Here’s an interesting weight loss tutorial in Photoshop. This is an older video, but it demonstrates the effects very well.
Use Photoshop to virtually put someone on a diet in Photoshop! Music: Kevin MacLeod
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HDR Workflow – Should you convert to Jpegs before processing
I’ve heard it said a number of times, but I just don’t understand it. Why would you do this? What I’m referring to is converting your images to jpegs before processing them for HDR in Photomatix. I’ve had a number of people tell me that you should convert to jpegs prior to merging to HDR in Photomatix because you’ll get a better result and because the software converts to jpeg before processing anyway! Let me tell you here and now – this is hogwash!! The answer is “NO”! You should not convert from RAW or Tiffs to jpegs prior to processing the HDR, regardless of what you may have read or been told, you should not do this!
In a recent conversation with an individual from Canada I was told I should try the above because that is what “Trey Ratcliff” recommends and he has been doing HDR for years, therefore he should know what he is talking about. My response was simply “that doesn’t make sense. Why would you ever convert to a format that throws away a significant amount of data before making use of the data? I’ve always used the Tiff file format and have gotten great results in my HDR images (see the image above).”
Well my friend from Canada posed the question to the makers of Photomatix (HDRSoft) and received a definitive answer from Geraldine of the Photomatix Engineering Team that should put an end to this nonsense:
“Photomatix does NOT convert the images you are importing to JPEG for internal processing, and never did it. It would not make any sense to do this…
The only moment Photomatix converts to JPEG is when you want to save the image created by Photomatix and choose to save it as JPEG. This applies to an image created by Photomatix, not to an image you imported.
Regarding whether it is better to convert RAWs in Photoshop before processing in Photomatix, you will find a detailed discussion on this on the FAQ here:
www.hdrsoft.com/support/faq_photomatix.html#process_raw
However, converting TIFF files to JPEGs in Photoshop before processing in Photomatix is a bad idea, given the loss of quality due to the conversion to JPEG.”
Please take note of that last sentence again “converting TIFF files to JPEGs in Photoshop before processing in Photomatix is a BAD (emphasis added) idea…”.
Thanks Geraldine!
If you shot your image sequence as jpeg files, then you should process them as jpeg files because you’ve already thrown away 1/3 to 1/2 of the available data by shooting in jpeg format. However, if you shot your image sequence in RAW or Tiff, then it is recommended that you process the HDR sequence as a series of Tiff files. Why not RAW files, please refer to the link above for information on RAW processing in photomatix. In short, yes you can and Photomatix does support it, however you might get better results if you convert the RAW files to Tiffs using Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, or other more sophisticated RAW processor.
With that said, I would ask that you share this post with everyone you know – tweet it, retweet it, share it on facebook, and any other social media site you might participate in, and let’s put an end to the myth that “you should convert to jpegs prior to HDR processing”!
Using All Available Detail
Sometimes to make the shot work, you need to have access to all the available detail that the camera can capture. If you are shooting in JPG mode, then you are throwing away the available detail and letting the camera decide what to keep and what to use. In some cases this might be okay, particularly if all you want is snap-shot type of quality from your images. However, for those of use who want more from our images, this is not okay and is why I strongly suggest you shoot in RAW mode rather than JPG mode.
RAW mode can capture a significant amount of image detail that you might not see. For example, here’s an image I shot recently inside the Burlington Railway Presidents car in the dining area. It’s a nice image that was exposed for the light inside the car. This means that the details in the windows is lost – or is it?
I processed the image in Lightroom 3 getting the details of the room just right. Even though this is a nice image as is, it feels a little closed off to me. Not all that inviting. So I created a “virtual” copy of the image in Lightroom, and with this copy I used the exposure slider to underexpose the image by almost 4 stops, which gave me the following image.
As you can see, there was significant detail that the camera was able to capture in what appeared to be overexposed or lost information in the first image above. This is the value of a RAW image. Sometimes you can pull back the detail from the overexposed or underexposed areas of the image. Of course the amount of detail you can pull out of these areas depends on the original exposure and the lighting of the scene. In other words, don’t expect this to work in every situation. It may work, but to vary degrees of success.
In this case, I was lucky enough to have about 4 stops of information/detail available. For this image, I think the view in the window areas is nice and I want to include this detail in the original shot above. Since I now have the original, and the copy I made in Lightroom to which I adjusted the exposure for the window detail, I can now open these two images as layers in Photoshop and blend the two images together.
Once in Photoshop, I made sure the underexposed image was at the bottom of my layer stack, and the original image at the top. I then added a layer mask to the original image and painted over the windows with a black brush (black allows the layer below to show through, white blocks the layer below). Once I had painted over each of the windows with my black brush, I had the following final image which feels more open and airy and inviting.
This is one of those images that some people will mistake for an HDR image because you can get the same result through HDR processing. However, in this case, the light was low inside the train car and space did not allow for a tripod. Hand holding was the only option, and to shoot 5 or more frames in HDR in low light would have been extremely difficult to get a good sharp result. But, as you can see, shooting the image in RAW and a single exposure gave me the same kind of results as an HDR image without losing sharpness due to camera shake during slow exposure times needed in the HDR sequence.
If you’re wishing you had more detail in the sky or in a window or wherever in your scene, don’t dismiss the potential detail that may be there if you shot the image in RAW mode. If you didn’t shoot it in RAW mode, then you should be asking yourself why?
Simple tilt-shift corrections in Lightroom
In this video tutorial, I show you the basics on using lens corrections within Lightroom to apply simple tilt and shift corrections to an image. As noted in the video, it is better to do this in camera if you have or can afford a tilt-shift lens. If you can’t, then this is a simple method that allows you to make these kinds of corrections in post.
Creating the Illusion of Shallow Depth of Field
In this, my first video, I show you how to change the depth of field of an image to reduce background distractions. The video is a little rough since it is my first. I would be very interested in hearing your feedback on this. Thanks for taking the time to watch it.
A couple of things I forgot to mention in the video. When using the brush tool to get up close to the edges as you are creating the mask, use a medium soft brush, the blending is better and looks more realistic. Getting the edges to look right takes some practice. Also, when using the clone stamp tool to remove the haloing around the subjects, as long as you are painting on the image (not the mask), you don’t need to worry about cloning over the edges of the subjects. The mask is taking care of this.
What’s in Your Library?
Yes, I read a lot. For me, learning is a continual process. I have a number of photography books in my library that I refer to often. I heard it said that the day you stop learning is the day you die! Well I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, so my library of photography books (as well as other subjects I’m interested in) will continue to grow. Here is a picture of some of the photography books I have. I did not include the how-to specifics on Photoshop and Lightroom that I have. (click the image for a larger view)
My four favorites are the ones in front, primarily because I love landscape photography and HDRi! The other book “Vision & Voice” by David Duchemin has got to be my all time favorite book. David takes you through his process of expressing his vision & voice through photography using Adobe Lightroom. It is a powerful book and has helped me to begin to understand the process of refining my vision. This vision is the one that caused me to take the image to begin with. The voice is how to express the story you want the image to project. Well worth the money I spent to get this book. If you are looking to add a book to your library this Christmas, this is the book I would recommend.
As for HDRi photography, I absolutely love Jack Howard’s approach in “Practical HDRi”. As the name suggests, it is a very practical approach to learning the art of HDRi photography. This would be my first recommendation of books on HDRi photography. Jack also gives a couple of bonuses in his book, but I’m not going to tell you what they are, you’ll have to get the book for that!
I like a wide variety in my library (as you can see in the image above) and I don’t think any library on photography would be complete without Brian Peterson. You just have to have at least one of his books. Me, I have three and I also subscribe to his emails from the Perfect Picture School of Photography (PPSOP). There are lots of video tutorials he does and sends them out to his subscribers.
Anyway, if you can’t tell, I think education and continual learning are important no matter what you are interested in, and the more you invest in your learning, the better off you’ll be! So do yourself a favor this holiday season and invest in your education, be it through books, classes, or workshops! 
