civilized ku # 892 ~ pay attention, cuz I'm only gonna say this once
Friday, March 18, 2011 at 10:54AM 
Before • click to embiggen
During • click to embiggen
After Redbreast Pure Pot Still Irish Whiskey, Irish soda bread and whiskey soaked raisins• click to embiggenYesterday was St. Patrick's Day. There was still a lot of snow on the ground, so there were no snakes to drive out of the yard. Consequently, in order to honor St. Patrick, I purchased a bottle of pure pot still Irish whiskey (Redbreast Irish Whiskey) and then made some traditional (only 4 ingredients - flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk) Irish soda bread.
I also purchased some raisins and soaked them in the whiskey with the intent of adding them to the soda bread mix. However, that would have not been "traditional" so I decided to use them as a side dish. The 3 women in attendance at my little bake-fest (the wife kept trying to give me baking advice) liked the raisin side dish but they strongly recommended that I put them in the soda bread for Saturday evening's Irish dinner.
That said, I'm guessing that, as much as you'd like me to give you my Irish soda bread recipe, you'd really like it more if I got on with the before-during-and-after show so, from the top picture down ...
FYI, the picture was made (with ISO bracketing) on my kitchen countertop - the same place I make all of my decay pictures - with soft directional window light.
Before - this is how the picture looked after processing it in my RAW converter wherein I performed highlight recovery, modest de-saturation, very minor WB adjustment, a tick of highlight contrast adjustment (+), and my normal sharpening.
During - this picture is a screenshot made during, but near the completion of, my PS work on the picture. As you can see in the Layers Palette, I had made 4 layers of corrections / adjustments:
Layer 1 - to make this layer, I made a selection - Polygonal Lasso Tool with 200 pixel feather - of the countertop (to include the 2 crystal glasses and soda bread to the right of the whiskey bottle) and then made a layer of that selection.
Using Curves, I increased the contrast of the layer, then set the layer blending mode to Linear Burn and adjusted the layer opacity to 52%. I then used the H&S Palette to reduce the blue/cyan levels in the countertop on Layer 1 and the the Background layer. This layer, together with the H&S adjustment to the Background layer, brings this area of the picture into better color and density/tonal balance relative to the rest of the picture
Layer 2 - this layer was made from a selection - Polygonal Lasso Tool with 10 pixel feather - of the whiskey rocks. Layer blending was set to Multiply @ 100% opacity. This layer adds density to and emphasizes detail in the whiskey rocks.
Layer 3 - this layer was made from a selection - of the foreground glass (without the whiskey rocks) - that was dragged into the working file from my -1 stop ISO bracket image file. Layer blending was set to Normal @ 93% opacity. This layer adds density to and emphasizes detail in the glass.
Layer 4 - this layer was made from a selection - Polygonal Lasso Tool with 10 pixel feather - of the soda bread cross section. Layer blending was set to Screen with 55% opacity. The Curves tool was used to adjust for too much red and yellow and the H&S tool was used to further reduce the read and yellow content. This layer brings the soda bread cross section into much better color and tonal balance with the soda bread cross section on the right.
Background - after all of the above adjustments / corrections were made, using the H&S tool, I made slight global de-saturation and +contrast adjustments to this layer. To my eye and sensibilities, this adjustment brought the entire picture closer to "accurate"/"real" color and tonality.
At this point in the PS processing proceedings, I saved the file (using a new file name) - with all of the layers intact - as my corrections / adjustments master file.
The next step was to flatten the file (Merge Visible) and take a long look at the picture, looking at global and local color, density / tonal information for "accuracy"/"realism". As is often the case - relative to my camera sensor and RAW converter combination - I decided to globally de-saturate the yellow content. In this particular picture, I also de-saturated the red content in the raisins and made a small global increase in contrast.
This flattened file was also saved (once again using a new filename) as my final full-frame master file.
Next, it was crop to square and move on to my normal vignette and border procedure. When that was completed, I took another long hard look at the picture after which I decided yet another H&S adjustment was needed. In this case, I made an ever-so-slight global de-saturation. At that point, I judged the picture to be a "final". That is, as always, subject to further / future consideration.
So, there you have it, my St. Patrick's Day gift to you - a start to finish look at how and why I process my pictures*. For those who are interested, elapsed time, start to finish, was about 56 minutes. Never having timed myself before, I would have to guess that time to be a bit above average for most of my picture processing.
FYI, on a soda bread baking note, you may have noticed the cross cuts on the soda bread crust. For wannabe soda bread baking purists in the crowd, it should be noted that cutting a cross into the top (continuing down the sides) of the pre-baked dough is an essential step in the process. It is the only way I know of to insure that the fairies will be able to get out of the bread.
It is also well worth noting that this entry is a prime example of how hard I work for my Landscapist readers. Not only as evidenced by the length, detail, and care that went into making this entry but also by the fact, if you look closely at the entry picture, you can see that I made this early morning picture before I even put my pants on.
*it should be understood that many of the hard numbers, specifically Polygonal Lasso Tool feathering and opacity numbers, are relative to my file ppi numbers and my eye - I use selection tool feathering numbers based on how they work and look with my 300ppi master files. My layer opacity setting numbers are done by eye. That is to say, I move the opacity slider until it looks "right" to my eye and sensibilities.
If you decide to use some of the techniques mentioned here, it's up to you to figure out what numbers work best for you. The only general "rule" I can give for feathering #s is, if your file ppi is greater than 300ppi, in oder to achieve a similar look, you will need to increase the feathering #. Conversely, if your file ppi is less than 300ppi, you will need to decrease the feathering #. In either case, the amount of increase/decrease is up to you to determine.
Reader Comments (6)
Mark
Writing from Ireland can I say thank you for this post and for your thoughts on Soda bread. And I can confirm that the cross is an absolutely essential part of the bread. I hope you enjoy the whiskey.
Thanks, Mark, for the description of your workflow on this photo. I'm always interested in the technical side of things from someone I admire. The photo was worth the effort.
No soda bread for us - but we have corned beef and cabbage. mmmmmmmmm........
Thanks Mark for this post... I will spend some time studying it. You did not mention what camera you used for the shot, but I see your hands wrapped around it in the reflection.
John
PS: In an earlier post you were thinking about $$$ (also know has bread) for this advice/tutorial , I guess you cooked up something good!
Thanks for this view into yr process. Please keep it up, at least from time to time. Stuck here alone with my computer and files late at night I can hardly call anybody for advice, but I can at least start honing my own process.
I guess the average photog out there would be happy with the first image (but it is way too yellow...). I'd put myself in that category 3 years ago went I got back into photography again (this time digital). The final image has your trademark well-crafted look.
Thanks for sharing your time and knowledge. Just following your blog has helped me lift my game, especially in the areas that make a difference. For today's image, I'll study your approach + edits over the next few days.
[I had to edit my own image today and for probably the first time, adjusted the RGB curves to correct the colour in the shadows differently to the mid-tones. Once you start to see colour casts, you are compelled to correct the damned things.]
I had a go at editing the 1st image, following as close as I could the results of each of your layers.
I used a series of layers + masks rather than selections, multiply blend rather than linear burn, and shadow/highlight on the glass rather than the -1 stop ISO. The end result was slightly different to yours (my variations, a few tweaks you didn't document) but much better than the original.
Using multiply to restore some of the detail in the glasses is one of the key edits (followed by reducing colour casts with H/S).
I readily understood the edits you made but it's been more informative to see the sort of image issues you tackled. After colour balancing, getting the detail and contrast back into the image is paramount. Thanks.