Death Valley Make people want to go there…

1. Death Valley Make people want to go there… x

2. Magnificent View: No? Extremely flat even for a camera original The camera original image isn’t what the student saw or experienced. The camera original image looks too blah to motivate anyone to go there. Your goal as an image maker is to recreate your visual experience. What the camera captures and the final ‘presentation image’ is several translation steps away. Death Valley: Camera original

3. Camera Control: Contrast and saturation Had I seen the playback image on my LCD looking like the example image, I would have changed the camera settings. Most digitals have at least the minimal control over Contrast and Saturation with a High, Normal, and Low settings. The more expensive compact digitals and DSLR cameras have five or more set points. I would have at least changed the camera setting for Contrast and Saturation to High. Death Valley: Bring it back to life

4. Photoshop: Levels The exposure graph shows that the dynamic range is way too narrow. The graph doesn’t even come close to touching either the right highlight or the left shadow edges. To expand the tonal range, move both the black and the white markers ‘in’ from the edges as indicated by the red arrows. This extreme correction wouldn’t have been necessary if the camera’s Contrast setting was adjusted correctly. Death Valley: Exposure graph

5. Student example lab worked by Kenji: Camera Original - Flat Levels Adjusted – punchier Lab Work: Expanded dynamic range

6. Lab Work: Brightness and Contrast adjustment Levels Adjusted Brighter and even more punchy Lab Work: Brightness/Contrast

7. Lab Work: Translation points Camera original Levels adjusted Brightness/Contrast See for yourself which one might inspire you to go to Death Valley. I based my lab work on my own recollection and my own image processing preferences. Lab Work: Comparison

8. Camera Original: Negative Traditionally photographers have consider the ‘negative’ to be very valuable. The camera original image file should get the same consideration. I download my camera original ‘negative’ files to four (4) physically separate USB storage devices. I used one of the devices as a working ‘source’. I open the camera negative file once from the ‘source’ and never touch ‘source’ again. File Management: Camera negative

9. Photoshop Work Files: Keeping thing separate Once the negative is opened in Photoshop, its save to a different folder under ‘Projects”. The folders under Projects contains Photoshop ‘.psd’ ‘Work Files’. The work file contains the negative image as an ‘untouched’ Background or Orig layer. JPEG output files are created from the Photoshop Work Files and saved elsewhere. There may be different output folder depending on the output requirements. I might have folders for print, computer slides show, web use, even e-mail output, or any other specialized uses. File Management: Work file

10. Good File Management: It’s simply about ‘not losing images’ and ‘being able to find the image that you want fast’. File Management: Purpose

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