300D & C1 Workflow, Your Comment Please?

[CanonUser]

Though I use Photoshop for retouching works often in my video work and do a wedding here and there using negative film, I'm new to digital photography. I've been shooting RAWs with a 300D and covert them to TIFs using Capture1 D-Rebel version. Here are my thoughts and workflow, hopefully you can comment on them so I can correct my mistake if there is any:

- The images are RAWs, taken with parameter 2 settings. The flash is a 550EX in E-TTL mode.
- Straight from the camera, the images have great color and tonal accuracy. However, they lack the snap and sharpness that please the novice viewers.
- I usually transfer the RAW files to the PC's harddrive. From there, I use the C1 software to tweak the image before converting to TIF. I do the following in C1:

FOCUS: Sharpness is increased between 50%-150%, threshold 3-10, "Standard Look" for group/scenic shots, "Soft Look" for portrait. Amount depends on the subject. I aim for the best definition of the eyes without increasing blemished in the skin texture.
COLOR: Saturation is increased between 5-10. Shots using flash seem to need for more saturation.
LEVEL: I use the curve to add a very minute "S" curve to group shots or a very gentle mid-tone lift for portrait shots (not always). For images with extreme tonal range, I adjust and "develop" separate TIF files for the hilight, mid-tone, and shadow details. The files are then layered together in Photosop.
CROPPING: I rarely crop in C1 since it reduces the canvas size in Photoshop.


In Photoshop, I retouch the image as follow:

CROP: Crop and recompose the photo. The problem with 300D is the viewfinder's image DOES NOT match what the CCD sees. The error seems to be more on the top and right side of the frame.
ENHANCE: Remove skin blemishes and unwanted objects in the frame (or add them!). Smooth skin textures, crowfeets, and age lines. Blur background and other distractions. Add a touch of soft-focus to portraits.
OUTPUT: The finished file is saved to different files for specific output sizes.

What do you think? Any comment would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Best Regards,
Alan

[mwinog2777]

CanonUser wrote:
Though I use Photoshop for retouching works often in my video work and do a wedding here and there using negative film, I'm new to digital photography. I've been shooting RAWs with a 300D and covert them to TIFs using Capture1 D-Rebel version. Here are my thoughts and workflow, hopefully you can comment on them so I can correct my mistake if there is any:

- The images are RAWs, taken with parameter 2 settings. The flash is a 550EX in E-TTL mode.
- Straight from the camera, the images have great color and tonal accuracy. However, they lack the snap and sharpness that please the novice viewers.
- I usually transfer the RAW files to the PC's harddrive. From there, I use the C1 software to tweak the image before converting to TIF. I do the following in C1:

FOCUS: Sharpness is increased between 50%-150%, threshold 3-10, "Standard Look" for group/scenic shots, "Soft Look" for portrait. Amount depends on the subject. I aim for the best definition of the eyes without increasing blemished in the skin texture.
COLOR: Saturation is increased between 5-10. Shots using flash seem to need for more saturation.
LEVEL: I use the curve to add a very minute "S" curve to group shots or a very gentle mid-tone lift for portrait shots (not always). For images with extreme tonal range, I adjust and "develop" separate TIF files for the hilight, mid-tone, and shadow details. The files are then layered together in Photosop.
CROPPING: I rarely crop in C1 since it reduces the canvas size in Photoshop.


In Photoshop, I retouch the image as follow:

CROP: Crop and recompose the photo. The problem with 300D is the viewfinder's image DOES NOT match what the CCD sees. The error seems to be more on the top and right side of the frame.
ENHANCE: Remove skin blemishes and unwanted objects in the frame (or add them!). Smooth skin textures, crowfeets, and age lines. Blur background and other distractions. Add a touch of soft-focus to portraits.
OUTPUT: The finished file is saved to different files for specific output sizes.

What do you think? Any comment would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Best Regards,
Alan

The only adjustment I do before PS is levels. I try to move levels to the right. Everything else can be better done in PS. All you want to do is convert the RAW.

I will be interested in further comments.

[CanonUser]

As I understand it, C1 does a better job at processing and converting raw data to TIF or jpg than either the camera's on board processor or Canon's own software. C1 creator, Phase1 (P1), is well known for their hi-end digital back and highly capable software. The reason I use C1 for adjustment prior to conversion is to extract the best picture possible from the raw data before starting to degrade it in PS. Every single change alter the quality to some degree (though most of the time it improves the viewing pleasure of the photo.) PS strenght is in modifying the pixel, not developing raw data.
It would be tough for PS to achieve the result found here:
http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/xomxexe
The 300D did a great job trying to balance between the baby's white silk suit and mom's dark dress. The flash did not provide even coverage. The scene was underexposed while there were blown outs on the silk suit. PS would have a hard time recover hilights and shadow details cleanly. Where as, I used the "linear" output mode in C1 to get the baby's clothing exposure, the "film standard" mode for both the baby and mommy's skin tone to the correct exposures. After combining the 3 files in PS, I spent the bulk of the time retouching blemishes, not fixing exposures.

Regards,
Alan

[ohenry]

I prefer to transfer the RAW files directly to the harddrive using file transfer. I then make a second transfer to a directory that will later be burned to CD for archival purposes. I save all RAW images to CD so that I have an exact negative from the camera, unmanipulated by any software.

Using C1, I view all of the RAW files. Any that I want to convert to TIFF are processed for exposure, I add 4% color saturation, and sharpen 50% with a threshhold of 3 (this can vary some).

All cropping and other manipulations are completed in Photoshop Elements. I am expecting to obtain Photoshop CS soon and at that point will no longer use C1 (unless it does a noticibly better job).

When I save my images from C1, I save them in a folder that I call "Rough Draft Images". Once adjusted for final viewing/printing in Photoshop, they are saved in my Portfolio folder and filed either as "Formatted for Web" or "Formatted for Printing"

[CanonUser]

Ohenry,
I will definitely adopt your filing system. Sounds very organized to me. Saving RAWs to CD is something I read about but have not followed. I'll also get PS-CS, but processing RAW to TIF has always been Phase1 strong point. Perhaps DP Reviews or someone can do a head to head comparison. Thanks for the input.

Regards,
Alan

[rizla]

canonuser,
At the moment i'm using zoombrowser for the raw conversion and must say it's rather slow.
My question is............Is photoshop cs compatable with the 300d rebel ? or can i upgrade from ps7 ? or can i buy a plug-in...?
Sorry i can't help you with your workflow as i'm new to this as well..!
regards
rizla

[clos]

CanonUser wrote:
...I do the following in C1:

FOCUS: Sharpness is increased between 50%-150%....
....Alan

Can anyone else add to this, I have heard from a couple schools of thought...

1. Never sharpen until the last step.

2. Light sharpening should be done at he RAW converter and then for resizing. A few diferent variations here nut nonetheless sharpen several times.

I tend to sharpen as my very last step and it seems to work better. I would be interested to here from the more experienced out there as to their workflow.

-Clos

[CanonUser]

Rizla,
There is no plug-in for PS7 to work with 300D RAW files. You can hack Adobe RAW plug-in, but other users complained of color cast in the photo. C1 seems to be the best route to bring 300D's RAWs into your PC.
I installed PS-CS this morning and briefly worked on a photo with backlit subjects. The RAW module's interface was nicely designed and functional. All basic adjustments were available, with the exception of level and curves. You have to open the RAW file in PS-CS (the file stays in RAW mode, yeah!) to do level/contrast adjustment. On the other hand, you can use other PS tools (not available in CS1) on the RAW file prior to saving it to other format. I guess PS-CS does the conversion when you save the file. The shadows/highlights feature is strange. It does open up level and details automatically in the backlit subjects while leaving highlites intact. But the shadows and hilights slides darken the corresponding areas, not lightening them. So in my test photo, if I bring in the file adjusted for mid-tones, the hilights get blown out and PS-CS cannot bring it back. If I adjust for hilights, the shadow details became so dark, PS-CS cannot open them up to the level that I like, and I cannot adjust it manually further. I had to resorted bsck to the multiple files trick I used with C1. In this regard, C1 offers more option in how the level and details are processed.
I do like the quickness and ease that PS-CS has while working with 300D RAWs. I did not see keyboard shortcuts appear when I mouse over a button. I think I'll explore the PS-CS RAW capability more in detail and probably use in most situation. I'll also use C1 in occasion where the exposure range proves too much for PS-CS to handle.

Regards,
Alan