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Archive 2013 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai

  
 
prcentauri1
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


I started a thread about 10 days ago, just prior to my departure for Kauai, posing questions pertaining to film iso and lens selection for the trip. Some of you may remember the thread. In any event, I have been a 35mm velvia shooter for the past 15 years or so and never made the jump to digital. Until now. My wife got me a 5D MKIII a few days prior to our trip to Kauai so this was my first time using a digital camera and my first time dealing with post-processing. I have experience with photoshop in the sense that I have edited levels/saturation/clone/etc for food photos and casual pictures from our iphones but not much more. I am still trying to figure out how to go about processing these 5D MKIII files. I am using a Macbook and no color correction software / hardware so I'm pretty sure I will need to buy a new monitor and maybe the x-rite i1 display pro or some kind of calibration tool.

Below is one of the first photos that I have tried to post process. It is one of the last shots from the camera from the trip. It's a single image shot with a 3-stop ND grad, processed once in ACR 6.7 for lowlights and once for highlights, each time saved as a 16 bit 300 dpi *.tiff file then layered over each other in Photoshop CS5. Then I converted it to *.jpg and resized. I think the image has lost a lot in terms of sharpness and the color seems a bit skewed purple but that is kinda how it looked at the time of the capture.

I'd like to know your thoughts, comments, criticisms of the image and also general opinions and preferences about post-processing


Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai
5D MKIII, 24-70 2.8L, 40mm, f/10, 8s, iso 50
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5478/11420183733_72f6c370a2_o.jpg


Generally speaking, I have been pretty unhappy with my edits. This lighthouse shot above is probably the best photograph from the trip. An additional few shots below have been added for display but I just cant seem to get the look I want with these images. I hope my Velvia 35mm shots turned out good. I haven't sent the film in yet.


5D MKIII, 24-70 2.8L, 28mm, f/18, 6 s, iso 50, -1 EV
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3665/11439276313_c413daa473_o.jpg


5D MKIII, 24-70 2.8L, 25mm, f/18, 0.8 s, iso 50, -1/3 EV
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2885/11439594546_5006e8cf58_o.jpg


5D MKIII, 24-70 2.8L, 25mm, f/18, 0.8 s, iso 50, -1/3 EV
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7341/11450624255_80e81ca47e_b.jpg


Road To Polihale
5D MKIII, 70-200 2.8L, 190mm, f/13, 1/80 s, iso 100, -1 EV
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2834/11438677465_8b69e145d3_o.jpg


Morning Light at Poipu Beach
5D MKIII, 17-40 4.0L, 23mm, f/10, 2.5 s, iso 50
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2871/11438833764_8db215ec04_b.jpg

Edited on Dec 19, 2013 at 09:34 AM · View previous versions



Dec 17, 2013 at 10:04 AM
JimFox
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


Congrats on moving up to Digital, I am sure you will be glad with the move, the greater degree of control is something I really enjoy compared to film.

You will have a lot to learn in regards to the processing end, though it sounds from your workflow you are heading in the right direction. At first it will be a lot of experimenting and trying different things. With the processing, you will find there is a dozen different ways to skin the cat, so that will come with time.

Since you used an ND grad with shooting this, you probably could have done your processing for this shot once with ACR. Any reason you didn't just adjust the for the Shadows and the Highlights all at once? Double processing a raw shot like you described is something we used to have to do more. But with todays cameras having great DR, with ACR being better at recovering shadows and highlights, and especially since you used a ND Grad, I would have gone for a simple 1 time through ACR, make all the adjustments needed, and then finetune the shot in Photoshop.

As for the lack of sharpness. You will usually need to sharpen your shots when you process them. That is normal. A lot of different methods, but for me I just use Unsharp Mask in Photoshop. I will use a layer mask to sharpen the ground areas separately from the sky, as typically the sky doesn't need sharpening. Then after you have finished all your editing, convert it to jpg and then downsize it for your web version, you will need to do one last sharpening for the web. For me, a very low, say 20% Unsharp Mask again, as the downsizing does make the shot softer.

Again, a very nice start here. Keep it up!

Jim



Dec 17, 2013 at 02:07 PM
prcentauri1
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


Thanks. When you sharpen after you downsize what kind of radius roughly are we talking? Is it better to reduce size for web then save as jpg or convert to jpg first and then resize? Does it matter?


Dec 17, 2013 at 04:03 PM
JimFox
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


prcentauri1 wrote:
Thanks. When you sharpen after you downsize what kind of radius roughly are we talking? Is it better to reduce size for web then save as jpg or convert to jpg first and then resize? Does it matter?


I can tell you how I do it, with some of this people will have their own preferences which doesn't really make for a right or wrong way, it's the way that works for you...

I actually make 2 jpgs, 1 for printing and 1 for the web. A lot more places can print from tiff's now, but for me, printing from a jpg produces great results and a lot smaller of a file or files.

So my steps are as follows, and note, while I do a raw conversion to tiff, as soon as I pull them into Photoshop itself, I am doing all my work in Photoshops PSD format.

1. Change the Mode to 8bit from 16bit. This is in the Image Menu.

2. Convert the color profile to sRGB, this provides the most standard format for both web viewing and printing. If you have a specialty printing house, perhaps you go different, but for me, this is what I do. Be sure you "convert" and not "assign" the profile. This is under the Edit menu. And the first time you will have to select sRGB as the destination profile, but CS5/6 etc will retain that for the future for you. Doing this will ensure your colors work across multiple platforms as sRGB is the common to most, especially for web viewing.

3. Go to Save as, and I choose to save it as a 10 instead of a 12. For printing purposes, at least that I have seen, a photo will look just as good printed as a 10 as it does as a 12. Again, saves memory space, which is not as big of a deal now. But it's how I have been doing it for years.

So now you have a print version.

4. I take this one, and will resize it myself under the Image menu, choose Image Size. Now for image downsizing, there will be lot's of different or varying thoughts on how to do it. With our newer larger pixel count cameras, I have had to change it up a bit, but I will go over the basic sequence I do.

4a. First I change the DPI from 300 to 72. A few of my friends in here have said this step is not needed, but I guess I am just too used to web images being 72dpi, so I have stuck with it...

4b. Second, change the image size down to 800 pix on it's widest end, which will leave the shorter side at about 600 pix. Now this of course you can set to what you desire. That's the size I display my photos on the web both in my gallery and here on FM.

4c. Third, the Sharpening. Depending on the image, you may make a quick layer mask, or you just may use the lasso tool with a slight feathering to select just the ground. But depending on the image I will then use UnSharp mask on the ground area at about 20 to 25, with a Thresholld of 0 and a Radius of 1.0. That will sharpen it back up nicely for the web.

4d. I then save the jpg again, keeping it as a 10, and this is my web version.

Note: With Image sizing, for years I always just used the default setting of Bicubic Automatic for the method of resizing. But with my D800, I found that it would make the shot look too sharp and crunchy. So I switched to Bicubic(Best for smooth gradients) . I am not sure with your Mark III, since it is a pretty high resolution camera too. So just experiment without changing the sizing method first.

I hope that helps. Others may chime in too, as there are a zillion different ways to do this. I have always tried to keep this end of the processing very simple. Less complication is better. Maybe others have simpler ways to do it. I know there are a lot of ways a lot more complicated, but for me, I really never visually saw a difference worth the added complications.

Jim



Dec 17, 2013 at 06:44 PM
deepjay
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


Jim has given you a lot of info. I'd like to go one further. Which photoshop are you using--hopefully one of the later CS. There is a lot to learn with PS, whichever version you have. Check out on Amazon what instruction books are available for your version, read the reviews, and get one. It's a long, but rewarding, process.
If you follow the threads on Fred Miranda you'll get a lot of info, as well. Most importantly, realize that there are always several means to the same end in PS.
As Jim says, it gives you tremendous control over your digital images. Once into it I predict you'll love it.



Dec 17, 2013 at 07:05 PM
prcentauri1
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


I'm using CS5. Basically on the trip I acquired images roughly the same way as I did with film. That is, I framed a shot I liked (with split ND grad or vari-ND grad if necessary such as at twilight) and then I bracketed several shots, say -2, -1, -1/2, 0, 1/2, 1, etc). Now I am torn between how to go about developing a final image. I am currently in the process of comparing results with the method of choosing my one favorite of those bracketed images and processing once in ACR 6.7 versus importing all of the bracketed shots for a scene into automate-->merge to HDR pro and then tweaking that final blended image.


Dec 17, 2013 at 09:25 PM
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


prcentauri1 wrote:
versus importing all of the bracketed shots for a scene into automate-->merge to HDR pro and then tweaking that final blended image.


Stay away from the tool of the devil !!!!



Dec 18, 2013 at 01:03 PM
prcentauri1
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


Thanks for your suggestions

Edited on Dec 18, 2013 at 02:34 PM · View previous versions



Dec 18, 2013 at 01:19 PM
prcentauri1
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


Images added above.

Edited on Dec 18, 2013 at 02:35 PM · View previous versions



Dec 18, 2013 at 01:52 PM
prcentauri1
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


Images added above.

Edited on Dec 18, 2013 at 02:36 PM · View previous versions



Dec 18, 2013 at 02:04 PM
smmokan16
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


Work on your compositions a bit as well. The lighthouse is an excellent subject (I took a few dozen shots of it back in June) but in your pictures it doesn't come across as very interesting. Also look into the "rule of thirds"; it seems as most of your horizons are right down the center of the image, which doesn't make for a good shot a majority of the time.

I hope I'm not imposing by posting a couple examples that I took... if I am, let me know and I'll take them down.






Dec 18, 2013 at 03:52 PM
prcentauri1
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Dusk at Kilauea Lighthouse, Kauai


No worries. I can always just crop out some sky.


Dec 18, 2013 at 07:07 PM





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