PrintCrafting 2:

Katelynn's Six! Christmas 2015 - The print

Okay, all sorts of challenges are wift-ing out of the PrintCraft project process. And most of them are looking back at you in Katelynn's Six! up there. It perfectly matched every nuance of what I saw on my monitor... AFTERWARD! Uh-huh seems I used Adobe 1998 as my primary color work space as I worked on this image in Photoshop. And I was pretty happy with the result...

Catelynn's 6!: The Original

And since I worked on this on my carefully calibrated iMac monitor. And I tested this image on my iPhone, iPod, and a couple of Mac Pros. They all showed me that image immediately above.The colors are subtly but DISTINCTLY different from the "The Print" at the start of this essay (BlogEssay?). 

So, where'd the ethereal light come from in the print? Unintentionally it seems. Because in converting the image for print on my new Epson P-800, I used the profile for the printer and Epson's Premium High Gloss paper. And POOF! the colors shifted. When I did the hard proofs, the images both at 4X6" and 8X11.5 were exactly matched to the print version at the top. 

Now... It's important that WYSIWYG happens. Important? No - critical. So, now that I can match the monitor to the paper, I need to match the monitored image to the printer, not a capricious gamma shift. As you can see I've not even bought 13X19" or 19X24" sheets. In fact, I'm still holding onto the Epson super premium paper sampler I got with the printer. In the interim I've been popping out 4X6" tests with a final 8X11.5" of each on that premium high gloss double weight. Best way to test the sparkle, right?

Last post handled the color space differently and the colors of that row-block in Lancaster were almost spot on the monitor. Almost. That's why I redid all of the color management settings and, well, I opened with the result. Once again, even though the gamma shift was unexpectedly dramatic, it did give me an image that was completely transferrable to the paper. 

So, I think this tells me that I need to start my images in the final color space. But that looks to mean that I have to understand in advance... at the very inception of pulling an image from the FlashCard.... have to understand the paper upon which I shall finally print it.

That cannot be correct. Do you think about that when you capture images? The paper upon which you might finally print the image? 

So, while a lot's getting better, this looks like a project that will fill productive hours yet. But that's what a hobby's about, right? And in this case I'm learning from the books, essays, and videos of world class experts (who apparently also have editors who know all about  communicating. 

BTW--- GEEK STUFF:I handheld my Canon 7D with an EFS 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens cranked all the way out. And the fill lights were table lamps, the primary light was from the TV monitor Katelynn was watching. Which meant cranking the ISO to 16,000. That, of course either cursed the final image, or flattered it through a gentle shower of noise. I grew up with Kodak's Tri-X as the goto film It shot at 300ASA, but everybody cranked it up 4 or 5 stops. Which meant that grain gave images their authenticity. It was a wonderful texture. 

OILY - A Tutorial

NOTE: all images in this posting can be enlarged by clicking upon them....

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How about some tutorial? Or comparison? Or review? Or - wuddever of what I was up to here. Let me type out some thoughts about the what and why of this image of my grand-niece Katelyn Rose.

You'll recall I raved about the quality of low-light images that come from the Canon 7D, even at 3400 ISO. Well, that's not the case with the Canon G10.

A touch of background. The G10 is Canon's 'professional' point-and-shoot. It allows full override of all automatic controls, plus unlike any other point and shoot I could find, it has an optical range finder as well as a real-time LCD. So when the sun is at your back - washing away the LCD preview - the viewfinder does the job. It's a terrific camera, and just about pocket sized - if you have a generous pocket. The G10 has a quarter frame sensor coated with 14.7 mega-pixels (MP).

Which is a LOT of pixels for a small camera. Previously the Canon G9 had 12.1 MP, and the bump up in these things in the G10 was Canon's attempt to ratchet onward in the sensor-size wars. OOOPS! Since the camera has a quarter frame sensor the smaller pixels just do not take as large a sample of the light falling upon them. Which leaves more room for error... and error turns into what appears to be grain- which we all noise. In fact, Canon's brought out the G11 with just 10 MP! What? About 20% fewer than its G9 and double the reduction over the G10? Why? They installed a bigger computer chip to allow the larger pixels to do a lot more. In fact, more, but smaller, MPs - beyond some point in low light - actually seem to increase noise, decrease tonal range, and add little sharpness. To be sure, the G!0 is wonderful at ISO settings up to 800, but beyond that those hailstones grow bigger.

Now I took this photograph at 1600 ISO with the G10.

The lighting was lovely, though dim coming principally from a windowed patio door to the left on a very gray winter afternoon. The fill light was tungsten from various table lamps. No flash or artificial fill was used. Okay, take a look at this blowup of the details of her face from that un-retouched photo... See: A hailstorm of grain makes the image almost unacceptable.

Now, I've recently seen ads from the Topaz Labs (http://www.topazlabs.com/) for their Topaz DeNoise 5 (http://www.topazlabs.com/denoise/) filter. Okay, I really like Topaz filters. For a reasonable outlay the one I own, Topaz Adjust (http://www.topazlabs.com/adjust/) is robust and totally productive. "So," I says to myself, "Self... what if you use Topaz DeNoise 5 on images shot at higher ISOs with your Canon G10? Might that not compensate and turn the G10 into a real competitor for the 7D at lower light levels?"

Which led me to download the thirty day trial version of Topaz 5 and apply it to this image of Katelyn. Here... What do you think of the same expanded area after it was cranked through Topaz 5?

Surely there is considerably less apparent grain, but the skin tones look a bit as if they were in a thin plastic film. Still, with some adjustment layer tweaking of the dynamic range, the result can be turned very easily into this.... Which is good enough for government work, huh? But... but... Well, the image lacks the lighting of the grand masters, and has, of course a ton of distractive background through no fault of the G10. Fine... now onto the diddling to suck out the good stuff from this image.

And that's where I turned to my AlienSkin filters - three of them in fact. First I popped Katelyn out of the image and copied her to another layer above this original. Then I copied the original image to a new layer to which I applied the AlienSkin :Bokeh filter and masked it back in around her to throw those pesky distractions out of focus. Then I applied AlienSkin's SnapArt: oil filter to that carefully blurred backgroung image to create an oil painted background. Finally I applied the SnapArt:watercolor filter to Katelyn's image on the upper level - and went back to allow each of them to carefully fit together. To these I added some adjustment levels to mask in appropriate areas of shadowing, vignetting, and tonal range to the introudctory image way up there atop this posting... and I added an additional custom green screen on a higher level which I blended with an overlay adjustment to suggest a warm Rembrandt mood.

So? Think at me. I think the G10's a pretty good backup for the big apparatus - Comments? Does Topaz DeNoise 5 save the G10 at the higher ISO?

Underneath

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KatelynRose and Rocco. Sweet stuff, babies and doggies. Too easy?

Watercolor Dreamy

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Christmas cannot bear too much reality. Or... or maybe I can't, and Christmas fends it off. Once a year I want a quiet reverie in flickering candlelight where my inner-child gets in touch with me. Failing that, I find an outer-child to get the peaceful glimmers flickering. Y'know?

GEEK STUFF: Canon 7D at ISO 6400/f5.6-1/30sec. PP: PS4:Topaz, Alien Skin: Bokeh & SnapArt2: watercolor, custom brushes.

Moment

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Here's my wife's grand-niece KatelynRose on Christmas day. Magical moment. But doubly magical. As you can see it's naturally lit, primary from window in front on cloudy morning, and filled with tungsten light from the room. I balanced them in PS4. Simple operation there. But the magic was from my new Canon 7D. I used my 17-85/mm cranked out to 85mm at f5.6/.30sec. at an ISO of 3200. Lookit that last number.... ISO 3200!!!! And I've done NOTHING to obscure the grain. Those skin tones are like butter. At 3200 ISO! That's three full stops over 400 ISO. With imperceptible grain/noise. ZOWIE! Thank you Canon.

KatelynRose Is 1

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Visited Pittsburg last weekend. My wife's grandniece is one year old. It was all about her. So, that's what I took pictures of. Free model, y'know?

Bokeh2-Part 2

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Let's try Bokeh2 with a tad of help from SnapArt2 shall we? Note, I took a passel of pix of KatelyinRose last Saturday with my G10, point-and-shoot. That meant shooting at a high and noisy ISO. So, what to do? Well, I'd intended to use the images as a test of the new Bokeh2 in combo with PS4 and knew as a consequence that noise would be no problem. See what I mean?

Comments?

KatelynRose

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Hmmm.... Here's my grandniece in a snap taken by her parents last week. Now... how close to studio lighting can I achieve in post processing? And, given Topaz and SnapArt as additional tools beyond photoshop, how can a stylized rendering enhance the impact? Let's try this.

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So? Does it work? How better to approach the project?

I've been off my photo game for a while. Thanks for the letters and queries. Nope... I am fine. IN fact as I've written earlier, I' in the m iddle of a fitness obsession. They happen every five to seven years and for some months they expand to fill a bunch of my spare time. Since note of my time is really "spare" and since the only time I can effectively get to the gym is VERY early in the morining (5:30am), well three nights a week I'm going to bed in time to get up at around 4:45.

That together with a bunch of new reading, my intense study of video editing to utilize the video options in my new 7D, and a passel of opportunities for writing at my magazines... well... photography has become the account from which I've drawn time.


Add to that the photo funk I went into when our Peru trip got rained out and ... well... I'm recharging my photo creative batteries. Still, little Katelyn seemed like an opportunity to do some doodling. Kiddies are fun.

Oh yeah.... there is also this I guess. It just kind of happened, y'know?