DSLR camera tips, techniques, photo sharing, etc

[RUn2it]

OK, this any better? Speak up, it's called constructive criticism (I hope)

[dunefreak]

yep, that one looks about right to me

[RUn2it]

I think you U R 2in2it. I think once you have stared at a pic long enough you start to over-analyze it and start messing with how something is supposed to look like. I do the same thing. I get something super sharp and get the shadows light enough to see every detail, but then when I come back to it later and quickly glance at it I go "ewww, wtf did I do that that pic?" lol

If you are concentrating on Jerry's door, yes 3 looks the clearest, but we aren't looking at just the door. That door is in a shadow and when you look at the pic as a whole it is too bright, IMO. It almost looks too saturated too. For some reason when I look at #3 that door jumps out at me and doesn't look right. Those tires almost look blue to me.

I hear wot u sayen just redid the pic. The tires in #3 are EXACTLY the same as #2 cause I cloned #2tires onto 3, as you said, when you lighten the pic the dark saturated elements turn gray and grainy, and I like tires dark, as they should be. Pete, lol, next LOORS race you go to look at the tires after the races are done, they are bluish, no bs, the BF Goodrich are, thats what Whelchel and Renezeder ran last year and Whelchel runs them on Porters U2 and the CHM TrophyTruck. And I know you've delt with the camera not giving you what you see, the ole white balance dilema with low, artificial light. He he, I'm on the right thread anyways, lol

[RUn2it]

yep, that one looks about right to me

Do you see much difference from the #2 pic? Lighter wheels, the door a little because of the contrast of the pic overall. Sidenote, Remember my Renezeder pics? Was easy getting those to look "live", all white truck, fool with the white balance in editing till you see the lightest brightest still has detail (255,255,255 RGB) and you're set.

Oh yeah, and Jerrys helmet (don't know why but always do)

Edited May 9, 2009 by RUn2it

[RUn2it]

Pete (or anyone else) you use Elements unsharp mask right? You experiment with radius, amount etc? Or you have a bracketed preference radius like 1-2 pixels and 100% for amount?

[80grit]

Im running a 24" Cinema Display on my Mac. With the Cinema HD profile the whole picture has a blue tint. Doesnt feel warm enough. If I switch to the Adobe RGB (1998) profile, it warms it right up and looks good.

Which profile are you using on your monitor?

[RUn2it]

Im running a 24" Cinema Display on my Mac. With the Cinema HD profile the whole picture has a blue tint. Doesnt feel warm enough. If I switch to the Adobe RGB (1998) profile, it warms it right up and looks good.

Which profile are you using on your monitor?

According to the "experts" the light index for viewing pics is D65, was D50 a few years back, just like "correct" gamma is 2.22 now instead of 1.8, all the tech terms and #'s are a bunch of bull krunkie as long as the pic colors look right, lol. I use 1 of 8-9 profiles I built with the Nvidia software, tried aRGB,sRGB, sRGB w/ blk point compensation but no bueno. I've written more than 300 color printer profiles with a profile program but still wasn't right, finally got a program that I use to correct the nuetral gray gradients of the Epson/Seiko profiles for whatever ink/paper I use. Took nearly a year to figure out that the color was good but the nuetral grays were off. I have a MS program that links to all your profiles and lets you look and compare 2 ICC profiles in 3D wireframe color rendering if anyone wants to install it. Here's some resized test JPEG pics for anyone that's so inclined to test your printer. I use the single gray gradient for profile build. The idea as an example is print the mini numbered Macbeth chart and hold it next to the monitor using the index card or scan the print and use a RGB or Lab color checker program to check. It's a pain in the aperture but the alternative is buying Epson stuff $$$. If you have any tricks up your sleeve please share

Just saw you have a Mac, now you're getting arty on me, lol. Guess your gamma still 1.8? Macs are real GUI OS, not a goofy "Window" that really just links the old DOS commands to an icon.

Edited May 9, 2009 by RUn2it

[dunefreak]

Lee, you have official just ruined this thread. Holy crap.

j/k

[dunefreak]

Pete (or anyone else) you use Elements unsharp mask right? You experiment with radius, amount etc? Or you have a bracketed preference radius like 1-2 pixels and 100% for amount?

For sharpening I use Photoshop CS3 and use the Smart Sharpen option. I usually go anywhere from 75-125% with the default radius of 1. That usually gets the job done.

[RUn2it]

For sharpening I use Photoshop CS3 and use the Smart Sharpen option. I usually go anywhere from 75-125% with the default radius of 1. That usually gets the job done.

CS3? You edit and the butler brings you drinks with little umbrellas? Isn't CS3 around what a restored 70 costs? I did about the same as you until I read how unsharp mask works so been trying different stuff. I found that when the detail is really fine & intricate I can get good results with .3 radius at 150-200%, otherwise I just take the usual approach. Learned that from Ken Rockwell. Oh yeah, forgot to ask you when sharpening you view the pic at 100%, right? Just checking.

Remember when we were talking about how much detail can be hiding in what looks like nearly black? Got a good for instance fer ya. I only did what was neccessary to get the detail out of the shadows so very little editing (at least for me )

Untouched

and Adrian is in there

[RUn2it]

Im running a 24" Cinema Display on my Mac. With the Cinema HD profile the whole picture has a blue tint. Doesnt feel warm enough. If I switch to the Adobe RGB (1998) profile, it warms it right up and looks good.

You probably already know this but somebody else might not, when you put your pics on the web, edited or not, do you asign a profile to it? The web uses sRGB and if you upload a pic that's assigned a aRGB profile the pic won't look as vivid to 99% of the viewers as most don't set up color management and a PC (don't know macs) defaults to sRGB. aRGB (Adobe RGB) was and might still be the standard for graphic artist, etc. An analogy with the 2 profiles is like you wearing welding goggles and you're welding so everything is fine but the dude without goggles ....stand back, I'm stretching it a bit. (I bet there's at least 1 mind in the gutter, lol)

Oh yeah, 80grit, forgot to ask what display adapter is in your computer?

[RUn2it]

Im running a 24" Cinema Display on my Mac. With the Cinema HD profile the whole picture has a blue tint. Doesnt feel warm enough. If I switch to the Adobe RGB (1998) profile, it warms it right up and looks good.

Which profile are you using on your monitor?

I have lots of different profiles if you want to try them, like Chrome 2000 D50 & D65 icm, SMPTE-240M.icm but might be the same as aRGB, Universal RGB.icm, WideGamutRGB.icc, and not fooling, 1 called Bruce RGB. icm,lol. I probably have around 40 or so from outside sources.

[dunefreak]

CS3? You edit and the butler brings you drinks with little umbrellas? Isn't CS3 around what a restored 70 costs? I did about the same as you until I read how unsharp mask works so been trying different stuff. I found that when the detail is really fine & intricate I can get good results with .3 radius at 150-200%, otherwise I just take the usual approach. Learned that from Ken Rockwell. Oh yeah, forgot to ask you when sharpening you view the pic at 100%, right? Just checking.

Remember when we were talking about how much detail can be hiding in what looks like nearly black? Got a good for instance fer ya. I only did what was neccessary to get the detail out of the shadows so very little editing (at least for me )

Whoa, these programs cost something???

And yes, I view the sharpened preview at 100% to see the detail in the pic. They can get real grainy if sharpened too much.

That would be badass if I had a butler, but instead of umbrellas in drinks he'd just bring me my beers in chilled mugs while I'm working on photos. yiah Is there a download for that for CS3?

[80grit]

You probably already know this but somebody else might not, when you put your pics on the web, edited or not, do you asign a profile to it? The web uses sRGB and if you upload a pic that's assigned a aRGB profile the pic won't look as vivid to 99% of the viewers as most don't set up color management and a PC (don't know macs) defaults to sRGB. aRGB (Adobe RGB) was and might still be the standard for graphic artist, etc. An analogy with the 2 profiles is like you wearing welding goggles and you're welding so everything is fine but the dude without goggles ....stand back, I'm stretching it a bit. (I bet there's at least 1 mind in the gutter, lol)

Oh yeah, 80grit, forgot to ask what display adapter is in your computer?

I have a Radeon X1900 Display adapter.

I use a program called Aperture to catalog and post produce my pictures.

Sometimes I use Photoshop CS3. When I do sharpen, I use the Un sharp mask tool. Usually set Amount to 85%, Radius 1, Threshold 4 for my outdoor sports shots (starting point). For people shots I set Amount to 150%, Radius 1, Threshold 10 (as a starting point).

Just haven't played with the Smart sharpen yet.

[FE135]

I figured I'd give these a try using a slightly different approach. You be the judge.

I thought it was a great shot but needed a slight color, histogram, and digital noise adjustment.

Next

Since it seems all you wanted was to see his face better, I isolated his face and applied some fill flash. This way the fence isn't disturbed. I didn't spend a lot of time on this, just wanted to show the effect. Some blur would smooth it in nicely.

You might need to compare the pics side by side. I try not to go overboard. I'm also assuming these were downsized for posting.

Your thoughts?

[RUn2it]

I figured I'd give these a try using a slightly different approach. You be the judge.

I thought it was a great shot but needed a slight color, histogram, and digital noise adjustment.

Next

Since it seems all you wanted was to see his face better, I isolated his face and applied some fill flash. This way the fence isn't disturbed. I didn't spend a lot of time on this, just wanted to show the effect. Some blur would smooth it in nicely.

You might need to compare the pics side by side. I try not to go overboard. I'm also assuming these were downsized for posting.

Your thoughts?

The trucks were cropped & resized from a 4MB 3888x2592 to 669KB 1143x762 and on my screen your edit looks like the unedited pic with maybe a white balance adjustment. Maybe I'm missing something or our monitors are have different RGB settings

my edit is on the left, yours on the right, what do you see?

[FE135]

Open both in their own window and click back and forth.

Like I said, the original was good on its own. I only made slight adjustments. In my opinion, your corrections opened up the shadows to a almost non natural look. Kinda like trying to add light from the opposite side.

Having said that, you are the artist and what you like counts. Everyone else is the critic.

Again, my goal was just to show a different perspective. I actually like the original, That bias probably shows in my approach.

[FE135]

I put both of our pictures Together. The break is halfway on the yellow trucks front wheel. Left of it is yours.

Also remember, each time I mess with a copy it gets more distorted.

Edited May 12, 2009 by FE135

[FE135]

Well I may have messed up. I went back and compared the two again. Seems I should have not have added noise removal on an already noise enhanced picture. It darkened the wheels. The color balance was still good correction. Basically, your original with color correction would be my favorite.

Next time I'll give myself more than 30 seconds to make corrections to a photo. I think you get my point though.

[RUn2it]

I put both of our pictures Together. The break is halfway on the yellow trucks front wheel. Left of it is yours.

Also remember, each time I mess with a copy it gets more distorted.

If you edited the 1st pic it was only cropped&resized. A pic can start degrading because it gets compressed each time it's saved to JPEG format, I never edit a JPEG that's already been edited. Not relevent in this case but if you're going to open a JPEG to edit and want to save it to edit more later save it in TIFF format, it's uncompressed, they only drawback is a 4-5MB JPEG saved as a TIFF can be 30MB easily. Another variable is monitor output, most have too much blue. I didn't use any noise reduction, the wheels in the first pic were dark, read all my post, I cloned the wheels from a copy that had the shadows lightened, the helmet is lightened also and pushed the saturation and mid level contrast just a little on the door. There's a difference in the foreground dirt and the only editing it got was from the overall white balance. That's it.

[wingnut]

Wow, this topic is almost as nerdy as listening to people talk about world of warcraft!!!! Just sayin'...ok, you can have your thread back!!!!

[dunefreak]

Wow, this topic is almost as nerdy as listening to people talk about world of warcraft!!!! Just sayin'...ok, you can have your thread back!!!!

Then why are you reading it?

Serously though, just because you might not understand it or be into it doesn't mean you should knock it. However, Lee does take it pretty far at times. But that's why his screen name is RUn2it . He's fuggin INTO it...I just hope not too much! LOL :porn:

When it comes to dialing in a really good picture, this chit is crucial to know and is pretty difficult at times to get it right. I'M JUST SAYING. ( I hate that phrase...no fuggin chit your just sayin. What else would you be doing? derrrr...LOL)

[FE135]

If you edited the 1st pic it was only cropped&resized. A pic can start degrading because it gets compressed each time it's saved to JPEG format, I never edit a JPEG that's already been edited. Not relevent in this case but if you're going to open a JPEG to edit and want to save it to edit more later save it in TIFF format, it's uncompressed, they only drawback is a 4-5MB JPEG saved as a TIFF can be 30MB easily. Another variable is monitor output, most have too much blue. I didn't use any noise reduction, the wheels in the first pic were dark, read all my post, I cloned the wheels from a copy that had the shadows lightened, the helmet is lightened also and pushed the saturation and mid level contrast just a little on the door. There's a difference in the foreground dirt and the only editing it got was from the overall white balance. That's it.

Ok, I think I got it now. I still like first of the three choices. The second picture just seems edited, my perspective, and the third is overcooked. Lots of aliasing in the wheel wells and some of the formally shaded areas. I need to look at them again on my bigger screen at work. The pills I took today did say not to operate heavy machinery.

[RUn2it]

Then why are you reading it?

Serously though, just because you might not understand it or be into it doesn't mean you should knock it. However, Lee does take it pretty far at times. But that's why his screen name is RUn2it . He's fuggin INTO it...I just hope not too much! LOL

When it comes to dialing in a really good picture, this chit is crucial to know and is pretty difficult at times to get it right. I'M JUST SAYING. ( I hate that phrase...no fuggin chit your just sayin. What else would you be doing? derrrr...LOL)

If a tip or technique isn't of sufficient depth for someone to understand it's a waste of my and their time. Maybe tip means just the tip, and technique means how you hold the camera, lol.

[wingnut]

Then why are you reading it?

Serously though, just because you might not understand it or be into it doesn't mean you should knock it. However, Lee does take it pretty far at times. But that's why his screen name is RUn2it . He's fuggin INTO it...I just hope not too much! LOL

When it comes to dialing in a really good picture, this chit is crucial to know and is pretty difficult at times to get it right. I'M JUST SAYING. ( I hate that phrase...no fuggin chit your just sayin. What else would you be doing? derrrr...LOL)

I read it because I thought a 3 page thread my be worth reading. I'm just sayin is a great phrase because it states sarcasm and smart assishness(new word). Do you hate it more then "Murdered out" and "What not"?