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Photographing & Posting Pictures of Your Food |
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Rod Franklin
Chef Joined: 17 February 2010 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 921 |
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That's the kind of nuts-n-bolts information I need to read! Thanks for that.
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Hungry
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HistoricFoodie
Admin Group Joined: 21 February 2012 Location: Kentucky Status: Offline Points: 4940 |
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Rod, here's the quickest way to learn the effect of light and elevation changes.
Get you four eggs, and build a pyramid of them on a plain surface. Now get a high-intensity desk lamp, one with an adjustible arm.
Using no other light, set the hi-intensity lamp so it's barely higher than the top egg. Sit it at 3 oclock. Take a picture. Now start moving the lamp, keeping it the same distance from the pyramid, all the way to 9 o'clock in 5 minute increments.
Once that's done, adjust the height of the light by 4-6 inches, and repeat all the shots you took the first time around. If you've still got height adjustment, do it again.
Now examine all those pix. You'll immediately develop a feel for how light and shadow interplay to create texture, shape, and movement.
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ChrisFlanders
Chef's Apprentice Joined: 01 March 2012 Location: Flanders Status: Offline Points: 343 |
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I pretty much do the same as Ron does. Most of my pictures posted here are taken with an outdated 5 megapixel 10-year old Canon Powershot. I have a much more sophisticated recent camera but I prefer the Canon because it has a rotating screen which I like for taking food pictures, but that isn't even significant for taking good pictures. Remember, it's not the camera that takes pictures, it's the person behind it! I give myself maximum... 10 seconds to take a plated food picture, preferably 5 seconds! No set-ups, no fuss. It's not because I have found a hobby in photographing food that others should be served cold food. Set the camera like Ron says to macro* (the little flower, sort of tulip-like symbol used on most digital cameras). If you have lighting under your upper kitchen cabinets, turn them on, even in bright day-light. I hold the back of the camera against the bottom of the upper kitchen cabinet and click, there's no more to it. Don't worry about framing, this is digital photography; do the framing afterward. What I don't do like Ron, is using the flash. Never when taking pictures from that close. To be honest, I avoid using the flash on my cameras in any other circomstances, it's no more than personal preference. You can set your camera to use or to not use the flash*, according to your liking. The consequences are that you need to stabilize your camera while taking pictures without flash in darker circomstances, something I have to do almost always. Ignore the red warning "wobbling" sign on your camera screen, simply hold your camera against the upper kitchen cabinets. No tripod, no extra lamps, no assistants, no make-up artists, just put on as much lighting as available in your kitchen, 10 seconds max. and click. Of course, you are going to need to adjust your pictures on your computer, that's where all the fun is in digital photography. On to the computer work. This is the most time-consuming for me but it's something I really like to do. Use any photo-editor program to adjust lighting, to frame, to crop etc. as Ron says in his post above. Any good editing program -free or not- will have a number of tools that are relevant*; you can adjust so much "error" in digital pictures. Most digital cameras come with included software* to tweak your pictures! I use the quite extended Photoshop to work on my pictures. It has a feature that will frame and cut (crop) my preferred ideal internet format of 800 x 600 pixel picture (in "landscape" format) out of my photos (or 600 x 800 in a "portrait" format) in one go. There's a lot to be said about saving your picture for the internet which Ron pointed out under "e)" as "reducing disk space size". Internet pictures mostly have only 72 pixels per inch sizes or better said, resolution. The more sophisticated your camera, the higher this resolution is. What basically happens when reducing disk space size, is that your pictures are recalculated to this 72 ppi size and will not only upload faster to Photobucket but also into the page your picture has to be shown in. (*) Camera settings and photo-editing software; if nothing else works, RTFM (=read the fxxxxxxg manual!!) |
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Rod Franklin
Chef Joined: 17 February 2010 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 921 |
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So, you both take maximum resolution photos then use Photoshop (which I don't have) or do the save and close trick with MS Paint? I always take the lowest resolution photos as is possible with my camera. Maybe that has been part of my problem.
Lighting "temperature": I've got a mix of fluorescent lighting in my kitchen which seems to always lead to variable amounts of blueness in my photos. Even though I set the camera to compensate for fluorescent lights I still get these blue effects to some degree and it really changes the color of the food, and not always in a pleasant way. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. I go RTFM. I will take all this kindly offered advice and see what I can do to improve my pictures. Thanks kindly to all. |
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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rod - i always take the highest resolution possible, and then work down from there on the computer. as chris says, in this day and age, its where the work (and the joy) is.
if you don't have photoshop, no worry. your computer SHOULD ahve a default photo editing program called microsoft photo editor (or maybe microsoft picture manager), which is the one i use. you also have a huge selection of free downloads on the internet, almost any of them would work just fine. as i said above, a good "sequence of events" would be to first rotate (if necessary), then crop (almost but not always necessary), then use the "auto fix" or "auto enhance" (which should be a one-click deal), then re-seize (SCREEN SIZE, not disk-space size) down to 800 wide (600 wide for portriat-style or "tall" pictures), then finally save and close. the MS PAINT step is done AFTER all this, and for some reason the open/save/close step reduces the DISK-SPACE size, at least on my computer.
chris, you make a good point about this:
>>>If you have lighting under your upper kitchen cabinets, turn them on, even in bright day-light.<<<
a lot of times, the flash wouldn't be my first choice, but it's almost always the choice i have. for some reasn, my camera doesn't seem to do well, even in good sun and artificial light, but i still get the most of both that i can, even if i have to use the flash.
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ChrisFlanders
Chef's Apprentice Joined: 01 March 2012 Location: Flanders Status: Offline Points: 343 |
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Rod, when you take pictures in a higher resolution (not all digital cameras can!!), the image will always be better to work with. After that, reduce or crop to a size of 800 px width (c.q. height) as Ron already explained and save the image under another name. This way you will always keep the original to work with again. I never use the light adjustments or compensations on the camera itself, the result is so unreliable and uncontrolable on the camera screen. Better to install a good photo-editor and go from there. Or as Ron suggests to use the one that Microsoft provides, but there are however free and much better alternatives than Microsoft's software, Ron. I always have problems with too much red or yellow in many pictures, typical when taken with artificial light from different kitchen lamps. This is so stunningly easy to compensate with software, using the "(tone) curves" featured in these programs. RTFM, but mainly a lot of try-outs are required, but it's very rewarding and such fun to see how pictures can be changed or simply improved... dramatically! Which photo-editor to get if you want a good one? PhotoshopCS is quite expensive but... there are great free ones if you (hopefully) should get ambitious about photo-editing. Here they are;
FREE PHOTO-EDITORS to be downloaded from the worldwideweb GIMP free software for photo editing is known as very, very good, as in really good, going to professional. I haven't work with it, but I read here and there that it is very extended and seems to be comparable to Photoshop!! The interface however is known to be somewhat complicated, but hey, keep practicing. Photoshop took me months to learn, well, an hour now an afternoon then, you know how it goes! When you prefer somewhat easier software to work with, PhotoFiltre seems to be the most liked. Another great photo-editor is Pixia. You can download them from; Gimp; http://www.gimp.org/ PhotoFiltre; http://photofiltre.en.softonic.com/ |
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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>>>there are however free and much better alternatives than Microsoft's software<<<
very true ~ i might be looking into some of the ones you've posted. i've used gimp and really liked it, but it was on my old computer and therefore a little slow. i might try it again.
i myself am most satisfied with my pictures when i am able to give them that "kodachrome" look, where the colours really seem to pop out - it seems perfectly suited for food, but that's a personal preference.
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ChrisFlanders
Chef's Apprentice Joined: 01 March 2012 Location: Flanders Status: Offline Points: 343 |
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And do look out for those Photoshoppers and their little tricks! |
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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lol - chris, when i realized what you had done, i nearly sprayed my morning coffee all overthe computer screen!
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Hoser
Admin Group Joined: 06 February 2010 Location: Cumberland, RI Status: Offline Points: 3454 |
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I'm thinking we now have a new LOGO!!! LOL
Nice work Chris!
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Go ahead...play with your food!
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Rod Franklin
Chef Joined: 17 February 2010 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 921 |
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I got the Gimp installed. I don't think I'll live long enough to learn how to use it! It's complicated, or I'm dumb, or both...
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Hungry
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pitrow
Master Chef Joined: 22 November 2010 Location: Newberg, Oregon Status: Offline Points: 1078 |
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I find gimp very hard to use, bordering on impossible. Maybe it's just because I'm used to using photoshop or illustrator or fireworks or whatever, but at least those all seem to be laid out in similar fashion and things function similarly. With Gimp things seem to be done in the most unintuitive way possible. It's sorta like trying to switch to a Mac after using a PC all your life.
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ChrisFlanders
Chef's Apprentice Joined: 01 March 2012 Location: Flanders Status: Offline Points: 343 |
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To the new Gimp-users; ...told you!
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AK1
Master Chef Joined: 10 April 2012 Location: Ontario, Canada Status: Offline Points: 1081 |
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Is there any way to upload photo's directly? This whole Photobucket, IMG tags is a real PITA.
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Margi Cintrano
Master Chef Joined: 03 February 2012 Location: Spain Status: Offline Points: 6357 |
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Ak1.
Personally I do agree with you, in reference that there should be a direct method, to place photos on the Forum, verses dealing with Photo Bucket ...
For me, the 1st step is a breeze and very very easy; however, the 2nd step is laborious and tedious. I have to work on this, however, as I have lovely fotos for my glossaries, and have to overcome the dilemma.
Kind regards.
Margi.
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Volamos a Mediterraneo, un paraiso que conquista su gente u su cocina.
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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guys, i assure you, it is easy as pie, guaranteed.
Simply size your pictures to 800 pixels wide, then upload them at www.photobucket.com. When they are finished uploading, hit the button marked "VIEW ALBUM" or "SAVE AND CONTINUE TO MY ALBUM."
To post it on your thread in the Foods Of The World, you must copy the IMG code and paste it on your thread. You just place your cursor over the IMG CODE line, LEFT CLICK and you will see a note saying COPIED. Then you just place your cursor on the place on your FOTW post, and paste - here's a visual:
you will see all of the pictures you just uploaded. hover the cursor over the one you want (or the first one in the "series" if you are doing multiple pix) and you will see a dropdown appear that looks like this: give it a shot, it's easy ~
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AK1
Master Chef Joined: 10 April 2012 Location: Ontario, Canada Status: Offline Points: 1081 |
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Yep! figured it out. Thanks.
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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ALTERNATE PROCEDURE for posting photos in FOTW, once they are on photobucket: after some "messing around" on photobucket, i think I may have found an easier way to post photos that might be helpful for those who are having trouble. if you fall into this category, take a look at this:
once your photos are on photobucket, open a new window or tab to create or edit your FOTW post. then simply click on the little thumbnail of the photo to open the photo in its own page, then copy it. to do this, RIGHT CLICK (or the android equivalent) on the photo and choose COPY. then go back to the post that you are creating or editing in FOTW, and PASTE the photo wherever you want it.
repeat as necessary.
try that and see if it works. this, to me, seems the easiest way possible. between this method and the methods outlined earlier in this thread, it should be easy.
there's also the photo button up above where you write the post (the little picture that looks like this: ). you can click on that and input the address of the photo. PLEASE NOTE that there is an option to upload photos to the FOTW server, and you can do this, but space might be limited.
i will add this information to the original post on this thread for easy access. hope everyone is able to find a way that works for them, and is able to post some photos now! ron
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TasunkaWitko
Admin Group Joined: 25 January 2010 Location: Chinook, MT Status: Offline Points: 9356 |
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CROPPING AND/OR REDUCING A PHOTO ALREADY IN PHOTOBUCKET it looks like it is pretty easy - i tried it and had no trouble at all. what you do is:
1) select that photo by hovering over the thumbnail with the cursor (go to step 2) OR click on the thumbnail to open the picture, then hover the cursor over the picture (go to step 2). 2) some choices will pop up - choose EDIT (go to step 3) 3) a screen will open up with choices along the bottom (adjustment, effect, overlay etc.). choose ADJUSTMENT (go to step 4). 4) the two buttons that you will use the most will appear right above the "adjsutment" button - they are CROP and RESIZE. 4a) to crop, simply choose that button and adjust the edges where you want them, then choose APPLY (to the right) (go to step 5). 4b) to re-size, click on the box next to WIDTH and input your desired width in pixels. (800 works best, in my opinion). The HEIGHT will automatically adjsut itself. Then choose APPLY (to the right) (go to step 5). 5. up in the LEFT CORNER of the edit screen, choose SAVE AND REPLACE. that's it - you're done! from here, you can copy the IMG tag and place it in your post, as per the instructions above. any questions, let me know. ron |
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AK1
Master Chef Joined: 10 April 2012 Location: Ontario, Canada Status: Offline Points: 1081 |
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