Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Joe, RAW converters are different. This is the normal result from Apple Aperture, only adjustment I did was that I moved vibrancy slider from center position to 0.05. Also I'm not sure what you did but in your version color is not consistent - for example the red fence in front of the house is much more saturated than the red wall. Then on your version on the smaller house on left the wall is way too red, it wasn't red at all in real life - did you change white balance to warmer Damn now your image disappeared, when I tried to open it to a tab to compare better to mine.
I guess mine is little closer, I could have used the saturation/vibrancy slider a little more.
And no, I don't have any other shots of this scene, except other compositions with same Leica and some other shots from same location with Makro-Planar 2/100....Show more →
Yeah, maybe it was a weird Lightroom 3 beta thing...I took it down because I thought it looked so bad. I'll try raw developer...
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
I can make some in 3-4 months from now when we get rid off snow... I don't remember having any good example of this, usually when I have done "lens comparisons" it has been more "shoot the damn brick wall" kind of photos.
I will try to do something myself. I have a 45mm Rokkor I've been wanting to put up against the Panasonic kit lens on the G1 (at f5.6, of course).
We can compare the default drawing differences from those two lenses. Maybe one will even look 3D.
And that's just the problem with this issue and why there is so much confusion and disagreement. Once you know the quality that you are looking for, it's a distinctive thing, and it requires imagination, not analysis. For some reason this image looks to me like a photograph of a page in a book. Or a photograph of a flower whose outline is cut out very very carefully and raised a few inches off its background and then re-photographed. There's no 3D in the flower itself, which is, I think, what Carsten is referring to when he talks about the 3D texture of the subject rather than the 3D separation from the background. The lenses I have used which most reliably achieved this look were (some) Leicas, and the lenses I have owned which have most often been incapable of arriving at this look have been Zeisses. I like to avoid this look because I don't want my pictures to look like a photo of a cutout of a page from a book. Being there is important, and this image is like eating a Mars bar with the wrapper on. Maybe it can be fixed with clever processing, but if I can get cheaper lenses which don't require extra processing to achieve a real sense of 3D instead of pretty boke, I'm in. That's why I don't have too many of this kind of lens any more. Making the blurred areas pretty and the subject itself lacklustre seems like putting the cart before the horse.
I actually find the image very 3d.. On my display at least, very life-like 3D actually. The difference between the first/largest flower, the smaller flowers and the background makes it very 3d... to me that is ..
The thing is, our eyes are used to seeing that sort of detail in real life. If we want any chance at all of "3D-effect" in an image, it has to be at least as sharp as reality. No?
The left looks like a photo. The right comes so close to reality that it is easy for the brain to take a tiny leap forward and think in "3D".
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Joe, if people believe 3D-ish look/feeling can be added in PhotoShop, would you mind to enhance one of my Leica images. Below you can see how it comes out with my standard processing, what works fine with Zeiss. This is not a crappy lens, pictures are amazing in many other aspects except except they are quite flat (and bokeh wide open sucks quality point of view, but rare fast 50mm differs from this). If same small hotel would have been shot with Contax Planar T* 1.7/50 at same settings it would have looked pretty different and not flat at all. I would love to see the Z-shape what the rocks on shore make, which is not visible in this Leica shot....Show more →
Processing in LAB might enable you to achieve more Z-shape on the rocks. That's what LAB processing is all about: enhancing the tonal differences between similar adjacent colours and hues.
But Samuli, the image on my monitor (calibrated 2009 MacBook Pro) looks fantastic and plenty 3D, vivid, crisp, and brilliant. Though if I were to *really* dissect it, the rocks are least 3D of all. And the rocks have probably lost some of that 3D-ness due to the huge amount of detail being lost during resizing for the web. I hope it's not too much to ask, but I would very much like to have a look at the RAW file if it's okay to ask.
cogitech wrote:
Steven's image. I hope he doesn't mind.
No, I don't mind. For Samuli's, Joseph's, and my images though, I would like to see something in between the original and new versions. The sharpening looks a touch harsh on my monitor (though maybe that's just recompression jpeg artifacts), but something in between would probably be just right for my taste.
brainiac wrote:
For some reason this image looks to me like a photograph of a page in a book. Or a photograph of a flower whose outline is cut out very very carefully and raised a few inches off its background and then re-photographed. There's no 3D in the flower itself.
Here's a mild stab at the jpg (via flickr). I don't normally pp jpegs, so I had to modify my usual 'recipe' ... I will replace it with a RAW effort when I get it later.
Okay, here's my attempt. It doesn't appear as sharp as some of the others already, and that's the way I prefer it. This was run through my LAB action (set saturation and contrast) and then sharpened with Smart Sharpen (90/0.5) and then "Save as..." at 100% in PhotoShop 3. No WB changes.
Samuli was kind enough to send the RAW file, and upon inspection it seems the rocks aren't as in focus as the cottage(?) or trees in behind.
StevenPA wrote:
No, I don't mind. For Samuli's, Joseph's, and my images though, I would like to see something in between the original and new versions. The sharpening looks a touch harsh on my monitor (though maybe that's just recompression jpeg artifacts), but something in between would probably be just right for my taste.
I don't doubt that the images may look over-sharpened to some people on their respective output devices. This gets back to what I was saying in the other thread about PP & presentation. The processing has to be optimized for the resolution of the destination media.
I processed those photos to look ideal on my 20" ViewSonic 8-bit panel with a resolution of 1680x1050. I suspect your MacBook screen has significantly lower resolution, which would make my images less suitable for your viewing. On top of that, my screen sits at least 2.5 feet from my eyes. I suspect yours is much closer.
When I look at these same images on my crappy Dell 6-bit panel at work, which has a lower resolution than my home panel (and is forced to dither up to 8-bit) I will find them "oversharpened" there as well.
EDIT: I'm at work now, and sure enough the images do appear a little "harsh". Some of that is JPEG compression, though.
philber wrote:
Yes, Paul, to my eyes your two reprocessed shots look more 3D. Care to share your PP?
Sure, I simply used Fred Miranda's "Intellisharpen II" which is a really old plug-in for PS. There are more current/modern variations for specific cameras, etc. but I find this one does the trick quite well. I also bumped up the contrast a bit. Took me about 1 minute per image. I did sort of "go for the gusto" so to speak, to prove a point. The tool allows for much more subtle results, if one prefers. (Note: my version of Samuli's cottage shot was done with GIMP's built-in sharpening features, on a different computer).
StevenPA wrote:
Kent, looking good for a re-process of a jpeg.
Thanks ... always a shot in the dark for me because I work on two vastly different monitors depending on where I'm at (old 15" Thinkbook vs. 19" LaCie), so it's much harder to judge what I've done when I'm using the laptop.
Paul (Cogitech) is right (IMHO) about viewing distances & output sizes having impact. Also, you can be viewing an image at on size and it seem flat ... then when you crop in to 100%, an element in it can come alive. I think this is strongly related to viewing distance ... so I will view from multiple sizes, to see where / how I'm doing.
If I'm 'getting it' in one view but not the other, I accept that it is probably a viewing distance issue and 'stay the course' with what's working in that view ... not trying to overforce something in a wider / narrower view.
As an aside, I'm happy that we are now starting to talk about post processing techniques that can a good 3D file even better in post. +1
Delightfully refreshing ... a different piece of the overall recipe for "Killer" pics:
Pick your meal (subject, composition & lighting) ... choose your poison (lens & sensor) ... sweeten to taste (pp) ... and serve (presentation).
Repeat ... till you've taken everyone's breath away.
BTW ... I'm very much in the 'repeat' mode, trying diligently to get to the take everyone's breath away result.
Damn now your image disappeared,
....