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Old 2007-01-30, 12:13am
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Tanner Studios Tanner Studios is offline
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Join Date: Jan 07, 2006
Location: Salt Lake City,Utah
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Barbara, Great question. I have talked about it here and there. But this is a good time to really get into. "what is macro in the first place". Macro is the X games of close up photography. Close up photography is not necessary Macro. Example. Lets look at some photos. Heres Lynnie's photo again. This is Macro.

Here is a shot of my beads. This is just close up.

one more photo.


What do you think that last one is?

Answer... a cropped portion of a close up photo of a set of beads. Think of Macro as Microscope. A lens designed to photograph an ant. Lynnie's photo was macro. Because, she set the lens to fill the frame up with just one bead.
Mine is close up because I pushed into the limit of how close the lens could focus without going Macro.

Why is this important to understand? Well first, not all lens are created equal. Their glass right, we all understand the difference between a quality bead and a bad bead. Same with optical glass. Just because they say "Macro" does not mean macro. or at-lease quality macro glass.

The good news is you don't have to photograph ants. And you don't have to get as close as you think you do. Remember most of you are publishing for the internet. we're talking Kilobytes. All cameras work in milobytes. So no matter what. We have to throw away information, from the get go. Remember thats important. ( throwing things away may come back and bite us on the butt ). So just close up is actually better. In most case's

Now about when to use the histogram. Use it as soon as you can. If your camera software has it to convert your images from raw format to tiff format. Thats the best place to start, to get it close. then use it again in photoshop to refine it. Then retouch it ( have not talked about retouching yet ). Then save it to your library. That way you have it already to go for any purpose.

Here are the steps I want you to follow. Step 1 edit... Image correction, ( Levels ). Step 2 retouching... ( I'll start a new thread for that.)
Step 3 Save...( step 2 until we talk retouching ) Step 4 reopen, resize.
Step 5 sharpen. save for intended use. File format.

Sorry Barbara long answer. But you people are starting to get it. So I can't bluff anymore LOL.
Much love
Scott
P.S. Kevan.... yea baby! Thats what we're talking about. Now think of a slide from a large format camera. That is fresh out of the camera that is 8 inches x 10 inches. viewed on a light table that is Balanced. With a really nice loop ( magnifying glass ).We are losing a great art form people. But don't get me started.
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Last edited by Tanner Studios; 2007-01-30 at 1:45am.
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