Following the NIK Post Processing Workflow

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park Sunrise

I was able to get out to Saguaro National Park last weekend, which I've already posted about to some extent (actually, that post was more about the Tether Tools Case Air). I only got about 20 captures, and processed 5 of them that I've uploaded to my SmugMug site.

I have been working on a free online document where I put my post-processing notes, and as I work on things I update the document. When processing the Saguaro National Park photographs, I decided to once again try the Nik collection of Adobe plugins (now free from Google). I had kind of stopped using them for a while and have mainly been doing post in Lightroom.

My Modified Nik Collection Workflow

In my post-processing notes, I have a Workflow section in which I list a few different post-processing workflows including the Nik Collection Workflow from their online documentation. I basically copied it but I swap a couple of their steps (I tend to do the noise reduction before the pre-sharpener).

I decided to use the Nik plugins on the Saguaro National Park shots just to see how they compared to my Lightroom processing (note: you can use the plugins in Lightroom too). I have to say I was pretty pleased with the results!

In addition to the Nik workflow, I added the Elia Locardi High Pass Sharpening technique that I also outline in my document. While doing so, I took the time to learn and document how to create a Photoshop Action for creating a new High Pass Sharpening layer. I really like how this sharpening works.

I also added a layer for my watermark but that's not too difficult. I was hoping to create an action for that too but I don't see how. You apparently can't import an image using the file system directly into a layer.

The Workflow in Action

Saguaro National Park Sunrise - SOOC

I used Lightroom to browse the RAW files after importing them. I still don't find that I use Adobe Bridge for much; I've only used Bridge when I want to open multiple RAW files in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) at the same time. Here's the SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera) version of the image above:

As you can see, it's pretty dark! Let's get to work on it to see if it's of any value...

In Lightroom, I right-clicked on the image and selected "Open as object...". By opening it as an object in Photoshop you can make adjustments with ACR or Nik plugins which get saved and allow you to re-edit them. The alternative is to open the image as a background layer and when you apply a Nik plugin and save it, you won't be able to re-open that plugin with the settings restored.

One other note - it is sometimes easier to do any cropping and straightening in Lightroom before you go to Photoshop. Any such edits will be preserved when you open the image in Photoshop.

Exposure First (in ACR)

I made my overall exposure adjustments in ACR (again, following my Exposure notes in my document) by double clicking on the Smart Object (which opens ACR).

Then I followed my modified Nik workflow:

• Dfine for noise reduction .
• Raw Presharpener. 
• I did apply a bit of additional overall brightening to the foreground as well as some minor dodging and burning using Viveza.
• In Color Efex Pro I used the Detail Enhancer, Pro Contrast, and Vignette: Lens filters, adjusting each to my taste.

After those steps, I used my High Pass Sharpening action to add a new layer with sharpening and adjusted the opacity down a bit.

Finally, I added another layer for my logo, copied and pasted my logo from another PSD, resized and re-positioned it.

This is actually a fairly quick process, although not one that may lend itself to duplicating directly from one image to another (which I rarely do). In fact, I was so pleased with the results I went back and processed some other photos I hadn't touched before and ended up being pleased with them as well, such as this one from Picacho Peak State Park in Arizona:

Picacho Peak Sunset on Cholla

Goodbye 2016!

Happy New Year!

Okay, it's still 2016 but only for a few more hours in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A.! This will be my last post of the year to my blog. I recently posted somewhat of a review of my photographic year and it'll have to do. Now it's time to pop the cork on some bubbly, watch the ball drop, and maybe, if I'm lucky, kiss the wife (probably mine!).

Updates to my Post Processing Online Book

I haven't been out photographing for a while, instead I've been working on a couple of eBooks about photography.

This picture says it all!

I've already made my "Randall Morter’s Awesome Photography Post-Processing Notes" eBook available, and you can get to it at any time using the link on the right hand side of this page.

I've been adding more content and I think it's starting to have some value. I've added some details about exposure along with a bit of a tutorial including some processing notes for one of my photographs of Panguitch, Utah. 

I'd really like to hear from you regarding whether you find it useful or not. Especially now that there are likely some people that got their first DSLR for Christmas a week ago! How exciting that must be!

Thank you!

Thanks to all of you who have read my blog this year. I hope you found it interesting or that it had some useful knowledge.

I hope you and your families have a wonderful new year visiting beautiful places that you've never seen before or never seen in the same way. And be sure to take lots of pictures!

FREE: Randall Morter’s Awesome Photography Post-Processing Notes

A Free Post-processing tip sheet!

Cover of a valuable literary achievement

I've made my post-processing tips document available to anyone who is interested (and I'm sure just about every photographer will be). Actually, I don't have a ton of content in it yet but since I keep having to look up how to do things that I've done in the past, such as how to process a milky way shot, I thought I'd at least start a document that either has the instructions in it or links to the sites I find helpful.


You can get to this valuable information from this link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nBKCPCy3-NbRe8xXzr5uh2SRgJGMXvpjfZMSXrfMIYI/edit?usp=sharing

There's a link to the document on the right hand side of this blog page (on the desktop version anyway) called "Randall Morter’s Awesome Photography Post-Processing Notes".

Post Processing Blues in my Yosemite Photographs

Removing a Blue Cast

Half Dome from Olmsted Point

When I was in Yosemite in early September, 2016 for my first visit, the skies were almost completely clear of clouds the entire time - the few clouds that were in the sky were small and almost singular. That meant my photographs had a lot of blue in them if I included the sky, but it also resulted in the granite reflecting a lot of blue.

I processed and posted a few of my shots to share them with others. After I saw them again a couple of days later, especially in the smaller thumbnails, it bothered me how blue the mountains like Half Dome looked. The entire images had blue casts to them and that wasn't how I remembered them looking when I was there.

I can't say for sure that they didn't appear to have blue cast in person, but I don't remember it. I think that as a human my brain probably understood that the granite wasn't actually blue.

I went back into Adobe Lightroom to alter the images. I just did a selection of the peaks or domes using a brush in Lightroom and changed the Temperature (White Balance) of the selected area to a warmer setting in order to make the domes look more like I imagine that I remember them. Note that the granite in the foreground does not appear blue and I did not touch it up.

Adding Blue to the Sky in Post Processing

This image of Half Dome still has some blue in the darker areas but the lighter areas are warmed up. The strange thing is that the sky isn't terribly blue either. I brought out the blue in the top of the image using a graduated filter in Lightroom in this shot. The original is more white, like the lower half of the sky.

I didn't use a graduated neutral density filter when I shot this and I'm not sure how well it would have worked. The problem with this shot is that I'd like the sky to be darkened but Half Dome sticks up into the sky where you want the darkening. Half Dome would get darkened as well. Perhaps that could be overcome in Lightroom but then I'd just be doing a different set of adjustments.

Dehaze added more Blue Cast

Half Dome from Big Oak Flat Road

The images where there was some distance to the peaks often had a "haze" in them which should be a perfect time to use the Lightroom Dehaze control. I also noticed that increasing the Dehaze also increased the blue cast as shown in the shot to the left.

Again, I went back to adjust the color cast using a brush and changing the temperature of the selection. In this shot I did more temperature adjustment of Half Dome than of the other middle hill on the right. It was closer and didn't turn as blue.

I didn't adjust the sky as much in this shot; it was blue from the top down.

Kudos

Processing these photographs has been more of a challenge than I expected. I have tried rendering some of them in black and white but I haven't been much happier with the way they look in black and white, mainly, I think, because of the boring sky. What I have gained is an appreciation for the amazing captures of the Yosemite scenery by others. The scenery is very beautiful and impressive but to get an image that stands out you really need the sky to match the landscape with interesting clouds and you need to try different things with the capture to control light. I want to go try again!

Some Photoshop CC Post-processing Notes - Part 2

This is a continuation of my prior post: Some Photoshop CC Post-processing Notes - Part 1

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Once I got the jesses removed I turned my attention to trying to make the owl stand out a bit more.

I started with a crop - using the "rule of thirds" guidelines in the Photoshop crop tool I reduced the image so that the owl's body was on the left 1/3 line. I decided to keep the entire stump in the image but cropped out some of the background on the right side of the image. By doing the crop I also reduced the amount of sky in the image. I left a bit more room above the owl's head than I did below his feet, in the hope of preventing the image from looking like he was being crowded on top.

Add a bit of Blur

Since a viewers eye tends to go to the brightest and sharpest objects in an image, I decided to blur out the portion of the stump on the right. It was apparently in the same focal plane as the owl's eyes because it was pretty sharp.

The way I blurred out the stump was to make another copy of the "Merge & Cleanup" layer and place it above that layer. An easy way to do that is select the desired layer and press [CTRL] [J]. This will create a copy and paste it in to a new layer above the one selected. I labelled this layer "Blur". 

With the "Blur" layer selected I clicked on the "Filter" menu, hovered over "Blur" and selected "Gaussian Blur...". Using the dialog I chose to blur the image quite a bit but left it to where there was some detail remaining in the target stump area. 

Mask

Then I added a black layer mask by holding down the [ALT] key while clicking on the mask icon.That will create a fully black layer mask, hiding the "Blur" layer. Next I used a regular brush with white selected as the foreground and about a 10% opacity to paint over the offending portion of the stump. This allows the blurred version of the stump to show through and give the overall effect of blurring out that area of the image. It's quicker than working with the original layer and trying to mask and blur that area.

Dodge and Burn

Following the blurring, I turned my attention to some lighting control. I'd already applied some lighting changes with Nik Color Efex Pro 4, but I thought I'd do a bit more. 

I decided to try to darken the sides a bit, but I wanted more darkening on the right side than the left since the owl was closer to the left side. I wanted to just add a "Brightness / Contrast" adjustment layer and use a mask so first I clicked on the "Blur" layer to select it to ensure that my adjustment layer would be added at the top of the layer stack and then clicked on the "Brightness / Contrast" adjustment layer icon.

I dragged the brightness down until I liked it on the edges. I also reduced the contrast just to kind of make the area less attractive to the eye although there wasn't much in this particular image that was affected. I added a mask to the layer. Then I selected a black foreground and used the gradient fill and the "Reflected Gradient" setting and dragged horizontally across the image to create a mask over the top of the owl, hiding the brightness reduction from that area. It did take some number of attempts to get the mask in the right position. I found I liked it best when the center of the mask was on the owl's beak.

Also, I had to go back and forth with the mask colors. If you end up getting a full black mask with a white area over the subject you can click on the mask in the layers and then press [CTRL] [I] to invert the mask.

I decided to try a bit more additional dodging and burning. In Photoshop I tend to follow similar steps as I just outlined. Create a "Brightness / Contrast" adjustment layer and bump up the brightness for a "Dodge" layer and decrease the brightness for a "Burn" layer. When adjusting the brightness sliders I look at the object I want to change and then adjust the slider more than necessary. Then you can add a full black layer mask and paint over the desired object with a white brush to add either the dodge or burn amounts. It's a little different than Lightroom where you can just adjust what you want the brush to do and then brush over the image.

I labelled my "Burn" and "Dodge" layers appropriately. I only ended up with a bit of a burning on that right portion of the stump to further get out out of the attention of my eye, and did a bit of a dodge on the owl's wings to bring them up a bit more. This could also have been done by going back to the camera raw object but since I'd made a copy of that and worked on cloning out the jesses, I'd have had to redo that step again if I wanted to adjust in ACR. This is a good pointer to try to make sure that you get the lighting right in ACR if possible.

Finally I grouped the three lighting layers into a layer group and labelled it "Dodge & Burn". I'm not sure you can see a lot of difference in these screen shots but here's where were at now:

Dodging and Burning layers applied

Note that the bottom Smart Object layer can be turned off if desired; the layers on top completely mask it. I don't think it matters one way or the other if it's on or not.

Some more Pop Please

I decided to try to add a bit more to try to make the image stand out.

First I added some more contrast using a "Curves" adjustment layer with a full black mask. I clicked on the little finger with arrow icon, clicked on various areas of the owl, and then raised or lowered the values to try to bring out additional contrast in those colors. I renamed the layer to "Contrast".

Next I added an overall Warming Filter layer by clicking on the "Photo Filter" adjustment layer and selecting the "Warming Filter (85)". I liked it but dropped the layer opacity to 85% to reduce the effect and make it a bit more subtle. I renamed the layer to "Warming Filter".

Note that the "Layer 1" in my Photoshop project is not used nor does it do anything. It's just there to make you wonder what magic I did in that layer. Did it work?

I liked the image at this point but decided to add a bit more vignette so I applied another "Brightness / Contrast" adjustment layer. I dropped the brightness again then added a fully white mask. I used another gradient fill but this time selected the "Radial Gradient" option, dragged a line to cause the center of the gradient to be centered on the front of the owl's face until I liked it, then adjusted the opacity to add a bit more of a natural "lens" type vignette although it wasn't exactly centered on the image. I just wanted to try to make the eye naturally look first at the owl's head.

After I did that I felt the image was a bit too dark over all so I did basically the opposite, adding another "Brightness / Contrast" adjustment layer but increased the brightness following up with another layer mask to not wipe out the vignette I just added. At that point I felt I was done! Here's the final image again in Photoshop:

Photoshop with all edits

Final Output

The last step is to output the results for whatever purpose desired. I like the Nik Sharpener Pro 3 Output Sharpener. It offers a lot of control although it does require playing around with it to get it the way you want. Again, the plugin allows you to fine tune areas that you want sharpened and to avoid adding sharpening to areas you don't. After blurring the stump on the right why would I want to sharpen it now?

As mentioned earlier, the plugins work on TIF files. The process I'm using right now (I'm sure I'll learn a better way in the future) is to export my edited image from Photoshop as a TIF copy (as opposed to saving with layers). I export at the full size of the image.

Next I open the TIF file in another Photoshop tab. I convert the image layer to a Smart Object so that I can re-edit the settings I'm about to apply if I want to.

Nik Sharpener Pro 3 Output Sharpener

I open the image with the Nik Sharpener Pro 3 Output Sharpener. Then I zoomed in to 100 % on the owl's eye. That's the part I want to have sharp but not too sharp. I have some presets I've saved, the main one I start with is where I've set the "Adaptive Sharpening" slider to 20%, the "Output Sharpening Strength" I left at 100%, and the "Structure", "Local Contrast", and "Focus" controls I have at 3% each. I find this is a decent starting point. 

Note that when you open Sharpener Pro 3 it will use the most recent settings. To reset everything you can click on a different preset and then re-click on the one you want to start with.

Sharpening is a matter of taste and experience using the tool. I sharpened this image for full size display purposes and saved it as a JPEG. I have found it best for met to then open that image in the Windows image previewer and look at it. Sometimes I need to make additional edits and save as JPEG again until I get a version that I like.

But that's not the end...

If you want a different size of the image it's best to apply the sharpening to that size of image rather than resizing an already sharpened image. That is why I do the intermediate step of saving the TIF. After exporting to the full size I save a copy of that Photoshop file (a PSD file). Then I resize the image to the size I want (generally one where the longest side is at 2048 pixels for the best uploading to Facebook). 

After you resize you need to re-apply the sharpening plugin. It's probably best to completely delete the original sharpener layer and start over with it just to ensure it's working with the new image size. Once you've sharpened the new image size and exported it as a new JPEG, you're done! Again, here is the final version:

Luna the male Barn Owl
Final version

Some Photoshop CC Post-processing Notes - Part 1

I thought my post processing of this photo turned out pretty good so I thought I'd share what I did. 

Luna the male Barn Owl
Arizona's Raptor Experience

I am using Adobe's Creative Cloud Photography Plan (I also want to point out that I'm not affiliated with them or any other product that I mention, unless I explicitly mention it, and of which at this time there are none to mention). Since I installed the Google Nik Collection of processing plugins, I've mainly been using Photoshop and that's what I used for this image - Photoshop CC and various Nik plugins. 

First, I almost always shoot RAW, as I did for all of the images at this shoot. Without getting in to that discussion, the RAW format allows you a much greater latitude of adjustments in post processing. The first step in working with a RAW file is to import it using a RAW converter. I used the Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) converter for this file.

Adobe Camera Raw

I've created a few pre-sets in ACR, which are basically everything set at zero with these exceptions: 

• On the "Lens Corrections" tab, I check the "Enable Lens Profile Corrections" check box on the "Profile" sub-tab and the "Remove Chromatic Aberration" check box is checked on the "Color" sub-tab.
• On the "Camera Calibration" tab, I selected a few of the "Camera Profile" settings and saved each one as a different preset. I did this so I could go through them on the "Presets" tab.
• For my Vivid2 preset, on the "Basic" tab, I also set the White Balance to Daylight and on the "Tone Curve" tab I selected the "Medium Contrast" curve. I found that I used these settings often so saved them as a preset.

By having everything else at zero I know I'm starting with a clean slate.

Here's what the RAW file looks like as shot. This version has no processing other than converting to JPEG and re-sizing.

Straight Out Of Camera
(SOOC)

In Camera Raw I normally do some spot cleanup for dust spots but since this was shot at f/4 the dust spots weren't visible anyway. Nice!

I adjusted the shadows to bring up the wing but that's about it. I planned to do the initial shapening and noise reduction in Nik so left those tabs alone and opened the image as an object in Photoshop.

By opening the image as an object you can go back and adjust things in Camera Raw as well as the other adjustments I planned to make with the Nik plugins.

Nik Plugins

Following the Nik plugin suggested workflow, I planned to do the "pre-sharpening" with the Nik Sharpener Pro 3 Raw Presharpener. I'll have to admit that using the Nik plugins adds time to a workflow because it takes time to open them up. They have to convert the files to .TIFs to work with them and each plugin has to go through that process. On the positive side, for this plugin, you can more easily control what you want sharpened and what you don't. 

I didn't want to sharpen the sky or that background in the lower left. By using the control points I could apply the initial sharpening to my subject only and to not try to sharpen the blurred areas that I paid more for a lens that would try to blur things out in camera.

If you don't use the Nik plugin you should at least always use the "Masking" slider in Camera Raw or Lightroom to control where sharpening is applied by hitting the [Alt] key as you move the slider and adjusting it until only the desired edges are highlighted in white. This is a trick I only found out about in the last few months but it means you're NOT applying sharpening to the entire image but only the edges that need it.

Nik Dfine 2

Next I used the Nik Dfine 2 to do a slight bit of noise reduction. Similar to the pre-sharpener, you can use control points to control what you want noise reduction applied to. 

I've just recently (within the last few weeks) stopped worrying about noise reduction much but I still like to apply it to large areas of the same or similar color such as the sky. I used control points to prevent or reduce noise reduction on the owl but I did use it for the sky.

You can see that the owl is masked (black) which means that noise reduction is NOT being applied in those areas. Noise reduction works by blurring pixels. Even if it's slight, I don't want to blur the details on this subject with noise reduction. I didn't really see any noise on the owl anyway but by masking him I know that there won't be any blurring of the detail in his feathers due to the noise reduction.

Nik Color Efex Pro 4

Since I didn't feel I needed to adjust the general lighting much I didn't use Viveza 2 and instead went straight to Color Efex Pro 4. Note that Viveza 2 can also be used to add "structure" to an image, basically to bring out additional detail, in addition to allowing you to do lighting and color adjustments.

I also didn't feel the need to do a lot of color effects but I did some. I used the "Detail Extractor" filter to help bring out more detail in the feathers. I used the  "Polarization" filter to darken the sky a bit as well as to bring out the blue in the sky. This filter also provided a bit more contrast and saturation to the owl. Finally I used the "Darken / Lighten Center" filter to add a bit of a vignette, but I ended up doing even more directly in Photoshop later.

Those are the initial edits I did with the raw file and the Nik plugins. You can probably see in the image in the initial images that Luna has the leather "jesses" around his feet. My next step was to create a copy of the smart object and put it in to a new layer to begin working on that. You can't edit a smart object directly as far as using the healing brush.

Adobe Photoshop Clone and Heal

By clicking on the smart object layer and selecting everything ([CTRL] [A]) you can make a new copy by pasting the copied image ([CTRL] [V]). This will create a merged copy on top of the smart object which will allow cloning out items such as the jesses. Note that I took the time to re-label the new layer to "Merge & Cleanup".

After some time I got an acceptable removal of the jesses as shown below. I think it's okay - and I don't think most people are going to know what the legs truly look like without the jesses nor will they concentrate on that portion of the owl as much as his head. Here's a shot of Photoshop up to this point. I'll continue with the rest in the next post. 

Photoshop after the initial edits, merge, and cloning

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