PhotoWalkPro

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.

I’m starting off today on a more serious note (I know, that’s like two serious days in a row).  Yesterday I talked about what some consider to be an uglier side to photography but today I want to talk about a selfless act that I think you should know about.  No doubt you have heard of the typhoon that wreaked havoc on the country of Burma.  It’s hard to even imagine the loss of human life on the scale in which it is being measured in this tiny Asian country.  It’s even harder if you have given a piece of yourself to the country like my friend Vincent Versace has.

A while back, Vincent visited Burma and was overwhelmed by its beauty and even more so by the people that live there.  Ever since the typhoon struck, he has struggled with finding a way to help the people of Burma recover from their recent tragedy.  Being an artist, he has found the only outlet for help that is currently available to him at present.  In his own words:

photo by Vincent Versace

For those of you are familiar with my work you know how much the country of Burma (Myanmar) moved me when I shot there. I truly was taken by the country, so much so I left a piece of my heart and soul there.

I believe that being of service is the rent you pay to live on the planet, which is why I volunteer my time to be the photographer of a first response extreme medical rescue team “Immediate Assistants”. We are currently barred from entering the country because of the three week visa requirements that are in place for all aid workers.

Thomas Jefferson said “The pen is mightier than the sword”. I believe that art is mightier than the pen. With that said I am putting my art where my heart is. With the current death toll at 22,000 and 46,000 still missing, we as a community of creatives have to act with the the most powerful tools that we
have, our voice, and in my work that voice is contained.

For the next six weeks 100% of any of my photographic art, what ever size, what ever the price of that the art sells for (except for Shipping and Handling) will be donated to relief efforts in Burma and will be sent directly to the The Nargis Victims of Myanmar Trust.

Please link to my print sales page and buy a print for the cause:
http://versacephotography.com/prints.html

If you want to donate an amount that is less than the cost of one of my prints, or you just want to donate directly out of the kindness of your heart then here is the account info:

Bank:
Washington Mutual
address:
Yorba Linda Financial Center 1358
20385 Yorba Linda Blvd,
Yorba Linda, CA 92886
Phone:
1-800-788-7000

Name of account: “The Nargis Victims of Myanmar Trust”
Account # 34033 45916
ABA# 321180748
Swift Code# WMSBUS66
Routing # 322271627

If you are going to send a check, please use this address and payable to “The Nargis Victims of Myanmar Trust”
Andrew Khaw
4382 Via Miguel
Yorba Linda, CA 92886

Peace,
Vincent Versace

In Other News -

I have created the Flickr Group for my upcoming Georgetown photowalk.  If you are planning on joining me, or just want to stay abreast of the discussions, plans, and subsequent images, head on over and register as a member.  You can find the group here.

I was reading a post over at John Nack’s blog where he discussed the upgrade schedules of Photoshop and other CS Suite applications.  I started thinking about how I would love to see a shift in the upgrade paradigm to reflect only those items I needed.  Here’s how it would work.

1. Buy the core photoshop program.  This core would be upgraded periodically at no cost to maintain compatibility with new upgrades.
2. Then, when Adobe updated part of the application, say a new set of filters, you could choose to buy that upgraded module or keep what you already have.  As new modules are updated, you can choose to only upgrade to those items.
3. And because the core module always updates, you can add just those future technologies that you really need.
4. For those that wanted all of the upgrades, there could be a discounted bundle that included everything.

I know that this will probably never ever happen but wouldn’t it be great if you could customize your application to serve your needs?  I can dream, can’t I?

When I was walking the tradeshow floor at Photoshop World last month, I was just amazed at some of the new plug-in applications that are now available for Photoshop.  One that really caught my eye is called Fluid Mask 3 by a company called Vertus.  A friend and I just stood and watched the demo for a good 15 minutes with our jaws hanging as the company rep made selection after impossible selection with an ease and quickness that was just astounding.  Well, now I have a copy and I am going to give it a good run through.  I’m not ready to give it a review yet as I have just started playing with it but already I am impressed with the power of this new tool.  If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the short video on the Vertus site.  I’m sure you will be amazed too.

There was also some software that was being demonstrated, but not on the show floor.  I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at some of the beta software currently under development by OnOne and Nik.  I can’t talk about the Nik stuff because I am an official beta-tester and had to sign an NDA but I am really excited with what I have seen so far.

Speaking of beta testing, one of the products from OnOne that we saw was called Liquid Resize and it is currently available to download in beta format right here.  It is a slick little piece of software that will let you resize an image, say from 4×6 to 4×5 by throwing out the “unimportant” pixel information and keeping those items that matter.  They call it “Content Aware” resizing but whatever it’s called, it is just about the slickest thing I have seen in some time.

Yesterday I got on a Black and White kick and started processing some old images.  Here are the results (I should have been cutting my grass but rain and a flat lawn tractor tire kept me inside, what a pitty).