peter
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Posts posted by peter
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<p>The little 35-70mm f3.3 was a kit lens in the early 1990s? (thereabouts.) It was never held in high regard until people began writing nice things about it on the internet. This encouraged me to get one just for the heck of it - they are as cheap as chips. And I found it to be actualy pretty good stopped down a bit as with most Nikkor consumer grade lenses. But the 2.8 lens is regarded as the ants pants. Its sharp at all settings and focal lengths with good color and of course also faster. It also has thet "brick -outhouse" build that NikkorPro lenses are renowned for. I use a lot of 1990s era Nikkors and have long wanted to buy the 2.8 but can never find one that is cheap enough - they are still in demand. Perhaps its not the price perse that puts me off its the limited zoom range, but I am sure one day I will be tempted beyond my powers to resist. But the littl 3.3 is an OK lens and great as a light weight alternative for non critical work.</p>
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<p>Photoshop trying to force you to save every damn file as a .psd file even when previous files have been saved as .jpgs. Annoys the living crappers out of me.</p>
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<p>Despite the feeling that I "should" be saving as .tiff, I usually save as a highest quality .jpg. My rationale is that I still have the .raw file as a digital negative in its original form and I will have performed any manipulations on the jpg I have saved at the time I processed . If I wish to play with the fileagain, I almost certainly want to make an alternative version / interpretation in which case starting again from the raw file is no great imposition. Besides my printer needs jpgs so this is more useful for me and avoids further conversion if I want to do anything ofthis sort. Occassionally if I am part way thu processing or think I will need to come back later I will save as a psd file thereby keeping my layers etc intact for future manipulation.</p>
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<p>There was another thread about this persons work (ie Corfu's) just a couple of weeks back and the theme of the thread was the same.....ie "How do I achieve this effect" which I think was the title of the thread if you wish to do a search. It elicted quite a lot of answers and suggestions. So may I suggest you do that.</p>
<p>regards</p>
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<p>I like two processes that I personally call "tricks" because to anyone unschooled in Layers they seem a bit like magic. In fact they are a good way to introduce someone to the power of layers without totally confusing them.<br>
The first "trick" is the duplicate layer (or create adjustment layer) then change to "multiply" blend mode trick Great for washed out photos that are over exposed - this instantly creates high contast deeply saturated images - something that could take several steps to achieve manually. Then of course you may need to adust the opacity of the top layer if it's too dark.<br>
The second trick is for almost the opposite situation - where the photo is too contrasty. Its the "create a contrast mask" trick. Just duplicate the layer then use the saturation slider to drop saturation to zero making the layer black and white. This creates a "mask." Then apply one pixel gaussian blur to the mask layer. Then invert the mask layer to produce a negative image and finally change the blend mode to either soft light or overlay - both work but give a slightly different effect to the contrast level. After these simple 4 or so steps you will find your image suddenly has had its contrast toned down significantly and often the hidden detail in the shadows has been nicely revealed. So much so in fact that sometimes I have had to then use the "multiply" trick at a low level of opacity to counter act it.<br>
<strong><em>Lets hear about more real "tricks" of this sort - quick easy steps that give big results easily.</em></strong></p>
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<p>Afterthought. You may find that after making the above adjustments the tiny particles in the water are more apparent. In Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro there are "noise" filters some of which are designed specifically to remove small imperfections like that. Not sure about LR although the digital camera noise filter may help (Camera noise is different to what I am talking about though. But if you can, I would consider it.</p>
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<p>I am more familiar with Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro so need to generalise a bit. But the same principle applies whatever photo editor you use. I have scuba dived a lot and when I did I owned a Nikonos underwater camera so am familiar with this issues of underwater photography.<br>
<br />There are a few things to do with every photo - more so with those like this one that have specific problems due to the environment where they were shot. The adjustments are - adjust contrast/ brightness, adjust color and adjust sharpness and noise levels.<br />As to color, I would be inclined to do that first as if you can get the photo looking half way decent by adjusting color this will assist when you come to make other adjustments. In this case there is a strong blue cast so you need to use the sliders in your color adjustments to reduce the blue / cyan levels in this photo. You could also tweak the reds up a bit as these tend to get filtered out in sea water. Be a bit cirumspect with yellows. The fish need some yellow as this is their base color but if you tweak this too much up it can make the water an unpleasant urine color (yuk)<br />As to contrast and brightness, adjust the global / normal contrast in the photo till it looks stronger as contrast is very suppressed due to the diffused blue lighting and presence of water and particles in the water. Then use the clarity slider to adjust micro contrast till it looks better. That slider is great in any image editor as it helps apparent sharpness as well. If it is too dark after this then adjust brightness to get this looking good. Those three things should help tremendously. Finally use your sharpness and noise sliders.<br />You will have a much better looking photo after this - how good depends on your judgment. Experiment but try smaller adjustments first. Remember the basic issues in this photo are the blue cast introduced by water which needs the blues reduced and reds increased plus the loss of contrast due to the diffused lighting and particulate matter in the water.</p>
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<p>Years ago I used to target shoot. We had a saying - "Beware the man who only owns one rifle." The idea was that this man knew it and its limitations inside out and would usually outshoot any of us who like me kept buying kit to play with but who never really mastered any of it. I have often wondered if something similar is at play with photography. Like most kit freaks I am constantly searching for that special lens when probably I would do much better by learning to use the ones I have.</p>
<p>Speaking personally I find getting really sharp images to be difficult to achieve. Often the focus is just that little bit off either because of me or the camera. Or the shutter speed is just that little bit too slow. Or I have used an aperture which compromises sharpness (like shooting wide open for the out of focus background.) So mostly I am disappointed in this respect. I have occasionally fluked it and got it just right with just the right lens - recently I was trying a new acquisition - a Nikkor AIS 105mm f4 micro lens that I was testing at long distances and when I got a couple of shots back they just jumped out and bopped me in my eyeballs - I have never before or since seen anything quite so sharp. But that is obviously an exception.</p>
<p>When I have shot an image by hand and re-shot it with the same settings from a tripod I have usually been able to notice a difference. Even if the original hand shot photo looks OK - the tripod one will almost invariably look a little sharper at least. Believe me I have tried it and its rare that this is not true - the tiny movements as you shoot - even at quite high shutter speeds can make the difference between an image that is OK sharp and one that is holy cow sharp.</p>
<p>Sharpness is just about impossible to really correct well in post processing if you get it wrong in camera by more than a miniscule amount! OK you can twiddle that dial with your various smart filters - but if there is any untoward movement of camera or subject at the time of shooting its really not going to be possible to fix that - I have found. Because of course that seems not to be what sharpening filters do. (One possible exception - I have seen but not properly had a chance to try some plugins that purport o be able to make allowances for camera movement at the time of shooting - you tell the software the direction fo the image blur and by how many pixels and it then reverses that effect. Maybe this helps I am not sure - I would be surprisedd if it really produces super sharp images.) But in general while you may improve a shot in post processing I have never seen any really come up tops and I suspect the result is eldom going to be a knock out in terms of sharpness.</p>
<p>When that happens I just give in to the inevitable and go the other way - use an artistic interpretation that takes the emphasis "off sharp" or "not sharp"as an issue. At the end of the day thats what matters - getting a good interpretation not on whether the image is really really sharp.</p>
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<p>I use a polariser in a cokin mount when I need to and grey grad and neutral density filters from time to time.</p>
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<p>I have just bought one (a "D" version) to use on my D200. Its without a doubt very sharp at either a distance or at micro ranges. The rendition seems a little cool to me. I cannot comment on the bokeh - although from what I have seen it does not seem as good in this department as say the 180mm f2.8. Although thats not really a criticism as I have seen few lenses with bokeh as good as that. The lens has little distrotion and little vignetting. Overall a very good lens - for any camera.<br>
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<p>Interestingly, one of the impediments to sharpening, it seems to me, is exposure. A wrongly exposed image needs more work in post processing to get it right and my observation is that these edits can negatively affect sharpness - especially if the image is under exposed and there is a lot of noise that has to be removed. Getting rid of noise always reduces sharpness to some extent even if its moderate incidentally - so BTW you should try to shoot at the lowest ISO value possible (where there is less noise) without introducing movement blur. (trade offs, trade offs, trade offs!) .<br>
So getting exposure just right is best other things being equal.</p>
<p>Often times getting the right contrast in a photo helps too. Micro contrast / local contrast / clarity / clarify filtration or whetever you call it, particularly helps apparent sharpness. I am glad that more image editors have some kind of clarity / clarify / local contrast filter.</p>
<p>Finally another non-obvious factor is saturation. A slightly over saturated image will, other things being equal help <strong>apparent </strong>image sharpness. (Which is after all, what sharpness is all about - being apparent.)</p>
<p>PS Incidentally, it is often recommended that you sharpen an image <strong>last</strong> for really critical sharpness - the reason I am told is that many other filters apparently degrade sharpness slightly (noise reduction filtration is merely a severe example of this) so its best to do the sharpening last (Although this then runs the risk of increasing the appearance of any residual image noise - What did I say about trade offs?)</p>
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<p>Although its hard to say exactly what changes have been involved without seeing the original photo, to me it looks like mainly like a combination of global contrast, local contrast and color saturation. Local contrast (in Paintshop Pro its called "clarity" or "clarify" and there is a separate filter for it) is great way to produce "clean" images that look really sharp but if overdone in portraits produces really very feral unpleasant skin tones.</p>
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<p>PaintShop Pro Photo X2 has both border and frames filters. (Borders are simple surrounds - while frames can be fancier.) The frames that come with the PSPP software are pretty ordinary but you can make your own and save them to the right directory in PSP and that works - basically you select, click and its done - resized for the image and all. Also I have seen some software that does just this - cannot recall the name you will have to Google but honestly most tof the frames I have seen demo'd are just awful - imitation wood frames and ones surrounded by pretty pink hearts etc. If that floats your boat, go for it.</p>
<p>But the easiest and cheapest way may be either use to PS (if thats what you use) to increase the canvas size around the image to create a <em>border</em> OR to download some<em> frames</em> in .psd format. There are some photo effect ones here:<br>
<p>and here</p>
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<p>Nik colorEfex has a very nice "Glamour Glow" filter - and many others including other blur effect filters. There is a trial verison. Give it a go- thats what I did.</p>
<p> </p>
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<p>Quite simply Photoshop and its many cousins provide me with something I could never have in the analogue world - a proper "darkroom". I simply could not afford a spare room dedicated to photography even assuming I had the skills needed which I doubt. Now I have a PC on my desk. In terms of processing -while I would hardly call PS easy to learn it provides a facility to make images that I would find to be impossible or almost impossible in the anlaogue world. Maybe the best image processors could do it using film but I certainly cannot. So in a nutshell, PS is like what they used to say about Mr Colt's siz shooter in those corny old westerns I used to watch as a kid -- it is the ultimate equaliser.</p>
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<p>I agree that the easiest way to find out would be to search eBay. If you get a "hit" you can then use the specific info from the eBay ad to Google the i/net more widely to find out more details about the product. I have used Nikon non AI lenses with adapters on 4/3 cameras (Panasonic, Olympus etc) and they work well. The flaw with the suggestion above that you sell your Sony and buy a Nikon is that this locks you into using Nikon - which you may not wish. I must admit the benefit of using adpaters to mount various lenses on a 4/3 camera was the flexibility it gave me - I was not stuck with one brand and could pick and chose so I often used a rnage of Nikon and M42 mount lenses as well as the Panasonic lens that cmae with the camera. But if you are committed to going down the Nikon route that is another matter.</p>
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<p>Patrick I did not really switch because I could not understand Layers.</p>
<p>I switched because I do not need (and cannot justify paying the very high price) for the full version of PS - so the choice was really between PS Elements and PSPP x2. The latter really does eat PSE for breakfast - It just does much much more than the adobe cut down version of the product in my view (but also in the view of reviewers some of whom point out that it can be ranked between PSE and PS in power and functions - while being cheaper and easier to use than either. </p>
<p>My point about PS if I can put it this way is that when I have tried it I would say it makes no concessions to learners - to do almost anything in PS you have to be quite highly skilled - even things that conceptually are simple. Its a fine product I grant you, but in my case its like my Granny trying to master a Ferrari, when actually what she needs is a Ford.</p>
<p>And you definitely still need to master layers with PSPPx2 - and I have set out to master them because of this. But PSPPx2 also provide many wizards and tools that make editing faster and a good deal easier in many many cases. Thats why I changed.</p>
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<p>Follow up post - I have a few more minutes at my disposal.<br>
If you create a Gradient Mask that goes from top to bottom, the transparency of the top layer will change from top to bottom allowing the bottom layer to progressively show thru without any harsh line or join being evident.<br>
I your case, I think what you should do is to place the first (bottom) image in the background layer then place the other in a second layer above it in the layer stack. then create a layer mask above the second layer and fill it wiith a gradient fill as shown in the link below. That will have the effect of making the second layer appear opaque to transparent in an even change which will belnd one image into the other somoothly - based on how the quickly the gradient itself changes from balck to white<br>
This page shows you exactly the technique - except its left to right instead of top to bottom<br>
If you are still stumped after reading this link then there are squillions of descriptions of how to do this on the internet. Try a few other sites. My PS skills are still reasonably basic but I can use this technique so it should be within your grasp even if you are a bit of a beginner - just follow the steps in the web site and use your Help pages in PS and you should be right.</p>
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<p>If your PS skils are up to it you could use a gradient mask. I dont have time right now to explain these but they should work - google the term and see what you find out. I think this should help as the entire point is to merge one layer seamlessly into another. If this cannot not work because of whats elsewhere in the image I suppose you could use a soft brush and the clone tool to obscure the line.</p>
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<p>PS is a pig to learn especially layers. I actually dumped PS and instead now use Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 . Its got maybe 90% of the full PS's functionality, is cheaper(and more powerful) than PS Elements and easier to learn than either PS or PS Elements. It has layers and that tool is still some what hard to learn as it is with PS but PSPP also has lots of nice wizards so you do not have to use layers so much which can avoid the problem. That is my basic problem with PS - Its expensive. complex and worst of all, most things have to be done from first principles and can involve a dozen steps or so, when easier programs like PSPPx2 can do it in one easy step using a wizard. Those who are experts in PS will say its "not the same " and you must use all 10 steps or whatever, but I think they must be masochists - what counts is results - not bragging rights over being able to master a complex set of steps. It is a great tool for graphic designers where its high end functions are great but I am convinced that are better ways to edit photos - quickly!</p>
<p>Having said that you should still be able to use layers as it is very powerful and while I try to minimise its use I find it too good to ignore in some cases. I found the best way is to first learn one or two specific techniques <em>that happen to involve layers </em> and concentrate on those techniques, then when you have these down pat learn another one or two. That way you do not have to "eat the elephant". Trying to learn everything there is about layers in one sitting would befuddle even an Einstein. Try starting with a couple of easy techniques - like using a duplicate layer and the "multiply" blending mode to increase a photo's saturation and color. Then maybe learn how to create a contrast mask - it sounds as if you are learning this one now as it involves inverting a layer. Once you have learned those two techniques, and understand how they work by experimenting with various settings then try a couple more specific techniques and experiment with those. This way the focus is not on "layers" per se, its on getting a specifc result. I found this a better way to learn and as I say its much less confronting..</p>
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<p>Do a search of Photoshop Actions on the internet. (if indeed that is what you use for post processing.)<br>
I am sure I have seen plenty of actions that produce this effect as its currently very hot. I have links to Paint Shop Pro Scripts (which is what they name them) but not specific links to the correct PS Actions. However - I know you will find some here and I would bet my bottom dollar you will find some actions for this effect.<br>
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<p>This might give you some ideas.</p>
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<p>Interesting. I have much less memory on my PC and at times my PaintShop Pro Photo X2 runs out of grunt - If I find it getting sluggish when I check the fee RAM I always find it to be pretty low - down in some cases to non existent. When I experimented with LR, (trial version) I found the same. I have assumed these image editors are just memory hogs and that over a long working session with the PC being forced to keep track of multiple changes to whatever files are open it just runs out of puff. I have found that if I then run a RAM cleaner utility I can often claw back quite a lot of memory - for a while, till it happens again.<br>
I am using a HP incidentally not a Dell, and have found that these two programs are about the worst offenders in my experience - I can play high - end 3D PC games and get by pretty well. It has also occurred to me that if these programs use the video card (as some now do) this may be the culprit but I have not gotten to the bottom of it either.)<br>
I have recenly been down the path of checking my virtual memory settings etc to make sure that this was not the cause and found that it was all clear in this department.</p>
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