On the Threshold of the Past: Easy Ultra High-Contrast Imaging in Photoshop

 

I seem to be on a 1960's techniques kick lately. Last week I wrote about photographing things under black light and here's another technique that kind of resembles one I used way back when: high contrast black and white photography. My father worked in a photographic research lab back then and used to bring home odd bits of film and darkroom materials for me to experiment with. One of the most fun things he brought home were boxes of what is called "litho" or lithographers' film. The film was primarily used for making the separations from which offset printing plates were made, but it had another fun dimension: you could expose negatives on it to create ultra-high-contrast black and white images. There was actually a subculture among some of my photographer friends that got absolutely addicted to making high contrast images and were affectionately known (I think) as "those high contrast guys" at the camera store where we all hung out. Litho film was very expensive, but since I got it for free, I went through tons of it in my basement darkroom. 

Fortunately there is a quick and free way to create very similar images in Photoshop and it's called the threshold tool. You'll find the tool at the bottom of the layers palette (if you're new to the layers palette, just click on the little half-circle icon at the bottom and a group of tool options will pop out) and it's extremely simple to use. Once you open the tool the image you have open will convert to high-contrast black and white and you then use the slider to decide which parts go black, which go white. It's very simple. The only real problem with this tool is that it's not all that easy to find an image that looks interesting in ultra high contrast; some images just fizzle completely regardless of how you adjust the slider. I played with a dozen or so different pictures before I settled on this shot of a relief carving on the front of Notre Dame in Paris. The images that work best are those that have a limited range of tones to start, good surface texture and strong shape features. I shot this image late in the afternoon in bright sun that was creating dark shadows in the background and portrait-like facial shadows. 

Once you have the image in high contrast, of course, you can always use others tools (like the gradient map) to add color in very striking patterns. Again, finding just the right image is the key and it does take some experimenting to know which images will work. But just think of all the time and money you'll save by not having to go find litho film--and I have no idea where you'd even find it these days!

Photoshop Tip: Go Wild with Color Controls

Learning to use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, or any other photo-editing program for that matter, takes time--there is a relatively long learning curve, especially if you're new to editing. Many photographers who have worked in traditional darkrooms in the past pick up editing skills faster that those who have never worked in a darkroom, but still, there is a lot to learn. But that doesn't mean that you can't have some great creative fun along the learning path--you can.

One fun way to get to know what things do in an editing program and to get some cool illustration effects as you learn is to just experiment--let your imagination run wild. You really can't hurt your computer (or yourself!) by playing with editing controls and all programs have a "reset" button that lets you go instantly back to all default settings. So no matter what sticky corner you back yourself into, you can undo it very quickly. Remember too, in Photoshop you can always get rid of the last step just by going to Edit>Undo or unravel many steps by using the Edit>Step Backward command. If you are going to experiment with an important image, however, you should "duplicate" (in Photoshop it's just Image>duplicate) the image first and work on a copy. That way no matter what creative rabbit hole you plunge down, your original image is safe.

Among the most fun (and easy) controls to play with in Photoshop (and other programs have these or similar tools) are the color control tools. With just a quick push on a slider or a click on a palette option, you can transform the most mundane of images into very colorful and imaginative new images. Sometimes what you'll create will be wild 1960's Peter Max-looking "art" and other times it will be utter garbage, but no matter what the end result, you'll begin to understand just what each different tool does--and you'll begin to see how, in specific situations, those tools that you're using in your creative sandbox can also be very useful to correct and enhance photographs. You can manipulate the hue/saturation control, for example, to turn any photo into a total abstraction in seconds, but in time you will find yourself using it to fine-tune colors and hues on almost all of your images.

To create the blue version of Saint Denis (from the facade of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris), I used just three simple tools: First I used the "Posterize" tool to reduce the image to just five distinct tones (you can choose the number of tones or colors that you want); then I used the "Gradient Mapping" tool to shift the entire image into a blue palette (in that tool you simply click on a color swatch to see the effect instantly on your image); and then finally I used the "Hue/Saturation" control to saturate the blues even more. That's it. Three clicks to take it from the straight image below to the colorful one above.

Don't be afraid to experiment with any controls in your editing program. The sooner you get past the fear that you might "ruin" something, the more fun you'll start to have. And if you love color like I do, you're going to have a great time surprising yourself by just clicking and dragging and sliding those color controls.

Photograph a Stained-Glass Window

Photographing stained-glass windows is pretty simple and the photos can make a great addition to a digital slide show or to your Flickr Photostream, etc. There are only two inherent problems in photographing stained glass and they're obvious: there's not always a lot of light and, if they're in a church, they're often up high and hard to frame tightly. Fortunately most churches are rich enough these days to have a lot of different windows and you will almost always find a few that let you get close enough to fill the frame.

I tend to work in the aperture-priority mode when photographing stained-windows because I want to be able to select an f/stop that's small enough (typically f/8 or smaller) so that I have enough depth of field to keep the entire window sharp. Unless you're working on a very sunny day, however, the glass (especially darker colors like dark blues and reds) sucks up a lot of light, so you may have to bump up the ISO quite a bit (I shot this scene at ISO 800) in order to retain a shutter speed fast enough to prevent camera shake. Since most churches won't let you use a tripod, this is a case where vibration reduction can be a big help. You can work in a straight "auto" mode and get good results, just keep an eye on sharpness from edge to edge.

The lens you use will depend on how close you can get to the windows and whether or not you want the entire window or just a close-up segment. In Notre Dame, for example, the Snowflake window (show here) is up very high and you need a moderate telephoto to get a frame-filling shot. I've shot in other cathedrals (the Dom in Cologne, Germany for example) and churches where I've been able to walk right up to the window. Cathedrals and churches aren't the only places you'll find good stained glass, by the way, I've also found tons of it in college campuses, like Yale.

Wherever you find your stained glass, just take your time, try to fill the fame and check your exposures on the LCD. The important thing is to work when the lighting (outside) is even and try keeping the camera as steady as possible.

Raise the ISO Speed in Low Light

Virtually all digital cameras have a flash that provides instant light in situations when the existing or "available" light is very low. Flash is handy, but it's rarely very attractive. The reason is simple: the light from a built-in flash is coming from the same place that you're standing and it provides a flat, often over-powering light that pretty much erases the mood of the ambient lighting.

Fortunately digital cameras provide an alternative to using flash and that is the ability to raise the ISO speed when you encounter dim settings. The ISO setting is merely a rating of a digital sensor's ability to respond to light and the higher the ISO, the more sensitive it becomes to low light. In the film days you had to buy separate rolls of film for different situations: a low ISO film speed for bright daylight and a faster one, such as ISO 800, for darker surroundings. But digital cameras, bless their little microprocessor hearts, have an "adjustable ISO" that lets you change the ISO speed from frame to frame.

In other words, if you were photographing the exterior of a cathedral in bright sun, you could use a relatively low ISO, such as ISO 100 (the typical default speed of many digital cameras). If you then wanted to move indoors, where the light is extremely low and flash is not allowed (or very desirable), you could raise the ISO high enough so that you can shoot at a safe handheld shutter speed. To photograph the candles in Notre Dame in Paris, for example, I raised the ISO to 1600 (the maximum for my Nikon D70s camera) and was able to shoot handheld at 1/60 second without any need for flash. Had I used flash the candle light would have disappeared and I would have gotten a great deal of glare from the votive glasses.

Incidentally, the benefit of using lower ISO speeds when light allows is that the images are free from digital "noise" which is the grainy-looking appearance that higher ISO settings often create.

Many cameras have an automatic exposure mode (usually the green "A" mode) that continuously adjusts the camera's ISO setting as the light intensity changes. Read your manual to see how your camera handles setting different ISO settings. Knowing how to adjust that setting will provide a lot more flexibility in changing lighting conditions. There is a more detailed explanation of ISO speeds on my main site.

Discover Architectural Details

Whenever I teach a class in photography the first assignment I give students is to photograph a piece of architecture. The practical reason I have for doing that is that everyone can find a building easily, while not everyone can find a great sunset or a pretty farm scene at will. Also, buildings don't run away from you the way your pets or other people might. Once you spot an interesting building you're pretty much free to explore it from as many angles as you can think of and in all kinds of different lighting and weather.

While overall views of buildings can be interesting, the real beauty of architecture is in the details. Whether it's the sign that says "Spike" over the doghouse door or the ornate embellishments of a cathedral, buildings are rife with photogenic detail. For example, I spent an entire afternoon photographing just some of the thousands of tiny details on the facade of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The shot of the figure here is just one of several hundred exposures I made. A zoom lens is a great tool for shooting details because the wide settings will let you photograph things like arches and doorways while the telephoto zoom settings will let you snatch more inaccessible details. No matter what the subject, grand or simple, spend some time with your building and watch as its personality and aura change as the light changes in direction, color and intensity.