Crop This? Or Otherwise Make It Better?

[Mary Bull]

I took this image in RAW on the afternoon of October 2, on my front lawn.

Here's the unmanipulated, uncropped image--except that I had to downsize it by about one-sixth in LightZone to meet the requirements of my free Flickr account. Below it I will display my crop.



I made a slight crop, to take out some of the shadow on the right of the mushroom. I did not otherwise manipulate it. Here's my crop:



All suggestions and comments are very welcome.

Mary

[Asher Kelman]

Mary,

This picture is blown out in the highlights and is not unfortunately good enough to optimize. Could you rephotograph it minus one stop at sunset and send me the RAW image and I'll post it for you.

This is a great subject and worth working with but needs a file that matches the challenge. As long as you haven't removed this monster from your lawn :)

Asher

P.S. if the creature has gone, then send me all the RAWS of it you have for me to look at. Send less than 10MB in each email.

[Sean DeMerchant]

Originally Posted by Mary Bull

All suggestions and comments are very welcome.

Hi Mary,

A few things.

1) Blown highlights like can be recovered in a minute or six in PS with practice. Recovering them in the RAW converter is a matter of seconds if the data is there.

2) Color and contrast can be enhanced to suit. An example:

3) Get down low and look at the mushroom from the side just as people suggest getting low and shooting up at pets. This can make mushrooms tower like trees. I consider this to be shooting macroscapes as opposed to landscapes.

This is a personal prefrence and cannot always be done easily. But, with the swivel LCD on the G2 you only have to bend at the knees and holds the camera down by the ground. With an SLR you either need a right angle viewfinder or have to lie on the ground (shooting mushrooms can be dirty work).

The following is an example that almost achieves this, but not quite as the ground sloped upwards.

Mushroom In Moss

This is not a a great shot, but it was handy from a recent scouting trip into the woods. It is still too dry for prime mushroom hunting and I did get dirty shooting it.

enjoy,

Sean

[Dierk Haasis]

Originally Posted by Sean DeMerchant

3) Get down low and look at the mushroom from the side just as people suggest getting low and shooting up at pets.

In this specific case, though, it is the ragged form of the mushroom's hat we are interested in, not the uprightness.

[Dierk Haasis]

Originally Posted by Sean DeMerchant

3) Get down low and look at the mushroom from the side just as people suggest getting low and shooting up at pets.

In this specific case, though, it is the ragged form of the mushroom's hat we are interested in, not the uprightness.

As for the blown highlights, this, Mary, is a typical case of dialing in an exposure correction of between -.5 and -2 (with RAW you have a little bit of leeway in the underexposure area); it's a very dark background with very bright subject.

From what I see here I'd venture that your photo actually has all the info, you just need to get in the underexposure in the RAW converter. This is perhaps done easier in Adobe RAW Converter or RAW Shooter since they have a dedicated exposure field allowing numerical input. With LightZone grab the uppermost divider and drag it down a bit. What you lose in contrast can easily be recovered by dragging the middle grey region up a bit.

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Mary,

here's my take after 5 minutes of playing:

Nuclear Shroom:

[Mary Bull]

Hi Asher,
The lawn-mowing crew got the entire colony on Tuesday afternoon. I'm waiting to see whether the underground network will send up more fruiting bodies.

I have sent you the RAW files for a shot made only minutes later, with the camera a little higher above the subject. Perhaps there will not be so much blown area in that shot.

I shot literally dozens of this subject and the three others that came up a day later. With most I didn't manage to keep the focus well enough for anyone to use.

I do have two or three more that you might like to see, and I will send you the RAW files for them, but I think the one I sent earlier this afternoon, when I got the e-mail notification of your post, is the best, from the standpoint of focus, exposure, and composition. I didn't choose it as the one to offer here because the camera was not as close to it when I made the shot.

Personal OT note: I put up the post and went to take a nap. After I woke, my sister next door needed me. So this is my first time to come to OPF and read your entire post.

Mary

[Don Lashier]

Originally Posted by Nikolai Sklobovsky

here's my take after 5 minutes...

Nikolai - you evidently ate the magic mushroom?

- DL

[Mary Bull]

Originally Posted by Sean DeMerchant

Hi Mary,

1) Blown highlights like can be recovered in a minute or six in PS with practice. Recovering them in the RAW converter is a matter of seconds if the data is there

I will need to learn to do this, then.
My work-flow practice at present is Breeze Downloader with plug-in to DNG and from there to LightZone.

2) Color and contrast can be enhanced to suit. An example:

Thanks very much, Sean. By example is a good way to learn, for me.

3) Get down low and look at the mushroom from the side just as people suggest getting low and shooting up at pets. This can make mushrooms tower like trees. I consider this to be shooting macroscapes as opposed to landscapes.

I took some side shots. I pulled away grass stems and set the camera on the ground tilted up slightly and shot blind.

Some of them tickled my fancy immensely, but all have some defects of focus, exposure , etc.

If you like, I can send you PM RAW files of what I judge to be the best of my side views.

I have side views of this mushroom before it matured fully--when it was an egg-shape on a stem and I have side views shot in the same series in which I shot the hat that I posted in this thread.

This is a personal prefrence and cannot always be done easily. But, with the swivel LCD on the G2 you only have to bend at the knees and holds the camera down by the ground. With an SLR you either need a right angle viewfinder or have to lie on the ground ....

Thanks for the tip about using my swivel screen. As I said above, I set the camera on the ground, tilted toward the mushroom, and made a lot of shots blind.

(shooting mushrooms can be dirty work)

Not only dirty work, but wet work. In the morning shots I made, there was heavy dew. I put a gray piece of cardboard on the ground for those side views, to protect the G2 a bit.

The following is an example that almost achieves this, but not quite as the ground sloped upwards.

Yes. But yours is so sharp and clear.

This is not a a great shot, but it was handy from a recent scouting trip into the woods. It is still too dry for prime mushroom hunting and I did get dirty shooting it.

Worth getting dirty for, I think.

Let me know if you'd like to have the RAW files from two or three side shots by PM.

I have your e-mail address in my address book.

Mary

[Luiz Vasconcellos]

My take :D

The full pictre
http://www.uploading.com/files/RK1ET...hroom.jpg.html

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Originally Posted by Don Lashier

Nikolai - you evidently ate the magic mushroom?
- DL

Of course!!
I assumed it's a common knowledge that (salted/marinated/baked/fried/etc.) mushrooms are one of the most typical "afterdrink" snaks in Russia.
Cheers!

[Mary Bull]

Originally Posted by Dierk Haasis

In this specific case, though, it is the ragged form of the mushroom's hat we are interested in, not the uprightness.

It was my interest when I decided to post this particular image.

As for the blown highlights, this, Mary, is a typical case of dialing in an exposure correction of between -.5 and -2 (with RAW you have a little bit of leeway in the underexposure area); it's a very dark background with very bright subject.

Okay, I will need to practice doing this. Lately, I am shooting a lot of bright subjects with dark backgrounds--not just these mushrooms on the front lawn.

From what I see here I'd venture that your photo actually has all the info, you just need to get in the underexposure in the RAW converter. This is perhaps done easier in Adobe RAW Converter or RAW Shooter since they have a dedicated exposure field allowing numerical input. With LightZone grab the uppermost divider and drag it down a bit. What you lose in contrast can easily be recovered by dragging the middle grey region up a bit.

I shall try this.

Short OT digression:
Just before Stuart Rae left on his trip to the Lake District, I sent him the RAW files of this hat, shot with the camera about six inches higher. (The whole weekend I'd been sending him pics of these mushroom volunteers. He asked me to send them as RAW files, and that's how I did it.)

He replied with a wish that I would get RSE and use it. He said if I were willing to try it, that he would walk me through it--it's the RAW converter that he uses.

I've put the zip on my machine. Went back and read again the article you wrote on RSE, Dierk. I understand what you said about it much better now that I have been doing RAW conversions myself with DNG and LightZone. Your comment about the proprietary storage format making the work-flow into other applications hard made a lot of sense.

However, since I'm just getting my feet wet, I don't mind the storage problems if RSE is worth learning. I have a ton of picture files that I need to spend a morning deleting anyway--duplicates everywhere, from when I was testing out Picasa, on Ray West's recommendation.

Well, just thought I'd mention it. I may get comfortable enough at some point to invest my time and energy in learning Photoshop. But not just yet.

End of OT digression.

Mary

[Mary Bull]

Most interesting, the colors you chose for it, and the way you placed a shadow on the righthand side of the hat.

Thanks, Luis.

Mary

[Mary Bull]

Wow!

Gorgeous colors, Nik!!

You made an asset out of the blown highlights.

Mary

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Originally Posted by Mary Bull

Wow!
Gorgeous colors, Nik!!
You made an asset out of the blown highlights.
Mary

Thanks!
One of the rules I'm trying live by: "if you got a lemon - make a lemonade" :-)
Glad you liked it! :-)

Cheers!

[Mary Bull]

Not sure I'd have wanted to eat that lawn mushroom, however. I don't know its species.

I have a book I can try to look it up in. But it's water under the bridge, so far as the situation stands now. Maury the Magic Mushroom is being eaten (utilized as fertilizer) by his Bermuda grass and white clover neighbors. Lawnmower got him last Tuesday afternoon.

Mary

[Ivan Garcia]

see below (doulbe post ????)

[Ivan Garcia]

Originally Posted by Nikolai Sklobovsky

Thanks!
One of the rules I'm trying live by: "if you got a lemon - make a lemonade" :-)
Glad you liked it! :-)

Cheers!

Nikolai.
Most people will make lemonade with lemons, but you? You sir can take a lemon and conver it in to the Monalisa... awesome conversion, I love it... can you elaborate on the process?
IGD

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Originally Posted by Ivan Garcia

Nikolai.
Most people will make lemonade with lemons, but you? You sir can take a lemon and conver it in to the Monalisa... awesome conversion, I love it... can you elaborate on the process?
IGD

Thank you, you're too kind.. I was only going with the flow "mushroom - mushroom cloud - nuclear blast".

I "saw" something purely hellish red and black with the hint of the explosion.

Mushroom "torn" cross gave me a bold kickstart on the "blast" part.

Isolating beige 'shroom from a grassy background and covering the lawn with a pure black was a no-brainer.
Then on a shroom itself - posterizing to glowing Red in Hue/Sat and provide a weird sine-like curve.
Finally copying a hellshroom to another layer, radil blur it and create a mask witha radial gradient to keep the center sharp...

That was pretty much it...

HTH

[Ivan Garcia]

Wonderful.. thank you NiKolai

[Sean DeMerchant]

Hi Mary,

I hope all is well.

Originally Posted by Mary Bull

I will need to learn to do this, then.
My work-flow practice at present is Breeze Downloader with plug-in to DNG and from there to LightZone.

Correcting blown highlights is best done in the RAW converter as already noted. But it can be done easily for some images using an appropriate mask. Albeit, since I do all my post-RAW-converter work in PS I am little help with other tools.

Originally Posted by Mary Bull

Thanks very much, Sean. By example is a good way to learn, for me.

You are welcome. My only goal was a more contrasty and saturated rendition to compensate for the the semi-harsh lighting.

Originally Posted by Mary Bull

I took some side shots. I pulled away grass stems and set the camera on the ground tilted up slightly and shot blind.

Some of them tickled my fancy immensely, but all have some defects of focus, exposure , etc.

This is where practice comes in and you are already doing that. So just keep watching even when the camera is not in hand and see what tickles your eyes in a pleasing fashion.

Originally Posted by Mary Bull

If you like, I can send you PM RAW files of what I judge to be the best of my side views.

Please do and I will email or post in this thread my rendition at your preference. At the end of the day, side views of fungi are not always the best, but they are often a personal favorite.

Originally Posted by Mary Bull

Thanks for the tip about using my swivel screen. As I said above, I set the camera on the ground, tilted toward the mushroom, and made a lot of shots blind.

Those swivel screens are a truly lovely to shoot with for low angle work without getting filthy.

Originally Posted by Mary Bull

Not only dirty work, but wet work. In the morning shots I made, there was heavy dew. I put a gray piece of cardboard on the ground for those side views, to protect the G2 a bit.

I know the feel. Lying on the ground in a mossy and fungi filled area is never a dry experience when the fungi are fruiting. Heck, the gear that keeps my dry tends to cause me to sweat so all that accomplishes in the end is keeping me warm.

Originally Posted by Mary Bull

Yes. But yours is so sharp and clear.

Thanks. Half of that is sharpening. Below is a sharpened rendition.

Looking at this shot closer, I would also say that the plane of critical focus was in the grass rather than on the mushrooms cap.

The other half is the lighting used (my shot was pure mildly-diffused flash) and it was shot with a macro lens with a justified reputation for being very sharp.

Originally Posted by Mary Bull

Let me know if you'd like to have the RAW files from two or three side shots by PM.

Please do. And let me know if you want emails or responses in this thread.

all the best,

Sean

[Mary Bull]

Originally Posted by Sean DeMerchant

Hi Mary,
Correcting blown highlights is best done in the RAW converter as already noted. But it can be done easily for some images using an appropriate mask. Albeit, since I do all my post-RAW-converter work in PS I am little help with other tools.

Although I was emotionally engaged with the mushrooms, the pics are part of my practicing. I am sure to take many more with blown highlights and will know in future to try to correct any images that I want to work with in the RAW converter.

My only goal was a more contrasty and saturated rendition to compensate for the semi-harsh lighting.

I am learning from you.

This is where practice comes in and you are already doing that. So just keep watching even when the camera is not in hand and see what tickles your eyes in a pleasing fashion.

Good tip. Thanks very much.

About sending RAW files of other shots of this mushroom colony to Sean:

Please do and I will email or post in this thread my rendition at your preference. At the end of the day, side views of fungi are not always the best, but they are often a personal favorite.

I shall send several, in separate PM e-mails, to stay under my host's 10 MB limit.

Please post your renditions in this thread.

Those swivel screens are a truly lovely to shoot with for low angle work without getting filthy.

Indeed. I love my Canon G2. And when you want to use the screen as a convenient extra view finder, it can be flipped so that it lies flat against the camera back. But I mostly have it in its extended or angled position.

About dealing with the physical aspects of shooting macro landscapes:

I know the feel. Lying on the ground in a mossy and fungi filled area is never a dry experience when the fungi are fruiting. Heck, the gear that keeps my dry tends to cause me to sweat so all that accomplishes in the end is keeping me warm.

Speaking of staying warm, winter is on its way here in Nashville, although there should be some beautiful fall color toward the end of this month. I look forward to perhaps shooting something macro in the snow. Now, *that* will be a challenge for me in using P or M settings in the G2.
Will save that thread for when the problem comes up. < grin >

About Sean's renditions:

Thanks. Half of that is sharpening. Below is a sharpened rendition.

Ah. May I save that to HD, for sending to a couple of friends and relatives to whom I had sent an uncorrected image of this top view of the mushroom hat?

In re sharpening: I had advice from Dierk in another thread to leave learning to do that for a bit later in my progress. Perhaps I will put a query about it as a new thread in Entry Digital Photography a little bit later on.

Looking at this shot closer, I would also say that the plane of critical focus was in the grass rather than on the mushrooms cap.

Yes. I hadn't yet learned about using the little square in the view-screen to focus, and I made the shot looking through the view finder.

About Sean's example mushroom image:

The other half is the lighting used (my shot was pure mildly-diffused flash) and it was shot with a macro lens with a justified reputation for being very sharp.

Asher advised me some time back to get a macro lens for the G2.

I'm considering whether my arthritic hands are up to safely changing lenses on my digicam. I used to do it with ease on my old Minolta film camera--but that feels like a lifetime ago, now.

... let me know if you want emails or responses in this thread.

Both, if time permits. If there must be a choice, put the responses in this thread. And please include pics to illustrate, as well as steps of what you did. I am always mindful that advice which solves a problem for me may be just what someone else is looking for, also.

Off to compose some e-mails to you, now.

Mary

[Dierk Haasis]

1. Sharpening is not as easy as some may think.
2. Oversharpening seems to be the norm rather than the exception.
3. IMO sharpness and contrast [after the fact; sharp, contrasty lenses are a different beast altogether] is in the same category as MPx: easy to measure, rarely of use.*
4. Mary, please send me your RAW file.


Some time back I wrote in a thread on the matter of sharpening that there is three different kinds: input - creative - output. The first is just to counter the blurring effect of the digital camera's sensor design [micro-lenses, filters and such; not unlike the human eye design defects]. The third is a matter of experience and usually necessary for printing much more than for Web. For some time now I leave that completely to QImage [although I don't necessarily use the defaults]. Output sharpening depends on a plethora of factors, from subject to paper, from lighting to print size.

The second category is intermediate in difficulty. It has the big advantage of freedom - as lng as the result is what the author intended. Downside: easily overdone.

When I first saw the mushroom image it did not strike me as odd that the fine detail of the grass was sharper than the ragged features of the mushroom's hat. after having received the original I will test what I like more, a soft image, sharp grass or sharp mushroom [due to its brightness it should be possible to use large amounts of sharpening on it without the typical artefacts].



*Ever seen the most famous faulty shot in film history, the introduction of John Wayne in Stagecoach?

[Mary Bull]

Originally Posted by Dierk Haasis

1. Sharpening is not as easy as some may think.
2. Oversharpening seems to be the norm rather than the exception.
3. IMO sharpness and contrast [after the fact; sharp, contrasty lenses are a different beast altogether] is in the same category as MPx: easy to measure, rarely of use.*
4. Mary, please send me your RAW file.

On the way, shortly, by PM e-mail.

When I first saw the mushroom image it did not strike me as odd that the fine detail of the grass was sharper than the ragged features of the mushroom's hat. after having received the original I will test what I like more, a soft image, sharp grass or sharp mushroom [due to its brightness it should be possible to use large amounts of sharpening on it without the typical artefacts].

I shall be intensely interested to see your image or images from the RAW file of this shot.

*Ever seen the most famous faulty shot in film history, the introduction of John Wayne in Stagecoach?

Yes, but a long time ago. Must go have a look at it, again.

Off to do the e-mail with the RAW file to you, Dierk.

Mary

[Mary Bull]

Originally Posted by Dierk Haasis

4. Mary, please send me your RAW file.

Sent, by PM e-mail.

Mary

[Dierk Haasis]

No problem recovering the highlights with RS|P; the rest is a crop to get trid of the shadow, set the mushroom slightly off-centre, and a little bit of colour tweaking. I found that there was lots of DOF with some parts of the hat sharp; I did, however, sharpen a bit countering the effect on the grass by making it darker. When converting to JPEG (resizing at the same time) sharpness gets lost so I could afford to oversharpen - obviously not visible in the result.

[Mary Bull]

Thank you so very much, Dierk.

I have another view, shot a little higher, about 15 minutes earlier. Not quite so many blown highlights in it, but it wasn't as close in, which was why I chose this one to post.

Would you like to have a look at the RAW files of the earlier shot?

Mary

[Mary Bull]

I asked Dierk:

Would you like to have a look at the RAW files of the earlier shot?

But then I decided to send him the RAW files of a shot made 5 minutes later.

I like this rendition which he sent me as a .tif immensely. I ran it through LightZone and exported it as a jpeg, then uploaded it to Flickr. No change in Dierk's work was made, except the LightZone change from .tif to .jlpg.



Earlier, I sent some side view RAW files to Sean DeMerchant and asked him to publish any renditions he makes from those in this thread.

Thanks very, very much to everyone who is participating.

Mary

[Dierk Haasis]

OK, this is technically not an optimisation of the existing photo by Mary but I thought the picture fit well here since it tries to tell something more than just, 'hey, I am a mushroom':


Cycle of Death

[Mary Bull]

Dierk, I am in awe both of the concept and of the rendition! This picture is absolutely wonderful.

And while it is not a narrow response to my topic questions, it does address the meanings and the emotions I was dealing with as I tried to get a good photograph or two of these unusual mushroom events on my front lawn.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Mary