Another Place Statue on Crosby Beach

Another Place Statue on Crosby Beach

Photographic Values

We’re often asked by clients and fellow photographers about our photographic values and other technical or artistic topics. The information on this page covers some of the most frequently asked questions.

Digital Photography

We exclusively shoot digital using Canon Digital SLR cameras. Most of the images on our website are produced with at least a Canon EOS 5D, which is a full frame camera which produces 12.7 megapixel images for excellent image quality and reproduction possibilities.

Shooting RAW

All our images are shot in RAW format. RAW files are the digital negative, in the same way that there is a film negative. By shooting RAW, we are able to produce images with the finest image quality and reproduction possibilities. We can supply files to clients in any format they wish - 16 bit, 32 bit, sRGB, AdobeRGB, Jpeg, Tiff, etc.

Digital Image Processing

We use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop to process and index our images. When we open a RAW image, the default settings (all settings at zero) actually have less colour saturation and contrast than a non-RAW image. For us, the number one goal of image processing is to apply subtle tweaks to the image (levels, contrast, saturation, colour balance) so that it reflects the real scene as we saw it with our eyes at the time.

Digital Image Manipulation

There are ethical and moral issues surrounding digital image manipulation so we are very clear about where we stand on this topic. Unless we clearly state otherwise in an image description, we do not heavily manipulate our images. For example, we will not ‘remove’ buildings, or ‘add’ buildings, or ‘add’ people, or ‘add’ a new sky, etc. By being open and honest, we hope to gain the trust and respect of clients and fellow photographers alike. We try to get the shot in-camera where possible.

High Dynamic Range (HDR) Images

We usually avoid the need to produce HDR images through careful planning and knowing where and when the light will be on any particular location. If we do use this technique for a particular image (and there are some occasions when this is needed), we will clearly state so in our image description and use it in a subtle manner. Our belief is that the best usage of this technique is when the viewer can’t really tell that it has been used.

Filters

We never use colour filters and rarely use neutral density or polarising filters either. If we do, we’ll usually state so in our image description. Similar to HDR image processing, the skill in using filters is to do so in such a subtle manner that it’s not noticeable in the resulting image. We see too many images from professional photographers where two halves of their image have varying colour temperatures and seem very odd.