As Mark wrote earlier this week, we recently paid a quick visit to the Gettysburg Battlefield.  In my opinion, Civil War battlefield pictures pretty much demand a black and white effect of some sort.  The most common you’ll see is sepia tone, a mixture of rich brown tones that was very popular.  (Even though the sepia process wasn’t actually invented until the 1880s, long after the war.  Many of the original plates were reprinted after the war.)  The photos were usually fairly high contrast since the plates needed lots of light and long exposures, which meant they often shot in mid-day when the quality of light is worst.  To make the photos more “realistic,” I usually increase the contrast and keep the light harsh.

During the Civil War, the Confederate Army artillery battery had 4-6 guns.  Batteries were further divided into sections, each containing 2 guns.  The artillery re-enactors from Maryland represented one section.  The first image shows the smoke from the first round fired.  By the second round, the battlefield in front of the guns is obscured.  Imagine what occurred when the hundreds of cannons fired on those 3 days in July, in addition to the tens of thousands of muskets.

You can accomplish this look in Lightroom by using the preset for sepia in the Develop module (it’s on the left-hand side of the window).  You can further tweek the image to get the look you want in the HSL/Color/B&W adjustments (it’s on the right-hand side of the window).  Moving the sliders allows you to get the exact look you want.  Go ahead and move them around, and, remember, these are non-destructive changes that you allow you to return to the original image if you don’t like the results.

Selenium toning produces a silver-blue tint to the image and is less common because the real process was not as stable as sepia toning.  It still adds an old-time feel to the photo.  This is applied in the same manner as the sepia imitation, but using the selenium preset.

I had only one complaint about the Gettysburg trip.  On some of the monuments – this one is near the spot Reynolds was shot on 1 July, after opining that his position was too far from the Confederates to be dangerous – they list the body count using ditto marks!  What brainiac thought it was OK to use these marks on a war memorial?

Take a trip to a historic location near your home and  create your own “old” photos.

This last weekend I got to visit my folks and attend an unusual reunion.  All the classes from 1970-1979 gathered in OK, for a big party.   Because I took my “real” camera, I wound up as the photographer for many of the events.  It was a blast.  One of the things which really distinguished McAlester during this period was an incredible choir, music and theater program—No I did not sing.  The organizers arranged for the choir director to come back and for volunteers to perform at one of the many large churches on Sunday morning.   For some reason, churches really object to shooting with big booming flash units, so I knew I needed to plan for shooting, hand held with a long lens in low light.  So, today we are going to talk about strategies and tools to help, both in shooting and in post processing.

First, let’s talk about your ability to adjust your ISO settings.  ISO is how the camera’s sensitivity to light is measured.  All camera’s have optimal settings where the sensor has the lowest noise profile.  For my D300®, that is at ISO 200.  It is the same thing as the film speed.  A lower number meant that you needed more light, but that the pictures were sharper.  With a digital camera you can change the sensitivity on the fly.  Many camera’s have auto-ISO settings.  I prefer to adjust mine manually.  When shooting indoors, my camera is good up to around ISO 800.  The noise there is visible, but manageable.  Above ISO 1000, it looks very grainy.  The newest Nikon cameras have really broken through with new sensors and they can be used at settings of ISO 3200 or greater.  How much greater? All the way up to ISO 102,400, this is almost like shooting at midnight.

So what is the impact on your pictures?  Less light means your shutter has to stay open longer at a given fstop.  If you are shooting things that don’t move and are on a tripod, that might be ok, but trying to shoot people moving, well it means that they will be fuzzy at best and uselessly blurry at worst.   Fast glass, i.e., f2.8 and better really helps, but that kind of lens get pricey quickly.  Even at ISO 800, I the picture was shot at 1/10 of a second, really too slow to handhold. 

Lightroom 3.x has dramatically improved our ability to get cleaner images.  Nothing yet, although there are algorithms in development, can correct an out of focus picture.   There are still plug-ins available that do this as well, but in the new release of LR, they added a new Noise Reduction module just below the sharpening module.  It has two different sets of sliders, one for Luminance noise—random flecks and the second for Color noise—the banding which can appear around objects. 

From the Adobe Community Lightroom Help Pages at   http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/3.0/Using/WS67a9e0c3a11b149632d4213d12864349b1a-7fff.html

Luminance

Reduces luminance noise.

Detail

Controls the luminance noise threshold. Useful for very noisy photos. Higher values preserve more detail but may produce noisier results. Lower values produce cleaner results but may also remove some detail.

Contrast

Controls luminance contrast. Useful for very noisy photos. Higher values preserve contrast but may produce noisy blotches or mottling. Lower values produce smoother results but may also have less contrast.

Color 

Reduces color noise.

Detail

Controls the color noise threshold. Higher values protect thin, detailed color edges but may result in color speckling. Lower values remove color speckles but may result in color bleeding.

There are no right answers to the settings, play with them with the image at 100% until it looks right. It makes a difference as can be seen from these two segments of the image above.  The first has no noise reduction applied:

The same image with NR cranked up to 89 (Yes it goes past 11).  Edges are much crisper. 

The work actually begins before Lightroom when you scan those old photos.  You can purchase scanners that handle negatives, slides and prints.  As with everything, quality varies with each scanners (as does price).  I try to get the best quality and details I can, and this, generally, means that I will create TIFFs, rather than JPGs. Scanning is a complex topic in itself, so take some time to learn how your scanner works before you head down this rabbit hole.  There are many companies that will do all this tedious work for you.  Again, if you ever want to produce large, high quality images, have them create the files in TIFFs, and expect the cost of the scans to increase in line with your quality demands.

The workflow for my genealogy pictures is the same as my normal family workflow: import into family database; keyword all images; enter all known metadata; apply develop module changes. I save all my images in a single subfolder, inside my “Photos” folder.  This ensures that my regular photo back-ups include the scans.  You wouldn’t want to lose all these files, would you? 

Import your scans as you would any new photos; Lightroom can read TIFFs without a problem.  Once they are imported, I keyword all images.  In the Keyword List, I use the nesting capabilities in Lightroom to identify them as “Family,” then their last name, “Atkins,” and then their full name, “Thomas T. Atkins.” 

Sounds complicated, but you only have to set it up once, and then it becomes one simple click on “Thomas T. Atkins.” Lightroom will add the photo to “Atkins” and “Family” because of the nesting.  In genealogy databases, women are listed by their maiden names, so I include those in the full name keyword as you can see below.  Catherine (McLaulin) Dallman photos were taken after our marriage.  Photos of her before our marriage are listed under “Family”, “McLaulin”, Catherine L. McLaulin. 

The next step is to fill in all the additional facts about the photo in the Metadata section.  You can add a title to the photo if you want one.  I use the caption field to further explain the image or event occurring in the image.  This is important information for family historians because it adds to the information on an individual’s life and lets descendants know more about the experiences of their ancestors.  There is so much more to their history than their birth, marriage, and death dates. The date of the image and locational data  are also key metadata and have their own section.

Now that you have entered all the data, you can do some basic editing in Lightroom.  Most of the images you scan will have problems due to their age: discoloration, scratches, and tears.  Lightroom can handle some of the easy stuff, but you need Photoshop or some other editing tool for the heavy duty lifting of restoration.

Here is an image I received from a relative.  The photo wasn’t square to the edges when it was scanned and has a heavy yellow discoloration with plenty of surface flaws.  Lightroom can fix the tilt and yellowness and the major flaws. 

I’ll clean up the background and bring out more of his suit in Photoshop.  Until then, go find some old photographs and add them to your photo files.  Don’t forget to capture all the information – we’re trying to preserve the data, not create a new, digital shoebox.

I’m a big believer in shooting many images.  A facial expression can change in a millisecond, and I want to catch just the right expression.  There are images to the right, left and behind the one that first catches your eye, and I want to get everything I can from a scene.  I often bracket (taking multiple exposures with different shutter speed settings while maintaining the aperture and framing) a landscape to get the light at its best in all parts of the image.  Back in the old days, I bought film in 100 foot rolls and loaded my own film cassettes to keep the costs of film low enough to shoot without worry.  I am a fairly strict editor when I import my images, but, since I like to play in Photoshop, sometimes I’ll keep images for composites or for teaching purposes.  All of this causes the image count to go up at a fast pace.  And I have tens of thousands of images in my Lightroom databases.

Get your wastebasket ready – we’re going into the files, brandishing the DELETE button!

If you are organized with Adobe Lightroom, Apple’s Aperture, or some other visual program, this is a much easier job.  If you have to go into folders all over your hard drive, using something like the Microsoft Picture Viewer, you have my sympathy.  The rules of engagement are your own making.  I’m most receptive in the morning, so this is a morning job.

I move client work to their own database and rarely delete those.  You never know when somebody will call back and ask about a specific photo that was never used, but now is of interest to them.

Anything that was taken as a snapshot is directly in harm’s way.  For example, during the Aruba photowalk, I took this shot of souvenir geckos for sale.  Why?  I have no idea.  Delete it!  At the last Washington Nationals ballgame, I shot hundreds of images, including Josh Wilmingham hitting another foul.  The Nats lost; Sports Illustrated is not going to call me; and I’m not really a big fan. Delete!   Speaking of sports, 20 shots of Jimmie Johnson doing a burnout really aren’t required, especially since I’m a Tony Stewart fan.  Keep a couple good ones, and delete the others.

I love to go on photowalks, but I always need to pare down those images.  I usually shoot a couple hundred photos on each walk.  Don’t need all these pepper shots from Alexandria.  Or all these flower shots from an old blog.  Must have been a cold, lonely day at the marina in Elizabeth City when I shot 16 different angles of this bench.  If I’d gone to Psych 101 in college, I might understand why I felt the need to shoot it.

You get the idea here.  You need to clear out some of your images that just didn’t work out.  If you take a little time to review the images as you delete them, you can evaluate why they didn’t work.  Compare them with the ones that did work that day and store that tidbit of knowledge away for the next time you do something similar.

Sometimes, while you’re reviewing images you find a few you’d forgotten.  Always be on the lookout for an image you can use with others.  I shot this last image with a specific purpose in mind.  I remember over-exposing the sky to make it easier to use in a composite.  Now where is that shot of the grandkids in the woods?

I started keeping notes on my photographs way back in 1979.  (At the time I was on an Army-sponsored “vacation” in Monterey, CA, learning Russian.)  I kept my negatives in individual, numbered sleeves.  I had a “high-tech” system that involved boxes of 3×5 cards that listed the date, location, and subjects of each and every frame of the negative inside the sleeve.  I had marks that told me at a glance if there was a model release and, on the reverse side of the card, I listed the file folder where I kept the model release.  Searches weren’t easy, but they were possible.  These boxes traveled all around the world with me as the Army kept me on the move throughout my career.    

When Adobe Photoshop Lightroom beta came out, I was just getting back into photography.  The day I heard about the program, I jumped on it.  I had the keywording section humming – man, I was loving it.  Surely, this was a program feature that everyone was using, right?  Mark and I went to an all-day seminar with Scott Kelby (www.scottkelby.com), and he spent 20 minutes on keywording and said it was a pain.  I was stunned with disbelief!  Since then, I’ve heard similar snivels from other photographers.  Folks, this stuff is very powerful – embrace it!  OK, maybe I get a little carried away…..

Mark and I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.  There are other similar programs, like Apple’s Aperture, that are capable of doing the same thing.  Choosing the best program is similar to choosing a camera, find what works best for you.  We chose Lightroom.  Any way….let’s talk about keywording people. 

My workflow ensures that every image has at least one keyword.  I start from the general and get to the very specific.  Since Lightroom allows multiple and nested keywords, I use them all.  Singer/songwriter Gary P. Nunn (shot his photos at the Kerrville Folk Festival) is keyworded with “famous people” and “musicians.” President Gerald Ford is keyworded with “famous people,” “politicians,” and “golfers.”  (I took his photos at the 1980 Bing Crosby Tournament at Pebble Beach, Ca., so he qualifies as a golfer.) 

Nesting the keywords allows you to see roll-ups of related groups.  For example, when I put “Roger A. Dallman Jr” as a keyword on a photo, Lightroom keeps a tally inside the keyword listing, and I can see how many pictures I have of me (not many).  OK, what is special about that?  Well, my name is nested under “Dallman,” so I can see how pictures I have of Dallmans.  “Dallman” is nested under “Family.”  I have done this for all family members and all family names, so I can quickly find any individual family member or family groups in seconds.  I’ve also done this for all close family friends’ individual names, which are nested under their last names, which are nested under “Friends.”

Hang with me here, it gets even better.  I am an amateur genealogist with a huge database of over 6,000 relatives and 19 generations.  When you list a woman, you use her maiden name.  I have lots of old pictures, and they have to be properly listed, so I also differentiate between those names in my keywords.  For example, pictures of my wife (before she blundered and married me) are listed under her maiden name, Catherine McLaulin, nested under “McLaulin,” nested under “Family.”  And, of course, if I take a picture of her tonight, it’ll be listed under “Catherine (McLaulin) Dallman,” nested under “Dallman,” nested under “Family.”

I know this sounds complicated, but Lightroom makes keywording as simple as clicking the keyword.  You can also enter keywords as you import the photos into Lightroom.  How can all this be practical?  When my son got married, my wife wanted a photo collage of him through the years.  I found his name in the keyword list, and, with one click of a trackball (I haven’t connected a mouse to any of my computers since 1986), I was able to find every picture of him in my database.  All she had to do was pick which ones she wanted me to use.  For me, keywording is fun and keeps my databases organized and my searches easy.

Here are some old family photos that are keyworded:

Charlotte Atkins, Charlotte (Atkins) McLaulin, Robert Staples.