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Author Topic: What is your take on processing these images?  (Read 5271 times)

ErikKaffehr

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What is your take on processing these images?
« on: September 26, 2014, 05:39:59 pm »

Hi,

I posted two images I shot with P45+ on a recent shooting with my photo club. I am not really shooting portraits so I would be interested how more experienced photographers would process these images. In case anyone is interested, the images are here, raw files and all:

http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/Shoots/PortraitSamples/

Conditions:

Evening light, vertical picture with fill flash and the other one using a gold reflector. f/5.6 I think.

Best regards
Erik
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2014, 06:43:17 pm »

I still haven't gotten used to LR 4's PV2012 tone sliders. There's so much redundancy in their behavior on the preview especially "Whites" vs "Highlights" I keep going around in circles. It takes longer for me to get what I want than if I'ld done it in CS5 PV2010 ACR 6.7.

But I was able to open up the shadows and control the blow out on the hair highlights and add Clarity which acts very much like Contrast. Also got rid of the magenta color noise in the highlights in the thin strands of hair using CA eyedropper.

See the screengrab...
« Last Edit: September 26, 2014, 06:45:46 pm by Tim Lookingbill »
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2014, 07:09:06 pm »

When I look at those pictures, the first thing I see is that strand of hair with CA  ;)

Tim Lookingbill

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2014, 07:28:45 pm »

When I look at those pictures, the first thing I see is that strand of hair with CA  ;)

Wasn't trying to be obsessive compulsive with my edits, just wanting to see the magic of the CA eyedropper tool. It is such a cool tool.

Also Erik's image is the first I've seen of that kind of splotchy magenta CA iridesced off hair strands and wanted to see if that tool could fix it without mucking up other similar colors like the girls makeup and lipstick.

Looks like it worked perfectly.
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2014, 01:13:02 am »

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the input. I am sure it will help a bit in improving my image processing.

I find that I have a tendency to keep the images a bit to dark.

Thanks a lot for spending the time.

Best regards
Erik

I still haven't gotten used to LR 4's PV2012 tone sliders. There's so much redundancy in their behavior on the preview especially "Whites" vs "Highlights" I keep going around in circles. It takes longer for me to get what I want than if I'ld done it in CS5 PV2010 ACR 6.7.

But I was able to open up the shadows and control the blow out on the hair highlights and add Clarity which acts very much like Contrast. Also got rid of the magenta color noise in the highlights in the thin strands of hair using CA eyedropper.

See the screengrab...
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Some Guy

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2014, 01:16:53 am »

I'm not an expert either, but I did find them a bit too dark and heavily saturated.  Printing them would show that.

I'll try the other shot...



SG
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #6 on: September 27, 2014, 01:27:34 am »

Hi Slobodan,

I presume you mean Colour Aliasing and not Chromatic Aberration?

To be serious, it can be removed using the Moiré brush, but I didn't care to do it. I would fix that before I made a print.

This was shot on an outing with my photo club, and the reason I used the "Blad" was mainly that neither of the young ladies in the pictures had her camera. The older one forgot to charge the battery and the younger one was coming straight from a soccer match and didn't have the opportunity to collect her camera. There were some issues with time planning at the photo club. So I lent my Sony to the ladies and fell back on the "Blad". Yeah, I missed some shots.

The main reason I posted those images was that I have not shoot any portraits for 40 years and have very little ideas about processing for skin tones. I did process the images to my liking, but I am sort of interested in learning more.

Sorry for the lengthy answer. I could just sent a smiling face :-)

Your response is much appreciated, as always-

Best regards
Erik



When I look at those pictures, the first thing I see is that strand of hair with CA  ;)
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #7 on: September 27, 2014, 01:31:42 am »

Thanks!

I would adjust the image for printing using soft proofing. Great idea, I make prints and ask my lady friends at office, we have a department doing creative work.

I have noted that I have a tendency towards the dark side, I will work on it.

Best regards
Erik

I'm not an expert either, but I did find them a bit too dark and heavily saturated.  Printing them would show that.

I'll try the other shot...



SG
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #8 on: September 27, 2014, 01:49:41 am »

Hi Tim,

I don't exactly know what you mean, what I have observed was demosaic errors in some of the hair. That was handled better in Capture One.

I include two samples but you may have observe something else I completely missed.

Best regards
Erik

Wasn't trying to be obsessive compulsive with my edits, just wanting to see the magic of the CA eyedropper tool. It is such a cool tool.

Also Erik's image is the first I've seen of that kind of splotchy magenta CA iridesced off hair strands and wanted to see if that tool could fix it without mucking up other similar colors like the girls makeup and lipstick.

Looks like it worked perfectly.
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smahn

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #9 on: September 27, 2014, 01:57:54 am »

I still haven't gotten used to LR 4's PV2012 tone sliders. There's so much redundancy in their behavior on the preview especially "Whites" vs "Highlights" I keep going around in circles.

very loosely speaking, highlights are to whites as shadows are to blacks. iow, highlights are 1/4 tones, shadows 3/4 tones and whites and blacks are endpoints.

that's how i organize it in my brain anyway.
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #10 on: September 27, 2014, 02:21:39 am »

Hi,

This part is messy in Capture One, too.

Best regards
Erik



Hi Tim,

I don't exactly know what you mean, what I have observed was demosaic errors in some of the hair. That was handled better in Capture One.

I include two samples but you may have observe something else I completely missed.

Best regards
Erik

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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #11 on: September 27, 2014, 01:40:29 pm »

Hi Tim,

I don't exactly know what you mean, what I have observed was demosaic errors in some of the hair. That was handled better in Capture One.

I include two samples but you may have observe something else I completely missed.

Best regards
Erik


Erik, the demosiaic errors I'll have to assume is the cause of the magenta splotches I could only see at 200% view in LR4. The edit didn't need to be done because it's very small viewed at normal zoom and most likely wouldn't be seen on a print except in extreme movie theater wall size enlargements. On further close inspection these color splotches appear to be iridescent refractions off shiny hair strands. A sort of prism effect.

See below where I added an second CA eyedropper correction to the yellow which I had missed.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #12 on: September 27, 2014, 01:55:59 pm »

...I'll try the other shot...

That would be great processing... for a vampire movie ;)

Tim Lookingbill

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #13 on: September 27, 2014, 02:12:51 pm »

very loosely speaking, highlights are to whites as shadows are to blacks. iow, highlights are 1/4 tones, shadows 3/4 tones and whites and blacks are endpoints.

that's how i organize it in my brain anyway.

I'm aware of the zone demarcations within LR for each slider. It's still difficult to notice the differences in the preview when attempting to expand the dynamics of shine on hair without making the faces over brighten. Just because one can see the zone in the histogram doesn't always translate on how to gauge its reach on highlight detail in shadows.

Not sure where skin tone falls on the histogram on this shot since hue/saturation are connected to luminance. It was the same issue with the old Fill slider in PV2003-2010 where PV2012 has a more gradually tapering, broader reach I'm assuming to fix the halo issue on high contrast edges when applying both the old Recovery/Fill adjusts.

Also the subject's faces appear to be unevenly lit between the two by some sort of fill either bounced off the sun or direct flash where the first subject has more light on her face as if her head is blocking light on the girl behind her. Most likely adjustment brush would have to be employed on the second subject.

I think Erik's initial edit which I built my edits upon from the downloaded xmp gets skin tones pretty much correct looking. I just added a bit more yellow by adjusting the green tint slider from +14 to +12 to remove what I perceived as a slightly reddish hue in the faces in order to get a closer match to the golden hour warmer lighting. Having young subjects with good skin tone helps in combination with the makeup and bounced diffused light.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2014, 02:14:29 pm by Tim Lookingbill »
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #14 on: September 27, 2014, 03:09:52 pm »

Hi,

Yes and no! Both highlights and shadows do tone mapping. They do compress tonal range, which gives boring images, so they do local contrast adjustments. Just like most HDR tools, but much more subtly. That said they can still bite!

It is a great feature and it is a bad feature. I'll try to post some examples in a day or two.

Best regards
Erik

very loosely speaking, highlights are to whites as shadows are to blacks. iow, highlights are 1/4 tones, shadows 3/4 tones and whites and blacks are endpoints.

that's how i organize it in my brain anyway.
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #15 on: September 27, 2014, 03:11:57 pm »

Hi Slobodan,

I asked for opinions and opinions I got…

Best regards
Erik

That would be great processing... for a vampire movie ;)
« Last Edit: September 27, 2014, 03:24:06 pm by ErikKaffehr »
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Erik Kaffehr
 

ErikKaffehr

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #16 on: September 27, 2014, 03:23:07 pm »

Hi,

Thanks for feedback, much appreciated.

The vertical image used fill flash and was set up by the guy who was leading the session. Main light was evening sunlight reflected from the wall and the lady was shaded from direct sunlight.

The horizontal one was just as an afterthought. It was illuminated by a golden metal type reflector, I would probably prefer a white matte one instead. That is a lesson learned.

Best regards
Erik




I'm aware of the zone demarcations within LR for each slider. It's still difficult to notice the differences in the preview when attempting to expand the dynamics of shine on hair without making the faces over brighten. Just because one can see the zone in the histogram doesn't always translate on how to gauge its reach on highlight detail in shadows.

Not sure where skin tone falls on the histogram on this shot since hue/saturation are connected to luminance. It was the same issue with the old Fill slider in PV2003-2010 where PV2012 has a more gradually tapering, broader reach I'm assuming to fix the halo issue on high contrast edges when applying both the old Recovery/Fill adjusts.

Also the subject's faces appear to be unevenly lit between the two by some sort of fill either bounced off the sun or direct flash where the first subject has more light on her face as if her head is blocking light on the girl behind her. Most likely adjustment brush would have to be employed on the second subject.

I think Erik's initial edit which I built my edits upon from the downloaded xmp gets skin tones pretty much correct looking. I just added a bit more yellow by adjusting the green tint slider from +14 to +12 to remove what I perceived as a slightly reddish hue in the faces in order to get a closer match to the golden hour warmer lighting. Having young subjects with good skin tone helps in combination with the makeup and bounced diffused light.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2014, 03:25:36 pm by ErikKaffehr »
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #17 on: September 27, 2014, 04:15:58 pm »

Here's my attempt on the vertical portrait.

Color temp adjust to get just the right amount of warm glow without giving the skin a stained look was a challenge with regard to my eyes adapting to seeing the skin as naturally lit by warm light. I went by how blue the side lit board on the left should look. I could've went warmer but I like to see a bit of the pink in the skin. Tough call.

Applied adjustment brush on the hand on the left which looked too magenta-ish and got it to match somewhat to the other hand. 50% brush density with a warm color temp of +40/-20tint over the entire hand, afterward tweaked saturation and increased exposure to get a reasonable match.

Thanks to Erik for supplying a primo quality capture with the "Blad" (my first edit of such) and getting my lazy butt back into using Lightroom. My first practical use of the adjustment brush.
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Torbjörn Tapani

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Re: Sv: Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #18 on: September 30, 2014, 08:22:42 am »

I'm aware of the zone demarcations within LR for each slider. It's still difficult to notice the differences in the preview when attempting to expand the dynamics of shine on hair without making the faces over brighten. Just because one can see the zone in the histogram doesn't always translate on how to gauge its reach on highlight detail in shadows.

I'm not completely sure I understand what you are trying to do but I think this is a situation when I would not fight it but make virtual copies with different adjustments for hair, skin, eyes maybe and blend in Photoshop.

That would be my suggestion for a LR6. Treating virtual copies as layers with masking. The adjustment brush only goes so far...
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: Sv: Re: What is your take on processing these images?
« Reply #19 on: September 30, 2014, 02:06:09 pm »

I'm not completely sure I understand what you are trying to do...

I can see that from your response.

To further clarify and to simply state as much as I can there's visually based redundancies in the behavior of LR4.4's PV2012 sliders from how they affect each tonal zone of the preview mainly due to their gradual blending in to each other to where I can't see where one stops and the other starts within each zone they act on.

I can't tell if I improved the look of the image compared to what I could see in previous PV versions but I can say for certain after doing an A/B test of the same image edited in each PV version by switching on/off a layered stack comparison in Photoshop, PV2012 always gives better results. It just takes getting used to PV2012 sliders' blending behavior. It messes with my perception which introduces doubts in the way I feel about the results.

Also there's a 3 second delay in LR4.4 preview update after each slider adjust that also takes getting used to. Adjust a slider in LR's "Fit" view setting and the preview first blurs for about 2-3 seconds then finally goes back to normal reflecting the new adjustment. This doesn't happen in 1:1 zoomed in preview but now I can't see how the adjustment affects the tonal relationship of the entire image. Hit the space bar to go back to "Fit" to get a quick look and I'm back waiting 3 seconds for the preview to update.

I'm not going to upgrade my system and LR to have this fixed.

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