Liseth Photo

Bird on Pensacola Beach

2008-09-06T00:26:00.000-07:00

How To Improve Digital Print Tonality

2007-09-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 12 August 2007

By Ctein

I'd been holding this item for a future column, but the recent article on B&W digital photography makes it pertinent. One of the commenters perceptively noted that digital prints often (if not always) lacked the subtle tonality and fine gradation of traditional prints.

I'm not sure precisely where this occurs in the process. My hunch is that it has less to do with the camera and more to do with the 8-bit drivers, displays, and printers, and the RIPping engines that drive those printers. But really, I'm just waving my arms here. I don't know. In the next few years, we'll see fully 16-bit native drivers in the major applications and devices, and then will see if I'm right.

In the meantime, digital prints can have a slightly flat aspect to them; subtle variations in tone and color, "texture" or "snap" if you will, seem to get suppressed.

Bill Atkinson taught me a nice Photoshop fix for that. It works so well, and it's so easy to do, that I now use it on every photograph I print out.

Here's what you do. Pull up Unsharp Masking. Set the Amount for somewhere between 8 and 15% (depending on taste, subject, and printer). Set the Radius for around 60 pixels. Set the Threshold to 0. Let'er rip!

Here are the settings I used to produce the illustration below. This is a bit on the strong side, but I want to make sure the results are clearly visible on your display. For normal printing, you'll probably like a percentage value close to 10%.

You'll find that subtle tonal and color separation has been improved and increased without a commensurate increase in overall contrast. It's a real miracle worker.

On the left is the image before Unsharp Masking. On the right is the same image afterwards. The overall contrast really isn't any different, but there's an impressive improvement in the fine tonal separation.

Here's what's going on. Unsharp masking increases the difference between the target pixel and the surrounding pixels. With a small Radius it has little effect on areas of uniform tone. But when it hits a boundary, where there are both bright and dark pixels, it makes the bright pixels brighter and the dark pixels darker than the average. Consequently, there's an edge enhancement that makes the picture look sharper.

When you use it in the fashion I've just described, it doesn't see edges; it sees the average tonality over a broad area. If the target pixel differs from that average, it increases the difference by a small amount. Subtle variations in tone and texture get enhanced.

There may be a slight increase in the total value range of the photograph, because highlights are frequently small areas that fall within the 60-pixel radius. So you want to apply this filter before you do your last bit of curves fine-tuning to the image tone and contrast. Other than that, it doesn't really matter when you do it.

Try it; you'll like it!

________________

Ctein

Featured Comment by Nuno de Matos Duarte: "Here's another useful tip. I've been using the Local Contrast technique for a while and I've notice that it tends to blow the highlights and the shadows. So try this variation: use the values of Unsharp Mask suggested by Ctein in an Adjustment Layer. Go to: Layer Style > Blending Options. Go to: Blend If > This Layer, and split the cursors to the following values: 51/70 and 185/215. Create an Action to make it easy in the future. In my opinion, this technique works even better this way."

Posted at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBack (0)

Who are you looking at?

2007-02-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

Nice bird on Perdido Key.

2007-01-24T20:38:00.000-08:00

Have you ever come face to face with a large snake. Do not try this at home.

2007-01-22T15:32:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the photographer has to make money and he makes ads for others. I recently made this ad for an import company in Florida.

2007-01-14T20:10:00.000-08:00

Time to go fishing. Brought a couple og big guns in case the bad guys would show up!

2007-01-14T19:54:00.000-08:00

White heron, planning his day in Mobile Bay.

2007-01-11T21:43:00.000-08:00

Inn for landing.

Life at Pedido Key Florida

2007-01-06T22:11:00.000-08:00

Life at the beach, Jan 2007

Silverback Gorilla

2006-12-15T12:10:00.000-08:00

This fella was guarding his remote island. Notice his escape vehicle in the background.

Red Tail Hawk

2006-11-25T20:57:00.000-08:00

Immature Red Tail Hawk. This is a wild hawk captured only a couple weeks before this pictures was taken. The bird is currently in training to become a hunter. It will hunt for one season and let go. Fantastic to see such a magnificent bird up close.

2006-11-01T13:03:00.000-08:00

Another Pelican snarled up in fishing lines. This pelican was unable to move since its legs were tangled up in a fishing line. I did not see if there was a hook stuck in him. I called the local animal rescue, they were unable to pick up the bird. They would help if we brought the bird in. I did not have the equipment or car or help to bring him in. A couple friends of mine took upon themselves to rescue the bird the next day. They caught him and cut the lines from his feet and he was able to fly away and probably eat some. They also found a second Pelican with "something" stuck in his beak. They were able to dislodge it and let him go. Thanks to those volunteers that came to the Pelicans rescue.

2006-10-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

Sunsets after storms are ususally spectular. This one was no exception. These children were playing on Perdido Key after a mini hurricane.

2006-10-21T23:58:00.000-07:00

Heron on Perdido Key, Florida

2006-10-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

Small birds are hard to photograph. This one was good so I got quite close. This is a sanderling, a little bird with quick steps. It was on the beach in Perdido Key Florida.

2006-10-14T16:06:00.000-07:00

Life must go on. Clowning is hard work, particularly if nobody laughs.

2006-10-14T15:51:00.000-07:00

Coke anybody?

2006-10-14T15:45:00.000-07:00

Small fishing village on an island in the North sea.

2006-08-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

You can include you own scanned signature In these Photoshop framed pictures.

2006-08-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

This is an example of Photoshop framing. Making these frames can be recorder in to an action and played back automatically for other pictures. The frame makes the pictures complete.

When the Canon D60 became too slow.

2006-08-06T16:26:00.000-07:00

I have been shooting with the Canon EOS D60 for three years. Most of the time it has performed as expected, maybe a little slow at starting up, but acceptable 95% of the time. This camera has gone all over the world from sea level to 17,000 ft altitude. What most of photographed objects had in common was slow or no movement.
This all changed when a group of photographers went on a Black Skimmer shoot in Florida. To get the best quality and the most flexibility I use the RAW format. It took less than 5 min to figure out that this camera was chocking on continuous RAW shooting. After 5-7 RAW shots the camera would pause for up to 30 sec to clear the buffer. The situation improved some after switching to jpeg, but now we're compromising.
An ever bigger problem than the speed, was the accuracy for the tracking focus. We were shooting fast flying birds from 30-200 ft, flying sideways, towards you, up, down, etc. It was very difficult to get the focus to track the bird. In fact of the several hundred action shoots, less than 10% were useful. This is not all due to focus and speed, but it would account for the biggest share of the missed and bad photos.
The last reason has nothing to do with the camera, but the challenging situation. Imagine a bird flying 30 mph suddenly appears in front of you. It is relatively easy to spot with you wide angle eyes. But if you want a decent shoot you have to zoom in. Finding the fast moving bird in a small field of view is very challenging indeed.
One of the fellows was shooting with a Nikon D2x. He filled up 10 GB in less than an hour. The Nikon was shooting Raw (NEF) format at the speed of an M-16 (5 fps) and it never chocked. A third person was shooting with a Canon EOS 20D, with better results than the D60. The frame rate is higher and the focusing is better.
The other aspect of the shoot was the type of lens that was used. I personally used a 28-135mm lens. With the 1.6x factor it is equivalent to a 45-220mm. This proved to be a decent choice for close flybys , but a little short for anything else. The Nikon fellow was using a 70-200mm lens, 1.5x factor and that was probably the right lens for the job. The final shooter was using a 100-400mm lens and it was to big and heavy and only proved useful in 400mm zoom of still birds.

2006-07-12T08:58:00.000-07:00

When was the last time you were in the Artic Ocean 300 miles northwest of Point Barrow Alaska, 500 miles north of the Bering Strait? This photo was taken 17 May 2006.

2006-07-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

Notice the difference in the "old" illustration and the photo?

2006-07-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

Pictures from New York harbor. I have a similar picture taken many years ago with the striking difference of two additional tall buildings. Anyhow, the Statue of Liberty is looks good there in front of America�s business capital.

2006-07-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

Now this is a fine pot! It is rare these days to find high quality pottery. Many people are used to low price/low quality pots from box stores. Now there are handmade pottery available for those who value the pottery as much as their plants. These pots are lifetime investments. They will never go out of style, they have been around for a couple of thousand years already. The quality ensures a lifetime of enjoyment.

2006-05-06T11:54:00.000-07:00

Moors Golf Course, Milton Florida. This was taken during Roy Jones, Jr. Golf Tournament May 2006.

2006-05-06T07:46:00.001-07:00

How to unlock a Cingular Treo 650

This subject is not directly related to photography, but important enough for those of you that do any international travel and have a tri or quad band GSM phone. GSM is used extensively throughout the world, both in Asia and Europe. In order to use your phone over there you have two options. Connecting to local services using your current SIM card - VERY Expensive. Or, you can buy a prepaid SIM card in the country you're visiting. You will then become a local user and pay local rates.

In order to do the latter, your phone has to be unlocked. To prevent customers from switching providers by changing SIM cards, all cell phone companies lock their phone so only their card can be used. To unlock the phone, call Cingular a couple weeks before you go on an overseas trip and tell them you would like to unlocked your phone. They should give you an eight digit code; anything else is confusion or slowdown tactics. Once you receive the code, do the following key sequence to unlock the phone.

Press call button, (green phone), then
*#*#eight digit code#
press call button again.

You should get a message noting that your phone is now unlocked.

Now the phone is capable of using any SIM card including prepaid ones. Once you get back to the US you just plug in your regular Cingular SIM card and you're in business.

2006-05-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

White Balance. This picture was taken in RAW mode. The camera was set to Auto White Balance. When shooting in Raw the White Balance is not applied to the photo, it just shows how it would look using the current White Balance setting. To get an accurate reading for the current light, we use a Neutral Grey/White card as reference.
In shooting RAW, this can be done before or after the current photo as long as the light has not changed appreciably. The next image shows the Grey card photo, and the current photo with corrected White Balance. It is important to note that this card is different from the 18% grey Kodak card. It was designed for Exposure correction, but it is not color neutral, so it is not recommended as a White Balance reference card.

2006-05-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

Neutral Grey card used to set reference White Balance.

2006-05-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

The same picture after correcting the White Balance using the Neutral Grey card as reference.

2006-05-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

A Monastary outside of Atlanta, Gerogia. It was built during and after the seccond world war by a group of monks. The place is still going strong. This picture was taken in April 2006.

2006-04-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

Uptown wineglass in Downtown Pensacola.

2006-04-04T07:32:00.000-07:00

Pensacola Jazzfest 2006 -- base. This is the base being played a couple of pictures down.

2006-04-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

Pensacola Jazzfest 2006.

2006-04-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

Pensacola Jazzfest 2006.

2006-04-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

Tampa Florida. Picture taken from the Plant Park at the University of Tampa.

2006-04-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

Southern Alabama Pecan Orchards

2006-04-04T07:22:00.000-07:00

Where did the people go?

2006-04-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

Springtime in Southern Alabama - Magnolia Springs

2006-04-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

The Double Creasted Cormorant evaluating his options. This and the following pictures were taken at the Gulf Breeze Zoo in March 2006

2006-04-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

What are you looking at, up there? Tough for ostriches to look up. It tilts its head to the side to get at least one eye on the overhead action.

2006-04-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

Sorry, just up!

2006-04-03T06:49:00.000-07:00

Handsome!

2006-04-03T06:47:00.000-07:00

Symmetry!

2006-04-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

Passed out!

2006-04-03T06:43:00.000-07:00

Somebody has to be the pretty one.

2006-04-03T06:41:00.000-07:00

Bring your camera closer son! Just a little bit closer.

2006-04-03T06:40:00.000-07:00

Tough to fly with just one and a half wing!

2006-04-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

Zoos really trying hard to create a "Natural" environment. Llamas are native to the high altitudes and cold weather of the South American Andes. The Zebras are native to the central and eastern plains of Africa.

2006-04-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

What do you do when a Rhino charges?

2006-03-14T19:10:00.000-08:00

Providence Canyon State Park

2006-03-14T19:08:00.000-08:00

Providence Canyon State Park

2006-03-14T19:07:00.000-08:00

Providence Canyon State Park, Utah - NO, California - NO, Arizona - NO, Georgia - YES! This is Georgia's "Little Grand Canyon". A natural wonder that was caused by erosion due to poor faming practices in the 1800s. Most of man's mistakes don't turn out this good.

2006-03-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

Here is boxing fight between a sea gull and a Brown Pelican (Pelicanus occidentalis).

2006-03-09T07:13:00.000-08:00

For you birdlovers out there, what type of gull is this? This is same kind of gull as in the previous picture. To my best knowledge it is either a Laughing Gull (Larus atricilla) or a Franklin's Gull (Larus pipixcan). The picture was taken in early March 2006 in Pensacola, Florida.

2006-03-02T06:35:00.000-08:00

George is trying to loose a few pounds.

2006-03-02T06:33:00.001-08:00

The new Z car.

2006-03-02T06:33:00.000-08:00

Who cares about water front living. How about IN the water?

2006-03-02T06:31:00.000-08:00

This picture was taken during our scuba meet last night.

2006-02-09T19:41:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in the previous picture (next) the rain came down in buckets. We manged to stay dry though in the barn with cows, pigs, sheep, etc.

2006-02-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

Taking pictures in South Central Florida. This picture was taken on a stormy night after dark. The strange red light on the grass was from a phosphorous light that was used to light up the barn on the farm. It started pouring down right after this picture was taken, i.e, see previous picture.

2006-01-18T18:08:00.000-08:00

Dinosaurs walking around in the desert. Actually these are cypress threes in the swamp at the University of Lafayette at Louisiana.

2006-01-18T17:58:00.000-08:00

Cypress swamp at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. This is the center of Campus and truly a representation of the nature in Southern Louisiana. This mini swamp has alligators, turtles and other swamp creatures.

2006-01-18T17:52:00.000-08:00

Cat says. Take one and leave me alone!

2006-01-18T17:47:00.000-08:00

I told you to take just one, PAL!

2006-01-18T17:37:00.000-08:00

New Year celebration!

2005-12-02T20:19:00.000-08:00

Christmas caroling at the park.

2005-12-02T20:11:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving Pow Wow gone. We missed the Porch Creek Indian Pow Wov and drove around the southern Alabama instead. Cotton was growing this time of year, but this barn must be one of the victims of the many hurricanes we've been having the last couple of years.

2005-12-02T19:53:00.000-08:00

Art festival treasure. This one was not for sale at the art festival, but it might as well have been.

2005-11-08T20:22:00.000-08:00

Halloween clean-up!

2005-11-08T20:11:00.000-08:00

Dracula!

2005-11-08T20:10:00.000-08:00

Witches and Cats!

2005-11-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

Halloween again - getting ready.

Pensacola Interstate Fair

2005-10-28T18:37:00.000-07:00

It's that time again- the Fair. Out local photo club met (I never saw them) at the Fair to catch some moments. The Fair is an interesting mix of professional showmen and local contributors - farmers, photographers, artist, etc.

2005-10-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

Eating flames - thats my job.

2005-10-28T18:33:00.000-07:00

Cow talk.

2005-10-28T18:32:00.001-07:00

Steer for sale!

2005-10-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

Mine is bigger than yours!

2005-10-28T18:31:00.002-07:00

Performing - resting

2005-10-28T18:31:00.001-07:00

Twisting

2005-10-28T18:31:00.000-07:00

Turning

2005-10-28T18:30:00.000-07:00

Swinging

Fixing photos using Picasa

2005-10-14T18:43:00.000-07:00

Most of the photos we take can be improved. Sometimes the light was difficult, too far away, accidents such as crooked picture, etc. All of these fixes can be made relatively easily in Picasa. It is by no means a full photo editor, but if your pictures as close to original intent, Picasa can do wonders. In the majority of cases some minor nudging can make the difference between a good and a great picture. There will always be cases where more flexibility and power is required, well then there is Photoshop. But the convenience of being able to fix 95% of you pictures in your album is valuable.

The following is an example where I was forced to make compromises because of shooting conditions. I could have taken the risk of moving closer or used longer exposure, but chances of success would have dropped dramatically. The compromises made were not completely reversible, but close. A blurry bird or no bird at all would be irreversible.

BTW, this pelican was in bad shape. It had a fish hook in the soft part of its beak and the fishing line was twisted around its feet. It was sitting still, but looked scared and weak. The photo was taken at Joe Patti's seafood in Pensacola, Florida.

2005-10-14T18:42:00.000-07:00

Original image. It is way underexposed and not zoomed in enough. These were real constraints when taking the picture. The wounded pelican was nervous, so I could not get close too it. I was using a 28-135 mm lens. It was also quite dark and I had no tripod. Even though the lens is Image stabilized, I could not risk any longer exposure (1/60). That could have resulted in a blurry image if the bird moved.

2005-10-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

Tuning. Often the automatic tuning will bring up the light levels. Be careful though, it is often too aggressive and you end up with burned out pixels. In some instances this is fine, but not here.

2005-10-14T18:33:00.000-07:00

Crop. This takes care of the "too far away" problem, or "too short lens" problem. But by cropping half the picture we now have a 3 MP picture instead of 6 MP. This is a major comprise and one that would not be feasible for larger prints.

2005-10-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

Sharpen. This last step brings out more details in the bird. The sharpening on this camera, Canon D60, is set to soft by default, so are most other Digital SLR. Sharpening is destructive and a step you want to perform at the end. In most cases I perform sharpening at print time. Many print program sharpens the temporary print file and the original if left unchanged.

Donkey and Montain Lions

2005-10-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

Somebody sent me pictures of a Mule attacking a Mountain Lion, here is a link. I do not know if this is true, but I had a similar experience on a trip to the highlands of Ecuador. We were riding bicycles in the mountains outside Riobamba, at about 11-12,000 feet altitude. We met an old lady with a herd of sheep and a Donkey with tied front legs. We asked her why the legs of the donkey were tied. She said the reason was to keep the donkey from running away. The most interesting part however she revealed herself. The purpose for having the Donkey come along was to protect the sheep from predators. In lieu of this experience, it is not fat fetched to believe the Mule was giving the poor Mountain Lion a lesson.

2005-10-07T20:20:00.000-07:00

The Donkey was the guardian of the sheep.

2005-10-07T20:19:00.000-07:00

Sheep herder in the mountains of Ecuador

The rest of the Show photos

2005-10-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

Here is the remainder of the photos that was on exhibition at the Power of Photography show in Pensacola Florida in September 2005. These pictures were entered in different categories from Children to Wildlife.

2005-10-07T17:58:00.001-07:00

Happy Children, Berle Norway
The children are playing on the grounds of their daycare. I used to go to school there and was glad to see there are still happy children there.

2005-10-07T17:58:00.000-07:00

Good heron, Perdido Key Florida
This heron was the most photogenic bird. I took at least 50 photos of it with or without flash. He was only 6-7 feet away. Good bird.

2005-10-07T17:57:00.001-07:00

Abstract
This is a chimney in one of the many nice houses in Rosemary Beach Florida. I liked the simplicity and how the red top breaks the monotony.

2005-10-07T17:57:00.000-07:00

Condo
This black and white picture was taken on Pensacola Beach Florida after Hurricane Ivan came through and destroyed about 6000 houses. You would think water front property would be considered a liability rather than a privilege after this, but the prices seem only to go one way - up!

2005-10-07T17:56:00.001-07:00

Gullfoss, Iceland
Europe's largest waterfall. Iceland is an amazing country, a volcanic island in the middle of the North Atlantic. It sits right on the border between the European and the American plate. As they drift apart more magma comes up from the earth and makes Iceland a little bigger. Note the lone guy at waters edge.

2005-10-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

Lone swimmer in Rosemary Beach, Florida
The Gulf Coast of Florida has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. This swimmer was enjoying the crystal clear water at Rosemary Beach.

2005-10-07T17:55:00.001-07:00

Icelandic Farm
One of the many isolated houses and farms in

Iceland

. The country has only 300,000 people and of those over half live in the capital Reykjavik.

2005-10-07T17:55:00.000-07:00

Boat houses, Bremanger Norway
This rugged island on the western Norwegian coast has a remarkable nature. As can be seen from this picture you need a boat to get to your boathouse. This is high tide. One can walk to these houses at low tide.

2005-10-07T17:54:00.000-07:00

Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC
There were many people there this day, Memorial Day 2005.