I agree, their work is excellent. Kathryn is actually a frequent visitor here. Maybe she can tell us more about their process.
Guy
Posted by Timothy Farrar on September 13, 2006 at 11:52 PM
Thanks Doug! Guy, sorry we did not see this message for a month, been busy with our last 2 art shows this year. Here is a little (or rather a lot) on our process.
Before I begin, I just released the 5th update to FFDD today, and there are a few downloadable PSD examples of our process on this page,
Basically our goal is to maximize the quality of the digital negative before developing. Right now we shoot with the Canon 5D which I believe has a 12bit sensor and little over 5 stops of dynamic range. We use our FFDD tools to produce a blended negative that has 15bits of data for a little over 8 stops of dynamic range.
All this extra quality in the blended negative allows us to do huge amounts of brightess and contrast adjustments in our development without having problems with noise. In our view, we see dynamic range more as a tool for noise reduction then producing "HDR" styled photos, and the resulting noise free images can really be enlarged and sharpened well because they do not have noise.
This also allows us to shoot quicker in the field because we don't have to wait to check exposure, or mess with graduated neutral density filters. We just shoot enough exposures to cover the full range and move on to the next shot. Everything else is done during development. Development time is cheap, time in the field is expensive, light changes too fast, expecially when you are trading lenses and camera bodies with your wife between shots!
I should also mention that with our blending tool, minor amount of motion in the scene is not a problem. And if it does become a problem we can easily adjust the blend using layer masks to choose what parts of what exposure to blend into the final blended negative.
So our process before development is as follows,
1. Batch convert all our RAW files into DNG.
2. Our default ACR settings zero brightness/contrast/etc to produce un-developed negatives.
3. We load one set of bracketed exposures into ACR at a time to correct chromatic aberration and white point.
4. Use the FFDD bracket2 script, to batch blend all the series of bracketed exposures at night into blended negatives (which get saved as 16bit tiffs) with about 8 stops of dynamic range.
Then our development process starts. We do all development in Photoshop instead of ACR or another Raw converter. The key to our process is skilled adjustment of the brightness and contrast of the blended negative using special curve adjustment layers with layer masks. The layer masks enable us to select the parts of the negative we want to adjust. We use large gradients in our layer masks to avoid the typical "HDR" artifacts.
We have actions that generate all the curves for each brightness and contrast adjustment. So changing brightness or contrast is as easy as selecting the curve adjustment layer and clicking an action to change the curve to another setting. We might use over 4 curve adjustment layers to be actively adjusting the brightness and contrast of multiple parts of the photo until everything is just right.
We also have a set of tools for noise reduction (if perhaps not enough exposures were used in the blended negative), sharpening and enlargement that we use to prepare our photos for printing.
Well that sure is a lot for one post. My wife and will be happy to answer any questions you guys have. :)
Posted by Kathryn Farrar on September 14, 2006 at 12:25 PM
Wow, look what happens when I step away for a few weeks! Thanks Doug and Guy for the compliments.
And thanks Tim for that detailed explanation. For those who read Tim's summary of our workflow, I'd just like to say that it's really not as complicated as it sounds!
Discussion
3 replieshttp://www.farrarfocus.com/ffdd
Guy
Before I begin, I just released the 5th update to FFDD today, and there are a few downloadable PSD examples of our process on this page,
http://www.farrarfocus.com/ffdd/examples.htm
Basically our goal is to maximize the quality of the digital negative before developing. Right now we shoot with the Canon 5D which I believe has a 12bit sensor and little over 5 stops of dynamic range. We use our FFDD tools to produce a blended negative that has 15bits of data for a little over 8 stops of dynamic range.
All this extra quality in the blended negative allows us to do huge amounts of brightess and contrast adjustments in our development without having problems with noise. In our view, we see dynamic range more as a tool for noise reduction then producing "HDR" styled photos, and the resulting noise free images can really be enlarged and sharpened well because they do not have noise.
This also allows us to shoot quicker in the field because we don't have to wait to check exposure, or mess with graduated neutral density filters. We just shoot enough exposures to cover the full range and move on to the next shot. Everything else is done during development. Development time is cheap, time in the field is expensive, light changes too fast, expecially when you are trading lenses and camera bodies with your wife between shots!
I should also mention that with our blending tool, minor amount of motion in the scene is not a problem. And if it does become a problem we can easily adjust the blend using layer masks to choose what parts of what exposure to blend into the final blended negative.
So our process before development is as follows,
1. Batch convert all our RAW files into DNG.
2. Our default ACR settings zero brightness/contrast/etc to produce un-developed negatives.
3. We load one set of bracketed exposures into ACR at a time to correct chromatic aberration and white point.
4. Use the FFDD bracket2 script, to batch blend all the series of bracketed exposures at night into blended negatives (which get saved as 16bit tiffs) with about 8 stops of dynamic range.
Then our development process starts. We do all development in Photoshop instead of ACR or another Raw converter. The key to our process is skilled adjustment of the brightness and contrast of the blended negative using special curve adjustment layers with layer masks. The layer masks enable us to select the parts of the negative we want to adjust. We use large gradients in our layer masks to avoid the typical "HDR" artifacts.
We have actions that generate all the curves for each brightness and contrast adjustment. So changing brightness or contrast is as easy as selecting the curve adjustment layer and clicking an action to change the curve to another setting. We might use over 4 curve adjustment layers to be actively adjusting the brightness and contrast of multiple parts of the photo until everything is just right.
We also have a set of tools for noise reduction (if perhaps not enough exposures were used in the blended negative), sharpening and enlargement that we use to prepare our photos for printing.
Well that sure is a lot for one post. My wife and will be happy to answer any questions you guys have. :)
And thanks Tim for that detailed explanation. For those who read Tim's summary of our workflow, I'd just like to say that it's really not as complicated as it sounds!