G1 and post processing, extracting all detail!

Please click on the link at the bottom of the text and the image of a train on a bridge in sunset will appear in a separate window.

On the top left there are 4 labels. By clicking on the unwritten part of the label you will open the image of the corresponding PostProcessing step:

• 1- is the RAW default opened in Lightroom 2.5

• 2- is the tweaked to extreme in L2.5, to squeeze the max detail into the visible Dynamic Range and to reproduce colours as true as remembered. Saved as TIFF

• 3- the TIFF edited file was then transferred to Photoshop CS3 to correct for lens distortion: this is the straightened and inevitably slightly cropped image

• 4 - the TIFF "best result in L2.5" was then processed with the Nik Color Efex Tonal Contrast Filter, applied selectively with Control Points. This is the final result.

Note that stage - 4 - was (for me) unattaineable with L2.5 alone.

The quantity of Tonal Contrast applied was around 35% of the availeable maximum. Beyond that the picture tended to look more like an exercise in postprocessing rather than an image.

Of course all this is subjective and connected with each one's skill using a particular tool, but in my case I can not only "get where I want" with the combined use of Nik software on a "best PP image in L2.5", but I can find myself "beyond" and have the comfort of reducing the dose to my liking, and settle reasonably where I please.

If that isn't what one looks for in PP, what is?

Ciao, Vittorio

http://www.zoomview.it/page%2023%20web.html

Hi Vittoria

I must commend your efforts to bring the various options of different editors to the attention of forum members. Looking at versions 2,3, and 4, I do find the train to be rather squeeky clean while the granite stones fade quickly into darkness. I have a very simple and effective method of enhancing the detail using Silkypix and CS4, especially using the Selective Color option where I can adjust the tonal values of an image by altering the c, m, y values in the neutrals. I sometimes use the Shadows/Highlights option. Once again thank you for showing us what can be achieved by applying your tools.
Richard

Hi Vittorio, thanks for sharing that.

i don't have LR, but the more I use CS4 (which I love), the more I get from it. Like Richard, I find selective colours are great, but adjustment layers are great also. Blending options are useful as well. Hell, I love it all!

I really appreciate what you did with your train, but OTOH, I felt it lost the original moody, mystical look a little. My experience is that playing with contrast changes atmosphere of my pics more than anything else.
--
Pennyanne

hi Richard,

thanks for commenting and for the Photoshop suggestions. Personally I find that Selective Color is the equivalent to Lightroom's "HSL" and "Split Toning" sections in Develop Mode.

They introduce colour shade variations extended to the whole frame whilst Tonal Contrast brings out apparent resolution locally and in an extended way. But the ways of the Lord... and those of PP, are so many!
Regards, Vittorio

Thank you Vittorio. Very interesting. We need a PP Forum. Do you think the various camera brand zealots could lay their loyalties aside to share PP examples, critiques and tips? Us newbies would learn a lot.

hi Pennyanne,
thanks for commenting and appreciating!

I tend to use CS3 more for important image alterations. Isolating portions of the image with Magnetic Lasso and playing with layers, blending images, adding different objects like full moon in the sky.

Applying Filters like Liquify in portraits of elderly friends or Distort/Lens Correction in architecture.

Not so much to use the Adjustment options of the Image palette which I find a little crude and slower than the Lightroom equivalents. And Nik software works only on the image but reaches where other applications don't.

With Regards to the less contrasty n.3 of my sequence, I agree and after you pointed it out I prefer it to n.4. In n.3 there is a touch of the train flying and in n.4 it is stuck to the ground!

Regards, Vittorio

hi StillHaveMyDiana,

there is a Retouching Forum in which arguments like this one should be debated. But all this started with Mountain Joe and his Color Efex thread three days ago and I got a bit carried away.

But it is in a way appropriate in the M4/3 Forum since in my opinion, when shooting RAW a lot of detail can be extracted from highlights from the images obtained from the relatively small sensors, with appropriate PP tools. Reestablishing a Dynamic Range which is only apparently too small.

Thanks for commenting and Regards, Vittorio

The histogram is not everything. Use your common sense, look at the image, see what works in each particular case.

Those shadows at the bottom sure are dense. I would have used Fill Light, or maybe reduced the Blacks level. I can't speak for the rest, since I haven't seen the original scene.

--
Florin Andrei
http://florin.myip.org/

hi florinandrei,

in postprocessing, please be assured, I do use my "sense", although I do not know whether it is "common" or "particular" .
But it's certainly not the "hystogram" to guide me.

I found it a useful reference in a technical rather than aesthetic discussion.

It could also not be there in postprocessing, another thing being the capture phase where it can be useful, and nice it is for it to be continuously displayed in the G1.

With regards to the way of treating the forefront dark area: it is a matter of opinion, and all have equal right to be respected.

When the postprocessor is also the photographer, as is the case in the amateur world to which I belong, he carries the handicap of "having been there" and so the burden of a biased point of view.

Only "great" photographs meet the approoval of all, I must resign myself to the fact that this one wasn't...

Ciao, Ciao, Vittorio

florinandrei said:

Florinandrei said:

The histogram is not everything. Use your common sense, look at the image, see what works in each particular case.

Click to expand...

The poster did not suggest anything of the sort. This type of patronizing comment is not needed.

ok StillHaveMyDiana,
Regards. Vittorio

Vittorio Fracassi wrote:
Thanks for publishing those steps - it's still a 'fav' with me at any stage.

I'm with you entirely from 1-3 (I abhor slightly converging verticals!) - 4 is 'nice' but a step too far; not in the colour rendering, but in the sharpness - I get that oversharpened effect.

Vittorio Fracassi said:

With regards to the way of treating the forefront dark area: it is a matter of opinion, and all have equal right to be respected.

Click to expand...

True, but a little shadow detail could be found without affecting the rest of the photo.

Vittorio Fracassi said:

When the postprocessor is also the photographer, as is the case in the amateur world to which I belong, he carries the handicap of "having been there" and so the burden of a biased point of view.

Click to expand...

Sure, I do my own thing too, whatever the judges say!! ;-)

Vittorio Fracassi said:

Only "great" photographs meet the approoval of all,

Click to expand...

There, I really must disagree. Great photos are rarely approved by all. We need to learn to appreciate them!

Vittorio Fracassi said:

I must resign myself to the fact that this one wasn't...

Click to expand...

It's still a winner in some competitions (if you do that sort of thing!)

Thanks again for sharing

Mike
--
Mike Davis
Photographing the public for over 50 years
http://www.flickr.com/photos/watchman

hi Mike,

nice reading your encouraging words after getting beaten up from left and right!

I agree with the excess detail in n.4 when viewed on monitor, n.3 has more magic to it.

And with regards to competition... difficult argument. I have come to the conclusion that there is an "average dpreview taste" or call it "dpreview members scale of values" which can be well defined. I have entered punchy loudly postprocessed images for dpreview and scored high and entered others with subtle subject in B&W and found little consent.
There is a marketing side to everything!

Thanks for caring, Regards, Vittorio

TO ALL M4/3 PARTICIPANTS !

over 500 viewers went throught the routine of clicking through images #1 to #4 and spending at least 5 secs on each of them, per visit, during 10th and 11th december 09.

Regards, Vittorio