Tips

Back in the 1980s, the Russian optics manufacturer Lomo PLC produced its first 35mm camera, the Lomo LC-A. It was loosely based on the Cosina CX-1 model and remained on the periphery of photography until 1991, when a group of Austrian photographers ‘discovered’ the camera in Prague and, according to a posting in Wikipedia, were ‘charmed by the unique, colourful, and sometimes blurry images that the camera produced’.

Serious photographers generally shoot raw files because they offer so much more potential for image creation than JPEGs. The more serious you are about image creation, the more likely you will be to choose a ‘third-party’ raw file converter over the bundled software supplied with your camera. But, which application should you choose?

Serious photographers generally shoot raw files because they offer so much more potential for image creation than JPEGs. The more serious you are about image creation, the more likely you will be to choose a ‘third-party’ raw file converter over the bundled software supplied with your camera. But, which application should you choose?

Most photographers have produced images that are less than perfect when viewed on a computer screen, even though they may have looked pretty good when displayed on the camera’s monitor. But there are also times when you can see straight away that a shot won’t turn out as you wanted, and make adjustments to prevent the more serious problems.

No laptop LCD can present colours, tones and contrast levels accurately enough to base serious imaging decisions on so they are not really suitable for image editing and printing. They also offer a limited range of adjustments. However, you can improve their accuracy through calibration and profiling, although a colorimeter is normally required for these tasks.

The software CDs supplied with some cameras contain image editing applications ranging from very basic to reasonably powerful manipulation programs. Leading computer operating systems, such as Windows and Mac OS come with integrated image browsers that usually include editors and sharing tools. Apple’s iPhoto is a good example.

It’s deceptively easy to set your polarising filter slightly off-kilter when you’re taking a landscape shot and not realise you’ve done it. However, it can result in an image in which the sky is either too dark or uneven in tone. In some cases, the foreground may also be too dark as well. In this feature we’ll explain how to correct both problems using a rather extreme example.

The first thing users of Camera Raw in Photoshop CS3 will notice is the re-design of the user interface and the inclusion of some new functions in the Image Controls menu on the right side of the workspace. Some of these have come from Lightroom’s Develop module, which allows it to synchronise with Camera Raw. Photographers can now choose to open and edit Raw, TIFF and JPEG files in either Lightroom or Camera Raw without losing settings applied in either application. This also makes all the settings provided in Camera Raw available for JPEGs and TIFF files.