More Variations of Bright Sky Processing

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Returning to tips and tricks about photographing scenes with bright sky but dark foreground after a bit of PowerShot news, here are more variations on processing. The scenario is that only one shot was taken and it was based on the G9 autoexposure setting for the full composition.




In the above comparison, Photos 3 and 7 are repeated from the previous posting. Photo 8 is similar to Photo 6 from the previous posting except that it was given additional recovery, saturation sharpening. I made Photo 8 because, after reviewing the previous posting, it seemed that there was an incorrect impression given about processing from raw. Therefore, Photo 8 is intentionally somewhat overdone with respect to saturation and sharpening.

Of course, the in-camera jpg can be processed in Photoshop. That is, suppose you took Photo 3 as an in-camera jpg only. On reviewing the photos later, you realize that there is little detail in the sky and that the trees are dark. You’d want to improve the photo and this is certainly possible, as shown below.



Photo 10 was made from Photo 3 with post processing in Photoshop CS3. Only two processes were applied: 1) “Exposure” was reduced by ¼ stop and 2) Shadow/Highlight recovery was applied rather heavily. These are both simple image adjustment settings in CS3 and took only a few minutes of tinkering. These adjustments were made to the original file which was then downsized and sharpened for web viewing. No other adjustments were made to get this nice “save” with Photoshop.

Although I almost always use Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), there are other programs for converting from raw to jpg. I regularly use BreezeBrowser to view and select images. BreezeBrowser also can do some editing and can now process G9 raw images. My understanding is that BreezeBrowser uses the DCRaw program for raw conversions. Photo 9 was converted, downsized and sharpened entirely in BreezeBrowser.

My favorite is still raw plus a polarizing filter and processed in ACR but I’ll grant that the differences are not so apparent in these web sized images. Also, it is important to realize that saturation, contrast and sharpening can be further fine-tuned for any of the photos shown.

All images shown so far have been shot and processed as “single shots” with no dual processing. Next, multiple exposures will be merged.
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G9 and Raw

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Unlike most digicams, the Canon G9 can produce “raw” files. For many photographers, the ability to generate a raw file is one of the main reasons for selecting the G9. Even so, the usefulness and quality of raw vs JPEG is an ongoing debate and probably will always be an issue. As noted in other postings, JPEG is a very versatile and useful format. For the most part, the raw vs JPEG debate is really about the in-camera JPEG and its potential as compared to the raw – that is, unprocessed -- data from the sensor

If the in-camera JPEG produced by the G9 is analogous to using slide film then the raw image is analogous to using negative film. That’s why a raw file is sometimes referred to as a digital negative. Both negatives and raw files must receive further processing before a print can be made and those prints are highly customizable as well as highly dependent on the tools and skills of the user. This image, a crop from a previous illustration, is an example of an unprocessed raw file.

In comparison to the 8 bit JPEG, raw files are 16 bit data files; however, it turns out that all those bits are not actually used. For example, the Canon G9 produces 12 bit data files but places those in a 16 bit “wrapper”. Still, there is more information in a G9 raw file than in a G9 in-camera JPEG file. Although file size can be misleading (both are compressed), take a look at raw and JPEG files. Information has been discarded from the raw file in order to create the smaller JPEG file.

It is important to understand that the in-camera JPEG is made from the raw data in a second or two (and perhaps a fraction of a second) by the in-camera computer. The details of that JPEG -- tonality, contrast, saturation, sharpening, noise reduction, etc. -- were determined by a committee of marketers and engineers except for any tweaking that you toss in as in-camera options.

If your goal, whether in general or for a particular photograph, is to squeeze every possible pixel of quality from your camera, then you should shoot in raw mode and learn to process the raw data file.

My own preference is to shoot in raw mode and to process the raw file in Photoshop (more accurately Adobe Camera Raw – usually abbreviated as ACR). There are several other editing/conversion programs that will work with the G9 data files. Canon even includes some software, Raw Image Task (RIT) with the G9. Some of the other G9 raw image processors, include:

DCRaw is a command line program/module said to be the basis of many other programs
UFRaw provides a user interface to DCRaw and adds features
Bibble is more than raw conversion, includes other features such as noise reduction
BreezeBrowser is one of my most used tools, but it has not yet been updated for G9 raw files.

I don’t use any of the above programs for raw conversion except for ACR. In the next post, I’ll give examples of starting point settings in ACR for G9 raw files.

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