The Ship Model Forum

I have received a request to do a tutorial on my 'photographical skills'.

Here it is!

I will start by saying that I am in no way an expert on photography and I am sure there are many people viewing this who have far more experience and knowledge than I have. However, what I am suggesting here works for me and allows correct preparation of images to match the requirements of the forum.

I don't use a camera, almost every photo that I have posted has been taken on my phone camera, nothing special, just a Nokia Lumia 630.

The photo

In my humble opinion, the most important aspect of presenting a picture of your model is the background. I purchased a roll of plain lining wall-paper for £1.00 which should last me a lifetime and I use this as a backdrop. This ensures a neutral canvas, but more importantly, allows the camera to focus on the subject and not, for instance, the grid-lines on your work-mat. Place this, or any bland background (plain paper, a cotton sheet etc.) on the work area and put the model on this, ensuring that the background is clear of anything irrelevant. There is nothing worse than looking at a picture of a someones pride and joy but being unable to differentiate where the model ends and the pots of paint, boxes of filler, mugs of coffee and tubes of glue overlap! After-all, it is the model you are showing, not the detritus on your modelling area.

When preparing for a post onto the site, I take multiple shots of the same scene, from close-ups to ones taken from further away, and from slightly different angles, thus allowing for the selection of the most appropriate and in focus picture. I try to take my pictures in natural light, although this is not always possible, the light direction being from behind the camera if possible. This may mean that the model has to be placed on its side to allow the light to fall in the right direction on occasion. The addition of artificial light can often enhance ares which may otherwise be in shadow.

I find that close-ups have a very narrow area of focus, it is better to take a picture from further away and 'crop' the picture with appropriate software (more of this later) to show the area of interest.

When taking the picture, my camera has a facility that allows the lens to focus correctly (as most digitals do), by simply pressing lightly and holding the 'take' button on the screen, the auto-focus kicks in, and displays a circle which must be positioned over the desired location. Simply releasing the finger now takes the shot, but hold the camera steady as there is a very slight delay from the release of the button to the taking of the shot.

Once you are satisfied with what you have taken, move on to the next shot.

When you have taken all of your pictures, it is now time to transfer them onto your computer. I prepare the computer to accept the photos by making new folders, ensuring that they are named appropriately and are in an easy to find location. There are various methods to accomplish the transfer, either by cable, blue-tooth, memory card removal and install, etc. I personally use Microsoft One-drive as it is quick and easy to do.

Once on your computer, it is time to view the results of your labours. Do this BEFORE you move onto another section of modelling, you may not have got the shot that you require and it is at this stage that you are able to replicate it before the aspect that you need a record of is possibly obliterated by further work.

When viewing your shots, if you 'right-click' on the thumbnail and select 'properties', a couple of important things will become apparent to you. On the initial screen (general), the file size appears, select 'details' and the dimensions in pixels will show. Usually both of these readings will be considerably in excess of the limitation of the picture size limit on the forum here. We need to carry out some manipulations not only to these sizes but also to the images themselves.

I use the standard, included photo software supplied with windows - 'Windows Photo Viewer' (other photo viewing software is available) simply because its there!

Click on the first of your new uploaded images, WPV will open and allow you to view, in greater detail than the screen on your camera/phone allows, your recent pics. It is wise at this time to delete any shots that you don't need, close duplicates, out of focus and blurred shots etc, as this will reduce the amount of work we will be carrying out. The arrows at the bottom of the screen allow you to move forward and backwards through your folder.

At the top of the page, you will note the tags 'File, Print, EMail, Burn, Open'. Select 'open' and from there - 'Windows Live Photo Gallery'. A new tag opens at the top, 'Edit, organize and share'. Select this and once opened you will be allowed to select the desired image.

Once the image is open, I always select 'Auto adjust' as this will enhance the image to the best contrast, brightness, colour saturation etc. I then, if required, select crop.



When 'crop' is opened a square will open on the image, you can now reduce, enlarge or move that square over your photo to select the area you wish to display by hovering your mouse over the little boxes at the edges of the box, or in the middle and moving the box around the screen.



Once satisfied with the selected area, left click on the box at the lower part of 'Crop' and a drop-down appears, click on 'Apply crop' and the earlier highlighted area fills the screen.



If you are satisfied with the selection, in the image, right-click and select copy. That's the image now prepared for display.

If you go to the containing folder and right-click on this new image to check the properties as before, they are still not of the required parameters. The readings for this particular image are - size - 306 KB (313,541 bytes), and dimensions - 1149 x 580. The file size, although massively reduced from the 1.3Mb of the original, is still too big, but the image dimensions are below the 1200 pixel limit. We will now deal with both.

The image

We need to address this by compressing the digital file into a size acceptable to the forum rules here (200kb, max 1200 pixels in width). Various software programmes are available to carry out this image reduction, one of the best that I have found is this free one, available for down-load here -

https://saerasoft.com/caesium/

As you can see it is from a secure server and I have been using this programme for quite a while without any issues what-so-ever!

Once downloaded and opened on your computer, you will see this as your initial screen -



We now need to add our images, simply click 'add', this will allow you to navigate to the desired folder and enable you to add single or multiple images as required to allow reduction.



We now need to manipulate the image to adjust the parameters to the requirements.

The software allows us to adjust the image quality and the image size. Click on the image/images and then select the quality slider. I adjust this to 95 initially. Then select and tick the 'resize' box. This will set the pixel limit, either width or height. Adjust to 1200 and tick 'keep aspect ratio' this will automatically set the height, if it doesn't, simply click outside the 'resize' box. You will need to select an output folder as required. Once everything is filled in, click on 'Compress'.



As long as the 'new size' column is below 200kb, your work here is finished! If it isn't, you will need to adjust accordingly, as below -



If you notice, in the new resolution column, all the sizes are the same. Two of the images have different aspect ratios. The software allows you to adjust these individually. I have done that now so here is the screen after the adjustments are made -



Notice how the quality column figure has been adjusted to make the 'new size' as close-to, but under 200kb. You can adjust these figures as many times as you like by pressing 'Compress' any number of times.

If we now go to the output folder and recheck our sizes, you will find they match with the software figures.

It is now a simple matter of including the compressed image as per the forum rules here -

http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1261

If you have made it this far, congratulations, you can now take, edit and manipulate digital images.

I hope this helps some modellers who are perhaps not so technologically inclined!

The thing to remember is - you won't break anything - just have a go!

Cheers, Jabb

_________________
HMS Hood, the big one!

I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure.

Jabb, thanks for that information! I'll give it a try.

Paul

_________________
Paul O'Reilly

A couple more handy things to have is a tripod and a cable release (optional). Mount the camera on the tripod for several seconds exposure - this will enable you to stop down the aperature to f32 or smaller. This will give tremendous depth of field so the entire model is in sharp focus, from end to end - especially when doing close-ups. The cable release is just to further minimize any camera shake from touching it. Available light or the ceiling light is preferable to the camera flash, as the camera flash is too strong and at an unnatural angle and causes stark shadows both on the model and on any background behind it.