1.1 - There are two types of colour, additive and subtractive. Additive uses three primary colours, RGB, Red, Green and Blue. These are emitted colours from things such as computer monitors. Mixing two additive colours in equal amounts produces secondary colours. Green and blue makes cyan, blue and red make magenta and red and green make yellow. Adding red, green and blue together produces white. Additive can be thought of as starting with black and adding colour to get to white. The other type of colour is CMYK, cyan, magenta, yellow and black. This is used in printing. As you can see, CMYK uses the secondary colours of RGB. Subtractive is the reverse of RGB, producing black when all three are mixed. This can be thought of starting with white and removing colour to produce black. RGB and CMKY also have different colour ranges called gamuts. Some gamuts overlap meaning the colour is available in both RGB and CMYK but there are also colours that can be shown using RGB that can’t be shown in CMYK and vice versa. RGB is shown on the left and CMYK is shown on the right. In the centre is the Adobe RGB gamut.
There are three components to colour. Hue, saturation, brightness.
Hue – Is representative of a base colour e.g. blue or yellow
Saturation – This is how rich a colour is, ranging from it’s true colour to a shade of grey, usually referred to as a percentage from 0 to 100.
Brightness – This is how bright a colour is and is referred to as a percentage also. The closer to 0 you are the more black is added. The closer to 100 you are the more white the colour.
1.2 - When editing or creating images in editing software such as Photoshop or Illustrator, it is important to know where the final product is going to be displayed. The dimensions of the image, resolution and colour mode should be set in a suitable way that matches where and how the image will be displayed. For example, if the final viewing destination is a high quality print then the dimensions should be set to the desired size of the image and the resolution would be set to 300dpi to correspond with the printers dpi ability. The image should also be edited in the CMKY colour mode so that large differences in colour between the editing phase and the final print won't be seen. If the image parameters aren't set to match the final viewing devices capabilities then artefacts can occur such as pixelation and lack of detail.
1.3 - The number of pixels determines the size of a particular file. A single pixel consists of one colour. This colour is made using information that takes space. This means that the more pixels there are in a picture, the greater the number of colours there are and therefore the greater the file size. Dpi and ppi don't have an effect on file size. These parameters change how many pixels there are per inch. If a 3000 x 2000 image is set to 72dpi, the image will be very big in comparison to being set at 300dpi. This does however mean that the image will look less sharp. If you were to drop the resolution to 1500 x 1000 the image dimensions would be halved and the file size would be a quarter of what it was. This shows that both, resolution and pixel dimension together affect the overall image size but only the pixel dimension changed the amount of data in the image. Each pixel has a red, green and blue channel to determine it's colour. A channel with an 8-bit colour depth has 256 available colours (2^8). This means that each pixel with 8-bit channels has a total of 16.7 million colours (256^3). Doubling the bit depth means doubling the size of a file. 16-bit gives 65536 colours per channel (2^16) and a total number of 281.4 trillion colours per pixel (16.7 million ^2). As you can see the total number of colours has increased by a factor of 2. The file size therefore doubles. 16-bit to 32-bit would double the file size again. Along with file sizes are file types. Some can be lossy and some can be lossless. Jpeg is a lossy format meaning files are compressed to reduce file size at the expense of some information and therefore detail. Overall the jpeg compression results in some loss of data but tries to retain as much detail as it can while being a smaller file size than a RAW RGB image.
1.4 - Meta data is a useful way of recording important information about a particular image. It provides a clear way of organizing data with different categories of information like photo description and tags, copyright status and date and time. Having information stored like this allows for certain programs to be able to search through and find relevant files when given a certain search criteria. This means that when meta data is set correctly, images can be archived easily and then retrieved again if they ever need to be. Other than manually inputting meta data such as keywords for photos, most DSLRs attach their own meta data to photos. This data can be things such as the camera model and the settings that were used for that particular photo e.g. shutter speed (1/125 0), aperture (2.8f), focal length (70mm) or whether a flash was used.
1.5 - Having the appropriate equipment means you can get a job done correctly. It makes for a high quality finished product and it also helps with a steady workflow. If you have the correct software and equipment available it allows you to also be more flexible for a client as you'll be able to deliver their needs for a product. One example could be having DSLRs available for a client wanting either video or photography. DSLRs allow both video and photo so they’re versatile and give you more options to offer as a company. Scanners allow you to digitise drafts that have been handwritten by scanning them in and printers allow you provide a physical copy of a photo or document that might be needed out on a job. Another example would be changing a background on a portrait. If a client wants a change of background then it's much better to be able to offer them that option of change if you have software such as Photoshop. Vector software such as illustrator is also useful as it allows you to create graphics that can be stretched infinitely to accommodate for whatever medium you need to use the graphic on. This could be in a video, on a website or on a billboard. Overall having more equipment available would make for a happier client that may return again.
1.6 - Different file formats have different benefits and .
jpeg – compressed, smaller file sizes than RAW while still maintaining a lot of quality. Very universally used
TIFF – uncompressed or compressed files that are high quality but have a large file size. Used in printing and publishing industry.
RAW – lossless format of high quality and large size. Many different file types dependant on camera used. Usually needs a special software to view and edit.
EPS – Adobe illustrator file type used in vector based files.
GIF – A file composed of many images to make a short video
PNG – PNGs allow images to have transparency which jpeg cannot offer.
2.1 - When working on an image or set of images there are certain criteria's that have to be met. First pictures must be backed up to the commercial back up drive. These images are then edited to meet the required look. They are then added to our commercial live folder where they are then captioned by myself or another person on the team. When these have finally been checked over they are sent to the customer. This is the general work flow for a photo shoot. The video side of things is generally the same however one difference is that there are more people that are editing at one time meaning files must be kept organised. (See separate document [unit 35 – 2.1 gallery])
2.2 - It's personal preference as to whether you use a PC or Mac. Mac has software that is exclusive to Apple however the Adobe suite can be used on both platforms. Photoshop is generally used for image manipulation, being able to change most things such as levels, colour balance, exposure and simpler tasks like resizing. Premiere Pro is the Adobe video editing software. It allows the use to cut together video files, overlay audio and add transitions to make a final product. Mac also offers FCPX which is regarded highly for Mac users.
2.3 - When returning from photo shoot the jpegs and RAW files are transferred from the compact flash cards that have been used, into the backup drive.
Card reader and files for import
2.4 - When files have been imported they next go on to editing. To do this I use Photoshop. I open the program and then drag and drop the necessary files ready to be edited.
2.5 - Between editing and the final product I must ensure that the images i"m using will all be compatible with one another and will be compatible with the final viewing medium. If this is a print then I need to have the colour mode set as CMYK with a DPI of 300 if being printed on a laser printer. If it were to be a newspaper then a dpi of 200 would be used instead. We often reduce the image size because straight from the camera is quite large. They can often come out at 60mb so we reduce the dimensions of the image (keeping the correct aspect ratio) so that the file size is nearer to something like 30mb. This will give us high quality JPEGs at around 1.5mb.
Below you can see the artefacting that starts to occur between the source image and the output image. This is when saving at a low quality JPEG so it is a good idea to save as high a quality as you can to reduce this artefact effect.
Here I am also checking and altering the sharpness of the image using the unsharp mask filter.
2.6 - If there are any elements in an image that are unwanted or irrelevant then we edit accordingly in Photoshop. If something needs removing then we'd usually use the clone and heal tool to recreate the image to be more suitable. Below you can see an image I've touched up to look cleaner and be more presentable as a product showcase. I've used the clone tool, heal tool, pen tool and unsharp mask to create the image on the right.
3.1 - For some jobs I have to be able to resize certain images so they are in line with the requirements of the client. We recently had a job for a newspapers where we gathered some collect photos that I needed to resize to more suitable dimensions. I had to resize the images to a size below 1000 x 1000 pixels so the file size was small enough. Due to it being used a newspaper they also wanted the images at 200dpi so this had to be set when editing. There have also been instances where clients want TIFF files sent to them instead of JPEGs.
3.2 - I am not usually involved with the task of sending preliminary proofs however my colleagues have done so and have sent low-res initial ideas by email and have discussed them over the phone.
3.3 & 3.4 - While doing a job for Trent & Dove Homes we were asked to redo certain parts of a show home video that they thought needed changing. We liaised over email with one another to find a common ground to resolve the issues. There was text needed changing and a scene that didn't fit with the rest of the style of video. After rectifying the problems the edited video was resent to the client and they were happy with the results.
4.2 - Edited images are very rarely saved as anything other than .jpeg so when we finally output a file it is usually always in this format. This allows for an acceptable trade-off between size and quality and is a universally accepted format so it suitable for the client to view. All edited images are archived as .jpeg alongside their original file which is also a .jpeg straight from the camera.
4.1 - At our workplace we have to fill in the metadata in a particular way. Below you can see some of the data that is attached to the image. When doing commercial jobs, the client who we're working for owns the copyright and their name is added to the image. The job number and date is added to keep sets of images separate from each other and organised. Our company is credited in the by-line and information such as date and time is added alongside also. An image description is also added to help the client quickly search for specific images in a particular set.
5.1 - The key aspect of legislation is copyright. Copyright ensures that something can't be modified unless given direct consent from the person/company that has issued the copyright. The owner must be given credit if any changes are made. Copyright can be added to an image by applying a name, date and © symbol. This then ensures that said person has ownership of the image and can dictate what can and can't be changed without express permission. The same can be said for Trademarks which is another example of legislation. Trademark infringement comes about much like copyright infringement. Infringement can occur when we somebody uses a trademark which is the same or mistakingly similar to another trademark owned by another company. The owning company can file for a lawsuit to protect their trademark. There is also something called derivative works which is where some creative content has new and old created material. It is entitled to it's own copyright protection because it has sufficient new material added to it in comparison to previously created material. If there isn't enough new material then it is considered a copy and can therefore not be granted it's own copyright
5.2 & 5.3 - Everyone should be aware of health and safety policies in the workplace whether this be the general tidiness of the office space or the risk assessments that need to be carried out for a job. In our place of work we maintain our cleanliness by washing up after food has been eaten, putting away equipment once it has been used and making sure any rubbish is put in the bin. As for other hazards, electrical equipment is switched off after use to reduce the risk of fire and bags are kept out of walkways to minimise the risk of trips. Any photography equipment like tripods and light stands pose a trip hazard and should be monitored so people don't injure themselves. In my job I often go on jobs that require PPE. Because of this I must have a hard hat, safety boots and hi-vis to comply with health and safety. Without these I wouldn't be allowed on site. Doing all these things ensures that we can be as safe as possible while working. If there are any hazards when going out on a job a risk assessment is usually completed outlying the hazards and the risk they pose. Suitable instructions are then given to minimise or get rid of any risk of the hazard causing a problem.
5.4 & 5.5 - When adjusting images you need to aware of potential ethical or legal issues that could arise. If something is ethical it is 'conforming to professional standards of conduct'. An image should not contain any content that’s intention is to be offensive to any group of people especially if it’s going to be used in public. Some material may have copyright attached to it and therefore you may not be able to manipulate an image without permission. If you use some material that is copyrighted and then publish it to make a profit you can be prosecuted for infringing copyright. Taking pictures of people and/or children may raise ethical and legal issues if you do not have direct consent from that person. Likewise, even though not always illegal, taking pictures that contain sensitive information is often looked down upon due it having potential to disrupt someone's life.
5.6 – When doing commercial work at Page One, the company that we’re doing the job for owns the copyright on the images we supply. Each edited image we provide had metadata containing the copyright information for that specific company. There have been times where we’ve asked to use images we’ve taken to be used in our show reel and we need the permission of the owner to use them even though we have supplied and taken them. Below you can copyright being applied to an image in Fotostation
5.7 – Some subjects in the photos we have taken In the past don’t have direct consent from a parent or guardian. Here is an example of a consent form we have been provided from a client
5.8 – Maintaining professional organisation makes for a seamless workflow and complying with a business’ system and/or procedures means everyone knows what’s going on when and where resulting in efficient company.
No comments:
Post a Comment