When you see a photo in 2023, do you believe it? I’ve just been watching the past few months and today am speaking because I think they missed the bigger part of what AI is doing to photography.
All the top photo channels have been talking about Ai.
But they are not talking about BELIEF! Don’t just watch today. Follow along with my demonstration by grabbing my free film presets and doping this yourself. This kind of photography can’t be ignored and has a big part in what’s coming.
Ai is not Photography.
Today I’m going to tell you what I realized about Ai in Photography, how it’s a repeat of the 2000’s and what you need to be doing to stay ahead and make your photos more real. Yes AI generation tools la Dall e and Stable diffusion will get better. But even when they do feel, real, they won’t be!
Here’s a few more examples. Look at one of my photos of El Trampolin Tamasopo Mexico. When I asked Dall e to make it, the scene actually feels like the right place. It just look very ,much like painting. Stable Diffusion made a scene that has nothing to do with the region. It’s just a river.
My photo of the river at sunrise in El Trampolin Tamasopo Mexico
Don’t be like photographers from the 2000’s
I have some more examples in the video. But what it shows is that while Ai is nothing like the real thing, denial won’t save photography. So don’t ignore what I’m saying today. We have to adapt and make real photo that people value. Those will be the heart of photography future.
Ai will change the demand for many images and perhaps the world will become even more fake. But people will know it’s fake and that is where photography is still so important.
Life, death, , history cultures and people are real, not Ai. So NOT using ai will mean you have something unique in the coming world of Ai imagery.
IS photography going to die because of Ai?
Photography has to stand on it’s own. What Ai will take a giant piece of is over edited photos that are not real. The suspension of disbelief is going to het harder just like it did with Photoshop in the 2000’s. So more over the top things wi9ll soon just be seen al fake Ai things.
This leaves the value in photography in that it’s real. There’s nothing wrong with creating illustrated art. It beautiful. But it’s not photography. I remember this debate many time at international photo conferences and comps like PPA…. If there’s nothing of a photo left, it’s a painting people said.
Now that gets tripled. Now everyone will know the amazing thing they are looking at that seems to amazing to be true, IS NOT. It’s an image without belief and that leaves room for us to adapt with real honest photography that represents the world, the people and the cultures around us.
Should you use Capture One or Lightroom for your black and white edits? PLUS where does Photoshop for black and white fit in?
We’re going to test that in today’s video with direct comparisons. Taking the sale filed and editing them in each to see what gives us the best black and white in the least time. I’ll give you tips for all of them along the way.
Also, see my Lightroom vs Capture on 2022 video here for a general overview of these two great apps. For now, let’s watch today’s video and do some black and white tests.
Since I started digital photography 20 years I’ve seen just about every technique for Black and White in digital Some needless complex. some are just ugly. Simplifying that process led me to bypass plugins and create tools Like Silver 4 presets and Blackroom BW Actions.
Pure Capture One. While there are fewer BW sliders, you can make up for it with the more advanced color tools and get a stunning result.
Honestly we B&W lovers occasionally get a little snobby, so this question can be complex. But since we no longer have the chemicals we used to use in the darkroom the traditional color filters do not have the same effect. Today to take the same principle and make it work digital.
The best black and white conversions usually start for a color photo because with those color channels we can convert and extract the colors, much like we did with filters in the film days but with more detail. Darkroom like green filter, lighter reds, etc. If you bake black and white in camera, you lose all that power. That’s not to say your BW photos are wrong. Just that they are not as flexible.
So I usually convert on the raw file. In LR or C1. I use my SIlver 4 presets if Filmist. But whether you use creative presets to go further, or all manual. You don’t want to supply desaturate. Use those channels and the power of your RAW.
Watch today’s video above, because we’re looking at Lightroom VS Capture ON in a side-by-side level. Does one give you a better black and white conversion than the other and what are the advantages between Lightroom and C1.
After that, you can go deeper into your black and white edits..
If I’m going to edit my best work. I go beyond RAW. I’ll restore the color channels before going into Photoshop, leaving my other edits in place. Then I can go deeper with my black and white edits. But they are also more complex in Photoshop.
Sometimes it’s not even clear how you can make a better black and white in Photoshop. I use Blackroom to convert to a more complex BW because it always helps me find a way to improve the edit without stumbling around. That’s what it was built for.
Lightroom is a little more user-friendly compares to Capture One. But with Styles or presets, you can get your look fast in both.
In conclusion. Which is best? LR, C1 or PS
When it comes to Lightroom VS Capture One for black and white. I think Lightroom has the edge for ease of use and results that just work. Capture One with its other available tools can perhaps give you more options but with more work. Both are going to work great if you save presets or styles or Have a pack like Silver 4 or Filmsist on hand.
In the end, both are good and the results will be good.
But comparing both to Photoshop. Photoshop offers more options, but with a lot more time spent. Even if you use Photoshop actions to vastly speed up these more advanced edits, Photoshop should probably not be where you start.
Edit normally in Lightroom or in Capture one or another RAW-type editor. Then take the very best images you want to showcase to Photoshop to give them that edge that makes them win.
Lastly, plugins for black and white are heavily hyped. I used them when I all this starting out but native tools have improved a LOT since those days. As I mentioned in the video, a plugin adds another step and takes away control.
Yes, using presets and styles and actions help a lot because they make hard tasks fast. But they use the native app tools in Lightroom, Capture One, and Photoshop. So instead of a new file or a flat image. You just highly refined sliders, adjustable layers, and a totally transparent process. To be that’s a huger win.
Let me know if the comments what you think is the best black and white tool.
Gavin Seim
The detail in Photoshop is almost impossible to beat. Layers and details equal more refinement. So I still take by best photos here in the end after using a RAW style editor.Don’t be afraid to edit your black and white a little more. Whatever app you use. In the end, it’s all about shadow and contrast.
Presets, photo editing software, and gear. We have the tools in 2022. But I want to change how you think about your photos.
I’ve been a photographer for over 20 years. I watched digital be born and the entire industry change. I’ve run the gamut in everything from street and wedding photography to fashion photography of Models in Mexico and fashion photography.
I saw photography go from a technical creative art to something mostly driven by internet marketers and “Ai” tools. But I always see the same mistakes that make photos ordinary no matter how good the software gets.
I don’t need to second guess. People either like my photon or not. A clean Natural HDR 4 process made it look good and that’s a wrap.
Sometimes digital is so easy, that we lose an opportunity. Trends come and go, but in the end, photography will always be about emotion, inspiration, and creativity. If you learn to discover shadows and souls with confidence, your photography will always get better regardless of the tools you use.
Confidence is not always easy. I’ve learned a lot as a street photographer. You can have all the software. You have the best camera, and download the best Lightroom presets (yes I have those for you) But what you need is to see as no one else sees. That’s what I want to show you today.
You’ll find the presets I use here on the site – They do matter because they make completing your vision easier. You can get my free lightroom presets and film styles like Filmist and Natural HDR.
Most photographers edit wrong, but not for the reasons they think!
In this video, we’re going head to head with the mistake that nearly every photographer has made, and may are doing every day. If you can get past this, it changes more than just how you edit. It’s going to change your photography mentality.
As I showed in the video. The perfect capture and the perfect edit are a myth. That’s what makes photography so amazing. There’s always something we can improve that will affect the emotion of your photo, or the lack of it.
Knowing how to edit, starts with knowing what you want. Presets and styles are invaluable because they help me find my look without wasting brain cells.
Black and white, color, contrasty, soft. Deciding does not have to be hard. here I used Filmist and Elegance 4 to give more depth and that’s it. You can get my free lightroom presets and film styles on the FIlmist page.
I usually start with Filmist because it works so well. But there’s something more important than what you edit with! That’s knowing what you want to create with your edit. An actual vision.
Ansel Adams taught this way back with visualization techniques and using Zones in our exposures. Something we studied at length in my Exposed Master Class and in Photo Perfect.
IN the end making the craft of your photography second nature, finding your confidence, even if you know it won’t be perfect. That is what will transform your photography. The tools you use just, are just things to help you get there.
I’ll explain it all in detail in the video. You can also watch it directly on my photography channel here
Enjoy and we’ll see you next time – Gavin Seim
I like capturing things people don’t even think about like the corner drug store because in 20 years everything will change and then simple photos like this will matter. But here it was easy, this was all about shadows and sunset. Using Silver 4 and Blackroom was a no-brainer.The full gold chrome look that I talked about in this blog post. Decide your look hand and commit to it. It will change your perfective on every image you publish.
Shot notes: On all 3 of these I used Silver Skin process from my Silver 3 presets collection for C1 and Lr on all three. I did some burn burn and dodge cleanup in Photoshop also. I used a Fuji XT3 with a 90mm f2.
Environmental portraits were a bit part of my training and my late mentor who was one of the finest portraitists in the past 100 years; he crafted environmental images for walls for an entire career.
So I asked myself as I looked at these. Why do I need to remove set elements for this shot. Which tells a better story? I picked 3 poses but my favorite was the environmental scene and it looks great large. I decided to test it on the world of Facebook photo groups. By the way you can comment below or discuss this here on the Facebook post.
There was no grand plan here. Maybe that’s WHY I like it. The internet is full of confident critics who have no idea what they are talking about. I’ll never forget standing around the image salon at competition with Ken Whitmire and others and having strong opinions to this or that. Ken usually had a more objective view to offer. I guess what make me blog about this shot is that I realized I did’t care if they thought it was “wrong”, I knew it would probably not go loan in competition and that did not matter. I like the image and realized that that was good enough and that we often worry to much about what others say.
This caused some controversy.
More people liked my image that hated it. But I found it interesting that a lot of “experts” came to call and they decided that I sucked and if I would not heed their advice, I should be disbarred from photography! I didn’t actually post the image asking for critique but I always consider critiques because mentally accepting or rejecting what people say about your image is useful.
I learned it’s fine to post your behind the scenes photo so people can peek on smartphones, but to post that image as art another matter. Digital has made us prone do doing whatever software tells us, small screens have taught us planning for print is less important than cropping for a four inch screen and social media has taught us to argue everything and insist we are right. It makes me feel we should go back and study the painters a bit more because often what’s being said by self proclaimed “experts” flies in the face of art history.
When I started entering international level PPA competitions in 2009 on the road to get my masters, I learned I was NOT as good as I thought. It was very humbling and I’ve been learning it ever since. I teach and study photography and I have for 20 years. So despite being called arrogant at times, I don’t just take every comment from someone online with no portfolio or reputation and obey; neither should you!
Online, everyone is the smartest instructor in a class where only YOU are the student
Is there a rule that says we can’t have the lighting visible in a portrait? No, not if leads to the subject. So that’s what I told people, but some said they ONLY see my strobe in this first image, or that the going back and forth which disqualified this as a proper photo. They said my story was not clear and that I was arrogant for calling this a good shot and not admitting my mistake. Of course I have more traditional closeups also, the wide shot was made for fun and I ended up liking it!
A counterbalance like we see here forces the eye to go back and forth, it’s a powerful tool of composition that we study deeply Photo Perfect master class. Now that’s not to say you always have to have a strong counterbalance, only that it does work. The light value is about equal to the models face. Is there a rule that says it must be less. Of course not! The car is a bit odd, but we’re telling a story of a photo shoot out in the countryside. The car shows that we drove somewhere. The eye goes around, to the model to the light and repeats. To me it’s not that easy to leave this frame and I don’t care what object you see first because I know they will lead you to my subject.
The moral here to is is not that this image is the award winning environmental shot of the season. There’s things to nitpick and I admit this wider shot was not the specific intent of the shoot. I picked it because it resonated to me. To you maybe not and that’s OK. Here’s the bottom line.
The internet is not the final word!
In my experience most feedback on photo groups often comes from people with little experience. People that want to sound like experts because they are insecure. Listen for honest well intentioned feedback, but don’t let the insecurity of others be your own.
Sometimes an image sparking discussion is proof to me that I did something right. If someone trashes it, the first thing I do is look to see if they have a portfolio and how much actual experience they are speaking from. I learn more from the accountability of real world competitions and qualified instructors than from ego driven comments where everyone dreams of being smartest instructor in a class where only I am the student. We should always be students, but not everyone is our instructor.
Photographers can be ego driven jerks and we can’t let that define us.
I have the experience and confidence to say this works. Of course, you can disagree and you can like the others better, or hate them all. I can even change my mind next week. But that’s not my point. The legendary Ken Whitmire. Ken taught me to use space and to print it unashamed as we fill-walls with the story we want to tell.
The main “crop” in image #1 is not it’s visual edge. The stops are the shadows and the objects to lead the eyes where I wanted. Sometimes these environmental shots get picked apart on small screens, while in wall prints their majesty shines and and people are amazed. Many “experts” in photo groups have never printed a wall print. We we need to have enough vision to see the goal as well as hear the noise around us. Some images are meant to be seen larger and that’s a good thing. Light itself is rarely our subject, it’s merely our paint! Consider Arnold Newman’s iconic 1949 portrait of Danny Kaye, cluttered with elements of the set and glaring light yet so balanced.
Do you choose wide, thoughtful, safe; or trash them all?
#1 is a useful example of leading tones and counter balance.
The other images are nice portraits and perhaps more logical to some. But I would print the environmental, because it tells a story that I want to know more about rather than just showing a pretty model. Think about it.
If your objects. light and lines hold the eye in the frame and lead it back to the subject, there is no escape from the viewer seeing what you want them too see. I like this because it says something more and your eye gets to roam. It’s both the beauty and the challenge of an environmental portrait and I think most shoots should include one if nothing else for perspective and practice.
#2 feels thoughtful.
It’s not the safest but the pensive look and the hand lead me to the eyes. The pose is not the most sensual or classic, but I can’t stop coming back to those eyes.
#3 feels safe.
It’s got decent lighting, a nice smile and a pretty fair pose with good mends in fingers elbows and a wrist that’s maybe a tad too straight. It’s a nice client portrait and you will probably forget it soon.
People believe their eyes have a choice. In most cases, I don’t believe that’s true. When we use counter balances with tone and line, we can force the viewers eye go where we intend. Not everyone needs to know the story for the story to exist. The use here of the set environment gives us the chance to show a glimpse of the story that most never see and leave them asking questions.
The more experience I get, the less absolute I become about whether a photo is WRONG!!
I can always spot a ego driven feedback because its’ from people who think they know everything and the rule they read about once applies to your image 100% and if you don’t honor it, you are a bad photographer. I can always critique an image, and while there are “rules” (guidelines) like lines, lighting or an image needing a main subject,I’be found the more I learn the less know.
If you reject feedback because you know all your images are amazing you will hurt myself. But If you filter feedback because it seems ego driven, some someone with something to prove, someone with little demonstrated credibility or experience, that just means you have enough confidence and experience to also critique yourself. Just be careful with confidence because it’s a sharp sword!
A perfectly lit portrait that has no soul, no question in it’s eyes, it’s photo of the light, not a portrait of a person. I think sometimes we need to be reminded of that. — Gav
Ever said to yourself…Â “What is the bleep wrong with my details.” — I sure have. So here’s what 20 years as a photographer has taught me about how to fix that annoying feeling of failure.
Detail comes in different ways; often combining sharpness and softness to get an image that brings everyone’s eyes to your subject. I trained in large wall prints and which meant people will see every detail when I screw up. I’ve written about image quality in articles like 5 Tips to Razor Sharp Images and the 6 Keys to Great Image Quality. Today we’re going a little deeper down this rabbit hole and look at what makes detail perfect.
1: 5 Detail Essentials: When neglected, these produce terrible results for even the most experienced photographers. They sometimes haunt me more when I’m in a hurry because of a hectic session, or light that is running away. But the more I think about what went wrong, the less I repeat those mistakes. My first 5 rules are Camera Stability, Optical Quality, Aperture, Sensor and Post Production. These always will be critical. A camera on a tripod, a stabilized lens, a firm hold when you make the shot.
Lens quality, many new photographers get images with fuzzy detail not realizing that they need better glass. Ditto for aperture. Too shallow and your scene and things you want sharp get blurry. Stop down too much however and diffraction will reduce the quality of your glass. Sensor settings and knowing what your gear can handle, how you post process and manage those details. All of these things are important. But there’s more.
Let’s go deeper.
2: Motion or Not: Stability is always critical. Movement ties directly into shutter speed in order to overcome that movement. But sometimes we want the movement. Blurred water, a running horse or amber waves of grain streaking across the frame. The key is to remember that we need zero motion on subjects we want sharp. I know you’re thinking, “hey captain obvious, we know.” But consider this. In traditional images, you want the whole frame frozen. A tripod offers the most freeze, Camera or lens image stabilization can help a lot. Even pressing the camera against your cheek. It’s a question of shutter speed vs motion. If the shutter is fast enough, it freezes everything.
There’s more too this. If you handhold a landscape at 100mm the rule of them says you should be at least 1/100 of a second (a tripod still gives you a better result). But what if that’s a portrait? I can end up with more blur because of the micro-movements of a living subject. Sexy people waving in the breeze as they pose or a wild kid who can’t hold still. Not only might my camera be moving, but so is my subject as they shift weight, change poses or their hair blows. I see that extra blur in portraits a lot because of body movement. We’re talking deep details, sharp eyes, beautiful skin and in focus parts. In reality, I should double my shutter for a living subject. I tripod eliminates one movement, but my subject is alive and the most natural poses don’t come from telling them to stand stiff. So in a lot of cases by doubling the ISO, I can double the shutter speed and the pay off is more detail.
I also want detailed motion. The slow shutter is amazing but tricky and tripod is the key to winning here. Maybe I want blurry water like in this image of Thors Well on Oregon. Slow shutter does not excuse poor detail so if I’m hand holding, those barnacles will be soft. If I make my camera rock solid, my the water is detailed even in motion and the rest is as if we used fast shutter speed. Look at the geysers in my image Yellowstone and detail front to back while the steam turns to silk in the 10-second exposure. Motion is a kind of detail and how much motion is now a question of me using as slow a shutter as I need, using ND filters if needed to slow it further. I’ve done exposures over 2 hours this way and still had sharp details in the stationary objects of the scene.
3: Light and lens:Â A quality lens is a give. But that does not always mean sharpness. There are many factors affecting how much detail a lens can capture and you want to know them. The depth of field is important and that means knowing aperture you need to keep everything you want in focus. But don’t hop on a tripod go down to f22 and think everything will be sharp. Each lens has ideal settings. For most 35mm lenses the sharpest point will be f8 to f11. That’s not to say you can’t go past that, but doing so will often start to cost you detail. Take your favorite lens and shoot a photo at F8. Then do the same at f22 and compare the detail. The same goes the other way. Most lenses are not quite as sharp wide open as they are stopped down. Everything is a trade-off. Don’t push the limit just because you can. Learn the limits and use only what you need.
The same goes for how light is hitting our lens. If you’re getting a flare or haze fee, that means a loss of detail in that area. Sometimes is beautiful and it can look great; just remember you can’t restore detail that was never there. If you don’t want a hazey flare, then use your hood, your hand or change positions relative to incoming light. How the light strike the lens effects how an image passes thru it. In this portrait, we see a natural haze created by the light hitting the lens. Notice how the detail is softened. It works great here, but not everywhere.
4: Getting Perfect Focus:Â AF has become amazing in recent years, but only you can truly know what your focus is. Sime camera focus on eyes, this is usually good for portrait. But what about that wide open aperture for a great bokeh. This means SHALLOW depth of field. So who’s eye is in focus. Say I you a couples portrait or a family, even an inch or two can change your focus. I just had this happen recently at the bus stop shoot. 90mm, f3.5, autofocus. It looks like our focus gravitated towards the overhang on the bus stop. On the left, our man still has usable detail, though not perfect. Notice how his head is further forward. Our lady is a tad further back and that’s all it took. The lack of detail on her face makes the image trash for any serious presentation.
I should have watched closer what I was focusing on. It was dark, I was losing light, I didn’t stop to examine it. Thankfully I nailed other great images for this session. How do we avoid this?
I love switching to manual focus and zooming in the live view to check that my focus is just right. I usually do this with landscapes and sometimes with portraits. But the bottom line is we have to watch for what could go wrong. It does not take much to throw the eyes or face our of focus or to have the camera see the rock instead of the tree in our landscape. Take as much time as you can to check every detail and take a few test frames to review on the screen at full zoom before you walk away. That’s the beauty of digital. It prompts us to rush, but it’s amazing if we slow down.
5: Framing Details: In the end detail is more than pixels. You can get all the above right and still have a bad photo. Great detail also tells a story. Its sharpness is mixed with bokeh or how tones are used to highlight or subdue parts of the image. It’s whether you frame the shot with the foliage sharp in the foreground os bowing in the breeze. It’s whether you took the time to move the dead cat from the frame and straight a girls hair. It’s the art of details that’s the hardest. Detail and sharpness are not simply about focus and noise. When you think about detail, think about what you want in the photo and what you don’t. Think about how using details (or lack of them) can draw your viewers eye and tell a story. Make the technical aspects a natural response so that the artistic concepts can drive your image making. See my recent video about where the frame stops.
6: Process more Detail:Â You can’t restore information that was never there, but you can use your tools better. All digital images have noise, this changes from camera to camera and with different settings. Most RAW processors remove some noise by default. Sometimes your camera removes noise as well and has settings you can play with. Defaults usually work well but don’t be afraid to experiment. Think about when you apply settings too. If I have a RAW file I’ll start with a basic noise reduction as needed; just don’t turn it into pasty smoothness.
I usually leave sharpness low or default on a RAW file if going into Photoshop. Too much can grow into messy artifacts. Process your details in a balanced way and then apply more at as the last step if needed. That way you’re not creating detail artifacts as you apply other looks, layers, actions etc. At the end I’ll usually apply a final sharpening and a little grain for a natural filmic look. We have some presets for this in PW6 and as well as actions for more advanced retouching and sharpening.
Let me know in the comments what you think.
A great image is about balance and it’s freaking hard sometimes. But that’s what makes it so fun. These more advanced tips go beyond the fundamentals we talked about in step one and are here to make us think harder about what’s in our image and visualize how we want it to look so we can nail it in the camera. I hope this gives you some things to think about. The more our skills become second nature, the less of a burden they become. Exercise yourself in the details and soon you will apply them easily.
Never stop asking yourself. How can this be better?
Here are some things we make to help you master what we talked about today…
