I had the great pleasure of being able to shoot the Joe Bonamassa rock/blues concert in San Francisco on Friday, and the double pleasure of being able to use Canon's 200mm f/1.8L lens.
The lighting changed drastically, but I was able to get a decent exposure most of the time.
My real problem was that I was in the back of the theater, about 100-120' away, most of the time, although at one point I got as close as 75', I think.
The resulting images showed quite a bit of noise unless there was a bright white spotlight on the subject. So I had shots with a clear, sharp face, but noisy guitar or pants (where there was no spotlight). Or the shots were noisy b/c of dark colored lighting.
My question is what's the best way to brighten, sharpen, and reduce noise so that the images look great?
Perhaps the answer is to be much closer next time, in which case, OK. I know it was my first time shooting a rock concert, but I want the images to be great if I'm using a 200/1.8!!
Your images are close to 50kb right now. They can go up to 400kb.
My advice is: Open your photo editing software and re-size your original photo to about 800pixels for the biggest dimension. Then save it as jpeg (compression from 1 to 10, about 7) - This should be great for web viewing. Once you have the new images, edit your first and change the current uploaded pictures to the new ones.
Best,
Fred
What Fred said. Also, you can also save size by eliminating the fancy frames. As a plus, I for one prefer critiquing images without frames. There are add-on program that can help with noise. There are also PS techniques that can help, but without seeing the images at a suitable size of about 800 pixels on the long dimension, it's hard to make suggestions.
Great,
BTW: The forum frames do not add to the image size. They are added after the fact . It's safe to add any frame to your shots (You can edit your post and add/change them at any time). Cleaning up the noise will decrease the size considerably. I will increase the max size for uploads tomorrow. All the best,
Fred
Very nice--thanks! I'm assuming that this can be turned into an action so that it can be applied to other pics?
Do you think the settings would change with different lighting or just image size? I don't want to spend days doing this for my whole album of photos--I think that's what intimidates me most about post-processing. The time it could take.
How do you think image size might affect the settings?
I have yet to master actions, but presume using the blur tool to smooth the background may not lend itself to an action. You may wish to reserve it for those images for which you can justify the extra time. I suspect for a given ISO and lighting setup a reasonable noise reduction setting could be found. However, my approach to PP is one for individual images rather than volume processing. I'd suggest you pose your question on the Post-processing and Printing Forum. You are more likely to receive good advice there for constructing actions and volume method suggestions.
. It's safe to add any frame to your shots (You can edit your post and add/change them at any time). Cleaning up the noise will decrease the size considerably. I will increase the max size for uploads tomorrow. All the best,