Advanced Photography Workshop 1 - Professional Toolkit

I chose this project because photography has always been a big interest of mine and I like to take pictures as a hobby however I am going I will learn some extra skills which will help me move to a much more professional standard. Here is what we learnt in our first workshop:

Today is all about looking at file types such as JPEG and RAW which I know a small amount about but have never looked or thought into them in much detail as to what they mean.

JPEG - Joint Photographers Experimental Group
JPEG has become a standard setting for most cameras and image files however it is not good because it takes an image and in this format compresses it. This was originally the plan when this format first came about because it was to solve storage issues photographers were having with these new digital technologies. However now we have much larger memory cards and computer storage we don't really need to compress images like this so it is a very bad format to use if you are doing professional work. These files won't show the full potential of what your camera can actually capture. For example the average digital camera sensor captures colour in a bit range/depth of 12 bit colour. (This is 4096 tonal levels.) However regardless of this JPEG format only captures 8bit (256 tonal levels) so it compresses your cameras colour range way down.

RAW - This was invented by the military for evidential purposes because you can't manipulate an original RAW file. Also RAW files hold a massive amount of data in them such as what camera was used, when the image was captured etc. RAW files are much better quality because the image is basically the same output/size as the sensor in your camera. A RAW file is like a digital negative and positive of the image you have captured combined together because there is so much information you can pull out of the image. When looking for RAW files on a Canon Camera it will be named as CRW or CR2.The colour bit ring/depth in a RAW will be kept exactly the same as the bit depth on your camera so no colour or quality is lost at all.

Subject Brightness Range - High subject brightness range is bad to capture with JPEG because JPEG format will clip the image so lots of detail and tones will be lost. RAW will hold these tones and even if an image is overexposed you can gain this detail back through editing.

JPEG - This format is really unchangeable when it comes to editing because it saves all your camera setting into the image so you can readjust anything too much.

RAW - This format is unprocessed when you have captured it which is why you always have to put it into the RAW Processor window of Photoshop before you can enter the main workspace. Because it is unprocessed it hasn't saved the camera settings into the image yet so you can still adjust White Balance (colour Temprature), Gamma Correction and Colour Space.

Now we had learnt about the main reasoning for using/capturing RAW files over JPEG we put it into practice. We went out and captured some basic images in RAW to experiment with on Photoshop. Here is what we did with the one images and what we learnt on Photoshop when working with RAW files:

Firstly you can set up your workspace on Photoshop to 'Photography' which is a lot better for what we are doing. You do this by clicking on the drop down menu called 'Essentials' in the top right corner and change it to Photography-

Then you can open up your RAW image like you would open up any image in Photoshop. This time it will bring you to a different window first called 'Camera Raw' because it is a RAW format and needs to be processed first before you begin editing in the main Photoshop window. In this window though you can change things like the white balance with the drop down menu that says white balance. They all have preconfigured settings so for example 'Shade' will warm up the image. Auto however will neutralise the histogram which sometimes works well but not always. -

Some people try and use the curves on the main photoshop window to edit there exposure etc to try and pull detail bak however it still won't bring very much back. Thats because the best way to do this is in the 'Camera Raw' window we are in by using the sliders especially the exposure sliders. -

In this RAW window you can also use the white balance pipet tool found on the top tool bar to click on a grey area (This could be a 18% Grey card which you can purchase online and take on shoot for this specific purpose) as it will take this grey area and use it to work out the best white balance for the image. -

There is a very useful way to save RAW files within Photoshop Files which then allows you to go back to this RAW editing window as much as you like. You need to click on the small blue writing at the bottom of the window and it will open a Workflow Options window -

You need to change the setting in this window to Depth Option= 16Bits, Space= ProPhotoRGB, Tick Box which says 'Open in Photoshop as Smart Object'. This tick box is the most important part because if it is a seat object that is what means you can come back into the RAW data and edit it any time. -

If you go back to the Raw Window and you want to change the setting for your Raw file but yo want to save what you had you can do this. You save your settings by clicking on the Snapshot Icon in the tool bar on the right hand side. This lets you save multiple edits and presets within the Raw file info which means you can update your photoshop file to be able to access any of these versions. -

Another interesting thing with a Photoshop/Raw file like this is that it never gets rid of data. This means you can crop your image and save the file yet if you then change your mind about the cropping you can click back on the crop tool and gain it all back-

We then looked into the principles of colour spacing just to try and understand what this means. Essentially it is where colours get mapped into a given space within the computer settings. We went onto a programme on the Mac called ColourSync to look at this. It showed us how you these settings are there way of trying to take all the colours from the world and fit as many tones etc into a limited space. This is usually limited by the monitor/computer and also by the colour spacing settings you use. ProPhoto RGB is the biggest and best colour space to use yet it still doesn't fill the screen capabilities. -

We then looked into more specific ways to tackle a problem such as Conflicting White balance/light sources in an image:

Firstly a way to try and figure out a general white balance for the image is to not just use the white balance pipet within the Raw window but to actually use this tool to draw a box around the grey area which gives it a much more averaged white balance than just on pixel. If you haven't got any grey in your image and you didn't use a grey card you can just look through the White Balance presets and think back to the lighting conditions which you shot in to work out the best one like what we were using before. You can then save potentially white balance setting using the snapshot tool we looked at so you can flick between them easily to make a better decision on which ones are best.

Some setting which are best to change when on the Raw editor are...
Camera Calibration, Camera Profile has automatically been set by Adobe to 'Adobe Standard' which is controlling your image how they want. Change this setting to Camera Neutral to get the best out of your camera/image as its a more accurate edition of what you saw-

Lense Correction Tab, Then click enable profile correction which will allow you to see the settings you shot with which helps you edit your image. -

Detail Tab, Adobe has already gone and changed these settings for you again which we don't want. Are images shouldn't need sharpening as we are shooting professionally with a good ISO and these settings are intended for amateur point and shoot photographers. Therefore it is best to take these settings off. -

Then we looked at ways to use the histogram to our advantage. If you are loosing black because your image is too dark you will see this info falling off the edge of the histogram. There is a arrow on the left above the histogram which if you click highlights the areas of your image in blue which information is being lost in because they are too dark. -

and then you can do this with the other arrow to highlight in red the areas which are over exposed and loosing detail.

To change your exposure to make sure you aren't loosing any detail its best to sue the curves option. -

Once all your setting are as best as they can be and you've fixed any problems with exposure etc you can save and open it up as a smart object in the main photoshop window. You can then right click on the image layer and copy this RAW file layer as a smart object. -

This then gives you to smart object layers of the same image on top of one another. -

On the top image open it back up in the RAW window and focus on one of the light sources you have in the picture and change your white balance settings to match this. Then make sure your bottom layer is set up for the other light source. You then want to use a mask to combine both layers together to make it perfectly white balanced through out for both light sources. You use the mask tool to add a mask to your top layer. -

There are some very basic ways to use this masking tool for this process some of which are basic and others which are more complex however it always depends on your image as to which way would work best. The first way we tried was using the paint brush tool and setting it to black so that when I was on this mask anywhere I painted on the top layer would then reveal the bottom layer. -

Then I tried using the magnetic lasso tool on the top mask layer to try and cut around her in the top layer to reveal the other white balance like so. -

A much more complex way to achieve this (which didn't actually work for my images but is effective if you have the right sort of image) is to create a third version of your RAW file which is really high contrast version and save this as a masking only setting. -

Then you take this layer and insert it into photoshop as the third but top layer. Make sure the mask tool is applied to this top layer this time. Then to get onto a mask settings menu when your on the mask click select, then colour range and you will get a colour range window come up. With this you can use the pipet tool provided to select the bright or dark area of this contrasted layer depending on which one you want to mask out. You can add, take away and select with these different pipets. -

You can refine this mask area and smooth down the edges or make it more precise with the mask menu using the refine tool. However I did not do this because this process was not working with my image because I had no strong areas of light and dark which needed masking in this way. It was the model I was trying to mask out. I then went back and used the paint brush method but tried to be a lot more precise this time with the refining tools like so. -

 This left me with this image which was matched to the two different light sources/white balances. -

The last few finishing touches which we looked at how to do were sharpening techniques. To get to the rite menu you go... Filter, Other and then a grid appears which lets you change the contrasting relationships between the pixels so you can make it much sharper with these. The best settings/numbers to put in are -

This is called the 'Mexican Hat Sharpening Technique' and is a good preset to know.

You can also change the bending mode on the mask layer which usually makes a good impact. The preferred setting is 'Luminosity' over Normal as it works with tones and colours and light etc.

This Workshop has been very intense and I have learnt a lot which will be very useful to me in the future especially now I know how best to work with RAW files and why.