Dec 14, 2008

Advent conspiracy.


Here's an awfully un-timely video given the struggling economy. I think there's still hope that Christmas will be more than just another consumer holiday when people don't feel like spending. While I have enjoyed shopping for my cousins (as tough as that could be at times), and I admire thoughtfully purchased gifts, I've noticed that I've somewhat missed out on the Christmas spirit in the past few years, given all the rush and commotion (though the family time is always excellent).

So hopefully I'll do something about that this year.

RAW workflow: Lightroom 2

Most RAW workflow apps were developed by smaller companies focused on the needs of photographers. When Adobe came out with Lightroom 1.0 early in 2007, ir validated the market, confirming that Photoshop alone didn't meet the needs of professional or advanced amateur photographers. I had toyed with the Lightroom 1 beta release. It was slow and didn't much impetus to switch over. However, through various releases, bugs were fixed and performance improved. At $299, Lightroom 2 is priced less the Capture One 4 PRO, but still double the price of Capture One 4 or Bibble Pro.

Lightroom operates in one of 5 modes, Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, Web. This structure forces you into a certain workflow. First, in the Library mode, you "import" your images, after which you can quickly browse and make your edit. Lightroom offers a number of tools to aid in organizing photos, including the ability to add tags to images and search with them, as well as "smart collections" that can update themselves. I was able to easily create a smart collection of all photos within a date range that were rated 3 and above. After I finished rating my photos, this folder automatically contained all the files that fit the rule. I don't have a habit of tagging images, so I haven't done this.

After you have your edit, you can move on to the Develop mode, where all the postprocessing tools are provided. In addition to having all the basic tools that I'm familiar with in C1, there's a number of new tools, all potentially useful for creative manipulation, but which also give you power to violate your sense of "journalistic integrity". Advanced colour controls let you tweak particular colours, for example you can make your oranges redder without affecting your blues or greens. Split toning allows you to modify the colours of your bright and dark areas separately. There are tools to fix chromatic aberration and vignetting flaws in your lenses (available in C1 PRO), although some people (like wedding photographers) may choose to use this to add some vignetting for that vintage effect.

The most standout features though, are the tools that allow you to manipulate a small area of your image, something that Photoshop does effortlessly, but are unavailable in C1. Use the clone/healing tool to get rid of a spot of dust here or a pimple there (available in Bibble). Or do some dodging/burning by changing the brightness, contrast, saturation or sharpness of one little area of your image (unavailable in Bibble). These aren't as full-featured as they are in Photoshop, but having them built in means there's much less reason that you would actually need to start up Photoshop at all.

One other thing I like about Lightroom is the availability of Presets. You can save a certain set of settings and name them, say "Super Contrasty" or "Way Oversaturated" or "Fake Lomo", which will then appear in an organized list on the left. You can then select them to apply to your image. In C1 and Bibble you can mimic the functionality with some clunky methods, either by saving presets to file and reloading them (takes a lot more moouse clicks), or having "template" images with your presets applied, and copy from them later. However, the real magic they can't emulate; when you mouse over the names of the presets in the list, the effect is shown practically immediately on a preview image. You don't even need to you click, just move your mouse up and down and decide extremely quickly what preset you want. Potentially huge time saver.

My biggest gripe with the Develop mode is that you can only manipulate one image at a time. For example, you can't select a bunch of images and apply a Preset to all of them. Now, it's possible to do this in the Library mode, so all is not lost. It is annoying however, to have to switch between modes to do this, and it was not at all intuitive.

When I'm done processing my images, I select the ones I want to convert to JPEG, and use the File\Export option to convert to JPEG. It's pretty convenient, especially since you can create Presets on where and how you'd like your files exported. There's also plugins available that can do stuff like automatically upload your photos to flickr or smugmug with the tags you added while editing in the Library mode. There's also three modes, Slideshow, Print, and Web for creating ways of presenting your images. Right now, I'm done when I export to JPEG, so I haven't used any of these modes.

Overall Lightroom 2 was the favourite of the apps I tried. The features are great, it's quick and responsive, the layout is easy to use and is mostly intuitive. The only drawback really is the price, but if you can get a student discount or a similar deal, it's a good way to go. As a last random thought, one way to increase your productivity in any of these workflow apps is to learn to use hotkeys instead of clicking through menus and options with your mouse. Common hotkeys get picked up fairly quickly with use, once you know what they are, but there's probably enough in any of these apps that you won't memorize them all immediately. One thing about Lightroom is that there's only one must-remember hotkey, Ctrl-/, which will bring up a well-organized list of the hotkeys available in the current mode. It's just one more example how the UI design of this app is so well polished.

Dec 12, 2008

Dubious achievement.

I don't recall the last time I've been at work this late. But maybe it means I'm back to being focused. Now, I better leave early tomorrow.

Dec 9, 2008

Here's to consolation.

What's with days at work where nothing works properly? I'm supposed to be done when I leave at midnight, instead of having spent the whole day just figuring out how to get to where I can start.
IMG_0015
I guess the consolation prize is that the new baby's here!

Dec 5, 2008

RAW workflow: Capture One 4.1

Phase One is a Danish company that manufactures high end digital "backs" for medium format cameras, systems that cost halfway into the five digits. They've also been developing Capture One (C1), RAW workflow software for both their cameras as well as popular digital SLRs. They've been releasing their full featured "professional" version, as well as a less expensive and dumbed down "consumer" version.

I bought Capture One LE (the consumer version) for $99 in 2004, and have been using it, along with free upgrade versions, since. The current consumer version is simply called Capture One 4 ($129), whereas the full-fledged version is Capture One PRO ($399). Although I've tried the demo of the pro version a few years ago, I've been using the consumer version, and the notes here reflect Capture One 4.1 (though now a more recent 4.5 release is now available). I definitely have a bias since I've grown used to C1's way of doing things, though that's probably had some negative influence as well.

The first step in RAW processing is to select images. At the very least, you need to be able to browse all the images available to select the single image, or the set of images you actually want to spend time working on, a process called "editing". When editing you need to be able to view many files at once, but you also need to able to zoom into an image to check the details. Sometimes you may also need to be able to view two or three images onscreen, but also in close enough detail to be able to compare side by side. Being able to do zoom in and out and switch between images exteremely quickly is key. Often it only takes a moment to determine whether an image catches you, but if it takes a few seconds to switch between views, the task of editing may take many times longer, a problem when you have hundreds of images to sort through. Although C1 4.x (built on .NET, at least for Windows) takes somewhat longer to start up than the older 3.x versions, it's still reasonably responsive when changing images or zoom.

When I edit in C1, I typically keep my hands on the keyboard, using the arrow keys to switch back and forth between images, and the number keys 1-5 to "rate" each image. When I'm done rating, I just sort the images by their rating, and decide where the cutoff point is. What C1 does not offer is an organizational tool for keeping track of a vast library of images. You cannot tag images with keywords, or search for particular images, or filter them by criteria (other than by sorting). Although C1 does allow you to create "albums" of images, they only exist within the application. Consequently, I haven't tagged or "organized" my archive of images, although I have organized them by date taken (outside of C1).

Photoshop is the gorilla standard of image processing applications. RAW workflow apps seem to know better than to compete; most focus on the basic tools that photographers use the majority of the time. Since I "grew up" on C1, I've managed to get by using the limited set of processing tools it provides. One tradeoff from having fewer possible tools is that it's easier to and quicker to switch between the few tools you have, or to be able to have the majority of them be displayed onscreen at the same time, as opposed to constantly having to switch between menus to get things done. One of the things I still like a lot about C1 is its simple and uncluttered UI that gives quick access to most tools without the need to search around much.

C1 lets you process whichever image you have selected while browsing, so you are free to adjust your processing even as you "edit". I've found this works well when you have a few images to go through, though when you have large sets, I find it easier to finish the edit first before going back through and processing your edit. I find myself using most of the tools provided in C1. I almost always use the curves and saturation controls, exposure and white balance whenever required. I crop a significant fraction of my images, but always with the same width to height ratio as the original image. I use the sharpening and noise reduction as they are applied, but I usually leave them fixed to a setting and almost never play with them, unless the noise is exceptionally bad. C1 3.x did not support arbitrary rotation (except in the expensive pro version) so I got by without it. Since it's been introduced, I've found it very useful in straightening slightly crooked pictures, but I wonder if it's simply encouraged to be lazier and less precise. The other recent addition has been to C1 4.x has been the high dynamic range tools to recover blown highlights and underexposed shadows. I'm extremely grateful that these are available when needed.

I find the quality of the output generally acceptable. The one exception is that when the noise reduction is turned up high on noisy data, one sometimes gets extremely muddy output tha tis pretty much unusable.

IMG_9920

When generating output, C1 has options for formats (JPEG, TIFF, DNG), scaling, output location, colour profile to apply, and an option to launch a another app when the conversion is done. To generate output in C1, you first select an output directory. After that's done any image you view can quickly be "queued" to generate output in the background. The queue can either be running as you edit and process, or if your computer is slow, you can focus on processing, and have the queue run after you're done and you can let the computer crank away. Personally, I haven't had any problems with the queue running. I generally like this process since it's very convenient to generate output, and most of the time when I'm done editing and processing, the queue has often almost completed operating on my images. Earlier 3.x versions of C1 allowed you to specify that the output directory always be a subdirectory of the current image's directory, a system that worked well for me. This was removed in 4.1, meaning that I would have to manually create and select the output directory every time I switched to images in a new directory.

My current biggest grip with C1 is that it will generate a directory for temporary files (ie thumbnails, etc.) called CaptureOne in each directory that you work in, and it leaves this directory lying around. Since these are fairly large, I find myself cleaning them up fairly often. It would be great of the app had an option to clean these all up automatically (even though that implies losing track of your changes).

I'll probably continue to use C1 simply because I've already paid for it and am using it legally. It's reasonably functional and the drawback aren't too severe. It is however, currently outclassed by the competition.