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Digital Outback Fine Art Photography Handbook

© Bettina & Uwe Steinmueller

9 Digital darkroom basics

9.1 Photoshop Overview

9.2 Color Profiles for Beginners

9.3 The important image formats

9.4 Features of Photoshop used often by digital Photographer

9.5 Selected Photoshop tools

You are probably aware that the topic digital darkroom can fill many, many books. Sorry but this chapter
will not replace any one of those books. For us clearly the center of the digital darkroom is Adobe
Photoshop. There are many nice image editing but still Photoshop remains the standard, period. Our book
recommendation are found here.

So if you want to save buying Photoshop think twice.

9.1 Photoshop Overview

Getting into Photoshop seems like a huge task and it is. The only way through the jungle we see is
learning as you go. Try to understand what you need for your task at hand and go from there.

Fortunately as a photographer you only need most often only parts of Photoshop and we will mention
some of them here.

Here is an initial list of things you will do in Photoshop (as far as this handbook is concerned):

Setting up color management

Open files

Changing contrast (Levels & Curves)

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Correcting & Enhancing color

Sharpening

Retouching

Working with Actions

Cropping

Resizing

Using Plug-ins

Know the difference between 8 and 16 bit more

Saving in different formats

Printing

Before we will get into these topics you need to understand some basics about color management.

9.2 Color Profiles for Beginners

Color correction and color management is one of the most important and difficult areas in digital
photography. We are not experts on this subject. We want to share what we have learned and invite all
who know better to correct our faults and improve this chapter for the use of all interested in this subject.

If you have a photo on the web and different people discuss the quality of the colors of a photo they most
of the time have the following problem:

Different monitors show the same RGB value quite differently

So besides there many opinions on color they actually see different versions of the same photo.

But the real challenge is to get the right impression on a monitor how a certain photo would print on a
color printer. The new inkjet printers from Epson (HP, ..) can produce amazing results. But without color
management it remains trial and error. You end up to change the color settings of the printer for every
print without very much being satisfied. So what does color management mean? In our example it means
that the photo you see on the monitor looks very close to the result you get from your printer. This is
called "soft proofing". With very costly monitors the match can be very close.

The reason for this dilemma is that every device: monitor, printer, scanner and digital camera has very
different capabilities to render colors. If there is a fixed RGB value the display of that value on that device
will be different and certain values the device might might not be even capable to render. The colors a
specific device can render describe a gamut of colors. Color management is based on a standardized
description of that device (so called ICC profiles). You either get these profiles from the device
manufacturer or measure it with special calibration hardware.

As most people like to use there monitor as there "soft" proofing device. That is why the first step towards
a color management is the calibration of the monitor. Be aware that very precise calibration also is
influenced by the room and even your clothes. Adobe Photoshop comes with a utility called Adobe Gamma
which lets you calibrate your monitor. Although this is much better than not doing any calibration at all it
is better to use some hardware calibration device. We uses different tools like Optical/X-Rite,
Optical/Spyder or GretagMacbeth Eye-One. To do the calibration just follow the instructions of your tool.
The monitor should be on for more than 30 minutes and don't change any monitor settings without any re
calibration, a re-calibration is anyway recommended about once a month.

Profiling LCD monitors can very tricky and the success depends on the tool and the monitor brand. We use
a LCD monitor not because it is the best proofing device but we think it helps with our eyesight as we are
also writing a lot using the same monitor.

How to find our which monitor profile Photoshop is using:

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Select "Edit->Color Settings" and use the drop down list where you can select working spaces and scroll
(mostly up) till you find the entry "Monitor RGB" (above shows Sony_LCD_std_D50). This entry shows the
monitor profile which gets used. Then "cancel" the "Color Settings" dialog so that you do not change your
working space!

Let's see where we are:

We have some RGB values of the image (YMCK is excluded from this discussion as we only work in RGB).
These values are mapped to the monitor using some monitor profile and also mapped to the printer by
using a printer profile. This would probably work for this close loop. But what if you send the image file to
an other person. He would need your monitor profile and then map it to his monitor profile (which is
certainly different). You might envision that this would not work in the real world. Up to this point we have
only discussed about profiles for individual concrete devices. The ICC solution for this dilemma is the
introduction of abstract standardized color profiles/spaces (e.g. Adobe RGB (1968), sRGB, Apple RGB, ...).

These are very well defined profiles which might not match any device in the world. The solution is now as
follows (we assume the color space Adobe RGB -this is the one we use). The image internally stores all
RGB value in relation to the internal (abstract) color space (here Adobe RGB). Photoshop's ICC engine now
translates all these RGB values from the internal space to the concrete monitor space (using a monitor
profile). The same happens when you print.

Now sending the image to an other person is no problem as the same happens there again. The
information about the profile is stored by Photoshop (also other applications like Bibble, Qimage,...) within
the image (TIFF, JPEG). The abstract standardized color spaces range from a narrow gamut to broader
gamut. It is quit obvious that if you image is working with a narrow gamut that some colors get lost as a
transformation which broadens the gamut has to "invent" missing colors and that is not possible. If the

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gamut is to wide you deal with colors which probably none of your target devices will ever be capable of
rendering.

9.2.1 Some Standard Color Spaces

The following table discusses some of the most important abstract color spaces:

This is the space for the US television. It is even worse than the
European PAL standard. It is presented here that some believe the
NTSC Nikon D1 uses this space to create the non RAW/NEF files. It looks as if
that is not a very good choice. As I understand this is not an issue for
RAW/NEF files
This space is still pretty narrow but is supported by some printers
sRGB (Epson 1270) and scanners (Nikon LS 2000). It might be a good idea to
use this for photos on the WEB.
This is a very popular space among Photoshop users. It covers most
Adobe RGB (1998)
printable colors. This is what I use.
Pro Photo RGB Colorspace supported by Kodak (wide gamut)
Apple RGB Not as wide as AdobeRGB
A space designed by Bruce Fraser which is a bit wider than the Adobe
Bruce RGB
RGB space

9.2.2 Monitor Profiles

By now it should be clear that all good color management starts with a good as possible monitor profile.

9.2.3 Camera Profiles

Also profiles for you camera are very important. We will discuss this later in the chapter "Raw File
Processing". There are two types of profiles: Camera Generic (used by most RAW conversion tools) and
specific profiles for certain light conditions. This is an important distinction as for an optimal profile all the
parameter have to be constant (light, RAW processing options, exposure)

9.2.4 Printer Profiles

There is actually no profile for a printer. The profile is always for one paper, the same ink, the same
individual printer and the same printer driver used. Profiles for different papers can vary significantly.

We will talk about printer profiling in more detail in our chapter about "Printing".

9.3 The important image formats

This is the standard high quality image format without any loss. It
TIFF
comes in 8 and 16 bit versions
Important standard compressed file format. There is a quality loss
JPG even at low compression levels. Mostly used for the web or
transmission over slow connections.
JPG 2000 Newer improved version of JPG. Not widely used yet
Storage Format of Genuine Fractals for use in image upsizing (see
STN
later chapter)
Photoshop format which allows to store some internal information
PSD
(like layers) with a file. Can be useful for intermediate files.
GIF For Web usage as there are only 256 colors available
NEF Nikon RAW image format (compressed and uncompressed)
CRW Canon RAW image format
other RAW formats There are also RAW formats from Kodak and Olympus

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For most of our work we use only TIFF to avoid any quality loss.

9.4 Features of Photoshop used often by digital Photographers

9.3.1 Setting up color management

Here we recommend reading this article by Bruce Fraser (a Photoshop authority) about setting up color
management in Photoshop 6.0.

9.3.2 Open files

You can open with Photoshop all of the important standard files. Only the proprietary RAW formats of the
digital cameras can only be used if the vendors provide camera file format plug-ins or they are supported
by third party vendors (e.g .Bibble's Photoshop plug-in)

9.3.3 Changing brightness and contrast (Levels & Curves)

There are two main operation you really need to understand.

Levels:

Levels Dialog

The Levels dialog shows in the middle the histogram of the image. I shows here the gray values from 0 =
black to 255 = white in 256 steps. (there are also histograms available for the color channels (red, green
and blue)

Best to explain some basics is to have a short example.

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This first histogram indicates that there is a small gap on the left and a larger on the right. This photo does
not make use of the full range from black to white.

Shifting the right(white) and left(black) triangle towards the borders of the histogram we get a more
contrasty yet lighter image.

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By sliding the middle triangle (gray) to the right we enhance the contrast and get a slightly darker image.
We hope you can see how this very simple operation improved a flat looking image significantly.

Curves

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Curves allow you to do the same corrections as levels and more. The difference is that levels does simple
linear transformations and you can do with curves much more sophisticated corrections. You probably
need some good Photoshop book to better understand curves.

Here are some basic but important curves:

darken the image

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brighten the image

Boost contrast (S-Curve)

9.3.4 Correcting & Enhancing color

Colors need often to be corrected (see also White Balance - WB). Some global corrections can be done also
using Levels and Curves (working on selected color channels). But Photoshop also provides more selective
tools to correct colors.

We try to do as little selective color corrections as possible which is possible if you use good camera
profiles and tools for changing WB or removing casts. Actually the tools of choice for use are most often
some specialized Photoshop plug-ins (see below)

9.3.5 Sharpening

In the next chapter about Raw File Processing we will also discuss the need for sharpening and mention

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some methods. Also here we often use specialized Photoshop plug-ins or Fred Miranda's sharpening
actions to get better results. Sharpening is an endless field by itself and there is no perfect way. Be sure
that your picture is as sharp as possible to begin with:

No camera shake

in Focus

Right DOF (depth of field)

Right panning if photographing moving objects

Use a rigid tripod whenever possible

TIP: Never only judge sharpness on your screen. What counts is the sharpness of the print. Especially
inkjet prints can take a lot of sharpening (looks over sharpened on the screen) and deliver great prints.
Nik Sharpener does sharpening based on target printers and targeted resolution.

9.3.6 Retouching

We already discussed that sometimes sensors collect dust and these spots are easily to spot in brighter
parts (e.g. sky) of the image. Here you can use the Photoshop clone tool to copy over some similar other
areas of the image.

With the introduction of Photoshop 7.0 there is a more sophisticated clone tool available: The "Healing
Brush". The healing brush melts the source and target areas together and gets much more pleasing
results. For us this tool alone was worth the whole upgrade from Photoshop 6.0 to 7.0.

The above images are 100% pixel crops from a real life example (original was 3000x2000 pixels). The
area is shown before and after the use of the Healing Brush. These spots would also have been easily
removed just using the clone tool but there many situations where the "Healing Brush" is easier to use and
provides much better results.

We also (but really rarely) use the clone tool to remove unwanted parts from the photo.

9.3.7 Working with Actions

Once you have found out how to deal with certain operations in Photoshop you will do the same sequence
over and over again. Here Photoshop allows to record so called actions which are exactly the sequences
you want to repeat over and over again.

Recording a new action is very easy. You click on and you get this dialog:

Name the action and select one set (the actions can be organized in sets) you want this new action be part
of. One you click on "record" all operations will be recorded which is indicated by the red recording sign:

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After the last operation you wanted to record hit and the action is ready to be used. To replay an
action select it and and hit .

It is also possible to leave out some steps by unselecting this checkbox for a certain step. This icon
indicates that the action will stop at this step and display the steps dialog. This allows you to have some
default settings recorded but then later to overide them at the time of playback.

Tip: Learn how to work with actions as soon as possible. It will save you time and provide a more
consistent workflow.

Fred Miranda even developed a market for sophisticated ready to go actions. You can buy these actions for
reasonable price at his site (e.g. noise removal, linear RAW file processing, enhancing saturation, ..). You
can be sure there is a lot of work and knowledge behind each of his actions.

9.3.8 Cropping

Pretty often you might want to crop your image and Photoshop allows you to perform a rectangular
selection and the crop the image to these dimensions.

9.3.9 Resizing

There 2 basic purposes for resizing:

Downsizing - making the image size smaller - less pixels (mainly for web usage)

Upsizing - making the image larger - more pixels -(mainly for printing)

It should be pretty clear that downsizing is easier as you lose information while upsizing has to invent
information (which can be only done so that the faked information blends in well).

If you downsize an image by some magnitude you should sharpen it afterwards.

Upsizing will be discussed in full detail in our chapter about "Printing".

9.3.10 Photoshop Plug-ins

There is a whole universe of plug-ins which are all sort of filters and other applications which can be used
inside Photoshop using the Photoshop plug-in API. Some plug-ins might even cost more than Photoshop
itself.

Plug-ins allows Photoshop to grow in all dimensions and we often use more the plug-ins than Photoshop
itself.

9.3.11 Know the difference between 8 and 16 bit data

Photoshop knows two data modes:

8 bits/channel

16 bits/channel

Most digital RAW formats allow to get 12 bits/channel and these then get represented as 16bits/channel in
files (mostly 16bit TIFF).

Why are these 4 more bits so important? If you images came perfect out of your camera it would not
make such a difference as most printers only use 8 bits anyway. But there is hardly any image which does
not require at minimum minor corrections. But once you start correcting an image in color, saturation or
contrast you reduce the color information by 1 or more bits. If you start with 8 bits you might end up
having only 6 bits real color information per channel. This loss can be seen in less smooth color gradients.
If you start with 12 bits there is still enough color information available.

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Also sharpening in 8 bits has the tendency to amplify the noise stronger than proper 16 bit sharpening
(Photoshop got 16 bit sharpening in version 6.0)

Tip: Stay as long as possible in the 16 bit mode or even change to 16 bits/channel for stronger changes.

But why would you ever use 8 bits/channel if it is so much better?

It takes longer

Needs more memory

Creates larger files

Many Photoshop operations (e.g. layers) are not available for 16 bits/channel

9.3.12 Saving in different formats

Photoshop allows you to save your work in many different formats. Stay as much as you can with TIFF
(8/16 bits) or use the PSD files for intermediate files.

Reserve JPGs for web work or sending images to friends.

9.3.13 Printing

Because of the color management features built into it Photoshop is also a print processor of choice for
fine art photography.

The support for printing multiple images on one sheet of paper is pretty primitive.

We get back to printing in our chapter "Printing".

9.3.14 Perspective Correction and Rotating

Photoshop allows you to correct the perspective. You find some instructions in our primer.

We also have sometimes photos off level (Uwe more often than Bettina). We correct these faults also by

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using a transformation command ('rotate').

Unfortunately these tools only work in 8-bit. That is why you need to perform these transformation later
during your workflow (after all the steps you can do in 16-bit).

9.5 Selected Photoshop tools

This section only looks at some Photoshop third party tools we would not like to miss. You can also find a
lot of information in the Digital Outback Photo section "Photoshop Corner".

9.5.1 Plug-ins

9.5.1.1 Selective Color Corrections: Color Mechanic

9.5.1.2 Removing Color casts: iCorrect Editlab

iCorrect Editlab by Pictographics is mainly used by us for sophisticated cast removal. You can find a review
by Jim Collum here.

9.5.1.3 Sharpening: EasyS

Our best sharopening tool so far.

9.5.1.4 Resizing

Genuine Fractals is the standard tool for file upsizing. Some swear on it and other think they have better
solutions. We will discuss upsizing later in the printing chapter.

9.5.1.4 PowerRetouche

We like the PowerRetouche filters by Jan Esman which are mostly 16 bit. We regularly use:

Sharpness (not very fast but with very little sharpening halo and so worth the wait)

ColorRetouche (WB filters which uses terms of photographic filters)

Lens corrector

9.5.2 Techniques

9.5.2.1 Contrast Masking

There is often the situation that the shadows are too dark and the highlight to bright. Here a technique
called contrast masking can help. We have a short tutorial here.

9.5.2.2 Moire removal

Some cameras like the Nikon D1x, Canon 1D or Kodak 760 produce some color aliasing (small colored
pixels in the photo). We remove this the following way (works in 16 bits).

Convert to LAB mode

Select both A&B channel

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Use the Dust & Scratches filter (radius 3-7 are good values)

Convert back to RGB

1.3.3 Actions by Fred Miranda

The actions by Fred Miranda deserve a special mentioning as they allow you to get sophisticated
Photoshop operations and still be able to use them easily (see references)

References

Digital Outback Photo: Photoshop Corner

© Bettina & Uwe Steinmueller

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