Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: fike on July 08, 2013, 01:09:25 pm
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For me, RAW processing proceeds along some generalities. I almost always do some amount of the following:
TYPICAL ADJUSTMENTS
* Basic stuff, exposure and white balance (no generalities here)
* Darken blacks (move slider to the left)
* Increase clarity (move slider to the right)
* Darken highlights (move slider to the left)
* Lighten shadows (move slider to the right)
These are of course generalities, and sometimes I do the opposite. But there are a few things I have never found useful:
NEVER ADJUSTMENTS
* Darken whites (move slider left)
* Decrease clarity (move slider left)
* Lighten blacks (move slider right)
Does anyone have any examples where you have gone the OTHER way by making these NEVER ADJUSTMENTS? I know that processing is never about rules, but I kind of think it is pretty rare to process in these ways and make the image look better. I have started to call them the "screw-it-up adjustments"
I'd love to see some examples where decreasing clarity looked good, or where lightening blacks looked good.
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Decrease clarity can be useful applied locally when shooting ladies of a certain age, they like how it flatters their looks.
Returning to the OP, I've never found myself using the positive vignette correction to add a vignette.
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I'd love to see some examples where decreasing clarity looked good
portrait for skin
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Local clarity adjustment for skin sounds good. I have generally used localized blur on a masked layer in PS, so that one didn't occur to me.
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Hi,
Pretty much what I do. Don't use "contrast" that much. If sky is include I always use a graduated filter with, pulling down highlights, a tiny bit on exposure and increasing saturation and clarity before working on the rest of the image.
Best regards
Erik
For me, RAW processing proceeds along some generalities. I almost always do some amount of the following:
TYPICAL ADJUSTMENTS
* Basic stuff, exposure and white balance (no generalities here)
* Darken blacks (move slider to the left)
* Increase clarity (move slider to the right)
* Darken highlights (move slider to the left)
* Lighten shadows (move slider to the right)
These are of course generalities, and sometimes I do the opposite. But there are a few things I have never found useful:
NEVER ADJUSTMENTS
* Darken whites (move slider left)
* Decrease clarity (move slider left)
* Lighten blacks (move slider right)
Does anyone have any examples where you have gone the OTHER way by making these NEVER ADJUSTMENTS? I know that processing is never about rules, but I kind of think it is pretty rare to process in these ways and make the image look better. I have started to call them the "screw-it-up adjustments"
I'd love to see some examples where decreasing clarity looked good, or where lightening blacks looked good.
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There is a "soften skin" preset in the local adjustment brush that is just a minus-clarity. But I find an overall negative 15 or 20 units of clarity enhances many female portraits.
It can also be interesting when applied to macro photographs of flowers.
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Your post has made me think - always a good thing! I too almost always make the LR adjustments you describe. But, why? Is it because I (or we) are tuned into a certain way that a "good" photo should look?
- Full range from black to white.
- Few if any pure (no detail) blacks or whites.
- Some detail in almost all of the highlights and shadows.
- "Crispness" in the mid-tones ( i.e., clarity).
- And, not mentioned in your list, an obsession with sharpness.
These elements are not bad, of course, but they can be limiting if one thinks that every photo must have them. Here, for example, is a favorite photo of mine that has none of the above-listed attributes:
http://www.peteraitken.com/Miscellany/content/DSC01895_Edit_Edit_large.html
Pretty good photo, I think.
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Globally, I'm with you, I never touch those three - along with contrast. I use them locally though.
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Globally, I'm with you, I never touch those three - along with contrast. I use them locally though.
With whom?
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I'm sure no expert, but I find that after I get the basic adjustments pretty much how I like, using the negative white will often take care of any overexposed warning without altering the overall image as much as other corrections might.
Tom
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For me, RAW processing proceeds along some generalities.
Well, that's to be expected if your type of photography proceeds along some generalities too. Are you shooting high contrast scenes? Low contrast sense? Studio lighting? Mixed light?
The controls you need to use will depend on what your original captures look like and what you want to do to improve them. Personally, I always use Exposure and Contrast, but after that it all depends on what the shot needs. If doing tone mapping, I will often pop over to Curves to fine tune or further adjust something. Sometimes back and forth from Basic to Curves...BTW, if you do a +Blacks, you'll sometimes need to go into the point curve editor to pin the blacks point by point.
All of the controls are in there for good reasons and do different things based on the needs of the image. The only Basic control I don't use much is +Saturation (would rather use Vibrance or HSL) and rarely -Clarity.
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Hi,
Absolutely agree, on all issues.
Best regards
Erik
Your post has made me think - always a good thing! I too almost always make the LR adjustments you describe. But, why? Is it because I (or we) are tuned into a certain way that a "good" photo should look?
- Full range from black to white.
- Few if any pure (no detail) blacks or whites.
- Some detail in almost all of the highlights and shadows.
- "Crispness" in the mid-tones ( i.e., clarity).
- And, not mentioned in your list, an obsession with sharpness.
These elements are not bad, of course, but they can be limiting if one thinks that every photo must have them. Here, for example, is a favorite photo of mine that has none of the above-listed attributes:
http://www.peteraitken.com/Miscellany/content/DSC01895_Edit_Edit_large.html
Pretty good photo, I think.
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People at this site like to talk a lot about theory and to quibble when someone makes a generalization (no matter its general validity), but they are always hesitant to actually show examples that back them up, except for Peter who showed a good example where he lightened the blacks. That was nice. THANKS!
Lots of people have made the point that it depends on the type of photo you want. Yes of course it does, but what I am wrestling with is that I don't see too many shots that benefit from darkening whites (explicitly THAT control) or lightening blacks (again explicitly THAT control), Peter's example aside.
I will need to experiment more with negative clarity for smoothing faces. I have tended to do skin smoothing in PS.
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Lots of people have made the point that it depends on the type of photo you want. Yes of course it does, but what I am wrestling with is that I don't see too many shots that benefit from darkening whites (explicitly THAT control) or lightening blacks (again explicitly THAT control), Peter's example aside.
Hi Marc,
I don't see it as a goal to lighten my shadows or darken my whites during Raw conversion, but it can be useful for the subsequent post-processing steps. I'm in particular a great fan of the relatively new Topaz Clarity plugin, and that (in combination with e.g. their Detail plugin) can clip shadows or highlights if one is not careful.
So as a first step in the post-processing chain of events, with the subsequent steps already planned ahead, it can help to initially lift the shadows and/or lower the highlights a bit. That will allow to maintain more detail in the final rendering where the local contrast is boosted.
Cheers,
Bart
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...but they are always hesitant to actually show examples that back them up,...
Yes, I totally agree. Any examples from you to come?
I was going to post examples but I just bought LR4 with PV2012 coming from working several years with CS3 ACR 4.6 curves & sliders, so I'm not proficient or familiar enough with the new processing tool's affects used in this discussion.
I have to use (+) settings with ACR 4.6's Clarity slider quite a bit, but started to force myself to use the Parametric curve instead to get a similar effect while setting the Point Curve linear and Black to zero, switching back and forth between small increases to Contrast and Clarity.
Some images I've worked too much on where I've ended up with +90-100 Clarity. Switch back to Default settings and wonder what the heck I was thinking.
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Yes, I totally agree. Any examples from you to come?
Touche!
It is hard to motivate oneself to post screwed-up example photos. THAT doesn't reflect well on one's talent. Let me look around. When I started this topic, I was really looking for pics to disprove my hypothesis not to show examples of how those adjustments can ruin a perfectly good image--I can see that. Of course, some of this is a matter of style. I don't do much low-contrast stuff. I like contrast. That is my stylistic choice, so I would tend to go against the darkening whites or lightening blacks stuff I posted. But as I try to extend myself photographically, I am always looking for new ways to interpret a scene. For example, I like fog a lot, but while I can resist the temptation to push for a tonal curve that almost approaches foggy white, I really feel the need to get a bit of black in there. I wouldn't have produced that fine picture that Peter showed. Not my style.
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Ok Marc, here is one with negative clarity(-6) and a healthy dose of + black(56) in PV2010.
In PV202 the black goes to -13.
http://richowens.smugmug.com/Travel/Bodega-09/i-6Znxm73/0/L/_DSC7240-L.jpg (http://richowens.smugmug.com/Travel/Bodega-09/i-6Znxm73/0/L/_DSC7240-L.jpg)
I also use negative clarity when I want that warm/humid look. This one has -60 clarity, -8 whites and -3 blacks.
http://richowens.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Favorites/i-HfHTnTK/0/L/grove-89264753-O-L.jpg (http://richowens.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Favorites/i-HfHTnTK/0/L/grove-89264753-O-L.jpg)
Rich
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Touche!
It is hard to motivate oneself to post screwed-up example photos. THAT doesn't reflect well on one's talent. Let me look around. When I started this topic, I was really looking for pics to disprove my hypothesis not to show examples of how those adjustments can ruin a perfectly good image--I can see that. Of course, some of this is a matter of style. I don't do much low-contrast stuff. I like contrast. That is my stylistic choice, so I would tend to go against the darkening whites or lightening blacks stuff I posted. But as I try to extend myself photographically, I am always looking for new ways to interpret a scene. For example, I like fog a lot, but while I can resist the temptation to push for a tonal curve that almost approaches foggy white, I really feel the need to get a bit of black in there. I wouldn't have produced that fine picture that Peter showed. Not my style.
My response wasn't meant as a "Touche!" to you, Fike.
It was to get you to show us what the heck you're talking about. I don't understand why photographers seem to have an aversion to posting their images in forums discussing photography issues.
Is this some kind of ego thing because they want to avoid criticism? piracy? WTF!
This isn't aimed specifically at you, Fike. It's like this in every freakin' photography forum discussion aimed at proving some point or another about how we see and edit photos.
I don't seem to have a problem with posting my images to prove a point but the majority here and in other web forums do. It doesn't make any sense.
I get more uploaded images at AVSforums/HardForums that obsess to the extreme about calibrating 60" HDtvs than I see on photography forums anywhere else. Explain that!
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It was to get you to show us what the heck you're talking about. I don't understand why photographers seem to have an aversion to posting their images in forums discussing photography issues.
Is this some kind of ego thing because they want to avoid criticism? piracy? WTF!
I suspect it's because processing, uploading and posting to a forum like this is a lot more work that simply writing an answer...
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I suspect it's because processing, uploading and posting to a forum like this is a lot more work that simply writing an answer...
I think as we grow in skill and become more confident that we are reasonably accomplished photographers, we realize that every image we put "out there" is used to judge us as craftsmen (artists, photographers, visionaries, whatever we like to call ourselves). I publish less today than I did five years ago because my standards have been raised while my productivity hasn't been raised as much. Posting a crummy sample photo to make a point on a forum seems a bad idea.
I am not suggesting this is a good thing, but I think it is an issue for those of us who deign to be taken seriously.
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Posting a crummy sample photo to make a point on a forum seems a bad idea.
I am not suggesting this is a good thing, but I think it is an issue for those of us who deign to be taken seriously.
Seriously as what? A teacher of photography? A person who's dedicated to the craft to not be worrying about what others think of them or how they appear to others?
I think at this point you're own words have done you in with regard to being taken seriously far more than what any crummy before and after demo could ever do.
Or is this about "Nobody works for free"?
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I think at this point you're own words have done you in with regard to being taken seriously far more than what any crummy before and after demo could ever do.
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...I was wrong. THAT kind of uncharitable comment is what stops people from contributing to forums and opening themselves up to criticism.
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I seem to get a fair number of RAW files with both over exposed highlights and crushed blacks (even with D800e), so I do bring blacks up and pull whites down quite often to keep everything inside the histogram. It is not artsy stuff, but mostly just bread and butter press photography. I also sometimes use negative clarity with LR 4.4, and guess what, only on photographs which have elderly ladies in them... well, sometimes also in futile attempts of "glamour"...
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...I was wrong. THAT kind of uncharitable comment is what stops people from contributing to forums and opening themselves up to criticism.
And I did it without posting an image to back it up. Welcome to the club, Fike.
What I said above is tame by comparison from the level of vitriol in quite a few photography forums and they don't post images there either. So I think I've proven my point of the value of talk as a way to be taken seriously, but I didn't mince words and I did get to the point, didn't I?
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And I did it without posting an image to back it up. Welcome to the club, Fike.
What I said above is tame by comparison from the level of vitriol in quite a few photography forums and they don't post images there either. So I think I've proven my point of the value of talk as a way to be taken seriously, but I didn't mince words and I did get to the point, didn't I?
wow
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And I did it without posting an image to back it up. Welcome to the club, Fike.
What I said above is tame by comparison from the level of vitriol in quite a few photography forums and they don't post images there either. So I think I've proven my point of the value of talk as a way to be taken seriously, but I didn't mince words and I did get to the point, didn't I?
No,you just sounded like a shit salesman with a mouth full of samples. I fail to see any point in any of your posts in this thread except that you are incompetent in using LR.
Your arrogance far exceeds your intelligence. IMHO!
With all due respect,
Rich
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I seem to get a fair number of RAW files with both over exposed highlights and crushed blacks (even with D800e), so I do bring blacks up and pull whites down quite often to keep everything inside the histogram. It is not artsy stuff, but mostly just bread and butter press photography. I also sometimes use negative clarity with LR 4.4, and guess what, only on photographs which have elderly ladies in them... well, sometimes also in futile attempts of "glamour"...
I have found that when I am dealing with deep, inky blacks and pure whites that adjusting the shadows and highlights give me better results than adjusting the black and white sliders. That's just my experience with those controls. As for the blacks, the quality of lifted blacks is so blocky (contrasty) that I rarely like the results of any substantial adjustment there. The muddiness that adjusting the white slider seems to give the image is too much for me.
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No,you just sounded like a shit salesman with a mouth full of samples. I fail to see any point in any of your posts in this thread except that you are incompetent in using LR.
Your arrogance far exceeds your intelligence. IMHO!
With all due respect,
Rich
I'm getting the impression you're about to provide some image samples that explain and correlate to your PV2012 slider settings that Fike first asked in his initial post which without I fail to see anyone's point in this entire thread.
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Coming back to the originator question,
.... Does anyone have any examples where you have gone the OTHER way by making these NEVER ADJUSTMENTS? I know that processing is never about rules, but I kind of think it is pretty rare to process in these ways and make the image look better. I have started to call them the "screw-it-up adjustments"
I'd love to see some examples where decreasing clarity looked good, or where lightening blacks looked good.
I think very appropriate examples, as well as helpful explanations, are given by George Jardin in one of his tutorials: http://mulita.com/training/hns-r/
My personal summary is:
- Negative highlights, positive shadows and positive clarity all add punch or drama to the image, not in the least because of the associated local contrast enhancement.
- Positive highlights, negative shadows and negative clarity can help in achieving a more subtle toning of (parts of) the image.
In the attached photo I wanted to enhance the serene atmosphere of the scene. Negative clarity was the way to go (for me).
Boudewijn Swanenburg
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Coming back to the originator question,
I think very appropriate examples, as well as helpful explanations, are given by George Jardin in one of his tutorials: http://mulita.com/training/hns-r/
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Boudewijn Swanenburg
Nice little video. Nothing earth-shattering in there, but he has some good examples in there that exercise the controls nicely. Despite an example where he brought the whites down, I remain pretty convinced that it is a rare thing to bring the whites down. The highlights control seems much more powerful in darkening the bright areas in an appealing way. The same can be said for the shadows and black controls. While you might occasionally want to bring the blacks up with the black control, I think the shadows control is a far nicer way to do it.
As we all say repeatedly about these things, there are no rules, but we all tend towards some generalities and now that I have worked with the new version of ACR for a while these are starting to gel in my mind.
The examples of negative clarity look interesting and completely valid. They aren't typical of my style, so I will need to play with it more to see if I want to incorporate it into my personal palette of frequently-used controls. Using it for skin is a nice idea, but I think it would need to be done selectively, and most of MY selective editing I do in PS with layers masks. I just have never liked the interface for selective editing in ACR. I should probably mess with it more though because I can't imagine negative clarity to improve skin on a portrait being good for the rest of the image. Hair and eyes would start to get that dreamy look which you don't necessarily want for a straight-forward portrait.
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I'd love to see some examples where decreasing clarity looked good, or where lightening blacks looked good.
Not saying this looks good, but I occasionally like to see how a "painterly" style looks. In this example, in the adjusted image the settings were:
Contrast -38
Blacks -33
Clarity -72
Offset by:
Saturation +8
Sharpening 150
Radius 2.4
Detail 90
The extreme sharpening brings back local contrast. Any size reduction for the web has a big impact on the look with these settings.
Unadjusted:
(http://roryhill.zenfolio.com/img/s10/v107/p1828239760.jpg)
Adjusted:
(http://roryhill.zenfolio.com/img/s10/v98/p1794723822.jpg)
While this looks soft, the original adjusted file has more detail.
Adjusted 100Pct crop:
(http://roryhill.zenfolio.com/img/s10/v102/p1852420724.jpg)
These settings are a tad extreme to demonstrate the "style" and naturally you can back them off to taste.
Rory
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The examples of negative clarity look interesting and completely valid. They aren't typical of my style, so I will need to play with it more to see if I want to incorporate it into my personal palette of frequently-used controls. Using it for skin is a nice idea, but I think it would need to be done selectively, and most of MY selective editing I do in PS with layers masks. I just have never liked the interface for selective editing in ACR. I should probably mess with it more though because I can't imagine negative clarity to improve skin on a portrait being good for the rest of the image. Hair and eyes would start to get that dreamy look which you don't necessarily want for a straight-forward portrait.
I use Capture One, the local adjustments in v7 are far improved over previous versions.
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Not saying this looks good, but I occasionally like to see how a "painterly" style looks. In this example, in the adjusted image the settings were:
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Adjusted:
(http://roryhill.zenfolio.com/img/s10/v98/p1794723822.jpg)
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These settings are a tad extreme to demonstrate the "style" and naturally you can back them off to taste.
Rory
I think you are right. This doesn't really look good. The effect, in this case, doesn't reinforce any aesthetic attributes that make the image stand out in a good way. In landscape phootgraphy, I am forming the opinion that there are very few good applications of negative clarity. I messed with using it on fog, and it didn't do anything particularly desirable.
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In landscape phootgraphy, I am forming the opinion that there are very few good applications of negative clarity.
Well, just because a control is there doesn't mean you are under any obligation to use it...as long as you DO know what it does, if it doesn't do anything you want, don't use it...
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Well, just because a control is there doesn't mean you are under any obligation to use it...as long as you DO know what it does, if it doesn't do anything you want, don't use it...
Of course. I completely agree with you. But two comments:
1) It appears that the negative values for clarity may have been provided as a way to make the interface consistent with all the sliders being in the middle zero value and being able to go both ways (negative and positive). I believe in previous generations some controls started with zero on the far left and only slid to positive values. Of course, some people are saying they have good results using it for portrait work, so who am I to say it is worthless? I'm not loving it. To me, negative clarity isn't really an amazing control like say shadows, highlights, or CA adjustments, or noise reduction, or vibrance, or blah blah blah.
...but with that said...
2) There are lots of controls in PS that I initially can't find a use for in my workflow, but eventually I am able to make useful in seemingly weird and unconventional ways. Sometimes it takes someone showing me how they use it to spark my creativity to see how I can use it. I am not yet seeing that for negative clarity in landscape work, and that is the whole point of my query. Can someone show me something great with negative clarity?
For each image, I can't possibly try every permutation of all the adjustments I can make. I need to have some starting points, and ruling out negative clarity, negative whites, and positive blacks has helped me focus where I think I can make the greatest value. Of course, there are probably some corner cases where these things are useful, but I can't figure out what they are.
Let me think: positive blacks......hmmm.....low contrast, gray, noisy, blocky posterization. What could I use that for. I guess I could use it to simulate duotone printing on newsprint. Yuck. Not for me.
Let me see: negative whites.... hmmm...more useful because the control doesn't so severely display the limits of digital capture with noise and posterization. This is probably useful for working on something fogy and low key. This would possibly be interesting if I were trying to emulate some of the early (19th century) photographers work that has faded over the years. It reminds me of some of the instagram filters that give the image a cyan or magenta cast decreases contrast and makes it look like a 1970s Instamatic image. More legitimate than positive blacks, undoubtedly, but still kind of a "screw-it-up" adjustment. I could probably get a better effect with negative contrast.
I freely admit this is all stylistic. I don't like adjustments that impart attributes that diminish image quality in a way that seeks to emulate inferior or nostalgic photographic performance. Holga cameras aren't my cup of tea and neither are Holga filters. Again this is personal, but photo effects that call too much attention to themselves are poor effects.
This is not to say I don't like moody or dramatic interpretations. I just can't see these controls (lighten blacks, darken whites in particular) being very useful.
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Here is some negative clarity on fog. Doesn't do it for me.
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OK, I'll bite. In some B&W images. I love deep black shadows, and I often make no effort to lift them. In fact, I will sometimes actually darken them (perish the thought). There are many examples in the history of photography in which deep blacks are what make an image great. I won't provide any specific examples, nor should I have to.
Rob