Post processing for clarity

Well it certainly has been a hectic few weeks and as usual I've probably bitten off more than I can chew considering my family's circumstances. Lets just say that there has been an over abundance of medical issues in my close and extended family and some prayers would be most welcome.

Okay staying positive - I took Bonnie Ronnie for a drive in the country to cheer her up and of course I had my trusty Sony a65 camera in the boot (wish I had a 4WD). During our travels we couldn't help but notice the build up of cloud on what started as a clear blue sky day. It seemed the further and higher we travelled the greater the cumulus. The views were spectacular and made more so by the heavily pregnant cumulus and I just had to stop (carefully as the ground was a bit sodden and my little front wheel drive doesn't like 'sodden') and take a few photographs - I thought what a perfect opportunity for a spectacular panorama but unfortunately I muffed that, ...yes I make mistakes and truth be told - a lot of mistakes!

I did however get some great images which I have posted on our FB page while Ronnie relaxed to some great music as she took in the views. We wound up at Mt Mee which is located about 20km (as the crow flies) inland from the Sunshine Coast with spectacular views to the ocean and to Brisbane but just a little too far for the camera to capture with the lens I had with me.

By the time we got to Dahmongah Lookout Park, the heavens had given birth to a wonderful downpour of rain, however the views were pretty well shot - no pun intended. I took a few images anyway, I always shoot in RAW and it is amazing just what the camera does catch. I've just upgraded to Lr5 and this is the first photograph that I have processed with this new version. 

I thought I might step through the process I used. 

Original in camera shot

The top picture is obviously the original image straight out of the Sony SLT a65 using DT 18-250mm f3.5-6.3 lens, focal length 55mm ISO 100 1/160th sec at f6.3 RAW format. Shot in Priority mode.

Cropped and processed with Lr 5

In Lightroom 5 - Firstly I cropped the image to remove a distraction from the left and the bottom of the image so that the composition made use of the lines to draw the viewer into the story. As I do with every image I checked the WB (White Balance) and determined that I would go with 'As Shot' (since it was correct in camera anyway). I usually then move straight to 'Presence' as I did here and set 'Clarity' to +86 (a bit high but it was raining and I wanted to bring out the rain trails). 'Vibrance' was set to +75 again pumped up pretty high to make some of the detail pop (of course this introduces quite a bit of noise and thats why I shoot at ISO 100 wherever possible). 'Saturation' is set at +21 as the rain washes out a lot of colour and this ensures that detail which will be brought out has quite a bit of colour and tonal contrast. 

Next I adjusted the 'Tone' - increased the 'Shadows' to +66 (one needs to keep an eye on the histogram here ...and at all times as we want to avoid any 'clipping' (no data for print)) this will usually produce a blowout of 'Highlights' so I reduced them to -56 and reduced the 'Whites' to -46 all of which produced clipping in the darks to I increased 'Blacks' to +30.

From here I usually move to 'Tone Curve' and play with the curve in the histogram to produce the detail and effect that I'm looking for typically a slight 'S' curve as in this case but I really pull this curve in every direction starting large and refining as I go with a little tweak to the above settings here and there. There is no set formula it is all about you and your story. In this case only the 'Lights' +34 and 'Darks' -24 were adjusted.

Then I went directly to 'Lens Corrections' but I just enabled 'Remove Chromatic Aberration' as all I wanted to do was ensure that the rain trails didn't contain any green or purple. That is it.

Filters added with Nik's Color Efex Pro 4

Now you are probably wondering what this last image is all about. I sometimes find that even though I can extract a lot of detail from the RAW format it doesn't quite give me what I'm looking for - usually a little larger than life look ....a little surreal I suppose ...extra pop if you like, ...whatever you want to call it.

So I created a third copy of the original image and opened it in Color Efex Pro 4 from Nik (a fantastic set of tools for all photographers). I applied only 2 filters - 'Detail Extractor' to the whole image with all settings in single digits and 'Tonal Contrast' with settings between 9-25 High Pass.

Note the extra detail especially in the cloud and in the dominant tree. Ronnie always says it's too much for her taste but I like it - what do you think?

Till next time - 'Capturing Inspiration'

Silver Efex

I've spoken about filters and Nik filters in particular, in the past. I have played around with the Color Efex Pro 4 app quite a bit and am very pleased to say that it can save a bucket load of time in post processing where one is trying to achieve a particular effect. 

Of course all of these effects can be produced in Photoshop and saved as "Actions" so that they can be replicated time and again but before I start getting into that type of commentary I have a little more practising to do. 

I want to fiddle around with real ND filters, Graduated Filters and the like on camera but whilst I am doing this with new photographs, on days that I don't get out and about to try these filters I am using the software filters to become familiar with them on some of my older shots.

Over the last couple of days I have been using Lightroom 4, Photoshop and Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2 app to produce the same result with some Black and White photo's. I have to say that for me, Photoshop is the most versatile particularly if you want to be able to go back and alter one small aspect of an image but if it's a quick do once and post a final image then the Nik Collection is the one for me.

I'll put up 4 samples of the same image, (San Francisco's Trams) the original is in colour followed by a B&W, a Bluish tone B&W and a sepia tone B&W - The colour image has had a little tonal adjustment in Lr 4 and the B&W copy was also created with Lr 4. Both the Bluish and Sepia tones were an enhancement of the B&W image with Silver Efex Pro 2.

Personally I prefer the second image, there is something refreshing, crisp and clear with a Black and White image that just doesn't seem to come through on the others. What do you think?

Till next time, "Capturing Inspiration".

Post processing

Well what a hectic week, it was great being able to help some old friends in their time of need even if it does mean some serious catching up on my chores. We were blessed with a couple of Whale watching tickets for yesterdays cruise and what a pleasure it was in perfect weather.

We left really early, wanting to catch the sunrise over the ocean however I should have used the GPS as I missed our exit and lost 20 minutes. We still managed to arrive just before all the colour was lost and so didn't have enough time to setup a tripod for some longer exposures or even use of our ND Graduated filters. We did however manage to capture some awesome colours in RAW for a little post process tweaking.

I saw this photographer standing on the rocks while capturing the sea spray as the ocean buffeted the rocks he was standing on. He must have a very weatherproof camera I thought as the waves crashed around him and he was shrouded in salt water spray and mist. I loved his enthusiasm and just had to capture him engrossed in his inspiration.

Mooloolaba Mist.

How time flies when you are having fun, in our race to get to our cruise before it departed without us I managed a quick shot at an old hand crane on the wharf which had captured my imagination. I brought it up this morning and was a little disappointed at the result. I hadn't had the time to check my settings before taking the shot and all I seemed to have was a silhouette.... but, I had shot in RAW so I was able to not only salvage the shot but also managed to produce a fantastic old style photo effect as a result.

I used Lightroom 4 to extract the detail from the shadows before using Nik's 'Color Efex Pro 4' to add a couple of filters to give the photo that age bleached effect and added a somewhat scraggly border to frame the photo which would hopefully capture the attention and draw the eye inward. 

Before and After Post-processing

As you can see I've included a before and after shot, what do you think of the end result? Please leave your feedback in the comments section.

Till next time, capturing inspiration.