Tag Archives: Photoshop

The Best Camera…

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… might really be the one you have with you.

I have been doing photography, mostly as a “serious amateur,” since my college days. I took a photography class in college, where I learned to develop film, make contact strips, and print negatives into 8 x 10 enlargements. For a while, I had a darkroom in my home. I went from SLRs to DSLRs, with a string of point-and-shoot digital cameras in between. I embraced digital photography — not for what I could do with Photoshop, but for the instant gratification it provided.

But let’s face it: DSLRs with their interchangeable lenses are big and bulky. As the cameras in my iPhones got better and better, I found myself reaching for my Nikon less and less. Yes, I still dragged it around with me when I traveled south for the winter in my camper and it’s even with me on my boat. But I’m just not happy with the pictures it produces.

No, it’s not a top-of-the line full-sensor Nikon. And it’s not anywhere near new at this point. But yes, I do have the quality glass (not plastic) lenses, some of which were quite costly to obtain. And it seems to me that if you have quality equipment, it shouldn’t matter how old it is. It should continue to take good pictures.

But lately, every time I’ve reached for the Nikon and twisted on its 85-300mm lens to shoot photos of mostly birds in the near distance, the images have come out like crap. Yet nearly every photo I take with my iPhone 13 Pro — yes, a 2 1/2 year old phone! — looks pretty amazing.

Hell, even my drone takes better photos.

I started to think that it might be the age of the camera. But I wasn’t the least bit interested in spending thousands of dollars on a newer Nikon DSLR or “mirrorless” — which seems to be the big trend — camera.

I thought that if I got a newer point-and-shoot, it might be better. So earlier this month I invested in a Canon Powershot SX740HS. It wasn’t cheap — it cost more than $500. For a point-and-shoot. (I could trade in my current iPhone and get a brand new one with its latest generation camera for about the same amount of money.)

I got the camera while I was at a state park in North Carolina and went on a hike. I took photos of moss on trees and flowers and birds off in the distance. It had a 40x optical zoom lens! Just what I needed to shoot images of the osprey nesting on channel markers along the ICW.

But every photo looked like crap. It wouldn’t focus right. The exposures were bad. There was no clarity in the details. Images were washed out.

I took photos of a handful of subjects with both the new camera and my iPhone to compare them side by side. Guess which one took better photos?

iPhone Photo Powershot Photo
Side by side photos of the same subject only minutes apart. The iPhone photo is on the left.

Example 2Example 2
I took the camera to the beach. Which photo do you think my iPhone took? Well, which one looks better?

I was upset and kind of angry. Why was my phone taking better photos than a camera?

I put the question to my friends on Mastodon. A few of them pointed out that Apple iPhones do a lot of image processing inside the phone. After all, the phone is a computer, isn’t it? It automatically does HDR and makes all kinds of adjustments.

I could do that too, someone pointed out. Just bring the photo into Lightroom or Photoshop.

But I don’t want to do that. I just want to capture what I’m seeing so I can remember it later or share it with others. I’m not a “serious” photographer anymore. I’m a point-and-shoot photographer. I can handle the composition; I know how to find good light. I just want the camera to record what I see. I don’t want to spend hours processing photographs. It would take all the fun and spontaneity out of it for me. It would leave me wondering, when I was done, exactly what I’d originally seen.

I returned the camera.

I’ll get the Nikon serviced and checked over for problems. They’ll clean it and return it to me. I’ll try again. But I know I won’t be happy. I know that in the future I’ll continue to use the best camera I have — the one that’s always with me and can send the pictures I take to anyone in the world, instantly.

On HDR Photography

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Overused as a crutch by people without real photographic skill.

I’ve written this post primarily to share some thoughts about HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, along with three links to articles by knowledgeable photographers that echo my sentiments.

HDR?
Is this HDR?

If you’re not familiar with HDR imaging, it’s a type of photography that combines multiple exposures of the same image into one image, resulting in a greater range of luminosity in the final image. Shadow areas are brighter, bright areas are more detailed. The idea behind this is good and if done properly, the results are amazing.

The trouble is, it’s rarely done well.

Indeed, it seems that anyone with a digital camera and image processing software can spit out an HDR image. So they do.

And the result is usually crap.

Think I’m kidding? Check out I Hate Your HDR, which is a showcase of some of the junk people are showing off as great HDR photography. It’s crap.

HDR does have a purpose. When done properly, it enables the photographer to replicate an image as it might be seen by the human eye. Apparently few people know or understand this. Even fewer have the skills needed to do it right. As a result, most images created with HDR look anything but realistic.

Photographer Jim Goldstein discusses the technical aspects of HDR well in his article, “Why I Hate HDR: Photo Technology Porn.”

Photography Conquers Light

Photoshop Tools

For pete’s sake, they’re even labeled!

Think for a moment about the most important aspect in photography: light.

HDR is an attempt to artificially conquer light. The photo you want to make has bright spots that get washed out and shadowy spots that have no detail. HDR combines multiple exposures — ones where the bright spots aren’t washed out and ones where the shadows have detail. Through software manipulation, the multiple images are made into one. The result should more uniform exposure of the image so you can see all the details.

In the old days, in a darkroom — am I dating myself here? — we used dodging and burning to achieve this effect. The tools to do this are still available in Photoshop. But apparently it’s easier to let software algorithms automatically cook up something on their own, adjustable only by sliding levers in a cryptic dialog. We’ve seen the results.

A skilled photographer doesn’t need a crutch like HDR to capture images with good dynamic range. Best of all, those images are not likely to look as fake — or “cooked up” — as so many HDR images do.

Real Photographers Don’t Need HDR

“HDR is Stupid and it Sucks” by photographer Lewis Collard is a great blog post because it illustrates images that look like they could be HDR, but they’re not. That tells me that HDR simply isn’t necessary.

No, it's not HDR
No, not HDR. This is the original.

And that brings me to the image at the top of this post. When I first put it online, a Twitter friend complemented me and asked me if it was HDR. The complement pleased me, but the HDR question did not. It’s not HDR. Instead, I captured the single original, untouched image you see here, brought it into Photoshop, and tweaked the Shadow/Highlight settings to bring out some of the detail in the shadows and bright sky. I then did something I don’t normally do: I punched up the saturation just a bit to bring out the colors. Having the image mistaken for HDR makes me wonder whether I went too far with my minor touchups. Why? Because most HDR looks like crap.

Interestingly, while some photographers “get it,” others so obviously don’t. The comments on this post are a perfect example, with half the group raving about all the images in the post while the other half is more critical and realistic, clearly seeing how some images have done HDR right while others completely miss the point. It’s amazing how people can be lured into thinking that high contrast and outrageous colors equals good photography.

That’s not the way it is and skilled photographers — or at least the people trying to capture reality with their cameras — know it.

A Caveat

Some people use photography as a basis for artwork. They purposely distort photographic images in an attempt to make “art.” (News Flash: Photography is art.) In my opinion, that’s the only excuse most of these people have for abusing HDR the way they do.

Don’t show me an HDR image with unrealistic results. I won’t be impressed. Hell, anyone can cook up a photo with digital editing tools. Even me.

Show me an HDR image that doesn’t look like one. Then I’ll be impressed.

The Trouble with Troubleshooting

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I troubleshoot a Photoshop CS3/Mac OS X 10.6.3 problem.

Yesterday, after composing a blog post on my MacBook Pro, I went into my office with an SD card full of photos with every intention of choosing one or two to include in the post. I copied the photos to my hard disk along with my GPS track log and geotagged the ones I could tag. Then, after using QuickLook to make a preliminary selection, I opened five images with Photoshop CS3.

Or at least I tried to.

The problem was that Photoshop wouldn’t launch. It kept “unexpectedly quitting.”

And so began more than 2 hours of troubleshooting that culminated with my making an appointment today to visit the Arrowhead Apple Store down in Peoria, 50 miles from my home.

If you’re having this problem and are looking for a solution, read this post that I wrote this morning for Maria’s Guides.

This post is mostly about what a pain in the butt troubleshooting can be.

My troubleshooting process began with a Google search for Photoshop CS3 with Mac OS 10.6.3. I suspected the problem had to do with my update to 10.6.3 the previous week and I turned out to be right. There were discussions going on in the Apple forums about the problem. The most promising was titled “Installed 10.6.3 and now Photoshop CS3 won’t open.” The thread originator posted a quick description of the same problem I was having and got (so far) 167 responses.

Sadly, the responses were distributed over 12 individual pages, so I’d scan a page, click Next, and wait for the next page of responses to load before I could continue scanning. I don’t have a fast Internet connection in Wickenburg, so it was time consuming and tedious.

But it’s the content of the responses that I have a problem with. Only about 1/3 of them were of any use. The rest fell into one or more of the following categories, listed here with my comments.

  • Did you restart your computer? A person who can find and post a request for help in an Apple forum is likely smart enough to try restarting the computer before looking for outside help.
  • I’m using Photoshop CS3 with Mac OS 10.6.3 and I’m having that problem, too. Okay, what else can you tell us to help us troubleshoot?
  • I’m using Photoshop CS3 with Mac OS 10.6.3 and I’m not having that problem. So the rest of us are imagining it? Why not provide some info so we can learn how our systems differ from yours?
  • Did you try doing ABC? This comment might be helpful the first time ABC is suggested, but when it’s suggested a half dozen times and people have already reported that it doesn’t resolve the problem, it is a waste of time. Please read all the suggestions and the responses before adding your own.
  • It’s Apple’s fault. They don’t test updates. Don’t waste my time with this bull.
  • It’s Adobe’s fault. Their software sucks. Don’t waste my time with this bull, either.
  • It’s because you’re using a Mac. This problem doesn’t happen on Windows. What the hell are you doing on an Apple forum? Go play with Bing.
  • XYZ Program is better for photo editing than Photoshop. You expect me to toss a costly program I’ve been using for 15 years just because of a [likely minor] incompatibility issue? Get real.

It would be great if Apple’s forums had a way to vote down unhelpful comments so only the helpful ones appeared. I think we could have weeded out at least 100 of the comments that hid the solution. Or, better yet, offer some way to flag the comment that actually contains the “answer.” After all, the discussion thread was marked “answered,” so someone must have recognized one of the posts as a solution.

Adobe’s Web site had a TechNote that offered three possible solutions. One, which suggested turning off Rosetta, did not help me, since Rosetta was not enabled for Photoshop. I’m pretty certain the problem is related to an incorrectly entered serial number after having my logic board replaced two years ago. That’s what’s taking me and my 40 pound, 24″ iMac down to Peoria in two hours. Evidently, there’s no way for an end user to fix a serial number issue.

The net result of all this is that I lost two hours of my life to a troubleshooting exercise and will lose another three hours making a trip down to the Phoenix area to get a problem fixed on my Mac that was introduced by Apple.

Side benefit/drawback: I will get my hands on an iPad so I can give it a test drive. If they’re in stock, I’ll likely walk out of the store $500 poorer.