Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: keith_cooper on February 25, 2013, 11:37:08 am
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I've just written up a short review of Robert Fisher's new book: The Digital Zone System: Taking Control from Capture to Print
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/books/dzs-fisher.html (http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/books/dzs-fisher.html)
Lots of interesting and useful info, even if the DZS editing technique is perhaps a bit complex for my usual tastes.
I'm curious as to people's views as to how useful such an approach is? Has anyone tried the DZS photoshop actions in earnest?
I've long used the more general ETTR (overexpose, but don't blow important highlights) way of judging RAW exposures. BTW I recently wrote up a more general overview of my own process 'from idea to print (http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/photo-tips/making_a_picture.html)'
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Hi Keith, thanks for providing this information and the link to your book review. It's probably totally unfair and inappropriate to comment on it without buying and reading the book - which I may well do when time permits. That said, one really wonders. ETTR without clipping of useful highlights makes good technical sense for the reasons Bruce Fraser, Jeff Schewe and others have explained on numerous occasions and in different publications. The second thing is to get to know your camera - in terms of interpreting the validity of the histogram information - does the highlight clipping point of a raw file more or less correspond with what the histogram shows, and if it doesn't, how much compensation is safe to deploy as a "default". Beyond that, all the remaining tonal control can be so well controlled in Lightroom, and if needed thereafter in Photoshop, that the role of a digital zone system really needs to be reassessed, I think. Unlike in the film days, we get instant feedback on every tonal adjustment we make. In the film era the zone system served the very important role of previsualizing the tonal distribution of the eventual photograph. This seems no longer necessary apart from understanding the relationship between the camera histogram and the highlight clipping point.
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... tonal control can be so well controlled in Lightroom, and if needed thereafter in Photoshop, that the role of a digital zone system really needs to be reassessed, I think. ...This seems no longer necessary apart from understanding the relationship between the camera histogram and the highlight clipping point.
I agree, Mark. It might be useful for new photographers to understand what the zone system means, but as a way of predicting exposure and output, it's an unnecessary and out-dated paradigm.
I can't believe I said "paradigm" : )
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I think Ansel would have really liked histograms. I believe the Zone System came from fitful, prescient dreams of the six sliders in the "Tone" panel of LR4, at a time when only "Exposure", "Highlights" and "Whites" were actually accessible. But I blaspheme!
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The second thing is to get to know your camera - in terms of interpreting the validity of the histogram information - does the highlight clipping point of a raw file more or less correspond with what the histogram shows...
It truly boggles the mind that no self-respecting DSLR manufacturer has deigned itself to do this for us in this day and age even after DR's have reached into the teens: where are the freakin' RAW HISTOGRAMS, people! Switchable live heads-up display and blinkies, please. I can't believe the D600, 6D or D7100 don't have one. How disconnected from your base can you be?
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I think Ansel would have really liked histograms.
And the clarity slider.
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Keith, sorry we have dodged the actual topic! I have ordered the book via clicking your link, very anxious to see what's there. The Amazon "Look Inside" feature wetted my appetite.
FWIW, the original film Zone System could be summed up as: "Expose To The Left, Develop To The Right". Or "ETTL/DTTR" as we never used to say.
And that Clarity slider came in the guise of an 8x10 camera stopped down to f64. Would be a good name for a group.
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I think Ansel would have really liked histograms.
I think he'd love a raw Histogram and would get a good laugh out of the JPEG Histogram (on the camera).
Why would we need the zone system and previsulize when the JPEG preview is right there to see?
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FWIW, the original film Zone System could be summed up as: "Expose To The Left, Develop To The Right". Or "ETTL/DTTR" as we never used to say.
Or ETTR/DTTL, depending on which way you're going. ;D
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Ya got me, Bob, I forgot about contractions! Sometimes it was DTTL, but in general always ETTL, rigorously placing Zone Zero where not more than 2 photons/m^2 could ever hope to reach it. Except of course for low contrast fog scenes, which Ansel grudgingly admitted required a well exposed, dense negative, and enough said about that.
Of course, we tried to avoid contractions because it pretty much gummed up the lovely microcontrast and glowering shadow detail that came along for the ride with DTTR expansions. The Zone System had a strong preference for low contrast lighting. Brovia #4, cold light head, a jar full of dodging tools, and a drawer full of cut up paper boxes with holes...it was a thing of beauty! But it's all so much simpler in LR4.
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Increased contrast but increased grain as well. Always tradeoffs.
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Increased contrast but increased grain as well. Always tradeoffs.
Grain carried different connotations then. Some subtle grain texture was pretty much always there even on the big format stuff. You didn't usually see it in reproductions, but a well focused print above 11x14 was bound to show some grain, regardless of film or format. And with 35mm you didn't have to go much past wallet sized. It was not a defect, but rather a sort of artful patina. Photographs without it tended to look rather surreal through the eyes of the time. And in the 60's we positively groveled in grain, on purpose. Just ask Ralph Gibson. Maybe someday digital noise will be cool, and my old D70 will be worth a fortune.
(http://www.ralphgibson.com/uploads/8/7/5/7/8757968/9907656_orig.jpg)
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Thanks Keith. That is another £20 Amazon has got out of my bank balance. :(
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I'm not suggesting grain is universally bad, Bill. In certain instances, you're right it does enhance the 'feel' of the picture. In others, not so much. All I was saying was that increased grain is the trade off for reduced exposure and increased development. Whether that trade off is a plus or minus depends.
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If you go to the O'Reilly website you can get it as an ebook for a much reduced price.
http://shop.oreilly.com/category/ebooks/digital-photography.do
I have been looking at the book but some of the other reviews I have read did not sound all that great.
Alan
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Narrowly focused, very specialized books tend to not please a lot of people, and for that reason they often pick up poor revues. But if I can get 1 or 2 useful ideas, then it's money well spent, and I feel grateful the author simply made an attempt to communicate the information, however stumbling the attempt may have been. Of course, I have seen a few really useless books, too. :) But we're talkin' about the Zone System here, so it's got to be OK. Right?
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But we're talkin' about the Zone System here, so it's got to be OK. Right?
I'm not so sure as the Zone System as originally put forth by Ansel Adams had to do with chemistry-based photography. If one goes back and looks at how the chemistry progressed both with respect to developers and fixing agents, there was a lot of research going on both in the US and Germany. What Adams did was to bring a little more science to the game by breaking down the B/W response curves into zones and then figuring out who he could manipulate the zones through exposure and/or development depending on which zone he was most interested in. He didn't have the instant feedback that we have with digital cameras and had to be quite careful in the field to get the correct exposure. Think about how easy it is for us to a series of bracketed exposures in a short period of time versus handling a film-based view camera in the field. It would be far easier for us to get a decent exposure of the 'Hernandez Moonrise' should we be so lucky to come upon it.
I think that ETTR is a solid technique to maximize data capture. We don't need to make things difficult.
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Digital Simulation of the Analog Zone System.
Find a raw file where the middle and darker tones look OK with all the controls reset in Lightroom. Don't worry about what's happening over on the right side of the histogram. This initial condition simulates the kind of precisely exposed image where Ansel would have used his SEI spot meter to assign (usually) certain middle gray and darker-than-middle-grey brightnesses in the scene to specific densities in the negative.
Now use only the Whites slider to drag the histogram left or right so the brightest areas of the scene are just barely starting to clip. If you moved the slider to the right, you just did a Zone System Expansion. If you moved it to the left, you got a Zone System Contraction.
Notice how the Whites slider stretches and contracts the brighter parts of the image proportionately much more than the middle and darker areas. That is exactly how chemical development time works on film. The thinner areas of the negative (the dark areas in the print) develop almost completely early in the development cycle. But the more heavily exposed areas (the whites in the print) need more time to completely develop. When you increase development time, those bright areas spread out a lot, while the darker (in the positive) areas are not much influenced. So in at the greatest level of simplification, the film zone system gave you control over the parts of the image from the middle tones on up to the brighter ones, while affecting the darker tones very little. The only direct control of the darker tones is during the original exposure, and to some extent by faking it a bit during printing.
I'm sure this has been helpful to all you D800e owners.
Signing off now. Please indulge me, I am a still-recovering victim of ZS Syndrome and I'm doing this so the nightmares will stop.
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I got delivery of this book this morning. So far read about 1/2 of it. The first part mostly covers digital photography in general with descriptions of how aperture/shutter/iso works. It is well written but not sure if it is needed except to add as a filler. I have got to the nub of the book, the zone system. I was expecting to see the usual advice about visualising the scene, dividing the scene into zones adding/subtracting EV before pressing the shutter and exposing accordingly. That is not what the book is about at least what I have read so far. It is about applying the zone system to a captured image and using LR/ACR sliders in conjunction with the zone system. An interesting idea and the rest of the book will be an eye opener as to how it applies. The author isn't a fan of ETTR so fans so should be aware of that.
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Since writing the above and reading the book more it seems that the use of sliders in LR/ACR aren't pertinent and the use of luminous masks in PS is the pertinent methodology. Hmmm ..... a laborious method compared with using LR. I will wait till I have finished reading to comment further but it looks like a small number of photographers will find this useful?
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I got delivery of this book this morning. So far read about 1/2 of it. The first part mostly covers digital photography in general with descriptions of how aperture/shutter/iso works. It is well written but not sure if it is needed except to add as a filler. I have got to the nub of the book, the zone system. I was expecting to see the usual advice about visualising the scene, dividing the scene into zones adding/subtracting EV before pressing the shutter and exposing accordingly. That is not what the book is about at least what I have read so far. It is about applying the zone system to a captured image and using LR/ACR sliders in conjunction with the zone system. An interesting idea and the rest of the book will be an eye opener as to how it applies. The author isn't a fan of ETTR so fans so should be aware of that.
Based on what I see of your work on your website, you don't need this book. Some truly impressive photography there.
Turning to the advice you provide, let me put it this way: as you no doubt understand, ETTR isn't question of whether or not one is a "fan". ETTR is solidly based physics and mathematics. More data is conducive to making better quality photographs and you get more data by ETTR without clipping necessary highlight detail. If the author of that book doesn't understand and convey this message, he doesn't understand digital imaging.
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The author has named this book the Digital zone system which means that Ansel Adams springs to mind. I quickly looked at the latter half of the book - not in detail - to see where he was going with his ideas. The connection between the zone system and the book is imo tenuous to say the least. HDR is recommended as part of the process as a possibility. He could have named the book ... Luminousity masks and advanced processing .... and it would be nearer the mark imo. I expected when I was halfway through the book that the different zones would have been tied in with the sliders in ACR/LR to provide a method of processing an image but that idea wasn't on the cards. Anyone who has left PS behind in favour of using LR/ACR for processing an image will find little in the book to interest them but if they still like sitting for a while with PS then it interesting if they have the patience. As stated a connection between the zone system "proper" and this book is tenuous to say the least.
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Thanks very much for the heads-up. I too don't believe in complicated solutions when easier ones work just as well - if not better.
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Based on what I see of your work on your website, you don't need this book. Some truly impressive photography there.
Turning to the advice you provide, let me put it this way: as you no doubt understand, ETTR isn't question of whether or not one is a "fan". ETTR is solidly based physics and mathematics. More data is conducive to making better quality photographs and you get more data by ETTR without clipping necessary highlight detail. If the author of that book doesn't understand and convey this message, he doesn't understand digital imaging.
Mark thanks for the praise. I am open to "new" ideas. He states that ETTR is only useful if the information captured is within the capabilities of the sensor. In other words not a high contrast scene which makes sense. If someone had taken an image using ETTR then there will be a disconnect with it and the zone system he proposes. The book is a very interesting read if someone could borrow a copy. He doesn't dismiss ETTR out of hand but it doesn't fit comfortably with his ideas. It is a niche book that fits in somewhere along with all of the other ideas of exposing and processing.
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Thanks very much for the heads-up. I too don't believe in complicated solutions when easier ones work just as well - if not better.
That is a very good summing up of the book. ;D
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The author isn't a fan of ETTR so fans so should be aware of that.
What's the justification?
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I think I know what you are getting at. If so my reading of the book is that he wants an image that someone who likes exposing for a mid tone would capture. The midtones around the 18% mark and the dark tones near the bottom end and the light tones near the top end. You then mask off different areas with luminousity masks and similar selections and then apply level or curves to each mask. If you have the midtones further up from 18% then you can't employ his ideas? That is my reading of it but somebody more knowledgeable might chime in with a better explanation?
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Stamper, I think to say that I'm not a 'fan of ETTR' is misstating things. I'm not an ETTR zealot. I recognise that ETTR has benefits but also limitations. Both are outlined in the text.
As far as your expectation that I would have talked about adding/subtracting EV from a meter reading to get a proper rendering of a certain area of a scene (typically a shadow area), that thinking isn't relevant with digital as it was with film. Particularly for one who employs ETTR. In point of fact, the 'traditional' Zone System methodology of placing the important shadow detail can work in conflict with ETTR depending on the drange of the scene and where that shadow is placed. It isn't relevant because, unlike with film where you only had control of highlights in development, with digital we have control of the entire brightness range which is why ETTR works. We can expose right, capture more light, improve SNR and then adjust the RAW capture to pull those shadows back to where we want them.
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Bob are you the author of the book? If so I didn't realise that. However I stand by what I stated. I am not a book reviewer so there isn't a polished review in my posts only a gut reaction. I think that most people seeing the book will think that they are getting - if they don't look too close - an updated tome about the digital zone system. I have other books that think that the digital zone system is relevant. Lee Varis
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Exposure-System-Digital-Photographers/dp/1598639870
makes a case for it and Michael freeman
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfect-Exposure-Professional-Capturing-Photographs/dp/1905814461
shows passing interest in it in this book.
Lee Varis recommends editing in the Lab colour space as a follow up to using the zone system. Something he was slated for in this forum about a year ago. Luminousity masks and selections aren't new so most photographers who are proficient in PS will have been doing this in the past but now use LR/ACR for an easier life.
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And that's OK. I was just explaining my viewpoint. :-) Something else that may account for the difference in viewpoints/approaches is that Varis is not a fan of ETTR. He feels it's good theory but bad in practice because the camera histo isn't accurate enough to make it an effective method of exposure. He also feels that it doesn't indicate whether the histo is accurate for the subject - something I also discuss. He expresses this view in his book 'Skin'.
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Without reading the book it's unfair to judge. However I have to say that in a book about the digital zone system I get a bit scared when looking at this:
(http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/content_images_2/book_pix/step-wedge.gif)
An author who associates the 128 tone to zone V, should be aware that 128 means a very different grey tone depending on the gamma curve of the colour profile used. And in fact, none of the most common colour profiles has 128 as a middle luminance level (a perfect perceptual middle grey should be 119 in sRGB, 118 in Adobe RGB and 100 in ProPhoto RGB in a 0..255 range):
(http://www.guillermoluijk.com/article/histogram/grises128.gif)
Regards
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And that's OK. I was just explaining my viewpoint. :-) Something else that may account for the difference in viewpoints/approaches is that Varis is not a fan of ETTR. He feels it's good theory but bad in practice because the camera histo isn't accurate enough to make it an effective method of exposure. He also feels that it doesn't indicate whether the histo is accurate for the subject - something I also discuss. He expresses this view in his book 'Skin'.
He has a point about the accuracy of the histogram because it is a jpeg rendering. Extra work has to be done by the photographer with respect to learning if he wants to match the jpeg histogram and a raw histogram. From my experience there is about a 2/3 stop difference between the two and that is a little subjective and not entirely accurate. If someone wants to try the luminousity mask approach with regards to processing an image then would it be better they captured an image without ETTR being employed? I will have to read the book again thoroughly to fully understand the thrust of it. :)
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Quote Guillermo
An author who associates the 128 tone to zone V, should be aware that 128 means a very different grey tone depending on the gamma curve of the colour profile used. And in fact, none of the most common colour profiles has 128 as a middle luminance level (a perfect perceptual middle grey should be 119 in sRGB, 118 in Adobe RGB and 100 in ProPhoto RGB in a 0..255 range):
Unquote
Michael Freeman in his book Perfect Exposure deals with this issue in terms of percentages and refers to it as a brightness scale. The scale is relative to F stops. He refers to the 128 tone as 50% and states that .... most exposure decisions don't need a high degree of precision. I think this is practical. Obviously reading what he has written would be best.
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Michael Freeman in his book Perfect Exposure deals with this issue in terms of percentages and refers to it as a brightness scale. The scale is relative to F stops. He refers to the 128 tone as 50% and states that .... most exposure decisions don't need a high degree of precision. I think this is practical. Obviously reading what he has written would be best.
But if you are using a colour profile with a low gamma (e.g. the 1.8 gamma used in standard ProPhoto RGB), a 128 tone is much brighter than a middle grey (see my figure above). So I think having the 128 figure as a reference to middle grey is not valid.
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Searching for complete "accuracy" in this subject is possibly futile and as Michael Freeman states
most exposure decisions don't need a high degree of precision.
From a practical point of view do what is "best" when using the camera and import to LR/ACR and adjust to taste?
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In the book Digital Zone System there is an explanation of the weighting with respect to center weight metering which I haven't read before and was imo very interesting and I will read up on it. There are other nuggets of interest that are valuable which may not be directly connected to the main point of the book, even if you think you are advanced with your knowledge of photography. :)
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An author who associates the 128 tone to zone V, should be aware that 128 means a very different grey tone depending on the gamma curve of the colour profile used.
Yes and it's a pet peeve of mine too. Like when someone says "I don't use Adobe RGB (1998), I use RGB" or "Adobe RGB has more colors than sRGB".
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Has anyone tried the DZS photoshop actions in earnest?
Anyone care to respond to the OP's second question?
Am curious to know in what ways they might differ from Tony Kuyper's luminosity mask actions.
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He has a point about the accuracy of the histogram because it is a jpeg rendering. Extra work has to be done by the photographer with respect to learning if he wants to match the jpeg histogram and a raw histogram. From my experience there is about a 2/3 stop difference between the two and that is a little subjective and not entirely accurate. If someone wants to try the luminousity mask approach with regards to processing an image then would it be better they captured an image without ETTR being employed? I will have to read the book again thoroughly to fully understand the thrust of it. :)
The relationship between the in-camera histogram and the histogram of the raw image opened in LR or ACR differs depending on the camera model. Once you understand the relationship for your camera, you know how to interpret your in-camera histogram. This needs a bit of up-front trial and error, but isn't by itself a reason for complexified image editing.
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The relationship between the in-camera histogram and the histogram of the raw image opened in LR or ACR differs depending on the camera model. Once you understand the relationship for your camera, you know how to interpret your in-camera histogram. This needs a bit of up-front trial and error, but isn't by itself a reason for complexified image editing.
Kind of like the old days when you'd shoot a Polaroid of your strobe lighting, then extrapolate in your mind (after shooting lot's of 'roids') what the transparency would look like.
Today I just prefer to ignore the JPEG histogram. But I believe with time, one could use it as a lesser reliable Polaroid in respect to exposure and clipping.
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The relationship between the in-camera histogram and the histogram of the raw image opened in LR or ACR differs depending on the camera model. Once you understand the relationship for your camera, you know how to interpret your in-camera histogram. This needs a bit of up-front trial and error, but isn't by itself a reason for complexified image editing.
Correct and it's really not rocket science at all. I have an X-Rite passport and it was pretty simple to put it up on the brick wall outside my house which has even illumination in the morning hours as the sun is on the other side. I made a series of exposures and was able to easily figure out how to then set my camera for maximum ETTR capture (Nikon D300). Now there will be some scenes which have illumination that needs to be compensated for but it's easy enough to do once you have the basic understanding of ETTR. We also have it much easier than Ansel Adams did since we can easily set our cameras up to take a series of bracketed exposures as needed.
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Bob,
Just wanted to congratulate you for writing the book and having it published!
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Thank you. :)