How I Shot And Edited It – Mesa Arch At Sunrise

Of the images I brought back from a trip to Utah’s Canyonlands and Arches National Parks this past Fall, the one above recieved the most comments and requests for info. For starters, this is a shot of Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park, which is famous for the fact that the bottom of the arch glows from reflected sunlight just after sunrise on most mornings. Most shots look like this:

I had seen images of this arch before and was keen to shoot it with fellow Puget Sound photographer Michael Riffle when he suggested it. He made the suggestion and knew the location so I trusted in his judgement (while he noted it would be crowded) and I did little other prep.

Setup

Getting to the location is straight forward. But the catch: Michael tells me we need to leave early from Moab, the nearest town where we are staying. I think we left at 4:30am, but the details of the clock are fuzzy. There is a short walk from the parking lot and the whole setup is fairly accessible.

Why did we need to leave so early? Two reasons: 1) This location is popular and 2) it is small. I didn’t realize how small this arch was. I was thinking it was on the order of Landscape Arch in neighboring Arches National Park, which is at least a hundred meters long. Not so with Mesa Arch. To give you a frame of reference, here is what we were greeted with upon arrival.

For someone who loves shooting far-off places with not so many people, this scene astounded me. I can count a dozen cameras in this setup. This is at 6:30am and the sun is not due for another hour.

I decided to set my camera on the far side of the arch in this image and Michael strong armed (politely) his way into the middle of the crowd. By the time I was set up, another six photographers arrived. In the end, over two dozen would be shooting.

I was lucky this day as BorrowLenes.com had lent me a Nikon D800E and 14-24mm lens for this trip. As well as a Canon 8-15mm L fisheye. This meant I was able to setup the Nikon at the location you see above and wait for the sun. I was then able to use the 8-15mm on my Canon 7D and walk around for different composures. It is possible the setup kept me sane.

I tested some shot ideas with the 8-15mm L and liked one where I was right at the edge of the cliff and below and to the right of my tripod as in the picture above. Here’s a test shot before the sun came up.

Shooting

After fiddling with the location, the sun finally broke the horizon. You would think Tom Cruise was seen walking naked through LA with the sound of snapping shutters behind and to the side of me. The long, long wait for some was finally paying off. I wasn’t happy with the Nikon shots at the time so I kept experimenting with the fisheye.

It was then that a local Utahan noted he got great shots by hanging over the edge. I love rock climbing and am comfortable on cliffs so, making sure I wasn’t in anyone’s shot (amazingly enough, it was possible) I leaned to the edge and hung my arm down.

Taking a couple test shots, I switched to Manual Mode and chose ISO 100 for the best quality image now that the sun was up, 8mm for the widest wide angle I could get, f/20 because I wanted a nice star burst pattern to the sun and 1/10 of a second to balance things out.

It took a number of tries to get the shot I wanted and I would take a few, move the camera slightly, take a few more. It was really shooting in the dark as my torso was over the edge with my arm hanging down and wrist bent back, while trying to avoid getting my body in the shot (at 8mm, the field of view is 180 degrees).

This is the resultant image, straight out of the camera:

Satisfied, we shot for a few minutes more and then headed back to town.

Editing

Upon arriving home it was time to play with the image. I knew what I wanted and I started by straightening and cropping the image to cut out the black areas. All the edits below are handled in Adobe Lightroom.

I then adjusted the Tone Curve to add some contrast, but I didn’t pull in the sides as the image was already pushing the edge of the Histogram. I cut Highlights by 44 and enhanced Shadow detail by +48.

After that, it was time to liven up the valley floor. Using the Adjustment Brush, I painted over the valley floor and increased exposure by +.73 and Clarity by +48 to add some sharpness. I like to use the Clarity often on rock features to make them ‘harder’. The red in the image below represents the painted area for those settings.

Now I want more life in the arch itself and I use a new brush to paint that. Exposure is +.73 and Clarity is +43.

After removing some dust spots (I’ll spare you the screen shots, but if you click through the images above you can probably spot them), I adjusted the crop angle slightly before the last set of adjustments.

Both the face of the arch and the valley floor are brighter and more vivid. Wanting a little more ‘pop’, I increased the overall Vibrance by +31 (this brings more blue to the sky and orange to the rock and sun) as well as a Blue Saturation of +40 to help the sky.

And that was it!

The keys for me for this shot were:

1. Knowing the space I would be able to crop using the Canon 8-15mm L Fisheye on a cropped sensor camera.
2. Stopping down my aperture to get the star burst effect.
3. Placing the sun near the rock to gain the most from the burst (it works best when there is something for the sun rays to contrast with).
4. Taking a chance and shooting blind from a unique angle.
5. Listening to the advice of others.
6. Being courteous to others wishing to get their own shot.
7. Minor edits to bring the vision to fruition.
8. Borrowing the right gear (thanks again to BorrowLenses.com)

If you have question, please ask. I will do my best to address them.

By Peter West Carey

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Perfecting and Playing with White Balance

As photographers we often question the strength, type and direction of light, but because most of today’s cameras’ auto-functions are greatly enhanced, it can be easy to forget about the colour of light.

Seasoned shooters will undoubtedly be aware of the importance of white balance, but for those new to photography or for photographers looking to go ‘off piste’ and take a more manual approach to image-capture then this whistle stop guide might be able to help. In this handy tutorial, we’ll explain not only the importance of controlling white-balance, but how it’s done and what effects can be achieved.

Why bother with white-balance?

In this image we wanted to exaggerate the warmth in the light hitting the leaves in the trees, so we used a ‘Cloudy’ present in the White-Balance options.

By controlling the colour of light photographers are able to shoot with a balance that is as neutral as possible, replicating the colour of natural daylight whilst resolving issues with colour casts. Alternatively shooters can manipulate white-balance values for creative effect.

What is the problem with using auto-white balance?

Most contemporary cameras do a solid job at rectifying ‘problems’ with colour casts in the light, and so when a scene is put in front of the camera it will attempt to compensate for any shift in values to make the scene look as close as possible to natural daylight as possible. So say you were using an auto-white balance setting to shoot a scene flooded with a rich amber afternoon light, you may be disappointed to find the camera diluted the richness of the hue as it has attempted to cool down the scene by using a blue cast to pull back the colour balance to replicate that of natural daylight. Conversely, when you shoot with flash a cool tone is usually projected from the bulb, as such cameras set to auto-white balance will warm the picture up in-camera using an orange/amber cast. Another issue is night photography, as the colour of neon signs or street lights can often affect the camera’s reading and results in confused colour-cast frames. By setting the white balance manually you’ll find a more realistic result is attained.

How can I control white balance?

1. Use Presets

Within your camera’s settings menu you should find a section labelled ‘White-Balance’. Here various presets are offered, each with an icon clarifying in what light the option should be used, for example; flash, cloudy, fluorescent, ambient, indoor, outdoor, sunset etc.  

By telling the camera what conditions you are shooting in, it can more accurately and consistently apply values to compensate. It is especially wise to use this mode if you feel the auto white-balance isn’t on point.

2. Use Custom

By taking a white-balance reading from the swan’s white feathers we were able to get a more realistic and natural result

Whilst presets have their place, they can sometimes be a little wide of the mark, so to influence greater control find ‘Custom’ within the White Balance settings. This option allows you to take a reading by photographing an area of white or natural grey so your camera recognises and understands the exact lighting conditions you are working in.

If this is the approach you want to go with, it can be a good idea to carry a piece of white or grey paper, card or plastic to take readings from when you’re out and about.

3. Post-Production
Should you return home to discover your images carry an unsightly colour cast, all is not lost. Almost all contemporary photo-editing software allows users to correct colour balance issues with a touch of an ‘auto colour balance’ button or slight incremental change with a slider, but by far the best option is to use a white balance Colour Picker or White Balance Tool to select a part of the image you know to be white or grey. What is more, most of these software products offer options to apply values to batches of images instantaneously, potentially saving you hours! To do this most effectively it’s best to shoot in RAW so you can have a wider scope of flexibility to resolve colour balance issue.

What if I don’t want a neutral balance?

Using a manual white balance will allow you resolve colour cast issues in-camera, but just as it is possible to neutralise the colour of light, it is also possible to manipulate values to create colour-thrown captures. For example, to exaggerate the rich red hues of a sunset force the camera to pump up the colour even further by using the Custom option or use a Preset such as Daylight or Cloudy to make the camera ‘think’ it is shooting a dreary scene and as such will add a warming cast. The result will be a vivacious and colour-striking sunset. There are dozens of situations when using the ‘wrong’ white balance can enhance or exaggerate the colour values of an image, it just takes a little imagination and practice.  Good luck!

By Natalie Johnson

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Understanding Colour on Your Digital Camera

Joel Meyerowitz once asked ‘If the world is in colour, why shoot it in black and white?‘

Okay, I can think of plenty of good reasons for working in black and white, but it seems that most photographers work in colour a great deal of the time. And when you work in colour, you naturally want to configure your camera to give the best possible results. To do so, it’s important to understand how your digital camera records colour.

You may be wondering why this matters. Surely, digital cameras just accurately record the colours of the subject? Well, the truth is it doesn’t work like that. To understand why, we need to look at the nature of digital capture.

Digital capture

The creation of a digital photo occurs in two stages.

The first step happens when you take a photo. The shutter opens, light reaches the sensor, and then the shutter closes again. The sensor’s photodiodes react to the light that hits them and this information is converted to electronic form in a series of millions of bits and bytes.

The second step depends on the file format setting you have selected on your camera.

When you select Raw, the data captured by the camera’s sensor is compressed and recorded onto the memory card as a Raw file. The camera also generates a small JPEG file that is embedded in the Raw file so that you can preview it on your camera’s LCD screen.

When you select JPEG, the camera converts the information captured by the sensor into a JPEG file and then ditches the information captured by the sensor. The main aim of the JPEG format is to save memory card space (the file sizes are smaller) and to give you a file that doesn’t need any post-processing.

When the camera creates a JPEG file, it does so using the colour settings that you have dialled into the camera. Changing those settings alters the way the camera records colour.

Colour settings

There are two colour related settings you need to know how to use. One is white balance (I’ll tackle that in the next article in this series).

The second setting has a different name depending on the camera you have. It is called Picture Style on my Canon EOS cameras. It’s the term I’m accustomed to so it’s the one I’m going to use in the article.

Nikon calls it Picture Control.

Sony calls it Creative Style.

Pentax calls it Custom Image.

Olympus calls it Picture Mode.

Fuji calls it Film Simulation Mode. I like this name as it describes exactly what the settings do – emulate the look of various Fuji film types.

What’s the purpose of Picture Styles?

The purpose of Picture Styles, believe it or not, are to imitate the effects of using different films in the camera. Let me elaborate (I realise that this will seem a little abstract to anybody who hasn’t used a film camera).

If you use film, then you would select a film type that records the subject in a way that suits the subject.

For example, the film of choice for many years for most landscape photographers was Fuji Velvia. This was a high quality slide film that recorded deeply saturated colours. It emphasised hues like green and blue, making it ideal for creating punchy landscape photos.

On the other hand, if you are taking photos of people, Fuji Velvia is a poor choice of film. You would be better off using something like Kodak Portra. This is a colour negative film designed to give a softer, less saturated image with good skin tones.

In digital cameras, the idea that photographers should be able to change the colour settings to suit the subject they are photographing led to the development of Picture Styles. The same principle applies – you set the Picture Style that is most appropriate to the subject that you’re shooting.

Let’s take a look at the default options on EOS cameras (check your camera’s manual for details if you own a different brand):

Out of the six, the three you would use most often are:

Portrait: For when you’re taking portraits. Obvious enough really. This Picture Style is designed to give warm, flattering skin tones.

Landscape: Also straightforward. This Picture Style gives slightly sharper images than the portrait Picture Style and deeply saturated blue and green tones. It’s intended for landscape photos.

Standard: This is what you would use for just about every situation that isn’t a portrait or a landscape. It gives deeply saturated reds.

Neutral and faithful: These two Picture Styles are nearly identical and are designed to give soft, neutrally coloured JPEG files that are intended to be processed further in Photoshop. Given that most photographers who want to post-process now shoot Raw, these have virtually become redundant.

Monochrome: For black and white images. If you’re serious about black and white photography you’ll get much better results by shooting in Raw and converting the colour image to monochrome in post-processing. But, this Picture Style may come in useful if you want to dabble or simply don’t like to process images on a computer (not everybody does).

What is a Picture Style?

On Canon cameras, a Picture Style is made from four different settings. They are sharpness, contrast, colour saturation and colour tone. You can change any of these in the camera’s menu to alter the way a Picture Style works. This gives you a lot of control over the way your photos turn out.

Moving beyond Picture Styles

The Picture Style control is very useful if you use the JPEG format. But, as I touched on before, a lot of photographers now use the Raw format. Raw processing software has improved over the years to the point where the benefits in terms of image quality are too great to be ignored.

If you shoot Raw you don’t have to select the Picture Style at the time you take a photo. The Raw processing software lets you select the Picture Style at the time you process the file (the screenshot above is from Lightroom 4). That means you can select the Picture Style that most suits the image, and switch between the different options to see which you prefer.

Advanced workflow

If you use a program like Lightroom to process your Raw files, it has so many options for controlling and altering colour that the initial Picture Style you select may become irrelevant if you make lots of changes. If you use Lightroom presets to process your files the Picture Style hardly matters at all.

The same goes for Photoshop if you use Photoshop actions to change the look of your photos. Picture Style is just a starting point, and the result of the actions you use will have a much greater effect on the final result than the Picture Style you started with.

Conclusion

In short, the usefulness of the Picture Style setting depends very much on your shooting style and workflow.

If you use the JPEG format, then Picture Style is very useful as (along with the white balance setting) it determines the way in which your digital camera records colour.

If you use the Raw format, the Picture Style may not be very relevant at all. It provides a starting point and you may choose to use your Raw processing software to create a completely different look.

Did you know that the white balance setting is just as important as Picture Style when it comes to colour photography? I’ll explain why in my next article.

Previous articles

These are the earlier articles in the series:

Introducing the Creative Triangle

Finding Your Way Around the Mode Dial

Understanding EOS

Andrew S Gibson is the author of Understanding EOS: A Beginner’s Guide to Canon EOS cameras. The use of Picture Style is one of many topics explored within the ebook.

By Andrew S Gibson

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How I shot and edited it: The Second Severn Crossing

The image above is a long exposure taken of the Second Severn Crossing, a motorway bridge that crosses the River Severn, just outside Bristol, England.  I have been asked a number of times how this image was processed, what software/plug-ins were used, so I thought it would be a useful exercise to explain it here.

Shooting the image

I had been thinking about this shot for a while and I knew that there were a couple of important elements that I needed to consider when trying to capture the image:

• I was really keen to get low, relative to the bridge, and shoot a wide-aspect image across the river.   Fortunately, there is a footpath that runs along the river bank, under the bridge, that is easily accessible by car (Google maps link).
• I wanted to capture a long exposure so I could contrast the movement of the clouds against the static structure of the bridge.  Therefore, there was no special planning in terms of weather or time of day, as I was happy with a cloudy sky in the middle of the day, as long as there was a strong wind – fortunately, over the 2012 Christmas period, the UK offered those conditions in abundance.
• I wanted to fill the frame with silky-smooth water, so as the River Severn is a tidal river with one of the largest tidal ranges in the world, I ensured that I would arrive at the location around high tide.

The image, as captured straight out of the camera, is shown below:

The image was taken at ISO100, 12 mm, f/10, with a 5 minute exposure (299 seconds to be precise).  I used a 2-stop graduated neutral density filter to evenly match the exposure of the sky with the river, and used a 10-stop neutral density filter to produce the long exposure.   As the highlights of the scene were easily contained, I over-exposed the image to ensure that I captured the maximum amount of movement in the clouds, knowing I would be able to correct the exposure/contrast during post processing.

Processing the image

The processing of this image was performed in Adobe Lightroom 4.

The first step was to convert the image to black and white using the B&W selector in the colour panel (on the development pane).

The initial image after a straight B&W conversion, lacking in contrast

Given the significant amount of foreground, I decided to crop the image at this point, using a 2:1 aspect ratio, to give the wide-aspect image I was after and to stop the foreground being a distraction during the rest of the processing.

Cropped to a 2:1 aspect ratio

I then needed to address the lack of contrast and over-exposure of the initial image.  Therefore, I set the white (+33) and black (-40) points and adjusted the contrast (+40) to set the overall exposure for the image.

Initial exposure adjustments made

I then applied a graduated filter to the sky (shown below) to adjust the exposure (-1.74), contrast (+100), clarity (+100) and highlights (+12).  I wouldn’t usually increase either the contrast or the clarity to +100, let alone both, but in this instance doing so acts to bring out a full range of tones within they sky and so emphasise the movement captured in the clouds (the increase in contrast/clarity is also a very good way of highlighting any dust spots present in an image!).

Showing the graduated filter being applied to give impact to the cloud movement in the sky

Next, I applied a graduated filter, from the bottom of the frame, to the water (shown below).  I used it to increase the exposure (+0.80) and reduce clarity (-100) in order to brighten the water and reduce the local contrast to give that bright, smooth water effect that can be key to an image such as this.

Showing the graduated filter being applied to the lower section of the image to smooth out the water

When applying the graduated filter to the sky, it also acted on the bridge in the top left corner of the frame, making it overly dark, losing detail.  Therefore, I used the adjustment brush to paint a mask over the affected portion of the bridge, using a low flow, in order to be able to build up the desired effect gradually.

The mask drawn with the adjustment brush is shown in red

To the adjustment mask, I applied an increase in the exposure (+1.08) and shadows (+18) to bring out some of the detail in the bridge that was lost after applying the graduated filter over the sky.

Nitce the extra detail now visible in the upper left portion of the bridge after application of the adjustment mask

I then applied a graduated filter to each corner on the right hand side of the image, shown below.  The top graduated filter was required to subtly blend a vignette caused by me stacking the 10-stop filter and the ND filter holder.  The bottom graduated filter was required to tone down the water at the edge of the frame.  The exposure was reduced in both instances.

The two final graduated filters shown merged into the same image here)

The final edit that needed to be made to the image was to remove all of the dust spots (you’ll be glad to know I’ve since had my sensor cleaned) and hot pixels (the bright white pixels that result from the extreme exposure time) to give the final image:

The final image (click to enlarge)

So there you go, using a few relatively simple edits, it was possible to produce this high-contrast black and white long exposure without the need for any additional plug-ins or software packages outside of Lightroom 4.  The initial image may have lacked impact and that can often be the case with long exposure shots, however by shooting in raw, you can exploit the captured detail to create the image you had envisioned.

If you would like some tips to help you take long exposure images, such as the one above, please check out this earlier post.

By Elliot Hook

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How To Sync Multiple Camera Time Stamps In Lightroom

Syncing the time stamp on multiple cameras is best done ahead of time. Every six months or so I take all of my digital SLR camera bodies and sync the clocks in them. This is important because if you use multiple cameras on a photo shoot like a wedding, you want to be able to sort the photos by the time they were taken so you can give the client a set of photos that are organized from start to finish. If your cameras time stamps are off, this can become very annoying in post because you’ll notice images being out of order. This becomes amplified the more your cameras are out of sync.

Well, none of us are perfect and I certainly don’t claim to be! I recently shot a wedding with my good buddy Cliff Baise and I totally forgot to sync our cameras ahead of time. When I got his images on my computer to start editing everything together I was getting frustrated because I wasn’t seeing ANY of my images in Lightroom. Everything was sorted by time like it always is and I double checked everything. Well, it turns out our cameras were a full hour out of sync with my camera being an hour ahead of Cliff’s. So my images weren’t showing up in the timeline until much later in the wedding. This was pretty nerve racking because I hadn’t run into this problem before. I’ve always synced my own cameras (my wife usually shoots with me and uses my other main camera) so I’ve never had to deal with this before. I thought I was out of luck. So I started rummaging through the menu options in Lightroom and eventually figured out a way to sync the two cameras very quickly and very easily. Here’s how to do it:

Find Images You Know Were Taken At The Same Time

At some point during the day of a wedding or any shoot, it’s likely that the two shooters took a photo at the same exact time (or dang close to it). This doesn’t have to be an exact, down to the mili-second thing…they just need to be close. For this wedding I found a shot that Cliff took of me taking a picture of the bride showing off her boots. Perfect. All I needed to do was find the picture that I took at that moment.

The first thing you need to do is select the first photo you find by clicking on it in Library Mode. Then, scroll down to the other image from the second camera, hold down command on a Mac (control on PC) and click that one as well. This will select both images at the same time. Now hit the ‘C’ key on your keyboard which will bring up the two images in Compare mode side by side. Once in compare mode you can click back and forth between the two images to see all the EXIF information on the right hand side. Again, this all has to be done in Library Mode, not Develop Mode.

On the right hand side in the EXIF data, you will see the Capture Time. This is how you tell if the images are off at all. Just click back and forth between the two images and watch how the time changes. If they are off by more than a few seconds, it’s time for the next step.

Syncing The Times

This part was a little tricky the first time. Go ahead and write down the exact times of each photo on a piece of paper or type it onto your computer somewhere. Note which time correlates with each image.

Now you need to decide which set of images you want to sync. In all honesty, it doesn’t really matter which one you choose. Nobody cares what time the picture was taken, they just need to be in order of when they were taken. So I just chose to make Cliff’s images match the time of my images. I could have gone the other way around and gotten the same result.

To sync the time stamps, select all the images from the camera you want to correct. If you have them in separate folders this will be easy. If they are all mixed in to the same folder, you can sort by File Name in Library Mode and then the images will be separated. If all the images from the one camera are in their own folder, just hit Command A on a Mac (Control A on PC). This will select all the photos. If the images are mixed with another camera in the same folder, separate them by file name, then select the first image from the camera you want to correct by clicking on it, then scroll down to the last image from that camera, hold down Shift and click the last image.

Now that you have all the images selected that you want to fix, go up to Metadata in the top menu and scroll down to Edit Capture Time. When the window pops up all you need to to is update the time under the ‘New Time’ section. The original time will be on the top so just plug in the time that you wrote down from the correct camera in the ‘Corrected Time’ section.

Once this is done, it’s important to just double check everything and make sure you have everything correct. It says at the bottom of the window that the operation cannot be undone so don’t make any mistakes! Once you are sure you have everything right just click Change and you’ll be done! You should now be able to select the images from both cameras in library mode, sort by time and see all of the images in chronological order.

Conclusion

Like I said in the beginning, it’s way easier to do this right the first time by synching the cameras before the shoot. But if you ever forget this like I did, being able to do it in Lightroom is a life saver!

 

By James Brandon

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3 Small But Important Lightroom 5 Beta Changes You Might Have Missed

Adobe announced the availability of Lightroom 5 Beta at Adobe Labs today and by all means, go grab a free copy and play. I’ve been using Lightroom since version 1 and have been impressed with every upgrading to the program, gladly plopping down my money for a new version as I have found the enhancements in subsequent revisions well worth the funds. And Lightroom 5 seems to be on the same track, based on my findings while playing with the beta this last week.

Adobe has a number of fine new features in this revision and they are sure not to be missed. They include

• A Smart Preview feature which mobile photographers will love as it creates a smaller, editable version of their monstrously sized RAW image that is easily portable on a laptop and can be synced when the originals, possibly stored on an external drive or NAS back at home, become available.
• Radial Gradient which allows for selecting oval or circular shaped areas for specific effects.
• Upright, which attempts to correct crocked images or fine tune vertical lines. (My experience with this tool has been less than stellar on simple horizon shots at sea. More on this in a minute.)
• Advanced Healing Brush. This one, I like a lot and it is very helpful. Now your “Spot Removal Tool” can be used as a brush to wipe out items that are not in the shape of a circle. This helps a lot and means I spend even less time in Photoshop CS6.

That’s the obvious stuff that Abode packs into their press kit and you probably have seen those items demonstrated on other sites. What I want to show you are three things I found to be helpful in little, but repetitive ways for how I use Lightroom.

(Click any image for a larger version)

Invert Mask

Thank you! I’ve been wanting this feature for the longest time to save time. But it’s not quite right.

Invert Mask is currently only available with the new Radial Gradient feature. See it at the right? It works well and I’d like to see if appear in the Gradient Tool (especially when creating a new gradient…it would be great to great one just the opposite of the one I am using at the moment) and in the Adjustment Brush.

Here’s a simple rundown of how the tool works.

Starting with this image of one of my client’s boats, the Un-Cruise Adventures Safari Explorer off the shore of Maui, Hawaii, I want to see which direction works best: highlight the boat and darken the surrounding seas or slightly darken the boat and bring up the seas, in order to add contrast to the main subject.

I select the new Radial Gradient tool and draw an oval over the boat (Dear Adobe, please make this tool work like the Ellipse Tool in Photoshop for consistency. Specifically, please allow me to grab a “corner” of the ellipse and drag it down instead of starting with the middle of the ellipse. Consistency would really help. Thanks.).

Because I have chosen only to increase the exposure by .39, Lightroom masked the boat and increased the exposure for the rest of the image. But if I want to swap that and mask the entire picture except for the boat, it’s just a simple click of the “Invert Mask” check box.

Subtle, but useful to me.

Now please, Adobe, add that ability to the Gradient Tool and to the Adjustment Brush especially.

Visualize Spot Healing

I’d like to think my sensor was perfectly clean before leading a recent tour to Bhutan. As a matter of fact, it was extremely clean before I left. But, as life goes, things don’t stay clean.

Take this image of a masked dancer at the Paro Tsechu.

I wanted some blur (obviously) and used a small aperture to achieve a slow shutter speed. In this case, f/25 and 1/6th of a second. Closing down that aperture makes dust on the sensor more obvious, but this image has a lot going on making it hard to find all the dust.

 

 

If I click on the “Visualize Spots” check box after clicking the Spot Removal Tool, the slider to the right of it comes alive and I can now more easily see spots. This is a technique used in Photoshop for a while and it works best where edge contrast can be spotted, so in areas without a lot going on.

In this image, I found three additional spots, two of which would have been easy to miss without the tool.

Remove Chromatic Aberration Check Box

This one is really small, but helpful. With the addition of the “Upright” feature to the Lens Correction panel, Adobe made it easier to get to the Chromatic Aberration removal check box.

It’s a small thing, but I often use the check box for “Enable Profile Corrections” for my lens and then want to remove chromatic aberration on only select images, but many. The placement of the box here, as well as on the “Color” tab, helps.

Upright Is Not That Functional For Me

Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but I doubt it. This is one of Adobe’s touted JDI (Just Do It) features and it seems to work well on the demos, but not in real life. If it did, it would be cool. I can get the feature to work part of the time, but no where near even 25% of the time reliably.

The feature is supposed to level a scene and make diverging or converging vertical lines straight. It can be helpful when it works. But something as simple as a horizon, an obvious one, in this example is not being leveled.  Here’s the initial image out of the camera.

Now to show that the horizon is not level using the Crop Overlay.

And now using the tool in Auto mode.

I tried in Level and Full modes to no avail. The program clearly states “No Upright Correction Found”. This is supposed to be a boon for landscape photographers, but even with a clear horizon like this, it failed.

I tried another obvious shot from Bhutan.

Now how can it say, in all four modes (Auto, Level, Vertical and Full) that no data can be found?

I’m not saying it doesn’t work, I’m saying it’s wonky and not yet reliable.

But this is beta software and that is why they put it out, to find the kinks that mean the most for their users.

Give it a try, Lightroom 5 Beta is quite useful with all the upgrades instituted.

 

By Peter West Carey

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