Noise comes in three types or patterns:
1) Random noise 2) Fixed-pattern noise 3) Banding noise
Noise often has two components—brightness and color:
4) Image noise 5) Luminance noise 6) Chrominance noise
Knowing the type and kind of noise produced will help guide you to solutions to reduce it. There are three types of noise: random noise, fixed-pattern noise and banding noise.
Here’s an excerpt from my column in the current issue of Digital Photo Pro.
“When adding noise to digital files, keep noise separate from the image so you can control both independently of one another. This way you’ve got extraordinary control and flexibility. When noise is placed on its own layer you can eliminate or change it at any time in the future, reduce its opacity, localize it, desaturate it, target it into specific channels, move it, scale it, blur it and much more …”
Read more in the current issue of Digital Photo Pro.
Learn out more in my digital printing workshops.
HDR imagery is expanding today’s photographic aesthetics. Identifying the characteristics of contemporary HDR images will help classicists and pioneers alike. The basic ingredients are desirable for both sensibilities, but in varying combinations and to different degrees. As with solving any problem, it’s easier if you break it down into it’s component pieces and then learn what each one does and how they interact with one another. First know what to look for. Second, know what a tool can do. Third, know how to apply a tool. Once you’ve done this, you’ll be well along the way to crafting a unique style that’s all your own.
Pronounced Shadow and Highlight Detail
Accentuated Edge Contrast
Accentuated Texture
Increased Noise
Smoothed Texture
Saturation Distortions
Read more in the current issue of Digital Photo Pro.
Learn these and other techniques in my workshops.
LDR
Half HDR
HDR Simulated
HDR Simulated With Photomatix
Color theory can help describe what is perceived more precisely. It offers a language that is shared and reasonably precise. Color theory can help make perception more precise. Language encodes thought and a more precise and nuanced language can lead to more sensitive perception. Color theory can help analyze what makes some color relationships particularly successful and what makes others less successful. It illuminates the dynamic interactions between the elements of color, which can be used to guide decisions in selecting and adjusting color relationships.
Color theory is best used to inform color choices rather than to make them. Theory lays a foundation for exploration (guiding inquiry toward areas with greater potential and away from areas with less potential). It is not a substitute for discovery. Jazz musicians Keith Jarrett and Theolonius Monk mastered music theory, but even they were surprised by their most original compositions; their compositions were informed and empowered by theory but not determined by it. Theory is the sum of what we know, but it does not contain what we do not yet know. It can prime conditions for a breakthrough, but it cannot make one. It can be used to empower a unique or authentic sensibility, but it is not a substitute for one.
Find out more in the current issue of Digital Photo Pro.
Find out more in my color theory ebooks.
Colin Smith quickly details his recommended workflow for integrating Photoshop and Photomatix’s plug-in for HDR images in this useful excerpt of his HDR DVD.
Check out Colin’s HDR DVD here.
Check out my articles on Extending Dynamic Range at Digital Photo Pro.
Check out my upcoming seminar on HDR at PhotoPlus.
Check out my workshops here.
Colin explains HDR imagery in this excerpt of his HDR DVD.
Check out Colin’s HDR DVD here.
Check out my articles on Extending Dynamic Range at Digital Photo Pro.
Check out my upcoming seminar on HDR at PhotoPlus.
Check out my workshops here.