PHOTOGRAPHIC THREADS: camera queries, any photo tech stuff!

[mark smyth]

looks OK to me

[Maggi Young]

The colour is good, David. Blues are not the easiest and this seems very true to me. I like Brodiaea, too. A friend used to grow quite a few in her nearby garden in Aberdeen so you should be okay with them over winter. Though she was on a slope which will have aided drainage.

[Paddy Tobin]

Good to see you in action with the camera, David.

Looking forward to more and more photographs from you now.

Paddy

[David Shaw]

Here are a, small, selection of what I have managed with our new S5700. The most editing any have had is simple cropping.
Gentian angustifolia
Gentian prolata - a super, tiny little plant but it does need the sun to make it open its flowers
Arisaema jacquemontii seedhead waiting for the sun to ripen it
Cyclamen purpurascens without leaves (I think rather than hederifolium)

[David Shaw]

At the beginning of the month Susan refered to the Pitlochry Photo Day which I belive was excellent and appreciated by all that attended. Carol and myself were booked but had to cancell due to other commitments. I have heard Ian and Cyril give talks on digital photography and have learned a lot from them but forgoten even more.

Could I ask Ian, Susan, Sandy et al who are skilled at using digital cameras and Photoshop etc to put their heads together and write a tutorial for the website? The tutorial will be focused on plant and garden photography and cover use of the camera, taking plant pics and editing them for use on the web or in projector presentations.

The tutorial would be something to keep and refer back to and I think many members, not just David & David, would benefit from it. Please give it some thought

[Maggi Young]

David, your Gentiana angustifolia is not... it is one of the G. septemfida types. I'm not too sure about the G. prolata, either   
And your Cyclamen purpurascens is a C. hederifolium... the pix are okay though!!

[David Shaw]

You could be right about G septemfida as we grow both, however it has been in flower since mid July. The G prolata is from a respected Scottish nursery; and I know they don't always get it right either.
What is the differnce between Cyclamen purpurascens and hedrefolium. The one pictured has been in flower for weeks.

[David Nicholson]

David, did you find a cropping tool in the FinePix software that came with the camera? I didn't.

[mark smyth]

Ask and you receive

Photoshop Elements

Save your images to named folders. For this year I have a folder called ‘Images 2007’. In the folder there are further folders for each month. This month’s folder is 08. This way you can keep a track of what has flowered when. In the folder I have the original image eg DSCN2821 or whatever your camera saves the image as and the edited and named image e.g. galanthus peshmenii.jpeg. Photo Shop automatically adds the .jpeg when you save the image. To be able to do more with an image it is better to set your camera at a high setting, 2500 pixels wide, rather than a small one of 600 pixels wide.

Once Photo Shop Elements, PSE, has installed go to start and click on programmes and look for PSE. It is below accessories and it will say Adobe. Place the cursor on it and it will open. Put the cursor on PSE which will open revealing the green icon, right click it and then click copy. Go to your desktop, right click and paste. This will place a shortcut to PSE on your desktop. Easy so far?

Double click the icon and PSE will open. On the left hand side there is a vertical narrow box with icons. Make sure the top left one is highlighted by clicking on it. It’s a square box with perforations. You are now ready to edit a photo. Go to FILE at the top LEFT corner of the screen and CLICK it ONCE. A drop down menu will appear. Click OPEN which will make a box appear. To the RIGHT of LOOK IN there is a small DOWN ARROW. Click it and another drop down box will appear. This will bring up what is on your desktop and hopefully you will see your folder called ‘Images 2005’ or what ever you have called it. DOUBLE CLICK the folder and all the images will be there but only as names or the number allocated by the camera. DOUBLE CLICK one of the images and it will open. You can open all images at one go by holding down the arrow above ctrl on the bottom left of your keyboard and left clicking each image and then click OPEN.  To cut images down to size click IMAGE on the left of top tool bar and a drop down menu will appear. Place the cursor arrow on RESIZE and then click IMAGE SIZE. A box will open showing the detail of your photo. Pixel dimensions width, height, pixels, document size (inches or cm) and resolution. Change the RESOLUTION to 72 by left clicking in the resolution box. I very rarely use document size and only use it to see how big an image if I’m going to print it. Above width it also tells you the physical size of the image in megabytes. I save my images to 600 pixels wide for general use which is mainly for my web sites. For posting on the SRGC web site I resize the images to 450 pixels wide. You only need to change width which will automatically be high lighted after you click image size. The computer will automatically change everything else. Click OK when you have changed the width of your image. If you feel you have made a mistake click EDIT on the top TOOLBAR and click STEP BACKWARD. This will undo what you have done. Click FILE on the top toolbar and go down to SAVE FOR WEB.  A new box opens giving you the option to do a few things to the image. I set the QUALITY to 60. You will see on the left side your image twice. At the bottom of each image you will see some information. The left image shows the original size of the image. The image I’m editing shows it was 777K the right image shows it is now 112.6K and it will down load in 20 seconds with a 56K modem. Click OK when you’re ready. A box appears allowing you to select a folder to save your image in. Click SAVE when you are ready. You are then left with the original photo in the PSE screen. Click the X to close it. When it asks SAVE CHANGES click NO.

It took a lot longer to type this than it will to edit images once you get to learn it

[David Shaw]

OK, Mark, and thanks.
I will print that posting off and see how I get on with it.
David, no, I did not find a cropping tool in the FinePix software but bought Photoshop Elements last year. It only cost about £40 (I think) and has far more applications than I will ever need.

[Maggi Young]

Maybe I'm thinking of G. paradoxa.... much more feathery foliage.
 Have a look at the Cyclamen Group site : http://www.cyclamen.org/indexCS.html   there's a list there of the species and their basic traits.

For first glance the difference is in the leaf shape, flower shape and colouring and. most important for me, C. purpurascens has a really strong and lovely fragrance!

[Lesley Cox]

The Gentiana prolata looks a little large and loose, compared with mine anyway. Depends how much it varies.

[mark smyth]

G. paradoxa looks like this and with narrow leaves up the stem

[Anthony Darby]

Cyclamen purpurascens doesn't have the 'auricles' at the flower opening, which are also absent in C. cilicium (a point missed by the numpties that produce the fake photos on the ones sold dry in garden centres) and C. colchicum. I had hederifolium in flower in early July.

[David Shaw]

Lesley, the whole plant (Gentiana prolata) in the picture is only about five inches across although it is a young plant that I bought earlier this year. I have just collected a few seed heads off it. Very fine seeds and 'green' - presumably ripe as the seed heads had split naturaly.
Marks picture of G. paradoxa is much the same as the ones in our garden. Thin, stagly stems with yellowish green leaves that are very narrow.