Purple outline

<p>Ok now that we know you are she and not a he that will help keep it she then He or She. LOL not that it matters. I have read a lot about both the 50mm F/1.4 and the 50mm F/1.8 Some folks swear the F1.4 has a softer focus where the F/1.8 has a sharper focus. I have the F/1.8 myself and have also rented the F/1.4 and really don't see any difference in the focus to tell you the truth. For the low light shooter the F/1.4 is very nice, the F/1.8 just as nice just a little slower in low light. I have also rented the F/1.2 and a friend of mine in NYC has the famous F/1.0 both of them are also great lenses. You're 70mm - 200mm IS F/2.8 is also a great lens and I don't know if it would be considered a replacement lens for the 50mm F/1.4. The only thing I can think of is if the 50mm F/1.4 is working for your applications and you stop it down a bit it should eliminate the fringe. You're either going to use the 70 - 200 and stand farther away from the subject to get the shot or the 50 and stand closer to the subject. If that makes any sense.</p>

<p>Hi Hanna -</p>

<p>Since we seem to have settled on a manual, DIY CS5 method, below is an example of what you actually can do using that general approach.</p>

<p>First: I used a slightly different method of selecting the area of interest than suggested in that link - I used "select color range" on the purple-blue color instead of the method in the article involving expanding or contracting a selection. Both work. I felt that mine might be a bit faster.</p>

<p>Second: Like the article, I used a hue/sat adjustment layer to desaturate the problem area, but I only partially desaturated it. However, in addition, I used the eyedropper to sample the color of the nearby skin, and then, while the selection was still active, used the fill tool at low opacity and color blend mode to add some of the skin color back into the area. Unless you do this last step, the area will either look dead gray (if you over-desaturate it), or still show remnants of the purple fringe (if you back off on the desaturation) - there is no nice middle ground. Replacing the gray with skin color gets around this problem.</p>

<p>Attached is the result. I only worked on the lower part of the subject's arm. I would hate to have to do this on an image with lots of complicated fringing - it would take forever. William and Andrew's recommendations about the lens, plus automated fringing software (eg, LR4 / ACR in CS6) are definitely the way to go.</p>

<p>Tom M</p><div></div>

<p>Looks real good Tom! (Thumbs Up)</p>

<p>Top job Tom, as always.<br>

Pix – just as an experiment, next time you are shooting an Half Shot Portrait into the light, as well as using F/1.8: make a couple of photographs using F/3.5 and directly compare the results.</p>

<p>WW</p>

<p>Duane,<br>

Lol, this indeed is quiet a confusion eliminator, knowing that it's she, not he :D ;)<br>

Tom,<br>

Awesome job on the correction of my image, I will practice this method, but I will be practicing even more, shooting it without this pesky addition to the image!<br>

William,<br>

I will absolutely do some comparison shots with different apertures. I have tried shooting wide open, or close to so I could use lowest ISO possible, (as I'm a pixel peeper when it comes to noise), and to make background as blurry as possible.<br>

However, I'm going to start playing around more with stopping it down more.<br>

On an additional note, what do you recommend for full body shots to get clear face, and best possible bokeh?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I will absolutely do some comparison shots with different apertures. I have tried shooting wide open, or close to so I could use lowest ISO possible, (as I'm a pixel peeper when it comes to noise), and to make background as blurry as possible.<br />However, <strong><em>I'm going to start playing around more with stopping it down more.</em></strong><br />On an additional note, <strong><em>what do you recommend for full body shots to get clear face, and best possible bokeh?</em></strong></p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is an extract of our previous conversation, to which I referred in my first post on this thread:</p>

<p><em>“For example, if we want a very shallow DoF: for a B&G Standing, the G behind the B and they’re cuddling tight together and I am using an APS-C Camera and shooting Vertical, (portrait) Format: -</em><br /><em>For a Tight Head Shot - I need about F/8 ~ F/11</em><br /><em>For the Half Shot – I need about F/4 ~ F/5.6</em><br /><em>For the ¾ Shot – I need about F/2 to F/2.8</em><br /><em>For the Full Length Shot - I am at about F/1.4 ish"</em></p>

<p>In that previous conversation we were NOT discussing Purple Fringing, nor were we discussing shooting into the Light: everything is a compromise and now we want - shallow DoF, nice Bokeh and little or no fringing when shooting into the light with no fill . . .</p>

<p>So, to answer your question (with a nice <strong>theory</strong> answer):<br />If I had a Full Length Portrait, and an APS-C Camera and the 50/1.4 loaded AND I were shooting into the light, WITHOUT FLASH FILL, and I wanted a Shallow DoF and also 'nice bokeh' then:</p>

<ul>

<li>I would choose an aperture <strong>of about F/4</strong></li>

<li>I would <em><strong>get the Subject a good distance away from the Background</strong></em> to create the SEPARATION (which is different to DoF).</li>

<li>not use a filter</li>

<li>use a lens hood</li>

<li>not have any direct backlight hitting the Subject (or reduce that as much as possible)</li>

<li>not shoot directly into the backlight (i.e. have the backlight on an angle to the lens's axes)</li>

</ul>

<p>BUT <strong>Everything is a compromise:</strong><br />You might look at this 3/4 shot below as an example:<br /><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/12965374-md.jpg" alt="" width="486" height="680" /><br />This is my JPEG (reference file SOOC) from a Wedding shot several years ago, I was using a 20D – but still the same EF50/1.4 I have now and this is the lens we are discussing.<br />There was simply not a choice to move the Subject at all. NO FLASH FILL (Flash Not allowed in the Church). The lens was set at F/2.8. I needed to move to the side to avoid the Back Light streaming directly into the camera. Under close scrutiny, there might be a little bit of purple fringing, but not much. The Bride is only about 12ft to the front wall of the Church, but the little bit of Cornice which is in shot is reasonably Out of Focus. I purposely chose NOT to open up wider than F/2.8, because I didn’t want to deal with more Purple Fringing Effect.</p>

<p>***</p>

<p>Here below is a Full Length Shot and is another (JPEG Reference File SOOC) from the same Wedding:<br /><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/16312692-lg.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="700" /> <br />It was made using the EF50F/1.4 the 20D Camera. Again NO FLASH was allowed, not even for the Processional, which makes life very difficult. Again I (compromised) and chose F/2.8 and you can see there is CA (not Purple Fringing) on the windows in the background, (which can be <strong><em>easily</em></strong> fixed). But the real difficultly was to make the Shutter Speed necessary to arrest Subject Motion and to keep the ISO reasonable. <br />Considering all these elements and making all the compromises, this Processional Shot was pulled at <strong>F/2.8 @ 1/80s @ ISO800</strong> – sure the background doesn’t have lovely ‘bokeh’ – but I would rather the safety of F/2.8 for moving Subjects even though I had to time every shot, to arrest Subject Motion using a slow shutter speed of 1/80s – and I the idea of not painstakingly removing Purple Fringing appealed to me, also.</p>

<p><a href="00ZEwy">Re-reading our previous conversation should be of use to you.</a></p>

<p>WW</p>

<p>Incidentally, I'll shortly be updating my version of Photoshop (currently CS4, there's a cheap offer on the subscription model if I sign up this month) and I'll report back on how good the de-fringing is. I've just got my 135 f/2 LoCA-monster back from Nikon's examination, and this software may have turned up in time to stop me from getting around to selling it. Manually fixing a bridal dance full of green hair and purple jewelry is the reason I went and bought my 200 f/2. If it's amazingly capable, I'll report back. Thanks to everyone who mentioned the new automated feature - I'd missed it in Adobe's list of upgrades before this thread.</p>

<p>Ok, so here are reshoot images with a little more stoppage :) Much better :)</p>

<p>(For anyone wondering, I <i>am</i> coming back to this thread. I've update my Photoshop; the colour corrections and test of the 135 f/2 will follow shortly.)<br />

<br />

Hannah - I'm glad stopping down helped. Did you try to post an image?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Ok, so here are reshoot images with a little more stoppage :) Much better :)Ok, so here are reshoot images with a little more stoppage :) Much better :)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I cannot see an image - but if stopping down worked then that's what matters.</p>

<p>WW</p>

<p>In case anyone checks back, I've now had a quick test of my 135 f/2 (newly returned from Nikon UK) on my D800E. It still has a spectacular level of LoCA. The new Camera Raw LoCA fix utility does a respectable job on the just slightly out of focus zones, but can't cope with the level of fringing farther from the focal plane. Better than nothing, though. I'll give it a go with my practical images from a few years back when I get the chance to retrieve them from backup.</p>

<p>Andrew, too bad the newest version of ACR isn't more effective on this problem. It may be that the programmers built in a non-adjustable parameter for the width of the effective area (measured in pixels), and it simply isn't wide enough for the combination of that lens and the very high pixel count d800. It would be interesting to see if new LoCA tool works any better on the same lens but with a lower pixel count body.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>PS - Andrew, take a look at: http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/ (scroll down to the section titled, <em>"New Color Fringe Correction Controls"</em>, in the April 25th, 2012 entry). It states:</p>

 

<ul>

<li><strong>Adobe’s existing “Remove Chromatic Aberration” checkbox (introduced in Camera Raw 7.0 and Lightroom 4.0), and its predecessors (Profile-based “Chromatic Aberration” slider, and manual Chromatic Aberration sliders) handles issue #1 (lateral CA) only.</strong></li>

<li><strong>The previous Defringe popup menu (Off / Highlight Edges / All Edges) in Camera Raw 7.0 and Lightroom 4.0 handles issue #4 (CCD charge leakage) only.</strong></li>

<li><strong>Up till now, Adobe did not have solutions for problems #2 (axial CA) and #3 (flare).</strong></li>

</ul>

<p><strong>Notes on Axial (Longitudinal) CA</strong><br>

<strong>The new Defringe controls are designed to fix axial (longitudinal) CA, color aberrations due to ghosting or flare, and color aberrations (thin fringes) due to charge leakage, which affects some CCD sensors. Here’s some context on axial/longitudinal CA:</strong></p>

<ul>

<li><strong>It can happen anywhere in the image (not just image borders).</strong></li>

<li><strong>It affects nearly all “fast” (wide aperture) lenses, typically most visible at the wider apertures (e.g., f/1.4 thru f/2.8).</strong></li>

<li><strong>Fringes become less visible as you stop down the lens (e.g., more visible at f/2, less visible at f/8).</strong></li>

<li><strong>Fringes are usually most visible just in front of or just behind the plane of focus.</strong></li>

<li><strong>Fringes typically appear purple/magenta when they’re in front of the plane of focus, and appear green when they’re behind the plane</strong></li>

<li><strong>of focus.</strong></li>

<li><strong>Even at the plane of focus, high-contrast edges (especially backlit) may show purple fringes due to flare.</strong></li>

</ul>

<p>I have both LR 4.1 and CS6 (with ACR 7), and the defringe controls in CS6 (ACR 7) are not the same, as I believe the above article suggests. I only see the pop out menu for the new defringe controls (ie, http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00a/00aj6g-490527584.jpg) in LR4.1, not in the newest version of ACR. If you see what I see, this would explain why you couldn't satisfactorily remove the purple fringing from your lens -- there's only a little checkbox, without the new pop-out controls. </p>

<p>Tom </p>

<p>Andrew - Ignore the comment in the post just above this about me not seeing the new defringe controls in cs6/acr7. I just updated ACR from 7.0 to 7.1 and the new controls magically appeared. ;-)</p>

<p>The blog entry still is a very good tutorial / article on their use.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>:-) I'd seen the article before (although I neglected to try the colour sliders) - and I did make a point of getting ACR 7.1. The LoCA removal was pretty effective within a smallish range of defocus - interestingly, the range over which it worked seemed not to vary significantly once the "amount" had reached a certain point (7-ish, I think). I had to tweak the colour range for the 135, too. Even on a D700, very out of focus regions with the 135 get a <i>lot</i> of colour fringing. Possibly it would cope better if I shrank the image down a bit - I'd like to have another go with the wedding snaps I have archived and see whether "slightly out of focus" covers most of the cases (and have a closer look about how much softness it adds to edges), but, a little to my relief, I don't think my 200 f/2 has been made redundant. I'll still be looking for a 150 f/2.8 Sigma, but I'll absolutely give the LoCA controls a go in my future imaging workflow with less offensive lenses.<br />

<br />

Of course, that doesn't make the 135 DC a bad lens, it's just not one for pixel-peeping. At least in my (checked out) sample. But I kind of bought the D800E on the basis that I've been known to pixel-peep. :-)</p>

<p>Ok, so I just upgraded to Photoshop CS6, and in Camera RAW, the adjustment brush now has defringe slider. I haven't played too much with it yet, but I took a pic of this spider and there was some purple fringing on the body. When I used the brush, IT HELPED a LOT!<br>

It does desaturate the color some, but after using it, then I just bumped the saturation and added some contrast back in in ACR. :)<br>

I'm posting only after pic, I don't have the original on this computer., but there was purple around the white parts, much better now :)<br>

Let me see if I can actually post it from this laptop! It's always given me trouble before, and won't let me upload! My other computer is fine, so not sure why!</p><div></div>

<p>Wow, it worked! First time ever!<br>

BTW, I used 7D and 70-200mm 2.8 IS for the spider ISO 200, f2.8, and I can't remember ss.</p>

<p>Hannah, I'm glad to hear that everything worked out well for you. Sometimes the constant stream of relatively costly upgrades to Photoshop seem almost pointless, other times, they can save your you-know-what!</p>

<p>Keep us posted if you find any of the other new tweaks to cs6 to be of particular use.</p>

<p>Best regards,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>And I'm back with more discoveries in CS6! Not only does it have the defringe in the adjustment brush, it also has defringe, purple, and color adjustments for the outline :D Under Lense Corrections>Color in ACR! pretty cool</p>

<p> . . . good oh!</p>