Photoblog 2.0

Beyond the Forest: Toned, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I thought it would be interesting to see my image of Church Towers from the Yosemite Valley floor in winter as it might have looked as a palladium or platinum toned print.

First I converted the image to black and white in Photoshop, using the so-called Ansel Adams effect (results below). I converted the black and white image to grayscale, then converted the image to Tritone, picking colors and adjusting the curves to get the effect I liked. As a last step, I converted back to RGB added a red-tinged adjustment layer in Color blending mode to pick up a hint of red for my “toned” digital image.

View this image larger.

It’s remarkable what you can do in post-processing. Compare my original conversion from the RAW of my Yosemite Dreams (far below) with a more recent version (immediately below) I created in Photoshop for a special project. (There’s actually no comparison to either version with the far duller look of the original RAW file that appeared when I first looked at it with default settings in Adobe Bridge.)

These file versions go a long way to confirm my contention that digital photography is an entirely new medium, one part photography and one part digital manipulation. Photographers who ignore the “digital painting” aspect of this new medium do so at their own peril, as do digital technicians who ignore the need to take great photos in the first place. Those who critique the new medium based on the aesthetic of the inviolate unmanipulated negative are truly lost in this brave new world.

For a long time I resisted the metaphor from silver halide photography that “the RAW file is the negative” and the final version is the print. A reason for my resistance is that the metaphor doesn’t completely work: a post-processed photo is not a print, it is a file that (theoretically) many literal, physical prints can be made from.

But there’s a significant kernel of truth in the metaphor: using the power of the “digital painting” it’s possible to make many different end-result images starting from a single RAW capture.

Woodland Pond, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Like Wood between the Worlds, the background of this photocomposite combines Big Sticks (from New Mexico above Santa Fe) and Water Meditation (from Blake Garden in Kensington, California).

I thought the compostion needed some detail for the eye to rest on, differentiated from the background. So I added the lotus flowers on a layer, and “painted” them in.

Persistence of Vision, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This is a photo from the end of the Berkeley Pier looking towards the Golden Gate Bridge. The Berkeley pier seems like it goes half way across San Francisco Bay to Alcatraz, but at one time it must have stretched futher than it does now. The boards block the end of the pier, prevent people from falling into the water, and make a good canvas for graffitists.

When taking the photo, I positioned myself well back from the boards at the end of the pier, used a moderately telephoto lens, a decently long exposure, and stopped the lens down as far as possible. The point of these choices was to maximize depth-of-field and get boards and the Golden Gate Bridge in focus (with the partially blurred water a bonus). [62mm focal length for 93mm equivalence in 35mm terms, 3/5 of a second at f/32, tripod mounted.]

I exposed the original RAW capture for the Golden Gate Bridge, which meant that the boards in the foreground of the photo appeared very dark and underexposed. To correct this problem, and bring out the wonderful glowing colors on these boards, I needed to do a second pass at the RAW original, correcting the exposure values with the boards in mind.

The two versions, one corrected for the Golden Gate Bridge, sky, and water and the other using exposure settings for the boards needed to be combined as layers using a mask. If I’d applied the light exposure values I used on the boards to the bridge, the bridge would have been overexposed, so the point of the mask was to selectively apply the exposure values.

I was able to create an appropriate mask by converting a duplicate of the darker version of the image to LAB color. Next, I dropped the A and B channels of the image, leaving just the luminosity information. I used an adjustment curve to heighten the contrast, and converted the image to grayscale. I used Photoshop’s Image > Apply Image command to use this black-and-white version, which showed the boards as black shapes and everything else as white, in my original, layered image. A little hand painting on the mask finished the job.

Here’s why the process I used to create this image from a single RAW photo is not exactly High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography.

Flower at the Center of the Universe, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I’ve called this photo composition Flower at the Center of the Universe. To create the photo composition, I used layers and layer masking in Photoshop to combine Papaver Fireworks with the image below.

The bottom image is itself a photo composition I’ve called Infinite Vortex, consisting of four copies of Star Vortex, rotated and combined. Two copies of the combined Star Vortex images at different magnifications are superimposed on themselves.

I combined layers of Papaver Fireworks at two different magnifications with the Infinite Vortex composition, taking advantage of the fact that when you blend layers using Screen mode black (the background color of the Papaver Fireworks) disappears.

All a long way from the night sky at the top of Half Dome. But bear in mind: creativity is play.

View this image larger.

Mark and I went back out to Arch Rock last night. It was a little earlier than my last hike out there, so I was able to work my way down the little canyon and across a couple of rock faces to the beach, where I photographed the arch in Arch Rock in the gathering dusk. Of course, I also photographed the moon on the beach, and other aspects of this grand scene. On our way back through the long foot-pounding miles of the tunnel of a trail under the dark trees we talked about RAW captures, white balance, and landscape photography.

View this image larger.

It’s well known that one of RAW capture’s great virtues is the ability to correct exposure in post-processing. Within each RAW capture there’s a theoretical eight f-stop range of possible exposures that can be processed out of the raw data (if you excuse the pun). Processing at the limits of this range does introduce problems, such as excess noise, into an image. But still, the potential exposures inherent within each RAW capture do give opportunities for correcting poor initial exposures, and for extending the dynamic range of images. An example of extended dynamic range means to be able to see detail in shadow areas that would normally be black in an image exposed for bright sunshine.

That said, it’s best practice not to presume on the kindness of RAW. You should expose each image in-camera as accurately as possible. This avoids potential problems and gives you more options when you do post-process the RAW.

Even when a photo of mine was exposed properly in the first place, like the image above at ISO 100, 2.5 seconds, and f/4, I almost always end up combining from three to five different versions of the RAW capture using Photoshop layers, masking, and layer blending modes. The 2.5 second time exposure accounts for the soft effect in the clouds and water.

White balance refers to the color temperature of the light used in a photograph. It is measured in Kelvin degrees. The photograph above is lit by a combination of ambient sunlight (generally 5200 degrees Kelvin, but a little warmer in the photo of the arch because the sun was setting, so maybe 5800 degrees), and moonlight (roughly 4300 degrees Kelvin).

You can measure the color temperature of light under controlled circumstances, for example, in a photography studio. If you’ve measured the temperature of the light, you can dial it into your camera. In theory, this leads to an accurate color rendition of your subject.

As a practical matter, it is pretty impossible to measure light temperature in field conditions like I encountered in the photo of the arch. Not only did I have to do a bit of the mountain goat thing to even get in range for the photo, I also had only a short amount of time to make my exposure before I lost the light.

So the best practice is to leave White Balance set to Automatic. This means that your camera will make some attempt to measure the light temperature, and associate this reading with the image. But associating a White Balance measurement with a RAW image doesn’t actually change the image data itself because the White Balance data is simply set in a tagged text file associated with the RAW file. You can change the White Balance to any Kelvin number you think is appropriate when you convert the image in post-processing. You can do this using a slider, and visually inspect the impact of the change on your photo.

If you really want to get tricky, you can process different versions of a single RAW capture using different white balances. For example, I processed the water within the arch at 4300 degrees Kelvin (moonlight) and the clouds at 5800 degrees Kelvin (sunset).

As with differing exposure values from a single RAW capture, versions from a single RAW capture that use different white balances are combined in Photoshop as layers using masking and your choice of blending mode.

Looking for great wholesale electronics like cameras and DVD players? It’s easier than ever to get the home electronics that you want without buying them at retail price. Today discount electronics are becoming ever more popular, so don’t get left in the dust technologically, upgrade your electronics today!

Spirals, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I realize that I haven’t blogged this photo composite made by combining photographs of the front and back of Nautilus shells, along with a photo of a Nautilus cross-section.

I placed each of the three photos on a Photoshop layer, carefully positioned the objects in relationship to each other on their separate layers, then blended the three layers together to make the final composite.

Related story: Nautilus on Black.

Sky of Waves, Sea of Clouds, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This Photoshop composition uses South Beach at Sunset and Above Us only Sky as its base elements.

In the Bag, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Photographers tend to collect gear bags. I have lots of camera bags. As photographer John Shaw once put it, I am a charter member of the “bag-of-the-month” club.

My favorite new bag is a LowePro Omni Trekker, shown above loaded with my photo gear and a camellia flower. I like this bag because it carries tons of stuff in a secure way and can be carried on my shoulder, using handles, or as a backpack. The bag also has a nifty feature that lets me pull my camera out without opening the whole bag via a kind of pass-through window.

As part of Lowepro’s Omni Extreme set, the bag fits in a waterproof case that can be used in conditions that are dangerous for photo gear. For example, I can pack this bag in the Extreme shell and take it on a white water rafting trip.

When I don’t need to carry so much gear, and I want something that fits well on my back, I carry a Lowepro Mini Trekker AW.

To create the black-and-white image of the camera bag loaded with my gear and a color flower, I first took an exposure straight down on the bag with the flower in position. I used a long exposure and a small f-stop for great depth of field (10 seconds at f/22).

In Photoshop, I duplicated the image, then converted one version to black and white. For information about how to convert digital color images to black and white, see Going with the Grain, More Black and White Conversion Fun, and Converting to Black and White.

My plan was to plop the color version of the image over the black and white version as a layer. Then I would need a layer mask (see From Filter Play to Layer Masking) to block out all the color portion of the image except the flower.

But I didn’t want to have to hand generate the layer mask by painting the flower shape on the mask, a tough job. So I created the layer mask with no hand work by duplicating the color version of the image, converting it to LAB color, and discarding all the layers except the A channel (Magenta-Green). In the A channel, the camellia flower was almost white and everything else was dark, so it didn’t take much fiddling with the Curve to create an acceptable grayscale mask.

Finally, I used Image > Apply Image with the color layer of the layered version of the image active to add the layer mask so only the camellia appeared in color.

Bridge and Sky, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I photographed this view of the Golden Gate at sunset from Wildcat Peak a few weeks ago during the same session that I captured the Eyes of a Newt.

When I reviewed my captures from the session just now, I liked this capture of the Golden Gate at sunset for the immense and wonderful gradient in the sky above the firm line of clouds. However, I worried that when I lightened the bottom of the image, the amount of noise that lightening would introduce would conflict with the pristine quality of the image.

A valid fear indeed! In Photoshop’s RAW capture conversion module, on the layer that I used from the RAW capture for the foreground, I pushed the slider for Shade to the minimum. The result was a ton of noise, digital’s analog to analog’s grain. Put another way, noise is to digital as grain is to film. By whatever name, in the context of this image, yuck!

I’ve had good luck using Noise Ninja’s Photoshop plug-in to reduce noise. This time it was clear to me that I needed radical noise reduction on the lower portion of the image, and none at all on the sky.

So I duplicated my background layer, and operated Noise Ninja on the duplicate layer. This gave me the opportunity to crank Noise Ninja to the max, and yet only apply it where I wanted in the underlying image through selective layer masking. I also applied Noise Ninja several times, the first time set high, and the second time using normal settings. On the second setting, I applied the noise reduction only to the luminance of the portion of the image I was modifying by using the Fade command and selecting Luminance as the blending mode.

On the whole, Noise Ninja worked pretty well!

Spirals, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This image is a composite created in Photoshop of one of the spiral staircase images from 2 Embarcadero and an image of a chambered nautilus (the shell image itself is a Photoshopped composite of a photograph and a flat-bed scan).

Nautilus on Black 2, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This version of the Nautilus shell uses Photoshop to combine a digital photograph with a high-resolution flat-bed scan (the center of the image).

Wood between the Worlds, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This is a Photoshop composite put together with layers and masking from Big Sticks and Water and Meditation.

I was inspired by the Wood between the Worlds from C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew in the Narnia series. This forest is a sort of sleepy no-place that exists outside of any world. When you look into any pond in the forest at first you see nothing at all except ordinary water and pond reflections. But as you look more closely, and possibly are sucked down into the pond, a whole new world starts to become apparent.

Where does one “world” end and the next “world” begin? I used mirror rotations and image combinations to suggest the possibility of infinite depths to both the pond and the forest.

Nautilus 69, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This is a photograph of a mildly Photoshopped nautilus shell combined with a rotated version of itself.

The mild Photoshopping consists of blending the original with a LAB color inversion of itself using the Multiply blending mode at a low opacity and a layer mask (created as described here) to eliminate the black background of the inversion.

I have a feeling that I’m going to be photographing this nautilus some more!

Cyclamen, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I like this extreme close-up of a cyclamen flower for its abstraction and graphic simplicity. True, it may never knock anyone’s socks off for drama, but it moves me when I consider that this is the petal of a flower. (Here are another pair of cyclomen images from last year.)

For me, there’s also a technical hurdle overcome in the post-processing of this photo. Here’s the story. When I looked at the RAW file of the photo in Adobe Bridge, I saw that I would need to combine three exposures, one for the top petal, one for the bottom darker petal, and one for the light petal edge in the center of the image. This kind of portional image processing from the RAW original is pretty typical. It’s been remarked that it is taking the Ansel Adams zone system to a place where only digital could bring it, by allowing saturated exposures all along the dynamic range of the photo.

Typically, I combine the different exposures from the RAW original using layers and layer masks. You can either paint on the layer mask, or use a gradient to selectively add portions of the image.

My problem was dealing with the white center of the image, which needed to be underexposed relative to the other image components. I saw immediately that neither paint brush nor gradient technique would really work here. Gradients were clearly out, as there was nothing to blend. Using a paint brush on the relatively small center strip would lead to a halo effect around the strip, no matter how careful I was. It was time to create a layer mask using brains, not brawn.

Here’s what I did. I took a duplicate of the center component exposure and converted it to LAB color. Next, I inverted the luminosity channel to come up with a reverse image of the white strip (it was now mostly black). I threw away the A and B color channels, leaving me with an alpha channel, which I converted to Grayscale and then back to RGB mode. I then used Image > Apply Image in Photoshop to convert the inverted black and white RGB image into a layer mask for the layer that I was using to control the exposure on the white strip. This worked perfectly.

The Image > Apply Image command (and related dialog) seems pretty confusing, and it took me a while to get it to work right. The secret is to remember that the active image in Photoshop will always be the target for the command. So I had to make sure that the right layer in the image I was working on (and not in the image that was to become the layer mask) was active before invoking the command. I also had to make sure to check the Mask box in the Apply Image dialog to convert the inverted image into a layer mask.

All that said, this is a great time saving technique that is a lot more accurate than selecting or painting. I think that one will often be able to find a channel in one color mode or other than can easily work well as a layer mask.