Achromatic images This unit begins with the teacher guiding the students in an online search for images by Ansel Adams and a brief discussion of his zone system. Ansel Adams information & images: http://www.anseladams.com/
http://thecustomizewindows.com/2013/02/zone-system-in-digital-photography-the-ten- zones/#ixzz2Qp4shZBk
The following links may be used as additional Zone System information resources: • http://photo.tutsplus.com/tutorials/shooting/understanding-using-ansel-adams-zone-system/ • http://paulturounetblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/the-zone-system.pdf • http://forums.finalgear.com/photography-tutorials/de-mystifying-ansel-adams-zone-system- 22967/ • http://www.zone2tone.co.uk/advanced-zone-system.htm • http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/how-to/shooting/the-digital-zone-system.html
The prefix “a” means no or not; the root word “chroma” refers to color; so, this word literally means “no color.” It is a more precise term than black and white, since images that we call black and white generally also have lots of shades of gray. In fact, the more shades of gray, the more realistic the image appears. This range of shades is called tonal range. One of the masters of very realistic landscape photograpy, Ansel Adams, created a system (called the “zone system”) that guides us in recognizing specific tones so that we can reproduce them in the images we create. One key skill for photographers is to precisely control this tonal range in the darkroom or the digital darkroom so that the final images have brilliant, sparkling highlights and deep, rich shadow tones. This purpose of this assignment is to give guided practice in this key skill.
Take twenty photos of any high-school appropriate subject matter of your personal choice. For this assignment you should take the photos in color. Open the images in Photoshop. 1. Begin with your first image - duplicate the layer 2. Check to see if your image has too much initial contrast. If so, go to Image > Adjustments > shadow/highlight and adjust the controls to balance the overall contrast. (Another method would be to go to Image > Adjustments > Exposure and move the slider arrows to correct any under exposure errors.) 3. To change from color to a gray tonal range - Go to Image > Adjustments > Black and White. 4. The slider arrows under each color bar adjust the filters that lighten or darken the parts of the image wherever that color appeared in the original image. Your goal is to create a beautiful image with a wide tonal range like images created by Ansel Adams. 5. When you are happy with your selections click OK 6. Go to Layers> Flatten Image 7. Repeat this process for the rest of your images. 8. Use instructions given in class and online on the school web site to create a contact sheet. 9. Add all 20 images to your digital portfolio. a. Add a slide that explains the term: achromatic b. Add a slide that explains the ten value zones used to analyze your original images and/or to produce the very best quality achromatic images. 10. Use instructions given in class and online on the school web site to create a display-ready print.