peter_berger

I want to let people who don't use color-managed web browsers to be able to view my

images. You want to sell books.

It's left as an exercise to the reader to figure out which one of us has the bigger axe to grind.

Also, hey, good job quoting me selectively, and removing the part of my sentence that said

"painting in broad strokes..."

Yes. Relying on web browsers to support color management profiles, since most of them

don't, is foolish. I'm glad you now seem to understand.

My point is not "Safari doesn't do color management." Of course it does. My point is that if

you are targeting a photo for the web, then relying on web browsers to do color

management is absolutely utter barking madness, since the _vast majority of them_ don't do

anything useful with color profiles.

"-->There is one simple reason for this: Web browsers do not use color management.

Incorrect again., Safair does as does IE on the Mac among a few others"

Like the man said, while painting in broad strokes: Web browers do not use color

management. Relying on them to do so is anywhere from foolish to downright tragic --

And I say that as someone posting this using Safari. IE for Mac has been a dead and

unsupported product for, let's see, about the last 72 years. If this failure to acknowledge

reality is indicative of the quality of _your_ advice then I feel sorry for your customers.

Like I said -- you don't need to spend money on overly complicated books about this topic.

<a href="http://www.tleaves.com/weblog/archives/000690.html">Just use sRGB</a>.

<p>Yes. And sRGB will match both of those just fine, without your having to particularly

worry about it.</p>

<p>Peter Su's point seems to be that for most sophisticated photographers using

standard equipment &mdash those of us who aren't taking pictures of canaries in a field of

goldenrod at sunset and then making prints on our Obscuromat 8500 XT Gamutotron

inkjets — , the only thing you get by <em>actively</em> managing your color

profiles is a more complex workflow and more opportunities to screw up your peterfectly

good photos.</p>

I agree.

My impression from the release notes is that all things being equal one should pretty much

always use Edge Sharpening, and the "old" sharpening is there just so that if you already have

photos in your library that used it, you can still tweak them.

Subjectively, I think the edge sharpening looks better.

It helps to think of sharpening as "edge contrast enhancement", since that's what it really

is. What's happening when the skin becomes blotchy (or grainy) is that the naturally

occuring noise/contrast differences are being magnified by your sharpening workflow.

What you really want to do is to limit your sharpening to the places you want it, which

generally means the edges of objects in your composition (you can further talk about

applying more sharpening in areas of particular interest, such as the eyes in a portrait, but

that's really just a variation on the theme. The $64,000 question is how you find such

edges automatically, rather than lassoing every group of pixels that you want sharpened.

If you are using Photoshop CS2, there is an action set out on the internet somewhere

called "Deadman's sharpeners" that I have found to be better than any others. The built-in

"smart sharpen" in Photoshop isn't terribly smart by itself, and I find it mostly useless.

Before I found those (and before I started using Aperture, which I find does a good job of

smart-sharpening without any extra effort). I had a semi-manual workflow that I used

which you can try to compare the results with just a plain smart sharpen. It went

something like this:

(1) Look at the red, green, and blue channels of the photo. Pick the one that is the most

contrasty in the places you care about (for people I find this tends to be the blue channel).

Duplicate that channel.

(2) Run the "Edge detection" filter on the duplicated channel (all actions from now on are

on the duplicate channel until I indicate otherwise)

(3) invert it.

(4) gaussian blur, 1 pixel.

(5) Muck with the levels so the white parts get very white and the black parts get very

black.

Now you have an alpha channel that you can use to limit your sharpen. Go back to your

main layer (or create a sharpening layer, as you prefer).

(6) Load selection -> load your duplicate channel.

(7) Filters -> Sharpen -> Unsharp mask. Muck with the sliders until it looks right.

I give you this workflow not because I think you should use it (it's far too fiddly, and it's

much better to have a tool like the Deadman sharpeners that work automagically) but just

so you can understand the theory of what's going on, and why this lets you sharpen

without ending up with blotchy skin.

Hope that helps,

peterb

There's an alternative to the above suggestions. It will seem harder at first, but once you get

the hang of it will let you make much more subtle selections. Save the selection as an alpha

channel, and then "paint" the areas you want to change with white (to add to the selection),

black (to subtract), or gray (to make parts partially transparent or opaque. This will also let

you do things like blur the alpha channel to blend in effects and filters better.

If you intend for your photos to end up on the web, then you should consider just working in

sRGB from start to finish.

Anyone who tells you what colorspace you should work in without asking you what the

intended output device is does not know what he is talking about.

What's your intended output? A web site, commercial prints, self-prints...what?

Michael,

I didn't see any answers in this thread that I would consider to be "smart ass." I saw a bunch

of people trying to help you. Why are you being rude?

Regards,

Peter

<p>Rainer is right. See <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00GFB2">this other recent thread</a> for more information.</p>

<p>It's not enough to just say "Ogg think adobe RGB have more pretty colors. Ogg use adobe." adobeRGB doesn't actually have more colors. Any given image in adobe RGB has the <em>same number</em> of colors in a <em>wider array</em>. This means that the bare statement "sRGB images lose more information than adobe RGB" ain't necessarily so: it depends on a number of factors, including the dynamic range of the image you're using, whether you're using an 8-bit or 16-bit workflow (hint: if you have to ask, you're using an 8-bit workflow). And, most importantly, the key question is what the output device is.</p>

<p>If you, like me, print most of your stuff on a Fuji Frontier or Noritsu printer at Costco, working in adobe RGB just adds needless complication and compromises the quality of the final image (particularly any web versions I split off). The advice "just use sRGB" is good advice.</p>

<p>It is pointless to talk about "colors that could be printed, but will not" without

reference to

the actual device they will be printed on. If you are printing on a Fuji Frontier, for example

most of the colorspace of Adobe RGB will, in fact, not be printed. See, for example, <a

href="http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/sRGB-AdobeRGB1998.htm">the

diagram

here</a>. The black line is adobe RGB, the white line is sRGB, and the gray line is the

Frontier:</p>

<img src="http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/graphics/tut_colormgt_printer1-

L50.jpg" />

<p>In other words, by converting to Adobe RGB when there is no <em>concrete, specific

reason</em> to, you will have added both complexity

and uncertainty to your workflow. Your photos will take longer to process because of the

increased complexity, but then to make up for the fact that your workflow is clumsy, they

will

look worse when printed on common commercial hardware.</p>

The statement that working in adobe RGB doesn't cost you anything in terms of resources is

only true if you don't value your time as a resource.

<p>I will make a lot of people angry with this answer, but here goes:</p>

<p>Yes, you should be using sRGB. Most nonprofessionals who use Adobe RGB do it out

of

some misguided belief that "bigger gamut" somehow equates to "bigger penis." In reality,

keeping your entire workflow in sRGB from camera through postprocess will guarantee you

more reliable and reproduceable results.</p>

<p>The real answer is a little more nuanced than that, but not by much. If your photos

are

destined for the web, then using anything other than sRGB is downright foolish. If you are

printing your photos on a commercial printer (eg, the sort of Noritsu you might find at

Costco), then using anything other than sRGB is foolish, because those printers all do

automatic color balancing that assumes you are working in sRGB.</p>

<p>Can one shoot and process in adobe RGB and get good results? Sure! You can also

get

good results while stuffing beans up your nose. But there's no compelling reason to do

either of those things.</p>

<p>-peterb</p>

<p>a little bit more on this topic <a href="http://www.tgr.com/weblog/archives/

000094.html">here</a></p>

"I am unsure what advantage this would have over a point and shoot, though."

I guess you must live on that planet where point and shoots have lenses with a 300mm focal

length. Must be nice.

I agree with the earlier poster who said we need more information to make an intelligent

recommendation. I've been very happy with my 28-135 IS in terms of price/performance

ratio, but my assumption is that that is way too short to do what you want in a softball game.

If you're considering the 30D, you should also think about the 350D ("Rebel XT"). The

difference in megapixels and performance is marginal, and you will save a substantial

amount of size, weight, and money.

I'm not a pro, but the 28-135 IS is the lens that I keep on my Rebel XT 99% of the time. It's a

great lens, and a much better value (IMHO) than the 17-85 IS that a lot of other people seem

to like. It's higher quality, longer, and $200 cheaper.

It's not as short on the wide end, but I don't shoot wide much, anyway.

I've looked at the various EOS speedlites and, really, I don't need that much (or, let's be clear,

that expensive) a flash. I tend to do most of my flash compensation calculations by hand. All

I need is a cheap flash that I can move around to bounce off of ceilings and walls.

My old vivtar 285 (I might be misremembering the model number, sorry) is just about

perfect, but is too old to be used safely with the 350D without frying it. Can someone

recommend a similarly cheap but reliable flash?

Surely I can't be the only person not willing to drop $200 on a flash unit. Educate me.

Sorry to say, Bob, I think you really muffed this one. Let's review where you went wrong in

giving your advice.

<p>First of all, you failed to comment about how the 350D is "too small", and how it feels

uncomfortable to you, because of your huge, enormous, extremely large, masculine,

pulsing "hands", and that despite the fact that phaneendra will probably be using a tripod,

she should instead buy the 5D, which is a much better camera for well-endowed, not-at-

all-overcompensating photographers like us.</p>

<p>Next, you really should have mentioned that the 350D can't flash-sync at any speed

higher than 1/250th, making it <em>completely unsuitable</em> for using fill flash on

landscapes on bright days. Without that higher flash speed sync, a lot of the detail in teh

shadows on phaneendra's photos of the Grand Canyon are going to get lost.</p>

<p>Lastly, you really missed the opportunity to mention how many "L" class lenses you

own, and how it is vitally important that Phaneendra take out a second mortgage to buy

the biggest, most expensive, sticky-outiest L lens available. At this point, you might

briefly talk about each of your L lenses in detail. Be sure to mention "brighter, sharper

imaging" and "improved color fidelity". You might also, at this point, post a 500% crop

demonstrating that all lenses except the ones you own evince some barrel distortion which

ruins, <strong>ruins</strong> photos taken with them. After all -- it is the equipment,

and not the photographer, that creates superb images.</p>

<p>:-)</p>

<p>Phaneendra, you're doing just fine. Get the 350D, the kit lens, a big CF card, and a

nice tripod. Take lots of pictures -- hundreds of them -- edit them brutally, and only

show us the good ones. If you do this, you will eventually learn to take better photos than

many of the people here, <em>regardless</em> of what equipment you use.</p>

regards, peterb

Remember that you may be able to achieve some of the effects you're looking for by

taking a not-quite-true macro shot and approprately cropping. This photo, for example,

was taken using the so-called "macro" mode (which is not anywhere close to what a 'true'

macro will give you) with a 28-135 IS. More to the point, I can also use that lens for

general photography. So it depends on your needs.

The vivitar 100 / 3.5 macro lens is $150. Does that fit your definition of "cheaper"?<div></div>

First off, this is a comparatively good shot. It has some potential.

The biggest technical comment I'd make is that the tonal range of the photo feels a bit

limited; all the darkest darks are in his shorts. If this were me -- and if I were willing to

photoshop it, which I always am :-) -- I'd probably try to make it a bit more contrasty,

particular with the shadows on his shoulder. On the positive side, you avoided

overexposing the sky, which is nice.

I don't like the crop. You may have good reasons for cropping it this way, but it's so tigh

that he feels like he is in jail, which is an odd sort of feeling to have looking at a photo of

someone standing on the shore. I also sort of feel like you compromised on the pose.

You clearly wanted to get his expression, but the 3/4 back profile doesn't really work for

me. But that's a matter of taste.

Nice use of depth of field, and nice sharpness on your main subject.

Keep on shooting!