About photography Number 2

[Horus]

Come on now Kiya, no getting side tracked get back in there and sort a nice frame out Crocus picture looks nice though

[Kiya]

There you go Horus, my lot for now I'm going square eyed

[Kiya]

Hopefully a little better this time , a dewbury woodgrain frame with bevels edges adde flowers & butterfly.

[Horus]

Not just an ordinary wood frame eh? it is a 'Dewbury' frame with added Butterfly
Looks like you are getting the hang of this framing pictures

[LivinginLuxor]

Hate to say it Kiya, but that frame does look too big and heavy for the picture concerned. Something simpler, like this might be better....

[Kiya]

Lovely picture Stan, I take your point what you say what I was trying to do with my pic was to make my pic of flowers show that it is behind the frame which it is, perhaps if I cropped the frame a bit it would look better but then the way I did it I would have a black background behind the flowers which would'nt go with the frame, I have many pics like yours but it looks to me like to much flat pic on flat white backgroun in you know what I mean.

[Horus]

I think that Stans criticism is fair that particular frame does look a bit clunky with the delicate flower picture, but I take your point as I know you were just trying out the method of adding a frame
I always find that any picture of flowers requires a plain but striking frame if you get my drift. As to the problem of black background behind your picture, what you must do is to crop or resize before you add your frame. Are you adding it from a library of frames in your program? if so then you should be able to set various options such as orientation and framing inside or outside of your picture.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Horus are you making frames? OR are you using part of a program please? I was 'framing' some of my photos but using the PSPx2 program. I can't for the life of me get any of my photos to resize. Every time I try the page just goes 'white' so I can't contribute to here. (Frustrating!)

[LivinginLuxor]

If you are using layers, try merging them together before resizing. That might cure the problem.

I think if you go to a picture framer to get a photo framed, he will normally place the photo on or in a grey or white mask in order to make the photo stand out from the frame. That's why I added one in my picture - I think it does emphasise the photo more.

[Grandad]

Hello again folks.....I have left you alone for two weeks (and no, I haven't been to Luxor, yet!) and you are still playing with photo frames? I thought this thread was about photography?

OK, well, the A2 approach to my home city of Canterbury is usually carpetted with daffs from early March. They were late this year and in the last few days have all come into bloom. Here's one I did yesterday.....


And here is a couple of framed pictures that I have just done to get back on subject....
BEE ON A SUNFLOWER


LAVERTERA


You will notice that I like the gold frame in PSP....not too keen on most of them and have not yet started creating my own.

Nice to be back

[Grandad]

Just to add a few 'photography' comments about my three pics above....I used a polariser on the daffs pic to enhance the sky and add definition to the clouds. Without the polariser the sky and clouds look like this...



The sun flower pic was not in focus so I have used excessive sharpening...don't enlarge or it becomes very evident.

The Lavertera was in the sun and dry.....a little fine water spray added droplets that made it more interesting.

[Horus]

Horus are you making frames? OR are you using part of a program please? I was 'framing' some of my photos but using the PSPx2 program. I can't for the life of me get any of my photos to resize. Every time I try the page just goes 'white' so I can't contribute to here. (Frustrating!)

LLL, if I understand your question correctly you are asking if I make my own frames or if am using a set of frames supplied with say PSP ? If so, the answer is: "a bit of both".
You will find that you have a selection of frames within your program, but it is also possible to make your own.
In this picture I have used some photographs of a 'Wellsomer' cockerel appropriately named 'Wellington' to create this new picture.



As it was not finished before you asked your question I decided to do several things.

First of all I added a white card effect, similar to what Stan was advising Kiya to use behind her picture, as you can see it has the effect of making the picture stand out from the background.
To achieve this you will need to go to 'Image'> 'Add Borders' then at the pop up menu set your backgrounf colour to 'white' set your 'Symmetric' to 'on' (checked). Now change the size of any of the 4 boxes to a width that you find suitable for your own picture, then click OK. It is best to add these borders and frames after you have 'merged' all your other images.

That will give you a white (or any other colour or texture) border for your picture. In my example I also added an effect to make the card look bevelled, then added another row of gold beading followed by a narrower flat gold area, so you may say that all of that was my own work.

The actual gold frame was added from the ones stored in the PSP library so you could see how the combination would work out. To add a frame you would now need to go to 'Image' > 'Picture Frame' and choose one from the list available. Don't forget to play around with the inside/Outside options to see the best effect for your picture.

As to the re-sizing problem:
First off make sure that when you have completely finished, to first of all save your work as a 'PSP' file. This will be quite large and not suitable for posting on a forum, but if you save in this format all of the data and layers will still be there should you need to modify anything in the future.

Next merge all your layers, but this time save the image as a 'GIF' file. This GIF file will be considerably smaller and when resized it will be OK to upload to the forum.

Using only the GIF file (you can close any others) go to 'Image' > 'Resize'
Ignore the top part of the menu regarding 'print size' it does not affect you.

Look to the bottom and see that the 'Advanced Settings' box is ticked as this gives you more options.

Make sure that the 'Lock Aspect Ratio' box is ticked as this keeps any size changes in proportion.

Now look in the 'Pixel Dimension' part of the menu and make sure that the box on the right reads 'Percentage' and not 'Pixels'

You will see two more boxes that will say 100% in both of them, also you will see on the left two more numbers that give you your current picture size in width and height.

Move any of the 100% sliders to reduce the picture size, so if your original was say 1600 x 1200, moving any slider to 50% should give you a new size of 800 x 600. Of course there is always a little bit of trial and error to get it exactly as you require.

The best way is to keep repeating this percentage reduction and then saving operation, as each time the menu will re-open with your new picture size showing. If you should go too small then just use your undo button to change it back again.

With any luck once you have resized your picture to below 800 pixels as your biggest dimention (in either width or height) and saved it again as a GIF file (it will overwrite your original saved GIF unless you change the name, but that's OK) it should then load to the forum albums with no problems at all.

Quick edit: I was making my own post before I saw Grandads
Very nice Grandad, I see your Daffs are out already, lovely pictures
Yes we are still on frames, but as that is what the people are asking about then that is what I am answering on. I would say the thread is about anything to do with photography in general and that includes how to manipulate and edit and not just the finer points of photography don't you think?

[Grandad]

Fair enough, Horus....just thought that when our LovelyLadyLux started things off she was interested in hints and tips for 'taking pictures' not so much 'making pictures'. I will await her comment on that.

Don't get me wrong, I like having fun with pictures just the same as you do and am happy to go with the flow. I just wonder where the other members have got to who used to join in on our silly (but fun) editing games on the green zone????

LLL IS taking pictures but seems more concerned about adding frames, and then, because she is having difficulty re-sizing we are not having an opportunity to see her pictures.....

Thanks H for your detailed explanation on some of the ways to make frames and backgrounds....much appreciated and I have copied and printed to work through to improve my own efforts. I tend to lose patience if things are not too obvious when trying to be creative.

[LovelyLadyLux]

I was more interested in 'taking' photos than 'making' photos but it is all way KEWL to me and a definite learning plus up. I've been a bit behind the proverbial 8 ball in that I got PSP then had to update RAM and ran into some hitches and glitches. Seems 1 step forward and 2 steps backwards but am slowly making progress.

Mostly when I try and get photos on here once I click the upload the page just goes white on me. Dunno what is causing this but it is frustrating.

I'm still practicing lots with my camera. I DID go out and get a 70mm-300mm lens - Sigma with stabilizer inside so that when I shake the camera hopefully quells this a bit. My photos ARE getting better and I absolutely LOVE this lens as it does give so much better photos. I'm seeming to like closer ups of things than the wider broader landscape shots - AND am also in a big of a dilemma about carrying around all these lens (and NO a diaper bag would definitely NOT do now that I have more than 1 lens!!! - but at the time I read it it seemed like a good 'tip')

Am going today to an "Easter Egg Hunt" in a local park for kids and their dogs! Pet parade of sorts and all the kids will dress up their dogs for this hunt. Am hoping to get a ton of shots!

Where I have lately been posting my photos is into the "Reader Submitted Photos" of our local newspaper where I'm known as "Firespirit" This is the URL and some of my photos the paper has been putting on the front page of the E-edition! They had my ducks on there last week and this I did by cropping the life out of the photo! :):) and eliminating digital noise etc. all via PSP. The photo I did that I like best is the pink tree lined street. That is my street a few weeks ago. All the blossoming trees were just out there - BUT I can't seem to get these on HERE to show what I'm doing!

http://videos.theolympian.com/vmix_host ... class_id=2

You probaby will have to cut and paste the URL. I've been inundating our local newspaper with photos but they seems to be liking 'most' of what I send to them!

I'm still looking for photos tips on the 'how to' take better photos but am also interested in the making photos too AND I love all what is being shown here! WOW!!!!!! W?OW you guys are GREAT!

[Horus]

LLL, I have had a look at your pictures and they are very nice, you may finish up as their resident photographer.

Grandad, I have no doubt that LLL & Kiya are like the rest of us insomuch as when we have a new toy we like to play with it. Although I recon that they will only understand about resizing, saving and uploading their pictures if they understand the programs that they using to do this in and I have tried to help many others over the years to do that.

Personally I have never been that bothered about the technicalities of taking a photograph as in this day and age most cameras will give you a decent result and I suppose I take my pictures mainly for my own pleasure. I do enjoy using them as a basis for being a bit more creative and taking it another step beyond it being just another photograph in my collection, but I would think that if it goes beyond a bit of fun or asking for basic help then they will join a dedicated photography forum or go to evening classes like Kiya has done.

In a similar way, I think that the contributors to the ‘fun’ photo threads who joined in on the green side only did so because it was not a photography topic as such, but just a bit of fun messing about with ‘paint’ type programs that most people have on their PCs in some form or another.

At least the thread has generated quite a few readers even if they don’t all post comments so that has been a good thing. I am sure that there will be a lot more technical questions that they will need answering as they progress, but in the future they only need to PM me if they need any help with their editing program, providing I know the answers that is.

[Grandad]

You are certainly right about the level of 'views; Horus. Just checked for the 3 threads, Photography 1 and 2 and the chess set, and over 4000 views have been made.

On another matter related to PSP, I normally transfer from camera to computer via FinePix Viewer...both my cameras are Fuji. Yesterday I transferred my daffodil pictures direct to PSP. Everything was OK until I looked at some in Picassa and found that the camera data had not been carried over.

Just a point, but I must remember to transfer only via FPV as I DO refer to the data and rely on it to remind me what the conditions were for each picture.

LLL, I had a look at your pics in TheOlympian. I particularly like the blossom and the ducks.

[Grandad]

Horus, I wonder if you can help me with this problem using PSPx2.

I have previously mentioned pictures of vintage cars. I have been trying to select a vehicle using the freehand selection tool set on 'smart edge'. I get to the point of the 'marching ants' around the outline. I then want to reduce the opacity of the background so that the vehicle stands out. Try as I may I cannot find out how to select only the background and reduce it.

Using the 'invert' does switch between background and foreground but if I reduce opacity it is applied to the whole image.

Any suggestions would be most welcome....thanks a lot.

PS. In desperation I have been trying to reduce background using the dodge tool....I did say desperation

[Kiya]

Have to admit my frame in pic above is to chunky for the pic, what I tried to do was to create my own frame by searching the net for woodgrains & work from them & not to use the preset frames, if I work on it I suppose I could get what I'm trying to do.
Its good to have you back Grandad we have missed you & the help you give as everyone else that contributes here.
LLL have looked at your pics some great ones there, like you I like the street with the pink flowering tree.
I was out & about today taken some well about 100 , did some alterations to the ones here & messing about with borders again

[LivinginLuxor]

Dead simple Grandad - you've actually selected just the car - you need to go to your select menu, and click on inverse. That will deselect the car and only select the background. Then you can do your soft focus thing.

[Horus]

Actually Grandad, it is not quite as simple as Stan is saying, by just ‘Inverting’ the picture after you have made your selection, that will not stop the whole picture from being affected. When you try to change the opacity level using that method, both the background and the selected area will change together.

The best way to do that is to select the object as you describe using ‘Smart Edge’ or another suitable method to trace the required outline of your car.

Next go to ‘Selections’ and choose the ‘Float’ option, this will automatically create another ‘Floating Selection’ layer.

Now make sure that you are standing on the ‘Raster 1’ layer by clicking on it and move the opacity slider to the left to make the background more transparent.

When you are happy with the result, you need to go to ‘Layers’ > ‘Merge’ > ‘Merge All (Flatten)
This should leave you with only one layer again because the ‘floating selection’ layer will disappear.

Now go again to ‘Selections’ and choose the ‘Select None’ option, this will remove the marching ants from your selection and you will be back at the start so to speak, but with your background opacity reduced.

The only time you would use the 'Invert' option is if you wanted to reverse the item you wanted to change the opacity of, ie, the car instead of the background, but the methods I have described would still be the same for both choices.

Hopefully that should do the trick for you.