nathan_b

September 3, 2012

the junk you shot early on just sits in a drawer and you will not care. Or you'll be mildly horrified

LMAO! So true.

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February 28, 2011

Also, be very careful about thinking that a web size retouch example has anything to do with high quality retouching. The example shown can be done with a $50 license for portrait professional and a little care in the raw conversion.

The amount of retouch required will depend both on your ability to capture the most flattering portrait, and the customer's expectation of perfection in their image. I find that women over 35 are the most sensitive to their appearance and also need the most work, sometimes an hour per image to do it so it doesn't look fake.

The single biggest tip I can give you is to make lots and lots of tiny little repairs and adjustments. They add up and the result will be much more believable. Anyone who says you can do it with this software or that action "click-a-button" style is misleading you. Actions are helpful, but they're just shortcut steps in a longer, more careful process.

Scott Kelby can wear on you after a while (he's a master of self promotion), but he does have a lot of very useful content available on the cheap. The following retouching tutorial is way more than most people will ever really need or want, but you can bet you'll get a solid start with it. I would start with everything you can get out of this for a one month membership and then move on to youtube for quite a few free but generally bad examples to show you a variety of techniques available.

http://www.kelbytraining.com/player/index.html#tab\browse/lesson\1252

February 9, 2011

Cool. As long as you have the watt seconds, it's cheaper than shooting <a href="http://strobist.blogspot.com/2010/12/hangin-eight-with-dave-black.html">eight speedlights</a> on high speed sych.

February 6, 2011

Actually Bob knows what he's talking about and asked the right question.

As far as I know, the quality choices you have are Lee and Singh Ray. Lee gives you a full range of relatively inexpensive filters for one big honking holder, Singh Ray gives you a super slick variable ND. Either one is a meaningful investment of money.

Hobby stands by the Singh Ray. It's on my personal to-get list for exactly the same reason.

ICC Profile Editor? · February 4, 2011

@ Andrew - Rendering intent for gamut mismatch is a perfectly valid thought. Since when we send images to a bulk lab, we do not get to choose the rendering intent, it's partially moot. One lab told me that their conversion is perceptual with black point compensation, so If I am using that lab, then my soft proof has to reflect that conversion intent. If I am doing any enlargement 16x20 and up, I will almost certainly use my local lab, since I can have that conversation on a case by case basis if necessary. In fact, if I am doing anything of any real value, I can even go in and actually talk to the tech about the best adjustments and rendering method right before final output. That's a really huge selling point that justifies the higher cost.

@Tim - In general I will choose first the lab(s) that produce what I consider to be the best overall results, taking into account time and service. Then I will be pushed to the next best lab that produces the product I need, if not provided by my #1 choice. As stated above, it would be preferable to have better soft proofing, but there are ways to get my general preview close enough without that time and expense. One rather successful method has been to have a specific adjustment action for a specific output. I won't need that many really. I'm not as hyper critical as it may sound.

I don't want to use ten providers, I want to use 2 or 3 at most.

February 4, 2011

Just for fun. I took it to ACR for a two minute tune up. I am curious if this is close to the creators original visual scene. Personally, I find that pushing pale skin tones as high as they can go without a blowout is sometimes more aesthetically acceptable than letting them sit down in the midtones. I just cropped it for efficiency.

ICC Profile Editor? · February 4, 2011

Well, the simple answer is that (as you very well know), an luminous source is completely different than a reflective source, and never the two shall meet. Thus the need (no matter how close one tries to get in "soft proofing") for a trained eye to make the interpretive jump from monitor to print.

And I did say that they DO soft proof, with custom profiles for each distinct output. They even gave me their profiles, and cautioned that the only real proof is in the print.

But alas, I won't drag out a potential argument any further. I appreciate your input, and everyone's here. I just want to present the best possible results to my clients.

BTW - Color Management for Photographers needs to be at the top of everyone's reading list. I had not heard of it till recently, and so I assembled my knowledge only in chunks as I went along. It is however just a tiny bit out of date. Some of software and hardware discussed is getting to be critically obsolete.

So thanks again. I think I have gotten what I needed.

ICC Profile Editor? · February 4, 2011

P.S. - Just FYI, when I went to their lab, and looked at one specific problematic image on their editing station, in their controlled editing environment, it was substantially closer to the print results I had been getting, as opposed to what I saw in my editing environment. So one important piece of the puzzle is in fact to consider a correction in my physical editing environment. That's not the whole answer, but its a pretty good piece.

ICC Profile Editor? · February 4, 2011

Well Andrew, out of context that would be true, but it's a misunderstanding of the situation here. Actually I was wholly impressed by their attention to detail in color management, and they ARE correct about soft proofing being a false comfort.

ICC Profile Editor? · February 4, 2011

Updates for everyone:

@Ray - I use highly color managed labs. No they do not apply any adjustments at all unless I specifically ask (and pay) for it.

@Ellis and Andrew - After serious reading, and speaking in person with a local high end enlargement lab in their facility, they basically told me to give up on "soft proofing" getting anywhere close to a real print, and learn how to guesstimate what settings will produce what results. They showed me in person how they DO soft proof for gamut and clipping, but not for saturation or response curve. They have their own custom soft proof profiles made exactly for their equipment by them.

Also, editing soft proof ICC profiles is valid, and desirable, but not within my scope of work, time, or operating budget right now. There are several high end packages made to do just such a thing. All of the low-end packages are abandonware now and no longer functional.

So the acceptable solution remains, I just received some prints where I created an adjustment set to display the result I was getting, and then a second adjustment set to push it back to where I wanted it. My results are much better now. It looks bad on screen when I send the file, but the print is much closer to the target.

ICC Profile Editor? · February 1, 2011

Ellis,

Actually my interim solution is just that, I created an action that adds an adjustment set to simulate the print appearance, and then an adjustment set to counteract it. I'm not entirely pleased with the results. It's a bit like airbrushing with can of Krylon.

Actually one of my monitors is set to D50 and the other to D55. I find that 5500 is the hottest I can go to get a good match under normal diffuse sunlight viewing. I'm not sure where 6500 comes from, but when I use 6500 it's WAY too hot compared to the prints from White House, who I am currently trying to match. Mpix actually recommends 5500K but I've had trouble with incorrect quantities and crops with them. Adorama gets it pretty close at 6500 and 2.2, but their lead time and interface leave something to be desired.

P.S. - I just bought the book you recommended. Thanks.

February 1, 2011

I'm with Tom. You can do anything you want with Photoshop, but a few hundred bucks on the Nik suite of plugins is money well spent. I can usually fix those sort of minor things in five minutes or less, and it operates on a smart object, so you can tweak it and play around all you want. Viveza is everything it's cracked up to be and then some. That dress is just a control point, a little brightness slider, and a structure slider. Freaking magic.

February 1, 2011

Sankar,

A few questions regarding noise at ISO100, and a partial answer.

Questions: Are you applying any "fill light" in raw? What about curves? Are you using a longer exposure time? Were you shooting in a very hot environment? Those will all increase the appearance of noise.

Midtones from a 7D will typically show very minimal noise at ISO100, but noise is always present in all images.

* I repeat: Noise is always present in all images.

DPP has good noise reduction, and may be applying it by default (as per above answers). Lightroom may have some noise amplifying adjustments applied (such as brightness, fill light, etc), in addition to a lack of default noise reduction. ACR 6 has pretty darn good noise reduction, close to DPP in my opinion.

Don't hate all noise. You need some of it. It adds apparent sharpness, smooths out gradients, and adds apparent detail to muddy areas. The sky in your example is an excellent point. If you eliminate all noise from the sky, and make even very slight adjustments, you will get posterization, which I promise you looks much worse than a tiny little bit of apparent film grain.

The only way to combat noise in capture, after your capture conditions are optimized, is to follow an asymptotic investment curve in technology. Next steps: 5DII, D3x, D3s, Phase 1...?

Yeah... don't hate all noise.

ICC Profile Editor? · February 1, 2011

I've done quite a bit of homework, and have come to the conclusion that I need to create some custom ICC device profiles to match a few various reproduction methods. So what I need is a reasonably user friendly ICC editor.

What I need to do at the moment is lower the center of the response curve for a specific output profile. Such that when I soft proof for that specific output in Photoshop, the relative brightness of each pixel is accurate in relation to the print response. For example my prints from one preferred lab are black in the blacks, white in the whites, but the dark midtones are just much too dark. I'm losing shadow detail in the print.

So I need to be able to see if that's going to happen on my monitor before I spend a lot of money on an enlargement.

Yes my monitors are all calibrated. I own an Eye one Display 2 and use it regularly. D50 Gamma 2.2 .

Yes I have all of the custom ICC device profiles for my reproduction methods.

Yes I maintain a color managed workflow.

Yes I have contacted the labs and such. Their advice is no longer helpful. It amounts to "Just adjust your monitor to match our print". Well that's a load of bull for a long list of reasons. My monitors are calibrated. I need device profiles that will accurately simulate the output.

Yes I have a fairly solid understanding of gamma, color spaces, relative contrast, fluorescence, and color temperature.

So I need to edit the actual device profiles.

I would be happy to be wrong, and discover an easier solution, but I am reaching this conclusion pretty solidly by process of elimination. It is rather frustrating in fact.

January 29, 2011

Ditto here. Your bodies are fine. You need faster glass. You could pretty much sell all of your glass and replace it with this.

24-70 2.8

50 1.4

85 1.8

70-200 2.8 IS

Some of these are the cheaper version, but will still give you a massive improvement over what you have at the lowest cost. If you sell the 28-135, and the 28-105, you could probably get all of this in excellent used condition for the same net investment as a 5DII.

January 29, 2011

One more thing, you will need to watch your sync speed with the cheap lights. It might have to be as low as 1/125 or slower.

January 20, 2011

That's a very long way round. If you want a luminosity selection, it's shift+alt+control+2 (PC) or shift+alt+command+2 on the mac.

OR just hold control (command on the mac) and click on your RGB channel, and then click the new channel button. Viola. A luminance channel.

BUT, that wasn't the question.

Luminosity sharpening happens in LAB mode. You select the lightness channel, and run any sharpening filter you want on that channel only. It works great.

If you want to eliminate any color cast from a high pass sharpen, desaturate the high pass layer.

Still, sharpening using different methods matters for different reasons. Particularly for prints, some noise is often a good thing. Luminance noise increases apparent sharpness and decreases banding artifacts from posterized gradients. So a high pass sharpen can be better for prints that have fine detail in the muddy areas.

January 20, 2011

Julie,

Prints are usually priced very expensive for a reason. They're a LOT of work. Don't charge for the cost of the print, charge for your time in making it happen. People will balk at paying $100 for a 11x14 print that they can "get at Costco for three bucks", but they'll gladly pay the same $100 for your expertise and time in delivering the best possible print. It's your time, talent, and experience, not the cost of the materials.

I bet an average print order costs you $100 or less, but takes you four to eight hours in all to process and deliver, plus the fact that you are assuming the risk, and standing behind your best work by handling the color management, cropping, lab selection, product recommendation, creative processing and so on.

An architect charges for his time, art, experience, and talent, not for the paper he delivers to you. But he sure as heck charges a reasonable price for that too. If that's $1500 per page for ten pages, or $14,750 for the job and $25 per page, it's the same exact thing.

January 10, 2011

I shoot two 7D's professionally, day-in, day-out. It's an excellent camera for all around versatility and image quality. I am currently printing for customers at 24x36 and larger.

That said, I went 7D for three reasons. Financial, features, and upgrade path.

Financially it was $6,000 cheaper for me to shoot two 7d's. That accounts for cost of good glass. I already have top of the line APS-C glass, matching that in full frame L glass is a really big bite.

Features, well. It's newer and faster, has a built-in horizon level (architecture anyone?), and has better auto focus. Nuff said.

On the upgrade cycle, it was safer to buy the latest technology, than something that is now two and a half years old. I figured on skipping a model, and waiting for a 5DIII or equivalent. pfft. Wish me luck.

Also, if Canon can't catch up with Nikon in the IQ arena pretty soon. I'll be testing those waters in the very foreseeable future. I almost certainly won't "switch", but I just might see a very valid point in going both ways and I'm not the first.

Mind that the one thing you cannot cheat is physics. Full frame has the advantage of physics. That's why it's so easy to pick out a medium format image. It actually looks meaningfully different. Full frame images can often look meaningfully different than crop images.

BTW, I'm mostly with the other Nathan on this. If you don't have the 70-200 2.8 IS yet then just buy the 7D and buy that lens. Shooting kids at play with that lens is a DREAM and the 1.6 multiplier makes it really something special. Mixed with the fast autofocus of the 7D and you'll get some truly awesome candid images. You could easily kip the 5DII for now and not miss it.

January 6, 2011

This seemed like a logical place to hang out an offer/request.

I shoot professionally, full time, mostly architecture and portraits, with a blend of available light and fully lit images.

In order to stretch out a bit, I am interested in meeting a few local wedding photog's here, and shooting as a second or even a third this year (2011) a few times. The photog's I know and associate with professionally also do not do weddings, so that's just not in my personal sphere of contacts at the moment. I've been telling people regularly that I do not "do weddings" but I would like to at least know some local wedding photographers well, and be able to tell them who to call, and also be available myself on request.

So that's really a three part thing. Get to know each other, learn something new, and be able to provide solid recommendations if they are appropriate.

Moderator Note: Nathan--it is against guidelines to link to one's own website a lot, so I've removed the link, and see that you have the website listed on your member page, which is good. However, I suggest making that listing a link. This way, I can keep your thread in the Wedding Assistants archive.

January 6, 2011

LMAO ..."bob scratching his butt".

So true.

Well. I find that if I "deliver" or "proof" about 30-40 per real hour of shooting, that's too many for most customers. That could be out of 80, or out of 400. It depends on the job. If it's a straight portrait, I can literally burn pixels every three to five seconds or so, and do 10-20 careful captures in five minutes, easy. But in that case, I'm looking specifically to throw away 80% of the images on the first cull. In one type of session, I just proofed 40 for an hour and a half family-at-the-beach, and the client was overwhelmed. They liked too many and now they need time to think about it. I had maybe a hundred out of 300 that were fully deliverable (good shots that are printable at any reasonable size) and intentionally trimmed that down to about 40 for proofs. It's usually pretty easy to pick the best of any grouping that are similar.

So to agree with Mike, I feel that it's my job to tell the customer which images are worthy of a print (or publication), and to not even show the ones which are not up to my personal standards. If that leaves five good shots, then it's five proofs.

To that extent, less almost always seems to be more anyway. A very good salesman once told me that he never shows more than three (clearly different) options at a time to a customer. He found that people just cannot make a choice between more than that. If he shows four choices, the customer can never make up their mind, and the sale is delayed and potentially lost. If I show three similar photos to anyone, they can almost instantly tell me which one they like best. If I show five or ten, I might wait forever for an answer.

So, I would hazard to suggest that, for events, 50-100 plus one for each significant person attending is a lot, for families, 30-50 is a LOT, for simple personal portraits, 10-20 is almost too many, and for a headshot, five is more than enough. For commercial and advertising, well...it should already be written into the contract so you don't have to ask.

January 6, 2011

Ha.

+1 for guts. Good for you.

Three suggestions in addition to the above.

<li>

1) Bring your vivitars for separation/hair lights. You are going to use them at almost the lowest power anyway. Probably off camera at 45 degrees facing the back of the subject both sides and high. You need to have sexy highlights on the hair, and you need to have a nice soft facial portrait too. Batteries are cheap. Your reputation is not.

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2) Spend a whole day or two building your lighting style in private at home. Find out what works for your look. Then be fully prepared to throw it all away the minute you do the actual job.

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3) Show up ready to start a full THREE HOURS early at least. If you need an hour to set up and test your "studio", then you will need an hour to fix problems (I guarantee you will have serious problems to fix), and another hour to change your mind a little before the first subject even shows up. The number one killer of success is panic. You will dramatically reduce your stress and you won't panic if you are early, and have lots of time to get all of your stuff in order well before the actual job starts.

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Yeah, I learned this the hard way. I don't recommend it.

January 6, 2011

Not compared to anything. Just getting a feel for how many may be out there, and possibly how they're being used. I got mine specifically because speedlights can be a real headache and even useless against the sun in some cases. For me, power for weight was a significant issue to balance, and that's why I chose them. I also got a very good deal on the two-head kits.

January 5, 2011

I know this sounds almost pointless, but I do have a point. I'm curious how many of you own the new Ranger Quadras, and how many if you do? I just picked up two of the to-go double "A" head kits. It was a big bite and a tough decision. I'm interested in finding out how much market share they are grabbing.

January 5, 2011

Joe,

I skipped about 80% of this conversation, because it became redundant. One thing that opened me up to creative post processing is Nik ColorEfex Pro 3.0 Complete. It's expensive, doesn't quite do everything (nothing does), and has a trial-and-error learning curve, but I also found that I was able to get very nice artistic processing effects right out of the gate, and with far better control than with Photoshop actions. You might also try Viveza. I use it constantly to make "lighting" adjustments in post. From what I saw on the example site, you could get most of that with ColorEfex Pro.

As always, do the free trial. It's free.

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Posts posted by nathan_b