Category: Photography

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Murphy’s Law: Self-Publishing Edition

Posted on by Brian Frank in Photography
Layout showing my need to find and update images
Layout showing my need to find and update images

A couple of years ago, I self-published a photography book about small-time mixed martial arts in Iowa. The process of getting there was fraught with unseen issues. One of which was achieving deep blacks while keeping the greys neutral (See: 50 Unwanted Shades of Grey).

Once it was ready to be released and shared with the world, I was ecstatic. More than five years of photography, editing, worrying about layout, and sequencing was over. I had created something substantial, and that would never change. Over the past year, the full understanding of what that meant became a bit more clear.

The forward was written by National Geographic photographer David Alan Harvey. Harvey also runs a photography blog called Burn Magazine, and he was the first to publish selections from early on in my project. In April, I pulled Fight Night off Amazon and removed references from my website after disturbing allegations against Harvey forced him to resign from Magnum photo agency.

I decided to re-release the book without the Harvey forward. I would simply replace the page of text with an additional photo. Unfortunately, the drive that stored the final edited photos and the book layout died. For the last several months, I have been searching for the original versions of the images, re-toning them, running the photoshop action to neutralise the greys, and re-linking the image into the layout. The process is almost complete, and it cannot come soon enough.

Six Flags amusement park entrance with an ornate white-and-blue carousel tower as a group of kids in pink and blue outfits reads brochures outdoors

When Photo Retouching Saves the day

Posted on by Brian Frank in Photoshop

The day before a scheduled photoshoot for the Illinois Travel Guide summer issue, Six Flags amusement park decorated their signature entrance for Halloween. This was quite the shock for the art director, photographer, and models that arrived for a shoot that was supposed to showcase summer fun. Since everyone had traveled to the location and was on the clock, the photoshoot when forward as best it could.

I still remember the opening line of the email reading, “We have a little challenge for you.” Always loving a fresh challenge, I took a look and laughed out loud. This wasn’t just a challenge, but a test of all my retouching and problem-solving skills.

The first step would be to plan the attack. Retouching always takes some mental planning, but that is usually something that can be done in the back of your mind on-the-fly. With this situation, I needed to spend some time t think out all that needed to be done. Additionally, think about how to work in a manner that would allow for adjustments to be made later.

First, I needed to replace the water. I was able to use bits of a scouting shoot for the park since the water didn’t need to be the focal point, and the scouting images were shot at about the same angle and had the right amount of ripples and waves. Next, I needed to recreate the merry-go-round structure, bushes, and pool edges. Then cloned out signage, extended the background to the left and right to fit the magazine cover layout, and clean up the sidewalk, followed by adding some sky. Finally, I did some color correcting to brighten and warm the image, adjusted skin tones, and smoothed out some clothing.

SixFlags Before
SixFlags After

BrianFrank Shoes01

How I Work, Video 1

Posted on by Brian Frank in Photoshop
Photoshop work by Brian C Frank. www.bfrankphoto.com Music: Jazzy French from Bensound.com

How I Work: Video 1

This is the first of several videos I am putting together, showing how I work on real-world images, to give my clients the final image they want. This first video is of a pretty simple request.

This image required to be transformed from a fall scene to summer for the client’s travel guide. This meant removing the dead branches, adding some extra greenery, and convert the fall colors to a sunny green. A little over 30 minutes of work reduced to less than two for this video. This idea for demonstration videos is not mine. Credit goes to the very talented Viktor Fejes for the idea. Enjoy!

Screen Shot 2019 08 31 at 4.50.49 PM

50 Unwanted Shades of Grey | Creating a neutral Cmyk grey

Posted on by Brian Frank in Photoshop
Screen Shot 2019 08 31 at 4.50.49 PM
Creating a neutral CMYK image in Photoshop
Brian-Frank-Blurb-Book-BW Photoshop actionDownload

This is part of a series I will be writing about the process of making my photography book Fight Night, from stories about photographing events to the minutiae of trying to find a publisher, to the process of self-publishing. I hope you enjoy and learn a little something for your own personal projects.

I received my first copy of my Fight Night book from Blurb in the mail last week, and nearly every page had a distinctive color shift in the greyscale images. One page would be cool and blue, while the next page would have a distinctive pink cast. As excited as I was to hold a copy of my book that was ten years in the making, my heart sank at the inconsistent print quality. What follows is moderately nerdy on my part. You’ve been warned.

For those of you unfamiliar with what Blurb is, it is a platform that allows you to self-publish a book, then order as little as one copy at a time. The benefits of this are pretty obvious-no need to spend a massive amount of upfront money and fret about selling a giant inventory. Additionally, Blurb has paired with Amazon, so books can be ordered and sent to the customer automatically. It’s a pretty slick arrangement. There are some tradeoffs though. First, the per-unit cost is much higher is you are making one book at a time. Second, because Blurb is printing a wide variety of books at once, the quality of your particular book may suffer. But I had ordered books from there before and was reasonably pleased with the results.

Using just one-color black was never an option. The lack of ink density (I said I was going to get nerdy) would make the images look really weak. Because Blurb bulk prints multiple customers’ books at once, a spot channel black wasn’t an option either. So I used RGB to make sure there was sufficient ink density while keeping everything neutral. I converted the files to CMYK using the ICC profiles from the printer. When I got the proof book back, I quickly saw I was going to have to find another solution.

To make a long story short(er)I’m pretty sure I found a solution. I converted the RGB image to CMYK, and then remove the cyan, magenta and yellow from the highlight areas. Since the margin for error for a color shift is greater in the shadows, this should keep the image neutral. It also adds a bit more contrast to the images. I created an action and included it here. Enjoy.

The next step is to upload new files to the printer and wait for a new proof book. I’ll keep you updated.

You Can Roll Me, and Capture Blurry Tumblin’ Dice

Posted on by Brian Frank in Photography

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What you see there is a blurry bunch of dice being dropped from about three feet. What you are supposed to see are clear dice being dropped from about three feet. This is the dilemma facing me in my studio photography class today. The assignment is one of capturing movement using studio lights. Because I’m me, I had to do something a little more challenging than blow bubbles are toss a ball in the air t=for the assignment, but am facing the possibility that I may not get this one. That’s where you come in.

The dice are moving too fast to be captured by the 1/200th shutter speed limit for synching. Short of using a high-speed trigger to which I don’t have access, what are the other options? I have tried to turn all the room lights off, set the camera to bulb, and use the AlienBee triggered lights set the exposure time. The results are the same whether the power is at full strength or lowered to the minimum 1/32 power.

For you studio masters out there, how would you capture something moving that quickly in the studio?

UPDATE: It looks like the Alien Bee B800 simply did not have a flash duration that was short enough. Going to look around the studio and see what else I can find.

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