Nikon Capture NX-D on the Way

I never really considered the D610 for infrared, despite its higher ISO which makes it two stops faster than my D90 (Three really, but I think 25,600 is pushing it.) it’s not the long exposure time that bothers me, it’s the white balance issue.

Back when I was experimenting with the D90, I had read somewhere that since you can’t set the white balance, you should just shoot raw and set it afterwards. But despite Camera Raw’s ability to go all the way down to 2000°K, it just couldn’t cut it. Then the D50 came along.

I was amazed at how easy it was to set a custom white balance for IR on the D50, and when I did the JPEGs came out fantastic. But again, I could do nothing with the NEFs. 

Then, not too long ago I had read somewhere that with Nikon’s Capture NX software, you could set it lower. This software was not a priority for me, since between Photoshop/Camera Raw and Apple Aperture 3, I had things pretty much covered. And, being a usability analyst, it pained me to think of just what the Nikon experience would be like. But, if I could just get that white balance lower, It’d be worth it. So, I put it on the back burner.

Today I decided to price out a copy, and discovered that the latest version is in beta, and available as a free download. Try before you buy. So I went for it.

As predicted, I wasn’t blown away by the interface. I didn’t crack open the downloaded PDF manual. Again, as a usability analyst, if I can’t figure how to use an app’s core functions in 10 minutes it’s an automatic fail. But, it wasn’t all that bad. Turns out I couldn’t adjust the white balance low enough with the slider. But what I could do is use the WB eyedropper tool on the bluish-colored foliage, and the color snapped into place. And, the temperature and tint sliders were still in the middle and could be adjusted further. And oh what a range of adjustment. I was able to restore some of the original color to the image, or so it seemed. Even the exposure range was vast. A severely underexposed image opened right up, possibly aided by the extra bit depth on the D610.

But what’s really exciting is that I’ll be able to shoot RAW on the D50 and actually use the images. The JPEGs come out great, but finally being to work with the NEFs will be a real treat.

First Impressions
The file interface is much like Adobe Bridge, in that you browse your folders; you do not have to import images into a separate library. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as elegant. But all the tools are right at your fingertips; you don’t have to “open” an image to modify it.

It seems to have borrowed from Aperture in that once you use an adjustment tool, it’s added to the panel on the right, which scrolls as needed. You can close it at any time though, and the effect remains in place. You can turn effects on and off, and of course, save different versions. All these are now stored in a sidecar file, just like Camera Raw.

Filtering is very clumsy. It has to do a build each time, instead of working in real time like bridge. Compare images does not seem to work.

It’s very buggy, It has hung twice, and I’ve had to do a force quit to get it running again. But after all, this is Beta software and taking that into consideration, thing weren’t too bad

Nikon Capture NX-2 is quite reasonable at $139.00. I’m on the fence as to whether or not to buy it to see how it works, then upgrade to NX-D. This way, I’d have both versions, if they don’t disable the previous version so you can’t run them both on the same workstation.

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In Search of the Perfect Curve

Once again I am revisiting post-pro lomography. I will stop using film when they pry it from my cold dead hands. But the reality is, it’s only going to be harder to come by. So even more reason to perfect the ability to achieve similar results in the digital domain.

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Écorce D’Arbre Lumineux

iPhone 4S; 1/120 @ f/2.4, ISO 64.

Imagine if your color perception was so acute, you could see colors others couldn’t.

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First Impressions: Adobe Photoshop Touch for iPad

No less serious than iPhoto for iPad image processing, I was far less impressed with Photoshop Touch than with this nearest competitor.

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First Impressions: Apple iPhoto for iPad

This is a serious, must have app for photographers working with the iPad. Its non-destructive editing is the perfect complement to Photoshop Touch’s destructive, layer-based editing.

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Non Layer-Based Processing in Adobe Camera Raw

Harvey Hirsch at China Gourmet, West Orange NJ

A pleasant dim sum brunch gives way to some new opportunities...

I’d been on the prowl for a good local dim sum restaurant, so when my good friend and colleague Harvey Hirsch suggested China Gourmet in West Orange, I couldn’t resist. Harvey is the author of the well-known culinary blog, “Chew on This”, so documenting this event through video and still photography was a foregone conclusion. Armed with my trusty iPhone 4S, I was able to capture the moment for myself.

Original, unprocessed version.

As usual, the iPhone 4S’s HDR option did an excellent job of preserving highlight detail, as can be seen in the window. So, half my post-processing work is already done in-camera. For the rest, I use non-layer based processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

What is non-layer based processing? It’s using Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom to apply both overall and selective enhancements instead of Photoshop with its complex adjustment layers. Once the overall contrast and vibrance is established, the Adjustment Brush tool is used to make selective adjustments. In this example, I enhanced the skintones by adding shape and vibrance to the face, reduced saturation in the hand on the right, and balancing the one on the left to it.

There are no layers in Adobe Camera Raw, but rather “pins“ that you place near the area to be adjusted. You then brush in a mask much the same as you do in Photoshop, and make adjustments with simple sliders rather than complex adjustment layers. You can save as many “snapshots“ as you want, thus many versions within each image. You can even save the overall adjustments as presets that you can apply to similar images in a fraction of the time you’d spend in Photoshop. All the changes are stored as metadata, so the original pixels are never touched. You can then save out final copies in any format you want. preserving the original, small JPEG or RAW file as a master for future iterations.

But the real excitement for today was discovering new dining opportunities at China Gourmet. for more information on how you can enhance your dining experience, visit FreeRangeChowHound.com.

Which K Are You?

Other than using optical filters, White balance is the primary means of controlling color in a digital camera. Normal, Vivid and Neutral color settings control the saturation level of color, but white balance controls the hue or color cast of the image. Cameras which allow you to set the color temperature by degrees Kelvin and the tint by increments of magenta and green offer the most control. The color model of digital cameras is based on L*a*b* color, which uses two opponent color channels, one corresponding to temperature and the other to tint.

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South Orange Station

Detail, South Orange Station Viaduct

The devil is in the details. With D50 in hand, and 35mm f/1.8 mounted, I snapped this from street level. It’s maybe fifteen feet above the sidewalk. Short of using a very long lens and/or a stepladder, it’s difficult to get this shot without a perspective control lens. With Adobe Camera Raw however, it’s a fairly straightforward matter to correct it for perspective, and the results were quite pleasing.

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What to Name a File

In the course of building a reference library, I am constantly faced with the dilemma of what and how to name an image file. What, as in what information I should provide, and how, as in how should I “encode” this information in terms of format.

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RAW Processing: X10 vs. D90

The degree to which you can process a Raw image on the X10 is quite extensive compared with the D90.

As a rule, I process images in the Lightroom, so I don’t have a pressing need for this function. As a result, I haven’t really explored this on the D90. But, as I put the X10 through its paces, I’ve come across its rather extensive list of processing options, which is basically everything. And this has encouraged me to revisit this function on the D90.

I’m pleased to say that there are some options, but they’re very basic. The ability to change white balance and exposure are important, resolution and compression less so. And once you generate a JPEG image, you can’t process it any further.

It’s all good though. The D90 is reserved for very serious work, so this kind of processing will always be done in the Lightroom. But, it does make the X10 a Camera Raw champion.

Sunrise, Randolph, NJ

An early Saturday morning trip to the Randolph motor vehicle inspection facility yields a pleasant surprise.

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Basic Contrast Adjustments

Exposure does have an effect on contrast, but generally it’s governed by the lens, film and lighting.

Contrast can also be controlled through the chemistry, materials, techniques and algorithms used in  processing and printing. Digital images are processed either in the camera or the lightroom, so contrast adjustments can be made at the time of exposure or during post-processing. When you adjust the contrast in a digital camera, you’re altering how the raw image from the sensor is processed just before it’s saved to memory.

Contrast is the relationship between the light and dark tones of an image. The further apart these values, the more contrast or separation the image is said to have.

Vibrancy is an attribute of color that is also related to contrast. Images with more contrast are naturally more vibrant. Generally speaking, a lens with higher contrast will also render more vibrant color. However, digitally, we can control contrast without affecting vibrancy.

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Brightness/Contrast
Perhaps the simplest tool for adjusting contrast is the Brightness/Contrast panel. Unfortunately, it’s also the most misunderstood amongst professional color retouchers.

In earlier versions of Photoshop, B/C was strictly a linear adjustment, however, in recent versions it’s been changed to a gamma adjustment, with a check box to revert back to the “legacy” linear algorithm. Combined with the Luminosity mode and the Blend If sliders, this adjustment panel is an effective means of making basic contrast adjustments.

Dragging the contrast slider to the right lightens the quarter tones and darkens the three-quarter tones, increasing the contrast and vibrancy to an image with a normal distribution of tones. Conversely, dragging to the left decreases contrast and vibrancy. For lighter or darker images, the Brightness slider can be used to vary the “center” of the adjustment, similar to a “parametric” equalizer. This then compensates for high-key or low-key images, and the primary reason these two closely-related adjustments appear in the same panel.

Contrast can be controlled independently of vibrance by using the Luminosity blend mode.

Vibrance can be controlled independently of contrast by using the Color blend mode. When used this way, the Brightness and Contrast sliders each have a different effect on color saturation, without affecting lightness.

Basic Exposure Adjustments

Exposure, brightness, lightness, and luminosity all describe the same basic concept, how light or dark an image appears. However, in real-world application, they’re not the same.

Exposure takes place in the camera, and once it happens, it can never really be adjusted. That said, most post processing applications have an exposure adjustment to simulate the effects of exposure. Exposure is more or less “linear”; the more light you let into the camera, the whiter the whites will become until they “wash out” and all detail is lost. However, film also has response curve. Therefore, adjusting exposure is tricky in post processing.

Brightness refers not only to luminosity, but to color as well. An image is considered to “bright” when it’s both light and has clean, vibrant colors, in other words good color saturation. The luminosity level may be perfect, but if the colors do not have adequate saturation, the image will appear dull.

Lightness refers only to luminosity, hence the “Lightness” channel in the L*a*b* color space. When the color is right, we want to be able to control only the lightness, and this is not something that can be done by adjusting exposure.

Luminosity generally refers only to lightness, and not to color. The Luminosity blend mode in Photoshop restricts an adjustment to the information that would appear in the Lightness channel of a L*a*b* image. However, used descriptively it can also refer to brightness. A “luminous” image is one that is both light and colorful.

So while this tutorial is named “Basic Exposure Adjustments” we will also talk about adjusting the brightness, lightness and gamma of an image.

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Brightness/Contrast
Perhaps the simplest and most powerful tool for adjusting exposure is the Brightness/Contrast panel. Unfortunately, it’s also the most misunderstood amongst professional color retouchers.

In earlier versions of Photoshop, B/C was strictly a linear adjustment, much like adjusting exposure in a camera. However, in recent versions, this has been changed to a gamma adjustment, with a check box to revert back to the “legacy” linear algorithm. This combined with the fact that we can use it with the Luminosity mode and the Blend If sliders makes it much more powerful that it initially appears.

Drag the Brightness slider to the right to brighten or lighten the image or to the left to subdue or darken the image. The Contrast slider makes the adjustment behave similar to Curves, and is discussed in Intermediate Contrast Adjustments.

Keep in mind that color saturation is naturally dependent on luminosity, so beyond a certain point, colors may appear washed out. If this occurs, use the Luminosity mode to regain vibrance.

Exposure or “brightness” of the image, can be adjusted with Brightness/Contrast by checking the “Legacy” box. This will create a linear adjustment that shifts all the values in the image toward the highlights. When doing this, we have to be sure not to shift them so far that the highlights wash out. Once we reach that point, we can go no further.

Midtone Gamma is adjusted when the exposure is correct (the highlights of the image are matched to the “white point” of the color space) but the image needs to be lightened or brightened. To adjust the gamma, be sure to uncheck the “Legacy” box. If you want only to lighten the image, and not brighten it (affect color), then use it with the Luminosity blend mode. If you are adjusting a CMYK image, the Luminosity mode must usually always be used in order to maintain color balance.

Lightness can be adjusted by using the Luminosity blend mode with the Legacy box unchecked (gamma adjustment) or checked (linear adjustment).

Brightness can be adjusted (gamma or linear) by using the Normal blend mode. For stronger brightness adjustment with more control over hue, saturation and contrast see Advanced Exposure Adjustments.

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Levels
If you need to set the white and black points (“endpoints”) of an image, Levels can be used to adjust brightness or lightness at the same time. Drag the midtone gamma slider (gray) to the left to increase the gamma (lighten the image) or to the right to decrease the gamma (darken the image). Levels can be used with the Normal or Luminosity modes, but CMYK image almost always require Luminosity to maintain correct color balance.

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Exposure
The exposure sliders found in Adobe Camera Raw, Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture all use algorithms specifically designed to simulate the effects of exposure adjustment within the camera. They are calibrated in stops rather than arbitrary numbers, and are fairly accurate, although their effects will vary widely between applications. They are arguably the best means of adjusting exposure.

Selecting, Rating and Tagging Images

The first step of the post-processing workflow is to select the images you wish to keep, and to tag those that require further processing. This allows you to discard any outtakes or mishaps that take up valuable space on your workstation’s hard disk. You perform this task using Adobe Bridge, or the library viewer of other applications such as Aperture or Lightroom.

First, create a folder on your workstation or in your applications’s library to contain all the images offloaded from cameras and/or flash memory cards. Mine is named “Contact Sheet”, and contains subfolders for each of my cameras, even my film bodies which hold 35mm film scans.

As you add images to these folders, you review them from time to time and eliminate any completely wrong exposures, such as those first few images shot on the settings used from the previous session. Don’t actually delete them but “reject” them (tag them as “rejected”) if your application allows. This hides them from view, but allows them to remain in the folder. This way, if you to select and import all the images from the SD card (or other flash memory), to this folder, the application will “see” any duplicates and give you the opportunity to skip them. This ensures that you don’t leave any images behind. Once the card is reformatted, you can then delete the rejects.

Now comes the time to review the images. Rate any obvious keepers with five stars, workable images with three, and dogs with one, basing these decisions mostly on composition. Is the scale adequate? Are background elements interfering with the readability of the subject? Is it reasonably in focus?

Then, revisit these images and look at fine details such as focus and shadow/highlight detail. If two images are rated three, but on closer inspection one of them is sharper, upgrade it to a four. Of those fives, there may be some softer ones, so downgrade those to a four. The ones may be technically inferior, but they may have artistic potential, so uprate them accordingly. The background may be completely blown out, and the foreground way too dark, but this might make for an expressive silhouette.

Once you arrive at a final set of images, you can then tag them further with “keywords”, which will allow you to find them more easily in the future. You can now also tag them for further post-processing.

When the time comes to archive the images, this tagging process will enable you to quickly select and move them to their respective archive folders for burning onto optical media. The images tagged for further processing can then be moved to a separate folder until they are complete. Mine is named, “Lightbox”.

Dust and scratch removal often take a long time, distributed over several “sessions”. The working images (in “lossless” TIFF format so that subsequent savings don’t degrade image quality) remain in the Lightbox folder until they are complete, when they are saved as final JPEG copies. Aperture, Camera Raw, and Lightroom allow you to clone out spots in JPEG files using non-destructive algorithms, so you can leave them in this format to save space if you wish. Once complete you make a single duplicate JPEG copy with the changes in place, minimizing any image degradation.

Autumn Leaves

Minolta MD 50mm f/1.7 on Nikon D90; 1/200, f/8.0, ISO 200

You may recall this image from the Minolta MD 50mm f/1.7 review. There were beautiful autumn colors just waiting to be brought out, so I used L*a*b* color processing to extract them. To find out how, read my tutorial post, Color Enhancement with L*a*b* Curves.

Expositor Lite

I’m still discovering useful photo apps, like exposure lookup tables and depth of field calculators. Many of the reference notes that I keep on my studio workstation are now available to me in the field on the iPhone as an app. Even when I’m in the studio, I’m finding it’s more convenient to dial the numbers into an iPhone app than to look them up on a table.

Again, some apps don’t work, or have clumsy interfaces that make them difficult to use. I have no problem plunking down a couple of bucks for an app as long as it works. The best formula seems to be the free app with either limited features or ads, which I can use to assess the quality of the paid version.

Expositor Lite is like that. The interface is a little different from the typical exposure meter paradigm, but it’s very usable.

The Lite version has a limited exposure range and feature set, making it suitable only for daytime photography. Purchase the full version, and you get half-stop increments, an EV range of -6 to +16, an ISO range from 25 to 25,600, apertures from f/1 to f/32, shutter speeds from 1/8000 to 30 seconds, and exposure compensation from -10 to +10 stops. Definitely a candidate for purchase at a mere $1.99.

TiltShift Generator

This is one of those apps I consider to be more entertainment than a true photographic tool. It simulates the effect of the tilt function of a tilt-shift lens. It creates the effect of turning reality into a scale model by blurring everything but the main subject.

When a lens is tilted, it alters the depth of field, creating an extremely narrow plane of sharp focus. The effect is similar to that of photographing a scale model, in which close-focusing results in narrow depth of field. As the distance from the lens increases, the depth of field increases as well. Tilting the lens creates a narrow depth of field where it would not normally exist.

The effect can be simulated in post processing by masking out the objects in a given focal plane, and blurring everything else. TiltShift generator allows you to create masks of different shapes and sizes, and blurs the image around them, simulating the simulation. Although it does not create its masks based on the focal planes within the image, the results can be quite effective in certain images.

The app also allows you to adjust the brightness, saturation and contrast of the image during processing. It’s fun, and depending on the image its effect can be quite engaging. Since there are no known Tilt-Shift lenses for the iPhone, it does add a sort of functionality to it.

Light Meter Free

Next on my list of iPhone photography tools is a light meter.

Light Meter is a free app which emulates a traditional light meter, and it does so quite well. It has a display similar to that of the LCD of a modern electronic light meter and allows you to lock either the shutter speed (Tv) or aperture value (Av). Both “+” and “-” keys and a slider are provided to adjust the shutter speed in full stops, the aperture value in half stops, and the ISO in third stops. It’s also possible to set an exposure compensation value in third stops.

The interface is certainly easy to use, but how accurate the meter is remains to be seen through further testing. Also, there is no means of attaching the meter to the camera’s hot shoe as there is in the case of the Gossen DigiSix. But certainly in a pinch, it’s handy to have.

ColorChooser

ColorChooser is a free app that allows you to pick a single color (or capture a sample with the camera), and displays two, three or four coordinating colors based on established color theory models.

It provides hexadecimal and RGB values for both web and print designers. You simply select the color model desired, and drag the main color around the color wheel to vary its hue and saturation level. The remaining one, two or tree coordinating colors move in relation to the main color, both in terms of hue and saturation. You can alter the position of the coordinating colors on the color wheel for a “custom” scheme, and they stay locked to the main color.

A rectangular color picker is provided to allows you to vary the saturation and luminosity value for the chosen hue. Ample color swatches are provided, including a lighter and darker variation for each coordinating color. You can save the color schemes and reload them at a later date, and you can even email the colors directly from ColorChooser.

Highly recommended.

ColorWise

After much searching, I found a paid app to sample color from the iPhone. As a professional, I require a L*a*b* readout, and there aren't many out there that do L*a*b*. And, many apps don’t work at all, or are poorly written.

ColorWise costs $2.99 and will allow you to sample live, from a captured image, or from an existing one. It displays the samples in the following color spaces: RGB, HSB, CMYK, CMY, Lab, hLab, and XYZ. It allows you to save your samples as swatches, and arrange them in any order you choose.

I gave it a try in a real world situation, and it worked like a charm. Of course, I was using it under ideal, calibrated lighting conditions, but it put me in the ballpark far quicker and more accurately than guessing would have. Of course, it doesn’t replace a real colorimeter, but just like any tool, if you learn to work around its shortcomings, you can get surprising results.

This app is now a staple in my collection of color tools.