Posted by Barbara Graham on December 23, 2017 at 11:37 AM
I'm in Decatur (Atlanta), Georgia, and it snowed two weeks ago. I didn't know if any special handling was required for using a camera in the snow, and I didn't want to take time to research it, so I just went out with everybody else with my cell phone camera. I've posted one image in Landscape (this one) and one in Man and Nature. I have others. I really like these images, and I'm wondering if anyone has had much success with processing cell phone photos in Photoshop and if you could give me any advice on this.
I know that the dynamic range is really lacking on cell phones, so I'm wondering if this is a case in which you maybe should use HDR filters and whether that would help. For now, I have two images here, the original with no processing and a second one with Linear Contrast added from Curves, increased saturation, and the use of Vibrance. I think maybe I like the original darker green better than the green with increased saturation, but I wondered what you all thought about it, and, as I said, if you know how to best process cell phone images in Photoshop. Thank you for any help.
Posted by Barbara Graham on December 23, 2017 at 11:38 AM
This is the same image with some processing as described in my first post.
Posted by Igor Doncov on December 23, 2017 at 2:56 PM
Which cellphone did you use? Make and version. I shot wit iphone 4, 5, and 6 and there is a huge difference.
Posted by Barbara Graham on December 23, 2017 at 4:29 PM
Barbara, this is a high contrast scene to begin with--bright snow and very deep shadows. Adding contrast as you did exacerbates the dynamic range issue. The brights and mid tones in the original look pretty good: It is the shadows that need to be recovered, assuming there is detail to recover.
You could experiment with Merge to HDR in Photoshop. I do not do HDR, so an NPNer with exprience in this may be able to get you started.
If you have the Nik filters for Photoshop plugin, you might be able to use one of the templates to work on the contrast.
Another option is Tony Kuyper's Luminosity Masks. His Photoshop actions create self-feathering layer masks for various tonal ranges that are used to make targeted adjustments without having to laboriously create selections using the lasso tools. I use them every day, and they are worth their weight in gold. Of course, there is a learning curve, but Tony has excellent tutorials and Sean Bagshaw has created a set of videos. It is certainly worth checking out.
--P
Posted by Richard Ditch on December 23, 2017 at 5:06 PM
A cell phone camera is no different from any other P&S camera that produces jpeg output. I use the camera in my iPhone or iPad if I need to shoot something and I have no other camera available. I've posted a couple images here on NPN.
The jpeg image from a cell phone can be adjusted in Photoshop just like any other - exposure, contrast, saturation, transform, etc.
Just use good technique and common sense. Watch the composition before you shoot. Keep it level. Avoid movement. Watch the exposure on the screen and adjust it before shooting if you know how with the cell phone.
Posted by Igor Doncov on December 23, 2017 at 7:19 PM
The dynamic range is very high as you've noted. The smart phones to my knowledge don't have a histogram so it's hard to tell if your image will be clipped. In your case you can't recover some of the blacks. The smarphone produce 8-bit jpeg images so if your blacks hadn't been clipped you still could do very little recovery in photoshop before introducing noise. Due to these photo limitations I don't do much processing and try to get it to be good straight from the camera. These cameras are improving all the time and I think that some are generating 12 megapixel images now so some of the issues are being resolved.
Posted by Barbara Graham on December 23, 2017 at 7:32 PM
Discussion
7 repliesI know that the dynamic range is really lacking on cell phones, so I'm wondering if this is a case in which you maybe should use HDR filters and whether that would help. For now, I have two images here, the original with no processing and a second one with Linear Contrast added from Curves, increased saturation, and the use of Vibrance. I think maybe I like the original darker green better than the green with increased saturation, but I wondered what you all thought about it, and, as I said, if you know how to best process cell phone images in Photoshop. Thank you for any help.
You could experiment with Merge to HDR in Photoshop. I do not do HDR, so an NPNer with exprience in this may be able to get you started.
If you have the Nik filters for Photoshop plugin, you might be able to use one of the templates to work on the contrast.
Another option is Tony Kuyper's Luminosity Masks. His Photoshop actions create self-feathering layer masks for various tonal ranges that are used to make targeted adjustments without having to laboriously create selections using the lasso tools. I use them every day, and they are worth their weight in gold. Of course, there is a learning curve, but Tony has excellent tutorials and Sean Bagshaw has created a set of videos. It is certainly worth checking out.
--P
The jpeg image from a cell phone can be adjusted in Photoshop just like any other - exposure, contrast, saturation, transform, etc.
Just use good technique and common sense. Watch the composition before you shoot. Keep it level. Avoid movement. Watch the exposure on the screen and adjust it before shooting if you know how with the cell phone.