PhotoWalkPro

I am usually content to create simple pano images using a series of 5 or so overlapping shots all in a straight line. I have always had confidence that the Photomerge function in Photoshop would do a pretty good job of pulling everything together into one seamless image (at least since CS3). But as I was standing at the Cerro de la Cruz above the city of La Antigua, I just didn’t think that I could capture all the detail I wanted by simply shooting a straight pan of images. The problem is that I would have to use a focal length that was pretty wide to capture everything I wanted, from the top of the volcano to the front edge of the city sprawled out below. This meant that I might get some distortion from the lens as well as lesser detail in the final image.

What I decided to do instead was to shoot two series of images panning across the scene; one across the upper portion of the scene to capture the sky, mountains, and volcano, and the other series across the bottom for the city. I also used my 50mm f/1.4 lens on a Nikon D80 so I was getting less coverage (it’s about the equivalent of an 80mm on the DX camera), which meant more shots. In fact I ended up shooting 18 images in total. I was a little fearful that Photoshop would not be able to assemble everything into one seamless image but I threw caution to the wind and made my corrections to the original images in Lightroom 3 and then selected them all and sent them to Photoshop using the Merge to Panorama command.

After Lightroom had processed all of the images, the standard Pano dialog box opened in CS5 and I selected the Auto layout and let it go to town. It took a little while to assemble and merge the 18 RAW image files and then blend them together but when it was done, I was simply amazed with the results. With the exception of some ragged edges, it had pulled all of the images together into one beautiful pano. I simply cropped out most of the uneven edges and then used the Content Aware Fill to fix some of the spots in the sky that were missed by me during shooting and cropping. The result is the image you see below. You can click on it to see a larger version but the actual file is about 440MB, which works out to be about 20×70 inches at 240dpi.

Also, the detail in the final image is fantastic. Here is a small section of the image at 100%.

So the next time you are presented with a wide vista and are thinking of trying your hand at a panorama, don’t necessarily just twist your lens to the wide angle option to get 3 or 4 overlapping shots. Try and push things a little by adding a bunch of narrower angle images and then let Photoshop do it’s thing to really get the detail and size out of your final image.

When it comes to creating HDR images, most folks know that Photomatix renders much better results than Photoshop when it comes to tonemapping.  So if that’s the case, why would anyone need to use Photoshop as part of the process?  The simple fact is that, while Photoshop is pretty lame when it comes to any post-HDR processing, its image alignment process stands head and shoulders above anyone else.  To prove this point, I took the same set of 3 bracketed images and created HDR files using Photomatix Pro 3.1 and Photoshop CS4.  I saved the images as OpenEXR files and then tonemapped the files using the same tonemapping settings in Photomatix Pro.

The file on the left was merged using Photomatix Pro and the image on the right using Photoshop.  This was a challenging image to merge because I did not use a tripod to shoot the bracketed exposures so there was some slight alignment shifts between the different exposures.  To really get an idea of how much better Photoshop’s alignment function really is, check out these enlargements from the above images.  All of the images depict Photomatix Pro on the left and Photoshop on the right.

You can click on all of the above images to see a larger view.  Another thing I noticed in doing this little test is that the file created with Photoshop has a little more faithful color rendition and better sharpness and detail.  Just imagine how much better it would be if I would use a tripod.

So often I get carried away with new features and filters in Photoshop that I sometimes forget about some of the oldies but goodies.  This weekend I got reacquainted with one of my favorites, the Dust and Scratches Filter.

This past Friday, a friend gave me a file and asked if I could clean it up for them.  It was a scan of an old movie poster that had been folded up in a drawer somewhere.  Her main request was that I get rid of the fold marks but as I started working with the file, I couldn’t get past all of the dust that had come from scanning the poster (a very common occurrence with scans).  My big problem was that there was so much dust that while using the clone brush for the page folds, I was cloning in dust to the areas that I was repairing.  I started to clone out all of the dust, and there was a lot of it, when I remembered the Dust and Scratches filter.  Sure enough, I fired it up, set up the parameters, and started knocking those little dust bunnies out of site.

There are a couple of tricks to using the filter.  The first is to make a selection around the areas containing the dust and or scratches.  Try to work in smaller areas with similar tonal ranges and textures to them.  The great thing is that you can use any selection tool that you like.  I usually just go with the Lasso or Rectangular Marquee tools to make quick selections around the dust laden areas.

Once selected, you activate the filter by clicking Filters>Noise>Dust & Scratches… This brings up the dialog box which will allow you to remove those little flecks.  There are just two sliders to worry about, the Radius, and the Threshold.  I usually start with both sliders at zero and then start moving the Radius to the right until the unwanted dust disappears from the scene.  Upon moving the Radius slider, it will quickly become apparent why you need the Threshold.  The Radius will make you entire area look blurred and without texture so the next step is to start moving the Threshold up until the original texture of the area comes back, sans dust.  You might have to play with the Radius again after adjusting the Threshold to come up with the perfect balance.  Once you are done, just click OK.

If you think that’s great, just wait until you start using it in high-speed mode.  Now that you have your parameters set, just grab hold of that favorite selection tool and start fencing in all of the other dust on your image.  Now use the keyboard shortcut Cmd+F or Ctrl+F to apply your last filter adjustment to this new selection.  You can really start covering some real estate once you have the filter set up and start using the keyboard shortcut.  If you find that you have moved to an area where the last filter setting just isn’t getting it done, hold down Cmd+Alt+F to quickly get back to the dialog box.

A word of warning, the filter doesn’t know the difference between an edge and a scratch so be careful not to apply it across contrasting edges.

I don’t remember how long this particular filter has been in Photoshop but I can’t remember a time when it hasn’t been around.  So if you have some scanned photos that you want to clean up, break out your selection tool and give it a try.

Here are the before and after images.

BEFORE

AFTER

So what do I mean by this?  Well let me try and explain.  This weekend I was doing some research at one of my favorite places, my local Borders book store.  As per my norm, I started at the Photoshop section and then on to the Photography section.  I was looking for books that dealt with photography, more specific, digital photography.  But here’s the funny thing, every book that I opened had about half of its content dealing with cameras and photo taking and the other half on processing the images in Photoshop.  Sometimes it was more like 30/70 with Photoshop taking up the lions share of the information.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am sure these are all great books (which is why I don’t want to use any title names here), but these books should be titled Digital Image Processing, not digital photography.

This kind of reminds me of when I took a college class called the History of Photography.  I thought “This is great, I’ll learn all about the development of cameras and such.”  Wrong!  What I got was the history of photographers, not photography.  Okay, so I did learn something from this class but not what I was expecting.

When I pick up a book about how to take great digital photographs, I want camera techniques, exposure advice, even a little science to back things up.  The last thing I want is a Photoshop book disguised as a photography book.  Also puzzling is why Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography books are always filed among the Photoshop books.  They deserve to be in the Photography section more so than any of these other books I was looking at.  They are all about camera and flash and exposure and not image processing.

Now before everyone starts firing off comments about how digital processing is part of the photographic process now, let me say that I don’t totally disagree.  On the other hand, it is not part of the photography process.  The number of people that actually do their own Photoshop processing is very low.  I would hazard a guess that the majority of people using digital cameras are taking their cards to Costco or sending their images to Mpix and not doing their own post-processing.  So does this mean that they aren’t really doing digital photography?

So that’s my 2¢, feel free to give me yours.

After my post the other day on using the Lightroom Export function to speed up image prep, I received some comments from readers who told me that they also like to use Droplets for quick image prepping.  Droplets don’t get a lot of love being mixed in with all the other juicy Photoshop tools but they are something you might want to give notice to, especially when it comes to streamlining your workflow.

So what are Droplets you ask?  A Droplet is like a little program that applies an action to one or more images or a folder of images that you drop onto the Droplet icon.  So let’s say that you have recorded an action to sharpen your images before uploading to the web.  Instead of having to run a batch from within Bridge or Photoshop, you can just go to the folder and drag and drop it right on the Droplet icon and the action will start running on all of your images.  I typically put my Droplets on my desktop so that they are easy to access.

To create a Droplet, you first need to record the action that you want to use.  You can also use an existing action that you have already recorded.  Then in the Photoshop File menu, choose Automate > Create Droplet.

When the dialog box opens, specify where to save the droplet. Click Choose in the Save Droplet In section of the dialog box and navigate to the location.  Next, select the Action Set, and then designate which action you intend to use within the Set and Action menus. (Select the action in the Actions palette before you open the dialog box to preselect these menus.)  Finally, set the processing, saving, and file naming options.  Now click OK and go find your Droplet.  You should see the arrow shaped icon in the location you chose for it.

To use it, just drag an image, several images, or a folder on top of the icon and let go.  The droplet will open your images in Photoshop and apply the action.  Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy!

So next time you create a folder of images using your Lightroom Export preset, finish them off with the Droplet of your choice.