Holiday Photo Workflow and Further Explorations in RAW Photo Shooting

[Jason Dunn]

I'm back from my Hawaii vacation (a celebration of my 5-year wedding anniversary to the best woman in the world), and my primary reason for purchasing the Nikon D200 and lenses earlier this year was to maximize my photographic opportunities while in Hawaii. As such, I really "geared up" for the trip - I brought along all three of my lenses (18-200, 12-24, 50), two camera cases (a <a href="http://www.lowepro.com/Products/Sling_Bags/Designed_for_Digital/SlingShot_200_AW.aspx">Lowepro SlingShot 200 AW</a> and a <a href="http://www.kata-bags.com/index.asp">Kata shoulder bag</a>), the <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,11492">NEXTO CF OTG</a> with an 80GB hard drive in it, and my laptop. I was supposed to bring along an 80 GB hard drive full of DVDs I had ripped (it's so much easier than carrying them along), but the day before I left the 80 GB Samsung hard drive failed on me. I ended up using my Toshiba Gigabeat S as the carrier for the DVDs, because the Zune couldn't act in that capacity (this was before the hack was known). Once I arrived in Hawaii I picked up a 120 GB 2.5" Western Digital hard drive. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/hawaii2006-floatingray.jpg" /><br /><br />We did daily excursions, so I was shooting a lot of images every day - I had the camera set to RAW + JPEG Fine, with the JPEG colour rendition on the D200 set to boosted contrast and saturation (the way I like my photos). I used the 80 GB enclosure to copy images onto when I came back from a day of shooting - I copied over the RAW and JPEG files and didn't do any culling (well, a bit of culling on the camera itself for the obviously bad photos). That drive served as my master backup - I wouldn't change anything on it once the images were copied over. I also copied over the photos and videos from the Canon SD800, again without any culling. I felt very secure knowing that I then had two copies of all of my images - I've always been concerned about having a hard drive failure on my laptop and losing all my newly-taken images. <!><br /><br />My next step was to load the photos onto my laptop, but what I didn't take into account was the sheer size of the RAW + JPEG load. I only had about 15 GB free on the laptop's 80 GB hard drive, and that quickly filled up. By the end of my time in Hawaii I had shot around 3500 photos. That's when I started putting everything on the 120 GB Western Digital hard drive. I learned a lot about RAW processing during that time, namely that it's an intensive, slow process that takes a lot of CPU power. My small Fujitsu is a great laptop for travelling, but with a 1.2 Ghz Pentium M ultra-low voltage CPU, it's not meant for RAW processing. <br /><br />One of the bigger problems was simply my RAW processing methodology: I was using Photoshop Elements 5.0 with the Adobe Camera RAW plug-in. It works fine and gives you a decent amount of control - but it only processes one image at a time. And because of the way I loaded images into it - a drag and drop from ACDSee Pro - I'd have to ALT+TAB back and forth between the two programs several times to release ACDSee from the clutches of Photoshop Elements. If I didn't, I'd get the "Server is busy, please re-try" Windows XP warning. It would have taken me hours to process a day's worth of RAW shooting, and after a long day of excursions I didn't have the time or energy to devote to processing my photos. Plus, my wife wouldn't have been too happy about it either.<br /><br />A significant lesson that I learned is that it's hard to judge the value of a RAW image until after it's been processed. What I mean by that is if your image is in focus, and more or less framed properly, no matter what the exposure or colour rendition of the JPEG, you can't assume that the photo is a bad one until you've processed it with RAW. This makes the <A HREF=http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,9740" target="_blank">culling</A> process much harder of course. Below is an example of what I mean.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/nov6-jpeg-small.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 1: Notice how the JPEG capture has completely blown out a portion of the sky. An initial culling pass might view this image as being worth instant deletion because it doesn't capture the sunset properly. </i> [View <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/nov6-jpeg.jpg">view 1000 px image</a>]<br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/nov6-rawpostprocess-small.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 2: The RAW conversion processed allowed me to carefully control the exposure, keeping the detail in the sky, and also to fine-tune the white balance to give the photo the mood I was looking for.</i> [View <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/nov6-rawpostprocess.jpg">view 1000 px image</a>]<br /><br />Another example: quite often I'll look at at JPEG, and think it looks quite good, and want to keep the JPEG, delete the RAW, and save myself the processing time. Then I'll process the RAW image and be shocked at how much better it looks. Here's the <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/greenleaf-plainjpeg.jpg">original JPEG image</a>, which at first glance looks decent. But after processing the RAW, <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/greenleaf-rawprocess.jpg">the resulting image</a> looks much better than the JPEG and more true to life. It's only by comparing the resulting RAW-processed JPEG that the original JPEGs colour problems stand out. I'm sure that as I gain more experience and practice with RAW processing I'll get better at realizing the problems with the JPEGs and understanding how RAW processing can correct them.<br /><br />My next step along this journey is looking at tools for RAW processing - batch-based tools such as <a href="http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/">Adobe Photoshop Lightroom</a>, <a href="http://www.dxo.com/intl/photo/dxo_optics_pro">DXO Optics Pro</a>, and other similar programs that will allow me to take away the one by one processing pain of my current approach. Any suggestions for what software I should look at?<br /><br /><i>Jason Dunn owns and operates <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com">Thoughts Media Inc.</a>, a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He's now wishing for quad-core CPUs to rain from the sky to help with all his RAW images that need processing.</i>

[Leon]

My next step along this journey is looking at tools for RAW processing - batch-based tools such as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/), DXO Optics Pro (http://www.dxo.com/intl/photo/dxo_optics_pro), and other similar programs that will allow me to take away the one by one processing pain of my current approach. Any suggestions for what software I should look at?
A batch based tool will only help if several photos are made in the exact same circumstances, e.g. in a studio. In the real world light conditions constantly change. The purpose of RAW editing is (imo) giving each photo the attention it deserves to get the best out of it. White balance, exposure settings and clipping points, contrast etc. will vary from one scene (or even moment) to the next.

On the other hand, if you use your camera like a machine gun (I mean 3500 photos 8O I didn't make 8000 in 26 months!) then you will probably have a lot of photos made under the same conditions, so yes, in that case batch would help. But you would also end up with a lot of identical photos, so what is the use?

A better solution would perhaps be to give your wife a point &amp; shoot camera for the family holiday album and use your D200 for the more 'special', artistic photos. That is what that camera is made for. You'll end up with less photos to post process and you could easily do without batch functionality. Personally, I use Photoshop and have never used its batch conversion, not even once. :wink:

[Jason Dunn]

On the other hand, if you use your camera like a machine gun (I mean 3500 photos 8O I didn't make 8000 in 26 months!) then you will probably have a lot of photos made under the same conditions, so yes, in that case batch would help. But you would also end up with a lot of identical photos, so what is the use?

A machine gun. Hah. Nice comparison. ;-) Let me clarify why I have so many pictures: for example, I was taking pictures of a surfer catching a wave in Hawaii. I focused in, then followed him along the path of the wave, shooting 4fps, until he bailed from the surfboard. I probably captured 30 or 40 frames of that one scene. Will I keep 30 or 40? No, not at all. I'll keep one, perhaps two, of the entire series. Quite often I'll take 3-5 pictures of the same scene, trying different focal lengths, angles, etc. Or in the case of a sunset, the light is changing every few minutes, so I'll end up with 100 photos of the same sunset, but all look slightly different. I'll distil that down to maybe 5 to 10 photos of the sunset.

One of the reasons I want to get them all into JPEG in batch mode is that the tools, such as DXO Optics, give me more control over how the JPEG is created then the D200 itself. Once I get the JPEG, if I notice that it looks wrong or needs special care, I can go in and manually tweak it. This is all in theory mind you, I'll be interested in how it pans out. ;-)

A better solution would perhaps be to give your wife a point &amp; shoot camera for the family holiday album and use your D200 for the more 'special', artistic photos. That is what that camera is made for.

Well, with all due respect, the camera is made for whatever the photographer wants to do with it. ;-) Your style is very different from mine, and while you might not understand or agree with it, that doesn't make it any less valid.

I do, however, have the goal of shooting less photos next vacation - trying to pick and chose my shots a bit better. I think I'll still shoot much more than you would though. ;-)

[Leon]

I was taking pictures of a surfer catching a wave in Hawaii. I focused in, then followed him along the path of the wave, shooting 4fps, until he bailed from the surfboard. I probably captured 30 or 40 frames of that one scene. Will I keep 30 or 40? No, not at all. I'll keep one, perhaps two, of the entire series.
OK, I understand that. That's also what happens when I am birdhunting in the garden. :wink: But my point is: the preview of your RAW convertor should give you enough indication whether the photo is a 'keeper' or not (sharpness, light, compostion). You'll be able to decide on the one or two out of 30-40 before you convert them. And then you do the processing manually, no batch functionality necessary.

Quite often I'll take 3-5 pictures of the same scene, trying different focal lengths, angles, etc. Or in the case of a sunset, the light is changing every few minutes, so I'll end up with 100 photos of the same sunset, but all look slightly different. I'll distil that down to maybe 5 to 10 photos of the sunset.
But you cannot use batch conversion with good results when the light changes every minute. Especially then, every photo has to be converterd with its own settings, e.g. white balance and exposure.

One of the reasons I want to get them all into JPEG in batch mode is that the tools, such as DXO Optics, give me more control over how the JPEG is created then the D200 itself. Once I get the JPEG, if I notice that it looks wrong or needs special care, I can go in and manually tweak it.
Keep in mind that as soon as you have a JPG, you already lost a good deal of your quality. If you start tweaking from there you'll make things worse.

In Photoshop you'll use ACR to convert the photo from RAW, using exposure, white balance, shadows, contrast etc. As long as you stay in Photoshop you will be working with 12/16 bits and subsequent tweaks will result in less quality loss than if you use a batch convertor to first save to JPG and then start editing from that in 8 bits. See http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml or just try both methods, and keep an eye on and compare the peaks and gaps in your histograms.

Even if you have PSE only I would strongly recommend picking up a copy of Bruce Fraser's Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS(2). It is very good in explaning of what you should do in the RAW convertor and what later on. And it explains the why of it as well. I assure you you will not regret it.

[Philip Colmer]

Figure 2: The RAW conversion processed allowed me to carefully control the exposure, keeping the detail in the sky, and also to fine-tune the white balance to give the photo the mood I was looking for.
Another thing you can do (although I haven't had the time or the appropriate photo to try this on yet) is to blend different settings of the same photo. So you could, for example, keep the JPEG bit of Ashley and merge it into the RAW bit of the rest of the photo so that her jacket isn't quite as dark.

Perhaps not the best example but I think you'll get the idea.

--Philip

[Jason Dunn]

the preview of your RAW convertor should give you enough indication whether the photo is a 'keeper' or not (sharpness, light, compostion).

That's true, but I'm not quite there yet. I still feel like I need to process the RAW image to figure out if I want to keep it. I'm hoping that as I gain more experience with RAW I'll become better at it as you suggest. :-)

Keep in mind that as soon as you have a JPG, you already lost a good deal of your quality. If you start tweaking from there you'll make things worse.

Yes, sorry, I wasn't clear - I meant that once I see that the JPEG needs further handling, I'd go back to the RAW and tweak it by hand.

I really do understand what you're saying, but I just can't process this many RAW images one by one. I'm trying to find a middle ground that allows me to get through so many photos.

[Jeremy Charette]

What did you shoot the underwater shots with? I took a bunch of underwater photos in Maui back in October with a $20 underwater film camera, and they all came out blurry and blue-tinted. I'm currently researching waterproof digital cameras and/or a watertight case for an exisiting digital camera. I want to try to get some shots like that again, but really capture the vibrant colors this time, and be able to convey the sheer beauty that I saw to the folks back home.

If you're ever in Maui, look up Trilogy Excursions for a half or full day snorkeling trip. Absolutely stunning, and the service and food are phenomenal. I can't wait to go back, hopefully sometime in late spring or early summer.

[Jason Dunn]

What did you shoot the underwater shots with?

I wasn't actually underwater - the shot of the ray was with me inside a glass tube at an aquarium. Underwater photos are indeed challenging - I think they made an underwater housing for my SD800, but I'm underwater so rarely I don't know how useful I'd find it. ;-)

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

So you could, for example, keep the JPEG bit of Ashley and merge it into the RAW bit of the rest of the photo so that her jacket isn't quite as dark.


Export two RAW outputs exposing different parts of the scene and do the merging that way instead. Merging a 12-bit RAW and an 8-bit JPEG might have some awful results when you do further post-processing.

Software-wise, I'm partial to what Adobe gives. I like doing everything within Photoshop itself. However the stuff is expensive. CS3 is coming out soon and without an educational discount it is going hurt either way.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Blurry and blue-tinted underwater photos is because of the sea absorbing a large amount of the red spectrum. Your photos gain a blue tint and you'll need more light than usual. Thus begins your journey into some very expensive equipment. :P

[Philip Colmer]

So you could, for example, keep the JPEG bit of Ashley and merge it into the RAW bit of the rest of the photo so that her jacket isn't quite as dark.


Export two RAW outputs exposing different parts of the scene and do the merging that way instead. Merging a 12-bit RAW and an 8-bit JPEG might have some awful results when you do further post-processing.
True, although the actual merge would effectively be done with two 8-bit JPEGs since you would have gone through the RAW conversion first ... unless there is an aspect of RAW workflow in CS that I haven't come across yet, which is entirely possible but so far I've had to convert RAW into something else before CS will work on it.

It would be nice if CS3 would allow you to work directly on RAW images and fiddle with the settings in situ rather than having to go through that one-way conversion process first.

--Philip

[Jason Dunn]

Export two RAW outputs exposing different parts of the scene and do the merging that way instead. Merging a 12-bit RAW and an 8-bit JPEG might have some awful results when you do further post-processing.

8 bit vs. 16 bit (those are the options I have in ACR...not 12-bit). I've been meaning to ask about this. I've processed RAW in both 8bit and 16bit, and I couldn't really see a difference...can anyone point me to a good resource to explain the difference?

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

I'm being stupid here, sorry for not being clear, and also for neglecting to explain another portion.

8 vs 12 (16 bit is what PS works in, but most RAW files hold 12 bits) bits make a difference when you are adjusting levels/curves across the photo as you have less leeway to play around.

But equally important, and perhaps more so, is that I wasn't just talking about 8 and 12 bit files; I was also referring to their significance as one being a JPEG and one being a RAW.

When you use a JPEG, you are using a file that already has its gamma curve, contrast tone, colour settings, all applied to it already, with the decision made by the camera. A RAW will apply the above settings based on *your* decisions. In other words, combining a RAW and a JPEG is like combining two similar but not the exact same image. If the scene is tricky to combine (for instance, no clear boundaries where you'll have to do a lot of masking around), you might just end up with a not very convincing photo.

Oh, and in ACR/PS if you play it right you keep the data as intact as possible all the way to the point when you save it as a JPEG.

[Leon]

True, although the actual merge would effectively be done with two 8-bit JPEGs since you would have gone through the RAW conversion first ...
What makes you think converting a RAW makes you end up with a 8-bit JPG?

[Leon]

can anyone point me to a good resource to explain the difference?Why don't you read the article I pointed to yesterday? The two tables are self-explenatory.

Or:
http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/understanding_digitalrawcapture.pdf
http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf

[Jason Dunn]

Why don't you read the article I pointed to yesterday? The two tables are self-explenatory.

I'll do just that, thanks. ;-)

[Philip Colmer]

True, although the actual merge would effectively be done with two 8-bit JPEGs since you would have gone through the RAW conversion first ...
What makes you think converting a RAW makes you end up with a 8-bit JPG?
Because Lee was talking about merging an 8-bit JPEG with a RAW file.

Lee does have a valid point about how the JPEG file will have been processed by the camera already, which is why then working with a processed RAW file will cause problems.

Where I wasn't clear in my original posting was that my reference to the JPEG was really just to the image shown as processed. I've been struggling for the best words to describe this any clearer. My point really was building on Jason's point about being able to use the RAW image and extract a different looking version of the "same" photo. My reference to the JPEG image wasn't really trying to say that you'd merge that particular JPEG image with a RAW-converted version. I was just using it an indicator of how you could take two differently processed versions of the same image and combine them to get better results of highlights &amp; low-lights.

I don't think I've managed to explain it any better though!

--Philip

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

My point really was building on Jason's point about being able to use the RAW image and extract a different looking version of the "same" photo. My reference to the JPEG image wasn't really trying to say that you'd merge that particular JPEG image with a RAW-converted version. I was just using it an indicator of how you could take two differently processed versions of the same image and combine them to get better results of highlights &amp; low-lights.


Just say that you'll process two RAWs with the scene exposed differently in each output and merge them to allow both shadow and highlight detail to be seen clearly.

[Jason Dunn]

But you cannot use batch conversion with good results when the light changes every minute. Especially then, every photo has to be converterd with its own settings, e.g. white balance and exposure.

I realized that I didn't explain the other reason why I wanted something with batch-processing: the ability to go through and hand-tweak 30 images, then click "OUTPUT TO JPEG &amp; TIFF" and walk away is really nice. The ACR plug-in is just too one-by-one-manual for me.