Other Presentation Methods

Although I have chosen to present my images as A3 prints, a requirement of module 310, there are alternative methods of presenting photographs.

One of the most common is the Internet, which has a far larger audience than any exhibition could achieve.  There are various ways to upload images to the internet:

• Photograph sites like Flickr
• Blogs, such as this one
• Websites (club or personal sites)

Photographs can be as separate images, as slide shows or even background images, all complete with music.  I have uploaded some images to Flickr whilst studying a previous course.

Other methods for more localised viewing include:

• Photo books are another option, which is becoming very popular as people are going back to wanting to see photographs away from the computer.  These are available in a number of styles and sizes ranging from small softback books right up to wedding albums.

• Digital Photograph Frames are also becoming more popular as someone can select a range of photographs to be displayed on their photograph frame, which changes every so often.
• Cake Designs – yes Asda (there’s a bit of advertising) do their own photo cakes, where you provide a photograph, which they scan and print on icing sugar paper and then put this on top of their sponge cakes.  It is very effective, but bear in mind that the icing paper is slightly smaller than A4 (allow about 25mm all round to get the image on the paper), the colours always seem faint and contrast is lacking but then again you cannot have your cake and eat it !

Some people even have photographic digital key ring fobs !

At the end of the day, it is up to you how you want your photographs to be displayed.

I am a member of the Burton Photographic Society, who hold a number of photographic competitions and exhibitions.  Entries for these can either be as prints (mounted or not), usually around A3 in size, or as PDI or Projected Digital Images.

Photography and the Law

 

Photography, like many areas, is covered by a number of laws to protect the public, the client and even the photographer !

Some acts of Parliament, such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HASAW or HSW), Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) are relevant to photographers.

Basically the Health and Safety at Work Act stipulates that we are responsible for all those working for us, on our property or on location.  I have identified some key areas below:

Health and Safety – Studio

Environment

On previous courses when working in the college photographic studio which is kept clear of any obstructions, we had a clear and safe working environment, which is very important because, once the lights are out and we have only the modelling lights from the flash units to see by, any cables or props left lying around could cause an accident.

Other studios might not be so well organised, so care to ensure that both you and others (assistants, models, clients,) have a safe environment in which to work.

 

Electricity

Although the voltages for many lights may be lower, especially for portable lighting, you must always check that the cables are in good condition and have firm connections (to the equipment and to the mains power supply) and that nothing is overloading any sockets.

Any use of liquids, for inclusion within any photographs, must be controlled to prevent any liquid coming close to any electrical appliances, or being spilt on the floor, causing a slipping accident.

 

Cables

If  the lighting is fitted to a series of tracks which are fixed to the ceiling, this reduces the number of cables that are near the ground, and any slack in the cables from these lights is taken up to prevent any tripping over accidents.  If the lights, and any other electrical equipment, are on the floor then care must be taken to prevent trips or catching the cables and causing anything to fall on anyone in the studio, or igniting anything that could result in a fire.

 

Heat

Because of the use of flash units, which generate a lot of heat, these must only handled before any photography started, using the light from the modelling light to ascertain the lighting. Also nothing inflammable should be placed any where near any lighting equipment. It is important with so much lighting equipment that can be triggered wirelessly that any unused equipment is switched off, both for safety and causing unwanted lighting.

Steve, who changed any fittings, prior to the start of the shoot, was careful not to catch any lighting tubes, which are very fragile whilst changing the fittings.

 

Health and Safety – Location

All the above health and safety precautions should be taken, in addition to those below:

Exposure

It is important that all the photographer’s team are suitably dressed for the location, with provisions for the weather changing.  This is not so much an issue when a vehicle is near by, where towels and warm clothing should be carried.  Even space rescue blankets, which are silver reflective sheets which can reflect body heat back to the casualty or user) should be carried.

 

Communications

When on location, it is important to maintain communications with someone, at the office, studio, a friend or family, etc, so that if anything was to happen the emergency services could be contacted.  Care should be taken when using mobile telephones which can loose their signal very easily.  With walkie talkie handsets, it is important that the team stay within range of each other and have meeting locations set up so that in case of emergency the team can all meet in one location.

 

Terrain

It is important that the team are aware of the terrain and take precautions near to cliffs, and rivers.  Ideally, a route should be mapped out before hand, and stuck to, avoiding any dangerous areas.

The team leader should maintain knowledge of their actual position, either via map or GPS, which in the case of an emergency can save vital time in the tem being located quickly.  Accurate and up to date maps should be carried which cover the location.

 

First Aid

Ideally, one of the team would be trained in first aid, but at the very least a well stocked first aid kit should always be carried.

 

 

Post Production

Although you might feel that here you are safe, you must still take precautions.

 

Chemicals

Because we are all using digital cameras, most of the chemicals involved with photography, in particular the processing and development of the finished photographs, have been removed, but some others still are in use.

All chemicals should be in clearly marked bottles which are kept in a safe storage area.

Chemical Data sheets should be kept available detailing what is in the chemical, it’s effect on people and how to deal with it if it is spilt or comes into contact with someone. 

 

Visual Display Equipment

With the increase use of computers in the work place the Visual Display Regulations were brought in to ensure that people were using computers in the safest environment possible.  Below is a video showing how you should sit at a computer:

Basically you should adopt a sitting position like the one below:

Where the eyes are in line with the top of the computer’s monitor, the arms are at about 90 degrees to the body, with the wrists straight and your feet should be flat on the ground.

In addition to sitting properly it is important that you take regular breaks away from the computer, even if it is only looking at something else, so that your eyes can focus on something further away than the distance from the monitor.  It is important to note that many people do not blink whilst at a computer screen, hence the feeling of tired and dry eyes !

I know the above is difficult, especially whilst working on that image for your final selection, or the winning image for the Burton Photographic Society, but failure to keep to these actions will cause you problems later on.

 

Other areas of Law

Children

Photographing children, especially in a public place, can be a minefield and simply it is better to photograph the children, at home, with the parents consent, even better with the parents being there !

 

Contract Law

This might sound a little heavy for photographers, but it is an important area for any business. 

• You should always try to get the requirements from the client in writing, as this can save a lot of hassle later on if the client changed their mind. 
• The cost of the assignment must be agreed before work starts, with provision for any necessary expenses.
• It is important to estimate the time required to fulfil the assignment so that any other work that needs to be done afterwards is not held up by you.  Some companies may enforce a delay penalty clause if this is the case.
• It is important to remember that the last terms of contract accepted are those that would be enforceable in a court of law.
• Payment terms should be agreed prior to any work being started and documented.  Here a little homework on finding out the companies normal payment terms can be useful as to argue the case if necessary.

 

Copyright

It is important to respect the copyright of other people, as failure to do so can lead to prosecution in a court of law, having college work removed from your portfolio, disqualification in competitions and exhibitions – this list is almost endless, but the effect on you and your reputation can be devastating !

When uploading images to the internet, a copyright notice on the web site will not always stop people from trying to grab your images.  Some common methods to try to stop people from stealing your work are:

1. Disabling the right click button action on a page with includes your images.  This is a simple matter of using some JavaScript code on the website.
2. Watermarking images, both digitally (which would only be seen in the top of the screen when editing the images) or physically or destructively (where an image is overlaid over your photograph, usually with a message (eg copyright) to deter someone from simply copying your image and claiming that they took the photograph.
3. Using flash albums, so the person trying to steal the image cannot simply click and steal the image directly.

One example, that I heard of recently, was the copyright infringement case Latimer v. Roaring Toyz, et al. The case has been reported by various photo industry publications and blogs since it involved a claim of copyright infringement brought by a photographer against several high-profile defendants. Today, the case, which has all the trappings of a morality play, represents a cautionary tale for any photographer who fails to use written agreements or who doesn’t understand that a photographer’s conduct can create a license (aptly named an implied license). Above all, the case is a lesson in the importance of maintaining realistic expectations in business and litigation.  

The background of the case is relatively straightforward. In January 2006, Kawasaki Motors Corp. U.S.A. engaged Sarasota, Florida-based Roaring Toyz (www.RoaringToyz.com) to customize two ZX-14 motorcycles as part of its introduction of the new model motorcycle. The customized motorcycles were to be displayed together with standard production models during Daytona Bike Week. Although Roaring Toyz did the custom work, it commissioned Ryan Hathaway, an independent artist, to create custom artwork that ultimately appeared on the motorcycles. By late February 2006, Roaring Toyz had nearly finished the customization of the two motorcycles. At about the same time, Kawasaki was completing preparations for the ZX-14 World Press Introduction, which was scheduled to take place in Las Vegas during the last few days of the month.

 
Kawasaki requested photographs of the customized motorcycles, and the Roaring Toyz marketing director, using a point-and-shoot digital camera, created and sent the requested photographs. After seeing the marketing director’s photographs, Kawasaki decided that they wanted better quality photographs of the customized motorcycles so that they could include them in the media kit distributed at the World Press Introduction.

While Roaring Toyz had relationships with a number of photographers in the motorcycle industry, it was trying to promote Todd Latimer, a photographer in Safety Harbor, Fla., who was friendly with some of the people at Roaring Toyz (previously, Latimer had worked as a glamour photographer, but a variety of factors prompted him to look for new subject matter; Roaring Toyz used its contacts in the motorcycle industry to help Latimer receive magazine assignments, including an assignment from 2 Wheel Tuner, to cover the customization of the ZX-14 motorcycles). Roaring Toyz called Latimer and requested that he photograph the customized motorcycles so that Kawasaki could include the images in its media kit. Latimer drove to the Roaring Toyz shop for a photo shoot that started late in the evening and went through to the very early hours of the next morning so that images could be sent to Kawasaki the next day, the deadline for the press kit.

After completing the shoot in the very early hours of the morning, Latimer demanded that Roaring Toyz pay him $800, which was paid (Latimer later claimed that the $800 related to something other than the overnight shoot). Later that morning, Latimer e-mailed photographs of the customized motorcycles to the Roaring Toyz marketing director, who forwarded the images to Kawasaki. In a follow-up e-mail, Latimer asked the marketing director to convey to Kawasaki that Latimer also would like a photo credit, if possible. Kawasaki included five of Latimer’s photographs in the media kit together with 110 other images of standard production models.

Some months later, Latimer opened a copy of Cycle World magazine, published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc. (a subsidiary of the world’s largest magazine publisher) and discovered that it included two of his images from the overnight shoot together with an article discussing the new motorcycle. A Cycle World representative received Kawasaki’s media kit at the World Press Introduction. At about the same time, a number of other magazines published articles about the new motorcycles, including 2 Wheel Tuner, which published photographs from the assignment they had given Latimer.

Around the time he discovered his images published in Cycle World, Latimer registered the copyright for the images from the overnight shoot. However, the images were registered too late to take advantage of the three-month grace period following first publication.

Eventually, Latimer found a law firm willing to pursue the case, and they sued Kawasaki, Hachette, Roaring Toyz and the Roaring Toyz owner for copyright infringement. Although not entitled to recover attorney’s fees or statutory damages, Latimer sought an award of each defendant’s profits.

As with any morality play, there are lessons to be taken away from the case. For starters, the case underscores the importance of using agreements. Even when time is short and there’s no time for a formal contract, any sort of letter agreement or e-mail confirming the terms of an agreement are better than nothing and may be sufficient to avoid having a court determine after the fact that a license was granted by implication. Likewise, transmitting a clear set of restrictions or limitations when transmitting the images may help limit the scope of any implied license.

As important as it is to use agreements and document relationships, and to understand the consequences of delivering images to someone in the absence of any documentation, it’s far more important to maintain realistic expectations. Had the case been evaluated from the point of view of what would have been reasonable based upon the actual use and prevailing law, a reasonable settlement might have been possible very early in the action.

As Jonathan Harr pointed out in his book A Civil Action, certain types of cases are riskier than others, and when certain types of cases go to trial, a “plaintiff can expect to lose, on average, two times out of three.” So why does anyone do it? They don’t. “Like most people, plaintiffs’ lawyers don’t like to take chances with their own money,” writes Harr. “They either settle or drop the vast majority of cases before trial.”

The expression "Caveat emptor", or buyer beware (which I heard about in a business law module of a previous course) seems appropriate or better still photographers beware.

Even using elements from other people in your work can cause serious problems, if in doubt – don’t !

 

Data Protection

The Data Protection Act (DPA) came in two parts, the 1984 act covered computer based information and the 1998 act covered printed information.

For the photographer, it is important to maintain their database of clients, models, contracts, invoices, etc in accordance with this act.

Key areas of the acts are:

• Data may only be used for the specific purposes for which it was collected.
• Data must not be disclosed to other parties without the consent of the individual whom it is about, unless there is legislation or other overriding legitimate reason to share the information (for example, the prevention or detection of crime). It is an offence for Other Parties to obtain this personal data without authorisation.
• Individuals have a right of access to the information held about them, subject to certain exceptions (for example, information held for the prevention or detection of crime).
• Personal information may be kept for no longer than is necessary and must be kept up to date.
• Personal information may not be sent outside the European Economic Area unless the individual whom it is about has consented or adequate protection is in place, for example by the use of a prescribed form of contract to govern the transmission of the data.
• Subject to some exceptions for organisations that only do very simple processing, and for domestic use, all entities that process personal information must register with the Information Commissioner's Office.
• Those holding personal information are required to have adequate security measures in place. Those include technical measures (such as firewalls, password protected databases, etc) and organisational measures (such as staff training).
• People / companies have the right to have factually incorrect information corrected (note: this does not extend to matters of opinion)

Release Forms

These forms are available via download, but do check the wording very carefully, and can cover:

• Model Release forms
• Property Release forms
• Minor Release forms

With these forms the photographer can state for what use the photographs are to be used, and where they are used.  The model, property owner or guardian of the minor can then be assured that the images will not be misused in any way.

Below is an example of a basic model release form:

MODEL RELEASE In valuable and good consideration of my engagement as a model (Participant), upon the terms herewith stated, I hereby give to ________________________ (the Photographer), his/her heirs, legal representatives and assigns, those for whom The Photographer is acting, and those acting with his authority and permission: a) The unrestricted right and permission forever to copyright and use, re-use, publish, and republish photographic portraits or pictures of me or in which I may be included intact or in part, composite or distorted in character or form, without restriction as to changes or transformations in conjunction with my own or a fictitious name, or reproduction hereof in colour or otherwise, made through any and all media now or hereafter known for illustration, art, promotion, advertising, trade, or any other purpose whatsoever. b) I also permit the use of any text material in connection therewith. c) I hereby relinquish any right that I may have to examine or approve the completed product or products or the advertising copy or printed matter that may be used in conjunction therewith or the use to which it may be applied. d) I hereby release, discharge and agree to save harmless the Photographer, his/her heirs, legal representatives or assigns, and all persons functioning under his/her permission or authority, or those for whom he/she is functioning, from any liability by virtue of any blurring, distortion, alteration, optical illusion, or use in composite form whether intentional or otherwise, that may occur or be produced in the taking of said picture or in any subsequent processing thereof, as well as any publication thereof, including without limitation any claims for libel or invasion of privacy. e) I hereby affirm that I am over the age of majority and have the right to contract in my own name. I have read the above authorization, release and agreement, prior to its execution; I fully understand the contents thereof. This agreement shall be binding upon me and my heirs, legal representatives and assigns. I am also aware that these terms are subject to negotiation, deletion or addendum, which may be valid if handwritten on this release and initialled and dated by both parties (The Photographer and Undersigned) next to the modification or any modification that is typed and signed by both parties. Modifications may be implied by any releases/contracts with my employer without my notice by the Photographer. ______________________________ ______________________________ Address ______________________________ Phone number or e-mail Date Signed: ____/____/____ ______________________________ Name of Participant ______________________________ Signature of Participant ______________________________ Signature of Witness

 

Invasion of Privacy

One thing whilst taking photographs in the outdoors is that you must take all reasonable precautions to ensure that you do not photograph someone, or something, that does not want to be photographed.  If they are on public property then usually they have no argument, unless you are intruding on their privacy, for example like some celebrity photographs who will chase their target !

Obvious precautions include not taking photographs through windows of private property, not taking photographs of people on private property, etc.

Having taken photographs at a number of air displays, which are on private MOD property, I know what I can photograph, and what you cannot.  If you are unsure it is best to ask first, rather than try to explain to the military police afterwards !

 

Trespass

It is important to make sure that whilst out taking photographs you do not enter other people’s property, both premises or land.  This would be a violation under civil law and could result in heavy fines !

Photographic Flash

Personally, I prefer to use existing light as much as possible, hence the late additional of this posting.  But sometimes you have little alternative.

There are basically three types of flash:

1. Built in Flash
2. Accessory flash units / guns
3. Studio Flash

Built In Flash

The built in flash unit on a camera are very limited, usually with a guide number of about 10 – 13, at ISO 100.  Although not very powerful the main advantage is that these are always available, being built into the camera and can be very useful for fill in flash.

 

Accessory Flash Units / Guns

 

These units offer far more power than built in flash units, and lots more options.

Above is one of my flash units, which has a bounce and pan head, which allows me to bounce the flash of ceilings and walls, which diffuses the light that illuminates the subject, although care has to be taken as sometimes the colour of the ceiling or wall, if a particularly strong colour, can leave a slight colour cast on the photograph.

My flash unit also has a zoom function that can concentrate the flash into the centre of the photograph, to match the focal length of you lens, or zoom setting, which is handy when you are limited how close to the subject that you can get.

Some flash units also have diffusers built in to the head to diffuse the light without having to bounce the light, removing the harsh flash that can sometimes ruin a photograph.

You may have noticed the Velcro pads on the side of the flash head, these were for a flash diffuser which fitted to the head of the flash unit, which was then angled up and the flash was bounced using this diffuser towards the subject.  Yes another of my gizmos !

You can use these flash units either fitted on top of the camera, using the hot shoe adaptor, or off the camera on a tripod, controlled via slave sensor:

As shown above, or wireless / infra red trigger.  Also flash sync cables can be used, but care must be taken to prevent accidents from people tripping over, or even you pulling over the tripod, with its flash unit, if you walk off too far for the cable to reach.

In fact I have three Pentax Xtra Flash units, which are small self contained slave / flash units which I got for £5.00 each.  They work off one AA battery, so they would hardly break the bank for consumables.  These units do take some getting used to, but are something that, if carried in your camera bag, could make the difference between a good photograph and a badly lit one.

Looking today, they are not available from this shop anymore, and one price I did find for these units was £19.99 !

The power of a flash unit is shown as it’s guide number, which shows how far the flash would be useful, based on using ISO 100 sensitivity (or film) in meters.  But this distance does not take in to account the use of bounce flash, so you would have to consider this when deciding if to bounce the flash off a ceiling or wall.

 

Studio Flash

These are the big daddy of the photographic lighting world, and are rarely seen outside a photographic studio, due to their size and their power requirements, so when I had a chance, on my last photographic course, to use them I jumped at the opportunity.

The heads to these units, shown below, can be fitted with a number of flash modifiers, for example soft boxes (as shown above (right)), umbrellas (as shown above (left)), snoots and barn doors.  These are used to soften, diffuse, direct and control the light from the flash to the subject.

These units are usually triggered via wireless or infra red, or sync cables, but again care has to be taken to avoid accidents.

ICC Profiles

 

After writing about colour management, printer (and monitor) calibration and printing the photographs, both theory and practice at Burton College and via D S Colour Labs, I thought I had better do a short blog on ICC Profiles.

The term ICC refers to the International Colour Consortium.

Understanding what a profile is will help you fully comprehend what happens in colour-managed transformations. An ICC profile is a standard way of numerically defining the way a particular device (a scanner, camera, printer or monitor) renders colour for a human observer under average daylight conditions. Colour management involves linking these various device profiles together in a way that allows us to control the appearance of colours from one device to another. In order for this to work, a profile must reference the observable colours from a device to a device-independent model, a sort of absolute definition of colour. Profiles are static definitions, and the dynamic calculations that move an image file through various profiles to arrive at the final output are handled by a colour management module (CMM) that’s the mathematical engine for all the transforms.

Therefore, a profile is a special number transformer, a kind of black box called a lookup table (LUT), or more often a colour lookup table (CLUT), which takes a set of numbers and returns another set of numbers. The first set of numbers can be from any kind of colour device (RGB, CMYK or grey scale); the second set of numbers is the LAB definition of the colour represented by the first set.

The above might look confusing, but it is important to remember that all computers work on binary, and that even that picture you took on location or in Burton College’s studio, is seen by the computer as simply a series of 1s and 0s.

A profile “looks up” the LAB value for a colour in a specific colour space.

You can think of LAB numbers as being independent of any particular device but representative of colours observable under D50 graphics industry-standard lighting. Therefore, a profile gives us a real colour definition of the numbers from a digital file—in D50 light.

Some profiles are relatively simple rules based on a matrix with a few points defining a larger set of colours. Other profiles are larger plots of all possible colours in a particular set. Matrix profiles are commonly used for Photoshop’s working spaces and monitor profiles. Printer profiles are most commonly larger CLUTs, sometimes referred to as table-based profiles. The math surrounding all this is staggering. For the artist, a profile is merely a definition of the colour rendered by a device translated into LAB. When photographers need to transform one set of device numbers into numbers for another device, they use profiles to “look up” the LAB colours and generate new numbers for the next device based on those colours.

LAB Colour is the link between the two device numbers.

When the profiles for the devices you’re using are installed, you simply have to select the appropriate profile at the right time to manage the necessary colour transforms.

Printer Calibration

The final element of the digital work flow, the printer, has to be calibrated to ensure that all you hard work, composition, capture, conversion / processing, etc, is not all in vain.

 

Photographs looking different when displayed as opposed when they are printed is not a new issue that has been created with the digital revolution.  Paul, my brother, used slide film for years because he liked how the colours were more vibrant and true to what he saw when he took the photograph, when they were shown on a slide projector,  in a similar way to how our images look on the screen, but when prints were taken off the slides the photographs lacked the vibrancy and punch that he saw when it was projected on to a screen, in the same way as our photographs lack these features when our photographs are printed out.

 

It is important to note thought that a calibration has to be carried out for each printer / ink / paper combination, so basically it is best to stick to one make of ink and one type (finish, weight and even manufacturer) of photographic quality paper.  Some papers are promoted as bright white in colour as opposed to just white.

 

Some photographic paper manufacturers, for example permajet, offer a service whereby the photographer buys a pack of their paper, they produce a print using their combination of printer / ink / with the manufacturer’s paper, and send this to the manufacturer who analyses the colours against the original image.  The manufacturer then sends a custom ICC profile for their paper when used with the photographer’s printer and ink.

 

The ICC profile for a printer is created by comparing a test print result using a photometer with the original reference file. The test chart contains known CMYK colours, whose offsets to their actual L*a*b colours scanned by the photometer are resulting in an ICC profile. Another possibility to ICC profile a printer is to use a calibrated scanner as the measuring device for the printed CMYK test chart instead of a photometer.

 

A number of manufacturers, like Huey, Eye-One, etc produce kits which can calibrate monitors and printers, using colour photometers, to maintain full colour management from the beginning of the workflow right through to the end print.

 

Some software, such as Adobe’s Photoshop has a soft proofing option that can be used to simulate on screen how the photograph will actually look on paper, colour and depth wise as opposed to a simple print preview, which just shows how the image would fit on the page.

 

Below is an example of how an image looked on the computer screen, and how it looked on the soft proofing simulation from Adobe Photoshop:

This example shows how prints can lack the punch that on screen images have.

 

The problem is that no matter how ‘bright white’ you paper might be, it would never look as bright as a monitor screen.

 

 

Using ICC profiles

 

When you choose the print option from Adobe Photoshop, you will get this requester:

 

When the print dialog comes up, make sure you have Colour Management selected in the drop-down at the upper-right corner; most of the important printing options for our purposes are in this area (Figure 4). This is where you set up all the Profile options for your prints.

At the centre of the dialog, Position controls how the image lays out on the page. The Centre Image check box provides a quick way to place the image. Directly below that is the Scaled Print Size area; by default, this is set up for 100%. If the image is way too small or way too big on the page preview, click the Print Settings button and make sure you’re using the right-sized paper. Checking the Scale To Fit Media check box is a quick and dirty method of sizing the image to fit the paper; just beware that your quality will suffer if the reported Scale percentage is overly high. It’s far better to set the size properly in Photoshop before using the dialog. The Bounding Box check box is useful when you have an area of white canvas in your image—the bounding box shows the edges of the image against the white of the paper.

 

The important colour settings reside in the right third of the dialog box. The two radio buttons directly under the Colour Management drop-down identify whether you’re going to print the document directly or generate a simulation proof; if you’re making prints for your portfolio or to sell to a client, you’ll probably check Document because this generally will provide the highest-quality print for your image. This sets the profile to the document colour space and determines from where the colour starts in its journey to the print.

Next is the Colour Handling area. For RGB images, the Colour Handling drop-down shows Photoshop Manages Colours, Printer Manages Colours or Separations.

 

Photoshop Manages Colours. Selecting Photoshop Manages Colours allows you to select the Printer Profile in the drop-down menu just below this one. This is the most straightforward way to set up colour management for the print. If you select Photoshop Manages Colours, remember to turn off colour management in the printer dialog!

 

Printer Manages Colours. If you select Printer Manages Colours, the Print Profile option will be greyed out, and you’ll have to set the Colour Management options in the printer driver. The Printer Driver dialogs are usually a lot more confusing in this regard, so you would be wise to stick with Photoshop.

 

Separations. Separations will be available only if you’re printing from a CMYK document; otherwise, it will be greyed out. This is used only when printing separate cyan, magenta, yellow and black “plates” or simulations, and for the most part, you can ignore it.  This type of printing is only really for use with printing companies who use the traditional plates method of printing.  Below is a screen grab from PhotoPlus with the colour separations and Prepress options:

 

The last choice is Rendering Intent. Here you can choose: Perceptual, Saturation, Relative Colorimetric or Absolute Colorimetric. 90% of the time, Relative Colorimetric will give you the best result. Occasionally, certain very saturated colours will tend to posterize and lose detail in the print. If this is the case, you can try to solve the problem with Perceptual rendering.

 

Generally though, Perceptual rendering will give a less saturated colour in the print, and your skin tones could become dull. The other renderings are applicable for custom profiles and unusual circumstances; however, for the most part, you can ignore them with people images.

 

Beginning with Photoshop CS5, the large preview in the dialog is colour managed and has some check-box controls underneath the preview. Checking Match Print Colours, by default, checks the other two boxes you can uncheck them if you desire. Gamut Warning renders flat areas of grey over any colour that’s out of gamut for the selected printer profile. Show Paper White puts a tone into the white areas of the preview in an attempt to simulate the effect of the paper colour on the image (much as you can with the Custom Proof Setup under the View Menu). The preview also can be used to reposition the image directly. If you uncheck the Centre Image check box in the Position area, you can click the image preview and move it around on the page and/or rescale it by dragging on the corner handles in the bounding box (if you uncheck the Bounding Box, you won’t be able to do this).

 

Once all your options are set, you’re free to click Print. The only additional thing you need to remember is that if your colour management options are being set in Photoshop, you have to turn off any such options in the Printer Driver dialog. All of the colour transformations will have taken place already in Photoshop before the data hits the printer driver, so make sure you don’t “double colour manage” and introduce an additional transformation. Every printer driver is a little different, but yours will have some option to select no colour management in the printer driver.

Monitor Calibration

 

When we use a computer (windows based, Mac, Linux, etc) we see everything via the computer’s monitor.  Whilst everything might look alright on the screen when creating documents, when it comes down to working with photographs, it can be another matter.

Ambient lighting, where you are working, is very important as it can lead to subtle differences, for example normal tungsten lighting can sometimes produce a slight colour cast, not only when taking the photographs, but later when you are working on them.  So it is important to make sure that the room in which you are working is well lit, not just for obvious health and safety purposes.

Basically there are two types of computer monitor CRT (the older bulky monitors) and LCD (flat screen monitors).

Whilst LCD monitors are becoming more common place, some do suffer from the problem that if it is viewed from an angle the colours do look different.

There are two methods of calibrating a monitor:

1. Visual
2. Mechanical

 

Visual Calibration

Visual involves either using the standard built in tools for setting the screen:

Some will choose to make use of more accurate colour calibration charts, which show a wide range of colours, and different levels of grey, can help detect more subtle colour differences:

Close together lines can be used to check for sharpness of the printer.  In fact the above chart is available for calibrating printers as well.

But visual calibration does rely on the eye of the photographer.

 

Mechanical Calibration

This type of calibration is more accurate, but can be very expensive.

There are tools like the Eye-One which can be used to calibrate both your computer monitor and your printer.

For calibrating the monitor a colorimeter is attached flat to the display's surface, having been shielded from all ambient light, to avoid errors caused by colour casts.

Below is the colorimeter from the Eye-One package analysing the red square on the computer monitor

The calibration software sends a series of colour signals to the display and compares the values that were actually sent against the readings from the calibration device. This establishes the current offsets in colour display. Depending on the calibration software and type of monitor used, the software either creates a correction matrix (i.e. an ICC profile) for colour values before being sent to the display, or gives instructions for altering the display's brightness/contrast and RGB values through the OSD. This tunes the display to reproduce fairly accurately the in-gamut part of a desired colour space.

Architectural Photography Techniques

For this assignment I built (pun intended ;-)) ) on what I learnt during the landscape assignment involving using light, but this time I wanted to try to use the light to illuminate the buildings, or elements of them, in different ways.

This time I had to be careful when using wide angle lenses, to avoid parallax (or converging vertical) errors which have marred many architectural photographs.  By taking some architectural photographs from a distance using the 18 - 200 mm or 75 - 300 mm lenses, zooming in to remove distractions, and frame the building  vertically in the viewfinder, I could capture the whole of the building, but without any of the above problems.

Ideally, I would use a tilt and shift lens for this type of photography, like the one shown below:

These lenses enable the camera to capture tall buildings without angling the lens up towards the top of the building, causing the converging verticals distortion.

Below is an example of using both normal and tilt and shift lenses:

But these lenses are very expensive, and have limited uses, so unless I wanted to specialise in this photography I would have to photograph buildings from a distance, or correct the images later in the post production stage.

Macro Photography Techniques

Having covered product photography during the last course, I learnt a few valuable techniques for this assignment.  But this time, I wanted to photograph the subjects using the Pentax DSLR and not rely so much on the Fujifilm S7000.  This combined with the subjects being natural and situated outside in the garden.

The first consideration was the light, which was not as controlled as when I was taking the product shots, because now I was photographing the subject outside the house, where I wanted to use the natural light, only using a reflector when necessary to illuminate any dark areas that I wanted lighter to show the detail, as opposed to using the studio lights in the Burton College photographic studio.

The next consideration was focusing.  The S7000 has a macro mode and a super macro mode, the latter of which can focus down to 25mm.  Although I do not own a proper macro lens, some of my lenses can focus down to 450mm.

So this meant that that I could not get as close to the subject, as I could with the S7000.  This meant zooming in closer.  With the Tamron 18 - 200 mm lens this zoom range was the whole 18 - 200 mm, where as with the Sigma 75 - 300 mm lens only the focal range of 200 - 300 mm was available for macro use.

Next, I chose a large aperture to concentrate the viewer on the subject, rather than the background.  Working at larger apertures kept the depth of field shallow, blurring out the background.

 

Proper macro lenses have a reproduction factor of 1:1, life size, other lenses which can be used for macro work sometimes do not offer this.  But to me if the image is to be printed so people can see it clearly I will accept this and not buy proper macro lenses which cost more and, like the tilt and shift lenses used for architectural photography, have their own specific uses.

Architectural Photography - Statement of Intent

Assignment Title

The Man Made World

Professional Application

There are a number of professional applications of architectural photography, including photographs of prestigious buildings that have been built by civil engineering companies, and suppliers to the projects, who wish to promote their involvement in the project in their portfolio to future customers.Although in recent years, some advertisers are using photography of large famous buildings to promote a number of consumer goods, especially where the items are large, where the intention is to emphasise the larger size of the product. Other applications include estate agents who wish to advertise their catalogue of available premises, companies who wish to include photographs of both the inside and outside of their premises for advertising literature. Also, heritage organisations use photographs of buildings in their care to the public to promote the buildings for visits and events to raise money for their up keep.

Intention

My intention with this photographic project is to capture some of the beauty of some of the buildings in my travels, with a special emphasis on some of the buildings in Burton Upon Trent, to capture some of the older buildings in the town, which, to me, stand out from the others.

Purpose of this Project

The purpose of this photography is two fold. Firstly, I want to explore the contrast between the older buildings and some of the newer buildings in the built up world in my photography. Secondly, I would like to take photographs of some of the buildings in Burton Upon Trent before they one day disappear.

Stimulus

The stimulus for this project originally started after I saw some old photographs of Burton Upon Trent, showing how it looked at the turn of the century.  Seeing these I realised how much Burton had changed.  So I wanted to capture some of the current buildings for my record. Looking around, I noticed how some buildings had their own style, some have their own personality, where as others looked ugly !

Inspirations

What has inspired me for this particular project is some photographs of buildings that stand out from the others in the way that they use light and shadow to make a building look more interesting. Also where I have seen photographs of classic, and sometimes famous buildings, that really show the building in it’s glory or from an unusual angle.

Techniques and Equipment

For this project I want to build on some of the techniques, for example using the natural light to it's best, that I learnt during the landscape photography project. One technique that I will be using for this particular project is to try to prevent the converging verticals that ruin many photographs of famous buildings. For this project I will be using  the Pentax I will be using the 18 - 200 mm lens.

Printer Problems - Inkjet Printers

One thing about printing your work at home is that you have been in full control of the whole process from choosing your position and taking the photograph to seeing your print emerge from the printer. With this control though comes a few drawbacks including hardware and software issues.

As inkjet printers are the most common printers used at home for printing, I will cover this type of printer.

 

Most inkjet printers have a built-in diagnostics program to help you troubleshoot. Typically, running a test page involves pressing a button or two as you turn on the printer. Many inkjet printers also use a combination of indicator lights to help you pinpoint the problem.

 

Below are some of the problems that you could encounter at the printing stage:

Prints are lighter than expected or prints contain white spots or horizontal lines.

These signs point to a clogged print head - especially if you haven’t used your inkjet printer for some time. Banding (fine horizontal lines across the print are a common problem, sometimes encountered after changing a print cartridge.

Below is an example of banding:

 

To solve these problems select the printers cleaning and diagnostic utilities application for your printer, this is installed when you install your printer:

 

Below is the utilities screen for my Epson Stylus Colour 860:

 

 

Below is the utilities screen for my Canon Printer:

 

 

Then carry out a test print to verify if any of the print head nozzles are blocked:

 

 

If the resulting print has gaps in it then you need to run the head cleaning tool:

 

 

 

then carry out a test to ensure that the problem has been fixed.  If necessary repeat the cleaning and testing, until you are happy.  Bear in mind though that during the test print and cleaning cycles ink is used so beware if you are low on ink.

Vertical lines are jagged

This is usually a sign that the print head is out of alignment. There’s not much you can do to avoid this problem - all print heads become misaligned over time.

You can usually recalibrate the heads using the alignment tool that comes in your printer’s utility section. This involves printing a pattern of lines on normal paper and choosing which pattern looks best.

 

Below is a screen grab of the Epson print head alignment tool.

 

Colours look dull and sometimes run into each other

Check that you have loaded photo quality paper into the printer. I know this sounds odd but sometimes the printer may not catch the piece of photographic paper properly and feed through another sheet below if the photographic paper is not loaded properly. Also if the photographic paper is put in the wrong way around (some photographic paper, especially thinner matt you will be printing on the back of the paper which is not prepared for printing on.

In this case it is simply a case of checking what paper the printer has used and if it's the right way round.



Colours are missing or prints lack shadows and contrast

Colours may print inconsistently even before your printer instructs you to replace a cartridge. If the ink cartridges are low on ink when the problem occurs, try replacing them, this may improve colour quality.

If there’s enough ink but your print seems to be missing a particular colour, you probably have a clogged nozzle, so you’ll need to clean your print head. Colour quality can also suffer if ink cartridges have been in the printer for more than six months. Try swapping in a new cartridge.

Vertical lines down the print, either on the front or on the back

This means that at some stage ink has got onto the guide or rollers of the printer.

This means a lengthy cleaning, I use cotton wool buds, to clean the guides and rollers where the ink is coming from. Feed through the printer old printouts afterwards to check the guides and rollers are clean before printing again. If the guides and rollers are clean and you have the problem again there could be a serious fault with the printer.

Odd looking text being printed out instead of your photograph

This is usually a sign that there is a problem with the printer driver, which translates what the computer is sending to the printer to what is printed out.

If you're experiencing problems visit your inkjet printer manufacturer's web site and download the most current printer driver. Once you have reinstalled your printer software you will need to reboot your computer and then try printing again.

Paper constantly jamming

This can mean that there is something is blocking the path of the paper through the printer.

 

Check inside the printer for anything like torn paper, staples, paper clips etc. If a piece of paper jams inside the printer carefully remove it checking for any missing areas of paper, if this does happen check inside the printer for the missing paper and remove this as quick as possible.

Multiple pages fed through at once

This can either mean that the paper is sticking together, often through static, or that the paper thickness setting is set too thick.

 

Check the paper thickness setting, if there is one on the printer, and set it correctly, and remove the paper from the printer, fan the paper (to separate it) and re-insert the paper into the printer.

 

 

Colours do not match what you see on the screen

This is usually a case of not using any form of colour management.

Basically it is a case of setting up your camera, monitor and printer to interpret colours in the same way, so that skin tones come out correctly, matching what you actually saw before you took the photograph.

This might sound odd, but, I have noticed a distinct difference when printing out the same photograph on my Epson printer and Canon printer.  The Epson seems colder, with a slight green cast, whereas the Canon produces a warmer tone.

 

No print out at all

Check the printer queue or status monitor, to see if the print has gone to the printer, if you have more than one printer make sure it has gone to the correct printer:

often under the status heading a warning will appear if the printer is offline or out of paper or ink.

 

General Printer Care

Basically, it is a case of taking care of the printer,

• watching ink levels (many now have utilities that warn you when the ink is getting low) both on the printer (flashing LEDs) and sometimes on the computer (a window opening up).
• Make sure all connectors are in securely.
• carefully remove paper from the printer, if you have to pull the paper out, which could damage the paper feed mechanism, check that there are no missing pieces, which could lead to paper jams.
• only use good quality ink, poor quality ink will produce poor quality prints and may clog up the print heads
• only move the printer when you have to, certainly not when it is printing.
• Always keep plenty of ink, a spare cartridge of each if possible, because you never know you might run out of ink at a bad time, or late at night, trust me, I know !

Types of Computer Printer

 

Basically there are two forms of computer printer:

 

 

Impact Printers

 

These are called impact printers because they actually impact on the surface of the paper via a ribbon. These printers include dot matrix printers and daisy wheel printers.

 

Dot Matrix Printers

 

 

 

Dot matrix come in two types 9 pin and 24 pin and two widths; normal and wide carriage.

 

The number of pins relates to the number of vertical pins in the print head, therefore the higher (24 pin) gives better quality. These pins strike a ribbon which in turn strikes the paper producing the printed characters. But due to the use of the pins the resolution is limited and the use of a ribbon limits the amount of colours and tones available.

These are rarely seen much today as their limited resolution and colour space and loud noise, when in use, have made these printers unpopular, and with the drop in the prices of ink jet printers with their almost silent use and far higher resolution these printers have become redundant, certainly for printing photographs.

 

These printers are more used in distribution where their noise and lack of resolution is not seen as a problem.

 

 

Daisy Wheel Printers

 

 

Developed in the late 1960s, these are basically typewriters that have no keyboard,with a fixed number of characters (as found on the daisy wheel) and take their instructions from the computer.

 

They are limited to only the characters that are on their wheel, hence the name daisy wheel.

 

Because they cannot be used to print out photographs I am not covering them here.

 

 

 

Non Impact Printers

 

With these printers, the print head does not touch the paper.  These include inkjet, laser and dye sublimation printers.

 

 

Inkjet Printers

Since their introduction in the latter half of the 1980s, inkjet printers have grown in popularity and performance while dropping significantly in price. Prior to inkjet printers (referred to as Bubble jet printers by Canon) the main type of printer in homes was dot matrix printers.

 

An inkjet printer is any printer that places extremely small droplets of ink onto paper to create an image. If you ever look at a piece of paper that has come out of an inkjet printer, you know that:

 

• The dots are extremely small (usually between 50 and 60 microns in diameter), so small that they are tinier than the diameter of a human hair (70 microns)!
• The dots are positioned very precisely, with resolutions of up to 1440x720 dots per inch (dpi).
• The dots can have different colours combined together to create photo-quality images.

Some inkjet printers use four colours (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) others have additional colours like light magenta, light cyan and different tones of grey to produce more accurate colours and tones in the final photograph.

 

My printer is an Epson Stylus 860, like the inkjet printer shown above.  Although the printer is about ten years old it is still a good printer and can produce good prints, but very cheaply at £5.00 per black and colour ink cartridge.

 

 

Dye Sublimation Printers

 

 

These printers are becoming popular with people who simply want to print out their photographs, sometimes directly from the camera, without any post production.

 

The way that they work is not a new process, which is based on thermal printers.

 

A dye-sublimation printer is a computer printer which employs a printing process that uses heat to transfer dye onto a medium materials such as a plastic card, paper, or fabric. The sublimation name is applied because the dye transitions between the solid and gas states without going through a liquid stage. Many consumer and professional dye-sublimation printers are designed and used for producing photographic prints.

Most dye-sublimation printers use CMYO (Cyan Magenta Yellow Over coating) colours, which differs from the more recognized CMYK colours in that the black dye is eliminated in favour of a clear over coating. This over coating (which has numerous names depending on the manufacturer) is also stored on the ribbon and is effectively a thin laminate which protects the print from discoloration from UV light and the air, while also rendering the print water-resistant.

 

 

Laser Printers

 

 

 

Although these printers can produce colour prints, the initial cost of the printer and the costs of the consumables, both toner and photo receptor units, prevents them from becoming more popular.

 

Colour laser printers are developed and designed to work well in offices. They are best used for crisp black text printing and colour graphics. But lasers can print photos successfully as well. It all depends on what type of user is asking.

 

A photo professional will tell the difference between a colour laser printer photo and a professional photo printer one right away.