HDR links

Following Roger Crocombe's presentation on HDR, we have posted Roger's HDR related links:

• Discusses how many images to use in taking an HDR image using Photomatix & FDR
• Very good tutorial on HDR with Photomatix
• Windows only HDR processor
• Good discussion about why and where HDR (and why not!)
• Good explanation of how to use Photomatix intelligently
• Good explanation of basic single exposure pseudo HDR approach (and talks about all three of my choices)
• Good tutorial on exposure fusion
• Best book: Practical HDR (Pub: ILEX, Auth: David Nightingale)

Croxley Camera Club studio guidelines

Here are some studio guidelines, to help answer any queries you may have.

Preparing images for projected digital competitions

Resizing your images

Make a copy of your original file and open the copy in Photoshop.

Go to the Image menu, then Resize, and click on Image Size...















The Image Size window will open. Set the width to 1400 pixels if your image is landscape format or the height to 1050 pixels if your image is portrait format (which mine was). Make sure that the dimensions of the image are locked by ticking Constrain Proportions to maintain the aspect ratio of the image.





















Click OK and photoshop will then have resized your images.

Choosing a colour space

Your image should be saved with a colour space profile of sRGB.
To check how Photoshop Elements is using colour space, go to the Edit menu, then click on Colour Settings.






















The Colour Settings window will open.
















If you want to make sure that Photoshop converts (or keeps) the colour space as sRGB, select Limited Colour Management, or if you are printing your images then select Full Colour Management and this will retain the colour profile of the image.

You can see if your image has sRGB colour space when you save it as a new file.
Go to File and click on Save as. The Save as window will appear.












The ICC Profile should be ticked and be sRGB.

File names and file types

When submitting a file for a digital competition you should save the file in JPEG format, you should name it Title by Author.jpg for example:
My Photo by Joe Bloggs.jpg

If you're saving the image in Photoshop, it will offer a number of JPEG Options, make sure you save it as Quality12/Maximum.






















Important note: This guide was compiled using Photoshop Elements 3.0, other versions may differ.

Channel 5: How to take stunning pictures

Hosted by The Gadget Show's Suzi Perry, How to Take Stunning Pictures does exactly what it says on the tin. And it isn't all techno-speak; it's about the fun of taking exciting photos that your mates actually want to see.

Rules of composition

Last season some of the new members asked about the composition rules to which judges often refer. Here are some of the main ones:

• Don't cut your picture in half horizontally or vertically by having a line going through the centre of the picture. The most common culprit is the horizon – try to have more picture below the horizon than above or vice versa.
• Have a focal point but don't let it be in the centre of the picture. The ideal position is on a “golden third”. Imagine having a noughts and crosses frame over your picture and where the lines cross are the golden thirds.
• Have an odd number of objects in your photo rather than an even number ie. 3 swans rather than 2 or 4, 5 flowers rather than 4 or 6.
• It is good to have a lead in to a picture and ideally it should lead in from left to right as that is the way we read.
• However, remember that rules are made to be broken and some excellent pictures are produces even when breaking these rules.