Image analysis and editing

[Manfred M]

I generally don't recommend a lot of websites and videos I see on the internet, but I ran into this one last night and it is particularly good for a couple of reasons; he takes images that were submitted to a well known American photo competition and then discusses what could be improved and then demonstrates how to implement those improvements. He happens to use Capture One, but that is really more of a detail as these edits can be done with any other editing tool.

The person doing the talking is Kevin Raber. Kevin used to run the highly regarded photography website, Luminous Landscape (LuLa), after its founder, Michael Reichmann died a few years ago. He seems to have founded photopxl.com and took a number of LuLa contributors with him. Unlike LuLa, the new website is not a pay site and is free. Reichmann / LuLa's claim to fame is that he popularized the concept of Expose-to-th-Right (ETTR) a number of years ago in an article posted on LuLa.

I've watched his first four edits and he nailed the issues I had with the image (and missed a few, in my view), but regardless, he made significant improvements to each one. The important lesson is how he identifies the flaws; that in my experience is where most people struggle a bit.

The link to the article and video are here: https://photopxl.com/roberts-gallery...h-kevin-raber/

It is a long (over 1hr 15min) video, but is easy to watch in small pieces.

[Polar01]

Watched it the day after it was post, very interesting.

Cheers: Allan

[pschlute]

I will give this a go.

[rpcrowe]

I enjoyed the video and agreed with virtually all of the edits... The one edit that I disagreed with is in the first image: brightening the statue. But, that is just a minor thing... The principal thing that I think digital photographers could learn from this video is to "crop to the image" not to a standard format...

Could make printing a bit more difficult and/or expensive but, forcing an image into a standard format doesn't always work...

[davidedric]

I've only just started, but in general why would you NOT crop to the image? Taking mostly wildlife, I find it almost unavoidable much of the time. It helps that when I do print I do my own matting and framing, but still. Of course, if someone wants a quick A4 print in an off the shelf frame I'll do that.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the video, and exploring the site.

[Rufus]

It is a helpful video which I will watch again.

There were two techniques which I have not experimented with but seemed very effective: the luminosity mask and the selective colour enhancement. I shall take particular notice of these on my second viewing.

[xpatUSA]

On the subject of "cropping to the image", life becomes more simple when one does not print. I view my images on a 1920x1200px monitor and consider that to be both the image size and the frame - irrespective of the image content. The frame aspect ratio is 24:15, or 1.6. (Pleasantly close to the Golden Ratio 1.618, LOL).

For posting images on ebay, the frame becomes 1:1, again irrespective of the image content.

[DanK]

I know a few serious photographers who don't crop and stick with a standard aspect ratio. I can't understand this. First, the aspect ratio of the sensor is arbitrary. Would you want to print an image with a different aspect ratio if you photographed it with both a micro four thirds and FF sensor? Second, it seems clear that different subjects need different aspect ratios. For example, to take two of mine, it seems obvious that one or the other would suffer if I imposed the aspect ration from the other:





And neither of these is the aspect ratio of the sensor on which I recorded the capture.

[Manfred M]

I know a few serious photographers who don't crop and stick with a standard aspect ratio. I can't understand this.

I agree Dan and from what I can tell this is just the photographers personal style. I have run into this view of an image even when I was a teen working in the wet darkroom. When I look at the history of photography; there was a time before enlargers existed that the contact print was the only option, so the print size was the negative size. I have spoken to serious, highly regarded photographer who work this way. One photographer I spoke with teaches photography in an accredited photography program and for some reason (personal success this way, I suspect; he did shoot with a large format camera in his early career), he continues to suggest every pixel is sacred.

To each his (or her) own...


My general approach is to work with the entire capture and not throw anything out unnecessarily and only crop once I have saved a "master" image as a psd or tiff. That gives me maximum flexibility. I will go one way for digital images and another for prints (usually dictated by standard frame sizes).

[DanK]

My general approach is to work with the entire capture and not throw anything out unnecessarily and only crop once I have saved a "master" image as a psd or tiff.

I do something similar. I want the freedom to go back to a larger image if I think a crop was a mistake.

[Manfred M]

There were two techniques which I have not experimented with but seemed very effective: the luminosity mask and the selective colour enhancement. I shall take particular notice of these on my second viewing.

Photoshop has a very powerful way of creating luminosity masks, but it is buried in the Select Color Tool. Rather than selecting colours, it lets you select and adjust highlights, mid-tones and shadow areas. I use this selection and create a layer mask out of it and edit the mask as required.

In terms of selective colour enhancement, I personally do not increase saturation very often, but generally decrease selectively on individual colours using a Saturation layer mask, but rather than using the "Master" channel, I flip down and work with the individual colours.

[DanK]

A relatively easy and free introduction to luminosity masks is Tony Kuyper's TK6 photoshop extension. It comes with very high quality instructional videos. The functionality is limited, and if you get hooked, you'll end up paying a modest amount for his TK7 extension, which does everything any mortal could ask for and far more and provides a bewildering arrange of controls and options. That's what I did.

In theory, it's a very powerful set of tools. The masks are self-feathering, and they allow you to apply pretty much any adjustment to areas defined by luminosity, color, saturation, and other variables. E.g., I have used it to increase contrast only within a certain tonal range. However, given the work I do, I find that I don't use it very often. I suspect that if I worked at it, I would use it more.

[Elle Harper]

Terrific, it seems the author is a real pro! I always liked creative works like these.
https://fixthephoto.com/corporate-video-editing

[rpcrowe]

My general approach is to work with the entire capture and not throw anything out unnecessarily and only crop once I have saved a "master" image as a psd or tiff. That gives me maximum flexibility. I will go one way for digital images and another for prints (usually dictated by standard frame sizes).

I also save my uncropped unsharpened (except for entry sharpening) images that have been edited in exposure, color and contrast as PSD Master Images. That way, I can open up a saved Master Image and crop it to a desired format and the sharpen it for output (if required) but, I don't have to go through the whole editing hassle again...

[tbob]

I will watch this, I need all the help and advice I can get in regards to processing.

Cropping? I crop with merry abandon. No pixel lurking about on the edges is safe in my hands. But I always keep the original; bad decisions have been made and I reserve the right to change my mind.

[BryonManning]

I saw this video a few days ago. Many nuances are very competently and accessible, which are important to consider and correct to obtain the desired result. I learned a lot, thank you. I recommend watching Good Attention Grabbers for Essays. There is a lot of interesting information that will be useful for you.

[xpatUSA]

Originally Posted by Manfred M My general approach is to work with the entire capture and not throw anything out unnecessarily and only crop once I have saved a "master" image as a psd or tiff. That gives me maximum flexibility. I will go one way for digital images and another for prints (usually dictated by standard frame sizes).

I also save my uncropped unsharpened (except for entry sharpening) images that have been edited in exposure, color and contrast as PSD Master Images. That way, I can open up a saved Master Image and crop it to a desired format and the sharpen it for output (if required) but, I don't have to go through the whole editing hassle again...

RawTherapee leaves the original untouched and automatically saves a PP3 sidecar file with it. I also have it set to save a PP3 with the output file. PP3 files are readable and editable in Windows Notepad. A PP3 file can also be saved separately and re-used on any opened file.

Best of all worlds ...

[Manfred M]

RawTherapee leaves the original untouched and automatically saves a PP3 sidecar file with it. I also have it set to save a PP3 with the output file. PP3 files are readable and editable in Windows Notepad. A PP3 file can also be saved separately and re-used on any opened file.

Best of all worlds ...

Apples and Oranges here Ted. What you are describing is the way that most raw processors / parametric editors work. Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw work that way, as does DxO PhotoLab3. The sidecar files contain the parameters for the editing steps that had been performed and not much more.

The moment you start working with a pixel based editor that simple approach no longer applies and there can be (and often is) a destructive. A "best practices" workflow is very much along the lines of what Richard and I use. The main edits are common, but the finishing steps will be different, based on output size and type. Saving a "Master File" lets one make those quick changes at any time a different output variant is required (screen versus print size, for example).

[xpatUSA]

... The moment you start working with a pixel based editor that simple approach no longer applies and there can be (and often is) a destructive [what?]. A "best practices" workflow is very much along the lines of what Richard and I use. The main edits are common, but the finishing steps will be different, based on output size and type. Saving a "Master File" lets one make those quick changes at any time a different output variant is required (screen versus print size, for example).

So, Manfred, it appears that keeping a re-usable side-car file with those main common edits in it - plus the original image file - is not considered equal to those "best practice" workflows ...

I must admit that I am struggling to see a difference between a "Master File" and an "Original plus Sidecar" ... other than the Straw Man of 'pixel-based versus parametric'.

By the way - in a "best practices" workflow - what happens to the original file - is it kept or trashed after the Master File is saved?

[Manfred M]

So, Manfred, it appears that keeping a re-usable side-car file with those main common edits in it - plus the original image file - is not considered equal to those "best practice" workflows ...

I must admit that I am struggling to see a difference between a "Master File" and an "Original plus Sidecar" ... other than the Straw Man of 'pixel-based versus parametric'.

By the way - in a "best practices" workflow - what happens to the original file - it is kept or trashed after the Master File is saved?

The original file out of the raw editor is generally saved (as is the actual raw data), but frankly is somewhat irrelevant as a "snapshot" of the image data exported to the pixel based editor and in many cases, this is the base data that is worked with.

The one reason I like working with Adobe SmartObjects is that I can easily update that "snapshot" if I need to.

When Richard and I write about the "original file", it would be the file created by the pixel based editor with all the various adjustments and layers in it. Whether it is saved as a proprietary format like the PSD file or a TIFF file, it contains all the work done in the pixel based editor. Getting that to a "final" state that is just before we prep the data for output is the "Master File" we are referring to. When doing a major edit, it can take hours of work to get the image to that state.

Some time ago one of my instructors made an analogy to the film days. He said that using a raw convertor / parametric editor is very much like taking a roll of film to the local photo lab, where the printer operator would adjust a few sliders and print the image.

If someone wanted something more done they would go to a custom printer where the technician would hand-print the image and would do a lot of burning and dodging to get the final print to look just right. A pixel based editor with pixel level control was given as the example of modern tools that would accomplish this end.

The boundaries between the two types of has blurred somewhat. Parametric editors can now perform some powerful local adjustments and pixel based editors can be used in a non-destructive manner.