Category: General Photography

What’s the best way to save photos for Facebook? For years I’ve always simply uploaded JPG images. I would do my edits in Photoshop, resize to 2048 on the long side, flatten the image, convert to sRGB, do any sharpening if needed and then save as JPG making sure to embed the color profile. It works OK, but the images really take a beating after Facebook gets done doing whatever they do with them.

After doing a little bit of reading around and experimenting I’ve found out the best method for preparing photos for Facebook. Presuming of course that you’re uploading them using the High Quality option.

Here’s what I do using Photoshop: First, after you’ve finished all of your post production edits, flatten the file; Layer > Flatten Image. Next, convert it to the correct profile for the web. In this case sRGB IEC61966-2.1; Edit > Convert to Profile. In the Advanced box that pops up, in the Destination area select RGB and in the drop-down make sure to select sRGB IEC61966-2.1. In the Conversion Options I’ve selected Relative Colormetric and left everything else as is. Then click OK. Once you’ve done this you won’t have to make the changes next time. You’ll just click Convert to Profile and then click OK.

Now do any sharpening you want to do if you do any at all. Once you’ve done that then click on File > Export > Export As. If needed change the Format to PNG under File Settings. Make sure that Transparency is checked. Change the width to 2048 and let height do whatever it’s going to do.

NOTE: I’m talking about images that are landscape oriented. I believe that for portrait oriented images you should set the width for 960.

Now, and I think this is important, in the Resample drop-down change it to Preserve Details. Leave Canvass Size alone. If you have copyright and contact info embedded in your metadata, go ahead and select that option. In Convert Color Space make sure that sRGB is selected. For Embed Color Profile, I always check that. Technically, newer browsers are going to treat any image that doesn’t contain an embedded color profile as sRGB IEC61966-2.1. That’s what they’re supposed to do. But I know that some browsers have had a problem with doing this. It’s generally not a huge deal unless the person viewing your image is doing so on a wide gamut monitor. Even then it may be unlikely that they will have a problem and someone using a wide gamut monitor is pretty likely to have taken measures to deal with browser weirdness. Either way, why not just check it and not worry about it.

Now just click Export All and save it to where ever you want to save it. That’s it. You’re done.

I know that some of you use different editing software than Photoshop, or perhaps you simply use Lightroom only. I’m not sure how you would replicate the above with anything else other than Photoshop so you may need to look into that.

Files treated like this will be noticeably better on Facebook than going the JPG route. For me, it’s the best way to save photos for Facebook.

Staged portrait photography is something that seems to cause a lot of confusion. What exactly is staged portrait photography? I suppose in reality any portrait is going to be staged in the technical sense. Someone gazing directly into the camera at the direction of the photographer is, I suppose, being staged.

But when I talk about staged portrait photography I’m talking about something a little more than simple direction for posture or gaze. I’m talking about either integrating some sort of prop and/or directing something to look like a single moment captured from a larger event even though the event being represented is not actually taking place.

I’m not necessarily talking about something as elaborate as Ryan Schude’s amazing Tableaux Vivants which are basically photos containing several portraits and stories sliced from a larger chunk of life and frozen at the moment. His amazing photos can contain a cast of dozens in a single location and tell several different stories in a single frame. His work displays a complexity way beyond anything that I would even think about attempting. Though not portraiture in the classic sense, they are portraits all the same.

What I’m talking about is pretty basic stuff that can add interest. For example, this shot:

During a Krav Maga class in a public park I asked a couple of the instructors to ham it up a bit with something I had in mind. During the whole time, it was raining off and on with dark clouds rolling in and out. I thought that this would be a perfect time to do something to really accent the ominous clouds punctuated by the clear sky in the distance. Where we were standing was nearly dark as night, yet the the background was bright.

I had someone hold a single speed light camera left and asked these guys to pose for a shot; think kitschy surrealism. I was thinking it would be cool to try to make it look not quite real; maybe like something done in a studio or movie set so I popped off a few shots and liked this one the best. It really does look like something done on a set with a big background hanging on a wall.

No, it’s not overly elaborate by any means but it’s definitely staged, hence staged portrait photography.

Another staged photo. Again, I’m not talking way elaborate stuff here:

I wanted this to replicate shoot house training. A little bit of a challenge since I was doing this in my little basement with tiled floors, white walls and a low ceiling. I leaned a 4 foot x 7 foot piece of faux brick wall paneling against the wall as a backdrop, hung a shemagh scarf from a C-stand with a couple of clamps and put a speed light behind it with some yellow gel. Camera left, I placed another speed light pointing at the wall for some bounce light to fill in the shadows a bit.

I then handed my wife my cleared and safety checked Sig P320 and we went to work.

Again, though not overly elaborate, this is definitely a staged portrait.

I suppose that I would go so far as to say that any photograph that has any input from the photographer regarding placement, behavior or posing of a subject is staged.

 

 

This past weekend my wife and I took a drive out to the Little Sahara Recreation Area here in Utah. The purpose really was to scout out some locations for future photo shoots. We’d never been out there and I had been meaning to check it out for some time.

Man, what an amazing place for photography. Whether you’re looking for landscapes or portrait shots, it really is an amazing place.

Little Sahara is a Utah hot spot for dune buggies, motor bikes and other off road vehicles, so there are generally a lot of people flying around. However they have designated several hundred acres of area in which it’s foot traffic only. That’s where we stuck to.

My photo ventures are by and large excuses to get out and about as a family. I rope my wife into posing for pics and I rope my son into being my assistant. Either way we end up spending much of the day in various locations.

Above is a pic of “the crew.” Well, to be fair, it’s really my son and wife. But the point is that we get out, hang out, bond as a family, etc., and the whole time the “purpose” is to take pics. That’s the great part because taking pics really isn’t the purpose at all. It’s simply a pretext to getting out. That being said, my wife and son will tell you that I’m pretty adamant about having everything I need to take a ton of pics. Generally my son holds lights, moves lights or whatever I need him to do. On this day, however, he was simply the goat as exemplified by the backpack full of crap.

We wandered around a bit exploring and you can see why it’s called Little Sahara. It’s literally thousands of acres of sand dunes punctuated by some brush and juniper trees, but largely just a barren landscape. We only had to walk about 50 yards from the road we were parked to be in almost complete isolation. It was a bit chilly since it is November so we decided to get down to business and get the photo thing over with pretty quick. One thing to keep in mind if you make the trip is that it’s sandy. I mean REAL sandy. It’s windy so it’s blowing sand around a lot hence the dunes. I can’t say this strongly enough.

It’s SANDY. I’m still finding sand in places that I never even thought were exposed. Keep that in mind with regards to your camera gear.

Anyway, we fired off a few shots and this is the keeper that I’m happy with:

Though I’m pretty happy with this pic, in hindsight I wish I’d shot this with a smaller aperture to make the background sharp. The blur is OK, but it should either be sharp or a lot more blurry. I even thought about doing it in post production. I still might.

We were in a bit of a hurry because it was too cold for summer attire, so we wrapped it up pretty quickly.

Anyway, for those of you in Utah, Little Sahara is an amazing place for photography. I highly recommend making the trip.

That’s right. Reality may not be the goal when it comes to photos. Of course it depends on what you’re after, but for me I’m generally not interested in a photo being a completely accurate representation of what I photographed.

Opinions on this vary a lot; some people who call themselves “purists” or whatever else can be hardcore stuck on the notion that what landed on their camera sensor is what should be shown. There can be something said for that in some photographic disciplines for sure. I’m thinking photo journalists as an example. Or stock photos for reference manuals, etc. I mean there are people out there that if a single post production slider has been touched in any way they’ll cry foul.

Personally I don’t give that notion much stock; especially if you’re shooting RAW. If you’re not shooting raw and opting to shoot in JPEG, what comes out of camera isn’t untouched. You’ve simply opted to let your camera’s algorithm do it for you. Back in the day when you took your pics and sent them off to the photo lab to get them developed, the lab didn’t simply develop the images without any post processing work. There’s always some post processing work done to some degree or another. For those processing their own film, post production work was the norm. Even Ansel Adams was a master of post production work.

Then there is the other side of the spectrum in which people combine photography and “digital art” to create some pretty astounding works of art that make so called “purists” scream bloody murder. I’m talking artists like Erik Johansson. It’s pretty amazing stuff; absolutely surreal and obviously not straight out of camera. Though not my thing personally there is no denying that it’s truly amazing work which displays huge talent. I mean look at his work. Amazing.

I’m finding that I fall somewhere in between the two extremes with a huge lean to the so called purist approach. What I mean by that is that I’m not interested in creating stark surreal works of digital art with dolphins sporting wings and flying through vast landscapes, but I’m generally not interested in creating exact replicas of a scene or moment. I have the feeling that most photographers fall somewhere in the same place. And, to be honest, I’m all over the place. Sometimes I’ll take a photo with the goal of trying to get as much right in camera as possible with the goal of doing as little post production work as possible. Sometimes, even though I’ve nailed the exposure correctly for what I’m trying to shoot, the result I look at when I get it on my computer is not the same as what I photographed. I’ll make adjustments to bring it to where it more closely resembles what I shot.

Other times I’ll take a photo with the express intention of doing something to it in post production to achieve a specific goal or look.

Either way, it is generally never straight out of camera; whether it’s getting rid of mosquito bites, correcting skin tone, fiddling with contrast, cloning out a light stand or adding texture to clouds because they just look cool. Sometimes it’s just my mood.

And a little ADHD doesn’t help.

As I gain more experience with post production I find myself experimenting with different techniques along the way. For example I’ve really been dipping my feet into the whole concept of color grading. I find it amazing how color grading a photo can alter the mood and ambiance. I get the feeling that many photographers find their post production niche; a look or style that they really like and then they develop that style and learn how to use the tools to replicate it and pretty much stay right there. There’s nothing wrong with that; finding the “style” and then getting it down pat. To do a limited number of things or a single thing very well is not a bad thing.

I’m too damned scattered to do that. I like goofing around with different things at different times.

But, like I said, I’ve been on a color grading kick in an attempt to convey a preconceived idea of how I envision the end result. This led to some photos that I took recently this fall. I wanted to take the autumn palette and bump it up to 10 so to speak. Especially those warm tones that come with a long autumn and what we call an Indian Summer.

The straight out of camera pics look pretty good, but not what I had in mind. Here is an example of the original pic. It’s straight out of camera with the exception of white balance and enabling a camera profile in Lightroom:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This isn’t bad; usual flatness of RAW, the face a little bright, the shirt a bit over saturated. And actually, it looks pretty close to when we were there. I could maybe bump up the clarity a little bit, drop the saturation in the shirt, bring up the vibrancy in the foliage and it would look almost exactly as it was.

But, like I said, I’m not interested in replicating it like it was. I want it to be how I envision it. So, I goofed off and came up with this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vastly different. This image is a result of 19 layers in Photoshop. 17 of them are adjustment layers dealing with everything from curves on specific color channels to a color lookup. Two of the layers are specifically to address some skin blemishes and lint on the shirt.

I like how it turned out. It more conveys an emotion rather than simply what was. It’s not reality. No, it’s not so far out as to depict a blue planet with rings being orbited by dogs, or whatever. It conveys a completely different visceral response than the original. It’s not so far removed from reality that most people wouldn’t think it’s “as shot” for the most part, but I know it’s not as it was shot.

Well, so do you now.

At the end of the day, for me, reality is not the goal.