Lukasz Grabun wrote:
> Dnia 28-06-2007 o 07:47:44 Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx> napisał(a):
>> However, there is more cloud/highlight detail than shows in your posted
>> version. Actually, there's more shadow detail, as well, but I rather
>> like the semi silhouette trees. Whatever the combination of film and
>> scan, the top highlights are all squished together up at the top of the
>> histogram, but may be coaxed to show themselves, making the big white
>> blob of the upper left much more interesting.
>> http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/Lato/Clouds.htm
>>
>
> How did you manage to do that? I've uploaded new version of the image
> (http://grabun.com/zdjecia/lato/05.html) with more highlight detail but
> still the definition of top left cloud in the image you postprocessed
> reveals much more detail. Did you Photoshop's dodge/burn?
>
No, I do use those, but seldom. It's mostly the highlight part of PS
Shadow/Highlight. And I may well have moved the highlight tonalities
around a bit with Curves, as well.
>
>> If you look at the first histogram, you might say "Oh, look at that
>> tall, thin line at the right, the highlights are all blown as one value
>> at the top." And sometimes that is the case, but here, there is a lot of
>> tonal detail available up there.
>>
>
> Odd. There's no clipped highlights in the original scan:
>
> http://grabun.com/tmp/hist.png
>
> The same is with websized version.
>
I wasn't saying they were clipped, only that a casual look at the
histogram, as it came up in PS, might lead one to believe so.
> I do agree, however, that there's much more tonal detail in the picture
> one would expect. Pity I have images scanned to JPG's in 8-bit color
> range.
If it's all there in 8 bit and the compression is low, it is often
possible to convert to 16 bit, do a lot of adjustment, then convert back
to 8 bit without trouble where doing the work in 8 bit starts to look weird.
> I scanned the slide with Epson 4490 to 16-bit TIFF but the result
> is far from perfection.
>
I don't know anything about the 4490. I do know that even with a capable
scanner, getting the results you want takes good software, wheich may
not always be what came with the scanner, and practice.
>> #3 puzzles me. I an see the subject making a very nice, subtle print if
>> the full brightness range is captured. The single slide shot doesn't do
>> it, though. It's possible to bring up the shadows, but they are too
>> noisy, which loses subtle tonal graduations and the highlights have lost
>> too much detail.
>>
>> This is a shot for low contrast color neg film like Portra NC slightly
>> overexposed or for a tripod and two shots exposed for highlights and
>> shadows respectively on slide film or any digital but those with the
>> lowest noise and highest dynamic range, then combined in post.
>>
>
> I totally agree with what you say with just a tiny reservation: I am not a
> big fan of postprocess in general; I used to be in times when I took
> pictures with E-1 and played with them in GIMP/PWP but now when I rarely
> use digital cameras restricting myself to slides I try to avoid PP as much
> as possible. Having a flatbed scanner, it's impossible to avoid it
> completely but I try hard to limit PP just to a slight correction on
> contrast and color balance.
>
I know a lot of people feel this way. And some of them seem to think it
is "purer" in some way. I simply don't agree. How is choosing a slide
film based on the result you would like - leaving the details of color
response, tone curve, contrast, etc. to some film designer and the
limits of film technology - purer than creating those characteristics
yourself to get something closer to what you would like in the final
image? (And adding the scanner and its software, especially if one uses
default settings, just adds another layer of someone else's "opinions"
and technical limitations.) Assume, for example, that the left top of #5
has the highlights compressed as a characteristic of the film used. How
is it better than when they are revealed? I guarantee that they didn't
look like a big, blank, white area to your eyes when you took the shot.
Just one person's opinion, of course. I don't think film "sees" light in
the same way the human vision system does. The mere fact that there are
so many slide films that render subjects differently speaks to that. So
my intent is to reproduce the subject as I envisioned it when I took the
shot. And I freely admit that I sometimes envision it, "see" it in my
mind, differently than I "see" it with my eyes. Other times, I aim to
reproduce it as my eyes saw it. Overall, though, I think it is
impossible to separate emotion from images. and the "better" the image,
the more it elicits an emotional response. So I am generally more
interested in creating the emotional response I had at the time than
some neutral, "perfect" reproduction of the light reflected by the
subject. and there is, of course, no way to do that anyway.
At least I feel in good company. This is the approach taken by Ansel
Adams and most of the great B&W photographers of his era. I've seen in
person side by side prints of a couple of his famous images with one
"straight" and the other as he printed it. Sunrise, Hernandez, NM, is
just blah printed straight, the crosses hardly noticeable. I'll tell you
one thing, he would never have been anywhere near as famous and
successful based on the straight prints.
Moose
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