A Little Extra Protection for Your Photos

I will cover filing your images with the Copy Right Office and using Watermarks in another blog post. Today I want to spend a minute and show you another way you can help protect your images using EXIF. It stands for “Exchangeable Image File Format” and is metadata that is saved in text format and embedded in the photograph. You can quickly and easily do this in Photosho, let me show you  how.

First a few word about EXIF. I've told you what it stands for but you still might not have an idea what it is. The EXIF can store information such as photographer name, location, camera data, and copyright information. The data is stored with the image and can be viewed online or in programs such as Photoshop.

Open in Photoshop the image you would like to add information to. Click File> File Information (Alt+Shift+Ctrl+I) and you will get a pop up window that looks like this.

You can click through and add as much or as little information as you want. There is even a place close to the bottom where you can pick Copyrighted from a drop down menu and add your own Copyright Notice. I add my website next to Copyright Info URL.

When you have added all the information you want to, click OK and then save your file as you normally would. Your image won't look any different but you will notice a small © in the image header next to the file name.

You can check the EXIF info on any image online or on your pc using this free EXIF viewer. http://regex.info/exif.cgi.  Just use the images url or search for a file on your computer. Feel free to use the image below to test the free viewer. Just click on it and copy and paste the url into the Image URL section of the Regex website.

 

Desaturation vs. Calculations

Don't worry if the title left you scratching your head. This post is all about B/W photos and by the end I hope you will understand the difference between using desaturation to turn you images B/W and using Calculations.

Here is a quick run down on how to use the Hue/Saturation tool in Photoshop to create a B/W image. Once your image is open go to Layer> New Adjustment Layer> Hue/Saturation. You will get a pop up window that looks like this.

Drag the slider under Saturation all the way to the left and hit ok. (Make sure the Colorize box is not checked, if it is your image won't be B/W. It will be Sepia or some other duo-tone.) There, you have just created a B/W image.

Next I will go through the steps for making a B/W image using Calculations. Open the image you want to use in Photoshop. Choose Image> Calculations from the menu at the top of the program.

You will get a pop up window like this one below.

Now you can take turns changing the colors in the Channel drop down menus in Source 1 and Source 2 until your image begins to look how you want it to. Try several combinations such as Red in Source 1 and Blue in Source 2 or Green in Source 1 and Red in Source 2. There isn't a wrong or right combination. You can also in the drop down menu next to Blending choose from numerous options and then play with the Opacity. You should choose New Document next to Result to have the new B/W image opened as a separate document from the color one with which you started.


 Note: After creating a New Document you will want to go to Image> Mode and change it from Multichannel to Grayscale. If you don't do this it won't give you the option to save it as a JPG or TIFF file. You also won't be able to add any Adjustment Layers until after you have changed Modes. Here are two examples of B/W images I made using both the Hue/Saturation tool and using Calculations.

 Hue/Saturation

Calculations

 Hue/Saturation

 Calculations

Play around with your photos and it won't take long for you to decide which tool you prefer for making B/W images. There is no right or wrong answer to this one. It's all photographers preference.

Batch Processing

You just finished a grueling photo shoot, you upload the 300+ images just to discover they are all underexposed. A knot forms in your stomach, you have to make supper, pick up the kids from school and now you've just added nearly 4 hours of fixing levels in Photoshop. Do you ever wish you could just set it and forget it? Well, you can for the most part.

Adobe Photoshop has a batch processing function that makes projects like this a breeze. Here is a mini tutorial. This works the best if all the images are equally under exposed. (or over exposed.)

Step 1:
Click on the Window menu and choose Actions to open the Actions Panel if it isn't already open. Click the Create New Action icon at the bottom of the panel and name the action something you will remember. (I'm using a combination of the date and event title.) Now click record.

Step 2:
Choose File> Open and open one of the images that needs to be adjusted. Now choose Layer> New Adjustment Layer> Levels. Click OK in the pop-up window. (There is no need to name this adjustment layer unless you really feel the need to.) Use the Levels Adjustment Layer to correct the image exposure. If needed repeat this last step adding a Curves Adjustment Layer. Lastly, choose File> Save As and save it as a JPG file. (or as any format you want.) When your file has been saved you can click the Stop Playing/Recording button in the Action Panel.

Step 3:
Now it's time to batch your folder of images using this action. Select File> Automate> Batch. This will open a dialog box. In the Play section under Set choose the set where you saved your action. Then in the action drop down box choose the action you just created.

In the Source section of the dialog box, select folder then choose the folder on your computer with the images that need adjusting. It' important to check off the box that says "Override Action "Open" Commands". If you forget to do this then Photoshop will open the exact image you used to record the action in the prior step. 

In the Destination section, select folder and then choose the folder on your computer where you want the images saved. Click the "Override Action "Save As" Commands" here as well. Forgetting to do this will cause Photoshop to save the images with the same image file name that you used in the action.

In the File Naming section the Document Name will leave the file name exactly as it is but if you need to rename the images as they are saved this is the place to do it.

Under the Errors section choose Log Errors To File and then choose a place to have the file saved. 

Step 4:
Just click OK to start running the batch. Now it's time to walk away and let Photoshop do the dirty work. That's right, grab a bowl of ice cream and pop in a movie. (Or what ever else you need to get done.) Depending on how many images there are it could take a while. Batch processing is a great tool and can be used for many things such as turning all your Christmas pictures to B/W images.