I did this sunset series last summer, I would check out what time the sun was supposed to set online and drive out to a location I either had a feeling would be a good spot or I had scouted earlier. Summer twilight has got to be my favorite time, when its just getting dark, but it is still nice and warm out.

The Breakdown: The two most important pieces of equipment when taking sunset photos are a sturdy tripod and a remote trigger or timer. Its all about keeping your camera steady for those long exposures.

As far as camera settings go most cameras have a sunset setting (if this doesnt tell you that sunsets are overdone I dont know what will). I used the Spot metering mode on my camera and set it to expose for the sky not the dark foreground. I was more interested in what was going on in the clouds and if I tried using an automatic metering mode it would have taken a longer exposure to properly expose the foreground and would have blown out the sky.

I was playing around with different f-stops to see what I liked best and f10 was giving me the best results. I dont think there is any one perfect aperature setting for sunsets/sunrises. I wanted a very sharp image and I wanted to stop down my lens to avaid Chromatic Abberations (purple fringing). I found the wider I set may apature the softer the image, the more I stopped it down the sharper and if I stopped it down too far the sky got really grainy.

This is one of the lasts shots I took with my cheapo Quantaray QSX 6601 tripod. It didnt occure to me to check the maximum weight load for this tripod when I upgraded to the Canon 5d and the extra couple pounds stripped out the plastic gears. I have upgraded to the Manfrotto 190XPROB with the 484RC2 ball head, awesome tripod! (review coming soon)

After taking the shot I really tweaked the white balance in Photoshop and boosted the blues and reds to get the look I was going for.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5d
Exposure:		0.25 sec (1/4)
Aperture:		f/10
Focal Length:		24 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

Here are links to some of the equipment I used to get this shot. If the equipment I used is no longer available I have listed either the newer version or a similar substitute. I no longer use some of the items on this list.

Photoshop CS4

Canon EOS 5d

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens

Sunpak 6601TM Tri-Monopod - This one is pretty close to what I was using at the time. Dont underestimate the importance of a tripod, even if you are using a cheap one it is the only way to guarantee tack sharp photos every time.

Manfrotto 190XPROB Black Tripod Kit with 484RC2 Mini Ball Head - This is the tripod I use now.

Canon Wireless Remote

My Photography Workflow:

I shoot in raw,
organize and review shots in Adobe Bridge,
process raw files in Adobe Camera Raw
and export as .jpeg if im done,
if I need to do more work in Photoshop I export as .tiff,
make final touches in Photoshop,
I add titles, descriptions and keywords in Bridge when im done editing.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #19

Photo of the Day

"When he was born it looked like he had zombie hands and feet"

This is a shot of my wife and newborn son's hands. Took this maybe a week or two after he was born. We knew we were probably pushing our luck trying to get River to pose for us, and we were mostly right. We didnt go into the shoot with very much expectation other than to get some studio photos of him when he was really young.

Its probably not clear in this smaller version of the photo, but his hands (and feet) were really chapped and peeling because he was almost two weeks overdue. When he was born it looked like he had zombie hands and feet because they were really big, gray and wrinkled, his nails were also long and crazy looking.

Considering I only got peed on twice during this shoot I would say it went pretty well.

The Breakdown: I shot this on a black felt backdrop with two off-camera flashes (a Sunpak 383 and an Olympus FL-50) on light stands with umbrellas. For more info on off camera lighting check out strobist.blogspot.com it will change the way you look at lighting.

I ran a sync cable from my camera to the FL-50 and used two Adorama slave adapters one to the FL-50 because it doesnt have a port to plug the sync cable into and the Adorama adapter lets me do that, the other on the Sunpak 383 so it would act as a slave and fire when the FL-50 did.

I converted the image to black & white in Photoshop.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5d
Exposure:		0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture:		f/5.6
Focal Length:		95 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

Here are links to some of the equipment I used to get this shot. If the equipment I used is no longer available I have listed either the newer version or a similar substitute. I no longer use some of the items on this list.

Photoshop CS4

Canon EOS 5d

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens

Olympus FL-50R - Replacement for the FL-50

Vivitar DF283 - A good alternative to the discontinued Sunpak 383

Adorama Electronic Slave Unit - Attach one of these to your flash and it will fire when it detects another flash

Smith Victor RS8, 8' Raven Lightstand - Very sturdy and just the right height

Photoflex Shoe Mount Multiclamp with Umbrella Holder - Use one of these to attach your flash to a lightstand and you can also use an umbrella with it

Adorama 40" White Interior Umbrella with Removeable Black Cover - This is really a great deal. You can use this to shoot through or to bounce. The bigger the better.

My Photography Workflow:

I shoot in raw,
organize and review shots in Adobe Bridge,
process raw files in Adobe Camera Raw
and export as .jpeg if im done,
if I need to do more work in Photoshop I export as .tiff,
make final touches in Photoshop,
I add titles, descriptions and keywords in Bridge when im done editing.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #18

Photo of the Day

Took this shot at the beach down the street from my house of my sister in-law and her boyfriend. They wanted some photos for engagement announcements.

The Breakdown: The weather was pretty gloomy, but like I have said before its almost easier to shoot on days like this and work with what you have (great diffused light) rather than try and fill in hard shadows from the bright sun.

I didnt use any lights or reflectors for this shot, just the diffused light from the sun.

Camera:		Olympus E-500
Exposure:		0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture:		f/7.1
Focal Length:		57 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

Here are links to some of the equipment I was using on Adorama.com (if the equipment I used is no longer available I have listed either the newer version or a similar substitute).

Olympus E-520 - Replacement for the E-500

Photoshop CS4

My Photography Workflow:

I shoot in raw,
organize and review shots in Adobe Bridge,
process raw files in Adobe Camera Raw and export as .jpeg if im done,
if I need to do more work in Photoshop I export as .tiff,
make final touches in Photoshop,
I add titles, descriptions and keywords in Bridge when im done editing.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #16

Photo of the Day

Took this one off the pier in downtown Port Angeles, WA. I dont do a lot of architectural photography, but I did like how this shot came out.

The Breakdown: It was a gray day and because there was nothing really interesting going on with the color I converted it to black & white in Photoshop. I punched up on the contrast so the building would really pop and everything else would just fade into the background.

Camera:		Olympus E-500
Exposure:		0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture:		f/8
Focal Length:		96 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

Live Long and Tweet!

Twitter has become my #1 tool for promoting my photography and following other artists that I am interested in.

Is Twitter just another Myspace, Facebook, etc. place to waste time? Twitter like Myspace and Facebook is whatever you make it to be. You can use it to let your friends know your brushing your teeth now, or you can use it as a professional resource for advertsing yourself.

I think what makes Twitter so great is its simplicity, the learning curve is about five minutes. There are no silly apps that let you send your friends "gifts" or constant polls and contests to enter. Another great thing about Twitter is you choose who's updates you want to follow. If one of your followers is annoying you with random updates about whats on TV you can chose to stop following them.

How do I use Twitter to promote myself? Simple. Maybe you just wrote an interesting blog post, hop on Twitter and let your followers know about it and if your lucky and they like it you might get a RT (Re-Tweet) and they will share it with their followrs and the next thing you know you have fifty new followers all waiting to see what you are going to Tweet next.

If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, Twitter is a very simple tool for sending and receiving status updates (140 characters or less) via web, email, or text message.

There are also quite a few add-ons that make Twitter even better. Firefox users can install Twitterfox adds a status bar to your screen so you can keep updated on "tweets" while your doing other things on the web. Power Twitter adds helpful tools and options.

Live long and Tweet!

Follow my updates on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/travismanley

POTD #15

Photo of the Day

I am really happy with how this one turned out. This is exactly the look I was going for. I wanted to show in the photo what I saw standing there under this tree with the sun filtering in through the leaves and then take it a little further.

The breakdown: This was kind of a tricky shot to get, I took a few different versions playing with my cameras different metering modes ans selecting different parts of the images to expose from.

The problem with an image like this where you have hard sun and shadow is to get the whole image to be "properly exposed" without too much overexposed and underexposed areas. If I set my camera to expose for the bright leaves everything else would be really dark, if I set it to expose for the shadow area everything else would be really bright.

One option would have been to take multiple shots at different exposures and blend them together, but because the leaves were moving the images wouldnt match up and there would be some "ghosting" or "artifacts." (Google HDR if you are unfamiliar)

I chose to take a single exposure that was right in the middle and use Photoshop to lighten the dark areas and tone down the bright. I actually prefer this method over HDR when shooting nature photos because HDR can tend to make and image look flat and unnatural. I also tweaked the color to make it feel more warm and to give it that glowing loook.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5D
Exposure:		0.025 sec (1/40)
Aperture:		f/5.6
Focal Length:		28 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		-1 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #14

Photo of the Day

"Who would have thought I could get an image that looked like it was taken right before sunset in the middle of the day?"

Took this shot last summer at one of our many trips to beautiful Lake Crescent.

The Breakdown: It was late afternoon and I was taking shots of people passing by in their boats not really getting anything I was too happy with, but I had just got my new camera (Canon 5d) and was just playing around having fun.

This photo really came to life in post-production. I was editing all the photos from that day in Photoshop (Raw) and I got to this photo. I was nothing special, it was back-lit (the sun was directly in front of me so the image was really contrasty) not really the look I was going for so I started playing around with it to see if it was salvageable.

Rather than try to "fix" it I thought I would just go with it. I boosted the blacks and the contrast and converted it to black & white. I liked the B&W version, but I wanted to take it a little further so I added some tone and adjusted it until I got it where I wanted it.

Who would have thought I could get an image that looks like it was taken right before sunset in the middle of the day? This is a technique im really looking forward to playing around with some more. I think this look could be achieved just about any time of day with your subjected lit from the back and exposeing for the background not the subject.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5D
Exposure:		0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture:		f/22
Focal Length:		93 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		-1 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #13

Photo of the Day

Here is a nice sunny summer photo for you. I took this shot of a friend of mine's son at the beach.

The Breakdown: This is a pretty simple one no fancy lighting techniques or anything. Weston was running up and down the beach trying to keep his kite off the ground paying no attention to me. I got behind him and sat in the sand so I could get a nice low angle shot with both him and his kite in the frame.

Camera:		OLYMPUS E-500
Exposure:		0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture:		f/6.3
Focal Length:		17 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #12

Photo of the Day

"I became very aware that all that separated us from the beast was five feet and some flimsy wire fence."

This is a shot I took at The Olympic Game Farm a couple of summers ago. I used to come here all the time when I was a kid, but hadn't been for a really long time so I thought it might be fun.

The Breakdown: No big secrets here, this shot was pretty straight forward. The way the Game Farm works is its like a zoo that you drive through. I had my wife drive and I sat in the back seat with my camera.

We pulled up to the bear enclosures and these huge animals came lumbering over to our car. I became very aware that all that separated us from the beast was five feet and some flimsy wire fence (I know I'm being dramatic here, I just wanted something interesting for the caption).

Many of the animals are retired from Disney films so they are used to performing. They plop down in front of you and start waving their arms and fake growling and snarling like this one is doing in my photo. It felt more like working with a model than a wild animal.

It was a lot of fun and I really liked this shot. I like that it doesnt look like your typical zoo shot of a bear through glass or a fence from half a mile away while it walks around in circles. Its more like a "when animals attack" shot. lol

Camera:		OLYMPUS E-500
Exposure:		0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture:		f/6.3
Focal Length:		96 mm
ISO Speed:		200
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #11

Photo of the Day

This is a shot of my son River taken when he turned five months. My wife and I wanted some bright and fun photos of him and wanted to take advantage of him being able to sit up on his own. There is only so much you can do with a kid that can only lay on his back or stomach.

The shoot went great. We would take some photos then go over them while River napped. When he woke up Carra put him in a different outfit and we would take some more photos until he needed another nap. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The breakdown: I shot this on a blue backdrop with two off-camera flashes (a Sunpak 383 and an Olympus FL-50) on light stands with umbrellas. For more info on off camera lighting check out strobist.blogspot.com it will change the way you look at lighting.

I ran a sync cable from my camera to the FL-50 and used two Adorama slave adapters one to the FL-50 because it doesnt have a port to plug the sync cable into and the Adorama adapter lets me do that, the other on the Sunpak 383 so it would act as a slave and fire when the FL-50 did.

I also tried (unsuccessfully) using a 250watt Smith & Victor lamp to brighten up the background a little. It just didnt work the way I was hoping because the light from the lamp was really overpowered by the flashes and it was frustrating because I didnt have any way of changing the power from the lamp without putting in a more powerful bulb.

The lighting from this lamp was also ugly and yellow so I coulnt let it touch the model at all or else the color woulldnt jive with the light from my flashes.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5D
Exposure:		0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture:		f/7.1
Focal Length:		67 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

High Speed Flash Photography beyond 1/200 sec

Found this great trick on how to get away with shooting faster than 1/200sec with a flash.

Most camera manuals say that the max sync speed when using a flash (the shortest shutter speed you can use and fully expose your cameras sensor) is around 1/200-1/250sec.

Have you ever actually tried shooting faster than 1/200sec with a flash? If you do chances are you will see this black area start to show up on the bottom of your cameras lcd screen (if you are shooting landscape orientation). The faster the shutter speed the more black area.

The trick is to keep this in mind when your shooting and incorporate that into the photo. Maybe you want to darken the foreground a little anyway, or if your really talented you can flip your camera upside down to get a dark gradient in the sky if your shooting outdoors.

Here is a link to the author of this video.
www.digitalprotalk.blogspot.com

Another great set of photography videos on YouTube.

I found another great set of photography videos on YouTube by a guy named Bryan Peterson who is the author of Understanding Exposure, Understanding Close-up Photography, and more.

I almost wrote this guy off at first because he seemed a little crazy, but he really knows his stuff. Do yourself a favor and check out some of his videos.

POTD #9

Photo of the Day
This is another example of what you can do with a DIY light tent and desk lamps.

The breakdown: This pineapple was a pain to work with. I had a really hard time getting it to stand up because it wasnt totally flat on the bottom. I tried supporting it with some fishing line, but ended up just using a roll of masking tape on its side as a base and that worked pretty good.

As for the lighting, I used the same light tent next to a window with some desk lamps just like most of my earlier isolated photos.

I boosted the color in Photoshop and cut out the background by using a combination of the magic wand tool and the eraser zoomed in to 200% feathering set to 95%.

I took this shot with the Olympus E-500.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

POTD #8

Photo of the Day


Another example of off-camera lighting and using the existing light.

The breakdown: I got this shot with a Canon Speedlite the 430EX and used it handheld off camera via a 3ft ETTL sync cable for a little extra light and so I could shoot at a faster shutterspeed without raising my ISO past 100. I used the diffused light from the sun (it was an overcast day) as my main light.

I took this shot with the Canon 5d with the 24-105mm lens at 105mm, f8 and 200/sec.

For the post production in Photoshop I toned down the bright yellow slide so it didnt overpower the model and punched up the saturation on his blue coat so it would stand out a little more.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

Great Photography Videos On Youtube.

I found this great set of videos on youtube the other day and have been watching them like crazy. They are by a photo studio called prophotolife. The videos are very helpful for beginners, people who like making their own equipment and there is even stuff that more advanced photographers can learn from.

Here is one of the videos.

POTD #7

Photo of the Day
This shot is a great example of what you can get using a cheap DIY light tent and desk lamps.

The breakdown: I took this shot of my wife's hand holding a green apple in a small light tent I made out of a cardboard box and tracing paper. I placed this next to a window in my house and then used desk lamps to fill in the light on the shadow side. If you take a look at my one of my portfolios www.dreamstime.com/travismanley_info about 90% of my isolated photos of small objects were shot the same way.

I have better equipment now and dont use the old DIY light box, but for something that didnt cost me a dime to make it was probably one of my most valued pieces of equipment (aside from my camera) for a long time.

After I took the shot, I opened the image in Photoshop, boosted the hue/saturation a bit, added a black & white layer mask and painted out the apple and fingernails so they wouldnt be affected by the b&w layer.

I took this shot with the Olympus E-500 at 32mm, f14, 1/80 sec, ISO 100.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!