Just thinking aloud...

[Ray]

The RAW converter in PS CS2 has a default automatic adjustment of exposure, shadows, brightness and contrast.

It's interesting that many images that I thought at the time were clear of the right end of the histogram, are given a compensating underexposure in ACR, like - 0.3 or -0.5.

[Ben Rubinstein]

Just tried it, a bit crude, doesn't seem to be SF or OOF, a bit like a very very harsh edge sharpen with blur applied to the rest.

Talking of which, I spent a while working with  smart sharpen. As you pointed out in an earlier thread it needs a bigger radius than USM to achieve comparable results. I found that to keep the halo and noise levels down I had to sacrifice a lot of fine detail/resolution in the whites and darks. I tried PhotoKit and although it did the job better than smart sharpen, for portraiture it just didn't look right, the contrast between sharp and defined edge detail and unsharpened unresolved skin detail was too harsh. I sat down and compiled an action which (albeit crudely) sharpens the edges and non edges seperately with a noise reduction on the non edge areas. I find that it gives a more subtle effect of skin softening than does Photokit, it's customiseable and free!

If you're bored take a look, the first action is to replace USM 250,1,0 (my default setting for 8X12" prints from my 10D), the second is customiseable at almost every step.

I made the action specifically for portraiture, I've not tried it for landscape work. If you can tell me how to do the de-noiseing stage without using as blunt an instrument as 'despeckle', in CS, I would be grateful.

left click and 'save target as'

[Ben Rubinstein]

The whole idea is to shoot a scene BEFORE the moment of interest occurs there, so that you can know your settings are appropriate.

Good L-rd.....

[BJL]

Pom,

   your idea sounds equivalent to selecting a bit of underexposure compensation and then fixing the overall tonal level in the digital domain. If the highlights are blown due to sensor wells filling up, lowering ISO at the same time will not help, but at the elevated ISO setting of ISO 400 and 200 that you mention, the sensor is being "underexposed" anyway, so that is probably not the problem. Instead highlights are probably lost mainly in JPEG conversion.

So is one option to use raw with say -1 compensation, and then do batch conversion with the corresponding +1 set, and maybe an appropriate constrast level or tone curve? Cases where highlights do awry would probably then need a second custom conversion.

If you need JPEGs straight from the camera for impatient new spouses, I can see a need for an appropriate in-camera mode, but maybe such modes are already there. Perhaps a low contrast setting for the in-camera JPEG conversion, or custom tone curves (does the 20D have them?), with JPEG+RAW to allow for some later custom conversions in the tough cases.  (I am still in the early stages of experimenting with low contrast in-camera JPEG versus RAW and later manipulation, via RAW+JPEG mode.)

[Ben Rubinstein]

Just got the 1Ds today, I see what you mean, at iso 400 a stop underexposure makes the shadow noise look as bad as iso 1600 on my 10D, WOW, at least the evaluative metering is far more accurate so I'll need to dial in less 'buffer' underexposure.

[Ben Rubinstein]

The difference in exposure accuracy between the 10D and 1-series is significant: it's also way better than my 1v.  I can now shoot on evaluative +1/3ev for just about everything, and only really have to move off that (and shift ISO around - need a faster way of doing that) when stage lights dictate.  Pom, I think the 1Ds will change the way you work.

You're telling me! I've done little testing but the 1Ds holds the highlights far better than the 10D which seems to peak much faster. The iso settings are 'true' so that my hand meter can be taken as read (the 10D seemed to be shooting at almost a stop over of sensor sensitivity, i.e. iso 200 when 100 was showing, or at least that's how it felt sometimes!) and the evaluative metering is a world apart. Being able to trust your metering and camera's exposure instead of working it out in your head the whole time to compensate for the cameras inefficiency will certainly take a lot of pressure of me when shooting weddings.

[Jonathan Wienke]

My experience with the 10D indicated that there was basically zero difference between the histogram indicating clipping and the RAW data being clipped, while the 1Ds & 1D-MkII have between 2/3 and 1 1/3 stop interval between histogram clipping and RAW clipping, depending on the color temp of the lighting. Daylight (5000-6000K) has the largest available headroom, and it decreases as you go above or below this range. Really low color temp stage lighting (say 2500K) decreases the clip interval to about 1/3 stop in the red channel, so that's one reason why nailing the exposure dead-on just below the clip point is critical but difficult when shooting typical concerts.

[Ben Rubinstein]

Now that was fast, you replied while I was editing. You are right of course, I use flash for 100% of my people work, either as main light or fill, or studio setting of course. I stopped using it for landscapes as the trees kept blinking.... (sorry)

In case you're thinking that it was the flash that was overexposing, I was shooting with auto flash, fill dialed in manually at -2 stops for all the shots, the fstop was the same whether metered manually or with evaluative, I was changing the shutter speed.

[Ben Rubinstein]

A lot of DSLR users are purposely underexposing to preserve the highlights  and correcting in RAW. However true the 'expose to the right' concept is, in the real world it still makes sense to keep most of the highlights away from the fifth section of the histogram when you can't go back and do it again. With the modern excellent charactaristics of shadow noise or the lack thereof, this isn't really a problem.

If the camera manufacturers were to develop a DSLR whose meter would be 1 stop underexposed, i.e. iso 400 was really iso 200 and the software, either in camera or as a RAW developer would bring the exposure up a stop while compressing the highlights (on a mini scale of what HDR does) , assuming that the noise control was good would that not effectively be a way to market a DSLR with less chance of losing a photo through overexposure?

Of course the documentation would have to instruct the customer to caliberate their hand meters to the camera, the noise in the shadows would have to be pretty good, and the implementation of the HDR type software would have to be carefully written, but it would be a cheaper way than installing extra low sensitivity pixels like the Fuji does.

I know that I would prefer the noise characteristics of an older generation camera if I didn't have to worry about my highlights, when I underexpose by a stop with my 10D I am essentially shooting at one higher iso as far as noise is  concerned.

I know I'm rambling but if the underexposure was built into the camera's meter and 'iso' settings you could shoot using the regular modes without compensation while getting extra DR in the highlights for a more film (negative) like feel.

For a landscape shooter this might be irrelevant, for a journalist/event/wedding shooter who often have to shoot on the fly it could make a big difference.

I'm probably talking out of my bottom but if the manufacturers are having trouble getting the pixels not to hit the wall at 'x' amount of overexposure, this trick plus a HDR type software solution could work as an idiot proof solution.

Yes you can dial in underexposure to any of the shooting modes. If the default metering was underexposed then you wouldn't have to remember to dial it in, nor would you get confused when overexposing for white by a stop and finding the setting on '0'. When I shoot in Av or Tv mode it confuses the heck out of me.

[Ben Rubinstein]

Jonathan, I'm a wedding shooter, I cannot allow my self the luxury of checking the histogram and shooting again nor would I have time for bracketing. I have to get it right first time every time. I do the same as Jack, I have the meter in partial mode, meter of the highlights or the face in manual mode, adjust exposure to match and shoot. If I don't have time for that then I have an ambient meter around my neck when shooting and dial in a -1/2 to 1 stop from the reading dependant on the DR of the scene.
It's a pain in the neck that's all. For pleasing facial tones you need a gradual and controlled transition from the highlights to the midtones which pro neg film provides. To replicate that with digital needs careful attention both when shooting and post processing and the cameras metering doesn't usually help...

[Jack Flesher]

I found that to keep the halo and noise levels down I had to sacrifice a lot of fine detail/resolution in the whites and darks.

SNIP

 If you can tell me how to do the de-noiseing stage without using as blunt an instrument as 'despeckle', in CS, I would be grateful.

Unfortunately, the CS sharpening step is hugely dependant on "how what" was used to convert the raw file and of course what camera was used and at what ISO the raw file was captured at.  So what works for me may not -- actually probably won't -- work for you...

For my 1Ds2 files at ISO 100 - 400, I use RSE to convert, and generally use its sharpening set to 0 or -10, detail extraction at 0 and NR at 0.

With the above parameters, I generally set Smart Sharpen to somewhere around 100%/1.0/Gaussian/More-Accurate, the shadow 25%/25/4 and the highlight at 50%/50/4.

You obviously need to tune to your own files, but specifically the shadow radius and tonal width settings have a big effect on how the noisy areas are "smoothed" and is (not) sharpened. Higer radius = less and higher tonal width = smoother.  

~~~

As for the surface blur filter...  For skin, try it at a very low radius, like 2 and low threshold like 5, then apply it on its own layer and dial opacity down to around 75%.  

[Ben Rubinstein]

If you need to chimp your histogram to get your exposure right then you shouldn't be shooting weddings either. How on earth did you shoot with film? Neg film does not save you for subject/ambient light ratios. Overexpose the subject and you lose your background. If you can't expose without your histogram then you don't know how to meter.

Since I changed over to auto flash and using either partial metering in manual mode or an incident meter, I chimp only every now and again and have to redo shots only very rarely.
Of course wedding photographers are prepared, in advance if there's time, for the different sets of shooting they will encounter. The PJ style shots, where a candid moment can happen anywhere in just a second is where you need to know and trust your equipment to get it right first time every time. Having the extra latitude to save you in such an occasion can help.

For example, you are shooting portraits of the bride in the shade under a tree. You take a step back and notice that the 5 year old bridesmaid has her arm round her little cousin. You have about two seconds to get the shot, maybe less, the moment they notice your camera they will freeze up. In such a case you need to change from f1.8 to f5.6, compose and shoot in about a second. Oh and they are in completely different lighting to the bride. If you need to have prepared for such a shot, have sorted out your histogram in advance, you're screwed. Those type of shots make about 40+% of my wedding work. How ever much you are ready for the 'set' scenes.....

[Jonathan Wienke]

Av mode with EC dialed in appropriately is the only way to go in that situation. Manual is useless when ambient fluctuates 3 stops or more moment to moment. At one of my recent concerts, the lighting fluctuated enough that my shutter speeds were ranging between 1/15 and 1/800. And getting exposure exactly right in-camera is important, because shooting at ISO 800-1600  is mandatory (no flash is ever allowed), and trying to fix underexposed shots in the RAW converter is a sure-fire recipe for disappointment. The composition also affects the correct EC amount, which can be anything from -1 2/3 for a spotlighted performer shot from the side against a black background to +1 1/3 for someone in light clothing on a white background. In a situation like that, you need to re-check camera settings every time you change compositions, and often when the lighting changes, like if it goes from a single spot to all stage lights on. If you use any one set of camera settings, you're screwed. Weddings are cake compared to concerts; concerts are usually 100% candid-type shots requiring split-second timing in a highly unstable lighting environment where 2/3 of a stop exposure can differentiate cream and crap.

Trusting settings in a concert context is somewhat like trusting jelly to stay nailed to a tree; frequent histogram verification and fine-tuning settings is the only way to ensure consistently good results. It's always a game of catch-up until you get familiar with the settings required for the various angles and lighting conditions. And even then sometimes they change.

[Coops]

Bovine excrement?

[jani]

You're telling me! I've done little testing but the 1Ds holds the highlights far better than the 10D which seems to peak much faster. The iso settings are 'true' so that my hand meter can be taken as read (the 10D seemed to be shooting at almost a stop over of sensor sensitivity, i.e. iso 200 when 100 was showing, or at least that's how it felt sometimes!) and the evaluative metering is a world apart. Being able to trust your metering and camera's exposure instead of working it out in your head the whole time to compensate for the cameras inefficiency will certainly take a lot of pressure of me when shooting weddings.

I think you just may have put the finger on something that's been bothering me about the 20D also.

I've struggled some (but not too often) with highlights in exposures, and of course I've mainly blamed myself and not the tool. Obviously, I'm still at fault, but if the 1Ds does a better job off it, I might have some serious thinking to do, and maybe I should test that camera.

(No, wait, I can't afford a used 1Ds yet!)

[Ben Rubinstein]

My incident meter is still seemingly more reliable than evaluative for outdoor portraiture but although the difference was almost a stop between the readings (I focus recompose which probably doesn't help), the overexposed images were fully recoverable and when ACR'ed (-.30 exposure) were as good as the correctly exposed images. My 10D would have lost the picture with overexposed highlights on the face. I would be quite happy to use Av mode and evaluative if needed. I'm going to try spot metering from the face to see whether it's the evaluative that's overexposing or the scene just had too much DR without fill which is what I expect.

[Jonathan Wienke]

If I overexpose the subject the the background goes darker which I prefer to avoid.

Only if the overexposure is from flash. Otherwise the exposure balance between subject and background will remain exactly the same.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Here's a much better idea that can be easily implemented on any RAW-capable digital camera right now:

Digital Exposure And Metering Strategies

[Jack Flesher]

I'm a wedding shooter,

As a totally OT aside, have you tried the new "surface blur" filter in CS2 yet?

,

Jack

[Jonathan Wienke]

If you can tell me how to do the de-noiseing stage without using as blunt an instrument as 'despeckle', in CS, I would be grateful.

Neat Image or Noise Ninja...