Photoshop CS5 Vs Microsoft ICE / April 23, 2011 by Harold Brown

I love panoramas and over the years I have used various software applications to create them. Now that I am using Photoshop CS5 I really don't need any other software to create them. However, not everyone uses Photoshop so how does Photoshop Photomerge compare with other applications? I recently tried out Microsoft's ICE (Image Composite Editor) on several pictures, just to see what it could do. Without any work other than cropping, how well does ICE standup against Photoshop CS5? I picked two pictures that I took in South Africa in front of the Breakers Resort at Umhlanga Beach. The reason I picked the two photos is because of the 5 fountains that I could use to help understand what was used from each picture. Note: If you use Photoshop, you can see exactly how the picture was stitched. I did nothing other than to drop them into each application using the automatic features of the applications to see how well each one handled the stitching function. Since the ICE application is a free download it doesn't have to be perfect to have great value. What I discovered was that ICE did a great job with the pictures that I selected, with the benefit that it is free. Let's take a look at the results.

So here are the two pictures that I started out with. My sister-in-law is standing in front of the resort and I took her picture. However I couldn't get the full name on the wall so I took a second picture of just the Breakers Resort name by itself.

I dropped the above two pictures into ICE and the result was almost perfect.

[color-box color=yellow]

Notice the shadow from the roof has a slight shift where the picture was stitched together. [/color-box]

Now let's look at the results using Photoshop CS5 Photomerge.

Note that both applications stitched the photographs together almost exactly the same. The left 2 fountains are from the left picture and the other fountains are from the right picture. There are three barriers that can be seen in the foreground. The middle barrier is from the left picture in both examples. The "Breakers Resort" is from the right picture. Notice the roof line shadow is different thought. In the Microsoft ICE software the shadow from the left picture is lower than the shadow from the right picture. In the Photoshop CS5 version the shadow from the left picture is slightly higher than the shadow from the right picture, and it is in a different location. So Photoshop did a little better in the shadow area of the picture. However, the big difference is in the amount of data Photoshop was able to keep as compared to ICE. To do the stitching in ICE the left picture has more zoom applied to it than the right picture. Photoshop was able to keep more data from both pictures and did a slightly better stitch as well.

But is this a fair comparison? Could ICE do better? I decided to try to use the other stitch options that ICE provided. Using the Automatic feature it used "Planar Motion 3". I decided to try other camera motion options provided, and I found that the automatic feature did indeed select the best setting. This is a very high level compare of the two products and of course Photoshop allows me to do a lot more with the picture once I have created it. Using ICE you may need to go to your photo editing program of choice and get more creative.

The above CS5 examples were created with "Blend Images Together" checked. Let's take a look at the results of a photomerge without checking "Blend Images Together.

The results were cropped based on the usable image created. Notice the shadow of the roof line has been resolved and the objects used from each of the pictures has changed. The stitching no longer takes into account shadows or color matching. Since the two images are almost identical in exposure and color, turning off blending in this case produces good results, but a small amount data from each picture is lost compared to the CS5 blended version, but still more data than the ICE version.

Just for fun I selected the Geometric Distortion Correction in CS5 to see what the results would be.

I love panoramas because they really help the viewer better understand the environment where the picture was taken. A picture of sand could be a beach or a sandbox, maybe it is quicksand! Help the viewer understand what they are seeing by providing a perspective. Remember to think panorama the next time you go out to take photographs. Make sure your photos overlap by as much as 40%. Too much or too little overlap will prevent the automated panoramic features from performing the stitch. Remember to that GPS GEO tagging can add an even higher level to the viewers perspective!

Thinking through the Rule of Thirds / February 5, 2011 by Harold Brown

First, let me say that I pretty much have never gone along with the crowd. I was born in the early 50s, so I saw the craziness of the 60s and the ridiculous fashions of the 70s. I never engaged in that stuff, so perhaps that is why I have never understood the emphasis on the rule of thirds, and I never will. I always have to come to my own conclusions, and don't like being told how to do something as if I cannot think for myself. In fact I feel that the rule of thirds was created by someone who felt they were a bit smarter than the rest of the crowd, and this was their way to educate you quickly. It's origins date back decades, but who is to say that it is correct? In my opinion it is not. The rule might be good for many of us on the right occasion, but it assumes that everyone takes pictures for the same reason (one picture is no different than the next), and/or has no idea how to compose a shot. I take my picture based on a lot of things, and while taking the picture I ask myself some simple questions. First, and foremost is the question why am I taking the picture? Is it a picture of my wife, or a picture of the ocean with my wife in the picture? That makes all of the difference in the world. Sometimes you take a picture to put yourself or friends at a location (like vacation pictures). Now I am not saying that many of your pictures won't be using the rule of thirds, what I am saying is that you should think about what you want to show people when they see the picture you have taken. If you try to apply the rule of thirds all the time you are going to have some crap pictures. The same rule is used in video and I actually saw a video demonstrating this with a boring background. The talent centered version was actually better because in the rule of thirds version you could see more of the boring and busy background. The guy making the video didn't see that. Pretty funny. I have experimented with this a bit and the average person sees little difference between a centered subject and rule of thirds subject. In those cases where the background is interesting they sometimes prefer the thirds version, but not always! This is especially true with picture of people you know. Some people tend to look at the person and pay less attention to the background (and vice versa). Sometimes my wife doesn't like a picture because she doesn't like the outfit she is wearing and pays no attention to composition.

Let's take a look at the picture of the squirrel. I was out for a walk to get some fall color pictures. I love the curiosity of squirrels and some of the crazy stuff they do, and I never fail to take a picture of one when I have the opportunity. In this case I wanted to get the picture of the squirrel with the fall colors. To do that I had to place him to the left of the picture. I didn't place him to the right because the background wasn't as good. So in this case the picture was driven by the background and color. If I centered the tree I felt it was too drastic, and almost created a split in the picture. The anchor point to the picture is the tree and the subject is a squirrel on a fall day. I got the photograph I felt was composed the best and there it sat in my picture folder for 5 years before I did anything with it.

Being spied on as I walk through the woods

I really liked the picture so I kept it and filed it away. While I was going through my picture folders confirming that all was backed up (very important) I ran across the picture, and thought I need to get this published on my photo site. The problem was, although the picture was composed just perfect (to my taste), it needed to be more dramatic. The tree needed to be the anchor of the picture but understated. The squirrel is obviously the star of the show and he needed a rich colorful background to offset him but not overpower him. The theme I wanted for this picture is that he was watching my every move. The setting is a fall day in a dark wooded area.

I changed the lighting of the picture to draw your eye more to the squirrel by darkening all the edges and applying a gradient to the left side of the picture that reduced the exposure and brightness. I didn't take the pictures based on any rule, I took it based on all the natural elements of the area. In fact many times with nature shots you don't know what is going to happen next. You need to get the shot.

Now let's look at the above picture taken in Hawaii. The elements in the area forced me to take the picture as you see it. Placing the subject to the right brought in more of the junk sitting on the porch of the hotel, as well as people I didn't want in the shot. Placing her more to the left brought in the door to the lobby which was open, and that didn't look all that great either. So the picture is composed based on the arrangement of those things around the subject. For both the pictures in this post, I took the photos based on the factors of the area and not any type of rule that I had memorized.

When looking through the view finder or LCD look at more that the subject of the picture.

A group of schoolboys from Hilton College in KwaZulu-Natal started a tradition of occasionally painting Joe.

What I do when looking through the lens is check for distractions in the view finder, and compose the picture in the frame the way I feel it might look best in print or on the web. If the background is great, the rule of thirds should work, but not if the background is a distraction.

The stone placed by the road side is painted from time-to-time with a new subject incorporating the shape of the stone. The stone stands on it's own, and dead on center is great for a picture. The stone is of greater importance/interest than it's background. I liked the blue sky and wanted to see more of it in this shot, like it was a backdrop in a portrait.

One last thought, none of this matters if first you don't take the picture!

What to see more pictures of "Old Joe"? Click Here for Old Joe.

Get out there and see the world!

UPDATE

Another Take on The Rule of Thirds 10 Myths About the Rule of Thirds, Published on January 30, 2016 by Tavis Leaf Glover

SmugMug for Photographs and Video / January 31, 2011 by Harold Brown

I started out having photos on my website using a flash album. Unfortunately I quickly discovered that a flash album wasn't really what I wanted. It was OK to display a few pictures, but I have thousands of pictures that I share with family from four continents. To accomplish what I wanted would take months to develop, and I wouldn't come close to all the features that several websites already deliver. Once I realized that I needed to look elsewhere, I jotted down a few requirements. I was looking for a photo hosting site that gave me:

Presentation Options
GPS Support
Clean Look
No Advertising
Video Support
Affordable Packages

I looked at several of the popular photo websites options, and after a few days of reading and visiting the various sites I decided on SmugMug. I did a trial run on SmugMug before I signed up for the Power account. I liked what I saw and have been uploading pictures ever since. Take note that you need to think through how you want to build your galleries. In mid July 2010 I ended up doing a complete re-org of my site including reloading most of my pictures. I did this after purchasing Lightroom 3, but that is another post for another day.

For me, my photo website is about my life and experiences in pictures and video. Since all of our lives are touch by many others, the site cannot help but also include the lives of my family and friends. A feature I like, that SmugMug provides, is the ability to "Collect" a photo. For example, I have a gallery on my 2009 safari in Kruger Park, South Africa. That gallery contains pictures of animals, but also pictures of family, friends, buildings, rivers, etc. Through "Collect" I am able to create a subset of the Kruger gallery containing just the pictures of the animals. Strangers can enjoy the pictures of the wildlife without looking at my pictures of the evening cookouts. That is a great feature and I use it a lot.

Since SmugMug provided the essentials that I needed to create and organize my photo website, the rest was up to me to decide how to organize my photographs. I knew I needed the flexibility to organize my site, but I didn't know exactly how to do that. I have thousands of photographs of all sorts of things. How do you break that down into a few categories? It took me almost a year to really evolve to the structure I have today. Since I am a big nature lover I knew that I needed a master category for Nature. I do a lot of traveling so I created a vacation category which I later regretted and changed the name to Travel (I did this in my big re-org). I also love cars so I created a category just for cars. The Movie category I added is dedicated to the videos that I have created over the years. This structure process shouldn't be overlooked or down played. It is very important how you organize your photographs, otherwise no one will be able to find the pictures they are looking for, including yourself. The big thing is to know who you intend your audience to be, and what you want to accomplish. I have two messages. Get out and see the world and capture your interests and loves so they can be remembered and shared for years to come. Your photo site may be to sell pictures and therefore organized completely different than mine.

_____________________________________________

Regardless of your intent, SmugMug can provide the tools you need as an amateur photographer, or a professional displaying or selling their work.

Save $5 on a SmugMug subscription by using my personal coupon code (PKCMh9ndQs5rA) in the Coupon field at the end of your trial. Or, you can use this link to try out SmugMug: https://secure.smugmug.com/signup.mg?Coupon=PKCMh9ndQs5rA

Put Down the Cellophane Tape / January 23, 2011 by Harold Brown

Capturing a family photo album to digital and I am beginning to hate the inventor of cellophane tape, but not just him, the masking tape guy too. It has dried up on the paper back page of the album, but it is still a gooey mess on the picture. That figures. I used a small amount of Goo Gone on a B&W picture, and it did remove the glue on the picture I tested it on. It did not seem to damage the picture, but I am not sure of any long term effects. Some of the pictures are glued to the album page and they are not coming off. I had to take the photo album apart to scan 40 pictures or so. I have a large scanning bed, but not quite wide enough so the work flow suffers. There are a lot of Polaroid pictures in the album that have stood up pretty well. My guess is late 50s or early 60's. The ones that you had to spread the chemical over them after you took a picture. A lot of the pictures have the streaks from the chemical being applied unevenly. A lot of the non Polaroid pictures from the mid to late 30s are somewhat faded. Tons of pictures that are wallet size and smaller. I think scanning them may be the first time anyone will actually be able to see them! Well, I have to go. I need to clean the glue off of my scanning bed (Goo Gone again). Aaarrrggghhhh!

Pictures That Mind Forgot / January 21, 2011 by Harold Brown

A scanned picture taken with my 1964 World's Fair Camera in August 1967. Originally B&W I added a little color to help make the bridge standout.

I recently posted about pictures capturing a moment in time that help you remember events in your life. A week later I was looking at 35mm slides that I had not seen for 30 years. Amazingly I was looking at pictures that I simply did not remember taking. Forgotten memories, I guess out of sight, out of mind! I remembered the 1977 camping trip to Knowlton Covered Bridge Park in Monroe County, but had forgotten how many people had come along to enjoy the outing with me. My dad was born in Rinard Mills, Ohio and he had told me stories about fishing off the bridge, and how high the flood waters came when he was just a boy (probably 1938). We started camping there in the mid 60's. If you search the internet you will find lots of more recent pictures of the bridge, but mine are from the 60s & 70s (before the bridge was restored). I can also say that I drove across the bridge over the Little Muskingum River, which hasn't been possible for a long, long time. I am in the process of digitally capturing the slides and will post them here, and on my photo site when they are complete.

The bridge is 192 feet in length and is the second longest covered bridge in Ohio. It is located just off SR 26 north of Rinard Mills, Ohio. You can follow this link to see more recent photographs of the Knowlton Covered Bridge.

[color-button color=yellow href="http://bhagavideo.com/2011/01/camera-phones/"]My blog about Camera Phones[/color-button]

[mapsmarker marker="38"]

Camera Phones / January 16, 2011 by Harold Brown

What I like about camera phones is capturing a moment in time that results in your remembering events in your life that you might otherwise forget. Pictures help you remember where you have been, and what you have done. Events may be fresh in your mind today, but 30 years from now many just fade away. The way your memory works is that you forget about things that you don't keep fresh in your mind. A picture reminds you of an event, and seeing the picture from time to time helps keep it fresh in your memory. A blog helps you keep the photos and the details fresh in your mind. Capture history the way it was, not how others tell you it was!