peter_stacey

As Peter and Steve have said, if you ever want to deliver the file to someone else, the original RAW file is not going to be useful in most cases and you need to convert to something else.

Additionally though, aside from the spot removal tool and the targetted adjustment tools, you can't do much to work just specific areas of a photo in LR.

So if you need to work directly on pixels (eg. clone something out or add something in, add text, etc.), then TIFF or PSD is a better output to flow into Photoshop, which does the pixel work the best.

Generally it's best to do as much in the way of global correction as you can within LR because you are producing a fresh conversion of the RAW file for every different set of adjustments you make and then do the pixel work in Photoshop.

But, if you don't need cloning, layers, etc. then you might be able to live in LR quite adequately. I think that is where the program is heading, but it still has some limitations.

For example, there is no ability to softproof in LR yet, so if you want to adjust the image for the intended output, you still need to move to Photoshop. Also, the current sharpening controls for output give little control to the user, so if you are doing fine work to obtain and optimally sharp print, then again, Photoshop (or others) are still a better option IMHO when it comes to final sharpening.

As to your question about non-destructive adjustments, as mentioned by Peter, LR won't make changes directly to the file until you export it to a new file (and the old file will still be preserved). Changes are saved in a separate file and then applied within LR. So all changes are non-destructive and you can take as many snap-shots as you like to effectively produce a new image.

However, if you start with a jpeg file and then export it as a jpeg, there will always be compression again and potentially a loss in quality. So if you are going to export into another program, TIFF or PSD would be a better choice if you are going to be doing additional editing. If you are only going to export to then deliver to a print lab, a website, an email, etc. then exporting as a jpeg is the best choice in most cases.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Peter

Dear Dick and Ellis,

Thanks for the positive feedback. Sometimes I think I write too long because sharpening is an area that I have been doing a lot of testing over the last year because there are a seemingly endless stream of approaches and techniques; and I needed to understand it better myself so that I could streamline my workflow and stop being confused.

Dick, in realtion to capture sharpening, you are absolutely correct, that the idea is to bring back the crispness in the image that is lost during the conversion to a digital image.

After that, both sharpening and blurring (eg. blurring the background) can be used creatively to give greater emphasis to certain areas in a photograph (since the eye is generally attracted to sharp areas over soft areas) and then output sharpening attempts to apply additional sharpening to preserve the sharpness of the image when the file is converted to inks or pigments on paper (which introduces softness as well - which I'll hopefully explain clearly in my next post).

On the issue of output sharpening, that will be my next post in this thread, and I hope it is OK to post that up tomorrow because it is an area where sharpening has earned its "black art" tag and I want to make sure I don't just present a post that just muddies the water.

Regards,

Peter

Since viewNX is relatively new, I haven't looked at it in detail, however, I think you'll find that view just takes the in camera settings tagged in the metadata and constructs the image with those settings.

So view should apply your in camera settings, just as CaptureNX would, although in Capture you can turn them on or off, I don't imagine that you can with view, although I'll have a look later today and post a correction if I'm wrong.

On the issue of the asset management, it's a reasonable approach. Some prefer to archive the original RAW images without any changes whatsoever (not even name changes, just copy to hardrive and archive), but if you are going to be importing with view, then it is reasonable and I haven't heard of any real world problems in doing so.

On the issue of archiving, holding at least 2 copies (preferably in two different physical locations) will always give you added security, and even more than 2 is better.

Finally, in addition to archiving your NEFs, I would also recommend you archive you finished TIFFs so that you don't have to go through the whole process again if you ever lose the TIFF files. Having them backed up gives you security that you can pull them for final sharpening and output whenever you want.

Regards,

Peter

Colin,

Good point on the zoom level when viewing and it reinforces what Matt mentioned earlier about his viewing at 50% to judge sharpness.

I also use a multistep workflow to my sharpening with capture sharpening early in the process (straight after color correction).

I now prefer Lightroom for my capture sharpening, and following the way the workflow in LR is designed, I work from the top down and left to right. This means that the capture sharpening is one of the last steps in the Workflow before heading to Photoshop if I need to work directly with pixels.

The reason that Lightroom is good for the capture sharpening is because the sharpening is applied through a mask to confine it to the edges. To see the mask, just view the file at 100% and hold the option/alt key down while moving the various sliders in the sharpening module. You'll see on the fly, the effect of each slider and can adjust the settings accordingly (although the settings for portrait should be good for most wedding shots).

Applying capture sharpening globally shouldn't be a problem for most wedding photos, because the workflow is designed to produce a natural result with minimal editing.

However, if you have a photo where you are planning to do a lot of editing, I wouldn't apply capture sharpening globally. I think the risks in this situation outway the benefits unless you are really careful and probably a traditional, single round of sharpening for output is a safer option.

Regards,

Peter

Dick,

In relation to clarity in CS3, the engine in LR 1.2 and ACR 4.2 are the same, so as long as you have good strength in the mid-tones, values up to around 30 for clarity should give you a good boost without overdoing it.

You can also subsequently run another round of mid-tone contrast later in your workflow and see how it looks (often it looks good, but is more subjective and can be easily trashed if applied on a separate layer).

The typical vlues for this using USM are 20, 50, 0 (amount, radius, threshold) but sometimes lower values can work.

Since this is a sharpening which increases contrast, there is always a risk of blowing out the highest highlights or blocking up the deepest shadows, so I would pull in the blend-if sliders slightly to protect those areas.

Additionally, to protect yourself from color shifts, change the blend mode of the layer to Luminosity.

Regards,

Peter

There is a button for cropping (or 'r' is the shortcut key). It appears below the image when you are in the develop module. It doesn't have a ruler, but you can crop to specific aspect ratios.

Resizing is down when you export a photo.

If you need to interpolate the data to a bigger size after cropping, then from what I have read, the results from Lightroom are equivalent to the results in Photoshop.

Regards,

Peter

I hope the following is useful and it attempts to directly answer some of the questions posted. So, in order of posting:

- what is the purpose of the sharpening for standard images? Is the idea that digital is just not able to show edges as nicely?

The problem with the conversion of an analog signal (eg. reflected light captured on a sensor or scanned film) is that there are limits to how much detail the sensor can resolve. Unfortunately, signals with a higher frequency than the resolving power of the sensor can lead to moire, banding, popping, etc. all of which are not desirable in a photo.

As a result, your sensor is covered by a low-pass filter which is designed to prevent the passage of the signal that has a higer frequency than the sensors resolving power (to reduce the risk of these flaws appearing).

The low-pass filter is also called a blur filter or anti-aliasing filter and its nett effect is to reduce the sharpness of the image slightly.

Additionaly, when the RAW data is converted into an image (whether in camera for a jpeg or a software package), the demosaicing process that constructs RGB values from the individual R, G and B photosensors in the array applies a tradeoff between sharpness and anti-aliasing. The nett effect is some additional blurring of the image.

As a result, all images that are converted from analog to digital require sharpening.

- how do you integrate sharpening into your work flow? Do you use lightroom? Do you adjust the Sharpness for each situation, or for a whole wedding at a time? Do you use "clarity" and "sharpness" in lightroom, or do you use a third party product or something in Photoshop?

With Lightroom 1.2 the demosaicing process for RAW conversion has been improved and with the tools introduced in the 1.1 upgrade, there are some useful options to use.

So, to get back the initial sharpness lost as discussed above, you can use both the clarity tool and the sharpening tools in Lightroom. They perform related, but different functions.

The idea of the clarity tool builds on the work of Mac Holbert and others and is designed to provide a mid-tone contrast boost through a sharpening process. This is also called HIRALOAM sharpening by some, which refers to "HIgh RAdius LOw AMount" sharpening using unsharp mask. It basically applies a very wide halo at low amount to give a smooth transition, but the overall effect is the same, an increase in contrast on both sides of an edge. This boosts the mid-tone contrast and is generally beneficial to almost all images. In Lightroom, values up to about 30 are good, above that can be useful for some images.

The sharpening tools that are now in Lightroom are designed for capture sharpening only (except in the print module, but I don't like the current implementation, so I still do final sharpening in Photoshop). Bruce Fraser (as mentioned above) was directly involved in the development of the sharpening tools in LR and they are designed as the first stage of his three-pass sharpening routine (capture, creative and output sharpening).

In LR there are two presets for sharpening that you should find in the preset tools on the left. One called portrait and one called landscape. For fast workflow for weddings, just applying the portrait preset would be ideal. This basically applies an edge sharpening, but masks out the sharpening from braod surfaces like skin. So it is designed to increase sharpening of hair, eyes, lips, etc with a gentle sharpening, but it won't touch the skin too much.

That should give you back the lost sharpness from the digital capture process.

However, this initial sharpening is not sufficient to produce optimum sharpening for output, and sharpening for output depends on the final size and resolution of the print. I'll follow up on this in a separate post.

If you only want to stay in LR and not detour to PS for output sharpening and softproofing, then I think you would get an acceptable result from using the sharpening in the print module from within LR. For high volume work, this would give you an acceptable result with speed.

For finer work, it would be worth taking the image to PS and then doing final sharpening there (but with the tradeoff of slower workflow).

- Matt--what is the reason for running Smart Sharpen or USM twice?

Basically, this is applying the first sharpening to give a increase in sharpness to the edges followed by a mid-tone contrast boost which, as indicated above, is generally good for nearly all images.

The two sharpening routines #1 low radius high amount and #2 high radius low amount complement each other and perform slightly different functions.

You can run them like this, one after the other, or separately in the workflow.

One additional thing that should be considered is to protect the deepest shadows and the highest highlights slightly on the sharpening layer using the blend-if sliders. This helps prevent blowing out the highlights when you increase the contrast on the light side of an edge and prevents bloccking up the shadows on the dark side of an edge.

I hope that long post is helpful.

Regards,

Peter

I don't think it's quite that difficult Ni.

We aren't talking about Adams, Cartier-Bresson or Penn here, so what photog's are you thinking that could realistically charge thousands of dollars for an 11 x 17 print.

Even top photogs sell many larger prints than this for a few hundred.

But aside from that, in the situation here, the question is about David, who may be a very good photographer, but he's starting out, working freelance for a small village paper. How much do you really think he can charge?

So, back on the subject of the original post. David, cover your costs (time, post-processing and printing) at a reasonable level. When I started in a similar way I charged 300% of the printing = shipping (to me from the lab) cost.

11 x 17 seems to be an unusual size to me, but must admit that print sizes are not in my area of expertise. I stick with my normal range, but don't recall an 11 x 17 except for brochure printing. You might need to get something like a 12 x 18 printed and trimmed (don't quote me on that. I could be wrong).

As an example, printroom.com currently charges $17.99 for a 12 x 18 + $6.95 priority shipping (first print).

So when I was starting out, that would have equated to a charge of ~$75 per print. The markup includes my time on the job, post-processing, printing and delivery (plus equipment depreciation, insurance, etc.).

These days I don't do that type of work, so you might get better advice, but I don't think you need to think through the complete definition of a business plan for this (but you may need to look at doing so as the business side of your photography develops. At the moment, I'd encourage you to let it evolve and if you need a business plan down the track, the time when it is required will become obvious).

Regards,

Peter

Regards,

Peter

If you think you can handle manual flash settings, then (even as a backup), grab a pc-sync cord. For about $1-$5 you can get a cord and then make it any length you like.

I started out with a pc-sync cord for my D200/SB800 combination and it worked great. I still use it as a back-up cord in my kit, just in case.

The only thing I didn't like about it is the location of the pc sync socket on the camera (left-side). When rotated into the portrait position, the cord has a tendency to want to drop out of the socket, but if you are hand holding the camera it isn't a problem.

Gerry,

the red on his face maybe a reflection off his jacket and so wouldn't be on the visible portion of his hands etc., only his face.

I think the background is a red gelled light, softbox overhead as the key light and a second light from front left/straight on and slightly above the head.

Regards,

Peter

[update of my last post]: Borders is now in Oz with a few stores in Melbourne and Sydney and a store in each of Brisbane and Adelaide.

Regards,

Peter

Hey Ronaldo,

Not to put a downer on your response, but there's a lot more to photography than what the popular media books repeat over and over.

And there is a lot more to a formal degree than just photography.

What about the business aspects of photography, the different lighting and studio environments you have access to, the direct mentors and peers that you can learn from on a daily basis, the postprocessing techniques (not just the popular PS book type techniques), the formal projects that you have to complete (which helps to motivate where a self learning process doesn't to the same level), etc.

To say you can learn it all from a book from Borders (which isn't in Australia by the way) is a bit like saying you can learn to be a physicist from reading a physics book from Borders. Obviously you can't (in any reasonable time period). You need more specialised books, access to a wide range of equipment and direct tuition. The same applies to photography.

If you want to complete an arts degree, then that will give you a very good grounding in the field.

Regards,

Peter

Hi Robert,

Don't know what camera she has in her hands but under her contact details she lists her email address.

I'd say the best person to find out would be directly from Jessica, so why not just drop her a friendly and polite email and she might give you the answer.

Regards,

Peter

As already pointed out, the resolution that PS reports on the screen doesn't really matter during review and edit, however, if you want to change it:

1. Go to the Edit menu

2. Click on Preferences

3. Select Units and Rulers

4. Change the Screen Resolution to 300 ppi

After that, when you open an image you will see it as 300 ppi.

Alternatively, if you shoot in RAW, you can change the figure in ACR when you open it.

Regards,

Peter

No it wasn't too helpful, but it was somewhat accurate.

Sponging isn't something that is usually mentioned around here, but the question has been put in such a way that it seems very much like you are sponging.

The way it is written, it comes across as "I need to know this but haven't done any work myself. Someone who knows, please give me the answer in detailed form (even though I've done no work myself, I want others to do a lot of work for me)".

It's the kind of interpretation that is easy to read from your question.

What would elicit a better response would be for you to say "I need to know this but I'm having some difficulty. I know that the picture from my D2x at X x Y resolution will print A x B big at 300 dpi on my printer, but I need it to go 20 x 30. Unfortunately I haven't found anything in the documentation on the camera and I'm not a photoshop guru. I've checked a couple of other sites and can't find anything detailed, although I know that the standard intrerpolation method for upsizing is to use "bicubic smoother". I've done it in one pass, but the result seems too soft. Casn anyone help me fill in the gaps with a bit more detail? Thanks

That's the type of question that would receive a better response.

So my first suggestion would be to go and help yourself out first.

Regards,

Peter

Also, if your lens has an aperture ring, check to make sure you've got it locked down at the smallest aperture number.

If you haven't got the ring on the smallest number, the camera will not fire.

Regards,

Peter

For my part, I can pick up a brush, take some paints and throw it all together on a canvas.

Just because I have the tools and I use them, it doesn't make my painting art (or even artistic). It can be just a load of crap.

However, Rembrandt, Picasso, Monet, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, etc. could all produce art with the very same tools I would use.

So I think it's possible for photography to be art, but only if performed by an artist, in this case, a photographer who produces the art.

Mostly photography is not art, but I defeintely think there are some people out there who have a quality in their work that provokes to the same degree as a paiting or sculpture or drawing, etc.