russellcbanks

Thanks, Andrew. 

What is the relationship between setting one active profile with the Eizo software, and a different one in the Mac's display settings?

(such as your suggested Adobe RGB for Eizo and DCI-P3 for the Mac's display settings)

When I switch to DCI-P3 I notice that a lot of dark gray interface/backgrounds, such as the OmniFocus Dark setting and various other dark modes, lighten up quite a bit, and colored text loses a lot of saturation.

Alan, what does "CD" mean when you write, "CD brightness"?

BTW, how do you respond to a particular post in this photo.net interface? All I see is a "reply" button for the entire topic at the bottom.

Thanks,
Russell

I've made good progress setting up my Eizo display with profiles for my specific papers and my Epson 3330 printer.

However, these profiles designed for processing images in Lightroom and Photoshop for printing seem a little dull for general computer usage.

What should I use when I'm not editing photos? In my Mac's display settings, there are a lot of choices for the color profile:

• Apple RGB
• Color LCD
• Display
• Display P3
• sRGB

Or should I make something different with my Eizo's ColorNavigator profile maker?

Thanks,
Russell

My EIZO CS 2740 display can connect to my M1 MacBook Air directly via USB C, or through my Twelve South Stay-Go hub via HDMI. Since the MacBook's in/out is limited to two USB C ports, I'd like to free up the one connecting my display, and use HDMI instead.

Is there something I'd lose by not using USB C with this display and going with HDMI instead? 

Thanks,
Russell

I have some 35mm B&W  negatives that I scanned with a Nikon slide scanner, but scanning seems to increase grain. I want to try Camera Raw's new Denoise tool to see if it will reduce the grain, but it only works on raw files from a camera. My scanned files won’t work.

Before I invest in a macro lens rental to copy my negatives with a digital camera, I’d like to try Denoise. Do you have a raw file made by photographing a B&W negative on a light box? (preferably 35mm) If you could send me a file, I could see how Denoise handles real film grain, which is just one type of "noise."

Thanks,
Russell
 

Thanks, everyone for your input. I’ll be traveling for the next week and will have time to think about it,

Best,

Russell

A print-centric display calibration for the best screen to print match isn't unusual if the right display calibration tools are provided. All are outlined here:

 

Why are my prints too dark?

Why doesn’t my display match my prints?

A video update to a written piece on the subject from 2013

In this 24-minute video, I'll cover:

 

Are your prints really too dark?

Display calibration and WYSIWYG

Proper print viewing conditions

Trouble shooting to get a match

Avoiding kludges that don't solve the problem

 

High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/Why_are_my_prints_too_dark.mp4

Low resolution:

Thanks! So it’s OK to use a display profile that takes into account the paper's white point AND also do Photoshop soft proofing that uses the profile supplied by the manufacturer (Canson, in my case). I just thought that seems like correcting twice... and might overdo it.

Best,

Russell

In Rocco Ancora's video about using EIZO's ColorNavigator 7 for calibration, he makes a display profile with a D65 white point for editing and adjusting the image, and another (with brightness, white point and gamut manually adjusted for a specific paper and viewing lighting) to use when printing.

But I don’t understand how would you use these two profiles in an actual workflow:

1. Use the editing/adjusting profile when making the "master" Photoshop file.

2. Then make a copy of the master file and switch to the printing profile and make further adjustments to optimize for that paper? But isn't that what Photoshop's soft proofing (View>Proof Setup) is supposed to do? You wouldn’t want to do both, would you?

Thanks,

Russell

The error message is telling you that Lightroom has determined that the document(s) were changed outside of Lightroom after they were imported. Only if you know that is not the case and the metadata shown in the Library module along with any Develop adjustments is correct then you can choose the overwrite setting.

Thanks for clarifying!

It's also possible something, somewhere else might be touching the metadata of the TIFFs? This is what LR is asking you. It 'sees' that its understanding of some metadata it tracks, differs from the document and so it's asking you "you want to update or write 'my' metadata back?".

Only TIFFs, only after the Edit In useage?

If the metadata's being changed, wouldn’t I get the "metadata has been changed," message? The one I’m getting says the "photo" has been changed (nothing about metadata).

If it IS the metadata that’s changed, I want Lightroom to overwrite, since that’s the only thing I use to edit metadata. It's interesting that the "warning" dialog offers a don’t show this message again checkbox, which would seem to indicate it’s not a big deal whether or not you see it.

As others have observed, this happens intermittently, so it’s hard to troubleshoot. I opened the file that was giving the message when I started this thread, and when the message came I let Lightroom overwrite as it loaded into Photoshop. I added an adjustment layer, saved and closed. Then opened again from Lightroom and didn’t get the message. Since it appears innocuous, I’ll just tell it to not show the message in the future.

Best,

Russell

Step 2 is done exactly how? Ideally you want to use the Edit In Photoshop command. That will pass off the raw (DNG) and instructions to ACR which renders the image and presents it to Photoshop proper. Then you edit and simply use Save. The new (if selected in preferences, TIFF) ends up in the catalog next to the DNG. If you want to edit that NEW TIFF, you can of course do so from LR. IF the TIFF has layers and you've done any edits in LR, it has to do this on a flattened 'version' and when you ask to open it back into Photoshop, well that isn't the original TIFF.

The 'error' isn't a big deal anyway. LR detects a change in the metadata from what it last saw and asks you to update this for it. But its not something you should be seeing if you use LR to hand off data to PS and back again.

Yes, what you've described is exactly the way I do it. The TIFF I save and close ends up in the catalog next to the DNG. I don’t do anything to the TIFF in Lightroom (that I know of)... no adjustments in the Develop module, no metadata changes... So I’m puzzled about what Lightroom thinks it might want to "overwrite." But, like you say, it’s probably not a big deal if all the LR develop settings remain zeroed.

I keep getting this message when using Lightroom to open a TIFF file I’ve edited in Photoshop:

"This photo has been changed in an external application. Should Lightroom overwrite the settings on disk?"

I searched this forum (and everwhere else via Google) and found many references to "metadata has been changed," but this message just says the "photo" has been changed. My working procedure is to:

1 Make initial "camera raw" adjustments to the DNG in Lightroom

2 Open that DNG in Photoshop

3 Edit with adjustment layers, clone-stamp, etc.

4 Save as TIFF and close the file

5 Later, return to do more work on the file by selecting it in Lightroom, then Edit in... Photoshop, ticking the "Edit Original" button.

6 As the file is opening, I get this "photo has been changed in an external application" message, SOMETIMES, but not always.

What causes this? I’m not doing anything to that TIFF in Lightroom that I’m aware of. At that point I’m just using Lightroom to catalog it with the rest of the shoot. And if something changed in the metadata, wouldn’t that get the metadata changed message? I’m concerned that something other than the metadata is being changed, without my direction (presumably the image itself!).

Should I select Cancel (where it apparently opens without overwriting) or let Lightroom overwrite the settings on disk?

Thanks,


Russell

Thanks for all your insight, folks!

Best,

Russell

Eizo, great (expensive), an alternative would be Sharp/NEC SpectraView. Very similar capabilities.

Not a fan of 4K displays for me, everything is too tiny GUI-wise. I'm still happy with my SpectraView PA271Q. I have a MacBook Pro, retina display, again, not at all a fan when driven to high PPI settings.

Unfortunately the PA271Q has apparently been discontinued. Sharp/NEC has none in stock to ship to retailers, and B&H offered the EA271U as a "replacement" for about $580. 2560 x 1440, 78.1% Adobe RGB, etc. Not even close.

LGs appear to be out of stock, too. Eizo USA says shipment from Japan arriving late Feb. Expensive, yes, but less than my D6 Mark II body, and I spend a lot more time with the display than the camera. (Is that sad?)

Eizo, great (expensive), an alternative would be Sharp/NEC SpectraView. Very similar capabilities.

Not a fan of 4K displays for me, everything is too tiny GUI-wise. I'm still happy with my SpectraView PA271Q. I have a MacBook Pro, retina display, again, not at all a fan when driven to high PPI settings.

Thanks!

I do fine art/documentary photography, and recently bought an M1 MacBook Air that I'll use in clamshell mode most of the time, with an external display.

I'm drawn to the Eizo CS2740 (3840 x 2160), but I've been using a 2013 iMac (2560 x 1440), so it would be quite a change in resolution.

Some say 2560 x 1440 is plenty for photo editing, but I do a lot more than photo work on my Mac, and envy the clarity of the text and interface on my wife's Retina display. (the photos are nice, too)

Have any of you made such a transition? I assume you have to decrease the resolution through the display settings so text isn't too tiny to read, but does the clarity remain?

Ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks,

Russell

I'm struggling to make a mask around an area in part of the image with shallow depth of field. It's a yellow towel that I want to darken and turn gray:

• 
  I tried a mask made with Color Range, and it's OK for starters. Here it is with a color fill layer (color mode):
   
  
  

• 
   
   
  Wanting to darken the area more, I made a group, put the mask on the group, and in it I put the Color Fill layer and a new Levels adj. layer. But when I darkened it, the flaws in my mask were revealed:
   
  
  

• 
   
   
  Here's what the mask looks like:
  

• 
   
   
  I'm obviously going about this all wrong. It will require a very subtle mask! How should I go about this?
   
   
   
  Thanks,
  Russell

Focus stacking software creates layers with masks. You can adjust the masking and turn layers on and off. If none of the shots have the background in sharp focus, stacking won't change that.

 

Photoshop has some very sophisticated new masking tools, including options to de-enhance the background.

I hadn't heard of "de-enhancing." I Googled "Photoshop de-enhance" and found nothing about this. Where would I look in Photoshop? Thanks!

I've been doing some focus stacking on some outdoor scenes, blending 3-4 images, and it occurred to me to see if I could "break" the technique by reversing it to make the background go even MORE out-of-focus than normal.

I think that would require masks that blend into one another, instead of the hard-edged masks that work when you just want to keep the sharpset parts of each layer. I'd probably start with those hard-edged masks and somehow give them gradients.

And if I could make masks that blend into each other, I could also manipulate color and tonality progressively as the distance increases.

Have you had any experience with techniques that might be relevant? Could Photoshop actions or scripting help here?

This is barking up the tree of some "computational photography" techniques, but I want to use full-sized Canon 6D images, instead of the phones that are leading the charge here. Do you know of any dedicated Mac applications that work in this area?

I know about Photoshop's new Neural Filters, but for now I'm holding out for the next generation of M1 Mac Mini that I'll need to run that version of Photoshop.

Thoughts?

Best,


Russell

RawDigger should allow you to view the raw data without processing (within limitation); do you see the white line?

Here's a screenshot of it opened in RawDigger. No black line, but the white one is clearly there.

Probably just an instance of physics and digital imaging, and there's nothing to do but fix it in Photoshop. I'll look for a way to remove it without literally painting within the line. I saw a reference to adding an empty layer above the image, set to color blending mode... There appears to be several ways to approach this...

Without the raw, it isn't possible to state if this is part of the raw processing or not. And there are all kinds of settings, sharpening and otherwise affecting the raw in this converter. There is no true 'off' sharpening for one. Even if you turn 'off' or set all sharpening to zero. So it would be useful to see the raw data itself in say RawDigger to know what is really going on here.

Thanks, Andrew. I've download a RawDigger trial. Should I have it create some kind of report for you to see? Or would you like me to upload the DNG file somewhere?

These are details of a raw image (with no camera raw tone adjustments) made with a Canon 6D Mark II and Canon 24-105 L series lens. One has no sharpening and the other has Amount: 40, Radius: 1, Detail 25, Masking 10. (Lightroom defaults, I think)

Can anyone advise me on why I got the white line on the left side of the purple shape, and the dark line on the right side? As you can see, they're visible in the unsharpened file, and get worse with the sharpening.

Chromatic aberration removal was checked, but the amount was zero, and there's no hint of the purple/green fringing I usually see with chromatic aberration. When I tried increasing the amount, a dark gray fringe quickly appeared.

With tone adjustments and subsequent work in Photoshop, they become even more apparent, especially on a 20x24 print.

Also, any ideas on the most efficient way to get rid of the lines in Photoshop? I was under deadline and resorted to manually painting them out with the clone stamp tool. Uggh. I know there must be a better way!

Thanks,

Russell

Sharpened

Unsharpened

Full image

Yes, because it's a parametric (instruction) based edit, not burned into the pixels until rendering, and, all parametric edits in those products are applied in 'best processing' order, not user order.

Adobe puts it in both places because some don't process raw data (but they should <g>).

Thanks. Just wanted to be sure I was on the right track!

Best,

Russell

RUSSELL C. BANKS

You can apply lens corrections either as you do your other Camera Raw adjustments, or later in Photoshop, using its Lens Correction filter.

I've read that it's a good idea to do all you can in ACR/Lightroom, before opening an image in Photoshop. Does that hold true for lens corrections? If so, why would Adobe bother putting them in both places?

Thanks,

Russell