On Saturday 14 December 2019, the Imaging Science Group of the Royal Photographic Society held another in its series of Good Picture tutorial seminars. This was the 17th in our series of annual Good Picture symposia. The aim of these lectures and discussions is to provide imaging practitioners, keen amateurs and students with insights into Digital Imaging and provide some tools and guidelines for assessing cameras and output.
The programme is detailed below together with download links to some of the papers presented. These have been made available by kind permission of the authors. More may be added if and when the files become available to us. Warning! some of the authors have embedded videos into their presentations resulting in large files necessitating Dropbox. Please be patient while they download.
Programme
Dr Anthony Kaye ASIS FRPS: Artificial Intelligence in Photography for Photo Enthusiasts (166MB)
(Independent Imaging Consultant)
Artificial intelligence or machine intelligence is a branch of computer science that is being increasingly used to enhance images. We have seen at previous Good Picture Symposia how its implementation has significantly enhanced the imaging capabilities of mobile phones, but not always to the aesthetic benefit of pictures. In this presentation we will take a look how AI is now firmly established in Adobe Photoshop and in 3rd party Photoshop plugins. We will demonstrate that when sensitively used, AI powered tools can improve your images.
Dr Jonathan Crowther: Imaging the Skin – UV, Visible and IR (6MB)
(JMC Scientific Consulting Ltd.)
Photographic imaging of the skin is used across a wide range of research industries, from cosmetics through to pharmaceuticals and forensics. Moving away from straight visible light photography, and using techniques such as cross polarization, and UV induced fluorescence, or even photographing in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum such as Ultraviolet and Infrared, can provide information otherwise impossible to image. Imaging of the skin using conventional photography and these alternate techniques will be discussed and reviewed, along with some considerations when approaching this type of work.
Oliver van Zwanenberg: Measuring Camera Performance from Natural Scenes
(University of Westminster)
Camera system performance is traditionally measured from calibrated test charts. Performance measurements are used to evaluate the faithfulness of the reproduced image with respect to the chart contents. Our aim is to produce reliable spatial performance measures using natural scene images. The research can lead to camera evaluation in vital applications of computer vison technologies, such as CCTV and self-driving vehicles, as well as improve the performance of Image Quality models.
Gary Evans ASIS FRPS: Images as the Language of Science
(Chairman, RPS Imaging Science Group)
Images are a vital component in communicating science with the public. Here we look at the visual components and aesthetics of some iconic images of science to understand how they can be used to speak more than a thousand words.
Rex Waygood BSc MSc: An Exploration of Colour Spaces in Photoshop (424MB)
(RPS Digital Imaging Group)The talk will explore the relative advantages and disadvantages of the three workspaces available in Photoshop (RGB, CMYK and Lab) with respect to the editing of images.
James Mann FRPS: Automobile Photography Through the Ages
(Professional Photographer)
Frenchman Joseph Nicephore Niepce was a prolific polymath developing not only an early form of internal combustion engine in 1807 but, less than twenty years later, a photographic process, Heliography, the first to fix an enduring image. By the time Karl Benz presented his Motorwagen to the world in 1886 photography was already established as both an art and a science. From those first pioneer days the two technologies of cars and photography have raced forward together in parallel. From glass plate to digital, from diesel to electric, their stories are integrally linked. For the last thirty years James Mann has worked as a professional car photographer spanning the period from large format film to digital; he is the author of the book “How to Photograph Cars”. This talk will bring an insight into the exciting world of automobile imagery.
Dr Alan Hodgson ASIS FRPS: Characterising the Colour Response of Cameras (1.75MB)
(RPS Trustee)
A century ago Mees and Wratten released their paper describing an instrument to characterise the spectral response of photographic films and plates. This talk will show how to build a version for the digital age out of scrap materials and use it to test the performance of modern cameras for IR and UV photography. Building your own photographic instrumentation is easier and cheaper than you may think.