Website offers free, reasonable AI colorizing for old photos

     Colorizing black-and-white photos is almost as old as photography itself, with people striving to make pictures look more lifelike.

    In the past, it usually involved meticulous hand painting of photos, a task that got relatively easier with digital photo editing software.

    Now, one of the new features in Photoshop is colorizing photos using artificial intelligence algorithms to do the heavy lifting. The results are fairly impressive, although there are naturally a few goofs that are relatively easier to fix compared to trying to colorize an entire picture.

    But suppose you don't have Photoshop, or the "Jack Sparrow" version you're using disables Adobe's Neural Filters?

    Vertexshare's Picture Colorizer offers a free AI-based colorization service that produces acceptable results. I played around with it for an evening and got some decent results.

    Here is a photo of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant taken from the Civil War. First, the original:

 

   And here's the colorized version (the only thing I did with the photo was just colorize it):

     It wasn't perfect, but things such as Grant's hand, his left boot and that yellow spot on the tent can be easily fixed in editing software.

    The main caveat with the service is that it only works with jpgs and pngs, and they can't be larger than 5 mb and 3,000 x 3,000 pixels. You might have to resize the image you want to colorize, as well as finish off any other edits you want to do, before uploading it. 

Television offers way to create backdrops, sets for product, model photo shoots

     Caleb Pike, over at the DSLR Shooter on Youtube offers a way to set up backgrounds or even animated sets for shooting product photos, models or action figures.

    Pike recommends using a flat-screen television. In his case, he uses a 55-inch 4k TV screen that has built-in Roku, allowing him to cast photos or animations on to the screen.

    He uses it as both a tabletop, where he projected heads-up display-style graphics around his subjects, or created animations that helped light it up. The TV he used was durable enough to put a mirrorless camera body on, but he suggested getting a plexiglass sheet to protect more delicate screens.

    The other way is to use it as a backdrop, putting up an image to serve as the background, which can be adjusted for perspective and lighting through a linked phone.

    Pike also offers a few things to look for when picking a TV, or a monitor, and how to get the best photo possible in the process.

    

 

How to bring out the inner glow of your jack-o-lantern

 

Photo by Skyler Sawyer on Unsplash

     Halloween is fast approaching, and one of the traditional decorations is the jack-o-lantern.

    Some range from the minimalist designs with a mouth, nose and eyes cut away from the gourd, while others are more elaborate pictures. The best way to photograph them is with the primary light source being the one that is inside the pumpkin. And that means adjusting your camera to only capture that light.

    Over on Instructables, user jenleigh offers some basic tips for doing it. She suggested making sure there is a fairly strong light inside the pumpkin, either a pumpkin light or a bright flashlight. I think you might get a good effect with a remotely fired flash inside the pumpkin. The best way do that would be to have the flash on the bottom and pointed at the top, illuminating the inside.

Pringles can offers macro flash diffusion for less than $2

    In a recent post, we discussed ways to do macrophotography if you don't have a dedicated macro lens.

    Now, lets talk about lighting those extreme close-ups.

    While you can use continuous light, such as a desk lamp, you might not have that option if you are shooting outdoors, or if the lights you have won't permit a fast-enough shutter speed to avoid blurring.

    One of the best ways to do that is through camera flashes, but you are going to need to diffuse the light to make it flattering, as well as work well up close.

    One low-budget way to do it is to use a Pringles potato-chip can as a snoot/diffuser for the pictures.

    A Pringles can is particularly suited for this task because the inside of the canister is silver colored, making it more reflective. It also has a clear cap, into which you can put diffusing material to soften the light.

    Plus, Pringles don't leave the same greasy residue behind like traditional potato chips.

    There are multiple tutorials online for how to make this rig, but here's how I made mine.

    First, I picked up some Pringles at the local Walmart for just under $2, and had a nice snack at work for a couple days.

    Then, after sweeping all the chip crumbs out of the tube, I cut out a hole in the side about a quarter-inch from the bottom that was the same dimension as the flash head. While some people cut away the cardboard completely, I chose to leave it as two flaps to better grip the flash head.

    While some people will mount the flash in the back, I found the side mount is better, as the head is straight up, and you can angle it to light the subject in front of the lens. The other way requires sculpting the tube into a particular shape, which only works if you are going to use one particular lens for your macro shoots. I personally prefer to keep my options open.

    For my diffusion panel, I put a circle of copy paper in the cap. After making sure it worked, I then put black duct tape on the outside to give it a relatively professional look.

    This is how the rig looks when on the flash and camera, before being covered in duct tape. 

 

       (Note the guide number of the side of the flash, a tip from an earlier post on flash photography.)

     

     Here's a photo taken with ambient light in the room, with no flash as the control.

    

  

    And here's one with the diffuser.

    For this shot, I was using through-the-lens metering for the flash, but you can use a manual flash, but it might take a bit of trial and error.

Panoramas allow you to go wide, even if you don't have a wide-angle lens

        Baltimore Harbor, as seen from the ramparts of Fort McHenry.

     Panoramas are probably one of the oldest types of photos, dating back to daguerreotypes with sweeping views of cities.

    It is a format that's especially good for landscapes or if you're capturing something really large. Photographer David Bergman has done "gigapans" where he captures ultrahigh resolution panoramic shots where you can zoom in on individual details in the photos.

    There have been special cameras made for panoramas, including some that had rotating lenses that would cover multiple frames of film to capture the image. But a more common way to do it is to put multiple pictures together, which is how the originals were made.

    In this day, it is fairly easy to make panoramas regardless of what camera you use, especially with computers doing the stitching seamlessly.

    If you have a cellphone camera, you most likely have a pano feature built into the camera. All you have to do is press the shutter button and move the camera in the direction shown on screen to capture a panorama.

    The key to a successful one is to keep the camera steady, not jerking it around up or down, which will ruin the photo.

     If you have another type of camera, be it a point-and-shoot, bridge, mirrorless or DSLR, there are ways to create panoramas. It involves taking a series of pictures and then stitching them together in a computer.

    To get the best results, you want to shoot in portrait (vertical) orientation, as this will make assembling the panorama easier, as there will be fewer awkward edges that will have to be cropped out.

    You also want to lock your exposure to ensure the pictures have a uniform look, or the finished picture is going to look awkward, unless you spend extra time balancing out exposures in post. You should have some overlap, about 10-20 percent, to make it easier to join them and avoid any gaps.

    There are a few options for stitching them together.

    One way is a bit more artisanal. Basically open the pictures in your photo editor and line them up, doing some cropping and masking to eliminate seams.

    Some photo editors, such as Adobe Lightroom Classic, will automatically stitch the pictures together into a seamless panorama.

    There are also free software options that will stitch your photos together. One of the best is Hugin, which runs on both Windows and Mac, that lets you stitch traditional 180-degree and 360-degree panoramas.