You will often hear photographers talk about the perfect histogram while they’re checking the back of their cameras.  If you’re new to digital photography, you may think this is just another example of something you need to learn.   Just as soon as you learned the difference between an aperture and ISO, some smart-alec throws in a new term – what the heck is a histogram?

A histogram is a simple graph, displaying the levels of brightness in your photograph.  You read it as the darkest levels on the left to the brightest on the right.  The height of histogram is a reflection of the number of pixels that fall within that brightness level.  Almost every digital camera can display the histogram.  Here is a “normal” histogram.

"Normal" Histogram

The distribution pixel brightness in many scenes, at proper exposure, will be even, but you need to consider the image. You can, instantly, get good information about your photo’s exposure values by checking it often.  But, like many so-called rules, there are exceptions.  With no knowledge of the corresponding image, you’d think that these histograms are bad.  The first one is too dark and the secpmd is obviously too bright, right?

Too dark?

Too bright?

Not necessarily true.  If your scene is dark – and it’s supposed to be – the majority of your pixels will fall to the left side of the scale.  Think of a black cat, lying on a piece of black velvet.  Not too many bright pixels in that scene.  The top histogram is from my day my grandkids took me to Luray Caverns.  I’ve told you (quite proudly) that the oldest occasionally has an interest in cameras.  She borrowed the point-and-shoot and went crazy down there in the caverns.  I caught this one as she paused to admire her photos.  There was very little light down there, and her face was dimly lit by the LCD on the back of the camera.  It is a dark photo, resulting in a histogram that is skewed to the left.  I wouldn’t want to brighten this just to make a “normal” histogram.

Likewise, a bright scene will have pixels that fill the right side of the scale.  In this photograph, there is still quite a bit of dark pixels, but the majority are clearly on the right. 

There are other ways to use the histogram as you work on your photography.  There is plenty of information  on the web if you want to go to greater depths.  We’ll get into some of them on another day.  I hope that answered the question.  You can always ask questions here or on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/efcubed.

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.

Self-portraits are nothing new and have been done throughout antiquity by artists in painting and sculpture.  The artists would often incorporate their own images in major works that were not specifically about themselves.  Michelangelo, Leonard da Vinci, Rembrandt, and many others have created many self-portraits.  Of course, photographers through the years have continued to use their cameras to shoot themselves.  So, it’s an old tradition, and I figured it made for a fun little self-assignment. 

The funny thing is – and this may be why I never did it years ago – when you start thinking about how you want to be depicted, it gets more complicated.  What kind of pose will you choose?  You may want to highlight your various skills or possessions; you may want to portray a mood or emotion. You are doing a self-assignment, so you don’t want to just shoot something silly like this.

You can make your own choice without the discussion of all the psychological rabbit holes that surround your personal decision.  I chose to show some of my musical instruments because the music room gave me control and had the space to move around. 

I put my camera on a tripod and made sure the field of view allow plenty of room.  I bounced a flash into the ceiling and used a reflector to bounce light back from the front window.  I wanted to reduce the shadows because I was going to be standing in different locations in the final composite.  Four different shadows would have caused more post processing.  I shot four different photos in manual mode to keep the aperture and focal point constant.  If you tried to shoot something like this in one of the automated modes, you would have had obvious photographic inconsistencies. Since everything, except my position, was consistent from photo to photo, I didn’t have too much work to do in Photoshop.  Mostly, I added masks to allow only the appropriate part of the four layers to show through.  Here are a couple of the original shots and the final composite.

The entire process only took a couple of hours.  It provided practice in several techniques: planning the shot; working through the photography set-up; and working through the post-processing.  Give your self-portrait a chance to help you learn and have fun.

Everyone likes a sharp, crisp photo, but sometimes conveying motion requires a little blurring.  A blurred background on a relatively sharp subject brings that feeling of motion to your viewer.

While we were goofing around in Fairbanks, Alaska, my son asked me to take some photos of him and his buddy jumping their ATVs.  The fact that it was after 11 p.m. really wasn’t a problem for us, since the sun didn’t set until well after midnight that day. and it never got dark.  (Have I said enough that I love Alaska?)

The best way to shoot these kinds of photos is panning, or moving your camera in conjunction with your subject.  This allows you to keep the subject in good focus and blurs the background.  Set your camera to shutter priority and practice several shots until you find the amount of blur you prefer.  You can leave it there, but I prefer to use that setting as the starting point for my session and move the camera into manual mode.  Depending on the location’s background, you may have differences in the light.  If your camera is set to shutter priority, the camera will try to adjust the aperture setting as you move through the background.  Manual mode puts an end to that and gives you a constant exposure setting that you can tweak as you look at the LCD to review your shots.  The boys (OK, they’re Army officers, but they were boys that night) were happy to repeat the jumps, so I had no worries of getting everything right on the first capture.  They liked the dust hanging in the air to make the photos look grittier.  My wife even joined in on the fun.

You should use a tripod with a ball-head to steady the camera.  Just loosen the ball-head enough to keep your panning smooth.  You can do this hand-held, too, but my tripod kept the background and the panning consistent, eliminating one more movement factor in the composition.  You should try it both ways.   

If you want the background to be in focus and capture movement within a scene, you can set your exposure to properly capture the background, with your shutter speed low enough to allow the blur of the subject.  In this example, the carnival ride (at a fest in Augsburg, Germany) is moving fast enough to blur the riders, but the colorful evening sky and lights are properly exposed and in focus.  This was back in the film days, so I didn’t know I was successful until a few days after the shot.  The “good old days” weren’t always perfect.  Give me today’s digital technology and instant feedback on my LCD.

There are certain photographs where the subject’s movement occurs in only a small portion of the photo.  In this shot, Josh Willingham, of the Washington Nationals, hits a ball foul.  The shutter speed is high enough to freeze him in action, but the bat and the ball are blurred.  I believe the Nats even won that night. 

So don’t be worried about a little blur in your photos, now and then – especially if you plan it.  Think about the amount of movement you want in your image before you push the shutter release; verify that you have the appropriate settings; and capture something dynamic.  Have fun.

When the weather is less than ideal and you’re on a tight schedule, you have to shoot it like it is.  I guess you can just ignore the photo opportunity altogether, but what kind of photographer would do that?   So, I wrapped my camera in a RainSleeve; pulled my hat around to prevent litter in the bay; and stepped out of the boat cabin.  Captured here by my daughter-in-law.

The falling rain and accompanying mist can create some problems, but they can also lead to interesting photos that most people don’t even try to take.  The rain and mist can simplify backgrounds and create moody images.  The reason is that the light is flat and can really reduce the contrast we are used to seeing in our photographs.  The solution is to think in monochrome, relying on composition, and not color, for interesting photographs.

As we boarded the Portage ferry, Ptarmigan, the captain standing in the rain, next to the bright life ring, in his weathered yellow hat made a nice shot.

There are some advantages to shooting in the overcast conditions.  The clouds greatly reduced the reflections on the water.  This came in handy when pointing my camera directly at the bay to capture this sea otter enjoying a lazy morning swim.  The clouds kept my camera’s meter from going crazy trying to pick this gray whale out of a flashy background.

And, remember, the rain will eventually end.  There are lots of opportunities when the sun shines through holes in the clouds for really nice images.  (The sun came through as we were almost back to Anchorage, of course.)

Make sure you take care of your camera and lenses when you venture out in the weather.  I prefer the RainSleeves for my gear.  You can get a pair of them for about $5, and they’ll last a long time if you don’t rip them.  Many people use other methods like umbrellas or baggies with rubber bands.  A little moisture will probably not disable your camera, but don’t expose it to unnecessary exposure.  Wipe down your gear with a soft, absorbent cloth and let it dry completely.  Obviously, you should never change lens in these conditions.  Doing so will expose your sensor to damage.

Take care, but go out in the rain with your camera.  You’ll get some interesting photos, and it may be the only way to get them.