Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Lightroom

Task:

Creating a New Catalogue :
Start Lightroom (If it asks to backup then select ‘Skip Now’)
Create a New Catalogue :-
Select ‘File->New Catalog …’
Import images into the catalogue
Add some keywords to the images as you do this.
Select an image and add keywords for all the dominant colours in the image; separated by commas.

Select ‘Photo -> Stacking -> Group into Stack’.

Find 3 ways to expand and collapse the stack – list them here –
i. Photo -> Stacking -> Group into Stack
ii. Control click on the stack and click expand
iii.

You can also Expand the stack and rearrange the images in the stack to move a different image to the top of the stack.

You can also create virtual copies.


Shortcuts Some useful keyboard shortcuts are :-
Tab - Hide / Show side panels
Tab - Hide / Show all panels
F - Full Screen modes
L - Dim the lights
~ - Flag the selected photos
/ - Display Module specific shortcuts

NDE Notes




Photoshop Notes - Channels & Masks

Colour Channels:
Every image opened into photoshop contains at least one or more channel. Channels are used for storing information about the colour elements in an image. The number of colour channels is dependant on the colour mode that was selected. Through
Image > Mode.
In Mode there are seven modes to choose from.
Bitmap, Greyscale, Duotone, Indexed Colour; one channel.
RGB, LAB; three channels.
CMYK; four channels.

*Channels in colour images are greyscale copies that represent each of the components of the image.

Alpha Channels
Alpha channels can be added to an image for storing and editing selections as masks.
Spot Colour Channels
Spot Colour channels can be added to an image to add spot colour plates for printing purposes.

An image can have up to 56 channels. New channels have the same dimensions and number of pixels as the original image. The file size for the channels depends on the pixel information in the channel. TIFF and photoshop formats are useful in terms of reducing channel size and information therefore giving you a smaller file size overall. You can edit a channel by selecting it and painting it.

Paint with-

White: to add to the selected channels colour at 100% intensity,
Grey: to add to the channels colour at a lower intensity,
Black: to fully remove the channels colour.

Channel Operations: Depending on the type, they can be turned on or off, copied, merged, deleted and rearranged.

Blending Modes (Wk-9)

A blending mode takes two colour values and combines them using a formula.
It is helpful to think in terms of the following colours when visualizing a blending mode’s effect:
• The result colour is the colour resulting from the blend as determined by the formula.
• The blend colour is the colour being applied with the painting or editing tool, or the colour in the layer to which the blend mode is applied (ie the Blend layer).
• The base colour is the original colour in the image ( ie the colour resulting from all the layers below).

Blending Modes are used in two situations :-
1. Painting Tools - To specify how pixels in the image are affected by a painting or editing tool such as the Paint Brush, Healing Brush, Clone Stamp, History Brush, Gradient, and Paint Bucket Tools. (The Blur, Sharpen and Smudge Tools use a subset of the Blend Modes.)
2. Layers - To determine how the pixels in one layer interact with the pixels in the layers below it.



A Blending Mode can also be applied to an Adjustment Layer. The adjustment layer settings are first applied to the base image to create the blend layer, which is then blended with the unmodified base image.

If no adjustment is applied, then the image is blended with itself.
An adjustment layer eliminates the need to duplicate the base image (thus reducing the file size).

Blending Modes can be grouped according to the effect they have on the base image.
The Independent Modes: Normal & Dissolve.
The Darken Modes: Darken, Multiply, Colour Burn, Linear Burn, Darken Colour
The Lighten Modes: Lighten, Screen, Colour Dodge, Linear Dodge, Lighter Colour
The Contrast Modes: Overlay, Soft light, Hard light, vivid light, linear light, pin light, hard mix
The Comparative Modes: Difference, Exclusion
The HSL Modes: Hue, Saturation, Colour, Luminosity
Other Modes: Behind, Clear


Class Exercise:




Lightroom

What is Lightroom ?
Adobe Lightroom is a catalogue based digital workflow program. It enables you to import, organise, process and output your images. The program is totally non-destructive in nature ie it never alters the original image data, but uses metadata to record all adjustments and settings. The program can work non-destructively with JPEG and TIF files as well as RAW files.

The software is divided into different functional modules. The different modules are listed, and selected, in the top right corner of the Lightroom window :-
1. Library Module – for sorting, labelling, comparing and selecting images,
2. Develop Module – for processing and editing the images,
3. Slideshow, Print and Web Modules – for presenting and outputting your images.

Within a catalogue images can be selected based on various criteria, and the selections remembered as ‘Collections’. All the Collections are listed and can be recalled at any time in order to work on those images.

ND Scanning

The Silverfast AI software is used for the Microtek 1800f flatbed scanner. This scanner is able to scan both reflective and transmissive originals up to A4 in size (ie printed matter as well as film).

The descreen option, allows you to eliminate the rosette pattern that forms when scanning pictures or magazines. It takes longer, but is worth it.

Week 6

Week 5

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Week 4- Lecture

Introduction to Adobe Camera Raw

Lightroom vs. Bridge

The Cache file contains the thumbnails, there is no application that is used to open this information it is just stored in a folder. This is the information about the metadata and general image info as well. TOOLS > CACHE (in bridge)
Adobe Bridge allows you to double click on an image and open it directly in camera raw or photoshop.
CTRL+R (open in Camera Raw) Command+R (macs)
ALT (makes the cancel button a reset button.

RAW Workflow:
Open Camera Raw.
Lens Corrections (fix the chromatic abberations)
Straighten/crop tools (use the ratio options)
White balance & Temperature. (Use the white balance eye dropper to select the neutral mid tone grey which will give a correct rendering of white balance.
Synchronise settings.
In bridge highlight/select the images you want then in raw- can open and edit one and sync the settings to the rest.
Lightroom uses "develop" to alter the images.

Additive and Subtractive Color Models



Questions from sheets

Part One:
What is the keyboard shortcut for creating a new document? Command N
What is the size of the image in megapixels: 2480 x 3508 Megabytes: 24.9
What is the keyboard shortcut for the marquee/ellipse tool? M
What key forces the ellipse to be a circle? Shift Key
What is the shortcut to fit the image to the screen? or enter full screen mode? F
What color appears after the images for each circle?
Red: Cyan
Green: Magenta
Blue: Yellow
What is the keyboard shortcut to group layers? Command G
What color are the after images for each circle in the subtractive color model.
Cyan: green
Magenta: red
Yellow: blue

What is the size of the psd file? 1.2mb

Part Two:
What is the keyboard shortcut for opening an existing document? Command O
What is the keyboard shortcut for the paint fill tool? G
What is the keyboard shortcut for the move tool? M
The Blue green and red circles simulate the ADDITIVE color system.

Changing the blending mode to difference simulates the SUBTRACTIVE color system.

Metadata

Adobe defines Metadata as 'a set of standardized information about a file.' That includes things like, the creator, location, name, resolution, color space, copyright, keywords, and camera data. Most digital cameras immediately attach some simple metadata to your images before it even leaves the camera, such as height, width, file format, and the time the image was taken.

Metadata is stored in the XMP file (Extensible Metadata Platform) which almost all adobe programs can read. Adjustments made to the raw file in camera raw are remembered in the XMP data.

Week 1- Lecture