Picture of the Month – March 2011

March was a wet month in Ferndale, I think it rained every day. So I didn’t get out much to take photographs.

But true to form, although it came in like a lion, it had signs it was going to go out like a lamb. On the last day of the month it finally stopped raining long enough that Lori and I took a walk up Williams Creek Rd. On the way back I noticed this draft horse sticking his nose through an old window in his barn.

By the time I got my camera out and turned on, he had lost interest in the view out the window, so it took some coaxing to get his attention again. Captured with the Pentax point and shoot that I keep in my pocket, it was a good reminder that the best camera is the one the one that’s with you.

Picture of the Month – February 2011

Ever since I moved to Ferndale, I’ve wanted to have the chance to photograph the Victorian Village covered in snow. This month was the closest I’ve come, for the first time we actually had snow stick at our house, which sits at about 40 ft. above sea level.

I knew there’d be lots of snow up in the hills so Lori, her sister, and myself got up early and drove up the Wildcat and across Bear River Ridge. We watched the sun rise on the drive up and the dawn broke with a clear blue sky. Quite a contrast to the trip up there the day before when it was snowing sideways so hard that I couldn’t even take pictures.

The only other people stirring that early was a few ranchers distributing hay to their cattle who no longer had a plentiful supply of grass to feed on. We came across this group of cattle and I thought it was funny how the cow on the left just didn’t fit in with the rest of the crowd.

I’ve used Seth Knorr’s Novice Form PHP script (nvform.php) on a few web sites to do the HTML form to email processing because it is an easy way to implement that common task. I’ve made a few changes to the script for my own use, such as adding a section to combat form spam. Recently a client asked me if I could have the email only list the fields that were filled in. On his web site we are using the script to process a form with a lot of fields, and the email ended up being 4 pages long when printed.

I figured this would be an easy change but when I looked at the code, it wasn’t obvious to me where to make the change. So I went to Google for an answer, and while I found others asking the same question in various forums, no one had answered the question.

So back to the code I went, studying it for where it was writing the email text. One thing about PHP is that you aren’t forced to write the code following any rules for line breaks, indents and such, so following someone else’s writing style can sometimes throw you. In this case I found an ELSE clause at the end of a line that I missed the first few times while reading the code.

Once I noticed that, the change I needed to make was very simple, and here is the answer. Find this line of code:

if ( $NVPOST_name == "subject" || $NVPOST_name == "sort" || $NVPOST_name == "required" || $NVPOST_name == "success_page"){}else{

and change it to this:

if ($NVPOST_value == "" || $NVPOST_name == "subject" || $NVPOST_name == "sort" || $NVPOST_name == "required" || $NVPOST_name == "success_page"){}else{

That’s all there is to it!

Personally I would have written the statement like this, which is easier for me to see the logic.

if ($NVPOST_value == "" || $NVPOST_name == "subject" || $NVPOST_name == "sort" || $NVPOST_name == "required" || $NVPOST_name == "success_page"){
    /* don't print anything */
} else {
    $SEND_prnt .= "$NVPOST_name; $NVPOST_value \n";
}

About the same time I was finishing up the last redesign of my web site, I was also preparing for donating a kidney to my wife Lori. So that left a bit of the site in limbo, mainly the Picture of the Month.

One of the goals of the redesign was to move the Picture of the Month (POTM) into the blog to make it easier for me to add entries, and for visitors to subscribe to it or search for past entries. I finally got some time to work on this and just recently imported all of the previous POTM entries from 1999 on into the blog. There were also a lot of entries missing from the 2009-2010 period where I was just to busy to update the POTM and so I went back through my photos and picked entries for the missing months.

One change I decided to make is the POTM is now being decided at the end of the month instead of the beginning of the next month. It makes more sense to have Christmas pictures as the December selection rather than posting them as the January selection. All of the other annual events make more sense too, such as wildflowers blooming in the right month.

I hope you enjoy the latest additions to the POTM. If you like my work, you can subscribe to the Picture of the Month RSS Feed.

View the latest Picture of the Month.

Picture of the Month – January 2011

It’s been a long time since I’ve had the KLR650 out on a long dirt ride, but with some good weather after weeks of rain, I figured it would be a good time to photograph some of the local streams. So I did one of my favorite loops, going up to Kneeland. It actually ends up being more of a figure 8 going up Redwood House Rd. and coming back down Shower Pass Road.

There were several beautiful spots that I found to photograph, but this was one of my favorites. I loved the color of the huge boulder sitting in the middle of the stream. It provides great contrast to the lush green foliage that surrounds the creek.

Picture of the Month – December 2010

I received a new Nikon 24-70mm lens so I was anxious to try it out in the low light conditions found in our local forests. Seemed like a good excuse to take the KLR650 out too. Rode the familiar Lost Coast Loop, but found myself stopping a lot more than usual to take photos. Amazing how new equipment will inspire me to go out and take pictures.

This was my favorite from the trip, although there were lot’s of photos I really liked from that trip. The lens is significantly sharper than any other zoom lenses I have in my kit. A very nice addition indeed. I’m going to have fun with this one.

Picture of the Month – November 2010

This is from a training burn the Ferndale Volunteer Fire Department did this month. I was driving the water tender during the drill, and after the interior training was done the fire was allowed to spread. I got back from the final water run so I had some time to start taking photos. I walked around to the back of the property where the outbuilding was burning and saw in the middle of the inferno a fire tornado forming.

It whirled for about a minute and was pretty cool to watch. It was one time I wished I had a DSLR with video built in.

In a recent forum discussion, the question was asked what’s the best way to convert color images to black and white using Photoshop. As with almost any task in Photoshop, there are a number of ways to accomplish it and while some are personal preference, some methods do offer advantages to creating better images.

First, I’m going to define the “best” way as the method that allows you to fine tune the image the most. While some of the methods are easier and quicker than others, they provide little control over the final image.

There are 5 methods that I’m going to review and I’m going to present them in the order of least desirable to most desirable. They are:

1. Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer
2. Image>Mode>Grayscale
3. Gradient Map Adjustment Layer
4. Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer
5. Black & White Adjustment Layer

There are two other methods that I’m not going to cover. First is making the conversion to the Raw file before it gets into Photoshop. Converting the raw file can produce better results in some cases, but the Black & White Adjustment in Adobe’s Camera Raw works similarly to the one in Photoshop. The second alternative is using a plugin which might give you even more options. But since I am happy with the amount of control that the Black and White Adjustment Layer provides, I haven’t explored purchasing a conversion plugin.

To help demonstrate the results of each of the 5 methods, I first created a sample file made up of 7 gradients. The first three gradients go from black to one of the primary transmissive colors (red, green, blue) and then to white. The next three gradients go from black to one of the primary reflective colors (yellow, cyan, magenta) and then to white. The last gradient goes from black to white using shades of gray.

Then I used the different conversion methods to see what effect they had.

Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

As you can see, reducing the saturation treats every color the same. You’re simply getting rid of the color. There are no options for this method. The black and white gradient is a bit different, and that might be due to the way I created it.

Image>Mode>Grayscale

I was actually surprised by the result of this method because I expected it to be identical to reducing the saturation to zero. Especially when you see the warning message that Photoshop throws up.

It sounds like it’s going to do the same thing that the saturation adjustment would do. But this method uses some algorithm that treats colors differently. This is just a setting that some Adobe engineer decided looked good for most images. It might look good for your image, then again it might not. But like the saturation method, you have no control over the result.

Gradient Map Adjustment Layer

Using a Gradient Map to convert to black and white is a method that I wasn’t familiar with until reading about it in the forum discussion mentioned earlier. So I looked it up on the web and found an article on how to do it but the author wasn’t sure exactly what it was doing. I don’t know either. It does provide a different result than the prior two methods. It also offers one level of control. You can change the softness value in the gradient to get slightly different results. Here are two conversions. The first one was converted with a softness value of 100% and the second was a softness value of 33% which the article recommended.

The effect of using a gradient map is pretty close to that of the grayscale method, except that it seems to darken the blue channel more. The effect of changing the softness level is subtle at best. So even though the method has some control, it’s not related to anything that you’re trying to accomplish in the image. Which gets me to the next method.

Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer

Photographers who have actually shot black and white film know that the best tools to improve the photo are contrast filters, a set of colored filters. By restricting the colors that hit the film, the photographer can change the contrast of the image. Since a black and white image can only convey information from contrast, this is very important. The channel mixer method allows you to use some of the control that contrast filters do for film. The advantage that digital has over film though is that the decision of which filter to use can be made later. You can even use one “filter” on the sky, and another “filter” on the foliage, something totally impossible in the film world.

For example if you want to lighten the leaves on the trees so they stand out better, you would increase the green channel. The example above shows all three channels being set to 33%. This gives a result identical to the saturation method.

But the wonderful thing is each of the three channels can be tuned from -100% to +100%. When I was using Photoshop CS and before, I used the channel mixing method and as a starting point for most images I used settings of Red 60%, Green 40%, and Blue 0%. This difference is illustrated in the image below.

I’m not saying those are the best values to use. But for the camera that I was using at the time, and the type of images that I take, that seemed to be a good starting point.

Black & White Adjustment Layer

When I upgraded to Photoshop CS3, I found there was a new conversion method available under Adjustment Layers called Black and White. Similar to the Channel Mixer, it allows you control the mix of colors, but instead of just the transmissive primaries available in Channel Mixer, it also has sliders for the three reflective primaries. I now use this method for my black and white conversions. Most of the time I make adjustments to the red and yellow channels. But once in awhile one of the other channels becomes really useful. For example if you’re trying to make a purple shirt show up better, sliding the magenta higher can help. The six controls allow you to target individual colors better.

This image shows the output of the sample file with the settings at each slider set at 50%. This gives you the same output as the reduce saturation method.

Here is the difference when you change the magenta to -200% and the cyan to +300%.

Finally, here is the output using the default values of Red 40, Yellow 60, Green 40, Cyan 60, Blue 20, Magenta 80.

Conclusion

While all of the methods will get you black and white image, if you want to control how the final image looks, the Black and White Adjustment Layer provides the most control, and I think it is also the most intuitive. Remember also, that in addition to the color conversion, your black and white image may need further changes to the contrast, either globally or locally. Global changes can be made with a Contrast Adjustment Layer. I usually darken the shadows and sometimes I lighten the highlights as well. Local changes can be done through dodging and burning. Like color conversion, there are numerous ways you can dodge and burn in Photoshop. That’s an entirely different subject to explore.

Here is a summary then of the different methods.

1. Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer – Just throws the color info out. No user input. Every color adjusted equally.
2. Image>Mode>Grayscale – Color info removed, but Photoshop applies it’s own algorithm of what it thinks is best. No user input.
3. Gradient Map Adjustment Layer – It does something similar to Method #2, but not sure what it does. Minimal non intuitive control
4. Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer – 3 channels x 200 levels = 8,000,000 options and intuitive control interface
5. Black & White Adjustment Layer 6 channels x 500 levels = 15,625,000,0000,0000,000 options and intuitive control interface

If you’ve used method 5 and have also set the global and local contrast of your image, but you’re still not happy with your black and white image, then maybe it’s an image that just isn’t going to work as a black and white. Maybe it needed different lighting and/or composition to begin with to make it an effective subject in black and white.

Picture of the Month – October 2010

October in Ferndale is one of the few months that you can count on good paining weather. Since for the last few years I’ve been working on painting our house, that’s what I spent most of this month doing. I’ve also been working on the front fence for a number of years, and it’s finally nearing completion.

To celebrate the end of the painting season, our Cecil Brunner roses bloomed again. I’m really looking forward to seeing our fence in the spring after we’ve planted the whole length with the roses.

I recently took Alaina’s senior portraits who is attending St. Bernard’s in Eureka and currently rehearsing for her role in The Brides of Dracula, which opens this week at the Ferndale Rep.

Alaina wanted to be photographed in the Redwoods, so we traveled down to one of my favorite groves along the Avenue of the Giants. Alaina is a spirited gal, and had fun jumping and climbing over trees. With the dim light available under the forest canopy, shutter speeds couldn’t capture her playfulness, but it was fun watching her have so much fun. It’s what I try to do the most on senior portraits, or actually most portraits in general, let the subject be themselves at a location where they can just go have fun.

After her session in the redwoods we stopped for blackberry popsicles which are in season right now. Yum! Then we found the big walnut tree and let her loose. I barely had my camera bag off my shoulder before Alaina was up in the tree scampering from branch to branch. Part squirrel that girl is.

I had a great morning, thanks for keeping me entertained Alaina. I’m looking forward to seeing The Brides of Dracula this weekend.