Editing: Adjusting Colour

There are different options in terms of adjusting the colour of a photograph; you can play around with the 'temperature', this changes the image to make it look either warmer (colours have a red and orange tint to them- could be used when editing Autumn shots, to make the oranges and reds of the trees stand out, for example) or colder (the colours in the image have a blue edge to them- particularly effective when editing shots of rivers and the sea).

 

The second adjustment in terms of colour is 'tint', which takes the two main colours in the image and increases their intensity on the whole photo; for example in the images below, the first takes the green of the grass and increases it's strength, so in effect the whole image has a green 'tint' to it.  

And so in the second it takes the purple/grey of the rocks and does the same.

 





Original

And the third is 'Saturation'; this basically means to colourise an image, meaning a photo that has a low saturation will be in black and white.

 





The original

 

Editing: Effects

Adding effects to a photograph can enhance features of the image that may lack emphasis when viewing them in their original state. Altering the colour to make the photo into black and white or sepia, for example, can make a big improvement; it also makes images more interesting to look at because they're different to the usual.
On the other hand adding certain effects can make the image look worse; for example in the images below I think the image look s best in it's original form.

Original







Black and White








Sepia









Other than colour you can edit images in terms of exposure: adjusting the brightness, contrast, shadows and highlights in order to improve it.

Original









       Adjusting 'Brightness'

Adjusting 'Shadow'










Adjusting 'highlights'

Editing: Cropping Images

Cropping is an editing skill that was highly developed during the days of black and white photography and is one way of reworking the image after it's been shot in order to make it better. Cropping reduces the size of the image meaning it must have a high resolution to start with (must be good quality). Here are some example of cropping an image:

Shots From France

This low angle shot across the sand demonstrates the depth of field, the sand in the foreground is out of focus and the background is in focus. I was also trying to capture the heat mirage in the distance which you can just about  make out.








I under exposed this photo to capture the glare of the sun which emphasised the position of the old sign.
And the same with the photo beneath.

I was trying to focus on some night-time photography, using the effect of the flash as artificial light (above) and without (left).

I set this night shot to a slow shutter speed which created this interesting shot of Anna walking through the street with people in the background. I think the shutter speed was a little too slow as it's hard to work out what the photo is of.







This was to demonstrate natural light in a night shot.

The Lake District: Borrowdale and Scarfell Pike

These are just some pictures I took relating to my theme of the natural world; taken up Scarfell and on Derwent Water.

In this particular image you can see how the aperture/ depth of field focused on the centre part of the photo, as the tree and pebbles in the foreground are out of focus as well as the rocks in the background.

I slightly under exposed this photo in order to catch the sparkles of sun on the water. I also did the same with the photo underneath.





This photo is also good in terms of demonstrating the depth of field; I focused on the beetle on the flower in the foreground meaning the background was out of focus.






The same underneath, focusing on different objects which make up the photo affects the depth of field:

Exposure

 Exposure is the amount of light allowed to fall on each area unit of a photograph, during the process of taking a photograph. Exposure is measured in lux seconds.
If the shot is exposed too long the photograph will be washed out. If the shot is exposed too short the photograph will appear too dark. 
These pictures I took to demonstrate the effects of over and under exposure as well as some in-between:

This is the most under exposed photo; as you can see it's far too dark, but illuminates the sky so can be good for silhouettes.

This is the middle photo in the spectrum (exposure 0), where the light is most balanced across the whole image; therefore making it the most commonly used when taking simple shots.

This is the most over exposed photo, where there is too much light being allowed to fall on the image; it's where the background tends to be too bright for what's in the foreground.

Summer Sunset

The aperture in this first photo is larger (5.2) which meant the clouds in the distant weren't focused but the bushes in the foreground were; the diameter of the lens hole is smaller. Whereas in the second photo I zoomed out, the aperture being 4.9, not a huge difference, but this widened the lens, letting in more light and so making the depth of field larger and the photo more focused.