With white birds, assuming the whites are not blown, do you have techniques for processing that you usually use to maximize detail while still staying white? On one of my images the suggestion was made to bring up the mid tones, but I don't know exactly what that means or how to do it, and also sometimes I know my images seem dark to people. I'm afraid so far to make them too light or bright because of wanting to keep detail in the whites. So I was wondering what are some of the ways that you all deal with this. Thank you!
Posted by Keith Bauer on April 6, 2012 at 10:23 AM
Are you using LightRoom and/or Photoshop to process your RAW files? In the Basic panel, you can use the Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks sliders (LR 4 and ACR 7) to target tonal adjustments. In LR 3 or ACR 6.x these are called Recovery, Fill Light and Blacks. The Exposure slider in both cases will have a broader impact on the overall exposure, rather than targeted luminance values. If you are working in LR, I find it most intuitive to simply point into the Histogram in the Develop module and make adjustments directly there, rather than using the slides. Same exact final effect, it is just more intuitive to me to work directly in the histogram.
Thanks, Keith, very much. I should have said I'm using Lightroom to process the RAW files, but I haven't done a lot with the RAW processing. For some reason I'm really afraid to, but I think I'll just have to save different copies of files named with some abbreviation of what I did to them so that I can learn but still be able to go back when I make mistakes.
Posted by Keith Bauer on April 6, 2012 at 10:40 AM
Barbara: All raw processing LR is non-destructive. There is no need to create copies. In the Develop module, when you start processing, look at the left side of the screen for the History panel. That history is persistent and stays in the LR catalog. You can always simply "Reset" an image (bottom right corner button), or move back in history to see the effects you are applying. Another option is to create a virtual copy of your image in LR (Photo / Create Virtual Copy), and work from the Virtual copy. A virtual copy is not a second physical copy, rather just a pointer to the image to enable another set of RAW instructions pointing to the same physical image.
What I will usually do is work with the levels and curves graph. This gives me much more control over the exposure in different tones. On the graph the whites are to the right side and the blacks are to the left side. If you want the whites down a little just grab the curve line in that area and pull it down. If you want to change the mid-tones you can do that by grabbing the center of the curve or the middle arrow on the levels part. If you darken the blacks a bit and lighten the whites (if you have the tonal range available) then you increase the contrast in the mid-tones.
Also NIK Color EFEX Pro 4 can help with detail and tonal contrast at 50%
Posted by Lance Warley on April 6, 2012 at 12:38 PM
Two ways for me, for whites in any image: One way is to process the raw files twice. Once for everything else, and then again, darker, for the whites. Then mask and blend to taste in PS.
Another is by using the Info and Threshold pallets. This is a lot of steps but is much easier to do than to read:
1: Click the Window menu from the menus across the top. Then click Info. This displays the Info palette
2: Right click the eye dropper tool from the tool bar. Then click the Color Sampler tool.
3: Duplicate the bg layer.
4: Layer menu - New Adjustment layer - Threshold layer - OK. Now the photo is just b&w shapes.
5: Drag the slider under the Threshold layer histogram all the way to the right. Now the photo is all black.
6. Slowly drag the slider to the left until white is displayed on the photo. Using the Color Sampler tool, click on the white spot. This will create a circle labelled "1" on the photo.
7: Drag the Threshold histogram slider all the way to the left. Now the photo is all black.
8: Slowly drag the slider to the right until black is displayed. Using the Color Sampler tool, click on the black spot. This will create a circle labelled "2" on the photo.
9: The Info pallet will now display the RGB values for Highlights and Shadows.
9: Close the Threshold pallet and delete the Threshold layer. Now you have 2 layers - the bg and the bg copy.
10: Click on the bg copy. Open Curves. Click the Highlight eyedropper. Then click inside the circle of point #1. Notice the Highlights values in the Info pallet change.
11: With Curves still open, click the Shadows eyedropper. Then click inside point #2. The Shadows values in the Info pallet will change. Click OK and close Curves.
That's it. Now your RGB levels are corrected for Highlights and Shadows in the bg copy layer. No caste. The highlights will be at or near 245, 245, 245 if that's how you set your default for the Highlights eye dropper. If you click the eye on the bg copy layer to make it inactive, the bg layer becomes active and the Info pallet will display the RGB values for the bg layer.
This only works if you have bright highlights and dark shadows. If you have a photo without the hi's and lo's, it doesn't work well.
Sometimes, this may work for just the Highlights or just the Shadows. I usually correct for both, but sometimes only for one or the other.
Another thing that's handy about the Info pallet is that it will tell you if you inadvertently burn the Highlights or over-darken the Shadows at any point in your processing. If the Highlights go to 255, you burnt them. I try to keep them under 250 unless I have a situation where they should be burnt, like the middle of the sun or a bright glare that I want in the photo.
First, be aware that the quality and direction of the light you have when you make the image has a large influence on the amount of texture/detail you will be able to show in the whites. You need enough contrast and direction in the light to bring out feather texture since you are working basically with white-on-white. What puts detail in the feathers is the the amount of small shadows one feather casts on the other feathers. If you don't have that to start with it doesn't matter how much you tweak the histogram in raw conversion or post processing.
I do my raw conversion in ACR in Photoshop CS3, so I can't address LR (but it sounds very much the same). I concentrate on fine tuning the histogram much as Keith does in LR. Usually I want the histogram to cover the entire range without clipping on either end. The Exposure slider will move the entire plot. Recovery will effect just the brightest end. Brightness will move mostly the middle of the histogram. Fill Light will move the dark end of the plot.
If you are desperate for highlight detail then you can mess around with the contrast of the whiles, but at the risk of making the image look unnatural. Duplicate the layer and make a careful selection of the whites. With the selection active you can apply a new Levels or Curves adjustment layer (the active selection becomes a mask on the adjustment layer). You'll get a new histogram for just the selection that is pushed to the right side - move the left slider to spread the thin histogram and make the shadows in the feather darker.
Or, with the same selection you can use Shadow/Highlight to do essentially the same thing. I find Shadow/Highlight harder to control and more risky, but by using it on a duplicate layer you can fine tune the selection mask and the layer opacity if needed.
Discussion
10 repliesAs with all Nik products, they offer a free trial:
http://www.niksoftware.com/viveza/usa/entry.php?view=intro/viveza_announcement.shtml
Sandy
Another is by using the Info and Threshold pallets. This is a lot of steps but is much easier to do than to read:
1: Click the Window menu from the menus across the top. Then click Info. This displays the Info palette
2: Right click the eye dropper tool from the tool bar. Then click the Color Sampler tool.
3: Duplicate the bg layer.
4: Layer menu - New Adjustment layer - Threshold layer - OK. Now the photo is just b&w shapes.
5: Drag the slider under the Threshold layer histogram all the way to the right. Now the photo is all black.
6. Slowly drag the slider to the left until white is displayed on the photo. Using the Color Sampler tool, click on the white spot. This will create a circle labelled "1" on the photo.
7: Drag the Threshold histogram slider all the way to the left. Now the photo is all black.
8: Slowly drag the slider to the right until black is displayed. Using the Color Sampler tool, click on the black spot. This will create a circle labelled "2" on the photo.
9: The Info pallet will now display the RGB values for Highlights and Shadows.
9: Close the Threshold pallet and delete the Threshold layer. Now you have 2 layers - the bg and the bg copy.
10: Click on the bg copy. Open Curves. Click the Highlight eyedropper. Then click inside the circle of point #1. Notice the Highlights values in the Info pallet change.
11: With Curves still open, click the Shadows eyedropper. Then click inside point #2. The Shadows values in the Info pallet will change. Click OK and close Curves.
That's it. Now your RGB levels are corrected for Highlights and Shadows in the bg copy layer. No caste. The highlights will be at or near 245, 245, 245 if that's how you set your default for the Highlights eye dropper. If you click the eye on the bg copy layer to make it inactive, the bg layer becomes active and the Info pallet will display the RGB values for the bg layer.
This only works if you have bright highlights and dark shadows. If you have a photo without the hi's and lo's, it doesn't work well.
Sometimes, this may work for just the Highlights or just the Shadows. I usually correct for both, but sometimes only for one or the other.
Another thing that's handy about the Info pallet is that it will tell you if you inadvertently burn the Highlights or over-darken the Shadows at any point in your processing. If the Highlights go to 255, you burnt them. I try to keep them under 250 unless I have a situation where they should be burnt, like the middle of the sun or a bright glare that I want in the photo.
I do my raw conversion in ACR in Photoshop CS3, so I can't address LR (but it sounds very much the same). I concentrate on fine tuning the histogram much as Keith does in LR. Usually I want the histogram to cover the entire range without clipping on either end. The Exposure slider will move the entire plot. Recovery will effect just the brightest end. Brightness will move mostly the middle of the histogram. Fill Light will move the dark end of the plot.
If you are desperate for highlight detail then you can mess around with the contrast of the whiles, but at the risk of making the image look unnatural. Duplicate the layer and make a careful selection of the whites. With the selection active you can apply a new Levels or Curves adjustment layer (the active selection becomes a mask on the adjustment layer). You'll get a new histogram for just the selection that is pushed to the right side - move the left slider to spread the thin histogram and make the shadows in the feather darker.
Or, with the same selection you can use Shadow/Highlight to do essentially the same thing. I find Shadow/Highlight harder to control and more risky, but by using it on a duplicate layer you can fine tune the selection mask and the layer opacity if needed.