Digital Photography Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 24 Go Low-Rez

There's much more to digital
photography than megapixel brute force. And if
you're artistically minded, you might try your hand
at going low-rez, Jam Cam style.

As digital photographers, we're
often obsessed with getting every last pixel we canthe more
megapixels, the better the shot, right? This hack allows you to let
go of your pixel-counting tendencies and helps to remind you that
photography, analog or digital, is all about capturing compelling
images, regardless of the technology used.

Traditional photographers have long used cheap or low-tech cameras to
capture interesting, artistic images. Perhaps
the best example is the US$20 Holga camera that uses 120 film, tape,
and a plastic lens and gives images a beautiful, halolike look. Fear
not, digital photographers, there are many inexpensive digital
equivalents to the Holga that will stretch your creativity.

For this hack you need to get the cheapest, lowest-resolution digicam
you can find! I highly recommend the Jam
Cam. This little plastic beast captures images at an astounding 640
480 or 320 240 pixels and has a focus-free lens. The built-in memory
stores eight images and, believe it or not, it can connect to your
Mac or PC via USB. The battery is the old standby: the 9-volt that
powers up smoke detectors all across the land.

Does the Jam Cam create artistic images? Take a look at the picture
in Figure 2-15, and you be the judge.

Figure 2-15. An artistic Jam Cam image

The great thing about the Jam Cam is that it is wholly unpredictable.
One fun way to use it is to bring it along with you when you are
shooting with your regular digital camera, take pictures with each
camera, and compare the results. Expect strange color shifts,
horrible color balance, random pixelation, and some interesting
results. I used the Jam Cam to take portraits. Embracing the low
resolution, I took the images at 320 240 pixels and printed the 150
KB JPEGs at 11 14.

You can also experiment with other ultra-low-rez cameras, the cheaper
the better, and see the results you get. Toy digital cameras are a
great place to start, as are camera phones or anything with a
resolution no higher than 640 480. But resolution is not everything!
In low-rez mode, your current digital camera might shoot images at
only 640 480. However, because of your camera's
quality lens, the images won't come out looking
quite as funky or interesting as an image from a toy camera. A
focus-free plastic lens in combination with low resolution is going
to give you the most interesting results.

But what if you don't want to plunk down the 20
bucks or so to get a super-low-resolution camera? You can always use
Photoshop as a tool to add distortion and noise to your current
shots.

One way to start is to greatly reduce the resolution of a current
image you have and print it to see the results. Convert your image to
20 ppi at 8" 10" (by selecting ImageImage Size) and have a
look. Or even try 10 ppi, as shown in Figure 2-16.
Suddenly, your pristine image becomes like a Chuck Close painting,
which, depending on the image, can be interesting.

Figure 2-16. An 8"x10" print at 10 ppi

One thing that the low-rez camera does so well is perform tasks in
random ways. To duplicate this randomness in Photoshop, you need to
select only certain areas of an image. To imitate the effect of the
Holga camera I mentioned previously, for example, use the circular
select tool and begin a selection from the center of your image,
ending about halfway out. Now, go to Select/Feather to feather the
selection by 50 pixels and blur the image.

To recreate some of the randomness of a low-rez digital camera, you
can make some duplicates of the layer, offset them, apply a multiply
effect or a screen effect, and see what happens. You can also use
layer adjustments to adjust the hue and saturation, change the
brightness and contrast, and add some noise. Layer adjustments are a
great way to experiment.

To use layer adjustments, select a layer, go to LayerNew
Adjustment Layer, and select the adjustment you want to try. After
you've made the adjustment, a smaller layer will
appear in the Layers palette above the original layer. This means you
can turn on or off the layer adjustment or discard it entirely; the
original layer data is intact. When using Photoshop as a low-rez
darkroom, try to use the randomness of the low-rez digital camera as
inspiration. Think of yourself as a digital and photographic version
of Jackson Pollack, applying digital splatters with a sense of
freedom yet control.

Using either low-rez digital cameras or Photoshop as a low-rez
randomizing tool can provide you with some incredible results. Keep
an open shutter and mind, and let the beauty of the images be your
guide.

Hadley Stern