Category: Miscellaneous

Last August I retired one of my older printers, an Epson 3800 and replaced it with the new Epson Surecolor P800. I skipped over the 3880 as I never really thought it worth the cost, being as it was only a modest upgrade over its predecessor. The P800 however is a very significant jump forward: the difference is real and very apparent in side-by-side print evaluations. The P800 has a wider colour gamut and can reproduce darker blacks (higher dMax) than either the 3880 or the 3800. On this alone I give it my unreserved recommendation.

But beyond this, the nicest surprise was to learn that the printer’s paper handling abilities have been significantly enhanced as well. Where the 3800 would struggle to load certain papers, the P800 never seems to miss a beat. Also of note: the cantankerous front-load option of the 3800 (used to load heavier fine art papers), which I could never get to work reliably, is now redesigned and works flawlessly. Another welcome addition to this printer is the ability to handle paper in rolls through an optional (extra cost) roll feed adapter. If you like to print full-frame 16X24 inch images, you have likely been frustrated by the various paper manufacturers insistence on sticking to standard the US or European paper sizes used for office documents, rather than standard photo print sizes. Only one paper manufacturer I am aware of makes high quality fine art papers in a 17X25 inch sheet size (Harman). The largest 17 inch wide offerings from all others is 17X22, allowing you a printed image of only 14X21 with similar left/right 1/2 inch borders. Purchasing your favourite paper in a 17 inch roll allows you to print not only full-frame 16X24 images, but 17 inch panoramas up to 6, 7, 10 feet or more (Epson is a bit cagey about the maximum printable length. On a Win10 PC I can set a print length of 10 feet with no problems. Suffice it say that the maximum length is likely more than you will ever need with a 17 inch printer.

In general the P800 just feels better designed and more robust than its predecessors.  This is just a subjective personal observation,  but here is an objective example; soon after I purchased the 3800, the flimsy plastic latch tab broke off the front panel door, preventing the door panel from latching correctly, and making it necessary to prop the door closed at an awkward angle. In contrast, the P800 design makes use of a simple magnetic catch: there is nothing to break off.   Brilliant!

I give the P800 a hearty “thumbs-up” recommendation for anyone looking for a high quality 17 inch wide printer.

As a photographer, the position of the sun (or the moon) at different times of the day is something that concerns you. Knowing when and from which direction either will rise or set, is important information particularly if you shoot landscapes. You can certainly check the local newspaper or google sunrise and set times for your location. But how about having this information at your finger-tips for your exact location, anywhere in the world? How about being able to predict exactly where the sun or moon will rise or set on any given day in relation to a particular foreground subject? How about being able to search for exact time when the sun or moon will be in a particular position in the sky?

I carry this information in my pocket, everywhere I go, in the form of an incredibly useful app for iOS (also Android) called “The Photographer’s Ephemeris”. It’s available for about $12 from the iTunes store. If you shoot landscapes, this could well be the best 12 bucks you spend all year.

The basic functions are easy to master: sunrise/sunset and moonrise/moonset times and directions are all pretty straightforward. More advanced functions such as searching for the specific sun/moon positions might require a glance through the online documentation, but that’s not really difficult either. Over the years, additional functionality has been added to the program: there is now a night mode which can be used to predict the rise time and position of the Milky Way and Galactic Center if you are so inclined. There are other applications available with more extensive functionality, but “TPE” and its intuitive interface is my go-to app to answer these basic questions.

Have a look at the screen capture below: it’s set for the time and place of the image above (a few miles from my home). The yellow line on the right shows the direction from which the Sun will rise, while the thin blue line shows the current direction to the Moon.

The band below the map indicated the times for various daily events of interest to photographers: sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset, the start and end of Civil twilight (the time for all those amazing blue hour shots), as well as the end of, and beginning of Astronomical twilight (between these times the sky will be dark enough for those amazing star-trail and Milky Way shots). Finally, the box below this band shows the current time (7:10am) and indicates the current direction and altitude of the moon and sun (the sun is just below the horizon, the moon ~6 degrees above).

Using the built-in compass in my iPhone ahead of time gave me the general compass direction of the mountain peak in the distance, and using TPE to search for a time just before sunrise when the moon would be high enough in the sky, in the appropriate direction to complete the image I had in my mind gave me several days when these conditions would be met. Now all I had to do was show up and hope for clear skies… not all that common in Vancouver during the winter! On this day however, the stars aligned and I was treated to one of the most spectacular pre-dawn displays I have ever seen from this location.

A side-note: If you want to include a crescent moon in your pre-dawn/sunrise images, start looking for this a day or two ahead of the new moon. A few days later, you should be able to catch a crescent moon hanging above the western horizon in a cobalt blue sky, some time after the sun has set. The rise and set directions for the moon vary greatly over the course of each month; much more so than the sun on it’s annual trek. So, while the newspaper may be able to tell you when the moon will rise or set, you will need TPE to tell you where it will rise and set each day. There is also a free web app version if you would like to give it a try before buying, just go to photoephemeris.com.

Don’t shoot during the noon day hours on a sunny day! This is a rule we are told over and over: shoot only during the golden light of early morning and late afternoon. While this is generally good advice and can provide wonderful to light to shape and reveal texture and form, the opposite statement, to never shoot during the noonday hours is unnecessarily limiting. 

Photographer and author David DuChemin, wrote, “there is no such thing as ‘bad’ light, only light that works with or against your intent for [an] image.”  Flipping this thought around, bemoaning the light because it doesn’t match your intentions at the moment can mean missing opportunities that may be right in front of you.

After enduring several cloudy days while scouting for my 2017 photo-workshop in Tuscany, we finally woke to clear blue skies and brilliant sunshine.   And, while I spent those cloudy days exploring the charming villages of the Val d’Orcia, I was determined to find some new locations for the incredible landscapes in the area, so we headed out for a day exploring the country-side.  I found the image above driving along the road near San Quirico just before we stopped for lunch.  In a way, it was fortunate that I came upon this image at this time of day… a time of day when traditional wisdom said I should just leave the camera in my bag.  This particular image could not have been created at any other time of day; the sun was high in the sky by this time rendering the cypress trees and the curved ridge of the hillside in silhouette, clearly revealing their form.  The sharply angled sun created what amounted to side-light on the red clay of the Crete Senesi, perfect for revealing the texture and colour of the newly tilled clay on the steep side of the hill.   The red colour was important to reveal since it provides a complement to the deep blues of the sky, and the texture of the red clay is a nice counter point to the softness of the white cloud.

The moral to this short tale is that there are lots of opportunities to create images at any time of the day, in any kind of weather: it just takes opening our minds to the possibilities and letting go of our preconceived notions of what we see and how we should shoot it.

There are lots of “rules” to think about when composing an image. At its simplest, effective composition is mostly about arranging shapes.  When you are thinking about a composition in front of your camera, it helps to remove the labels and view the scene in terms of just those shapes: the “shapes” that make up an image are the elements of visual design: line, shape, form, texture, pattern and colour. Looked at this way, even a simple pastoral scene of cattle grazing in a field becomes an exercise in those elements.  of line and shape, of pattern and repetition, and of balance using visual weight.

Tree trunks become a repeated pattern of lines, the curve of a hillside is repeated in the arrangement of animals along the hillside and in the curve of the fence which must also follow the curve of the hill. A group of trees, leafed out in early spring foliage becomes a subtle texture composed of different shades of green. The loan animal off to itself on the lower left, since it contrasts sharply with the surrounding grass, becomes a strong draw for the viewer’s eye. Elements that draw a viewer’s eye in this way are said to possess significant “visual weight”, and in this scene the animal on the left as sufficient visual weight to help balance a composition that would be otherwise be weighted more to the right. Aside from just helping to balance the composition, the lone cow also momentarily pulls the viewer’s eye way from the other areas of visual interest in the scene, causing the viewer’s eye to move continuously through the composition.  Creating movement in an image amplifies visual interest, and helps holds a viewer’s interest longer

Effective composition is easier when we learn to let go of simply what a thing is, and concentrate on the shapes that make up our images.

Texture overlays are a great way to add additional depth and dimension to your images. It’s not for everyone, and it doesn’t work with every image. The technique though, has been around long before Photoshop: in the past you might have sandwiched two transparencies (or two negatives) together and printed them as a single image.

What’s a texture overlay?
It’s simply an image of some surface with an interesting texture, pattern or colour. In digital terms you add it as an additional layer in your editing program. You can buy packages of texture images from many sources on the internet, or create your own: weathered wood, peeling paint, fabrics such as canvas or burlap, worn leather, carpet, the pattern of burned on grease a well-used roasting pan… the possibilities are endless. A texture overlay cannot be counted on to turn a weak image into a gallery piece, but it can sometimes rescue an image that isn’t quit there, making it into something more interesting.

Getting started with texture overlays
If you have a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, you already have access to a great starter set of textures (if you don’t: Why not? For the price of a couple of lattes a month, you can have the best post-processing software available). In Photoshop CC, go to Help>Browse Add-ons. This will open your browser and take you to the Adobe Add-ons web page. On the right, below the featured Add-ons, enter “Adobe Paper Textures” in the search box.
On the next pages follow the instructions to download and install the “Adobe Paper Textures Pro” add-on. It will install itself into Photoshop automatically.
Back in Photoshop, over on the right, you will find a new item in the Properties panel. Click the blue “fly” icon to access the Paper textures properties sheet.

To apply a texture to your image, simply choose one that looks promising and click it. A new layer will be added, and the chosen texture will appear on that layer. If you choose to, you can add a second (or even a third) texture to your image as well.Part of the magic in adding textures to your image is created by your choice of a blending mode for the texture. A “blending mode” in Photoshop simply determines mathematically how the pixel values in one layer interact with the pixel values in the underlying layer you are blending it with. We don’t care about the math, we just care about what it looks like, so feel free to try and to use any blending mode that achieves an effect you like.To select or change the blending mode, select the layer with your texture in the layers panel and then select from the blending mode drop down at the top of the layers panel. With Adobe Paper Textures Pro, the default blending mode is always “Overlay”, and this is a good starting point. Try any of the others as you like, but generally I find that Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light and sometimes Multiply produce the effects I like.You don’t have to stop there; if you like the effect of the overlay, but it appears too strong for your taste; simply reduce the opacity of the texture layer (the Opacity slider is just to the right of the Blend Mode drop-down in the Layers panel.)

Like the texture, but prefer to retain the original colours in your image? Select the texture layer and de-saturate it (Image>Adjustment>Desaturate)

Just be sure to select the Texture layer (circled in red above) before you desaturate, or you may desaturate your image as well. Here are a few examples, starting with the opening image.

Everyone visiting Venice shoots this view from Piazza San Marco. A texture overlay added nice twist to a familiar scene.Here is another, this time from Paris. The original was first converted to Black and White and then toned before adding the texture.

The final image reminds of an old wet-plate collodion image from the 1800’s. I liked the effect since I could imagine a photographer shooting this around the turn of the last century would very likely have looked out on this scene much as it appears here.

Finally, the best way to learn to work with textures is to simply pick an image, and play. Have fun!