Need Some Help Please

I'm new to RawShooter Essentials, so I don't know what I'm doing. The image below is my first attempt with it. All I did was "Auto All" + "Outdoor Normal" + a wee bit of saturation. I'd like your assessment of color, contrast, exposure, etc. What could be improved?

And can you please tell me the difference between "Highlight Contrast" and "Shadow Contrast?" I read the manual, but I couldn't find an explanation.

You're welcome to critique the composition too -- need to learn.

Image was taken with 300D, 24-70mm 2.8L @ 28mm, f8@1/640, and ISO 200.

Thanks for looking.

Barbara

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Hi Barbara,

Nice pic and looks like a good conversion to me...this is my workflow in RSE, noty to say its the best or only way...

I tend to use auto exposure only (not auto WB) as a startign point but sometimes it gets it completely wrong. Once I have seen what it has done, I reset to normal and then tweak, generally I use a bit of fill light (not much) and a bit of saturation, the others depend very much on the image.. Best way to describe h'light and shadow contrast is to see the effect on the histogram as you move the slider. In general terms increasing h'light increases brightness in the highlights and increasing shadow darkens shadows. I tend not to use the appearance settings as I find them too extreme for my liking (but I tend to like a natural and not over-processed look)

This is an excellent intro to RSE, worth looking at...

EOSAddict: Thanks for the workflow and comments. I hadn't thought of using just the autoexposure for a starting point. It sounds like a good idea so I'll give it a try. And I'll watch the histogram while moving the sliders to try to understand the contrast.

Oops, just realised I forgot to post the link I mentioned, Doh!


http://www.outbackphot​o.com/artofraw/raw_18/​essay.html

Hi Barbara,

You have good colour. Whilst technically correct, the shot looks to be sloping down to the left. In terms of crop, I think I would have tried to get more of the right hand side of the station (along with all the track buffer), and less of the left hand side, which is less interesting. There may have been something there to move you away from it though.

If you are feeling brave, I would have tried to get much closer to the track, for dramatic impact - but it's probably not worth getting killed for!

You picked a nice day - the light is beautiful.

Graham

EOSAddict -- Thanks for the link. It was helpful!

Graham -- I like your idea of getting closer to the track. Next time I'm in the area of the station I think I'll try that. And you're right about the right side of the image -- it's more interesting. Unfortunately, there's a huge sign just beyond the camera's sight. The red structure on the right is part of the support for the sign. Thanks for your suggestions, they helped.

Regarding White Balance, I prefer to use the White Balance Tool (the eyedropper) rather than picking a category from the Color Balance drop down list box or using the Color Temperature slider. Find an object in your scene that you know is white, or preferably a middle gray with no color cast and bink on that with the eye dropper White Balance Tool. [In RSE it's called Pick White Balance]

Then, if you decide that gives what look like good colors everywhere, you're done. If it doesn't look good, find another object that looks like it should be neutral and try that. That's how the color balance tool is designed to work. It assumes that you are binking on a patch of neutral gray (all three color channels are balanced) and it will modify all the pixels in the whole image so as to make the ones you binked on come out balanced.

Highlight Contrast is the degree to which the different shades of near white are separated from one another in the highlights (higher, brighter tones). Obviously, shadow contrast is the same concept in the shadows (lower, darker tones). Think of the regions as being roughly in thirds in the histogram, with mid-tones in the middle third.

When the contrast is high in a given range of tones, then you see detail in that range of tones and the histogram distribution will be evenly spread out over those tones. Conversely, when the contrast is low over a given range of tones, the distribution will be bunched up over that range of values in the histogram, and you won't see any detail in that range of tones - just a monotonous sameness throughout.

One can visualize the local contrast from a different viewpoint when using the Curves tool, but that's another story.

Note that curves is only available in RSP...not RSE

I must admit I just move the WB slider til it looks right (don't change it that much)

Bob -- Thanks for the White Balance info. I tried the eyedropper as you suggested, and I like using it.

EOSAddict -- Can't find a WB slider. Do you mean Color Temp & Tint.

Yep, Colour temp = WB