I can't believe that I just figured this out, but when you're working with exposure comp, be sure to turn off the in-camera sharpening first.
I was adjusting the exposure down for some blown highlights. I just happened to check it with sharpening off, and the highlights were fine with no adjustment. Just the in-camera sharpening was pushing some sharpened areas over the edge. Now that I've realized this it's painfully obvious.
So before doing anything with exposure comp get your WB correct and also turn off any sharpening from the camera.
This meens (in d70) set to normal or none? And in raw or jpeg's? I admit: best results I saw was made by PRC sharpening. But what with jpegs - PS sharpening didn't look that nice.
I'm not sure how Nikons software works but in general you can recover a lot of shots if you use layering techniques in Photoshop and some bracketing.
Ideally you need 3 layers but 2 will do.
Layer 1 -- optimize for highlights.
Layer 2 Optimize for shadows
Layer3 Normal shot.
Merge, gaussian blur 25 - 50% depending on the shot and then you've got your shot optimised as far as possible.
It's well known that DSLR's don't have the same dynamic range as film cameras so you can "poodle fake" it a bit by bracketing shots --bracket for highlights, shadows and normal and use the layering as above.
This is one (out of many) reasons why shooting RAW is in general always preferable --especially if you need top do some post processing.
In general keep in camera processing to a minimum unless you need special functions such as Noise Reduction.
I guess I didn't make myself clear - this has nothing to do with getting more dynamic range out of a shot, and it has nothing to do with how you should sharpen.
Here's what I'm talking about: In NC you can select "none" for the amount of sharpening that is applied - this is separate from USM, and will turn off any sharpening that was applied to a RAW file. I always do this anyways, I just wasn't always turning off sharpening before doing any exposure compensation.
So to be more clear, if you are in the following situation:
- Shooting RAW
- Using NC
- Using exposure compensation for this one shot
- The shot was taken with some in-camera sharpening
Then be sure you turn off any sharpening before you do your exposure compensation.
A good alternative is to just turn off any in camera sharpening and leave it that way. But I'm not sure all cameras support no sharpening at all. If I recall the D70 had only a "low" setting.
I see a minor, and I mean minor change in the histogram when you turn sharpening on and off in the advaced raw menu. I'm not sure that it will make that big of a difference.
I guess I must be a sinner, as I shoot a D2H with the sharpening set to normal or high. I like to be able to preview the shot. I turn the sharpening off in NC and use USM.
I assumed this was common knowledge, but in NC you can hit "L" to see blown highlights and "S" to see lost shadow details. A few blown highs will never show in the histogram - it's not detailed enough. By the time you seen blown highs in the histogram you've got a much bigger problem.
I'm talking about a few blown highlights in an otherwise well exposed shot. I went from needing about -.25 exposure comp to needing none when I turned off sharpening for one shot.
You know, Ron Reznick must have inhabited my brain - I'm making this much more complicated than it really is (with all due respect to Ron).
I see what you mean. I am only a rookie at Capture. I have been using Adobe for 3 years. I just recently (1 month ago) bought Capture because I wanted to start using custom curves. I guess I learned something new. The L and S feature is very nice.
David R wrote:
I assumed this was common knowledge, but in NC you can hit "L" to see blown highlights and "S" to see lost shadow details. A few blown highs will never show in the histogram - it's not detailed enough. By the time you seen blown highs in the histogram you've got a much bigger problem.
I'm talking about a few blown highlights in an otherwise well exposed shot. I went from needing about -.25 exposure comp to needing none when I turned off sharpening for one shot.
You know, Ron Reznick must have inhabited my brain - I'm making this much more complicated than it really is (with all due respect to Ron). ...Show more →
Thanks for the info and I second your comment about Ron..since I read the book I I'm getting paranoid!!
Well, I'll be dipped.... I'm processing a passel of NEFs in NCE 4.3 as I write, so I just used the highlights tool and switched from my habitual "low" sharpening to none. Sure enough, less blown highlights. Barely. I'll still use the "low" setting, but I'm getting to be an old dog....
