bill_fouche

Thanks for joining in Eric. Great of you to share your knowledge in this way. Two things:

 

(1) I use both CS4 and LR2. I have often praised the beauty of DPP color rendition (while lamenting its interface). And I think Adobe is on the right track with the new DNG profiles. I've tried 'em on lots of CR2 files. I usually prefer the Adobe Standard rendition to that of original ACR 4.4. And I can't wait until they are perfected and finalized. (They seem darn close to me already, despite "beta" status.)

 

(2) You seem to be agreeing, at least in part, with the premise of Rishi's original question: it's the camera manufacturer's who are hamstringing the utility of their own cameras by keeping Adobe in the dark about how best to wring the last drop of image quality from their raw data. They have the "right" to do that. But they are shooting themselves in the foot. It's rather like a maker of color film keeping secret from photo labs how best to develop their film products. That would be ridiculous. And it seems to me that - assuming Adobe has no plans to start selling cameras - Canon and Nikon are being just as ridiculous. (Have these people never heard of non-disclosure agreements?)

Very helpful!

I love my Canon 10-22 ultra-wide zoom, which would work fine on the 40D. Quite contrasty and sharp. Only downsides: (i) it's not cheap, and (ii) it's not so great indoors in low-light. Outdoors, it's tops.

I find the Adobe Standard "beta 2" to be more accurate and more pleasing on most CR2 files. Differences are subtle on some images, rather dramatic on a few (particularly those heavy in orange, red, and yellow of many shades). Because intstalling the additional profiles does not keep one from electing not to use them, it's easy to go back and forth with a few sample images and compare for yourself. You're not locked in, whatever you decide.

If I were choosing between these two cameras, a very big plus for the G10 is that it's lens can go as wide as 28mm (equivalent). That's essential for what I shoot. But if you'd prefer to get up-close to wildlife or pick faces out of crowds, etc., the G9 has an additional 60mm on the long end.

Melissa, I think the reason the answers to your question have proved less than satisfying is that B&W conversion is so highly variable from image to image - at least if you are shooting in the real world and not in a controlled studio environment.

 

I have two suggestions for you though. Lightroom has two built-in presets that are particularly good places to start: the "high contrast BW" and "low contrast BW" presets. On my images they typically produce an overexposed whitish rendition at first, but it's the work of a moment to lower the exposure and the black point a bit, and tweak "brightness" and "contrast" sliders to get something quite nice. And these two presets are very different from each other. The "low contrast BW" preset is one of the few that changes the camera calibration sliders to create tonal smoothness that's not easy to duplicate in other ways. If you fiddle with these for a while, you may conclude, as I have, that they can be the starting point for very nice images.

 

As to the images where you wish to control the tone of each color separately (to make the reds bright or the blues dark or whatever), I have found it useful to create a preset that leaves the master saturation slider in its default position, but turns down the HSL "saturation" sliders for each color separately. Engaging this preset creates a "grey" image that's often mundane at first. But the point is that it's easy to use the "luminosity" sliders for each of the colors to exercise a degree of control over the final image that will satisfy even a "control freak" like myself.

Roger, I didn't download beta 1 - you may be right about that, although Adobe FAQ says subtle changes have been made since then on some profiles.

 

Carl, that's incorrect. Some new cameras are covered. But the "Adobe standard" profile is new. And for some cameras at least (perhaps all) - there are now multiple profiles per camera - so that for my camera, for example, (a Canon XTi), I can choose from among several profiles, including a separate one for landscape, portrait, standard, faithful, and one that duplicates in-camera choices (tends to be higher contrast). It's worth playing with. And it doesn't change the LR or ACR code itself. Just adds options in the "profile" drop-down menu. Easy to uninstall, if you decide to.

While it may not be "all about megapixels," as David points out, the G10 has a ton of em compared to its sensor size: roughly 15 megapixels. Not so long ago, many folks (including me) were saying that anything more than 5 megapixels trades off unacceptably in dynamic range and low-light capability. Now? Maybe not so much.

I just downloaded from Adobe various camera-specific profiles designed to work with LR 2 and Camera Raw 5.1.

These are currently "beta 2." I have noticed a significant improvement in how caucasian skin tones are reproduced in

Canon CR2 files. Particularly significant if one choses "Adobe Standard" profile. Subtle improvement in both color

and clarity. Anyone else noticed this?

 

They can be downloaded here: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Profiles_FAQ

Michael Reichmann of "Luminous Landscape" website has reviewed the G10 and offered the qualified conclusion that

13 x 19 prints from this camera cannot reliably be distinguished from same size prints from prints made from the

$40,000 Hasselblad and Phase One 39 Megapixel back. Very surprising. I pass it along for what it's worth. Link here:

 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/kidding.shtml

Lightroom 2.0 preferences include among the "catalog options" the following item: "automatically write changes into

XMP" Unless this setting is invoked, the metadata is saved to the catalog but not to the sidecar file. I have read that

it is a good idea to modify preferences so that this option becomes the default. Is this wise? Why or why not?

Another method: Put in a curves adjustment layer. Touch the middle eyedropper of the curves interface to a color-neutral region (i.e., gray or white) of the portion of the image you are targeting. Mask out the parts of the image you do not wish to affect. Then change the blending mode on this adjustment layer from "normal" to "color." Voila. You can then go back and fine-tune the curves, adjusting each color curve (R G or B) individually, if need be. If the subject in the foreground has a color-neutral component, this is quite quick. Otherwise, tedious.

 

Might be helpful to post the image you are concerned about.

A while back (before LR 2.0 came out), I spent many hours trying to do exactly what you are asking about, without success. I prefer the DPP rendering on most images, but the LR interface is vastly superior. On really special images, I often find myself going back to DPP, doing the RAW conversion there, and converting to TIF for further refinement in LR. I suppose it is not surprising that the company that designed the camera knows the most about how to ring every last drop of image quality out of the device.

 

The good news is that the Adobe folks are working on this. If you have LR 2.0 and are willing to experiment, check out this page from "Adobe Labs," which allows you change LR's calibration settings to more closely mimic the manufacturer's color choices. I've not tried it. But, if you do, please report back!

 

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Profiles

Canon camera magnate, Chuck Westfall, is taking written questions at the following link:

 

http://www.photographyblog.com/index.php/weblog/comments/qa_with_canons_chuck_westfall/

 

Do note that, before pressing the button that submits your question, it is necessary to match the pixelated

characters in a box at the bottom of the page. Failure to do so will cause your question to be lost and you will have

to start over from scratch.

Stated differently, "brightness" targets the mid-tones and has diminished effect at the extremes of the histogram. "Exposure" slider moves everything from black to white toward the right edge of the histogram in roughly uniform fashion.

The degree of certainty in the above answers is striking. Look above at the highly certain inconsistent recipes from different folks. It's a good lesson, Ashton. Take all these answers (including mine) with a pinch of salt.

 

Having said that, I see different techniques used in different photos. The photographer in question seems to experiment a lot, which is a good thing. Some seem an effort to imitate Mr. Dragan. Some show local contrast enhancement. But the photos entitled "bring your own bath," "Undoy" & "From Earth" show an effect similar to that obtainable through the LucisArt plug-in (also sometimes referred to as single-shot HDR). This effect can also be accomplished, if you're willing to "monkey" around with the settings, using the photoshop shadow-highlights filter - a key being to experiment with the midtone contrast slider. Good luck.

You don't say which iMac you have. The 24-inch iMac's screen is superior to that on the 20-inch iMac. Many believe that the latter is not suitable for serious photographic work. Here's the technical explanation:

 

http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2007/09/an_imac_display_dilemma_20inch_value_or_24inc.html

I have the 1990SXi and like it very much. I did not get the spectraview software and regret it.

 

Do check out the NEC 2490wuxi and NEC 2690wuxi. Much larger, but surprisingly little additional cost.

I want to second the recommendation for the Radiant Vista website. In addition to 'tutorials" watch some of the "photoshop workbench" episodes. Each one takes a different photograph all the way to finished image.

I want to add to the chorus of people applauding DPP. It's terrific raw conversion. Better than ACR. Better than LR. In particular, it's better at subtle color variations, and better controlling extremes in dynamic range. The new lens correction has no parallel in LR or ACR. Although it does take a while to figure out how to use DPP properly, it's quite worth the trouble, in my opinion.

Patrick, you are right. I did not read your message closely enough.

One clear drawback: increased filesize. The first time you duplicate the background layer, you double the filesize of the original. An adjustment layer (curves or levels adjustment) takes much less space to do the equivalent. This is less of a problem if you have a powerful machine with lots of RAM and storage. But, if not, it's a definite downside, particularly when working in 16-bit. And even more so if you have several duplicated backgrounds serving different adjustment functions.

I second the recommendation that, if budget is limited, you should stick with DPP (Digital Photo Professional). Interface is a bit clunky, especially in the beginning. But the raw conversions you can get are top-notch. Be sure you've downloaded the latest update from Canon's website.

Note to Moderator: This thread should be deleted. The question was doubled-posted. And all the answers are in the other one. Thanks.

Here are two competitors to hdrsoft:

 

http://www.topazlabs.com/topazlabs/03products/topaz_adjust/

 

http://www.lucisart.com/ - (greatly overpriced, imho)