(This is for ACR - Adobe Camera Raw, and Photoshop only. I don't work in LR, so I don't know how to change it other than you need to change it for export)
Ok, so let's talk just for a quick moment on how to change the colorspace and why you want to do it. It's actually very simple. So, first you are probably wondering what colorspace is, I really don't feel like getting too far into that, so I will just give you a very basic rundown. The thing is this, ProPhoto is the largest space, Adobe RGB is second and the third, and smallest, space is sRGB. You can only take the photos in two colorspaces and that is the Adobe RGB or the sRGB.
When you take the images you should record them with the most color data you can possibly get, kinda the same reason we shoot in RAW, for the most data possible. Set your camera to Adobe RGB and then it comes time to work in sRGB and that is what is used for web and most print. The reason you shoot higher colorspace is so that should you ever need that color data and need to print with CMYK and ProPhoto (massive editorial stuff) you will have that data available to do. For everything else, sRGB is what is most widely used and accepted.
So, here we go. I have some screenshots to help show you right where to make the changes upon import and finally into Photoshop.
1. Below the image is a link, do you see where it is in the center in the same row area as the "open image, cancel, and done?" It says sRGb.......and some other stuff? CLICK THAT!!
2. A text box will now open, and this is where you change the colorspace to embed as sRGB. Make your selection and click OK.
3. The next step would be to choose OPEN IMAGE. You HAVE to open the image to basically complete the path and get it to stick. Once you do this and the image opens in Photoshop, you will set the change and not need to do this again.
4. Once you are inside of Photoshop, you will want to select EDIT.
5. Select Color Settings......
6. Here will give you the color settings box, you will choose the sRGB option in the RGB box.
7. Select the sRGB.
8. Now, if you are on a PC (non-mac) you will choose Gray Gamma 2.2 for the third box (under CMYK).
9. And....if you are on a MAC, you will choose the Dot Gain 20%
So, there you have it. Click OK. Now you are shooting in the largest colorspace you can record in the camera to have the most data, you are sRGB embedded, and sRGB working and saving colorspace. This will ensure uniformity across the board. IF you are still noticing color variance when you post, please be sure that you are calibrated (with an actual calibrator, not something you can just do in settings).
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You may have heard “have you tried calibrating your lens” when you have been researching why you aren’t achieving focus, even when you know you have done everything under the sun to get it. I want to show you how to calibrate your lenses (if your camera supports it) fairly simply and without purchasing any special equipment or software.
Things you will need:
Ruler or tape measure, (make sure its FLAT, no curves) I use a level with a ruler on it. Its longer and flat.
Tripod
Camera and lens
Smart phone to download an angle finder app. (or a protractor if thats your thing)
The first thing you will need to do is set your camera on a tripod, and obviously attach your lens. (I always try to stand some feet away and focus on the level first, to make sure I’m far enough back to get auto focus to work as close to the subject as I can, and then mount it on the tripod there) Now, I’m not going to put where in the menu you will find (if you have it) the AF fine tune or Micro adjustment because quite frankly, I don’t want to scour the web finding all the makes and models and where they would or wouldn’t be. I will instead just show you the setting on MY camera so that you can have a reference to what Im talking about. Also, you can get fairly close with a 35, 50, and even an 85 on a chair, but if you have the 70-200, you will need to be in the next county!! Ok not really, but you will be pretty far back, and UP on that tripod.
The next thing you will do is lay your level/ruler flat on a surface such as your table, or a chair. At this point you will want to set your aperture to the lowest number you can get, f1.4 for my example.
Set your phone on the angle finder app and hold it next to the camera lens and tilt your camera until you are at 45 deg. You can place it beside the center of your lens like this, or you can put it flush up agains your lens front, like the lens has a phone sticking out the front, and that will work too.
Focus on a number, such as the number 13. When you review the number on the back of your screen, the 13 was what you focused on, but the number above and below are what you need to check. So, with the 13 being the center point, you now need to see if the 14 is EQUALLY as blurry as the 12. (notice I didn’t say anything about comparing them to the number 13…..DONT). With numbers ascending (my level has the inches on the left in ascending order, a ruler may not) if the 14 is more in focus than the 12, you are BACK focusing (not to be confused with BBF, or back button focusing) and if the number 12 is more in focus than the 14, you are FRONT focusing. Meaning, your focus is falling behind or in front of the focal plane which was the number 13. With me so far?
Now, lets say that the 14 is more in focus. Go into your menu and open the setting for you to be able to adjust your AF. Mine is under the wrench (NIKON) and I would go to AF Fine Tune, turn that ON, and then go to the Saved setting. When you make these adjustments with this lens, every time its attached, your camera will remember to adjust it by that much for that lens, and so on with each lens. So, now you can see the meter in there, where in the center is 0 and up the scale is + and down the scale is -. Think of that 0 as the number 13 you just focused on, and think of the + as being toward that 14, and the - as being toward that 12 on that level. So if that 14 was more in focus, you were back focusing and would need to bring the plane forward a bit….so you would go MINUS with the adjustment. I like to start at -5. Move the setting to -5, focus on the 13 again, review it, and now does the 14 look the same as the 12? If its CLOSE but not quite, go a bit further and if you went too far, go back a bit. The same applies to if the 12 was more in focus, you would be front focusing and would need to go to the + side a bit.
So, with these photos, I had already calibrated my 50mm 1.4 lens and it needed to be at -1. Well, in trying to get the images for this blog, I didn't have my angle right, and had to re adjust, so when I'm showing them on the play back, I had adjusted to -2. Do you see that the 12 is more in focus than the 14? After doing this project, I double checked the angle, re did the calibration, and I was correct to move it back to -1 and now the 14 and the 12 are equally as blurry as each other when focusing on the 13 at 1.4.
If you have a prime lens, you are done. If you have a zoom lens, you will need to do this with the Wide end and the Telephoto end. On Canon cameras, when the zoom is attached, you should have a W and a T to change settings on. With the Nikons, you would just zoom out, and take the settings down, and zoom in and take the settings down. Some where in the middle is where you would put it. I haven’t had to make the adjustments with the zooms that I have, they have all been spot on.
That is how to calibrate your lenses. Good Luck!!
Leyla Dwelle Photography, LLC Bismarck, Mandan, Wedding, Birth, Boudoir, Beauty Photographer
I am so pleased that I was chosen to be the photographer for their engagement, and wedding! These two are young, vibrant, sweet, funny, and so in love....I could have photographed them all day.
They met in college where he accidentally hit her in the head with his backpack....sure it was an accident :) Either way, they are in love and I have some images to prove it!!
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JAMES H. SENIOR SESSION:
Meet James. James is RAD! (I don't care that RAD is older than dirt....I'm bringing it back!!)
I have known this family for about 10 years. I had the opportunity to do James' senior session and as you can see, he ROCKED every image I took of him!
From his guitar, to his ultra SUAVE GQ look, James is AWESOME!!
He is quite the character and any of you who know him, or his family, will know this.
and now, upon request....
JAMES THE MERMAID!!
STAY RAD, JAMES. STAY RAD.
Contact me to book your session!
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I have been asked this so many times, and I am writing for some clarification to this.
So, its 100 degrees outside, and your air conditioner breaks. Maybe if you are from the south or a very warm climate, you may say "pppsssshhhh, 100 is nothing!!" but up here, in ND, it IS something. So lets say that you need your air conditioner fixed. You don't take it apart and fix it (unless you know how, but most people don't), you call in someone who does.
On that same day, your car breaks down. You are not a mechanic and you don't know how to fix the car either. So, you have to pay to get the thing towed and fixed at the garage.
You go back home and find out that your refrigerator is broken as well (I really don't want to be this unlucky person all this stuff is happening to :/). You again have to call someone to come repair that.
Here is the thing, none of the people in the above are even questioned about the prices they charge. It is what it is and we just accept that because we know that things cost money. Yes, most of the things are a necessity and we need them, so we pay.
Photography is a luxury, it is something we can mostly live without. There are some who place great value in it, and many who don't. The thing that people don't seem to understand is that in the above scenarios, those people learned a trade. They learned how to fix the car, they learned the wiring circuits of the things broken down. They practice, and study, and get much on-the-job learning as well.
Photographers are no exception. We spend hours a day, sometimes up to 12, studying our craft or editing images from a session. We treat it very seriously because it is our passion, and often, our livelihood. There is a cost to us as well. Our learning doesn't come cheap. We take time away from our friends, our spouses, our children. We tell our family "just one more minute, I'm almost done here and then I will make dinner", and we go for another hour. We spend money on our gear and that is NOT cheap. We spend money on countless workshops, books, tutorials, and any other form of education. We research methods, techniques, improvements, editing styles, programs, and products for our clients so that we can choose the very best. We plan and put a lot of thought into what we do. Album design doesn't just 'happen'. We spend countless hours prior to a shoot researching posing, and light direction, because we strive for perfection...for you. We often scout locations for the best possible one.
We deal with emails, and phone calls, and text messages. We market and advertise and try to be seen by the public. We enter contests and get rejected, countless times, but we keep pressing forward. We deal with unruly children, unruly adults, awesome clients, and some tougher clients. Lets not forget weather fiascos, contract building, website hosting, and creating/maintaining our brand, ...those are no strangers to us either.
We also spend money on our business. We have insurance, and maintenance, and business registration fees, and rental fees. We invest in quality products and samples to have on hand to show you; quality to touch and feel.
On top of all of the expenses that go into our business, we have to pay ourselves a wage too.
There is so much more than just showing up and "snapping a couple pictures". If only it were really that simple.
As you can see, we put a lot into who we are and what we do. We care about you as our clients, we want to give you the very best and will spend all this time and energy just to see the smiles on your face. We charge what we do, because we ARE worth it. We take photography very seriously and live and die by it. Just because we are considered a luxury, doesn't mean that we haven't worked our asses off to get here, to be valued.
So, yes, I am worth it, we are worth it, because YOU are worth it.
That is why we charge 'that much'.
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Wait, WHAT? Did I just read that correctly?
You DID!! Let me tell you a little story of a great weekend that I shared with some great friends this last September (2014).
You may have heard of Damn You Auto Correct?! Well, as the 4 of us packed into the vehicle and got ready to head to South Dakota for our weekend photo workshop, I sent my husband a text message. I dont remember the exact message except the part where it had changed the F**k word to Chuck. As I was wiping the tears from laughter away, I finally caught my breath to read the message to my friends....and being the good friends they were, I was officially called "Chuck" the rest of the trip. "Hey Chuck, did you see this?" "Hey Chuck, are those your family members (passing cows, hardy har har)". It actually was pretty funny.
On our first morning, we were to all meet in the parking lot of the central location and find our workshop group and head to the destination. One friend, Ron, attended and on-campus workshop, while his wife Jane, Diana, and myself were attending a workshop at Sylvan Lake. Little did we know, two groups headed out at the same time and we had chosen the wrong group to follow and ended up going the wrong direction by about 30 minutes.
When we finally figured it out from our GPS telling us to constantly turn around, we finally did. We drove like crazy people to get to the location...I though maybe crazy Jane might hit 88 mph and take us somewhere in time. No such luck. We passed so many winery signs, it was looking like that was our cue to go there instead of Sylvan lake, and as much as we joked about stopping in, we pushed on. It was a good thing too, because the view at Sylvan was amazing!!
This was the image that I was able to see. It was a window, perfect in nature.
Once we finished with Sylvan Lake, we decided to actually go to the wineries that we had seen along the way. We enjoyed some fun times tasting wine and visiting with friends. We may have gotten Chuck and the rest of us a bit tipsy...shhh. :)
The rest of the day, we went on some back roads tours of the Black Hills and got to see amazing things....
That night, we all met up with the rest of the photographers and had dinner and drinks. The 4 of us were sooooo exhausted. We were on our way back to the hotel and talking about how we couldn't even stay awake to shower. It was like 2 AM and we couldn't even speak (the alcohol may have played into that :) ). I looked down at my phone to see the time, and started laughing hysterically. Like, I couldn't catch my breath. They all asked "What's up, Chuck?" and I laughed even harder. Finally, when I caught my breath, I was able to still squeak out, "Its only NINE PM!!" That really set us all into fits of laughter. Were we really THAT old?? lol.
We woke up the next morning for another LONG drive to the Badlands. I have to say, I liked the structure of the Badlands in SD, but I like the color of our Badlands in ND much more. We were freezing and there wasn't much that was eventful, until we left the location we were in. My friends and I got adventurous and while everyone followed the path up top, we searched for a way down...
It's a good thing we did. We were able to find things down there, it was a great time for macro!!
Our trip was just about finished. We had one more workshop to do. This is the day, this is the time I was almost killed. Jane and I were the only two from our group of 4 on this particular workshop. The instructor showed us a few places to watch for and get some good photos. Most of the group headed down the road to the bridge, and Jane and I stayed further up the stream. Leave it to Chuck to be backwards and stray from the crowd. After Jane and I had gotten the shots we wanted, I stopped to take a macro shot of a flower and she decided to head down to the bridge, or so I thought.
I finished up with the macro shot, and headed to the bridge, only to find that there was no one around me. So I stayed for a few, tried to get some shots, and decided to head back to the original location where everyone else was going to be. I was walking up the hill, in the middle of the road. On one side was a drop off down into the stream, and to the left of me was an embankment leading to higher ground. It was steep. The road was the best, until I heard it. At first, I was wondering if they had seen an animal doing something cool or something because I could hear all this hooting and hollering. Then, I saw it......A CATTLE DRIVE!!! Down the middle of the road! WTH? Where was I going to go? I was NOT going to be trampled by cows!! Really? That was the story of my life? "Poor Chuck, she was killed by cows on a photo workshop". Nope, not me. So I scrambled up the steep embankment on my left and not a moment too soon. Those cows came down quickly and started right AT me!! Just LOOK at the contempt on her face!! Clearly I was marked for death!!
Once they passed me, I safely climbed down the side (It doesnt look that steep, but it really was). I walked up to the meeting place to find that my friend was up finishing her photos. I was laughing, out of breath, and she asked me, "did I hear COWS?" I told her, "Yes!! OH MY GOSH!! They came down the hill, I had no where to go, I was almost killed, I was almost ground Chuck!!"
Im glad I survived that whole ordeal! I wonder what the next trip will bring?
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