Digital Capture

Digital Sensor Cleaning

• use swab and solvent from http://www.photosol.com
• used very successfully at Lepp Institute
• to verify if clean, shoot blue sky with wide angle lenses stopped down

Digital Workflow

Has upcoming book about his recommendations for digital workflow.  Will be
released this spring synched with next release of Photoshop.  Photoshop
Elements 3 coming soon with capabilities very close to Photoshop for much less
$$$.

Raw Conversion in Photoshop

• Shoot raw if want control after capture or for “important” capture.  Raw
  offers better flexibility adjusting exposure problems.
• Uses raw conversion in Photoshop CS rather than vendor (Canon) tool. 
  Photoshop conversion is much faster than vendor’s tool.
• In Photoshop, using Raw conversion dialog
• White Balance: choose whatever you like.  Usually, As Shot.
• Space: Use Adobe 1998 color space (or sRGB for web)
• Depth: 16 bit.  Might as well if have Photoshop CS because more flexibility
  with 16 but much more RAM/disk space required.
• Size and Resolution:  leave as captured.  Do interpolation later.
• Adjust Tab (work from top to bottom)
• Tempurature: can adjust here or wait for later
• Exposure: expand tonal range as much as possible without
  highlight clipping.  Hold alt key while adjusting to see where
  highlights are clipped.
• Shadow: expand tonal range as much as possible without shadow clipping. 
  Hold alt key while adjusting to see where shadows are clipped.
• Brightness: adjust density to your preference without clipping.
• Contrast: do NOT use
• Saturation: do NOT use, adjust later
• Details Tab
• Sharpness: set to zero and sharpen later
• Luminance Smoothing: do not change
• Color Noise Reduction:  leave as default

Basic Photoshop Workflow

• General Guidelines
• Never change the background layer
• Make all changes on adjustment layers
• Always archive original shot somewhere safe
• Tonal Adjustments
• First use levels adjustment to maximize tonal range and adjust mid-tones. 
  Use alt key to preview any clipping issues.
• If have to choose between shadow or highlights, lose shadow details.  Less
  objectionable than blown highlights.
• Error on side of slighter darker.
• Most tonal adjustments fine in the combined RGB channel
• Fine tune next with curves
• Tip: if shot has a lot of earth tones, tweak the reds and yellows to make the
  shot pop.
• Color Balance (even if you do not think you need it)
• use Color Balance adjustment layer
• do extreme adjustments to more easily spot slight differences
• adjust all 3 sliders
• experiment, there can be nice surprises
• solve biggest problem first
• Hue/Saturation
• use Hue/Saturation adjustment layer
• limit saturation to +20 to avoid unnatural look or over-saturation when
  printing
• Dodge and Burn (Tim Grey technique)
• create a new layer holding the alt key.   In pop-up layer dialog,
  make the following settings.
• blending mode: Overlay or Soft Light. Soft light mode gives softer effect.
• fill with neutral grey color
• start painting on new “dodge and burn” layer
• choose a soft-edged brush with 10-20% opacity
• with black brush, do selective darkening by painting on your “dodge and burn”
  layer
• with white brush, do selective lightening by painting on your “dodge and burn”
  layer
• subtle but important change

 

Photoshop Recipes

• How to fix a color wash.  For example, macro shot of pink flower with
  out-of-focus leaf causing a green wash over petals.
• open image
• create a new empty layer
• select a color in the image that you want.  For our example, select a
  representative pink from your image using the eyedropper.
• use a big soft brush and paint pink patch over area with green wash
• change blending mode of layer to Color.
• changes all the color of the underlying area while keeping the texture.
• big wow from audience
• Adding a soft glow effect.  Good for portraits or adding mood.
• open image
• create a duplicate layer of the background layer
• do Gaussian blur of duplicate layer.  Using radius around 5-20 depending on
  image.
• drop opacity of duplicate layer until just visible glow

Printing from Photoshop

Inkjet Printer Profiles

• Printer vendor profiles not good enough
• 3rdparty paper profiles are good but not good enough
• 3rdparty services are very good
• need profile for each printer, paper and ink combination
• www.profilecity.com (now chromix) about $99/profile
• www.cathysprofiles.com, $40/profile and very good
• Surprise, can share printer profiles between same model Epson printers. 
  Works very well.  Therefore, camera club could share profiles.

CYMK Printing Services

• ask service for profiles and color managements setting that you should use
• should not need to convert CMYK yourself.  Service should do conversion

Soft Proofing

• must have calibrated monitor
• good way to verify how image will print, still just an estimate
• turn on Gamut Warning
• use the Edit | Preferences | Transparance & Gamut, selet gamut warning color
  and opacity that works with your image
• toggle on/off using View | Gamut Warning
• do Proof setup, use View | Proof Setup | Custom
• select your printer profile
• never check preserve color numbers
• use Relative Colormetric Intent.  Tim does not recommend using Perceptual
  intent.
• always check use Black Point Compensation
• always check use Paper white
• Look at image to view any out-of-gamut areas
• if out of gamut…
• reduce saturation
• reduce brightness
• shift hue

Printer Workflow

• Tip: TIFF without compression is essentially same as PSD file
• Open image to print
• Use Image | Duplicate.  No file created but avoids problem of modifying
  base image.
• Flatten image if required.  This will speed sharpening and printing later.
• Resize to output size
• much discussion of DPI recommendation, anything between 240-360 is fine. 
  Use 72 dpi for web.
• resample method: Bicubic.  Works great in CS.  Do not need Genuine
  Fractals or other third-party tool.  Do not use Bicubic Sharper because can
  cause artifacts.
• Sharpen image
• use maximum amount possible
• use minimum threshold possible
• smallest radius possible
• for highly detailed image, suggested settings…
• Radius: 0.4 – 1.0
• Amount: 200 – 300
• Threshold: 0 – 4
• for low detailed image, suggested settings…
• Radius: 2 – 3
• Amount: 75 – 125
• Threshold: 8 – 12
• for in-between images, use values somewhere between low to high detailed
  settings
• print using File | Print with Preview dialog
• Check show more options
• Print Space: choose your printer’s profile
• Size and position image on paper
• Select Page Setup and configure your printer’s specific setting.  In
  particular, you will need to turn off color profiling in the printer.  If
  forget, you will get double profiling and “funky” output.

Email/Web Images

• Convert image to sRGB.  Use Image | Mode | Convert to Profile.
• For jpgs, use quality of 8 for email.  Use 72 dpi with size around 640×480.
• For jpgs, use quality of 10 for slideshows
• Tip:  converting images to reasonable size for web and email
• visually zoom image to size that you want
• Open Image | Image Size dialog
• Make sure resample is checked.  Choose Bicubic resampling
• Change units to percent
• Enter percentage for width/height using zoom percentage shown in your image’s
  window title.
• Tip:  need to convert images for a slideshow to a fixed width and height.
• Use the File | Automate | Image Size.
• Enter your size constraints.
• Photoshop handles both landscape and portrait orientation automatically.

Q&A

• What monitor gamma should I use for monitor calibration on Windows and
  Mac?  Use 6500K for tempurature and 2.2 for gamma for Windows and Mac.
• Why do prints look bad from Ofoto and other web services? Submit your images
  using sRGB not Adobe RGB.
• How do I print contact sheets?  Use the Automate | Contact Sheet II. 
  Choose whatever layout you like.
• Why is File Browser layout so awkward?  Change it.  Tim has nice setup
  that mimics contact sheet and easily toggles to large preview.  Here are
  the steps for his setup starting from default file browser setup.
• Drag Metadata tab and drop on top of Folders tab.  This moves tab to
  folders area.
• Drag Keywords tab and drop on top of Folder tab.  Now, have blank area on
  bottom left.
• Grab ‘=’ on divider between bottom and middle left panes.  Drag it all the
  way down.  Now, no wasted area.
• Drag Preview tag and drop on top of the Folder tag.  Now, have another
  blank area on left-hand size.
• Drag ‘=’ on divider in the left-hand column to the button.
• Select the Preview tab.
• Notice that preview is still too small to be usable.
• Drag the ‘=’ on the vertical divider until Preview is large and there is one
  column of thumbnails along right-hand side.
• Now, good preview.  If you want, you can save this setup by selecting
  Window | Workspace | Save Workspace and pick a name like ‘preview’.
• Notice this setup is great for previewing but not navigating and seeing a lot of
  thumbnails.
• Select the folders tab on the left-hand side. 
• Drag the ‘=’ on the vertical divider toward the left until you can see a
  reasonable amount of the folders view and a lot of thumbnails.  If you
  want, you can save this workspace as well.
• At this point, you can toggle between the preview versus browsing viewpoing
  simpling by clicking the ‘<=>’ at the bottom of the thumbnail window next
  to the divider.
• Very handy tip.
• How can I print several images on one sheet of paper?  Use File | Automate
  | Picture Package.  Configure layout however you want.  Initially, you
  will have one image duplicated on the page.  If want multiple images,
  select the image in the layout and pick a different one.
• How do I package images for pubication?  Usually, TIFF sized to their
  dimensions at 300 dpi.
• What is best way to print Black and White images on an inkjet without color
  casting?  Either, buy a 3rdparty monotone inkset and use on a dedicated
  printer.  Otherwise, use a RIP (raster image processor).  Tim has had
  good results from Colorbyte’s ImagePrint RIP.  Cost about $500.
• What are recommendations for asset management?  (Note: I did not listen to
  Mac-only recommendations)
• ImageStore – best for Windows
• Extensis – good but complicated
• What about black and white conversion?
• Look at the R, G, and B channels of image.
• Pick best channel which is usually Red.
• Create a Channel Mixer adjustment layer.
• set best channel value to 100% and others to zero.
• fiddle other channels to suit your taste
• try to keep channel total to 100% but consider that a guideline.
• How do I use the Curves adjustment layer?
• said it was for another lecture
• here are the basics… (use a light touch here)
• select a middle point and drag down to darken
• select a middle point and drag up to lighten
• create a gentle S shape to improve midtone contrast
• What is best slideshow software?
• Powerpoint
• PhotoStory