On September 15th, 2009 I went to see the Boston Red Sox play the Los Angeles Angels in Fenway Park, Boston. I knew the game would start shortly after sunset and that my seat would look out towards the West, so I planned to take a panoramic photo of the stadium even if I did nothing else that day. The weather cooperated and even provided some clouds to increase the dramatic effect of the sky at sunset. I also snapped the photos when the sky’s brightness was similar to that of the field; this is a short window of opportunity that cannot be missed!

While I had processed the many photos I took during the game, including the 4 individual photos that I wanted to stitch, I hadn’t actually got around to creating the panorama. I tried doing that this evening using Photoshop’s Photomerge function, but it kept complaining about not being able to align one of the images. This had happened to me on a number of occasions with less important panoramas, and I had simply given up, but I was determined to get this panorama to work. Where can I find a good, free panorama stitching tool? I need look no further than this very blog! Peter Zack keeps a list of freeware image editing tools and software that I recommend everyone bookmark. It was there that I found Hugin, a piece of software that serves as a GUI (Graphical User Interface) to the industry standard panorama creating algorithm Panorama Tools, written by German mathematician Prof. Dr. H. Dersch .

I downloaded the latest version, which installed quickly on my Windows XP laptop, and in very little time I had my panorama. And no, it didn’t complain about any images not being aligned. I wasted a lot of time playing around with different perspectives and other parameters, but in the end the default and automatic settings gave the best result by far. Next time I know not to touch anything and simply press GO. Actually…next time (tomorrow) I will redo this panorama using TIFFs instead of JPEGs. I’m sure it will take longer due to the larger file sizes and bit depth, but the end result will be of higher quality.

But even with JPEGs, the panorama looks pretty damn good to me. Please, judge for yourselves (click for larger version). And if you have any favourite panorama tools, let me know in the comments section!

Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox

Related posts:

1. Free Image and Photo Editing Software Resources
2. Taking Panoramas to a New Height

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© Miserere for Enticing the Light, 2009. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.

The Photoshop tutorial technique sections are found in this archive section beginning with the first article in the series.

Photoshop has some great tools but one issue I find is if I don’t repeat a certain effect on a regular basis, I can’t remember all the steps I used to create that effect. So there is a great feature in the software that allows you to create a unique method of adjusting a photo and saving that technique for future edits. It’s also a great way to do repetitive tasks in a matter of seconds.

Note: where possible a shortcut will be in brackets. E.g. (Alt+S). At the end of this article, there is a short video you can download and see the steps used to create an action in Photoshop.

Prepare the sequence of effects you want to create for a particular edit. If necessary, write the exact sequence down on a piece of paper. Creating an action is like recording a video without any editing. It will ‘play’ the effects in the order you choose. So if you mess it up or skip a step, the effect won’t be what you want. Of course there is always the handy trash can, so you can start recording the action over again.

1) Open Photoshop, then open an image.

2) From the top menu click on Window and from the pull down menu select Actions. (Alt+F9)

3) Here you have a choice. You can create a sub folder called a Set. Or just create an action alone. So maybe you want to create several different but similar actions for editing portraits. One might be Hi Key and another Soft Glow as examples. So to create a Set, click on the square button (blue arrow). The following window opens and add your sub folder title.

4) Once the Set is saved, click on the Create new Action button (green arrow). Put in the title you want and click the record button. You will notice the circle will turn red (orange arrow). Now the action is ready to be recorded (saved).

5)  This is the point at which every step is recorded in the correct sequence. For this example we will add a watermark to an image. Your action may be very different but this will give you the steps to create whatever action you want. So in this action I will do the following:

a) Open the layers window (F7)

b) create a new blank layer (not a duplicate). Make the Background Layer invisible by clicking on the eye beside the layer.

c) Click on the Horizontal Text Tool (T). On the blank layer, click anywhere. Then from the top toolbar, select the style of type you want, colour and the font size. Type out the watermark you want to create.

d) Once the watermark has been created, click the eye (green arrow) beside the background layer and make the image visible again. You will most likely want to adjust the Opacity slider (red arrow) at this point to fade the watermark so that it is barely visible. Somewhere around 30-40% should be about right for most images.

Tip: when adjusting the Opacity slider, drag it to the correct percentage and before removing your finger from the mouse button, check the translucent strength of the watermark. Make opacity adjustments in one action until it is where you want it. Just remember that each time you release the mouse button and then adjust the opacity again, you’ve created another edit in the action. That will just slow down the action application.

You may create several watermarks and have them at different opacity levels for different image types. These could be titled ‘Watermark 30%” or “Watermark 45%” and so on.

e) With the drop down menu in layers (blue arrow), go to Flatten Image, which combines the layers into one. Our watermark is now done and we have created the action sequence we want for future pictures.

6) To save the action we just created, click the Stop Playing/Recording (red arrow) button. The action is now saved. If you look in the actions box, you’ll see the action that was just created and the steps the software will do automatically. Close the image we used to create the action without saving it (or save it if you wanted to watermark the image you were using to create the action).

Tip: I used a watermark as an example and if you wanted to watermark photos for web pages as an example, you would have to insert another step in the action. If the action was created for a small web image (e.g. 469 x 700 pixels) and you applied the same watermark to a full sized image (e.g. 2592 x 3872) the watermark will be so small as to be invisible. So the first step in the action would be to go to Image in the top tool bar and select Image size and set the pixel dimensions you want for web images. So you will create watermarks for your web images that might be shared on forums of sites like Flickr. For a full sized image, you will create a different watermark that will fit the pixel dimensions of that image (larger). This is why actions are so handy. You might have 5,6 or more watermark actions for different sized pictures and you don’t have to constantly repeat the tasks for each different size. Just click an action that suits what you are working on.

To apply the action to the image. Simply open an image or series of images. Then open the actions menu, choose the action to be performed and then click anywhere on the image you want to change. Click the Play button (yellow arrow) and you’ll see the steps applied to the image in a second or two.

Charlottetown Harbour

Here is an example of a watermarked image.

We have provided a video file that takes you through the process step by step: Photoshop watermark action tutorial, follow the link and you can download the video file to your computer. It’s an AVI file that can be played in the latest version of Winamp or on Windows Media Player.  It takes a while to download but you will have it on your computer to refer back to at any time.

Future articles will offer ideas on how to sharpen or finish a portrait and all of those techniques can be an action that completes the editing for you in seconds.

Cheers and good shooting –Peter Zack

Related posts:

1. Photoshop Editing Technique 1 – Introduction
2. Photoshop Editing Technique 2 – Selection Tools
3. Free Image and Photo Editing Software Resources

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© Peter Zack for Enticing the Light, 2009. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.

Our intent is to offer a resource of freeware editing tools for your photos. There are plenty of great free software packages available on the internet. Maybe you are a casual hobby shooter or just can’t rationalize spending $300 to $1000+ just to show a sharper image to Grandma. Well I hope here we can offer you some good choices to edit your photos and produce some great results…for free!

We’ve decided to make this info available as an individual page instead of a post so that it will always be available from the main blog page in the top-right corner. Click below to see the wealth of resources available:

Free Image and Photo Editing Software Resources

Related posts:

1. Free Photo Software Resources
2. Photoshop Editing Technique 3 – Creating an Action, Watermarking an Image
3. Photoshop Editing Technique 1 – Introduction

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Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!

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© Peter Zack for Enticing the Light, 2009. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.

The Photoshop tutorial technique sections are found in this archive section beginning with the first article in the series.

This section will help in using the select tool. This is a great tool to fix and correct just certain parts of an image without changing the entire frame. In this tutorial we’ll make adjustments to part of an exposure that didn’t come out quite right in the original. You might want to create a Christmas picture for a card and add something that was selected and cut from another image. The easiest way to follow this tutorial is to open an image in Photoshop and try the various techniques.

TIP: To make sure you don’t change the original image, open the image file and go to the top menu bar. Image > Duplicate image and when the second copy opens, close the original and then go to File > Save as and re-title the copied image. There are many methods to file images; the method I use is to simply keep the original file name and add a subject to the title, e.g., IMGP1234 becomes “IMGP1234 window and vines”. That way if I misfile the work, I can always search by the original file name.

Shortcuts and some tools you’ll use:

– Zoom: keyboard “Z”, use Alt to go between – and +

– 100% Zoom: Double-cick on the Zoom tool to zoom 100%

– Magic Wand tool: W, this is the selection tool

– Inverse: Ctrl + Shift + i, this inverts the selection from what you chose.

We’ll use the magic wand tool to select a region or item in an image to move it or make changes to it. In this example (photo above) the camera metered the brick wall well but had trouble with the much brighter window reflections. So we’ll attempt to isolate the window from it’s surroundings and adjust it to balance the overall scene.

Open your image in Photoshop. First select the magic wand tool in the tool bar on the right side. Next you will adjust the tolerance which tells the software how many similar colours to select. Lower = fewer, and higher is more. Beside the Tolerance box on the upper tool bar is the Contiguous check box. If the box is checked, then the colours must be connected to be selected. If not checked, then the Magic Wand will select all similar colours across the frame within the tolerance. Next is Anti-Alias. This is used to smooth the edges of a selected area but no detail will be lost along the edge. Tolerance, Anti-alias and Contiguous must be selected and set before you begin using the Magic Wand.

We want to select the entire window region for adjustments. In the case of this shot we have 2 distinct colours (red and white) with a few other similar colour tones added. We have 2 choices in making the selection.
– We could select the entire red area and then go to the menu>select>inverse (use keyboard shortcut above) so the window is now the selected region.
– Or we can select the white window directly and add parts that don’t get selected with one selection attempt.

Sometimes the inverse method will work best because the area for adjustment is too variable or confused. Here the red area is not a great choice because all the vines, which are darker, will not be selected. We want the inverse part to be entirely selected and in this case it would be too difficult. But in many cases you can select a spot that is a uniform colour and set the tolerance between 10-60 depending on the colour shade*. If the tolerance is not capturing all colours you want, you can then go Select > grow or Select > Similar to expand the selected area.

TIP: Select > grow and Select > Similar do not have shortcuts. If you do something repeatedly go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts. and select the item you want to have a custom shortcut for. In this case it would be under the Shortcuts for “Application Menus”. Click on “Grow” and a small dialog box opens, just type your new custom shortcut there and save with the Accept button.

So for this example we select a region in the white window. Then we have used grow, repeatedly, (or similar depending on which would work best for the scene) as far as we can without it selecting the entire image. But there are still a few small parts that don’t get selected. We will have to use another feature of the magic wand.  Hold down the Shift key (a small + will apear beside the tool) and with your mouse move the magic wand to an area you want to add to the selection. Click that region and it’s added. Using this feature of the tool, I now have the entire window selected.

I can now make the adjustments to the image as I want to, using all the adjustment features of Photoshop to get the result I want.

*Tolerance tells the program how sensitive to be. So if you input 20 and select green grass. It will take all pixel colours from 20 below the selected pixel colour and 20 above the colour you choose.

Cheers and good shooting –Peter Zack

Related posts:

1. Photoshop Editing Technique 3 – Creating an Action, Watermarking an Image
2. Photoshop Editing Technique 1 – Introduction
3. Free Image and Photo Editing Software Resources

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!

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© Peter Zack for Enticing the Light, 2009. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.

Reason for the series

Editorial note: Since this is the first article on software I thought I’d explain the series before we get to the first subject which will follow in the days and weeks to come. I’d like to write a series of short articles on basic software applications most of us might use on a daily basis. I’m no Photoshop Guru, but I do have some experience I think is worth sharing. I want to hear feedback and suggestions for future articles. Use the contact link here or on the top of any page to email anything you like. If I don’t know how to do something, I’ll try to find out and share it with everyone. So don’t expect an answer until I try it and test out the subject myself. Have a look at the menus to the right and you will see Photoshop articles published there as they are added.

Software and photo editing is an always hotly debated issue. When is a shot a photo, and when does it become a creation of the artist and his or her software skills? I don’t know. But I do know that I don’t like the over-saturated and over-sharpened images we too often see. Sometimes a shot just didn’t work and applying sharpening 3 times isn’t going to save it. But software is an important part of the process and knowing how to apply the right sharpening technique might save that shot. Even just to clone out a dust spot or remove a power line. The great photographers have done it since darkrooms were created and there’s nothing wrong with using the powerful tools we have today. Like everything, moderation is the key.

I’ll try to explain these in easy point form and use screen shots to show the process. Software is like buying lenses these days. You go grab Photoshop CSxx and tomorrow there’s a new and better version. I started with PS7 and used that for quite awhile. I upgraded to CS2 and have used that since, with some use of Freeware programs and Lightroom. So I don’t subscribe to the idea that you need the latest and greatest software unless maybe you want to turn Pro. Save your $699 for a new prime lens. If I were shopping for software today, I’d go buy a discounted version of CS2 or CS3 and save some money. Now if you can’t afford Photoshop (PS) there are a large number of Freeware programs on the internet. If you want to share yours and why it’s a great program, go to the contact link and send us your thoughts, we’ll have a look and possibly share it with everyone.

I would recommend 2 Freeware programs to start and only because I have some experience with them.

Paint.net is a very similar program to PS. it offers many of the features that PS does in a more basic format. It’s a great way to learn and get started without cost. If you visit the forums there, you can download plugins, ask questions and learn with tutorials. Like any freeware program, I encourage anyone who downloads the software, to donate something to the authors. I don’t have any affiliation with any of them but consider that for a $10 or $20 donation you could have a free way to edit your photos for years to come. You also get new plugins created for you, by someone who is willing to share their talents (also for free) creating plugin software.

The other Freeware program is GIMP, found here. Very similar to Paint.net (PN) with some different tools as well. One of the things that make these programs easy to use is the forum that Paint.net has to get answers and GIMP offers an online manual and many ways to get the information you need online. Try them out and maybe one of them will do everything you need.

So for the purposes of this series, I will be using what’s considered the “Gold standard” software, Photoshop. As much as possible, I’ll use version CS2 so that people with older versions can do the same things. I will however provide some sections that only can be done on PS4. Assuming that not everyone has the newest version of PS, most will at least have CS2. You should also be able to get the same or similar results in PN, GIMP or any number of programs. Unfortunately that will not always be the case though as PS has some unique features the others don’t (yet) have.

At this point I don’t plan to write article on subjects that take 2 hours of touch ups and rendering to get one finished result. Maybe that will come but I like shooting more than editing. If the series proves popular, we may provide the tutorials in a down-loadable PDF version you can print and create a brooklet to follow when you are processing your images. A similar series dealing with Lightroom will follow shortly. Particularly for wedding and event shooters, this may be the only software you need.

So let’s do a quick adjustment to a shot.

Underexposure: You have a shot that is underexposed. The common thing most would do is go straight to levels or brightness–not so fast. There might be a better way to adjust the image that is fast and can cause less artifact creation in the shot. First open the shot and create a new layer.

TIP: Instead of using the menus to create a layer, drag the background to the icon on the bottom of the layers window as shown here.

With the duplicated layer, you will see a pull down menu that shows normal. Click on the down arrow and highlight Screen in the menu.  You can now adjust the Opacity slider to get the level of adjustment needed. If the shot is still too dark, duplicate the layer a second time and make the same adjustments. Always make a copy of the background Layer and not the copy. With this method I find the colours remain correct and it’s a fast way to adjust a shot while preserving IQ (image quality).

When you have the adjustment the way you want it, go to the small side arrow in the upper right of the dialogue box. Click on Flatten Image to combine the layers. As always use Save As in the File menu and save the finished image as a new file.

Original image	Adjusted image

Cheers and good shooting –Peter Zack

Related posts:

1. Photoshop Editing Technique 2 – Selection Tools
2. Photoshop Editing Technique 3 – Creating an Action, Watermarking an Image
3. Free Image and Photo Editing Software Resources

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!

B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy

© Peter Zack for Enticing the Light, 2009. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.

Not everyone can afford expensive photo processing software, and let’s face it, not everyone wants the hassle of having to install programs just to carry out minor edits. That said, online photo editors are becoming quite powerful, with some allowing you to use layers and work on very large files…and it’s all free! (Well, most of them are.)

Trying them all out was a daunting task, but the nice folk over at CNet saved me the trouble by doing it themselves. Remind me I owe them a beer. They went through the top 15 editors, listing their main characteristics and strengths, and then provided a verdict: The best online photo editor is…find out here—I’m not going to spoil it for you.

Thanks to Haje of Photocritic for the pointer.

Related posts:

1. Don’t Miss Zack Arias’s FREE Online Workshop Tomorrow
2. American Photo 2011 Top 10 Wedding Photographers
3. Free Image and Photo Editing Software Resources

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!

B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy

© Miserere for Enticing the Light, 2009. All rights reserved, do not reproduce without permission. | Read article with proper formatting.