Chuck Norcutt wrote:
> I've tried three different browsers but I don't see the image change
> when I pass my mouse over it.
Just confirming your point in a prior post. There ARE two different
images there, one processed in 8 bit, the other in 16-bit, and with
wildly different looking histograms, but one is really hard pressed to
discern any visual difference.
> I do see what I assume is the original image when I click on the image.
Yup.
> But, since there are supposed to be three images and only two histograms it's
> not clear what's what. Is the
> smooth histogram from the original or a 16 bit edited version?
>
Sorry to be unclear, the two histograms are for the "after" images, the
smooth one being from the 16-bit editing.
> The change between original and whichever image I'm seeing is quite
> clear to me. Whatever has been done has introduced artifacts across the
> entire image that look to me just like digital noise. The smooth skin
> tones of the original have been lost.
>
It IS digital noise at iso 1600. The image presented is a crop of the
original frame. The LCE and Curves adjustments bring it out. I didn't
bother to do anything about it as it wasn't part of the point being
illustrated. My bad.
> I think the major failing of the image, and maybe why you don't seem to
> be satisfied with your editing, is the blown doorway surrounding dad and
> baby's heads. In any photograph our eyes are naturally drawn to the
> brightest area and the blown doorway is just too large, too bright and
> too much competition for the dad and the kids.
>
I agree. I didn't do anything about that for this example cause I didn't
feel like doing all that work while making a repeatable action, so each
result would be identical except for bit depth.
> I'm not going to try it because it's a lot of work but if it were my
> image my first attempt at recovery would be to fill all the blown white
> areas in the doorway with the blue-gray or perhaps the lighter turqouse
> color from the edges of the door frames while still trying to hold onto
> whatever tonal variations do exist. Difficult and still might not work
> but worth a try if it's an important image.
>
Not a really important image, but our friends, including the man and the
left baby (his right) are really poor photographers, and hard on
cameras, having just broken the second P&S since having the baby, so I
try to provide them with the occasional good snap of Rachel.
In any case, I already did just want you suggested. There is actually
some recoverable, if odd colored, detail in the hallway, but the outside
is virtually all gone. So I did two layers, recovering some hall detail
and adjusting the color a bit. The outdoor layer I did indeed fill with
the turquoise, then adjusted opacity. Doesn't really do much for the
bright area, but, as you point out, it keeps it from distracting the eye
from the people, sort of defusing it. With the 5D, I'd have been better
off, but I took the F30 to the barbeque. I was there to eat, drink and
socialize, not be the photographer with the big camera in front of his
face all the time. I only took a few shots of the babies.
> It looks to me like you've made a signficant change to contrast (LCE?)
> but I don't think that's needed here.
Just a little LCE, then some curves after flattening things with
Shadow/Highlight.
> Since I haven't seen the other
> image maybe it's much better. But, on what I see, what is needed is
> some brightening of the people and a little more selective brightening
> of the eye sockets and other shadowed areas of the faces. But I'd stop
> well short of exposure changes that appear to mottle the skin.
I did about as much as I could overall with Shadow/Highlight, but didn't
do any local dodging (yet?)
> Skin color and texture are much more important than brightness and contrast
> here.
>
Lighting was truly awful, with a mix of natural backlight and reflection
off colored surfaces, incandescent and fluorescent lights in the
kitchen. It is a lot darker in that part of the kitchen than apperas
here. These were simply grab shots when Keith was holding both babies
and some folks were preparing to leave, which is quite a project with a
little one. I was rather pleased with the overall skin colors I got. I
do agree that the contrast in the baby skin is too much. And the texture
isn't very good either, but Neatimage should help with that.
> Probably the first and maybe the last time I'll ever give the Moose advice on
> editing a photo
Oh, pooh! ;-)
> but this one is people stuff and that's my main game.
>
And not my strongest point, although I do fairly well at restoration,
where getting anything close to natural from what appears to be nothing
impresses people. :-) I should have known better than to post
something to illustrate one point without making it as perfect as I can
in all others. :-) Haste makes waste.
> Finally, your comment about converting 8 to 16 bit before processing
> causes me so say, huh? I'm not sure I could do the math correctly even
> if I was more awake but I'm skeptical that this would lead to any
> different result after the 16 bits were finally converted back to 8 bits
> for printing. But I'm not sure. Certainly having 16 bits to start with
> is the desirable case but it's not clear to me at all that converting an
> 8 bit image to 16 bits will change anything.
>
Well, it certainly does in the histograms - that is the ONLY difference
between those two so very different histograms. Processing was carefully
absolutely identical except for converting one to 16-bit before
processing, then back to 8 bit for the final histogram capture and
sizing for the web. Lots of loss of tonal graduation there in the 8-bit
one. In this particular example, and many others, it may be
indistinguishable to the eye, as you had said, but it can make a very
obvious difference in more extreme work like recovering faded shots,
missed exposures, and the like.
I find it hard to judge beforehand which images will show visual effects
from editing in 8-bit, so my practice is to always work in 16-bit -
except when I forget. :-)
Moose
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|