Tag Archives: contrast


Photo: The Sun-Kissed Rose

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The Sun-Kissed Rose — a pink rose under the noon sun

A bright pink rose under the noon-day sun. This is normally the worst time to take pictures; the sun was directly overhead. But it didn’t turn out half-bad here; all the light is on the flower, so the background is dark, and the petals are nicely highlighted. It does reveal the defects in the rose, but that gives an air of honesty and truthfulness… right? :grin:

There was a lot of dirt on this rose; small specks, but annoying still. I spent a lot of time with the spot healing brush in Photoshop to take them out. Next was to add contrast and blacken the background, and then I got the finished photo you see here.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/640, F3.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-04-23T12:37:07-04, 20080423-163707rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: The Explosion

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The Explosion — the world pops using zooming

This is a cool effect called zooming. While the photo is exposing and the shutter is tripped, you zoom the lens while keeping the camera steady. That way, the middle of the frame is sharp but the edges have cool motion blur. I used it here on some trees in my yard, and at the bottom you can see our clothes line (we avoid the dryer to save energy). It looks like the world is exploding!

Read more about the technique in How to Use Zooming for Explosive Photos.

Since the zoom effect is in-camera, there wasn’t much to edit here. I just added contrast and toned the colors a bit.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/8, F14, 18mm, ISO100, 2008-04-20T18:30:51-04, 20080420-223051rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: Color and Light

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Color and Light — the morning sun shines on refrigerator magnets

These are magnets that are holding up 4*6 copies of my photos on the refrigerator. The sun shines through the window in the morning, lighting them up like this. I didn’t notice it before (not usually up in the mornings), but I had to snap this when I saw it.

I toned down the blue channel while adding to the red channel, and darkened a bit.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/50, F5.6, 55mm, ISO400, 2008-05-30T07:39:13-04, 20080530-113913rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: The Prison

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The Prison — the evil chain link fence

The prison is all in your mind… unless there’s a fence. This is on the campus at my school; behind it is a lot of new construction, though it’s blurry here because of the shallow depth of field. Snapped this in the evening; I like the pattern of chain-link fencing, and this seems like a good angle to shoot it from. Enjoy, and don’t be imprisoned!

I added vignetting and contrast, and desaturated for a cold look.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/125, F3.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-02T18:20:03-04, 20080602-222003rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: The Abandoned Baseball

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The Abandoned Baseball — the game is over, and the ball forgotten

The game is over, and the ball, forgotten. I found this on the ground outside the baseball field at the park. I moved it to where the grass was more brown (no one waters it), laid in the dirt, and shot this. I used a really large aperture — F1.6, so just the front of the baseball would be in focus, but nothing else, so the subject would seem singled out. I couldn’t even go down to F1.4, because I was maxing out with a 1/4000 second shutter speed.

Fun editing here. I cloned out the sky in the back, added contrast, and darkened a lot, for a (you guessed it) dark look. Before doing this, I used highlight recovery in Adobe Camera RAW, and burned in the highlight on the ball. It was a bit over-exposed, but only a little detail is lost.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/4000, F1.6, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-05T16:08:38-04, 20080605-200838rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: Blue Marbles 6: Infinity

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Blue Marbles 6: Infinity — armies of marbles converge at eternity

These marbles go to infinity, but not beyond it, because they have proper boundaries… sort of. The two rows of three marbles are diverging, though your mind has to work to decide if they are parallel or otherwise. This represents infinity because it makes you think, or so I hope. I did a lot of trials positioning the marbles; this proved to hold my interest the best. The day’s light was good, helping me to get the dramatic mix of black and blue.

I enhanced the contrast, and used Photoshop’s spot healing brush on the mess of specks that are permanently affixed to my subjects.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/15, F7.1, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-01-18T14:11:46-05, 2007-01-18_19h11m46

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

More of the Blue Marbles series.

Photo: Blue Marbles 4: 4 Blue Marbles

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Blue Marbles 4: 4 Blue Marbles — light, reflections, and spacing make for three-dimensional orbs

The fourth entry in the series, containing four of the respectable spheres. You already knew that from the informative title, though.

I was innovating with placement of the still life here; one is at the front, two far back, and one back even further. It’s pleasing to my eyes, as is the contrast between the sky reflections and dark marbles, even if the table goes to white.

I added contrast, removed dust, and kept the blues under control, as normal.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/185, F2.81, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2006-05-31T14:21:36-04, 2006-05-31_14h21m36

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

More of the Blue Marbles series.

Photo: Illumination

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Illumination — a scary face lit up on black

My self portrait. Where there’s light, there’s darkness, and that darkness, surrounds me. I lit this with a bunch of cheap flashlights, using my camera’s timer. This is how I look after journeying into The Night of Eternal and Unrelenting Darkness. They’re really the same photo, if you look closely.

I removed blemishes, darkened a lot and added contrast, burned the edges of my face to make it more round, re-centered my face in the bottom-right third, and finally converted to black and white, with a bit of blue. The XY coordinate (512,332) in the above is RGB (18,16,21) now, where it should be (17,17,17) for black and white, for example. This adds subtle coldness, which is the best type, anyway.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/15, F2.8, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-01-29T17:19:17-05, 2007-01-29_22h19m14

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: Night Meets Day

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Night Meets Day — sunlit leaves against a moonlit sky

Leaves from the American sycamore tree in my yard. This photo is with my new polarizing filter; I made the sky look as dark as possible with it, and put the moon in the frame to make the scene a cross between night and day. So the moon didn’t become a blurry white blob, I closed down to F18, so I increased the ISO speed to 800, but the grain works well here. So you have the sunshine of late afternoon, but the dark blue sky of a moonlit night.

Though the polarizer took care of making the sky dark, I added some contrast, toned down the colors of the leaves, and added heavy vignetting (darkening at the corners), to keep your eyes from wandering off the edge. I also brightened the moon a bit.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/50, F18, 50mm, ISO800, 2008-04-11T18:15:36-04, 20080411-221536rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: Yellow Sunshine

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Yellow Sunshine — sunlit yellow flowers mix with a vivid blue sky

Flowers with the sun behind them. I included the sun in the frame, but it goes to white or else everything else would be black. This was a great scene, especially for the deep blue sky and cloud formations that work together with the yellow flowers.

I added a blurry glow while keeping the grain in the sky as a counter-point to the soft flowers. The added contrast pushes the branches to black while keeping detail in the clouds (not the sun), but adds focus to the flowers. There’s more info in my short article, On Exposure.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/800, F8, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-08-19T14:38:25-04, 2007-08-19_18h38m25

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.