Amersham Beyond Group - 1st May 2025
Posted: Sat May 03, 2025 12:41 pm
This month we had two more visitors from local photographic clubs and I believe that our desire to have more fun with creative art photography is striking a chord with others. Chasing competitions for putty medals is very constraining.
MONTHLY CHALLENGES
Current and past Challenge images can be seen at Amersham Beyond Group on Flickr.
For APS Members only, the images are also available for viewing and commenting on Facebook here.
We enjoyed over 100 images for the current Challenges which are;
#50 PRIMARY COLOURS
#51 INSPIRED BY PAUL KENNY
… and the latest Challenge;
#52 ONE to THREE
Paul Kenny's vision is still proving difficult to replicate but there were more good attempts following the discussion last month.
For the One to Three Challenge the idea is to create three distinctly different versions from one original exposure. Each can be cropped, treated, manipulated or processed by any means desired to create a different interpretation of the original. This was a bit more straightforward with a good range of initial images - typically wider views.
The most popular treatments that we saw were cropping, converting to mono and filtering. They certainly re-enforced the thought that the taken image need only be the beginning. Of course, this is not a view taken by everyone and some people enjoy the discipline of framing and exposing images entirely in-camera and in the moment, with no post processing at all bar minimal adjustments for presentation only.
Once again apps were mentioned in dispatches; NIK Analogue Pro 3 (the old version was free, but DXO have since re-written and re-released it at £146 Mac/Win) and also Kaleider (see below).
The next Challenge will be;
#53 PRINT WORKS
This Challenge is to get our hands dirty and create a physical creative image starting with photographic print(s) or any printed material such as newsprint, magazines etc. Any physical creative technique can be used including; distressing, cutting, sewing, painting, drawing, marking, use of metallic foils, folding, layering, collage etc. Royal Academy Summer Exhibition acceptances have included examples such as concertina-folded prints, multi-layered prints with holes through them, paper structures and three-dimensional effects. Linda Bembridge recently demonstrated multiple layers with acetates and metallic foils. She recommended an HP inkjet transparency film often used by architects that has a particularly low opacity.
Such techniques are wildly popular with artists, crafters, scrapbookers etc and there are a lifetime’s worth of videos on YouTube with advice and methods.
One particularly interesting technique is to transfer images from prints to other materials such as wood, stone, glass or card. So-called image transfer can be done by many methods but one is to peel the image from the surface of a laser print via a PVA-type medium. Google: Image Transfer Tutorial for many methods.
I will be playing with some of these craft techniques for the first time myself but I believe that using plain/copy or art paper in an inkjet (rather than specially coated inkjet paper) produces a print that is more easily manipulated and marked. I print documents on copy paper frequently to keep my inkjet moving and this is not harmful to the printer except that uncoated paper is more prone to leaving paper dust in the printer which can make the rollers slip if not kept clean.
I propose that members display their print works at the meeting but that we also view and discuss them by means of DPIs submitted in the usual way.
BACK OF BEYOND DIARIES
Window Sleep Mode. A constant annoyance with Windows is the inability of a PC to stay in Sleep Mode. The problem is that by default, many hardware and software components have permission to wake the computer. These can all be turned off but you need to know which they are. Google: What Woke My PC for the mystical incantations that will tell you what woke your computer last time and also to list all the devices that are currently permitted to do this. They can then be turned off individually in the Device Manager.
No PSD or Raw Thumbnails. In a sane world thumbnails would just work – but they often don’t. I have found that paying $9.99 to FastPictureViewer for their Codec Pack solves this problem. Make sure to download the Codec Pack not the Viewer itself.
Photoshop File>Place. If you are editing an image and want to bring a different image directly into a layer within the same edit, then Edit>File>Place Embedded does this very simply and quickly thus saving the faff of dragging layers or copying and pasting from a separate image tab.
ACR Settings. Have you noticed that all of your .PSDs are suddenly twice the file size? If you have installed Adobe Camera Raw it may have defaulted to 16bit depth (and maybe the wrong colour space too). Change this in Camera Raw Preferences>Workflow. You may have read that 16bit is better than 8bit and AdobeRGB is better than sRGB. I have done test prints in the past and found no visible benefits of either.
Kaleider. I have been a long-time user of the app Kaleider for Windows. It turns your images into a million kaleidoscopic variations that will entertain you for days. It used to have a price and an annoying licensing process but I was pleased recently to find that it has become freeware. It is endlessly variable and can be overwhelming until you realise that the every press of the Rtn key gives a new effect, then drag the mouse to adjust the reflection and press the spacebar to see it on the full image. Those three actions alone will get you hooked.
APS ANNUAL EXHIBITION
Over the next couple of months I will be in touch with members who have contributed images this year to make our usual selection of 32 images within the greater Amersham Photographic Society Exhibition. This will be at St Michael and All Angels Church, Amersham on the Hill from 27th to 30th August 2025.
NEXT MEETING
The next meeting is on Thursday 2nd October 2025 in the Drake Hall at the Community Centre.
Have a great summer and don't leave your Print Works until September!
Cheers, Steve.
MONTHLY CHALLENGES
Current and past Challenge images can be seen at Amersham Beyond Group on Flickr.
For APS Members only, the images are also available for viewing and commenting on Facebook here.
We enjoyed over 100 images for the current Challenges which are;
#50 PRIMARY COLOURS
#51 INSPIRED BY PAUL KENNY
… and the latest Challenge;
#52 ONE to THREE
Paul Kenny's vision is still proving difficult to replicate but there were more good attempts following the discussion last month.
For the One to Three Challenge the idea is to create three distinctly different versions from one original exposure. Each can be cropped, treated, manipulated or processed by any means desired to create a different interpretation of the original. This was a bit more straightforward with a good range of initial images - typically wider views.
The most popular treatments that we saw were cropping, converting to mono and filtering. They certainly re-enforced the thought that the taken image need only be the beginning. Of course, this is not a view taken by everyone and some people enjoy the discipline of framing and exposing images entirely in-camera and in the moment, with no post processing at all bar minimal adjustments for presentation only.
Once again apps were mentioned in dispatches; NIK Analogue Pro 3 (the old version was free, but DXO have since re-written and re-released it at £146 Mac/Win) and also Kaleider (see below).
The next Challenge will be;
#53 PRINT WORKS
This Challenge is to get our hands dirty and create a physical creative image starting with photographic print(s) or any printed material such as newsprint, magazines etc. Any physical creative technique can be used including; distressing, cutting, sewing, painting, drawing, marking, use of metallic foils, folding, layering, collage etc. Royal Academy Summer Exhibition acceptances have included examples such as concertina-folded prints, multi-layered prints with holes through them, paper structures and three-dimensional effects. Linda Bembridge recently demonstrated multiple layers with acetates and metallic foils. She recommended an HP inkjet transparency film often used by architects that has a particularly low opacity.
Such techniques are wildly popular with artists, crafters, scrapbookers etc and there are a lifetime’s worth of videos on YouTube with advice and methods.
One particularly interesting technique is to transfer images from prints to other materials such as wood, stone, glass or card. So-called image transfer can be done by many methods but one is to peel the image from the surface of a laser print via a PVA-type medium. Google: Image Transfer Tutorial for many methods.
I will be playing with some of these craft techniques for the first time myself but I believe that using plain/copy or art paper in an inkjet (rather than specially coated inkjet paper) produces a print that is more easily manipulated and marked. I print documents on copy paper frequently to keep my inkjet moving and this is not harmful to the printer except that uncoated paper is more prone to leaving paper dust in the printer which can make the rollers slip if not kept clean.
I propose that members display their print works at the meeting but that we also view and discuss them by means of DPIs submitted in the usual way.
BACK OF BEYOND DIARIES
Window Sleep Mode. A constant annoyance with Windows is the inability of a PC to stay in Sleep Mode. The problem is that by default, many hardware and software components have permission to wake the computer. These can all be turned off but you need to know which they are. Google: What Woke My PC for the mystical incantations that will tell you what woke your computer last time and also to list all the devices that are currently permitted to do this. They can then be turned off individually in the Device Manager.
No PSD or Raw Thumbnails. In a sane world thumbnails would just work – but they often don’t. I have found that paying $9.99 to FastPictureViewer for their Codec Pack solves this problem. Make sure to download the Codec Pack not the Viewer itself.
Photoshop File>Place. If you are editing an image and want to bring a different image directly into a layer within the same edit, then Edit>File>Place Embedded does this very simply and quickly thus saving the faff of dragging layers or copying and pasting from a separate image tab.
ACR Settings. Have you noticed that all of your .PSDs are suddenly twice the file size? If you have installed Adobe Camera Raw it may have defaulted to 16bit depth (and maybe the wrong colour space too). Change this in Camera Raw Preferences>Workflow. You may have read that 16bit is better than 8bit and AdobeRGB is better than sRGB. I have done test prints in the past and found no visible benefits of either.
Kaleider. I have been a long-time user of the app Kaleider for Windows. It turns your images into a million kaleidoscopic variations that will entertain you for days. It used to have a price and an annoying licensing process but I was pleased recently to find that it has become freeware. It is endlessly variable and can be overwhelming until you realise that the every press of the Rtn key gives a new effect, then drag the mouse to adjust the reflection and press the spacebar to see it on the full image. Those three actions alone will get you hooked.
APS ANNUAL EXHIBITION
Over the next couple of months I will be in touch with members who have contributed images this year to make our usual selection of 32 images within the greater Amersham Photographic Society Exhibition. This will be at St Michael and All Angels Church, Amersham on the Hill from 27th to 30th August 2025.
NEXT MEETING
The next meeting is on Thursday 2nd October 2025 in the Drake Hall at the Community Centre.
Have a great summer and don't leave your Print Works until September!
Cheers, Steve.