GreerMUG Meeting Highlights -- May 2006

Pre-Game Show
This month we treated the group to a montage of all the new Mac commercials. Thanks, Matt, for pulling that together for us!

Opening Moments
Mike welcomed everybody to the meeting and then took a moment to share a recent holiday experience. Something to do with pawn shops. We're starting to think it's kinda scary up in Mike's head - but don't tell him we said that.

Member Dock
Still collecting your old printer cartridges and cell phones to help defray expenses. Had a bunch turned in at the meeting - thanks!!
We've got a fantastic new resource book from our friends at Peach Pit. It's part of the Apple Training Series: iWork 06 with iLife 06 by Richard Harrington.

Tim's Power Tips


Core Presentation
Professional Tips for the Non-Professional Photographer by Steve Faucette
Tim introduced Steven Faucette to us. Steve's work can be found at the website http://www.avisualplanet.com/. AVisualPlanet is a subscription service for folks who need image content for their church or ministry. It's a great resource.

Steve: What kind of photos are you interested in?
Us: Family, landscape....
Steve again: What kind of cameras are we using?
Us again: Mostly digital, a few film

Steve's frustration with most point and shoot digitals is the lag time after you press the button.
Let's talk about lighting. Most people thing full daylight is best. But really, early in morning and late in the day are great times. Cloudy days, too. The sun is very harsh in the middle of the day.

Steve's specialty is waterfalls. When Steve started off his shots weren't like the magazine photos he'd see. Then he learned to use a tripod, and a longer shutter speed. Ah, now that makes a difference.

Lighting is important for the effect you want. Example photos for the group: Here's one photo at one hour before sunset vs. 2 photo's at sunset. Great example, sorry if you couldn't be at the meeting.

Steve: Do we have aperture control? Us: A few of us.
The aperture controls the amount of light coming in (known as f-stops on older cameras). A wider opening allows more light so you can shoot with a faster shutter speed. If there's not a lot of light, use a wider opening.

Example photo: a macro lens lets you get close-up. But it gets a shallower depth of field.
Depth of Field is the area that stays in focus from the foreground to the background. A smaller aperture will give you a greater depth of field (and that smaller opening will require a slower shutter speed to let more light in.) A large aperture opening equals a small f-stop number.

Overcast days don't have harsh shadows and are more color balanced. Shade is real good.

Composition
That's the positioning of elements in your picture. Avoid centering your subjects like they're in a bullseye. Use the rule of thirds - divide your frame this way and position your subject in one of these thirds. Frame elements so that they lead the eyes.
Example photo: a white heron - its head is the focal point and it's in the top third of the picture.
S curves are another composition layout.

Example photo: Mystery planet: it's really a close-up of an easter egg, with everything blacked out around it, and mixed with a shot of the moon - a very interesting photo.
Warm colors come forward (red yellow orange)
Cool colors recede (blues purples, pastels)
Your eye is drawn to the red moon in this example photo.

Have you ever seen vacation photo's that have the wrong subject draw your eye? Like an airplane wing stealing the attention away from the real subject on the ground. Make your subject fill the photo - fill the frame as much as possible.

If your taking a picture of a person looking right, don't put them in the right third of the frame.

Try to catch people when they don't know they're being photographed.

Think about how the picture will be used, try vertical as well as horizontal.

Single person - do a vertical, chest to head is good, full frame is good. Get some diffused light, bounce a flash off the ceiling.

If you blow up picture to a larger size it will start to get grainy. If you know you want a larger print (24 inches or more) use the highest reesolution you possibily can when shooting digital. Don't use compressed photos, you lose information when you compress. Use raw photo image if you can.

Point and Shoot Tips
Get close to your subject
Fill the frame
You want the background calm or muted, not busy. Diffuse or blacken the background with software - frame carefully for good a background.
Lighting - think about where the sun is if you're outdoors -- don't get the sun behind their head.

Us: Tell us more about s curves!
Steve: any element, like the viaduct on the Blue Ridge Parkway or a mountain road, that has curves in it - that's appealing.

Don't let the background compete with the subject.

Landscape shots - don't put the horizon on the center - use rule of thirds. Weather changes are good photo opportunities.

What's ISO?
It refers to film's sensitivity to light and how fast it reacts to the light. Digitals mimic this with the ability to set the ISO setting. Higher (faster) ISO is grainier.

Tiff mode is a huge file size but it separates the colors - great for publicaiton work.
Raw mode maintains more data (resolution).

Us: Does Steve do his own printing or use a lab? Steve: Both. On his own, he uses high quality paper.
Spartanburg Photographic is one place he uses.
J&D Photo in Anderson is good for large photos.
Send places the highest quality (resolution) photo you can.

Question: from point&shoot to digital SLR, what lens/attributes does Steve suggest?
Best quality lens you can get (not less than $200) Specifications depend on what you're going to shoot.
Nikkor and Tokina are two lens brands Steve likes.
Steve also likes keh.com a web site for new and used equipment.
Steve uses the self timer a lot to avoid camera shake.
Word of caution: with DSLR's leave the lens on even when you're not using the camera so dust doesn't get in thecamera.

It's nice to have lenses where filter ring sizes are the same. Your filters fit all your lenses that way.

Extra Power Tip from Charles!

Photoshop Elements Levels Tip
Charles has always tried to expand his editing abilities. A lot of us use Photoshop and/ or Elements. Here's an example of what Charles has learned you can do with Elements to increase your control over an image:
Here's a photo of Pike's Peak in Colorado with a heavy blue haze . By the way, Elements can't always undo your changes, use a duplicate (do a Save As...), be safe.

Command-L goes to the Levels dialog box. Your sliders indicate whether you're dealing with the light or dark areas. These sliders affect all three colors (RGB) when your channel drop-down box says RGB. However, the channel drop-down box can be changed so that you choose one of the three colors, red, green, or blue. (Shortcut - command-1 chooses red.) Make sure "preview box" is checked. You want to see your changes as you make them. Charles positions the sliders into the "sanddune" area on the graph you see in this dialog box (beginning, middle and end). You might have to play a little bit to get the middle. Charles did red, then green, and then the blue - the blue was off the scale. Charles turned off the preview to show what it was before we started messing with it- Wow! - what a difference!!
A note on Hue and Saturation - our playing around cost us some color saturation, but we can increase that with Hue/Saturation.

Photoshop Elements! Our hero!!

Comment: auto-correction feature does good! try other auto-features. You can also tell iPhoto to open up Elements as your editor.

And then to put us in tip top shape, Tim showed us how to put a frame around the photo! Thank you, Tim! And thanks to Charles for unleashing the power of Photoshop Elements!!

Give-away
This month we gave away a copy of Photoshop Elements 3! Congratulations to Allan Schmitz, this month's winner.

Photo Contest!!!!!
Hey this summer we're having a photo contest!
Here's some quick facts about it:
You have to take the photo yourself.
The categories are: Friends&Family, Nature, Black&White, and Artistic.
Limit of 3 photos for each category per person.
Our long-term goal is to create a GreerMUG calendar.
Full details are elsewhere here on the website.

SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT!
Check out Tim's blog at TimothyGodby.com. A cool Mac blog - it coolness begs for your interaction. Blogging lets you give new meaning to post-it notes!

Next Month
Aha! There is no next month. GreerMUG is taking the summer months of June and July off. A lot of folks are on vacation at this time and we wouldn't want you to have to worry about missing something. Our next meeting will be in August. We'll have location and time info posted here on the website and we'll send out a couple of emails to remind everyone, too!

Have a good summer!!