Taking photos in dappled light...help!

[vawitt]

This week's photo theme challenge is roads/trails. I have a higher-level P&S (Oly 570 UZ) where I can make manual settings, but I usually shoot on one of the "scene" shots or auto. As a result, I get a lot of blown-out sunshine spots, or gray foliage that should really be deep green.

Is there a basic recipe (ISO, aperture, etc.) for shooting in dappled light? Any help appreciated! I can figure HOW to change my cam settings, but not sure WHAT to set to. Plan to do more study when I get home, but for now, help save my vacation pictures? :o:)

~Val

[lexcell]

Hi Val,
Depending on the contrast range of your dappled light something is going to have to give....either blown out highlights or blocked up shadows. To remove or reduce the blown out highlights, you will need to get out of the picture modes and into P, A, S or even manual. If you can go into an auto mode, you can dial in minus exposure compensation to darken the scene. If in manual, set the exposure based on the meter then begin to close down the lens or speed up the shutter speed until the highlights are gone.

[vawitt]

Thanks, Laurie. We are off to a hike-through-a-tropical-jungle botanical gardens this AM, so I'll give these ideas a try...

Here's hoping!

~Val in balmy HI

[TonyW]

Get into the habit of looking at the histogram after the shot - I'm sure your camera has one. Check for blown flashing highlights and if too many dial the exposure compensation down a stop and shoot again. Also it's a good idea to use flash if you can to help fill in the shadows. The one I did this morning for that photo theme used flash and had the exposure compensation dialed down 1.5 stops. It's not great (it would have taken several exposures at different settings and then combining them to work properly) but I was in a hurry (to escape from the bugs) and did the best I could in very difficult lighting conditions by using the histogram.

Tony

[ljameso1]

or take multiple exposures and join the hdr thread.

[lexcell]

An excellent suggestion, Linda. I am just beginning to play with HDR using Photomatix and wow! It opens up a whole new world!!!

[Not4wood]

I dont know if your camera can do it, but besides all of the great ideas mentioned, have you thought about shooting in Raw instead of JPG?

When shooting for HDR, are you supposed to shoot in Raw or JPG? If you are do you open all of the images in ACR and batch correct?

[lexcell]

You can shoot in either RAW or jpeg for HDR....it just depends on how much resolution and what file size you need. A RAW HDR can be a huge file. Personally, I shoot in RAW and process them all as is to a tif and once the HDR tweaking has been accomplished, I finish the image in Photoshop.

[ljameso1]

I typically open them in acr and select all. I do clarity/vibrance/sharpen and correct the white balance if I screwed it up. Ignore hilight/shadow warnings and don't touch exposure-that's what photomatix is for.

[Not4wood]

I typically open them in acr and select all. I do clarity/vibrance/sharpen and correct the white balance if I screwed it up. Ignore hilight/shadow warnings and don't touch exposure-that's what photomatix is for.

I've been hearing about using Sharpen in ACR. I have seen comments that you can sharpen slightly but to not over do it. You can mess up your image a bit if you over sharpen by using ACR and you can always sharpen it in Photoshop. I have Nik Sharpener, and have a feature for sharpening in ACR as well.

Now, does this statement hold true for HDR as well or are you supposed to Not Sharpen in PhotoMatrix?

I have never seen PhotoMatrix, can someone you post a link for the Masses for this wonderful HDR Program?

Thanks for all of the info in this thread.

[Joe M]

I've been hearing about using Sharpen in ACR. I have seen comments that you can sharpen slightly but to not over do it. You can mess up your image a bit if you over sharpen by using ACR and you can always sharpen it in Photoshop. I have Nik Sharpener, and have a feature for sharpening in ACR as well.

Now, does this statement hold true for HDR as well or are you supposed to Not Sharpen in PhotoMatrix?

I have never seen PhotoMatrix, can someone you post a link for the Masses for this wonderful HDR Program?

Thanks for all of the info in this thread.

Sharpening is one of those areas that you can get very confused with if you read what everyone says on the internet, I know I did.

I've decided to go with what Scott Kelby says on most things when it comes to processing images. Especially since I've spent so much money on his books and training.

Sharpening in ACR is great. It's similar to sharpening the L channel in LAB. It sharpens the image's luminosity and not the color. His suggestion is that if you are doing most of your processing in ACR go ahead and sharpen there. But if you are going to be doing a lot of processing in Photoshop you should sharpen there at the end of your processing.

As far as HDR I do similar to what Linda does but a little different. It's been my experience after processing many HDR images that Photomatix can sometimes add softness to your image. Especially when you start using the option to reduce ghosting artifacts.

On some images you may want softness. But I would rather start with a clean sharp image and then add my own softness in Photoshop.

What I do now is open the RAW files together in ACR and only sharpen. It does seem to produce a better image.

Here is the link for Photomatix (http://www.hdrsoft.com/).

[ljameso1]

There is an excellent video in the subscriber area about acr sharpening that will help you to avoid overdoing it. Photomatix doesn't have a sharpener feature. It's pretty much for combining exposures. I like the clarity slider in addition to sharpening as it really crisps things up.

[Not4wood]

Thanks for the link and the info.

Since I have been spending money on the important things I cant see spending money on this baby. I have heard that you can do the merging for HDR in CS2, obviously to me this is a specialty program but since CS2 and CS3 are top of the Line what kind of differences are there for using Photomatrix and the Adobe Photoshop programs?

About Sharpening:
Now you've confused me. Up till now, I start my workflow in ACR and try to get as close as I can to what I want, then fine tune my images in Elements. Noise reduction (no plug in yet spent this money on Nik Sharpener LOL), color, contrast/shadow, retouch/spot you get the idea then sharpen last before I crop, set size, then frame and insert copyright. I have been looking at Nik Sharpener and it can sharpen the Raw image in ACR before Photoshop as well as in the normal workflow.

Now I cant do these things in ACR so from what your telling me of what you know I shouldn't sharpen with using Nik in ACR and stick to Photoshop? I do know that your supposed to remove noise and adjust colors before you sharpen, I can understand this but then why would Nik be used or even offer to sharpen in ACR? I am just trying to get a handle on my workfloy since I am still new to this whole Digital Darkroom thingy.

Keeping on this topic between Raw and the final image in JPG I was going DNG for a while but now I'm back to the psd format. Laurie made a comment that she uses TIFF and I've also been hearing that a lot of people have been switching over or have been using TIFF for a while. Can I ask why or what are the reasons to choose one over the over? I cant see any benefits except I had found DNG was annoying me so I stopped.

[Joe M]

Merging images into an HDR file is only half the battle. They also have to be Tone Mapped. Photoshop can Tone Map an HDR file but it's much easier in Photomatix or some other dedicated program.

When I talked about sharpening I was telling you what Scott Kelby says in his book Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers. He is a pretty smart guy about these things.

From what you wrote about DNG, PSD, and TIFF you may be a little confused. DNG (Digital Negative) is just a RAW format from Adobe. For example, my camera allows me to save my RAW files as a DNG. After they are processed I save them as a JPG, PSD, or TIFF, depending on the purpose.

[ljameso1]

The cost of photomatix+elements is much less than CS any version. A pro I know describes the hdr processor in CS as bland like kodachrome and photomatix more like velvia. so if you like saturated images probably won't be happy with CS hdr. If you already have nik could certainly use for sharpening instead of acr. The reason we sharpen in acr is raw files have no in camera sharpening unlike jpegs which do. You get to decide how much sharpening applied on the front end as opposed to the camera program deciding. This is different than the final sharpening done before printing.

[Not4wood]

OK, thnx LindaJ.

As far as the formats, did I say I was confused? In my camera, I shoot Raw, and that particular format is .NEF I then have the option of using another None Compressed format to work in before I convert my final image to JPG. Working in DNG, to me is like a PSD format. With layers and all the details. DNG is not a Raw format out of the camera as far as I know, its a working format that Potoshop uses. Just like JPG format in your camera is another option, you may not like it LOL but its there.

I have never heard that DNG is a Raw Format, its just called Digital Negative and is a working file format like TIF, PSD and the others.

[Joe M]

"In digital photography, the Digital Negative (DNG) file format is a royalty free RAW image format designed by Adobe Systems. Its specification was announced on September 27, 2004.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Negative_(file_format)#cite_note-adobe2004-0) The same day, Adobe introduced Digital Negative to the market with its free Adobe DNG Converter program...." Here is the Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Negative_(file_format)).

From Digital Photography Review, information on the Pentax K10D:

Image formats • JPEG (EXIF 2.21) - Best / Better / Good
• RAW (PEF or DNG) + JPEG
Here is the Link (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk10d/page2.asp).

[Not4wood]

Right, and its becoming so big that it might even become the Standard Format for all other programs as well.

I've heard that everyones workflow isn't as different eventually just slight changes.

My Nikon's Raw Format is NEF like I had mentioned and I have to convert to DNG. I've done it with one photo session but I didn't like it and was hard to get used to. It felt awkward to use and for some reason the PSD Format works better for me and I also think it depends on what puter or how much memory you have to make it easier. To each his own I guess.

I rather have my images open with ACR start work there, and go with a possible slight sharpen then open it in either Elements or CS2 reduce noise and alter curves and then convert this image to PSD format to finish correcting. Once done I then convert this image to jpg format to show.

Oh, as far as Scott Kelby? He probably has been the best instructor with his books and videos. Probably as important to Digital Photography as the discovery of Pizza or the Napkin................