Digital Art & Photography

A new breed of free image editors is springing up into the Image Editing scene. These programs are launched online via websites.

One of the most promising is Splashup. Below is a screenshot of this free online image editor.

After trying it for a while, here’s our opinion.

This is a pretty useful program which is quite similar in interface to Photoshop or Photoplus. If one already know how to use Photoshop or Photoplus, this software’s usage will be fairly self explanatory. However, because it is launched online, operations are slower than typical desktop-based image editors. High resolution digital photos can take minutes to load.

Also, do not expect high-end tools to be found on this program. It is really fairly basic. However, what we like is that it sports a useful layer function that is similar to Photoshop’s, Photoplus and GIMP’s.

This tool is no where near Photoshop, Photoplus or even GIMP and Paint.NET in terms of power and functionality. For example, it has only a handful of filter effects. It is also lacking in more advanced selection tools, thus seriously hampering the types of things that can be done.

What we like about this online image editor is the fact that it can be launched from anywhere as long as there is internet access and a decent web browser such as Firefox.

Have fun image editing.

As mentioned before, Underwater Photography is not for the average photographer. The skills and equipments for such activities are demanding and exact. You cannot use the normal photographic equipments for underwater photography. Even if you do, special enclosures must be used to prevent seawater from coming into contact with them. Seawater is highly corrosive and will eventually damage any equipment that is not designed to withstand its effects.

To make matters worse, underwater lighting conditions tends to be dimmer. Additionally, because of the higher density of particles, they tend to give volumetric effects as well.

To add to the challenge, you will need to be able to handle whatever lighting equipments that you are using and at the same time maneuvers skillfully within the watery environment. Therefore, if you intend to take underwater photos, you will need specially designed lighting equipments such as Photofocus lights.

Underwater lighting equipments are not easy to find too. Because of that, sometimes a more cost effective way is to buy them online.

One of the more established site that deals with Underwater Lighting and Photographic equipment is Nocturnal Light.

Nocturnal Lights Inc itself is an established manufacturer of underwater lighting systems. Basically, Nocturnal Light carries 3 main categories of equipments: Dive Light, Photofocus Light and Video Lights. The photo below shows one of their Photofocus light products.

All their products are built for demanding underwater conditions. This include producing them only with aircraft grade Aluminium. Additionally, over-charged battery powering technology are utilised to ensure the best light output

The main buyers of their products are underwater photographers, underwater videographers and scuba divers.

Click here to visit Nocturnal Lights website

What is SBR or Subject Brightness range? It is the difference in terms of stops between the darkest and brightest part of a scene. Another way to put it is that is the contrast range of a scene.

Determining the SBR is crucial under certain situations. This is because if the SBR is too great, details within the scene will either be too bright or too dark. Typically, the SBR should be 5 stops or less, in order for the details to be retained.

Using Grey cards for light metering is a photography technique.

Typically, light meters are calibrated for mid-tone meter readings. This mid-tone reading is actually 18 % grey. A grey card is simply a piece of card that is 18% grey in colour.

In the absence of midtone in the scene, a grey card can be used to assess and capture the meter reading.

You can do so by simply placing the grey card in front of the subject for it to be used as a midtone.

In the absense of a grey card, the palm can be used as a midtone substitute. However, the palm is usually 1 stop brighter than 18% grey or midtone. Because of that, you will need to adjust (open) the camera’s meter reading by 1 stop.

This article is about the Sunny f/16 rule which is a photography technique.

Noon is usually the brightest time of the day. This level of brightness makes using the light meter inaccurate. We can overcome this reliance on the light meter by applying a very simple rule. This photographic rule is known as the Sunny F/16 Rule.

Basically, this rule determines that for the bright noon condition, a useful setting is to set the aperture to f/16 and the shutter speed to that of the ISO rating.

For example. if your are using ISO rating 100 for the digital camera or ISO 100 film for a film camera, the shutter speed should be set to 1/100.

There is an exception to this rule. That is when the subject is bright white in colour. Under such a condition, using the sunny f/16 rule will result in excessive whiteness in the image. In this case, we may want to use f/22 instead.

Well, that all for the tip. Happy experimenting.