Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf

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<strong>Focus</strong> <strong>On</strong> <strong>Lighting</strong> <strong>Photos</strong>
Robin and Fil made this picture
years ago, before there was any
software to automate the process.
We used alpha channels to block
the dark parts of the darkest
portions of the dark pictures and
the lightest portions of the light
pictures to blend them together
as a whole. Today, the most
expensive versions of <strong>Photos</strong>hop
can do HDR for us. We just give
the images to the software, and
tell the program what we want.
Other software can do the same,
maybe better, but <strong>Photos</strong>hop is
the one stand-alone image editor
that comes closest to doing it all.
We have that software now, and
sometimes use it when the existing
light in the scene is simply
too beautiful to mess with. Still,
we don’t expect novice photographers
to rush out and buy
expensive software when what
they really need most is another
light or two (or six). The point of
this demonstration is that we can
still do some pretty advanced
stuff with fairly primitive tools.
This is a book about lighting,
not about <strong>Photos</strong>hop. Still, the
technologies integrate. It is as
impossible to divorce lighting
from digital post as it once was to
separate it from darkroom burning
and dodging.