I don't normally PP much

[Dave Humphries]

I have been wandering about on the net, looking for ACR and notice that is is included in Photoshop Elements 7 and above. However, my copy of the full Photoshop 7 appears not to have it. Verrrrrry Interrrrresting. The "reduced capability" PS Elements7 has it and the "full capability" PS7 doesn't? hmmm I can't afford a copy at $100US at this time, but I'll be looking on ebay and the free download sites for a copy.

Hi Pops,

I'm sure someone else may know the precise details, but the reason this is that Elements 7 came out a lot later than PS7, the numbers are not in themselves comparable.

I would guess Elements was on about V2 when PS7 was new and neither had ACR because I don't think it had been invented yet.

I think Elements 5 was the first with ACR, which probably equates to CS2, thereafter they came out as follows; Elements 6, CS3, Elements 7, CS4, Elements 8. CS leads and Elements catches up.

I probably got some of that wrong, but you get the idea.

Cheers,

[PopsPhotos]

So, that means that my PSE6 might have it. I'll move some of my NEF files over to the server and see. Then I'll report back here. Thanks.

Pops

[Colin Southern]

Colin: I hope you don't mind all this fussing around with your original.

Wendy

It's Pop's image, not mine

[Colin Southern]

A few final notes ...

@ Dave

The "white line" you saw is undoubtedly due to my output sharpening. Whether it's visible or not is going to depend on how large the image is viewed, and probably the resolution of the monitor (and ones eyesight!). All sharpening produces halos - trick is of course to get them to the point where they increase the apparent edge contrast, but without being visibly obvious - so it really needs to be viewed at 100% (no larger). It's not visible on my screen, but then again, I wasn't wearing my reading glasses, so I probably over-sharpened a bit.

I haven't seen the original scene, so wasn't sure how to interpret some of the tones - personally, I chose to expose the feeder a little less than you - but in your version the bird's tones at the base of the beak / face look too dark.

[PopsPhotos]

Thank you very much. I will use this pic and your notes to practice. I will be working on the jpg. but that's not a problem, it will get me going through the motions in Elements.

Colin: I hope you don't mind all this fussing around with your original.

Wendy

Play around to your little heart's content. That's why I put it up here. Check your PM for info on RAW original.

Pops

[PopsPhotos]

Dave, when I take your latest up to 200% on my browser, I notice the beak and the black bands on the wings are a bit blue.

???

Pops

[Colin Southern]

Check your PM for info on RAW original.

Pops

Just be aware that there's a 3 download maximum from sendthisfile free accounts - after that you'll need to upload it again (or I can upload the copy I downloaded).

[ScoutR]

It's Pop's image, not mine

OK, I get it now, he must have sent you a different one to work on. I know you are good but you couldn't have changed the original posted here that much.

Thanks to you and Dave for your little battle with this one. I've found it very very helpful and I'm sure there are others who have too.

Wendy

[ScoutR]

Play around to your little heart's content. That's why I put it up here. Check your PM for info on RAW original.

Pops

Many Thanks
Wendy

[Dave Humphries]

The "white line" you saw is undoubtedly due to my output sharpening. Whether it's visible or not is going to depend on how large the image is viewed, and probably the resolution of the monitor (and ones eyesight!). All sharpening produces halos - trick is of course to get them to the point where they increase the apparent edge contrast, but without being visibly obvious - so it really needs to be viewed at 100% (no larger). It's not visible on my screen, but then again, I wasn't wearing my reading glasses, so I probably over-sharpened a bit.

I haven't seen the original scene, so wasn't sure how to interpret some of the tones - personally, I chose to expose the feeder a little less than you - but in your version the bird's tones at the base of the beak / face look too dark.

Hi Colin,

You're right again (of course); it could well be my relatively coarse 15 inch screen resoltuion of 1280 x 900 which is causing me to see this more than others (even at 100%), although I did drag it across onto a soft 19 inch CRT and it was visible there too (but soft). Oh, yes, I did have my glasses on

I agree, the bird's head is still too dark in my final, I think I said as much somewhere.

Cheers,

[Dave Humphries]

Dave, when I take your latest up to 200% on my browser, I notice the beak and the black bands on the wings are a bit blue.

???

Pops

Guilty as charged, but too tired to care

[Colin Southern]

Dave, when I take your latest up to 200% on my browser, I notice the beak and the black bands on the wings are a bit blue.

???

Pops

Although at 1600% and a viewing distance of around 10m, it didn't look too bad on my screen

[Dave Humphries]

So, that means that my PSE6 might have it. I'll move some of my NEF files over to the server and see. Then I'll report back here. Thanks.

Pops

Yup, mine does.

You should update to ACR 5.5 or 5.6 though, what shipped with PSE6 was something like 4.3.

It will let you upgrade PSE6 despite making it look like it may only be applicable to PSE7 onwards.

It goes to some lengths to say be sure to follow the instructions carefully, although I've done it 3 times without a problem.

I was going to give a link, but they mostly seem to have stopped working on Adobe's site tonight

Try this http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/407/kb407110.html

What you need is the Solution 1 link "To install Camera Raw 5.6, see TechNote kb407344." I have sent them an e-mail, no doubt it'll go into a black hole

It could just be they're half way through updating all the links on the page to 5.6, but maybe the late hour is making me cynical in suspecting otherwise

Cheers,

[PopsPhotos]

I was just getting ready to answer you when my ISP went down. We are on HF wireless and they haven't figured out SPI, yet. We used to lose it Spring and Fall, during the twilight hours. I convinced the tech to shift frequency and that took care of that. Now we lose it Winter during twilight hours.

I mentioned the 3 time limit to Wendy in my PM. She just told me she got them. So, if anybody else wants them, bounce me and I'll reload them.

PSE6 does open them just fine. I'll check into the update after a bit. Thank you. Now, I need to find my PSE6 CD and get that on my laptop. I wonder if the update for PSE will work on straight Photoshop 7. hmmm

I was having trouble with Adobe site just before the link went bellyup. Might have been the same problem or just the link getting ready to die.

Just downloaded and updated my PSE6. I still don't like the interface as well as PS7, but some of that is being unfamiliar, I'm sure.

More later.

Pops

[ScoutR]

Hi everyone: I've posted my attempt at this rework below and have a few questions to help me understand the process better instead of just being able to follow the instructions.

Opened the nef in ACR
'Shift+left mouse click' to do a white balance dropper on snow, this changed the As Shot WB; 5200 and -9, to 5700 and -19.
Auto, then make other adjustments which resulted in these:
Basic Tab -
Expoure: +1.45 stops
Recovery: 0
Fill Light: 0
Blacks: 20
Brightness: +40
Contrast: +50
Clarity: +60
Vibrance: +25
Saturation: +50
Detail Tab -
Sharpening
Amount: 15
Radius: 0.5
Detail: 10
Masking: 0
Noise Reduction
Luminance: +100
Color: +100
Open Image (in PSE6)
Capture Sharpen with USM: 200%, 0.3r, 2th
Levels: set grey point at 1.7 (to lift the bird)
Convert to 8 bit depth (have to)
Make a Layer, work on that from here on in (allows one to switch it off to compare back to original)
At this point I made a selection of all the snowy areas including all the background stuff, leaving just the bird and the feeder out, then I inverted it.
Thus most of the following was applied to only the bird and feeder.
Local Contrast Enhance: USM 35%, 160r, 0th

I ended up doing the cropping and the cloning first. It seemed to make the selection part of the exercise easier after some of the sticks were cloned out. I also read somewhere, that to keep the cloning from bleeding into areas where you did not want it to go, you could make a selection around the part you did not want the cloning to seep into and then do it that way. I’m so unfamiliar with Elements that I did not try this, but it sounds promising if it works. I know I still have some cloning errors and I messed up the birds tail due to the cloning that was done in that area. Tried to clone the tail back in, but I think the birds tail is a little short now.

When you (or anyone else) refers to USM are you talking about Ultrasharp Mask, and are there different settings or types of USM. For instance in this case you referred to Local Contrast Enhance. I could not find that when I was doing this exercise so I just applied USM at your specified settings.

Levels: set white point to 215 (again to raise brightness of dim bird)
Deselect, so back to the whole image now...
Local Contrast Enhance: USM 15%, 100r, 0th
After here, I did multiple saves, with undos and resizes, clones and crops.
In common I did;
Resize (bicubic) to 1099 to match Colin's (except my crop; 1000)
Final output sharpen with USM: 150%, 0.3r, 2th
Save As (jpg) at quality 9 (of 12)

To be honest, it's still a bit dark on the bird for my liking.
Trying to "bodge it better" at the end just ruined it, so I undid out of that and decided to live with it.

I would be very happy to end up with something like this on my own. I’m finding Elements pretty difficult to learn, but seeing the results of being able to do the Local Area Adjustments and the different sharpening effects, and the option for bicubic exporting looks like it should make a big difference for me when I figure everything out. I have many shots that could stand the same treatment, so I’ll get lots more practice and use your settings as a baseline.

My main question is how do you decide on when to sharpen and how much. Is it just a matter of viewing at 100% and then making adjustments based on what you see. I know there is lots of material here both in the tutorials and in posts, but I am really having trouble deciding when to sharpen. I know my photos need it, but when I sharpen in Lightroom it just seems to make things worse.

Also, when it comes to Process sharpening, does it matter when in the process you apply the sharpening. Are there times when you should not do it, and are there certain adjustments, that will cause sharpening to be needed again after that adjustment is made.

So many questions, so little time.

Oops, almost forgot: here is my attempt. Still problems after numerous tries, but a lot better than when I started. I’m not sure why the white band in the birds wing went yellow on me.

[PopsPhotos]

It looks very good, Wendy. Keep in mind that the colors in the feathers fades and "tarnishes" over winter. Going back to the original (the actual bird) I find that the wing bands are not pure white. They are actually a little dingier than in your version, but your are not far off.

I put up some pictures of the little guys taken in better light, if you want to compare. (Now, all I have to do is remember where I put them. hmmmmm )

Here you go:
What a difference the light makes

Good job. Thanks.

Pops

[ScoutR]

Keep in mind that the colors in the feathers fades and "tarnishes" over winter. Going back to the original (the actual bird) I find that the wing bands are not pure white. They are actually a little dingier than in your version, but your are not far off.

I'm just wondering why mine turned out yellower than Dave's

Good job. Thanks.

Thank you for starting the post, and Dave and Colin for doing all the work. All I did was try to duplicate what Dave did in order to get some experience using Elements. It was a good exercise, but all I can say is it sure is easier to have the right light to start with.

Take care and keep feeding those birds

Wendy

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Wendy,

My apologies for the delay in reply, I saw this at 00:25 and I knew I needed to be up again by 06:00, so I left it until tonight.

I ended up doing the cropping and the cloning first. It seemed to make the selection part of the exercise easier after some of the sticks were cloned out. I also read somewhere, that to keep the cloning from bleeding into areas where you did not want it to go, you could make a selection around the part you did not want the cloning to seep into and then do it that way. I’m so unfamiliar with Elements that I did not try this, but it sounds promising if it works. I know I still have some cloning errors and I messed up the birds tail due to the cloning that was done in that area. Tried to clone the tail back in, but I think the birds tail is a little short now.

On the face of it that sounds like a good idea (mutter, mutter; why didn't I think of that )

OK, here's one reason why it may not be so good to do cloning first:
I assume you process in 16 bit mode in LR/ACR and therefore the image will open with that many bits in Elements. Any whole picture adjustments should preferably be done while still in 16 bit mode because it will give less risk of 'quantisation effects' by which I mean contour effects on slow gradients of brightness, these will be visible in 8 bit jpg sunsets with the whole sun in shot, you can sometimes see the contour lines in the sky around the sun.
In Elements, any selective picture adjustments like cloning, will force you into 8 bit mode.
So that's why I leave cloning until fairly late in my workflow. However, I don't know everything and there may be ways around the problem using layers that I haven't yet progressed to.

Anyway, back to the picture; I think the tail looks OK in the finished article, and overall I prefer yours to mine, you have the head a bit lighter in tone and the remaining pole behind looks much more natural in yours.

When you (or anyone else) refers to USM are you talking about Ultrasharp Mask, and are there different settings or types of USM. For instance in this case you referred to Local Contrast Enhance. I could not find that when I was doing this exercise so I just applied USM at your specified settings.

USM = Un-Sharp Mask, but close enough
There's a tutorial here at CiC on LCE with USM, I would say there is only one USM, but you can make it do different things with (vastly) different settings.

Typical sharpening values are:
a highish Amount: 50 - 500% (0.50 to 5.00 in GIMP)
a very low to low Radius: 0.3 - 1.2 pixels (same in GIMP ?)
a Threshold set dependent upon image noise 1 - 8

Typical Local Contrast Enhancement values are:
a lowish Amount: 5 - 30% (0.05 to 0.30 in GIMP)
a large to very large Radius: 60 - 200 pixels (same in GIMP ?)
a zero Threshold: 0

My main question is how do you decide on when to sharpen and how much. Is it just a matter of viewing at 100% and then making adjustments based on what you see.

Yes, at least that what I do for USM.
Try some values, repeatedly check and uncheck the Preview box and see the changes (at 100% for sharpening, but usually full screen for LCE)

I know my photos need it, but when I sharpen in Lightroom it just seems to make things worse.

That's because sharpening in LR is really doing it with ACR (I believe) and the minimum Radius is 0.5 which is just too big! (I really don't know why they don't address that - maybe it will be 'fixed' in ACR 6?)

Also, when it comes to Process sharpening, does it matter when in the process you apply the sharpening. Are there times when you should not do it, and are there certain adjustments, that will cause sharpening to be needed again after that adjustment is made.

1) Leave it until you get to Elements, don't try it in LR or ACR
2) If you have to Noise Reduce with something like Neat Image in Elements, do that first before any sharpening
3) Do the LCE first
4) Then do the capture sharpening (150 - 300%, 0.3px, 1-8th) fairly early on
5) Now do everything else, including any locally applied or content sharpening (although many times I don't do this)
6) Resize smaller (bicubic)
7) Final sharpen, similar values to capture sharpening, but vary dependent upon whether you aggressively cropped, meaning the downsize wasn't much - always do looking at the (new) 100% and keep amount and radius low to avoid those white/black lines around high contrast transitions.

Have a read up on the sharpening threads for more.

I’m not sure why the white band in the birds wing went yellow on me.

Ah, I have a confession to make - it did for me too and I fudged it with an undocumented selection and desaturation
I didn't mention it because I had a feeling I was corrupting reality - as indeed it turns out to be from Pops answer above

Cheers,

[ScoutR]

Thank you yet again Dave
For the very helpful answers to my questions. I have had a look at the tutorials (again) and also some of the other posts on sharpening. Thanks to this exercise they are starting to sound less like "blah blah blah" and are actually starting to sink in.

I'm trying this technique on another shot of my own and so far it is making a huge difference. I think when I get this mastered it should make a big difference in the general look of my photos. (i hope)

Thanks again, have a great day
Wendy

[PopsPhotos]

If you guys remind me, come April-May, I'll get and post some pictures of those little guys in their breeding plumage. The light will be better, their colors will be bright and they will be interacting more.

I intend to get down to the thistle thicket at the lake this Spring and try to get some nesting pictures, also.

Lake Hiawatha - Google Earth coordinates:
47*07'06.37 N 119*28'04.24" W

We live about 1/2 mile East of there.

Pops