Photography in fog, mist or haze can give a wonderfully moody and atmospheric feel to your subjects. However, it's also very easy to end up with photos that look washed-out and flat. This techniques article uses examples to illustrate how to make the most out of photos in these unique shooting environments.

submitted: 5 years and 3714 days ago

Converting a digital color photo into black and white goes beyond simply desaturating the colors, and can be made to mimic any of a wide range of looks created by using color filters in black and white film photography. Conversion which does not take into account an image's color and subject of interest can dilute the artistic message, and may create an image which appears washed out or lacks tonal range. This section provides a background on using color filters, and outlines several different black and white conversion techniques-- comparing each in terms of their flexibility and ease of use.

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Local contrast enhancement attempts to increase the appearance of large-scale light-dark transitions, similar to how sharpening with an "unsharp mask" increases the appearance of small-scale edges. Good local contrast gives an image its "pop" and creates a three-dimensional effect-- mimicking the look naturally created by high-end camera lenses. Local contrast enhancement is also useful for minimizing the effect of haze, lens flare, or the dull look created by taking a photograph through a dirty window.

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Image noise can compromise the level of detail in your digital or film photos, and so reducing this noise can greatly enhance your final image or print. The problem is that most techniques to reduce or remove noise always end up softening the image as well. Some softening may be acceptable for images consisting primarily of smooth water or skies, but foliage in landscapes can suffer with even conservative attempts to reduce noise.

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Digital cameras have opened up amazing new photography possibilities. The following is an overview of several digital techniques that were on this website in the beginning. It now serves as a motivator to delve into the various techniques available in the digital world. Each technique has links to more detailed advice if you want to learn more...

submitted: 5 years and 3714 days ago

A wide angle lens can be a powerful tool for exaggerating depth and relative size in a photo. However, it's also one of the most difficult types of lenses to learn how to use. This page dispels some common misconceptions, and discusses techniques for taking full advantage of the unique characteristics of a wide angle lens.

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An image projection occurs whenever a flat image is mapped onto a curved surface, or vice versa, and is particularly common in panoramic photography. A projection is performed when a cartographer maps a spherical globe of the earth onto a flat piece of paper, for example. Since the entire field of view around us can be thought of as the surface of a sphere (for all viewing angles), a similar spherical to 2-D projection is required for photographs which are to be printed.

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Digital photo stitching software is the workhorse of the panorama-making process, and can range from providing a fully automatic one-click stitching, to a more time-consuming manual process. This is part 2 of the tutorial, which assumes all individual photos have already been properly captured (stage 1 below is complete); for stage 1 and an overview of the whole stitching process please visit part 1 of this tutorial on digital panoramas.

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Digital photo stitching for mosaics and panoramas enable the photographer to create photos with higher resolution and/or a wider angle of view than their digital camera or lenses would ordinarily allow—creating more detailed final prints and potentially more dramatic, all-encompassing panoramic perspectives. However, achieving a seamless result is more complicated than just aligning photographs; it also involves correcting for perspective and lens distortion, identifying pixel-perfect matches between subject matter, and properly blending each photo at their seam. This tutorial aims to provide a background on how this process works, along with discussing common obstacles that one may encounter along the way—irrespective of panorama software type.

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Tilt shift lenses enable photographers to transcend the normal restrictions of depth of field and perspective. Many of the optical tricks these lenses permit could not otherwise be reproduced digitally—making them a must for certain landscape, architectural and product photography. This part of the tutorial addresses the tilt feature, and focuses on its use in digital SLR cameras for controlling depth of field. The first part of this tutorial focused on using tilt shift lenses to control perspective and create panoramas.

submitted: 5 years and 3714 days ago