ACD Systems Blog

Split Toning. Before & After.

2013-05-16 17:40:00 GMT

Split toning is a powerful technique originating in film photography to tint the highlights and shadows.

The Split Tone tool gives you creative control over the Hue and Saturation of your highlights and shadows. Use the sliders to adjust the balance of tones in the highlights and shadows of your photos. Split toning allows you to add a creative element to RAW conversion and non-destructive editing in ACDSee Pro 6.

To adjust the Highlights & Shadows
1. In Develop mode, select the Tune tab.
2. Drag the sliders to apply colored highlights and shadows as described below.

Note: you can right-click a slider to reset to the default value.

Adjustment Options
Highlights

Hue: Drag the slider to the right to select a highlight color.
Saturation: Drag the slider to the right to increase saturation of the color in the highlights of the image.

Shadows

Hue: Drag the slider to the right to select a shadow color.
Saturation: Drag the slider to the right to increase saturation of the color in the shadows of the image.

Balance

Drag the slider to the right to emphasize the highlight color; drag the slider to the left to emphasize the shadow color. For example if the slider is set to the maximum at 50, then full emphasis is applied to the highlight color; if the slider is set to the minimum -50, then full emphasis is applied to the shadow color.

Note: You can save your settings as a preset for future use.

Aperture, Speed & Sensitivity Part 3

2013-04-30 16:08:00 GMT

By ACDSee pro photographer & guest blogger Alexandra Pottier

We already talked about Aperture and Speed, it is now time to talk about Sensitivity, and close the chapter on the basics of a good exposure.

Sensitivity is the sensibility of the sensor to the light. It is the measurement of the sensitivity of the surfaces, a sensor in digital photography, a film in silver based photography.

Sensitivity is expressed in ISO, most of the times vary between 100 and 3200. Usual numbers are: 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200.

A big number (ex: 3200), represents a high sensitivity where a smaller amount of light will be necessary to expose the picture correctly.

We can compare it to human skin. A high ISO (small number) can be compared to a light skin type (as of a blonde or redhead) which is very sensitive to the light and will burn if it is exposed to too much light. On the contrary, a low ISO (high number) corresponds to a dull or dark skin, which will take longer to burn or correctly expose in photography.

We can also compare the aperture to the clouds (the more clouds there are, the less light comes through) and the speed to the amount of time the skin is exposed to the sun.

As for the rest in photography, when you double the ISO number you will need half the amount of light to expose correctly. Therefore, you can double the speed or you can use a smaller aperture (everything is connected together!).

In traditional photography. a roll of film is set for one sensitivity only. On a digital camera you can change the ISO for each picture.

 

The sensitivity has a big impact on the quality of the picture. When the ISO is set up high, the grain of the picture increases.

The grain in traditional photography is the bigger silver salts that appear on the prints. It is called noise in digital photography, where the pixels appear.

When you have very little amount of light, the first thing to do is to open up the aperture as much as possible or use the lowest speed before you increase the sensitivity. If you need speed, you’ll have to use a bigger aperture to compensate the loss of light.

Sometimes noise has nice effects. You can also add noise with your favorite software!

You’ll have to juggle between the three parameters speed, aperture, and sensitivity to expose your images correctly, compromise is what makes photography interesting.

Shooting Sunsets

2013-04-24 18:46:00 GMT

By ACDSee pro photographer & guest blogger Serge Timacheff

Taking good and interesting photos of sunsets requires a little planning for your equipment, your position, and your camera settings. On my recent travels to Porec, Croatia and Venice, Italy, I had the opportunity to play with a few sunset shots.

If you have the luxury of time—meaning you can observe a sunset one evening and know that the next night you’ll be able to be in the same position with similar weather patterns—you can more easily plan your shot. The sun rarely goes simply up-and-down on the horizon; typically it goes at an angle. It’s a good idea to shoot a sunset with some geographical context, such as trees, water, buildings, etc. on Earth, to emphasize the sun’s enormity and give it some perspective. I was close to water for both sunsets, and in each case I was able to observe the sunset one evening and then come back to that spot and shoot the next day.

Telephoto lenses are great for capturing a dramatic sunset because they collapse distance and will make the sun look much larger on the horizon. A wide-angle lens, while it may capture a beautifully colored sky, will tend to make the sun look much smaller. So if it’s a big, beautiful sinking sun you want as your primary subject, telephoto is the way to go.

In the first photos, taken in Porec, Croatia on the Adriatic, I noticed just as heading to dinner that a dramatic sunset was taking place to the west. I quickly went to my hotel room and grabbed my camera and headed to a ledge where I could see the sunset framed by some trees. I set my camera on a fast shutter speed (1/1000 second) with and used my 70-200mm lens at about 90mm. The photo turned out nicely, but I realized that the clouds around the sun were making it look almost like something on a distant planet. So I took a second set of shots, with the exact same setting, but I changed lenses and shot at 500mm—an extreme telephoto shot. While I like both images, taken from the same spot with the same settings, each evokes a very different feeling.

Silhouettes of trees, landscapes, city skylines, boats, mountains, and other objects can help accentuate a sunset. While staying on Venice’s Lido, which is a long peninsula with many small hotels and villas, that from the water taxi pier a lovely sunset occurred each evening over an island to the west. Just as the sun angled-down over the land, several trees were silhouetted in front of it. I got to the dock and set-up my shot early (a luxury I did not have in the photo in Croatia). When the sun was higher in the sky (as shown), I over-exposed the photo because as it sank lower on the horizon I knew the light would diminish—so I was guessing at about the right levels. I was shooting directly into the sun with a long telephoto lens (500mm), and at a fast shutter speed of 1/3200 second (the sun is very bright, even at sunset!).

You have to observe carefully and be ready to move, since the sun doesn’t set directly down…it moves laterally, as well. I had to change my position on the pier a couple of times, to ensure the trees I wanted to silhouette were placed where I wanted them. Also, there were some buildings visible on the island, but they were below tree-level so in the silhouette they simply disappear. I shot in RAW+JPEG mode so that I would have plenty of tonality to crop, edit, and adjust later in ACDSee but be able to take a quick look at images in JPEG for reviewing and selecting prior to editing.

—Serge Timacheff

Go Green this Earth Day!

2013-04-17 18:11:07 GMT

Submit your photos of the environment and you going green to Facebook and you could win! These photos can (and should) include examples of green architecture, green transportation, wilderness spaces and so much more. Don’t be afraid to get creative!

Qualifications:
In order to be considered a valid entry, photos must include the following:

• At least one person
• Feature the environment
• A detailed description of the photo

The Prize:
The photo with the most votes will win a Samsung NX210 demo camera from ACD Systems.

Enter here: www.facebook.com/acdsee

Don’t forget to check out www.acdsee.com to see what special offers are in place to save you some “green” this earth week as well!