Review Digital Camera World 09-11-2013

Digital Camera World

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Long exposure cloud movement: how to give a sharp sky a slow shutter effect Sep 10th 2013, 23:01, by jmeyer We don’t always get the shot we want when photographing elements beyond our control. And more importantly, we don’t often get the opportunity to try again until we get it right. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to use simple Photoshop effects to create a feeling of long exposure cloud movement to make your sharp skies look like they were shot at a slow shutter speed. You can add a sense of movement to your landscape images by shooting with a slow shutter speed to capture the motion of water or clouds as a delicate blur. In the case of skies, the combination of a windy day and a long exposure can produce images with clouds that flow attractively across the frame in delicate streaks. However, it can be quite a challenge to capture this motion blur effect successfully in-camera. If you're using a shutter speed slow enough to record the cloud movement, you run the risk of overexposing the brightly lit sky and losing essential texture and detail. If you have a DSLR camera you can attach a neutral density filter to your lens to reduce the amount of light entering the camera, which will enable you to use a slower shutter speed without overexposing the image, but capturing cloud blur is still a hit-and-miss affair because of other factors, such as the wind speed and the aperture setting you choose. So in this tutorial we'll show you how you can recreate the in-camera motion blur effect with total control in Elements. You'll learn how to spruce up colours and tones with the Adobe Camera Raw editor, and then use tools in the main Elements editor to isolate the sky, before using the Radial Blur filter to create the desired blur effect in the clouds. Clouds appear to move at different speeds depending on their distance from the camera, so clouds in the foreground should be blurred more than those on the horizon. We'll show you how to achieve this graduated blur effect by applying the filter to two layers with different settings. You'll then use layer masks to blend the blurred cloud layers with the original sky for a subtle and realistic effect. How to create a long exposure cloud movement effect: steps 1-3 1 Open your image Open your start image in the Adobe Camera Raw editor. We'll make some initial edits here to optimise the image's colours and tones, while keeping noise and other artefacts to a minimum.   2 Maximise detail Set the Depth drop-down menu at the bottom of the Camera Raw interface to 16 Bits/Channel, instead of the default 8 Bits. This enables you to squeeze out every bit of colour and tonal information that's packed into the uncompressed Raw file.   3 Boost the exposure Look at the histogram and you'll see that the highlights fall away before they reach the far right: this tells us that the shot is slightly underexposed. To brighten the image, drag the Exposure slider right to +0.45. The highlights section of the histogram will shift to the right. PAGE 1 – How to create a long exposure cloud movement effect: steps 1-3 PAGE 2 – How to create a long exposure cloud movement effect: steps 4-6 PAGE 3 – How to create a long exposure cloud movement effect: steps 7-9 PAGE 4 – How to create a long exposure cloud movement effect: steps 10-12 PAGE 5 – How to create a long exposure cloud movement effect: steps 13-15 PAGE 6 – How to create a long exposure cloud movement effect: steps 16-18 READ MORE Sky photography: how to take pictures of the sky that dramatically fill your frame Best photo editing tips for beginners: 18 quick fixes to common image problems 34 Photoshop effects every photographer must try once Photoshop reflection effect: how to add water to your landscapes Image Sharpening: how to bring out more detail in your favourite photos Shooting sports: JPEG images or raw format – which should you use? Sep 10th 2013, 10:04, by jmeyer We all know the benefits of shooting raw format. In most situations you’ll find yourself, it will be more beneficial to shoot raw files. But when shooting sports, JPEG images offer a significant advantage. In our latest photography cheat sheet we explain how. Your camera uses an internal memory 'buffer' to store images taken in continuous shooting mode, and RAW files, which are large, fill it up much more quickly. This means that if you’re shooting sports, JPEG images will allow you to capture a sequence lasting many seconds. But if you shoot raw format your camera might stop after just a second or so, and you could miss the key moments. For example, a Nikon D7100 can shoot at 6fps and capture 100 Large JPEG images at Normal quality before the buffer fills up, which is a burst of around 16 seconds. But if you switch to raw it can only save nine raw files, a burst of just 1.5 seconds. For great action shots when shooting sports, JPEG images allow your camera to provide both speed and stamina. In our cheat sheet below we’ve illustrated the difference, showing how much of an action sequence you might capture shooting JPEG images vs raw files. Simply click on the infographic to see the larger version, or drag and drop it to do your desktop to download. So there are two key points to remember when choosing which file format for photographing action. 01 When shooting sports, JPEG images let you shoot for longer As we know, raw files give the greatest image quality and flexibility, but they're slow to process and save. In fact, even the pros will switch to JPEGs for extended bursts, especially for sports where the action is unpredictable and they don't know exactly when the key moment is going to take place. 02 Raw files give you quality but only for a short burst Raw files take up much more space in the camera's buffer, which means the camera can only shoot them in short bursts. It's no good getting great quality if you miss the shot! The difference in burst length is much greater than you might imagine, as our D7100 example demonstrates. READ MORE Free action photography cheat sheet 10 quick action photography tips Raw images: 10 tips every beginner must know before ditching JPEGs Raw format vs JPEG: how much can you REALLY recover in raw? Shoot sharper sports photography: pro techniques and the settings they use

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