civilized ku # 1017 ~ The Print, pt. III
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 09:28AM 
Lifeguard On Duty ~ the beach at Wilmington, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenAs mentioned in a previous entry, civilized ku # 1015, there are, IMO, 3 critical areas that must be addressed re: to make digital prints that have the look of finely crafted C prints. Those 3 are; 1) sharpening, 2) highlight and shadow "protection" / refinement, and, 3) color saturation.
Items # 1 and # 3 are easily addressed.
Re: sharpening - do not over-sharpen (white outlines around various elements in your pictures are a sure telltale sign of over sharpening) and do all of your sharpening as the very last step in your processing procedure and do it on the Lightness Channel in LAB color space.
I sharpen my master picture files with a light touch. That allows me to do additional sharpening (on a duplicate file) as called for at a later date. Sharpening that use specific (print, reproduction, web, etc.) depending upon final use.
For those shooting jpegs and hence sharpening in camera - good luck with that.
Re: saturation - I have found for my picture making and picture processing "system" - i.e. my specific camera sensor and specific RAW converter - some colors need de-saturation and others may benefit from a slight bump in saturation.
That said, I tend to slightly de-saturate the entire image file as part of my first steps in picture processing. In my experience most sensors are somewhat biased toward pleasing but not necessarily accurate color rendition. In effect, Paul Simon's nice bright colors. After my initial de-saturation efforts, I will then do selective color/saturation corrections / adjustments as deemed necessary or desired.
As mentioned many times, my color correction/adjustment efforts are aimed at producing the most accurate / natural color that the medium will allow.
Once again, for those shooting jpegs and hence color determined by camera settings - good luck with that.
Item # 2, highlight and shadow "protection" / refinement, requires a bit more effort than items 1 and 3.
In some cases like extreme dynamic range situations, it may require in-camera exposure bracketing (3 or more individual exposures / frames or, in most of my picturing, ISO bracketing). The point of such procedures is to create 3 (or more) files - 1 "normal", 1 for additional shadow information, and 1 for additional highlight information - so, in the processing stage, to be able to do highlight and shadow exposure blending in making the final master file. FYI, this is one technique that can work with bracketed (separate exposures or single exposure ISO bracketing) in-camera jpegs.
In less extreme dynamic range picture making situations, it is possible to "dig out" shadow detail and enhance highlight detail on a single file. The trick is to make feathered selections of shadow and highlight areas and create a separate layer for each. Using the drop down Blending menu in the PS Layer Palette, select Screen for the shadow layer and Multiply for the highlight layer.
In most cases, the individual layer opacity (a slider in the Layer Palette) will need to adjusted to create the right amount of blending. In addition to adjusting the layer opacity, I often also adjust each layer's contrast using Curves to arrive at the desired result.
The single greatness issue to be aware of and avoid when "digging out" shadow detail is noise. I have found, if shadow noise is an issue, NR in just the shadow area of the image will solve the problem with no ill effect on the image as a whole.
FYI, the aforementioned techniques are not the only techniques available to the picture maker who wants to make finely crafted digital prints, some of which can be applied at the RAW conversion stage of image file processing. However, the point is this - the tools and techniques available in the "digital darkroom" far and away exceed those available with traditional wet work. Not only that, but those techniques shared by both mediums are far less costly, way far less time consuming, and infinitely more precise in the digital domain.
FYI # 2, with the Lifeguard On Duty picture in this entry, all of my adjustment / correction efforts were directed to augmenting the highlight detail in the lifeguard tower. Those adjustments were accomplished using both exposure blending and a highlight layer with Screen blending with minor contrast adjustment via Curves.
In any event, the purpose of highlight and shadow "protection" / refinement is to replicate the extended tonal range, aka: exposure latitude, of the traditional color negative + C print process which, with the exception of dye transfer printing, is, IMO, the best of all color printing worlds - next to a finely crafted digital print, that is.
Reader Comments (3)
Thanks for sharing.
Good stuff. I already know each editing technique but it's the combination that's going to add extra value. I'll try your approach on a few images over the next few days.
Shadow/Highlight can be a useful tool to grab detail out of shadows if used gently. Will not alter saturation.