Level 5 Advanced Techniques Journal

As mentioned in the previous post, after my shoot with the Hasselblad and the still life subjects, I now needed to composite all of the different parts of the image to create one whole photograph of commercial quality. Do do this, I used layer masks. Here are all my final layers which I will talk you through below. First, I opened the first box image as the background; I created a copy of this my having the background selected and pressing control and J. This wasn't necessary in the end however I wanted to just ensure I wasn't touching the actual background and if anything needed retouching on this layer I could go back to it easily and delete the retouching if need be while still having a background. I then added the base layer for the bottle. I did this by simply dragging the bottle image to the photoshop file I already had open. This opened the image on top of the box image. However this doesn't place the file perfectly on top of the other one, in the ex...

In a lecture hosted Tom Brannigan, we learnt how to set up and take images of objects, particularly for advertising. For this, we were asked to take a photo of something reflective, something with a logo and something transparent. For my images, I chose a perfume bottle sitting on its box with an iridescent makeup palette leaning behind it. In order to get the perfect image, it's important to take more than one photo, each one with different lighting. This is to ensure that you can focus on one part of the subject and get the best out of it and then can compile the images into one to make one whole image with all elements looking good. If I were to take just one photo, it's likely that certain elements of the image wouldn't look as good as they could have. When using this technique it's important that the camera and the subject stay in the exact same spot. The only things that should be moving are the lights. First, I set up the backdrop. This was simply a very la...

Medium cameras initially were used solely with 120 film, and the popularity never deceased with medium format after digital cameras were introduced because of the supreme image quality and not actually being too much heavier than a digital camera. Of course the film was an added cost as well as the actual camera being rather pricey, but for a lot of photographers the price was well wroth it for the outcome. The popularity of this size then inspired camera makers to produce digital backs for the medium format cameras. This mimics the size of the film. The images aren't the exact size however, perhaps in future years camera developers will find a way to truly mimic this but for now the size of the image from a digital medium format back is slightly smaller. While there is no set size for the image from a digital medium format camera as it varies from each manufacturer, the outcome is better that of a full frame DSLR. Why use a digital medium format camera?; Higher quality than...

Archival printing is process of hand printing your images from a film negative using a hard and soft developer. For this I used a fibre based light sensitive paper with fibre base chemicals. According to Parallx Photographic Coop, "Traditionally resin paper was used for contact sheets, proof prints, and snapshots, with fibre the go-to paper for exhibition prints." They say that this is because; "Fibre paper has a thicker base than resin, with a weight around 255g/sm or higher. The heavier weight is sometimes called “double weight”. Another term for Fibre Based paper is Baryta. This is because of the layer of baryta (barium sulphate) applied to the paper base before the emulsion. Baryta will give the paper a whiter base, brighten the image and bring out the tones, as well as provide a ground for the emulsion. On fibre the emulsion is able to sit in the grain of the paper, giving the image more depth and richness than resin." The first step to printing usi...

I have tried two types of scanner; the Imacon Flextight Precision II & III and the Epson V750 Pro. First I tried out the Imacon machine. I actually found  this the easiest to use out of the two; the process of putting it into the scanner is much more simple in my opinion. To start scanning with the scanner, turn it on and log in to the corresponding computer. Open the flexcolour software which is what we use to scan the images. To begin the process put in your sheet of developed film into the magnetic holder and ensure any dust has been blown off using the blow tool located next to the scanners. it's best to use this scanner while not wearing any fluffy clothing as it will get on your negative and give you even more post production work to do. Now that the negative is in the holder you can place it into the machine like so; Next on Flexcolor you need to set the settings to be appropriate for your scan. For me it was like so; 2040 pixels per inch (P...