AYWMC: Part 5, Editing: Lesson 3, Tonal Edits

This post is part of a series entitled A Year With My Camera.

Lesson 5.3 in my own words.

• Tones in an image are simply the shades of grey.
• Most editing software splits them into 3 broad groups:
• dark tones
• mid-tones
• highlights
• Pure black and pure white would be on the ends.
• The better quality image editors allow adjustment to each tone group separately, e.g., tonal curves in Lightroom.
• Editing the tone groups separately allows you to keep detail. For example
• Not losing detail in light areas when lightening dark tones.
• Not losing detail in the dark end when darkening highlights or mid-tones.
• It helps to imagine the photo in black and white.

This week's project

Create at least 2 completely different edits from the same photo, just using the curves tool, or dark tones/light tones sliders.

GIMP has a color curves tool, but not a tonal curve tool for dark, mid, and highlight tones. So my homework was done on RAW images in ART with sliders.

I started by experimenting with images of flowers and goats. I could see changes, but they were subtle as the shadows, mid-tones, and highlights were subtle. This week's project wants two completely different edits from the same photo, so I chose the same scene that I used for last week's project, but under different conditions. In lesson 5.2 the photo was taken before sunrise on a foggy morning. For this lesson, the photo was taken a couple hours after sunrise on a clear morning. I like that it has distinct shadows, mid-tones, and highlights with which to experiment.

Original from the camera

In my edited photos, the shadows were lightened the same, but the mid-tones were the opposite and highlights were decreased for edit #2. The changes are subtle, so I suppose it's a matter of which image is instinctively more appealing to the viewer.

Tonal edits #1

Tonal edits #2

What I learned

• Tonal edits can subtly bring out details that are originally visible to the eye, but less so to the camera. 
• It's a way to draw attention to a particular area of the image.
• The differences can be subtle or intense.
• In the end, it's a matter of personal taste.

For my records, here are the individual edits I experimented with before putting them all together.

Original with only shadows lightened

Original with only mid-tones lightened

Original with only mid-tones darkened

Original with only highlights darkened

And because I couldn't leave it alone, here is my tonal edit photo #1 (above), with a few more tweaks.

Tonal edit combo with slightly increased saturation.

Same as above with color temperature cooled slightly.

I have to add that I understand why we were instructed to take our images in the largest size our camera allows. It's a lot easier to see the changes when the image is 6016 pixels by 4012 pixels, than at the 500 x 333 I post on my blog. But the blog posting size is a matter of space and loading time, so while it's a good record, it's not perfect.

All images © by Leigh at Leigh's Photography Journal

AYWMC 5.1 Supplemental: RAW

This is a supplement to Lesson 5.1: Editing is Not Cheating 

from my blog series A Year With My Camera.

Lesson 5.1 Supplement in my own words

• What is RAW?
• A RAW image file contains all the original information that the camera's computer collects when the photographer presses the shutter button.
• A JPEG image is a RAW image that has been processed and edited by the camera's computer. The extra information is deleted and the image compressed.
• RAW images are 3x larger than JPEG images because they contain 3x the information.
• Not an option on less expensive cameras and phones.
  
• They are unique to each camera manufacturer.
• Can be exported from a photo editor as JPEG (or other) files.
  
• What are the advantages of shooting RAW images?
• They retain all the original information contained in the image.
• The photographer can choose what and how to edit.
• It can be edited without degrading the photo (because it isn't compressed like JPEG images are).
• What are the disadvantages of shooting RAW images?
• They are 3x as large as JPEGs.
• They are slower for the camera to save and download.
• Memory card is filled up 3x faster and holds 3x fewer photos.
• Can't share a RAW file.
• Not all photo editors can work with RAW files. Those that do require a special addon.

 

Optional project for Unit 5

• Experiment with RAW images this month.

I had a heck of a time finding a RAW image editor that works with both Linux and Canon's new RAW file format (CR3). I finally had success with ART (Another RawTherapee) which is a fork of the popular open source RawTherapee.

 

I took a variety of photos in RAW, and started to experiment. The program has a lot of editing features and it's going to take awhile to learn them. So, I thought it best to start with the three editing steps in Lesson 5.1: exposure, color temperature, and crop.

 

Original

Exposure adjusted

Color temperature adjusted

Cropped

Then in GIMP, I resized and optimized. I do this for all photos that go on my blogs. In this case, the original photo was 4012 x 6016 pixels. I resized to 333 x 500 pixels. Then I optimized it from about 230 Kb to 47 Kb. These last two steps make my images easier to load and view in a web browser.

What I learned

• I had my introduction to the world of RAW photos: what they are and what to do with them.
• I discovered that when I open a RAW image into ART, I'm not viewing the actual RAW image, but rather a JPEG image that the camera creates and embeds in the RAW file. This is what the RAW image editor displays and what I'm working from.
• There is so much more control with how RAW images are edited, compared to working with JPEG in GIMP. I often found that frustrating, and is perhaps why photography was primarily utilitarian. Now, I'm getting a glimpse into the art of digital editing, and discovering it's a lot of fun!
• I still have a lot to learn.

Resources

• What Is Raw and Why Do You Need It?
• Setting Image Quality on the EOS M50
  
• RAW Photos in GIMP
• Canon CR3 support in Linux using ART, RawTherapee fork
• ART Quick Start
• ART Wiki
• RawPedia

All images © by Leigh at Leigh's Photography Journal

AYWMC: Part 5, Editing: Lesson 1, Editing Is Not Cheating

This post is part of a series entitled A Year With My Camera. 

 

Lesson 5.1 in my own words

• All professional photographers edit their images.
• Film photography requires chemical baths to develop images. The final look of the photo is controlled by:
• temperature of developer bath
• length of time in fix bath
• Digital cameras are not designed to produce finished photographs.
• A digital image is just a file of basic information about color and tone levels.
• Digital images require developing (a.k.a. editing).
• JPEG images leave the editing to the camera.
• RAW images are unedited digital files enabling the photographer to edit as desired.
• There's a supplemental AYWMC lesson on RAW, so I'll make my notes in a separate post
• Editing software
• The choices for digital photographers are:
• Let the camera make the decisions
  
• Use software designed for digital photograph editing
• Use digital editing software is an extension of the camera.
• Most programs used by professionals are by purchase or monthly subscription fees.
• There are some decent free programs out there.
• Basic editing should include checking three things:
• Exposure - is the image correctly exposed?
• Use histogram in the software to check
• Check where the white point is located (the right hand side of the histogram)
• Underexposed images can be improved by moving the white point slider to touch the right side of the histogram.
• Color balance - do your indoor shots have a yellow cast?
  
• Possible editing tools to correct color balance:
• color temperature
• white balance
• neutral tone picker
• may vary depending on program used
  
• Cropping - can your image be improved by cropping?
• Some photographers think that cropping is amateurish; that professional photographers can perfectly compose and frame the image in the camera alone.
• To this, Emma Davies (our teacher) responds, "Says who? If you want to crop, then crop."

 

This week's project

• Choose a favorite image and check the 3 basic editing steps.
• As a photo prompt for images taken for this lesson, experiment with  background separation.
• For every image taken in this week, use your editing software for basic editing as needed.
• Optional: Try experimenting with RAW images
  

I don't know if these are favorite images, but they contain issues that I want to learn to improve. I chose them so I could experiment with the editing features discussed in the lesson. I use GIMP because it's open source and free.

Photo 1: an indoor shot of a bowl of homegrown cherries. It has that yellowish cast indoor photos usually have from artificial lighting.

Original photograph.

Cropped

Exposure adjusted to -1.

Color temperature adjusted from 6500K (original) to 3550K

Exposure -1 and color temperature 3550K

Exposure -1 and color temperature 4314K

In the exposure dialog box are two sliders: exposure and black level. Black level wasn't mentioned in the lesson, but I experimented with it anyway.

Exposure -0.3 and black level 0.01

Exposure -0.3, black level 0.01, and temperature 3500K

Photo 2: an outdoor photo of a white water lily in the sun. I wanted to experiment with this one because white anything in the sun always washes out. Can I fix it in GIMP?

Original

Cropped (so I can focus on the flower)

Exposure -1

White balance (an automated function in GIMP)

What I learned

• I wasn't terribly satisfied with any of the results, so I'm going to need a lot of practice with this. I use my editing software for a few things, but there is much on it that I'm clueless about.
  
• That GIMP seems to render exposure differently than the camera does. (I'm guessing this is because with the camera, I have three ways to control exposure: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, plus exposure compensation).
• In the camera, exposure compensation affects brightness
• In GIMP, exposure control seems to add overall darkness to the image, i.e add a layer of gray. Hmm, wait a minute. This is something I learned about in the very first lesson, "Introduction to Exposure."
  
• I couldn't make sense of what the lesson meant about using the histogram to adjust exposure, so that's something I need to delve into.
  
• Conclusions 
• It's best to make as many adjustments as possible with the camera. Editing may not be cheating, but it shouldn't be used as a crutch either.
• Not to photograph white objects in direct sun.
• That I need to do a course on how to use GIMP and all its features.
  

 

Next, I'm going to tackle RAW. Emma Davies Photography Blog has an excellent article explaining it, "What is RAW and Why Do You Need It?" Then I'll take a look at the Michael the Maven video I found on my specific camera (Canon M50), to learn how to use it to shoot RAW. I'll do a separate blog post on my notes and initial experiments with it.You can find that here.

All images © by Leigh at Leigh's Photography Journal