The Creative Digital Darkroom

Introduction

I have been going through a big attitude adjustment towards how I take photos. I have always assumed that I could do the fixing, later, jn Photoshop. But, as I read the book and work on the photos for the various lessons the consistent idea is that if I had taken the time and care at the point of capturing the image, there would not be so much to fix...not to mention that some of it may not be fixable to my satisfaction. As an example, if a photo needs to be straightened, that will end up involving some cropping, cropping for the straightening may end up taking a part of the image you feel is important to the integrity of the photo.

A subjective problem is that I have difficulty seeing or sensing some of the subtle correction needs. As I experimented with some of Katrin's images for noise reduction, there were some photos to be corrected that looked okay to me! But, I am assuming that some of the subtleties are what could be working against the image. I think that many of my own images have less than subtle noise!

Remove Noise

It is in this section I need to work at capturing less noisy images by avoiding low ISO whenever possible, to expose to the right because it is better to darken a lighter image than to lighten a darker one-that is what reveals the noise.

I had never taken advantage of Smart Filters but now I am a convert! Being able to edit the mask of the Smart Filter makes a filter very selective! And so it was with Reduce Noice and Surface Blur. Edge masking gives a wonderful result of using the Find Edges Filter! And, Tonal Masking is another very useful idea so that noise redcution can be selective to shadows.

The idea about Selective Color, Black was something I had discovered for myself several years ago with photos of men in black tuxedos for a wedding with noise all over All the noisy spots on black disappeared by using that and it has been my friend since then! I did try the Lab Colors Noise process and found it left too much noise! The hockey players' noise, in my process, did not improve a lot and I am not including it here.

I experimented with Neat image and found it lacking.

Here are my examples for Reduce Noise, Tonal Mask and Edge Mask (before masking and after):

The Surface Blur technique worked really well on this image above. Using the Smart filter allowed me to paint in its mask to bring back the sharpness of some of the details, like the letters on the sign. It still looks a bit soft in some areas.

Capture Sharpening

This had to be my favorite section of this lesson and, again, a useful task for the Find Edges filter. The result here is subtle but noticeable. I was impressed with the result when working with the file. Roll the mouse over it and watch for the sharpening. Taken along the beach area in Narragansett, Rhode Isalnd.

Spotting

Use retouch tools in ACR to remove dust and spots and in Photoshop, use the Clone and Healing tools.

Correcting Optical Distortion and Perspective and Cropping

The distortions to watch for are:

• Image Levelness
• Keystoning
• Barrel and Pincushion Distortion
• Vignetting and Flares
• Chromatic Aberration

The horizon on this photo of Scarbourough Beach was lop sided.

The thumbnails to the right show colonial doors in the seaside village of Wickford, Rhode Island. They were suffereing from keystone distortion and were corrected with a perspective crop.

In this situation, I am not so sure that I made it better.

There are a few ways to get rid of Chromatic Aberration, but the best is said to be in the ACR using the lens Correction tool. I have experimented with that both in ACR and Photoshop.

It is best, as mentioned again and again, that prevention of the situation is a milion times better! But, when necessary, there is a bag of tricks to clenaup, straighten up and dust up.