[Photography Technology] Teach you how to make photos more stereoscopic.

Photography teaches you how to make photos more stereoscopic.

The content of this paper is mainly to systematically introduce the source of stereoscopic impression in photographic works.

The world is three-dimensional, but the photos are two-dimensional. To show a three-dimensional level on a plane, the development of painting technology has been explored countless times for thousands of years. We photographers can also learn from the painting theory and draw a sense of hierarchy and three-dimensionality.

To express three-dimensional space, photos need to have a sense of hierarchy and three-dimensionality. And these two nouns are different.

Hierarchical sense refers to the hierarchical relationship between objects before and after distance. Stereoscopic sense refers to the three-dimensional sense of reality of each object itself.

In art and photography, three sides and five tones can help us create a three-dimensional sense, and the sense of hierarchy mainly comes from occlusion, vertical perspective, linear perspective and spatial sense.

"Three Faces and Five Tones" originated from the western sketch system, which shows the division of light and dark areas after an object is illuminated, and is an important means to express the three-dimensional sense.

The three main surfaces are bright surface, dark surface and gray surface.

The bright side is the side of an object that is directly illuminated by light, usually the brightest light gray and white in the image. The dark side is the backlight side, so it is generally the darkest part of the object, showing black and dark gray. The gray surface is between the bright surface and the dark surface, which is generally the part indirectly illuminated by side light or light, and is generally medium gray in the image.

After an object has bright, dark and gray surfaces, the three-dimensional sense will be greatly improved. Moreover, the stronger the brightness contrast between the bright side and the dark side, the stronger the stereoscopic effect of light.

When we shoot in the early stage, we will find that objects with completely smooth backlight will have poor stereoscopic impression.

Objects with side light, side backlight and side light will have a strong three-dimensional effect.

They are all hot air balloons. Why does the backlit hot air balloon look flat, while the one with side light is full of three-dimensional sense?

It is because of the smooth and backlit photos that there is only one side of the object in the picture, and there is no change in light and shade. However, in sidelights, objects have a combination of bright, gray and dark surfaces, and the stereoscopic effect is more obvious.

Therefore, in order to show the three-dimensional effect of an object, we should try to shoot with side light.

In addition to the early stage, we can also apply three related knowledge in the later stage to strengthen and even create the three-dimensional sense of the object.

For example, the picture below is a ball. Because all areas of the ball have the same brightness, it looks flat.

We want to increase its three-dimensional sense in the later stage, just by deepening the dimming tool, so that the interior of the ball produces three major surfaces.

You can also use coloring enhancement in Kebe Show painting: texture enhancement and hierarchical enhancement.

Use the deepening tool to darken the lower left corner of the ball, so that the ball has a dark side. Use the dodge tool to brighten the upper right corner of the ball and give it a bright side. At the junction of bright and dark surfaces, the gray surface naturally transitions.

After painting three facets in the later period, the ball finally has a three-dimensional effect.

We can further brighten the upper right corner and darken the lower left corner to improve the contrast between the bright and dark sides, thus strengthening the three-dimensional sense of light and shadow of the ball.

The next photo is the famous Kawaguchi Pagoda in Pakistan, but the three-dimensional sense of the photo is not strong enough now.

So I use texture enhancement and hierarchical enhancement here later; Highlight the place marked "1" in the following figure, strengthen or even create the bright side of the object, darken the area marked "3" in the figure, and further reduce the brightness of the dark side later. The area marked with "2" is naturally regarded as a gray surface.

With the comparison of the three regions, the three-dimensional sense of both clouds and snow-capped mountains has been greatly enhanced.

The above three aspects only consider the single object itself. In many cases, the object will interact with the surrounding objects, so the object will have a richer level of light and shade, that is, five tones, in addition to the three major surfaces.

Among the five colors, the highlight is the brightest point of the object, which is the part that directly reflects the light source, similar to the bright surface in the three major surfaces. On the surface of some smooth objects, highlights will be particularly prominent. Highlighting the highlights of an object can not only strengthen the three-dimensional sense, but also increase the texture of the object.

Bright gray is similar to the gray surface in the three major surfaces, and it is the part between them that receives light.

The backlight part of an object is divided into reflection and light-dark dividing line. Although the reflective area is on the backlight side, it will have a certain brightness due to the reflected light from other objects around it. In the later stage, reflection can be reasonably added to the dark part, which can make the object look more stereoscopic.

The dividing line between light and dark is the turning area from the bright part to the dark part, which is generally a black belt-shaped area and the darkest place in the object.

Besides the object itself, pentatonic scale also increases the projection. Projection is the shadow produced on other objects after the object itself blocks the light.

Projection actually uses other objects in the picture to illustrate the three-dimensional sense of the object itself, which will make the object look more stable and real. Under strong light, if an object has no projection on the nearby ground or wall, it will be particularly floating and very fake.

The following is a photo of the British Giant's Road. You will find that the stone in the foreground is very stereoscopic, far more stereoscopic than the first three samples. This is because these stones, as well as the five tones, are all delicate.

The "1" area of the stone is the highlight part of the stone, and the wet stone has excellent reflective performance, so even if the highlight part is greatly brightened in the later period, it still looks more natural. The part marked with "2" belongs to the bright gray part of the stone because it is not irradiated by direct light.

The "3" and "4" in the picture represent the dull dark side of the stone.

What really enhances the three-dimensional sense of the stone above is reflection and projection. The "5" area on the stone has some slight reflection, because it is close to the bright side of the stone next to it. Further strengthening the prominent reflection can make the three-dimensional sense of stone more prominent.

"6" and "7" are marked by the projection of this stone on the next stone, and the existence of the projection greatly enhances the three-dimensional sense.

After understanding three aspects and five colors, the photographer has mastered the key to enhance the three-dimensional sense of the photo.

Stereoscopic sense is the embodiment of the three-dimensional properties of the object itself. However, the sense of hierarchy is complex, and it is necessary to express their front and back distances through the relationship between objects, thus showing the three-dimensional properties between objects.

Suppose the following simplified example picture is a photo I took. If I tell you that the green mountain on the right is actually farther away, you will probably feel puzzled.

This is a typical photo without layering. If some measures are not taken in the early composition, it is likely to take such a plane photo.

So what techniques can express the sense of space?

The first method is very simple, called "occlusion". That is, covering one object with another. In this way, the reader will understand that the occluded object with incomplete outline and overall incompleteness must be in a more backward position.

For example, in the above situation, I can walk a few kilometers to the left, when the red mountain blocks the green mountain. In this way, in my photos, the hierarchical relationship between mountains is obvious.

In telephoto photography, because the linear perspective effect to be discussed later is not obvious, occlusion has become the key technique to express the spatial depth.

The above photo of the Long-horned Snow Mountain is a very typical example of expressing spatial relationship through "layer-by-layer occlusion". The rock marked 1 blocked two clouds, the clouds covered three snow-capped mountains, and the snow-capped mountains blocked the blue sky behind them. The relationship among rocks, clouds, snow-capped mountains and blue sky is very clear through progressive and mutual shielding methods.

In addition to light and shade, in classical painting, painters often use vertical perspective to express layering.

The so-called vertical perspective means that the near is placed in the lower half of the picture and the far is placed in the upper half of the picture. In photography, it is very simple to get a vertical perspective effect. Just climb a little higher and improve your position.

For example, in the previous situation, I can climb to the mountain or fly the drone, so that the picture taken, the red mountain is below and the green mountain is above, will also let readers know the order of the two mountains.

For example, the church in santorini and the distant island below use vertical perspective. Through the vertical distribution of scenery brought by higher plane position, the sense of space is increased.

Of course, because both occlusion and vertical perspective can express a sense of space, if we combine them, the three-dimensional order of photos will be clearer.

For example, in the picture below, Lan Bing, black glaciers, mist, distant mountains and sky are arranged in depth from bottom to top, and at the same time, they are blocked by layers. Although it is a plane image, we can also see the three-dimensional sense of the scene from the relationship between vertical perspective and occlusion.

Whether it is occlusion or vertical perspective, it can be achieved by changing the camera position in the early stage, so the photographer may wish to consider it more when composing.

For example, if we want to shoot a forest and a hill behind it, if we shoot it on the flat ground, the low position will cause objects to block each other, showing a certain vein, but the depth is not enough.

If we climb to the top of the mountain, the forest and the peak will be photographed once and for all, and the deep relationship will be established, but the completely separated scenery will still have a little less sense of space.

The best shooting position may be in the middle of the mountain, which can not only capture the occlusion, but also reflect the vertical perspective, and the layering of forests and hills has also improved a level.

In photography, the lower or higher the position, the better. Just the right composition, while using a variety of spatial expressions to enhance the sense of hierarchy, tested the photographer's early skills.

Take a closer look at the picture below, and maybe you can understand the subtle effects of occlusion and vertical perspective in photography and painting.

In the western art after the Renaissance, linear perspective was widely used in painting, which directly led foreign photographers to like to use wide-angle composition when shooting, highlighting linear perspective to express spatial levels.

Linear perspective, in short, is "big near, small far away". The original parallel lines will continue to converge when they extend far away until they converge into a small point at the vanishing point.

In photography, we often use lenses (especially wide-angle lenses) to highlight the front, middle and back scenes under linear perspective in three ways: converging lines, repeatedly reducing and exaggerating the foreground.

5. 1 convergence line

The shooting of convergence line is to highlight the sense of space by using linear objects that extend and converge far away in the scene.

For example, the following picture taken along the light in broad daylight, although the three-dimensional sense of light and shadow is not strong, this path of continuous extension and convergence in the distance brings a sense of depth to the photo.

Roads, rivers, bridges, etc. Are natural convergence lines. Shooting them in the early stage of composition can not only shoot the guiding line, but also greatly improve the layering of the photos.

5.2 Repetition reduction

One of the major manifestations of linear perspective is that the near is big and the far is small. Therefore, if we make a composition, especially when shooting the foreground from a wide angle, we can find some duplicate objects. Then these repeated objects will shrink from near to far in the picture, and they can show a sense of space.

For example, in the picture below, when I was composing music, I ate a large bush. These branches and leaves, which were almost the same, become smaller and smaller in the picture, which makes readers feel this kind of three-dimensional space that continues to extend to the distance.

In the picture below, the actual distance between the foreground and the background is only a dozen meters, but under the action of wide angle. The repeated square torii is getting smaller and smaller, so I used the method of repeated reduction, combined with the mutual occlusion of torii and the convergence effect of the path, which well reflected the sense of space in the photo.

As long as you are good at discovering, there are many repetitive objects in nature and life scenes. When used at the front desk, the sense of space naturally emerges.

5.3 Exaggerated prospects

In photography, photographers often use low-angle and close-range shooting methods to exaggerate the size of foreground objects by using linear perspective of near-large and far-small, so that the audience can understand the relationship between objects.

For example, the foreground reef shot at a low angle is even bigger than the person in the upper right corner of the picture. This dislocation of the relationship between size makes readers immediately understand their spatial order.

The key to exaggerating the foreground is to find the original relatively small object, and make it appear larger or almost larger than the original larger object in the background through perspective. The sense of perspective space can only be reflected by the dislocation relationship between picture performance and human cognition.

If in your photos, the buildings are big and the cars are small, which is in line with human cognition, then this relationship is difficult for people to see their front and back distance.

Only when tents, snow-capped mountains, galaxies and other objects of various sizes present similar or even opposite proportions in the picture can people recognize their spatial sequence.

6. Air sensation

In painting, painters often use something called a sense of space to express levels. For example, nearby objects will be drawn clearly, brightly and sharply, while distant objects will be drawn vaguely, quietly and vaguely.

In the early shooting, we can use natural particles in the air (such as fog in the morning, water vapor in the mountains at noon, smog in the city, etc.). ) to naturally shoot empty.

In the later stage, the clarity is often reduced, the classical softness and Gaussian blur are often reduced, and even clouds are added to the distant scenery to create an air sense, thus increasing the layering and three-dimensional sense of the photo.

In order to make a photo full of sense of space, we often combine three-sided, five-tone, occlusion, vertical perspective, linear perspective, sense of space and other related technologies.

Can you see what method is used in the following photos? Please leave a message for discussion.

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Hymn The retouching tools used in this paper are commercial professional software and productivity tools, which are suitable for practitioners in the commercial portrait photography industry. They can improve efficiency, simplify operation and reduce retouching time through batch operation, which is not needed by everyone. Friends who have time can completely complete the corresponding operations and effects through the underlying software such as PS.