Elements of Photographic Quality

What makes a good photograph? The quest for photographic quality can be elusive, in that we can identify the components that contribute to a good image, but still have the final product fall short of its potential. As is the case with all artistic mediums, there's an intangible combination of inspiration, timing, and craft that make an artistic photograph.

 Olivetto Wall
Nikon D2H,
1/250 sec, f/3.8
Focal length 35mm

 Lanterns
Nikon D2H,
1/100 sec, f/5
EV +1
Focal length 75mm

In fact, laying out the steps for capturing a good photograph can be almost as elusive as the photographic muse itself. This book tries to assist you in that endeavor by teaching technical knowledge and showing inspirational images. Although it might be difficult to specify the exact path to photographic excellence, it's pretty safe to say that this path passes through the technical domain defined by sharpness, exposure, and composition. It's important to understand how these three components combine to create a quality image.

TECHnote: Using Camera Raw

Using Photoshop's Camera Raw Plug-in dialog box.

When you open a 16-bit image in Photoshop, the Camera Raw Plug-in dialog box opens, giving you a wide range of editing options.

Beneath a composite histogram on the right of the dialog box are four control tabs that allow you to modify tone, sharpness, lens distortion, and color balance. The Adjust tab controls the tone within the image. Start by tweaking the Exposure and Shadow sliders to adjust the overall tonal range and the shadow tones. Set these variables first because they can clip the highlights or shadows, resulting in data loss. When moving these sliders, hold down the Option key (Ctrl key for Windows users) to view any clipped information being reduced to flat black or white. With the overall range set, you can modify the Brightness, Contrast, or Saturation sliders without fear of loosing any information.

The Detail tab controls sharpness and is pretty straightforward in its application. Start by setting the Zoom Level field to 100% and then adjust the Sharpness slider to sharpen the image. If the image starts to get too crispwhich can happen along high-contrast edgesincrease the Luminance Smoothing slider. If the image starts to pixelate and get chunky, increase the Color Noise Reduction slider.

The Lens tab controls a type of lens distortion known as chromatic aberration. Chromatic aberration is a misalignment of color channels that is sometimes visible at the edges of digital images. It appears as colored fringing that corresponds to either a red/cyan or blue/yellow polarity (that is, the fringe is red on one side of the image and cyan on the other). Click the Lens tab and adjust the Chromatic Aberration R/C or B/Y slider as needed. This is another adjustment that requires you to set the magnification to 100%. If the distortion is irreparable, Adobe includes Vignette sliders that allow you to create a feathered crop around the edges of the image.

The Calibrate tab allows you to tweak the hue and saturation for each RGB color channel; it also includes a separate control for the shadows. Use this tab if your camera consistently distorts a single color, such as blues and violets, which many cameras do. To tweak the global color balance of a specific image, use the White Balance, Temperature, and Tint controls in the Adjust tab.

When the preview image looks perfect, click OK to launch the image, or Option+click (Ctrl+click in Windows) OK to save the Camera Raw settings with the image file without actually opening the image.

Sharpness and Detail

Sharpness refers to the areas of the image that are in sharp focus. When evaluating your images for sharpness, the two main questions you need to ask are whether the subject of the shot is in focus, and whether the focus area is sharp enough.

When locking on a focus point, many autofocus cameras look for parallel lines or distinct edges in specific zones of the viewfinder. As a result, the camera often misses the mark, focusing in front of or behind your subject, leaving the desired subject soft and blurry. Each time you examine a shot, you should look for the focus point that the autofocus system decided on. Is the sharpest area of focus positioned appropriately in relation to your subject, or is it a bit soft?

Generally speaking, you want the subject as sharp as possible, so you may want to consider reshooting the image if the subject isn't as sharp as you'd like. It's easier to soften sharp objects in Photoshop, so you should always try to get the sharpest image possible. Even if you're going for a soft hazy effect, capture all the detail you can in the original shot. Post-processing in Photoshop is a great place to add back a bit of blur if that's what you're after.

Using quality lenses, putting the camera on a tripod, and using a cable release are great ways to increase the overall sharpness of your images. Don't rely on Photoshop to save the day, because even though Photoshop can do some amazing things to sharpen images, there's still no replacement for shooting a tack-sharp image through the lens.

 D'Orcia Hills
Nikon D2H,
1/320 sec, f/8.5
Focal length 230mm

D'Orcia Hills (detail)

D'Orcia Hills (detail)

Exposure

Good exposure is so important to photography that you could easily devote a couple volumes to it. In fact, I devote the entire next chapter to the art and science of proper photographic exposure and barely scratch the surface. Within the context of image quality, exposure determines whether you have enough tonal variation and information to properly describe your subject.

The operative words here are "properly describe." It might be enough to show the subject in full silhouette, or it could be that the entire scene needs even illumination. Each subject is different, and the "proper" way to render the subject is subjective. Experiment with exposure variations and think through the best way to describe the subject. See Chapter 2 for details.

 Bench
Nikon D2H,
1/60 sec, f/4
Focal length 28mm

Composition and Cropping

There are two ways to approach composition and cropping, and I admit that I use both approaches as the situation dictates. One approach is to treat the viewfinder as the final image and compose accordingly. The advantage to this method is that you capture the image at the camera's maximum resolution. When you crop, you obviously reduce the overall pixel size of the image, limiting its enlargement possibilities.

The problem with composing the final image through the viewfinder is that the optimum composition isn't always evident. Perhaps the shot works better in a vertical (portrait) orientation rather than a horizontal (landscape) orientation; perhaps the object should have more space around it. In addition, there will be times when you have to react quickly and get the shot without thinking too much about composition. Take the shot and make sure that it's sharp and well exposed; cropping and composing can be addressed later in Photoshop. See Chapter 4 for details on composing and cropping images.