Which came first, Pre-Sharpen or Noise Reduction?

What is the best initial Nik workflow order?

I go back and forth when working with the Google Nik plugins and my workflow in Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. Should I use the pre-sharpener first, as the Google Nik Workflow suggests, or should I use DFine noise reduction first, as others and myself believe to make more sense? Does it make any difference?

It seems to me that if there is noise present in an image and you use the pre-sharpener first, you'll be sharpening the noise, which seems like it would then be more difficult to apply the noise reduction. It seems like the blurring would have to be greater.

Nik's workflow doesn't really offer any reasoning for applying the pre-sharpener first, but it makes sense to me that it would be easier to detect where to sharpen before any noise reduction basically blurred the image to a small extent.

I decided to try both approaches to see if I could find any differences.

Experimenting

I used one of my photos from Bryce Canyon National Park that has some shadows that likely need a touch of noise reduction. The shot was taken at sunset where most of the hoo doo area was in shadow but, as you can see, the distance is still in sunlight. I really wanted to sharpen this image to add some more detail.

I opened this image in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) to import it in to Photoshop as a smart object. I did not apply any noise reduction or sharpening in ACR. By opening it as a smart object I was able to use the same image and to modify the Nik processing.

You should be able to click on these images to get the full size version. Note that they are JPEGs so there is additional processing beyond what I could see in Photoshop.

Bryce Canyon NP - Noise Reduction followed by Pre-Sharpener

Bryce Canyon NP - Pre-Sharpener followed by Noise Reduction

In the first image I applied noise reduction first and then the pre-sharpening. In the second image I applied the pre-sharpener first, followed by the noise reduction. I didn't do any other processing - I wanted to see what the difference is between the two approaches, if any. I used the Nik DFine noise reduction at it's default settings in both cases.

For the pre-sharpener, I set the Sharpen Areas -  Sharpen Lines balance towards Sharpen Lines, with the slider basically above the "N" in the word "Normal" below the slider. Note that when you use the Nik plugins without closing Photoshop in between uses, they open with the previous settings applied. When I switched the order (by deleting the filters in Photoshop), the pre-sharpener opened up with exactly the same setting applied. Everything else was set to the default settings.

Conclusion

If you download both of these images and open each one in a preview panel (I don't know how to do this on a Mac), you can set both preview panels the same by clicking Windows Key + [Left / Right] Arrow Key to get them side by side on your monitor. Then click the Actual Size button on both windows to set the images to 100% and to display the same area of the image.

In my opinion, there is not a lot of difference. It looks to me like there is pretty much identical sharpness in the details, which is good. The little difference that I see is that there are some red pixels creating a color noise artifact in the shadows that appear more defined and sharper in the version where pre-sharpening was applied first. In other words, from this experiment on this image, it appears as though it is (barely) better to do the noise reduction first.

The Adobe Photoshop CC Book by Scott Kelby - Review

Short Review: The Adobe Photoshop CC Book

I have watched a lot of Scott Kelby's YouTube videos, including his weekly show called "The Grid". I like his show and his guests. I have picked up a number of good tips from him such as the one that led me to purchase the Tether Tools Case Air. He's shown me a number of good ideas for using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. When he came out with this new Photoshop CC book I decided to try it. I was hoping to get even more cool tips.

I got this in January, 2017, from Amazon. It's a decent sized book, clocking in at 360 pages. Almost every page is split into two - images and screenshots on the inside of the page and text on the outside of the page. The text illustrates a concept and the images or screenshots show the steps or results of the steps.

Pros (or is it "prose"?)

The book covers probably everything you'd need to know to edit photographs using Adobe Photoshop. He concentrates on using Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) for the basic edits, and, in my opinion, rightfully so. I don't remember if he mentions it, but if you shoot RAW, you'll probably be working with greater bit depth which generally works better with the edits. The more you can do in ACR the better.

I liked his writing style and the book format. He doesn't waste a lot of space or writing. He provides a short explanation of a problem and how it can be addressed then explains the steps to accomplish the task. Not much nonsense. It makes for a book that can be a useful reference - if you need a refresher on how to do something you can turn to that section and you'll quickly get the instructions for completing the edit.

Most of the individual edits take only 1 or 2 pages including the images. There are some that span a few more pages.

He provides some quick tips at the end of each chapter that are usually a few sentences at most. These can include keyboard shortcuts.

The book is printed on nice, glossy paper. I think I only saw one or two spelling errors.

Cons

I only have one personal minor complaint about the book, and one comment.

My complaint may not apply to everyone and I also don't know that much can be done about it without making the book more expensive. I had problems seeing some of the details in some of the images with my old eyes. I don't think I would have had the same problem some years ago. If the images were larger, however, it could double the size of the book and that would make it even more expensive. The only suggestion I can offer is that maybe it'd be cool if all of the images were available online (he does have a companion website for the book but I haven't visited it - perhaps the images are already there).

My comment is also self-centered... I did read the book cover to cover, although I skimmed over the sections pertaining to portraits since I don't shoot them. I found that I already knew most of the material. I picked up a few things that were new but not many. I've been using Photoshop for a couple of years now and have watched a lot of videos plus I have the Martin Evening Photoshop CC book (the 2013 edition) so I've learned a lot about processing images. I was just hoping that I'd pick up even more "insider" tips.

The Bottom Line

I like this book a lot. There's a lot in it, Scott's writing style is easy to understand and follow. It doesn't cover every filter or every menu item, just the ones you're likely to use when editing a photograph. Note that it is listed as NOT targeting beginners so there are some steps he doesn't cover such as a lot of the preferences, how to use Adobe Bridge, etc.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants a thorough guide to Adobe Photoshop CC for editing photographs.

Manfrotto 055XCCSB Short Center Column - WOOHOO - Update, 2/26/2017

Manfrotto 055XCCSB Short Center Column

Manfrotto 055XCCSB - Yippee!

I have been looking for the short center column for my tripod for a couple of years but they haven't been available. I decided that I'd try getting the full length version and cut it down to the size I want, and when I went online to order one I found the short column! Oh goodie!

I like my Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod a lot. I've had it a few years now and it looks and operates about the same as the day I got it. But for some time I've been wishing it didn't have that center column that also swings out 90 degrees. I've used that feature a few times but for the most part I dislike having to swing it out when trying to get my camera low to the ground. I've been considering a Platypod for that reason.

I found the official Manfrotto 055XCCSB available at manfrottospares.com for $59.99 (along with every other part for the 055XPROB tripod). That price includes free shipping, which is pretty cool considering that the part is coming from the United Kingdom!

Now I just may have to get another ball head...

Update - 2/26/2017

I received this item earlier this week, after about a 2 week delivery time. Not bad considering Manrotto said it could take 3 weeks due to clearing customs.

I switched my ball head onto this short column and mounted it on the legs without any issue. You do have to remove the little rubber cap on the bottom and the replace it when it's installed in the legs. The fit is perfect.

My only wish is that it was even shorter. I may cut it off more after I actually get outdoors and try it out. It still sticks down enough so that when the legs are in their flattest position, the center column hits the ground. But, if desired, you can pull the rubber cap back off (I may just leave it off) and swing it to the 90 degree position. That also gets the camera even lower since the ball head is then laying horizontally.

I think this will work to get my camera lower. My other choice is one of the Platypods but then I'd have a second thing to carry and I'd almost certainly need another ball head.

Adobe's "My Portfolio"

Basic Training

Adobe Portfolio Website

Okay, I haven't been out shooting since New Year's Day, but that's a different story. Instead, I've been working on some post processing practicing, including buying Scott Kelby's Photoshop CC 2017 book. I'm about 1/3 of the way through it and may write a bit of a review later.

Besides his book, I have watched a lot of his "The Grid" videos (http://kelbytv.com/thegrid/) and get quite a bit of information from his show. On his recent episode about "Is Your Presentation Killing Your Photography - Episode 269", he mentioned the Adobe Portfolio hosting as a great option for photographers.

I thought I'd check it out this weekend...

I like it

Okay, I gave it away. I'm not planning on writing a long bit on this host, at this point anyway. I just started using it this afternoon and after about 6 hours it looks promising. So much so that I may just use it instead of my SmugMug site.

Before getting much farther, check out my new site at: https://randallmorter.myportfolio.com.

I have a few of points to make...

Free for Adobe Photographer CC Subscribers

This was the thing that Scott Kelby mentioned which caught my attention. If you're paying the $10 per month (and he has a discount available, by the way), you get a free hosting account! 

Simple Layouts

There aren't a boatload of layouts available but there's probably enough because you can customize them quite a bit. I'm using the "Marta" layout. You can see my site looks different than their examples.

There are some customizations I wish were available but aren't. But I seem to have gotten around them okay so far.

Notable Benefits

Here are a few things that I immediately like:

• It's free for me and other Adobe Photo CC subscribers!
• It's got a "responsive" design - it scales nicely for my iPhone. There are previews on the editor to let you see how it will look on smaller monitors.
• It's freeish!
• There aren't a lot of options and the ones that are there are pretty intuitive, at least if you've used any other WYSIWYG editor (I've used SmugMug and jAlbum).
• You can order your images manually.
• It beats writing your own web site!
• It doesn't cost me any more because it's freeish!

Notable Limitations

Here are a few of the limitations:

• No shopping cart. It won't work for selling your photography directly.
• No way to put any of your own scripts in the site - you can't embed 3rd party shopping carts.
• I wish there was a way to limit vertical orientation photographs so that they fit on the viewer's screen. You can kind of get around it with a lightbox but I wish that extra level of button clicking wasn't necessary.
• You can't enter text on a "gallery".
• The site doesn't use any of your photo's EXIF data.

What took me so long?

I wasn't aware of it, but I'll bet there was information about it in one of the Adobe newsletters that I get but never look at.

As for the time required to set it up, I found out you can kind of automate things almost like the SmugMug plugin for Lightroom. You have to set up and enable syncing to Lightroom mobile. Once you do that you can create a collection in Lightroom that is "syncable", add images to it, and they're automatically uploaded to an Adobe Lightroom site. From there you can import them into your portfolio after you create a "project".

I'll post more about this after I've used it a bit more...