Category Archives: Software

Importing into Lightroom

Lightroom, Software

Automating sharpening on import.

One of the first things I have to do when processing images imported from my Canon 5D (or the Lumix LX1 for that matter) is to sharpen the RAW image. This is standard operating procedure for digital cameras and has nothing to do with poor native image quality. The process simply negates the effect of the anti-aliasing filter, used in nearly every digital camera. Apple’s Aperture is really smart about this and does it automatically, detecting the camera used and applying Apple’s pre-set adjustments. Lightroom is less smart but can be taught to make the adjustment automatically on import.

Here’s the process – I have enlarged the screen shots for legibility, hence the poor definition – if you want to see aliasing take a look at the ‘jaggies’ in the pointers!

Here are the Lightroom defaults for sharpening in the Develop module.

Leave them like this and you will have to sharpen every picture once imported. A waste of time.

Here are the settings that work best for me – and I have large prints made on an HP Designjet 90 printer as my goal. For the small images used for the web it really does not matter what you do. A large print, on the other hand, is the most demanding output there is.

Having made those adjustments in the Develop panel I then create a new User Preset by clicking on the ‘+’ sign in the Preset area in the left panel and naming the current settings Canon 5D. No other defaults have been changed in the Develop module at this time nor do you want to make any changes:

Then when prompted which settings to save with this new User Preset, I choose ‘Check None’ then check only the Sharpening box. This will limited changes made whenever this User Preset is chosen to Sharpening only. Were I importing from a small sensor camera with inherent image noise (not an issue with the 5D) I would consider including Noise Reduction when creating the User Preset and would check the related box, below.

Next I insert a CF card containing images to be imported into the card reader and the import Dialog pops up. Under information to Apply: Develop Settings I click the drop down box and point to the Canon 5D preset just created:

Now my preferred sharpening settings will be applied as the pictures are imported and 1:1 Previews are generated. As is always the case with RAW files, the original file is never changed – it’s just the Previews that are managed.

You can make User Presets which are specific to a camera serial number, if you want, but as Your Truly owns just one 5D (a status unlikely to change) and one Lumix LX1, that’s a luxury I do not need.

One size does not fit all:

Now the above approach is camera specific, not lens specific.

It doesn’t mean that you just merrily import every image without the need for any additional sharpening adjustments.

Even in my small set of Canon lenses there are noticeable variations. The 85mm, 200mm’L’ and 400mm ‘L’ optics are pretty constant when it comes to sharpness at all apertures. Indeed, the 200mm generally needs a small reduction, it’s that good. On the other hand, the 24-105mm ‘L’ and the 50mm f/1.4 at full aperture both need a little more and the 20mm needs more all the time. It’s a mediocre piece of glass at best.

And it’s not just sharpening you have to worry about. There are other lens aberrations.

It would be pretty neat to be able to automatically adjust for Chromatic Aberration (color fringing), Distortion based on the lens used and Vignetting, but that feature is not available, yet. CA and Vignetting would be especially tricky as they vary with aperture. Distortion is no walk in the park either as the distortion levels in zooms vary with focal length. That’s not to say that Adobe couldn’t do it (we are talking simple look-up tables here, although a lot of them, and a presumption of low sample variation) and I, for one, would love to be able to have the fairly pronounced barrel distortion in the 24-105mm ‘L’ zoom automatically removed when this otherwise fine optic is used at its wide end.

DxO Optics adopts this exact approach in a plug-in for Lightroom. They should be applauded for their efforts. The list of cameras and lenses they automatically adjust for is set forth here. I have not tried the product and, at $300, I’m not about too, but it may make sense to some. It looks like the latest Mac version is not yet available so I could not try it even if I wanted to blow the coin. Their video suggests the product is bog slow (a couple of minutes to adjust just five images), and you can bet they are using the fastest possible hardware to put a gloss on things, so a pinch of salt is recommended before you lay out your hard earned cash.

Does any of this really matter with small images – like those reproduced on the web or in snapshot prints? No. But once your prints sizes get large, it can make a significant difference to the appearance of the picture. And a little bit of automation to reduce the drudge of processing is always a good thing.

More on Lightroom printing

Lightroom

Some convenient enhancements.

Since publishing my first piece on how to profile monitors and printers for use with Lightroom, I have made a couple of interesting discoveries.

First, I listened to Adobe Podcast#1 (with Mark Hamburg, Kevin Tieskoetter and Jeff Schewe) from Apple’s iTunes store (search podcasts on “Lightroom”) which speaks to profiling (they are speaking about Lightroom Beta Release #4 for the Mac) and was intrigued to note that that we shared the same approach. The development team (a lot of very smart, well informed, outspoken engineers – highly recommended listening) does exactly what I published with regard to the use of Colorsync, letting the printer manage colors, not Lightroom. This philospohy is printer agnostic. Epson, HP, Canon, you name it.

My approach requires making Lightroom use Apple’s Colorsync utility to manage colors. You need a properly profiled screen and I describe in that earlier piece a very accurate way of doing that which does not even require a colorimeter, provided you follow certain disciplines regarding ambient lighting.

I suggest you give this method a try. Your maximum cost is a few minutes, a couple of pieces of paper and some ink. And the money saved on a Colorimeter (wish I had been that smart when I bought mine) will pay for a lot of paper and ink. It does not matter who makes your printer for this screen profiling approach to work.

The other thing I discovered is that it is possible to save the Colorsync setting in the Printer Profile – something I stated frustration at not being able to do.

I had forgotten that there is a ‘Save’ setting in the print dialog box. So elect Colorsync in Print Settings->PaperType/Quality then Save the setting with a meaningful name. I have named my saved file “HP Photo Satin – Colorsync” which states the paper type I chose before saving and obviously uses the Colorsync utility. Note that this named setting is independent of Lightroom’s Print templates – you choose it at print time after selecting a Print template. The printer dialog box dictates color management, the Lightroom Print template controls the paper size, margins and picture layout on the page.

Then, when it’s time to Print, I simple choose this drop down menu option in the Print dialog box (I have not yet figured out how to make it the default, something I would like to do as that’s what I use nearly all the time – what I need to do is work out how to delete the ‘Standard’ setting, I’m guessing, at the OS file level). A quick check – see the following screen picture – confirms that the Colorsync setting has, indeed, been saved and will be used when printing.

Now I am assured that both the right paper profile and the correct Colorsync setting is made without having to check yet another layer of menus in the print dialog box. So printing really is a breeze. I have created three templates – for three different paper sizes. That’s all I need, as I always use the same HP paper.

* * * * *

I learned an interesting thing from this podcast – what do you think Adobe did for the Lightroom development team for Christmas of 2005? They gave each member a digital camera and encouraged them to take lots of pictures. Maybe the resulting stress testing has something to do with the application’s speed? I wonder whether Apple ever considered doing that for its Aperture developers? Or do they simply get a $7,000 Mac Pro and 30″ screen which will run anything well ….

Tracking warranties

Software

iCal to the fore!

I explained – and quantified – why the arithmetic of extended warranties on consumer gee-gaws made it a slam dunk for the writers of the insurance and a losing proposition for the buyers here. So photographers should know when the warranty expires on their latest camera or lens.

Machines fail when very new or very old/very used. No secret there. Look at light bulbs. Cars. Cameras.

Which brings me to tracking warranties.

As I have recently written, my trust in Apple quality control has been severely shaken over the past year when my new MacBook, Extreme router and wireless keyboard all broke down during the (measly) one year warranty period. In each case I had to scratch around to determine whether the first year of ownership had passed. Apple is a key photographic tool vendor for this user.

Then it struck me. Might as well use Apple’s own tools to track their failures and warranties, so now any time I buy a new toy, the warranty expiration date goes right into iCal with an email reminder to me. And if I do want to check, I simply search iCal for the name of the gadget.

So, Toshiba, I’m not about to forget about the three year warranty on that new hard drive. No way.

To make matters easy, all the receipts go in a three ring binder in chronological order. Easy.

And if I do want to check if something fails, or find the date of the invoice for a warranty claim, I simply search iCal for the name of the gadget – Apple-F in iCal.

So watch out, Apple, Toshiba, Canon, Panasonic, big screen TV maker, et al. You are being watched. Though, in fairness to all but Apple in that list, these manufacturers’ products have been failure free.

There is one far more important reason however, and it is a life saver.

This technique has saved half my net worth on more occasions than I can name. Now that I no longer have a secretary charged with reminding me of these things. To be safe, I put in vital dates twice, with two week and one day reminders. Who said computers don’t save you money?

Lightroom and round trips

Lightroom

To Photoshop, that is.

While the slightly up-tilted camera distortion is not that bad here, a quick round trip (Command-E on a Mac) from Lightroom to Photoshop CS2 and a few seconds with the ImageAlign plug-in sets things dead straight. Command-S in CS2 saves the corrected version as a TIFF file in Lightroom. ImageAlign is not just for de-fishing fisheye snaps!


Cropping of the perspective-corrected result in Lightroom – a superbly implemented tool.

Here’s the before and after – a subtle change but worthwhile:

Here’s the final result. Magical late sunlight. California sky.


Tough neighborhood. 5D, 20mm, 1/750, f/11. ISO 250.

You can see some lens vignetting but I left it uncorrected as it heightens the center of interest. My shadow works – at least for me!

The power of RAW

Lightroom

Two stops under does the trick.

Because very high dynamic range pictures will result in burned out highlights, notwithstanding the fine CMOS sensor in the Canon 5D, I underexposed this one two stops (spot metered on the sky) then brought the detail in the foreground back with the processing controls in Lightroom. Here’s the Before and After – a very well engineered function in Lightroom allowing all sorts of comparisons.


Lone oak. 5D, 20mm. 1/4000, f/8, ISO 250. RAW.

As the controls in Lightroom indicate, I had to add substantial noise reduction and sharpening. As the sun was directly behind the tree, regular exposure would have made the branches unrecoverable – sort of like halation in films of days past. This magnitude of correction could not possibly be done in a Jpg file. The histogram testifies to the complete absence of burned out highlights – there’s no crowding at the right end.


Adjustments made in Lightroom.

I also boosted the Tone Curve substantially in the shadows – this control is perfectly implemented in Lightroom – I used the small pointer tool, which you can see at the top left of the following screen picture,allowed me to see the tone curve in the shadow range by placing the pointer in the foreground of the picture. This helped me determine where to adjust. The dotted line shows the reference starting point.

Here’s the final result after slight straightening of the horizon – the sunlight was quite blinding and it was not easy to see much in the viewfinder!

Once stopped down the rather ‘iffy’ Canon 20mm lens is free from color fringing, so no lens corrections were needed.