Post Processing #5 - Camera to JPG, Quickly

[Scottes]

IanD posted this image, and I did some quick & dirty improvements. IanD kindly allowed me to use his image for this tutorial. Thanks!

Here's what IanD posted:

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/30057376.jpg

And my changes. Believe it or not this only takes a minute or two once you get used to it.

Number of Colors: Image... Mode... 16-bits/channel
- Always should be the first step - more colors to use so less damage when pushing, pulling, and moving colors.

Color Space: Image... Mode... Convert to Profile... Adobe RGB
- Always step 2 - gives larger color space so less color damage.

Contrast with Levels: Image... Adjustments... Contrast
- As soon as I started adjusting Levels I saw problems. The left eye is a bit dark and moving the black slider made it go to black. I lost detail quickly.
- I checked the whites, and immediately blew out a spot of "glare" on the right side of the muzzle.
- Since I couldn't fix the contrast too much so I decided to fix those spots first, then fix the contrast.
- I canceled out of Levels without making a change. To fix the spots, I'll use Shadows & Highlights.

Shadows & Highlight: Image... Adjustments... Shadow/Highlights
- Wanted to pull a bit of detail in his left eye since it was a little dark, and this would pull up some detail in his nose, too. I played with the Shadows slider a bit, turning Preview on & off to compare. I ended up with 14%.
- I never like to adjust Highlights much at all since there's so many details in the highlights. I tweaked them just a bit to reduce the glare on the right side of his muzzle. I ended up at 6%.
- By the way I had "Show More Options" checked OFF. Keep it simple for now, right? The other options are a little confusing.

Contrast: Image... Adjustments... Levels
- Now that those spots are fixed I can adjust the contrast with Levels
- Held down the ALT key as I moved the Blacks slider. As soon as wolf-details appeared (nostril and corner of eye) I stopped.
- Held down the ALT key as I moved the Whites slider. Wolf details (around the muzzle) appeared quickly, so I didn't do much.
- Adjusted the Midtones just a bit until it looked good.
- My numbers ended up at 14, 1.09, 250

Sharpening: Filters... Sharpen... Unsharp Mask
- Set Radius to 0.3 and Threshold to 0 before even beginning. These two settings are usually very good for Web Images.
- Started playing with the Amount, clicking preview on & off to check the effects
- Ended up at amount 150%
- So USM Amount 150%, Radius 0.3, Threshold 0

Color Profile: Image... Mode... Convert to Profile... sRGB
- Since we're going to put this on the Web, sRGB is best

Save: File... Save For Web...
- I zoomed in a couple times to check where the top of his head meets the background. This is a very crucial area - hairs meeting a background with a very different color. JPG anomalies will show up quickly here.
- Played with High/Medium/Low until I was happy with a file size (70-90K for an 800-wide image in my opinion) balanced with barely noticable anomalies.
- Because the original was a JPG I couldn't really do much.
- Ensured that "ICC Profile" was checked - this saves the sRGB info to the file so the colors will look the same to anyone else (Hopefully!)


My end result:

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/30057376-s.jpg

[tommykjensen]

Another excellent tutorial. Thanks.

[RoB_m]

nice and thorough.

i like using curve adjustment layers instead of levels but that's just me.

[Belmondo]

Scottes:

You could sure save me a lot of trouble if you'd just buy the house next door that's for sale. Really wonderful stuff.

Tom

[robertwgross]

Is that a funny-looking dog or a wolf?

---Bob Gross---

[IanD]

He be a wolf.

[Scottes]

nice and thorough.

i like using curve adjustment layers instead of levels but that's just me.

How about giving us a hint on how to do this? Every time I've tried curves for contrast I get screwed up - LOL!


BTW, I'm trying to go simple for now. Many people have some of the basics and Photoshop can very easily get confusing. I'll get more advanced as I go along, and go back and do more particular things a better way. For instance, comparing the simple Levels to a more complex but better Curves.

Any time someone feels like showing us a better way to do something, feel free! (hint hint)

[Scottes]

You could sure save me a lot of trouble if you'd just buy the house next door that's for sale. Really wonderful stuff.

Any wolves in the desert?

Well, I guess you'd let me borrow lenses now and again....

[Belmondo]

You could sure save me a lot of trouble if you'd just buy the house next door that's for sale. Really wonderful stuff.

Any wolves in the desert?

Well, I guess you'd let me borrow lenses now and again....

Other than me, there aren't many.

And yes, you can borrow my lenses anytime in exchange for tutoring.

[maderito]

nice and thorough.

i like using curve adjustment layers instead of levels but that's just me.

How about giving us a hint on how to do this? Every time I've tried curves for contrast I get screwed up - LOL!

To adjust contrast in curves:

- Open the curves dialog (usually as a layer adjustment).
- Set a point at the midpoint (128,128) of the 45 degree line - which you are going to make into a curve.
- Set a 2nd point on the upper half of the line (say 192,192); push it up and to the left -- not too much. This increases and compressses tonal values in the highlights.
- Set a 3rd point on the bottom half of the line, now a curve, (say 64,64); pull it down and to the right -- not too much. This decreases and compresses tonal values in the shadows.

While making these changes, keep your eye on the image to get your desire contrast.

You hopefully have made a sigmoid, or "S" curve. The input/output points might be: 64,47 - 128,128 - 192,204

You can vary this by first setting your "midpoint" and moving it up or down to make the image lighter or darker before adding the additional points to shape the contrast.

With practice, you don't really need the midpoint. Just shape the curve with the two other points.

On a curves adjustment layer, you can play with setting the blending mode to luminosity, color, saturation or hue to get different contrast effects.

Sounds a bit complicated but it becomes second nature quickly. Honest.

[Scottes]

*bangs on desk* Show us a Picture! *bangs on desk*

OK, so I've seen - and done - this S-Curve thing before, and I guess I have problems because it never shows me what I'm aiming for. With Levels, I can
"see" the current Black and White points in the Histogram. I know that I'm just setting the new black and white points, and I know that everything between them will be stretched out. The Levels trick where you hold down Alt while moving the sliders is fantastic - I can immediately see where I'm going to blow things up or out.

But it's always seemed to me that contrast via curves is very subjective, and I feel that this is a step that should be at least somewhat more scientific.

[Jesper]

- Ensured that "ICC Profile" was checked - this saves the sRGB info to the file so the colors will look the same to anyone else (Hopefully!)

This makes no difference. Most Windows applications, including Internet Explorer, are not ICC aware, so they'll ignore the sRGB ICC profile that's embedded in the image. Just leave the box unchecked to make the file a bit smaller.

Thanks for the tip about the Shadow / Highlight adjustment tool - I've never used that very much before.

[maderito]

But it's always seemed to me that contrast via curves is very subjective, and I feel that this is a step that should be at least somewhat more scientific.
Uh uh. Contrast adjustment is subjective, not scientific, although degrees of contrast adjustment certainly can be quantified (e.g. 1+, 2+, etc.).

When you change contrast, you change tonality (image brightness levels) and shift colors (both hue and saturation). You create a new version of the image.

When adjusting curves, keep an eye on the global effect while targeting specific elements of the image (e.g highlight or shadow area) to get the final effect you want. You know you've gone way too far when you start seeing posterization.

Usually you want to increase contrast (very subjective) while maintaining good shadow and highlight detail. That's the tradeoff and why judgement is necessary.

The usual workflow is to correct white balance, set white/black points (levels), adjust brightness (levels or curves), adjust contrast (curves), and then tweak color/saturation (hue/saturation). If you don't do it in the right order, you can wind up going around in circles.

Tip with curves dialog: Clicking on the image will show the corresponding point on the graph in the curves dialog.

[Scottes]

When adjusting curves, keep an eye on the global effect while targeting specific elements of the image (e.g highlight or shadow area) to get the final effect you want.

Well I tried playing with the original wolf and Curves and I still didn't get it.

I personally would love if you took Ian's wolf pic and curved it, and showed us the curve or at least the values. You're a hell of a lot better at this than I am, and I'd love to get this one figured out.

[maderito]

When adjusting curves, keep an eye on the global effect while targeting specific elements of the image (e.g highlight or shadow area) to get the final effect you want.

I personally would love if you took Ian's wolf pic and curved it, and showed us the curve or at least the values.
Your editing looks terrific. I'll get a similar result through a different route.

I copied the image directly off the web. This image is tricky. Is the wolf gray or red? In Photoshop, if you assign an sRGB profile to the image, it looks washed out - gray. If you assign Adobe RGB, there's more color and red tones in the coat!

1. If you loaded it into Photoshop with a working space of Adobe RGB and then "converted" it to Adobe RGB, then you kept all the color numbers intact (i.e. there was no actual conversion). The image will have more reddish tones.
2. If you loaded it into Photoshop with a working space of sRGB and converted to Adobe RGB, then you get an sRGB (gray) looking image but you would be editing in the larger gamut of the Adobe space (giving you more editing range in the cyans and greens).

Judging by your final result, I'm guesssing you did #1. I chose to assume it was a sRGB image and worked with it in sRGB space. Thus, I had to make a gray wolf look more like your final reddish wolf. Also, I'm working with Photoshop 7, so I don't have the benefit of the powerful Shadow/Highlights adjustment of PS-CS. Here's what I did:

- No levels adjustment. I didn't want to clip the few levels in the darkest shadows and lightest highlights. My curve adjustments will affect these levels.

- Curves adjustment layer (curve points)
Midtones: 77,71 and 155,177
Open shadows: 32,39
Pull back highlights: 211,219
Still not what I want. So change blending mode to Soft Light. Reduce opacity to 80%.

Contrast now OK but the fox looks yellow/gray
- Hue/Saturation adjustment layer
Master: saturation +10
Yellows: hue -8 (shift towards red), saturation +10

- USM: r=1.0 amount=100% threshold=2

I really think this wolf started off in Adobe RGB and got lost in sRGB space. :)
http://display.lifepics.com/imgdisp.asp?filespec=%60foxhx2cuxmwdogx%5D9%3C%3D8 %3B9dOjeOrmlfzwnk%2Fqym%0D%3A3%3B8%3C1%10964%3A58

[Scottes]

Looks good. A bit richer than mine. Definitely a different route!

When I opened the image it comes up in AdobeRGB. Just to check, I looked at the file in hex and clearly see that it's in AdobeRGB. I wonder why your PS didn't recognize it? ? ?

[maderito]

When I opened the image it comes up in AdobeRGB. Just to check, I looked at the file in hex and clearly see that it's in AdobeRGB. I wonder why your PS didn't recognize it? ? ?
I copied it from my browser to the clipboard and then pasted it directly into Photoshop. I guess any embedded profile was lost or accepted without complaint (since it wasn't a profile mismatch).

The image would have been much easier to work with in Adobe RGB. Not because it's a better color editing space. Rather because I lost the original image colors by assigning an sRGB profile. The true colors were recovered (approximately) only after Hue/Saturation adjustments.

I have a good image for you to edit. Different problems and issues. I'll get it to you late tomorrow.

[transcend]

I learned so much from this tutorial, you cannot imagine. Thanks.

[SidW]

These tips are invaluable to a beginner like me.
I hope this thread keeps growing.
Thanks Scottes and all you other experts (IMO).

Sid

[Reservoir_Dog]

To me, its pointless to convert a 8 bit jpg to 16 bit mode.....
Or are you talking about RAW?