[LRflex] Re: TECH: Advice and experience requested
- From: David Young <telyt@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: leicareflex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:44:52 -0700
At 28/03/2007, you wrote:
>Hi Listers and Luggers,
>I followed Ted's advice and went out shooting early this morning - back
>home I started to process the files in Lightroom and didn't get what I
>had been after, so I turned back to Silkpix and PSElements.
>
>With SP no apparent problem and I was quite pleased, but when I further
>processed the files in PSE I was so disappointed that I started putting
>the blame on myself for not knowing how to use it, and on my gear, that
>might have had some technical problem.
>
>This may seem a bit fuzzy so I have posted two sample crops that may
>give you an idea of what the issue is.
>
>1) Cropped after development in SPix.
><http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Phileica/Oiseaux/SilkPix.jpg.html>
>
>2) The same after auto adjustment for levels, contrast and colour were
>made in PS.
><http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Phileica/Oiseaux/PhotoShop.jpg.html>
>
>So the questions :
>
>Who/what is faulty for the absolute catastrophy in color, contrast and
>sharpness rendition?
>
>a) is it the photographer
>b) the camera
>c) the lense
>d) processing
>e) none of the above
>f) don't care, get back to film you're wasting your time and mine ;-)
>
>Thanks in anticipation for helping me out of this.
>Yours
>Downhearted Phil...x
Dear Downhearted:
Much of the problem is that you are processing twice... this should
not be necessary and always risks the chance of over doing just about
anything. Secondly, using Auto-anything in PS is likely to cause
problems unless the the file is already near perfect.
Contrast is the main culprit, here. The problem with any contrast
control is that while it darkens the dark areas, it also lightens the
light areas (increasing the contrast between the two). Unfortunately,
this nearly always results in blown highlights. The secret is to
darken the dark areas, without lightening the light areas ... thus
increasing saturation in the colours, without blowing the highlights.
This can be done, in PS and PSE, by using the curves
control. However, I prefer Silkypix because it has a slider control
(found under "tone" in SP2) called "Black Level". This is a much
faster, easier and more precise way to adjust the curve than is
offered in PS or PSE.
In SP, I normally develop the RAW file, adjusting exposure, white
balance, as necessary. I always set sharpness to it's highest level,
as SP2's sharpening is very modest. If you've got SL3, you'll need
to set it as is appropriate, for SP3's sharpening is far more aggressive.
When I get to "tone", I ignore "contrast", "contrast center" and
"gamma", and set the "black level" to what looks best, and I'm done!
I use PS only for any layers, if necessary, and for adding text, such
as copyright notices... though more and more, I'm doing that with
Freestone Image Resizer.
I hope this helps!
Cheers!
---
David Young,
Logan Lake, CANADA
Wildlife Photographs: http://www.telyt.com/
Personal Web-pages: http://www3.telus.net/~telyt
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