feel free! also a nice, short video on the advantages of curves:
http://www.vimeo.com/10111531
― ain't no thang but a chicken ㅋ (dyao), Wednesday, 31 March 2010 14:44 (fourteen years ago) link
I suspect I've been missing a trick or two with the Tone Curve in LR2.x, reading Milo Z's comment upthread and judging by some of the wacky shapes I see in some of my presets. Definitely seems easier to manipulate in a PS CS2+ style in LR3, but perhaps I never figured out how to do that with LR2. I'm generally pretty happy with a little S-curve and using the histogram sliders for everything else.If they could incorporate specific lens distortion algorithms (a la DxO Optics Pro) in LR3 then I'd definitely be in. It's only maths, innit?― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 31 March 2010 09:03 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalinklens correction is already built into camera raw - if your camera has the right EXIF info (i.e. you're shooting a micro 43ds, LX3, or S90) it'll apply the correction automatically. of course you may want to do more than the manufacturer has dialed in (to remove excess CA etc.)― ain't no thang but a chicken ㅋ (dyao), Wednesday, 31 March 2010 10:45 (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban PermalinkHmm, I guess the lens correction I'm limited to with ACR (with my Canon EF lenses) is just vignetting/CA (which is all there in the LR interface). Judging by the profound effect I see when applying the 40D+28/1.8 DxO module to images taken with that combo (and these are tiffs exported directly into DxO from the imported LR Raw), there's clearly no barrel distortion fixing going on with ACR.I should experiment a bit more though. This is based on an hour last night...― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 31 March 2010 11:48 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban PermalinkPS already has a lens correction tool I think, but it's pretty basic and not calibrated for individual lenses - it would be nice if Adobe incorporated it, but I don't see it happening...as each lens has its own distortion characteristics, you need to specify how much correction to dial in for each particular lens, and if it's a zoom, at each particular focal length. so it's easy to do for a prime, but for a standard 24-70, you'll have up to 46 different possible distortion characteristics which you need to compensate for..you should also give PTLens a try - much cheaper and does the same thing― ain't no thang but a chicken ㅋ (dyao), Wednesday, 31 March 2010 12:20 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban PermalinkYes, that seems pretty good. As fun as the FilmPack stuff is with DxO, I have no real use for much else that it does, as it duplicates a lot of Lightroom functionality. The one-click appeal of DxO is rather lost when you find it doing something you don't actually like (the auto noise reduction is not as subtle as LR, I don't think; though you can customise so it limits what it does in Auto mode) and then you have to start going through drop-down menus.Also, it's not ideal calling external editors from within LR on images you may have already processed in LR; not only do you lose the changes in the export (OK, not with PS or PSE), what you get back is a TIFF or a JPG, so that copying the original LR adjustments over gives you something wildly different. It's tricky working out what the correct workflow would be with something like DxO; either you have to do everything in DxO or just accept that the nicely flat, sharp image you get back in can't be manipulated with quite as much freedom.― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 31 March 2010 13:45 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
If they could incorporate specific lens distortion algorithms (a la DxO Optics Pro) in LR3 then I'd definitely be in. It's only maths, innit?
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 31 March 2010 09:03 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
lens correction is already built into camera raw - if your camera has the right EXIF info (i.e. you're shooting a micro 43ds, LX3, or S90) it'll apply the correction automatically. of course you may want to do more than the manufacturer has dialed in (to remove excess CA etc.)
― ain't no thang but a chicken ㅋ (dyao), Wednesday, 31 March 2010 10:45 (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Hmm, I guess the lens correction I'm limited to with ACR (with my Canon EF lenses) is just vignetting/CA (which is all there in the LR interface). Judging by the profound effect I see when applying the 40D+28/1.8 DxO module to images taken with that combo (and these are tiffs exported directly into DxO from the imported LR Raw), there's clearly no barrel distortion fixing going on with ACR.
I should experiment a bit more though. This is based on an hour last night...
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 31 March 2010 11:48 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
PS already has a lens correction tool I think, but it's pretty basic and not calibrated for individual lenses - it would be nice if Adobe incorporated it, but I don't see it happening...
as each lens has its own distortion characteristics, you need to specify how much correction to dial in for each particular lens, and if it's a zoom, at each particular focal length. so it's easy to do for a prime, but for a standard 24-70, you'll have up to 46 different possible distortion characteristics which you need to compensate for..
you should also give PTLens a try - much cheaper and does the same thing
― ain't no thang but a chicken ㅋ (dyao), Wednesday, 31 March 2010 12:20 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Yes, that seems pretty good. As fun as the FilmPack stuff is with DxO, I have no real use for much else that it does, as it duplicates a lot of Lightroom functionality. The one-click appeal of DxO is rather lost when you find it doing something you don't actually like (the auto noise reduction is not as subtle as LR, I don't think; though you can customise so it limits what it does in Auto mode) and then you have to start going through drop-down menus.
Also, it's not ideal calling external editors from within LR on images you may have already processed in LR; not only do you lose the changes in the export (OK, not with PS or PSE), what you get back is a TIFF or a JPG, so that copying the original LR adjustments over gives you something wildly different. It's tricky working out what the correct workflow would be with something like DxO; either you have to do everything in DxO or just accept that the nicely flat, sharp image you get back in can't be manipulated with quite as much freedom.
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 31 March 2010 13:45 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 31 March 2010 14:49 (fourteen years ago) link
That's from the point at which we stopped talking specifically about LR3 (and I've employed a bit of Stalinist revisionism by deleting my sarky comments to gbx).
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 31 March 2010 14:55 (fourteen years ago) link
Hello, me again :)
I've just downloaded the trial version of Lightroom and now I know why MJ's pics look so much better than mine! But can I use it to add borders?
― Meg (Meg Busset), Wednesday, 7 April 2010 22:57 (fourteen years ago) link
There's a plugin for that!
― Michael Jones, Thursday, 8 April 2010 12:55 (fourteen years ago) link
On the subject of Lightroom, what do people generally do with their metadata? Just leave it in the LR catalogue? Write it out to the raw or JPEG files for certain photos? Automatically create an XMP sidecar for every edit?
I did a transatlantic LR collaboration on some artwork recently and that was my introduction to the notion of exporting metadata as an XMP sidecar. Very handy. I could imagine it slowing things down a lot if you just left it on by default though? (I was prompted to think about this today at work, where, as a security measure, all USB memory sticks are going to banned shortly; I thought I better grab all the CR2/XMP files I can from personal stuff I've processed here in LR2.1 and LR3b2 while I still can).
― Michael Jones, Thursday, 8 April 2010 13:26 (fourteen years ago) link
looks like Adobe is making a play into DxO/ptlens's territory:
Adobe releases Lens Profile CreatorAdobe has posted a prerelease version of its Lens Profile Creator utility that enables creation of custom lens profiles for Photoshop CS5, ACR 6.1 and Lightroom 3. The process involves downloading and printing a checkerboard test chart from Adobe Labs, and shooting a series of RAW or non-RAW images. These can then be imported to the Lens Profile Creator to generate custom profiles for the Lens Correction feature in Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3. Furthermore, these profiles can also be shared via the company's user community. (12:24 GMT)
― going non-native (dyao), Tuesday, 4 May 2010 23:40 (fourteen years ago) link
Jonesy; only just catching up with stuff after a busy couple of weeks. Only have those pictures in Jpeg, sadly; I'll take some RAW fish-eyes just for you, though!
― No, YOU'RE a disgusting savage (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 5 May 2010 10:17 (fourteen years ago) link
Ah, too late now - my DxO trial has finished! Don't know whether I can download another trial...
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 5 May 2010 11:23 (fourteen years ago) link
Let me know if you can...
― No, YOU'RE a disgusting savage (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 5 May 2010 12:15 (fourteen years ago) link
was kicking around an idea where we could have a post processing 'interpretation' thread where we all pass around one of our files and see how others on this board post-process it... any interest?
― ⚖ on my truck (dyao), Sunday, 13 June 2010 14:32 (thirteen years ago) link
that would be fun! esp since I can't make pictures :(
― gbx, Sunday, 13 June 2010 19:24 (thirteen years ago) link
count me in!
― joe, Sunday, 13 June 2010 19:29 (thirteen years ago) link
Good idea!
― Michael Jones, Monday, 14 June 2010 19:44 (thirteen years ago) link
i'm in!
― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:03 (thirteen years ago) link
+1
― sent from my neural lace (ledge), Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:03 (thirteen years ago) link
alriiight going to have a busy one and a half weeks so look for a start date of around the start of July
― dyao, Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:06 (thirteen years ago) link
idea/q: can google docs share RAW files? or could we just use hi def jpegs on someones Flickr? or create a dedicated Flickr that seeds starter files?
― be told and get high on coconut (gbx), Tuesday, 13 July 2010 17:46 (thirteen years ago) link
yah I think you can upload to google docs. or e-mail to a ILP gmail account and give everybody the password.
thanks for reminding me of this! I will write up the details tonight or tomorrow
― like a ◴ ◷ ◶ (dyao), Tuesday, 13 July 2010 17:48 (thirteen years ago) link
yay
― be told and get high on coconut (gbx), Tuesday, 13 July 2010 17:49 (thirteen years ago) link
Wow, I can't believe I never knew about this board.
I usually process my images using lightroom, find a shot I like from the shoot, crop it, adjust the colour temp, contrast etc etc. Make a preset, batch process all the shots using the preset, then take the best ones into photoshop to retouch.
― Kate, Thursday, 22 July 2010 23:51 (thirteen years ago) link
guys what is bridge for anyway
― remembrance of schwings past (gbx), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 00:15 (twelve years ago) link
just to slow things down when you're almost done
― sexual union prayerbook slam (schlump), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 00:16 (twelve years ago) link
i realized the other day that my LR library is woefully disorganized and i'm sort of determined to cut it down to size and get ride of a bunch of junk
do y'all generally just keep every single thing you shoot, or are you pretty ruthless. bear in mind that since i'm just shooting for fun, i don't feel the need to keep several versions of the same shot. three similar shots, one is better than the others imo? GONE
― remembrance of schwings past (gbx), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 00:17 (twelve years ago) link
my lightroom s/n might not have been the world's most authentic, and now it's bust. Damnation. Over to Aperture it is.
― stet, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 19:42 (twelve years ago) link
william eggleston claims that he never shoots the same thing twice to remove the need for that doubt in the first place
― dayo, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 20:22 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah I'm now trying to get myself to take a bunch of different shots rather than trying to get that one shot perfect (which I'm not great at anyway)
― lukas, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 20:28 (twelve years ago) link
― dayo, Tuesday, August 23, 2011 3:22 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark
yeah i like this
― remembrance of schwings past (gbx), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 21:01 (twelve years ago) link
I agreed at first, but on second though I disagree w/that. If he means not spray-and-praying then sure, but some of the best shots can be the second or third exposures in succession, especially of people. Expressions are so fleeting, and with an SLR you by definition don't get to see the moment of exposure, so you can't ever be certain you've got it.
Looking at the contact sheets of photographers I love is illuminating. They nearly all take multiple shots. (Even Capa, who will make 2 or 3 frames of some things, but often times has the uncanny ability to know that he's got the shot and will stop after making one cracker, the bastard)
I keep everything, even utter crap. Disk space is cheap and stacking in Aperture/Lightroom makes it pretty easy to deal with multiples. I do kind of feel like I should delete some of them someday, but then 1TB more is always easier and quicker to do.
― stet, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 21:27 (twelve years ago) link
my disinclination to store everything is mostly due to the horror i feel when i, say, look in the storage closet or sort through boxes of old clothes.
like why am i keeping this, am i really going to make prints/publish/appreciate these 1000000 cack-handed snaps of boring parts of the city or w/e
― remembrance of schwings past (gbx), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 21:42 (twelve years ago) link
I think Eggleston is just a dude who just 'is' and as such the rules warp around his presence
― dayo, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 22:14 (twelve years ago) link
I think another thing to remember is that hit rates in photography are very very low, even for the greats, so don't get too hung up about having detritus in your library (that only you see) because every other photographer alive has the same problem.. even william eggleston
― dayo, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 22:15 (twelve years ago) link
I haven't been much of a photog lately. :(
need inspiration.
― remembrance of schwings past (gbx), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 22:28 (twelve years ago) link
tho I'm gonna shoot a mtb race on Sunday I think
action shots will be hard with the stock gf1 pancake, but I think postrace pain faces could be good?
― remembrance of schwings past (gbx), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 22:30 (twelve years ago) link
Very little gets deleted on first pass, obvious blown exposures/focus/etc.. I usually don't really start looking and editing for months, then I narrow it down a lot.
Garry Winogrand didn't develop film for a year after shooting, so he could see things with a clearer eye.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 04:02 (twelve years ago) link
your race already happened gbx but you don't need specialized equipment to shoot well at a race! remember lartigue's shot
http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/tech/_img/lartigue.jpg
I would probably prefocus at a spot I knew the racers would pass, then do a burst shot?
― dayo, Thursday, 1 September 2011 00:13 (twelve years ago) link
that is a cool shot.
I showed up late and was only able to shoot te finish line. boring :(
― remembrance of schwings past (gbx), Thursday, 1 September 2011 02:04 (twelve years ago) link
thinking about presets....
right now i've got a preset that i just sorta made up, not modeled on anything (ie - i don't know about the filmstock ppl try to emulate), and i don't really know if it's stupid or not, or if i should try and download some or what.
i'm pretty drawn to the idea of keeping things as simple as possible, and just having two presets, one color and one b/w, and always starting from that (like you would with film), but maybe that is dumb/lazy? i dunno
― remembrance of schwings past (gbx), Monday, 12 September 2011 17:13 (twelve years ago) link
That's probably a pretty good idea - I think setting those kinds of controls for yourself are good for learning, whether that's making your post-production fairly basic or only shooting with one lens or w/e.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Monday, 12 September 2011 20:34 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, i've got one (functional) camera, and one lens.
i'm trying to focus on the basics (hence all my questions about metering) and not get distracted by Lightroom shenanigans. the preset i use right now (basically just an s-curve, desaturated colors, v lightly boosted blacks, and i think that's it?) works for me now, though maybe it's sorta "trendy" looking, i guess? i like being able to slap it on p much anything i shoot because at least it means my output has a consistent "look." when i was going through the pics i took in uganda, i was messing with each photo individually and the results were wildly variable, and it took forever. i'd much rather focus on content when it comes to editing.
― remembrance of schwings past (gbx), Monday, 12 September 2011 21:49 (twelve years ago) link
Plus, if you want to put together a portfolio of images, you want them to have some uniformity of style, so that's a good habit to get into.
Most of my photos get a basic s-curve, presence boost and sharpening, then I edit from there if I need to. Or I flatten the curve, boost presence, sharpen and export into Silver Efex 2 if I want to go B&W.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Monday, 12 September 2011 21:52 (twelve years ago) link
my habit is s-curve, up the black point, using the 'shadow' slider to bring out shadow detail (in aperture), maybe bring down the highlights a little bit with the highlight slider...
yeah you don't have to get crazy and having a more or less uniform 'aesthetic' makes your portfolio more cohesive. I think the important adjustment is the s-curve since digital sensors return linear data. don't overcook your photos.
― dayo, Monday, 12 September 2011 22:10 (twelve years ago) link
and yeah presets are definitely 'last mile' - you can't polish a turd.
I'm a terrible man for the presets (I just installed another 100 or so last night!); chiefly the "300" family that I discovered a couple of years ago. Addicted to their look on portraits. But, yeah, generally: deepen blacks, S-curve, little clarity/vibrance boosts, attend to any noise/colour temp/geometry issues (that last one is a cinch in LR3 with the lens profiles) and then *maybe* get into local adjustments.
My portfolio has no coherence whatsoever.
― Michael Jones, Monday, 12 September 2011 22:20 (twelve years ago) link
i've still never figured out how to fix noise/geometry (nor have i really looked into it)
― remembrance of schwings past (gbx), Monday, 12 September 2011 22:35 (twelve years ago) link
Well, LR3 is very good on noise but it can get a bit...android-smooth if you overdo it. I just knock up the luminance fader a bit for ISO 1000-1250, a bit more for 1600, a lot more for 3200 (and the color fader too) - checking out the shadow areas at 1:1 - and dial back in a bit of detail if I feel it's losing too much definition.
For geometry, I rely entirely on lens profiles. I used to use a trial version of DxO Optics Pro, which was great, but the workflow with LR wasn't quite what I was after, so the introduction of lens profiles in LR3 was ideal. With portraiture it's sort of a peace-of-mind thing; I may not be able to tell that a headshot with the 28mm is a bit convex but I can immediately see that applying the lens profile flattens it like it's a 50mm shot, and I like that. (Also: chromatic aberration and vignetting disappears without having to fiddle manually). Even fancy L lenses like the 24-105mm need quite a bit of correction at the wide end.
― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 08:38 (twelve years ago) link
Hello you,
Is there a thread where we talk about cheap home scanners and whatnot. I want to scan 120 and also 16mm movie negatives and I see this:
http://www.amazon.com/Epson-Perfection-4490-Photo-Scanner/dp/B000ALCJT4
It claims "Convenient film holders accommodate multiple 35mm slides and negatives, plus medium format film.". So what exactly are these holders and can I jerry-rig one for the 16mm?
― recent 2Pac news (admrl), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 17:56 (twelve years ago) link
the http://www.amazon.com/Epson-B11B189011-Epson-Perfection-V500-Photo-Scanner/dp/B000VG4AY0 is the more recent version
holders hold two strips of 6 negs at once (for a total of 12 frames) in 35mm
for 120, you can scan 3 frames at once w/ the included holder
you could probably scan 16mm in the 35mm slide
― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 18:03 (twelve years ago) link
Cool,
what does this new version have over the old? I'm really a dabbler so was looking for something refurbed rather than the newest latest
― recent 2Pac news (admrl), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 18:10 (twelve years ago) link
You could DIY a 16mm holder with black matboard, most likely. That's the strategy people use with oddly-sized large-format film.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 18:23 (twelve years ago) link