under contruction

Focusing in the Dark The way I do this most of the time is to just make sure my metering/focus point is set to single and is the middle one. I then put the lens on autofocus and find a street light or light source off on the horizon somewhere. Push the shutter down half way with the dot right on the light until it seems like it is focused right. Some lenses will have a marking for infinity and often this gap will be pretty big. You can just line the line up, but sometimes it works better to use autofocus and a streetlight(but you have to be on single metering point to do it). Then flip the lens back to manual focus and leave it. Focusing in General When I'm chasing or shooting the sky I flip the lens to auto and lock the focus on some sharp, bright object out there on the horizon. Then I take it off auto and leave it on manual. I NEVER use autofocus while chasing other than that initial locking it out there.

JPG vs RAW Most DSLR's now offer JPG or RAW file formats. JPG is compressed data while RAW is the raw data. RAW will need to be converted to something like TIFF or even a JPG. To me this is a very simply choice--shoot in RAW. You can create a JPG from the RAW, but you can't create a RAW file from a JPG. RAW isn't compressed. With the RAW file you can convert to a 16 bit TIFF file as opposed to an 8 bit JPG. I believe the RAW from the Canon's is a 12 bit file that you can convert to 8 bit or 16 bit TIFF. An 8 bit file is only capable of 256 levels while the 16 bit is capable of over 65,000 levels. If a file needs much post-processing work this difference can be pretty big. I was converting to 8 bit early on since photoshop elements wouldn't work with 16 bit files(I now have photoshop CS and it will). I was getting some banding in my clouds after very small adjustments. I start working in 16 bit and notice, hey, I don't have this problem at all now! The RAW format is the highest quality format you can get out of your camera, so use it! RAW is the digital equivelent to a film negative, it's not processed by the camera's software. A JPG will have saturation, contrast, white balance and sharpness adjustments applied to it before you get your hands on it. So with RAW you will have to post-process the image, kind of like a film developer develops the film negative. This puts all the control in your hands as opposed to the camera's software. It's just the way to go.

Histograms This is another very useful thing and rather important to understand(especially once you get into processing the photos). If you have a canon you can view this after the photo by pressing play and then the info button till it pops up. This is the histogram for this photo. The black peaks on the histogram shows how the information in the image is spread out. It goes from pure black on the left to pure white on the right. Black is 0 and white is 255. So if there is any sky blown out in the image it would show up towards the right edge of the histogram. You can see to the far right of the histogram it trails off right to the edge. If I really overexposed this shot there would be much more black to the far right, not good. The same is true for the left side of the histogram, but this time instead of highlights blowing out, it would be shadows clipping to pure black. You can see on the left side of the histogram there's more black up against the side than the right side. That means some of the shadow areas of the image are clipped to pure black. That is surely the tree'd area on the horizon. In the middle of the histogram is the largest region of black peaks. The majority of this shot has midtones. On almost all digital cameras you can view this histogram after you take a shot. You can see clear as day on the histogram if your shot is blown out or underexposed(because the LCD brightness isn't a very good indicator of how well exposed your shot was...I have a bunch of northern lights shots that looked good on the LCD only to find out they were very under-exposed). Now here is an example where the photo was over-exposed(I did this to it in the conversion for this example). Look how the histogram looks now. There is black shoved up against the right side of it now. That is showing that a large portion of the image is blown out to completely white. Most people try and "expose to the right" as the area closer to the highlights is able to hold more information. So the trick is to expose the shot so that it's almost blowing out but stops short. The majority of storm shooting one is forced to do this anyway, since the dynamic range is usually more than your camera is capable of capturing. That is how I shoot most of the time. There are times though when blowing out the sky is a must, so that the storm detail can show up. Generally though it's best to keep the sky from blowing out, but come really close to it. Here is an example of a good time to let the sky blow out. Notice how the right side of the storm is very dark, almost black. Also notice how the sky is blown out above the highway. Now had I shot this with less of an exposure so the sky was not blown out I would have certainly had a clipped to black storm and probably some of the foreground too. Sometimes the sky just has to blow out. This demonstrates well how a camera can't capture the dynamic range of light that our eyes can. The sky was not white(blown out) while I was there looking at this. The right side of the storm was also not that dark in person either(I even opened up that area some in photoshop and it's still dark).

High Dynamic Range Alternatives There are ways to capture these high dynamic shots. You can shoot multiple exposures and then merge them in photoshop. I don't have any of them on here as every shot I have is one exposure. Your object can't move nor can your tripod or it'll look wrong, so this isn't always a great tool for storms. Another tool is a split neutral density filter you mount on your lens. The bottom half would be clear while the top would be tinted. This will tame the sky brightness down so the exposure is able to fit with the foreground. This is really only good if you have a dark foreground then a brighter sky above it...like the bottom 1/2 of my image above. It won't work when you then have a dark storm taking up the top portion of the shot however. I'm happy enough with what I can get from one exposure so I've really not messed much with either of these. And like I said, shooting storms will quickly render a split neutral density filter useless. Another option that seems to be gaining popularity is HDR(High Dynamic Range) which is available on Photoshop CS2 now(which I don't have). You can take a large number of exposures of the same scene(again not always useful if your subject is moving like a storm would), plug them into the program and let it spit out this massive 32 bit file. With this you can cover the dynamic range your eyes can see. So far the examples I've seen have looked a bit cartooney. It does however hold a whole lot of potential. For more on it and examples simply google HDR.

Various Ways to Shoot the Sky 1) The method I use the most is to shoot using the Av setting on the dial, for aperture priority(you pick the aperture, the camera picks the appropriate shutter speed). I then make sure to have one metering point set--I always use the center point. How your shot/exposure comes out will rely on what kind of object that point is on be it a dark object or bright, because it is metering the light level off of that point. So set it to the one you want and be aware of where that point is when you shoot. There's an option called Exposure Compensation that I use frequently for photos containing the sky. This is still part of this first method by the way. Now where that metering point is the camera will try and make that light amount fit into the middle of the histogram, or a middle ground for the exposure. So if you put the metering point on a very bright cloud in the sky(the brightest thing out there that would be the first to blow out) it will try to make that amount fit to the middle of the histogram. What you'll have is one very underexposed shot since what should be nearly white or nearly blown out is now a midtone amount. If you put the dot on a middle-grey cloud it should be much closer to where you want the exposure. So it is best to find what seems like a midtone out there and make sure not to have your metering point on a dark shadow or a bright highlight. Since we know the camera can't cover what our eyes can in one shot sometimes, we could still have the sky blowing out using this method. This is where the Exposure Compensation comes in. You can now shift where it places the exposure towards a lower exposure or a greater one. If you have the point on a grey cloud and the sky REALLY blows out still, you can set the exposure compensation to off a stop or so to the negative side. On the back of a Canon(probably the exact same on a Nikon or other cam) there is a button that says Av with a +/- sign under it. In manual mode that button controls the aperture(hence the Av sign there). In Av mode or Tv mode this button is for the Exposure Compensation. Simply hold that +/- button down and then scroll the wheel and watch the -2 -1 0 +1 +2 bar graph on the back or in the eyepiece. If you scroll it so the indicator is on the -1 then you are setting it to compensate the exposure the metering point is reading to a stop lower. Doing this will save the sky from blowing out. Now if there isn't much sun out and no bright sky around you might want to move this to the + side somewhere to get the exposure out of the middle of the histogram and closer the right. It takes some playing with to get the hang of where to put it, but it is extremely useful. 2) Here is another way to handle the exposure when shooting the changing sky. This one is probably a better way but I don't do it much. In this case you add the use of the Exposure Lock function. The button for this is on the back of the Canon, second from the right on the top right side. It has ths symbol above it...*. When you push it it will lock the exposure that your metering point is on. A good way to shoot a sky with dark clouds is to use this with your metering point on the brightest spot in the shot. This will lock that exposure and try and make that light amount be the middle ground(middle of the histogram). So what you could do is set your Exposure Compensation up to +1 to +2 or so. This will move that bright spot away from the middle of the histogram and get it closer to the right side where it should be. Then each time you shoot you'd just Exposure Lock(*) on the brightest spot and shoot. Now if the subject is much much darker than the sky you might still need to just let the sky blow out completely and just be sure to get the exposure of the subject well enough. Below is yet another example of a scene where the sky simply had to be blown out. There truly are no rules to photography, imo. Understand the tool and use what is needed for the shot. It doesn't take that long with digital to realize the limitations of scenes. I imagine if I shot this with the exposure compensation set at 0(no compenstation) and had the metering point on the storm this is how it would come out. That is probably what I did actually. If my metering point was out there on the bright sky and I didn't have any compenstation set the storm and foreground would likely be nearly black.

Bracketing Exposures I'll have to look at the camera to figure this out because I NEVER bracket, lol. I can't think of a time I've ever used bracketing. Some find it to be extremely important and useful to do it. I try to just get good at the guestimations on exposure compensation and be aware of where my metering point is. Most of the time you'll be close enough. Whatever you do you don't really want to blow things out as it's nearly impossible to correct that(fixing it in RAW conversion I've seen does VERY little). Ok I figured out how to do this(I'm actually 100% serious for those that I bet don't believe I've never done this before). I find myself always eating up space on my compact flash cards so I doubt I'll ever do it, but it's here for those not in the know and interested. On a canon go to the menu and go to the camera with a 2 next to it symbol, then hit set and go down to AEB and hit set again(or read the camera's manual for this). A bracket will just be a set of differing exposures, so you hope one of them will be the right one. Once that is selected you can push the right arrow and watch 2 indicators go out from 0 towards -2 and +2 in 1/3 increments. So you'll see three on there, the one at 0 and then the other two. This is the same thing as exposure compensation but it's setting it to do it on the following two shots at the spot you indicate. Hit set and get back out of there. Well set it wherever you would like first. Try -1 and +1 stop for now. Now on the back of the Canon below the AV(+/-) button you have another button with a timer looking icon, 3 squares ontop of each other, and another vertical looking icon thingy. That button is for shooting mode. Push it and watch the lcd and you can see it switching. When it shows one square that is for normal shooting where you shoot one image at a time. Push it again and it should go to the 3 overlayed squares icon. That is for bracketing. Push it again and you can see it goes to the timer setting where it will take the image a few seconds after you push the button. So go back to the 3 overlayed sqaures for bracketing. Now when you push the button once it will take 3 shots. The first will be your normal exposure level, and the next two will be the -1 stop and +1 stop exposures. It might be useful to some, but it is a certain memory/card space hog. EDIT: Well it looks like there might be a bug with this camera or something. Maybe a reading can enlighten me. I figured the 3 squares instead of one was to get it on bracketing(since it only does 3 on this cam!). Problem was I switch it back to one and it's still forcing the bracket. To get it to stop doing this I had to go back deep into the menu and change the AEB setting to single. I can't see them making a person go in there to change it to shoot the bracket again as it would make the most sense to just have that area where you set how you want it controlled, and have it turned off and on with a button right on the camera(like it looked like it was). Something ain't right. If this is how it is supposed to work it is set up in a very stupid way. Good thing I don't use it anyway I guess.

White Balance When shooting in RAW format there really isn't much need to worry about white balance since you can change/adjust it during the conversion later anyway. Mine is always set on auto. What it is is a way to tell your camera what is and should be white in a shot. If there are various light tints changing the color cast of a shot this is how you correct that. It is basically giving you the ability to adjust the light to a warmer or cooler color tone. But like I say, with RAW you can make this adjustment if needed in post processing very easily.

Lens Quality With digital the quality of the glass/lens you have on your camera is at least, if not more important than the quality of your sensor and camera. It is pretty true that you get what you pay for. Pricey glass isn't that way for no good reason. Problems with cheaper built lenses are things like distortion(power poles or trees tip inward towards the edge of the frame), lens flares, sharpness(often a poor lens will get very soft towards the edges), contrast, and overall build quality. I have a Canon 17-40L(paid $800 for it but they can be found for like $650 I believe) and have been very happy with it. This is after being very unhappy with the kit lens I had to start.

Where to Buy If buying anything online do yourself a huge favor and look up the store/site on reseller ratings.com. http://www.resellerratings.com It can be pretty scary out there! If the price is too good to be true, it likely is. Most do things like try and sell you way overpriced batteries, tapes, etc. If you refuse they'll "process" the order and get you off the phone only to never ship you your item. If you order online they'll send you an e-mail saying you have to call a number to verify and then once you do they'll do this same thing of never actually shipping your item, unless you buy the overpriced extras. They'll do all sorts of bad things. Just because they are in the back of a "reputable" photo magazine does not mean they are very legit. Most of them seem to actually do this sort of thing, as sad as that is. I think the safest bet for getting what you want and not getting jacked around is to use http://www.bhphotovideo.com in New York. Here is an example of a bad one on reseller ratings. http://www.resellerratings.com/seller6510.html

Protective Filters(UV or Clear) Some suggest to have at least a UV filter over your lens to keep it from scratching. I've done that for a long time but recently stopped. I've never been able to notice anything good come from a UV filter. It is basically another object for light to have to go through. It would be pretty silly to purchase some very nice glass(lens) and then put a piece of plastic on the front of it that really only serves for protection from scratches. I imagine it is fairly hard to scratch the glass anyway(with just a small amount of awareness). I know of a couple long time shooters that think it's a pretty stupid thing to do. It seems to make some sense to me so this is the route I've gone.

Filters This is something I don't know much about really. I really don't use any filters. I do know it's best to buy a Cokin P(or whatever fits for you) filter holder and square filters instead of round screw on ones. This way you don't need new filters for each lens, just the adapter ring for the filter holder. I have one along with 3, 3-stop neutral density filters I bought to do long exposures during the day light. If you ever want to do long exposures of clouds during the day buy 3, 4-stop neutral density liters instead of the 3-stop ones :( .

Intro: First off before I get started on this part. This is all based on photoshop work. Fellow storm chaser and photographer Mike Umscheid has started a set of tutorials for processing using Paint Shop Pro. So if you aren't using photoshop perhaps his will be more useful than mine. His site is here: www.underthemeso.com And the tutorial on his blog starts here: Blog Tutorial Now this is an area I feel I've came a looooong ways in and one I can probably offer the most help to those who know nothing about it. Landscape and storm photography can really benifit from some good photoshop work. Like was mentioed earlier, a camera is really only capable of like 5-6 stops worth of exposure. Your eyes(and your brain) can do a much better job with strong differences in lighting in a scene, like 10 stops or so worth. So if you point your camera at a scene with a big range of light, one greater than it is capable of covering(any sunset), the excess areas will be turned pure white or pure black(sky blown out to pure white and/or foreground clipped to pure black). It's just the way it is. But there is even more to it than that. Say you get some detail in that dark foreground and it isn't yet pure black. It is often much closer to black than reality was, even when it is "fitting within the range". Same goes with the highlights. You can't recover a whole lot when it is very near blow out, and certainly not when it's blown out. Also before you do any processing there will be areas all over the image that are either a bit over or under-exposed. Many areas that aren't blown out pure white or clipped to black will be FLAT/HAZY...much more so than reality was. If you shoot landscapes, storms, or any high dynamic range scene and don't process the image you are doing reality a disservice. If you see a photo in a magazine you can be sure someone did post-processing to it. Post-processing is PART of digital photography, like developing film is to film photography. One just has a whole lot more potential control available to them now if they care to bother. If you shoot in JPG the camera is processing the image for you. It's using a preset instruction in the software for your scene. If you shoot in RAW it's not applying any processing. It's only recording the RAW data. It is then up to you to handle that. It's not that tough and it's well worth the time to bother. And even if you shoot in JPG I'd still consider post-processing for various problem areas. Like I mentioned way back towards the top of this page, just shoot in RAW. If your setting is some indoor shot with no outside light coming in(or a well lit bright daylight shot outdoors) it is likely a JPG, or camera processed image will look plenty fine. It's those outdoor(or even indoors if outside light is coming in) high dynamic scenes that REALLY need help sometimes. This above example is one that isn't a high dynamic range scene. It fits within the 5-6 stop window most cameras will handle. Look at the histogram for it to the left. It's not touching the right side(highlights) and it trails off just before going off the left side(shadows). If you shot it as a jpg I imagine it would look similar to the above image. Most likely one would be happy with how a camera processed image looked in this kind of lighting. It is still worth shooting in RAW and processing it yourself for the benifits RAW brings. Thanks to the indoor lighting the color was off on this. In conversion all I had to do was use the water dropper and click on a white or grey spot to get the white balance correct. Photo Editors I'm only going to use instructions based off of photoshop as that is all I use. It's also the most used photo editor anyway.

RAW Conversion If you shoot in RAW you'll need to use RAW conversion software to convert it to one of three choices. You can convert to a JPG, 8 bit TIFF, or a 16 bit TIFF. JPG is a compressed file format. TIFF is more of a lossless format. The difference is that you can keep working on a TIFF file after you save it more than you can a JPG. If you save a JPG it will be compressed. Then if you work on it again later you'll be working on an image with less info in it since it was compressed already. It's a bad idea to work on a saved JPG more than once. With TIFF it doesn't compress it when you save it so you can keep working on it if you want. Like was mentioned earlier, a 16 bit TIFF has a huge amount of more info to work with than an 8 bit TIFF(65,000+ levels compared to only 256 with the 8 bit). A 16 bit TIFF file will however be twice as large file size wise as the same image as an 8 bit TIFF. If I convert my Rebel XT RAW image to 16 bit it is 45.6 megs. If I change it to 8 bit it's only 22.8 megs. 16 bit is a much much better file to be working with than the 8 bit version. I've had a few give me banding problems(alternating red and green lines in low contrast clouds) while working on them at 8 bit only to try 16 bit and not be able to get them to do it at all. Once you are done with it you can convert it to 8 bit if you want. So if it were me I'd convert to 16 bit while doing the RAW conversion. During the RAW conversion I really don't do much to the image. All I do is maybe change the exposure level some if it needs it and sometimes adjust the white balance. I don't touch saturation in that step as I often don't like to change the saturation to the sky as much as the foreground and I can handle that better in normal photoshop work. So you can change a few things in conversion if you want, most do I imagine. I've just never done a whole lot to them in the conversion

Some Photoshop Basics One quick note on photoshop and 16 bit files. Not all versions will work with 16 bit files. Photoshop elements 2.0 won't. Photoshop CS/CS2 will and I would guess photoshop 6 and 7 might too. I may have heard that photoshop elements 3.0 actually will now. The only reason I bought Photoshop CS was to be able to work with 16 bit. I think elements would do everything I ever do, outside of working in 16 bit. I just googled and yes Photoshop elements 3.0 will work with 16 bit. When you convert the RAW file to a workable format you will still always have that RAW version. That RAW file is the most important one to keep and back up. You can make new files from it anytime you want. So lets say you convert to a 16 or 8 bit TIFF(I really have no clue why anyone would convert to jpg to start). Open the file in photoshop. If space is an issue you might want to resize the image first, though I can't see that being much of an issue anymore. I'd work on it as it is at its native size.

Native Sizes and Resolution It's a good thing to understand how the resolution and pixels work, or at least understand it somewhat. My Digital Rebel XT is an 8 megapixel camera. This means it has 8 million dots or pixels making up the image. Here is how they are distributed: 3456 pixels/dots(dots and pixels are the same thing) wide by 2304 pixels/dots tall. So that is 3456 dots one way and 2304 the other. If you multiply the width by the height you should get something around 8,000,000. I get 7,962,624 which is close enough to 8 megapixels for me. For the sake of simplifying this down to more workable numbers we'll pretend we are working with a camera that shoots at 720x480. This happens to be what tv and dvd use. So we are now talking about 720 pixels wide by 480 pixels tall. Or 720x480=345,600 total pixels in the image. This is all very simple until one tosses in the dpi, or dots per inch(or sometimes called ppi, pixels per inch). If you go to print anything this will surely come up. 300 dpi is a common amount used in printing. Now here is what is not always so easy at first(though it really should and can be). Say someone asks you which would look better, 720x480 @ 300 dpi or 720x480 @ 72 dpi. What would your answer be? The more dots in an inch the more resolution, right? Yes. If you are asked this question about which would be better the answer is they are the exact same thing. If you put an image on dvd at 720x480 it's going to be the same exact thing if you put in 300 dpi or 72 dpi or even 1 dpi. 720x480 is 345,600 pixels no matter what you call the dpi. It is already given in dots so the dpi is pointless. When dpi matters is when the image is given in actual dimensions to start. Say you have an image 10 inches wide by 6 and 2/3 inches tall. If that is all you know you do not know the the dpi let alone the amount of dots in the image. You only know it is 10 x 6.667. A monitor is only capable of 72 dpi, anything greater than that you aren't going to be able to tell. So lets plug in 72 dpi into this image size of 10x6.667. If the bottom is 10 inches wide and you are saying there are 72 dpi or dots in each inch you'll have 720 dots making up the bottom/width of the image. Now do the same for the vertical/height of the image at 6.667 and you'd take 72 dots for each inch times the 6.667 inches you have. You'd have roughly 480 dots for that side. You'd then have that 345,600 pixels creating your image. Now lets say you wanted 300 dpi instead of 72 at the same 10 inches by 6.667 inches. In order to do that you would be adding a lot of dots, or pixels. The computer would guess at them and do what is called resing up, or adding info to the image. You would no longer have the 720 dots by 480 dots because you know haev 300 dots for every inch instead of just the 72. In your 10 inch width you would now have 3,000 dots instead of 720(10 inches times the now 300 dots for each inch). Your 6.667 inch height would now have 2000 dots(6.667 inches tall times the now 300 dots for each inch). So your 10 inch x 6.667 at 72 dpi has 345,600 total dots(or 1/3 megapixel) while the same dimension(10 x 6.667 inches) image with 300 dots per inch(dpi) would have 6,000,000 dots(or 6 megapixels). So if you are creating a dvd with photos on it and are making them to fit the dvd size of 720x480 and wonder what dpi to use would be the best...don't. You are already giving it the total amount of pixels when you say 720x480. I used to wonder what dpi was best when I would make them. I'm glad I get it now as it is pretty easy. So when you convert your image in RAW conversion and it asks you what dpi you want, it really doesn't matter. No matter what you tell it it is going to give you an image with your camera's megapixel count. This might help to make this all click if it doesn't yet. Remember I said my 8 megapixel Canon Digital Rebel shot at 3456 pixels wide by 2304 pixels tall? Here is what I get when I convert it set to 72 dpi and when I set it to 2000 dpi. 72 dpi 8 megapixel file: 48 inches wide x 32 inches tall at 72 dpi...3456 pixels wide by 2304 pixels tall...file size of 45.6 megabytes 2000 dpi 8 megapixel file: 1.728 inches wide x 1.152 inches tall at 2000 dpi...3456 pixels wide by 2304 pixels tall...file size of 45.6 megabytes The file size and the pixel dimensions will be exactly the same. The thing that changes is the viewable size of the image down from 48 inches wide to 1.728. But, like I said, it does not matter as far as working on the image because you'll have the same amount of dots to work with in each image. If you view them at 100 % on the screen they will be identical. So there's no need to mess around with the dpi setting in the RAW conversion. I'm not sure why it is even offered. Now if you wanted that 48 inch by 32 inch image at 2000 dpi instead of 72 that'd be some serious resing up of the file and adding a whole hell of a lot of dots that were never there. The file size would increase a ton as well because of those added dots making up the image. Now here is something else that might make some sense out of this. Say you wanted a 300 dpi image from this 8 megapixel Canon Digital Rebel but you only wanted to use the resolution that was there, the 8 megapixels. How big could you go? It is simple, you just uncheck the resample image box when changing the resolution to 300. This will lock your image to the pixel width by pixel height that it shoots at. It will figure out the width and height your image ends up at when you put in the 300 dpi. So if you don't want to change the resolution up or down(or add or take away pixels) you have an 11.52 inch by 7.68 inch image when set to 300 dpi. But, photoshop can do a decent job at resing up and down, so one isn't stuck to the exact pixel count they have to start with(though you can only res something up so far).

Photoshop Layers Adjustments In photoshop it is best to do all your adjustments on new layers. It might not make sense now but it should later. Basically the layer is just a clear object but with your adjustment information on it. Say you did one for like contrast. When you use it and adjust the contrast it will look the same as if you were just adjusting the contrast. Only when you do it as a layer you can later discard that change while keeping all the others you have. You can also adjust the opacity amount of that layer. Say you backed the opacity of the layer off of 100% to 50%, then only half the contrast you applied will show on the final product. You can do many other things when doing your adjustments on new layers. It is just the way to go, trust me.

Guide For the Following To have this available to look at without having to scroll up one might want to copy the image location and open it in another window or tab(mozila firefox browser is nice as it has the tabs options).

Levels Adjustments My intent with this page was not to make something showing every little adjustment possible and all the screen grabs to do so. The best way to learn is to play around. What I can do is point to a few tools and some how to's. Levels is a pretty basic way to adjust the brightness and contrast of an image. Here is a levels dialog box. To get it open to use go to Layer(up on your task bar to the right of File a few spots) then New Adjustment Layer, then Levels. It will ask you to name your new layer, I always just hit ok as it is. From now on when I explain how to get to such a location I'll just type it like this: Layer/New Adjustment Layer/Levels. In the levels box it gives you the histogram for your image showing how the image is spread out and how far away it is from the shadows or the highlights. There are 3 sliders to use in here. There is the black one for shadows, the grey one for midtones and the white for highlights. If you slide the white one to the left it will brighten the image. As it gets into the black on the histogram it will start turning things white....blowing them out. It's usually best to slide it as far left as you can without going into the black, or even stopping short of that far. The same goes for the black slider, but for sliding it to the right. If you start getting into the histogram info it will start turning shadow detail to black, so stop before it gets to that point. The middle slider is for overall brightness of the image. There's really not much too it. Get it like you want and hit ok. You'll now have this layer adjustment showing as its own layer in the layers box. You can do the same for contrast, curves, saturation, etc. Just try the various adjustment means, but do them all on their own new layer like this. Another way to open this without going up and clicking Layer is to click on #12 from the guide towards the bottom right, then click on levels(or whichever adjustment you wanted to do). Whenever you are done messing around with the adjustment of the sliders just hit ok. Then you can do your next adjustment layer. If you end up not happy with how you adjust one all you have to do is double click on that box with the shaded circle and it will open it back up for you to toy with. See #1 on the guide, that is your new layer adjustment you just made(any of those white boxes with the shaded circle in it). As you make new layers that is where they will show up, in your layers palette. See #13 on the guide, that is your main image you started with, or your background image. See #2 on the guide, that is a layer mask.

*Layer Masks* These will be extremely important if you ever want to really control an image. See #2 on the guide, any of the boxes to the right of the adjustmeny layer boxes will be the Layer Mask for that layer. See how the one the #2 arrow is pointing at has the top half shaded in black with the bottom in white? Now this adjustment layer is much like the levels one, only that one happens to be the adjustment layer I created for saturation on this one. If you look close you can see it was called Hue/Saturation, while the two below it are called Levels 1, Levels 2. Well I only wanted to bring up the saturation in the foreground and not the sky. This is where the mask comes in. Whatever is black will be masked out from being applied to the original image. So think of black like a big eraser for what adjustment you made during that adjustment layer. White reveals, black conceals. Remember that is how a mask works. Whatever you shade in black will be concealed from ever showing on the image below. Whatever is in white will. And all the shades of grey are variations in amounts of this. Like a grey closer to white will reveal more, while a grey closer to black will block more. These are how one makes an image shine! It's important to understand them and get good at creating them.

*Ways to Make the Layer Masks* For the sake of playing around, create a new adjustment layer for saturation. Click #12 and then click saturation in that menu. Then turn the saturation up to 100%(don't worry about what it looks like, we're messing around here). Then hit OK. See #8 on the guide, that is the eraser tool. Select it so that is the tool you are currently using. See #10 on the guide, make sure they look like that. Make sure the top square is white and the bottom one is black. To make sure they are or to make them that way, click on #11 on the guide(in your photoshop software...god I hope no one out there is clicking on my guide image). That will force them to the default setting for foreground and background. Now look up top for #7, or where it says opacity. Make sure that and flow are both on 100%. To the left of those is a box for Mode. Just use Brush. To the left of Mode is something where you can pick the kind of brush and the diameter of it's tip. This is all defining what size and opacity your eraser will work at. Just pick a soft looking brush type. Don't go down the list and pick those goofy star shape things and whatnot. Once you have a brush picked you can change the hardness and the size of it in there. I'd use 0% for hardness. Don't use a tiny brush(compared to your image size) for this, nor a huge one. Just use one that will let you paint the top half of your image fairly quickly. You can click the size and then move your cursor to see how big it looks on your image. Once you get something that will work click and hold down your left mouse button and draw around the top of the image. Wala you are erasing the adjustment you just made in the areas you are using the eraser tool on. Now look back over at your layer mask next to your adjustment layer in the layers palette...#2 on the guide. You can see your mask and where you just painted black. Now try this with levels and contrast adjustment layers. It's very easy to do this once you do it a couple times and see what you are doing. You can now adjust the background(sky) and foreground independantly from one another. The control and ability this brings is huge for high dynamic range scenes...landscapes...storms. Another fast way to do this is to grab the gradient tool(#9 on the guide). You then click on the image and hold down the button and drag a line, then let go. It will make a gradient shade leaving white on the side you started the drag and black to the side you end the drag. The longer the line you make the wider the gradient will be. The shorter the sharper the transition from white to black will be. This can work well if you have a very flat horizon. It can also work well if you need to lighten or darker a portion of the image. It is basically a digital neutral density filter in post-processing. Now say you have a treeline or a bumpy horizon and the eraser is just too hard to control on all those bumps/changes. One of my favorite ways to make the mask is to use Select/Color Range from the taskbar at the top of Photoshop. You can use the magic wand and such but I've had very little luck controlling those. This method of using Select/Color Range is pretty powerful. While the dialog box is open for Selecting Color Range simply click the water dropper on the area you want to select to mask out. Then mess around with the "fuzziness" setting in there. 72 or so often works for me. Now remember, the only important part here is the area right along the horizon. Ignore what it is selecting or not selecting away from the horizon a bit. This is because you can select the area near the horizon, click ok, then draw with your eraser over that area selected at the horizon(above or below, whichever you are doing). Once it is close simply click Select/Deselct. Now you can finish the area of the background or foreground(whichever you are doing) away from the horizon. It takes some practice but is really quite simple once you understand what it is you are doing. I'd say this is the most powerful tool/method I've discovered in post-processing so far. I actually stumbled onto this one myself messing around, trying to figure out a way to make the mask more precise. Now here is a view of what is actually going on here. Before levels adjustment for the foreground and mask. After levels adjustment and with the mask. All I did was move the right/highlight bar left to brighten the foreground, but this also blew out the sky....so I made a mask that cancelled out what this adjustment layer did to the sky. Just to say how I got this far I'll say it again. With the image open click on #12 on the guide and click levels(or go to the top of photoshop and click Layer/New Adjustment Layer/Levels). Move the right/highlight levels slider to the left brightening up the foreground but ignoring what is happening to the sky and click ok. Then click on Select/Color range from the top of Photoshop. Once that is open click somewhere on the foreground of your image. The areas that will be selected will show up in white in the color range selection box. Move the fuzziness to around so that it highlights as much of the foreground as possible, but without it including much right above the foreground. Then click ok. Now remember you adjusted for the foreground and want to erase the BACKGROUND. So you'll now have to go up to Select and click on Deselect at the top of Photoshop. This will flip what you grabbed and now be selecting the sky. Now use the eraser on the sky, right along the horizon without going down into the foreground(since a few pixels here and there may actually be selected down there). Once you have it done right along and just above the horizon click select/deselect from the top of photoshop. Now you can just finish erasing on the top of the image...the background/sky. Your mask should look like mine below here. What you can do is click on the mask icon(I have an arrow to it in the image up 2 spots). You have to hold down the ALT key when you click on the mask. This will show the actual mask you are making. White reveals, black conceals. So the areas in the white on here will show the levels adjustment you made. The areas in black will be masked out from those changes. The areas of grey will be a blend, showing some of the changes you made. This is hands down the best way to get a natural looking transition at the horizon when using masks. You can just use Select/Color Range on a portion, click ok, then paint with the eraser then click ok, and then do another area the same way till you get it how you want. Normaly I only have to do the select color range selection method once. I mean the only part that is hard to get is right at the horizon. Ignore what is happening outside of there since you can go back later with everything deselected and paint black or white with a smaller brush/eraser. I had to do that here on the rest of the background and foreground. The best way to do this is to be very careful where you select with your dropper. You have to click a spot in the foreground that lies just below the horizon. You then have to move the fuzziness up or down so that it makes the foreground white as possible, but leaves the area of the sky/background right above the horizon as black as possible. You then have to flip it like I mentioned(Select/Inverse) because you selected the foreground, but actually were wanting the background selected(it's just best to click the detailed foreground with that color selection tool). Now if you do another adjustment layer for the background you'd do the same steps, but this time wouldn't have to flip/inverse the selection after you made it....since you want to paint black on the foreground this time. You can keep doing these adjustment layers for as long as you wish(but they'll add to the temporary file size as you do so). Look at the guide again. I have a background copy layer, and 3 adjustment layers that each have a mask. I did 2 for levels(often one to adjust the background levels and one to adjust the foreground.....all independant of one other when you add the masks). Just play with it if it doesn't make sense....it will. And remember you can see the mask by clicking on it in the layers palette while holding down ALT. Then to see the image hold down ALT again and click on the mask. There is nothing more powerful for storm or landscape image editing than to be able to adjust what you have for each, completely independant of one other. Well HDR(high dynamic range) editing with many exposures and a 32 bit file would be better, but even then this method can be used. Here is a what happens with another levels adjustment and another mask. Often the first levels adjustment layer will just get the foreground and background closer to the same "page", where they should be, rather than the foreground being much darker than it was in person. I used this point to start from for the next change. It is important to remember this was an unprocessed RAW file and started off flat and lacking contrast since none had been applied by the camera or me yet. I did another levels adjustment layer to bright up the image a bit more and I pulled down the midtones this time to get some of that contrast into the image that it had in real life. Look what happens to the sky when I move the highlight slider well to the left. I moved it left only paying attention to what it was doing to the storm and foreground. I then moved the midtones right/down and looke what that did to the left side of the foreground....it turned it pretty black. So I would need to make a mask to kill these effects to the sun/sky and to the foreground. I used the eraser with a lower opacity setting and went over the sun area a few times. I then dabbed a bit on the foreground areas that went too black. And this is what you get with that mask on there. The sun is kicked back into something closer to reality, as is the foreground(while the levels adjustment applied to the sky and foreground brought them up to something closer to reality as well). All this work with photoshop isn't about creating fiction or cheating(unless you want to!), it is about using what is available to get the images closer to how you saw them. Most landscape or storm scenes just aren't going to end up that way without some post-processing help. That is not saying they can't still be a fine, acceptable image without help. Just generally speaking, if you use some of your brain power on the image you might be happier than if you settle for the camera's preset guess/processing. For a reference the below image is where the unprocessed raw started from. This is what happens when you keep the sky from blowing out--the majority of the rest of the image is under-exposed. Was the foreground and storm really this haszy/foggy/muddy in real like? FAR from it. You could see the detail in the storm and the foreground much better, but because of how the camera/sensor works they will wind up under-exposed if you save the highlights of a strong sun from blowing out. It usually seems best to keep the sun in check when you can and open up the rest in photoshop later. Like was mentioned earlier in this. Saving the highlights/sun/sky from blowing out in the following one was not an option(just too big of a range).     History Tab If you ever mess up simply find your History Tab and click back on each move you made. It's #3 on the guide. If you can't find it go to Window at the top, and see if "History" is checked. If not check it and it should pop up on the screen somewhere.

*Local Contrast Enhancement(The Clarifier)* View this LINK for a small tutorial on this. This is one of the other more useful tools I know of. Digital loves to be too hazy and lacking contrast(especially RAW files!.....work with them and you'll see). This works wonderfully for adding a small amount of contrast to a flat image. You can see how well it works on the link I put on here. It has its problems however. It is best used in very small subtle amounts. If you overdo it it will stand out and probably look cartoony. Like with the rest of photoshop work, I'm slowly learning it is best to underdo some adjustment than overdo them. This is especially true with storms like supercells where people already question the reality of the image. With the high dynamic nature of the business and tendancy to underexpose the majority of images to keep the sky in check, as well as the flatness of RAW and digital, it's a tough balance sometimes of bringing them to life like they were in reality and stopping yourself from brining them out too far. Anyway, here is the method as I use it. First, click on the background tab in your layers tab if you have layers on your image. Then go to the top of photoshop and click on Layer/Duplicate Layer. You'll apply this adjustment to this duplicate image/layer. Now go to Filter at the to of photoshop then Sharpen, then UnsharpMask. In there set radius to 50, or something close to 50(you don't have to be exactly 50, but be rather close or on it). Then set Threshold to 0. I really never change either of those for this. 50 and 0 works fine. Then to adjust it you move the amount around while watching the image. I've found it best to stick with 20 or less for the amount. 20 and 40 can work for some images, but the higher you go the more likely it will have a negative affect on the image. It can get fake looking fast if you go high. You aren't trying to make a storm look super contrasty and more nasty(though I never really understood how adding contrast makes the storm look any meaner.....it just looks more contrasty to me). I think the majority of people out there have the ability to tell what is and isn't too much contrast. Though I guess that comes into question when you talk about a sky that most people dont' see very often(wild supercell storms). If you have strong backlighting on a storm it can quickly create a great deal of contrast(pre-post-processing). Now I do this on a new layer so that I can fix the negative effects that can happen. Anytime you add contrast(by any number of ways, levels, contrast, curves, USM clarifier.....) areas close to white will go to white, and areas close to black will go to black. Often when you do this USM clarifier method to clear out some digital haze your horizon can get halos, your sun/sky can blow out, or areas of dark foreground can turn to black. With it as its own layer like this you can either make a mask for it, or simply erase those areas. If you use the eraser as it is now you'll actually erase areas of that duplicate layer(since if you notice there is no layer mask attached to it in the layers palette). This usually works fine for me. If you want to do it on a mask I'll tell you how to get a mask attached. Adding a MASK I'm explaining this because it doesn't always add a mask layer for you, like it does on new adjustment layers. To add one to your duplicate of the background go to Layer/Add Layer Mask/Reveal all....wala. Now if you want to mask out those areas I mentioned negatively affected by the USM clarifier paint black over them on the mask layer(I've always just used the "eraser" tool since it acts like a brush anyway). I will almost always at least erase right along the horizon when I do a USM local contrast adjustment. It keeps it more natural looking.

Flatten The Image When you are done adjusting you'll need to flatten the image. To do this you simply go to Layer/Flatten Image.

Sharpening

Saving

On another break.....