Post-Processing Part I

Post-Processing. There are entire books written on this subject. How do you narrow down this plethora of information to manageable chunks? Well, I'll start by asking; do you like it RAW? I sure do. Get your mind out of the gutter...I'm talking about your file format! If you are serious about your photography, you better be recording in RAW format. Leave jpeg to snapshots and family photos. Set your file format to RAW, and you will have as much control as possible when manipulating your images. What? You're not manipulating your images? This is worse than I thought.

The best way to approach this topic is to explain my workflow, and go through it step by step. Of course, you need to establish a workflow that works best for you.

I will use a single photo, and show the transformation of the photo from capture to finished product. Let's start with the photo directly from the camera:

This photo is the basis for the workflow demonstration. As you can see, the shot is slightly crooked, which by the way is a huge pet peeve of mine. Nothing bothers me more than when I see a seascape that is slanted. It looks like all the water should be running off the edge of the page. I've seen professional photographers selling crooked photos! Do these people not look a their own work! Whoa! Sorry about that, I got a little carried away.

Being underexposed, there is very little detail in the shadows. The good news is, the background is not blown out (overexposed). I'd also like to tighten the crop up some. Finally, the photo is a bit cool, and I'd like to warm it up.

Before I start, I have to say that I am making these edits on a laptop with a screen that is not calibrated. I would ususlly be doing this on my home computer which I keep calibrated. Since I'm away from my office, I'm hoping you are getting some semblance of a proper exposure.

OK, first thing I do, after sorting through hundreds of photos, is to pick a few that might end up interesting. Sometimes, you'll find a diamond in the rough. A shot that as-is may not be all that spectacular, but after some finessing, you can end up with a very nice photo.

Since I use Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom, which I highly reccommend by the way, I'll be referencing the commands available to me with this software. In many casses, similar commands will be available to you depending on the software you are using.

To see what kind of details and exposures I'm working with, I will sometimes start with lighting. That way, if a photo is too far gone, I'll drop it right away. In many cases, I'll crop first if the lighting is a no-brainer. In this case, the lighting is suspect, so I'll go there first.

Since I'd like to bring back the detail and color in the water, I'll start by sliding the "Recovery" slider to the right. This lowers the exposure of the highlights. You can see it brought back some of the detail, but not as much as I'd like.

In this case, I'll drop the exposure of the entire shot enough to bring the water to where I want it.
You can see that the entire photo is now well underexposed, but the central area is where I want it. What I'll do now is enhance the shadows using the "Fill Light" Slider. Remember, since we are shooting in RAW format, all the information in each pixel is there, we are just bringing out the best in each one.

OK, now this is starting to look really funky. By now you are asking, "Does this guy really know what the heck he is doing?" Now that you mention it, I guess I never really did say I knew what I was doing. This photo is now very washed out, and beginning to take on an HDR look. For those of you who don't know what HDR is, here is a search on flickr.

Finally, I will add in some of the Blacks using the "Blacks" slider.

This is still showing up on my screen as pretty dark, so i'll mess around with the sliders a little more to get it where I like it. You won't usually get a photo with this much contrast to come out the way you want without some trial and error. In fact, that is what makes Photoshop Lightroom ideal for photographers. All the edits you do to your photos never change the original file. At any time, you can go right back to the original and start again. It's called non-destructive editing, and as far as I'm concerned ints one of the best things that's ever happened to digital photography. Again, I digress.

Here is the same photo in a form that I am happy with at this point. As you can see, I had to sacrifice some detail and color in the water since there is only so much you can do with the lighting that you have. Don't fret though, I'll show you what other options we have to address this issue.



There is quite a bit more to do to this photo, so I'll save that for later.

Metering

What is metering? Well, it's kind of a long story. Your camera is not all that clairvoyant when it comes to exposing a scene to your liking. The bad news? The camera tries to expose the scene, any scene, to a neutral gray. This is known as metering. The good news? You have some control over what the camera is "looking at" when it tries to meter the scene.

"Neutral Gray" may sound a bit strange when talking about color photography. Think of it as exposing to a medium density if the scene were evaluated in black & white. It is trying to find the middle point between the shadows and the highlights, and expose accordingly.

I will use this scene with extreme contrast to show the effects of each mode. The round portion of the white post is in the very center of the scene. This will matter on some of the modes. The scene has a bright white fence, a black mailbox, and the green leaves are near-netral. These ranges will show reasonably clearly what is happening in the exposure. The scene was shot in Aperature Priority set to 4.0 and ISO 100. The camera will calculate the shutter speed based upon the metering mode selected.

Your camera (at least Canon cameras) have four metering modes. These four modes can help you to expose a scene to how you envision it. The four modes are:

1. Evaluative Metering:

With evaluative metering, all the pixels in the entire frame are averaged, then exposed so that the average value is neutral gray. As you can see in the example, the scene is exposed pretty well for as "contrasty" as it is. The shutter speed was set to 1/250 sec. by the camera.

2. Center Weighted Average Metering:

This is similar to Evaluative Metering with a bit of priority on the center of the scene. This mode is probably the best for all-around shooting. The other three would be used for specific situations. In this case, the shutter speed was set to 1/200 sec. This indicates that the average of the pixels in the central area of the scene are slightly darker than the average of all the pixels in the scene. Thus, the slightly brighter exposure to compensate.

3. Partial Metering:

With partial metering, the exposure is based on the central 8 percent of the pixels in a round pattern. You can see that the round white area of the scene is driving the exposure. This photo is dark because it is trying to expose the white fence post to neutral gray. The camera set the shutter speed to 1/640 sec.

4. Spot Metering:


Finally, there is spot metering. It is nearly the same as partial metering, except that the "spot" is smaller. About 3.5 percent of the central area of the scene. Again, in a round pattern. In this case, it is likely that all of the white post fell into the "spot". The camera set the shutter speed to 1/800 sec.

Now that you know all this, how will you use it? Here is a real-life example: This is a nearly impossible scene to expose. It is an extremely dark foreground and a very bright background.


Using spot metering, the scene is extremely dark because the camera is exposing to the center (very bright) portion of the scene.

Here is a trick when spot metering: You can expose on one part of a scene, press the exposure lock button (it looks like an asterisk), then reframe the scene. For example, in this photo, I exposed for the darkest section which is near the front door. As you can see, it didn't work out well, but it does show the effect.

I then chose evaluative metering, then a bit of post-processing to end up with this final image:

Details...Details.

Anyone can take a photo of an entire boat, house, mountain, field...etc. In most cases, when you see these subjects in person, they are beautiful, if not stunning. Excitement to capture these visions often result in dull, flat images. A tourist eager to share with friends the things they saw, usually ends up trying to explain in detail what the photo did not capture. You've probably been on the recieving end of that discussion. Not so much fun is it?

This photo is an image of a boat. Hmmm, not much boat showing. I was walking along the pier looking for some good shots. I put my 70-200mm lens on to force myself to look only at details. I focused on a seagull at the top of this mast, and a second gull chased the first one off. This is the second gull landing on the mast.

Here is another boat photo, no...really.



Rather than try to capture the entire subject, take small, interesting chunks of it. The biggest difference in this conversation with your friends vs. the one mentioned above, is you will be answering questions like "what is this?" or "how did you get that angle?" instead of explaining to them, "you really had to be there".

For a good exercise, put on a long zoom lens and only take photos with the top 25% of its range. This will force you to see things differently than you would normally. When you are performing this exercise, you may find you don't have to move very far between shots. I tend to do this alone since it can be pretty frustraitng to someone walking with you to only cover 1/4 mile every hour.

You don't always have to get super-detailed. In the case of this bike, it is interesting in and of itself, but if you notice, it isn't a picture of a bike. It is a picture with part of a bike in it.

I happen to like reflections, and pursue windows where there are interesting items both inside, and outside. If I can combine an interesting reflection with an interesting subject that shows through, Chances are, the combination will be, ummm...interesting.

This may be a photo of a whole birdhouse, but what it is to me is a small detail of a garden just off the main street.

A front door is made more interesting by the rocking chairs and canned goods in the windows.

I thought this mail slot was even more interesting than fact the door is painted purple.

This old fire house has some old hardware that has been painted over on many occasions.















So get out there and look for details. Don't get trapped into walking along main street USA taking photos of house after house after house. Show what that house is made of!

Crop Circles...(actually Rectangles)

The day started out rainy and wet, so I guess the mood that was set (and a wrong turn), drove me to the cemetery. Call me morbid, but for some reason, I love taking photos here. Perhaps it is the genealogist in me. Perhaps the historian. Either way, I am constantly drawn here. In fact, this is my favorite tombstone in this cemetery. For those of you who are familiar with my web site, you will likely recognize this stone.

The reason I chose this photo for the opener is to demonstrate the "technique" of cropping a photo. The reason I put the word technique in quotes, is that I consider it a personal preference rather than a formula or any hard and fast rule. Rather than be excessively verbose, I'll just post the before and after shots of a few photos I took today to give a feel for how I "see" a photo. For example, here is the original of the above photo:

As you can see, the change is not too dramatic, but I took the photo from further back rather than trying to frame the photo in the viewfinder. One mistake that a new photographer tends to make is to try to create the photo cropped as-shot. In some cases that is a necessity. If your camera is older and does not have high resolution, you will not want to waste any pixels to cropping. Second, if the angle of your lens does not allow you to squeeze any more into the photo, you are left with whatever you can fit.

If you have plenty of pixels to play with, and a decent lens, don't be afraid to stand back a little and get some extra into the photo. For example, this photo has quite a bit of room to play with, so I actually changed it from a portrait to a landscape.

I found it a little more interesting without the kitty litter bucket, and a little more detail on the round things (sorry, I just don't know what they are) on the other side of the gate.

You may have heard of the "Rule of Thirds". This is one of the "rules" that you might need to consider. If you were to divide your photo into thirds from top to bottom, and also from left to right, you will end up with a grid of nine squares. According to the rule of thirds, a pleasing photo should have the main subject residing along one of the lines. I don't typically use gridlines, but I do try to resist placing items in the center of the frame. For example; this flower is nearly dead-on center. A big no-no if the "thirds police" are watching, and not all that stimulating.



Now, here is the same photo cropped to position the flower in the lower left corner. A little more interesting if you are into flower photography.



Another "rule" to follow, and I do consider this one to be very important, if not critical, is determining where the open space is. Take this photo for example:



Here is a cute little place that people could be sitting and chatting. The key here is that the subject should always be facing the open space. Sure, you can always find an exception, but I haven't really found one yet. A person (who might be sitting in one of these chairs) would be facing the open space. A boat in the water will be pointing to open space. A car, driving along, will be moving in the direction of open space. If you break this rule, it actually looks awkward. Here are the chairs, facing the open space, waiting for some people to sit.


Finally, here is another pair that are not too different, but I liked the slight crop on the top photo to show more detail in the flag reflecting in the window.

No Sun?...No Problem!

Not a whole lot of sun today, but that is actually a benefit in some cases. Take flowers for instance. Shooting flowers in hard light does not always give the best result. I searched far and wide for a subject photo for this post. Well...not really...I ventured about 6 feet outside the door and found some dandelions growing in a gravel driveway since I didn't trust the weather to be dry for long.

I promised a friend of mine that I would throw some "Photography 101" type lessons into my posts. He just bought a DSLR, and with all the different settings, is a bit overwhelmed. So here you go Allen; let's talk about tradeoffs.

In just about every setting you change when using your camera, there is always a tradeoff. The challenge I ran into today was low-light and windy conditions. Not the best for photographing flowers, but I chose the subject on purpose to show what choices you have to overcome obstacles.

In almost all shooting situations, my personal preference is to set the camera dial in the Aperature Priority position ("Av" on Canon, "A" on Nikon). This allows me to set the depth of field (DOF) that I want, and let the camera set the shutter speed accordingly. What is depth of field you ask? Put simply, it is the window of focus from front to back. If you have a narrow depth of field, very few things are in focus. Take this photo for example. It is shot at a shutter speed of 1/640 sec. and an aperature of f/4.0 and an ISO setting of 100. Also referred to as 1/640 sec @ f/4.0 ISO 100

This is a very narrow depth of field. If you look at the petals on the flower (click on the photo for the full version), the ones in the very front, as well as the ones in the back are all out of focus. There is a very limited amount of this flower that is actually in focus. In this case, the background is usually less distracting and visually pleasing when this far out of focus. In portrait photography, this is the background effect you are looking for.

OK, what setting affects the depth of field? That would be aperature. The more wide open the lens (lower f-stop number), the narrower the DOF. Conversely, stopping down the aperature (higher f-stop number) the wider the DOF.

Remember when I said there are always tradeoffs? In this case, to get a wider (deeper) DOF, you would dial in a higher f-stop. This closes the iris inside the lens to a smaller size in turn letting in less light. In most cases, less light = bigger challenge. Think about it; remember when you wanted to take some photos with your cheap film camera in a dimly lit room without flash. That never worked out very well did it? Here, getting the DOF to be wider is basically cutting down the light source and making the "room" darker. Here is what happens when you stop it all the way down to f/22 which should give you the widest DOF possible.


Wait a second here. Didn't I just say that this would bring more into focus?

This is a blurry mess! Ah...remember the tradeoff? What happened when you took that picture in the dark room? It was a blurry mess wasn't it? Ah...and I bet you forgot that I said it was a windy day didn't you? Well, your super high-tech camera will compensate for that f/22 you just dialed in by slowing your shutter speed all the way down to 1/20th of a second. With these weeds blowing in the wind, there isn't a chance in you-know-where that you are going to maintain focus with your shutter open that long!

Hmmm, now what. That one was shot at 1/20 sec @ f/22 ISO 100. Wait a minute...what's this ISO thing? Ah yes ISO. If you are familiar with film cameras at all, you will remember that when the lighting was dark, you would use a 400 "speed" film. This is basically the same as the ISO setting in your digital camera. Here is a photo taken with the ISO bumped up to 500:


The aperature did not change at all, it's still at f/22, but when I dialed in the ISO to 500 (5x what it was), the camera compensated by making the shutter speed 1/100sec (5x faster). The moving flowers are no longer blurry, and if you notice, the DOF is much wider. The background is no longer as soft, but it is still out of focus. The entire flower is now in focus. Woah! This ISO thing is awesome! Why don't I just dial my ISO up as high as it goes and leave it there? Remember I mentioned the tradeoffs? In this case, just like in the faster film, the tradeoff is "grain". Digitally, it is called "noise". With an entry level DSLR, like the Canon Rebel series, ISO levels above about 400 will start to show noise. These photos were taken with a Canon 5D MkII which has a much broader ISO range, so the noise in the photo above is not really noticable. To give you an example of noise, here is a photo taken at ISO 6400:

If you click on the photo above, and this photo prior, you can zoom in on the shadows and see the effects of the noise. It will appear as randomly colored tiny "spots" that don't seem to belong in the photo. Kind of like a "snowy" analog TV signal. FYI, this photo is 1/1250 sec @ f/22 ISO 6400. Dialing in such a high ISO created a very fast shutter speed.

Well, what did we learn today? That there are way too many settings on your new camera and you are returning it to the store?

NO! You've learned just about everything you need to know to understand why your camera works the way it does. There are really only three settings on the camera that you have control over to overcome obstacles you run into. As I see it, you are trying to maximize your shutter speed to the situation. The slower the shutter speed, the more chance you have of coming up with a blurry shot. The camera will change the shutter speed based upon the aperature. If you need a very wide DOF, you need to stop down the lens which always works against you. If you go too far, your shutter speed suffers, and the photos are blurry. If this is the case, you need to dial in the ISO setting...again, working against you.

So what are the settings that I settled on for my opening shot with the bee in it? I chose to limit my ISO setting to 400 to reduce noise, and I split the difference on the aperature and set it to f/14. The camera then set the shutter to 1/200 sec. which was fast enough to freeze the motion.

If all I've done is confuse you even more, leave a question in the comments section and I'll try to answer it.

Strobist Boot Camp II Assignment 1

OK, so I'm an available light photographer. Always have been. Then I ran across this blog called "Strobist". It definitely intrigued me and started me thinking about what I could do for my photos if I supplemented them with lighting.

There is a wealth of information on this site, and David Hobby, the site's creator is generous enough to share his knowledge with everyone for free! Currently, he has his second "Boot camp" running, where he gives out assignments, then judges the entries.

The photo attached is my submission. I took the photo in my basement using two flashes. First, I dug my Canon 430EZ out of storage, mounted it on a stand and shot through a white umbrella from camera right. There is also a reflector low camera left for fill. Second, I bought a Sunpak 24 Auto for $10 (shipped) on ebay. I used a small bungee cord and two screws to bungee it up to a ceiling joist and pointed it straight down. I taped a piece of black mat board to the flash preventing the light from spilling on anything other than the plate. You might also notice that I taped a blue gel to the flash to tint the plate.

One thing I learned from this assignment, is that I have a lot to learn!

Public Art - Greenville: Testament to Form

There are many pieces of art currently in Greenville's downtown area. I thought I might begin a series of photographs dedicated to public art. This is the first post in the series, with many more to come.

The name of this sculpture is "Testament to form" by Dennis Heimbach. Rather than belonging to the city, this is the only privately owned public art, owned by Design Strategies. The offices of Design Strategies are located in the former Courthouse on lower East Main.