Power of post processing

thrand1 · Jul 25, 2006

Fantastic, both the photo and the PP. Kind of an OT question, but was this with your 17-40 or 10-22 or other lens? Thanks!

Tyler
--
'That dang ol' thang sounds like a hummin' bird on crack!'
-- Man at baseball game, referring to SI photog's 1DM2

Sandman · Jul 25, 2006

elbelbelb2000,

Certainly you have listed many of the RAW advantages, but the REAL advantage is to get a "clean digital negative" from which to work. If CL's original image was a JPG, the image would not have tolerated this degree of manipulation without showing signs of deterioration. By making the major adjustments in the RAW converter BEFORE the pixels are assigned color and tonal values, a higher fidelity image is created. THIS is the power of RAW.

No doubt, CL's "vision" of what he wanted this image to be is of utmost importance. He took a very good exposure of this scene, with great technical and artistic merit. He wisely shot this in RAW, since he knew his vision of this scene was greater than he could capture using in-camera processing. He optimized the image in his RAW editor before the pixels were assigned. He exported the image into PSE to do the final optimization and massaging ~ using his skill in PSE to bring to life what he envisioned in the beginning. This is the epitome of state-of-the-art "digital workflow."

These are the concepts I use in my photography and these are the concepts I teach in my workshops.

Kudos, CL!

All the best,

jim

wrote:

elbelbelb2000 said:
Sandman said:

This illustrates the real power of shooting RAW.

Click to expand...

Hold on, how does this demonstrate the power of shooting RAW? It
seems like Citylights' workflow revolved around a Photoshop
Elements action(s), not a RAW workflow. As far as RAW goes, I
thought the main advantage was for WB, colour correction, and
highlight/shadow clipping corrections...How was taking this shot in
RAW much more beneficial if you went straight from the JPEG and
into PS?

--
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NeilCUK · Jul 25, 2006

JohanHedlund said:
Pre and post images is great, especially for us new to DSLR and
post processing.

true, but not quite so true as...

JohanHedlund said:
It's easy to get blown away by only looking at post processed
images, and think that you totally blow at photographing

YES, bang-on the nail

i can almost 100% guarantee you that a lot of the amazing images you see on the web are 'amazing' because of the post processing involved

if you had the likes of fred miranda posting pre and post-processed images, you wouldn't go quite so 'WOW' at the initial shots

the images that make the biggest difference are usually those that have high dynamic range - so landscape photos, rather than wildlife / macro etc.

at the end of the day, i believe the following is true:

1. you can't get a fantastic pp'd image from a poorly taken original

2. you can only judge 'photographical' skills on original photos

3. people with good photography skills and excellent pp skills will produce better photos than excellent photographers with no computer skills

i'd like to always see pre and post processed versions when people post images

--
-----
Neil C

UziY · Jul 25, 2006

Sandman said:
elbelbelb2000,

Certainly you have listed many of the RAW advantages, but the REAL
advantage is to get a "clean digital negative" from which to work.
If CL's original image was a JPG, the image would not have
tolerated this degree of manipulation without showing signs of
deterioration. By making the major adjustments in the RAW
converter BEFORE the pixels are assigned color and tonal values, a
higher fidelity image is created. THIS is the power of RAW.

The top image in the original post is JPG. As far as I understand, the bottom one is the result of processing the top image (JPG), in PSE3, with citylight's flow. It obviously did tolerate this degree of manipulationwithout showing signs of deterioration. RAW has nothing do to with this specific post (and this is not RAW bashing; RAW has many advantages, they are just not demonstrated here).
--
Uzi
http://www.pbase.com/uyoeli

JohnB47 · Jul 25, 2006

Hi.

When I read the above post, I was sure it was incorrect so I went over Citylights workflow thread again. In it he says:

"I shoot RAW and make any adjustment possible to help the image in the RAW editor except sharpening."

But then he goes on to cover adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness using a jpeg as the master.

I always thought it best to make general changes (exposure, white balance and maybe minor sharpening) before converting to tiff, then doing more detailed PP mods before converting to jpeg.

Perhaps Citylights will clarify.

--
JohnB47

ukdelboy · Jul 25, 2006

Hi,

Although the first picture looks very flat, and lacks detail. The second one looks very artificial. Too my eyes it needs to be somewhere between the two.

CityLights said:
I was processing through my shots of the north rim of the grand
canyon and I thought I would post a before and after post
processing shot.

The first picture is processed from the RAW with as-shot setting
from the camera:

The second one is after processing:

Amazed by the difference? I swear the first one is untouched and
the second is only a 5 minute processing job.

Here's the basics of what I did, though I admit I pulled a couple
of other tricks too.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1031&message=18079744

--
Best regards,

Del

Canon 350D * Kit Lens * Canon 70-200mmf4L USM * Opteka BG-RXT Grip *

Sigma EF 500 DG Super Flash * Manfrotto 682B Monopod *

CityLights · Jul 25, 2006

JohnB47 said:
"I shoot RAW and make any adjustment possible to help the image in
the RAW editor except sharpening."
But then he goes on to cover adjustments to colour, contrast and
sharpness using a jpeg as the master.

If I could make all the adjustment in the RAW editor I would. Full editor functionality is not available (yet) in the raw processor, so I drop to the full editor when I have done what I can with the RAW.

JohnB47 said:
I always thought it best to make general changes (exposure, white
balance and maybe minor sharpening) before converting to tiff, then
doing more detailed PP mods before converting to jpeg.

Right. I do that, except the sharpening. But the raw editor does not give enough flexibility for sharpening, exposure blending, fine tuning local contrast, cloning out minor distractions, minor shadow/highlight correction, etc. So I drop to the full editor to finish.

--
CityLights
http://www.pbase.com/citylights/favorites
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.

CityLights · Jul 25, 2006

Sandman said:
These are the concepts I use in my photography and these are the
concepts I teach in my workshops.
Kudos, CL!

Thanks Jim, I couldn't have said it better. Clean digital original gives the most flexibility for custom post process. More effort, but for better results.

--
CityLights
http://www.pbase.com/citylights/favorites
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.

CityLights · Jul 25, 2006

I also did what is described below on the sky to bring out the clouds. I almost forgot that.

CityLights said:
I also did some selective burning on this piture to tone down the
hot spots. In the original the rock in the forgound was
overpowering. Set a layers adjustment layer (or any adjustment
layer) and just click OK, don't make any adjustments. Then set the
blending mode of that layer to multiply. Use the paint bucket to
fill the adjustment layer mask with black. That will remove the
effect of the multiply from everything. Now use the eraser with a
large soft edged brush to erase the mask and let the effect show
through on the areas you want. I brushed up the bright rock and
asphalt to tone it down. Then reduce the opacity of the adjustment
layer to lessen the effect if needed.

That is about it.

--
CityLights
http://www.pbase.com/citylights/favorites
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.

NeilCUK · Jul 25, 2006

personally, i'd use RAW for:

1. WB
2. exposure
3. saturation
4. contrast / brightness / curve etc

then jpg for everything else

you'll find that jpegs don't lose much quality when you work on them if you use:

1. duplicate layers
2. masks

both will help keep the quality of the original image

you can take it to overkill, and use RAW, then use TIFF, then JPEG - but at the end of the day are you going to know whether someone used a TIFF in the middle of the workflow or not ?

i'd argue nobody would be able to tell from a web-sized sample

--
-----
Neil C

CityLights · Jul 25, 2006

thrand1 said:
Fantastic, both the photo and the PP. Kind of an OT question, but
was this with your 17-40 or 10-22 or other lens? Thanks!

I was shooting with both lenses, but that one...

1/250s f/8.0 at 10.0mm iso200

must have been the canon 10-22mm EFS. Hey! I am impressed! I am starting to like that lens more and more.

--
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.

AlThomson · Jul 25, 2006

NeilCUK said:
NeilCUK said:

It's easy to get blown away by only looking at post processed
images, and think that you totally blow at photographing

Click to expand...

YES, bang-on the nail

i can almost 100% guarantee you that a lot of the amazing images
you see on the web are 'amazing' because of the post processing
involved

I totally agree - when I got my 300D i was SO disappointed with how the images came out but I feel like I am starting to get more confidence with making my images better through post-processing after the dawn of realisation hit me (from posts like this) that other people take similar pictures and manage to give them that pop/wow factor which I had been assuming came direct from the camera technique.

Also, something else which ocurred to me is that people naturally only post the best shots to the forum so for every amazing shot that is seen here, there are 1000s of duds behind it!!!

jimyh · Jul 25, 2006

Not bad. Nice work on the contrast and sharpening. That really brought out the details.

However the lighting looks a little too harsh and the colors somehow lack vibrancy. Also there seems to be an unatural greenish cast to the entire picture. Is it just me?

Did a bit of work on your untouched jpg:

I cant get your level of detail but I do prefer the lighting. what do you think?

--

PeaceFrog · Jul 25, 2006

It seems to me like your after shot could stand to use a bit more saturation and some boost to the mid-tones and a little less sharpening. The difference doesn’t really look very drastic to me at all in the before and after shots.

Just my 2c

Greg

--

http://www.pbase.com/dadas115/

daniel palmer · Jul 25, 2006

You make is sound so simple. Thanks for taking the time to outline your process. I think i might get playing with some of my images

cheers dan

JohnB47 · Jul 25, 2006

for the clarification.

--
JohnB47

RATPhoto · Jul 25, 2006

I feel the improvement is quite large.

That said, I agree with you about the sharpening. I noticed right away that it was oversharpened. See for example the aliasing that is now occurring with the railings. I'll grant that how much to sharpen is to some degree a matter of taste. But for me, it is now overdone.

--

Please respect my copyright and do not repost my images. This includes edits that show possible improvements. I appreciate your thoughts and ideas but I want to retain control of how and when my images are seen. Thanks!

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CityLights · Jul 25, 2006

AlThomson said:
Also, something else which ocurred to me is that people naturally
only post the best shots to the forum so for every amazing shot
that is seen here, there are 1000s of duds behind it!!!

Another good point. You are exactly right. I shot over 150 pictures while I was there. When I got home, I reviewed and deleted about 50 for obvious problems.

About 20 of them are decent and will get post processed. Really only about 5 are any good and those will get printed.

So my "real" keeper rate for that shoot was about 5/150 = 3%!

Oh, it is digital, so I wasn't behing as careful with each shot as I should have. I probably took a whole bunch of picutures just for play. I can tell you, if I was shooting film I might have shot 48 pictures total and I would hope, with the same 5 keepers.

--
CityLights
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.

Chez Wimpy · Jul 25, 2006

CityLights said:
I was processing through my shots of the north rim of the grand
canyon and I thought I would post a before and after post
processing shot.

Jeeze, I could save 5 minutes on each shot by getting it done in camera. Or at least, I have been told so on these forums...

--
-CW

CityLights · Jul 25, 2006

jimyh said:
Not bad. Nice work on the contrast and sharpening. That really
brought out the details.

Thanks!

jimyh said:
However the lighting looks a little too harsh and the colors
somehow lack vibrancy.

Lighting was harsh. I was shooting from 12pm to 4pm. Thank goodness for the mixed cloud cover or it would have been a disaster! Maybe they could use a bit more saturation to bring out the color.

jimyh said:
Also there seems to be an unatural greenish
cast to the entire picture. Is it just me?

Maybe a little green. I will check that too.

jimyh said:
Did a bit of work on your untouched jpg:
I cant get your level of detail but I do prefer the lighting. what
do you think?

That really shows the potential of the untouched JPG. You would get the same detail if you had the original high resolution image to start with.

I don't think it was really that red, but if we are going for an artistic image, what does reality have to do with it? Everyone has their own interpretation.

Cheers!

--
CityLights
http://www.pbase.com/citylights/favorites
http://www.pbase.com/citylights/favorite_portraits
http://www.pbase.com/citylights/favorite_animals
.

Power of post processing

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