[Positive Pressure]

February 17, 2007 at 7:28 pm

Simon wrote:

You should be able to use the EYE 1 to make a specific camera profile!

Yeah, true enough, I should try it out alright. I had thought that moving the lights around after shooting the colour card may make the calibration less valid, but if the colour temperature of the light sources (irrespective of light direction) doesn’t change, then the calibration should be right on the money, (I guess).

It could well be the solution I was looking for; here’s fingers and toes crossed. :) Thanks for the top tips!

Peter

[Positive Pressure]

February 17, 2007 at 3:15 pm

Cheers for the info Simon.

What I’ve found is….

The light source does seem to make a difference.

Yeah, from what I’ve gathered so far:-
the camera should be set to take a close-on perfect exposure of the colour card as under or over exposure may make significant differences;
the colour card should be placed in the most significant part of the scene when setting up a test shot;
at least 2 seperate calibrations are required for daylight and tungsten (mixed lighting could well be a problem);
seperate calibrations are also required if lenses with different colour reproduction characteristics are used.
There may well be other little foibles, but I haven’t got round to testing these scripts yet.

Simon, would you recommend shooting the colour card at the start of every shoot or is it sufficient to have a small set of saved calibrations (for various lighting conditions) you can refer back to as necessary?

FYI: I’m using a Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Photo to generate profiles for the NEC 1980SXi (a very SXi monitor IMHO :lol: ), both of which I’m very happy with. I had used a Pantone Colorvision Spyder II previously, but never got a profile from that I was happy with.

Peter

[Positive Pressure]

February 17, 2007 at 1:04 pm

Simon, after seeing some of our prints and web shots at Nigel’s studio, I reckon whatever method you’ve been using so far seems to be working out just fine!:D

I’ve seen the results of that script on a DP Review ACR calibration script thread and if I was to base a judgement solely on that test, I’d give it the thumbs down. :( The ACR defaults are very generic and in no way camera specific, so hitting the right tones and contrast seems very hit-and-miss, but at least they don’t wash the colours out as much as this example.

I did another search for alternative ACR calibration scripts today and came up with one byThomas Fors which I believe has been recommended by Martin Evening and Bruce Fraser (rip) and one by Scott Tindemans which has yielded some good results with CRW files. I’ll play with these and see how they work out.

[Positive Pressure]

February 11, 2007 at 1:48 pm

Cheers Robbie,
Didn’t check the syntax on that link before I copied it, :oops: but should be OK now.

Peter

[Positive Pressure]

January 21, 2007 at 10:23 am

I think it’s only fair to say that these shots were taken ages ago, so while they’ve gathered dust in the meantime (if digital files can gather dust), I’m fairly sure Ali was fairly surprised to see their re-appearance. :D

Apart from being fairly useful on the other side of the camera, she’s also a versatile model and if called upon to do so, can carry off the stylish glamour look very well.

Ali, judging by the compliments you’re getting from the other posters here, you might have won over a few more fans! :D

Peter

[Positive Pressure]

January 20, 2007 at 2:34 pm

Ali wrote:

Now start shooting some fashion Peter and get your arse into the Fashion forum

Hey now, less of your cheek young lady! :D I haven’t really done any fashion work worth posting lately, but hope to do a bit more some time soon.

+P

[Positive Pressure]

January 7, 2007 at 10:25 am

This has developed into an excellent thread and all originating from a wonderful character shot.

Peter

[Positive Pressure]

January 6, 2007 at 11:31 pm

And my mugshot….

It wasn’t me, no-one saw me do it, you can’t prove a thing! :lol: :lol: :lol:

+P

[Positive Pressure]

January 6, 2007 at 11:09 pm

Cheers for the comments folks. :) Yeah I agree, the first shot is my favourite of the three also. I’ve been wanting to take a Josef Koudelka style shot for a while now, so when I saw the strong lines, and slightly surreal look to the scene, the moody, contrasty look used by Koudelka looked right for it.

I wasn’t sure (and still not) about the other two shots in the triptych, but since they maybe help tell the story of the storm damage and flooding, I left them in.

Peter

[Positive Pressure]

January 6, 2007 at 4:23 pm

The warm colours add lots to this image; I don’t know why you you want to lose them. :) Another great shot Ali.

+P

[Positive Pressure]

January 1, 2007 at 6:21 pm

Good to see you posting more of your fashion work.:D I really like the lighting in this one.

Peter

[Positive Pressure]

January 1, 2007 at 3:44 pm

Hi Joseph,
Does this mean the Fatwa against Toy camera users has been put on hold? :D

Were these taken with lens babies by any chance? Seems like a bit of fun alright.

P

[Positive Pressure]

December 31, 2006 at 8:06 pm

Cheers Mark,
Glad to hear you liked the contrast tweaking. I forgot to mention that I like the shot; regardless of whether or not it taken under the influence of absinthe! :)

Peter

[Positive Pressure]

December 30, 2006 at 5:24 pm

Hi Mark,
I like this shot, but I took the liberty of doing a quick edit to boost the global contrast a little further by HIRALOAM (High Radius Low Amount) sharpening. Please let me know if it’s helped. :)

Here’s how:
I duplicated the background and applied USM at amount:10, radius:100, threshold:5 to this layer. I set the blending mode of this layer to darken and made a duplicate of it. The blending mode of this third layer was set to lighten.

This gave me an over-sharpened image with excessive light and dark haloes, but that’s not a problem; I just held the shift button down and toggled the up and down buttons (making adjustments in 10% at a time) to adjust the opacity of each of the sharpened layers to belowthe points where the haloes became noticeable. Since our eyes are more sensitive to changes in light areas than dark areas, the layer set to lighten blending needs to be lower than the darken blended layer. I set the lighten layer to 50% opacity and the darken layer to 80%, but as always, USM settings and opacities should be set to personal taste.

I used HIRALOAM sharpening to add form and depth, without adding ugly edge contrast. The second image posted shows how things might have fallen apart if conventional USM was used rather than HIRALOAM. :cry: :cry:

[Positive Pressure]

December 29, 2006 at 9:23 pm

I think the grainy high-speed film has very much worked in your favour for these images. The sense of starkness and negelect are pretty much immediate and it looks like you summed up the mood of the location well. :)

You got good convergence in the first shot and while a lower perspective may have emphasised the roof beams a bit more, the debris on the floor may have become too obscure and indistinguishable. I think you went with the right option at the time of shooting.

A bit of sharpening in the second shot, in particular to the brickwork and beams should add a bit more impact to the shot.

Peter