Russ Butler wrote:
> The scans are 'cheap' as noted and the software is outdated (photosle
> 3.0 a freebie with pagemaker in ~2001). What should be my first step?
> Better software or scans?
>
Tough question. As you can see, there is a lot that can be done with the
scans you have. In that sense, you may be happy to stick with these
Costco scans, they are not bad, but not as good as what's on the film.
In the examples you posted, there are only modest problems with lost
highlights at the level of web presentation in foaming water, sky/clouds
and sand. Considering the film used, there is undoubtedly more detail
available there. After some quality variations and scans with lost
highlight and shadow detail, I gave up and got my own film scanner.
As to software, I'm sort of stuck with PS. I started with 5.0 LE that
came with a scanner and have upgraded a couple of times to CS(8). I
occasionally give demos of others a try, but don't see that they can do
anything PS can't do and often it appears that doing what I already know
how to do in PS would require learning quite different processes. In
particular, I find the use of layers comfortable and intuitive and would
not happily give it up. So I'm not much help there.
At least as important as scan source and editing software is simply
learning the basics of post processing, understanding histograms, how to
use USM for local contrast enhancement and sharpening and how to use
levels and curves tools. I can't say where to learn this, as I'm a learn
by doing type. I offer a few tips below.
Crucial, if possible, for doing extensive adjustments on any 8 bit image
is converting to 16 bit for the work, then back to save. Some images go
through adjustment fine in 8 bit and others go anywhere from just
slightly wrong, but hard to put my finger on it to downright bad. I
suspect this is a reason so many people find editing images frustrating.
>> I hope you don't mind; I took the liberty of doing quick touch-ups of
>> most of them, just to show what's hiding under the very flat scans
>> <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/RussButler/index.htm>.
> Mind? I appreciate your taking the time. Thanks.<big snip>
> I surely should have cropped the pic of my grandson, it's SO much
> better.
I just couldn't resist, such a nice shot without all that distraction. I
also slightly adjusted it.
> Only excuse is that I had many rolls to deal with and was in a
> mindless kind of batch mode adjusting, resizing, & putting them into my
> hand rolled html 'albums'. (http://nfs.nfshost.com/pics/PICS.HTM &
> http://nfs.nfshost.com/pics/PICS2.HTM)
>
Some nice stuff in there! You have a good eye for composition.
> I tried to duplicate your Grand Canyon version but couldn't get it. What
> did you do? That should help with my processing skills or software
> upgrade decision.
>
With scenics, I often separate different areas and adjust them
separately. I did this on several of your shots, but most obviously on
the GC shot. With that sort of image, it's just not possible to get it
right with one overall set of adjustments. For a similar kind of
situation, take a look at my variation on a GC shot of AG's. With the
rollover setup, you can pretty easily see the three separate areas, with
no adjustment to the foreground and lots to the background layers, when
switching back and forth. Funny thing is that they sometimes look less
like separate, overlaid areas after being adjusted to similar
characteristics than they did in the original.
Here's a simple visual breakdown of the process for a different kind of
shot <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/MPhotos/Damariscotta.htm>.
Here are two alternate versions of a B&W shot Jonas posted
<http://moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/Sum05.htm>.
Jonas asked how it was done, and I replied:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonas Otter wrote:
> If you have any suggestions as to what adjustments are needed and how much of
> them, or a pointer to a tutorial or something, I would be eternally grateful
> :-)
>
>
Well, often happy to oblige. :-)
<snip material irrelevant to the present subject>
The steps are <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Tut01bw.htm>:
1. The full image from the scanner, downsized.
2. The same image, smaller, and its histogram. Note how so much of the tonal
info is clustered down at the bottom. That can happen naturally with some
images, but is clearly wrong for this natural scene with a full range of
different tones in the subject. Note on the histogram the position of the
black, white and center point sliders and the numeric settings at the top.
3. This is the result, image and histogram, of the above settings for the
Levels command. Much more balanced, not so dark, but still pretty dull looking.
4. This shows the Unsharp Mask settings for Local Contrast Enhancement that I
used in PS and the result. This is not sharpening in the conventional sense.
With such a large radius setting, it does something I don't fully understand in
a technical way. What I do know is that this sort of use of unsharp mask
enhances contrast locally, rather than globally, and often has the effect of
"lifting a veil" from over the image.
5. This shows the settings of the Curves command that I used and their result.
This adds contrast in the middle tonal area and compresses tonal graduation in
the highest and
lowest ranges. For reasons I don't understand, this control works the opposite
in color and gray scale in PS, so the slight downward adjust of the center
point actually lightens the image central tones. In another editor, this
direction might be the opposite.
6. The histogram here shows the result of the last two actions. The little
hillock near the top of the last histogram has been pushed partially off the
end, resulting in loss of lots of highlight detail.
This is ok (and I knew it was happening), because I noted early on an odd
characteristic of this image, one part looks like it was exposed differently
than the rest. Not so, of course, but it looks that way. So I selected that
area and copied it to a separate layer, unaffected by the above adjustments. I
then separately adjusted it. The layer as adjusted is shown here. The
adjustments have made it quite a bit darker, but have not blown the highlights.
7. This shows the above layer combined with the rest of the image and resulting
histogram. See how the hillock has moved back down and blended in with the rest
of the histogram. There are small lines at the top and bottom, representing
slight loss of tonal detail at the very top and bottom. I could have avoided
this, but black and white points slightly less than the full range are pretty
normal and they fit the result I wanted. Notice that the new layer is slightly
lighter than above. I adjusted its opacity to lighten its effect a bit. I chose
to bring it to tonal balance with adjacent areas, eliminating the differential
brightness. One could also lighten it separately to retain the differential
brightness effect of the original to whatever degree one wishes.
8. The adjusted image, sharpened slightly in downsizing.
The degree to which one may wish to do any of theses steps is, of
course, a matter of personal artistic taste, but this general set of
actions is a useful way to approach any image with wonky tonal
distribution. flat contrast, veiled detail, etc. I would sometimes use a
different order of actions.
The really important things are to stay in 16 bit and not to allow highlight or
shadow detail to be lost unintentionally. This will not uncommonly require
contrast and/or brightness adjustments before Curves and especially LCE
adjustments to allow room at the ends for their effects. Sometimes this will
require going back a step, adjusting brightness/contrast, then going forward
again. I always do these adjustments in separate layers at first, so I can turn
the changes on and off while looking at their effects on different parts of the
image and on the histogram. Often if the result is close, but a little
overdone, adjustment of the layer opacity provides an easier way to make subtle
adjustments than going back and forth making adjustments to the command
parameters.
Hope this is of assistance.
-------------------------------------
Moose
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