Practicing the craft ~ B&W pocket watch

[rpcrowe]

How about this. I tried to get the three dimensional look, showing the side of the watch as well as the case face.

[JBW]

Brian Can I ask, is this watch silver, bronze, or what? I get no indication from the photo. If silver I would expect it to be brighter
Roy

Close to silver. But it is old and tarnished. For reasons unknown to me no matter what the lighting it always photographs yellowish

[JBW]

How about this. I tried to get the three dimensional look, showing the side of the watch as well as the case face.

and you got it. But that's the back not the face

[JBW]

You can increase local contrast with any editing program that has unsharp mask. You don't need a dedicated adjustment, like clarity in lightroom. Just start with these settings and adjust to taste:
amount: 20
radius: 50 pixels
threshold: 0

I think what people mean by 'an area should be fully black' is just that often, one wants the tonal range to extend all the way to black. Your original already does.

So it seems to me that there are three things to play with:

--an overall brightening of the midtones. This is what Ted was showing; you have most of the image at the dark end, and if you just slide the midpoint of a levels tool to the left, it will gradually lighten it.
--contrast: you could apply a fairly aggressive curve to add global contrast
--you should use USM or another tool to add local contrast

Here's a version with the two tonality adjustments, levels and curves:



Here's the same thing, but with some local contrast added, using the settings above:

The more I work at B&W the more I appreciate Donald's skill set.

[JBW]

Getting there but you forgot to move the brightness slider:



Notice where the gray slider is: most of the histogram is to left of it which explains why your brights came out gray. So I moved the white slider as shown; I moved the black slider up a bit; then played with the gray slider to taste. Then I added some micro-contrast:



As always, a bit OTT to make the point!

I ignored the background which I assume you know how to fix with layers, masks and stuff.

HTH,

I will go back and play with tortoise darn sliders. Fix the bg? Why?

[xpatUSA]

I will go back and play with tortoise darn sliders. Fix the bg? Why?

OK, Brian. Sorry to have complicated matters.

[JBW]

OK, Brian. Sorry to have complicated matters.

Don't be sorry! If I don't get honest feedback how will I get better? So tell me what you find wrong in the bg. And I am going to start from a new variant and work on the sliders and work flow. I like this stuff

[JBW]

I worked with RT for a while but I couldn't resist a software p;rogram built for my camera. Is this closer to what you are talking about?

This is getting more marks than a Spitfire

[xpatUSA]

Don't be sorry! If I don't get honest feedback how will I get better? So tell me what you find wrong in the bg. And I am going to start from a new variant and work on the sliders and work flow. I like this stuff

Shouldn't have said "fix", sorry Brian. What I meant say was that the b/g is yours to do with as you will. I myself rarely if ever use a textured background for a watch, except for ribbon, but I'm not saying that you should not.



http://kronometric.org/tcw/mec/b182lan925/mas.html

Started this article about wristwatch engraving long ago but never finished it . .

http://kronometric.org/article/engraving/temp.html
.

[JBW]

Shouldn't have said "fix", sorry Brian. What I meant say was that the b/g is yours to do with as you will. I myself rarely if ever use a textured background for a watch, except for ribbon, but I'm not saying that you should not.



http://kronometric.org/tcw/mec/b182lan925/mas.html

Started this article about wristwatch engraving long ago but never finished it . .

http://kronometric.org/article/engraving/temp.html
.

That's a beautiful watch and a gorgeous shot. Please keep on saying what makes sense to you. We have our own styles which with any luck will improve for the sharing

[xpatUSA]

That's a beautiful watch and a gorgeous shot.

Thanks for the compliment!

Please keep on saying what makes sense to you. We have our own styles which with any luck will improve for the sharing

Yes, I rarely shoot small products outside because they are usually headed for eBay. So I am blessed with fixed, continuous lighting which helps a lot. Three lamps and home-made diffusers.

As we said before, reflectors outside could work for you (Kodak R27 8x10"; white side works if you have them, or they are quite cheap these days on eBay).

Sometimes a diffuser for harsh sunlight might help. I use medium-thick A4 tracing paper, edged with thick kitchen foil so that I can curve it around stuff.

By using a separate diffuser to the lamp, I can change the amount of diffusion by moving the lamp closer to or further from the subject; and/or by moving the diffuser closer to the lamp or closer to the subject. Probably can't do that with the Sun, eh?

See "Lambertian" surfaces, mentioned in here:

http://kronometric.org/phot/lighting...20handbook.pdf
.

[JBW]

Thanks for the compliment!



Yes, I rarely shoot small products outside because they are usually headed for eBay. So I am blessed with fixed, continuous lighting which helps a lot. Three lamps and home-made diffusers.

As we said before, reflectors outside could work for you (Kodak R27 8x10"; white side works if you have them, or they are quite cheap these days on eBay).

Sometimes a diffuser for harsh sunlight might help. I use medium-thick A4 tracing paper, edged with thick kitchen foil so that I can curve it around stuff.

By using a separate diffuser to the lamp, I can change the amount of diffusion by moving the lamp closer to or further from the subject; and/or by moving the diffuser closer to the lamp or closer to the subject. Probably can't do that with the Sun, eh?

See "Lambertian" surfaces, mentioned in here:

http://kronometric.org/phot/lighting...20handbook.pdf
.

This was actually shot inside. Our kitchen area has three glass walls so i shot on the kitchen table with a reflector.

[sachtjen]

Hi Brian,

Are there any sources on stacking you have found particularly useful?

For my local photography club we had an assignment to photograph an egg. I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn how to do stacking. I put on my macro lens, set the aperture to nearly wide open, and made small adjustments to focal length. I followed some tutorials on how to do stacking in Photoshop. Photoshop chose one frame and used it for about 95% of the final image with some obvious blotches take from some of the other frames. It was a mess.

You said you use Fuji's software to stack so maybe the procedure is quite different from photoshop. This isn't the first stacked image you've posted so I was hoping my story would sound familiar and either you have great advice or a particularly good source of information.

Thanks,

Mike

[JBW]

Hi Brian,

Are there any sources on stacking you have found particularly useful?

For my local photography club we had an assignment to photograph an egg. I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn how to do stacking. I put on my macro lens, set the aperture to nearly wide open, and made small adjustments to focal length. I followed some tutorials on how to do stacking in Photoshop. Photoshop chose one frame and used it for about 95% of the final image with some obvious blotches take from some of the other frames. It was a mess.

You said you use Fuji's software to stack so maybe the procedure is quite different from photoshop. This isn't the first stacked image you've posted so I was hoping my story would sound familiar and either you have great advice or a particularly good source of information.

Thanks,

Mike

I was born in Vancouver and spent a few summer holidays in your part of the world.

Don't know how great my advice will be but here goes:

ImageJ is free software designed for and by scientists. It does a great job of stacking and even has some handy sharpening tools. If I said Fuji it was a mistake.

My technique is simple. I shoot in RAW. Do the universal adjustments in RAW export in TIFF reimport aft stacking in TIFF and maske my final adjustments.

Hope that helps.
Brian

[xpatUSA]

Don't know how great my advice will be but here goes:

ImageJ is free software designed for and by scientists. It does a great job of stacking and even has some handy sharpening tools. If I said Fuji it was a mistake.

Previously you've mentioned "Fiji", Brian, which is a super-set of ImageJ:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/50059191

First post is my reference and has some pics that are quite good.

[JBW]

Previously you've mentioned "Fiji", Brian, which is a super-set of ImageJ:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/50059191

First post is my reference and has some pics that are quite good.

You are absolutely right. My mind has been a little off of late. And you're shots are quite good.

[sachtjen]

Thank you both Brian and Ted.

I downloaded FIJI and EnfuseGUI as that is what was mentioned in the dpreview post.

As outlined in dpreview I used FIJI to align my layers and then EnfuseGUI to combine them. FIJI actually misaligned my images worse than the original. That made the Enfuse results a blurred mess. I tried Enfuse without the alignment process. I see the potential, though without alignment the results weren't perfect.

I suspect either I don't have enough images (5 in the stack) or there are not enough easy points of reference on the egg for the alignment software to work properly. I strongly suspect the later. When I get the time I will try again with a less smooth object.

Thanks again!

[xpatUSA]

Thank you both Brian and Ted.

I downloaded FIJI and EnfuseGUI as that is what was mentioned in the dpreview post.

As outlined in dpreview I used FIJI to align my layers and then EnfuseGUI to combine them. FIJI actually misaligned my images worse than the original. That made the Enfuse results a blurred mess. I tried Enfuse without the alignment process. I see the potential, though without alignment the results weren't perfect.

I suspect either I don't have enough images (5 in the stack) or there are not enough easy points of reference on the egg for the alignment software to work properly. I strongly suspect the latter. When I get the time I will try again with a less smooth object.

Thanks again!

Probably 'points of reference', Mike.

I find image alignment to be the most awkward of the steps necessary for stacking work. An app is supposed to find "control points' so as to distort a number of images to be "the same" but it is so often defeated by this or that.

Currently, I use 'align_image_stack.exe' which is a popular command-line utility, oft used by programs like Hugin and the like. But . . sometimes it works and sometimes it don't ...

With an egg, would it be possible to put some black dots on the egg with a marker pen - to be cloned out of the final output?