Photoblog 2.0

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.

Light at the End of the Tunnel?, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Like World without End and Endless Stairs, I created this image by pasting in reduced versions of itself on Photoshop layers. Like the doorways in World without End, as a final step I created a super-sized enlarged version of the image and pasted all the already almost infinite tunnel into it. This means that to really see how long the tunnel is you’d have to examine a large print with a magnifying glass, or get really close to the large Photoshop file on my 30 inch monitor. Or take my word for it.

Here’s the original image, taken the other day in one of the World War II vintage tunnels in the fortifications on the Marin Headlands side of the Golden Gate:

View this image larger.

You have to ask, considering the view in the other direction from the mouth of this tunnel, why anyone would photograph inside this place!

Transamerica Reflections, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Ever since I started working with digital photos, I’ve used Photoshop’s tools to create entirely new imagery from my photography. This is probably inevitable: with the goodie box of Photoshop toys available, who wouldn’t want to jump in and play?

But Photoshopped imagery is no-person’s land. With no rules, and no limits, accomplishment may be simply a matter of taste.

My own progression is this arena has been from early filter play, like this stylized version of a photo of a marble, with stops along the way for Warhol-like renditions of a butterfly, to more surreal and apparently photographic images like World without End and Dream Stairs. I’ve moved from seeing what Photoshop filters can do to somewhat more controlled use of layers, blending modes, and masking techniques.

I photographed the original version of the image that decorates this story at Embarcedero Center. The photo showed reflections of the Transamerica tower vertically along the left side of the image. I duplicated the image, and combined the duplicate using Differences blending mode, a Reveal layer mask, and a side-to-side gradient to create a stylized and patterned image.

By the way, if you are interested in delving into Photoshop layer anbd masking techniques, the best book I know on this topic is Katrin Eismann’s Photoshop Masking & Compositing.

Dream Stairs, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

“Dream Stairs” takes Stair after Escher to further (and possibly psychotic) places. As someone on Flickr said, “This is messing with my head!”

There’s also an issue of leaving well enough alone.

I think it fair at this point that I show the photographs that the Photoshopped “Dream Stairs”, Stair after Escher, and Endless Stair come from. “Dream Stairs” and Stair after Escher originate in this 10.5mm digital fisheye:

View this image larger.

By the way, Julian tells me that he was really worried I would drop my lens as I changed from fisheye to normal wide angle for the shot that is the origin of Endless Stair:

View this image larger.

Stair after Escher, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Here’s another Photoshopped version of the spiral staircase in Embarcadero Center. This original was with my Nikon 10.5mm digital fisheye. I varied the iterative technique by flipping the image to get the symmetry.

The image reminds me a little of an impossible M.C. Eshcer staircase.

Endless Stair, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

On Friday Julian had a half day of school. I picked him up early, and we went into San Francisco where I took the photo of a spiral stairway at 2 Embarcadero that is the basis for this post-processed digital image of an endless stairway. The post-processing was similar what I used for the endless doorways in World without End.

The stairway at the Embarcadero Center was narrow and in a dimly lit spot, somewhat exposed to the elements. I used a wide angle to make the small space seem expansive. My camera was on tripod, with a long exposure for maximum depth of field. I wanted everything to be in focus so that there was a good sense of depth.

The lighting was very mixed, with a wide variation of color temperatures, predominantly flourescent blue at about 3500 Kelvin and ambient reflected daylight at about 5600 K, but also some incandescent from a nearby fancy watering hole. I’m not sure what the patrons of this restaurant made of Julian and me diligently photographing this dingy stairway, but some of them were certainly observing the spectacle through a plate glass window. And thanks for the rather elegant mensroom, we made good use of it when the photos were “in the card”.

My first step in post-processing was to open different exposures from the RAW, balancing each to a different color temperature light source, and exagerating the cast of the light.

After I combined the RAW conversions, I used a process that is essentially iterative, or maybe even recursive: I made successively smaller copies of the original image, and then pasted it on a layer of the original. Each new copy was smaller than the original roughly in the same proportion.

Once the layers were complete, I archived a copy, flattened the image, and then did minor retouching.

World without End, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

There’s more to this picture than meets the eye. Put another way, no matter how hard you look at the on-screen version, even in its larger size, you won’t see everything that is in the image. Let me explain the alpha and omega of it.

The photo the image is based on started as a time exposure of the corridor in the Officer’s Quarters at Fort Point under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. (View the EXIF data here.) This was a normally-sized photo taken with my Nikon D200, so at 300 dpi (dots per inch) it measured 2592 X 3872 pixels (about 8.6 X 12.9 inches). I mention the dimensions of the image because they become an issue later in this story.

When I looked at the photo on my computer, I saw six “regressions”–or doorways on the corridor. At the end of the corridor was a dusty, dark, and unattractive display case.

I decided to replace this unattractive display case with a proportionally smaller version of the duplicated image itself, to make the corridor seem to go on longer (for twelve apparent regressions).

It wasn’t very hard to paste a smaller version of the image in, thus extending the corridor to twelve doorways. I duplicated the image, measured the size in the original image I needed, and resized the duplicate accordingly (to about 1/6 of the original dimensions, as it happens). Next, I dragged the small version of the image over the large version to position it in place, and dropped it to add it to a layer in the original image. I used a layer mask, the Paintbrush Tool, and blending modes to combine the smaller version fairly seamlessly into the large version. In addition, I realized that at the point in the process where I flattened the layers I’d need to do a bit more detailed retouching using cloning and related Photoshop tools.

It’s worth noting that as a matter of workflow I had to flatten the layers in my image a number of times. Each time I did this, I saved an archived version of the image with the layers still intact (except, as you’ll see later, when my layered versions exceeded Photoshop’s maximum file size of 2 Gigabytes). I did this archiving at every step of the way where it was possible, just in case I later decide to rework the image, and I won’t note that I did it each time (but you should do it too when you work with layers).

Looking at what I had, the thought occurred to me, why not repeat the process? So I resized the duplicate image once more, down to about 1/6 of the reduced size, or 1/36 of the original size, and added the new, small version in position as a layer to the original image. Once again, I used a layer mask, the Paintbrush Tool, and blending modes to combine the versions, with the understanding that further retouching would be needed eventually.

Now I was up to eighteen regressions, and the corridor with doorways looked pretty infinite to me. But, in fact, the corridor didn’t go on forever. I had to get up pretty close to it, but at 1600% magnification I could see a highly pixelated version of the ugly old display case.

It turns out that 1600% is Photoshop’s maximum magnification, so I couldn’t zoom in any closer. In addition, the corridor-end-within-a-corridor-end-within-a-corridor had shrunk to an area of about 12 X 18 pixels, so the physical limitations of the building blocks of my image seemed to prevent adding any more regressions. For those of you who don’t know from pixels, this is an area smaller than the proverbial pinhead upon with angels dance. As the Wikipedia notes, “A pixel (short for picture element, using the common abbreviation “pix” for “picture”) is a single point in a graphic image.”

Looking at this 12 X 18 pixel canvas at the end of the known world, I figured why not write something on it. True, no one would be able to see what I had written without being able to examine a full-size version of the image in Photoshop or comparable software at high magnification, or perhaps by vliewing a good, large print up close with a magnifying glass. But it seemed worthwhile to embed a secret in the corridors of apparent infinity.

Typography at this small scale proved to be surprisingly difficult, and I had some much appreciated help from Phyllis. I can’t tell you how much it helps my work having a spouse who is also a graphic design whiz!

My first thought was to write my name, but “Harold” simply wouldn’t fit in the space I had, even with the strokes only one pixel wide. So a single letter would have to do. In a representation of infinity, perhaps α (alpha) or ω (omega) would have been most apt, but I settled for the more egocentric “H”. (I am, after all, at the core of my own solipsistic universe!) As I’ve said, you’d need to view the original Photoshop file at maximum magnification to see this character. But wait! The plot thickens (or thins)! Things get even crazier.

It occurred to me that although I couldn’t paste in another smaller copy of the image there was nothing to stop me from blowing up a copy of the current large image to make it bigger, and then pasting the current large image into the even larger version.

After the flattening the image with type layer and the layers with the two smaller versions, I duplicated it. Next, I used the SI Pro 2 (Stair Interpolation Pro) Photoshop plugin from Fred Miranda Software to blow the image up. As you may know, there are quite a few Photoshop plugins that automate the process of stepping an image up without appreciable quality degradation; I’ve had good luck with SI Pro.

If you are interested in using the SI Pro 2 plugin, it costs about $25 to download from Fred Miranda Software (you’ll find the link about half way down the page on the left). I’ve used it successfully to upsize images, and also to size images precisely for printing with margin areas on particular paper sizes.

I figured I needed to blow the image up 6X to be able proportionally to fit the 18 doorways into it, for a new total of 24 regressions (I am fondly calling each doorway a “regression”, although of course technically it is no such thing).

After enlarging the duplicate six times, the new dimensions were 15,300 X 22,857 pixels at 300 dpi (or about 51 X 71 inches at 300 dpi). It still looked pretty crisp on my monitor. I was bumping up against a Photoshop limitation, namely a maximum image size of 30,000 X 30,000 pixels, and a maximum Photoshop file size of 2 Gigabytes. I was to find out about the file size limitation when I tried to save a layered version of the large-size image.

And now, a word about my hardware. I noted in an earlier story that it takes quite a bit “under the hood” for me to post-process my images, particularly when complex channel operations are involved. Specifically, I do my image processing these days on a Mac Pro with 2 X 3 Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors (four processors in total), 5 GB of blazingly fast 667 MHz DDR2 RAM, about a terrabyte of SATA disk storage, and a 30 inch Apple Cinema monitor. True, Adobe hasn’t come out yet with a native version of Photoshop, but even in simulation mode this is pretty good hardware.

On the large-sized image, things slowed to less than a crawl. Simple operations, like displaying a histogram, or adjusting a curve, took minutes. While I waited for each operation to complete, I could not only twiddle my thumbs and drink a cup of coffee, I could brew the coffee as well! A good thing I also have my Windows XP machine going for mundane tasks like email, word processing, and blog writing! Here’s to multitasking if saving a file takes half an a hour!

So now I took the 2592 X 3872 pixel image, with the 18 regressions, and pasted it in position as a layer into the 15,300 X 22,857 pixel large version. As I’ve noted, when I tried to archive a version of this image with the layers intact I hit the 2 Gigabyte file size limitation of Photoshop, but fortunately I could work on the image in Photoshop with the layers even if I couldn’t save it, and I just squeaked by just under the 2 GB limit when saving layer-flattened versions.

Besides simply elongating the corridor, an interesting optical effect happened when I combined the images. The doorways start sharp, and gradually lose apparent sharpness as the eye goes down the passage (and the image gets magnified). But at six doorways in, where the pasted original version takes over, the doorways get sharp again. This effect creates an illusion that the passage is even longer than it is, because it doesn’t seem to lose definition as the eye travels down it.

You won’t really be able to see all the doorways in the version on the web. You certainly won’t be able to see the H embedded at the end of the World without End. There simply isn’t enough resolution. To fully see my image, you’ll need to come visit me and look at it on my monitor. You could then inspect the end of the corridor at 1600% magnification and see the H.

Of course, I’d also like to make a print that is close to one-to-one. Alas, my Epson 4800 only goes up to 17 inches wide. There are a number of places around here where I can get my hands on a 9600, with a maximum width of 44 inches. A little smaller than I’d like, the print on a 9600 would end up about 40 X 60 inches. I’ll bet that with a magnifiying glass you could even see the end of the corridor.

How’s that for finding infinity’s end?

Capillarity III, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This is a close-up of a leaf, captured using my photogram technique to show the capillaries. (Here’s a similar view of a leaf from slightly further away.)

In the days of film, cross processing meant developing film with the process meant for another kind of film, like shooting Ektachrome (normally processed with the E6 process), and processing it using the C41 process (meant for Kodacolor). Film cross processing sometimes generated striking and strange color phenomena, and other times struck out entirely.

The closest digital analog to cross processing is to invert or equalize individual channels of an image in Photoshop. I post-processed this image using a number of different versions of these manipulated channels, and then reapplied the inversions to the inverted image.

To make this all easier, I’ve written a Photoshop Action that creates multiple duplicates of an image, and then seven different cross-processed versions of the original image so that I can easily see which work best.