Ramblings

[sjordan93436]

The board has been quiet.  Here are a few comments.  I scanned about 100 slides of my parents.  Some go back to 1941.  Some are bright Kodachrome.  Some are "challenged".  High ISO meant high grain.  I then sent them off to a commercial site. They did the 100 and 800 more.  I was looking at 900 slides. 

I then used Lightroom to star and categorize them.  During that time I used LR's sliders to fix color and highlights and shadows.  There is a small bug in the LR > Photoshop interface.  LR loses the keywords if you make a new copy. 

Now, I started in earnest.  Almost all are destined to small print, slideshow, and web viewing.  Most are well exposed.  Color is okay.  Highlights and shadows challenged.  I am now using CS6 and CM to do the work.

Conclusions:
1.  LR is okay, acceptable.
2.  CS and CM are universally better.  Better output. 
3.  (this is surprising)  CS and CM are faster. 

Better because the shadow highlight sliders are crude compared to shadow highlight adjustment in PS.  Faster because curves are better and the hue clocks save the day.  I used shadow highlights, then CM in RGB mode for color correction.  Then CM in LAB mode to boost color and brightness.  There are many exceptions to this workflow, but  it gave good snapshot quality.

LR?  I am more comfortable with their cropping, keywording, and file export.  Also, the HSL is nice to fix the small problems at the end.  It also gives a quick blue sky.  HSL- luminance- blue down. 

Downside- I double my files.  I like the sharpening of PS, but the Margulis action is slowish when you have many images and do not want to spend the time. 

Unresloved issues- 
1.  The high contrast images and the severely underexposed are "challenging."  I have the TIFF's and I think that the detail is not there.  High contrast- I do not like the over HDR'ed look.  I use it as a crutch with bad images.  Same with the grunge look or over structured.  Is there curves that can fix or is highlight shadows the best tool or HDR.

2.  Keywording is an issue.

3.  HSL in LR I like.  I need to figure it out in photoshop.

4.  Ditto for gradient tool.  It is a one click version in LR.  I think I need to do an adjustment layer and add a gradient mask.  My competence is not good here.

5.  Film grain does not equal noise.  Look similar, but noise filters do not fix. 

Enough ramblings.  After 900 images----  my 3,000 negatives. 

[ggroess]

Steve,
You are too correct in that the board is really quiet.  We are not sure why this is and we are trying to brainstorm ways to figure this out.  Any and all inputs short of insults are welcome...heck well intended insults might even be acceptable at this point.

As to your questions...

When I did slide conversion for my family archive I bought a lens attachment so I could re-shoot these images.  The primary benefit was that I could re-expose the slides on the fly...example.  I used my Nikon D200 and a Tripod with the camera pointed at a blank white wall.  I placed a very dark slide in the frame holder and used my camera mounted strobe to "pop" the image 4 times.  If 1 pop is normal exposure and 2 pops is one stop over, 4 pops is 2 stops over and I was able to "rescue" many images in this manner...  The best part was that I got immediate feedback from the camera after the exposure and I could re-shoot in less time than re-scanning.  I got the full 12Mpixel resolution out of the camera and the slides never left my possession.

Lightroom:  Can of worms there...
Double your files??  Lightroom is a database.  You should not have multiple copies of the files unless you are saving copies after re-touching.

Stars and keywords...Lightroom writes to the EXIF data sections of the file and you can edit the keywords in Photoshop.  If Lightroom is making a mess of this you can correct in PS when you are in there for editing...I think its under files>Properties or something like that.

HSL is very close to HSB in CM.  Just not using a slider to get the job done...

Film Grain you want...it's what was there in the scan and personally I want it as part of the archive...noise??  As you know there are tons of NR packages out there...

As for speed...I am not surprised that CM and PS are faster...remember that Lightroom is a combination of a database and "light" photo editor.  My swing at it is that the primary user for Lightroom is a moderate to high volume shooter who needs to process hundreds of images to a web based quality standard and a few images to a print based one.  Think proof books for wedding photographers.  Most of the people that I know who use it use PS for the prints that the customer orders and use Lightroom to bulk process the shooting session and get it on the web fast. 

High contrast images: try opening in ACR and adjusting the exposure.  Also try playing around with the white setting and the black setting.  Don't do too much with contrast or saturation unless you find that it really rescues the image...

Post one of your troubled images out here and we can take a swing at it.  It cannot hurt....
Greg

[sjordan93436]

I use Lightroom as a database for large collection of files.  It can post images to facebook, smugmug, and other social sites very easily.

My problem with lightroom is " deep in the weeds" and far off topic.  I take an image and "edit in Photoshop"  LR give you 3 (really 2) options.  One option is to have photoshop edit the original.  That means when you are done you save and over write the original.  Not bad if you have a backup and have done no editing in LR.  Option 2 is to edit with LR adjustments.  That creates a TIFF with the LR adjustments either LR or ACR do that.  The saved file has "-edit" at the end, but is a new file.  Either case the keywords and stars are still there.

My problem is that with option 2 the keywords are still there, but they are not in LR index.  So if I tag a photo with say "Xmas 2011", it shows as it is in the photo.  If I then try to select Xmas 2011, it is not there.  Grrrr....  I can turn off the keyword and redo, it is back in the index.  This is with a new catalog of 900 photos.  Sometimes it even loses the photo altogether. 

HSL HSB.  It is not the same.  It has those lovely slider.  three sets.  One each for Luminance, Saturation, and Hue.  Each set is8 sliders for different hues.  You can eyedrop a spot and that selects the correct hues.  For example, the sky is weak.  Click the eyedropper on the sky. If it is in luminance mode.  Hold the mouse key down and slide down or up the luminance.  That is very effective is fixing skies.  Change to saturation mode, and make the sky more saturated.  Perfect?  If the grass is a little off, just click and move the hue. 

Proper curving removes the need for HSL with (for me) two exceptions.  One is skies.  Other is a small distinct problems that I can target only that.  Lips that are wrong.  My wife was very insistent that the lips of our grandchild were wrong.  In a group photo that I was printing small.  Grrr....  One HSL click and problem fixed.

Sometimes the noise in the shadows was digital noise and sometimes grain.  Noise I can fix with some loss of detail.  Grain needs a blur. 

BTW, ACR is the same as light room for adjusting photos.  So the philosophy is the same.  Minimal fix in ACR, heavy lifting in highlight shadow and curves.

[sjordan93436]

Here is an image to play with.  A slide from 1983 of my parents.  Image 2 is the same image with highlight shadows.  Image 3 is much more work with masks and hdr.

Image 3 is okay, I wish it were better and faster.

[ggroess]

I'll have a look see...
Greg

[ggroess]

Steve,
Interesting problem...I tried this last night and waited to try it again until this morning...I wanted to make sure I was not making this too complex...

Here is what I did...

1) copy the background layer to a new layer and switch to channels on the new layer.  I looked at each channel in RGB and foound the Green and Blue to be worthless for contrast.  I curves the red channel as shown in shot 0 and applied it to the other two channels Image>Apply Image...(Normal mode) this makes a B&W image on the layer since all three channels are now identical to the curved red channel.  Switch back to layers and change the mode to Luminosity.

2) I curved it for the skin tones in RGB and then added a neutral to the waterfall in the background.  Since you have the slide frame as a part of the image I used it as the shadow point and the blow out sky was the highlight.  Shot 1

So far this is less than 3 minutes of actual work...it took more time to figure this out than it did to apply it...

Lastly, I did try Shadows and Highlights in PS to the image after getting the color closer and the tones in a better place...It comes down to personal taste after the RGB pass for color. 

Greg

[sjordan93436]

Thanks for the tip on contrast blending.  I remember that but thought that it would not be that useful.  Obviously, it is.  I did that with some other images that helped a lot.  Perhaps I need to do a macro to that faster.  I will post a before and after later.  I have been using - shadow highlight, Dan M's bigger hammer, apply image for contrast enhancement, LAB and RGB color fixing, LAB color boost, and CMYK for black details. 

For some reason, Lightroom is cranky and under my specific conditions losses all keyword on the corrected image.  Unless I am careful going from LR to PS  I lose the image.  I am about to call Adobe.  (update- it is bug, they will fix it someday.)

Also, I like the blend if options.  My photos include many red shirts and jackets.  They go iridescent quickly.  Occasionally, a bright blue dress or blouse.  Blend if is my friend.