Ehpasus Library Details

[FrankMi]

For those of you that have viewed the Ancient Library of Celsus Project 52 by Frank Miller and might be interested in seeing some of the detail stonework up close, here are a few images taken of that structure.

[Donald]

Thank you, Frank.

How much pp work are you having to do to recover shadows? It looks pretty harsh light and it's been handled very well.

[FrankMi]

How much pp work are you having to do to recover shadows?

It varies, Donald. For these three shots I used the camera's Exposure Bracketing which gives 0EV, -2EV, and +2EV. I took each of the three images and used ACR to get the best bell curve for each image, being careful to try to concentrate on the details in the highlights of the -2EV and the shadows of the +2EV while doing so. After that I opened the three images in Photoshop as layers and did an Edit/Auto-Align layers as these were all shot hand held.

Next I used the 0EV layer and blended in highlight detail (if any) from the -2EV image and merged the result.

Likewise I took the merged result and blended in any appropriate shadow details from the +2EV image and merged again.

Having combined the three images into one I went into Topaz DeJpeg and checked for any noise that was present. Usually I apply a mild noise reduction, particularly for noise in the shadows. Usually it isn't anywhere near significant enough to selectively apply the noise reduction or get any more aggressive with the denoise feature of DeJpeg.

It is now time in my workflow to do the capture sharpening. For this I use Topaz InFocus as it is easy to check details at any location in the image and switch between the original and the sharpened output. I go for the minimum amount of sharpening while being very sensitive to any halos. Again, at this point, selective sharpening is not usually needed and I can get away with a Minor to Common level of sharpening. If I need to do I need to do Artistic sharpening then it will almost always be done selectively using Detailed sharpening but none of these images, in fact, none of the images taken with the Canon SX40 so far have needed anywhere near that level of sharpening.

Almost done. Time to examine the image and select my cropping.

I will usually check out the image in Topaz Adjust and may apply Brilliant Cold or Brilliant Warm to touch-up the white balance or add a little color pop to my personal taste. All three of these felt overly warm to me owing to the natural colouring of the stone when shot with Auto White Balance so I applied Brilliant Cold to compensate. I usually do a quick levels check but for these the levels were really close to what I'd expect.

At this point I had the detail I was looking for and didn't feel I needed to do anything further, so it was resize, Output Sharpen with unsharp mask checking for any halos that might creep in, and post.

Depending upon the image I am working with, the process can change significantly and even after a year, I am still changing my workflow based on what I learn at CiC and the image I'm working with.

In short, for these three images, it was a little blending, mostly for shadow detail, some minor noise reduction, a little capture sharpening, minor color tone adjustment and I'm done. I didn't feel that Photomatix HDR would add any benefit to these and as it increases the noise and post processing work needed so I only apply it where I feel it will be worth the effort. It probably took about 10-15 minutes per image to complete.

My workflow when processing RAW images from my Nikon D3100 is different so this is only for the Jpeg output of the Canon SX40.

Hope this helps!

PS: Donald, I screwed up the spelling of the thread title. Could you, pretty please, help me hide my embarrassing goof? It should say 'Ephesus'.

[Bobobird]

Great shots and great pp.

I have Topaz Infocus but have used it once. How do you even see anything happening with that plug-in? I can hardly see anything.

[FrankMi]

Great shots and great pp.

I have Topaz Infocus but have used it once. How do you even see anything happening with that plug-in? I can hardly see anything.

Zoom in and look particularly at areas of high contrast. Press and release the space bar to switch between the original view and the level of sharpening you are adding. You should be able to see exactly how much sharpening is being applied. Hope this helps!

[Bobobird]

Thanks Frank for the info. Will try it asap.