I’ve been shooting more pictures.

Last month saw more than 160 new pictures in the Photos section, which is nearing 1,000 photos in all. This month I’m on a clip to top 100 new photos.

I hope to maintain this rate. It’s easier now that we’ve hit better weather.

The pictures are getting better, too.

I’m shooting in RAW mode, which provides more latitude for adjustments, and I’m editing the photos with Apple’s Aperture software, which delivers great results. I also use Photoshop, which lets me use even more tools.

Fighting Shadows. When I was working on the Hammer Symposium photos, lots of the pictures had dark bands of shade from the mesh roofing over the picnic area and the angle of the sun. Hats create shadows, too.

In the past, I accepted this striping, even though it often obscured key part of the photos, like someone’s face.

While I was learning Aperture, I discovered its controls for Highlights and Shadows, which allowed me to reveal details hiding in the shadows. Excellent!

Lighting Adjustments. When I mentioned this to Doug Traub, who’s been studying photography during the past year, he pointed out that I had the same controls in Photoshop. (He uses Photoshop Elements, which has many of the tools of its more sophisticated parent.)

Sure enough, I discovered that the Adjustments section of the Image menu also offered me Highlights and Shadows controls.

So you’ll see fewer Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pictures on the site.

This means I’m spending more time editing, but the Aperture software makes the process enjoyable.

Slideshow Controls. As many of you have noticed, when you click on a thumbnail photo in a photo album, a new window appears full-size on your screen. If you wait a moment, the site automatically shows the next photo on that page of the photo album.

(This doesn’t work if the page is still loading. You can also avoid this effect by Control-clicking or Alt-clicking a thumbnail photo to open the full-size picture in a normal new window.)

Each photo album is segmented into pages of 36 photos apiece. After a slide show displays the last photo on a page, it starts over again with the first photo.

Photo Navigation. Move your mouse around the photo window to see controls for Previous and Next photo. At the bottom of the screen you’ll see a text link to stop (pause) the slideshow. You can also use the arrow keys or the “P” and “N” keys on your keyboard to go to Previous and Next photos.

When you’re done, close the window using the “Close X” control.

To see an entire album, navigate through it one page at a time, then start the slideshow.

Friendly Faces. Meanwhile, the Faces section has crept up over 250 photos of local flyers. (With fewer bad shadows!)

Although it’s much better than it was, I hope to continue to improve the Photos section. I’d like to add search capability and tags and even better slideshows. Stay tuned…

Tags: Baylands, Photos, Tools.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 8:03 am and is filed under Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.