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.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: BOWMAN LAKE, GLACIER NP, MONTANA

Bowman Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana, 2008

As I reorganize my photo library during the winter I come across some pictures that trigger great memories from the time they were created. This one is from September 2008. We had pitched our tent at Bowman Lake in Glacier National Park in Montana. A walk along the lake, with the camera on tripod over my shoulder in the morning, was the first attempt to capture some of the endless beauty Glacier National Park has to offer. Clouds and fog over the lake were lifting and the diffused sun showed up above the mountain ridge.

Only three pictures from that walk in the morning were kept in the archive but due to the lack of knowledge I probably missed a lot of opportunities. My post-processing skills were also still at a beginner’s level at that time and obviously one of the reasons I didn’t touch the file for almost fifteen years. Luckily from day one, since a DSLR camera was in the photo bag (in April 2007), I shot every single image as a RAW file, means all the data are lossless “conserved”. In addition post processing software has evolved tremendously during the last fifteen years. Taking an old photo like this, tweaking and processing it with the latest tools is fun and allows us to share photos, we maybe would not have considered at the time right after they were captured in camera.

So, what was done here? The gray in the sky overpowered all the colors and took a lot away from the scene as I saw it. It was important that the highlights in the sun and reflections of the sun were not blown out and would render in a white “blob” in a print on paper, or just on the screen of the computer. Although the photo was shot at ISO 100, I still used Topaz DeNoise AI for further noise reduction. This fantastic software also does a great job for the basic sharpness every RAW file needs to undergo for a final sharp image. Subtle fining tuning of vibrance, contrast, highlights, and shadows, most of it locally in Adobe Camera RAW with its relatively new mask features, has led to the final image.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2022 #6 - A CLASSIC VIEW

A view I never get tired of, the swivel railroad bridge in Dubuque, Iowa. I made the picture a week ago, when the bridge was open for the barge traffic on the Mississippi River. A “spot light” by the low sitting sun onto the swivel part of the bridge, combined with some lovely clouds, made me push the shutter release button. The photo is pretty much what I saw, with just a little bit of dodge and burn at the cloud reflections on the water. This slight touch in post process reveals what I really had in mind when I took the photo. I know, this classic view has been photographed by many before, including myself. I just couldn’t resist to add another picture… 😉

WOODPECKER AND WHITE BALANCE

Hairy Woodpecker

Every morning several woodpeckers still try to get a snack from our feeders near the house. With four different species you never know who will be the first one. It was the warm light this morning that caught my attention while getting ready for the day. The Hairy Woodpeckers are usually the most skittish ones and I’m always happy if I get a sharp image of one of them.

This was all not very difficult today, the woodpecker moved around while I opened the window carefully, but didn’t fly away and gave me some time to make a few clicks in the first sunlight that hit our woods. However, a mistake was made that needed some correction in post process at the computer. I simply forgot to reset the white balance in the D750 from my last shooting. I had it still at 7400 Kelvin, a setting I use quite often during sunsets when there is some red or orange in the sky. The light was definitely warm but by far not that warm. I hardly ever correct white balance or colors in my wildlife photography but what I saw on the screen was not what I saw this morning. After correcting to “cloudy WB” (6500 K) in Adobe Lightroom, the photo reflects much better how the light had unfold early on this Friday.

Mistakes are good for one thing, they can teach us a lesson for the next time we try to make a new photo. A little nuance in light temperature can make a difference how we tell the story about our wildlife encounters. Sure, we can always “fiddle” at the computer but I still believe in the craft of photography, means get it right in camera.

AUTUMN IN MINNESOTA #11

Bear Head Lake, Minnesota

I admit, this photo was made with some quick instructions shouted across the water. I told Joan to paddle very slowly in front of the tamarack tree, that was for a brief moment perfectly illuminated by the sun. It could have been a great fall shot with its color contrast between the beautiful tamarack and the blue kayak, and as the ice on the cake a nice reflection on the water, if… Yes, if there wasn’t the dead trees in the picture. To be honest I didn’t even see them until I was back home and viewed the pictures on screen. Sure, I can invest another hour and remove all the dead wood from the photo. Photoshop and other software gives us endless possibilities to tinker with an image. But is it worth the time? I clean up a landscape picture if necessary, especially around the edges (called “border police” by other photographers), but I rather go out and shoot again instead of removing a bigger flaw in post process. Every photographer has to make their own decisions about how much time to spend for fixing a problem. Unless I try a new technique in post process I hardly ever exceed ten minutes for working with a RAW file and bring out the romance in the photo. Life is too short and the world doesn’t come to an end if a photo doesn’t get published…

‘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…

IT’S A PROCESS, NOT A TENET

Ruby-throated Hummingbird -------   

My photography friend Kevin stopped in this evening and we had a good time aiming our lenses at hummingbirds and the House Wrens. But most importantly we exchanged thoughts and stories about recent trips and what we learned in the process. Kevin had some questions about my workflow in post process and I showed him how I process my wildlife photography images. I used a photo from last evening, the one of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird shown above, to walk him through the process how things are done in my tiny world of photography.

And here is the thing, for me a published result is not necessarily the end of the story. When I showed Kevin my processing steps I did not crop the original image. There was a little more background on each side of the picture and because of the way the subject is laid out, I played the card of negative space over detail in the subject. Later this evening, back at the computer screen, I zoomed in slightly closer (sounds better than “I cropped the picture”…😉) and actually liked it better this way.

The truth is, this photo is actually about gesture, the way the hummingbird opens its bill and makes noise in order to make its presence known to friends and foes. At the end I felt the story telling gesture comes better to life in the photo as shown above. As always, its a process, not a tenet.

WORKING WITH LUMINAR

Lake Superior, Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario, Canada ----

We have this typical end-of-July-weather right now, very warm and way to humid for my taste. I haven’t been out much for photography this week, except for the daily “yard exercise” with the birds that hang around the house. But of course, I don’t want to post about our house wrens or hummingbirds every other day.

About a month ago I reported about trying out Luminar from Macphun for the post process in my landscape photography. Well, I really like it so far and decided to use it as a Photoshop plug-in instead of the old NIK collection, that will not be supported by Google in the future anymore. The Macphun website has lots of short videos that make it easy to learn about all the different filters and techniques. Luckily there are enough untouched pictures on my hard drive to explore the ins and outs of Luminar. And this is what I do right now to beat the “hot-summer-blues”…😊

This photo was made on a dark and stormy day in Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario, Canada. Lake Superior was in a “bad mood” that day back in September 2016. The dominant color was gray, and all the other colors appeared muted. Luminar helps to improve the tonal contrast and reveal the colors as they appeared in reality. I still have a long way to go with this new software but I like what it does for my landscape photography so far.

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...

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.

3 PICS, 3 WAYS OF TRYING TO GET A PLEASING COMPOSITION

Beside the story telling in my wildlife photography I like to make photos that are esthetically pleasing. I admit, not every picture that tells a story complies with this criteria. At the other hand, not every photo that is a piece of art tells a story about the critter or the environment it lives in. I guess there is an in between and a demand for either side.

Get it right in camera and be done with it is a high bar that I like to jump but this is quite often easier said than done. Here are three pictures from yesterday’s shooting at the Mississippi. Each was made with a pleasing composition in mind but the outcome required more or less correction.

Focussing on just one Canada Goose and panning with the lens led to this shot. No crop, the bird’s position in the frame tells the story of a direct overflight, and the light reflected from the snow on the ground make for a pleasing picture in my books. I wished it would be always that way 😊.

More geese flying by at the same location. The light is again just great. I tried to capture the typical V-shape of the formation and integrated it as a triangle in my composition. Everything worked out good, except for the fact that one goose was cut by the edge of the photo on the left hand side. There was no remedy for that beside removing the bird in question. I didn’t get it right in camera obviously but this small correction made me keep the image.

Over the years I made thousands of photos with a Bald Eagle in flight and I keep still several hundred in my photo library. So, why another one? The shape of the cloud in the background and the way the eagle holds its wings at that moment make it an esthetically pleasing photo for me. Well, but I missed the composition completely by having the eagle dead center. I would not have a problem with that if the eagle would fill most of the frame, but here the cloud is an important part of the photo. It just didn’t look right to me. A small crop on the right and at the bottom came to my rescue. Again, not right in camera, but the photo is much better balanced after the correction in post process.