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Tziko
Feb 18, 2001
With all the great photos that appear in the Photo A Day threads, I would love to hear how many of you process the photos that come out of your camera into what appear in the thread. The point of this thread is to give step by step instructions on your post-processing, enabling other photographers to build upon their skill set when it comes to Lightroom/Photoshop/etc.

I'll start off with a recent photo of mine and hopefully other people will contribute as well. I'd love to see instructions on the processing work for johnasavoia's B&W conversions, blake_sw's desaturated look, the professional work of brad industry and friendship waffle, Dread Head's landscapes and the countless other great contributions that have been made in this forum.

---
Online Resources
http://www.chromasia.com/ - A photo blog with heavily processes photos done well. Also includes some (non-free) tutorials.
http://www.stuckincustoms.com/ - If HDR is your processing technique of choice, this photo blog is for you.
http://abduzeedo.com/tutorials - Tons of tutorials
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn203/DocGawnz/kitten_1.gif - IMPORTANT

Books
The Creative Digital Darkroom - An absolutely fantastic book that gives detailed instructions on how to do just about any photography post-processing with Photoshop/Lightroom.
---

So, onto the guide. I started off with the following RAW image out of the camera and imported it into Lightroom.



I had also taken a couple more exposures of the same scene at around -1EV and -2EV compared to the above image. I rotated the images a bit (rotate one, select them all, right-click, develop settings / sync settings, select crop) and opened them up in Photoshop CS3.

By using the darkest of the three as a base image, I copied the other two images and pasted them as layers on top of it. I also created layer maskes (Layer / Layer Mask / Reveal All) for the two topmost layers. This allows me to paint through to the underxposed layers, replacing the burnt out sections of the longest exposure with less over-exposed regions. This is accomplished by selecting the layer mask in the Layers dialog and simply painting with a black brush over the sections where you want to show the layer below. By alt-clicking on the layer mask, you can see the layer mask in black and white (see image below, ignoring the three topmost layers) and by ctrl-clicking on a mask it selects everything that is not hidden (i.e. the white sections).



Once the masking was completed to my satisfaction, I started working with adjustment layers. My first step was to darken the sky with a curve. To select the sky, I used the lasso tool to roughly select the sky and then refined it by using Select / Color Range. I then created a new curves adjustment layer, as seen below.



This resulted in a way too satured look. I selected the sky again (ctrl-clicked on the curves adjustment layer mask) and created a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.



Finally, I wanted to modify the colors and contrast of the rest of the image. I selected the sky again (ctrl-click on mask), inversed the selection (Select / Inverse) and created another curves adjustment layer.



I was now done with Photoshop. I saved the image and returned back to Lightroom.

The image was nearly complete at this point, but I wanted to emphasize the building features a bit more. I bumped up the blacks a bit to +3 and changed to Clarity slider to +48. Being satisfied with the result, the final step was exporting the image to a more suitable web-sized sRGB JPG with sharpening set to Medium and Display. Here is the final image:



Feel free to offer improvement suggestions or ask questions. I'm still pretty much a Photoshop newbie and would love to hear of any shortcuts or better ways of doing the above.

Tziko fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Jan 14, 2009

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Luk3
Nov 25, 2005

Haha, I was talking about this on the IRC channel yesterday and just finished writing up an OP. God drat!

Could I suggest that you add some sort of a "Resources" section to the OP? Somewhere to keep a list of books, videos, websites, etc that people suggest in the thread?

Tziko
Feb 18, 2001

Luk3 posted:

Haha, I was talking about this on the IRC channel yesterday and just finished writing up an OP. God drat!

Could I suggest that you add some sort of a "Resources" section to the OP? Somewhere to keep a list of books, videos, websites, etc that people suggest in the thread?
Oh, definitely. I'll modify the OP with whatever resources you people suggest.

By the way, what IRC channel do you guys hang out on?

Luk3
Nov 25, 2005

Tziko posted:

Oh, definitely. I'll modify the OP with whatever resources you people suggest.

By the way, what IRC channel do you guys hang out on?

#creatives on irc.synirc.net

quazi
Apr 19, 2002

data control
I was thinking of starting a thread like this too!

Here's one I already have a writeup for:


When I took the image, I used a 2-stop soft GND filter to keep the sky from overblowing:




Since I exposed for the sky, trying to keep as much detail in there as possible, everything else took on a flat appearance. My first order of business is to develop it in Lightroom.

I'm not at home, so I can't get the original edits (or screenshots of the interface), but it was probably this:

Exposure : +1.25
Recovery : 100%
Color Temperature : a little cooler (??)




Since the sky came out too bright in that version, I made a virtual copy in Lightroom which was underexposed until the clouds had good definition -- fully intending to merge it in later. (It was also warmed up a bit)




I brought these two into Photoshop, and stacked the dark one over the light one. (This is where my painting degree came in to play.) I took the eraser, set it to about 1000 pixels, completely soft-edged, and at about 30% transparency. I started erasing the underexposed ground from the top layer to let the bottom layer show through. After a few color and brightness selections, I was able to remove most of the ground from the top layer.


hrm.. where'd the oil tanks go?


..and this is what was left of the sky.




If it's still flat at this point, check the transparency of the top layer, then try a curve layer that adds contrast.




Final step: dodging, burning, saturation

In order to be non-destructive, I create two layers (in a group):

- "Lightener" 40% overlay
- "Darkener" 40% overay

Depending on the effect, in each layer I will use a brush between 400px and 1200px across, no hardness (extremely soft-edged), and about 20-40% opacity. (The full image size is 3000x2000.)

To start with, I use white in the Lightener layer, And black in the Darkener. Some areas might need warming or cooling, so I might try some colors sampled from the image.






BTW, you're not a newbie if you're using masks on adjustment layers. :v:

jackpot
Aug 31, 2004

First cousin to the Black Rabbit himself. Such was Woundwort's monument...and perhaps it would not have displeased him.<
What a great idea - this beats my idea for a "post your pets" thread all to hell and back. :v:

I'd love it if someone could pass on their tips for sharpening, i.e. whether to use unsharp mask, offset, etc.

FunkyJunk
Jul 14, 2004

quazi posted:

Here's one I already have a writeup for

Quazi, I think there may be a better, or at least different, way to achieve what you were going for. Keep in mind this is just quick 'n dirty.

I took your original image and did the following:

1. add duplicate layer on top
2. to original layer, add hue/saturation, exposure, and brightness/contrast adjustment layers
3. to duplicate layer, add a layer mask to block off the bottom of the image

And you're done. In mine the sky is a little lighter, however you could add in an adjustment layer to the top layer to darken it or add contrast if that's what you wanted. (edit: actually, changing the top layer to "multiply" makes the sky pop nicely, though I didn't do that here.)

FunkyJunk fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jan 12, 2009

quazi
Apr 19, 2002

data control

FunkyJunk posted:

Quazi, I think there may be a better, or at least different, way to achieve what you were going for. Keep in mind this is just quick 'n dirty.
And that's the beautiful thing about Photoshop -- there's a zillion different ways of getting basically the same answer!

My excuse for taking the more complicated route was that I prefer to work in RAW as much as possible before exporting the image.

Soylent Green
Oct 29, 2004
It's people

quazi posted:

My excuse for taking the more complicated route was that I prefer to work in RAW as much as possible before exporting the image.
This brings up a good point as well, for as long as possible when working on your images, I'd recommend keeping them as Smart Objects so you can get back into the RAW editor after creating adjustment layers and the like.
I imagine most people are doing this already, but if you don't know all you have to do is hold shift down when you hit "Open Image" on the RAW editor window in Photoshop. It should change to "Open Object".
To get back to the RAW window, just double click on the layer, it should have a little icon on it looking like a sheet of paper with a black box and a white box on it more or less.

Gambl0r
Dec 25, 2003

LOCAL MAN
RUINS
EVERYTHING
I wrote a how-to on the steps I take when I do HDR processing a while ago. If it's ok, I'll just paste it in here. The photo I used as an example is this one.

The following may not be new to a lot of you, but I think it serves as a good reminder that a HDR photo is not necessarily 'done' right out of Photomatix. I spend a lot more time editing the results from Photomatix than I do during the actual tonemap.

quote:



I started with three separate images taken with the Canon 40D. I was using Auto Exposure Bracketing, with the camera set to take exposures at -2,0,+2 EV.

(Side note for 40D users! The exposure bracketing on the 40D won't go any further that +-2, but one cool thing that I've found is that you can rotate the control wheel so your middle exposure is set to -2, and your three bracketed shots will actually be -4,-2,0 EV. Scroll the wheel all the way to the other end of the spectrum and you'll have +4, +2, 0 EV... so effectively you've taken five shots between -4 and +4 with two shutter presses!)

So I took those three exposures and used Photoshop to automatically align them. I shot these with a timer on a tripod, so there was no movement between shots... but in cases where there is movement, I find Photoshop does a much better job than Photomatix at aligning the images.

Save that as a tif, open in Photomatix for tonemapping. Really I have found that every photo requires different settings in Photomatix, but all the sliders and options are laid out in plain view so it's very easy to experiment. Recently I've found that I like to 'over-HDR' the image and then selectively scale it back in Photoshop. So the photo labeled 'Photomatix Tonemap' in the image above was really never meant to be seen by anyone other than me :D I dislike that kind of overdone-HDR shot, and if I wasn't planning on doing any other work after tonemapping, I would have set the overall HDR effect much lower. HDR can really help a shot with a wide range of tones, from dark to light... but the downside is all the extreme highlights and shadows are kind of being evened out, which can make things look flat (to me). For example, look at the ceiling in the image labeled 'Photomatix Tonemap' above. The ceiling is nice and detailed, but it also appears that it's getting just as much light as the freezer in the foreground (which you can see is not the case from the original photos). More on this later.

I saved the tonemapped image to another tif, and brought it into Lightroom. There I changed some things which might seem strange. I took the color saturation of the image almost to zero. Then I made large adjustments to the 'Camera Calibration' section to give a cyan cast to the entire image. Then I worked with the 'Split Toning' section to make the shadows a dark blue-purple, and the highlights a yellow-green. I adjusted the tone curve a little bit and saved these adjustments to a preset called 'Decay Cold'.

I applied those presets to the original '0 EV' shot, so I had one blue-green colored tonemapped image (labeled 'Lightroom Adjusted' in the image above) and one blue-green colored original photo (labeled '0 EV Lightroom Adjusted' in the image above).

I brought both of them into Photoshop, placed the HDR shot as the top layer, and added a mask to it. Then I chose a brush with a low hardness setting and started painting over the areas I didn't want such an extreme amount of 'HDR-look'. You can see from the mask that I got rid of a lot of the HDR effect on the front of the freezer, on the ceiling, and on the back wall. I left the most HDR effect in the ice, because I thought it looked awesome :D Lastly, I placed a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer over everything and used a gradient mask to apply it only to the ceiling - to darken it up. I think this brings back the sense of depth in the shot.

Gambl0r fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jan 13, 2009

Mannequin
Mar 8, 2003
I'll post some examples a bit later. Great idea for a thread!

quazi posted:

I took the eraser, set it to about 1000 pixels, completely soft-edged, and at about 30% transparency. I started erasing the underexposed ground from the top layer to let the bottom layer show through.

I don't understand why people use the eraser tool. To me it's dangerous. I always use layer masks. I can "erase" with a paintbrush in a mask just as easily with the eraser tool, and the effect can always be undone - at any stage of the game. If you erase something, it's gone. There's no getting it back if you're 25 steps into the process unless you do a massive history undo.... which might take away steps you wanted to keep.


Tziko posted:


Well done. The only thing you didn't do which you should have (except it wouldn't have been possible because of the lack of free space), was to fix the left column of the building using the Transform tool (or Lens Correction tool). The fact that the perspective distortion from the wide lens makes it appear as though the building is listing backwards is a problem and a distraction. Otherwise, nicely done!

Mannequin fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Jan 13, 2009

johnasavoia
Jan 9, 2006

One of my favorite shots recently and one that a couple people commented on here and elsewhere. This is generally how I process all my shots as well. (RAW metadata is great, all I had to to was save a copy at each stage from the original development that Lightroom had saved)

Here is the original file straight into LR.


Converted to greyscale, simply desaturated.


Crunch my blacks roughly to where I want them.


Recovery slider to get my highlights down a bit.


A little fill light, slightly more shadow detail than I plan to have by the end.


Contrast about midway up, sometimes more sometimes less, and we have our finished shot.


About 45 seconds of work, sometimes certain shots need more time, if I can't decide how I want it to look or if there is any channel mixer work needed, or local adjustments.

germskr
Oct 23, 2007

HAHAHA! Ahh Eeeee BPOOF!

johnasavoia posted:

One of my favorite shots recently and one that a couple people commented on here and elsewhere. This is generally how I process all my shots as well. (RAW metadata is great, all I had to to was save a copy at each stage from the original development that Lightroom had saved)

Here is the original file straight into LR.


Gee that place in the background looks awfully familiar. :raise:


johnasavoia
Jan 9, 2006

germskr posted:

Gee that place in the background looks awfully familiar. :raise:




how interesting, we live in the same city, this is quite a coincidence

whaam
Mar 18, 2008

Gambl0r posted:

I wrote a how-to on the steps I take when I do HDR processing a while ago. If it's ok, I'll just paste it in here. The photo I used as an example is this one.

The following may not be new to a lot of you, but I think it serves as a good reminder that a HDR photo is not necessarily 'done' right out of Photomatix. I spend a lot more time editing the results from Photomatix than I do during the actual tonemap.

Great processing on that image. I follow a pretty similar work flow for HDR-ish shots. I usually HDR and tonemap one image and layer it with a few extra adjusted RAW exposures to fix any blown or dropped parts and erase out most of the HDR< leaving the parts that I think add to the shot.

Necronomicon
Jan 18, 2004

Having just gotten Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom, this thread is a huge, huge help.

Tarnien
Jul 4, 2003
Champion of the World!!!

Necronomicon posted:

Having just gotten Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom, this thread is a huge, huge help.

Agreed - Just wanted to say thanks in hopes of keeping more coming!

quazi
Apr 19, 2002

data control

Mannequin posted:

I don't understand why people use the eraser tool.
I did that before I knew how to use masks.

The fun part is that I can go back and re-import the virtual copy from Lightroom, then use the transparent areas from that erased layer as a mask for the new layer, deleting the erased layer in the process.

Soylent Green posted:

This brings up a good point as well, for as long as possible when working on your images, I'd recommend keeping them as Smart Objects so you can get back into the RAW editor after creating adjustment layers and the like.
How do Smart Objects register with other layers? Hopefully it's just the interface, but Smart Objects don't seem to be pixel perfect, especially when resizing them. (I guess I should test it.)

quazi fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Jan 13, 2009

Scooter
May 12, 2001
Something I've recently started using is the graduated filter feature that is new in LR2; I mostly use it to adjust the exposure of different parts of the scene. It's not as flexible as using masked layers in Photoshop as quazi and FunkyJunk described, but it's much faster.

Now for some color space questions: what do y'all use for color spaces when exporting from Lightroom? I export to SRGB, and the exported photos always look slightly darker outside of Lightroom. Is Lightroom converting to a different color space for display than Firefox/Irfanview? I haven't explicitly set a color space for my monitors; could that be the cause of the mismatch?

brad industry
May 22, 2004

Scooter posted:

Now for some color space questions: what do y'all use for color spaces when exporting from Lightroom? I export to SRGB, and the exported photos always look slightly darker outside of Lightroom. Is Lightroom converting to a different color space for display than Firefox/Irfanview? I haven't explicitly set a color space for my monitors; could that be the cause of the mismatch?

LR uses ProPhotoRGB and then exports to whatever you tell it to. I always shoot and then export in Adobe RGB and then convert to sRGB for printing/web.

This is a cool idea for a thread, I like seeing other people's processes. I will put up some of my stuff when I have some free time later.

Scooter
May 12, 2001

brad industry posted:

LR uses ProPhotoRGB and then exports to whatever you tell it to. I always shoot and then export in Adobe RGB and then convert to sRGB for printing/web.

What's the benefit of converting to sRGB for printing? Isn't printing done with a CMYK color space that doesn't overlap exactly with sRGB?

Scooter posted:

Now for some color space questions: what do y'all use for color spaces when exporting from Lightroom? I export to SRGB, and the exported photos always look slightly darker outside of Lightroom. Is Lightroom converting to a different color space for display than Firefox/Irfanview? I haven't explicitly set a color space for my monitors; could that be the cause of the mismatch?

I did some more research, and found an article that explains the current state of Firefox color management: it's supported, but for various reasons it's disabled by default. Apparently Safari is the only browser that uses the embedded ICC information from images by default. Enabling the option for it in Firefox solved my problem: the colors of my photos on Flickr now look the same as in Lightroom. Most people will still see subtly wrong colors, but it's good to know the problem isn't in my workflow.

brad industry
May 22, 2004

Scooter posted:

What's the benefit of converting to sRGB for printing? Isn't printing done with a CMYK color space that doesn't overlap exactly with sRGB?

CMYK for offset, sRGB for inkjet.

what is this
Sep 11, 2001

it is a lemur
inkjets still don't print in RGB. Even with extended inksets they don't have true red green and blue in additive color like your monitor does. Ink is fundamentally a subtractive color model. If the printer lays down a combination of red, green, and blue ink, it will not get white.

You should print in your printer's colorspace, not sRGB. Use the provided profiles with manufacturer's ink and manufacturer's paper, or alternatively create your own profiles with your own inks and paper.

sRGB is incorrect.

Zoowick
Apr 9, 2007

Making fifteen year old girls looks like whores since 2006
A video tutorial I made about Topaz Adjust and my basic processing technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThYH4a92yvk

Here is the final image from the tutorial.



Zoowick fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Jan 14, 2009

what is this
Sep 11, 2001

it is a lemur
yeah, I shoot in JPEG, always run them through RAW converter, rockin' it like ren rockwell


here's how to make a massive vignette guys, I know it's hard work but that kind of post processing really pays off when you're a bigshot like me

oh yeah, horrible HDR clouds is the poo poo on portraits! it works even better if you have the subject looking off into space at the edge of the frame, with lots of negative space behind her! what's that? you say I shouldn't crop edges off people's legs? nah, the rules of composition don't apply to true masterminds.

what is this fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jan 14, 2009

optik
Jul 6, 2005
linux is a pathway to many abilities..... some consider to be un-natural
Ignore this useless piece of text that came from my keyboard

optik fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Jan 14, 2009

Zoowick
Apr 9, 2007

Making fifteen year old girls looks like whores since 2006

friendship waffle posted:

yeah, I shoot in JPEG, always run them through RAW converter, rockin' it like ren rockwell


here's how to make a massive vignette guys, I know it's hard work but that kind of post processing really pays off when you're a bigshot like me

oh yeah, horrible HDR clouds is the poo poo on portraits! it works even better if you have the subject looking off into space at the edge of the frame, with lots of negative space behind her! what's that? you say I shouldn't crop edges off people's legs? nah, the rules of composition don't apply to true masterminds.

I never said it was the right way, it's just how I roll. Some people dig my poo poo others not so much. It's all good, I suck at following rules anyway.

Mannequin
Mar 8, 2003
NM

Mannequin fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Feb 19, 2009

IsaacNewton
Jun 18, 2005

Zoowick posted:

I never said it was the right way, it's just how I roll. Some people dig my poo poo others not so much. It's all good, I suck at following rules anyway.

I get you, you left space in the picture for your signature. :D

Nice tutorial. But you sound like a porn actor when you go 'yeaaah...'

Edit: Or the 'bee would have been in the shot?

IsaacNewton fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Jan 14, 2009

Toupee
Feb 6, 2008

by Tiny Fistpump

friendship waffle posted:

yeah, I shoot in JPEG, always run them through RAW converter, rockin' it like ren rockwell


here's how to make a massive vignette guys, I know it's hard work but that kind of post processing really pays off when you're a bigshot like me

oh yeah, horrible HDR clouds is the poo poo on portraits! it works even better if you have the subject looking off into space at the edge of the frame, with lots of negative space behind her! what's that? you say I shouldn't crop edges off people's legs? nah, the rules of composition don't apply to true masterminds.

Well I thought it looked nice, mister grumpy pants <:mad:>

Bottom Liner
Feb 15, 2006


a specific vein of lasagna

Mannequin posted:

Dude, post your own work sometime. I'm curious as I'm sure others are as well since you seem to be pretty knowledgeable.



thats a nice way of saying man the gently caress up and let us rip you apart for once waffle, if you do in fact even take pictures. you remind me of a cranky old drawing professor from school that never had his work noticed so he took it out on the kids by critiquing the hell out of them.

Zoowick obviously has a very specific clientel and knows exactly what they want and how to do it. In the same way that Anthony Bourdaine enjoys street food for what it is while ripping apart chefs on iron chef, you have to look at the work in the context of it's use and intention, something you don't seem to be capable of. I think it was a good tutorial and the results are great for the audience, and I will be using similar methods for things like that in the future, not because it's high art, but because it brings home the bacon.

Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Jan 14, 2009

jackpot
Aug 31, 2004

First cousin to the Black Rabbit himself. Such was Woundwort's monument...and perhaps it would not have displeased him.<

friendship waffle posted:

Dear Christ you can be a cocksucker sometimes.

what is this
Sep 11, 2001

it is a lemur
really, you're really defending him?


First of all, shooting JPEG and running it through RAW converted instead of just shooting RAW in the first place, for posed shots, is 100% stupid ken rockwell poo poo.

Second, the mega HDR look is extremely cheesy and overdone. The same applies to slapping a vignette on everything.

Third, the composition of that photo is undeniably bad, and violates all the basic rules taught in your first photo class. It's fine to break rules if you have a reason but this just looks sloppy.


I'd love to see an actual rebuttal to any of those three points.

jackpot
Aug 31, 2004

First cousin to the Black Rabbit himself. Such was Woundwort's monument...and perhaps it would not have displeased him.<

Scooter posted:

I did some more research, and found an article that explains the current state of Firefox color management: it's supported, but for various reasons it's disabled by default. Apparently Safari is the only browser that uses the embedded ICC information from images by default. Enabling the option for it in Firefox solved my problem: the colors of my photos on Flickr now look the same as in Lightroom. Most people will still see subtly wrong colors, but it's good to know the problem isn't in my workflow.
I've been trying to fix this for a while now, with no success; my images are desaturated in browsers but look good in photoshop/bridge (don't make fun). It's not computer specific; I have the same problem between my windows home pc and my work macbook pro. And the thing is, I don't want to have to change any settings in firefox to see them right, because I can't expect people looking at them to change anything. Can someone give me the lowdown on what to set/how to save so that what I see in a browser matches what I see in PS, and what most other people will see?

Here are my current color settings in CS3:

jackpot
Aug 31, 2004

First cousin to the Black Rabbit himself. Such was Woundwort's monument...and perhaps it would not have displeased him.<

friendship waffle posted:

really, you're really defending him?
So come out and say "You did this wrong and here's why no one should use your methods, reasons 1) 2) 3)" instead of swooping in and dropping poo poo through your bomb bay doors. You're continually surprised by the reactions (some of) your posts get, and I just don't understand it.

Mannequin
Mar 8, 2003
Edit: It'd be nice if we could actually delete our posts, but I guess that doesn't exist anywhere. Ignore this!

Mannequin fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Jan 16, 2009

brad industry
May 22, 2004

friendship waffle posted:

inkjets still don't print in RGB. Even with extended inksets they don't have true red green and blue in additive color like your monitor does. Ink is fundamentally a subtractive color model. If the printer lays down a combination of red, green, and blue ink, it will not get white.

You should print in your printer's colorspace, not sRGB. Use the provided profiles with manufacturer's ink and manufacturer's paper, or alternatively create your own profiles with your own inks and paper.

sRGB is incorrect.

:rolleyes: Your custom title is so well deserved. You mean printers don't print light? No loving poo poo. Name one printing process that isn't subtractive. Do you even print inkjet because you pretty clearly don't know what you're talking about here. Custom profiles are for the device not the image file. You can soft-proof the image using the custom profile but you don't convert to it. Your file still has to be in some kind of color space, and all inkjet printers (and their provided profiles or the profiles you make) expect sRGB files. If you don't know what you're talking about then please don't post it because you're just going to confuse everyone else.

color managed printing workflow:
convert image to sRGB -> let PS manage color -> select appropriate profile FOR THE DEVICE -> turn off color management in the device driver -> print

And yes friendship waffle you should post some of your own work. I suspect that most of the time you're just trolling but I would like to figure out where to put you on my "pixel peeping amateur -> ok you don't suck" mental chart.

edit: I'll point out that I was a printmaker for years before I became a photographer, and I have made 100+ custom profiles for inkjet printers so please back your bullshit up if you think I'm wrong (I'm not)

brad industry fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Jan 14, 2009

Tziko
Feb 18, 2001

jackpot posted:

I've been trying to fix this for a while now, with no success; my images are desaturated in browsers but look good in photoshop/bridge (don't make fun). It's not computer specific; I have the same problem between my windows home pc and my work macbook pro. And the thing is, I don't want to have to change any settings in firefox to see them right, because I can't expect people looking at them to change anything. Can someone give me the lowdown on what to set/how to save so that what I see in a browser matches what I see in PS, and what most other people will see?

Here are my current color settings in CS3:

I recently had a problem with my images appearing all wrong in non color managed applications. I was definitely converting the colors to sRGB (not simply applying the sRGB profile), so the images shouldn't have been the problem. Are you sure you're doing this to your photos?

My problem turned out to be related to my monitor color profile. Depending on your video card, XP can't handle two seperate color profiles if you have two monitors connected to the same video card. I unloaded the profile of my secondary display and reloaded only the profile of my main display, which fixed my problems. I still don't exactly know why this caused images to look weird in non color managed applications only, though. Anyone have any ideas?


Also, if any of you have good post-processing resources (online or books), please share them so that I can add them to the OP.

what is this
Sep 11, 2001

it is a lemur

brad industry posted:

:rolleyes: Your custom title is so well deserved. You mean printers don't print light? No loving poo poo. Name one printing process that isn't subtractive. Do you even print inkjet because you pretty clearly don't know what you're talking about here. Custom profiles are for the device not the image file. You can soft-proof the image using the custom profile but you don't convert to it. Your file still has to be in some kind of color space, and all inkjet printers (and their provided profiles or the profiles you make) expect sRGB files. If you don't know what you're talking about then please don't post it because you're just going to confuse everyone else.

I never have the printer handle color management, so the file is converted in photoshop or aperture using the profile for the printer (which is never sRGB) from what I am working in (which is not sRGB either in most cases). If you're not letting the printer handle the colorspace then what do you think happens to the file before it hits the printer driver? Photoshop converts it using the colorspace you choose.

Your monitor is a device as well, yet when you view the image you do so with a profile so it is properly rendered into the colorspace of the monitor. Setting your monitor to "sRGB" in your system settings would be just as wrong as I think it is to do that with your printer.

You're saying I should convert to sRGB before printing? Why in the world would I do that?

I get good results exactly this with my i9900, which is admittedly an old and crappy printer at this point.


edit: this ate part of my post. I would be happy to hear any reason why you believe this is incorrect.

It seems like the only thing we disagree on is whether you should convert to sRGB before printing.

You don't need to convert to sRGB "because that's what the printer profile expects" since all colorspace conversions go through an intermediate "master" profile connection colorspace.

In other words, the color profile for your printer can't "expect" sRGB for the colorspace as input, because the master colorspace is always the input for the conversion when going from one colorspace to another. The color profile tells you how to get to/from the master space to the colorspace specified by the profile.

I am absolutely confident of this.

what is this fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Jan 14, 2009

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Zoowick
Apr 9, 2007

Making fifteen year old girls looks like whores since 2006

friendship waffle posted:

really, you're really defending him?


First of all, shooting JPEG and running it through RAW converted instead of just shooting RAW in the first place, for posed shots, is 100% stupid ken rockwell poo poo.

Second, the mega HDR look is extremely cheesy and overdone. The same applies to slapping a vignette on everything.

Third, the composition of that photo is undeniably bad, and violates all the basic rules taught in your first photo class. It's fine to break rules if you have a reason but this just looks sloppy.


I'd love to see an actual rebuttal to any of those three points.

I shoot JPEG to keep file sizes down and to speed up my workflow. I average about 10 or so sessions a week plus weddings. The composition sucks I'll give you that one, I just really liked the look of her body and the way the light way laying on her in that shot. I enjoy what I do as do my clients and at the end of the day that's all that really matters. I'm curious who some of your favorite photographers are? Mine are Jill Greenberg, David Hill, Joey L so obviously I like that overdone look. My target market does not give a poo poo about technically flawless images they just want to look awesome.

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