Exploring light and shadow

Slipping Away (click photos to view larger)

I often find myself shooting for reference, hopefully for a potential painting but more often to simply document what I've seen like the vegetable garden I've been working on or a small pawpaw plant tucked away in the woods beside the studio. These shots are seldom shared and far from artistic. They tend to be busy with distracting elements. My mindset is different when I look through the viewfinder at those moments. I tend to work more hurried and have less sensitivity to light and composition. If I suddenly see something special that warrants more care I slow down and think about what I want the shot to express (when time allows). I trust my eyes more. I explore shooting options, and I try to set an objective for the shot. "What was it that sparked my excitement?" is the first question I try to answer. It's not always something the camera can see like my eyes. This was the case with Slipping Away.

Stripping away the color wasn't something that passed through my mind when I took the shot. It turned out to be key to expressing what I wanted to share with the image. When I shot this fleeing caterpillar I was amazed by the cast shadow, the way its body crossed over the leaf and how the light sparkled. I'm easily amused... At that moment my eye's didn't focus much on the leaf itself. It's actually a staged shot to an extent. Several camera club photographers were meeting to shoot caterpillars and moths and the goal was for the cat to sit still in the calm, cool morning air and strike a pose. This little fellow was sensing the warmth of the day and the brighter light and became uncooperative as he wondered off. Normally this means the end of shooting. This time it was an opportunity. I had to shoot fast.

My first look at the image in the RAW converter was a big let down. The exposure and focus were good so I didn't give up hope. The light was indeed remarkable though the shot simply looked flat, the leaf opaque and the body more silhouetted than I remembered. I worked it up in color and noticed the veining of the leaf was really working for this backlit shot. I took it to an optimal sharpness, then moved onto other photos.

This month "shadow" was the theme for the camera club competition and this caterpillar shot came to mind. I toyed with some other ideas and actually shot a series using a basketball in motion with the shadow of the hoop and net. It felt too staged and uninspiring in the end. I decided to see how Slipping Away translated to black and white for a monochrome entry. I was working in the Dcam4 color space so I used a negative chroma Variant to desaturate the image followed by a slight adjustment Curve. Wow! Without the color the leaf took on a new life. The caterpillar's body revealed more roundness and depth. The shot had that special feeling I was longing for. What had once been a detailed leaf was now a delicate, paper thin glowing surface that looked like a fine lace veil hiding part of the caterpillar, the shadow revealing just enough to leave one wondering. My eyes were no longer seeing just a caterpillar on a leaf. I had found the spark! -pw

A lesser known photo sharpening method can reveal subtle detail

How do you sharpen your digital photos? Using the camera's sharpening settings for a jpg shot is the simplest solution, but only suitable for small snapshots. If you're exploring sharpening techniques for your RAW format shots you will discover that sharpening usually takes place at multiple stages. In the RAW converter the aim of sharpening is to minimally restore critical focus of the camera's capture (not to be confused with making up for poor focus). Next, after the RAW conversion, the sharpening goal is often to enhance detail during any final color correction and photo manipulation. This may either be a global adjustment to the entire image or on selected areas like the eyes in a portrait. Sharpening at this stage is often overlooked. When it's time to print or after resizing for the web we apply any final output sharpening. It's that middle stage that we'll explore today.
Click on the luna moth photo to see it larger. Additional USM was applied after scaling.

The latest RAW converters can eliminate some of the mid-stage sharpening for many shots with their tools to enhance micro contrast. When you need to enhance the detail in subtler transitions and textures, like the blades of grass on a golf green or the furry back of a moth without over sharpening the entire photo, try the High Pass filter technique. I used it back in the 90's to bring out detail in drum scans. It's a perfect process for recovering fine detail in today's high resolution digital photos.

Photoshop's High Pass filter doesn't produce anything attractive on its own. It's designed to be used with certain layer blend modes like Overlay, Soft Light and similar modes that alter the image based on the luminosity of the layer. A 50% gray value has no effect on the layers below in Overlay mode. The further from 50%, lighter or darker, the greater the layer changes the image below. Let's see how High Pass is used.

The High Pass filter technique is simple. In Photoshop you make a copy of the RAW converted photo on a new layer. I'd suggest only using enough sharpening in the RAW converter to restore focus and staying in 16-bit. Go to the Filter pull-down menu, to Other, to High Pass. There's only one slider. Try a low setting of 2 as a test and click ok. Don't panic. The result will look very ugly. Next we want to remove any remaining color in that layer to protect the color of the photo. Simply use the Hue and Saturation tool on this gray layer, dragging the saturation slider to the left. Now the fun part. Change the blend mode of that filtered layer to Overlay and move the opacity slider. Watch the detail increase in subtle areas as the opacity increases. Too much and things look unnatural. You can use a layer mask to target certain areas of the photo with this sharpening.

Before and after - the high pass technique shows greater clarity in the hairs. 
 

High Pass sharpening is not for every shot and not a substitute for final output sharpening. Experiment and you will find the settings that work best with your workflow and camera. -pw

RAW Developer by Iridient Digital updated to 1.8.8

For all of you Macintosh users shooting RAW files I highly recommend you try the demo of RAW Developer by Iridient Digital. It's a powerful RAW converter with some nice touches. Version 1.8.8 was released this week adding a couple more cameras and squashing a couple bugs. The control this converter allows makes it well worth reading the comprehensive Help section. Iridient Digital is fast to add new cameras. Their list of supported RAW capable cameras is exhaustive.

One of the often mentioned benefits of RAW Developer is the high level of detail this converter can pull out of a shot. I must agree. DNG files are supported and the input profile can use the DNG metadata style camera color rendering. The camera profiles can be tweaked for those wanting advance control. Batch processing is in there too. The workspace layout options allow for plenty of customization. You are not limited to 3 output profiles, like Adobe restricts us to. There are numerous color space profiles included or you can add your own as I do. I use Joseph Holmes' DCam4 RGB color space as my working space and use the DCam Chroma Variants to adjust global saturation on my important shots. It sounds complicated but is extremely simple and addictive. Adobe's workflow would require I export to 16-bit ProPhoto RGB and then convert to the DCam space, one more step. There are a set of Chroma Variants sold for 16-bit ProPhoto use. I just stuck with DCam4 since it works so well for me. See the link below to Joseph's site for more details on the Chroma Variant approach.

RAW Developer includes multiple sharpening methods (R-L seems even better than USM for RAW sharpening), noise reduction controls, and highly flexible black and white conversion options. These tools are winners. The Chromatic Aberration control with RAW Developer is great without any sliders. About the only tool I find missing is the Vignetting slider which I only use as a creative effect for the cropped sensor shots I take. Give it a try! pw
RAW Developer features link
RAW Developer demo link 
DCam RGB info link