Selective Sepia

Learn how to use Photoshop to create selectively add a dramatic sepia effect a photo. This Photoshop effect works best when used with Photoshop CS3 but will also work with Photoshop CS2 or older using an alternative method.

Preview of Final Results

Selective Sepia Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1: Open an image into Photoshop

Open the File menu and select Open. Browse for the photo you would like to add a selective sepia effect to and click OK.

Step 2: Create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer

In the Layers pallet, click on the New Adjustment Layer icon and select Hue/Saturation.


A Hue/Saturation window should appear. With this tool, we'll specify where the sepia effect will appear. Decide if you want to select the sepia toned areas according to the color of the image or by manually painting the areas where you would like the sepia tone.
Choose one of the following:

A) Select by color

Selecting the sepia areas based on color will give the most natural effect.
First, decide which color in the photo that you want to keep. Then, select from the edit drop down menu the each color in the list except for the colors you want to keep and reduce the saturation to -100. For example, to keep the reds in the photo use the following settings:
Reds: 0 Saturation
Yellows: -100 Saturation
Greens: -100 Saturation
Cyans: -100 Saturation
Blues: -100 Saturation
Magenta : -100 Saturation

B) Select manually

Manually selecting the sepia toned areas will let you specify precisely the area that you would like toned.
Set the master saturation to -100 and click OK. Your image should now appear grayscale.

Activate the layer mask by clicking on the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers pallet. Select the Eraser tool and erase the areas where you don't want the sepia tone to be applied to.

Step 3: Add a Black & White adjustment layer

In the Layers pallet, click on the New Adjustment Layer icon and select Black & White. If you are using Photoshop CS2 or older, select Hue/Saturation instead.

A Black & White (or Hue/Saturation if you're using Photoshop CS2 or older) adjustment layer should appear. Simply click OK without editing the settings. Then, change the blend mode of the top adjustment layer to Overlay. Double click back on the icon of the layer to bring back the tool.

Photoshop CS2 or older:
You will be using the Hue/Saturation tool to add a sepia tone. Checkmark "Colorize" and apply the settings below:

Photoshop CS3:
If you're using Photoshop CS3, you can use the Black and White adjustment to add a sepia tone. This will give you more adjustable settings compared to using the Hue/Saturation adjustment.
First, adjust the settings to get the black and white look that you like. Or, you can scroll through the presets menu to select one of your own. I chose the Red Filter preset to bring up the reds and darken the sky.

Checkmark the Tint and adjust the tone to create a sepia effect. Click OK when done.

Final Results

Red

Blue and Cyan

Yellow and Green

Red, Yellow, and Green


get from here

How to Create a Panorama with Photoshop and Photomerge

This post on Creating a Panorama with Photoshop and Photomerge has been submitted by Matt Dawdy from www.TheRightPic.com.

A panorama is simply a wide-angled view of a physical space. To the photographer a panorama is usually several photographs that are stitched together horizontally to create a seamless picture.
This is going to be a pretty simple tutorial in which we create a panorama using Photoshop’s Photomerge utility.

Here are the tools I am going to use to create panoramic photos:

1. A digital camera
2. A tripod or a stable surface or platform to take pictures from that allows some horizontal rotation
3. A computer and Adobe Photoshop and the Photomerge utility
When I started thinking about this tutorial I began to wonder what I should shoot. Just about any subject can be used for a panorama, however traditional panoramic photography subjects are typically landscapes or city skylines. I will show you a few different panoramas that I created, some typical, some a little different than what you would normally see for a panorama.

Setting up for your shoot:

A stable position to take your panoramas from is important. Isn’t it always when taking pictures? Well, with panoramas it is more important because the Photoshop process that joins your photos together is good at what it does but it is not perfect and when it has trouble putting the individual pictures together it either leaves ragged white lines in between the photos or chops large sections out of the photos because it doesn’t know what to do with them.
I would recommend you use a tripod since it allows you to turn your camera slightly in order to take successive shots. If you can’t use a tripod some sort of flat surface like the top of a wall, fence or a board may work as long as it is possible to take a picture and then rotate your camera slightly and then take another picture without vertical movement.
Once you find your potential spot and set your camera up, rotate it to the extreme right and left edges that you want to include in your photo and make sure that there isn’t anything that is too big of a visual or physical obstruction. Something else to keep in mind is to try to set up so that the full range of your shot does not show shadows from you or your camera.

The actual shoot:

For the panoramic pictures I take I start at the extreme left of what I want to capture, set my timer and take bracketed exposure shots. I then stop and check the photos without moving the camera. If one of them looks OK I am ready to continue. If not, I adjust my settings and shoot again from the same spot.
When you have the settings you want and have taken your extreme left pictures it is time to grab a reference point in the viewfinder about 20%-30% away from the right side of your viewfinder. You do this because you are going to swivel the camera so that this reference point is at the far left but still in the viewfinder so that there is some overlap between your photos.

The green arrows show my chosen reference point, which is a point that I will use to make sure I don’t swivel too far to the right and leave a gap in between my two pictures. The dotted line represents the overlap that I am going to have between this and my next picture. The second picture is shown diagonally lower than the other one for display purposes only.
As far as overlap is concerned, you are shooting digitally so snap away, overlap 30-50% if you want, but err on the side of overlapping too much. If you don’t overlap enough, as Photoshop’s Photomerge app attempts to blend the shots it will not have enough of a fingerprint to blend well and your panorama will end up with the ragged white lines that I wrote about earlier or look like Frankenstein’s version of a panorama.
Once you mentally choose a reference point such as a tree or prominent peak swivel the camera to the right until your reference point is almost at the left edge of the viewfinder. Try not to move the camera position, vertical pitch or height. Once you have swiveled far enough repeat the process that you did to take the first picture.
Now simply repeat this process until you come to the extreme right end of your desired panoramic shot:
1. Choose a reference point about 20-30% away from the right edge of the viewfinder
2. Swivel the camera to the right until your reference point is at the left edge of the viewfinder
3. Take the picture
4. Repeat until you have taken photos that cover the entire area you wish to capture in your panorama

Make your panorama:

Now you are ready to ’stitch’ your photos together.
1. Open each photo that you wish to add to the panorama in Photoshop. Open them sequentially, starting with the leftmost one first.
2. In Photoshop CS3 (or CS2, not sure about other versions) go to File > Automate > Photomerge
3. In the dialog that appears choose Auto and then click the “Add Open Files” button
4. Check the filename numbers of the photos that are added, assuming you allow your camera to number your photos. If you started off shooting from the left of the panorama the lower numbers should be at the top. In other words, it should read something like this:

If the filenames are out of order remove all of the ones that are before the one that should be first. Now just click Add Open Files again and it will add the pictures back in. Keep removing files and adding them back until you have your files in order.
Click OK. Now Photoshop goes into action. It analyzes and blends the photos. This could take several minutes. Once it is finished you will see what Photoshop and Photomerge could make out of your photos.

Here is my neighbor’s fish tank. A lot of it got lost in the Photomerge process, in fact I would guess that I lost about 50% of my picture material which is probably due to the fact that the images are dark and very similar and Photomerge probably had a difficult time piecing it together. Still, the picture isn’t a total loss. One thing that did happen that is common with Photomerged pictures is that it is on a slight tilt to the left.
If this happens to you, first flatten your image and then do an Arbitrary rotation until the picture looks level.
Next, crop the picture. If you are unfamiliar with how to do this just press C. Click and drag a box over the area of the picture you want to keep. Press ENTER and the rest of the photo will be gone.
Next, you might want to adjust your saturation, exposure, hue levels, etc, until you are happy with the photo. Make sure you zoom in all of the way to 100% and look the photo over, zoom back out and move around. Look for obvious problems with the picture.
As for me, I have a fishtank with a couple of blurry fish but a decent looking photo that ends up being 88″ wide by 23″ long, give or take a little.
When you are done playing with the coloring and exposure do a Smart Sharpen by going to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. I would set the Amount to 60% and set the Radius to 1.0. Click OK.
Go ahead and save your picture and you have a panorama! Here is mine with the default Photoshop frame action added (the photo has been shortened and saved at a low res to make it more web palatable) (click to enlarge the following image):

Given time I would add a couple of good looking fish from other photos and clean up some of the rough spots, but this is a good start.
Here are a couple of other panoramas that I took (click to enlarge):

A field near where I work. The actual panorama is 204″ x 24″.

Here are some homes and a range of mountains with the waste from a giant copper mine. Actual panorama is 94″ x 23″

http://digital-photography-school.com/creating-a-panorama-with-photoshop-and-photomerge

Camera Shake

The phenomenon known as camera shake is caused by movement of the camera (hence the name :-)), which becomes noticeable as blur when using a slow shutter speed. The resulting blur is not quite the same as the blur caused by incorrect focusing.

How can we tell the difference between blurred focus and camera shake?

Have a look at the picture on the right. Here we have a mixture of blur caused by the subject moving, blur caused by the camera moving and the blur of the background which is out of focus. The focus is actually sharp on the main subject, but you'll have to take my word for that :-). You can see the difference between the two types of blur if you look closely, rather than a general fuzziness, movement blur looks more like a double exposure or a series of exposures. If you look at the back wall in this first picture you can see both types of blur. The wall is 'soft' due to being out of focus but also there is a double, or triple, image which is caused by camera movement.
Motion blur, whether it is caused by movement of the subject or movement of the camera, looks the same. Although some of the movement is caused by the guitarist moving, the microphone, which wasn't moving, is blurred too, as is the background, this is due to camera shake.

Take a look a this second photo, The photo is now generally sharp because I have used a flash, and therefore a much faster shutter speed, but the wall is still blurred because it is out of focus. I think if you look at the green tiles in both pictures you can see the different types of blur quite clearly.
Whereas blur caused by movement of the subject can be desirable, sometimes, to help create 'atmosphere' in a picture, camera shake should be avoided in all but the most 'arty' type of photos.

Why do we get camera shake?

No matter how careful we are, when we press the shutter button there is always some movement of the camera. At faster shutter speeds there is no noticeable effect on the picture but at slower speeds the blur becomes apparent. The way we stand, the way we hold the camera and how vigorously we press the shutter button all have an effect on the amount of movement we get.

How can we avoid movement blur from camera shake?

To eliminate the blur we can do several things:-

1. Use a faster shutter speed and/or a shorter lens.
2. Use a tripod with or without a remote release.
3. Brace ourselves as best we can against a wall or other object to minimize movement.

1) The most obvious way of eliminating shake is to use a faster shutter speed. Either by opening the aperture wider or introducing more light by using a flash gun for instance.

The rule of thumb for a sharp picture, free from the effects of camera shake, is to use a shutter speed which is at least as fast as 1 divided by the focal length of the lens. So if you are using your zoom set at 100mm you should use a shutter speed of at least 1/100 of a second. If you are using a 50mm lens you will get a sharp picture at 1/50th of a second.

The reason why the focal length of the lens is important is that camera shake becomes more apparent as the angle of view gets narrower, the narrower the angle of view the more the shake is magnified. You will know this if you have ever tried to hold a telescope or a high powered pair of binoculars still.
2) Putting the camera on a sturdy tripod is the best way to keep it still and this is the way to go, especially when you want to get some movement blur from the subject like in the waterfall picture here. Even better is to get a remote release for the camera so you don't have to touch it at all.
3) If, like me, you didn't bring your tripod with you and you still want to take pictures in the dark, you can stretch the rule of thumb (above) by a few stops by bracing yourself and/or the camera against a tree or wall or lamppost. Also controlling your breathing can help quite a bit too. Here's a picture shot at a slow shutter speed using this technique.
Finally I just want to say that an inherent problem with a lot of today's smaller cameras, especially phone cameras, is that, because they have no viewfinder, we are obliged to hold them at arm's length to view the screen, often holding them only with our fingertips. This makes them infinitely more difficult to hold still and makes them much more prone to show the effects of camera shake. So even more care needs to be taken to get a sharp picture. If you are taking a picture with a phone camera (if you really must!), try to rest it on something, a table or wall, to help keep it still.

http://www.geofflawrence.com/camera_shake.html

Sharpening with the Unsharp Mask filter

The unsharp mask filter in Photoshop can be used to save certain blurred pictures. Sharpening a photo in Photoshop will not save any shot that is very blurred, nor will it save photos where the point of focus is in the wrong place, but it may help with a picture that is a little bit 'soft' due to the use of a slower than ideal shutter speed.

In Photoshop, under the filters menu, there is a submenu called 'Sharpen' where you will find several choices.

The bottom two choices, 'Unsharp Mask' and 'Smart Sharpen' open boxes full of faders that you can twiddle.

The other choices are presets that will give you a quick fix in a hurry but do not have any adjustments, so we will ignore them.

At this point I have to confess that I am still using Photoshop CS2 so there might be new filters in CS3 that I am not aware of, in fact I have only just discovered the 'Smart Sharpen' option while preparing for this article.

I will leave the 'Smart Sharpen' option until later and start with my tried and tested favorite the 'Unsharp Mask'.

There are three sliders in the 'Unsharp Mask' window, the top one 'Amount' does what it says on the can, it adjusts the amount of sharpening.

The 'Radius' slider adjusts the width of the halos that are created. Basically the way sharpening works is that it finds the edges in your picture by looking for areas of high contrast and increases the apparent sharpness by adding dark and light halos. If you look at the edge of the apple in the picture on the left you can see a dark line, rather like a pencil line along the edge.

The 'Threshold' slider allows you to specify how much contrast difference there has to be before that area is sharpened. Set this fader too low and the picture will appear grainy as there will be a sharpening halo around almost every pixel. Set the value too high and only clearly defined edges will be sharpened which can make the blurred bits look even more blurred.

This filter needs to be used very carefully to achieve the best effect. Too much sharpening can make the picture look false. On the other hand, if you look for every single little tell-tale detail and every little line, you end up not using the filter at all.

How Much Sharpening? What Settings to Use?

The final adjustment of the sliders is down to you and will vary from picture to picture, but here are some guidelines to get you started. The amount of sharpening you can get away with, especially the 'Radius' settings, depend on the resolution of the image. If it is an image destined for viewing on the screen the resolution of the image should be 72 pixels per inch. (some say 96ppi) If the image is destined for print the resolution should be 300ppi or as near as you can get it to that.

If you are planning to change the size of an image, by this I mean the file size, make sure you do the sharpening after the sizing, especially with JPEGS. Sharpening should be the last thing you do in Photoshop.

For an image that is 72ppi you should use a radius setting of about 0.4 or 0.5 pixels. Use less than this and you won't see much happening, use more and the halos will start to look too obvious. For a print image, 300ppi, start with a setting between 1 pixel and 1.7 pixels.

I prefer to use as small a 'Radius' setting as possible and push the 'Sharpen' slider quite high.

I read somewhere a while ago that the 'Threshold' slider should be set at about 3 levels. But I find that I use it anywhere between 0 and 20 or so. This is one you have to play with yourself as it really does depend on the type of picture.

Here's a picture ripe for sharpening, although I used a tripod it was taken at a very slow shutter speed in available light. The depth of field is not great so we are never going to get the whole photo in focus but at least the middle apple should be sharp. I have made the pictures nice and large so you can see the effects better.

As we are using this on the web, the radius setting should be about 0.4 pixels. So set that first and then set the 'Threshold' slider to zero for now. Move the 'Sharpen' slider from side to side to see what it will do. Normally you need to move it past 80 to see anything happening at all. If you get all the way to 500 and the picture is still not sharp enough then you need to set the 'Radius' higher.

Below you can see the settings I chose and the result. Overall it is probably the best compromise. There is a white halo around the stalk which is a bit more obvious than I would like and the black line between the apples is a bit bold but, as I said before, if you look for every bit of evidence you would end up not using the filter at all. The low 'Threshold' setting has sharpened up the skin of the apple which is where we really wanted to see the improvement. The stalk of the middle apple is now as sharp as you could want.

Sharpness always used to be the ultimate goal in my pictures but nowadays I can see that you can sometimes have too much sharpness and soft focus has it's place too.

Here's a version that has been sharpened way too much, just so you can see all the bad things to watch out for. You can clearly see the black and white halos around all the edges. This is what we need to minimize. So, use the sharpening filter with great care, better still, get the focus right in the camera.

Finally a quick look below at the 'Smart Sharpen' filter. This has many more knobs and dials to play with and so is a bit confusing at first. The left tab is much the same as we saw before but we now have a drop down menu with three different types of blur to choose from. 'Gaussian Blur' is what we have been fixing with the other filter so 'Lens Blur' in this case or 'Motion Blur' when appropriate would be a better choice for photographers. The shadow and highlight tabs give you a chance to minimize the halos and, as you can see from the preview, they can be greatly reduced. The halo around the stalk is gone and the black line between the two apples is almost gone.

This filter then, used carefully, can give you a more subtle effect. Look at all three pictures carefully, the second picture is obviously sharper but with a few tell-tale signs of sharpening, the bottom picture is more subtle but does not appear quite so sharp.

In the end, the choice is up to you. You will probably find that you over sharpen everything at first, so make sure you work on a copy file and keep the original safely out of harm's way. I now keep all original files straight from the camera and only ever work on copies. That way, as my skills improve, I can go back to the original and try a new edit.

http://www.geofflawrence.com/photoshop_tutorial_sharpening.php

 

Bring Cool Colors to A Photo

In this tutorial we will learn how to play with colors in a photo, turn it into a cool and dark style that can easily impressive your viewers

Let's start to Photoshop!
Step 1: Download the original photo and open it with Photoshop. First we should make it darker by going to Image>Adjustments>Levels and drag the black slider to the right to make the photo darker

Step 2: Duplicate the photo by pressing Ctrl-J. We will make the photo more contrastive by turning this layer to black and white for later effects. Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and use these settings:

This will make our layer become nearly black and white

Step 3: One again using the Levels tool(Image>Adjustments>Levels) to make our photo darker by moving the black slider to the right. You can also make slight adjustments to other sliders

Step 4: Change the blending mode of this layer to Screen, notice that this mode just lets light colors go through. Our photo now looks brighter and more contrastive 

Step 5: Create a new layer and change foreground color to #1F768C (dark blue) and background color to #62bdd3 (light blue) and go to Filter>Render>Clouds to add random clouds to this layer

Step 6: Change the blending mode of this layer to Overlay to apply this layer's colors to the below layers

Step 7: Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E to create a new layer that is the result of all underneath layers. We will make lighting effect on this layer by going to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects and adjust the ellipse to create a light source from the top-left

Step 8: Our photo now looks great. This step is just optional to give the viewers a dreamy feeling.
Duplicate the current layer (Ctrl-J) and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use a small radius

Step 9: Now change the blending mode of this layer to Soft Light to make the photo a bit "softer"

Step 10: You can easily change the brightness and contrast of the photo by Curves tool (Image>Adjustments>Curves) or Brightness/Contrast tool(Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast)

Let's have a look at the result again to feel the difference:

In conclusion, we used some blending mode (Screen, Overlay, Soft Light) with adjustment tools (Curves, Hue/Saturation, Brightness & Contrast...) and Lighting Effects to greatly change the colors of a photo, making it cooler and darker. Maybe you have seen some photos of this style!

http://www.9tuts.com/Photoshop/Photo-Retouch/Bring-Cool-Colors-to-A-Photo.html

Dreamy Scene

In this tutorial we are going to create a beautiful scene that works well with fairy stories. You can also use it in some posters which require dreamy effects as well

Let's start our tutorial!
Step 1: Download the original image or open your own image. Duplicate our image by pressing Ctrl-J. Before applying some effect on it, we should increase its contrast by going to Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast and increase the Contrast slider to 100%

Step 2: Change its blending mode to Multiply to make the picture sharper

Step 3: Press Ctrl-Shift-Alt-E to create a new layer which is the result of its underlying layers. Next we will add a nice sky to it. You can cut out the sky from this picture

Place it on our castle picture. Make sure the sky covers most of our image

Step 4: Change the sky layer's blending mode to Multiply to apply the new sky to our image. This mode works well because we had a nearly white sky in the original image (notice that Multiply mode eliminates white areas and retains darker areas)

Step 5: Use the Eraser Tool with a soft brush (0% hardness) to erase the junction of two layers

Step 6: In this step we will add a light source to our image, a cold sun!
Create a new layer and use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to create a small selection area on the sky

then fill it with black

Go to Filter>Render>Lens Flare and choose 105mm Prime light source

and change its blending mode to Overlay

Finally use the Eraser tool with a soft brush to wipe out the edges. Now we had a beautiful Sun!

Step 7: Now we will add a dreamy effect to our image. Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E again to create a composited layer and press Ctrl-J to duplicate it. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and set a Radius of 1.5 pixels

then change the blending mode of this layer to Overlay

Finally, you can use the Eraser tool to reveal some dark areas on the castle. Let's have a look at the final result again:

This is the end of the tutorial. I hope this lesson will useful for you!

http://www.9tuts.com/Photoshop/Effects/Dreamy-Scene.html

Area Focus

Most of the newer digital cameras include three focusing modes: Center Focus, Area Focus and Multi Focus. If you are sometimes getting out of focus pictures even when your camera indicates successful focus lock, you need to understand the difference between these focusing modes.
Center Focus will focus on the center of the frame.
Multi Focus automatically selects between a number of AF frames and focuses on the most contrasty subject closest to the center of the frame. For example, if your main subject (i.e. the subject you want to be in focus) stands beside some other object (behind or in front of your main subject) of greater contrast, the camera will focus on the latter object and your main subject will be out of focus. So, if you use Multi Focus as your default focus mode, this may explain why many of your shots are out of focus.
Area Focus deserves some explanation. I believe it is a focus mode that few uses, but there are certain situations where Area Focus is perfectly suited for and can help you capture a sharply focused shot where the other focus modes fail.
Center Focus
If you look in the LCD of your digital camera, there will be a rectangle at the center of the screen, commonly called the AF frame. This AF frame depicts the zone where the camera will focus on.
If your subject is smack in the middle of the screen, well and good. But, what if your subject is not in the center of the screen?
Well, we use a handy technique called Pre-Focusing. Pre-focusing simply means that you center your subject on the center AF frame, depress the shutter release half-way (which will cause the camera to lock focus), then swivel the camera back to your desired composition, and finally depress the shutter release fully to take the picture. In other words, we “pre-focus,” compose, then we take the picture.

In the example above, the butterfly is not centered. If we take a picture using center focus, the butterfly will be out of focus. We move the camera so as to center the butterfly in our screen, half-press the shutter release button to lock focus on the butterfly, then recompose and depress the shutter fully to take a picture that is now in sharp focus.
Pre-focusing is used extensively in action photography when you know that you want to take the picture at a certain fixed spot. In this case, you can pre-focus on that spot by a half-press of the shutter release, then follow the action and depress the shutter fully when your subject reaches the fixed spot. Examples of a fixed spot can be a basketball hoop, a finish line, a spot right in front of you, etc.
Area Focus
Area Focus extends Center Focus by allowing the AF frame to be moved anywhere on the screen. So now, if your subject is to the left of center, instead of moving the camera left, pre-focusing and then moving the camera back, all you do is move the AF frame left instead while keeping the camera still!
On some cameras, Area AF is implemented very well and you can move the AF frame easily without taking your eye off the LCD or viewfinder. On others, you need to go into the menu, set Area Focus mode and position the AF frame where you want it to be using the four-way controller.
Most of the time, pre-focusing works as well as Area AF. But there is at least one photo situation where Area Focus is perfect for: macro photography. When taking a close-up you may want to compose your picture so that the subject is at one corner of the frame. Since precise focus is paramount in close-up shots (depth of field is very shallow), pre-focusing can be difficult to achieve since when you recompose you may end up moving the camera a little closer or further to your subject. The result is an out-of-focus picture (your main subject will be out of focus though other parts of the picture may be in focus).
This is where area focus comes in and saves the day.
By moving the AF frame on your subject to the corner of the frame so that it covers your subject, you can maintain your composition without having to move your camera, lock your tripod, set your self-timer, and take the shot — for a spot on, razor sharp image.
An Example
Here is an example of how Area Focus helps me achieve sharp focus in a macro shot. The AF frame in the center of the frame encompasses both the fir needles and the leaves. Where will the camera focus on: the fir needles (which is what I want) or the leaves in the background? In the first picture, using Center Focus, the fir needles do not come out as sharp as I want; instead the leaves get the focus.When I try to pre-focus, moving the camera back to my composition is enough to lose precise focus.

I could switch to Manual Focus but I don’t trust my eyes (even with a central enlarged image). I could switch to Multi Focus and let the camera decide on the most contrasty area. But why leave this to chance? I decide to use Area Focus instead. In the second picture, I move the AF frame to the bottom left, completely covering the fir needles. Result: fir needles in focus, leaves in background nicely blurred.

So, why not try Area Focus next time if your camera allows it? You may find that, besides macro photography, there are other instances when it is the appropriate focus mode to use.

http://www.photoxels.com/tutorials/tutorial-area-focus/ 

Center AF

Most digital cameras use contrast detection to auto focus (AF). Usually, the focus point is a small rectangle in the middle of the viewfinder frame (Center AF), though many digital cameras now also offer additional AF points (Multi-Point AF).
Center AF
If you look in the LCD monitor of your digital camera, there will usually be a rectangle at the center of the screen, commonly called the AF Frame. When your digital camera is set to Center AF mode, this rectangle in the middle of the screen is your AF point.
Multi-Point AF
Multi-Point AF automatically selects between a number of AF points (the most common seems to be 5 or 9 AF points -- i.e. 4 or 8 AF points clustered around a center focus point) and finds the most contrasty subject among those AF points.
An Example
If your default AF mode is Multi-Point AF and some of your shots are sometimes out of focus, it may be that Multi-Point AF is the culprit.
Here is an example of how Multi-Point AF focused on the more contrasty background well behind my main subject (the lone green leaf left on the bush).
Even though the green leaf is in the center of the frame, Multi-Point AF has chosen to focus on the more contrasty background around it instead.
The result is that the ground of fallen leaves come out in focus, while my main subject is out of focus.

Sony DSC-P150 Cyber-shot: 5 Area Multi-Point AF
Program AE, Multi-Pattern Metering, Macro ON
7.9mm, 1/250 sec., F2.8, ISO 400

I took a couple more shots with the same result before I realized what the problem was. I immediately went into the camera's menu to switch AF mode from Multi-Point AF to Center AF. This time, I got the result that I was after: the lone green leaf in focus against a nicely blurred backdrop!

Sony DSC-P150 Cyber-shot: Center AF
Program AE, Multi-Pattern Metering, Macro ON
7.9mm, 1/200 sec., F2.8, ISO 400

Summary
Multi-Point AF works pretty well usually but sometimes the camera will focus on something else besides your main subject if that something else happens to fall under one of the AF points and is also more contrasty than your main subject. In these instances, switch AF mode to Center AF, point the AF Frame on your subject and half-press the shutter release button to lock focus on your main subject, then reframe, if necessary, before fully pressing the shutter release button to take the shot.
Some more advanced digital cameras also allow you to move this AF Frame away from the center to other parts of the screen (so your subject does not need to be centered).

http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial_center-af.html 

Night Photography

Night photography has an attraction all its own. There's something about scintillating lights from office windows hanging in the dark of the night -- a modern version of the starry skies -- that appeal to us. Whether it's a city skyline, lamp posts on a dark and deserted street, or the front of your house all decked out with holiday lights, the challenge of capturing the mood of a night scene depends on whether your digital camera is capable of night photography and on a couple of simple techniques.
Can My Camera Do Night Photography?
For successful night photography you need a digital camera that allows you to keep the shutter open for a long time, anywhere from 3 to 30 seconds. Check your camera specifications in the User's Manual under Shutter Speed. The shutter speeds available will be given as a range, e.g. 30 sec. - 1/2,000 sec.
If you are seriously into night photography, then you would want to ensure you purchase a digital camera that allows the longest shutter speed possible, and even Bulb (where the shutter remains open as long as you depress the shutter release button).
But before you plunk down your money for that digital camera, there's two more features to verify -- and one accessory to purchase, if you don't have it already.
Shooting Modes
For an image to be captured by a digital camera's image sensor, the latter requires exposure to light. But at night, light is what we don't have enough of.
Some of you may have noticed that, if you select a shooting mode of Auto (A) or Program Auto (P), your night pictures always come out too dark. They are simply underexposed. But, why is that -- if your camera's shutter speed ranges from, say 10 sec. to 1/2,000 sec.?
Go back to your camera's User's Manual and look a bit more carefully. Are all the shutter speeds available in Auto or P mode? Ah-ha, many digital cameras (we're talking consumer models here) do not make the whole shutter speed range available in A and P mode! Perhaps the slowest shutter speed available in A and P mode is only as slow as 1/3 sec. That's usually not long enough for night photography. To access the longer shutter speeds, you may need to select one of the other shooting modes, e.g. Shutter-Priority, or even switch to full Manual mode.
So ensure that your digital camera has full Manual mode and allows access to the full range of slow shutter speeds in that mode.
Self-Timer & Remote Controller
Another feature that you want your digital camera to have is a self-timer or, ideally, a remote controller. The purpose is to allow you to depress the shutter release button without introducing camera shake. I particularly like the remote controller, but not every camera comes with one or even has one available optionally.
But almost all, if not all, cameras has a self-timer. Usually the self-timer counts down from 10 sec. I find that a bit long to wait, especially since you would need to take more than one shot and it's minus 10 with the wind chill outside. The cameras that additionally provide a 2 sec. self-timer have my nod of approval here.
Tripod
A mandatory accessory that you need is a sturdy tripod. When you let the shutter stay open for a long time, the camera needs to be kept rock steady, otherwise you end up with blurred images.
Examples
OK, so we have our digital camera and tripod, and are ready to venture forth into the night in search for interesting night shots. When we find one, we set up camera and tripod, frame and... what do we do now?
Well, the images below show what happens when you take the same shot using P mode, then in Manual mode with various different shutter speed/aperture combinations, all in search of the correct exposure. The camera was on a tripod for all three shots.

Programmed Auto Mode - Underexposed

Fujifilm FinePix E550 7.2mm, Programmed Auto, Pattern Shutter Speed 1/4 sec., Aperture F2.8, ISO 80

In the above example, the camera uses the slowest shutter speed and largest aperture available in P mode and at the widest focal length. The picture is underexposed.

Manual Mode - Overexposed

Fujifilm FinePix E550 7.2mm, Manual, Pattern Shutter Speed 3 sec., Aperture F2.8, ISO 80

Switching to Manual mode allows me to access the slowest shutter speed available on this camera, 3 sec. while keeping the aperture at F2.8 (the largest aperture available). The effect is immediately better, but it does seem a bit too bright, giving almost a daylight effect. If this is the effect you're after, then you're done. But if you wanted to capture the night mood, read on.
Now it is just a matter of adjusting the shutter speed and/or aperture to obtain the desired exposure. I choose to close down the aperture so as to increase the depth of field also.

Manual Mode - Correct Exposure

Fujifilm FinePix E550 7.2mm, Manual, Pattern Shutter Speed 3 sec., Aperture F4.0, ISO 80

Closing down the aperture to F4.0, a more pleasant image is obtained with enough dark areas to indicate it is night time (dusk, really) and enough lighted areas to reproduce what my eyes saw at the outdoors skating rink at the Mississauga Civic Center.
ISO
For the three pictures above, I used ISO 80, the lowest ISO available for best image quality. But what if at 3 sec. and F2.8 (i.e. at max. exposure possible for this particular camera), the image still came out too dark? In this case, I would need to increase the sensitivity of the image sensor to a higher ISO. Do note that increasing the ISO also increases the amount of noise visible in your images.
Technique
Take a number of shots at different shutter speed/aperture combinations.
Immediately review the shot as soon as you've taken it.
Ensure your LCD brightness is set to Normal, not Bright, for a truer representation of your recorded image.
A good aperture to start with is F4.0 or F5.6 (for greatest depth of field), and adjust shutter speed up or down until you're satisfied with the shot.
For good measure, take an extra shot past your optimum exposure setting. For example, if you were progressively using longer shutter speeds, and you think you've find the correct one, take an extra shot with the next longer shutter speed. Conversely, if you were using progressively faster shutter speeds, take an extra shot using the next faster shutter speed.

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Sharpen Your Photos For Display

Most of us upload our pictures or print them the way they were captured by our digital cameras. We read and hear of a post-processing technique called "Sharpening" using "USM" (or "UnSharp Mask") and decide it is just too difficult for us. If you are comfortable using a computer and can load an image into an image editing software, such as Photoshop Elements, then be prepared for a pleasant surprise! 

Most cameras -- especially in the "pro" category -- will capture an image without applying any sharpening to it, resulting in an image that appears "soft" or even slightly "out of focus." Others will apply a certain degree of sharpening to the images and output crisp looking images. Most beginners prefer the latter type, while most advanced photographers prefer the former. Here's why.
When a camera processes your images, it is in effect deciding the amount of sharpening to give your images without your input. Some cameras do a good job at it, others do too much of it. It is akin to processing labs a couple of years ago that treated all your negatives the same way, and all got printed with the same adjustments. If you go back and look at your old prints, chances are they all have a bluish tint to them. As competition heated up, processing labs started to examine each print individually and making adjustments and corrections to each, resulting in much better color rendition. This is akin to you sharpening your own images the way you like them.
Of course, if you have to do that for every single picture you take, it is really not worth it. Truth is, most pictures don't need it. It is only the few pictures you really want to highlight, either on screen or in print, that will benefit most from sharpening (and other adjustments).
If your camera produces "soft" images (because it does not sharpen for you), then you are in fact in luck. Using an image editing software such as Photoshop Elements, you can apply sharpening yourself to selected pictures for maximum impact, either for screen display or for printing.
In fact, if you are in the habit of printing unretouched pictures from the different digital cameras and then comparing the prints to see which camera is better, you are making a grave mistake. Unless you have sharpened the images individually first, the comparison is really not a valid one, and you'll end up with wrong conclusions.
Sharpening for screen display and sharpening for prints are also two different things. So, let's understand what sharpening is and how to do it for screen display. (I cover for screen display here, and for prints at a later date.)
What Is Sharpening?
Sharpening is enhancing the edges of an image. This edge enhancement technique is called unsharp masking and involves isolating the edges in an image, amplifying them, and then adding them back into the image. In Photoshop, amplifying the edges is accomplished by locating pixels of greatest contrast, lightening one side and darkening the other. Once sharpening is appropriately applied, people's reactions is usually, "Wow! It jumps right out at you."
Perhaps the simplest way to understand sharpening is to attempt one in Photoshop Elements.
Here is our original unsharpened image we will be working with in this tutorial. It is a "soft" image, even appearing out of focus in some places. Don't be deceived by appearances.

Original unsharpened image
Canon PowerShot S50
Program AE, Center-weighted averaging, Auto WB
7.1mm, 1/60 sec., F2.8, ISO 50, Flash ON

Make A Copy
Open Photoshop Elements and do File - Open - select the picture you want to work with.
Immediately, save it as a different name, with a psd (Photoshop) extension. For example, if your original image was named IMG0001.JPG, then save it as IMG0001.psd (i.e. use the default extension of the image editing software you are using). This way, you will preserve the original file (IMG0001.JPG).
If the Layers Panel is not on your desktop, drag it from the tabs at the top into your work area. If necessary, drag the bottom edge down so you can see more than one layer. You will see your picture (probably named "Background") in a layer.
Double click on that layer and rename it as original. (You could leave it as "Background" but renaming it is a good habit, since you may want to add a real background in some cases.)
Now, drag it to the new layer icon (the middle one at the bottom of the Layers Panel) to create a new layer, original copy.
Click on the original copy layer to select it as the one you want to work with. (Remember, we never want to muck with the original layer.)
Your Layers Panel should end up looking like this:

Sharpen
If not already selected, click the original copy layer to select it.
From the menu bar, select: Filter - Sharpen - Unsharp Mask... and type in Amount = 200%, Radius = 1.2, Threshold = 4. Click on Preview to view the original and sharpened version. Yeah!, I hear you say already. You may select different values, though the above values are a good starting point.
Separate Darken and Lighten Pixels
Now, copy the sharpened original copy layer by dragging it to the new layer icon. You'll end up with original copy 2.
Double click on original copy and rename it darken.
Double click on original copy 2 and rename it lighten.

Select the darken layer by clicking on that layer.
Set the blending mode to darken: See where it says, Normal in a drop down box at the top of the Layers Panel? Click on the down arrow and select "Darken":

Select the lighten layer by clicking on that layer.
Set the blending mode to lighten: Click on the down arrow and select "Lighten":

What we have done is separate the darken and lighten pixels into two layers. Now, we can control each layer separately.
Adjust Sharpness
If you are following this tutorial in your own Photoshop Elements and using our image, you'll notice that the lighten pixels (the highlights) are a bit too bright. (You might have to zoom in 200% to see things clearer.)
Click on the lighten layer to select it and adjust the Opacity until you are satisfied. (Ensure Preview is ON.) In my case, I select 26%.
Likewise, select the darken layer and adjust the Opacity until the darken pixels (the dark edges) just "jump out." I select 90%.
Each picture you sharpen will require different values, so if you are using your own image, adjust to your own liking.
Here is the original (unsharpened) version:

Original unsharpened image

And here is my final (sharpened) result:

Sharpened image

There, you have it. Pretty simple, huh?
Save this final work (in our example, as IMG0001.psd).
  

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