p.1 #1 · would this be considered too much of a re-touch?
Hello all,
my first post on this sub-forum.... need your learned opinions please guys, thanks.
The whiteness was due to a smoke granade, and not an over-exposure.
1. would you think this photo has been overly re-touched?
2. how can i improve this photo in terms of post-processing? im using photoshop CS2, but i also use Lightbox as well. let us not discuss picture composition etc. just about re-touching etc.
p.1 #5 · would this be considered too much of a re-touch?
On the first image, you're doing a "rescue" due to the smoke. So I think you've done very well to get what you got. A little noise reduction might help (just a little), and a little less saturation might help (again, just a little). But you've done well.
The second shot... the first rendition definitely has the right white balance, and the second is way too warm. That's not a saturation issue, although it may seem that way since it looks "orange". But the correct name is a "color cast" where the whole photo has its colors distorted from reality in the same direction... in this case, too orange since the camera has calculated (or been set at) the wrong kind/color/temperature of the light. Notice the tie... the white is white in the first one, as it should be.
That being said, I think I would try the first white balance with a little less saturation too, just to see what happens. In particular, since her face is a focal point of the image and it definitely looks too red, you might try nudging down the saturation of the reds only, and see what happens. Play with sliders, save different versions (with notes ) then see which one you like best.
p.1 #6 · would this be considered too much of a re-touch?
D300 wrote: back off the saturation... would you mean less saturated post processing on on the camera colour saturation control? which would be better?
1. take photos in Neutral colour, then postprocess on a computer to add vibrant colour.
2. take photos in Vibrant saturated mode, then reduce saturation on the computer.
3. any other method...
thank you mhayes!
Provided you can process the images forget the second option - wipe it from your mind!
Only point for me (well, not for me as I don't do it ) of setting anything on the camera would be if the images were to be printed without processing. If you shoot Raw ,which I think you should (but that's opening a whole new can of worms then it does not affect the file anyway. It would however affect the image on the lcd and provides a starting point for the conversion if you use the DPP software to do this.
From the saturation on these images I would say that you either have a liking for intense colors - or your monitor is not calibrated.
p.1 #7 · would this be considered too much of a re-touch?
hi paul,
ive so far only dabbled in jpgs and not yet shot in RAW, although i have tried. are there any image quality (IQ) differences? i only understand that RAW allows more calibration to the image settings. please correct me if i am wrong.
regarding the photos, yes, i do have a liking for vibrant and saturated colours, but i also acknowledge that they are indeed too intense. the lady's tie colour should remain white and not overly yellow saturated. thanks all. i will need to adjust on the white balance and the colour histogram.
we know that if a white colour is present, we can adjust the white to "white" by using the colour histogram. how about other colours? how can we make sure the skin tones are as accurately reproduced? or it is all in the eye?
p.1 #8 · would this be considered too much of a re-touch?
Image quality is basically the same for Raw and jpeg - but you have much more "headroom" for editing in three ways
firstly you can easily change exposure - and if you want to, you can convert twice with different exposures and combine the images to extend dynamic range.
Secondly changing white balance is both easier and less destructive - indeed most editing is less destructive on the Raw file
Thirdly you can edit in 16 bit mode which means it is possible to make greater changes without problems such as banding.
Although it seems like something else to learn in fact it is not that difficult - and some of it is simply akin to adjusting levels in Photoshop.
Worth a go!
Skin tones. There are ways of doing it "by the numbers" - probably find this by Googling. But the best way is by eye - in fact it is almost impossible to adjust skin tones for people you don't know without a known reference in the picture like a grey card. The best way is to try and get the white balance correct - and hopefully the skin tones will be too.
p.1 #9 · would this be considered too much of a re-touch?
thank you Paul,
very informative indeed.
would most of you capture shots in RAW, or RAW+JPG?
regarding changing exposures with RAW editing, would you be saying that this would allow for HDRI processing with multiple exposures being obtained from a single RAW file?
p.1 #10 · would this be considered too much of a re-touch?
D300 wrote:
thank you Paul,
very informative indeed.
would most of you capture shots in RAW, or RAW+JPG?
regarding changing exposures with RAW editing, would you be saying that this would allow for HDRI processing with multiple exposures being obtained from a single RAW file?
p.1 #15 · would this be considered too much of a re-touch?
Rodolfo Paiz wrote:
Nice one on the black-and-white, jscoby... very nice.
So share... how'd ya do it? Always like to check on the details of how some people's post-processing gets done.
I didn't do much. I reduced the red saturation by 30. Desaturated the photo and then played with it in levels. I tried fixing it while keeping the color and it kept looking bad so I dropped the color and now it looks more like a period piece, at least that's what I was going for.
p.1 #16 · would this be considered too much of a re-touch?
D300 wrote:
thank you Paul,
very informative indeed.
would most of you capture shots in RAW, or RAW+JPG?
regarding changing exposures with RAW editing, would you be saying that this would allow for HDRI processing with multiple exposures being obtained from a single RAW file?
Raw is not a compressed image format, jpg is. That means that when the camera saves a jpg image it does a calculation of the pixels, if there a number of pixels close to each other with little or no difference in luminance and color, it brings those together and saves space. In raw this is not the case. In extreme situations you might loose some detail shooting jpg instead of raw, but my experience is that this only becomes visible on large prints.
My advice is always shoot raw, that gives you the best possible starting point for further processing. And drop the camera functions for saturation etc unless you do a lot of shooting in the same conditions day after day.
You can make a hdr image from a single raw file, but it is a bit awkward. In photoshop, the merge to hdr function reads the exposure data added in the metadata file. If you use only one raw file, you will need to export that file from a raw converter without the metadata, and then set the exposure data manually. If not, photoshop thinks that you are actually trying to merge pictures with the same exposures, and same tonal widths.
p.1 #17 · would this be considered too much of a re-touch?
RAW also provides more editing flexibility. Deep shadows and bright highlights, even almost totally-blown-out highlights, can often be recovered and made to look sensible if processing from a RAW file. Which makes sense... a RAW file from the D300 at 12-bit capture is storing 4,096 shades of each color, and an 8-bit JPG can only hold 256. So you have to throw away almost 92% of the possible color values to encode in JPG.
The fact that this works so well in practice is a testament to the quality of the JPG compression algorithm along with several other factors. And yes, you can get by on JPG just fine for most situations. But if you want the absolute best possible quality, or if you want to do multiple edits (JPG loses more quality every time you save it) or different renderings from the same image, or if you need to rescue detail from extremes of light and dark... JPG will never touch RAW.
back off the saturation... would you mean less saturated post processing on on the camera colour saturation control? which would be better?
) of setting anything on the camera would be if the images were to be printed without processing. If you shoot Raw ,which I think you should (but that's opening a whole new can of worms 