Post Processing Series: Episode 3

In the third episode of this series, I will show you how I post processed the picture you see above, this is dedicated to Muhammad Usman based on his comments on the original post where I posted this photo. Hit the jump for the full post.

This photo was part of a macro shoot that I did at home, this is a small lock that I use to lock my bag during travel. I originally shot that same lock with my Canon 60mm macro a while ago, and I liked it so much that I decided to do it again with my OM-D and 12-50 lens.

On with the post then, here's the original shot:

 
NOTE: You can click on any of the screenshots below to see the full 1920x1080 picture.

And here's how it looked like in lightroom, with the default adjustments, you'll notice a specular highlights around the numbers 9 and 6 (shown in red), this is a useful feature in lightroom, you can press "J" while in develop module, and it will show any blown highlights in red, and deep blacks in blue:

Next I increased the blacks using the black slider until there were a few black parts in the picture, which is what I like to have in most pictures, they are shown in blue below:

And since this is a photo of an object, and not a portrait, I increased the clarity until it the picture had enough bite and a little more micro-contrast.

Now that I am done with global adjustments, it is time to crop the picture to show just the lock dials, which is what I had in mind when I was shooting:

Time for black and white, there are a few ways to do that in lightroom, and my favorite is to click the B&W button in the "HSL / Color / B&W" module on the right hand, this provides me with some color control (yes, in B&W, similar to gelled filters used in front of B&W film cameras) which I find useful in portrait and landscape shots, I will be using it in a small bit.

Usually I like more contrast and more blacks in B&W photos, unless I am going for a soft high key look, and I don't mind having large areas with crushed blacks as long as they don't contribute to the details of the image. So my next modification will be adding more blacks, since you can see the lock  looks gray-ish instead of black.

Then I reduce the highlights more to bring some of the missing details around the numbers 9 and 6 which is the focus of the image.

And here's where I use the colors under the B&W section, I click the targeted adjustment tool (the small circle on the top left corner of the B&W module), and move my mouse to the part where I want to change the color, and use the scroll wheel, scrolling up lightens that color, and scrolling down makes it darker. After a few scrolls down, the lock looks better.

Still missing something, I don't like the logo at the top of the photo. Cropping to a 16 x 9 ratio will solve the issue.

And some post-crop vignetting, I don't mind going a bit strong in a B&W picture.

And for the final touches, some spot-removal to remove the spots and dust particles. There is a very useful feature in Lightroom 5 when using the spot-healing brush, you have at the bottom of the picture a square which when you tick, helps you visualize the spots in the picture.

A few clicks to remove the spots, and we're done.

I hope this has been a useful post. Finally here's the before and after.

RELATED POSTS

Post Processing Series: Episode 1 - Indoor Portrait
Post Processing Series: Episode 2 - Landscape
Macro Fun @ Home 

Read More

Post Processing Series: Episode 2

I promised you 6 months ago that I'll be posting a bi-weekly "Post Processing" episode, but I didn't keep my promise. I am really sorry, but things have been hectic both on the personal level, and on the country level. However, I promise to make it up for you, and I promise to keep this series alive, especially that I am now using a nice AutoHotKey script that makes it very easy and quick to take screenshots from Lightroom and save them.

You can see above the image we're going to edit today, and this is how it originally looked like, don't be shocked.

I took this image during a boat tour around Stockholm, I didn't have much time or chance to capture the tree from a proper angle, the boat was moving quickly, and I decided to capture whatever I can. I was using my Zuiko 12-50 zoom lens, aperture priority mode, f/8 in order to get maximum sharpness out of this mediocre lens, and to have proper depth of field. ISO was set to 400, and I was getting fast enough shutter speeds.

What drew me to this tree, was its unique shape, protruding out of the water-side at an angle, with the lowest branch submerged in the water. It looked like it was drinking water. I took a couple of shots, with the second shot looking better composition-wise, but I used this one instead because of the lucky rainbow just below where the tree touches the water.

NOTE: You can click on any of the screenshots below to see the full 1920x1080 picture.

So here is how it looked like in lightroom, you can see a few parameters of my default preset (Contrast +10, Highlights -10, Blacks -10, Clarity +10, Vibrance +10) that are applied automatically to each OMD image imported into lightroom. Remember the previous post in this series when I mentioned that subtlety is important when using the sliders to get good looking; realistic effects?

Not this time though, I usually use the sliders aggressively when I am processing a landscape shot with no people, especially in this picture where you can see how cloudy the sky was, lighting was very flat and there was a lack of contrast due to the lack of direct sunlight, so I had to punch the colors and the contrast a bit.

Here's how I reached the values you see above, which is what I do almost in most of my processing:

1. I usually start with the 2 most important exposure sliders, highlights & shadows, even before the exposure itself. So here I brought the highlights down to have the clouds look more dramatic, then I opened up the shadows until it looked ok to my taste, and not flat.
2. Next I used the blacks slider, I hit the "Alt" key and move the slider to the left until I see some blacks in the image, then I release the "Alt" key and check the image visually, sometimes I will see it better to reduce the blacks a bit.
3. Clarity and vibrance are always bumped for outdoor scenery pictures. I never push the clarity beyond +40, but here I pushed the vibrance up until the green in the tree looked where I wanted it to be. Notice that saturation is not used yet, this is my least used slider, and I keep it to the end, and use it sparingly, as it really saturates all the colors making them look ugly sometimes. Vibrance; on the other hand only punches those muted colors in a less extravagant manner.
4. Finally, I check if the image could use an exposure (or the "whites" slider) boost, which is not really needed, and the same for contrast, which got bumped slightly.

There is no certain guidelines for this, I move the sliders to taste, and that's why having a calibrated screen is very important. I will post about that soon.

Next I opened up the shadows a bit more. After adding blacks and contrast, the image had good contrast, it was too dark, so I opened up the shadows more. Now here is where the Sony/Nikon sensors excel the most, in shadow recovery. If I were using an image from my Canon 60D, there would be a lot of color noise and banding in the shadow areas, and it would look ugly. And to be fair to the Canons, they have incredible highlight recovery latitude, I was just using both the 60D and the OMD to shoot product shots, and the difference in highlight and shadow recovery between both was like day and night. That's why I used to expose to the right (ETTR) in my Canons, and that's why Mic never seemed to understand what I was on about, exposing to the right on the OMD (and I expect the Nikons as well) doesn't seem to work as well as it did on the Canon.

I was happy with the image at that stage, but before I finished it, I decided to push the saturation a bit and see what happens. Good things as it turned out.

Now a square crop to really emphasize that tree, and cut out the distractions at the background and the sides.

And one of my favorite tools, "Post Crop Vignetting", I am sorry the screenshot doesn't show the slider, but I pull it backwards (-ve numbers) very slightly until I like the look. Be careful with that slider, you can get carried away very easily, I use it just to give a little bit pop to the center of the image.

Finally, a small crop adjustment to get rid of the column at the bottom right. And we're done, here's the before and after once more. I hope you've enjoyed this post, and please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions. Keep the comments coming.

RELATED POSTS

Post Processing Series: Episode 1 - Indoor Portrait
Post Processing Series: Episode 3 - B&W Macro
 

Read More

Post Processing Series: Episode 1

We got several requests for post processing workflow tips here on our blog, so every couple of weeks, I am going to choose one picture that I have shot and show you how I go through the post processing, this will be strictly limited to Lightroom since I don't use anything else. Now let's go.


I got a question on how I processed this picture specifically, so this is going to be my first one, it was shown here before in my Sony RX100 review. Before I start I will state a few disclaimers:

1. I don't believe in excessive post-processing, all those photoshop filters, plugins, layers and opacities do not float my boat, the most time I spend on a photo is 2 minutes, and this is only when it's tricky or requires several local adjustments. However I don't dis-respect skilled photoshoppers, in fact, I am awed each time I watch a skilled person processing a photo on photoshop, I don't like those who turn women into plastic dummies.
2. I want post-processing to be as fast as possible, since I usually return from a shoot with 200 or 300 photos that need processing, and if it takes too much time, it will be hell for me.
3. One thing I learned from Zack Arias, be consistent, even if you make a mistake, be consistent in that mistake, so when you work in lightroom, you can process the first picture, then synchronize these changes to the other pictures, that's how I usually go through my pictures quickly.
4. I always shoot RAW, mainly for the white balance flexibility.
5. Not everyone has the same taste, what I might like you might not, so please keep this in mind, I am 100% sure that someone out there can take this photo and make it even better (in his opinion), but I am a photographer, not a retoucher, and if a casual picture needs more processing than what is shown below, then I shouldn't have bothered to take the picture in the first place.
6. A final thing, if you're not watching this on a calibrated or a near-calibrated monitor, you will not understand what I am going on about, you might see wrong colors, deeper blacks, etc...
7. Anther final final thing, I have different default import settings in lightroom for each camera, this means that whenever I import a picture from that camera, it gets a few adjustments applied that usually get me through 80% of the needed post-processing, it takes time to get used to each camera's RAW output, but I find myself always applying a certain contrast setting, highlights recover, etc... to each picture, so instead I save these settings as the defaults, and 80% of the time, once the pictures are imported, they are ready for export.

Now to the main topic, below is the RAW file as it came out of the camera, it is one of the rare moments when someone else takes a picture of me that I actually like, so this is why I decided to give it more than usual attention.

It is good and I like it, but as known to the Sony sensor, it chose a slightly cool/pink white balance and I wanted a tighter crop, so the crop goes first, you can click on any picture and it will show a 1920px wide image:

You can see above some of the defaults for my Sony RAW files, +15 Contrast, -10 Blacks, -10 Highlights, +10 Clarity and +10 Vibrance.

Crop done, now there is less visual clutter in the image, next is white balance, my favorite tool is the eyedropper, I try that first in an area I am certain is white or neutral grey.

I chose the white under-shirt but it didn't work, I tried a few ther things but nothing worked, so I used the sliders manually, I learned a neat trick from Zack Arias, I keep swinging the slider left and right widely, then slowly until I reach a point that my eyes like, it is an area between too blue and too warm, then I do the same with the pink/green slider. If I had to choose between coola nd warm, I'd choose a slightly warm setting.

That's how I liked it, I ended up adding around +550 points towards the warm side, with that done it's time to check the exposure sliders in order, lighting was coming from huge windows and open sky from the camera right side, so one half of the face was significantly more lit than the other, it is not bad, but I wanted to see if I can do better, the key is being subtle, small changes enhance the image and doesn't make it too apparent.

So next I slided the highlights to the left to see if something would look better, mainly the left part of the face, I pull it too much to see how it works.

-50 on the highlights slider is too much, and it kills the mood of the picture, turning it more gloomy, I only want less highlights on the left of the face, but that will have to wait, I return the highlights slider back, and add some post-crop vigneting, this is a matter of personal taste, but I knew I'd be adding some vignetting to get more focus on the main subject, and I'd want to apply it before I start playing with the blacks and the shadows, so I add a slight vignette, not too heavy, and I raraely go past that value.

Looking good, next is the blacks, I usually pull the blacks to the left with the ALT key held down until I start getting some clipped blacks in the photo, then I release the ALT key and see if I like it and start modifying to taste if needed.

Next is the shadows, the right half of the face could use some fill, but again, I don't like to lift all the shadows in the picture, so I do a couple of local adjustments next to deal with the face.

A quick rough paint with the brush (no more than 5 seconds) is fine, I reduce the highlights until I like it.

Here's the picture with the red mask removed:

Same for the shadow part, it needs more fill, I brighten the shadows and increaese the exposure a teeny bit.

And here's the result:

The next screenshot will show you the history of all the steps I went through, click to see a larger version.

And here's the final result:

Which started as the one below, little tiny modifications go a great way in enhancing a picture, unlike strong pulls of the sliders to get a strongly over-processed image.

UPDATE: to explain a bit here, one of my friends showed me a picture for people in a desert, with like 100% saturation added, you can try this setting in any of your images and see what will happen, I like to call it techni-color vomit. On the other hand, some images really require a lot of manipulation with the sliders, and the final result looks very good, but that's not the case usually.

RELATED POSTS

Post Processing Series: Episode 2 - LandscapePost Processing Series: Episode 3 - B&W Macro

Read More