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This is the blog of Steve Burkett of Italy, Our Italy

The Results Are In - Part 7

Well, it's good to be back from the Christmas Holidays! I can only hope that your Christmas was as swell as mine. Lots of family, friends...and of course, food - much of it Italian. And speaking of/in Italian, "Felice Anno Nuovo!"

The subject of this week's article makes my heart swell up like a watermelon. More accolades were received when this month's (actually it's the February 2016 edition) Black & White Magazine was published. You can find it at your favorite magazine source and it looks like the photo to the right.

I am particularly excited because of the number of photos that were accepted for recognition -- an unprecedented four!  That's the most ever recognized for the 'single image' contest.

The four photos are as follows, and as usual, you can click on an image to get a larger view.

Landscape/Nature

Page 46: This field was photographed in the Val d'Orcia in late September. The wheat of this rolling field has already been harvested and sprouts of winter wheat will soon appear.

'Awaiting Rain', Val d'Orcia, Italy, 2014

Here is that same field in the spring...

 

 

Architecture/Interiors

Page 108: Here is a popular photo from a Venice photo shoot in the fall of 2012. I really like this photo because of the character of the building exteriors. Note the numerous sculpted heads adorning the building to the left. These buildings have been around for centuries. 

'One-Thousand Years in the Making', Venice, Italy, 2012

Music/Sport/Dance

Page 140: This pleasant accordionist sits in the small campo in front of the Church of San Zaccaria (where the body of John the Baptist's father rests). Tunes of all sorts issue from his accordion. 

'The Accordionist of Venice', Venice, Italy, 2012

Cityscape/Street

Page 194: I had lots of fun creating this image of a busy day on the Grand Canal. Over 80 photos and about an hour were needed to capture boats in numerous and various positions. I used Photoshop to mask in boat after boat to create the final image. A color version of this photo was selected by National Geographic senior editor Kurt Mutchler for a gallery show called 'The Art of Travel Photography'. And who is that happy couple in the boat at the very bottom-center of the photo? I'll never tell! 

'Busy Day on the Grand Canal', Venice, Italy, 2012

So, if you find yourself at your neighborhood Barnes & Noble bookstore, go to the magazine section and give a look at that February 2016 issue of Black & White Magazine. 

 

Ciao for now,

Steve

Separating Emotion from Content

As a photographer, it is often difficult to separate emotion from content. I’m going to give you a real-world example that will really bring this home in just a moment, but let me explain right here what I mean.

The Emotion

“Is a professional photographer immune to the emotion involved in the time and place of an image’s capture? Not at all.”

You’ve taken photos of family/friends, special events, and favorite vacation moments. Those photos have special meaning for you. There was an emotion involved when you took the photo, and that emotion manifests itself when you go back to look at those photos. Whether they are Christmas photos when the kids (and you!) were younger, wedding photos, photos from Disneyland or the beach, you have positive (hopefully) emotions when you see the photos. Photos of parents or grandparents when they were still alive? That’s full of emotion. Your newborn while still at the hospital? Ditto.

But if you go back and look at those emotive photos to evaluate the composition, color, lighting, etc., you may find that those photos were not of the highest 'quality'. But does that matter? Not at all! What is important is the emotive quality of the photo and the memories that are embedded on the photo paper. You weren’t taking photos to win awards and exhibit in galleries! You were taking them to etch memories.

The Dilemma

So, let’s move to fine-art photography. Is that any different? Is a professional photographer immune to the emotion involved in the time and place of an image’s capture? Not at all. And there’s the rub. Is the photo that a photographer produces actually what one might call a ‘quality fine-art photograph’? Or, is the photographer’s evaluative eye held captive by the emotion involved when capturing that photo?

Here's and example. I have a friend who loves photographing the desert southwest – as I do. When you look at his photos, you see beautiful rock formations, dry gulches, twisted trees and many other things which epitomize the southwest. But as you look at his photos, you have no idea of the effort that was required to capture those images – the long, long, bumpy, and circuitous roads that had to be traversed and the vehicle modifications to do so, the treacherous and arduous hikes that had to be made, the uncomfortable experience of sleeping in one’s car because an unexpected snowstorm collapsed your tent. What you see when you look at a beautiful and enchanting photo of a Anasazi pictograph, and what the photographer sees when looking at that same photo are completely different emotions. You are thinking, “That’s really nice!” While the photographer has a myriad of emotions that run the gamut from joy and elation to sometimes negative thoughts brought on by what might have been a real ordeal. It’s the same photo, but it is seen by eyes of a different perspective.

So, that’s what creates this dilemma for me as I look at some of my photos and I wonder if they might, or might not, be of interest to you as a prospective client. Is that really the fine-art masterpiece that I think it is, or does that feeling exist in just my own mind?

So, with that in mind, today I will be transforming a somewhat dismal winter scene for you. As you will see, it was a pretty simple transformation. It is a photo which has enchanted me ever since I created it --- and I know why it enchants me, and I’ll explain that. I think that this is a good example of what I discussed above as I try to separate emotion from content as I strive to bring you fine-art photographs that you will enjoy.

The Transformation

The original photo is a group of trees in winter – December 30th to be exact. It was blustery out and snow had been spurting off and on for most of the morning. It was now mid-afternoon. Here is that photo.

[click on an image to get a larger view]

The original, blah, uninteresting snapshot

As you can see, it is a very overcast day. The flags of New Mexico and the United States can be seen at bottom left, as well as a street lamp with Christmas decorations. [OK, I know this is an Italy blog and this isn’t a photo of trees in Italy, but please forgive me as I try to make a point]

You see the next iteration of the transformation here.

First change to the photo by cropping

First change to the photo by cropping

About all I’ve done here is crop the photo into a panoramic format.

The next step was to add some moodiness to the photo, as you see here.

A bit of mood created by emphasizing the atmostpherics

I brought out the atmospherics by darkening the sky a bit and by applying a warm sepia look to the photo.

So now I have a warm photo of trees that is just a tad moody. To add a bit of character, I went to my archives to find a photo of birds in my ‘birds collection’. I inserted three blackbirds, which are ubiquitous to northern New Mexico, into the photo. Darkening the image even more emphasized the atmospherics and gave it the sense of cold mystery that I was seeking for the photo.

So, here is the final image.

The final image

I really like this photo. I’ve liked it from the moment I created it. I think I dubbed it "Last Flight from Taos" or something. But I know from experience that it doesn’t have wide appeal to others as a fine-art photograph. But I know why it appeals to me so much, and here’s the story.

Its Personal Appeal: The Story

My daughter Alyson was pregnant with her second child and was visiting us in Denver. As usual, we went to dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant, Il Fornaio. While at dinner, our friend and waiter Jose Naveja was suggesting names for the new baby. Knowing it was a boy, and Jose being Jose, he suggested the name ‘El Diablito’ – loosely ‘Little Devil’. We had a good laugh as we added that name to the list.

Fast forward a year and El Diablito is now about 8 months old. After Spending Christmas in Denver, the family went to our cabin in northern New Mexico, a few miles outside of Taos. While spending the day in Taos and while having lunch, I snapped this photo of my darling grandson, Braeden – aka Diablito. But, he looks to be more an angle than a devil doesn’t he? El Diablito? No way – El Angelito? Yes!  

Isn't he adorable?!

But while I was taking photos, his mood changed a bit and El Diablito finally joined the family! Hellooo!

Same great kid – two opposite moods: one Angelito and one Diablito.

After lunch, we wandered out to Taos plaza, where I saw the trees with light snow, and where I snapped the photo you saw above.

So, does the final photo of the trees with birds above have emotions that may cloud my judgement as to its worthiness as a fine-art photograph? Yes it does. It involves my friend Jose, my favorite restaurant Il Fornaio, my daughter Alyson, my favorite grandson (OK, he’s the only grandson), Christmas, our cabin in New Mexico in a town where I met my wife, a fine meal in Taos, and a bit of moody atmospherics.  

All this has been to show you how hard it can be for a photographer to separate fact (of a worthy fine-art photograph) from fantasy (of the emotions clouding the moment).

So, that’s it. If you feel my pain, please leave a comment, below.

 

Ciao for now,

Steve

 

p.s. Here’s an added bonus – at absolutely no extra charge – of another version from the same initial snapshot. In this version, I focus more on the web of branches, while I added just a touch of blizzard to winterize the scene even more.

And finally, I just couldn’t resist giving it a smudged-pencil look. 

 

 

Transforming the Cathedral of San Andreas

Today’s transformation contains a bit of a history lesson. This transformation is one where my original, very weak looking snapshot of the Cathedral of San Andreas in Amalfi, Italy is renovated into a much nicer photograph.

“It is typical of photos taken aiming either up or down, that there will be a good bit of distortion. Aiming your camera up creates a convergence of lines toward the top. Aiming your camera down does the opposite.”

But, did you notice that I am publishing this article on Monday, rather than the usual Tuesday. Well, there's a reason for that. You'll have to read down a bit to find out why I did this.

Original, yucky, unaltered snapshot

But for now, here is my original, blah snapshot. Pretty pathetic, huh?

Remember two weeks ago when I discussed JPEGs vs RAW photos. What you see here is the unaltered RAW snapshot – none of the JPEG’s alterations have been applied, as this was not saved as a jpeg image. If you are a bit confused by this, go back and read that article from two weeks ago.

So, Who is San Andreas?

Before I show you the transformation of this snapshot, I think you will find it interesting to know more about the man for whom this cathedral was named. You probably know San Andreas by his more common English-naming version of Saint Andrew. Yes, he’s none other than Saint Peter’s brother. Both were fishermen who became disciples, called by Jesus at the same time to become ‘fishers of men’.

Oh, and there’s a geological formation in California that was named after San Andreas – though through no fault of his own. I’ll pause for just a bit to let the laughter die down before continuing.

 

 

Detail of Saint Andrew and brother, Saint Peter

In this enlargement from the still-drab snapshot, you can see Saint Andrew (with a stringer of fish) and brother Saint Peter (with the Keys to the Kingdom) as they appear with the other disciples on the facade of the cathedral.

 

Statue of San Andreas in the Cathedral's piazza, with saltire cross

And here is a photo of the San Andreas statue that sits in the piazza in front of the cathedral in Amalfi. Note the diagonal cross? That’s pretty significant to the death of San Andrea (and to Scotland it turns out – but more on that later).

 

That diagonal cross is called a ‘saltire’ cross. Saint Andrew – as was the fate for all of the disciples – was martyred. But their martyrdom, unlike many of those today, was personal, as they were the only ones to perish in the process. Saint Andrew's martyrdom was in the form of crucifixion on a saltire (or diagonal) cross.

 

Here is a depiction of that crucifixion by the artist Juan Correa de Vivar, painted about 1545. Not a very pretty sight, but I think that was probably the point, wasn't it?!

Artist's depiction of Saint Andrew's crucifiction, by Juan Correa de Vivar

The Scottish connection?

In 832 AD, a leader called Óengus II (in what is now called Scotland) led an army of Scots into battle against the Angles (the Angles were one of the Germanic tribes who settled in Britain after the Romans left, and they founded Anglo-Saxon England – so basically, they formed what we call today 'the English'). As Oengus was heavily outnumbered he engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, and vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland.

On the morning of battle white clouds forming an X shape in the sky were said to have appeared. Óengus and his forces, emboldened by this apparent divine intervention, took to the field and despite being inferior in numbers, they were victorious.

Flag of Scotland

Having interpreted the cloud phenomenon as representing the saltire cross upon which Saint Andrew was crucified, Óengus honored his pre-battle pledge and duly appointed Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. The white saltire set against a celestial blue background became the design of the flag of Scotland. Here is that flag of Scotland. 

Flag of the United Kingdom

And that same cross was then incorporated into the flag of the United Kingdom, as seen here. 

So now you know why there is an X in the flag of Scotland and the United Kingdom, including Australia.

Back to Amalfi

OK, back at the Cathedral of San Andreas in Amalfi.

You’ve heard of the Crusades, right? There were four of them. The first three had to do with the Holy Land. But the fourth was a bit bizarre in that, when the Crusaders arrived in Venice to get onto ships to head off to the Holy Land once more, those conniving Venetians talked the whole gang into going off to sack their financial rival, Constantinople, instead. So, that’s what they did in 1204. As Constantinople was the seat of the Eastern Catholic Empire, there were many relics of the saints ensconced there, including a good part of Saint Andrew's body.

Then, in 1208, following that sack of Constantinople, some of those relics of Saint Andrew which remained in Constantinople were taken to Amalfi, by Cardinal Peter of Capua, a native of Amalfi. A cathedral was built, dedicated to San Andreas (as is the town itself), to house a tomb in its crypt where it is rumored that most of the relics of the apostle, including an occipital bone, remain. FYI: Saint Andrew's skull is said to be housed in one of the massive pillars of Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. 

As a side note, the room at the entrance to that crypt is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. Here are a couple of photos of that marvelous room. 

So, that’s how the Cathedral of San Andreas that sits in the town of Amalfi came to be. Now back to the transformation.

The Transformation

It is typical of photos taken aiming either up or down, that there will be a good bit of distortion. Aiming your camera up creates a convergence of lines toward the top.  Aiming your camera down does the opposite. So, as you can see in the original photo, the real-life vertical lines of the Cathedral are skewed. Additionally, as I was not standing straight-on to the cathedral, the horizontal lines are also a bit skewed. And then there is a bit of scaffolding. There is always a bit of scaffolding.

Photo with distortion alterations, only

So, my first job was to make vertical lines vertical and horizontal lines horizontal and then to remove the scaffolding. After removing the scaffolding, I had to borrow a bit of the facade from the left of the cathedral to balance out the right of the cathedral. Here is the result of this first step.

Now that things are straightened out, it’s time to work on the color elements of the photo. Like in the discussion of jpeg images, I needed to add color saturation, contrast and sharpening to this RAW image. So, that’s what I did. Here is the spruced up photo as it stood then.

Almost completed transformation...that sky is a bit blah

Artist Bob Ross liked 'friendly little clouds', and so do photographers. A photographer's best friend is often a cloud – we do have other friends, but clouds usually add a good bit to photos where the sky is visible, where our human friends do not. See this photo, and this one, to see what I mean. So, as I didn’t particularly like the plain, blue sky of this nice Amalfi-Coast day, I went to my cloud file (yes, I have many, many photos of clouds that I’ve taken over the years) and selected clouds that I felt really added another dimension to the photo. So, here you have the final version of the photo.

The final image, complete with friendly clouds

And here is an enlarged segment of the façade which reveals some interesting things. One is that the façade is actually a very well done, and colorful, mosaic.

Detail of mosaics, bowing kings, and Apostles

Another is the depiction of kings, who are bowing down and offering their allegiance to Christ through the offering of their crowns.

Finally you will note three animals and one man, all winged and haloed. These are the traditional symbols of the Apostles. To Christ’s extreme right is Mark, who is always shown as a lion (and as he is the Patron Saint of Venice, it is called ‘The Lion City’). Then there is an ox, which represents Luke. To Christ’s left is a man, who depicts Matthew. And finally we see an eagle, which is the symbol for John. You will often see these animal effigies of the Apostles in various forms of Italian art.  

So there you have it. Another example of transforming a blah, lifeless image into a fine-art photograph. If the original image, all skewed and lifeless, had been saved as a jpeg image, there would have been little that could be done to improve it beyond straightening it out. When I first looked at my original snapshot, I actually considered deleting it...but then I thought, 'hmmmmm'.  And, since the photo was saved in a RAW image format, there was a lot to be gained in transformation from the original photo.

I hope you enjoyed this transformation. Feel free to leave a comment. 

Why on Monday Instead of Tuesday?

And oh, I almost forgot to tell you why I released this article for my blog on a Monday instead of a Tuesday. That is because today, November 30th, is both the 'Feast of Saint Andrew Day', as well as 'National Day' in Scotland, both related of course to the subject of today's article. 

Ciao for now.

Steve

 

 

My Twitter feed...

Staying in a Convent Retreat

The Grand Hotel Convento Amalfi -- Ahhhh.

I hope that you have a ‘place’ you can go when you are feeling a bit out of sorts. A place of escape from sometime and somewhere that has comforting memories for you.

“The convent from which this hotel sprang was originally an abbey of Cistercian monks beginning in 1223”

I do, and I want to share it with you in hopes that you might think to dwell on such a place from your own life. And if you don’t have such a place, staying at this fabulous hotel will give you a place where your mind can go to settle for years to come.

In September, you saw the article titled ‘One Fine Day’. That article was about a fabulous day on the Amalfi Coast of Italy. Today’s article is about our base of operations while we were in Amalfi.

History of the Convent/Hotel

That's the Grand Hotel Convento at the top left

First, you need to understand that in modern English usage since the 18th century, a convent refers to a community of women. However, in much earlier times, it referred to a community of either brothers or sisters. The convent from which this hotel sprang was originally an abbey of Cistercian monks beginning in 1223. In 1583, it passed to Capuchin Friars who were there for two centuries until they were expelled in 1813 (I’m sure there’s a great story in there somewhere). It wasn’t until 1885 that it began to be used as a hotel, and it experienced a series transformations to keep up with an increasing tourism demand.

Here are a couple of photos of what remains of portions of the old convent. White plastered walls with intricate stonework make for a contemplative scene.

Getting There

The Grand Hotel Convento di Amalfi, sits at the end of, and high above, Amalfi Town. You can see the hotel in this old photograph that seems to pre-date elevators and today's roadway, which you can see in the next photo.

To get to the hotel, one parks their car in the right lane of a two lane road just as that road enters a tunnel (and the Italian drivers give your parking in the roadway not a second thought -- its just the way its done along the Amalfi Coast), as that’s where the hotel entrance is located. You can see the tunnel entrance along the main highway in this photo, taken from the hotel pool.

A bellman comes out to greet you and unload your bags. They then maneuver your car into that small lot you see in the photo -- if there is a space, that is. If there are no spaces, who knows where your vehicle winds up? 

The hotel entrance is a cave-like opening in the cliff through which you walk to an elevator. That elevator takes you up a couple of hundred feet where you disembark (the glass elevator structure can be seen in the photo) to another elevator within the hotel proper where you then go to the lobby on the fifth floor.

A prosecco awaited our arrival...and you can tell we needed it!

Now, if you had been smart, you might have arrived in Amalfi by boat. Or maybe you arrived by car driven by a professional. And then there’s a bus. But we drove ourselves from Salerno along the most terrifying road on which we have ever been. When we arrived, we were given a complementary prosecco as seen above, complete with goose berry, to calm our nerves. See that guy in the background? He’s an Australian who said after learning that we had driven ourselves along the coastal road, “I admire you!”

The Hotel

Our room, with balcony and lovely whitewashed walls and ceiling, looked out over the blue Mediterranean.

An evening view of the Mediterranean from our balcony

The grounds were dreamy. Bougainvillea arbors covered the dining patio, where we had both breakfast, lunch and dinner whilst eating at the hotel. And the weather was superb!

The Amalfi Coast is noted for its lemons and its limoncello. Almost everywhere you look along the coast, you will see arbors of lemon trees, like these in the hanging gardens of the hotel.

 

The reach the pool, you walk along this loggia for a bit.

This loggia leads from the dining veranda to the pool

And then you come to the most dramatic pool setting that we’ve ever seen.

A dramatic cliff-side pool location

The infinity pool, with an infinite view of the Med

The view from the hotel’s terrace is spectacular, whether it be sunrise, midday, sunset or evening. The town of Amalfi sits just below. In this photo, you see the sunrise we experienced from the roof of the hotel.

Sunrise comes to the Amalfi Coast

Here is a view during the day of Amalfi and its harbor. The pool cabana can be seen in the middle-left of the photo. And the ever-present lemons can be seen along the lower edge.

Lush vegetation and Amalfi Town

The view towards Sicily 

I’m not sure if ‘what goes down, must go up’ is part of Newtonian physics, but if you’re staying at the hotel and want to go into town, that’s the reality of the situation. The good part is you don’t have to walk all the way up – just to the roadway where you can go to the hotel entrance and then up the rest of the way to the hotel by elevator. But still, there are plenty of steps to negotiate for you to get your exercise. 

It's a long way up to the GHCA

Want to go to the beach? Here is what you find just below the hotel…with crystal clear waters.

The beach below the hotel...a nice place to relax and get wet

And this shot from the hotel shows the ‘beach’ of the hotel just past the exit of the tunnel mentioned earlier. The Italians make creative use of their resources, don’t they?!

An architects dream...a stone workers nightmare

The Food

Now, if you’re like me, and I certainly know that I am, you are probably wondering about the food at the hotel. Rather than me telling you how scrumptiously delicious it is, just take a look.

The breakfast buffet – scrumptious.

Poolside lunch – scrumptiouser

Dinner – the scruptiousest.

And of course, at each meal we had either our favorite ‘Coca Cola Lite’ or wine – or sometimes, both.

A nice bottle of Amarone, all the way down from the Veneto

And how did the food get to our table? Well, it was usually Alfonso who took care of us, and he did a marvelous job!

Our outstanding waiter, Alfonso

After our evening meal, with this being Amalfi and all – home to the world’s best limoncello -- Alfonso brings us a bit of the yellow liquid to finish off a perfect evening.

The end to a perfect evening

 

I hope that you have your own special place where you can go to dwell on happy times whenever you need such a diversion. If you don’t, feel free to borrow ours!

Here is a link to the website for the Grand Hotel Convento di Amalfi:

http://www.ghconventodiamalfi.com/en/

 

Ciao for now,

Steve

 

 

 

My Twitter feed...

JPEG versus RAW

Want to know how the image is captured and saved to your camera? Want to know what JPEG stands for? Then read on.

“...if you are satisfied with cellphone and point-and-shoot photo quality, saving images in the .jpg format, stick with it. If you are interested in pursuing a higher-level of photography, then you will want to capture and save your images in the raw format.”

When it comes to taking photos in the JPEG format, versus taking photos in the RAW format, there are huge differences. Below, I’ll just discuss how an image is captured and then the difference in the file formats. In a future article, I’ll graphically show you the differences in the image quality of these two image formats.

After getting a better understanding of JPEG versus RAW, you may want to upgrade to a camera that saves it’s images in the RAW format…or not.

JPEG vs RAW

You have surely heard of images saved in the JPEG format, but have you heard about camera images saved in the RAW format? About 99.9% of you have cameras that save images in the JPEG format – if you have a cell phone that takes photos, you have one – if you have a point-and-shoot camera, you have one – and if you have a pro-level camera, you have one. You may have noticed that when you look at your image files on your computer, they have the file extension .jpeg or .jpg, like ‘filename.jpg’. 

But, do you have a camera that captures images in the RAW format? Yes, you do if you have any camera at all. All cameras capture their image in a raw, unaltered format. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the image is ultimately saved in one of the raw image formats. For most people, this is just fine.

DIGITAL CAMERAS HAVE A SENSOR

Here’s what happens when you press the shutter button on any digital camera. The image is captured on a sensor (in the old days, film would be waiting for those light rays after they passed through your lens – today an electronic sensor is waiting for those same light rays), like the one at right that’s in my camera.

And here you can see the sensor (the greenish-blue thingie), when the lens is removed, as it sits in my camera.

See ‘Size Matters’ below for a short discussion of camera sensor megapixels and their importance.

As soon as you snap your photo, that sensor, along with the computer chip in your camera, now passes color information along the camera’s electronic pathway.

WARNING: Don’t want a bit more technical information? Then skip the next paragraph.

Each pixel on the sensor is made to respond to either red, green or blue light (but not all three) and there are 2 green-sensitive pixels for each red and blue pixel, because human eyes are more sensitive to green. I don’t want to muddy the waters much more, but there is another important step in here: a process called ‘Bayer interpolation’ calculates what the ‘true’ color of each pixel should be based on the relative strengths of the red, green and blue neighboring pixels. Each pixel in the converted image now has three color factors stored for each-and-every pixel: the red intensity, the blue intensity, and the green intensity. The brightness of the pixel is also stored for each pixel. The mixture of those three colors for each pixel gets converted into color intensity for each of the typical colors, be it red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, magenta, or the millions of colors in-between.

So, the computer chip within your camera has now determined which color each of the pixels should be, along with their intensity, and that color information is now transmitted along the camera’s electronic wiring to the next step.

CAPTURING THE IMAGE

Once that color intensity information has been calculated, it is passed to a computer chip that is installed in your camera. But, before it reaches that chip, it is in a raw, unaltered state – this raw image has not yet been saved to the storage device in your camera (a ‘card’ for many cameras, or typically a built in storage device within your cellphone). So, just before that image reaches that computer chip in your camera, the image is in a raw format. If you were able to see that image at this point, trust me – it would not be very flattering to you as a photographer, as it is very dull in several ways.

Another really cool thing is that a lot of other information travels along with that captured, but as yet unsaved, image. Information such as the camera model, date, time, lens and camera settings, and location (on some cameras, but for sure on your cellphone camera). That information will be stored in the image file down the pipeline as explained below.

JPEG STORAGE

So, what happens next to this raw image? That’s where the computer chip in your camera does some marvelous things. What that chip does was determined several years ago by a group of camera-industry folks who started to meet in 1986. They called themselves the Joint Photographic Expert Group (the acronym for which is JPEG – cool, huh?!). In a 1992 meeting, they all agreed that the raw, unprocessed, unaltered, unadulterated and non-manipulated image that the sensor captures had to be enhanced if the masses were to ever buy a digital camera.

The JPEG agreed on the following: the raw image should have the contrast increased a certain amount, so the image doesn’t look so ‘flat’; the raw image should have the saturation increased by a certain amount, to give it more ‘color’; the raw image should be sharpened a certain amount, so it doesn’t look so ‘fuzzy’. 

Another factor that is adjusted is the ‘white balance’, which is a bit more difficult to explain in a short article; but, suffice it to say that it has to do with whether the overall look of the photo is warmer or cooler, and is directly related to the settings you can make using your camera’s menu for ‘scenic’, ‘portrait’, ‘shadows’, ‘tungsten’, 'flash', etc.

They also came up with a way to save the photographic image so that it would take up less space on your storage device, which means that an image saved as a jpeg image loses just a bit of its quality each time it is saved.

So finally, the sensor information with the JPEG-designated changes, as well as the camera and capture information mentioned above, is baked into the file with the file extension of .jpg as it is saved to your camera.

CAPTURE SUMMARY

So, when you press the button on your camera, the sensor captures the light rays, the electronic version of those rays is sent through your camera’s wiring to a computer chip in your camera, then that chip manipulates the image using the Bayer calculations and standards created by the JPEG folks, and finally it is saved to your camera’s storage device. You then just look at the image digitally, print it out at home, upload it to a print facility, or take it personally to a print facility.

If you want to have prints larger than the usual 4”x6” variety, you may or may not have much luck getting a quality print – as the camera’s sensor size is one of the factors that determine print-size quality. Again, see ‘Size Matters’, below.

Here is a simple flowchart showing the process just described. The flow along the top is the one to generate a JPEG file. The blue line below avoids all of the JPEG's enhancements, as discussed next.

SAVING IN RAW FORMAT

If you have a more expensive camera, like a digital single-lens reflex (or DSLR), or one of the new mirrorless cameras with interchangeable lenses, then that camera most likely can actually save images in a raw format. The file extension (instead of .jpg, for instance) is .nef for Nikon, .cr2 for Canon and .arw (among others) for Sony, etc. Most of the cameras just mentioned can also save images in .jpg format instead, or at the same time (i.e. two different file-format images are saved at once to the storage card).

And further, even though one may just intentionally be saving images in a raw format, there is also a small .jpg image being created and saved (whether you want it to or not – and you do, by the way) for display on the back of the camera. Yes, that image one sees on their DSLR camera back is a jpg image that sits in another file alongside the file for the raw image.

SO WHAT, YOU SAY?

OK, if you are satisfied with cellphone and point-and-shoot photo quality, saving images in the .jpg format, stick with it. If you are interested in pursuing a higher-level of photography, then you will want (actually, I’d say ‘need’) to capture and save your images in the raw format.

Why? The files saved in the raw format that you will be working with have tons more information with which to work, which I will demonstrate for you in a follow-up article. In other words, the raw files are not limited to the fixed enhancements that the JPEG manipulation bakes into the .jpg files. 

The down side? You will have to manipulate every image using software (like Adobe’s Photoshop or Lightroom) to get to a satisfactory .jpg image to print yourself or to send away for printing. That means that you will need to touch every image to even get it up to the same quality as the JPEG’s criteria of the less-featured cameras.

SIZE MATTERS

In the case of your cellphone camera or point-and-shoot camera, the sensor is much, much smaller than this one shown at the beginning of this article. And being smaller, the files that are saved are much smaller. If you tried to blow up a photo to a large size using an image from your cellphone, it would look quite ‘blocky’ and have very little resolution.  As a quick guide, generally speaking, a camera that captures images at 3 mega pixels (or 3mp) will create a decent print of only 5”x7”. If you have a camera that captures its images at 10mp, you could print an images at 9”x13”. My Nikon D800 camera has a 36mp sensor that creates images that can be printed at 16”x24” with no additional manipulation needed. So, size does matter when it comes to camera sensors and how large you want to print an image.

 

Summary

As mentioned above, if you want to get into photography at a more-serious level, you should consider a camera that can save images in the raw format, and then invest in the software and time to manipulate those raw files. If you are satisfied with what you have, stick with it.

I will show you what I mean by 'having more to work with' in a raw-image file in an upcoming article.

Ciao for now,

Steve

 

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