Closet ALO lovers?

[Julio]

A couple of admissions first:

1. I almost never shoot JPG and when I do I use neutral, no ALO, no NR, no sharpenng and post process them.
2. I hate the coarse RAW adjustnment controls DPP has. I will go back to LR once the real 7D profile gets there.

Having said all that, and maybe because the DPP raw controls are so coarse, I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the "fill light" with the Canon Auto Light Optimizer. It can't be matched by the coarse fill in the raw panel and would take a lot of work and tweaking in LR or the DPP RGB panel to match.

It's not an every image sort of thing, but for those times when you want to bring-up the shadows, it's a very natural-looking tool. It ain't bad at all.

--
http://fotoman99.smugmug.com/

 

[Leah]

I think the 7D .jpg's are very good and have a lot of head room. I also use the ALO on low with birds, and don't tell anyone, but I've been known to use NR on low too.

To tell you the truth, as life goes on, I don't want to spend all my time on the computer with the raws...sometimes, but not always.

--
Leah
http://www.ldhphoto.com

 

[Steen Bay]

A couple of admissions first:

1. I almost never shoot JPG and when I do I use neutral, no ALO, no NR, no sharpenng and post process them.
2. I hate the coarse RAW adjustnment controls DPP has. I will go back to LR once the real 7D profile gets there.

Having said all that, and maybe because the DPP raw controls are so coarse, I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the "fill light" with the Canon Auto Light Optimizer. It can't be matched by the coarse fill in the raw panel and would take a lot of work and tweaking in LR or the DPP RGB panel to match.

It's not an every image sort of thing, but for those times when you want to bring-up the shadows, it's a very natural-looking tool. It ain't bad at all.

The 7D and 50D manuals says that ALO also can be applied in DPP (was that what you meant?), but maybe it's only possible if it was enabled when the image was shot? (and with the 7D it's also possible to use ALO in Manual mode!) The 'Low' NR setting is pretty harmless (at least on 40D and 50D), since it's just a bit of chroma NR, which doesn't affect the amount of detail.

 

[spence105]

ALO is always available in DPP whether it was enabled on-camera or not by the way....of course providing you shoot RAW...

I like ALO, it's quite intelligent and doesn't do alot to the picture if it's not needed. If you shoot a manual shot and get the exposure very wrong, it'll apply much more ALO and bring the darker areas much brighter within reason. In high contrast shots it's like mini HDR, bringing darker areas up a tad to improve DR. I use it on all but professional photography and it seems to do a v.good job.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Spence
50D, Canon 17-55mm, Sigma 105mm, Helios 58mm F2

 

[CanonPhotog]

Expose for the shadow areas of your scene (if necessary of course), and then bring down the exposure in RAW processing appropriately. That way, you get a well exposed shot, with visible and well defined shadowy ares, and an overall image that is relatively (if not virtually) noise free.

ALO (same as in-camera NR) is fine if gimmickery works for you. But then again, Auto Mode also works rather well too, if you really want to be completely uninvolved in the photographic process. It's pretty much all dependent upon your commitment to utliziing your camera's full abilities to get the shot that you want, while at the same time, using a bit of your own skill to ensure that you get that shot.

ALO does little more then apply a pre-defined "Curve" adjustment to your image, and is not much different then applying a "Curve" adjustment within Photoshop. Fortunately, ALO is reversible within DPP. Unfortunately, your shot's initial exposure IS NOT reversible. Get your shot's exposure correct to begin with, and you won't need to resort to gimmickery.

B

 

[Steen Bay]

Expose for the shadow areas of your scene (if necessary of course), and then bring down the exposure in RAW processing appropriately. That way, you get a well exposed shot, with visible and well defined shadowy ares, and an overall image that is relatively (if not virtually) noise free.

ALO (same as in-camera NR) is fine if gimmickery works for you. But then again, Auto Mode also works rather well too, if you really want to be completely uninvolved in the photographic process. It's pretty much all dependent upon your commitment to utliziing your camera's full abilities to get the shot that you want, while at the same time, using a bit of your own skill to ensure that you get that shot.

ALO does little more then apply a pre-defined "Curve" adjustment to your image, and is not much different then applying a "Curve" adjustment within Photoshop. Fortunately, ALO is reversible within DPP. Unfortunately, your shot's initial exposure IS NOT reversible. Get your shot's exposure correct to begin with, and you won't need to resort to gimmickery.

Well, exposing for the shadows would be fine if there was unlimited 'headroom' in RAW, but unfortunately that's not the case. Guess that's why exposing 'to the right' is used more.

 

[Leah]

If you shoot raw and apply a curve in Photoshop to ever so slightly open up the shadows would that also be considered gimmickry? If you use NR in Photoshop are you committing gimmickry? Raw wouldn't even be necessary for you since you get everything right in camera, why not just use your .jpg's?

If you use ALO in camera on low you still need to get the exposure correct. Guess I'm just considering my time more these days.

--
Leah
http://www.ldhphoto.com

 

[Julio]

I thought I was careful to point out that I'm not promoting ALO as an all-purpose tool. Of course exposure "to the right" (with - EV in PP) produces the best captures. And given time to carefully expose a shot that's the way I always expose.

But in real life, we don't always have the time to carefully use that perfect exposure--and anyone who says that they always have the time is either lying or takes very, very few shots of mostly static subjects and only goes outside in the early morning or late afternoon.

The rest of us will use the camera's auto exposure metering modes often and we will shoot in less than ideal light (e.g. harsh mid-day) when the moment is worth capturing despite the imperfect conditions.

Then we'll find ourselves with less than perfect captures that require more PP than the perfect ones. Bringing up the shadows and bringing down the highlights to even-out the lighting is an extremely common procedure. So common, in fact, that there are literally hundreds of plug-ins and filters to do this in Photoshop and the "fill light" and "recovery" sliders have become a routine integral part of raw converters.

What I'm saying, and the only thing I'm saying, is that when I compare the results produced by the DPP ALO to other methods I have used before (including the excellent Photoshop Shadows/Highlight tool) it produces very good results with almost no fuss.

Canon has done an excellent job with their "fill light" tool.

--
http://fotoman99.smugmug.com/

 

[DavZell]

ALO is convenient when you are "just taking pictures" - as opposed to taking "special pictures" or you are trying to perfect your technique, etc, where you may want unadultered RAW images to work with. Even then, RAW+JPG gives you both benefits!

Photography needs to be "light and fun" sometimes - and perfecting your exposure while standing in the middle of Disney World with your family isn't fun!

D.