Camera Settings

[Tanner]

I picked up a new camera (Sony DSC H5). I also picked up a macro lens (VCL-M3358). A light tent and two high-output 5100K tungsten lamps. I made my own white, black and gray card. For the gray I just used red 200, green 200 and blue 200. I may need to get a professional gray card. The background is a tan terrycloth hand towel. I think the terrycloth being so busy, takes away from the pen. I want to make up some gradient sheets using Photoshop. It looks like a portion of the white on the upper part of the pen is a little washed out. The camera is set on A and I set the F-Stop at F8. I also set the focus at spot, maybe I should set it at center or multi, I don’t know which is better. The white balance is set at One Push. I set it when I had a white sheet in the tent. Is this OK or should I set it at Daylight, Fluorescent, Incandescent? I don’t really like the angle the pen sits at. I may cut the acrylic down so pens sit lower on it.

Let me know what to do, I need a lot of help.

I had some issues uploading the image. I had to get it under 100 KB. The one in my album is 179KB. For this post it had to be under 100. I see big pictures in this section all the time. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong. If it's too small to get a good look, a bigger pic is in my album. Do I need to change the resolution to get a bigger picture?

 

[Mikey]

Yes, the towel does make it look busy. Can't speak on the camera settings as I think things will change if you get an actual grey card. Sure helped me. As to the picture size, when you reduce the size, you reduce resolution. I think the one you posted is about 250x350, but near 100K. You need to raise the compression so when you save as a JPEG, the file gets compressed a bit more than it is. A picture that size should only need to be about 50k to get a good image and something abou 100k should give you almost a full screen.

 

[beathard]

Assistance, not criticism: Your white balance is off. Looks a little to blue. The towel is a little busy. I like the pen... []

 

[Stevej72]

Tim, I don't have a good enough camera yet, so haven't spent much time with the photography end. But, I do like your pen. I agree the background does look a little busy.

 

[bob393]

I love the pen!!

 

[Tanner]

Changed the Background to gradient. Messed with white balance. Still don't know if I have that down yet. This camera has a One Push setting that you aim the camera at something white then take the picture. Thanks Mike, I did change the compression a bit to get a bigger picture that is under the 100kb limit.

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[ashaw]

Tim
Your last picture looks much better. I am still trying to get it phot part of the business down.

 

[Jim15]

Tim I think your last pic. looks just fine. Not a camera expert though.

 

[Roy99664]

So how does one adjust the compression of a photo?

I think that last photo and the pen are both great.

 

[Tanner]

Thanks for the comments from those who took the time to look. I'm still learning every day. I painted the tubes white.

Roy, in Photoshop when I crop the photo and apply the white and black color balances. Then I have the program show me Actual Pixels, it makes the pen picture huge. Then I just adjust the pixel width to 400 - 500, the height just changes automatically. Then during saving it has an Image Option slider that ranges from 0-12. I was saving at 12 before. I saved at 10 for the last picture. It just keeps the picture the same size, but reduces the quality a fraction, and takes up less kb's. I don't know if that is exactly called compression, but it's what I did to get the picture to stay big yet smaller kb's.

Bob, it's nice to see someone with over 1,000 posts reply on and help a lowly newbie like me. I looked through my posts and you are one of like two people with over 1,000 posts that have taken the time to reply and either help me or offer words of encouragement. Thanks for your time, encouragement and help. You have made nice comments on my other posts too. A low level dweller like me appreciates you.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the comments from everyone. You all have been a big help to me.

 

[alxe24]

I don't know which Photoshop are you running but you can also look at the option of save for web here is an example of what I do.
1) Load the picture to PS and do whatever is that you do to fix it save it at the 12 resolution and don't close it yet.
2) make a duplicate of the pic (I'll tell you why later). Go to the <b>image tab </b>and click on <b>Duplicate</b>. A new box opens and name the pic whatever you like. Close the original picture and don't save the duplicate just yet.
3) Adjust the pixels and resolution of the picture. Again go to the <b>image tab </b>and go to <b>Image size</b>. For the web you pixels per inch should be fine at 70's That is the <b>resolution</b> part on the menu. As far as the width and height 900x600 or 600x400 is what I would normally use.
4) Go to the <b>file tab </b>and click on <b>save for web</b>
5) There you can manipulate how you want the image saved. The quality can be set from 1 to 100 and you can see the way the picture will look like and the new file size. There even is a way to see the picture on the explorer browser.
6) Create a new folder on your docs or desk top or anywhere you want and save the picture there. I name that folder small pictures so I now every time I want to upload something I go to that folder. That is why I made a copy of the original you can keep your original nice and big as a file just in case if you want a poster of it and the other one is the one you compress and mess up with.
Here the bigger image is 61 K and the smaller is like 100 K. Sound crazy ah?[)][)][)]
I hope this heps you.
BTW your second picture looks a ton better. The colors and the back ground

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[Tanner]

Thanks Alex, I'll give that a shot and post here today.

 

[bob393]

The second picture is great!

 

[Roy99664]

Can this be done using Photoshop Elements or do you need the "full blown version"?

 

[Tanner]

Roy, I have a buddy that has elements and he says it can do many of the same things the full version does. I would wait until someone here that has Elements confirms this.

 

[tas2181]

The easiest way I found to resize pictures if you are using Windows is the Image Resizer from Microsoft. All you have to do is right click the file and chose 'resize pictures'. It will give you a some choices as to what screen resolution/size. It can be found at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Example: 1.33 meg picture resizes to 52KB(small) or 75KB(medium)

 

[DCBluesman]

The exact same process can be employed in Elements. [8D]