Joining Competitions

From my presentation research, I found that joining competitions are a good way of getting exposure, and a good way to see your best images. There is also feedback that you can on your photos that you upload to these competitions, this feedback might not be in written form but you will know by how many votes you get how good your photography is.

A problem that I had with the competitions is that these different platforms have different competitions for focusing on different areas of photography, this was a problem because there wasn’t a lot of competition that why photos came under. Another problems that  I faced while trying to join competitions, is that some of the competitions finished in a couple of months. So if I joined these competitions, I wound’t be able to get the results from them in time.

The first competition platform that I decided to enter is 20 Twenty, I found this platform when I was doing my research on Presentation of photography. Presentation Research.

 

When I first joined 20 Twenty, I went to look at the challenges that were available and a lot of them were irrelevant to my theme of photography. The first challenge that I saw was ‘PEOPLE FROM BEHIND’, I couldn’t join this competition because none of my photos are of people from behind. The next competition that was available to join was ‘CANDID PORTRAITS’, this is also doesn’t fit the photos that I want to upload. Another competition was ‘WORDS IN THE WILD’ I couldn’t join this as well.

The only competition that I could enter on 20 Twenty was the ‘BEST NEW PHOTOGRAPHER’, I was able to join this competition because there isn’t any actual theme. It just a competition for new photographers to show off there work, and I consider myself as a new photographer, so I decided to join. You can also post one image so I chose I image that I personally thought was one of my best images.

The image that I uploaded to this competition was this image of a building in Liverpool, I thought that this was a good candidate for this competition because I think this is one of my best images. The reason I think this is because I have used my knowledge on symmetry to get this photo symmetrical on both sides, and I think that I have succeeded in doing that. I also chose this one because of the leading lines on this photo. I like the editing I have done to this image, this original image had a building at the top and I have done a good job of getting rid of it. I also like that it is black and white, it gives to image more of a dramatic and timeless feel to it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over time after entering the competition, I was receiving lots of votes for my image. When people see your image, they have a choice to click the ‘X’, that means that they don’t like the image, the other choice is the tick icon, this is the icon for voting the image. From my activity, you can see that I was getting a lot of votes over a small time period.

When the competition ended, I was able to see the how I did. Altogether, I got 212 votes, that means that 212 people voted for my image. 250 people entered a photo to this competition and I placed 52nd out of 212, that means that I was in the top 25% of all the photos uploaded. My photo was voted higher than 198 photos, I think that this is a successful placement, and I think that people liked this photo.

 

 

 

Another competition platform that I joined was Guru shots, I decided to join this photography competition because of the research I did on my presentation research. Presentation Research

Like 20 Twenty, Guru shots also have multiple competitions. The reason that they have lots of different competition because they want at least one competition that will come under everyone’s style and area of photography. This is a good thing for bringing people and making people stay on the website because there is something for everyone. This is a problem because there are competitions that don’t come under my style and area of photography.

An example of one of these competitions that doesn’t come under my photography is ‘ Drinks in Bottle’. This competition is irreverent to me because I am doing architecture and urban photography not product photography of bottles, or just photos of drinks in bottles.

Another example of a competition that doesn’t concern me is the ‘Toy Dream’ competition. This isn’t the one for me because this doesn’t focus on my photography, because of my photography isn’t toy photography.

One competition that I found that I could join was the ‘Architectural Wonders’, the reason I can join this competition is because its based on architecture and for one of my themes is architecture.

 

You can only upload one image to this competition, so I decided to upload this photo of the st George’s hall in Liverpool. The reason I decided to choose this image, because of the leading lines that are in this image, and also the composition and symmetry.

I also like this image because it is black and white, I think the black and white makes the image look more professional.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout the voting process of the competition, I started to get lots of votes in a short amount of time. On Guru Shots, there are different level or heading that you like earn by entering the competition and doing good in them. The levels on Guru Shots is Newbie, Rookie, Challenger, Advanced, Veteran, Expert, Champion, Master, and Guru. Some of the people who voted on my photos where high levels like Expert, Master, and even some Gurus. These people are very experienced with photography and they have voted for my images, so my image must be at a high level to vote for it.

 

 

 

 

After the competition ended I looked at the stats that I got. For this image, 549 people voted for my photo. The rank that I got was #1169, I couldn’t find out how many people entered because they don’t share that information.

 

 

Making a Flickr account

https://www.flickr.com/photos/181735557@N07/edit?cameraroll

 

I have decided to make a Flickr account because I want another place to showcase my photos. Flickr is similar to Instagram but the different between them is that Instagram is based on the average person posting images, not totally based on pro avid photographers. Flickr is made for people who are looking for a platform that is more serious with photography, this platform is based solely on photography. Lots of pro photographers are on Flickr and also it is a good platform to get feedback. The people viewing your photos on Flickr are more likely to be more experienced photography, unlike Instagram. These people are more likely to give good feedback because they know what they are talking about.

 

 

After signing up to Flickr I tried to change my profile image and my banner to personalize my account. I clicked on the profile picture I chose this image of the Open Eye gallery in Liverpool. When I clicked save, the profile image didn’t change, it stayed the same. I also tried to change my banner picture but every time a clicked save banner it came up with this message ‘Oops! Cover photo could not be saved. Failed to set cover photo’. I thought that the problem with the cover photo was that the image wasn’t the right dimension as the size of the banner, so I searched the dimension and made the photo I wanted the same dimensions using photoshop. I tried to add it and it still didn’t work.

Flickr.com. (2019). Flickr: The Help Forum: cant upload profile picture. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/118448/ [Accessed 14 May. 2019].

Flickr.com. (2019). Flickr: The Help Forum: How to change your profile picture?. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157625206731814/ [Accessed 14 May. 2019].

To try to overcome this and solve this problem I started to go on the Help Forum on Flickr, multiple people were having this problem. I looked at a couple and tried a couple of the suggestions but it still didn’t work. One of the suggestions was to keep changing your profile image until it sticks, I tried to change it more than twenty times but it still didn’t change. This will affect my viewer to my profile because people are less likely to visit profiles that have the default image. This is because it doesn’t look professional, it looks like that I don’t care about my profile and I am not seriously of growing and getting viewers.

 

After trying and failing to change my profile picture and banner, I started to upload my images on to Flickr. I added a caption on the photo that described the shot, for this building a put ‘Manchester City Council Building, Shot of the Manchester City Council building’. This is straight to the point and states what the image is of. Another good aspect of Flickr is the setting information. The file that I edited and exported was originally the RAW file, this RAW file has all the information about what setting I used to take the shot and also what camera an lens I used. After uploading the images I commented on each photo –

‘For my college project, I need to gather some feedback, constructive criticism and what you like about this image. Also, make sure that you check my other images and do the same. All feedback is appreciated. Thanks’

I decided to write this because when people see this comment they are more likely to write some feedback because they know I need it.

 

I also decided to join some groups that are similar to my work and also some Critique groups where people will critique your work. This is a very good way of getting feedback from experienced photographers. You can also upload your images to these groups, for example for the Black and White I would pick one of my best B&W photos and upload it to the group, This will give me exposure.

 

It is also good to engage with other photographers by leaving a comment on their photos and also like them. If you comment and like someone post, they are more likely to look at your profile. Also, the other people commenting and likely the post will see your comment and might click on it.

Editing – Colour Splash

For two of my photos, I decided to colour splash them, basically, colour splash is where most of the image is in black and white but a certain section of the photo is in colour. With colour splash you can bring attention to the thing that you want to stand out, is most of the photo is black and white and one thing is in colour, that will become the focal point of the photo. Both of the images that I decided to colour splash are both parts of my Urban photography collection, this is because when using colour splash you need to select a suitable photo to edit. With all of my architecture photo, all of them included a very small amount of colour in their original form, and the colour that is included in the photos are very dull and wound’t stand out if colour splash was applied. Also colour splash inst a popular theme in architecture photography for this reason, unlike urban where this is a popular theme. In urban photography, there are lots of different aspects of the shot and also sometimes a lot of colour, especially with graffiti.

The first image that I decided to colour splash was this one, I chose this photo because I think that it could potentially benefit from colour splash, the main reason I chose this one is because of the range and different colour included in this photo. The main thing that already stands out even without colour splash is the yellow bin, the graffiti balloons and also the purple door, so they are the main things that I am going to focus on when colour splashing.

To colour splash the image the first thing I had to do is found the correct software, I decided to use Photoshop for this because I have used this software for colour splashing photos before and also because Lightroom doesn’t have the right tools. I imported.

When in Photoshop the first thing I did when I imported the image was to turn the image, Black and White, I did this by clicking the black and white adjustment layer that can be found under the ‘Add an adjustment’ tap. When I click this, it basically adds a black and white filter over my image, so it isn’t actually making the original image file that I imported black and white. The next thing that I did was to take away the black and white from the image for the areas that I wanted to be in colour. I did this by using the Eraser Tool to take away the black and white layer.

I started off with the bin but you can see from looking at it that I didn’t finish it straight away because I wanted to get the main bit done while I had the large area eraser.

For other parts of the image, I had to zoom in to the image and also change the size of the eraser. With certain images, colour splashing can be a very time-consuming process but fortunately, with this image, there wasn’t much I needed to do and with what I needed to do there weren’t many complicated shapes. The graffiti on the wall was probably the most time consuming out of all of the areas because of the difficult lines and the size of the lines. The yellow lines on the road were also difficult and time-consuming because I shot this photo on an angle so the yellow line is moving away from me so it’s getting smaller meaning I have to change the size of the eraser constantly.

Comparing the final finished image to the original RAW file, In my opinion, it looks better and professional, this version it just better to look at and more interesting because of the colours.

The next and last image that I colour splashed was this one of a graffiti wall. I decided to choose this photo for the same reason as the last because It has a range of colours included. Before starting the colour splash process, I had to decide what I wanted to actually colour splash. The main two aspects of the image are the graffiti of the woman and the wings, but having only them coloured wouldn’t look right because it would make the image unbalanced. This is because the middle and the right both have a focus point but the left of the image is blank and doesn’t look right. If I wasn’t going to colour splash the graffiti on the left I would probably crop it out so It is only showing the woman and the wings.

The hardest and most time-consuming part of colour splashing this image was the graffiti on the left at the top, this is because of the number of lines and the size of the lines. One problem that I came across when doing this process was when I was in black and white mode, I couldn’t see some of the graffiti, I had to keep turning the black and white layer to see where the graffiti was. To overcome this problem I used to colour bars at the right, under the colour selection, this basically gives you the ability to change the darkness and brightest of every colour. This was helpful because when I slid the reds bar to the left all of the red graffiti darkened, making it more visible in black and white. Also, the other problem was, with the graffiti of the woman, the graffiti actually fades out at the bottom, this was a challenge because I didn’t know where to cut it. I ended up trying to make it look like a natural end to the graffiti.

Like with the other image I think that the colour splashed image looks better than the standard RAW file image, this is because the graffiti stand out so much more.

My inspiration for deciding to do the colour splashing on these two images is Nico Goodman. When looking at his work I could see that some of his images where coloured splash and I could see the effect that this editing technique gave the images. Nico Goodman

Editing – High detail and sharpening

High Detail And Sharpening

For some of my photos, I decided to turn the detail up a lot, by increasing the sharpening. The sharpening tap is split into 4 different sections, Amount, Radius, Detail and Masking.

Lightroom Research

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Lightroom Research Blog

The first slider focuses on the amount. The amount is the amount of sharpening you want on your image. When you drag the bar to the right you get the maximum amount of sharpening, this isn’t always positive because the higher amount you have the more noise that will be visible on the image.

The next slider is the radius. The radius basically changes the radius of the sharpening. When you drag the bar to the left the smaller the radius is sharpening around the edges, the default radius is 1 pixel around the edges but going more to the left will give you a smaller radius than 1 pixel. This will give you a less vivid and intense sharpening. When you slide the bar to the right the bigger the radius gets, this will make the sharpening around the edges thicker and more visible.

The third slider focuses on the detail of the sharpening. If you drag the bar to the left, only the large and main edges will be sharp and detailed. When you move towards the right of the bar more and more edges are more detailed.

The last slider is the masking slider. The masking slider is able to mask out areas that should not be sharpened leaving the other area sharpened. When you add a mask over the image on the area where you don’t want to sharpen, you then change the settings and it will not change what’s included in the mask.

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The reason for me increasing the detail on some of my urban photos because I think that this gives it more of an urban and decay style. Urban locations are not always clean looking and new if the look around enough you will find these locations that are usually hidden away from everyday life.

This is the first photo that I decided to add a lot of detail too by increasing the sharpness of the photo. Looking at the edit below you can see how increasing the sharpness effect the photos and how in my opinion It makes the photo look better, and fits more in with the urban edit style I am going for.

You can see that I have turned the amount of sharpening up because I wanted to increase the detail even if that did result in added noise to the image. I also turned the radius of the sharpening to 3.0 which is the maximum it can go to, this basically increases the size of the sharpening and detail of the image. The next slider is the detail slider, this increases and decreases the detail on the image. For this image, I didn’t increase it to the max because I didn’t think that It looked right for this certain photo, so I increased it o 28 from 0. The last slider is the Masking slider, this one doesn’t affect my image because It only affects the area which is highlighted and masked.

 

The next image that I decided to increase the sharpening on was this one of the arches located under a bridge. I wanted to increase the sharpening on this photo because I thought that it might look because there are lots of different areas with lots of detail like the bricks of the arch, each of the bricks has lots of detail potential, ranging for the decay and the graffiti on them.

This is what the photo looked like before I increased the sharpening but after I did all of my other adjustments like the Temp, Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks. You can see that I have improved it by adding the blue tint and turning down the exposure but the sharpening is a big part of the edit.

After adding all of the sharpening adjustment you can see that it looks so much better because I have revealed the detail that is included in the photo. For this photo, I increased the Amount to 123, I didn’t increase the Amount to the maximum possible because I thought that there was too much detail and the bricks were becoming too dark. For the radius of the sharpening, I decided to increase it to 1.7, I decided to choose this radius because of anything over this, because the sharpening was becoming too thick. The next slider is the Detail slider, for this, I increased it to 43. I decided to do this because I wanted to increase my detail but I didn’t want to go too far with the detail.

 

The next Image that I decided to increase the sharpening was this one, I decided to choose this image because like the other ones I think that this one has the potential to look better with the increased sharpening. The main reason I chose this one was because of the decay on the bricks and the graffiti. When the sharpening has increased the spaces between the bricks gets darker, making every individual brick detailed.

For this image, I chose to increase the Amount of sharpening to 122, I decided to choose this number because I wanted a lot of sharpening on my image but I didn’t want to increase it to the maximum because that was too much. For the radius of the sharpening, I decided to increase it to 1.7, this was because I wanted a large radius but I didn’t want to have too much. It doesn’t really matter because you can really tell. The Detail slider is the next slider, for this, I increased it to 43 from 0. This was the number I chose because too much detail made the area between the brick bright, and I didn’t want that.

 

This is the finished edit of the photo, I think that it looks better because of the increase of sharpening that I have done. The increase in sharpening has brought and revealed the decay that was before hidden.

 

 

Editing – Transforming & Cropping

Transforming & Cropping

For some of my photos, I have decided to Transform and crop some of them. Transforming an image basically changes the perspective of the image, on Lightroom and Photoshop you can transform it in different ways. A couple of the thing you can change is the vertical, Horizontal, you can also rotate the image and scale it. You can also transform images in different ways but I am not using them. One of the main reason for me transforming some of my images is the lens correction. Basically, some of my architecture images need to have the perspective fixed, this is because some of the buildings look like they are falling backwards because of the perspective I have shot the photo at.

This is the first photo that I thought needed to be transformed. The reason for this is because the building looks like it falling backwards away from the camera. The first thing I did was to import it to Lightroom because  Lightroom and Photoshop both have the tools to do this.

After I imported the image to Lightroom I stared the transforming process to fix the perspective. The problem with this photo is that the building looks like it is falling over, so the slider I need to change is the Vertical slider. I decreased the vertical to -21 from 0, because when you decrease the Vertical the building is made straight and more vertical. When I moved the slider, at the bottom of the image you can see that there is white, this white indicates where the image was and where it is now. Leaving the image like this wouldn’t look right because It wouldn’t be a rectangle because of the extra sides. To fix this I clicked the Constrain Crop which zooms into the image so none of the white is visible.

This is the final image after a transformed it, you can see that the building look straight and stands vertically rather than falling backwards like it was before the transformation. The transformation was minimal, the average viewer probably wouldn’t notice this small distance but more of professional would probably see that the building is not vertical.

 

The photo that I thought needed some kind of transformation was this close up of the top of Liverpool Cathedral. I think that needs transforming because the top of the cathedral looks like it falling backwards and also when the edges of the building meet the edge of the frame they don’t join at the same point so I need to crop that a little. Even though this transformation will not be extreme and will change the whole image, but I think that it will benefit even if the change is minimal.

For this building, I changed the vertical to -11 from 0 which is the default, I decreased it because it makes the building look more vertical rather than looking like it is falling backwards. Like the image before, when you change the vertical the size of the images changes from the original shape, that’s why there is white at the bottom of the image. To fix this I clicked Constrain crop, this basically zooms into the photo until the white is not visible.

 

After changing the vertical perspective of the image, I then decided to crop the image. I did this by going to the Tools bar at the top of the screen and then clicking on Crop. I then started to line up both sides so the building meets the edge of the frame at the same point on each side. This is a very small change but I still think that it makes a big impact on the overall finished image.

 

The next image that I thought needed to be transformed in some way was this one of the buildings and the reflection. The main downside to this image when you look at it is that it isn’t straight, the image fall from the left down to the right. This is because when I shot this, I had to place the camera near the floor and take the photo without looking at the screen or the viewfinder, I had to take a couple of shots before I got this one.

To rotate the image, I slid the rotate slider to -6.2, I did this because I needed to straighten it from the left so that is why I moved the slider to the left. Looking at the image now, it looks so much better now that it is straight. I tackled the problem of not being able to see what I was getting by rotating.

 

The next image that I needed to rotate was this one of the St George’s hall in Manchester, looking at the left one you can see that it isn’t straight. It is sliding from the left down to the right of the frame. Looking at the finished edit of the photo you can see that the building is straight.

 

Looking at this building you can see that it looks like it is falling back, to change this I need to change the Vertical. I need to slide it to the left because I want the building to come towards the camera rather away from it. when slid to the right the building will look like it is moving away from you.

This is what the image looks like when the vertical is changed from the default 0 to -16, you can see that it look like the building is standing more vertically than before.

 

For this photo, I wanted to crop the top of the photo off because it doesn’t look right to have that much space at the top. I wanted to crop the top of but I didn’t want to change to the size of the photo for a rectangle to square like shape.

To get around this I decided to change the scale so it zoomed in to the picture without changing the size of the photo. I think that this looks better because the arch takes up most of the frame.

 

 

Editing – Black and White

Black And White

The reason I have chosen to make some of my architecture photos black and white because from my research I have found that this can make it look professional and more unique. Black and White Photography

For a lot of my architecture, I decided to make them black and white because I personally think that they look better and benefit from the change.

There are multiple reasons why I have chosen certain images to be in black and white, for example, maybe making the image black and white will add more of a dramatic feeling to it or maybe it might be because I want to make the contrast more vivid and present. I have gathered this information when researching into black and white photography.

After removing the power line I started to edit the look of the image. Before I started to edit, I clicked on the Black & White button, this basically just turn the image black and white. I wanted my image to be black and white because I personally think that it looks better and from the research, I have done, a lot of architecture photos are black and white. I also prefer black and white on this image because it brings out the contrast between the light part of the building and the half that is dark.

The first areas I decided to edit was the Exposure and contrast. For the exposure I decided to decrease to -1.55 from 0.00, this basically brings down the brightest of the image. I decided to decrease the exposure rather than increase it because that was the style I was going for, and when you increase the Exposure the light becomes brighter, making it more distracting when viewing.  For contrast, I decided to slide it to the left to +62. The contrast tool, when slid to the right the darker mid-tones are made darker and the lighter mid-tones are made lighter, this increases and makes the contrast more visible. When the bar is slid the left the mid-tones are made more natural making the contrast less visible. I wanted there to be a big contrast between both sides because I think that I look more interesting especially when the image is black and white.

The next two tools that I decided to use was the Highlights and the Shadows tool. The highlight tools basically when slid to the right bring out more detail at the lightest parts of the image, so I decided to increase it to +39 from 0. The lightest part of the image is to top of the building on the left, this is because the direction of the sun was directly on the left side of the building. Looking at the top left of the building you can see the detail, the lines of the windows and also the marks and streaks on the building.  The Shadows tool does the opposite of the Highlights tool, this tool focuses on the darker areas of the image. When the bar is slid to the left to darker areas are mad darker getting rid of the detail, and when slid to the right the detail on the darker area is made more visible but brighter. I decided to decrease the Shadows to -59 from 0, this is because I wanted there to be less visible detail and darker on the right so there was more contrast between the left and right side of the building.

After changing the Highlights and the Shadows tools I decided to change the Whites and Blacks. When the White slider is slid to the left the white is made less intense and vivid. For this image, I decided to slide it a bit to the right to +9 from 0, this is because I wanted the white on the left side of the tip of the building to be a bit more intense so the contrast between both sides was more vivid. When the black bar is slid to the left the black becomes more intense and darker while when you slide it to the right the black become less intense and more of a Gray colour. I decided to make the blacks on the image more intense by sliding it to the left to -8 from 0.

This is the next photo that I decided to make black and white, I decided for this image particularly to be in black and white because of the contrast. On the left side, you can see the light coming through the pillars and the shadows on the right, you can’t really see the light in the RAW file because I purposely shot this underexposed so when editing I can bring up the light.

For this image, I went for a different style to the first image of the pyramid looking building. For the exposure, I decided to increase it to +0.10 because when I decreased it anymore the image was too dark and when I increased the exposure the image was too overexposed. I actually decided to turn down the contrast on this photo because when I increased the left side kept getting darker and darker until there were no pillars visible. So I decided to decrease it to -58 from 0. For the Highlights, I decided to increase it to +100 because the original RAW file was underexposed and I wanted to bring up the brightest parts of the image so I had a bigger contrast. On this edit, I turned down the shadows to the minimum which is -100. The reason for this because I wanted to make the darkest parts of the image very dark, the reason you can still see the pillars on the right is because the Shadows slider only affect the darkest part of the image which is the spaces between the pillars on the actual pillars. I turned the whites up because I wanted all the whites on the image to be brighter and I increased the blacks because I wanted all the dark area to be visible rather than pitch black. For the clarity I decided to increase it to +63, this was because I wanted the lines to be darker and I wanted to increase detail visible

 

 

 

 

Spot Healing & Spot Removal

Spot Healing & Spot Removal

The first photo that I started to edit was the Art centre in Liverpool. The first thing that I needed to do was to get rid of a power line that can be seen at the top left of the photo. I could have taken this to Photoshop to do this but I actually found the spot removal tool when I was getting my self more familiar with the website. This wasn’t hard to get rid of because behind to power line is just a solid blue background so the spot removal tool just copies what is in the other area and covers it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The spot removal tool is found under the tools tab, I can also access this tool by pressing Q so that made it easier for quick selection. When you click the tool you just drag over whatever you want to get rid of and then you select the area you want to replace it with.

This tool is good for small areas you want to get rid of but it isn’t ideal for getting rid of more significant things in the photo. Photoshop has a better tool called the Healing tool, this tool is different because this collected data of what is around the selected area and fill it in.

 

 

 

The next image that I needed to get rid of something was this one of the buildings, I wanted to get rid of the building in the top right corner because I think that it distracts you for the buildings and other people have said the same thing when looking at it. To get rid of this I used the Spot Removal tool in Lightroom, the reason I chose to use this tool rather than the spot healing because this is an easy removal. Because behind the building is a blue sky so I only need to pick a part of the sky to replace the building.

The white area shows the area that I have highlighted and the area that will be replaced, I covered the whole building so you could only see the white. After doing this I dragged the area I selected I moved it to an area that was just blue sky so I could replace the building with it.

This is the image after the spot removal process, the grey circle just indicates where the spot removal occurred, it won’t be there when I import the image. The only thing that is in the photo is the main buildings that I want to focus on. Before I did the spot removal the other building was distracting and taking away from the main focal point which is the main building.

 

This is the next photo that I thought needed something removed from it, the thing that I want to be removed from this photo is the registration number. The reason I want to get rid of the registration number because when this is uploaded to Instagram, Website and Flickr anyone can see it. From the registration plate, people can find personal information about the car owner, this information can be found through both legal and illegal ways. There isn’t any law that says that it is illegal to show someone else’s registration number but it isn’t really ethical to potentially expose other people personal information even if the registration number is public information.

Primoregistrations.co.uk. (2019). Should You Hide Your Number Plate When Posting Photos Online?. [online] Available at: https://www.primoregistrations.co.uk/article/view/should-you-hide-your-car-registration-when-posting-photos-online [Accessed 21 May 2019].

 

 

For this specific photo, I decided to use Photoshop’s Spot Healing Brush Tool rather than Lightroom’s Spot Removal tool, because this removal was more difficult and complex. The difference between this tool and the Spot Removal is that with the spot removal tool, it duplicates the area you select and covers the area you have chosen to get rid of. With the Spot Healing Brush Tool, it gathers information about the colour around your selected area and fills it in, blending

The first thing I did was the import the Raw file into Photoshop, I then selected the Spot Healing Brush Tool by going to the icon that shows a bandage with a dotted circle behind it. I then slowly started to blend the colours until the registration number wasn’t visible. The first thing I did was to get rid of the reg number but leaving the plate but after looking at it for a while, it didn’t look natural because when are you ever going to see a car with a blank license plate.

Because I didn’t want a blank license plate I decided to get rid of the whole plate altogether. A car with no plate is more common and more believable than a car with a blank plate.

 

This is what the finished edit looks like of the removal of the license plate, I think that it looks believable and like no editing has been done to it. The black that is where the plate looks natural and like it should be there because it looks like a shadow, and at the time the sun was high in the sky so this would happen.

 

 

The next photo that I thought needed some removal was this one of the Mann Island No.1 building in Liverpool. The two buildings that I want to get rid of in this photo is the building in the top right and the building in the bottom left. The reason for me wanting to get rid of these two is that they distract and bring attention away from the main building. Also because I knew before doing the removal process that It would be easy because they are not overlapping the building and they are both behind a solid colour background.

For this photo, I decided to use the Spot Healing tool on photoshop because I cannot do it with Lightroom’s Spot removal tool. This is because with the spot removal tool you need an equally sized area to replace with your selected area. When I highlighted the top right building the size of the highlighted area was bigger than any other area of blue sky on the image.

The first thing that I did was to import the image into Photoshop, I then started to get rid of the image from the sides in. I couldn’t do it in one go because it didn’t look natural because there were different shades of blue and white, so I decided to do it in small parts.

After I finished getting rid of the building I went over it again to smooth out the blue and white before I smoothed it out you can see that the blue looks streaky and not natural. The small building at the bottom left what easy to get rid of because of how small it is, also after a second look, a noticed a small tower near the middle of the left side. This was even easier to get rid of because of the small size.

 

 

This is what the image looks like when I finished getting rid of the two buildings and the small pole, in my opinion, this version of the photo looks better. I think this because there is nothing distracting you and nothing brings attention away from the main building.

 

 

Looking back on photos

Looking back on my final 30 photos that I have taken, 15 of urban and 15 of architecture, I have found that some of my images need some amendments done to them. Some of these amendments are easy to fix with a bit of rotating and cropping but some of these amendments I need to make involve in getting rid of big parts of the images.

This photo is from the Liverpool shoot I did, this building is the Open Eye Gallery on Mann Island in Liverpool. In my opinion this shot is good, I have symmetry in this shot and good leading lines, but there is one thing on this photo that distract you. At the top left of the photo there is a power line, when you look at the building you can see a black line that brings you away from the subject of this photo which is the building. This is a easy fix, it’s a easy fix because of how thin the power line and also because what is behind the power line, it’s just blue sky. This will make it easy to blend the area that I get rid of. I will do this by using the healing tool in Lightroom.

Another photo that needs some editing done to it, is this photo of the No. 1 Mann Island building. The composition of this shot is good, good symmetry and leading lines but that’s not were the problem lies. The amendment that need to make to this photo is the two building that are peaking out, one at the bottom left and the one at the top right corner. This is a harder fix because the building at the top right takes up a big portion of the frame. For this I will be using the content aware fill tool in Photoshop.

 

This image that was taken of a puddle reflection of some warehouses need some improvements doing. The improvement that needs to be made to this photo is the rotation, you can see that this image is not level. The reason that I couldn’t get this image straight is because I had to get low angle so I had hold the camera down at the ground, and by doing this I wasn’t able to look down the viewfinder to see if it was level. I will do this by rotating the image in Lightroom.

 

The next shot that needs some amendments doing to it, it this image of a building in Liverpool. The thing that I need to edit is the two buildings that can be seen at the top of the frame. I will get rid of these building by using the healing tool in Lightroom.

 

For some of my photos, I shot at 16 mm. This focal length is classed as wide, maybe a bit too wide. Looking at this image you can see that it has some fish-eye distortion, this is caused by the wide focal length, it so wide that the image has started to turn into a sphere. To fix this I will be using the transform tab on Lightroom to change the perspective of this shot so there is not distortion visible.

Another example of the fish-eye distortion is this photo of the Liver building in Liverpool. This shot was also shot at 16 mm, I went this wide because I wanted to capture as much of the building as possible, as a result of this, there is some distortion. Like the previous shot, I will be going on lightroom and editing this photo using the transform tab.

 

I shot is photo at a higher exposure as usual, that is why it is dark. There is nothing wrong with this shot that can’t be fixed. Because I shot this image in RAW I can increase the brightness and change the exposure and it will look fine. You will be able to see everything, the shadows and all of the detail hidden in the shadows. I will do this by importing this image into Lightroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lightroom Research

For my FMP I have decided to use Adobe Lightroom to edit my photos, this is because I have used this software slightly in the previous project but I am still unfamiliar with the software for the most part. There are lots of different photo editing software out there but the reason I have decided to use Lightroom this is the software that is downloaded on the college macs. Also, because this software is very popular for editing photos, this software is the most popular editing software out there, For my research, I have decided to look at the different tools that are included in Lightroom to see what they do and how they change the images.

 

Temperature And Tint Bar

The first two slider bars that are shown on Lightroom are the Temp slider which is short for temperature and the Tint tool. The temperature tool is self-explanatory, when you slide the bar to the left the image gets bluer and when you slide the bar to the right the image gets more orange and yellow. The blue temperature is used to give the image more of a cold feel and the orange is used to make the image look more worm, that’s why the slider is named Temperature.

The next tool is the tint tool, this tool basically gives the image a tint to it, this tool gives you the ability to give the image any color tint that you want. I don’t think that I will be using this slider because I have no need for it. The picture above shows what it looks like when the temperature is blue and when there is a green tint added. This is not the style that I am going for, this reminds me of more pop art. I might use the temperature tool to make my images colder.

 

Exposure And Contrast Bar

The next two tools that I am looking at is the exposure and the contrast tool. The exposure tool changes to exposure of the image, the exposure is basically the amount of light thats on the images. The further you go to the left of the bar to more darker and underexposed the shots get and the further to the right you go down the bar the brighter and overexposed the image gets. For my urban photography, I am likely to have my exposure a bit to the left so the image is darker but not underexposed. This tool is very important because if you shot something that is underexposed or overexposed you can correct it and still get a good image. The contrast tool, when slid to the right the darker mid-tones are made darker and the lighter mid-tones are made lighter, this increases and makes the contrast more visible. When the bar is to the left the darker and lighter mid-tones are made more neutral so there isn’t much contrast between the dark and light part of the images.

This image shown above shown what it looks like when the Exposure is -1.70 and the contrast is +75. The exposure that I have chosen has made the darker than the original image, the contrast that I have chosen had made the dark and lighter mid-tones more apparent and more vivid.

 

Highlights And Shadows Bar

After this, I looked at the Highlights and shadows tools. When the highlights tool is slid to the left of the bar, this shows the maximum detail in the lightest parts of the image. On this image, the lightest part is the clouds in the sky and also the windows on the right side of the window which are reflecting the sky. When the bar is to the left, the detail in the brightest part of the image is washed away.

The shadows tool does the opposite of the highlights tool, the shadows tool focuses on the darker part of the image. When the shadows tool is slid to the left, the detail shown in the darker areas of the image is made less visible and darker. When the bar is slid to the right, the detail in the darker areas of the image is made more visible but brighter

The image above shows an image which has the highlights tool and the shadows tool slid to the left. This image shows the maximum detail in the darker part of the image and also the lighter part. When I slid the highlights tool to the right some of the blue seen through the cloud wasn’t visible,

This image shows when both bars are slid to the right, looking at the sky, you can see that the blue that is on the other image is less visible because the detail has been taken out of the lighter parts. Also, the reflections of the clouds and the blue sky are not visible on the windows because the detail has been washed out and been made into one solid color. The dark granite on the building is the darkest part of this image you can see the color of the buildings has gone, the dark granite has been washed out and lightened getting rid of the detail.

 

Whites And Blacks Bar

The whites bar when to the left, the white parts of the image are made less vivid and made darker. This tool would be useful if you had an image where the whites were blown out, this tool would bring down the intensity and the brightness of the whites. When the bar is to the right, the whites are made more intense and are blown out. This would be used if you wanted to make the whites brighter and more intense. The difference between this tool and the highlights bar is that this tool changes all the whites while the highlights bar only changes the brightest areas of the image.

The blacks bar changes the blacks that are in the image. When the bar is to the left, the blacks are made darker and more intense. This would be used if on your image the black areas are bright and you want them to look darker. When you slide the bar to the right, the blacks get less intense and more washed out to a lighter grayer color. This would be used if an image has intense blacks where you couldn’t make out the detail. The difference between this bar and the shadows bar is that the shadows bar only focuses on the darkest areas of the image and the blacks bar changes all of the black on the image.

The image above shows an image that has the whites and blacks bar slid to the right. Because I have slid the bar to the right on the whites bar, means that the whites have been toned down and less intense, as a result of this you can no see the blue in the sky. The blacks bar has also been slid to the right, this means that the blacks are more intense and darker.

On the image above I have made it so the whites and the blacks bar are both to the right. When you look a the sky you can see that there is hardly any blue visible, this is because I have made the whites more intense by sliding into the right. Looking at the darker point of the building you can see that they have been washed out to a grey dull color.

 

Clarity Bar

The contrast bar basically ‘increases the contrast in the middle regions without affecting the black and whites’. The clarity gives the outlines more of a dark grayer. When the clarity bar is slid to the right, this brings out more detail and also makes it look rougher. This would be used for an image that shows some kind of decay, this would make the image look rougher and that would help in showing the decay.

Kelsh, N. (2019). What Does the Clarity Slider Do? – How To Photograph Your Life. [online] How To Photograph Your Life. Available at: https://www.howtophotographyourlife.com/what-does-the-clarity-slider-do/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2019].

This is the image above shows what it looks like when the clarity is at its least. This building lacks detail because of the lack of clarity. The clarity has decreased the middle tones. This would be used for portraits where they are trying to not focus on the infection of the model. The most popular example would be portraits of women, the less clarity makes the skin look more smooth and gets rid of the detail in the skin.

For an example of clarity in use, I downloaded a stock portrait to show how clarity is used in portrait because you can’t really see the extent and the proper use for this tool.

I have changed the clarity on this image too -19 which is just below the standard form. You can see that the skin looks more smooth which make the image look more flattering.

On this image, you can see that I have turned the clarity to +100 which is the max, You can see that there is much more detail visible but this isn’t always good. You can see more of her freckles and the change of tone in her skin.

Pexels.com. (2019). Woman Smiling In Front Of Green Plants · Free Stock Photo. [online] Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-smiling-in-front-of-green-plants-2156416/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2019].

 

Vibrance And Saturation Tool

Basically, the Vibrance bar changes the intensity of the colors that less saturated and leaves the colors that are already well-saturated. When you slide the bar to the right to color become more saturated and more intense, this is because it is saturating the less saturated colors. When you drag the vibrance bar to the left it takes the saturation out of all of the colors making the image black and white.

The saturation tool is similar to the virbrance tool but this tool changes the saturation of all the colors on the image not just the more muted colors. When you drag the bar to the right it saturates all of the colors making it more intense and vibrant. When you drag the bar to the right it takes the saturation out of all of the colors and leaves the image black and white.

On this image, I have decreased the Vibrance and the saturation to the smallest amount.  You can see that this has taken all of the colors out of the image making it black and white. This would be used to transform an already colored image into and black and white image. I am going to use this while editing my photos because I want some of my images to be black and white so I will take the color out by decreasing the vibrance and the saturation.

 

Tone Curve

A tone curve is a tool in Lightroom that allows you to change the highlights, lights, darks, and shadows. This tool is very helpful but it can also be complicated. It shows the insight of how it changes the image. At the top, left corners are the lightest area and the bottom right in the darkest. The dotted line in the middle represents the normal edit, above the line makes the image lighter and anything below the line makes the image darker. This tool is used to get a certain specific look that you wouldn’t able to achieve with the scroll bars. The bottom of the line shows the shadows, next to that is the darks, then lights and finally the highlights.

Digital Photography School. (2019). How to Make Color Adjustments Using Tone Curves in Lightroom. [online] Available at: https://digital-photography-school.com/make-color-adjustments-using-tone-curves-lightroom/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2019].

 

This image shows what it looks like when the line is closest to the top left corner, you can see that it is blown out and overexposed. To correct this I would need the get the line closer to the dotted line.

This image shows a photo that has the tone curve to the bottom right corner. You can see that this photo is underexposed, this is because the darks and the shadows have been intensified to much beyond recognition of any detail in the color.

 

Sharpening

The sharpening tool basically adds and emphasizes the detail in the image. You might not be able to see the detail from a distance but when you get up close you can see how important it is to the image. The sharpening tool is split into four different sections, this is better than just getting one option because there are four parts, it gives you maximum personalization of the detail in your image.

The first slider focuses on the amount. The amount is the amount of sharpening you want on your image. When you drag the bar to the right you get the maximum amount of sharpening, this isn’t always positive because the higher amount you have the more noise that will be visible on the image.

The next slider is the radius. The radius basically changes the radius of the sharpening. When you drag the bar to the left the smaller the radius is sharpening around the edges, the default radius is 1 pixel around the edges but going more to the left will give you a smaller radius than 1 pixel. This will give you a less vivid and intense sharpening. When you slide the bar to the right the bigger the radius gets, this will make the sharpening around the edges thicker and more visible.

The third slider focuses on the detail of the sharpening. If you drag the bar to the left, only the large and main edges will be sharp and detailed. When you move towards the right of the bar more and more edges are more detailed.

The last slider is the masking slider. The masking slider is able to mask out areas that should not be sharpened leaving the other area sharpened. When you add a mask over the image on the area where you don’t want to sharpen, you then change the settings and it will not change what’s included in the mask.

Mansurov, N. (2019). How to Properly Sharpen Images in Lightroom. [online] Photography Life. Available at: https://photographylife.com/how-to-properly-sharpen-images-in-lightroom [Accessed 29 Apr. 2019].

Looking at the image above you can see what it looks like when the amount, radius and detail  at the maximum amount. The amount is why there are lots of individuals strands of sharpening, the radius resulted in making them big, while the detail made the smallest lines detailed.

Looking at this image you can see what it looks like when the sharpening is taken out of the image. It looks kind of blurry because there is no detail in the different part of the texture, its all treated as one color, there isn’t any detail.

 

Transform

The transform tool is very helpful and is very powerful is changing the whole entire look of your image, especially in architecture photography. This tool allows you to change the perspective of the shot, in many different ways. You can change this by sliding the bar, vertical, horizontal, rotate, aspect, scale, X Offset, and Y Offset.

Looking at this image you can see that I have rotated the image so the building is straight up. Sometimes in architecture photography, when you look back on the photos, the buildings look like they are falling over. This is because of the perspective and the angle I was shooting the building at. Looking at the first photo of the building you can see that it looks like it is moving away from the shot but looking at the second image you can see that it is straight. When you correct the perspective, it does crop the image a bit because is basically zooming into the image a bit when correcting the perspective.

Digital Photography School. (2019). Why are my Buildings Falling Over? A Short Guide to Perspective Distortion and Correction in Photography. [online] Available at: https://digital-photography-school.com/why-are-my-buildings-falling-over-a-short-guide-to-perspective-distortion-and-correction-in-photography/ [Accessed 29 Apr 2019].

 

 

 

 

Liverpool Shoot

For some of my shots, I used a lower aperture because these shots were shot in overcast conditions, while on this shoot it soon started to get sunny because the clouds were moving out of the way. This caused me to change my aperture for some of my shots.

Lower Aperture

 

This is one of the shots that I shot with a lower aperture.

This is my first shot of the Liverpool shoot, the first location that I went to was the Liver building. The reason I decided to shoot this building is that earlier in the project I made a questionnaire asking what building should I shoot in Liverpool and this was one of the popular ones. For this I used the shutter speed 1/160, the reason for this was because I am shooting a building so I didn’t need a high shutter speed, but I didn’t make it any lower because I was holding the camera with my hand. When you hold the camera with your hands, the camera will shake because your hands are always shaking. If my shutter speed was lower there would be visible shutter speed. For my f/stop, I decided to choose f/8, the reason being that I wanted to get all of the building in focus at once, not just the bottom or the top. I also decided to shoot at f/8 because when I shot this the lighting conditions were overcast and from my research, about aperture, I know that this is the f/stop I need to use when in this condition.

Camera Settings

The ISO I decided to shoot this shot with was ISO 100, this is because the lower the ISO the better quality the image is. On this photo, there is some distortion where it makes the image look round, this is a result of having a wide focal length, this can be changed in post.

 

 

 

The next shot of the Liver building is in landscape, the reason being that I wanted to capture as much of the building as I could. I prefer this photo too the previous one because of just that, because it show more of the building. I choosing this photo for my final 30 because I personally like this photo, and from the questionnaire that I did where this one was the more popular one.

When shooting this shot, I wanted this angle where I am looking because I know from my research about Ezra Stoller what effect this gives, and the leading lines that It creates.

Ezra Stoller

I also liked this side of the Liver building because of the repetition with all of the windows, and I know for my research that repetition in photography can be pleasing to the eye and can make your image eye-catching.

Composition

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at all of these shots above you can see that I have shot them at a lower f/stop than my other shots that were taken on this day. This is because looking at the three above, they are all taken in places where there are shadows. This is because the streets that I was on when taking these images has a quite tall building so there are shadows caused.  The smaller the aperture the wider the hole in the lens, this brings in more light into the lens, hitting the sensor. Because in the area I was shooting these photos at, the condition where dark because I was between buildings meant that I changed my aperture to f/9. If I made my aperture my aperture bigger, the shadows in the image will become completely dark.

Camera Settings

 

Leading lines

 

These are the four shots from my Liverpool shoot that uses leading lines. Looking at the first picture of the bridge you can see that the leading lines on this image are located on the floor at each side of the bridge. When you first look at this image your eyes will follow the lines until you reach the end of the bridge. The second image leading lines are located at the black lines that run up the building. When you first look at this image your eye follow these lines going up the building. The third image leading lines are located on each of the pillars of the building. When you first look at this building your eyes are lead up the building to the sky. The last image leading lines are located at each side of the building and also in the middle of the building. When you first look at this image your eye follow these lines up to the top of the image. The reason that I have good and effective leading lines is because of the research I have done on leading lines and leading line practice I have done on the practice shoots. Composition

 

Symmetry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a couple of my shots, the main purpose I was taking these images was because of the symmetry that was present in the building. From my research, I have found that symmetry is very important in photography. Composition.

Over my practice shots, I have been developing my skills of symmetry, These shots are a result of that skill development. Looking at the first image of the Open Eye gallery, I have entered the edge of the building in the center of the frame. With that said, this shot isn’t completely symmetrical, the open windows at each side don’t match up. This isn’t a bad thing because from my symmetry research I learned that having a shot completely symmetrical can make the shot feel unatural.