As a web designer, it's often required to make nice header graphics or background, or even design feature boxes which might contain boring data. I'm not going to say that Photoshop can't do this, in fact there's pretty much nothing you can't do in Photoshop CS4, but a good photograph can help you on the way to a more abstract look, which is exactly what this experiment proves.

I've always thought that smoke creates amazing shapes and shades, and I was pondering how to capture this on still images, and this method is the one I found to work best.

First of all, a dark room is required. I used a 2 meter long table, placing the candle on one side and the camera on a tripod (this is essential to get the focus right) on the other side. Use a spot light to cast a bright light on the smoke only.

My equipment is a Canon 40D with a EF50mm lens with a max aperture value of 1.4, which is great for this purpose. It leaves the focus only on the smoke, whilst the background (if there is any) blurs nicely, exactly how we want it.

The camera is not able to use the Auto Focus (AF), so to get the focus right use manual (MF), or alternatively make your assistant (in my case my mother) hold an item in the area in which the smoke will appear, use AF to get the focus right and then set it to MF before shooting.

Then, get your assistant to light the candle, and then quench it. The smoke moves quickly so you'll have to be feisty. Set your camera to take multiple shots, mine does 4 a second. If you can't afford an assistant perhaps you could do the lighting/quenching yourself and use a remote control?

As you'll find, the smoke is unique for each time you do this, so as you can imagine you'll have to do repeat this quite a few times to get some good results. Or until the room is filled with smoke and your dad starts complaining he's having trouble breathing.

Settings:

Focal Length:

50.0mm

Aperture Value:

f/1.4

Shutter:

1/180

ISO:

800

As you can see, the Raw results aren't the most interesting of images, but I can see it's got potential with some heavy photoshopping applied.

I'll give a few examples

Method

Photoshop Hue/Saturation layer, colourized ticked and with these settings: Hue (66), Saturation (95) and Lightness (0)

Method

Camera Raw settings: Exposure (+4), Recovery(0), Fill light (84), Blacks (0), Brightness(-30), Contrast (+100), Clarity (+13), Vibrance (-3), Saturation (-100). Also set the Lens Vignetting to -100 under the Lens Correction pane.

Method

Two images with different Hue/Saturation layers combined in one file, using the Different blending mode.

Method

... well this one has just too many adjustments to be specific, but a tip is to play with Curves, Levels and Hue/Saturation (non-destructively of course) until you get the result you're happy with.

Last but not least...

I'd like to welcome Chris Kemper to the design side of the table at Orange Bus. He was with us for a few weeks on a college placement scheme, but now he's on board full time - he's been of great help to me, especially with the CSS!

Look at him hard at work!!