Palouse Patterns

From a trip this week. Comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks.

Stephen,  Since I just commented on your other Palouse image, I find this one a bit over the top on color saturation.  What do you think?  I like the simplicity of your images.  Such minimalism is quite artistic.   The two Palouses also fill the frame well.   Thanks for sharing this.  I don't mean my comment to be negative.   Larry

Larry, thanks for the comment.  This was shot in RAW, and the only adjustment that was made during the RAW conversion was in levels:  black was set to black and white was set to white.  Nothing else was adjusted except for sharpening at the end when a jpeg was made for posting at this size, and I often reduce the overall brightness just a tad after sharpening.  The same is true for all of the other shots taken during this trip.

Oops, not all of the photos from this trip were processed the same.  I have some other photos, not yet posted, in which I added contrast and reduced brightness in portions of the photo rather than globally.  I did this in layers and then merged the layers.  A sample is attached (taken with a different camera/lens).

Great colors and composition Stephen.  The "S" curve works very effectively here.  Colors look good on my monitor.

Nice. Slightly otherwordly. (To my Dutch senses anyway.) Alive but obviously under man's thumb.

(Maybe an abstract B&W like I wrote about for the other post is an option here?)

Regards, Matthijs.

I like the dreaminess of this. And yet it's like the almost etched-feeling main road (?) or whatever that more solid wavy line is grounds this and provides a foil. You've found an abstraction within the landscape, while it still functions as landscape but also transcends itself. The darker shadowed areas effectively define both a border for the picture and an offset to the lightness of the rest of the rolling terrain. The terrain breathes a kind of sensuality, shot in this light with this kind of delicacy of perspective and texture.

I'll let you and others decide on the saturation aesthetics. My non-judgmental observation is that the colors are quite bold and very noticeable, prominent. But I'd like to ask about what you say regarding the RAW processing. First, I've discovered that saturation is not just affected by saturation levels. It can be greatly affected by curves and levels changes. Also, in my own conversions from RAW, I'm aware that many decisions have a default mode where, if I don't do anything, I'm simply defaulting to the software's basic settings. Of course, that doesn't mean levels, curves, saturation, color temperature, etc. aren't being set. It just means I'm not making the decision, the software is. So, when you say "nothing else was adjusted" I'm not sure what that means, since everything is adjusted when you process a RAW file, either through a default setting or through your own intervention in the various settings that have to happen. I've converted many RAW files without personally intervening in what the software is doing and some come out looking quite different and more "handled" than what you would think given that I didn't "do" anything. Because the software itself did a lot without my guiding it and, in some cases, without my reigning it in. 

Wonderful shot as always Stephen..........I'm curious about the distance, is that a river or a small ditch/brook winding through the fields? Can't imagine it's the Potomac :)

All the best

Mark

Stephen - This sure does pop!  It does look quite electric, but back lit and side lit foliage does have that effect, so this culd be quite natural.  I've seen many images from this region, and they do make for some exceptional abstracts.  I might only suggest to crop a little off the top into the brown wave - this might help accentuate the S curves in the river? road?.  Hope to visit the area some day.

Thanks again for the comments.

Fred, it was the abstract nature of this patch of land that made me want to take the photo.  The colors are brighter than I had expected, but this always brings up a problem:  trying to remember exactly what the scene looked like.  Honestly, it can be very frustrating deciding where the RAW conversion or any other edit should land.  And as you say, even though I don't touch a saturation slider, several other adjustments (notably levels and curves) can have a dramatic effect on saturation.  In doing the RAW conversion, as far as I know I set only the black and white endpoints (levels); everything else was set to zero, and the camera was not doing anything on its own.  Making that single, simple levels adjustment made a strikingly different photo from the RAW image.  Note that I took a photo about 70 degrees to the right (west) of this area about 3 hours later (as I remember), and the greens were quite different, despite it being essentially the same field and with the RAW photo receiving the same kind of levels processing.  By then the light had changed significantly, and I was shooting into the light to a greater degree than I did in the photo above.  

As you know, one question I hear asked due to the extensive manipulation of photographs, a question that bothers me considerably, is "Is it real?"  My honest response if asked of this photo would be, "I'm not sure."  Despite not being able to answer that question, I still personally like this photo, because for me it embodies at least a part of the spirit or essence of the palouse.

Mark, it's basically a ditch.  One could probably jump across it in most places with a running start (my hip joints are metal and plastic; I'd just wade through the mud).

Harry, I was using a 400mm telephoto from a 1000' butte.  Just below the bottom edge is a road and some "disturbed" terrain.  I set the bottom edge just high enough to avoid this area, and the top fell where it fell.  I panned right or left to put the "stream" in a good spot and the fallow projections and shadows where I thought they looked good.  In my own photos I often don't pay a lot of attention to details after the photo has been taken, and I'd rather crop in-camera than after the fact.  However, I've just noticed that little piece of fallow ground in the upper left corner.  If I were to print this, I might crop enough off the top to remove that remnant, as long as it didn't leave me with just a sliver of brown terrain along the top right (and I think there would be more than a sliver, so that crop would probably be fine).  Alternatively, I could crop further down to a 2:1 aspect ratio, and that might eliminate the browns at the top entirely.  One crop would emphasize the waterway, another crop would have a greater emphasis on the contours and interspersion of browns and greens.  As usual, there's more than one print in this photo.

I could be mistaken, but in this case, I think zero has a value, depending on the software. In other words, if you set everything to zero in lightroom that could be very different from having everything set to zero in photoshop which could be different than "doing nothing" in another program. The software is determining temperature, curves, levels, shadow output, all sorts of things, even when set to zero. Those are decisions I tend to want to control rather than letting the software control it. I'm not saying you should or should not control it yourself. I am saying it is being controlled. Zero does not mean nothing is being done. The same decisions are being made that one would have to make in a darkroom. The temperature of the chemicals, the kinds of chemistry, the length of processing, etc., etc. Zero is just a program's default. It's not a lack of intervention.

Yes, I agree with you about the "natural" question. I don't usually care whether something is natural or not. I care what it looks like in a photo. And if you're happy with what this looks like as a photo, and I see no reason you shouldn't be, then what it matches or measures up to has no bearing!

Good job.

Fred, that zero might still be affecting the conversion is something I can't comment on, because I just don't know.  If everything is set to zero and the software converted a RAW photo to tiff, psd, jpeg, or something else, then I would think the converted photo should look exactly like the RAW photo if zero = nothing.  That's easy to test.

But I don't think you ever actually see a RAW photo. That's the point. RAW is just a beginning. Like a negative in a camera, you can't see it. It has to be processed in some way to be seen. When you look at a RAW file on the camera's video screen, you are simply seeing the camera's quick conversion of it to a thumbnail (like viewing a quick jpg made from it). When you look at the "RAW" file in your conversion program, you are already seeing what the default settings are doing to it. Levels, curves, temperature, etc. HAS ALREADY BEEN applied to it in order for you to see it. Just like chemistry has been applied to film in order to process a negative. So, the RAW file represents the same kind of potential that your unprocessed film represents. There is nothing to match. The jpg comes from the RAW file but cannot match the RAW file, because the RAW file itself is not visible. You don't know what your negative looks like until you process it and by the time you process it decisions have been made (either by you, a lab, or some kind of software). So what you're seeing when you first view the RAW image in your conversion program is processed but not set in stone. The zeros have processed it to the software's default settings, not to some original state that is untouched. Your changing the zeros is not a further processing. It IS a processing just as pure and just the same as leaving it at zero would be.

Stephen, I don't want to feel as if I'm badgering you with this stuff. That is not my intent. And if this doesn't interest you, I'm fine to let it rest. I consider it very important as part of my own process and, judging from what you say, you seem to want to be intimate with your own process as well. So I hope some of this is understandable and valuable to you. If not, just say the word and I won't pursue it. Be assured, that if you are not changing the values and leaving them at zero, that is comparable to sending your negs to a lab and letting some strange decide on color temperature, levels, curves, noise levels, shadow detail levels, etc. You cannot NOT intervene. And there is no pure unprocessed negative as a standard. Processing creates the negative (or the viewable file) and only you or your software can do that. Nothing exists before either you or the software processes it into existence. 

No, Fred, I appreciate the discussion. I understand that the image that shows up on the LCD has been processed by the camera, and I understand that any jpeg that comes out of the camera has been processed by the camera. However, I don't have the same understanding regarding a RAW image. It's my understanding that a RAW photo has been untouched by the camera unless directed to do so by the photographer, and only the white balance (temperature), color space, and similar settings (can't think of any others at the moment) that are required to be set by the photographer are applied to the photograph. While it may be possible to set additional default actions by the camera in RAW, it's not necessary. Levels, curves, contrast, noise levels, shadow detail levels, etc. are not automatically addressed by the camera without input from the photographer, and they can be set to zero so that no action will be taken by the camera or the conversion program on these parameters. I think I can see a pure RAW image. That's my current understanding. I guess these are the points that I need to research so that I can be sure I have a correct understanding of what goes into the making of a RAW image (or be happily enlightened). I just picked up Martin Evening's book on CS5; hopefully I can find some information there. If you can point to some references, that would be appreciated as well.

My bottom line is that I want to know what I'm doing. That was much easier when I was just selecting film (understanding that different films would render a given scene differently, and that different lenses might have some subtle effects as well, aside from the obvious focal length effects). Now, instead of a box in my hands, I'm holding a small computer, and the level of complexity has gone up considerably.

Here's a start.

From the article: "A digital RAW file is simply what its name implies, a file containing the unprocessed raw data captured by the sensor in the digital camera at the time of exposure.  The RAW file standing alone does not contain a finished photograph."

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First, as it states above, a RAW file is not a photo, it's a file. Next, we both have the same understanding up to a point. IT IS UNTOUCHED BY THE CAMERA as long as you have your camera set not to do stuff, on that we agree. But that UNTOUCHED RAW FILE still has to be processed, it is like an unprocessed negative. It gets processed on your computer in a RAW conversion program. That's where you can make the processing decisions or your conversion program can make them. If, for example, you don't touch the contrast or saturation controls in your RAW conversion program, you are letting the program decide the contrast and saturation: some contrast and saturation has to be defined in order to see an image from the file, either by you or the program. Your deciding on the contrast and saturation is like your deciding what film to have used, as well as things like processing time and type and temperature of chemicals. A RAW file can't be seen without processing decisions being made, either by your camera, your conversion software's defaults, or you. There's no such thing as an untouched RAW photo. A RAW file must be touched to be seen. That touching is processing, and the article goes into the kinds of decisions that go along with the necessary processing of a RAW file. 

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My guess is there are still better explanations out there, but I haven't found them recently, though I've read a lot in the past. I'm sure if you or I posted a thread asking about this, we'd get a bundle of information and references.

I'm going to post the question on the Casual Photo Conversations forum so that we might have a larger audience.  

Steve P.

O.k., I was going to post this on the "casual photography conversations" forum, but I've decided not to.  I think Fred is probably correct.  A RAW digital image consists of 1s and 0s, and that has to be converted to a visible image by a RAW converter.  That tells me something about the resulting image.   RAW converters are largely proprietary (I believe), and that tells me more about the resulting image.  A RAW image contains all of the data that had been available to the sensor (within the sensor's limitations) when the image was made; whether that data can be seen without any contributing influence from the processor (i.e., whether the processor can remain completely "neutral" when translating the 1s and 0s to a visible image) is, I think, largely academic and technical, and the answer does not affect how I (nor probably anyone else) approach a RAW image to make something out of it.

It was beneficial to me to think about this question, because I think it illustrates a striking difference between a RAW image and a film transparency.  Film makes its own conversion, in a sense, and there is relatively little left to be done to the transparency (yes, it can be scanned and put through the digital wringer just like any other digital file, but usually it's not necessary -- IMO).  A RAW file, on the other hand, requires further processing.  From my experience, it usually requires my ability to remember what the original scene looked like, and frankly I often find that difficult to do.

The photo above is a good example.  I made only a single processing decision, and that was to set the white and black points.  But when I did that, the RAW image changed dramatically when it became a processed image.  Were the greens and yellows really that intense in the field below me when I was standing on Steptoe Butte in eastern Washington?  I'm really, truly, not sure.

So we all have our own individual goals when we process a photo.  I like landscape photography for several reasons, and my goal is to capture the beauty of the landscape as I saw it, with composition playing a key role when I select a small portion of the landscape to photograph.  I'm not sure that I succeeded in the photo above.  I think the best I can do is to get as close as I can to what I remember, and/or to make the image say what I remember it saying.  For me, the danger is going too far beyond real conditions so that the image looks "processed," as if I've pushed too hard to make it "pop," as if I had been saying to myself "if a little bit is good, then more will be that much better," or as if I don't think the image can stand on its own and instead requires some digital assistance from me.  That's usually not where I want to end up.

Anyway, that's the best I can do for now.  I appreciate everyone's comments; they all help to inform my constantly evolving views of photography.