ClubClicks. Volume 6 Number 8 August 2016

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1 ClubClicks Volume 6 Number 8 August 2016

Trip 9 Current Leaders 11 8 9 9 The cover is based on an image of our President, Ralph

2 Contents Cover Explanation 2 Calendar and Information 3 4 Summer Workshops 4 Save the Date 4 Reminder 4 How To Use a Green Screen 5 PSA San Antonio Conference 8 Old World Wisconsin Trip 9 Current Leaders The cover is based on an image of our President, Ralph Durham, as a fireman It was shot by Bill Brown explanation of the technique starts on page 5. 2

3 2016 Summer Meetings: Aug 12- Breakfast 10am Country Kitchen Aug 16- Fireworks, Light Painting, and Star Trails Scott McNeill Aug 27- CACCA Summer Banquet and Awards $15 Sept 9- Calendar Breakfast 10am Country Kitchen Information Website Addresses: Our Club: CACCA: PSA: PSA Chapter: Sept 20- Judging Competitions, What to look for Submitting DPI Images to Competitions: to For rules, see the Club's Website and click on "Competition" Links: Questions and Concerns: Info for ClubClicks: North Shore s Affiliate Program See the club's website and click on "Links" for details on how your purchases from Adorama, Red River Paper, and Think Tank Photo can benefit the club at no cost to you. Notice about Competition Submissions Preparation for competition is a complicated task. Dedicated members come in EARLY on competition nights to put the images in the right order so everything is in sync and the competition runs smoothly. In order to keep the meeting on time, images for competition MUST be turned in by 7:15 sharp! sharp! No Exceptions! 3

Summer Workshops The Summer Workshops are all but over. They were well received by all reports. The first was a two-day (Saturdays in sequencial weeks) lesson on Elements by our member Bill Brown.

Although the pictures are not very good, they do show who was there.

4 Summer Workshops The Summer Workshops are all but over. They were well received by all reports. The first was a two-day (Saturdays in sequencial weeks) lesson on Elements by our member Bill Brown. The second was by Michael Kirkland of the following Saturdays ending July 31. He covered three NIK programs. There are no pictures of the Elements, but a camera was present at the NIK presentations. Although the pictures are not very good, they do show who was there. Our lecturer, Michael Kirkland About half of the attendees Save the Date The date for the North Shore Camera Club annual Holiday Party has been selected for the next season. Wednesday, December 7th will be the day. It s the day after our December competition. Reminder The North Shore Camera Club s exhibit is still on at Aspen Library until August 10. 4

The June PSA outing provided an opportunity for attendees to shoot a subject using this type of screen at the The ProCam shoot in their Aurora store which by the way is a great place.

5 How To Use a Green Screen This is Bill Brown s description of how he shot the cover photo of our president, Raph Durham, as a fire fighter. Using a green screen to place any background behind a subject has been around for years. You see it all the time in the movies and it is used in advertising. The June PSA outing provided an opportunity for attendees to shoot a subject using this type of screen at the The ProCam shoot in their Aurora store which by the way is a great place. We all know get it right in the camera and post processing will be short and sweet. Get it wrong and you can spend way too much time looking at a computer. Setting up the green screen is the first task. Try not to have wrinkles in the fabric. Stretch it out as much as possible. Make sure it is evenly lit. For example, when doing a full body shot with the subject standing on the screen, there will be no way to avoid shadows. For this case, all areas of the screen should receive light by at least one flash source. A simple way to accomplish this is by using two flash strobes at an angle to the person (one to the right and one to the left). The area that is shadowed by one light is illuminated by the other. Since some screen areas are lit by two lights and other areas are lit by only one, there will be some shadowing. However, this should be good enough to get a good extraction. Camera settings are simple: Set your camera to auto white balance or manual WB using a gray card. ISO should be kept low. Usually the lowest you camera will go. The exception to this is the newer cameras have improved their control over noise I find my Canon 7D will shoot very acceptable images all the way up to 100 ISO. The example of Ralph Durham was set at 640. So, depending on your camera s age, you may want to play with the ISO. The Aperture: Set you f/ stop high enough to capture sharp small details. This would be hair, fabric detail, or any detail you want to extract from the green background. Shooting at ProCam I set my f/ stop at f/5.6. This is not as high as I would have liked, but using a low ISO prevented me from stopping down to a higher f/ stop. Shutter speed: This doesn t matter too much with flash photography as long as the shutter is open long enough to compensated for any delay between the shutter and the remote flash. The exposure will be set with the flash intensity and not the shutter speed. 1/60 or 1/100 sec. should work fine. You can go with a faster shutter as well as long as is longer than the sync speed. Some remote flash systems cause longer sync speeds than the camera specs. You want to test tis and know the actual combined sync speed for you set-up. Positioning Subject: Space your subject 5 continued on next page

Obviously, if you are doing an upper body shot, you will be able to space the person farther away than if you are doing a full body shot.

6 away from the green screen by 6 feet or more if possible. The closer it is to the green screen, the more green spill that will encountered. This is because the screen reflects green light back onto the person. Obviously, if you are doing an upper body shot, you will be able to space the person farther away than if you are doing a full body shot. If you need for the person to stand or sit on the screen, then try to use a screen that s long enough to cover sufficient floor area so that you can get decent spacing tween the persons upper body and the back of the screen. I was able to buy a green screen backdrop 9 wide by 13 long for about $ The Green Screen: You will get the best results if you pay attention to how the screen is lit and adjust as needed. Minimize wrinkles in the screen whenever possible. If you have a studio setup, then this can be easily done by using a paper backdrop or a painted wall. It you are using a muslin green screen, then you will tend to have some wrinkles to deal with. Wrinkles can be ironed out (which is tedious). If your screen has some wrinkles then make sure to stretch the screen fairly well on the backdrop stand using some clamps so there are not any large folds. Also, make sure that light hits the screen for two angles. You should be a able to get good extraction this way even with some wrinkles in the muslin. Light the screen as evenly as possible: it s not always easy to have a perfectly lit green screen. However, you should avoid dark shadows whenever possible. Sometimes shadowing can t be avoided. For example, when doing a full body shot with the subject standing on the screen, there will be no way to avoid shadows. Shoot in Raw Mode: This is not absolutely necessary, With that said, there some big advantages. First, there is not any.jpg compression, This is helpful when masking detailed areas. Second, in-camera setting for the color profile, sharpening, toning, white balance, etc. can be changed non-destructively because they are not directly applied to the image. They are just set points that are stored (similar to the Photoshop adjustment layers). Post Processing: You can use Adobe Photoshop or Elements. Both do an excellent job of to place a new background into you image using selections and the Refine Edge tool. 1. Open 2 images, one for the selection and one for the layout, File>Open. 2. Select the Quick Selection tool (A) from the Toolbox. 3. Adjust the brush size using the left bracket key ( [ ) to size it smaller and the right bracket key ( ] ) to make it larger. 4. Click-and-Drag around the subject to select. 5. To subtrack from the selection, hold down the Alt (Mac: Option) key, and deselect from the selection where needed. See Fig continued on next page

6. In the Tool Options bar, click on the Refine Edge button. 7. In the Refine Edge dialog, click on the View pop-up and select White (or a view of you choice). 8.

For Output select New Layer With Layer Mask. 11. Select OK. See Fig. 03. 12. With the Move tool selected, drag-and drop the selection into your layout. 13.

You don t need a green screen to do this, but use a neutral background. White or gray will work very well.

7 6. In the Tool Options bar, click on the Refine Edge button. 7. In the Refine Edge dialog, click on the View pop-up and select White (or a view of you choice). 8. With the Refine Edge tool selected, paint around the edges of the your subject. 9. Adjust the sliders under the Adjust Edge section as needed, and click OK. 10. For Output select New Layer With Layer Mask. 11. Select OK. See Fig With the Move tool selected, drag-and drop the selection into your layout. 13. Resize as needed, using the bounding box handles around the selection See Fig. 04. This is not difficult to do once you learn the process. You don t need a green screen to do this, but use a neutral background. White or gray will work very well. Start with a background folder with all sorts of textures, Clouds, Foliage, Moon in various stares and any other textures you can think of. The fire I used for Ralph s fireman pix was shot more than two years ago. The Bokeh lights for the Ana images was shot for a macro class and was a string of Christmas lights shot out of focus. You could even use a blank wall if shooting a portrait. Reember to use the decontaminate color slider if needed. The fireman image has some color contamination and the slider needed to be used. To many this is a new way of looking at how to shoot your images. Many of us have done this for years, even before digital came along. But now with digital we can all do this great technique and not have to han expensive chemical darkroom to do it. 7

8 PSA San Antonio Conference Some of us in the Club are aware that Ralph Durham was selected as the organizer of the 78th Annual PSA Conference. Further, Ralph has been selected a Vice President of future Conferences. He has been very busy with travels all over the country.. Registration for the 2016 Photographic Society of America s annual conference is now open. It opened on April 2nd and registration is going well. This years conference is in San Antonio, home of the Alamo. We are expecting a great crowd this year because San Antonio has many great photo opportunities to offer. Tours of the Lyndon Johnson home and several of the area missions are filling. In addition, we have booked another excellent list of speakers that will off great insight and knowledge to those who attend. Ralph is especially proud of the fact that there are several North Shore and CACCA members who will be participating in the conference this year. Bill Brown will be speaking on Adobe Elements, Chris Smith will be doing a program on night shooting, and he will be running an eventing shoot in downtown San Antonio. Our own Michelle Cox is going to be one of the staff photographers of the conference; and Don Chen from the Lake County Camera Club will be in charge of the Conference photographers. This promises to be another great Conference. Please consider joining us this year. Conference dates are September 11th through the 17th. For more information, go to psa-photo.org, or call Ralph at (847)

Old World Wisconsin Trip In July, Chip Young

comprise the world s largest museum dedicated

These are some of Loretta Foley s and Chip

9 Old World Wisconsin Trip In July, Chip Young arranges an mostly-all-day trip to Old World Wisconsin. The historic farm and village buildings comprise the world s largest museum dedicated to the history of rural life. These are some of Loretta Foley s and Chip Young s and Geeorge Hossfeld s images, the only ones received so far. Loretta Foley 9 continued on next page

10 Old World Wisconsin Trip continued Chip Young George Hossfeld 10

11 Current Leaders of North Shore Camera Club President Ralph Durham Judge Procurer Kenn Ashley Vice President Emma England Programs & Workshops Emma England, Jack Ingold, & Chip Young Secretary Treasurer Directors Debbie Durham Jack Ingold George Hossfeld Bill Janes Oggie Loux Milton Weinberg Hospitality Competition Prints <need a new volunteer> Kelley Happ & Jack Ingold DPI Bill Janes <need an additional volunteer> CACCA Representative Jack Ingold Webmaster Outings Michelle Cox Chip Young Newsletter Allen Davies 11

ClubClicks. Volume 6 Number 6 June 2016

ClubClicks. Volume 6 Number 6 June 2016 ClubClicks Volume 6 Number 6 June 2016 Contents Cover Explanation 2 5 6 6 5 Calendar and Information 3 Meet Our Members 4 End-of-Year Banquet 5 Emma England at Work 7 Reed Turner Outing 8 Just for Beginners