Here’s your interesting photo fact of the day: did you know that sepia toning (when B&W photos are given that distinctive warm tone) is named after the Common Cuttlefish? The scientific name of the species is Sepia officinalis, and the ink produced by the cuttlefish was used for sepia toning when the technique first emerged in the 1880s.

Sepia is a dark brown-grey color, named after the rich brown pigment derived from the ink sac of the common cuttlefish Sepia. The word sepia is the Latinized form of the Greek σηπία, sēpía, cuttlefish. [#]

Nowadays, sepia ink is generally replaced with other dyes or pigments that produce the same hue.

Photographic print toning (via Reddit)

In interviews published on Sony’s website, the company’s designers talk about how its latest DSLRs are based on a styling technique called “Tensile Skin”, in which sharp lines and curved surfaces giving a “natural sense of tension”. What’s interesting is the tool they used to explore this idea: an ordinary sock. Art director Takuya Niitsu says,

What helped me explore this idea was an ordinary sock. As soon as I stretched the sock over our structural mock-up, it transformed the jumble of blocks into a coherent, sculptural unit. It looked fresh, and the jutting edges resonated nicely with the gentle contours. Although this unified whole could be called “monoform,” it was hardly monotonous, and there was a pleasant sense of tension. I knew that following this approach would lead us to the new shape for Alpha SLRs.

Discoveries in a new approach to design (via sonyalpharumors)

Ever wonder why most DSLR cameras capture images with a 3:2 aspect ratio, while most other cameras use 4:3? It’s because they were designed to match different things:

Common aspect ratios in still photography include 4:3 (1.33) used by most digital point-and-shoot cameras, Four Thirds system cameras and medium format 645 cameras; 3:2 (1.5) used by 35 mm film, APS-C (“classic” mode) and most DSLRs;

[...] The reason for DSLR image sensors being the flatter 3:2 versus the taller point-and-shoot 4:3 is that DSLRs were designed to match the legacy 35 mm SLR film, whereas the majority of digital cameras were designed to match the predominant computer displays of the time, with VGA, SVGA, XGA and UXGA all being 4:3. [#]

Prints have been around longer than digital cameras, so that’s why your compact camera photos are cropped when you try to have them printed as standard 4×6 prints (4×6 prints have an aspect ratio of 3:2).

Aspect ratio [Wikipedia]

Image credit: Aspect Ratio by schani

Here’s a fun entry to add to your brain’s collection of “totally random facts about the world”: Nikon’s 52mm lens caps will fit neatly on most beverage cans. 52mm isn’t just a common diameter for camera lenses… it’s also an international standard diameter for can tops!

Sorry Canonites, your lens caps don’t really work for this.

Image credit: Photograph by kokotron and used with permission

Here’s an interesting factoid: to make the Star Wars scenes containing AT-AT walkers and tauntauns more realistic, a new stop motion technique called “go motion” was created:

Stop motion animation can create a disorienting, and distinctive, staccato effect, because the animated object is perfectly sharp in every frame, since each frame of the animation was actually shot when the object was perfectly still. Real moving objects in similar scenes of the same movie will have motion blur, because they moved while the shutter of the camera was open.

Go motion was designed to prevent this, by moving the animated model slightly during the exposure of each film frame, producing a realistic motion blur. The main difference is that while the frames in stop motion are made up by images of stills taken between the small movements of the object, the frames in go motion are images of the object taken while it is moving.

So how did they go about adding motion blur to still photographs of inanimate objects? Well, their methods included smearing vaseline on the camera lens and bumping the puppet or table while the exposure was being made.

Two years ago, Flickr partnered up with Getty to allow Flickr users to sell photographs, and today Getty announced that its “Flickr Collection” has grown to over 250,000 images. Getty also revealed that the above image titled “Rock Concert” by Flickr user Michael Bodge is their best seller. No word on how many copies it has sold, though.

(via AllThingsD via Geeky Gadgets)

P.S. Brownie points to anyone who can find the original Flickr page for this photo.

Update: Michael Bodge himself wins the brownie points. Here’s the original Flickr photo.

Here’s an interesting piece of photographic and optical trivia: did you know that the word “lens” came from the Latin name of the lentil plant? The scientific name of the lentil we most commonly eat is Lens culinaris. It was named after the legume because double-convex lenses look just like lentils!

Image credit: Photograph by Justinc

Photography business analyst Dan Heller has written a helpful post in which he busts common misconceptions photographers in the US have about model releases. A big one is that you need to first obtain a model release before selling photos of people. Heller writes,

[...] newspapers buy photos, and their use of the photo is unlikely to need a release. So, selling a photo (and making a profit doing so) to a newspaper also does not require a release. And because the law does not require you to have any knowledge of the buyer or their intended use of a photo, you are always allowed to sell photos without a release.

His point is that model releases have to do with photographs being published, not sold. A photographer cannot publish the photos however they’d like, but they can sell them however they’d like since liability rests solely with the eventual publisher. That said, it’s still a good idea to always use one, since they’re often required by the buyers.

Busting Myths about Model Releases [Dan Heller]

Image credit: 257/365 by /*dave*/

While looking into the new compression service JPEGmini yesterday, the following statement caught my eye in an interview they did with Megapixel:

[...] sometimes you increase the quality setting in Photoshop and the actual quality of the image is reduced…

I had never heard of that before, so I decided to dig a little deeper.
Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know that Photoshop has built-in mechanisms that prevent you from editing photos of banknotes? After getting a payday, Reddit user tarballdotgz tried to Photoshop some of his hundred dollar bills, but ran into the above error in Photoshop. Even if you find a way to edit the images in Photoshop, there’s a good chance your printer will give you a similar error if you try to print the image out!

TIL that Photoshop doesn’t let you edit photos of currency [Reddit]

Update: Another interesting fact: apparently one mechanism used to do this is something called the “EURion constellation“, a specific pattern built into banknotes worldwide. (Thx David!)