Golden Pollen (shot at 1x1)

[JBW]

Golden Pollen: Sony Alpha a68 ~ Tamron 90mm 272E ~ Magnification 1:1 ~ ISO 100 ~ Shutter Speed 1/80s ~ F/14 ~ Exposure Compensation -0.3 ~ Natural Light

[Urbanflyer]

Fascinating shot!

[Manfred M]

I'm wondering about the exposure on this one Brian. You definitely appear to have some headroom on the right hand side of the histogram.

The blue channel is definitely clipped a lot and there is a bit of clipping in the green channel as well.

[xpatUSA]

I'm wondering about the exposure on this one Brian. You definitely appear to have some headroom on the right hand side of the histogram.

The blue channel is definitely clipped a lot and there is a bit of clipping in the green channel as well.

After fixing:

I didn't understand the 'after fixing' image, but the OP image is easily fixed if Brian so desires.

It was mainly over-saturated and shadows forced to the right, both probably in post-processing.



Upped the blacks a lot which didn't fix the clipping much, then de-saturated slightly et voila! After that, the headroom almost went away but I added some compensation anyhow.

[Manfred M]

I didn't understand the 'after fixing' image, but the OP image is easily fixed if Brian so desires.

It was mainly over-saturated and shadows forced to the right, both probably in post-processing.


Upped the blacks a lot which didn't fix the clipping much, then de-saturated slightly et voila! After that, the headroom almost went away but I added some compensation anyhow.

Not sure where the "After fixing" comes from. It doesn't appear in my post.

While it could be a PP issue, I suspect this is more likely a capture issue given Brian's tendency to underexpose. Regardless this is something he should be watching for in his work. In Capture One, the highlight clipping indicator is enabled by default, but the loss of shadow detail indicator is not and has to be enabled in the Preferences.

[JBW]

Not sure where the "After fixing" comes from. It doesn't appear in my post.

While it could be a PP issue, I suspect this is more likely a capture issue given Brian's tendency to underexpose. Regardless this is something he should be watching for in his work. In Capture One, the highlight clipping indicator is enabled by default, but the loss of shadow detail indicator is not and has to be enabled in the Preferences.

It is enabled and it doesn't show any problem at all with the shot i posted. Just to check I cloned the image and decreased exposure and brightness. Both actions brought up the dreaded blue warning. But as posted it was fine.

My go to setting is -0.3 for shooting. I simply like the way it looks and if it needs brightening it is an easy fix.

Agreed that the blue and green seem clipped on the dark side. I'll try Teds fixes.

B.

[JBW]

Fascinating shot!

No argument from me. To find the sacred through a macro lens or a telescope is quite the thrill for this old boy.

[JBW]

Not sure where the "After fixing" comes from. It doesn't appear in my post.

While it could be a PP issue, I suspect this is more likely a capture issue given Brian's tendency to underexpose. Regardless this is something he should be watching for in his work. In Capture One, the highlight clipping indicator is enabled by default, but the loss of shadow detail indicator is not and has to be enabled in the Preferences.

I just took a look at the original and it too is clipped on the left. Shot at -0.3 exposure comp. this isn't really surprising. But no matter what combo I try I can't get it off the left without destroying the beauty.

[Manfred M]

I just took a look at the original and it too is clipped on the left. Shot at -0.3 exposure comp. this isn't really surprising. But no matter what combo I try I can't get it off the left without destroying the beauty.

I'm sure that we have had this conversation before; if at all possible, one wants to get a raw shot with no clipping. There is a theoretical advantage to have ETTR (Expose-To-The-Right) and to adjust the exposure in post. There is no one that advocates ETTL (Expose-To-The-Left). One can generally recover from some slight clipping of the highlights, but not from crushed shadow detail. With good data, the overall brightness can be managed in post.

I'm not sure why you suggest you "can't get off the left without destroying beauty". The only reason for this could be an issue with your PP technique.

While ACR / Lightroom has the capability to show colour channel clipping in a single histogram, I have not found similar functionality available in Capture One. One has to check out each colour channel individually.

[JBW]

I'm sure that we have had this conversation before; if at all possible, one wants to get a raw shot with no clipping. There is a theoretical advantage to have ETTR (Expose-To-The-Right) and to adjust the exposure in post. There is no one that advocates ETTL (Expose-To-The-Left). One can generally recover from some slight clipping of the highlights, but not from crushed shadow detail. With good data, the overall brightness can be managed in post.

I'm not sure why you suggest you "can't get off the left without destroying beauty". The only reason for this could be an issue with your PP technique.

While ACR / Lightroom has the capability to show colour channel clipping in a single histogram, I have not found similar functionality available in Capture One. One has to check out each colour channel individually.

Manfred might I suggest you read articles from people that don't have your bias? It took me less than a second after I typed in the question to pull up multiple articles on the advantages of ETTL. Here's one.

Of course it's a question of my technique. I mentioned it in the hope someone might give me a clue to finding a better technique.

[xpatUSA]

[Manfred, ...]

Of course it's a question of my technique. I mentioned it in the hope someone might give me a clue to finding a better technique.

Hi Brian,

We've only scratched the surface of the problem by pointing out some "clipping", or rather "bottoming" here and there.

So, I've examined your original post with several analytical apps and looked at the EXIF.

EXIF was generally good but the embedded sRGB ICC profile was some Microsoft thing, not the usual IEC standard. Not saying that's the problem ... I am not familiar with Capture One.

ImageJ, Show Image and ColorThink all confirm that the posted image is grossly over-saturated - not just "clipped".

In ImageJ I took R,G and B histograms of a section which indicate that there is next to no blue in the image:



In Show Image I extracted the HSV/HSB Saturation plane. In this image, 0-255 grayscale represents 0-100% saturation. The image is almost all white ... draw your own conclusion!



In ColorThink I displayed the gamut volume of the image using a 3D representation of the CIE xyY space. The thing to notice is that very few colors are actually "inside" the volume; the rest are just glued to the surface - indicating severe gamut clipping, in other words, before conversion to sRGB color space, just about every color was out-of-sRGB-gamut!!



My opinion is that something horrible happened in Capture One. As to what, I can not say for sure, but for posting here I would recommend setting sRGB as the in-camera space, sRGB as the working color space in Capture One and pay very close attention to the HSB color-picker if it has one.

The gamut clipping in the image is typical of editing a very colorful subject in ProPhoto color space followed by conversion to sRGB without due consideration. Not saying that's what you did, that's just how it looks.

Good luck ...

[JBW]

Hi Brian,

We've only scratched the surface of the problem by pointing out some "clipping", or rather "bottoming" here and there.

So, I've examined your original post with several analytical apps and looked at the EXIF.

EXIF was generally good but the embedded sRGB ICC profile was some Microsoft thing, not the usual IEC standard. Not saying that's the problem ... I am not familiar with Capture One.

ImageJ, Show Image and ColorThink all confirm that the posted image is grossly over-saturated - not just "clipped".

In ImageJ I took R,G and B histograms of a section which indicate that there is next to no blue in the image:



And here's the new sRGB setting



In Show Image I extracted the HSV/HSB Saturation plane. In this image, 0-255 grayscale represents 0-100% saturation. The image is almost all white ... draw your own conclusion!



In ColorThink I displayed the gamut volume of the image using a 3D representation of the CIE xyY space. The thing to notice is that very few colors are actually "inside" the volume; the rest are just glued to the surface - indicating severe gamut clipping, in other words, before conversion to sRGB color space, just about every color was out-of-sRGB-gamut!!



My opinion is that something horrible happened in Capture One. As to what, I can not say for sure, but for posting here I would recommend setting sRGB as the in-camera space, sRGB as the working color space in Capture One and pay very close attention to the HSB color-picker if it has one.

The gamut clipping in the image is typical of editing a very colorful subject in ProPhoto color space followed by conversion to sRGB without due consideration. Not saying that's what you did, that's just how it looks.

Good luck ...

I'll need more than luck. According to my histogram and to my color picker there is 0 blue in the shots I too of this flower. I just checked my C1 color setting it was a variation of sRGB. I just switched it to a different sRGB setting. My camera is set to sRGB. I"ll post them both here and see if there is any difference.

Here's the first with the same sRGB setting as the above shot.

[JBW]

Golden Pollen: Sony Alpha a68 ~ Tamron 90mm 272E ~ Magnification 1:1 ~ ISO 100 ~ Shutter Speed 1/80s ~ F/14 ~ Exposure Compensation -0.3 ~ Natural Light

Here's the new shot with the new sRGB setting

[JBW]

Here's the new shot with the new sRGB setting

same shot with the old sRGB setting

[Manfred M]

Brian - there are many articles on the internet with varied opinions, so Googling a particular topic and coming back with an answer is easy. Assessing the validity of what is written can be much more difficult.

There is also a second factor at play here, and that is the concept of fact versus opinion versus personal taste. Some facts are hard to argue with; especially if there is a very strong mathematical / physics basis for the argument. Others, like the physiology of the human visual system are not as clear cut.

Expose-To-The-Right (ETTR) originated with two individuals; Thomas Knoll and (the late) Michael Reichmann. If these names do not sound familiar, Knoll is the software engineer who developed Photoshop. He was the lead developer from the first version until CS4 and is still the first name that pops up on the list of current developers of Photoshop. Michael Reichmann was the founder of the well known photography website, Luminous Landscape. These are among the most credible photographic sources out there.

There is an article on the origins and technical explanation of ETTR written by Reichmann on Luminous Landscape. WARNING: Luminous Landscape has become a pay site ($1 / month) so unless you are a member you can no longer access it:

https://luminous-landscape.com/expose-right/

The article was published in 2003 and the principles are still technically correct and valid today. That being said, both sensor technology and post-processing technology have evolved to the point that it is no longer as important as it was back then.

All of the articles that I have read that disagree with the concept are very much opinion based and do not use math and physics to disprove the math and physics shown in Reichmann's articles.

[xpatUSA]

Here's the new shot with the new sRGB setting

Something odd going on here, Brian.

When I downloaded the new sRGB image it looked the same as the old one, more or less.

But when I use the right-click Mozilla EXIF viewer to see the histogram on-line, I get:



I'll need to look at this some more ... maybe CiC is acting up. For example, there's an image in post #3 that Manfred says isn't there on his computer ...

Later.

[billtils]

All of the articles that I have read that disagree with the concept are very much opinion based and do not use math and physics to disprove the math and physics shown in Reichmann's articles.

If it's all down to maths and physics then we can replace requests for C&C with some AI generated score that measures conformity to these and forget about creativity.

I prefer to follow the advice to shoot and look, specifically look at the image as shot and its histogram and use the latter to decide whether or not to tweak any settings. Or more accurately, I sometimes am sensible and follow the advice to ... .

It's situational and a slavish conformity to ETTR or ETTL (or any other "rule") is less than optimal. An example would be using exposure compensation to get the best image of a swan or other large white bird - on a dark pond with a dark background or in flight against a bright sky.

[xpatUSA]

I'll need to look at this some more ... maybe CiC is acting up. For example, there's an image in post #3 that Manfred says isn't there on his computer ...

The second camera profile selection is indeed the more common Hewlett Packard version sRGB IEC61966-2.1. A pity it didn't fix everything but there's no real reason why it should.

The Mozilla histogram is the same on all your "golden" shots in this thread - it shows a decent amount of blue with little to no bottoming. For now, I propose to treat it as a red herring.

I opened your "x3" in the the GIMP and decomposed the image into R, G and B layers. Blue was still crammed up to the left. I expected no different.

I'll keep looking at the posted images but I'm running out of steam to be honest.

Do you have any other app that can open the raw file, or was it an OOC JPEG?

[JBW]

Brian - there are many articles on the internet with varied opinions, so Googling a particular topic and coming back with an answer is easy. Assessing the validity of what is written can be much more difficult. ...The article was published in 2003 and the principles are still technically correct and valid today. That being said, both sensor technology and post-processing technology have evolved to the point that it is no longer as important as it was back then.

All of the articles that I have read that disagree with the concept are very much opinion based and do not use math and physics to disprove the math and physics shown in Reichmann's articles.

Manfred, Most of the time you are a veritable fountain of the academia of photography. But when you tell me that no one does, pick your topic I'll pretty much always call you on it. It's like saying 'all of these people all think the same way'.

From what I have read, and what you have just said, it isn't near as crucial as it once was.

Now all I have is personal taste and no math skills or scientific understanding but here goes anyway.

I do shoot to the dark side. i do it for a few reasons. First and foremost when I'm outside and can't control the light or the clouds going to the dark side reduces blown areas and I like that.

The other is that I like the way the shot looks.

My latest spider shots were shot at -0.3 and were well received.

Would they have been better at 0 compensation? Maybe. But I have always shot to the left and odds are I always will.

As for the blues being crushed in this shot... When I put the color picker on the shot it doesn't even register blue. On my other shots blue is registered at varying intensity. Maybe C1 is right and there isn't enough blue to register. I don't know.

I acknowledge that all of my shots could be better and I'm glad for the advice that everyone offers. But after 5 years of learning I reserve the right to shoot the way that makes sense to me.

[xpatUSA]

As for the blues being crushed in this shot... When I put the color picker on the shot it doesn't even register blue. On my other shots blue is registered at varying intensity. Maybe C1 is right and there isn't enough blue to register. I don't know.

I do.

Brian, it's as if I had spent no time at all here explaining that the problem is one of over-saturation, not lack of blue.