adam_buteux

With the JPGs from the camera remember that the camera will do some auto-noise reduction to them.

I get noise in the shadows with my 30D - really it is just to be expected.

To correct run noise reduction filter in photoshop and then use the 'blend if' to so it only effects dark areas

just RTFM'd - photo black is the ink to use with this paper.

So are the photos just supposed to be muted?

Hello

I?ve just started using the Epson R2400 with Epson semi-gloss photo paper, the

blacks have no punch and seem very dull. I am using the Photo Black ink, should

I switch to the Matt Black? I have set the printer up to use the correct paper

and even the areas that are 100% black in the image come out dull and not true

black. Also the colours also seem muted.

Prints seem good on photo gloss paper, is this just how mat prints will look?

ooops typo

"Anything that can be..."

Just remember - Any that can be photographed/painted/written about, already has, and has been for a long while

and have you seen a good image, painting, book recently?

I've read this and the earlier edition of this book - the book is very hard going, and if you are new to photoshop i would say wait.

I had to read some of the chapters a few times - but the end results are mind blowing

Lots of the techniques take a long time to perform on your photo, so if you like to work on many photos quickly this book may not be for you. However if you are looking to make the most out of an image the book is a must read.

Hello,

Can someone reccomend a company that will print a good quality photobook where

I can have a reasonable amount of control over the layout

Thanks

what people think of you...

one person's crap is anothers great

but in the larger scheme of things

Those people are great are the people we say are great - ie MARKETING

"And are we better off, intellectually or socially, in having it around ?"

You can do both good and bad using any media. Whilst some people have done bad stuff, more people have done good. So we are better off.

Kieran Nottelling, "Stop trying to sound smart by stating the obvious, but in a philosophy forum.

Sorry for flaming, this just seems like a really dumb and obvious thread."

Kieran - Thank you for your constructive use of time to contribute an intelligent reply to the topic. I guess that I really should have posted it in the "Philosophy of Photography" forum - OH, LOOK WHERE IT'S POSTED! Stop trying to sound dumb and try trolling elsewhere.

I am just talking about what was on my mind and though that I see what other people though about these ideas.

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Ocean Physics,

"I think you have an unusually limited, literal, and frankly not very perceptive view of how things are "normally seen." "

Quite the opposite - As some other posts have also talked about; I think about the differing concepts of normal, but also consider the difference between norms in society/cultural and personal norms.

I personally like the idea of shooting the normal (as well as other views/ideas), and enjoy the work of photographers who have recorded normal life (but there is the whole idea about how we try and work out what normal was in early 20th century Paris by looking at photos by Atget and others)

I tried to make clear throughout my posts that: I am not arguing about types of photography. The idea/dicussion I'm trying to expand is about cultural ideas about "normal = boring" and "unusual = interesting"; What normal is: How this relates to images that was intended to tell us something; What that thing is; How will these ideas change in time when we have lost most of the context?

A photo may serve many functions - not all of them intended by the photographer.

Ask yourself: If someone who had only read about, but never seen a sky scraper saw this image. What would they think? If they saw more of "normal view" of a sky scraper, say New York's sky line, what would they think? Surely both would be interesting to them - but would tell them very different things.

I think in terms of number of photos surviving in personal as well as global dimensions. What are the images I choose to print? What are the images I delete from a shoot? Will all my images survive if there are all on CD ROM and they stop making machines that can read CD ROMs? If so which ones will I bother to save?

I'll try and show what I mean with an example:

http://www.fotoma.com.ar/en/photo/512.html a great photo abstract of a sky scraper

What does it tell be about the subject. Well a little and a lot

If I don't have an understanding of what this type of building looks like - it tells me it has windows, a corner, and I can guess what it is made of. Now on a purely descriptive document about a sky scraper it tells me very little.

However it does tell me lots about how the photographer (and making an extrapolation - many people) feels about the subject. I don't need to know what a sky scraper is, if I do all the more information. I know that this person likes to way they look, the details, the angles. I guess that they like the area and think that sky scrapers, on a purely visual level, are a good thing. And more...

If the image is regarded as popular it tells be about the culture of the people looking at the image - that individual parts of a subject can be interesting; that detail is important; etc

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So how does this relate to the idea (not an argument as I am not trying to prove anything just asking people's views)

Well, the reason we are making a photograph/photographs can be a big influence on how we make photographs/the photograph?

Should we be looking to keep more shots which show the world as we see it on a day to day basis, as these can give context to other work?

Do we need to stress finding the unusual over the norm (if we are doing so)?

In what ways can norm be seen as better than unusual (and the other way around)?

In 100 years will todays norm be usual? What will today unusual be?

OK lets clear up by what I mean by:

"If our photography is a search for/recording of truth, then shouldn't we being recording life as we see it?"

* We can photograph for many reasons.

* If one of those reasons is to make a record about the world, or say something about it.

* If that is the reason for your photographs, or a sub set of your photographs - would the unusual be a way you would like record the subject?

* Photographs that show the unusual may not portray an accurate concept of the subject. This is because the subject is experianced from a normal angle, time frame, view point, etc.

* What is normal for one person, may be unusual for another. However cultural factors are going to play a part. We are not all going to shoot the same.

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Asher - after looking at your photos on your profile. Which are a lovely set of images. The photos follow clear ideas seen in many photographs that have come before (how could they not?). You have had to at some stage made a choice about what stuff from other people's work you are going to bring to your own.

What are the factors that influenced you? To some extent they are going to be made up of all the external influences that have effected you though out you life. So whilst no one person/idea my have guided your choice, you have been "encouraged" by cultural factors.

Would your photos be the same if you grew up in another culture?

Nestor, you seem to be confused, I am not saying surrealism is bad, surrealism is great. The pros and cons of surrealism is not what I'm talking about it. Feel free to start another thread on your views on this subject (and I'll be more than happy to talk about it), but it is a little off topic for this thread.

Wigwam - interesting that you draw a distiction between eye-catching an interesting. I guess that a TV in a bar will catch you eye, but you may have no interest in what is being shown.

Nestor - RE "On Photography" recently read it, and a very good read it was too.

The whole post is a thought about the culture of what makes an interesting photo, no more than that. The key word in the sentance in question is "If". Sure there are many forms of photography and I was talking about one of them.

Clearly people are going to have more than just the unusual in their photo collection; But what are the photos that people are going to choose to keep for future generations?

So asides from the fact that you like to photography what you like to photograph; What do you think about the idea that "ususual = interesting"?

In our society (western photography, mainly from UK and USA) it seems that we

are encouraged to seek the unusual angle, the unseen, the unfamiliar. Shots

that show the subject how it is normal seen are regarded as dull/boring. The

unusual has now become the usual.

If our photography is a search for/recording of truth, then shouldn't we being

recording life as we see it? In time the normal becomes the strange; Without

the context of the usual, the unusual is endanger of becoming surreal.

By defining the idea in such broad terms make it hard to answer.

Basically I think that it is a question of how photographers are percieved by people at large. What work they choose to show and where they show it. This is a still that is easily learned. Adams being better at this skill than his (considerable) skill at producing images.

Show someone a larg, high constrast, b/w of a american national park and they will think that it's an A Adams. Show them some of this colour work and most people won't know who made the image.

In this day and age there is no doubt about power of the image. Hopefully

every photographer is aware of this power.

Everyone showing images to others, whether to friends and family, or on photo

sharing sites like Flickr, is wielding this power to some extent. So how many

photographers consider the effect of their images on those who view them?

Whether we choose to do anything about this or with this is a question of our

own morals.

We should be thinking like arms dealers, not like children playing with toy

guns.