HOW MUCH POST PROCESSING?

Buildings right to left: partly only Marina City (architect: Bertrand Goldberg), IBM Building (architect: Mies Van der Rohe), Trump International Hotel & Tower

Tonight I gave a little presentation at the meeting of the Dubuque Camera Club about how I process most of my wildlife photos. Beside necessary adjustments, like noise reduction, RAW sharpening, spot removal, or maybe sometimes some cropping, only small tweaks are applied to get the best out of the RAW file. I don’t change much at all on the wildlife. If the picture is not sharp or totally wrong exposed, the photo lands in the trash can or will never be published if I want to keep it for documentary reasons in the picture library.

A lot more efforts can go into a photo like this shot from last week in downtown Chicago. The photo was made through the glass of the hotel window (we were only on the 9th floor but you can’t open these windows) and it took some efforts to overcome all the challenges. From the distortion of the glass and the dust on the window, to the perspective that you can’t really change much while shooting from a hotel room, I may use all the great tools of Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW to end up with a usable image.

”Transform” was used to correct perspective problems created by the lens, ”Dehaze” for eliminating the effect of a not so clean window, and other adjustments to enhance contrast or color contrast. The limits are only set by your own vision for the final image.

TWO BEAUTIES

Female Eastern Bluebird

The day started with some snow removal. Fresh snow means the birds will come to our feeders and bird baths in larger numbers. It was nice to see a couple Eastern Bluebirds among them this morning. They are not here for the sunflower seeds. The bluebirds depend on berries during winter and the juniper berries of the Eastern Cedar trees, that cover the rocky bluffs here at the Little Maquoketa Valley, are probably their primary food source. A reason why we see the Eastern Bluebirds only at the heated bird baths that we provide. Beside drinking they sit there sometimes for several minutes and obviously warm up a little bit when it is cold.

Male Eastern Bluebird

To open the glass door to the balcony and stick the lens out into the open for making a click is not always an option. Some birds may not come to the feeders, like the cardinals, but most importantly the warm air that mixes with the cold air outside will create a heat shimmer and make getting a sharp focus almost impossible.

I take the lens shade off the SIGMA 150-600 and keep the front element of the lens as close as possible to the glass of the door. This is of course no optical glass and some blur may occur. The Dehaze-slider in Adobe Lightroom becomes very helpful for solving this problem and removing the extra blur on the bird. Lightroom’s new masking functions allow to keep the blur on the background and make the bird even stand out a bit more. All what I can say is, shooting through the glass of a window or door has never been so easy…

Nikon Z6II, Nikon FTZ adapter, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, Induro GHB2 gimbal head,

OZARK MOUNTAINS (5)

Palisades Overlook, Petit Jean State Park, Ozark Mountains, Arkansas. *Click on the photo for a larger view.

This was probably one of the most interesting vistas we enjoyed in the Ozark Mountains. Yes this is the same viewpoint I had already a few days ago but it was the day before Thanksgiving and sun and fall colors made for a great show at the edge of Cedar Creek Canyon. Down below in the background lies the Arkansas River Valley.

This panorama is stitched together from two photos. They were merged in Adobe Lightroom and it took less than a minute to do. It still amazes me how far this software has come over the years.

ON THE LEARNING CURVE

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S lens  @ 66mm, 1/10s, f/8, ISO 1000, handheld

When I work on pictures like the one above there is usually one out of two reasons behind it. It is either testing a new piece of gear that made it into the camera bag or I try to learn about a new post-processing technique or software feature. At this time it was for both reasons.

Let me start with the gear. I finally made the step into the mirrorless camera world with the purchase of a Nikon Z6II camera with the fantastic Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S lens. In addition the Nikon FTZ adapter allows to use all my older F-mount lenses on the new Z-mount of the mirrorless camera. Circumstances of the purchase were in my favor (I traded some older lenses in) and so it is an early Christmas gift that gives me now the chance to test and learn about the new equipment ahead of the holiday.

On the software side, Adobe had introduced new masking features to Lightroom and Camera RAW in their latest update. I’m familiar with masking techniques in Photoshop but having some of them now available in the RAW editor (like Lightroom) makes it for many photographers less time consuming and easier to do selective editing in their images. So far I like it a lot and trying it out with photos from a new camera doubles the fun.

I provide quite often operator training on machines in the print & finishing industry and I know from experience many people do not like to read manuals. As a result, some will never get to the full potential the equipment has to offer. I try to be not that person and work my way through the manual with a new camera. Even if many things are the same or at least similar on a Nikon camera, I think it is about mastering the new features that come with improved technology. New focus modes, higher shooting speed, better high ISO handling, and an Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) are only a few of the new features that got me excited about the new Z6II and I hope I can adapt my workflow quickly and don’t have to think about it anymore during shooting after a while.

A German Rolling Stone magazine with the title image of the late Charlie Watts was on the table. I poured a glass of port wine in a tasting glass as my subject and lined it up with the elements on the carpet in the background. Just playing with autofocus response and higher ISO values. In Lightroom I darkened the foreground, brightened Charlie’s face, and worked with the shadows on the glass, all on separate masking layers. On the turntable played a record of the Rolling Stones… Reading the manual doesn’t have to be boring!

Nikon Z6II, FTZ adapter, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S,  @ 600mm, 1/800s, F/8, ISO 400, cropped to DX dimensions

The FTZ adapter arrived a few days later and I was really excited about how the Z6II would perform with the long Sigma lens. Last weekend I spent some time on the front porch, watching woodpeckers and other birds. There is no verdict possible in such a short time but I was impressed about sharpness and focus tracking on a fast moving bird. More testing has to be done…

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S lens,  @ 70mm, 1/320s, f/4, ISO 100

The woods here in the driftless area along the Mississippi River are not always attractive at this time of the year without snow on the ground. But the low “winter light” can still make a difference. This image was made during a short hike in the Swiss Valley Nature Preserve last Sunday. I found a spot with almost no dead wood and branches on the ground and as the sun came briefly through the clouds, well I had a photo that tells a story about the quality of that “winter light”…

TRYING ‘SUPER RESOLUTION’

Peregrine Falcon, Bellevue State Park

Before someone gets excited, this picture of a Peregrine Falcon was taken five years ago below the rockface at Bellevue State Park. I drive by there any time on my way to or from the Green Island Wetlands. There is a nest box mounted to the rocks that has been used by peregrines before. The last time I saw a bird was in 2019. Unfortunately I haven’t spotted a falcon this year yet. Maybe I haven’t spent enough time and left always too early…?

The reason I dug out this image from 2016 is the new ‘Super Resolution Feature’ in Adobe Camera RAW. It allows to enlarge a low resolution photo to a resolution four times its original size. It doubles the horizontal and vertical resolution. I tried that with a few older pictures already to see what is possible and I have to say I’m pretty impressed how the software boosts the apparent resolution, powered by machine learning, and enhances the details.

How can we use this technology to our advantage? If your current ‘state-of-the-art’ camera isn’t your first digital camera, you probably have older photos in your library that were shot with a 10, 6, or even 3 megapixel camera model. So the 3MP picture can become a 12MP version. This will allow much larger prints or you can crop the picture much more if you really need an enlargement of an important detail in the shot. Don’t take me wrong, I’m still an advocate for GET IT RIGHT IN CAMERA! However, we all have taken pictures that didn’t turn out perfectly sometimes, but contain valuable memories for us.

Back to the Peregrine Falcon. The bird was high up in a tree and there was no way to get even a foot closer. I had the lens at 600 mm focal length with the camera set to DX mode, which results in an angle of view that is equivalent to a 900 mm lens. The falcon was still only a small part in the photo. It was the first time I ever saw and photographed a Peregrine Falcon, a moment I wouldn’t forget. With the new ‘Super Resolution’ I was able to crop the photo and bring this memory back and share it with you.

If you like to read and learn more about this feature and how to use it in combination with Adobe Lightroom, here is the link to a great article that has a lot more details: https://lightroomkillertips.com/how-to-take-advantage-of-super-resolution-from-lightroom-classic/

AT THE CONFLUENCE

The Wisconsin River meets the mighty Mississippi. Pikes Peak State Park, Iowa

One of the best places here in eastern Iowa to have a great view over the driftless area, the landscape that wasn’t shaped by the glaciers, is Pike Peaks State Park. Here, just above the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Wisconsin River you get the idea what a gem the area is we live in. When we have visitors from Germany, we always try to make Pikes Peak State Park part of the program (Hallo Claudia, Susanne & Andre St. 😊). I have shot here several times before over the years but never managed to tell the story of this great vista with just one photo.

This Sunday was a gorgeous warm winter day. Joan and I took our little dog Cooper for a ride and a short hike in the woods of the state park. The blue sky didn’t make for a lot of drama, but with the low sun behind us it was ideal for a panorama photo. I turned to a six-shot pano, trying to bring this great view all together in just one image. No tripod, just hand-hold upright clicks, with about 20-30% overlap and then simply assembly in Adobe Lightroom, using its panorama function. The result is a photo with almost 17,000 pixel on the long side, which would allow to print it 1.5 - 2 m wide without loss of detail. The small version of the picture here in the blog doesn’t do it much justice, but if you click on the photo and use the full real estate of your computer screen, you may get why I’m happy about the outcome of this probably 150 degree view.

10 YEARS

Petrified Forest National Park is only a small part of the Painted Desert. From here goes the view over the seemingly endless badlands of the desert. (If you view this photo on a computer, click on the image for a wider view.)

This week marks the 10th anniversary of my blog. February 5th, 2010 I posted a photo from Cerro Gordo, an old miners ghost town in the Inyo Mountains, California. Much has happened since but the blog was always about “Nature and Photography”. I wanted to tell the stories behind some of the photos and by writing about it, also improve my English language skills. As I evolved as a nature photographer over the years my focus shifted more and more towards the goal of creating awareness about the nature, animals, and landscapes that surround us. I still believe a storytelling photo or blog post can help to create attention for conservation and protection needs of our natural heritage. And yes, it is still fun to use a camera and try to make a good image, even if the attention span for a photo in social media seems to drop a little more every year.

Well, today I tried something new. This is a photo from my recent trip to Arizona. The panorama is stitched together from 6 handheld photos in portrait orientation. A few years ago this would have been a tedious task in Photoshop and without using a tripod, good results were not necessarily guaranteed. Using Adobe Lightroom Classic these days makes the process of merging the photos a breeze. It took less than a minute until the panorama was on the screen, ready to be finished to my taste. Almost 15,500 pixels on the long side will allow to print this image 60” (~1.5 m) wide without any loss of detail.

I like to thank all friends and readers of my blog for the time they spend here. Your encouragement and support keeps me going.

FOLLOWING THE CURVE (PART 2)

If this looks familiar you must have visited my blog a few days ago. Today I tried the same image as a black and white version. I had this in mind when I took the shot but later at home, in front of the computer screen, the play with the color contrast appealed to me as well. Now, with both versions on hand, I think the monochrome version supports the graphic impact of this photo better. The Z-shaped curve of the clouds and the edge of the field are better pronounced.

As much as I like the relativ new B&W presets in Adobe Lightroom Classic, for the finishing of this image I used the well trusted NIK Silver Efex Pro 2. In Lightroom I started with the same Camera RAW settings as for the color version, opened the photo as a Smart Object in Photoshop, and finally applied NIK Silver Efex Pro 2 as a filter. I still love the way how global and local adjustments interact with each other in any program of the NIK Suite. The final touch was made with a subtle dodging and burning layer in PS, mainly in the lower half of the photo.

OWL IN THE CAVE

Great Horned Owl, Dubuque, Iowa ------------------ 

Are you tired of seeing photos here in my blog taken in the wetlands along the Mississippi River lately? Well, today I have something different for you. Friends who follow my blog since several years know that at this time of the year I have reported about the breeding efforts of a pair Great Horned Owls down at the Mississippi not very far from home.

The bad news is, it isn’t happen this year. Great Horned Owls don’t really build their own nest but take possession of an old nest instead and maybe move a few sticks around. In this matter it was the nest of a Bald Eagle that the owl used for five years in a row. Well, rain, snow, and in particular wind have finally succeeded and the nest had fallen apart after the last breeding season. There are still a few branches and sticks up in the tree but it isn’t big enough to be the place for another generation of Great Horned Owls.

And here comes the good news. Thanks to a couple photography friends I learned about two other locations around Dubuque, Iowa with an active nest site. One is in a small cave and it isn’t easy to see mother owl back on the nest. I used the flash to throw some light into the hole but this wasn’t enough to make a difference, at least from what I saw on the display of the camera back. The solution for this photo was to expose all the way to the right of the histogram, but still making sure the surrounding rocks were not blown out. It is amazing how much dynamic range today’s cameras are able to capture and the RAW files can hold. Later at home in Adobe Lightroom I lowered the exposure of the rocks and lifted the shadows of the cave locally. And this revealed some detail inside the cave. I don’t know if there is an owlet deeper in the nest but will hopefully find out as time progresses.

Nikon D750, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, Induro GHB2 gimbal head, Nikon SB 800 speed light, MAGMOD MagBeam flash extender, @ 600 mm, 1/80s, f/6.3, ISO 400,

 

MERGING TO A PANORAMA

Click photo for a full view ------

I mentioned before the great vistas you may find if you travel through West Virginia or on the Blue Ridge in Virginia. This panorama image is from our last day in West Virginia. We visited the very interesting Droop Mountain State Park, which has seen some bloody battles during the civil war in 1863. The view to the east includes the Blue Ridge in Virginia on the horizon, which was our destination for the second half of this trip.

It is hard to catch it all in a single shot if there is an almost 180 degree view over the country. The image was made from six photos in portrait orientation, which were merged in Adobe Lightroom Classic CC to a single panorama. This sounds complicated but took less than two minutes in post process.

Nikon D750, Sigma 150mm / f2.8 APO EX DG HSM, @1/250 s, f6.3, ISO 100, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, KIRK BH-3 ball head;

‘ROMANCING’ A RAILROAD BRIDGE

Mississippi River, Swivel-Railroad bridge, Dubuque, Iowa -----

Some of my favorite subjects for architecture photography are the bridges across the Mississippi River. Unless it is a totally new subject that I haven’t shot before, there has to be a certain quality of light before I consider to take the camera out of the bag. This happened one evening earlier this month at the swivel railroad bridge in Dubuque. I had never made any close photos at the north side of the bridge and discovered just recently the access for this shooting location.

By the way, these bridges are a great subject to become familiar with new gear, like cameras, lenses, or teleconverters. Learning about depth of field, light fall off, sharpness, etc. in a controlled environment, but still with an interesting subject in front of the lens, is priceless (beats test shots in the backyard by far 😊).

This photo is another try to ‘romance’ my landscape photos with Macphun’s Luminar software. I still have a tear in my eye because the good old NIK collection is on it’s way out, but any time I gain more experience with Luminar I love it a little more. It is intuitiv for someone who has worked with Adobe Lightroom and NIK before, but I can see why it might be a little overwhelming in the beginning for someone who is new in post processing their images. There are a lot decisions that can be made how to process an image and I will be the first one to admit, overdoing it is very easy…

WORKFLOW FOR LANDSCAPES

Mississippi River, Dubuque, Iowa --------    

It was quiet here in the blog for a week. We had good friends from Germany visiting and although the camera was always with me while we showed them Dubuque and the Mississippi Valley, there was no time to write a new blog post.

Thursday evening we went for a cruise on the Mississippi River, followed by some beer and food on the deck of “Catfish Charlie’s”, a popular restaurant at the river. I could not stay in my seat when the setting sun put some magic on the clouds and boats in the marina… 😊

For this photo my usual landscape post process workflow was applied to the RAW file. I start in Adobe Lightroom for small corrections of the shadows and highlights if necessary. Many landscape photos benefit from the use of the Dehaze slider and sharpening and noise reduction are of course mandatory. If necessary “spot removal” is applied to get rid of any spots from sensor dust in the camera. I than open the file in Photoshop as a Smart Object, a layer that has the RAW data embedded. This allows me to make changes at a later time in case I change my mind about any previous adjustments. The NIK Color Efex Pro 4 plug-in is still my best friend when it comes to romance the image. Most of the time I enhance the tonal contrast, color contrast, and darken the edges of an image slightly. There are tons of filters in CEP but I only use what benefits the photo. It is easy to overdue things. 

Google, who owns NIK, has recently announced that they will not longer support this product. With other words it may stop working when a new operating system comes out or Adobe makes changes to their software. This is the reason that I currently test Macphun’s software Luminar. I use it the same way as the NIK collection, I apply it as a filter to my smart object. This is a non-destructive way to work with the photo and if I want to make changes at a later time, I can always revert to the original file and settings. Many other photographers write good things about it and have already replaced the NIK plug-ins with Luminar.

The last step in my workflow is “border police”, the removal of anything around the edges that distracts from the subject, like a small branch sticking in from the side or a piece of paper that is just an eyesore in the photo. This all sounds like a lot of work for anybody who is new to post processing but usually I do not work longer than 5 - 10 minutes on one of my landscape pictures. The trick is to work with presets that I have created or copied from other photographers. I use them in Lightroom, Photoshop, and with the NIK software. Luminar is new to me. It comes with a number of presets but finding the right settings for my own photography may take a little time...

STITCHING A PANO TOGETHER

Click for larger image! --------

We had a dull, dreary, and rainy day and as a result no new pixels made it onto the memory card today. Not a big deal and it was a perfect time to browse through older images and clean up the photo library this evening.

During my recent visit at Mono Lake on the east side of the Sierra Nevada I made a few attempts to shoot some panorama images. As mentioned in an earlier post, it was extremely windy that day and so I shot handhold the whole time. I remember my first attempts to make a digital panorama, about 8 - 9 years ago, were a nightmare in post process. Thanks to the amazing software capabilities of Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop (I used Lightroom for this photo) it is really a breeze to stitch several photos together for a panorama these days.

So why even doing it? On a website, like this blog, a panorama looks most of the time tiny, depending how big your computer screen or mobile device is. It is the printing that makes all the difference. This picture was made from four photos. The content needs to overlap a little but at the end it led to an image with over 12,000 pixels on the long side. This allows to make a print 40 inch wide (~ 1 meter) or even larger without any loss of detail.

RETRO AND CLOUDS (AND SOME FINISHING THOUGHTS)

Orlando, Florida

Looks like vacation again, doesn’t it? No, I just returned from GraphExpo, the annual trade show of the printing industry in North America. This year it was for the first time in Orlando, Florida. Attending the show as an exhibitor does not leave much time to enjoy the city or visit any of the big entertainment places, like Disneyland or SeaWorld.

Busy places like Orlando are anyway not my cup of tea and I’m definitely not a fan of the heat and humidity down in Florida. But there is one weather related feature I really like. Clouds and giant thunderheads showed up every day and this can always lead to some interesting pictures. The photo was made through the glass of my hotel room window in the Cabana Bay Beach Resort - Universal Orlando, which features a retro theme that takes you back to the 1950’s and 60’s. 

These were not the most impressive clouds we saw, but I like how the twilight goes together with light and colors of the hotel. The RAW file was developed in Adobe Lightroom and afterwards the photo was finished as a smart object in Adobe Photoshop, with some filters of Google’s NIK collection for tonal and overall contrast applied. Usually I do noise reduction in Lightroom if necessary, and that works pretty well for me. Shooting with ISO 500 and through the thick glass of a window created more noise in the picture than I like. As a remedy I used NIK’s Define 2 noise reduction filter and that took care of the problem.

LIBRARY CLEAN UP

Mule Deer, Theodore Roosevelt NP

The year comes slowly but surely to an end and I use the evenings to tidy my 2015 photo archive. I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC to organize my photo library since many years. It still feels good to find photos that have potential to be published, at least here in the blog. Beside that I always have some future projects in my head that need some time to grow and using “collections” in Lightroom helps me to shape them without changing the structure of the photo library. Everybody has probably a different way to organize their files. I prefer time folders (one for each month) and use keywords in order to find any photo later by its content. This sounds like a lot of work (it really isn't) but I believe for a wildlife photographer it is important to display all photos of a particular species with just one easy click. It allows to re-evaluate previous work and compare it to the results of the latest shooting session. For me this is essential to see if improvements were made, or to draw conclusions and prepare for the next time a critter or light situation present in front of the lens.