Project 52 by Frank Miller

[gurvinder77]

Wonderful and inspiring work... KUDOS!!!

[whited3]

I am in awe of the post-processing skills put into practice.

x2

[Sam Smith]

Great job Frank.

[Kris V]

Amazing. Just amazing. I am in awe of the post-processing skills put into practice.

Can't say it any better - and I totally agree!

[epmi314]

You rock Frank! Love your work and insight.

[Wendy Stanford]

Hi Frank,
Thanks for posting such detail and the how I did it explaination on both images,
with the water image I was not aware that this could be done, the result is excellent,
Week 2, if you hadn't posted the before, wouldn't have known, great editing
Thanks again

[FrankMi]

Thanks everyone! I am amazed at what Project 52 is doing to get the creative juices flowing in all those that are taking part. People are getting out of their comfort zone to experiment with new ideas and techniques to everyone's benefit. It's been a great learning experience.

I try to constantly challenge myself with asking 'what if' questions about as many topics as I can think of. It certainly helped me to question the process involved with taking slow water images. I feel that combinations of fast and slow shutter speeds have application in many more situations than just water in a stream. Something more to explore!

For the second image, I had been frustrated at the continuous scenario of having a 'one time only' opportunity to get a great shot that is rendered useless by a lousy background. This isn't a question of using post processing to make up for taking technically poor photographs, quite often, even with our best preparation, there are things in the image that we just can't control. Learning how to adapt to the situation with post processing can make a huge difference between a great image and a worthless one.

I hope that others will be encouraged to 'think outside the box' and explore new combinations of shooting and post processing techniques that can lead to innovative breakthroughs in capturing the world we live in for the benefit of others.

[Harpo]

Wow! cant say much more than what others did! Your process has me wondering something… if you wanted a better background (past the other side of the tarmac to keep the plane's shadow on the runway) could you move to another section of the airport and take a nicer background without the buildings then combine them? Just wondering if thats possible

[FrankMi]

Wow! cant say much more than what others did! Your process has me wondering something… if you wanted a better background (past the other side of the tarmac to keep the plane's shadow on the runway) could you move to another section of the airport and take a nicer background without the buildings then combine them? Just wondering if thats possible

Hi Mike! Absolutely. Sometimes when I shoot an image I know I have to accommodate a different sky or background so I get additional shots at the time just for this purpose. In playing with this concept I find that some things work well and others not so well. Let me give a few examples of what I've experienced.

Let's start simple and say we have a lovely landscape with a bland sky so we want to replace it with something more interesting. We go out and take a bunch of sky pictures with interesting clouds. Just pop a great sky behind the subject, right? For the most part this will likely look fake. Why? Because the sky doesn't really match the rest of the scene. Here are some of the things you need to consider for the sky, and these thoughts carry over to any replacement bits of a scene you might like to do including the background in the shot above.

a. The camera angle should match the original. Shooting a cloud above you to avoid the objects on the horizon won't look natural in a landscape where the original camera angle is pointed at the horizon. Clouds don't look the same from below as they do from the side.

b. Distance matters. Shooting clouds that are close won't look natural for a scene where you can see to the distant mountains, the scale doesn't match.

c. Sunlight direction and shadows can be a real giveaway. If the shadows on the ground are on the left but the clouds are lit from the front, back or left, you get a 'what the heck is wrong with this image' reaction. The light source and shadow directions must match.

d. Time of day. The angle and color of the sunlight needs to match. White clouds with a sunset glow on the ground will look funky.

e. Weather. A grey misty day with white fluffy clouds give away the fact that there should be sunlight and shadows on the ground. Even in a cloudless sky, a bright Carolina Blue sky would be inappropriate for a British Isles image although the reverse may work.

f. Shadows. Soft shadows and harsh lighting (and the reverse) don't mix; neither do shadows in the wrong location, size, intensity, or shape. For swapping backgrounds in particular, lack of appropriate shadows is a dead giveaway.

If you get it close but not right on, the viewer may not realize what's wrong but the image simply won't 'feel' right.

Hope this helps answer your question!

[Harpo]

Hi Frank... What you said is what I thought was the case. Ive only seen post pics with changed backgrounds that looked fake. My thought in your case was... after you took the image of the plane, if a walk down the runway gets you to a point where you get the same angle of view with a better background, around the same time you took the plane pic, things would match up much better... Looking forward to seeing more of your creative tinkering!

[FrankMi]

Week 3: Focus Stacking of Close-Up

I've been playing with learning Focus Stacking. Today I got a chance to get out onto the forest trails of a local park and found that the moss is a vibrant green at this time of the year. In one area there are some Gum Trees that drop spiny gum ball seed pods. There was one sitting on some of the moss so I thought I'd try to get several shots at different focus points. They were taken with my 18-55mm kit lens. Because the shooting position was at ground level, the set of images were hand held. Although the moss looks like grass the seed pod is only about an inch in diameter, not the size of a soccer ball as grass might imply.

Back at the ranch, I loaded the images in Photoshop as Layers after setting the Recovery and Fill Light in Adobe Camera Raw. Next, I used Edit/Auto-Align Layers to compensate for not using the tripod, then Edit/Auto-Merge to mask the images so that the sharpest parts of each layer was used. Once the images were merged, I used Topaz DeNoise to reduce the noise and Topaz InFocus to perform the capture sharpening on the composite image. A little Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation followed by cropping, downsizing, and output sharpening and I'm done. Here is one of the SOOC images and the final result.

SOOC:



At ScoutR's request, this is after the stack was merged but before any post processing was done (other than output sharpening for the image reduction):



And here is the image after post processing:



If you compare the images in the lightbox, you should be able to see more detail in the second (and third) image.

[gregj1763]

Clever stuff Frank. Looks great, will have to try it.
Greg

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Really nice work Frank.

[Wendy Stanford]

Very well done Frank, the DOF and detail on the processed image is wonderful, great looking seed pod
How many images did you use to get the end result ?
I wondered whether it would be too difficult to extended the moss to the edge of the frame behind the seed pod, as the ground litter is a little distracting.
I will have to add focus stacking to my increasing list of projects to try

[ScoutR]

Looks good Frank. Don't know what it is with you guys and seed pods though... Hmmmm

I'm curious as to what it looked like before Topaz. Would it be terribly difficult to post. Don't worry about it if it's a lot of trouble to save it at that point. I'm just curious.

I agree with Wendy about extending the moss to the end of the frame.

Wendy

[FrankMi]

Thanks Greg and Malcolm!

Very well done Frank, the DOF and detail on the processed image is wonderful, great looking seed pod
How many images did you use to get the end result ?
I wondered whether it would be too difficult to extended the moss to the edge of the frame behind the seed pod, as the ground litter is a little distracting.
I will have to add focus stacking to my increasing list of projects to try

Hi Wendy. For this experimental image I had taken 10 shots but I find that I can sometimes get away with as few as two and the fewer the shots, the easier it is to post process.

There seems to be two ways to make changes to the background. One is to not include any images in the set that are focused too far back in the scene and just let the bokeh of the closer shots blur the background. The other is to use normal cloning and/or correcting techniques on the merged image.

The one thing you would need to watch if you are going to extend the background is the level of sharpness, that is, a cloned copy of the sharp moss would need to be increasingly blurred the further behind the subject you go as this kind of close-up is expected to have a very shallow DoF.

I had also tried a technique of using the Continuous mode to shoot while I rotated the focus ring and with some practice I may be able to get better. In most cases where I tried this approach I ended to with too many images that were completely out of focus as it is very difficult to match the speed with which the camera is firing in Continuous with the desired focus range. On the other hand, if I was shooting wildlife that is holding a pose but might move at any second, it may give me a chance I wouldn't otherwise have to get the stack and even if I don't get a great stack, I'll likely still have a better chance of getting a keeper. Hope this helps!

[FrankMi]

Looks good Frank. Don't know what it is with you guys and seed pods though... Hmmmm

I'm curious as to what it looked like before Topaz. Would it be terribly difficult to post. Don't worry about it if it's a lot of trouble to save it at that point. I'm just curious.

I agree with Wendy about extending the moss to the end of the frame.

Wendy

Hi Wendy, to keep the images in sequence and make them easier to compare, I inserted the merged copy in post #31. Although I'm not positive why the image is lighter than the #2 image I used as the 'SOOC', I suspect that it is because I was using Aperture Priority. I've noticed that a sequence of images shot in AP will have slightly varying shutter speeds. Note to self: for stacking images, use Manual exposure settings!

[Ryogenetic]

Good stuff Frank, Ill have to try this out when my 25 F1.2 arrives. Thanks for talking threw your process.

Ryo

[Nicola]

very good work Frank!
every time I was ready to try to emulate your technique, I see a new one in this thread! I must buy an diary to book all these very interesting photography lessons!
thanks for sharing your skills!
Nicola

[FrankMi]

Thanks, Ryo. I'm sure you'll have a ball.

very good work Frank!
every time I was ready to try to emulate your technique, I see a new one in this thread! I must buy an diary to book all these very interesting photography lessons!
thanks for sharing your skills!
Nicola

Hi Nicola! No problem, I'm glad it is helping.

When I see a particularly interesting thread that I don't want to loose, I just copy/paste into a Word document so that I can get to all the details again when I'm at a point where I can play with the material.