2025 Photo Calendars (part one)

Hi Folks:

As we’ve passed mid-November, we’re slowly closing out 2024. That means it’s time to make our photo calendar templates available, both for MS Word users (for those who don’t use graphics programs) and as .png files for those who do. As before we will be making our own calendar available in .pdf format for those who are interested, but (as we did last year) we’re doing the post in two parts. For our calendar we use images made in that month (i.e. the image for May 2025 was made in May 2024). Since we haven’t yet gotten to December our calendar isn’t yet complete, but we wanted to make the templates available so others can work on their own calendars. Continue Reading →

Using Capture One Pro in Black and White

Hi Folks:

Yes, I’m aware I haven’t yet posted part two of my ‘Making Panoramas in the Rainforest‘ post. It’s coming. Truly!

Okay, the idea for this post came from a couple of sources, but most notably from an image I made recently with my phone camera. I have a Galaxy S21 phone, and in pro mode it allows me to shoot in raw/dng format. I can open those images in Capture One as raw files the way I would any other.

Before we continue I want to reiterate a couple of things. Those who have read our previous posts will be familiar with them. The first is a reminder that digital cameras don’t capture images. Digital cameras capture light as information, and we can take that information and arrange it in such a way that it looks like an image – either on screen or in a print. This happens because we arrange that information into a grid of little coloured dots (on paper) or little boxes (pixels) on the screen. Continue Reading →

Capture One, Dehaze and Adding Definition to Landscape Images

Hi Folks:

It’s hard to believe I started this post last year… Eek!!

First of all, what follows isn’t originally my idea. I came across it in two videos, here. The first one explains more of the concept and the second one delves more into the practical application. I recommend watching both of them, either now or at your leisure. I can wait…

Enhancing Portraits with Dehaze in Capture One

Okay, what is my idea is taking this concept and applying it to landscape photography. In the end computers don’t really know, or care, what your subject matter is. A pixel is a pixel.

Continue Reading →

Working With Capture One’s Exposure Warnings Feature

Hi Folks:

Before I get started I wanted to add a shout out to two people: David Grover (Capture One) and Paul Reiffer, both of whom know much more about Capture One than I do, and from whom I’ve learned most of what I do know. Thanks!

Okay. This post is going to assume two things. The first is that you know what a photographic histogram is, and the second is that you’re familiar with Capture One’s editing software. If you need help with the first, we have a (very old) post here on the Essentials of Digital Photography. If you need help learning Capture One, check out the links above or leave a comment here.

I’m using Capture One 21 (14.2) but if I remember correctly this should work back to at least version 12 if not before. Continue Reading →

Learning to See in Black and White

Hi Folks:

This is the sixth of the YouTube videos we’ve done for the Victoria Photography Meetup Group. Since the videos are out in the wild anyway, we thought maybe we should put them up here as well. The last talk was on the basics of colour so this one is on making black and white (grayscale) images. For most people, the best way to make grayscale images is to shoot in colour and then convert the images into grayscale on the computer. We explore the reasons for that and a few ways to maximize that colour information…even when all you can see on your screen are shades of gray.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a comment below or fill out our contact form.

Two versions of an image of the Koksilah River: the top in colour and the bottom in black and white. This image is the link to the tutorial video.

Learning to See in Black and White

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. You can find the rest of our tutorial posts here. We’re closing in on a hundred now, I think.
P.S. II, the sequel. Harvey Stearn has an excellent post: Black & White Image-Making In the Digital Age. Well worth reading.

Merging Images: Four Ways

Hi folks:

This is the fourth of the YouTube videos we’ve done for the Victoria Photography Meetup Group. Since the videos are out in the wild anyway, we thought maybe we should put them up here as well. Most photographers make one image and use that – they may process it further, they may post it online and/or print it, but that image is it. There are some, however, who elect to use two to thousands of images to composite into one final image. There are at least a half-dozen reasons to do that; this video discusses four of them. Most of the work is done using Affinity Photo, but there are mentions of other software as well. BTW, the background software if you will, used to display and categorize the images is Capture One Pro 20.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a comment below.

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. You can find the rest of our tutorial posts here. We’re closing in on a hundred now, I think.

An Introduction to Capture One

Hi folks; Mike here:

Since the pandemic effectively shut down the world, the people at Meetup.com suggested that people hold all meetups virtually. It’s a little ironic considering the foundations of Meetup.com, but it is what it is. We care for each other. Also ironic is that for a person who doesn’t do cameras (the day Marcia and I were married there were so many cameras it looked like a paparazzi event) I’ve begun to put myself up on YouTube to share a bit of information with the members of the Victoria Photography Meetup Group. Since the videos are out in the wild anyway, we thought maybe we should put them up here as well. This is the first of the four; we’ll add the others in a somewhat timely manner. Although I still have and occasionally use Lightroom 6.14, for my Sony A7RIII files I’ve jumped completely to using Capture One 20 for my Digital asset management, raw conversion, etc.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post a comment below.

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. You can find the rest of our tutorial posts here. We’re closing in on a hundred now, I think.